SOUNDTRACK: PHOSPHORESCENT-NonCOMM 2019 (May 14, 2019).
A couple of years ago I had a pass to NonComm, but ultimately I decided not to go. I had never been to World Cafe Live and, while it sounded like a fun time, it was just so many mid-week nights and lots of leaving early, that it sounded more exhausting than fun.
I have now been to World Cafe Live and I can imagine that the (less divaish) bands are hanging around talking to people (and radio personalities) which is probably pretty cool.
I love the idea of these sorta personal concerts, too. But I have since come to see that they are 20-45 minutes tops. Hardly worth driving 90 minutes (one-way) for.
But since the shows are streaming you can watch them live. Or you can listen to the recorded version online.
I’ve been aware of Phosphorescent for a number of years but I seem to have him/them confused with another band (Telekinesis–a one word band name that is actually just one person, who also put out a new album this year). Phosphorescent is the project of Matthew Houck and in this performance it’s just him on the acoustic guitar. I’m not sure what he normally plays live, but during this set he said, “this is the first time I’ve played an acoustic guitar for a concert in 20 years, probably. It feels pretty weird up here at the moment.”
Recently, Phosphorescent has had a big single on WXPN called “New Birth in New England” which I love.
He opened with “C’est La Vie No. 2” off his latest album C’est La Vie. His delicate strumming paired perfectly with his lyrics, which I especially liked;
C’est La Vie they say but i don’t know what it means
I say love’s easy if you let it be
“My Beautiful Boy” has a wonderful guitar melody (clearly it is about his becoming a father). Even though his lyrics are thoughtful and somewhat serious, he was a charming frontman, staying “this song is about rocks. It’s called ‘These Rocks.'”
He told us “New Birth in New England” doesn’t go on an acoustic guitar by itself. But it will tonight. It sounds wonderful in this stripped down version, although I prefer the recorded version.
The last song of the set was “Song For Zula,” a track from Phosphorescent’s 2013 album Muchacho. I didn’t realize this was his song which I really liked back when it came out. It’s really beautiful and, once again I like the way he plays with existing lyrics to make them his own.
and it showcased the strength of his vocals as he belted it out for the crowd before making his way off stage. The hearty applause was fitting for the wholesomely low-key set. Give C’est La Vie a listen now and check out Phosphorescent on tour this summer.
Some say love is a burning thing
That it makes a fiery ring
Oh but I know love as a fading thing
Just as fickle as a feather in a stream
See, honey, I saw love,
You see it came to me.
Now if I can keep his name straight, I’ll have to listen to him a bit more.
[READ: May 3, 2019] “Upholsetry”
The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had three short stories and three poems as special features.
I loved this story.
I love the dysfunctional families involved in it and I love the way it is circular while still moving forward. Plus it’s darkly comic.
The narrator, Iris, says that when she told her mother (whom she calls Judy, never mom) that she was going marry Thom, Judy didn’t hesitate to say that he was a car crash waiting to happen. Judy is a psychologist not a fortune-teller. But her words proved to be literally true–Thom was in a car accident with Iris in the car. Iris fractured her skull. Somehow, Thom still wore the T-shirt he was wearing during the accident–and he assures her that the faded pink spot is not blood.
Thom is extremely smart and was rewarded out of college with many luxury job offers. He turned them all down to teach at McGill College. The accident left Iris with some brain injury, so going back to her job wasn’t really an option.
She resolved to divorce him. Many times. But when she searched for places to go her hands grew clumsy with tremors so she stopped looking.
There’s much more to this story though.
Her father, Don, had purchased a chalet a few years before he married Judy and adopted Iris. I liked this, “When they divorced, Don continued being my father even though Judy was no longer his wife.” Iris spend weekends and summer vacations with Don at the chalet.
Don remarried a few years ago to a woman who was just few years older than Iris and who ran a business called Getting It Together Organizing. She called the chalet the “cabin” and said to Iris she couldn’t imagine what Don did up there for decades in the middle of nowhere with no one else there. The fact that Iris had been there for 20 years never seemed to occur to her.
Obviously, Heidi had to redo the cabin, even though Don had always seen the redecoration of country places as the weakness of city people unable to leave the urban thrum behind. Judy called Heidi’s “high-gloss cleanliness ‘projected anorexia’– a neurotic disorder expressed in decor, where items are only allowed on surfaces is they have a pre-existing appointment.”
She redecorated the room in white. White furniture, what walls, white fabric blinds. It was hard not to feel Heidi’s taunting presence in Don’s house even when she wasn’t there.
Meanwhile, Iris, Thom and their daughter Abigail were the opposite. When Iris sees that Abigail has markers (and they are all over her) Iris says that he should not have taken out the markers. He retorts that “take out” implies they were put away to begin with.
Housekeeping no longer held in our house … furniture had long been overwhelmed by unrelenting haystacks of play yarn, banana-gritted jigsaw pieces, and stuffed animals scarred with Frozen plasters. Thom liked to say that I treated the growing clutter as a fait accompli and that perhaps what was needed was a “system.” I told him he could try vacuuming.
Although this story is about two generations of family there is another woman in the story who plays an enormous role. Along the lake were many families who knew everyone else. One such family was the Naimer family. Mrs Naimer was talked about all the time because the women all said she was troubled. Mrs. Naimer would swim across lake, an impressive feat that no one acknowledged. She didn’t do the “mechiah stroke in the lake–the bobbing, hairdo-conscious paddle favoured by the other mothers.” But mostly the scandal was that Mr Naimer took their daughter because Mrs Naimer smoked marijuana and refused to convert. As one woman said, “If someone was going to take my Jessica away, I would convert to Blue Alien Martian. Id become an Arab if I had to.”
But Don told Iris not to listen what people say about Mrs Naimer. Iris met Mrs Naimer once–and she marveled at Mrs Naimer’s soft whispering voice, “so different from the mother voices at the beach.” Iris could tell that if Mrs Naimer was crazy it was because she had been hurt so badly. She soon moved to California.
The resolution of Mrs Naimer’s story is really spectacular.
The story in the present continues when Thom spills coffee on Heidi’s white couch cushion. I’m not sure exactly why it upsets Iris so much, but it does and she sets about trying to clean it. It becomes a full day project in which Thom’s help causes more and more damage.
The ending is wonderful–a circular ending full of hope and despair and resolution and confusion. It’s a great piece and I want to seek out more by Silcoff.
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