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Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category

Boris Starling–Haynes Explains Americans: Owners’ Workshop Manual (2017)

Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Boris Starling, Dan Auerbach, Food, Football, Funny (ha ha), John Prine, Language, Manuals, South, Sports, The Arcs, The Black Keys, Tiny Desk Concert, Unfunny on April 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAN AUERBACH-Tiny Desk Concert #726 (April 4, 2018).

Everybody loves Dan Auerbach, but I’m just lukewarm on him.  I could never get into The Black Keys and the Arcs were okay.  I will say that I absolutely love the final song they play here today and didn’t realize it was him.  But I think I dislike the style of music he makes not the quality of the songs.

Dan brings his Easy Eye Sound Revue to the Tiny Desk. It’s an abundance of gifted musicians who have all played with a long, long list of legends, including Elvis, Don Williams and John Prine. …  The small band for this stripped-down version of the “Revue” is fleshed with Dante Schwebel on guitar and Russ Pahl’s resonator guitar sounds.

Midway through the four-song set (that includes tunes from his 2017 album Waiting on a Song), Dan introduces a powerhouse: the seasoned but relatively unknown blues-and-soul singer Robert Finley. The husky voiced gentleman, with a giant smile and magical charisma, is heart-winning and heart-warming. It’s remarkable that this legally blind singer is only now getting the attention he deserves….  Robert Finley and Dan Auerbach released [an album] at the end of 2017 called Goin’ Platinum.

In the recent Tiny Desk Concert from fellow Nashville musician John Prine, [he told a tale] of writing songs with Pat McLaughlin in the morning, going to town for some meatloaf and then recording the song by day’s end. Well that’s Pat on the mandolin here in this Tiny Desk set. His playing is both astonishing and low-key.

The Review plays four songs

“Waiting On a Song” is a folk song with a country feel and a slide guitar solo on that resonator guitar.

“Never In My Wildest Dreams” feels like an old cowboy song complete with what is almost cowboy yodelling from Schwebel.

“Get It While You Can” features Robert Finley on vocals.  It is the traditional song and Finley does a great job, singing with gusto and making clear some lyrics that I never heard before.  His voice is pretty great too.

“Shine On Me”  This song is irresistible even if it sounds exactly like a Travelling Wilbury song.

It’s just a matter of time before he hits on a genre that I really like, I’m sure.

[READ: January 5, 2018] Haynes Explains Americans

This book came across my desk and it looked pretty funny.

There was no author name on the cover, but inside it mentions that it is written by Boris Starling.  I’d never heard of him, but I looked him up and found that he has written seven crime novels and that his first, Messiah, was notable for its fast pace and high levels of gore.  He has written a bunch of other stuff too, including several (at least 12) of the popular ‘Haynes Explains’ series of tongue-in-cheek mini-manuals.

So this is written as a manual (based on a stripdown and rebuild).

It is written very much like a car manual: “the aim of this manual is to help you get the best value from the American.”  It includes lots of pictures of car parts with labels for other things.  It’s a good mockery of the manuals .

Normally I enjoy a good mockery of Americanisms.  We are ripe for parody.  But this book feels just too easy. (more…)

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Camille Bordas–“The State of Nature” (New Yorker, April 9, 2018)

Posted in Advice, Camille Bordas, Cats, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Futility, New Yorker, Nilüfer Yanya, Short Story, Thieves, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert on April 9, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NILÜFER YANYA-“Baby Luv” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (April 6, 2018). 

Sometimes I wonder if I should automatically know a featured artist. So it’s comforting when you find out that an artist is “relatively new” like Nilüfer Yanya.

For our final lullaby recording during South by Southwest 2018, we meet the London-based singer Nilüfer Yanya for her performance in the memory-filled world of Uncommon Objects. It’s a shop in Austin, Texas dedicated to sentimental curiosities of a world gone by. With that in mind, the relatively new musician with a bright future tackles a tune about something old and familiar: fond memories overwhelmed by the pain of love gone wrong.

“Baby Luv” can be found on Nilüfer Yanya’s 2018 release Do You Like Pain?. The EP’s title is a line she repeats multiple times on “Baby Luv,” while her choppy guitar punctuates a weary, clock-like rhythm. That ticking beat is then amplified by the saxophone of her bandmate, Jazzi Bobbi while a camera pans a literary world of books that all seem blood-red. Objects once shiny and proud are worn and somewhat torn, with a future as uncertain as the love in this song.

