I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: HALF WAIF-Tiny Desk Concert #803 (November 9, 2018).

Nandi Rose Plunkett is a member of Pinegrove. She released albums as Half Waif, and when Pinegrove retreated for a time, she toured as Half Waif.  I wanted to see her but didn’t have the opportunity.

I was under the impression that her shows were very spare and I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy a full live set by her.  This five piece version (see more below) has a wonderful full sound though and these songs sound terrific.

The band [is] more often a trio, with Nandi singing her songs and playing keyboards, Zack Levine on drums and Adan Carlo bass synth and guitar.

But for this show she has a five piece band, which she has a great introduction for:

Midway through Half Waif’s Tiny Desk, singer Nandi Rose Plunkett stops to let us all know that this particular Half Waif show is extra special. “So today we’re actually ‘Full Waif,’ because I am joined by my dear friends,” she says. “These are all musicians who have played with the band Half Waif over the past five years, but we’ve never all played together until now! So thanks for the opportunity to get ‘Full Waif’ together.”

The other two guys are Zubin Hensler keys and Robin electronic drums.

It’s clear that she doesn’t need all five of them–the music isn’t all that complicated but it ensures a really full sound.  What’s most notable is the two drummers–each doing his own thing but combining into a wonderful rhythm session.

The session opens with “Lavender Burning.”  It sounds like she is playing a harmonium, but I don’t think she is.  The layers of synth are added to by Adan and Zubin.  It’s not until about half way into the song that the drums come in and it adds a lot of texture to an already wonderful song.

“Lavender Burning,” with its opening line, “Staring out into the shifting darkness / Tryin’ to give a name to the place where my heart is,” reinforces my love for their peaceful, almost backwoods calm.

The more I listen to the song the more powerful it becomes.  And Nandi’s voice is just lovely.

“Silt” opens with electronic drums and Nandi’s simple synth washes.  I love the thoughtful and clear lyrics

Nobody deserves me.  I get lonely. I get angry.
My love is like an island.  You can’t find it if you’re not trying
And if you want my love I will guide you. I will be your anchor.  If I only have a minute to myself. T hen i would let you in without poison.  I would eat my anger if you only gave me what I wanted.

Adan offers some nice backing vocals and Nandi does double duty on synth and piano.  There’s so many interesting sounds I’m not sure who is doing what (like that synth solo at the end).

The final song is “Salt Candy” which is the a more acoustic track–Nandi on piano only to start.  Adan is making the tiniest sounds on guitar and the drumming is spare and minimal.

When they closed with “Salt Candy,” the line “I wanted to be carried in my mother’s arms / I wanted to be buried in my mother’s arms,” in this setting and with the spare punctuation of electronic drums and textures, sitting alongside Nandi’s voice, was particularly chilling.

It’s a beautiful set and makes me like them a lot more.  I’ll definitely have to see them when they tour again.

[READ: January 7, 2017] “Pardon Edward Snowden”

Many people feel that stories about writers are not very interesting.  I disagree typically, but that’s probably because I aspire[d] to write something someday.

This story is about a poet and I really liked it a lot.  I enjoyed the political and the literary nature of the story.

Mark McCain received an email sent to many American poets inviting him to sign a “poetition” requesting that president Obama pardon Edward Snowden.

The request also took the form of a poem and the narrator talks about some of the rhymes: “pardon and rose garden.”  “nation and Eden” “Putin and boot in.”

Mark forwarded the email to his friend, the poet E.W. West.  They were enraged by the “poetition.”

Mark tried to find out why he was so angered.   Well, a poem as petition is misconceived–you could no more agree with a poem than with a tree.   And even if people argued they were signing the content not the form then why not have the petition as a petition.  “Why drag the poem in to the muck?”

When he met E.W. (Liz) for lunch, she asked if he would sign it.  He said he didn’t know and asked if she would.  She said she wasn’t invited to.  She believed it was because she was a woman.  But she doesn’t care and concedes: we need people like Merrill (the author of he poetition), somebody’s got to be interested in being prominent, otherwise we’d all disappear.”

But Mark cares for Liz and knew she was hurt by the snub.

And then comes the crux of the story: “I expect Dylan has been contacted.”

The two get down and dirty arguing about Bob Dylan winning the Nobel prize in literature.  When Mark heard it, for two days he couldn’t leave his apartment or even post on Facebook.

Once a year, a small beam of honor reflected all the way from Stockholm and faintly brightened the dim endeavors of [not famous] writers.  Now even this glimmer had been removed from their small and dark corner of the sky and tossed like a trinket into Bob Dylan’s personal constellation.

Mark had hoped Dylan would tell the Swedish buffoon to stick it, but then conceded that Dylan had too much vanity.

He says he can’t separate it from the Trump phenomenon (the election was a week away).

The end of the story shows Mark writing prose recollections, Pensees, he called them.  He believed that writing prose was much easier than writing fiction (there’s funny retort from a prose writer which I enjoyed).

He loved the form of the pensees because you wrote as a know-all.  And he writes eloquent thoughts about the matter.

But it all comes down to the poetition.  He hates the jerk who created it and so much else about it.  On the other hand, if he signed it his name would appear in the Times, which it never had before.

What is an ideological poet to do?