I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: OHMME-“Kicking Television” (from WILCOvered, UNCUT Magazine November 2019).

The November 2019 issue of UNCUT magazine had a cover story about Wilco.  It included a 17 track CD of bands covering Wilco (called WILcovered or WILCOvered).  I really enjoyed this collection and knew most of the artists on it already, so I’m going through the songs one at a time.

I will always associate OHMME with Wilco because they opened for Jeff Tweedy when I saw him.

This song sounds immediately like OHMME–their guitars and voices up front and very distinctive.  There’s some intense backing vocals (ahhhhs that sound like The B-52’s) over a spare bass and drum.  They add some of their now patented hocketing for the middle of the chorus (which sounds fantastic) and then come together to harmonize or the “television” part.

The song is manic and wild with some great weird guitar sounds (that are very apt for latter-day Wilco).  But it’s also really catchy.

I love the original of this song.  This version is so different and it’s also fantastic.

[READ: February 10, 2020] 5 Worlds Book 1

This is an ongoing series that is something of an indie supergroup of creators.  Mark and Alexis Siegel wrote the amazing Sailor Twain, Xanthe Bouma draws for The Amazing World of Gumball, Matt Rockefeller illustrated the children’s book Pop, and Boya Sun created the quirky Chasma Knights.  So this was very promising indeed.

The illustration style of this book is very trippy–soft and delicate with fine lines and gentle coloring. It looks very anime and yet it’s not.  It’s hard to know which artist’s style dominates.  I feel like Boya Sun, but they all have a similar aesthetic.  I really like the character design as well.  I found it very refreshing that none of the characters look like superheroes (well except for Jax the athlete).  Oona is a short girl who has wide hips and thighs and An Tzu is a chubby boy.  Even the other creatures are all interesting and uniquely designed.

The story is magical and fairly complicated with a lot of parts.

On the land of Mon Domani, we see a young girl, Oona, with a halo (which turns out to be sand, I think) sitting alone.  Elders pass and say she looks a lot like her sister, but they shall not speak of her.  Oona is in school learning how to do the summoning dance (which has to do with the sand), but she’s not very good at it because she can’t control the sand.  She and her friend practice but when it goes wrong the bratty boys in class call her Oona Oopsa.  When her sand dancer runs off she chases it and overhears something important.

The elders are discussing the dire situation.  The Five Worlds are overheating.  Moon Yatta is a desert; Salassandra’s animals are all dying; Grimbo(e) is covered in ocean moss and there are water riots on Toki, where the plant people are dying.  The Mon Domani Elder says that they need to light the beacons on the roof.  The other leaders are less convinced of the need for beacons.

Next we see a boy in a mask  The boy is a chosen sand dancer but he can’t get his sand to combine with other sand.  When Oona reveals who she is, he says he wishes that Oona’s sister was here as well–she was the greatest sand dancer of all time.   No one knows what happened to her sister, but Oona received a ticket to visit her.  But the flight coincides with Beacon Day, the most important day on the planet.  The time when they will try to light  the beacons again.

The boy takes off his mask and reveals he is from Toki.  The Toki believe that lighting the beacon is wrong, but this boy Vector Sanderson believes the Beacons are the way to go and he wants to help.

Then we jump to the Mon Domani slums of Sao Sablo.  A boy, An Tzu, has traded in some sports figure cards for water.  An Tzu then runs around giving water to the plant people he cares about. There’s Fern, his good friend who he gives An Tzu orange spray food.  An Tzu is disappointed it’s not real food, but it’s all they can get.  He then distributes the food to everyone in his village.

When An Tzu has a moment he takes off his glove to reveal that his hand is disappearing and he says it is getting worse.

Flying over the slum is a Toki garbage barge.  The locals make fun of it but when a Toki waiter over hears he is quite angry about the mocking.  Tensions are definitely high.

Aboard the ship, the pilots plotting to end Toki’s humiliation–they say the beacons cannot be lit–and they intend to prevent it permanently by destorying Mon Domani.

Oona decides to visit her sister in hopes of bringing her back for beacon day.  But when she gets to her flight, it has been changed and she will now be on a bigger, fancier ship.

Back on Mon Domani, it is now Beacon Day.  For the first time ever, day there is also a starball game being played.  Oona can’t believe the insult to Beacon Day to have a stupid game on this important day.  When the game begins we see its star player Jax Amboy is an unusually gifted athlete.

The two stories converge because of the grid that powers everything.  It powers the grid in the Starball game.  It also keeps the ships aloft.  The garbage barge blows up the power grid.  Oona’s ship crashes right into the stadium.  There is much devastation.  Oona survives and she meets An Tzu who was at the game.  As they try to flee, they see that Jax Amboy is trapped by a beam.  Oona is able to use her sand dancers to lift the beam enough for Jax to escape.  But we see that his arm has been chopped off.  We learn later that Jax is actually a robot.  When An Tzu learns this, he is devastated.

But in the meantime, the three of them try to find out what is going on.  The Toki attack continues and they steal some very important components that will help to light the beacons.

An Tzu and Jax both have connections that let them travel safely.  An Tzu gets help from the plant people and Jax’s uncle (the man who created him) is very aware of the importance of the beacons.  This leads to some excellent backstory and character development.

We also see that Oona’s sister is furious that Oona escaped from the men she sent to find her.

After some experimentation and mistakes Oona learns that she is able to control different colored sands–exactly like Vector was unable to do.  When she gets all five colors together, she is able to create The Sand Warrior.

This seems like the end of the story entirely and yet there are at least three more books, so this is all just set up.

As the Sand Warrior (controlled by Oona) gets close to the towers to try to light the beacons, the Toki barge comes along and tries to stop her.  We soon learn that co-piloting the barge is Oona’s sister Jessa!  Jessa in blue like the Toki and Oona realizes that the Mimic (an evil entity who looks to be taking over all of the worlds) must have done this to her.

We don’t know if Jessa is the Mimic or is she has been taken over by he Mimic or if perhaps Jessa is telling the truth and the Mimic is actually the savior.

As the book ends we see three creatures who we have not seen before saying “We have the chosen one on board.  What shall we do about that?”

I’m really excited about the next books and I can’t wait to see where the story goes.