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Archive for the ‘Aliens’ Category

Kazu Kibuishi–Amulet: Book Nine: Waverider (2024)

Posted in Aliens, Alternate Reality, Children's Books, Completed Series, Death, Dystopia, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Kazu Kibuishi, Mystery, Outer Space, Robots, Supernatural, Superstitions, Technology on February 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: February 2, 2024] Amulet: Waverider

It has been SIX YEARS since the previous book came out.  This has been a hotly anticipated release around our house as I got my wife into it and she has gotten a bunch of her students into it.  It’s crazy to think that the students who were reading the books in fifth grade are now in high school.

This book follows Emily as she combats the evil Ikol.  I had assumed that Ikol was the inverse of Loki, but later in the book he explains that it is an acronym–the Intelligent Kinematic Operations Laboratory (the place he was born).

But Emily’s plan is to undo all of the wicked things that Ikol has done to the citizens of this world.  Mostly that involves getting people to look inside of themselves and see their true nature.

Meanwhile Trellis and the elves are heading bac into their own territory.  They are smuggled in as sick prisoners suffering from (I love this) Empathitis.  When they get to the castle, it turns out that Gabilan is in power.  He expects a fight from Trellis, but Trellis says no, he is there to serve the rightfully appointed king.  Everyone is shocked. (more…)

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Hank Green–An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (2018) [audiobook 2018]

Posted in Aliens, Audiobooks, Death, End of the World, Hank Green, Kristen Sieh, Puzzles, Science, Scientists, Social Media, Technology, The Future, Violence on August 15, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: August 2023] An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Unlike apparently everyone in the world, I had no idea who Hank Green was when I started this book.  This came recommended to me by Chirp as a fun read an the plot sounded good so I gave it a try.

When I told my kids about it they knew who Hank Green was (they knew him and his brother rom Crash Course).  I also didn’t know who is brother was.  Well, that’s not true, I had heard of John Green but didn’t know they were brothers and I’ve not actually read anything by John.  So, no expectations.

I was immediately hooked by the narrator of the audiobook, Kristen Sieh. I had no idea who she was either (evidently she’s in a ton of things as well as doing audio books).  There was something about the vulnerability she gave to the main character April May, that I just couldn’t stop listening.

So the premise is fairly straightforward.  Except for the way the narrative is structured.  The story is told as if it were all true and the reader knows what happened already.  She is telling a kind of personal version of monumental events.  She even talks about the day she died.  So, what?

But aside from that the story is simple.  April May is an art student who is working a crap job in New York City.  She is heading home later one night when she notices a giant statue in the middle of the sidewalk.  She is about to pass it by, but she decides to call her friend Andy, a fellow art student and filmmaker, to come and film this thing.  He does and they make a goofy video which the post to YouTube.

In the video, April talks about this robot which she calls Carl and asks Andy (as if he is a passerby, what he thinks about this.

It’s all weird and who even know where this thing came from–is it an ad for a movie or what?  They put the video up and laugh about it. (more…)

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K. Eason–Night Watch on the Hinterlands [The Weep #1] (2021)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Aliens, Duology, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gender, K. Eason, Magic, Multiverse, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Science, Violence on June 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: April 2023] Night Watch on the Hinterlands

I absolutely loved K. Eason’s The Thorne Chronicles (How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse).  I had no idea that she had a new duology out until this book came to my desk at work.

I had audiobooked the first duology and loved the world that Nicole Poole read to me.

But now I was jumping in to the print version.  Shockingly for me I haven’t been reading many books this year.  I have gotten so into the audiobook world that I’ve been listening far more than I’ve been reading.  And in some respects it was hard to get into this book because there’s a lot of made up stuff here and you really have to get into the world and the vocabulary and it was a bumpy start for me.

This book is set in the same world as the Rory Thorne books.  Yes, that is true.  But it is set far in the future so there is no overlap with characters or anything like that.  So that was a bit of a bummer.

There’s a lot of “hard” science fiction in this story, which is probably more of the reason why it was hard to get into it.  I accepted the new world, but you have to learn so much to get up to speed with everything that it can feel like a slog even if you are flying through the pages.

There are two main characters in this book.

