SOUNDTRACK: WATKINS FAMILY HOUR-Tiny Desk Concert #471 (September 18, 2015).
The Watkins Family Hour began a dozen or so years ago as a way for a group of friends to get together and play old and new tunes. For Sean and Sara Watkins, it served as a monthly bit of magic: a musical variety show filled with extraordinary talent in the world of folk, bluegrass and beyond at L.A.’s famous Largo.
Sara and Sean Watkins took this fun on the road, with pianist Benmont Tench, drummer Don Heffington and bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and they made a stop at the Tiny Desk. They even brought along Fiona Apple to sing on “In the Pines” the old blues song.
The first song “Steal Your Heart Away” is sung by Sara (with violin melodies between verses) and Sean (on guitar). It’s a bouncy folk song with a lovely piano added (which seems to move it out of the folk style a bit). It’s a really catchy song with a great melody.
For “In the Pines” Fiona Apple sneaks out from behind the desk to sing. Sean jokes that there’s some howling moments in this song and Fiona (who seems pretty nervous) jokes that she gets to be a dog. I don’t know that I would have recognized Fiona’s voice as she puts on an accent and whoops (And Sean is a pretty good whoop-er, too).
The final song is “Hop High” another old song written by the hills–burbled up from the ground. Sara and Sean take lead again on this slow brooding song. Well, slow and brooding for the first verse, as the rest of the song takes off with Sara singing in her best gravelly voice the verse and Sean Sara and Fiona singing the chorus.
It’s a fun set full of great bluegrass-ish music
[READ: Summer 2015] Olympians 7-8
Last summer I read the first six book in the Olympians series. I’m not sure how many books he has planned for this series, although I see that he has another book planned for 2017.
Since I like what I wrote about the series for my previous post, I’m going to keep that here and then talk about each book.
George O’Connor is a massive geek and Greek scholar. He has done lots of research for these books, including going to Greece and visiting sites and antiquities as well as comparing all manner of ancient stories to compile the most interesting pieces. He explains that since these stories were orally passed down, they were modified over the years. He doesn’t change the myths, he merely picks the story lines that are most interesting to him. And then he adds a lot of humorous modern touches (and dialogue) which keep it from being at all stuffy.
O Connor’s drawing style is also inspired by superhero comics, so his stories are presented in a way that seems much more like a super hero than a classical hero, which is also kind of fun.
Each book ends with an author’s note which is hugely informative and gives plenty of context. It also has a bibliography, but more importantly, it has a list of notes about certain panels. Do not skip these notes! In addition to providing a lot of insight into the myths of the characters themselves, there are a lot of funny comments like “Greeks raced in the nude (point and laugh)” which really bring new depths to the stories.
1. Ares: Bringer of War (2015)
The book opens with O’Connor explaining the difference between Athena, goddess of War and Ares, god of war. Athena is the goddess of martial skill and strategy. Ares, on the other hand is the god of bloodlust, chaos and confusion–and who rejoices in death and destruction. This book also introduces us to Eris, the goddess o discord and Iris, messenger of the gods (represented by a rainbow).
But what’s interesting about this book is that for the most part O’Connor gives us the story of The Iliad. Most of the previous books have been conglomeration of various stories and myths. But he felt like Ares really boils down nicely to the action of The Iliad. Of course, The Iliad is hundreds of pages long so he mostly gives a few highlights of the human battle and focuses on the strife on Olympus–as the gods watch the war between Greece and Troy.
The story opens with all of the gods and demigods surrounding a table that shows the earth below. They are all bickering (it’s always amusing to see the gods acting so human). They say that the war has gone on for so long that a final battle between two champions will decide the victor (kind of like a shoot-out in hockey or soccer). And so it is Paris for the Trojans fighting Menelaos for the Greeks. Just as Menalaos is about to win, Aphrodite interferes (she loves Paris and Helen as a couple) and pulls him to safety. This upsets all of the gods, especially Hera who says that Troy must still burn. So Athena goes to Earth and helps Pandaros–encouraging him to shoot Menelaos and, thus, break the truce. Then Athena appears to Diomedes. She gives him the power to see when the gods are interfering. She says that if he sees a god on the battle field, he should flee. Unless he sees Aphrodite… “you should totally stab Aphrodite.”
