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Archive for the ‘Set at School’ Category

Andrew Granville & Jennifer Granville; illustrated by Robert J. Lewis–Prime Suspects: The Anatomy of Integers and Permutations (2019)

Posted in Andrew Granville, Emmy Noether, Emory University, Graphic Novel, Huh?, Institute for Advanced Study, Jennifer Granville, K.F. Gauss, Kevin Smith, Math, Mathematicians, MSI: Mathematical Science investigation., Murder, Princeton, NJ, Robert Schneider, Serge Lang, Set at School, Sophie Germain, The Apples in Stereo, Tommy Britt, Universities on November 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ROBERT SCHNEIDER-“Reverie in Prime Time Signatures” (2009).

Robert Schneider is the lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer of The Apples in Stereo.  He also received a PhD in mathematics from Emory University in 2018.

So he seems like the perfect person to write this complex score (even if he wrote it before he got his PhD).

In the back of the book, Schneider explains in pretty great detail how he chose to write what he did.

He also says that the music was written and and first performed at an experiemntal reading of the original script at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton on Dec 12 2009. Schneider played synth along with cellist Heather McIntosh and clarinet Alex Kontorovich.  The musical score is included in the book and you can hear it here

The piece is two minutes with harpsichord and a lead cello and flute with a synthesizer underneath.

It is mournful and quite pretty.

For a song that is all about odd time signatures, it somehow doesn’t feel awkward or choppy.  I don’t know enough about time signatures to even tell where the different parts are–I can’t hear it at all.  But I find the piece to be quite nice.  And it is reasonable to think that the victims could have the melody stuck in their heads.

 

[READ: June 19, 2019] Prime Suspects

Raise your hand if you want a graphic novel (illustrated by Robert J. Lewis) that is a CSI-styled investigation but is actually a pretty thorough look into higher mathematics.

I have a hard time summing up what this book is all about because I didn’t get all the math that’s going on here.  But the story itself is pretty fun and easy to follow.

The book opens with two cops finding a dead body in a tunnel  There’s also a documentary crew filming everything for the show MSI: Mathematical Science investigation.

A man in a hat and trench coat welcomes us to his world–a world where you don’t have to understand everything to know something.  Where a legendary mathematics professor became the subject of a documentary.

That professor is Professor Gauss. His assistant Mr Langer is in the precinct with Gauss to talk about what hey have found.

Langer is a formally educated student.  A bit uptight and stuffy.  One day in Professor Gauss’ class a young woman with a ring in her nose and unique fashion sense came in.   Her name is Emmy Germain and she proves to be incredibly smart.  But she is self-educated–an abomination to Langer.  But she turns out to be a delightful surprise to the documentary crew that is inexplicably filming Guass’ class. (more…)

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Sarah Graley–Glitch (2019)

Posted in Friendship, Funny (ha ha), Gortimer Gibbon’s Life On Normal Street, Graphic Novel, Robots, Sarah Graley, Scholastic Graphix, Set at School, Sharon Van Etten, The Flaming Lips, Video Games on November 7, 2019| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHARON VAN ETTEN–“Do You Realize??” (2019).

Here’s yet another cover of a great song by an artist I like a lot.

Sharon Van Etten covered the Flaming Lips’ song for the final episode of the Amazon Series Gortimer Gibbon’s Life On Normal Street.  This show is quite outstanding.  It’s a kid’s show but it has a lot of really great ideas.  T. watched most of it although I think maybe she stopped before the end.

Sharon’s take on the song was

When I was asked to cover a Flaming Lips song for Gortimer Gibbons, I was really nervous. But when I watched the scene and heard from the people involved in the music, they really wanted to hear my interpretation of both the scene and the song.  The show is sweet and smart and family oriented—and that is really important to me.

I can’t exactly imagine how this song, which is simultaneously uplifting and depressing, fits into this show.   I imagine it’s a sad scene, but again I haven’t seen it.

The original of this grows bigger and bigger as the verses continue.  There’s backing vocals, swelling strings/keyboards and a really epic feel.

Sharon’s version pulls all of that back.

It opens with keyboards, but they are quiet and soft, almost like a harmonium or accordion.  As she sings she strums along on the acoustic guitar.  She sings the song mostly faithfully to the original, although she does occasionally alter the melody line a bit.  Just before the chorus, a quiet drum beat enters but that’s really it for changes in the song.

It’s really understated and lovely.  And although I prefer the original because it’s just so darn good, this is a beautiful cover which brings new elements to the song.

[READ: September 25, 2019] Glitch

Scholastic Graphix is pretty consistently one of my favorite publishers for really good children’s graphic novels.  The stories are for kids, for sure, but they are gripping and entertaining for adults as well.

