SOUNDTRACK: COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #68 (August 20, 2020).
Courtney Marie Andrews annoys me because she is not Courtney Barnett. So whenever a DJ says Courtney, I hope it’s Barnett. Sometimes it is and sometimes it’s this country singer.
Courtney Marie Andrews seems like a nice enough person but her music is on the wrong side of country for me.
She opens this set with “Burlap String.” Paul Defiglia plays upright bass and Mat Davidson (aka Twain) adds pedal steel. In this song
Andrews sings about the fear of love. “I’ve grown cautious, I’ve grown up / I’m a skeptic of love / Don’t wanna lose what I might find.” Yet, “Burlap String” is also a song about how love’s memory lingers, and how the mind rekindles its beauty.
Defiglia leaves after the song.
The blurb says that Andrews is only 29 and she’s been playing for ten years. She has a new album and WXPN has been playing “It Must Be Someone Else’s Fault” a bunch. It’s a bouncy song that seems to be full of sadness.
For “If I Told,” which she calls a modern day love song, Davidson switches to the Wurlizer. Andrews sings a bit of yodel in the chorus. It’s a catchy moment.
The set ends with Courtney alone at the Wurlitzer, singing “Ships in the Night” the final song on her seventh album, Old Flowers. It is about lost love and hoping for closure with fondness.
Courtney Marie’s voice is powerful but it’s not my thing.
[READ: August 1, 2020] Kill the Farm Boy
I saw a review for the second book in this series (which has just come out) and it sounded pretty great. So I looked up the first one only to find out that Dawson and Hearne are both authors with other series to their names. Dawson has written The Shadow Series (as Lila Bowen), The Hit Series and The Blud Series. Meanwhile, Hearne has written The Iron Druid Series and Oberon’s Meaty Mysteries. They’ve also written single volumes of things too. So they are well known in the fantasy realm.
The acknowledgments say that they met up in the Dallas Fort Worth airport at the barbecue joint (I have eaten there and it was tremendous). They waited for their flight and discussed killing the farm boy, or in other words, making fun of white male power fantasies that usually involve a kid in a rural area rising to power in the empire after he loses his parents. They found that skewering topics was fun and decided to write the book together.
So in the land of Pell we meet a farm boy named Worstley. He cleaned up the goats. And one goat, Gus, was especially ornery. One night while Worstley was mucking out the area, a fairy entered the room. She was haggard and dressed crazily with one sock on and her pants falling off. But the fairly quickly corrected any thoughts about her being a proper fairy by saying she was a pixie and her name was Staph. She was there to anoint the chosen One.
To prove her magic she pointed at Gus and magicked him into talking. The first thing Gus said was that his name was Gustave and he called Worstley “Pooboy.”
She then proceeded to make Worstley The Chosen One. When he admitted he had no idea what that might entail, she told him to go to the Earl’s tower where something important was being protected there.
As Worstley sets out, we start meeting more characters.
The Dark Lord is a (bad) wizard named Toby. At most he can summon (under cooked) breadstuffs. Toby has been trying to get two animals to hybridize, but is having no success. Toby is mis-delivered a letter meant for Grinda the Goode Witch. It is a letter of woe saying that the letter writer’s son (and Grinda’s nephew) Worstley has run off telling his parents that he is the Chosen One.
Toby’s takeaway is that There is now a Chosen One and he knows that if he can possess the heart of the Chosen One he would become an all-powerful wizard.
He calls his servant Poltro, a young girl with raven black hair and a raven black outfit to find the farm boy and bring him the boy’s heart. She can do what she likes with the goat. Poltro proves to be a very funny character. Dopey but intense. Mostly fearless (except for chickens) and with a real desire to eat goat curry.
Up next we meet Fia, a giant human in a tiny chain mail bikini. Sadly for her it was all she could afford (despite its impracticalities). She believed that this would be her her final mission after which she would settle down and tend to her flowers. Fia was a phenomenal smiter of evil. She has a sword that was enchanted with a thirst for blood which made her quite deadly. And really she did feel bad about that.
