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Archive for the ‘Funny (ha ha)’ Category

David Sedaris–“Letting Go” (New Yorker, May 5, 2008)

Posted in Cigarettes, Consumerism, David Sedaris, Essays, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Neurotics, New Yorker, The Family Crest, Tiny Desk Concert on August 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

may5SOUNDTRACK: THE FAMILY CREST-Tiny Desk Concert #379 (August 4, 2014).

familycerstI first heard The Family Crest on this Tiny Desk Concert back in 2014 and I immediately fell in love with them.  I received their album for Christmas, and it’s quite fantastic.

The band plays a wonderful mix of over the top chamber prog rock mixed with healthy doses of jazz.

There are seven people in the band, which is centered around guitarist and (amazing) vocalist Liam McCormick.  Their instruments include violin, cello, upright bass, flute, trombone, drums, and guitar but this band rocks hard (and McCormick can wail like the best of them).

The set begins with the jaw dropping “Beneath The Brine” which opens with a great cello riff and is quickly accompanied by violin and flute.  When the full band kicks in, grace notes are added to the riffs to really fill out he song (from the flute and the drums) and it builds until Liam starts singing.  His voice is powerful and strong with a great sense of melody.  The drums, by the way are playing wonderful jazzy patterns and accents.  But it’s around 2:30 that Liam shows just what he can do with his voice as he hits some amazingly powerful high notes.  As the song romps to an end, you can hear all of the instruments adding to the music before the final quite coda.  It’s fantastic.

“Howl” is inspired by jazz.  Liam was trained in opera (which explains a lot) and the band is full of classical fans, so he was excited to add Charlie the jazz drummer “hey man wanna listen to Miles David and drink whiskey?”  The song opens with a big trombone riff before settling into a snappy jazz song.  This song has a number of loud and quiet moments that work well together.  It’s even got a great “ba ba ba ba ba ba” section that is fun to sing along with.

 They ask “one more?”  And Bob says “or stay all day.”  So they play the final song, “Make Me a Boat.”  If you can forgive the little GoPro ad, it’s neat that this relatively unknown band has been embraced by the camera company.  “Make Me a Boat” doesn’t seem like the most obvious choice for a video since the beginning is kind of slow, bit the middle section is really pretty and has a great flowing feel that would work well with a video.  And in this live version Liam does some great improv singing of powerful high notes that really flesh out the melody which the rest of the is playing (no wonder he’s so sweaty by the end).

The album fleshes out the orchestral sense of the band with a 30 piece orchestra which makes these songs even more grand.  The Family Crest was a great find.

[READ: February 22, 2016] “Letting Go”

Sedaris is one of the funniest writers when the topic is smoking.  He is (or was, I suppose) and inveterate smoker.

And I love that he starts the essay with this paragraph:

When I was in fourth grade, my class took a field trip to the American Tobacco plant in nearby Durham, NC.  There we witnessed the making of cigarettes and were given free packs to take home to our parents. I tell people this and they ask me how old I am, thinking, I guess, that I went to the world’s first elementary school.

He starts this essay talking about how much he hated smoking when he was a kid.  His mother smoked all her life and he just hated it.  Not the smoke so much but the smell–he found it depressing “the scent of neglect.”

Of course then he started smoking himself.  He talks about trying to decide which brand to use–the brand you chose was a statement back then.  He chose Viceroy.  And he started smoking them when he was in Vancouver. (more…)

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Hari Kunzru–“Raj, Bohemian” (New Yorker, March 10, 2008)

Posted in Consumerism, Drinking, Funny (ha ha), Hari Kunzru, John Grant, New Yorker, Revenge, Short Story, Sigourney Weaver, Tiny Desk Concert, Winona Ryder on July 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »

2008_03_10-400SOUNDTRACK: JOHN GRANT-Tiny Desk Concert #372 (July 13, 2014).

grantI know and like John Grant from his albums after this one.  These three songs perfectly encapsulate Grant’s pop sensibility with his acerbic wit.  His later albums are also a bit more dancey, so it’s interesting hearing these as straight up piano and guitar songs.