The song is a simple up and down melody with her startlingly staccato singing style–in which words are somewhat audible but not always clear.  Like the strange, repeated chant of gain again again.

I love that Jazzi Bobbi is visible, but how on first viewing, you gloss over her as she sort of blends in with the curios.  It’s when her sax comes in that you realize she’s there.  In fact it’s her sax that is the most compelling part of this song.  It’s the strangely amorphous notes that seems to burst from nowhere that are more compelling that the repeated guitar.

[READ: April 5, 2018] “The State of Nature”

I enjoyed Bordas’ previous story quite a lot.  I loved how it was structured and the surprising twists it had.

This one was also enjoyable but for different reasons.  It opens with the narrator admitting to us that she had slept through a burglary.  A cop asked if she was unemployed since she was napping on Thursday afternoon.

She tells them that she is an ophthalmologist  with a varied schedule who can sleep through just about anything.

A varied assortment of things were stolen–a rug, some jewelry and an optometrist case.  It was quite old and has sentimental value (she told the cops).  An average person wouldn’t have thought much of it but it could have fetched about $1,200.

When she returned to her apartment her cat, Catapult, seemed to be vocally distressed.  She believes the cat is sad because her favorite napping place is now gone: “You could have summoned some of that bitchiness earlier, when they came to steal your bed.” (more…)

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Eric Nylund–The Resisters (2011) [audiobook 2012–Peter Berkrot]

Posted in Aliens, Audiobooks, Children's Books, Eric Nylund, Peter Berkrot, Pokemon, Sci-fi, Soccer, The Future, The Odd Couple on April 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: September 30, 2017] The Resisters

I saw this audio book at the library and thought it might be a fun book for a long car trip.  It turned out the family wasn’t going on one for a while, but Clark and I were heading to Hartford for the Pokémon Regional Championship, and this was just about the right length for the trip.

I was turned off by the cover–that very computerized version of the kids.  Although I see that Nylund writes books in the Halo series, (and has an interesting history writing for Microsoft, go figure).  So I guess it makes sense that there’s a computer edge to it.

The story wastes no time opening and doesn’t wait for you to catch up.

Ethan Blackwood is twelve and, as the book opens, he is in the last few seconds of a very important soccer match.  But, with no explanation given , we learn that this soccer match is not what we are used to.  All of the competitors are wearing large armored suits and the ball can hit speeds of 300 MPH.  Ethan is a year younger than his teammates, but he has proven himself on many occasions and they all look to him for a great play. (more…)

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Gene Luen Yang & Mike Holmes–Secret Coders: Robots & Repeats (2017)

Posted in April Fool's Day, Children's Books, Fears, First Second :01, Gene Luen Yang, Graphic Novel, Mike Holmes, Robin Olson, Robots, Science, Series, Set at School, Smarty Pants, Technology, Threats, Unfinished series on April 7, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ROBIN OLSON-Tiny Desk Concert #724 (April 1, 2018).

Because the blurb is perfect, I am including it in it’s entirety.

“Not all pianists are created in equal temperament,” Robin Olson told a small but enthusiastic audience behind NPR Music’s storied Tiny Desk. The pianist, hailed as an “avant-garde gewandhaus” by Berlin’s Staubzeitung, is as celebrated for his cryptic maxims as he is for his inscrutable music.

Olson’s trademark style — shooting clusters of shimmering chords and solitary, pearlescent pitches into reverberant space — has led him to exalted concert halls and to work with a broad array of stars such as Yuja Wang, Aretha Franklin, Chick Corea and Emanuel Ax.

Drawing from the seminal Plink technique, cultivated among the Schlammstadt School of composers in the 1950s, Olson is regarded as a leading technician of the more expansive Neo-Plink style. “Intervals have coincident partials,” Olson explains. “They create a form of dissonance, called ‘beats,’ by which pitches are set for optimum harmonicity.”

From a bulging briefcase, Olson pulls out any number tools to alter specific pitches, as in his opening piece, “A 440.” He threads ribbons of felt between piano strings to mimic the muted cries of the Asian dung beetle in “The Temperament,” from his 2014 collection Infinite Chasms.

