I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Molson Centre Montreal, QC (December 9, 1996).

This is the 21st night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour. According to this host of the RheostaticsLive site: This in my opinion is the best show of the tour.

This show opens with the recording of the French language hockey game.  This time you can clearly hear him shouting Esposito!  After the recording fades,

It opens in a very amusing way.  I imagine that Dave and Martin are lying on the stage, because Dave asks, “Martin can you sleep?  I should have been asleep hours ago.”
Martin: “No, I can’t sleep.  I was up all night listening to the Local Rabbits.  Those riffs will keep anybody awake.”
[Tim starts playing the bass].
Dave “I had this weird dream we were playing in a giant rock stadium, opening for Ringo’s All Stars.  It felt really weird.  And everyone was speaking a different language.”
Martin: “Ringo’s really giving it this tour.”
Dave: “I’m just gonna get out of bed and see what Tim and Don are doing.”

They launch into “Fat.”  I really like the nice little bass tag Tim adds to the end while Martin sings “Bye Bye.”

“Aliens” is a nice surprise–I feel they just don’t play it all that much.  The feedbacking guitar segues nicely into a rocking “All the Same Eyes.”

It’s followed by a fun and bouncy “Michael Jackson.”  At the end, Martin says, “It feels good to be alive.”  Tim deadpans, “sometimes.”

Thanks to CSRG & CHUM FM and C5 for coming down and talking to us today.  This is a song [“Bad Time to Be Poor”] that’s getting played on the radio in all the finer dentist offices in the land.

Some cool sounds from Martin open up “California Dreamline.”  The ending part totally rocks until the denouement where it sounds like someone rocks so hard they may have de-tuned their guitar.

They wish Happy birthday to Gary Stokes, the finest soundman in the land.  Which leads to a lovely “Claire” that segues into a quiet intro for “Horses.”  It builds slowly and powerfully.   Lots of repeated lyrics in the middle–threaten to chop, chop.  These signs will wilt–they’re just paper ink and paper.

While martin ends with some wailing horse noises, Dave sings the first two lines of “Another Brick in the Wall” to end the show.

[READ: April 9, 2019] “Both Sides Now”

This is an excerpt from Gainza’s novel Optic Nerve which was translated by Thomas Bunstead.

It’s a little hard to guess what the whole novel is about since the excerpt worked so well by itself.

The narrator notes that one day you develop a fear of flying.

Before you turned twenty-five, flying seemed natural, but now it seems insane.  Nevertheless, you are supposed to fly to an art convention in Geneva.

The preliminary work for the conference was easy.  She chose a deserving artist from a Latin American country.  She doesn’t travel so she chose someone from Argentina.  She felt a little guilty for doing such minimal work, but honestly this artist could use the honorarium.

The story of the narrator is interspersed with the life of Henri Rousseau.  He never considered an artistic education.  He was meant to work for his father, the tinsmith.  But his father dies suddenly and Henri has not leaned enough.  He decides to enlist in the war since Bismarck’s forces are laying siege to France.  One event during the war has a huge impact on him, though.  He spies a hot air balloon flying through the sky.  He marvels at it until it gets caught on a spire an deflates. But soon enough they are in regular use and his imagination soars.

The flight stresses her (you) out.  Her husband takes her to the airport and gives her a Klonopon.  She believes that if we were meant to fly we would sprout wings.

It wasn’t until Rousseau was in his forties, mired by unnameable sadness that he turned to painting.  He soon gains permission to paint in The Louvre.  He is hailed for his images and his vision.  He is still in thrall to flying machines and many of his smaller works features hot air balloons.  Indeed, Portrait of the Artist’s Father seems to view the scene as if from a hot air balloon.

Everyone hailed him except for Picasso who taunted him.   Picasso held a party for him and then told him it was a joke.   But Picasso would go on to hoard many of Rousseau’s works.

By the end, you never do get on the plane.  You sneak out and take a taxi home.

What else could this story be about, and why so much about Rousseau?  I’m very curious.