On “Where Dreams Go to Die,” he plays piano in a very dramatic fashion and sings in his slow sometimes whispered baritone voice.  The song is pretty and then the lyrics come in: “I’m willing to do anything to get attention from you dear.”  But it’s not until the chorus (with acoustic guitar added) that the melody gros even more catchy and the lyrics grow even more dark:  “Baby…. you’re where dreams go to die and I regret the day your lovely carcass caught my eye.”  There’s  great bass riff on the piano that he plays during the end of the song which ups the drama even further.  It’s quite a song.

In introducing “Sigourney Weaver,” he says that when he was 12 he moved from Michigan to Colorado and he hoped the move would erase his homosexual feelings.  He changed his mind about that “when he got the hang of it.”  The song doesn’t have anything to do with Weaver except as simile: “I feel just like Sigourney Weaver when she had to kill those aliens.”  Although I think the follow-up simile is even better: “I feel just like Winona Ryder in that move about vampires and she couldn’t get that accent right and neither could that other guy.”

“It Doesn’t Matter to Him” is about the inability to deal with the sudden absence of love.  It features the great lyrics: “I am no longer as awkward as I was when I was younger I guess I’m one of those guys who gets better looking as I age.”

Grant is a marvel and his songs, while caustic, are quite fun.

[READ: February 15, 2016] “Raj, Bohemian”

I really enjoyed this story a lot.

I enjoyed the way the story began with a bunch of wealthy city kids doing all kinds of debauched things with no repercussions.  None of them worked, but somehow they were trendsetters.  “We went dancing whenever we felt like it and watched illegal pre-releases of Hollywood blockbusters… By the time the world caught up we usually got bored and moved on.”

They are smug asses, but they aren’t obnoxious about it–“we despised trendies–fashion kids who tried to hard,”

And then we met the narrator’s friend Sunita who throws the best parties.   She had a gorgeous apartment and lived there rent free (for complex reasons).  For this latest party, which promised to be her best, she cryptically said “dress sincerely.” (more…)

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Carrie Brownstein–“Call Me Crazy” (New Yorker, May 16, 2016)

Posted in Carrie Brownstein, Essays, Funny (ha ha), History, Marisa Anderson, New Yorker, Rev. Gary Davis, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert on July 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

may16SOUNDTRACK: MARISA ANDERSON-Tiny Desk Concert #374 (July 19, 2014).

marisaMarisa Anderson may be the most unassuming guitar wizard I’ve ever seen.  There’s nothing flashy about her or her look, but man can she make those guitars sound great.  And she plays an old-timey bluegrass style of guitar with slides and lots of picking.

For this set she plays 5 songs (on four different guitars).  She doesn’t sing, she just lets the music do all the work.

“Hard Times Come Again No More” is done on a hollow-bodied electric guitar.  It’s noisy, and fuzzy.  She plays finger-picks the main melody in the high notes and then in the middle of the song she plays big open string chords–buzzy and noisy–while still playing the melody.  She says the song “gets stuck in my head if I’m driving through snow.”

“Sinks and Rises” is about a swimming hole in Kentucky.  She went there in a car, but she wasn’t driving and she’s never been there since but it was the best swimming day of her life.  For this song she plays a lap steel guitar that looks to be made of ivory.  It’s so much fun to watch her slowly moving that slide up and down the neck (sometimes only playing one note) while her picking hand goes like crazy.

For the third song she plays a different hollow body guitar.  “Hesitation Theme and Variation Blues” was inspired by her favorite guitar player Rev. Gary Davis.  She says this is a deconstruction of his “Hesitation Blues.”  She doesn’t sing so she took it apart and put it back together.  It begins with an almost classical theme before launching into a very cool blues.