Glitch has a great look and an even better story.

We open with two girls, Izzy and Eric, drooling over a new video game: Dungeon City.  Izzy’s copy of the game is arriving this weekend which means VIDEO GAME SLEEPOVER!  Better yet, Izzy’s parents are not at home, so it will be snacks and games and pizza all night long.

When Izzy gets home, her game is waiting for her.  And while she knows she should wait for the weekend, it couldn’t hurt to see what it looks like.  The graphics are amazing and within seconds, she is sucked into the TV and into the game.  Literally.  After orienting herself, she is greeted by a robot (which is, strangely, missing an eye).  The robot offers to rescue her and Izzy rightly points out that she doesn’t need rescuing.  However, she will accept guidance from the robot who is named Rae.  But when Rae asks to hold Izzy’s hand, Izzy refuses that as well. (more…)

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William Trevor–“Traditions” (New Yorker, December 18, 2000)

Posted in Chastity Belt, Death, Drinking, Huh?, Humiliation, Jackdaws, New Yorker, Set at School, Short Story, William Trevor on September 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »

york200SOUNDTRACK: CHASTITY BELT-“Ann’s Jam,” “Elena” and “Drown” (2019)

chazzyWhen Chastity Belt first arrived they posted some gnarly band photos and wre pretty aggressive musically.  Their No Regerts album was brash.  Jagged music, pointed lyrics and rather harsh vocals.

Over the course of five years they have mellowed out quite a bit.  Not necessarily lyrically, although there is some of that, but musically it’s almost a different band. Their guitars are tastefully echoed and the vocals are really pretty and delicate.

The music on these three tracks (the only ones streaming on bandcamp) is practically shoegazey with the hazy vocals and ringing guitars.

There’s some really nice harmonies on “Elena”–and when the two distinct vocals lines intertwine, it sounds great.

“Drown” opens with a really catchy guitar part–it’s a bit faster and sounds a little more like their last two albums, but continuing with the softer vocals.

The only problem with these songs is that they tend to lack a bit of the dynamics that their earlier songs had.  We don’t want them to be too chaste, after all.

[READ: September 20, 2019] “Traditions”

This story is about an English school.  It opens with seven boys: Hambrose, Forrogale, Accrington, Olivier, Macluse, Newcombe and Napier.  Each boy has discovered that his tame jackdaw–birds they had taught to talk (as well as a jackdaw can)–had been killed.

The boys suspect Leggett.  Although Olivier believes it is one of the “girls,” one of the maids who lived in the nearby village and attended to the boys.

Despite the birds, they must go on with their day.  This included Olivier going before the headmaster.  The headmaster was disappointed because Olivier had failed to come up to scratch in any of the sciences he was studying.  When the headmaster asked if Olivier had ambitions in that direction, he had to admit that no, he was just curious about the sciences.

The headmaster replied

You indulged a curiosity.  You indulged yourself.  That can be dangerous.

But when Olivier offered to drop out of science, the headmaster said that would be dangerous too.

Olivier quickly forgot about that and resumed thinking about the dead birds.  He was more convinced than every that it was a girl.  Although the other boys had found Leggett and beat him up (and then didn’t think he had done it).

There had been other traditions of strange things happening at the school–bells ringing in the night, things going missing.  But no one was ever caught.

Olivier was certain it was a particular girl, a maid who was no longer a girl, really.  It seemed like she was watching him as well.

No one–no previous headmaster–knows that this maid, who had been with the school for a long time, had been part of a tradition at the school “supplying to boys who now were men, a service that had entered the unofficial annals.”

I have to assume this is an excerpt from a novel, because as a short story it was very unsatisfying.  So many characters introduced, the whole science thing, and so much unspoken about the maids.  But it doesn’t appear to be from the novel he published in 2002.  So I don’t know what to think.

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Tobias Wolff–“Class Picture” (New Yorker, January 6, 2003)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Cigarettes, Excerpt, John F. Kennedy, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Patient Sounds, Poetry, Poets, Richard Nixon, Robert Frost, Set at School, The Angelus, Tobias Wolff, Viking's Choice on September 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE ANGELUS-“The Young Birds” (2019).

Every once in a while I like to check in with Viking’s Choice on NPR’s All Songs Considered.  Lars Gottrich specializes in all of the obscure music that you won’t hear on radio.  For this month, he did a special focus on Patient Sounds. a small label based out of Illinois.

[UPDATE: At the end of 2019, Patient Sounds closed shop. I’m not sure if any of these songs are available outside of Bandcamp].

Lars had this to say about the label

Matthew Sage, who runs the label, knows that dynamic drone, jittery footwork, oddball drone-folk, hypnagogic guitar music and cosmic Americana can exist in the same space.