Olson surprised everyone at the Tiny Desk by debuting a new piece, “Tuning the Bass,” wherein his inventive command of the instrument’s lower register highlighted spaces between keening dark octaves.

He may be considered a challenging artist, but Olson, through the essential humanity of his performance, reveals the efforts of almost any other living pianist to be little more than a joke.

Set List

  • “A 440”
  • “The Temperament”
  • “Tuning the Bass”

I only wish I had seen this before the Editor’s Note revealed that it was an (excellent) April Fool’s joke.

[READ: December 27, 2017] Secret Coders: Robots & Repeats

Secret Coders 3 ended with a puzzle.  And I guessed wrong!  How embarrassing.  I see what I did wrong, but I still would have failed. I have a hard time with binary, too.

Anyhow, this book reveals some pretty amazing details about the ongoing story.

After selecting the correct door, the gang finds a floating triangle thing.  We learn that Professor Bee is not actually from this planet (okay now things are getting pretty weird, I must admit).   But he dismisses that (what??) so the kids can code some more using a construct made of “solidified light” which is pretty cool, although perhaps not as cool as an alien. (more…)

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Diane Williams–“Chicken Winchell” (Harper’s, May 2011)

Posted in Aoife O'Donovan, Diane Williams, Flash Fiction, Harper's, Huh?, I'm With Her, Nickel Creek, Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Short Story, The Decemberists, Tiny Desk Concert, Watkins Family Hour, Yo-Yo Ma on April 5, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: I’M WITH HER-Tiny Desk Concert #722 (March 28, 2018).

I’m with Her is a kind of a folk supergroup comprised of Aoife O’Donovan, Sarah Jarosz and Sara Watkins.  As the blurb notes:

The three singers who perform together as I’m With Her sound like sisters. It’s as if they’ve known each other all their lives and share common roots and musical memories… All three are brilliant players with an ever-shifting array of stringed instruments, guitars, ukulele, fiddle, mandolin and banjo. As I’m With Her, they know how to gather round a microphone and sing directly from their heart to yours. Purity is the brilliance behind I’m With Her.

They also share coming to the Tiny Desk:

Sara Watkins was here with Nickel Creek (2014), Watkins Family Hour (2015) and The Decemberists (2011). Sarah Jarosz was here in 2013 and Aoife O’Donovan came along with Yo Yo Ma and Chris Thile as part of the Goat Rodeo project back in 2011.

They play three songs from their debut album.

The first is “See You Around.” Sarah sings this first song.  Sarah and Aoife play guitar and Sara is playing an oversized ukulele.  At the end of each section their harmonies are wonderful.  It’s a really pretty song, with a great melody.  Then at around 2 minutes the song switches gears to the “shiny piece of my heart” section which changes the timbre and tone of the song.  Aoife takes over a bit and the song grows a bit darker and their voices sound more powerful.

For “Game to Lose” Sara switches to fiddle, Aoife plays Sarah’s guitar and Sarah is on mandolin.  I absolutely love the violin part and the way it plays off of the mandolin.  After a few measures, when they sing in three-part harmony from the get go….  Wow.  I love Aoife’s voice as she sings the end of the chorus, the mandolin is just fantastic and the fiddle trills are exquisite.

As they tune before the final song, Bob asks how many instruments they brought….  The answer is, a lot.  And they couldn’t leave without some banjo.  Then Aoife asks about the pink lemonade gummy bunny.  Bob says people leave random things.  You’re welcome to leave something too.  Aoife says, “I thought you were going to say I was welcome to eat it.”

Sarah says I feel like we’re just settling in, I wish we could play all day (and so do I!).

For the final song, “Overland” Sarah switches to banjo. Aoife has the same guitar and Sara is on guitar too.   Sara sniffs a few times and then deadpans, “Sorry I’ve got a coke problem, it keeps sneaking up on me.”  Everyone laughs and Sarah cracks up.  Bob says we’ll just have to loop that and Sara says, “we need some scandal.”

The song begins with Sara on lead vocals and Sarah’s banjo.  It is the most country sounding of the three (which surprises a bit since I don’t think of Sara’s voice as sounding like that).  But again, it’s the harmonies that are huge.

[READ: January 15, 2018] “Chicken Winchell”

This story was published in Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty, although as with most of William’s pieces I don’t remember it at all.