Lieutenant Iari is a tenju templar (which you have to learn about and which I don’t think I fully did, but tenju are rather large humanoid race with tusks).  She was orphaned during the Expansion War and joined the templars because she believed in their mission.  The war is over now and her primary purpose is to stop The Brood.  Brood are deadly, seemingly invisible monsters that have come through a rip in the Void (which you have to learn about).  The rip is called The Weep, and I feel like I never quite got the hang of how or why the Weep happened.  The one thing that was clear was that the vakari inadvertently created The Weep during the war. (more…)

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Kazu Kibuishi–Amulet: Book Eight: Supernova (2018)

Posted in Aliens, Alternate Reality, Children's Books, Death, Dystopia, Ghosts, Graphic Novel, Kazu Kibuishi, Mystery, Outer Space, Robots, Supernatural, Superstitions, Technology on February 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: February 2, 2018] Amulet: Supernova

It has been SIX YEARS since I read the previous book in the series and the final book isn’t even out yet!  When I finished book seven I wrote “How can I wait a year for book 8?  [Word has it Book 8 will come out in 2018].”   And in that year I totally forgot about this series.  Whoops.

So it was a little hard catching up to what was going on, but I managed.

The book opens with Trellis in a dream.  he meets an old woman traveler who guides him through his dream.  Before he wakes he asks if he will see her again–she says sooner than you expect.  When Trellis wakes, he is told the elf army has made landfall.

But when we see the army, led by a small creature named Logi, Logi tells the commander that their plan is surrender.  Trellis can’t believe it, but it appears to be true and they take the army into lock up. The city celebrates Trellis, but he is suspicious and he has every right to be because Logi has a token of the Elf King’s affection–a glowing object,

Which turns out to be a bomb of sorts.  (more…)

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K. Eason–How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge: Arithmancy and Anarchy: The Thorne Chronicles Series, Book 2 (2020) [audiobook 2020–Nicole Poole]

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Aliens, Assassination, Audiobooks, Deafness, Duology, Fairies, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gender, K. Eason, Magic, Multiverse, Nicole Poole, Outer Space, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Science, Violence on August 10, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: Summer 2021] How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge

The only thing better than finishing an awesome book is discovering that there’s a sequel and the quality and integrity of the sequel is just as strong as the original story.

Everything from the first story is in place here: the characters, the narrator, the tone, and, delightfully, Nicole Poole to read it.

Obviously, there are massive spoilers in this book for the first story.  So make sure you read that one first.

But to sum up, Rory successfully avoid an arranged marriage (while not upsetting her arranged husband).  She is able to shut down a coup on Urse and ultimately kick-starts a revolution.  Not bad for an under age Princess.

But she is done with being a Princess.  She rescinds her life and goes off to become a space pirate.  She has taken her former royal bodyguards, Thorsdottir and Zhang (so yes, there’s even more time given to these two great characters!) with her.  They pledge to protect Rory so they guess they just go with her?  And Jaed has come along with them too, mostly because he has nowhere else to go (literally) and he crushes on Rory, too.

So Rory’s team aren’t so much space pirates as do-gooders.  They are more like salvagers who might intercept smugglers (this is the equivalent of her telling her mom she’s going to follow Phish and make jewelry).

And for all concerned, Grytt is still in the story although as it starts, she is on Lanscott farming sheep (!) with Rory’s former betrothed Ivar (!!) former crow prince of the Free Worlds of Tadesh {No they are not “together” Grytt is mostly just minding the poor boy while she is “relaxing”).  Grytt by the way needed more implants after the last book and is probably 3/5 mecha to human.  Which she seems to prefer, honestly. (more…)

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K. Eason–How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse: Arithmancy and Anarchy: The Thorne Chronicles Series, Book 1 (2019) [audiobook 2019–Nicole Poole]

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Aliens, Assassination, Audiobooks, Deafness, Fairies, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gender, K. Eason, Magic, Multiverse, Nicole Poole, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Science, Violence on August 9, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: Summer 2021] How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse

This book title appealed to me immediately.  And I loved it.  The story is convoluted in the best way and Nicole Poole is an excellent reader.

The one bad thing about an audio book as opposed to reading the book yourself is that you don’t get to see how certain words are spelled (although it saves all the trouble of trying to figure out how to pronounce them).

The book is set in a futuristic world where space travel is common and war is far more common.

Rory was born into the Thorne family as something of a surprise.  There hadn’t been a female offspring in the Thorne family for ten generations.  The name Rory was reserved for first born males.  But it was determined that the name was gender-neutral enough that the girl could also have the name, no matter how unsettled it made people.

Then Eason sets about establishing this world–with great detail and thoroughness.  Some of which I’ll try to capture. The story is set on the Thorne Consortium, the planet where Rory’s father is King.

Rory’s mother is the Consort.  She was from Kreshti, “a small independent and allied planet on which skill with combat training was considered both a plain necessity.”