The second song of the week is by The Angelus.  Lars describes the song:

Redemption often comes at the hands of something bigger than yourself, but as The Angelus’ soul-rattling doom-gaze reminds us, the love of young children will make you humble.

This song starts with crashing heavy chords–cymbals and loud guitars.  But then it settles down to a groovy death riff.  The surprise to me was when the singer began singing.  He has a soft melodic voice which totally changes this from a heavy dark song into a kind of melodic slow heavy song.  The chorus is surprisingly heavy and even ends on a kind of positive mood.

[READ: September 1, 2019] “Class Picture”

This story surprised me because it started

Robert Frost made his visit in November of 1960, just a week after the general election.  It tells you something about our school that the prospect of his arrival cooked up more interest than the contest between Nixon and Kennedy.

If Nixon had been at their school, they would have glued his shoes to the floor.

This is quite a lengthy story and there are a lot of components.  Wolff fleshes out this school very well.  So well, in fact, that I could see this being developed into a novel [It is actually an excerpt from a novel]. Although for the purposes of this story, the plot is dealt with fully.

It also makes me wonder if such a school could actually exist.  Certainly not in 2020, but even in 1960?  Because this school exhibited pride in being a literary institution. Glamorous writers visited three times a year and the English masters carried themselves as if they were intimates of Hemingway.  The teachers of other subjects (math, science) seemed to float around the fringe of the English masters’ circle.

The tradition at the school was that one boy would be chosen to meet the famous author who was coming next.  This year it is Robert Frost.  Each boy would submit an entry (in the case of Frost it would be poetry).  The author himself would select the winner.  And these meetings were a big deal to everyone on campus.

The narrator is very excited but he knows that his poems are subpar–he writes fiction.  He was on the school’s literary magazine board so he was familiar with the other great writers in his class.  There were three.

George Kellogg was a proficient writer of poetry, although the narrator found the boring.

Bill White was the narrator’s roommate.  He’d written most of a novel already and his poems were impressive.

Jeff Purcell was the third.  He was also on the literary magazine and was quick to dismiss others.  Could that translate to his own writing?

The one detour from the poetry angle is about smoking.  The school forbade smoking but a lot of boys did anyway.  The narrator said he loved smoking.  He smoked in storage closets and freezers, steam tunnels and bathrooms.  He even went out for cross-country so he could smoke while running in the woods.

If you were caught smoking you were expelled.  It happened every once in awhile.  A person was sent home just before the Frost Poem deadline.  This made the narrator quit smoking on campus.

The narrator wrote a poem for the occasion but he didn’t think it was good enough.  So he decided to submit an older one on the off chance that Frost liked it.

I won’t spoil the winner, but Frost did come to the school and he read some of his poems aloud.  During the Q&A that followed a master asked a question.  Interestingly he misstated the title of the poem.  He called it “Stopping in Woods” which Frost corrected instantly to “Stopping by Woods on a  Snowy Evening”  The master continued the question asking about iambic lines  Frost says “Good for you, they must be teaching you boys something here.”

The boys all laughed and Frost seemed pleased–had he made a mistake about the master or had he known all along?  The boys were surprised to learn later that Frost was quite funny.

The end of the story shows the winner of the contest questioning the value of his poem.  He felt that Frost mis-read it and that perhaps he won for the wrong reasons.  Should he blow off Robert Frost?  Is he crazy?

I really enjoyed this piece and found myself thoroughly engaged.  If this is part of a novel, I would be very curious to read it.  Turns out it is an excerpt from the novel Old School.

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Orhan Pamuk–“Geneva, 1959” (New Yorker, June 10 & 17, 2019)

Posted in Culture Shock, Essays, Foreign Books, Hayko Cepkin, Language, New Yorker, Orhan Pamuk, Parenting, Set at School, Switzerland, Translation, Turkey on June 12, 2019| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: HAYKO CEPKIN-“Kabul Olur” (“Accepted”) (2018).

Hayko Cepkin is a Turkish singer of Armenian descent.  He was born on March 11, 1978 in Istanbul.

It’s hard to find out anything about him that’s not in Turkish.  So I’m including what I find interesting

In June 2005, he released his first album “a collection of compositions he recorded at home and all lyrics, music and arrangements of his own.”

He left Istanbul in 2014 and moved to Selçuk, İzmir.  He bought 9 acres of land from Şirince, and created a place where the lovers of Varil / Barrel Camping will enjoy and relax. The artist continues his music studies here.

He even had a festival there some years ago.

This song is from his latest album which is a great example of Anatolian rock–a fusion of Turkish folk and rock music.  He has taken it to some heavier levels than other bands with heavy electronics.

