I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SPACEFACE-Holidazed EP (2018/2019).

Last year, Spaceface released a single of “Christmas Time is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas.  It was trippy and cool with lots of echoing guitars and keys.  I guess it came from this EP, which I only learned about this year.

Although i see that some of the songs on this EP came out in 2019, so Spaceface is messing about with time this year.

The first song is “Christmas Party (Naughty & Nice)” credited to Spaceface, Andy Clockwise and Swimm.  Swimm is a band that “makes music with the concepts of weightlessness and fluidity as the common elements in their genre-blurred sound.”  Andy Clockwise and Chris “Cookie” Hess (from Swimm) do the vocals on the track.    The song opens with jingling bells.  Then a big fat fuzzy riff kicks in and the song takes off.  Angelic group vocals sing the chorus and then the music fades out as the spoken word part comes in.  With statements like “it seems like this year we might be able… to party” and “we’ll have a merry Christmas after all as long as Jake can share his adderall,” that must be the naughty side.  While the nice side has the angelic voices singing “your presence is the only present we need.”  It’s pretty catchy and that cool opening riff comes back at the end to finish it off.

Up next is “Single Star” featuring “LABRYS on vocals (Penny from Broncho).”  I unpacked this to discover that Penny Pitchlynn’s solo project was called Labrys and she is now in Broncho.  A quiet echoing guitar flows through the song as Penny’s low key voice sings the lyrics

A single star is lighting our new way,
but is it fate? A shadow’s doubt outshines your quiet truth
A single star’s bluish halo hue, brings promise of truth
Unbroken yet fickle as a flame

It doesn’t feel overtly Christmasy, although the lyrics do tend tin that direction.  But the addition of jingle bells in the chorus do give it a holiday feel.

There is also “Wish To Come True” which is the demo of “Single Star.”  It’s a lovely instrumental version of the song.

The EP also includes the original “❇Christmas Time Is Here❇” as well as the instrumental version by Spaceface and Kwka (Mike Fridman) which ares till trippy and wonderful.

This is a nice leftfield Christmas EP–a trippy addition to your holiday party.

[READ: December 15, 2019] “Executions and Horses”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fourth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

The Short Story Advent Calendar is back! And to celebrate its fifth anniversary, we’ve decided to make the festivities even more festive, with five different coloured editions to help you ring in the holiday season.

No matter which colour you choose, the insides are the same: it’s another collection of expertly curated, individually bound short stories from some of the best writers in North America and beyond.

(This is a collection of literary, non-religious short stories for adults. For more information, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.)

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check back here to read an exclusive interview with the author.

Want a copy?  Order one here.

I’m pairing music this year with some Christmas songs that I have come across this year.

I’m going to use Jarman’s description of the story to summarize it, because I couldn’t do it justice.

“Executions and Horses” is historical fiction set during the Red River Rebellion.  Riel’s shooting of Thomas Scott at Fort Garry is often viewed as his big mistake and that Riel was hanged in 1885 because of this shooting. The Prime Minister said Riel will hang though every dog in Quebec howl.  This still echoes in Canadian politics.

I couldn’t do it justice because I don’t really know this period in history very well at all and I really didn’t know what was going on for much of the story.

The story is elliptically written and, although the death of Thomas Scott is a central moment to the story, the focus is really on someone with nothing to do with the story.  I actually assumed the narrator was a woman, although re-reading the story there is no indication of that and I think perhaps the narrator is a man.  Which means that the lesbian/outsider subtext I assigned to the story is totally false.

Rather, I guess it is just a guy who fancies Gertie the Outside Woman who “walks her manic chicken on a length of twine.”  He is following Gertie’s backside, but also wondering if they put Scott’s half-alive body under the river ice.

Gertie’s friend is Inside Woman, a reserved woman who stays out of the sun.  Inside Woman’s religious sister tells Inside Woman that she is evil, but the narrator thinks that Inside Woman is all good.  He tells her so, even though he hardly knows her.

The story flashes back to when Scott was killed.  A crowd had gathered around the the stone fort where he was held prisoner.  When he came out, he was shot.  He was not immediately killed,  “The fecking half-breed may well have shot me, Scott thinks, but I maintain that I am still living and will never die.”

A Canadian comes up and shoots him in the head to finish him off.  The narrator wonders if Louis Riel is happy now.  Gertie says that Scott may have been trouble when alive but he will be more trouble to them now that all of the shouters’ names were published in the Ontario papers.   The Orangemen will want revenge.  And they do.

The narrator seems a little off the whole story and begins talking about he has been seeing much of the world–north and south.

if only you were mine, then I’d be happy.  I believe in this idea, my new faith.  I must see her, have her as my prophet.  That’s how I got to Memphis.

I’m not sure if printing the last few lines spoils anything because i don’t really get them anyhow, but this ending was more confusing than anything else.

Go west.  That’s how I got to Assiniboia.  You won’t believe me.  It was so delicious.

It’s really strange that a short story of historical fiction could be so trippy.

The calendar says, It’s December 15. Mark Anthony Jarman, author of Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, knows the value of a pair of good socks.