I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JESSICA LEA MAYFIELD-Tiny Desk Concert #388 (September 6, 2014).

I had an idea about who Jessica Lea Mayfield was.  I thought she was sort of a folkie/country singer who I had heard of but had no real exposure to.  So I was quite surprised to see this performer with pink hair, short shorts, no eyebrows and a ton of pink glitter under her eyes.

Turns out that her earlier records are kind of folkie but that for her 2014 album she was inspired by her grunge roots to make a noisy album.  This Tiny Desk concert has her playing three guitars–one for each song.  Each guitar is covered with glitter and one has stickers all over it.  For “Standing in the Dark” she plays her pink glitter 12 string guitar with lots of reverb.  It’s a fairly upbeat song.  The melody is simple and she sounds happy while singing it (this is notable).  The middle section has a solo which sounds really alien by itself (that 12 string with vibrato), but which works really well for the song.

She says she brought all of her guitars because she wanted to show them off.  Her speaking voice is cute and adorable.  And she seems almost childlike asking if “you have any cats” are you allowed to bring them to work.  Bob says that bands have brought their dogs and she says she wishes she’d brought hers.

“Party Drugs” is a slow song with more echo on the guitar.  It’s a slower , darker song “party drugs just make my head sing…  I won’t die in this hotel room, I’ll be here when you return.”  It ends with a dark chord and mildly distorted whammy bar and is rather creepy.

The final guitar is a hollow bodies white guitar.  The stickers on the knobs are ponies.  She says the direction of the ponies tells her how the knobs should go.  There’s a pony, an alien cat and a unicorn “system I got going on.”

“Seein* Starz” is slow chords (with more echo).  Her twangy accent peeks its way in a few times in this song.  I like the way the picking notes are vibrated enough to sound unpredictable.

There’s something really captivating and almost vulnerable (but not really) about her performance.   She says she could stay here and do this all day and show you how loud it usually is.   Bob mentions something about six hours implying that she traveled six hours just to play for them (like Trampled by Turtles did the previous show).

[READ: July 22, 2016] The Lost Colony 1

I read this book last year.  But since I wanted to  read the other two books in the series, I wanted to re-read this before moving on to Books 2 and 3.

My recollection is that I didn’t really like the first book all that much, so I wasn’t prepared to enjoy it this time around either.

But, as it turns out, I really did enjoy it (and I’m not reading wheat I wrote the first time, just to see how this reading compares).  I think perhaps I didn’t really know what I was getting into the first time.  And now with hindsight, and understanding how and when some of the things are supernatural, it made more sense.

The book opens with a man in green asking “Where the %#!* am I?” as he meets a guy screeching and playing the fiddle.  I know that I said I enjoyed the graphic style of the book and I still do (possibly more–it’s just fantastic–thick lines that look a bit like woodcarvings, but always with a softness and a kind of cuteness that pervades the whole book (even if the book is sinister).

The fiddler is supposed to keep people off the island, but the green clothed man (whose name is Edweard Stoop, although people start calling him Snoop)  convinces him to take him across. And that’s when we meet some of the people who live on the island.

First there is Birdy (real name Bertha).  She is a cute little girl and she is complaining that she would like to buy something.  As she is muttering to herself, Pepe Wong, the island’s Mexican-Chinese pharmacist sees her and brings her to his office.  They talk a bit and we learn that she would like to go to Port Succor (the town on the mainland) because she would like to buy a slave to do her chores.

This book is not afraid to play on racial stereotypes (and realities).  It’s even uncomfortable to say this little girl wants to buy a slave, because it’s horrible.  Even though she clearly doesn’t really know what she’s talking about–she just doesn’t want to do her own chores. But we do know that the slave auction is real.  And we soon see a black woman stabbing the auction poster which the green-clothed man just hung up.

Once Dr. Wong sees the stranger he tries to find out what he is doing on the island.  Although regardless of the reason, Wong plans to make a potion so he forgets everything about the island once he is removed from it.

Then we meet the very large man who works for Dr Wong–Stewart.  Stewart has been taking some kind of pill which makes him utterly subservient to the doctor.  And Wong tells Stewart to deposit this stranger on the other shore.

Then we meet Bertha’s parents.  Her father, Mr Snodgrass is the mayor of the island.  He is an amusing character who always says the wrong word.  Although once he hears that Edweard is involved in the slave trade, he thinks that they can profit mutually.

On the island are a bunch of what we learn are rock bugs–little creatures made of individual rocks.  Its unclear what they want or do but they are everywhere.

The most powerful man on the island is Rex Carter, a disgruntled old man. He has created a giant iron creature to do all of the chores and to abolish slavery.

Back on the mainland, we meet the man who is selling the slaves.  Birdy has snuck to the mainland to buy one.  She she gives the man Snodgrass Bucks to buy the slave.  Of course they are worthless on the mainland, but with a little cunning she manages to free a poor slave boy, Louis (she leaves the money even if it is worthless.  She and Louis run back to the island.

The end of the story is very confusing with the iron giant exploding and Louis turning white (briefly) while Edweard is turned black.

There’s so much overt racism in this story (which is the point, of course) that’s it’s more than a little uncomfortable to read.  But the story itself is very compelling.  And this time around I was really interested to see where Klein was going with it.

Looking back at my review, I see that I actually liked it more than I remembered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed the graphic style of this book.  It has a look of a wood press–thick lines and dark colors.  It was also very cartoony, which was a great way to address many of the issues that were brought up here–especially slavery.

The book opens with a man in a green suit and bowler hat hanging up signs for a slave auction.  There’ a little girl, Bertha Snodgrass, who sees the sign and thinks that she can afford one.  She follows the stranger as he heads to an island (the lost island presumably) in which Alexander Hamilton Snodgrass seems to have made himself president and treasurer.  There are black and white people on this island.

Obviously, there’ a lot of racial issues in this story.  There’s a “Chinaman” named Pepe Wong who dresses in a “bathrobe” and offers Chinese medicine but also speaks in Spanish (Madre dios!).  There’s a black woman who distrusts the heathen Chinaman and wants nothing to do with the slave auction.

The main action seems to come from Dr Wong trying to get the stranger off of the island.  He gives the man some strange medicine and convinces him to take it with the promise of meeting Rex Carter.  A.H. Snodgrass is also keen on keeping the stranger off the island.

In the meantime Rex Carter is in the process of inventing a machine that will make slavery obsolete.

While all of these high level shenanigans are going on, Bertha sneaks back to the mainland with some “Snodgrass” dollars to buy a slave who will help her cook and clean and care for her brother.  But the auctioneer won’t take her fake money.  Except that there’s a slave–tiny and worthless–who is chained up.  He tells Bertha that she can buy him.  When the auctioneer leaves, she unlocks this tint slave boy and takes him home with her.

The end of the story leaves a lot of things up in the air–especially the state of the slave boy Louis (this book is only part one).

I have to admit I found a lot of this story to be very confusing in the details–the drugs and hallucinogens (in the book) didn’t help–but I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to reading the second part to figure out what just happened in the first part.