“Kabul Olur” starts with some electronic sounds and a flute before Cepkin starts singing in his rather lovely, powerful voice.

A minute it the drums kick in and the song starts to rock.  And then comes the power chorus at 1:20 (the second time through is even more powerful).  The post-chorus–the repeated title–is like a decompression after the intensity of the chorus.

The pounding middle section is a great combination of his growls and a traditional flute.

The denoument is him repeating “tamam” which means okay.  Its an ntense ending to a song that totally rocks.   Here’s the translated and original lyrics and the video below.

“Accepted”

My path is long, slow
Yolum uzun, ağır ağır geçer 
Life is tired I lean a little, see me
Ömür yoruldum eğilin biraz, beni görün 
The road is not this life desperation
Yol değil bu ömür biçaresizlik 
Stop, this is the final final way to death.
Durdurun, kesin final bu yol ölüm. 
Hear my voice, my voice is a little choked.
Duy duy sesim sesim biraz biraz kısık kısık buruk. 
He sees the end, walks, crazy heart.
Sonunu görür, yürür, deli gönül. Why isn’t my day in the season. 
Neden mevsim olupta günüm geçmiyor. 
Why is it born in my hands and dying? 
Ellerime doğupta neden ölüyor 
Even after all life goes by 
Bile bile sonuçta ömür geçiyor 
Heavy heavy heavy heavy heavy …
Ağır ağır ağır ağır ağır…Acceptance?
Kabul mu olur? 
Yeah, okay.
Evet, tamam.
Why isn’t my day in the season. 
Neden mevsim olupta günüm geçmiyor. 
Why is it born in my hands and dying? 
Ellerime doğupta neden ölüyor 
Even after all life goes by 
Bile bile sonuçta ömür geçiyor 
Heavy heavy heavy heavy heavy … 
Ağır ağır ağır ağır ağır… It’s okay.
Kabul olur. 
Yeah, okay.
Evet, tamam.

 

[READ: June 4, 2019] “Geneva, 1959”

The June 10th issue of the New Yorker features five essays by authors whom I have enjoyed.  They were gathered under the headline “Another Country.”

I do love a story which features lots of diacritics, and this one sure does.  Orhan talks about his brother Şevket and their mother Şekure and how they left Turkey because their father had gotten an good job with IBM in Switzerland.  The boys were seven and nine and their mother wanted them to learn French.  She had learned French in Istanbul and believed she could teach them at home.

But the boys were willful and she gave up, assuming the children would learn the language on the shore of Lake Geneva, in the parks, on the streets, or even at school.

But Orhan resisted the French language.  All of school was in French and Orhan seized up.  Mostly he hated being separated from his brother and he felt at sea. (more…)

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ZZ Packer–“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” (New Yorker, June 19 & 26, 2000)

Posted in Bob's Burgers, Frank O'Hara, Homophobia, LGBTQ, Mina Tindle, NonComm, Queer, Racism, Set at School, The National, This is the Kit, Tindersticks, Universities, ZZ Packer on June 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE NATIONAL-NonCOMM Free at Noon (May 16, 2019).

The National are an interesting band.  They tend to write songs that feel ponderous–sometimes slow and, with Matt Berninger’s deep voice, very intense.  And yet their lyrics can sometimes be inscrutable [“I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees”] and they have done cover songs for Bob’s Burgers on more than one occasion (“Bad Things Happen in the Bathroom”).

So this concert is a bit of a revelation because of how poppy and almost dancey some of these songs are.  Berninger’s voice is nowhere near as deep as I imagined (his speaking voice is deeper than his singing voice) and the songs have a lot of variety to them.

Perhaps it’s the new album, I am Easy to Find.

Expanded to a ten-piece band, The National showcased ten of the album’s sixteen tracks, demonstrating the beauty and strength of the project. Vocalist Matt Berninger led the group’s vast array of instruments and vocalists, and kept everything from sounding overwhelming. The resulting set was a glorious display of emotion and expansive sound.

They opened with “You Had Your Soul With You”,  The track shows their musical horizons starting to expand. Vocalists Kate Stables (This Is The Kit) and Pauline de Lassus (Mina Tindle), joined Berninger on stage, adding a new dimension to the band’s sound. They sung throughout the show, representing the inclusion of female voices and perspectives across the record.

Like many of their songs, it is pretty and invites you to lean in to listen to the lyrics.

Berninger introduced the next song “Oblivions” by emphasizing the “s” “There’s a bunch of them. They keep coming.  Together.”  This song sounded very different, with a synthy, almost dancey vibe.

Stables and de Lassus opened “The Pull of You” before Berninger joined them.  This song has some interesting drum work as many of them do. Midway through, Berninger has a spoken word section that makes it sound like Tindersticks.

