SOUNDTRACK: RAE KHALIL-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #171 (February 18, 2021).
Rae Khalil was a contestant on Netflix’s music competition show, Rhythm + Flow. I distrust anyone who wins a music TV show, but I really liked Khalil’s music.
She is recording in Harun Coffee in the historic Leimert Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Khalil’s set is a colorful explosion of talent, perfectly complimenting the funky patchwork and textures of her attire.
She calls her band The ill, and they are pretty great, in particular the fantastic bass work from both Dominick Cruz and special guest Kelsey Gonzalez of The Free Nationals (they switch mid set).
“Way Down” opens with retro keys from Elyzr and grooving bass (from Gonzalez) and a fiddly guitar solo from Takoda Barraza (on a nifty green Steinberger guitar). Khalil has a great delivery throughout–quiet, understated and yet powerful too. Drummer Nico Vasquez sets a killer rhythm throughout, too.
“Tiny Desk! Happy Black History Month!,” rapper, singer and songwriter Rae Khalil exclaims before gliding into “FATHER,” from her LP Fortheworld.
“FATHER” has a lengthy jazzy keyboard intro from Elyzr. When Khalil sings, her delivery is understated on this one as well, although she occasionally lifts her voice into a kind of croon. Dominick Cruz plays a jazzy guitar solo.
Sticking to the “inspiration” theme of our Black History Month celebration, she recites an excerpt from Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again.” The 86-year-old words still read painfully relevant for many Black people in this country today.
Her reading of this poem is really good. I wasn’t familiar with it and I can’t believe it is 86 years old. I thought it was quite possible she had just written it, it felt so disturbingly contemporary.
The Torrance, California native’s musical theater background shines through here; she exudes an array of emotions in a span of minutes on tracks like “UP LATE” and “MARIA,” making it impossible to look away.
“UP LATE” has an outSTANDING bass line from Dominick Cruz. Rae starts the song singing softly , but with speedy delivery. Then she takes off! Dramatically singing/rapping/laughing/pausing and then on a drop of a hat, “MARIA” shifts tones and she starts scatting along to the gentle jazzy music.
Vasquez get a few mini drum solos in the middle before the song takes off again and then ends with a jazzy bass solo from Cruz. It’s fun watching her dance in he big bell bottoms.
This was a really great Tiny Desk and while it won’t get me to watch any reality music programs, I will acknowledge the success of this performer (although she didn’t even come in the top 8, so the heck with that).
[READ: March 30, 2021] Charlie Thorne and the Lost Island
This is the second book in the Charlie Thorne series. I had not read the first one but S. told me that I would love it and that the first book wasn’t necessary for the enjoyment of this book. And that was absolutely true. This story does follow that one, but it is wholly independent and anything that needs to be filled in from the previous adventure is dealt with pretty handily.
So who is Charlie Thorne? She is a genius. She is a fugitive. She is not yet thirteen.
I have not read any Stuart Gibbs before (except for one short story), but I understand his Spy School is a great series. I have to hand it to him right away for writing such a cool and compelling protagonist for this series. And also for having a story with so much fascinating information included.
As the book opens, Charlie is surfing off a small island near the equator. She chose this location because it is very remote. She needs to be remote because of what happened in the previous book (she has a piece of information that everyone from the CIA to a dozen other international cartels would kill for).
She assumed she was safe, but knew she wouldn’t be for very long–nowhere was totally hidden. But while she’s here, she’s going to learn to surf.
Gibbs using surfing to show off Charlie’s brain power. She has never surfed before but because she is so smart–so good at using numbers to read nature–she never misses a wave and never wipes out. The locals think she might be a demon. I enjoyed the way he uses her skill at figuring out angles and pacing and such in several later scenarios.
While she is out in the water she sees a speed boat heading toward the island. It’s an unusual sight and she knows something is amiss. So she heads back to her tiny rented shack (she has a lot of money from something she did on the previous book as well). When she gets there, a woman is waiting on her porch.
