SOUNDTRACK: LINDA DIAZ-Tiny Desk Concert (October 5, 2020).
In the past I’ve been quite aware of the Tiny desk Contest winner. But this year, with the pandemic , it passed me by completely.
So I don’t know anything about Diaz or any of the other competitors, except for what I just looked up now.
And I find it a little cheaty that she won because
Diaz actually made an appearance at the Tiny Desk last year, as a backup singer for Jordan Rakei.
However, she seems very nice and I’m happy for her that she won, especially after reading the blurb she wrote for this concert.
At one point, we finally had everything set and ready to go. Then, days before the shoot, I tested positive for COVID-19. I will spare you all the details (lots of tears, lots of phone calls), but I am so grateful for my band, the NPR Music team and the Javits Center for going above and beyond for me, the human as much as me, the musician.
That’s right, the Javits Center. This set is filmed on op of the Javits Center fifty days before the election. That’s September 15–potentially a chilly day to be on top of a New York City building. Also, who knew the top of the Javits Center was green and lush?
But more important than any of that is this quote that she reiterates in the set and mentioned earlier this year, that “Black joy is radical.”
“I do think it is a radical thing to be like, ‘I’m happy and I’m focusing on my joy and I’m focusing on my purpose and I’m not necessarily focusing on an audience or what other people want from me,’ ” she says. “But truly, I am recognizing the things in my life that are good, and many of those things are coming from my community. I think in that way, it’s super radical to love yourself as a Black person in this time.”
She sings three songs from her Magic EP. She says that the EP was inspired by her favorite book The Ten Loves of Nishino Paperback by Hiromi Kawakami. I find it a little strange that he favorite book came out only last year but whatever.
I don’t know a lot about R&B (duh), so I can’t honestly see what would have set her apart from the 6,000 other entries. Her voice is lovely. Her songs, like “Magic” are gentle and sweet. But I don’t find her any more memorable than many other singers.
Having said that, her Tiny Desk Contest winning song “Green Tea Ice Cream” is really catchy and of the three is the most musically interesting. It opens (like the other two songs) with sprinkling of gentle keys from Jade Che and a mildly funky bass from “Fat Mike” Mike Fishman (who co wrote and produced the record). Her backing singers, Bianca B. Muniz and Jacqueline A. Muniz (the only two who aren’t socially distanced up there because they are sisters) really shine in their backing vocals here.
Throughout the set drummer Andrés Valbuena plays some cool drums and percussion sounds, but they really stand out on this song.
After showing some of the personal effects she brought with her (I wonder if doing the Tiny Desk here instead of at the actual desk with the in house audience was less nerve-wracking), she encourages everyone to vote.
Then it’s on to the final song “Honesty” which is about “speaking your mind and talking about what’s important to you and communicating with others and how that’s a really scary thing to do.”
The set is pleasant and enjoyable, but far less memorable than past winners.
[READ: October 2, 2020] “The Forbidden Words of Margaret A.”
During the COVID Quarantine, venerable publisher Hingston & Olsen created, under the editorship of Rebecca Romney, a gorgeous box of 12 stories. It has a die-cut opening to allow the top book’s central image to show through (each book’s center is different). You can get a copy here. This is a collection of science fiction stories written from 1836 to 1998. Each story imagines the future–some further into the future than others. As it says on the back of the box
Their future. Our present. From social reforms to climate change, video chat to the new face of fascism, Projections is a collection of 12 sci-fi stories that anticipated life in the present day.
About this story, Romney writes
In this story an imprisoned Black woman is forbidden to speak because her words are too powerful. I’m including it here for two reasons. First, because it captures my central theme of predicting not just individual pieces so technology, but also what t feels like living in 2020. I read this story an I recognized its truth: that a woman’s words can be powerful, but they can just as often be viewed as dangerous. The second reason I included it is because it is really, really good.
Romney is right, this story is really, really good. It is also pretty simply summed up by her first sentence.
The story is written as a report for The National Journalists’ Association for the Recovery of The Freedom of the Press.
The report is from the journalist who was able to meet Margaret A. in prison.
In the Introduction, the journalist explains that she has been influenced by the Margaret A. case since she was younger (she was 19 when Margaret A. was imprisoned). But most fascinatingly:
Though it was the most important event in my life… I can’t remember any of her words. I was too young and naïve at the time to hold onto newspapers and the ad hoc ephemera figures like Margaret A. invariably generate, and certainly never dreamed that her words could be expunged from the internet. And like most people I ever dreamed a person’s words could become illegal.
First off, wow, what a chilling (and suddenly very real) possibility that one’s words could become illegal.
Second, this story was written in 1980. According to the Open Book Project
The term “Internet” was first used in 1974 to describe a single global TCP/IP network detailed in the first full specification of TCP written by Cerf and his colleagues. The first TCP/IP-wide area network was created on January 1, 1983.
How was Duchamp so prescient?
Back to the story. The reporter has been a journalist for years and is fully aware of the government’s rules and “tricks” regarding how she will meet Margaret A.
There’s some details: Margaret A. permits only one photo-op a month from a carefully screened (by the government) applicant pool. They feel compelled to allow at least one visit a month because
Beyond obliterating Margaret A’s words, I would argue that the government places the next highest priority on preventing the public form perceiving Margaret A. as a martyr.
The Bureau of Prisons believes that censoring Margaret A. so thoroughly will prevent younger people from caring about her. But the narrator believes that the next generation is suspicious of a cover up and looking for forbidden fruit. And young people believe that the Margaret A. amendment is a cover up anyway.
The amendment is officially called “The Limited Censorship for the Prevention of National Security Act.” But the point of the amendment is only to obliterate Margaret A.’s words. Anti free-speech activists call it the “Save American Amendment” while free speech activists call it the “Anti-Free Speech Amendment.”
She gets to the prison and has to use the government’s (crappy) recording equipment and is told that literally no words from Margaret A.s mouth will be permitted outside the walls. The set up is so lengthy and arduous that by the time she actually gets in to see Margaret A., it is a let down because “Margaret A. has not a charismatic cell in her body.”
Worse yet, she is allowed no recording devices, so she can’t even remember exactly what Margaret A. said in answer to her questions. Nor can anyone else in the room as they try to piece the answers together. Then there is a de-briefing afterwards where each person in the room is separated.
And yet somehow, Margaret A.’s mundane responses and her non-answers seem to resonate.
The ending is fantastic and inspiring.
I definitely need to check out more from this fascinating author L. Timmel Duchamp.
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