I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: LIANNE LA HAVAS-Tiny Desk Concert #475 (October 2, 2015).

Lianne La Havas has a lovely, soulful voice. I didn’t think I knew her at all, although her song “What You Don’t Do” sounds really familiar. The chorus is a bouncy “It’s what you don’t do…it’s what you don’t say.”  But it’s the fast pre-chorus “I know what I got / and I know where were going / You don’t need to show it / I already know it all” that is really catchy.

I feel like the original is big and orchestrated.  But for this Tiny Desk it’s just her and a backing singer accompanied by a pianist who also sings backing vocals.

For song two “Unstoppable,” Lianne straps on a guitar and when she finally speaks–she has British accent!  “Unstoppable” is a gentle song with a cyclical guitar riff playing through the gentle pianos while all three voices soar.

It’s amazing how British she sounds after the second song–remarkable because of how unaccented her singing voice is.

On “Forget,” she plays guitar and there’s no other instrumentation.  This song sounds quite different from the others–the scratchy guitar isn’t really louder than the other songs, just much faster and more intense.  The real hook though comes in the chorus when all three sing a big loud “Forget!” in a memorable melody.

La Havas’ music veers towards R&B but never falls into the trappings of the genre.  She has some rock elements sand soul elements and her delivery is just charming.

[READ: July 8, 2016] Adventures in Cartooning Characters in Action

This is the fourth and (presumably) final book in the AIC series is called Characters in Action!  And as you see on the cover, the man screaming Action is a film director.  So this book is gong to take us on flights of (even more) fancy.

The book starts with the knight riding his faithful horse, Edward.  A fly goes by.  Sigh, it’s boring.

But as he rides off, he runs into a band of scoundrels–a viking, a wicked wizard an evil owl and an evil king and they are all there to do… evil!  And as they are talking about how evil they are, the real king (in rags) comes and says that he is the king.  The fake king says he looks like a beggar, then a real beggar says that the king is not a real beggar.  And then a big strong-looking knight looks at our favorite knight and says the he is no knight, either.  Egads, what is happening?

The big knight scoffs: “Look at my wide chest and thick arms!  I am big and strong and you are too puny to be a knight!”  Our knight is insulted.  But when the big knight says: “And your horse is FAT!!!” that our knight can only say, “That’s just rude.”

They head off to the castle to get to the bottom of all of this.  And there they find the film director.  He is filming scenes in the castle.

The knight begs to be in the movie.  The director says, “You really have no idea how this business works, do you?”

The director sends out a casting call.  He looks for witches and eventually finds a young girl who is able to do an actual spell.

And then he introduces a white bowling-pin-looking creature (and a similar smaller one).  He says that they can turn into anything–rabid dog, rat, lion, monsters.

But while they are talking a giant robot comes onto the set.  The director is controlling it, but it soon goes crazy and tries to destroy everyone.  The knight is able to vanquish it but the mad scientist who made it comes running out upset.  Then he shows that he has some more robots to choose from.  But even better he also has the mash-o-matic which combines two things into one. Like the eleph-ANT and the peanut-butter-and-jelly-fish.  But when he is about to combine broccoli and a ballerina (brocalina), Edward jumps in to save the day–but is converted into a broccoli horse.  Gasp!

Things get even crazier when the big knight comes in and loses his helmet–looking quite goofy and ultimately losing the acting job.

And then an alien comes on the scene (I told you the story is crazy). It grows huge and overtakes the castle.  What will happen to our beloved castle?

Every one of these books gives a little lesson about drawing and this one is no exception.  Near the end of the book, The Magic Cartooning Elf makes an appearance.  He tells us how characters can express themselves without faces or any other distinguishing features.

Although faces can be wonderful.

Then we learn how a costume can change anything.

That’s all well and good, but what about Edward the broccoli horse?  Can anyone save him?

You’ll have to read yourself.

The “about the authors page” is also very funny.