He tells us that his wife wrote “Hey Rosy.” He deadpans, “I thought it was about me.”  There’s a quiet piano intro and I love the very-The National delivery of the chorus “Hey Ro / zee I  / think I know just what the / feeling is.”

“Quiet Light” is a gentle, shuffling song.  The warm horn solos that closed the track were a wonderful touch.

Aaron Dessner spoke before they played the tender “I Am Easy To Find” and dedicated it to his friend, Adia Victoria, who played the same stage yesterday and was watching the set from the balcony.

The song is a duet of female and male vocals.  I love the fast delivery of this chorus as well.  Once again, very The National: “there’s a million little battles that I’m never gonna win / anyway.”

The band contrasted the solemness of these tracks with the brightness of “Where Is Her Head.”

Berninger says, “Mike Mills wrote the lyrics to this one… well, most of them… so he gets all of the publishing.  So now you know whey were doing it.”

Sung mostly by Stables and de Lassus, the track replaced the grey aura that filled the room with glittering oranges and pinks.

The song features a quiet looping of the lyrics as Berninger sings solo vocal runs over their chorus.

“Rylan” continued the upbeat-streak. The song, which declared that “everyone loves a quiet child,” showed The National playing with their volume. Towards the end they repeatedly built up their sound, only to swiftly quiet it.

Easy To Find‘s closing track, “Light Years,” was the simplest and most moving they played. With its heartbreaking lyrics and one of the saddest basslines ever played, the track left the crowd awestruck.

It opens with a gentle piano and Berninger’s deeper, quieter vocals. When the women sang back up with him, it was really lovely.

They could have stopped there, with tears quietly building in everyone’s eyes, but they continued with “Not In Kansas.”

Berninger says. We have one more song. This one’s 25 minutes long.  It was.  Then Mike Mills made it like  6 minutes long.  Whatever.  He was in charge.  Everything that’s bad about the record we always blame on Mike and we take credit for all the good stuff.” He paused “there’s some good stuff.”

It has a lovely quiet guitar intro.

While its lyrics focused on the craziness plaguing the world, the track felt small and insular. In closing with it, The National went out with a polite wave, rather than with a bang.

My friend Armando told me that The National puts on some of the best shows he’s ever been to.  I hope to see them some day.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere”

I did not like the narrator of this story at all.  She is hiding behind so much. In fairness, she has a lot to get over, but she closes herself off so much that she’s hard for people to get to know (and also hard for a reader to like).

Dina is at Yale orientation.  She does not have to do the trust fall because she “shouldn’t have to fit into any white, patriarchal systems.”

In the next game she had to say what inanimate object she wanted to be.  She said “revolver,” which got her put on psychiatric watch for the entire year and a solo room.

She also saw a therapist whom she wasn’t interested in talking to but who seemed to see right through her. (more…)

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David Schickler–“The Smoker” (New Yorker, June 19 & 26, 2000)

Posted in Arranged Marriage, Bo Diddley, Cats, David Schickler, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gnocchi, Herman Melville, NonComm, Parenting, Patti Smith, Set at School, Sidecars, Tom Petty on June 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: K.T. TUNSTALL-NonComm (May 16, 2019).

Most artists at NonCOMM get about 20 minutes.  The headliners get about 40 minutes.

When I saw K.T. Tunstall was playing, I assumed she would get 20 minutes–how could she be a headliner? Didn’t she have one hit like a decade ago with “Suddenly I See.”

But there she was with a 45 minute set.  I wondered why.  Possibly because she was playing World Cafe Live again the next night for a full show.  Or possibly because she had a huge hit that I didn’t realize was hers.

Tunstall was by herself on stage.  She had a guitar, a drum machine of some sort, a looping pedal and a kazoo.  Having a lengthy set also allowed for a looser, more talkative set.  She is very funny, bold, foul-mouthed (in the best Scottish way) and smart.

As the last night at NON-COMM was winding down, K.T. Tunstall was able to give the crowd one last hoorah. Tunstall’s set mixed the old and the new nicely, playing anything from covers and mashups to her most recognizable hits.

Tunstall started the set with “Little Red Thread,” the opener to her most recent release Wax. The tune was carried by Tunstall’s percussive guitar tapping and tambourine playing, and it sure got the crowd going.

It had a four note heavy riff with some echoey chords that propel the song.  After two verses she messes something up and says, “that’s a really shitty way to start,” but jumps right back in.

