I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: ROY AYERS-Tiny Desk Concert #712 (March 1, 2018).

I hadn’t heard of Roy Ayers, although I imagine I’ve heard his work somewhere before.  I love the vibes so I was looking forward to his set.

I was a little bummed to hear him singing–I assumed it would be all instrumental. Especially since his songs aren’t exactly lyrically masterful.  But the jazzy funky solos were pretty great.

Roy Ayers [is a] 77-year-old jazz-funk icon.  He sauntered through the office with a Cheshire grin on his face, sharing jokes with anyone within earshot. Accompanying him was a trio of brilliantly seasoned musicians — keyboardist Mark Adams, bassist Trevor Allen and drummer Christopher De Carmine. Later during the performance, pride washed across Ayers’ face as his bandmates took the spotlight. (Be sure to watch as Adams woos not just the room but brightens Ayers’ face during his solo.)

The set began with one of Ayers’ more recognizable hits: an extended version of “Searching,” a song that embodies the eternal quest for peace and love.  The vibes solo at 2 and a half minutes is worth the wait, though.

The lyrics are essentially.  I’m searching, searching, searching searching. It takes over a minute for him to even get to the vibes!  It’s followed by a groovy keyboard solo that starts mellow be really takes off by the end.

During “Black Family” (from his 1983 album Lots Of Love), you’ll hear him call out “Fela” throughout. That’s because Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti was a huge influence on Ayers in the late 1970s; the two eventually collaborated on an album, 1980’s Music Of Many Colors. “Black Family” is, in part, a tribute to Fela, even if the original version didn’t include his name.

Again the lyrics: “lo-lo-lo-lo-long time ago” and not much else repeated over and over and over. But it’s all lead up to a great vibes solo (as the band gets more and more intense).  I love that the keyboardist has a keytar as well and is playing both keys at the same time–soloing on the keytar with an awesome funky sound.  There’s even a cool bass solo.

Concluding this mini-concert, Ayers closed the set out with his signature tune, “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”, a feel-good ode if there ever was one. The essence of this song flowed right through him and out to the NPR audience.

Another terrific vibes solo is followed by a keytar solo which is full of samples of people singing notes (they sound like Steely Dan samples)–it’s weird and kind of cool.

[READ: August 2017] McSweeney’s No 46

As the subtitle reflects this issue is all about Latin American crime.  It features thirteen stories selected by Daniel Galera.  And in his introduction he explains what he was looking for:

DANIEL GALERA-Introduction
He says it used to be easy to talk about Latin American fiction–magical realism, slums and urban violence.  But now things have expanded.  So he asked 13 writers to put their own Latin American spin on the crime story.

And of course, each McSweeney’s starts with

Letters

DANIEL ALARCÓN writes passionately about Diego Maradona’s famous “Goal of the Century” and how as a child he watched it dozens of times and then saw it thousands of times in his head.  When he learned of Maradona’s questionable “Hand of God” goal, his father said that his previous goal was so good it counted twice.  But Daniel grows sad realizing that the goal of the century also marked the beginning of Maradona’s decline.

LAIA JUFRESA this was a fascinating tale about a game called Let’s Kill Carlo that her family played.   It involves a convoluted history including her mother “inventing” a child in order for her husband to come to Mexico from Italy and avoid conscription there.  But when this child “Carlo” “came of age” they had to think of reason why he wasn’t there anymore–so they invented the Let’s Kill Carlo game.

YURI HERRERA waiting for a bus in New Orleans as a man lay in the gutter also waiting.

VALERIA LUISELLI her friend recently moved to Minneapolis with her nervous wreck Chihuahua named President.   He was diagnoses with terminal cancer and the vet encouraged all manner of alternative therapies.  This friend was a very sweet person and had many virtues. And yet perhaps through her virtue the alternative therapy seems to have worked.