Then she switches back to guitar #1.  She says she plays in settings didn’t allow cover songs, she didn’t want to do just originals so she played songs from public domain–like the national parks if we don’t use them we’ll lose them.  In 2013, she released an album that was all songs in the public domain.  “Canaan’s Land Medley” is a medley of three gospel songs.  She plays the melodies with her fingers and a slide on her pinky–which adds some cool textures to the song.

For the final song, “Galax,” she brings out guitar #4, a Fender Strat (or knock off). She says she went to a bluegrass festival and was overwhelmed by all of the good songs being played in the parking lot–she’s not even sure if she got to the show.  This song is about all those songs being played at once.  There’s some really fast guitar playing and slide at the same time.  It sounds great and is even more fun to watch.

Anderson is really a marvel–totally soft-spoken and seemingly shy, but main is she amazing to listen to.

[READ: July 13, 2016] “Call Me Crazy”

The May 16, 2016 issue of the New Yorker had a series called “Univent This” in which six authors imagine something that they could make go away. Since I knew many of them, I decided to write about them all.  I have to wonder how much these writers had to think about their answers, or if they’d imagined this all along.

Of the six articles, Brownstein’s was certainly the funniest.  It’s also the most contemporary and almost the most obvious thing to complain about.  But it suits her comic style very well.

She wants to uninvent the conference call.  She assumes that we all agree that the conference call is a bad idea, but in case we need convincing she offers this example. (more…)

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Lars Jansson–Moomin: Volume Nine (The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip) (2014)

Posted in Adventure, Animals, Boredom, Children's Books, Circus, Cute, Drawn & Quarterly, Evening News London, Funny (ha ha), Lars Jansson, Lily & Madeleine, Magic, Moomin, Sports, Supernatural, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, Tove Jansson on July 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »

moomin9SOUNDTRACK: LILY & MADELEINE-Tiny Desk Concert #330 (January 7, 2014).

lilmadLily & Madeleine are a duo (surprise!).  But for a real surprise, they are sisters and at the time of the recording Lily was 16 and Madeleine was 18.  They sing beautiful folkie rock with fantastic harmonies.

That’s Lily on guitar and Madeleine on keys (and higher harmonies).

They play threes songs.  The first one, “Devil We Know” is amazing.  Their harmonies start off the song and it’s a beauty.  It’s an uptempo song that has a gorgeous verse.

“Paradise” features each sister singing an individual verse before the other chimes in with a harmony.  And while their individual voices are nice, when they harmonize it’s really something.

“You Got Out” sounds like a folk song from long ago–with the chord structure and harmony “ooohs.”

The duo is really great and they have just released a new record this year.

[READ: March 19, 2016] Moomin Volume 9

Moomin Book 9 and every subsequent book is made entirely of strips written and drawn by Lars Jansson.  These stories originally ran in the Evening News, London 1960-1975.  I have more or less caught up with the Moomin series at this point.  Book Ten has been released but my library does not have it yet.

This book tends to veer away from the Moomin family a little bit.  Of course they are still present, they just aren’t always the focus, as you might be able to tell by the chapter titles:  “Damsel in Distress” “Fuddle and Married Life” “Sniff’s Sports Shop” “Mymble’s Diamonds.”

(more…)

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Lars Jansson–Moomin: Volume Eight (The Complete Lars Jansson Comic Strip) (2013)

Posted in Adventure, Animals, Boredom, Children's Books, Circus, Cute, Drawn & Quarterly, Erik Satie, Evening News London, Funny (ha ha), Lars Jansson, Magic, Moomin, Supernatural, Surreal, Tiny Desk Concert, Tove Jansson, Van-Anh Vanessa Vo on July 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

moomin8SOUNDTRACK: VAN-ANH VANESSA VO-Tiny Desk Concert #329 (January 4, 2014).

voOne of the things I love about the Tiny Desk Concerts is that they expose listeners to artists that we’d never encounter anywhere else.  As a person who loves rock, there’s no way I’d encounter this artist who plays traditional Vietnamese music.  Even though I think she;s amazing, I’d have no exposure to her otherwise.  So this is a wonderful treat–even more so to see her play in such a small space.