Fia arrived at a tower to find it covered in deadly ivy. She saw bones and warrior parts all around the ground. But she had a mission, so up she went. As she got up further she grabbed onto a rope. It was human hair. This freaked her out and she let go, falling to the ground. Fortunately for her, the lading was soft. Unfortunately for Worstley he was the landing spot. For he was going to try entering that castle himself.
Oh boy did Fia feel bad about this ans she hoped she could do something to save him.
But so, while Toby sent Poltro to kill the farm boy, Fia accidentally killed him in the first 30 pages of the book. We haven’t even met one of the main characters yet.
Inside the castle, everyone was asleep. And had been for five years. The only person awake was Argabella, a (terrible) bard. I love Argabella because of the way she thinks in bardlike language: “A Threatful figure approaches.”
That Threatful figure was Fia and Fia was headed to the Rose room, the room that Agrabella was meant to protect. Unfortunately, Argabella is no match for Fia, because Fia is a huge warrior and Argabella is …half rabbit. The curse that put her village to sleep also turned her into a half rabbit–human sized with fur and rabbit features. The witch that put that curse on everyone is none other than Grinda the Sand Witch. (She has her reasons).
As Fia and Agrabella start talking, they realize they had a lot in common, both are vegetarian, both love flowers (when Gustave hears this he knows he is safe with these two). When Fia learns of the curse, she decides that if they can get Grinda to come lift the curse, maybe she can save Worstley as well.
Soon enough Poltro met Gustave and they were all introduced to Toby who fed them well and then wanted to know what their plans were–he was quite interested in the half human half rabbit. When Fia explained their quest was to go to Grinda and have her reverse the spell for Agrabella’s village, they all more or less thought it would be a good idea (except for Toby because he is a coward).
The first stop is in the village of Morningwood (teehee) an elfen village. Notoriously, elves are snooty and these two elves, Sylvinadrielle and Bargolas, think these people are pretty dumb–I mean they fall for the sneezing powder trick.
Cowardly Toby thinks they should turn around after the elves, but Fia won’t hear if it and they press on and encountered Faktio the giant who would very much like to eat them. It is through Agrabella’s developing use of powerful songs full of suggestion that they are able to escape in a very disgusting way.
Escaping Faktri means gaining entrance to Gridna’s compound. Grinda, upon learning of Staph’s turning Worstley into the Chosen One and then of Worstley’s death, decides to join them.
This book is full of wordplay, by the way. The tagline for the story is Once. A pun. A time. Obviously there’s the Sand Witch and a whole bunch of other puns. But my favorite language joke comes when they enter the catacombs of Yör. Our heroes cannot pronounce the umlaut, which just get them in a whööööööööle heap of trouble.
There’s also a lot of poo jokes because Gustave is a goat and he likes to leave pellets where he goes. Sometimes as a matter of nature but other times to express his displeasure.
And the burgeoning romance between Fia and Agrabella (her honey bunny) is so sweet and tender. I loved reading when the two of them were together.
After much fighting, another character dies–in a rather surprising way. Indeed this book is not afraid to kill of characters–they do tend to return as ghosts though, so its okay.
The happiest moments come when they make it to the Braided Beard, a dwarf pub that insists on a cleansing warm bath before entering. Thing are great until Staph shows up and causes grief for them. The peaceful Inn was about the get Deathful and the world felt quite Doomful.
Our heroes scatter and each has a revelation of their own. Including Gustave who gets to indulge in a golden boot.
This book is very funny–so much word play, and many unexpected twists and angles. The upending of fairy tale convention is also very welcomed.
I’m really looking forward to book two in the series and I’m going to have to investigate some of these authors’ other series too.
This book is childishly dirty. It’s certainly fine for YA reader and can even be good for younger teens. The dirty jokes are on the level of Mroningwood–funny if you’re in the know but otherwise easily glossed over
Leave a Reply