I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHRISTMAS (1994).

This is one of the first alternative Christmas albums I bought.  I don’t listen to it that much because I tend to think it’s not that good (the cover is pretty uninspired).  But there’s actually quite a lot of good stuff on this.

SYD STRAW-“The Christmas Twist”
I’m happy to report that the “twist” is not some dark storyline, but an actual dance of The Twist.  Syd has written a Twist and it’s fun and dancey with plenty of Christmas lines to sing along to.  It’s a great opening track.

SHONEN KNIFE-“Space Christmas”
Shonen Knife does what they do best–short fast punky pop songs.  This one about a space Christmas, of course.

NRBQ-“A Christmas Wish”
I know this from the She & Him version.  I didn’t realize I had the original.  It’s sweet and cute with a really catchy and lovely melody in the “people all over the world” line.

BRUCE COCKBURN-“Mary Had A Baby”
This is one of those call and response songs that is very repetitive and goes on for too long.  If it was shorter it would be fun.

The dB’s-“Home For The Holidays”
This is kind of a stomping country song. It’s got a cool stomp stomp in the middle.  At under 3 minutes it’s just right.

SHELLYAN ORPHAN-“Ice” [NSFC]
I love the vocals and the song is quite pretty.  But this song is a downer (I don’t like Christmas anymore) and at over 5 minutes is not really good Christmas party music.

FISHBONE-“It’s A Wonderful Life”
Man I love this song.  It’s a super fun and dancey ska song that cites It’s a Wonderful Life and is just full of fun and pep.

POI DOG PONDERING-“Mele Kalikimaka”
It’s funny to hear this Hawaiian song done in this New Orleans brass style.  It’s a fun song regardless of who is doing it.

T-BONE BURNETT-“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”
This opens as a pretty instrumental version of this song on acoustic guitar and violin.  Lovely.  The vocals are fine, but I’d have preferred it with no words–the instrumentation was really striking,

TIMBUK 3-“All I Want For Christmas” [NSFC]
I really disliked Timbuk 3 back in the 1980s.  But I find their strange deliver to be reminiscent of X and I’m quite attracted to their style.  I like this song a lot. Although I can’t endorse a Christmas song about WWIII.  And I suppose lyrically, it’s a bit naive.  But the music is fantastic.

DAVE EDMUNDS-“Run, Rudolph Run”
I don;t know that anyone can get me to enjoy this song. Certainly not this vert standard version of it.

SHAWN COLVIN-“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”
Shawn has a lovely voice and this song is delightful.  It’s a simple piano version with some gentle accompaniment.  Interestingly, this does not appear on her own Christmas album (see the 24th), probably because it might be too upbeat–she does get a bit carried away, vocally, by the end.

So there’s nothing stellar on this disc (except Fishbone), but it’s a solid collection of alternative versions of songs and a few solid originals.

[READ: October 19, 2017] Pashmina

I wanted to love this book so much.  It has so many awesome elements.  The black and white to color juxtapositions are wonderful.  The colors are gorgeous and Chanani’s drawing style is simple but charming and effective.

And I think wanting to like this book as much as I did is why I wound up not enjoying it as much as I wanted.

And that’s because it feel like there’s a lot left out of the book–I wanted it to be twice as long.

This story is about Priyanka, a young Indian-American girl.  She is raised by her mother (and knows literally nothing about her father–her mother won’t say a word about him).

As the book opens, Priyanka is learning to drive (and freaking out her mother).  When she arrives at school she and her friend Evan are drawing a cartoon.  While they are doing that, a blonde girl comes over and says “whatcha drawing thrift store?”  On the next page her teacher tells her about an art contest that he thinks she should enter.  But she says she doesn’t think so and walks away.

That’s a lot going on in a short span.  And all of those scenes work well to make up a picture of Priyanka.  But it sounds like the story is going to be one very specific type of thing–a shy artistic girl who is picked on..

But here’s why I was bummed.  There is literally no resolution to thrift store comment (later in the book there’s another mention of her mother buying her cheap clothes, but nothing ever comes of it).  And there is no explanation as to why she wouldn’t enter the art contest.  Even if she’s nervous, it doesn’t hurt to try. I just don’t get it.

I realize that Priyanka’s life is kind of a downer–her mom won’t tell her about her dad, she doesn’t feel great at school.  But her default expression is kind of sad.  Even when she is hanging out with her favorite uncle, who encourages her to drive, she’s got a downturned mouth.

