SOUNDTRACK: MICACHU & THE SHAPES-“Love or Leave” (Field Recordings, September 19, 2012).
This Field Recording [Micachu & The Shapes: Weeds In The Forest] gets back to the style of the ones I first saw–a band wandering through the woods. In this case, the three members of Micachu & The Shapes plod through the woods to sit on a tree stump.
Mica plays a very simple melody on a very simple (but surprisingly loud) guitar (held around her neck with a piece of rope tied around the body of the guitar). I love that she is able to bend a note during his chord (not hard, but cool).
As it opens, backing singer Raisa Khan says “I saw a deer.” Mica asks, “Did you?”
The three of them sing so wonderfully together–the ahhs and oohs fill in the music perfectly with her voice. The middle section is also a lot of fun when they all sing together in almost deadpan British accent “Cannot wait for my holiday / I’ve had my work cut out for me.”
Why have I never heard of Micachu before? I don’t know.
Experimental musician Mica Levi, a.k.a. Micachu, doesn’t exactly fit comfortably into her surroundings: She cuts a vaguely otherworldly, not-so-vaguely androgynous figure, and sings strangely pretty, jagged little songs with the aid of odd tunings and a tiny guitar, which dangles from crudely tied twine. She identifies herself as a pop singer, but while her songs are catchy enough, they’re no one’s idea of pop-radio fodder.
But I love this song and I need to hear more.
Taking Micachu on a hike into the sun-dappled woods of Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek Park makes as much sense as it would to surround her with modern everyday life. So we sat her on a log in the open air, where she sang “Holiday” — from her new album Never — while flanked by Raisa Khan and Marc Pell from her band The Shapes. Together, the three musicians complement the majesty of their surroundings with everything that makes their music work: disarmingly plainspoken charm, ragged beauty, and uniqueness that blooms as naturally as the trees themselves.
I can’t wait to lean more about her.
[READ: November 20, 2018] “The Frog King”
The previous story I read by Greenwell was also about an American teacher living in Sofia, Bulgaria. That story also dealt with the difficulty of being homosexual, or at least the perception of it in this country.
In this one, however, there is at least some consummation.
This story is quite simple in terms of plot. In fact, there really isn’t much of one. Rather, this is a story all about passion and the intensity of first love.
The narrator, an American teacher, has been living with a student, R., for a couple of weeks during the holiday break. It’s unclear if they are teacher and student themselves or not, but that’s not relevant.
While everyone is away from school for the Christmas holiday, the two have an opportunity to be alone, finally. The narrator marvels at R. and his ability to sleep so soundly (the narrator sleeps very poorly). R gets annoyed when he wakes him up, but also if he lets him sleep too long–he doesn’t want to miss any of their time together.
The snow is exciting for R (he is from Portugal and this is the first snow he has seen). They feed the local stray dog, they buy each other presents, they decorate a small tree.
R. is utterly romantic about everything–he even names the tree–while the narrator is more reserved. But physically they both feel compelled to hide their love from anyone around the campus.
But when they go on vacation to Bologna (it was the cheapest place they could find) the freedom from prying eyes allows them both to be more open.
The details of their vacation are given–the food, the places they visit, the extra excursion to Venice. They have a lovely time–even when R. gets depressed because it is all so beautiful and it’s not fair that he was born in shitty Portugal, shitty Algarve, the shitty Azores, shitty Lisbon.
The story is slow and savors every detail. Especially when they get back to the room and the narrator lingers over every inch of R.’s body–slowly, taking nearly 20 minutes to kiss every inch of him.
The title relates to a statue that they see–a bonfire designed to scare away all of the evil spirits for the New Year. It’s quite moving.
I Just Read About That... 
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