Van-Anh Vanessa Vo is a Vietnamese born musician living in America.  Typically the field of Vietnamese traditional music is dominated by men, but she fought to learn and here she demonstrates her skill on three very different instruments.

The first song “Three-Mountain Pass” is played on the Hang.  The Hang is like a steel drum with different sounds at all of the flattened indentations.  There’s also a tone in the middle which resonates nicely.   It is played with the fingers rather than mallets.  It’s a cool instrument to be sure.  For this song she also sings a Vietnamese song that is very breathy.

For the second song, she has taken Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3 and arranged it for dan Bau, the traditional 9th century Vietnamese monocord. The instrument (“invented by beggers on the street”) has a single string, but by bending it with a kind of whammy bar made from a water buffalo horn.  Despite having one string the bar allows her to go 5 steps up and 1 and a n half octaves down.  She plays a backing track of a while playing the main melody line on the dan Bau.  Watching her play this one string and get ting so many interesting sounds out of it is very cool.

“Go Hunting” is an original composition played on the dan T’rung, a bamboo xylophone from Vietnam’s south highlands. This instrument, which looks a bit like a skeleton, is struck with double-headed mallets.  She says on the album she has a taiko drum, but there is no drum here.  But she doesn’t need it as the song begins slowly but grows faster and faster with the crowd offering some extra percussion.  She plays some amazingly fast melodies as the song reaches its climax.

[READ: March 19, 2016] Moomin Volume 8

Moomin Book 8 and every subsequent book is made entirely of strips written and drawn by Lars Jansson.  These stories originally ran in the Evening News, London 1960-1975.

The story is much more reflective of Lars now.  His art is slightly different is subtle ways, but you can see him using his sown style rather than trying to exactly mimic Tove’s.

The chapters are “Moomin Family Robinson,” “Artists in Moominvalley,” “Sniff’s Holiday Camp” and “The Inspector Nephew” (more…)

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Dominique Roques & Alexis Dormal–Anna Banana and the Chocolate Explosion! (2015) [translated

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alexis Dormal, Chick Corea, Children's Books, Dominique Roques, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Gary Burton, Mark Siegel, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on July 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

chocolateannaSOUNDTRACK: CHICK COREA & GARY BURTON-Tiny Desk Concert #540 (June 13, 2016).

chickI have known of Chick Corea for decades, although I never really knew anything about him.  I’m sure I’ve heard him play at some point (he’s been around since the 1960s), but never so specifically.  And Gary Burton is an unknown quantity to me (although apparently he has played with Corea for years–they recorded their first album together 44 years ago!).

Corea plays a beautiful, fluid jazz piano.  And while his work is really special, it’s actually Burton who I focused on more (at least at the beginning).  Burton plays the vibraphones–with four mallets!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen vibraphones so up close in action before  Apparently the bar can be lifted (which must account for the vibe).

They play two songs, “Love Castle” which is from 1976 and “Crystal Silence” which is from their debut album (1973).

“Love Castle” begins with some great piano and fun soloing on the vibes.  It’s mesmerizing watching Burton hit these bars.  After 5 minutes of intense vibe playing, Corea takes over for solo section for almost 2 minutes before Burton returns (this time providing more background where as the earlier section was more soloing from Burton).  The song is just the two of them for about ten minutes and it’s really something.

“Crystal Silence” is the first song they ever played together.  It opens with some great vibes and then soars and swirls for another t en minutes.  It’s a really cool piece and the crowd is appropriately jazzily appreciative.

[READ: March 1, 2016] Anna Banana and the Chocolate Explosion

This is another First Second picture book (as opposed to graphic novel).  It’s the second in the Anna Banana series.  Once again, I thought the cover illustration was a little sloppy compared to the inside of the book–for many graphic novels I like cover illustrations better than the interior. But this is a picture book so maybe the rules are different.  Nevertheless, both parts are drawn by Alexis Dormal.

