I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Corel Centre, Ottawa, ON (November 28, 1996).

This is the 14th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour.  The site has recently added a DAT version of the show in conjunction with the existing fan-recorded version.

The band had played a show earlier in the day at Record Runner.  They sound great and fresh at this show as well–playing 45 minutes instead of 2 and a half hours must be a much more relaxing gig.

After the intro music of “Popcorn” (I wonder if the intro music has any bearing on the rest of the show–setlist, mood of the band, anything), they play “Self-Serve Gas Station.”  Not too many shows open with an older song like this.  Martin sings “What went wrong with Nimrod, is he dumb?”  It sorta segues into Martin playing “California Dreamline.”

“Claire” sounds really nice with a great solo from Martin.

Dave introduces “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson” by saying, this song is about a writing a letter to Alanis Morissette asking to be on her team.  In the middle he whispers “write me back… write me back, in blood!”

A plug for the new record with “Bad Time to be Poor” which is followed by “Motorino.”  I love when thy play this song.  It’s quite peculiar with a cool riff and Martin speaking Italian.

They run through a sweet instrumental jaunt through “Artenings Made of Gold” for 40 seconds before seguing into “All the Same Eyes.”

They end the show with a shout out to “Tim Mech [who] is in the home” as they play a rocking “Horses.”  As the song ends, Dave chants “Fuck the Tories.”

It’s another great opening set.

[READ: March 2018] Motherest

This was a really touching story about Agnes, an 18 year-old going off to college who has lost her mother.  Not that she died… she is just gone, left one day without saying anything.

Set in 1994, Agnes gets through the tribulations of college by writing to her absent mother (a letter at the end of each chapter).

Despite the premise, there’s a lot of funny stuff in this book.  Agnes has a sarcastic outlook on life and her parents, even though she clearly misses her mother.   The humor is evident in her letters to her mother (who will probably never read them) and in the main body of each chapter.  Like that her roommate’s given name is Surprise (which makes for some challenging sentences: “Surprise asked me”).  Also a little challenging is that the boy she fancies is delicate and sensitive so she calls him (and refers to him as) Tea Rose.

Also missing from Agnes’ life is her brother Simon who died three years ago–the three longest shortest years.

So while she is going through her daily life–handing in papers and willing Tea Rose to look at her, she is also writing to her mother: “is ‘leaving” a verb or a personality trait.  Like do you do it because you are it, or are you it because you do it?”

The book does not have her pining for Tea Rose for too long, which is nice.  They speak pretty early in the book–he asks her is she knows Nirvana–not “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” their early stuff.   “How could he know I had an older brother once who knew everything there was to know about music?”  And by the end of the semester they are firmly together.

But before that, comes Parents’ Weekend.  It is awkward of course.  We finally meet Agnes’ father.  He is trying hard, but he is suffering as well.  He and Agnes used to be close, but now things are just uncomfortable.  The only thing he really wants to know is that she will come home for Thanksgiving–to a house devoid of all their family but him.

Dear Mom,
Dad wants everything to be fine so badly.  “Fine so badly” seems like a good description for how we relate to one another.

In fact, she winds up going to Surprise’s house in Lowell for Thanksgiving with Poppy and Lowell (“Lowell from Lowell should be a trademarked branch of Dad”).

Dear Mom,
I’m coming home for Christmas.  I hope you’ll be there.

Then she makes a friend–a student who works at the music library who reminds Agnes of Joan Baez.  In fact she thinks of her as Joan even after they become friendly because she never asked what her name was.  When she gets invited to “Joan’s” house, her only recourse is to look through the mail to see what her name: is Ashleigh, Joan, Nicole.  Could she have been right?

She winds up staying with Joan over Spring break while Tea Rose is in London.  And that’s when she realizes that she is pregnant,

Book Two (the second half of the novel) is called The Daughter Hole and it focuses on how a young woman who is trying to find her own mother is going to set about becoming a mother of her own.

Initially, I didn’t enjoy this half of the book as much.  It’s not the direction I expected the story to go.   And, in the same way that Agnes’ life grinds to a halt, I felt the book did.  At first.

She winds up dropping out of school and moving back home with her dad who is extra solicitous and even more awkward.  The story became about a pregnant teen, rather than a college student.  It’s an important story to be sure but somehow not as engaging as the first part.

The second part does, in fact, pull the reader back in.  Agnes makes new friends–including a teenager from her pregnancy class–and her life begins to expand again.  And all the while she is still writing to her mother, now with questions that really, only a mother could answer.

The ending winds up being very satisfying and quite funny as well.  next time I should read the blurb, because the pregnancy wasn’t hidden in any way.