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Archive for the ‘Sexism’ Category

Kate Walbert–“To Do” (New Yorker, September 2, 2019)

Posted in Canadian Music, Eating Out, Feminism, Kate Walbert, Nü Sensae, New Yorker, Orville Peck, Parenting, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on September 8, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EATING OUT-Burn 7″ (2013).

Orville Peck has been getting a lot of attention lately.  In his act, he is a masked cowboy and his identity was (for a time) unknown.

It was fairly recently revealed that Orville Peck is actually Canadian musician Daniel Pitout (those tattoos will always give it away).

Pitout is in a couple of bands including Eating Out and Nü Sensae.

Eating Out plays a noisy grunge.  They have a bunch of one-song singles on bandcamp and this 7″ collects three of them.

Pitout is the singer (and he sounds NOTHING like Orville Peck).  I’ve felt like Orville Peck is a joke character because of the insane way he sings.  Hearing this, I’m evening more convinced of it.  But I’m glad he’s in on it.

“Burn” opens with a clean guitar intro followed by the biggest most distorted guitar around.  It’s certainly grunge and not metal and it runs through the verse and chorus.  The middle reintroduces the opening guitar riff and then the big distortion returns.  The song ends with that same clean guitar–it’s reall catchy–before crashing to a conclusion.

“Come Around” has two lead guitars (nicely fuzzed out) and a big fuzzy sound.  The sound reminds me of an updated version of SST bands.

“That’s My Man” closes the 7″ with a quiet intro.  Echoed vocals and a simple guitar melody.  It’s a poppy, almost do-wop melody with a bit of reverb drenched over the whole thing.  The song doesn’t change much, it just gets bigger as it goes along.  It’s probably the least interesting of the three, but it certainly shows Pitout looking to stretch beyond punk and grunge way back in 2013.

[READ: September 2, 2019] “To-Do”

This is a story about feminism, sex, and a woman’s relationship with her mother.

Constance is in front of a crowd of women at Antler’s Bar for Storytelling Wednesday.

She is telling them that her mother had been a beauty.  She had gotten a degree and was successful in a typing pool in New York City.  Although her boss told her that she had to cut her long hair and adopt the stylish updo of the time.  When she refused, her boss called her hysterical.  I can imagine her telling the audience: Do you know the origin of the word hysterical is the belief that the uterus could reach up through the body and and grip the throat.

The women in the audience seem agitated and bored.  Constance tries to win them over by reciting her mother’s to-do list, something she found in her mother’s effects after she died.

She tries to convince them of the significance of post its and to do lists in a woman’s life.

None of the women see it. (more…)

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Joel Hodgson, Harold Buchholz–Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Comic

Posted in Dave Chappelle, Death, Erykah Badu, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Harold Buchholz, Horror, Igbo Masquerade, Jack Pollock, Joel Hodgson, Joel Hodgson, Mary Robinson, Matt McGinnis, Meta, Mike Manley, Mimi Simon, MST3K, Mysteries, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Netflix, NPR/PRI/PBS, Racism, Sci-fi, Seth Robinson, Sexism, Sharyl Volpe, Tiny Desk Concert, Tobe Nwigwe, Todd Nauck, Totino's Pizza Rolls on September 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TOBE NWIGWE-Tiny Desk Concert #881 (August 19, 2019).

Tobe Nwigwe is the leader, but he shares the spotlight with his backing vocalists all of whom take lead vocal spots at some point.

The thing I like best about this set is that they are all wearing T shirts that say “My First Tiny Desk.”

There’s a wide array of sounds on this Tiny Desk too, from delicate R&B to some abrasive rapping.  I like the abrasive rapping a lot more–he has terrific delivery in that part.

Tobe’s performance was a five-song medley sandwiched effortlessly into a 15-minute block. Launching with “Houston Tribute,” he used clever and evocative wordplay to rap about coming of age in the South. Accented almost hypnotically by a trio of harmonies provided by background vocalists Luke Whitney, David Michael Wyatt and Madeline Edwards, Tobe’s mindful words are like a life hack for those seeking guidance.

The song has a gentle melody with delicate keys from Nic Humes.  The song is a rap, but a soft one.  He speaks quickly but the rhymes are positive and amusing.

My flow a monastery for them extra poor people
That don’t get commentary and get honored rarely
For the guava jelly they produce even though they get thrown fecal
Matter on a platter made by they oppressor
I shatter all the chatter that seem to make us lesser

After about two minutes Lucius Hoskins kicks in some guitar licks.  Then Devin Caldwell throws in some cool deep bass sounds making the song sound very full.