Anna is a little girl with a lot of friends: Pingpong the penguin, Grizzler the bear, Zigzag the bunny, Foxface the fox, Whaley the whale and Fuzzball the, well, fuzzball.

Anna’s friends want her to make them a chocolate cake.  But she says she will teach them how to make their own instead. That sounds like a great idea. (more…)

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Dominique Roques & Alexis Dormal–Sleep Tight, Anna Banana! (2012) [translated 2014]

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alessio Bax, Alexis Dormal, Children's Books, Dominique Roques, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Lucille Chung, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sleep, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on July 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

sleepanna  SOUNDTRACK: ALESSIO BAX-Tiny Desk Concert #541 (June 17, 2016).

alessio2Alessio Bax is a pianist and a new father.  His daughter Mila is 22 months old and, a first for Tiny Desk, she is visible through the whole show.  And, no matter  Alessio is playing, all eyes are on Mila because she is completely adorable (and very well behaved).

In honor of his new daughter, Bax plays three pieces which are essentially lullabies.

Perhaps in honor of NPR/PBS, Mila is playing with a cookie monster doll for most of the set and she is being quite cuddly with it–even putting it on her head and resting it on the piano.

Introducing the first piece, J.S. Bach’s (arr. Petri): “Sheep May Safely Graze,” Bax says that Bach asks the pianist to do three things at the same time which is similar to a new parents life.

It is a lovely (somewhat familiar) piece with some beautiful melodies.

alessioWhen the song is one Mila smiles very big and claps along with everyone else and says “papa”

He acknowledges her and says, “She’s my fan #1.”

Lucille Chung, Bax’s wife and Mila’s mom duets with him on the second piece, Brahms: Waltz No. 15 in A-flat major, Op. 39.  They share the piano, which is pretty cool.  As she sits down, Mila says, “Mama too,” which wins over everyone.  Chung takes the high notes while Bax plays the lower notes. It’s a brief song, and very sweet.  Once again when the applause starts, she happily claps along.

Bax says, “We should have her play something–it will be her debut.”

He introduces the final song, Rachmaninoff: Prelude No. 4 in D, Op. 23, but before he starts, Mila says “no practicing” which he says they deal with all the time.

The song begins as a kind of lullaby and then gets much more “hot-blooded” with a stormy middle section that eventually returns to a dreamy ending.  Mila has a small keyboard of her own.  She starts “playing” it, although it proves to be a little too loud and her mom takes it away.  The song does indeed get a little intense in the middle, but is overall quite lovely.  And as it finishes she says papa piano and then beams with a big smile as she applauds with everyone else.

[READ: March 1, 2016] Sleep Tight, Anna Banana

I didn’t realize that this book was a translation at first.  I also didn’t read the biographies of the two people involved. It says that the author Dominique decided to write picture book when her adult son Alexis became a picture-book artist.  So his success inspired her to write these books.  They were translated by Mark Siegel.

We seem to read a lot of translated picture books in our house. Sometimes the very premise behind them is so unfamiliar it’s obvious they were not created by Americans.  Other times the books feel just a little …off somehow.  Like in their rhythm or something.

This book never really came to life for me. (more…)

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Pénélope Bagieu–Exquisite Corpse (2010) [translated 2015]

Posted in #10yearsof01, Alexis Siegel, Books about writers, Boredom, Death, Exquisite Corpse, First Second :01, Foreign Books, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Humiliation, Models, Pénélope Bagieu, Sex, Steve Kimock, Tiny Desk Concert, Translation on June 24, 2016| Leave a Comment »

corpseSOUNDTRACK: STEVE KIMOCK-Tiny Desk Concert #532 (May 16, 2016).

kimockI’d never heard of Steve Kimock before.  He is a guitar player, evidently known for his improvisational playing.

Based on that, I was doubly surprised that the first song not only had vocals, but that they were by someone else in the band (the unnamed female pianist).  “Careless Love” sounds incredibly familiar.  Even on the first listen, it sounded like I’d heard it before–the vocal melody and her voice, the bass riff, everything seemed familiar, although I’m still not sure if I actually know it.

