SOUNDTRACK: MAX RICHTER-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #150 (January 22, 2021).
I really enjoyed Max Richter’s Tiny Desk Concert back in January of last year. The pieces were pretty and sad and had a modern classical feel.
For his Home Concert, he seems to be one of the few people who actually plays in his home.
Shot in artful black and white, their simplicity and beauty invite us into a world as we once knew it, where fresh air wafts through open doors and dogs peacefully snooze (canine cameos by Evie and Haku) in the late summer sunshine in southern England.
These half-dozen short pieces can offer two very different modes of experience. There’s a mysterious potency in instrumental music, where the mind is open to wander and free-associate. Max Richter taps into that power with singular grace and humanity.
His entire set is 16 minutes, so indeed all of these pieces are quite short.
He played “Vladimir’s Blues” when he was at the Tiny Desk. There’s no blurb about it here, but the first time, the blurb told us
Its delicately toggling chords are an homage to novelist Vladimir Nabokov who, in his spare time, was a respected lepidopterist, obsessed with a subfamily of gossamer-winged butterflies called the blues. Richter plays the piano with the practice pedal engaged for a warm, muted sound.
It’s a 2004 piece that’s only a minute and a half and it is quite lovely.
Up next are the
gently swaying chords of “Origins,” where the music lumbers in the lower half of the keyboard.
It reminds me a lot of a famous piano piece which I can’t quite remember the name of. After about three minutes of the piece, one of the dogs who had been lying outside gets up and walks almost up to the camera.
Infra is a ballet he made with Wayne MacGregor for the Royal ballet in London in 2008.
He plays the “soothing, oscillating figures” of “Infra 3” and follows it with the mellow but more upbeat “Horizon Variations.” This piece also lasts less than two minutes as well. It’s lovely.
“Prelude 6” from Voices which has a much faster melody than the other pieces. About half way through, the other dog (who looks like a puppy) comes in all tail-wagging and heads over to dog number 1 (both off camera now).
“Fragment” is a pretty, sad piece to end the set (also about a minute in a half). As he signs off he says
“Looking forward to the time when gigs can come back and we can do this for real,”
As the video ends, both dogs get up and walk into the lovely sunshine.
[READ: March 1, 2021] Klawde: Evil Alien Cat
I saw this book at the library (actually I saw book 5, I think) and thought it sounded funny. They had book one so I decided to start from the beginning.
The title says it (almost) all. Klawde is an evil alien warlord cat. The book opens on the planet Lyttyrboks where Klawde (whose Lyttyrboks name is Wyss-Kuzz) is on trial. He is found guilty of clawing his way to power and committing crimes against felinity.
The elder says that thousands of years ago the punishment’s on Lyttyrboks was banishment to a vast wasteland of a planet inhabited by a race of carnivorous ogres. For generations they sent their convicts there, but eventually that punishment was deemed to cruel. However, given the severity of Wyss-Kuzz’s crimes, they have resurrected this punishment. He is transported across the galaxy to the horrible planet known as Earth.
Alternating chapters are written from the point of view of Klawde’s and an earth boy named Raj. Raj’s family recently moved from Brooklyn to Elba, Oregon and he is bored and alone. So when a spaceship lands in front of his house and the doorbell rings… well how exciting to find a cat without a tag. Even if this cat meows like nothing he’s ever heard before and seems kind of mean.
The book is full of illustrations by Chenoweth. I love the wickedness of Klawde and Raj’s parents are a hoot as well.
Klawde sees the humans as furless ogres and fears what they will do to him. They put him in a cage (kitty carrier) and force him to eat horrible food–what is this torture? Raj’s dad names him: “like clawed, but spelled in a more exciting way. Why use a C when you could use a K? K is the alphabet’s party letter.”
Raj’s mom doesn’t like cats, but agrees to let Raj keep Klawde if he agrees to go to the Survival Camp next week–build a shelter, track wild animals, test the limits of your mental and physical endurance! For Raj this sounds terrible. But he agrees.
The rest of the book alternates between Raj’s terrifying experiences at camp and Klawde’s attempts to get back home to take over his home planet again. The only way he can do that is to reveal that he can speak English (after mind melding with Raj).
The first two dozen or so chapters of Klawde trying to cope with being a cat in human world were really hilarious–he is so offended at the idea of a litterbox especially since he can us the toilet (and read the Wall Street Journal). He also can’t believe what has happened to his planet’s descendants they’ve all been domesticated and have lost all language ability except for a meaningless Mrow.
I really enjoyed this early “getting used to earth” part and would have liked it to go on for longer, but there was a plot to get to.
Obviously Raj is pretty psyched to have talking alien cat who describes himself as a “kind alien warlord.” But he has no one to tell about it–and Klawde would punish him if he did anyway.
Raj has worse things to worry about though. Camp Eclipse is a run by a psychopath who goes by Turkey Vulture (that’s his forest name). Raj befriends (sort of) two kids at Camp, Cedar (her forest name) and Wolf (his real name, so his forest name is Steve). Raj has to find a forest name of the top of his head and says Raaaaa… ttt? Rat. Steve thinks it’s a cool name.
Turkey Vulture explains that the kids have to fight for themselves because soon the world will be destroyed and they will have to survive as best they can. He eventually puts them into groups. Raj and his two new friends seem to be positioned against particularly nasty kids who go by Snake and Scorpion.
A very funny subplot in all of this is that Turkey Vulture hates cats because they kill songbirds. He believes they should never be allowed out of homes and should be wiped off the planet.
Eventually Klawde manages to create a teleporter to send him back home. He plans to take Raj with him (with a giant human as his slave he can rule forever). And Raj is so miserable about his life and the camp that he wants to go along. Although when Klawde learns that Raj is too big to fit in the teleporter (and will probably explode) it changes plans.
The final night at the camp is a survival night–staying out all night in a shelter you have built. There is also a surprise game in which everyone is trying to capture your name tag–the last person with a name tag wins. Who knows what happens to the losers.
I enjoyed the way the two threads tied together in the end and I’m really looking forward to the next book.
And be sure to read the author and artist bios!
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