I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: MARKETA IRGLOVA-Tiny Desk Concert #174 (November 10, 2011).

Marketa Irglova came to the world’s attention in the film Once, where she duetted with Glen Hansard.  They formed The Swell Season and made some beautiful music together.  But he has another band and she has done some solo work, like in this Tiny Desk.  Incidentally, watch the video, but listen to the audio.  For some reason the sound in the video is all wonky and weird, but the audio is fine.

This concert is a little surprising because Irglova plays a synth, rather than a piano, and she is accompanied by Iranian singer-percussionist Aida Shahghasemi whom she met in New York.  And Shahghasemi and her drum (called a daf) are actually a bit more interesting than Irglova.

Irglova has a nice voice, and I have really enjoyed a lot of her music, but I found these songs to be a little long and a little undramatic.  However, once you accept that she’s not going for drama, these songs are mellow and lovely.

The opening song, “We Are Good,” has an interesting main riff on the keyboard and her voice blends nicely with the music.  The end section has a very nice melody as it builds and builds.  But as I mentioned, it the daf that is so fascinating.  The drum itself looks like an Irish bodhran (or any other hand-held drum, I suppose), except it has a much bigger diameter and is very thin.  It also has a series of dangling items on the inside, which bring about a lot more percussive qualities.

“Dokhtar Goochani” is a traditional Iranian song sung in Farsi.  Shahghasemi sings the song while Irglova plays.  With the keyboard, the song doesn’t really sound very Middle Eastern until Irglova joins in on harmony vocals in the chorus, when it takes on a very cool quality.  And the drum and percussive sounds in the middle are really enticing.

After this song, Shahghasemi talks a bit about her drum and says that it can be much louder than she’s playing it here.  It’s a traditional Kurdish drum with “jangles” which she explains is usually made of goatskin, but this one is synthetic because the humidity doesn’t affect it as much.

The final song, “Let Me Fall In Love” is about the idea of being in love, with lyrics that are a bit didactic, but whatever.  I really like the middle section where the two women harmonize quite beautifully.  But again the song is a little long.

[READ: October 25, 2015] Sleaze Castle

The cover of this book is crazy.  The full title appears to be:

Markosia/Gratuitous Bunny Comix
Sleaze Castle : The Director’s Cut
Part Zero: “Tales from Sleaze Castle”
Reprinting “Takes from Sleaze Castle” #1-#4
Screenplay by Terry Wiley & Dave McKinnon  Art Direction by Terry Wiley

And then a drawing of a woman with what looks like a magic wand and another woman standing by watching her.

And then there’s a whole list of “Starring” (these names are actually characters in the stories)
and then Film Sound Track Album by MWOWM available on Gratuitous Bunny Audio #GBA3

That’s a lot to take in and it made me wonder if the comic would be that busy.  And it is.  This book is a wonder to behold.  Self published in 1992, this book is just chock full of story, with an astonishing amount of detail included in the drawings–nods to other comics, musical appreciation and all kinds of fun things to look at.  It took me a pretty long time to read this because there was just so much to see and read.  It was a lot of fun.  Even if the plot was a little confusing.

This book collects the original books and adds material (which is not at the end of the story necessarily (so art quality varies).

The book opens on a planet far away.  A blonde woman is talking about the trip she will take which will last for ten minutes their time.

Then we jump to the Prologue set in Jo’s house.  Her sister Petra is giving her a hard time.  Jo wants to take her watchman to school (she is a film studies graduate student) but it was Petra’s new present.  So they are fighting of course.  The amazing detail starts here with books on Jo’s shelves and all manner of other things to look at.

Then we see the blonde woman trading in a statue for a ton of money.  And then we see that the portal she walked through has vanished. She has no way to get back home and must now live on Earth.  We will soon learn that she will be on earth for six months–and that she is actually talking to herself through some kind of radio system.  And finally to complete the setup, this woman, whose hair is now dyed black, will enroll in college under the name Sandra (nickname Panda) and live next to Jo, in whose room the new portal will open in six months.

So, it was a little confusing trying to parse all of that, especially since nearly every page has a “title” which I guess are more like chapter headings.  But it all settles down pretty quickly.  Jo is playing her guitar (her hair is not unlike that of Jimi Hendrix whose poster is on the wall).  And Panda comes in looking totally goth (and a little like Siouxsie Sioux).  And Jo slowly learns that Panda (who claims to be from Thailand) is a little unusual.

First off, she spends a ton of money (all in cash), she never goes to class and she changes her outfits (and her whole look) every day.

Despite a few strange interludes that head back to Panda’s planet (which are really bizarre and rather funny–but are sadly not really resolved at all), the story focuses mostly on life at college.

Panda learns about Froshers week and about some clubs (there’s a very tall goth looking woman in the “Tall Woman Club” (Jo is not quite tall enough).  And Panda makes all kinds of funny obvious mistakes (not knowing when Christmas is, saying her father is a drug dealer).  All this make some people a little suspicious of her.

But when Jo breaks her legs (stupid parties) Panda proves to be very helpful and never leaves her side.  This allows us to meet Jo’s family for the holidays.  Like their crazy Christian (and blind) aunt whose daughter does everything for her–there’ a wonderful pay off to that later.   I really enjoyed the Last Supper homage at the dinner party.

Jo finally makes some friends at the Women Cartoonists Society (a very funny sequence indeed).

But my favorite section by far was during Rag week.  When Jo plays guitar, Panda sings, the tall goth woman helps out and they even get assistance from a woman who looks homeless and sounds like the devil (there’s a wonderful callback here).  The back cover of the book has a great drawing of The Bunnies in the style of The Beatles Anthology (see right).

Things eventually go a little sour between Jo and Panda when Jo starts dating a guy.  Chris proves to be super nice, but he takes her away from Panda who has no one else.  As a nice gesture, Jo Introduces her to a fellow woman from Thailand (gasp).  Chris teaches Jo how to drive and then Jo cuts off her awesome afro for him.

As we know, Panda has to return home.  But she will miss Jo and she can’t explain just what’s going to happen.  So the end of the book shows’ Jo’s reaction to everything.  It’s kind of sad, or perhaps bittersweet.

There’s dozens, perhaps hundreds of shoutouts to pop culture in the book.  Just a couple of things I noticed: Sandman, Sinéad O’Connor, obviously Jimi Hendrix, even the Church of the SubGenius.  There are also several pages with a lot of text–either a newspaper type entry or a diary entry or something.  It’s a very busy book–lots of fun to pour over.

The book also includes three “Lost Tales” stories written and drawn by other people (which makes the original authors feel weird!)

Lee Kennedy writes “The Rules of the Game” Lee Brimmicombe-Wood writes “The Rules of the Game part II” and an unnamed comic by Jeremy Dennis which continue or expand the action somewhat but really can’t hold a candle to the main work.

This book is likely hard to find in the States (and maybe even in England), but it is totally worth tracking down.

Also, I don’t think Gratuitous Bunny Audio or the band MWOWN exist (but I’d love to hear them).

I also had no idea that there were more and more volumes in the series as well (which explains a lot about what was left out)

According to the Markosia website there are a bunch of books out!  It seems that all of the stories were collected in Sleaze Castle Etc. which I’d really like to track down.

And I’m not the only one who thinks this book is great.  There’s an excellent review from comicsreview.co.uk from someone who knows more about the creators of the book(s).