This story, which is half a page long, mentions three women characters and then uses “she” for the rest.  So I’m not sure which “she” is being spoken about.  There’s a waitress, a daughter and a mother.  The waitress wonders why the daughter never returned.  But apparently she did.

The mother confides in the waitress. (more…)

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William T. Vollmann– “I am Here Only for Working: Conversations with the petroleum brotherhood in the UAE” (Harper’s, March 2011)

Posted in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Environmentalism, Essays, Harper's, Masta Ace, Racism, Tiny Desk Concert, United Arab Emirates, William T. Vollmann on April 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MASTA ACE-Tiny Desk Concert #723 (March 30, 2018).

Even though Masta Ace tells us that he had a huge hit on the radio a few years ago, I had never heard of him.  Turns out he was…

An early member of producer Marley Marl’s iconic Juice Crew.  The Brooklyn-bred Masta Ace emerged shoulder-to-shoulder in the late-’80s with a host of iconic emcees, including Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Craig G and more. When Ace showed up at the Tiny Desk, he brought with him stripped-down versions of the concrete-shaking classics that built his legacy, backed by the impressive Lee Hogans & Pursuance band.

I really enjoyed Masta Ace’s flow and his lyrics which were thoughtful.  I especially loved “Son of Yvonne,” which is about his mom and his childhood:

Son of Yvonne, better get the best grades
Couple of B’s, a C and the rest A’s
Not top of the class, but not nearly last
I beat your ass if you think you gon’ barely pass
But all my best friends, they be ditching school
Every week is like a Friday ritual
You got a mind of your own, so let it be known
Son of Yvonne, sharp as a kitchen tool

The live trumpets [Lee Hogans and Anja-Christin Nielsen] are a nice touch and “my man Dave” [David Stolarz] plays a pretty piano solo.

In the elevator, minutes after wrapping, one of his bandmates noticed that he’d gotten a little emotional during the performance. Ace relayed that the intimacy of the Tiny Desk set had allowed him to hear anew the personal nature of the lyrics he’d shared about his late mother; a bittersweet nostalgia that’s palpable during his performance of “Son of Yvonne.”

Introducing “Born To Roll/Jeep Ass Nig**” from the 1993 album SlaughtaHouse, he says, “I had one big record on the radio in my career and I think its only right that I bless you all with the one opportunity for me to be on commercial radio.  You know you hear Drake all the time well there was a time when I was on the radio that much too.”

The first verse has a specific almost sinister sound to it.  Weird little horn flourishes and creepy descending keyboards dominate the sound.  But after the first verse when everyone claps, he says, “hold It, we ain’t done yet.  That was only the first verse.”  He explains that what they played was the remix for radio.  But the original “version of that joint is this joint right here and we’re going to do the second and third verse like this.”  Its more funky (a cool funky bass solo from Rob [Rob Collazo] and a lot more interesting.

I really liked this verse:

Black boy, black boy turn that shit down
You know that America don’t wanna hear the sound
Of the bass drum jungle music go back to Africa
Nigga I’ll arrest you if you holding up trafffic
I’ll be damned if I listen, so cops save your breath and
Write another ticket if ya have any left and
I’m breaking ear drums while I’m breaking the law
I’m disturbing all the peace cause Sister Souljah said war
So catch me if ya can, if you can here’s a donut
Cause once you drive away, yo I’m gonna go nuts
And turn it up to where it was before nice try
But ya can’t stop the power of the bass in ya eye
I wonder if I blasted a little Elvis Presley
Would they pull me over and attempt to arrest me
I really doubt doubt it, they probably start dancing
Jumpin on my tip and pissing in they pants and
Wiggling and jiggling and grabbing on they pelvis
But you know my name so you never hear no Elvis

In the final song he looks back on a life lived in the public eye on “Story Of Me.”  This joint takes you through my entire journey in a three verses–a song from the time I got in to the time I got out.  There’s backing vocals from Pearle Gates who is apparently a little sick so Masta Ace [whose real name is Duvall Clear helps him out].