She liked playing the new song but then says, “Let’s trustfall into something familiar.”   She asked if anyone had a long-distance relationship.  “It’s a really fucking bad idea.  It’s good sex; it’s just not regular.”  This was an introduction to the quieter “Other Side of the World” off of her 2004 debut Eye to the Telescope.  The song opens with looping quiet percussion and her raspy voice singing over a gentle acoustic guitar.

“Backlash & Vinegar” is about someone trying to keep you down.  It stays quiet with just her guitar and voice.

She recalled going to a karaoke bar drunk with friends and looking for “Faith” by George Michael which they didn’t have.  WTF?!  The friend she was with said there was a song there that she knew all the words to.  It was her song!  What song was it?  There’s a bit more story.

When she first came to the States she performed her first shows inside Barnes & Noble stores. They close at 8 so you have to play at 7.  There were multiple hot women dressed like Jane Fonda.  Finally she asked a woman why she looked like Lydia from Fame.  She replied (in Tunstall’s great “American” accent: “Honey.  You don’t know? You’re huge in Jazzercise.”

So she plays her jazzercise hit “Black Horse And A Cherry Tree.”  This was the massive hit (and it was a massive hit because I’d heard it everywhere) that I had no idea was by her.  It starts immediately recognizably with the looped “who-hoo / whoo-hoo” and if that doesn’t remind you of the song, the chorus is “No no / no no no no / no no / you’re not the one for me.” It sounded sport on.

She ends the song with a kazoo (!) rendition of White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” which she looped in the backgroud of the end of her song.

Up next is “The River” which is about taking a spiritual shower and washing the world from our brains.  It’s a catchy folk song that could easily have been a Starbucks hit (and maybe it was).

She then teaches everyone a Scottish word: “jobby” it means “shit.”  It’s like the name of the poo emoji.  She wrote this song as an antidote to when you have a nice pair of white high tops and just out of nowhere you step in a really big jobby.  It’s the kind you cant get off with a stick and you have to go into a meeting with the jobby–it’s a metaphor for life.  You can smell it, other people can smell it.  And what you need is a song to get you through.

This is the intro to “Feel It All,” a catchy simple guitar riff and a quiet vocal line.   I don’t know what these songs sound like on records but they translate into pretty folks songs here.

She felt like with everything going on (a lot of abortion bans being proposed), she needed a cover by a master.

Tunstall banged away as she sang a fantastic cover of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” mixing in percussive elements with her thrilling vocals once again.
a rocking raw version

She said she likes to be a purveyor of joy but she needs to speak up.  She dedicates this song to all the women who have achieved incredible things in their lives.  And one of the reasons they’ve been able to achieve it is because they and their partners have had reproductive rights .   This song is meant to give strength to any woman who might have it taken away.

And there was the song I knew from her: “Suddenly I See.”  She started the song, a shuffling rocker, and said, “Every songwriter is like a juicer. You put a few things in and you hope it doesn’t come out brown and weird. This is what happened when I listened to Patti Smith and Bo Diddley on the same day.”

I never would have thought that on my own, but I sure hear it this time.  The song sounds just like I remember it.  Her shockingly un-Scottish-sounding vocals and a super catchy chorus.

I’m glad she got a 45 minute set, it was a great re-introduction to someone I liked a while ago.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “The Smoker”

I don’t understand the title of this story, but I really enjoyed it’s odd revelations.

Douglas Kerchek is a teacher of 12th grade A.P. English at a prestigious all-girls Catholic school in New York City.

Nicole Bonner was a standout student.  He had already written her a recommendation for Princeton.

She read an entire novel every night and retained what she read.  When he proposed a pop quiz, instead of answering the questions, she wrote the entire first page of Moby Dick verbatim.

Although at the end of a recent essay, she had attached a note saying she had noticed the bruise on his ankle and wondered what he had banged it on. (more…)

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Tillie Walden–On a Sunbeam (2017)

Posted in Canadian Music, First Second :01, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Graphic Novel, LGBTQ, Outer Space, Pranks, Rheostatics, Romance, Set at School, The Tragically Hip, Tillie Walden, Violence, YA Books, tagged on March 12, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Scotiabank Saddledome Calgary AB (November 15, 1996).

Rheostatics opened for The Tragically Hip in Fall 1996.  Some of the shows were online already, but in 2018, Rheostatics Live added about ten more shows.  This is the 6th night of the 24 date Canadian Tour opening for The Tragically Hip on their Trouble At The Henhouse Tour.

Dave introduces the show: “Hello people of Southern Alberta, let us entertain you.  Let us kick your ass.”

The show starts with “Fat” and Martin gets some cool wild guitar sounds.  The backing vocals are great and the end of the song really jams out.