Incidentally, the narrator is telling the story as a history lesson and she is far from neutral.

They are both served by the Vizier, a man gifted in arithmancy and scholarship.  “Finding quaint, forgotten, and neglected customs was his second favorite pastime in the multiverse. Explaining to others the relevance of those ancient customs was the first.”

The Vizier discovered that it was customary to invite the faeries to bestow blessings on each new born girl.  The King is annoyed by this–it never happened for any of the boys (and they had invented void-flight with no magic needed). (more…)

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Paul Tobin, Arjuna Susini, Vittorio Astone, Saida Temofont–Heist or How to Steal a Planet (2021)

Posted in Aliens, Angelica Villa, Arjuna Susini, Billie Birds, Coronavirus, Corporate skewering, Death, Dogs, Fat Joe, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, Guns, Huh?, Humiliation, Paul Tobin, Prison, Quarantine, Saida Temofont, The Future, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, Vittorio Astone, Yuck! on June 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FAT JOE-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #217 (June 1, 2021).

This Tiny Desk (Home) Concert opens with big chords from Eric Whatley’s bass and Simon Martinez’ guitar.  Then some record scratching from DJ Ted Smooth and crashing cymbals from Rashid Williams.

Fat Joe walks into a shop and is handed a mic as the Eugene “Man-Man” Roberts plays a menacing melody on the keys.  I like Fat Joe’s vocal style but “My Lifestyle” is just another story of bitches n’ hos.

A founding member of the D.I.T.C. (Diggin’ In the Crates) crew, Fat Joe Da Gangsta has managed to last nearly 30 years and multiple generations in the rap game without ever giving up his lease on the top of the charts.

He introduces DJ Ted Smooth and his protégé Angelica Vila and then the Terror Squad band.

That crew turns the rugged “My Lifestyle” into a visceral experience with layers of nuance added by Joe’s longtime DJ Ted Smooth.

“What’s Luv?” is a slow ballad.  Angelica Villa sings and her refrain of “whats luv” sounds remarkably like a sample–her voice is really amazing.

 On the 2002 smash “What’s Luv,” Angelica Vila takes the spotlight singing a hook originally performed by Ashanti.

It’s weird to see her dancing and grinding like it’s a music video, which I guess it is, but still.  There’s some salsa infusions in the song.

“Lean Back” has a bad ass riff and a repeated chant of “lean back.”  It’s really catchy.

Latino hip-hop legend Fat Joe muscled his way out of the streets of the South Bronx with his debut album, Represent, in 1993. He radiates a different energy in 2021, sauntering in his own uptown streetwear shop, fresh fitted in pink leather and a designer bucket hat, but he’s still got that old larger-than-life electricity.

And yet he still seems unreasonably angry–staring down the camera and shouting, “Tiny Desk don’t play with us like that, man.”  [What could that possibly mean in this context?]

Up next is “Sunshine (The Light)”

an effervescent new springtime jam that was spawned by 22-year-old internet sensation Amorphous, who mashed up Luther Vandross’s debut single “Never Too Much” with Rihanna’s “Kiss It Better.” Joe, who has always had a solid ear for new talent and a prowess for pinning down a buoyant hit record, came in and gullied this sparkling jam, renewing a glow that’s been dim for this last year.

It’s a pretty song and Angelica’s voice sounds really great.  I look forward to hearing more from her.

He shouts out to Luther and then goes on a little rant about being old and having everything ripped away and the coming back at 40.  I don’t know he seems pretty successful to me.

“All The Way Up” ends the set sounding similar to “Lean Back” but with a jazzy sample.  Throughout the song as he raps lines there’s a response.  I thought they were samples, but it turns out that the DJ is his hype man too.

I tend to like rappers in this Tiny Desk Home Concert better than on record, but I really liked Fat Joe’s style.  I’ll have to keep it limited to this though, I think.

[READ: May 20, 2021] Heist

I enjoyed this book so much I wanted to see what else Paul Tobin had written.  Lo and behold, he is responsible for a favorite graphic novel Claudette.  This story is a lot different and a lot darker, but it still has his sense of humor.

The book opens with a man fleeing from people trying to kill him. Glane Breld escapes and says he needs a drink…and a  crew.  He’s been out of prison for nine hours and he is ready for his next heist.

The people he wants are Celine Disse, master gunsmith, Gaville, master of disguise (she is crazy-she enjoys blowing things up and collecting famous peoples underwear).