On Diwali, we learn that her uncle and aunt are expecting their first child.  Now this whole downer moment I get–she is sad that she is losing her uncle to a new baby. Totally understandable and even praying that the baby isn’t born is understandable.  When it born premature, she feels like she was responsible and she is afraid to hold the little girl.

While she is at home a chest crashes to the floor. It is her mom’s from back in India. She finds a pashmina.  When she wraps it around her shoulders she is magically transported to India and is greeted by an elephant named Kanta and a bird named Mayur.  They are wondrous hosts to our young girl .

They show her all of the beauties of India.  They are happy to show her any thing she wants to see.  She has never been there and her mother says she’ll never return to her home country.

Priyanka and her hosts, eat sweets, look at fabrics and even do up her hair.  However, when a shadow appears they shoo it away.

When Priyanka drops the pashmina she comes back to black and white life.

Back at school she wins the art contest because her teacher submitted for her.  It’s a wonderful cash prize.  And with that prize she says to her mom that they can travel to India.

But her mother does not want to go back.  Her mother tells her that India is a poor, dirty place.  While it does have beauty, more than in America, but all of that beauty isn’t what it seems.  Her Uncle tells her that India isn’t a safe place to go alone.

Back in full color India her hosts show her around but they can tell her noting about her family–they only know about India.   They even celebrate Holi together.  That shadow is still following her around.  Kanta even yells at the shadow to get away from her.

And then out of the blue (with help from some prayers), there’s a phone call from her mother’s sister (who we leaned about earlier in a note on that chest).  Meena Mausi whom her mother hasn’t spoken to in fifteen years, is having a baby.  And through the talk it was worked out that Pri would go to India to meet her aunt.

That night the pashmina takes her back to India and she sees the shadow and a hut.  It is left unexplained for now.

Pri flies to India and sees that it is actually quite poor and crowded But worst of all, the pashmina doesn’t work in India.  And she is despondent.

But hen her aunt puts the pashmina on, she sees her (not yet born) daughter walking out of the building–no sign of elephant or bird.

Pri explains the American origins of the pashmina to her aunt.  And her aunt looks at it and explains the Indian origins of it to Pri.  Pri obviously wants to go to the place where the item was made.

But yet another man holds things down.  Her aunts husband is pretty crabby he doesn’t like her aunt teaching in the slums, he doesn’t want them to go to this place where the pashmina was made.  He states “I said no.”   Pri even wonders if he is mad at her No, that’s just the way he talks.

Her aunt shows her around some nice places (again, I;m not sure why Pri looks sad in the rickshaw ride).  Then her aunt takes her to the classroom where she teaches her kids.

We get a peek into the slums where the girls are poor but are educated–which Auntie Meena thinks is so important.  Of course, her husband is mad that she took Pri to the slums.  He says, “I don’t know why you came, if you’re in some identity crisis.  Next time it’s best to go where I suggest.”  What a jerk.

Auntie sees a nice vision of the future and decides to heck with her husband–they are doing what she wants, so they take a flight(!) to the land of the pashmina and that’s where Pri learns the truth about her father (it’s pretty horrifying).   Eventually, they get to the place where pashminas are made

And then the story gets really cool.  She puts the pashmina back on and it works again.  She sees Kanta and Mayur and the shadow comes to life and we learn her connection to the pashmina.  It is a shocking but exciting story.

We learn that the pashmina was created in the hopes of inspiring women to find joy and control in their lives. What a great message!  And some nice things happen in India–although we don’t know how her husband reacted to their trip.

The end of the book has her returning home where her mom knows a bit more about what she’s been thinking about than she let on.  And her mom telling her all the details about her horrible father.

Sarah made the point that the baby who was in the NICU is now looking big and healthy–just how long was Pri gone?

And then she has a nice surprise for her art teacher.

But as I said, there are so many unanswered things that maybe didn’t seem important bit which just sort of felt left out.  I could have used an epilogue about the bratty girl, her fear of art, her mean uncle.  So much!

There’s a very helpful glossary at the end of the book which I really appreciated but like the book itself I felt like there were many more entries it could have contained.  I realize that my ignorance of Indian culture is not the author’s problem.  But if you’re going to have a glossary that includes pretty basic things like foods and honorifics, why not use all of the Indian words so we get a fuller understanding of the story?

So as I say, I really enjoyed so much about this story.  I just felt like there was so much left out.  I needed another 100 pages!