Tim’s “All the Same Eyes” seems to rock out a bit more than usual with some scorching guitars from Martin.  They follow it with “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson” and they have fun with it.  Dave has to announce, “stop making faces, this is serious stuff.”  During the middle part, Dave chants, “Michael’s getting married,  Michael’s having a baby, Michael’s going down.”  They stretch out the “it feels good” part with a mellow jam and Martin doing some great falsetto.

Dave talks about Melville millionaires sticker on his guitar.  He says “we played in Melville, Saskatchewan–the best town in Canada.  Martin talks about them playing The National hotel.  They had two nights there and after the first night, someone spray painted outside of their door: “Go home noise pigs.”

Martin introduces “Sweet, Rich, Beautiful, Mine” and Dave says “and we’re not going home.”   Martin makes some great weird noises from his guitar and, once again, there’s more amazing backing vocals from the band.

Don announces: “We’ve got a new record out, it’s been out about a week.  This next song is on it, that last one was on it.  It’s available tonight.”

Then comes two songs from Tim.  It starts with “Bad Time to Be Poor” which has scratchy guitars from Martin.  It sounds great and Dave says “That’s getting played on the radio and we’re awfully happy about that and thanks to those who are playing it.”  Up next is the second Tim song with “Claire.”  Dave says this next song is from Whale Music, underwater music–aquarium rock, they’re calling it.

Dave says they played hockey last night at Max Bell Arena–home of the Calgary Canucks–Calgary’s greatest team. It was them and the Hip & the crews.  The score was 17-17.  It was a great game–we were fortified on ice.

After a rocking “Self Serve Gas Station, ” Dave says, “The people in Edmonton said the people in Calgary didn’t know how to rock.”  Tim: “That’s not true.”  It’s a great intro to another blistering version of “RDA” which they sing as “Rock Death Canada.”

Even though I love the Rheostatics’ longer sets, these 45 minute nuggets are really tasty.  And the band is in peak form at these shows.

[READ: March 4, 2019] On a Sunbeam

I really enjoyed Walden’s memoir Spinning, which was all about competitive skating and a young girl coming out.  So this story threw me a bit because it is about a crew of workers aboard a space ship whose job is to help repair derelict structures.

And it starts right in the middle with no explanation.  We just see a teenaged girl looking out a window at a floating city.  Her name is Mia and she is being brought to a crew that she’ll be working with for the foreseeable future.  The crew consists of Alma, the de facto leader, Char, the actual captain, Jules, a young girl who is actually Alma’s niece, and Elliot.  Elliot is a mechanical genius, is nonbinary (goes by “they” rather than he or she) and does not speak.

Mia and Jules bond pretty quickly, but it’s going to be tough work–up at 5AM and a lot to learn.

The story flashes back to five years earlier.  Mia is at school and, although a freshman, is already defiant.  She gets in trouble for skipping out on a mandatory assembly and sneaking into the gym to look at what turns out to be flying machines.   While in detention, she meets Grace.  Grace is shy but a defiant in her own way.  They form a pretty quick bond. (more…)

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Brian Posehn–Forver Nerdy: Living My Dorky Dreams and Staying Metal (2018)

Posted in AC/DC, Anthrax, Autobiographies, Babysitters, Brian Posehn, Death, Death Angel, Def Leppard, Drinking, Drugs, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), Horror, Hospitals, Humiliation, Iron Maiden, Kentucky Fried Movie, Kiss, Kiss Meets the Phantom/Attack of the Phantoms, Memoirs, Metallica, Mr. Show with Bob and David, Music, NewsRadio, Nostalgia, Ozzy Osbourne, Peter Benchley, Religion, Rob Zombie, Rush, Seinfeld, Set at School, Sexism, Slapshot, Star Wars, Technology, Testament, The Devil's Rejects, Van Halen, Y&T on February 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Y&T-“Mean Streak” (1983).

In the early 1980s Y&T had a couple of albums that made it onto my radar.   This one, Mean Streak, had this song which I liked enough. It’s got some cool riffs and Dave Meniketti’s raspy but distinctive voice.

I remember liking this song, even though I really had no idea what was going on in the lyrics.  The chorus where everyone sings “mean streak” behind his lyrics was certainly the catchy selling point.   But this is hard rock more than metal and is not really my thing.

I may have bought this album, but I know I have the follow up In Rock We Trust, which was more poppy (and they were more pretty).  I had forgotten all about “Lipstick and Leather” yet another cheesy pop metal song about, well, lipstick and leather.

People who were fans of Y&T (like Posehn) were die-hards, but even listening now I see why I never really got into them, even if I liked them for a bit.  Maybe it was a California thing.

[READ: January 2019] Forever Nerdy

S. got this for me for Christmas after we saw Posehn on a late night show and he talked about his nerdy obsessions, including Rush.  It seemed like an obvious fit.  And it totally was.

