I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BIO RITMO-Tiny Desk Concert #392 (September 29, 2014).

Bio Ritmo is a nine-piece band that has played salsa music for 23 years (as of 2014).  The back beat and rhythm is pure salsa–there’s a drummer (who has that classic salsa drum sound) and two bongo players.  There’s shakers and scrapers and timbales and congas and a cowbell.

The four horns players (two trumpets, sax and trombone) punctuate all o the right notes to get you moving along.

The first song is “La Via.”  The main driving force seems to be the keyboard, which was unexpected–it adds a kind of Latin jazz feel to the proceedings.  I love the way the keyboards shift from a Latin feel to a more groovy 70s feel before the vocals start.  There’s a cool break in the middle of the song when it stops and we get a few pounding notes before the song resumes.  Classic salsa.

“Picaresca”has fun dancey rhythm and a lengthy trumpet solo, giving it another interesting salsa/jazz feel.  The keyboard solo sounds a little cheesey here–like they need better sounds on that program, but it’s the drums “solo” in the middle that makes this song so much fun.  It’s a great instrumental.

“Perdido” goes through many different genres.  He explains that it begins like a Puerto Rican dance from the 1800s and then goes “into other stuff.”  The opening does indeed sound like an old song and after a few verses it morphs into modern salsa once again.

I really enjoyed this set a lot.  Most salsa music sounds the same to me, but I really like it when I hear it. On the downside, this is the first Tiny Desk Concert where I felt like the band wasn’t mic’d effectively.  The vocals are really quiet (almost inaudible at times), and when the trombonist does a solo it’s also a little too quiet.  But the main focus is the percussion and that’s plenty loud!

[READ: May 10, 2016] Stuffed

I have had to interlibrary loan a lot of the rest of the First Second books because my library system doesn’t have them.  Usually if a library doesn’t have an older book it’s because not many people read it any more so they got rid of it.  That doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad, but it doesn’t  give you a ton of confidence about it.  But this book defied every expectation and wound up being outstanding!

I assumed this title would be a cautionary tale about someone eating too much.  I had no idea what I was actually in for!

As the book opens, we meet Tim. He works for a benefits department of an insurance company (it sounds awful).  He gets a call that his father is dying.  He rushes to the hospital just in time  to see his father insult him once more before breathing his last.  His father’s estate is to be split between himself and his half-brother, Ollie.  No one has seen Ollie in ages.  When they do track him down, he is now known as “Free Spirit.”

Turns out the only thing their father still had was The Museum.  I was delighted to see that The Museum was in Paterson NJ (near where I was born–although he should have included The Falls).  It is called The Museum of the Rare and Curious and it is on a regular street in Paterson. Tim is astonished that his father held on to this since he sold off nearly all the rest of his stuff (and obviously he and his dad were not close).

It’s here that the title comes to be made known.  Because stuffed doesn’t refer to food, it refers to one of the curios–a “savage” in a loincloth holding a spear.  It always horrified Tim as a kid and his father threatened him with it all the time.   He decides that he is going to see if he can do some good with this travesty and donate it to a real museum.

But he brings it home first so he doesn’t have to go back and forth to The Museum.  He forgets to tell his young daughter about it and she utterly freaks when she sees it (it’s really creepy).

This all seems simple enough.  Until his brother, Free turns up.  Free has a volcano shaped scar on his head (the reason for it is amazing).  He doesn’t think they should get rid of The Savage.  He says they should honor their dad’s memory.  Much fighting ensues.

Things get pretty tense when they bring it to the real museum and Tim has to explain to the African-American man in charge just what is going on.

This incident makes strange bedfellows in all kinds of ways, and there’s some very very funny moments of awkwardness and inappropriateness.

I laughed out loud a bunch of times–especially in the beginning.  The end of the story actually became pretty substantial and thoughtful.  Eichler pulled off a delicate balance here.

Turns out that Eichler also wrote for Colbert Report and he The Daily  Show (which is why the book is blurbed by someone from each show (including Colbert himself).

Bertozzi has drawn many books for First Second and his drawing style remains excellent. I especially liked the vacant look that he gives the savage until becomes really alive in the nightmares and flashbacks.

This was a surprisingly fun story, especially given the content.