I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: JEN CLOHER-“Impossible Germany” (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.

Cloher takes on of my favorite Wilco songs and transforms it in a way that I quite like.  The song opens with some cool buzzing guitar sounds before the main melody resolves with some plinking guitars and keys.

When Cloher starts singing in her quiet, whispering voice, the song builds up a bit and grows really catchy (with cool sound effects swirling around).  The song is really mellow and catchy until the guitar solo in the middle which has a great echo on it as the song ramps up the speed.

I love that the song has picked up the pace and Cloher has vocally as well, although her delivery remains much the same–understated and cool.

It’s a great version.

[READ: February 15, 2020] The Witch Boy

My daughter has had this book for quite some time and she and S. both encouraged me to read it.  I didn’t put it off for any reason, it’s just that there were other things around first.

But boy did I love this story.

I love that it plays with gender roles but in the inverse of a lot of stories.  In this one the boy wants to do what the girls normally do.  And I liked that it’s not that the boys think what the girls do is too girly, it’s just that that is how it has always been done–boys do one thing and girls do another.  So it’s a nice twist on the gender role reversal story.  Plus the story is unyieldingly positive.

We open on a group of young girls learning witchcraft.  I love that they are speaking in runes and that (I assume) Osterberg made up all the symbols?  Or maybe they are classic witchcraft symbols?

Then we see that Aster is in the tree above them eavesdropping.  He is yelled at and told the girls are leaning secrets that he is not privy to.  His mother tries to calm him by saying the magic is not for him, but he insists that he wants to learn it.  But his role, like all the boys, is to learn to shapeshift (I’m glad they each have a cool skill, at least).  But he’s not interested in shapeshifting.  He wants to cast spells.

Then we learn why the gender roles are separated.  Aster’s grandmother had a twin, Mikasi.  Mikasi wanted to learn magic and he eavesdropped as well.  But the spells poisoned him and he lost control.  A darkness came over him, people were hurt and he was cast out.

We meet some of the other boys–rough and tumble kids who don’t think much of Aster or his desire not to shapeshift.  The one boy who is nice at Aster is called Sedge.  He has one brown and one blue eye.

The boys play a game, but Aster sits out and starts saying some of the runes.  His grandmother walks by and corrects his pronunciation saying “if you’re going to do it at least do it right.”

The next day Aster walks through the magical barrier around their camp and tries one of the spells–he makes berries bloom on a bush.  He is thrilled.  As is the girl who saw him do it.  Her name is Charlotte–Charlie–and she is the best.

She is not judgmental at all, doesn’t think what he did is weird (well she does, but she likes it), and just wants to try the berries.  She has a broken leg (we learn how that happened later) but she is still very upbeat.

That night the boys try to practice their shapeshifting.  But Sedge gets to close to the boundaries and he vanishes in a cloud of red..

The next day everyone is till very freaked out about Sedge and Aster goes for a walk.  He walks by Charlie’s house where she is shooting hoops from her chair.  They start to chat.  He tells her that he’s good at the girl thing but not the boy thing and it’ not fair.  Charlie groans in acknowledgement saying that the boys get a lot more sports than the girls do at her school.

They both agree that if you’re good at something you should be allowed to do it.

He shows her some more things he can do, like locate someone with a bowl of water and that he can fix broken things.  She asks him to fix her leg.  He says he’s afraid to do it right now but he’ll study more and see what he can do.

When he gets back home, he learns that two other boys were also taken.  everyone goes out looking for them and while walking the perimeter, he sees a creature which must be Sedge (brown and blue eyes).  They capture him and lock him up.  While Sedge is alone, we see an evil voice berate him for getting caught.

Later while in bed, a monster comes into Aster’s bedroom.  It ts the monster that frightened Sedge (and took all the boys).  It’s not there to do any harm, (the protection spells wouldn’t let him in if he had evil intentions).  Rather, he offers Aster a deal.  He feels Aster’s power and he wants to help him shape it.  He puts a spell on Aster so that he can’t tell any witches about the offer and then he gives Aster an old-fashioned phone (which I thought was kind of funny) to contact him.

Meanwhile, the witches have created a binding spell and circle to capture the creature should it ever return.

Aster tells Charlie about the monster. She says he’s crazy to even think about it.  But later that night she says that he should call because he can do witchery and she can help him (with a bat).

He takes some witchy weapons and picks up the phone.  Then he’s in the red area.  The monster is right there and soon enough Aster reveals that he knows who the monster is and by saying his name he is able to bind it until he can rescue the missing boys.

They run back through the portal, but so does the monster.  Can the witches’ spell hold the monster?  Will Aster be allowed to practice witchcraft?  So many great plots to uncover.

This book was really exciting but the overall positive tone (and wonderful artwork) were what I loved most about it.