I Just Read About That…

  SOUNDTRACK: L.A. SALAMI-Tiny Desk Concert #649 (September 13, 2017).

I know about L.A. Salami exclusively from NPR.  They played “Day to Day (For 6 Days a Week),” a while back and I really liked it.  Then L.A. Salami performed an SXSW Lullaby for them.  And now he;s back for a Tiny Desk Concert.

Bob says that Salami is a bit like Dylan.  It’s a fair comparison in one way–particularly Salami’s lengthy narrative style.  But Salami is British and is delivery is radically different–alert and agitated instead of slow and almost disaffected like Dylan.

But here’s the blurb:

Lookman Adekunle Salami, who writes and records as L.A. Salami, is a storyteller and a poet. His songs are deliberate meanderings on the mundane and the poignancy in everyday life. And in the way Bob Dylan took his guitar and harmonica to accompany his rarely repeating ramblings, L.A Salami embraces a similar aesthetic, albeit as a black Englishman instead of a white Minnesotan.

His opening song at the Tiny Desk, “Day to Day (For 6 Days a Week),” runs about six minutes, with over 600 words. He seems to rattle them all off effortlessly, with compelling, complicated rhymes that never repeat and phrases such as:

“Went to work for the NHS –
Mental health, people depressed.
Met Joanne – Scared of living,
Afraid of dying, terrified of being.
Then met Paul, a schizophrenic,
Shaking limbs, paranoid fanatic –
Unwashed 10 days in a row –
So afraid almost paralytic.”

And the blurb is right–he is effortless in the way he sings-speaks these complicated ideas.  The words are sophisticated and the ideas are powerful.  He plays this song on acoustic guitar, a simple, sweet melody that supports the multifaceted words.  When it’s over he says, “that song was dedicated to anyone who has a job, or doesn’t have a job, or anyone who needs a job.”

For the second song, “Terrorism (The ISIS Crisis),” he switches to electric guitar.  He says, “I’m guessing you guys have heard of the terrorist attack in Westminster.  This next song “Terrorism (The ISIS Crisis)” is about this.”  This song has a pretty radically different sound.  Especially in the chorus (the other two songs don’t even have one) which features a loud, ringing, sharp guitar lick and Salami screaming (mostly) “the ISIS crisis.”   It’s effective the first time through but it seems kind of limited after a number of verses.  The verses are, once again very powerful, especially the quiet middle section:

“This song is called ‘My Thoughts, They Too Will Tire open brackets, sigh, close brackets.'”  This song has a lovely melody (the acoustic guitar is on capo 8 so it’s mostly high notes).  It’s another lengthy pointed but meandering song, a style that Salami does very well.

[READ: April 28, 2017] Ms Marvel: Civil War II

I was puzzled as to why this was called Civil War II.  I actually thought that it was a sequel to a book I hadn’t read yet as it seemed to come out of nowhere.  But I don’t think I missed anything in the Ms Marvel universe.

What I did miss out on was an overarching storyline called Civil War II about which Gizmodo has a lot of very negative things to say.  So I gather this series is part of a bigger thing which I don’t care about.  Sigh.  According to Wikipedia:

Functioning as an allegory about the nature of determinism versus free will the story sees opposing factions of superheroes led by Captain Marvel and Iron Man come into conflict when a new Inhuman named Ulysses emerges with the ability to predict the future. The debut of the series was scheduled to capitalize on the release of the 2016 Marvel Studios film Captain America: Civil War.

As the book opens, Kamala and her friends are involved in the Tri State Ultra Mega Science Fair.  They are squaring off against NY and CT nerds.

Jersey starts with Skyshark (a shark in a floating bubble of water) which Connecticut says is cruelty to animals (because CT is full of lawyers, ha).

NY makes the Re-aktron which is able to absorb all of the static electricity in the air and use it to power electrical grids.  No contest.

But for round 2, Jersey brings put the Fusion Master2000 a pocket-sized nuclear generator.  (What could go wrong?)

Well, when it does go wrong, it turns out that Spiderman (in the black outfit–no idea what that means) is already on the scene–we see hes actually one of the kids in the fair) and then superhero Nova arrives–all three there to help out.

As the chapter ends, we flash to New Attilan where the superheroes are watching the chaos unfold.  And we hear Ulysses has a premonition that something big is about to happens.

Chapter 2 opens in 1947 Bombay as India has its independence from Britain and a new nation, Pakistan is formed.  It’s a surprising intrusion of reality and a very interesting one.  This past story evolves over several chapters as we see Kamala’s family’s mitigation as well as origins of her golden bands.  We even see her as a little kid going go school and meeting Bruno for the first time.

Cut to Alpha Flight Low Orbit Space station where Ms Marvel gets to hang out with Carol Danvers, (Captain Marvel: her inspiration and hero).  Captain Marvel has recruited some new cadets and they will need supervision from Ms Marvel.  She is so excited to have sidekicks, even if they are a little rude.

Then with a premonition for Ulysses, they learn that Hijinx, leader of the Canadian Ninja Syndicate is up to no good.  They are able to stop him before he does anything really bad–technically he hasn’t committed a crime.  Ms Marvel supports Captain Marvel, but wonders if they can actually arrest him?  It takes the reality and perspective of her sister-in-law Tyesha to let her see how this predictive arresting (dare we say profiling) is not going to end well.

What happens when one of the soon-to-be-guilty people is her friend, Josh.  And what happens when her sidekicks bust in and arrest him to prevent him from committing a crime.  In Josh’s own house?

Josh tells them that he just wanted to frighten people so they would respect him.  But it’s no good.  And the sidekicks really start to take over.

Ms Marvel question everything but Captain Marvel tells her to step off.  When Kamala can’t interfere with Josh’ incarceration, her friends abandon her as well.

The only thing left is for Kamal to try to use Ulysses’ predictive power against the sidekicks .  By enlisting the help of a bad guy? Again, what could go wrong?  And doesn’t it seem that maybe Carol will be mad if you fight against her?

But worse than the hurt feelings of Carol Danvers will be the hurt feelings of Kamala when Bruno wakes up and realizes that maybe he has lost Kamala as a friend.

Kamala needs to clear her head so she travels back to her ancestral home in Karachi.   This is wonderful chapter–so very different from all of the others.  The  color scheme is very different, the characters all look very different and of course Kamala wants to blend in so she puts on traditional garb.   But when trouble comes to her family’s neighborhood, Kamala can’t sit by and do nothing. So she improvises.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to come into the middle of a battle and know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy is.  Maybe running away wasn’t the best thing to do after all.

I do like the ideas brought up in this book–can you arrest someone for planning to commit a crime.  But these overarching stories which turn good guys bad is a real drag (more so for Captain Marvel than Ms. Marvel).