SOUNDTRACK: MILEY CYRUS–Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #161 (January 28, 2021).
I’m quite torn about Miley Cyrus. I respect her individuality and her desire to push boundaries (and her Happy Hippie Foundation [created to rally young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations] is pretty great). But sometimes I don’t always love her choices.
In all that time I’ve never given much attention to her music. She was a pop singer (or worse, a country singer) and that was that.
Now, after getting mixed up with The Flaming Lips, who even knows what she’s up to.
For her Tiny Desk Concert (I can’t believe it’s barely over 11 minutes when so many other have done them over 20) she has built a tiny room, complete with a bed and a window and posters on the wall. The room itself is probably three feet high and Miley, bedecked in a fascinating array (fake, one assumes) furs an leopard skin pants and a big hat and glasses.
The blurb gives rather an extensive narrative to Cyrus’ video
Here, the scene opens with Cyrus, dressed head to toe in rock-star faux fur, in what looks like a teenage girl’s bedroom. But the perspective in this pink-and-purple space feels a little … odd. As Cyrus sings, it becomes clear that this is her Wonderland – like Alice full of magical cake, she’s grown to exceed her surroundings. By the end of this three-song set, Cyrus reveals that it’s the adolescent enclave that grew too small for her, not the other way around.
That give a lot of credit to a little video. But whatever. First she lounges on her bed and sings a pretty intense version of Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You.”
The original was pretty chill (and maybe a little boring) and Miley inject some powerful screams in the middle and her voice gets all raw. It adds some drama to an otherwise chill song. Or as the blurb says
a hazy psychedelic anthem that she infuses with just the edge of the next day’s hangover.
Up next are two songs from her latest album.
The two songs from Plastic Hearts that follow are her own bids at classic-rock timelessness.
In “Golden G-String” Cyrus assesses her own life in the spotlight with Leonard Cohen-esque charm.
She takes off her coat and hat (the video ifs filmed from different angles and there’s some overlapping edits.
This song is really quite catchy. I think Id like to hear the album version.
And “Prisoner” is the power ballad that lets Cyrus really break out – as she leaves the tiny room — just a box, it turns out, on a soundstage – and joins her band,
Her poor band is never really on camera. It pans around a little before prisoner–you see some hands and some hair of Stacy Jones: drums; Mike Schmid: keys; Max Bernstein: guitar; Jamie Arentzen: guitar and Joe Ayoub: bass.
“Prisoner” sounds like a classic rock song-maybe from Heart or Fleetwood Mac. This album is getting some good accolades and I might just have to check it out.
[READ: March 18, 2021] I Text Dead People
We brought this book home from the library for my daughter, but I found myself reading and (sort of) enjoying it.
Annabel Craven and her mother have just moved from Sacramento to this small town. They moved because Annabel’s Uncle died and left his house to them. Since they lived in a tiny apartment in Sacramento, her mom figured it was a step up. Except that their new house is actually a creepy old “haunted” house that is adjacent to a cemetery.
On her first day of school, Annabel took a shortcut through the cemetery where she found a phone. She had recently broken her phone and her mother was trying to teach her the value of things by making her save up for a new one.
Obviously, she will return this found phone to its owner, but until then, it might be nice to be able to communicate with people Sadly, the phone has no power so she couldn’t locate its owner anyhow.
I enjoyed that the new school is public but is super fancy and very private-like (it’s called Winchester Academy). There’s a very funny moment that actually proves to be a plot point. Annabel has been placed in the GATE program (Gifted and Talented Education). But when Annabel was taking the placement test for Winchester, she spaced out on the test and just filled in bubbles at random when the bell rang. She is falsely in GATE.
However, it is this placement in GATE that gets the attention of the most popular girls in school: the Ashbury Twins. Olivia has all the power, and Eden is actually kind of nice, but they are identically beautiful and intimidating. They invite her to the coffee shop-a one time offer to see if she’s cool.
But before the twins get in touch with Annabel, Annabel has befriended a quiet girl named Millie. Millie is super nice and tries to keep Annabel updated in what’s going on at school She of course, warns Annabel about the Ashbury twins. She says the Ashbury twins and their clique of pink-wearing girls are really mean.
But they aren’t mean to Annabel, exactly. They just expert her to do all of their homework, since she is so smart. See, not mean at all.
Most chapters are about Annabel, but every once in a while a chapter about Lucy comes up. Lucy is a perky, nerdy girl who is absolutely in love with John–a football plyer who is super popular and liked by everyone. He was all Lucy’s. He was the one, hers forever. How did she snag this guy? Well, most people forget she exists. She needed to find a group to do a project with and since no one raised their hands, it was John who invited her to work with them. That’s all it took for her to fall in love.
Unfortunately John does not feel the same way. He was actually a pretty nice, but wow, she went a little far with this whole business.
Annabel got home after that first day when suddenly the dead phone buzzed. It said Help. Anna tried to do anything else with the phone but no other buttons worked.
Shortly after there was a another buzz. I said I need your help Why won’t you help me?
Anna replied who are you trying to reach and the only reply was the word YOU.
After helping the twins, she is (begrudgingly) invited to a party at their house. It’s major. It even turns out that the twins love her mom–a hairdresser who does great work.
Everyone was invited to the party. Except Lucy. For reasons that are unexplained, Lucy is a major pariah at the school. Beyond being unmemorable, the twins actively dislike her.
On the afternoon before the party, Anna had sat with Lucy at lunch. Usually no one sits with Lucy (and she’s bitter about that). They didn’t become friend or anything but Lucy put her number in Annabel’s (presently not dead) phone.
Lucy didn’t care about the party. Because John told her to meet him in the cemetery that night. But while she was waiting there was a blinding light and then Lucy fell and fell into forever darkness.
The next day Anna got a text from Lucy. She said that Annabel is her only hope. Lucy’s parents are fighting and ignoring her.
The next day in school Annabel learns that Lucy died in the cemetery–she hit her head on a tombstone. The Ashbury twins are not sympathetic But wait, if Lucy was dead, how did she text Annabel? Especially since her phone is dead.
So basically Annabel has to convince Lucy that she is actually dead so she can rest in peace (and stop invading peoples bodies!)
So who can Annabel talk to about his? Her only real friend is Millie. Btu she doesn’t want Millie to think she’s crazy. And yet, Millie is super cool with the idea.
The more I fill in details about the story the more I see how poorly put together it is. I know that a children’s story is allowed to take some leaps of reality (especially in a book about texting dead people), but here’s a few things that are faulty.
The phone that Annabel found only seems to get powered up when ghosts are nearby (fine, I’ll allow it), but there is no power in the cemetery? And later we learn that the phone actually belongs to someone at the school, so why is it supernatural?
The characters are remarkably flat. Olivia is incredibly mean while her sister is a goth who lives in pink or something. And her clique is literally nonexistent. Again, it makes no sense that Lucy is ostracized–no background is given.
The biggest problem of course is that Lucy is essentially accidentally murdered by these kids but there is no consequence for anyone. There’s not even any remorse. Again, it’s a kids book, but man that’s dark.
Honestly it sounds like someone took the “I see dead people” quote, made a joke about texting dead people and then decided to sketch a plot around it.
The book seemed like it could be a lot of fun. The illustrations were certainly fun. And while I was reading it I didn’t feel the errors so forcefully, but with just a little poking, it seems like the book really didn’t make any sense.
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