SOUNDTRACK: JACK INGRAM, MIRANDA LAMBERT, JON RANDALL: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #226 (June 21, 2021).
The sight of three people with guitars wearing cowboy hats meant that I wouldn’t enjoy this set. (At least it was only ten minutes).
Having said that, while there’s something I instinctively dislike about Lambert (she always looks really smug and/or pissed off), her voice is quite nice and not terribly twangy.
I think I’ve heard of Jack Ingram, but possibly not Jon Randall.
After collaborating on “Tin Man” from Lambert’s 2016 record The Weight Of These Wings … the artists spent five days last November recording in Marfa, Texas. In this (home) concert, the trio turns its quarantine album, The Marfa Tapes, into a quarantine Tiny Desk set, complete with a well-appointed desk in the corner of the frame.
They play three mid-tempo songs with pretty guitars, pretty melodies and nice harmonies.
They start with “Waxahachie.” But in the way that hearing an okay cover of a song makes you want to hear the original, this song made me want to listen to the band Waxahatchee instead.
“Tin Man” (“Our award-winning song,” Lambert jokes. The track won the 2018 Academy of Country Music Award for song of the year) is a fine song. I’m not sure what led it to winning an award, though.
At its conclusion, Lambert lets out a laugh and the trio exchange knowing glances before finishing the show with “In His Arms.”
“In His Arms” is one of Lambert’s favorites on the disc. It has a pretty guitar melody from Jon Randall (I guess I’m supposed to know which guy was which since they were never introduced). There’s some really nice harmonies on this song as well.
[READ: June 28, 2021] The Herd
Every once in a while I get to see some new books that come into work. I saw this one and was intrigued by it. I hadn’t heard of Bartz, but the book sounded exciting.
Then by the time I got around to reading it, I forgot that it was a thriller, and I found myself getting really invested in the characters. The story was such a delightful book of female empowerment that I was really surprised when it turned into a mystery.
The story is about four women. Eleanor Walsh is CEO of The Herd, an elite, women-only coworking space. After making her fortune with a women-friendly cosmetic line, she established The HERd [capitalization intended] as a place where women could work side by side, bouncing ideas off of each other. She became a feminist icon. And was accordingly hated by insecure men–including an online group called the Anti-herd.
Mikki Danziger is a college friend of Eleanor’s. She is an artist, and she creates most of the visuals for The Herd. She’s a little annoyed that she (one of Eleanor’s oldest and best friends) isn’t on the payroll–Eleanor keeps her as an independent contractor. But aside from that she is thrilled to share in Eleanor’s success.
As is Hana Bradley. Hana is the third of the above trio of women who all went to Harvard together. They have been best friends since college. Hana is a PR specialist and she has managed to keep Eleanor out of trouble as she works to expand her business. She is also a n independent contractor.
Hana’s younger sister Katie is also a friend of the others. They initially took her in as a little sister. But when Hana went to the West Coast for grad school. Katie filled in the gap and they embraced her as an equal.
The story is written from alternating points of view from Katie and Hana. As the book opens Katie has just returned to New York City after spending a year in Michigan taking care of their ailing mother. (It’s very funny how everyone asks her how Minnesota was–all the Midwest is the same to a busy New Yorker). Everyone knows that Katie has been researching a book in Michigan about an upstart tech company. Katie is hush hush about it and we soon realize that something terrible happened and she doesn’t want to talk about it.
I enjoyed the writing style immediately: “Hana enters the room like Lily Tomlin in n ’80s office comedy. “Katie!,” she cried, arms wide.” Katie has arrived at the Herd to speak to Eleanor about becoming a member (it’s not easy to do, there is a long waiting list). But things are not great at The HERd because someone has spray painted the words ugly cunts on one of the walls. No one can figure out who did it–they circumvented the security system. The c-word is one that Eleanor finds particularly odious.
But Eleanor, when they meet, seems unfazed by the trouble. She seems unfazed by anything in fact (Katie refers to this as Tele-nor, always on for the cameras.
After Katie leaves, Eleanor confides in Hana, asking if Hana thinks that Katie is HERd material. They both know that Katie has a tendency to go off on rants on social media–she snot exactly the kind of person that Eleanor is trying to cultivate at the HERd. She also says that The HERd has a big announcement in a few weeks. It’s HUGE and she can’t tell anyone about it–not even Hana.
What I loved about this story was the way everyone had secrets and Bartz doles them out very grudgingly. So you knew that something terrible had happened with Katie back in Michigan, but you don’t know what (you do find out eventually).
There’s also a whole bunch of secrets that the college girls got up to back in the day. Some are minor, some are major, and some are life-altering.
When Eleanor goes missing, there’s a lot of possibilities for who had taken her (including the fact that she may have just run off on her own–something she’s done before).
We know that a lot of people had a reason to hate Eleanor. Obviously many men hated her (she had a whole site devoted to hating her). One of the pictures passed around the anti-herd is a photo of Eleanor from when she was a teenager. Who could have access to that? She has a few ex boyfriends–one of whom had recently come out of rehab. She’s also got a husband who seems too nice.
Despite the seriousness of the mystery there’s a lot of humor involved, including from the police officers who help out as well as Eleanor’s parents. The parents invite all the girls up to their house for the holidays–they don’t wan to be alone while they wait for news. Old feelings and truths are brought up and much awkwardness ensues.
I really enjoyed this story a lot, but I’m left with a strange feeling overall. I loved that the story was about strong powerful women, and that Eleanor was able to do so much and ruffle so many feathers along the way. But it’s slowly revealed that she stepped on other women on he way up, kind of undermining the whole premise of her space.
I guess real women have flaws too.
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