FRANCISCO GOLDMAN wants to know why immigration officers at Newark Airport are such dicks (and this was before Trump–#ITMFA).  He speaks of personal examples of Mexican citizens being treated badly.  He had asked a friend to brings books for him and she was harassed terribly asked why did she need so many bags for such a short stay.  Another time he was flying back to NYC with a Mexican girlfriend.   She went through customs and he didn’t hear anything for hours.  He didn’t know if she would even make it though customs at all–even though she’d done nothing wrong.   He imagines wondering how these officers live and what their lives must be like that they seem to take pleasure in messing with other people’s lives.

Then come the stories proper (including the country where the authors is from).

 

SANTIAGO RONCAGLIOIO [PERU] “The Face” translated by Natasha Wimmer.
All of the stories in this collection are dark (it is about crime after all), but this one really sets the tone.  It is about a Peruvian singer who is found murdered.  In a most gruesome way (I won’t give details, but they can’t recognize her face).  The detective interviews a number of people and then even darker truths come to the surface about this Princesita of Peru.  I loved how one of the clues was not exactly a red herring but opened up a whole new avenue that they weren’t willing to go down.  Not yet anyway.

MARIANA ENRIQUEZ [ARGENTINA] “The Dirty Kid” translated by Joel Streicker.
I really enjoyed the way this story had an unusual (at least by the end it became unusual) bookend.  It begins with the narrator telling us her family thinks she is crazy for living where she does.  It’s a poor area that is getting less and less safe.  But the house she lives in was her grandparents’ house.  It was sold and turned into apartments.  When a place was available for rent she chose it to get back to her family roots.  She has been mugged twice but she has learned the ways of the neighborhood.   There’s just one boy she can’t peg. He’s very young (5 maybe) and he goes around by himself a lot, selling cards on the subway.  He and his mom live in the streets near her house.  She tries to help but the mother gets really mad at her and threatens her.  And then one day the boy is missing and there’s a news story about a dead boy found on the streets.  This was an interpreting look into the underbelly of a city from someone who is sympathetic but really shouldn’t be there.

JORGE ENRIQUE LAGE [CUBA] “Bitches” translated by Anna Kushner.
This story begins unexpectedly with Amy Winehouse being one of the characters,  It soon becomes apparent that Amy Winehouse is actually the name of transvestite boy.  Amy is talking to the narrator in a hospital.  We learn that the stories are flashbacks and that Amy is missing.  The narrator takes it upon himself to find her.  The stories lead him to the police who harassed her. And they have conflicting stories about what happened to her.

ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA [CHILE] “Artists’ Rendition” translated by Megan McDowell.
This story was released in Zambra’s book My Documnets.  I loved it when I read it then and I loved it again.  Here’s what I wrote:

I loved the way this story began. It tells us that Yasna has killed her father. But we slowly learn that Yasna is character in a detective story that an author is trying to write. We learn how the author constructs details about this character and the things that she has experienced which make her who she is. As this story unfolds we see how those first lines proved to be true after all.

JOCA REINERS TERRON [BRAZIL] “Blind Sun” translated by Stefan Tobler.
This story is about a Polish man, Stefan, sent to Brazil to inspect an insurance claim.  He first thought that Brazil was going to be a very cool pace with lax drug laws and a cool president.  But he was thinking of Ecuador, and instead he found a very oppressive government (who didn’t appreciate the way he smelled of hash) and a really harsh climate.  I’m intrigued that the company he works for is called WTF Munich and I wonder if that has the same meaning for them as for us.  Stefan investigates the claim against his ambulance (that’s what the company insures) and when he gets there he discovers there has been a massacre in and around the vehicle–not what he was expecting. The story then bounces back and forth between the story leading up to the massacre and the families involved as  well as Stefan’s reactions to what he discovers. The stories converge through a bandanna.