Zues is furious at the meddling and insists that no one else get involved. Diomedes goes on a rampage and is about to kill Aeneas. Aphrodite rescues him but Diomedes stabs her. Apollo jumps down and tells Diomedes that he must now fight Ares. And Ares is pumped! But with Athena’s help, Diomedes is able to wound Ares–two gods in one day! It’s at this point that Zeus reveals that Ares is his most despised child–the most hateful of all gods on Olympus.
The story proceeds with the rage of Achilles. If he kills Hector, the Greeks will claim victory, but if Achilles dies, then the Trojans win. Again the gods interfere and things go crazy up on Olympus with the gods fighting each other But while this is happened, Achilles has slain Hector (spoiler). The gods know the battle is over, but Achilles is not satisfied with victory and he adds insult to the losers and upsets the gods terribly. Once the gods are no longer involved, O;Connor cleverly summarizes the main events of the war in just a few panels (but be sure to look at his footnotes to explain what they represent).
This is very exciting volume (as you can see by the amount I wrote). And its a good primer to The Iliad as well.
Once again his notes are great for adding context and humor. I especially like the way he rubs in it that Heracles never wounded two gods in one day. And my favorite note: “GOD ON GOD ACTION! CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT? This sequence is the mythological equivalent of when The Avengers bump into the X-Men.” He also adds a little “Zing!” to the snide remark that Ares throws at this father as the book ends.
8. Apollo: The Brilliant One (2016)
This has been my favorite book of the series so far. I loved the way it was set up and the stories were excellent, too.
The story is constructed so that the nine muses tell stories about their shining god Apollo. There are only 7 stories (two muses double up), but it’s cool how O’Connor drafts seven styles of story telling to tell these exciting escapades.
The first is by Polyhymnia who tells a kind of religious story of Apollo’s birth (his mother had a baby with Zeus and Hera was insanely jealous–hassling her until Zeus twisted the rules to let his son be born). Apollo’s stubbornness came out through his birth (his sister Artemis came first and was an easy birth) and he was given a bow and a chariot pulled by swans as birth present.
Kalliope comes next. She is the muse of epic poetry and she tells an epic story about his defeating Python (I never associated Pythian with Pythons before). Next comes Euterpe (music and lyric poetry) and Terpsichore (dance and choral song). They sing the song of Daphne. Daphne was a beautiful nymph and Apollo fell for her, hard. But when he tried to capture her, she turned into a tree rather than grabbed by him. (That’s pretty serious).
Melpomene and Thalia, the muses of tragedy and comedy, tell a story of Marsyas. Marsyas challenged Apollo to a musical competition (after a very funny set up in which Athena can’t play the flute that she invents). When Apollo inevitably wins, his victory is pretty brutal (but maybe a little funny?) Erato, the muse of mimicry and love poetry tells a beautiful story of Apollo’s love for a human boy named Hyacinth. But Zephyros was jealous and intervened–this story is the origin of hyacinth flowers.
The final one is from Clio, muse of history. She tells the account of Asklepios, the son of Apollo who became a great healer. But his medical knowledge upset the balance especially when Hades realized that he was preventing people from going to the underworld. Finally Asklepios used his power against Zeus, and that was too much. This led to revenge by Apollo and all sorts of bad vibes all around.
Again the notes at the end are great. He seems to have even more fun with this book. Like “I sneak this line into every volume of OLYMPIANS, and I’m the only one who cares! But I keep doing it anyway! Why? Who knows? Hahahahaha!” I also enjoyed his two footnotes that say “Ooh, burn!” or “Gulp is right.” But these note also show how much attention O’Connor pays to the details of the stories–how with each muse he modified the way he told the story–both in style and content.
O’Connor is an amazing story teller and these volumes are great. #10yearsof01
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