SOUNDTRACK: BILLIE EILISH-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #71 (August 26, 2020).
There’s so much to say about this Billie Eilish concert.
The biggest artist in the world has just done a Tiny Desk Concert!
Somehow it looks like she’s in the Tiny Desk studio!
Why does she only play two songs?
My daughter and I were supposed to see her back in March and she cancelled her tour about three nights before our show was supposed to happen. What a bummer! Especially because who knew if people would even want to see her again in a year (I’m pretty sure they will). And would her stage show and song style change over that year?
The answer to that seems to be a dramatic yes. Especially if these two songs are anything to go by.
For these two songs Billie embraces her torch song inner child. She has a really lovely voice–delicate and emotional.
These songs are personal and lovely–there’s no “Duhs,” there’s no snark. Compared to what I expected, they were kind of dull, actually. Very pretty, but kind of dull.
These are the two new singles. For “my future” Billie plays keyboards and her “real brother” Finneas plays guitar and sings some backing vocals.
On “everything i wanted” they switch places, with Finneas playing the pretty piano melody and providing a lot of nice backing vocals.
These two songs seem like they would go very nicely in the middle of a set of bangers for a few moments of cool down. I hope when her show is rescheduled that she still brings all the excitement I;d heard her shows typically have.
As for the background…at first I thought it was just a cute idea. But after six months, it was really comforting to have musicians look like they were playing the actual Tiny Desk.
[READ: August 28, 2020] Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball
This is the book that started my resurgence into reading Wimpy Kid books. I bought this one for my daughter. This story had me laughing out loud once again.
This book has a lot to do with the Heffley’s house. I don’t know if middle school kids can appreciate jokes about household maintenance, but as an adult I sure can.
The book opens with Greg’s mom wanting to do some cleaning up. That means going through the closet in Greg’s room. He tells us that he basically just throws things into it, so it’s like an archaeological dig.
He starts sifting through things and finds old toys and things to feel sentimental about which is pretty funny. But with all this junk, he decided that rather than throw it out, he should make some money off of it and have a garage sale. Cue: Family Frolic magazine and their “great” ideas for a garage sale. [I love when he makes fun of this magazine].
Greg has labelled his tables in creative ways: “Great gifts for your grandkids”(stuff from his grandparents that he doesn’t want). “Pre-written birthday cards” (with his name white-outed). Mystery socks (which is just a pile of junk for 50 cents) and Rare Items (like an invisibility lotion and a freckle remover (an eraser or soap I guess)).
He’s also got a table full of all the lame gifts that Rowley’s parents gave him over the years on a table labelled “Gifts for Nerds.”
Things go pretty well, but then comes the perennial curse of the garage sale–rain. Well, that and the neighbor form Whirley Street who assumes everything on the lawn is garage and starts loading it up in his trunk.
Greg tells us what his ideal house would be like–all underground so people don’t suspect it is huge. It has a pool, a basketball court and a movie room among other things. There’s even a clear bathtub that rests on an aquarium-sized tank of fish.
There’s a hilarious side joke throughout the book about a monster called The Grout. Greg once overheard his parents saying “the grout is really nasty.” He had no idea what grout was and he imagined a scary monster.
Less funny is that Greg’s Aunt Reba dies. Greg had no idea who she is, but the whole family is going to the funereal. The punchline of what happens when the funeral service ends totally cracked me up.
The rest of the book is based upon the fact that Aunt Reba gave them a chunk of money for an inheritance,
Rodrick wants anew van for Löded Diper (I loved that hes’s still in the band); Dad wants expensive figures for his Civil War diorama; Manny wants a pool filled with chocolate pudding. Greg shows off his dream house or suggests an expansion on their own house so everyone gets their on floor. But no, Greg’s mom wants this to be a family decision which means they are getting a new kitchen.
But there’s other problems in their house as well. Like the hot tub which has caused so many problem–like when Rodrick fell asleep in it or when the lid blew off taking Greg with it or, worse yet, the wasps nest.
Finally, the construction crew comes to work on the house. When Manny swipes a credit card in the plumber crack, I thought I’d die laughing.
What could possibly go wrong with construction? Well, aside form the workers using the family bathroom and ruining the neighbor’s flower bed, there’s also newly poured concrete the gets trodden on several times. There’s a the fire(!) that Greg starts. (Watching Manny rescue himself is also hilarious).
Oh and some neighbors don’t like the noise and some neighbors don’t like the late hours. Oh and oops, it looks like the house is actually over their property line!
And somehow, Manny has taken all of the scrap wood and built a playhouse for himself that’s nicer than the addition!
The wrecking ball on the cover comes when they are going to knock a hole through the wall to connect the addition to the house. Or more accurately it doesn’t come, much to Rodrick’s disappointment–he wanted to film it for his band’s video. They workers just used a power saw.
The work has them so upset that Greg’s mom just want to move. Nobody else wants to move and leave everything they know. But when they see a new house, they fall in love with it. They easily find buyers for their old house and, holy cow, is Greg really going to move? Leave Rowley? Leave school? Leave everything he knows? It sure looks like it.
I even wondered if this was how the series was going to end now that Kinney has been working on Rowley’s books.
This book was terrific and very funny.
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