JUAN PABLO VILLALOBOS [MEXICO] “América” translated by Rosalind Harvey.
América is a Mexican football team, and they are at the heart of this tale of corruption.  There were a few interesting repeats of phrase throughout the story and I really liked the way they helped to tie the threads together: a machine gun, nothing more nothing less. There are several murders in this story: a neighbor as tensions heat up because of the football match; the girlfriend of the chief of police; a reporter (the so-called shitty journalist).  And there’s a lot of real bad, burnt coffee.  The depth to which the leaders sink is disheartening but the story is told really really well.

ANDRÉS FELIPE SOLANO [COLOMBIA] “White Flamingo” translated by Nick Caistor.
This story begins with Mariela, an immigrant woman who has worked her way up through petty crime and is now a well-respected “dealer” of watches in Miami.  She has had two husbands.  From one she learned about the watches.  From the other she gained more confidence.  She was planning on making another big score that evening.  Then we learn about the man she was planning to rendezvous with.  He was in town for four days.  He had a job to do as well.  A less savory job.  His former partner Jairo up and left one day and their boss (who had just gotten out of prison) wanted the circle closed.  Since Jairo was never seen to leave Miami the boss assumed he was still there.  These two stories converge in a really interesting way.  I loved this story a lot until the last two paragraphs–the ending was disappointing.

RODRIGO REY ROSA [GUATEMALA] “1986” translated by Jeffrey Gray.
A young man known as “the hedonist” is imprisoned in a hut and has no idea why he is there.  It turns out he is in a sanitorium because of his hedonism.  It felt like the story took a little while to get going but once it did, it was fantastic.  The hedonist has every intention of escaping, but how?  The guards are very tough and there is little chance for freedom.  But then he meets a woman, Juliana, who explains how she and another are planning to escape.  The hedonist wants to go with them, but she says it is too risky.  Rather, she suggests waiting for the right time and then following them.  With help from an unexpected source, he is able to escape.  But that is only the beginning. He now has to try to make it home–to another country!  But even that’s not the end of the story, because we slowly see a plan evolving in his head–what he will do when he gets back home.  I really enjoyed the way this story traveled through the different landscapes of the word and his mind.

RODRIGO BLANCO CALDERÓN [VENEZUELA] “Emunctories” translated by Daniel Gumbiner.
Leave it to a story written in Spanish for me to learn a new word in English.  Emunctories are parts or organs of the body, as the skin or a kidney, that functions in carrying off waste products. 

I enjoy a story that sets an important date in such strange context:

It had been ten years since I’d been back to Venezuela and it was the fiftieth anniversary of the first printing of The Time of the Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa].  It sounds crazy but its the second date that’s important.  This story also has one of the more memorable scenes–the narrator tries to use the toilet but is informed there is no water.  So he decides to use a wastebasket.  He then puts the wastebasket in a gym bag.  And as he goes outside to throw it away, a man on a motorcycle steals the bag (it was fancy-looking).  Hilarious.  He notes : “motorcycles had become the scourge of the city.  For a moment I was happy that, without trying, I had exacted some small measure of revenge against them.”

With some backtracking we learn that the narrator has returned to his home country because his only friend, Julian, is in jail.  He bought a copy of the 50th anniversary of The Time of the Hero to bring to his friend.  He gets to prison and goes through a Kafkaesque series of guard posts.  And then things tie together in a strange but fascinating way.

From there the story got confusing to me–as confusing as the whole entry into the prison was.  So I didn’t really enjoy the end, but I really liked the first half.

ANDRÉS RESSIA COLINO [URUGUAY] “In the Dark Core of the Night” translated by Katherine Silver.
I found this story to be confusing as well–something about gangs and murder and double-crossing which was quite convoluted–as convoluted as the police situation seems to be.  The middle section was far from confusing, though. A woman (I’m not sure who she was with) asked the narrator to accompany her to the store to buy smokes . She is driving a gleaming white Mercedes and he feels kind of like the girl on a date.  The whole  time he is fixated on this woman–so beautiful, so confident.  He even fantasizes about grabbing her roughly and kissing her “but I am sitting in the seat of the one who submits.”  But then when she finishes her cigarette and there’s nothing left to do they kiss. Things go pretty far until she pulls out a gun.   The story was pretty intense and then it returns to the rather confusing part about of Juanma, Dardo and a dead body.