Saving the best for last Eddy Lets.  Why is he the best?  Because the closest this planet ever had to a leader was Eddy’s mom Lera.  Her assassination was Glane’s fault.

When Glane heads to his rendezvous he is met by a local street urchin named Brady.  Brady latches on to Glane and Glane cant shake him.  But the kid proves useful.  Not only does he get Glane away from some assassins but he also gets Glane a splint for his brain–so his mind can’t be read.

Then Brady, believing he has a tourist with a lot of money, tells the history of planet Heist.  Right up to the story about Glane himself (Brady does not realize the man is Glane).

Dignity Corporation owns all of the planets in the area but this one (Heist).  Glane was hired by the Dignity Corporation to find incriminating evidence on Lera.   This faked evidence was used by Dignity to bring down Lera which eventually led to her assassination.  Soon after, Heist was taken over by Dignity Corp. (more…)

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MariNaomi–Distant Stars: Life on Earth Book 3 (2020)

Posted in Abortion, Aliens, Coronavirus, Domestic Violence, Graphic Novel, Graphic Universe, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Kathleen Edwards, MariNaomi, Marriage Trouble, Mdou Moctar, Nigeria, Quarantine, Romance, Set at School, Sexism, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Trilogy, XPN Fest, YA Books on June 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MDOU MOCTAR-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #213 (May 24, 2021).

Mdou Moctar has been getting some well deserved recognition lately.  It’s pretty great to see a Nigerian performer, who plays distinctly Nigerian style music making an impression on American audiences.

Of course, since I’m contrary, I’m more attracted to Moctar’s drummer who is playing a calabash–in this case red object that looks like a turtle shell and makes a remarkable range of sounds.  But really the focus should be on Moctar’s guitar playing.

Get ready for some fiery desert guitar-shredding, Saharan style, with the music of Mdou Moctar. Producer and American bassist Mikey Coltun told me that “the concert was filmed outside of the house we were all staying at in Niamey, Niger, in November/December 2020.” He continued, “As with any sort of musical happenings in the region, once some music is blasted, that’s an invitation for anyone to come join, sing, clap, dance, and just come together as a community. We wanted to present the Tiny Desk exactly like this, from when we started playing to finally the energy growing with fans crowded around filming on their cell phones and passing around Tuareg tea.”

And so, the four musicians, seated on a blanket (designed with oversized roses) with amps on either side, start playing with no fanfare.

The (home) concert starts off with Mahamadou Souleymane, a.k.a. Mdou Moctar, playing a melodic line on acoustic guitar, with Ahmoudou Madassane on rhythm guitar, Souleymane Ibrahim playing percussion on a calabash, and Mikey Coulton on his Fender Mustang bass on the song “Ya Habibti” from the album Afrique Victime. It’s an album of songs dealing with intense subjects close to Mdou Moctar’s heart: colonialism, exploitation, inequality, but also love.

The song almost feels like a drone because the bass and rhythm pretty much never change throughout.  The drumming is muted–effective but never sharp.  And Moctar’s voice and lead guitar work is subtle.  I’m sure since I don’t understand what he’s singing (which sounds pretty intense), I find his voice very soothing.

“Tala Tannam” follows in the same pattern–except the bass is even less mobile and the way Moctar sings it feels like a lullaby.  The best part is watching Ibrahim and Coltun clearly enjoying themselves–smiling to each other and even hugging at one point.  It’s hard to know how long these songs are as they seems to just go until they stop, but this one does have a deliberate ending.  It’s when he puts down his acoustic and grabs the electric guitar.

You can hear the real musical fire on the last song, the roughly 7-minute psych-rock title track to Afrique Victime. “Africa is a victim of so many crimes,” Mdou Moctar sings in French. “If we stay silent, it will be the end of us.” Silence is not something in Mdou Moctar’s vocabulary.

Moctar’s soloing was subtle on the other songs, but you can really here it standing out with this sharp electric guitar sound.  It’s nice to watch his fingers fly around the neck. There’s some guitar god moments in the soloing–including some finger tapping–but having him seated and equal with everyone else, the solos never seem showoffy.  I also like the way the song speeds up incrementally as it goes–mostly notable by how fast Ibrahim is suddenly hitting the calabash.

[READ: June 10, 2021] Losing the Girl

This final book of the trilogy was a little disappointing for me.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I feel like there wasn’t enough resolution for anyone.

The book opens on Nigel.  Claudia has shown up to tutor him in math.  He is so smitten he writes a poem that he submits for class.  He calls it “Teacher” and his teacher assumes it is about her.  I can’t even believe that he would submit a poem with the line “teach me how to make puppy love turn into doggy style”  (Nigel is so clueless).

