I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: CAT POWER-Tiny Desk Concert #821 (February 4, 2019).

I remember when Cat Power was a buzz artist who had signed to Matador.  I bought her album in 1996, but I guess it didn’t leave that much of an impression on me.

Since then, she has been a buzz artist for performing and then for not performing and then for performing again.  All the new music of hers that I have heard seems to get slower and softer.

The biggest surprise about the Tiny Desk Concert was how full of smiles she was and yet the blurb makes her sound uncomfortable:

Most artists who play the Tiny Desk are at least a little nervous. Performing in broad daylight in a working office full of staring faces is outside the comfort zones of most people. But Chan Marshall, the unforgettable voice behind Cat Power, seemed especially uneasy when she settled in for her set. Rather than taking center stage, close to the audience, she stepped back and to the side to be closer to her pianist and friend, Erik Paparazzi, for much of the performance. She intermittently steadied herself by resting a hand under her chin while clutching a cup of tea, and she ran through three songs without a break, making her set sound more like a Cat Power medley than a series of distinct songs.

So I don’t know any of the songs she played here and when I first listened I actually assumed she’d only played two songs because the first two blended together.

Regardless, the music was arresting and beautifully orchestrated, with simple piano lines and brushed drums backing a voice that could only be hers.

Opening with “Wanderer,” the title track to Cat Power’s latest album, Marshall sang of restless love and yearning with a nod toward motherhood and her 3-year-old son: “Twist of fate would have me sing at your wedding / With a baby on my mind, now your soul is in between.”

It has a quiet, simple piano melody (from Erik Paparazzi) and a gentle guitar (from Adeline Jasso) that imperceptibly pushes it forward.  After a minute, the brushed drums (from Alianna Kalaba) come in to add a little snap to the song.

“Woman,” another track from Wanderer starts immediately.  She had recorded this song with Lana Del Rey and I recall liking it. This version sounds so much like the previous song that I don’t even recognize the original in it.  The differences between the two songs are that the piano notes have changed a little (but since they repeat all the way through, it’s not hugely noticeable) and the guitar now uses a slide.  Otherwise the beat is I believe unchanged.

She segues right into “The Moon,” from her 2006 album The Greatest.  The only distinction here is that the guitar and drums stop briefly while the newly repeating piano picks up a slightly different melody.  This song sounds so much like the previous one because she sings the word “Moon” so much like the word “Woman” (often given Moon more than one syllable) I couldn’t tell that she was saying something different.

I suppose if I were in the right mood I would have found this mesmerizing and enchanting.  But mostly I just found it rather dull.

[READ: February 5, 2019] Speak

I hadn’t read this novel and, in fact, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was about (although I knew it was intense).  The only reason I picked it up was because I thought it was a First Second publication and I plan to read all of their books.  This was listed in their 2018 publication list, but it ultimately wasn’t published by them, it turns out.

S. knew the book from her work with teens and said she didn’t want to read the graphic novel version.  So I expected a harrowing, potentially unreadable story.

But Anderson has created an excellent and compelling story built around a harrowing incident.  She also doesn’t detail the harrowing incident until later in the story, so by the time we hear about it we are even more sympathetic to Melinda.

I will say that as the story opened (because I didn’t know the timeline), I thought that the kids were being unrealistically mean to her.  I thought she was a new student at the school (it’s her first year in high school) and I couldn’t imagine why people really had it in for her.  It seemed hard to believe.  Especially as we realize pretty quickly that the incident has already happened.

Then it gradually comes out that kids are mad at her for something she did.  It is connected to the incident, but clearly isn’t about the incident because she hasn’t told anyone about it.

It is no secret by now that the main character was raped (in fact in the introduction Halse Anderson tells you that right up front, which was a kind of spoiler if you didn’t know the story).  Melinda was afraid to tell anyone and couldn’t get the incident out of her head (or off of her body).  And it is compounded by the fact that everyone is mad at her.  And to make it even worse, the thing she did which has gotten everyone mad at her she did only to try to protect herself and had nothing to do with anyone else.  It’s punishment on top of punishment.

And it sucks,

Her first year of high school is terrible because everyone hates her.  Except for Heather, the new kid who doesn’t know anything about her.  Heather is perky and cheerful–completely unlike Melinda.  They are quite friendly until Heather tries to join the Martha’s the cool clique of girls who obviously want nothing to do with Melinda.

Melinda’s only solace comes from art class.  Her art teacher is a total whack-job.  His art funding has been cut and he is bitter about it.  He is also really passionate about art which many kids find annoying but which a few (like Melinda) find to be a comfort.  Even if she hates her project (she is supposed to draw a tree) with a passion.  Art saves her in a number of ways, both metaphorically and literally as the story comes to its end,.

I won’t say that the story has a happy ending because it’s unclear how happy Melinda will ever be, but the book does offer a hopeful ending which is more realistic and even more powerful.

This was an amazing book–powerful, unflinching and very real.  Without having read the original I can’t compare, but I feel like this graphic novel may have even been more impactful because it has, no doubt, had to trim a lot of the diary entries to fit in this story.  I know the original book is short, but this book is concise without ever feeling like things were short-cutted away.

And the art is spectacular.