Esmerelda is a researcher from the Darwin Research Station–a Tortoise Sanctuary. She says that they have found a tortoise carapace that has a code carved into it by Charles Darwin! Darwin features quite prominently in this story–you will definitely learn some things about the man.
Charlie had volunteered at the Research Station and when the scientists couldn’t crack the code on the shell, they thought of her since she was always solving puzzles.
While they were talking, Charlie gathered her things and noticed the three big, dangerous-looking men heading towards her door. She told Esmerelda that they needed to go to the Research Station so she could look at the shell in person. This is one of those fun things where she uses deductive reasoning to determine that Esmerelda has a plane nearby–she didn’t come by boat (too noisy), she looked well put together (short flight), the plane was nearby (not many places to park a seaplane). They jumped out the back window to Esmerelda’s plane while Charlie armed a booby trap.
The man in charge of the trio of dangerous men was Ivan Spetz. He was Russian but had lived as a spy in Central America for so long that he thought (and dreamed) in Spanish. But he still worked for Russia and was hired to get Charlie back–alive. he is impressed by the booby trap, but also realizes that they aren’t very far ahead of them.
Charlie is able to figure out the tortoise shell clue pretty easily and she encourages Esmerelda to fly them to Quito. They head to the spot where the next clue is (how did Gibbs knows about al this minutiae) but before they can plan their next move, Esmerelda double crosses Charlie. There’s also a fairly amazing moment where Charlie is able t o tell that Esmerelda is from a region of Italy because there are families there who genetically evolved to not feel pain–is that true?)
Charlie is not only smart she is also in good shape and she is able to escape this desperate situation. But Ivan Spetz is also smart and quickly figures out where their seaplane landed and he gets Quito not long after them.
Now, with the answer to the next puzzle in her mind she is chased through the streets of Quito by two cars.
But the real surprise is that one of the cars is driven by two CIA agents: Dante Garcia and Milana Moon. These two were very important in the first book (and Charlie is Dante’s half sister). Dante has a crush on Milana, but Milana is a wonderfully stoic character who I rather enjoyed.
The next clue sends them to the Napo River in the Amazonian rainforest (you will learn a bunch about the rainforest in this book).
So it turns out that when Darwin was on his expedition on the HMS Beagle in 1835, he found the “The Greatest Treasure in Human History.” The prologue shows him bringing something on board the Beagle while being chased by Incans. He sacrificed al of his other findings for this treasure. But when the captain of the Beagle saw what it was, he immediately destroyed it. Charlie and Dante also know about Darwin’s silence on the matter–and how it affected his publication of his theory of evolution.
And so Charlie, Dante and Milana follow the clues into the rainforest. They are followed (unbeknownst to them) by Ivan and Esmerelda who have joined forces (under duress). They are also followed by a third team–local oil men who suspect something big is going down and they want a part of it.
Everyone assumes the treasure is gold–a lost Incan city of gold. But Charlie believes that the treasure is something very different–perhaps a link to the explanation of evolution?
For a children’s book this story has a pretty high body count. People die in many different ways–bullets, explosions, snakes, crashes, and even wild animals. None of it is graphic, but it’s still pretty surprising.
As is what Charlie and her team find–and how they deal with it.
The story was very exciting with lots of twists and turns. And it was great to see Charlie’s superbrain at work–I always enjoy when a clever writer is able to keep things exciting.
For some reason I never felt like Charlie’s life was in real danger (Is it because she’s a kid? Or because this is a book and I can see how much is left Or was I just not allowing myself to get fully swept up in the book–definitely not that one. Whatever the case, even though I never thought she was in real peril, the excitement of the adventure and wondering how she would get out of it was very real.
I have already checked out the first book (and obviously I know she survives that one, but I ‘m very intrigued by the first mission). I have also checked out Spy School to see what other kind of cool stuff Gibbs writes about.
[…] (observations and deductions.) I was delighted that Paul also read this and you can read his review here (but there are many spoilers, be warned.) Without giving anything away I’m going to say that […]