Next we see Brett at his mother’s funeral.  Johanna tries to comfort him but he blows her off demanding to know why she didn’t tell him about her and Paula.  They smooth things over and she asks if his father knows that his mother died.  He says no, he hasn’t talked to his father in a long time.  Jo says her mother might know how to get in touch with him.

The next section is about Darren.  He is by himself remembering how his father hurt his mother and how he doesn’t want to repeat the cycle. (more…)

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MariNaomi–Gravity’s Pull: Life on Earth Book 2 (2019)

Posted in Abortion, Aliens, Bob Boilen, Coronavirus, Domestic Violence, Graphic Novel, Graphic Universe, Laurie Anderson, LGBTQ, MariNaomi, Marriage Trouble, Quarantine, Romance, Set at School, Sexism, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Unit, Trilogy, YA Books on June 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LAURIE ANDERSON-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #212 (May 20, 2021).

Anyone who likes original or avant garde music knows Laurie Anderson.  Even forty years later, her music is unlike most other music out there.  Her music still sounds futuristic.

Which doesn’t mean it’s always enjoyable.  But some of it is quite good and it’s all pretty fascinating.  It’s also fascinating that you know instantly that it’s Laurie Anderson.  Her voice hasn’t changed in years–true she doesn’t sing, but it’s still the same.

She begins this set, which feels incredibly minimal with her keyboardist (and so much more–she played on and produced Big Science with Laurie Anderson in 1982) Roma Baron playing a simple clicking beat track.  She speaks (with her voice processed):

I met this guy and he looked like he might have been a hat check clerk at an ice ring.  Which in fact he turned out to be.  And I said oh boy, right again.

And Rubin Kodheli on the cello is playing gentle strings, including high notes sliding down the fretboard.

Is the song a story?  Does it have a narrative?  Or is it just stream of consciousness?  I’m not sure.

Laurie Anderson is a revolutionary artist who has mixed storytelling, music and technology for the past four decades plus. This Tiny Desk (home) concert celebrates the truly breathtaking breakthrough album she put out in 1982, Big Science. On that record, she used a few different voice processors; one of them was a Vocoder. By singing into a microphone attached to a keyboard, you can hear how it effectively adds harmony to her voice on “Let x=x.”

Laurie Anderson’s music seems so serious, so it’s delightful to hear her be so loose and chatty (and funny) between songs.

She introduces Rubin Kodheli, her favorite musician, with whom she plays all the time.  They create what’s listed here as “Violin Cello Improv.”  It’s about a minute of vaguely dissonant string music.

Then comes the big song, the one that people know Laurie Anderson for.  If it wasn’t a hit, it was certainly popular.

Laurie Anderson also used that [Vocoder] effect, creating what I think of as ‘the voice of authority’ in her storytelling, on “O Superman,” a song unlike anything music I’d heard when it came out in 1981. She made use of a vocal loop, something ever-present these days in sampling, but here she uses an Eventide Harmonizer, looping the single syllable “ha” as the rhythm of the song. It’s a song about dealing with the technological revolution, about compassion; if it’s your first time hearing it, take it in and see what strikes you.

The song has always felt very mechanical to me (it must be the looping and the synthesized voice), but it’s really interesting to hear how it changes live. Not drastically, but it feels like a living breathing song, which is pretty neat.  As is Bob Boilen’s story:

On a personal note, I was a lover of Laurie’s music back in those days; they were also the days I played synthesizer in my band Tiny Desk Unit. We opened for Laurie Anderson in 1981, and Laurie joined us onstage for a song. I bring this up because the Tiny Desk name (created by our guitarist Michael Barron) was familiar to Laurie long before this NPR series existed. At the end of her home concert, Laurie, I assume, mistakenly, thanks Tiny Desk Unit for having her. It made me smile and sparked so many memories. Thank you, Laurie.

Laurie Anderson is 74 and she seems as vibrant as ever.

[READ: June 10, 2021] Gravity’s Pull

I really enjoyed everything about Book 1 of this series and I was delighted to see that Volumes 2 and 3 were already out.

Volume 2 follows the same characters and is laid out in the same way (with each section following one of the characters but having the timeline stay linear.  MariNaomi also seems to be having even more fun with her drawings,

The first part is about Nigel Q. Jones (just like in the last book).  He’s in class when his teacher announces that the girl who was missing in book one (Claudia Jones–no relation) has suddenly returned and is coming back to school.  The teacher asks that everyone just give her space.