Posehn is a few years older than me, but if he had lived in my town we would have totally been friends (except I would have never talked to him because he was older).  Anyhow, we had more or less the same obsessions and the same nerdy outlook.  Although I was never really picked on like he was so perhaps I was a little cooler than he was.  Although I never smoked or drank when I was in high school so maybe he was cooler than me.

Things to know about before reading this–Posehn is a vulgar dude–there’s not much kid friendly is in this book.  Also this book isn’t really an autobiography exactly. I mean it is in that he wrote it and its about him, but if you were dying to find out fascinating stories about his crazy life, this book isn’t really it. I t’s more about the things he was obsessed with–in true nerdy fandom.

Although, Brian, what nerd doesn’t have an index in his own book? (more…)

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Laurie Halse Anderson–Speak: The Graphic Novel [artwork by Emily Carroll] (2018) [original story 1999]

Posted in Art, Artists, Beer, Drinking, Emily Carroll, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Laurie Halse Anderson, Rape, Set at School, Sexual Assault, YA Books on February 5, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CAT POWER-Tiny Desk Concert #821 (February 4, 2019).

I remember when Cat Power was a buzz artist who had signed to Matador.  I bought her album in 1996, but I guess it didn’t leave that much of an impression on me.

Since then, she has been a buzz artist for performing and then for not performing and then for performing again.  All the new music of hers that I have heard seems to get slower and softer.

The biggest surprise about the Tiny Desk Concert was how full of smiles she was and yet the blurb makes her sound uncomfortable:

Most artists who play the Tiny Desk are at least a little nervous. Performing in broad daylight in a working office full of staring faces is outside the comfort zones of most people. But Chan Marshall, the unforgettable voice behind Cat Power, seemed especially uneasy when she settled in for her set. Rather than taking center stage, close to the audience, she stepped back and to the side to be closer to her pianist and friend, Erik Paparazzi, for much of the performance. She intermittently steadied herself by resting a hand under her chin while clutching a cup of tea, and she ran through three songs without a break, making her set sound more like a Cat Power medley than a series of distinct songs.

So I don’t know any of the songs she played here and when I first listened I actually assumed she’d only played two songs because the first two blended together.

Regardless, the music was arresting and beautifully orchestrated, with simple piano lines and brushed drums backing a voice that could only be hers.

Opening with “Wanderer,” the title track to Cat Power’s latest album, Marshall sang of restless love and yearning with a nod toward motherhood and her 3-year-old son: “Twist of fate would have me sing at your wedding / With a baby on my mind, now your soul is in between.”

It has a quiet, simple piano melody (from Erik Paparazzi) and a gentle guitar (from Adeline Jasso) that imperceptibly pushes it forward.  After a minute, the brushed drums (from Alianna Kalaba) come in to add a little snap to the song.

“Woman,” another track from Wanderer starts immediately.  She had recorded this song with Lana Del Rey and I recall liking it. This version sounds so much like the previous song that I don’t even recognize the original in it.  The differences between the two songs are that the piano notes have changed a little (but since they repeat all the way through, it’s not hugely noticeable) and the guitar now uses a slide.  Otherwise the beat is I believe unchanged.

She segues right into “The Moon,” from her 2006 album The Greatest.  The only distinction here is that the guitar and drums stop briefly while the newly repeating piano picks up a slightly different melody.  This song sounds so much like the previous one because she sings the word “Moon” so much like the word “Woman” (often given Moon more than one syllable) I couldn’t tell that she was saying something different.

I suppose if I were in the right mood I would have found this mesmerizing and enchanting.  But mostly I just found it rather dull.

[READ: February 5, 2019] Speak

I hadn’t read this novel and, in fact, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was about (although I knew it was intense).  The only reason I picked it up was because I thought it was a First Second publication and I plan to read all of their books.  This was listed in their 2018 publication list, but it ultimately wasn’t published by them, it turns out.

S. knew the book from her work with teens and said she didn’t want to read the graphic novel version.  So I expected a harrowing, potentially unreadable story.

But Anderson has created an excellent and compelling story built around a harrowing incident.  She also doesn’t detail the harrowing incident until later in the story, so by the time we hear about it we are even more sympathetic to Melinda.

I will say that as the story opened (because I didn’t know the timeline), I thought that the kids were being unrealistically mean to her.  I thought she was a new student at the school (it’s her first year in high school) and I couldn’t imagine why people really had it in for her.  It seemed hard to believe.  Especially as we realize pretty quickly that the incident has already happened.

Then it gradually comes out that kids are mad at her for something she did.  It is connected to the incident, but clearly isn’t about the incident because she hasn’t told anyone about it. (more…)

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