Tobe’s wife, Fat, known for her striking beauty and lead role in the magnificently directed music videos that have paved the way to Tobe’s rapid growth on Instagram. And through it all, young Baby Fat sat silently in her mom’s arms, absorbing the spiritual energy of her dad’s music.

After the song he says, “That’s how you do it June 24” (So it took two months for this to air).  Then he says “Lets teach ’em why the caged bird sings.  “Caged Bird” opens with Aldarian Mayes playing some simple drum thumping before Tobe starts rapping.

LaNell “NELL” Grant gets a lead rap mid song then after another chorus, Luke Whitney takes a high falsetto verse followed by an even higher falsetto from David Michael Wyatt.

Up next is “Against the Grain.”  Madeline Edwards takes the first lead vocal, but Ii love this song for the great raw sound of the bass and guitar and Tobe’s growling rapping delivery.

Aight, I feel like the masses on melatonin when it come to melanin
I grew up melancholy ’cause I ain’t realize that the hemoglobin in my skin
Was connected to a lineage that never ever had to penny pinch

That sound is unlike anything else in the set, although it does segue into “Shine” with more lead vocals from Madeleine.

Throughout the set he offered pleas for listeners to look past inherent hardships and evil and to keep their eyes on the prize, while he reflected on his own decision to go against his Nigerian roots and parental expectations to pursue his dreams of being a rapper.

He is very funny and says, “I’m Nigerian I know a lot of y’all though I was regular black”  For Nigerian parents, if their children haven’t done one of three things they’ve wasted their lives: become a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.  So you can imagine when I told my mom that I wanted to be a rapper. She said (in maternal Nigerian accent) Tobe, why are you such a parasite to my life?  Tobe, why do you love poverty so much? Tobe, why re you trying to kill me?

Legends like Dave Chapelle and Erykah Badu were telling me I was dope which is what  “I’m Dope” is about.  David Michael Wyatt sings an impressive falsetto and the song actually does mention that Chapelle and Badu said he was dope.

The credits also cite Igbo Masquerade: art.  I’m not sure what that’s a reference to.

[READ: September 1, 2019] Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Comic

I couldn’t imagine how this comic book would work with the premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000’s movie riffing.  But Joel Hodgson had an idea and it works wonderfully.

The Mads up on the dark side of the moon are still tormenting a guy up on the Satellite of Love.

This book is Netflix-era, so the Mads are now represented by Kinga, Synthia, TV’s Son of TV’s Frank (Max) and the Boneheads.  And joining Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy on the SOL are Jonah and two small robot creatures that I didn’t recognize (I haven’t watches the Netflix episodes).

I absolutely hate the way Todd Nauck draws the host segments. I can’t stand the mouth designs on anyone, especially Kinga.  They all look like the Joker (is that because this is from Dark Knight comics?) and are horrifying.

But once you get past the art design of the host segments, the premise is pretty great.  Synthia has designed a machine The Bubbulat-r which allows a person to enter a comic book.  They test it out on Max and his favorite book Funny Animals.  Max jumps in as a rabbit can talk to the other characters.

The book explains that there’s a little bubble at the bottom of the word balloon to indicate a line that has been added and is not a line from the actual book.

But when Max comes back he tells us that the cute little bunny is in fact four feet tall with powerful sinewy limbs and reeks of a bizarre musk.

But the key point is that that Kinga has invented a way to do movie riffing from inside the comic.  So Kinga sends them comics and our heroes are inserted into different books. (more…)

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J. Robert Lennon–“No Life” (New Yorker, September 4, 2000)

Posted in Adoption, Coldplay, Drinking, Huh?, J. Robert Lennon, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Racism, Sexism, Short Story, The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends on August 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS AND HEADY FWENDS-“Tasered and Maced” (2012).

2012 saw the release of this very strange collaborative album.  Whether The  Flaming Lips had entered the mainstream or if people who’d always liked them were now big stars or maybe they all just liked doing acid.  Whatever the case, The Lips worked with a vast array of famous (and less famous) people for this bizarre album.  Here it is 8 years later. Time to check in.

The final song of the album features Chris Martin from Coldplay on the vinyl release.  But it’s something else entirely on digital releases.  This is the digital song.

This starts as a buzzy feedback wall of noise.  Then comes a simple synth riff over which Aaron Behrens tells a story about cops busting into a party and macing everyone.

He was drunk and decided to fight the cop.  The cop turned around and maced him in the face.  So he ran.

He says Friends will stop chasing you after a while, but copes don’t stop.  They caught him and tasered him.  Hence maced and tasered.

Musically thus piece is interesting to listen to, but the story doesn’t really hold up to repeated listens.

[READ: August 20, 2019] “No Life”

This story concerns parents looking to adopt.  But it is handled in a unique (to me) way.