Once again, there’s some great lyrics

A product of the same and when I got into the game
Initially my moms was really shocked and ashamed
She was like: “Boy you got a Bachelor’s”
And I was like: “Why they call it a b.s?”
Bullshit walks as far is what I was taught
Yet I ain’t had one job interview and she stressed

There’s some very cool sounds on the guitar [Jameison Ledonio doing all kinds of interesting things].  The song slows down and it feels like it’s going to end.  But he introduces: “That’s Biscuit on the drums y’all.  He gets down.”  James “Biscuit” Rouse plays a mean drum and at that moment he is playing the snare drum with his hands.

The song starts up again with the third verse.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a song that detailed a person’s career before, but it’s a good primer if you wants some information about the guy.

[READ: January 10, 2018] “I am Here Only for Working”

William T. Vollmann goes on fantastic expeditions to get stories.  I have no idea who pays for these trips (he seems to always be on a tight budget) but he is always writing a (usually very long) book about his experiences.

He has lived with homeless people he has visited war zones.  He has written all kinds of investigative journalism.  But he never seems like a reporter or a journalist, exactly. He seems utterly human and he is always looking for the human angle on a story.  That’s what makes his essays about subjects that I don’t care about not only compelling but also really enjoyable.  Well, enjoyable may not be the right word exactly.

For this trip Vollmann went to Dubai. Ooh! luxury at last.  But not exactly as he is staying in a 1 star hotel.  It was so hot that his laptop malfunctioned.  Of course he slept in air conditioning, but he says he would turn it off when he left (like a good Californian), but the staff would always turn it back on.  He went to the famous indoor skating rink a prodigious show of energy consumption

But mostly Vollmann wanted to ask people: Is oil good? (more…)

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Diane Williams—“Five Stories” (Harper’s, February 2012)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Diane Williams, Flash Fiction, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Harper's, Huh?, Jenny and the Mexicats, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on April 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »

 SOUNDTRACK: JENNY AND THE MEXICATS-Tiny Desk Concert #721 (March 26, 2018).

I had never heard of Jenny and the Mexicats.   Interestingly, the blurb below doesn’t say anything about where they are from.  One assumes Mexico, but Jenny herself has a rather posh British accent when she speaks.  It also turns out that the band is based in Spain…so all preconceived notions are dashed.

Jenny and the Mexicats’ … high energy shows are unforgettable … Mixing flamenco, originally from southern Spain, with Jenny Ball’s jazz trumpet background and a little bit of cumbia has created their one-of-a-kind musical identity.

The grooves these musicians create can be frenetic (as in the first performance here, “Frenético Ritmo”)…

This song is sung in a mix of Spanish and English–the verses are predominantly Spanish but the ends of each verse seem to be in English.  Jenny’s trumpet works perfectly with the music they are playing.  And the electric guitar plays some interesting sounds throughout.  The song slows down to a pretty ballad with the flamenco guitar playing a solo before the song ratchets up again, cumbia all the way.

or slow and luxurious (“The Song for the UV Mouse House”).

Jenny sings in English on this song with a fascinating accent.  She has a diva’s R&B wavering vocal style, and yet she also seems to have some cockney on some of the words. The song is a ballad and the plentiful drums–hand, box, snare and percussion–keep the roots in Mexican music.   The whispered spoken word middle is a nice touch.

In both cases, the group presents the perfect cushion for Ball’s impassioned singing and engaging stage presence. There are no weak points in the instrumentation, and with Ball out front, the songs come to life as the short stories they are — like that of the young lady who appreciates a beer before taking on life’s challenges in “Verde Más Allá.”

Before the song Jenny tells a story about their favorite show: “We did a concert based on airlines.  We came out like pilots, there was a plane crash in the middle of the show, we came back as angels and devils, it was a lot of fun.”  The guy behind her helps out: “it was a Halloween show.”

“Verde Más Allá” is a mellow song about a Caguama (pronounced kawama).  The guitarist asks, “What is a caguama?”  It’s a liter-sized beer, and the song is about a girl who doesn’t like to work and loves her caguama.  It’s a fun song, “no le gusta trabaja!”  After the first verse, right on cue, the percussionist plays the office’s train whistle which makes everyone crack up.  The end of the song features some sing along, and the flamenco guitarist doing one of those high-pitched flamenco laughs.  At the end, Jenny (whose dress is dangerously short), holds down the ends of her dress so she can jump for the conclusion of the song.

Much good fun is had.  Caguama!