Kimock’s guitar is metal (or aluminum).  It’s quite unusual looking–all shiny and silver.  It’s a hollow body but it sounds unlike an acoustic guitar.  He’s joined by Bobby Vega on bass–and his bass is so smooth (even on this acoustic).

For the second song, he switches to a hollow bodied electric guitar.  He says that “Tongue N’ Groove” is an oldie for himself and Vega (for whom it is also very early in the morning).  The singer switches to piano for this instrumental that has a light jazzy feel.  It’s quite a lovely song.

For the final song, “Surely This Day,” he switches to an acoustic guitar which he plays across his lap (and uses a slide).  This is beautiful solo song with some wonderful moments.

[READ: February 15, 2016] Exquisite Corpse

I really enjoyed this First Second comic.  It was translated by Alexis Siegel and it doesn’t feel translated at all.

This is the first book by Bagieu that I have read and I immediately loved her style which has simple lines but also subtle shading.  It feels at time realistic and at times cartoony.

The story focuses on Zoe.  She is working as a kind of model–a pretty girl who stands near things like cars or boats or whatever.  She doesn’t love the job (who would) and on the second day we see a guy honks her ass.   The other models are doing the work part-time to put their way through school, but Zoe is the only one with no other options.  They tell her she should change jobs or stop complaining. (more…)

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Jim Ottaviani, Leland Myrick–Feynman (2011)

Posted in #10yearsof01, Big Books, Biography, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Inventions, Jim Ottaviani, Lara St. John, Leland Myrick, Marriage (Happy), Martin Kennedy, Matt Herskowitz, NASA, Research, Richard Feynman, Science, Serouj Kradjian, Technology, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, War, World War II on June 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

feynman SOUNDTRACK: LARA ST. JOHN-Tiny Desk Concert #530 (May 9, 2016).

laraWhen Lara St. John released her first CD it made ripples because of the way she appeared on it (presumably topless).  But if that was a stunt to get people to listen, it was a good one because the music on it was phenomenal (and the disc sold very well).  St. John is masterful on the violin and has released a dozen or so CDs of herself playing.

I have never seen her play before and it is a marvel watching her fingers  fly (and slide) all over the neck of the violin (including some absurdly high and fast notes).

The first piece is “Czardashian Rhapsody.”  It is an amazing mashup of two songs by Martin Kennedy: Czardas, the most familiar Hungarian melody for violin and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, the most familiar Hungarian melody for piano.  He merged them into a real barnstormer.  It’s 6 minutes of switching back and forth between the familiar melodies and very gypsy-esque sections (and some very long held notes).

The song is 6 minutes of musical acrobatics.

Although this is billed as St. John’s show, much recognition must go to her pianist Matt Herskowitz who is also magnificent.

St. John clearly has a sense of humor since she named her new album Shiksa.  She says the album actually has ten different titles because every culture has a word for “big Canadian chicks” like herself.

The second piece is “Sari Siroun Yar” by Serouj Kradjian.  She says it was the first song she heard when she went to Armenia in the lat 1980s.  It is a bittersweet Armenian troubadour song.  While this song is much more mellow than the first, it still showcases some amazing playing on both musicians’ parts.  The opening notes she plays high on the fret board which gives the violin a very different sound–almost breathy.  And the main melody is quite lovely.

The final song is once again a wild one.  “Oltenian Hora” is one that St. John arranged herself.  It plays off a catalog of violin tricks, St. John explains, practiced by traditional Romanian gypsy fiddlers: rapid-fire whistles, bird calls and slithery harmonics, all in a variety of off-kilter rhythms.  I’ve never seen some of the things she does on the violin (those bird calls are amazing).  And by the end she is bowing so hard the bow seems about to break.  It is way intense and really awesome.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a violinist get out of breath from playing so hard before, but she deserves all of the applause.

