I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ALICE SMITH-Tiny Desk Concert #700 (January 31, 2018).

I had never heard of Alice Smith before, which I guess isn’t totally unsurprising given the blurb:

For those not familiar, Smith made a big splash among true-school heads in 2006 with the release of her debut album, For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me. That record, whose title is a play on “The Rainbow Connection,” brimmed with an arcane magic, and it created a legion of lifelong fans.

Smith’s live performances usually highlight songs from For Lovers, Dreamers, and Me, her 2013 album, She, and her repertoire of cover songs. But for her Tiny Desk performance, Smith gifted us with three stunning song premieres that left the room entirely in her thrall.

Smith’s voice is great (although I found the voice of her backing singer, Kristin Brooks, to be even prettier.  I don’t think you could hear the other backing singer, Chauncey Matthews, at all).

Since the blurb talks about each song, I’m just adding my comments at the end

The first song, “Mystery,” feels like walking into the home of that friend of yours who is clearly more worldly than you, where there’s always a cool breeze, no matter the season.  [I really liked the low-key nature of this song].

The second song, which is so new that it doesn’t have a title, exudes the liminal uneasiness of being out of tune with yourself. The wisdom of the song draws from the notion that the top of Maslow’s pyramid is found within. [Alice’s voice is really nice in this catchy, rather conventional R&B song].

The closing “Something” is an undulating soul search that attacks and recedes like a cloudy beach morning. Smith was unabashedly in her pocket here, alternating between falsetto, tremolo and touches of jazz. This dash of Broadway at an office cubicle is what makes the Tiny Desk series so special.  [This sounds very Broadway in the beginning. I didn’t care for all of the keening and whooping near the end though].

So I am clearly not a true-school head (nor do I know what that means).  But I did think her voice was quite nice.  She introduced the band at the end, first name only.  The blurb has their last names, but didn’t include guitarist Frank at all: Dennis Hamm keys, Greg Clark drums.

[READ: November 5, 2017] All’s Faire in Middle School

I really enjoyed Jamieson’s Roller Girl.  It was a great story and it featured roller derby!

I was excited to read this story, but I was a little concerned that Jamieson was going to try to shoehorn in a conceit that Middle School is like the Middle Ages or something.  Well, I needn’t have been.  Jamieson does something that might be even cooler than Roller derby–she sets her story at a Ren Faire!

Imogen and her family work at the local Ren Faire and have done so for years.  Her father is a part- time actor (and pool salesman) but his passion is being the bad guy at the Ren Faire.  We meet a whole cast of characters who work the Ren Faire.  Some stay put and only work there, but others travel and work the circuit.

But Middle School is also in the title.  It’s not just that Imogen is going to middle school.  Up until this point she has been home-schooled.  So she is starting middle school and school at the same time!

Imogen doesn’t know what to expect and things go predictably worse than she imagined.  Although at first she makes friends with some of the cool girls (!).

Classes are okay, except for Mister, sorry, Doctor Macgregor, who “did not go to school for eight years to be called Mister” the science teacher.  He’s really harsh (a little too much, honestly).

There’s a nice moment when she goes to lunch and someone recognizes her and moves over and Imogen says “I thin one of the nicest feelings in the world has to be someone scooching over for you.”

Mika is one of the coolest girls in the class and she scooches over for Imogen and then proceeds to talk gossip (they love her boots by the way, which were handcrafted at the Ren Faire).

Speaking of the Ren Faire, for the first time, Imogen gets to be a formal squire–an actual participating role rather than just helping at her mom’s store. She even has a costume.  She enjoys her time in the spotlight and even gets a bit of a following.

And then she runs into Anita, a girl from class.  Anita is super smart and gets picked on by pretty much every one. But she doesn’t care. And she doesn’t seem to want to be friends with Imogen even though she is very nice.  Well, actually maybe they can be friends at the Faire, but Anita doesn’t need any new friends at school–especially people who hang out with Mika and her group.

But soon Mika and her friends start to notice things about Imogen–she wears the same clothes a lot, he car is kind of rusty.  Maybe she’s not so cool.  So Imogen starts working to fit in–she buys some clothes (which turn out to be knock-offs, which they notice right away).

However, she starts making other friends in an unexpected way.  She draws some mean pictures of her teachers, and they are really good.  So the other kids start asking her to draw other people, too.  Finally Mika asks her to draw Anita.  She makes a n ugly picture of the girl and everyone smiles.

Obviously she feels bad but Anita will never see it so its okay.  In fact, soon enough at the next Faire Anita’s dad (dressed in costume) thanks Imogen for being friendly to Anita.  Gasp.

As we know, things can only go bad from here.

Of course Anita sees the picture.  In fact everyone sees the pictures and she gets in all kinds of trouble.  She gets a 3 day suspension for bullying and for failing and for lying about having her parents sign her tests.  Her parents are mad at her.  The cool kids don’t like her.  Anita is mad at her.  She has only one place left to lash out.

She has a younger brother who is…odd.  I can’t tell if he is meant to have a disorder, or if he’ just odd. But his best toy is a beaten up old squirrel which is just a disgusting patch of fur (honestly I thought it was a real dead squirrel for quite some time, which seemed a bit much frankly).  Well, Imogen takes her frustration out on the squirrel and throws it in the Ren Faire lake.

And that’s one step too far for everyone.  She even gets kicked out of working at the Ren Faire–she’s back in her mom’s shop doing boring sales.

How will she ever get back to doing anything she likes? Will she have friends?  Will she go back to being home schooled? Oh and what if Mika has her birthday party at he Ren Faire?

So much drama, told so well.