[READ: January 31, 2018] “Five Stories”

Here’s five more short short stories from Diane Williams.  And once again, she amazes me with her sentences and aggravates me with her stories.

“Girl with a Pencil”
The first two paragraphs seem like a different story, as the rest of the story seems to flow from paragraph number 3 in which a girl draws a picture of her future: two shoes, a pair of legs and the hem of a skirt on top.  Her mother was mad that there was no head.  I like that this is a formative experience but the resulting brute seems oddly out-sized.

“A Gray Pottery Head”
I enjoyed this story because of the way it ended.  “That night…something exciting a foot.  She has a quarter hour more to live.”  Except that that wasn’t the end of the story (it was the end of the page).  The next several paragraphs are about her death. It’s the first of her stories where I felt it was way too long. (more…)

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Sam Allingham–“The Intermediate Class” (New Yorker, April 2, 2018)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Cowboy Junkies, Huh?, Humiliation, Katie Von Schleicher, Language, Piano lessons, Sam Allingham, Short Story, South X Lullaby, SXSW on April 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: KATIE VON SCHLEICHER-“Mary” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (March 29, 2018).

I had never heard of Katie Von Schleicher.  I don’t know what the rest of her music sounds like.  But this ballad sounded a lot like Cowboy Junkies.

This is a pretty, sad song.  her voice is lovely, but the thing that I enjoyed the most was watching her guitarist Adam Brisbin play high notes and then a cool tumbling style of playing low notes.

This was recorded at the Spire Studio Tour Bus (basically a camper trailer, parked on Cheer Up Charlie’s lot, with brilliant recording gear, amps guitars) It’s the quietest song from Katie Von Schleicher’s magnificent 2017 album, Shitty Hits.

Katie Von Schleicher wrote to me just after this filming to tell me more about “Mary.” “I’ve been teaching a songwriting class and it’s funny now to break these things down into craft and intention,” she says via email, “but I do feel that writing to a person’s name is a really tender practice, one that can unlock kindness and a conversational tone. If speaking to a part of yourself, personifying it, singing warmly, you can spare your faults and self-criticisms by speaking as if to another person [and] maybe even take your own advice. As much as they’re personal, I’m also trying to get close to some of my favorite things, which also include Randy Newman’s ‘Marie’ and Raymond Carver’s short stories (so full of conversation). For me, ‘Mary’ is a place and time rather than a person, childhood and youth and the strange space I’ve found in going back to the house where I grew up in Maryland to make records now.”

[READ: March 28, 2018] “The Intermediate Class”

I really enjoyed the way this story used the set up of the foreign language class as a way to explore feelings and sentiments that are too hard to express.

Kiril’s mother wondered why he would want to take a German class now, why spend his time with “lazy old American housewives.”  His mother didn’t approve of his taking German back in college either.  He majored in computer science and had no time to waste.  Plus, he was a native English speaker (unlike her who was til trying to learn it).

Kiril has shown up to the Intermediate German class a little late, but the class was welcoming.  There were four people in the room: a woman with an Afro, Wanda; a pale thin woman, Morgan; a Latino man, Alejandro; a sunburned, angry white man, Arthur.  There was piano playing from behind a wall in the class.   It stopped and a man and a young woman came out.  The woman was Claire, a student in the class.  The man was the teacher.

He said he would ring a bell and they would only speak in German afterward.  When the bell rang the atmosphere changed.  (more…)

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James Patterson–Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (2011)

Posted in Audiobooks, Bryan Kennedy, C., Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, James Patterson, Morality, Regrets, Revenge, Series, Set at School, T., Therapy, Unlikable main character, Video Games, YA Books, Yuck! on April 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: Summer 2017] Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life

download (50)I might be one of the few people in America to have never read anything by James Patterson.  Well, C. really enjoyed this series (and his other books for young readers) so we decided to listen to this on a car ride. (Both kids had seen the film already, although I hadn’t).

I have to say that right off the bat I was turned off by the introduction of this book because there was this hard rocking guitar that they played through about 3 minutes of opening text.  And it was too loud!  It was really hard to hear the narrator.  I kind of tuned out because I feared that the whole book would feature this (it doesn’t).  And while I won’t say I was confused by what I missed, I did wonder if I’d missed some things that were revealed later (also, some of the main character’s motivation).