We realize it has been four months since the last book so Claudia has been gone along time.

Meanwhile Nigel still thinks about Emily (who has a cool new haircut–when a friend said she finally has good hair, the insult is not unnoticed) but realizes it’s time for him to move on.  As he’s thinking this Claudia Jones walks into the building and Nigel falls instantly in love with her.  How does she suddenly look so beautiful?  Almost otherworldly.  Here’s where MariNaomi has fun with the illustrations, making Nigel’s dreadlocks look like a kind of glove the way she draws his head. (more…)

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MariNaomi–Losing the Girl: Life on Earth Book 1 (2018)

Posted in Abortion, Aliens, Coronavirus, Domestic Violence, Graphic Novel, Graphic Universe, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, Kathleen Edwards, MariNaomi, Marriage Trouble, Quarantine, Romance, Set at School, Sexism, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Trilogy, XPN Fest, YA Books on June 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATHLEEN EDWARDS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #211 (May 19, 2021).

Kathleen Edwards is a wonderful songwriter with a fantastic voice.  I discovered her from her 2008 album Asking For Flowers.

She put out one more record and then disappeared.

Struggling with depression, Kathleen Edwards opened a coffee shop called Quitters Coffee and lived a very different life.  A handful of years later, in 2017, she was invited to Nashville by Maren Morris to write some songs. That Nashville visit sparked a new beginning and eventually the 2020 album Total Freedom, which birthed the four songs you hear in this Tiny Desk concert.

So Kathleen Edwards is back with a wonderful new album.

On this Tiny desk she is joined by Todd Lombardo and Justin Schipper on dobro (that slide guitar looking thing).

Kathleen’s voice sounds great and on “Glenfern.”

From a house in East Nashville, Kathleen Edwards sings about how thankful she is for those early aughts when she was praised with awards, television appearances, touring to packed venues — even if the tour bus with the bed in back was “total crap.” As she continues to sing “Glenfern,” the opening track to her first album in eight years as well as this Tiny Desk (home) concert, she remembers her former husband and collaborator.

After the first song she introduces the band and says I can’t sing through a mask so after this we’re going straight to to the COVID clinic.

Kathleen Edwards seems happy playing these new songs.  They can be songs of sadness, sometimes filled with seething, such as “Ashes to Ashes,” but she’s also grateful for her everlasting love for a four-legged creature and the little catalpa tree where it’s buried.

There’s some beautiful interplay of guitars in this song.  It’s amazing how great her voice sounds with no accompaniment, no effects.  And afterwards she tells a delightful story about catalpa trees–I just passed one on a dog walk yesterday and absolutely want to try to grow my own this year.

“Hard On Everyone” is the song that’s been getting some airplay around here.  It’s so catchy, I love it.  And the lyrics are pointed and spot on.  when the song is over she and Todd bump elbows and their guitars bump for a nice resounding thump.

I would love to see Kathleen Edwards live.  She played one of her first shows after retiring at XPN Fest, unfortunately that was the year we went to Newport Folk Festival.  Now I see she’s coming around again, but she’s opening for Jason Isbell, and I don’t want to see him, so I’ll have to hope she finds a smaller club to headline.

[READ: June 10, 2021] Losing the Girl

T. brought this book home from school and I though the cover looked pretty neat.  When I looked inside I really liked the crazy drawing style(s) of it (S. did not like it at all).

The book opens on Nigel Jones, a boy with dreadlocks (his profile is always great, and MariNaomi uses these dreadlocks to express Nigels’ mood in clever ways).  The book also uses simple things like arrows to convey movement in a panel, which I liked.  One of the early ones shows a city block.  We just saw Nigel get off a bus and the arrows and a tiny figure on a skateboard show which way he is going.  This effect is used very well at a party later as we see the crowd move about the room in a static picture.

It’s through Nigel that we learn that nobody’s phones are working–this is a steady concern and a minor (or major) irritant throughout the story.   We also learn that a girl, Claudia Jones, (no relation) has been missing for three days.  Everyone has speculations about what happened to her.

Nigel lives with his mom (his dad has moved out) and Nigel is not too happy about the new arrangements–just because your parents separate doesn’t mean they fight less.  In school the next day Nigel tells a joke to Emily.  I found it very funny but Emily doesn’t seem to.  She asks if that’s his way of flirting with her.  A lightbulb goes off and he says yes (he’s had a crush on her for years).  She agrees to meet him at the bleachers later. (more…)

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