SOUNDTRACK: NATALIE PRASS-“Short Court Style” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (March 14, 2018).
I did not enjoy this Lullaby at all. Prass’ voice is very conventionally poppy and the synth sounds were really cheesy. I would without question turn this off it was on the radio.
Evidently the original has “a laid-back disco cool and bouncing bassline groove” but then Prass
shows up to her South X Lullaby session with keyboardist Jacob Ungerleider, slows down the tempo just a mood lighting dimmer and turns the song’s breezy funk into the soft murmurs of late-night devotion.
Still doesn’t make me like it.
This version of “Short Court Style” was filmed in an interactive art installation by Caitlin Pickall called FEAST, which is part of the SXSW Art Program and was created as part of the Laboratory Artist Residency program in Spokane, Wash. Prass and Ungerlieder sit at a dinner table set with plates and towers of wine glasses, onto which images and patterns are projected. The projections are triggered by the movements of guests at the table, so the experience changes every time someone sits down.
[READ: March 15, 2018] “No More Maybe”
This story looks at immigrants in the land of trump’s america. But it also looks at how in-laws can drive us crazy.
The narrator’s in-laws have come to visit them because she is pregnant.
Her mother-in-law has been very busy taking advantage of all that America has to offer (cheaply): blueberries, the clean air, the stars, and English-language classes (which are expensive in China).
She is puzzled by them being free: “America is a capitalist country…. What about so-called ‘invisible hand’s” (She learned about that phrase two days earlier). The woman is confident (she is a volleyball coach) and is not shy about expressing herself.
The father-in-law likes to make points. He is a retired professor and enjoys correcting people (but does not like to be corrected himself). He is not above animated discussions. He thinks the classes are free because the government watches to see who take them. The mother-in-law thinks this is crazy “Americans are too lazy.”
He thinks they are looking for illegal immigrants. Fortunately for them, the narrator and her husband are legal. But people are being stopped–everywhere. They carry their visas everywhere and have a list of places not to go (Texas, New Hampshire, Alabama).
The arguments stop, though, when the narrator mentions the baby–they are proud of their son for becoming a father and dote on her, making her eat ancient, proven recipes.
While the mother-in-law is keeping busy, the father-in-law is as well–he moves things around. He fixes the feng-shui, he rearranges the bookshelves (confusing everything) and cleans whenever he can.
He offers to wash their car. When he comes back the car is still dirty–but they congratulate him anyway, believing that he has lost his mind. But it turns out he washed a different silver car instead–a Toyota not a Nissan.
The father in law silently cleans the correct car and then jokes “is there another silver car I can clean tomorrow?”
They joke about the note they should leave on the clean car:
We are sorry we cleaned the wrong car, but we are from China
or
These Japanese cars, you know, they all look the same.
Bu the narrators husband thinks it would be a bad idea–they should just leave it along. If there was any scratch, they might come after them, maybe even sue them.
The next day the bell rings and a black man is there with a box. He says his name is Jeff and he wants to thank them for washing the car. The father-in-law is very standoffish, partly afraid of being sued and partly for racist reasons.
Jeff is confused by the old man’s reaction to the thanks and the potential gift. When he repeats thank you the mother-in-law practices her English and says “You’re Welcome.” Meanwhile the father-in-law says thinks like “Is that really your car?” “If you find something wrong, we did not do it.” Tensions grow a little heated.
But Jeff deals with it in a very interesting way–racist, but diffusing things sort of. Or maybe escalating them.
That’s not the end of the story but that was the most exciting part.
There’s a lot more about the married couple and how she is trying to cope with her in-laws. As well as the possibility that they might be there a lot longer than she realized. And of course the undying love for an elder.
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