Rafe Khatchadorian is starting Hills Village Middle School.  It’s a new school (sixth grade).  Rafe seems to have a hard to succeeding in school in general.  There’s also a lot going on at home.  His mom has been dating a jerk named Bear.  Bear is unemployed, and living with them while Rafe’s mom is working two jobs and is hardly ever home.

The only person who seems to help Rafe cope with things is his friend Leo the Silent.  Leo doesn’t talk much, but he is an awesome artist.  And he also encourages Rafe to do things that maybe he shouldn’t.

When Rafe arrives at school, he is given a rule book with over 100 rules that he must follow.  Given the possibility of hanging out, being good and following the rules or having fun and enjoying school, he and Leo make a choice.  And they come up with “Operation R.A.F.E.” (which stands for Rules Aren’t For Everyone).  The operation is set up like a video game.  Rafe is going to try to break every rule in the handbook. Leo will award him points.  But he will also only have three “lives,” which he will lose if he gets caught or otherwise fails in his quest. (more…)

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Amos Oz–“Two Women” (Harper’s, September 2013)

Posted in Amos Oz, Harper's, Marriage Trouble, Nyckelharpa, Short Story, Sondra Silverston, Swedish Music, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation, Väsen on March 31, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: VÄSEN-Tiny Desk Concert #720 (March 23, 2018).

Back in 2012 I had my first exposure to the nyckelharpa at Scanfest.  And now, nearly six years later Väsen (who did not play at Scanfest that year) have brought the nyckelharpa to Tiny Desk (and the blurb’s description is hilarious).

Väsen came to the Tiny Desk with just three instruments, but all together it was a 30-string sonic blast of 12-string guitar, viola and nyckelharpa (a fiddle with keys — think 15th century keytar).  Guitarist Roger Tallroth, violist Mikael Marin and nyckelharpist Olov Johansson have been a touring troupe for more than 25 years with 18 albums filled with adventure, amusement and virtuosity. They span the wide emotional range of Swedish folk music, equally haunting and celebratory. There are some similarities to Irish jigs, reels and waltzes that I’m more familiar with, but this music is more ear-bending, with more surprises than I’m used to in traditional string band folk music.

The band plays three instrumentals (all of their songs are instrumental) from their new album Brewed.

It’s fascinating how much these songs sound like Irish jigs and reels (fiddle and guitar after all).  There’s a looseness to them that makes them fun and enjoyable–perfect for drinking and dancing.  Especially a song called “IPA-Gubben” which means, “The old IPA man.”  On introducsing the song Olov points to Mikael and says “this is the old IPA man, he brought this tune as a birthday present when he turned 50.”

It’s possible that the nyckelharpa is quieter than the viol as it’s not always unique sounding amid the music.  But there are a few times when the nyckelharpa is playing a melody that stands out and you can really watch and hear Johansson shine–I had no idea the instrument could be played that quickly either.

Not to take anything away form the other two.  The viol plays some incredibly fast runs and melodies and the guitar while primarily used for chords, also adds in some fast runs.

“Väsenvalsen” was composed by Mikael.  It is the first ever Väsen waltz.  The song starts slowly and then dramatically takes off with some wonderfully fast (and very Irish-sounding lead lines on both viol and nyckelharpa.  I love in the middle when the nyckelharpa plays a harmony melody over the top of the viol so you can hear both instruments clearly.  It has a lovely ending with the nyckelharpa playing high notes to end the song.

“Sommarpolska” means “summer polka.”  It was written by Roger and has a  lovely melody that grows and subsides as the instruments ebb and flow.  It’s a joyful dance song and a wonderful concluding piece.

[READ: January 31, 2018] “Two Women”

In typical Amos Oz fashion, this was a rather short story.  It was translated by Sondra Silverston.

Osnat wakes before her alarm and passes the apartment occupied by Boaz and Ariella.  She thinks about what happened two months ago as if it had happened to strangers many years ago.

But it was only two months ago Boaz told Osnat he’d been having an affair with Ariella.  So he’s leaving her and moving in with Ariella (who lives in the same building).  Their affair began one day when Boaz came to fix a broken tap.  Boaz prepared for a huge confrontation, but as he started to ramp up his argument, she cut him off: “Go.  Just go.” (more…)

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