SOUNDTRACK: SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS-Tiny Desk Concert #525 (April 25, 2016).
I was intrigued by the name of this band, but I was so disappointed to find out that they were another soul/blues band fronted by a woman who sounds like Bonnie Raitt. Between Bonnie Raitt’s new album, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Lake Street Dive and now this band there’s just too much of this music that is basically the same. And then there’s the song titles: “Sugar” “Catch Me if You Can” and “Mama Said.”
I also had to laugh at the men in the band each one of the six has a beard. And I got a big kick out of the harmonica player who looks like he’s trying to be bad ass, but it’s really hard to look like a bad ass when you are blowing harmonica. And the lead singer does all of those bluesy things that drive me nuts—”sing it with me, “can you play that thing for your mama, now,” etc.
Having gotten that out of the way, the band is really quite good. The sax player has some great solos and the trumpet player sounds good too. And, while I mocked the harmonica player, he is really good—especially on the second and third songs where he plays an electric harmonica and really wails (he is also the brother of the lead singer). Speaking of the lead singer, her voice is great. She’s a tiny little thing but man can she belt out notes. And she’s got the great ability to “sing” mmm hmmms and have them be really loud—a good bluesy front woman. The lead guitarist is really good too whether he’s playing with a slide or doing some lengthy solos, the band really rocks. Frankly you’d have to be a corpse not to tap your foot along to the rhythm or smile at this skinny redhead belting out these notes.
But I would never be able to tell them apart from the other bands I mentioned earlier.
[READ: June 10, 2016] “Choking Victim”
This was the second story in a row that I found hard to believe (and which I didn’t understand the title of).
Karen is in her mid-thirties and has recently had a baby. She is depressed and doesn’t understand why everything is so different in her life.
The thing that I couldn’t quite get in this story was whether or not all of the people who gave her dirty looks (and there a lot) were in her head or in reality. I simply don’t believe that so many people would give her a dirty look just as she walks down the street: “When she pushed her baby through the park in a bulky red stroller, people watched her with curiosity and pity.”
Her husband was away for two weeks and she had a hard time with the baby. It was especially disconcerting to Karen because at six months old her baby wasn’t really talking–hardly even babbling.
I enjoyed that Karen’s self-doubt came from the parenting books which offered advice that was both absurd and hard to work with: “Without a steady stream of well-articulated adult speech, an infant might lag in its development. Her daughter would essentially remain an animal.”
In her apartment, she can hear the old man who lives next door His name is Puldron and he is cantankerous at the best of times. She can hear him clearing his throat and making disgusting noises. Taking the advice of the parenting book that conversation was essential to get her baby talking, she is offended that Puldron is making these animal noises that her baby is absorbing.
But when the sound stopped, she was afraid that he might be choking. She shouted to him through the wall to ask if he was okay. But there was no answer.
If it was true that the smallest unit of stimuli could have a formative effect, then listening to the death of her neighbor was bound to do horrible things to Lila. There could be pyromania, cutting, morbid fascination with death—teen-age perils that Karen could hardly believe she had experienced, in her own past.
She went down the stairs to escape the noise , but Puldron was standing down there at the mail table. Nothing was spoken between them as she left the building for the park.
Kids make fun of her and she wonders what she projects: “People looked at her now only to get out of her way.”
Women often spoke to her about the baby and “although they used a friendly tone, they spoke to her as if to a new employee whose incompetence was guaranteed.”
As Karen is pushing the stroller past the park, a wheel falls off. Karen’s utter helplessness at this also seems preposterous and certainly made me dislike her as a character. She leaves the stroller there and continues walking. What?
Karen walks into town to a cafe for tea. While there, she notice a woman spying on her. Linda proves to be a sweet lady who is full of helpful advice.
Linda was different from other mothers Karen had met: when she gave advice, it wasn’t stuffy. She was full of anecdotes. For every frustration Karen named, Linda knew someone who had in fact gone through just that problem. “Linda was a sort of freelance psychoanalyst, consultant, therapist, whatever you please.”
They talked for a while until Karen remembered the stroller. She had to go back and get it–it was quite expensive. Linda tells her to leave the baby with her. And Karen does!
Okay so lots of things could happen at this point, none of them good. And while the story ended very differently thank expected, I still found the whole thing on the wrong side of believable. If I get past that, I like a lot of the sentence structures and ideas, i just kept getting pulled out of the story.
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