I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK–JULIA JACKLIN-Tiny Desk Concert #622 (May 22, 2017).

I’d never heard of Julia Jacklin, an Australian singer-songwriter.  But I found her music to be almost painfully slow and laconic–very much like Cowboy Junkies.  It’s quite pretty, but I need a little more pep.

The blurb notes:

Julia Jacklin doesn’t need much accompaniment. Jacklin’s full-length debut, last year’s Don’t Let The Kids Win, knows just when and how to lean in to this simplicity, surrounding her with spare instrumentation that keeps that voice in the center of the frame.

For her Tiny Desk debut, Jacklin reproduces three of that album’s drowsily beautiful ballads with the aid of a backing band so restrained, you can read the effort to keep quiet on their faces.

That’s all very true.  Her music is slow and sometimes it’s so quiet that it’s all about her voice which is pretty (but drowsy).

“Don’t Let The Kids Win” is slow and quiet.  The guitar is so quiet you can hear her pick hitting the strings as she strums.  It’s unclear that Julia is Australian until she sings  “don’t want them growing up thinking three years olds are good at playing basketball” and her accent comes through on basketball).  The song eventually starts to grow a little louder with backing vocals by the end.  And I believe one climactic note from bassist Ben Whiteley (from Toronto)

“Lead Light” has considerably more pep.  The drums (from Ian Kehoe also from Toronto) are quiet but sound like gun shots in this quiet setting.  The song swings slowly with some pretty guitar lines from Eddie Boyd from Australia).

Never has a song sounded less like a pool party than “Pool Party.”  What’s interesting about singers who sing like this is that I love listening to lyrics, and yet when people sing so slowly like this I lose all forward momentum of the lyrics.  So even if they are good, I’m lost them after a verse.

[READ: April 4, 2017] “Northeast Regional”

I feel like the cover to Cline’s book The Girls was iconic in 2016.  I don’t know anything about the book, but that cover was everywhere.  So this is my first exposure to her writing.  And I rather liked it.

The story started a little clunky I thought–it took me a few paragraphs to get the flow.  But once it got going I couldn’t stop.

The story begins with Richard on a train.  He has been riding for close to five hours.  He is heading to his on Rowan’s school and we know that something bad has happened.  He keeps checking his phone.  He gets messages about his son, but nothing from Ana.

Richard has been divorced for 16 years.  His wife has primary and majority custody of their son Rowan who is now at a private school “out in the middle of nowhere.”

Richard has been seeing Ana (part a succession of married women) for some time (the divorce was over a decade ago).  He and Ana had a weekend planned together (it was the first time they would spend the night together), but nothing seemed to be going right.  Everything seemed significant to her, from groceries to clothes to movie choices.  Richard was in a mood; he hated the movie she chose (black and white?  He was only fifty.  Or fifty-one).

And then he got the phone call.

It was 1 in the morning.  He was asleep so she ignored the phone when it woke her, but when it rang for the third time in a row, she woke him up.

It was his ex-wife.  She told him that Rowan was fine, but he was in a fight or something.   His ex-wife said she couldn’t get there until Monday, could he go out to take care of it?

Richard felt that he and Rowan seemed related in name only–he had awkward Thanksgivings with him and, honestly, Rowan didn’t care much about what Richard did.  They communicated with brief texts.

But of course he had to end his weekend and take care of his son.  Ana was upset that their weekend was over.  He sent Ana a text but she had not responded.

Richard arrived at the school and met Rowan–who he almost didn’t recognize and who, strangely, called him “Father”–and Rowan’s girlfriend Livia.  Richard wanted privacy to talk to Rowan but that was hard to get, which Richard found almost as appalling as his son’s smoking.

Then it was time to meet the headmaster.  I like that we learn a bit about the headmaster’s past (he attended the school when he was a kid).  The headmaster explained the seriousness of the situation.  And I love that we never actually learn what happened.  The headmaster explained just that it was quite serious and the other person’s family was notified and their concern for their son is quite startling–suggesting that the incident is really serious.

The story ends in a restaurant and the meeting between father and son and girlfriend is awkward and strange.

I love that the story seems to hover around the idea that Richard is a jerk without ever coming out and saying it.  All the people around him seem to be suggesting it, and it colors everything we read about what happened.