[READ: March 15, 2016] Feynman

This is a graphic novel biography of Richard Feynman.  Ottaviani worked as a nuclear engineer, programmer and reference librarian, so you can trust him.

I have respected Richard Feynman for years.  I have a few of his books, although I can’t say I have read them intensely.  I knew that he was considered an amazing professor–making really intense subjects easier for the layman to understand.  And many of his lectures are available as audiobooks.

But there was so much about him that I didn’t know.  And this biography (which runs nearly 300 pages and is jam packed with information) covers nearly all of it.  Including excerpts from his own publications and attaching a massive bibliography for more works by and about Feynman. (more…)

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Simon Rich–“The Foosball Championship of the Whole Entire Universe” (New Yorker, May 9, 2016)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anachronisms, Art, Florist, Foosball, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, Juno, Kimya Dawson, New Yorker, Short Story, Simon Rich, Tiny Desk Concert on June 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

592016SOUNDTRACK: FLORIST-Tiny Desk Concert #527 (April 29, 2016).

floristFlorist is a quiet band–they remind me a bit of Kimya Dawson from the Juno soundtrack.  There are four members of the band–lead singer/guitarist Emily Sprague and a drummer who has only one drum and plays very sparsely. And then there are two guys who switch between bass/guitar and keyboards.  In this Tiny arrangement, the keys are right next to the guys which makes it very easy for them to switch back and forth–I wonder if it works so well on a bigger stage.

I knew the first song, “Vacation” from an earlier All Songs Considered show and this live version sounds pretty much like the recorded version.  Sprague has a very gentle voice–almost a whipser (but not mumbling or anything).  And her guitar playing is really pretty.  I remember Bob Boilen talking about how much he liked her lyrics like:

Like when I used to ride roller coasters with my dad / When a swimming pool in a hotel / Was a gift from God / Like, love, we’re like a family / I don’t know how to be

The song is mostly just her singing until the end when the bassist sings (also very quietly) a duet with her

At least I know that my house wont burn down down to the ground / or maybe it will / if I’ve been in love before and I’m pretty sure I have / I’m pretty sure that my house could burn down down to the ground tomorrow.

 Between the first and second song the bassist/keyboardist holds down some notes while the others tune and get ready to play.  They’re the most un rock n roll looking band I’ve seen, with them dresses in cozy clothes as they calmly prepare for the second song.

“Cool and Refreshing” sounds that way.  The melody is really pretty once again.  And Sprague’s vocal line is quite lovely.  And the lyrics:

Think of me by the creek in cutoff jeans holding onto / Something that has meaning to me / I don’t really think my life will ever make me / As happy as Kaaterskill Creek

I like the middle of the song when everything drops away except for the lone synth note.

The notes ring out after the second song when Emily finally looks up and says “Thanks everybody” before looking sown and starting the third song, “1914.”  This vocals are a duet, and musically it is just the two guitars.  It’s a very simple song, sparsely conveying the idea of a farewell letter from 100 years ago:

Please remember to feed the cat.  Please remember that I’m never coming back.  I was born in 1994 / I as born in the 70s / I was born in 1823 and you were born right next to me.

Florist was touring recently.  I imagine it must be the quietest show you could ever go to.  But also a very pretty show.

[READ: December 13, 2012] “The Foosball Championship of the Whole Entire Universe”

The premise of this piece is very simple–it is indeed the foosball championship of the whole entire universe.  And the players are eleven-year old Nathaniel Rich and seven-year old Simon Rich.

This “joke” more or less tells itself, but Rich is able to add wonderful details to the story of it to make it much funnier than just the title.  Nathaniel’s Blue team has won all 83 matches, but this game–the last of the summer vacation–is for all the marbles.

Rich has broken the “story” down into analyses of Keys to the Game.

Like Coaching, in which we learn all about Coach Simon’s style (as told by the “players”): “Coach cries a lot” or “the last time we lost, coach attacked us.  It was scary because even though he’s just a boy, he’s also a giant–fifty to sixty times our height.” (more…)

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