BERNARDO CARVALHO [BRAZIL] “Jealousy” translated by Alison Entrekin.
This story is written as a monologue.  It’s basically a man interrogating a prisoner.  He is cocky and self-satisfied and sayings things like, “If I’m talking it’s because you’re not going to survive.  I’m not crazy enough to leave a witness alive.”  He knows that the man in prison gave his flunky a message .  They knew about it but they lost him.  However, it’s been a few days and nothing happened, so he might as well confess because clearly the flunky was killed, eh?  Being a criminal genius must be a pain in the ass.  You can’t trust anyone, can you?  But he man’s cockiness slowly melts the more he talks.  Although I found this confusing at first the way it played out was pretty cool.

RODRIGO HASBÚN [BOLIVIA] “So Much Water, So Far From Home” translated by Carolina de Robertis.
This was a fascinating story.  Julia, Ro and Carmencita are visiting their old friend Tula who owns a resort hotel.  Each one of them has had some kind of problem with the men in their lives. Tula’s husband got a local girl pregnant.  Carmencita hasn’t had sex with her husband Jonas in months, and when she did last night she seemed more ashamed of her body than excited by it.  Ro has had yet another fight with Hans because he wants sex every few minutes.  It’s only Julia who seems contended, if that’s the word.  She seems to relish the other friend’s eyes on her.  Carmencita and Jonas also have a horrible story in their past–both of their sons were killed in a car crash.  Their other son Roque was younger and he survived, but after the accident he felt completely superfluous and couldn’t wait to leave the house.  He hasn’t spoken to his parents in two years and is living with a man.

The story occasionally flips back to the men, Jonas especially as he tries to get through to his wife.

The ladies enjoy their time there.  Although they feel the driver, who works for Tula is far too familiar with them.  Tula says that she refused to book anyone else so that she and her friends would have the place to themselves.  No one is quite sure if they believe that.  And, stranger still, the formerly pregnant girl is still working there (although her husband is not).  But all is forgotten once the daiquiris come out.  There’s a fascinating paragraph in which Juancho, the driver, watches the ladies get drunk and gets closer and closer to them

if you could see them from far away, they would look like four drunk teenage girls…If you saw them from slightly closer in…they would look like four wild women in their twenties.  Up close…they are four women in their fifties who’ve decided to spend a weekend together.  They just dance and sing with all their strength and drink until none of them can think at all.

This celebratory story has to turn dark (it is a crime anthology of course), but there are at least two crimes committed.  One happens there on site.  One happens in Julia’s mind: her life turned out better than all of her friends, so why is she so unhappy?  And then after everyone wakes from their hangovers, the real crime comes.  It’s quite a surprise, and it’s a really well-told story.

CAROL BENSIMON [BRAZIL] “Horses in the Smoke” translated by Clifford E. Landers.
This is a story of a protests in Sao Paulo.  The narrator’s girlfriend was caught in an unexpected police evacuation.  She was hurt but with no visible results.  So she decided to have a scar placed there to “transform her pain into a definitive part of my body.”  The narrator doesnt know what to say:

when women begin talking about the body it’s a clear sign that the conversation has taken a turn from the individual to the collective….and you couldn’t or shouldn’t fight against it.

The protest seems to have something to do with widening a street–and the environmental damage that will be done to the area, particularity the destruction of hundreds of trees.  But there are also people protesting the World Cup and the white elephant stadium that will be built and never paid for. “Facebook democracy has made leaders irrelevant, so there’s no one qualified to head the march,”

The end of the story is all about the scene and the chaos–how policemen on horses are such an invasive presence, how tear gas can quickly change a scene into panic (and how vinegar is a somewhat effective deterrent against it).  And then the narrator sees first hand what can happen in a situation like this from police or just from people taking advantage of the chaos. The final paragraph is amazingly descriptive and powerful.