As the story opens we meet Edward and Alison.  Once happily married (having sex everywhere) they were soon desperate to get pregnant (sex became a chore).  Now they have given up on getting pregnant. But neither one will ever refuse sex (even if they don’t want to have it) because it means they have given up.

So they are looking to adopt.

I’ve never heard of a setup like this, but maybe it happens all the time:

Prospective adoptive parents are invited to a picnic where all of the potential adopted children are playing.  The adults are told to act natural and speak to the children casually.  Never say things like would you like to come home with us and try to keep things as upbeat as possible. (more…)

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Dave Bidini–Midnight Light: A Personal Journey to the North (2018)

Posted in Athanaskan, Books about writers, Calle 13, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corb Lund, Culture Shock, Dan Mangan, Dave Bidini, Délı̨nę, Northwest Territories, Dené, Dog Sleds, Domestic Violence, Drinking, First Nations, Folk on the Rocks Festival, Friendship, Funny (ha ha), Homelessness, Humiliation, iLe, Non-fiction, NPR/PRI/PBS, Politicians, Prison, Puerto Rico, Regrets, Relationships, Religion, Research, Revenge, Rheostatics, Rush, Sahtú, Science, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Sports, Supernatural, Superstitions, Tanya Tagaq, Terra Lightfoot, The Globe and Mail, The Sun, The Telegram, The Yellowknifer, Tiny Desk Concert, Toronto Star, Travel, Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Violence, West End Phoenix, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories on August 6, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: iLe-Tiny Desk Concert #874 (August 3, 2019).

It’s not very often that you hear a song that is all percussion.  But the first song of this set is only percussion and (Spanish) vocals.

iLe is a singer in the Puerto Rican band Calle 13.  Her most recent solo album Almadura:

is filled with metaphors and allegories about the political, social and economic conditions in Puerto Rico.

When vocalist Ileana Cabra Joglar and her band visited the Tiny Desk, they’d just arrived from the front lines of the historic demonstrations taking place in Puerto Rico. Two days earlier, they were part of a crowd of tens of thousands who were on the streets calling for the resignation of embattled Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. (Rosselló recently stepped down, effective August 2.)

Right from the start, it was clear what was on iLe’s mind in her song “Curandera” — “I am a healer / I don’t need candles to illuminate / I bring purifying water to cleanse / Removing pains so they never return” — as congas and percussion shook the room with an Afro-Caribbean beat.

This is the song in which all of the band members play percussion–primarily congas although Ismael Cancel is on the drum kit.  While everyone plays congas, it is Jeren Guzmán who is the most accomplished and who plays the fast conga “solo.”

In the chorus of the slow-burning “Contra Todo,” iLe sings about channeling inner strengths and frustrations to win battles and remake the world. Her lyrics are rich with history, capturing the spirit of the streets of San Juan even as she stood, eyes closed, behind the Tiny Desk. Her entire performance is a startling reflection of this moment in Puerto Rican history.

“Contra Todo” has a rich deep five string bass from Jonathan Gonzalez and two trombones (Joey Oyola and Nicolás Márquez). Two guitars (Bayoán Ríos and Adalberto Rosario) add a kind of percussive strumming and a quiet song-ending riff.  Jeren Guzmán plays the congas with mallets, something I’ve never seen before.

By the time iLe and her band launched into “Sin Masticar,” they’d already captured the full power of protest, as their musical arrangements raged with the intensity of a crowd joined by a shared cause and pulse.

“Sin Masticar” has a super catchy chorus, perhaps the best way to get people involved in a protest.

[READ: August 2019] Midnight Light

Two years ago Dave Bidini co-founded The West End Phoenix, a newspaper that is for people in Toronto’s West End.  It’s print, it’s old school, and it’s pretty awesome.  I don’t think I’ve ever been to the West End, but I find the writing and the content to be interesting and really enjoyable.

It’s no surprise that Bidini has worked in journalism and loved and hated it.

I’ve always loved newspaper: the smell of the ink and the rough of the newsprint weighted in my hands, their broadsheets flapping like Viking sails.  When I was a kid, our family read them all–the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Sun, and before that The Telegram–at the kitchen table with each person drawing out whatever they needed: comics, sports, business, entertainment (and yet never Wheels, the Star’s automotive supplement).

He started writing before he picked up a guitar.  When he was 11 he submitted a poem about a hockey player to The Sun‘s “Young Sun” section.  It was accepted and he won a T-shirt.

In 1991, he was asked to write a regular column for a Star satellite weekly called Metropolis.  The day his first piece was to be in print he waited at the nearest newsbox for the delivery man.

But he had no stamina and fewer ideas and he was eventually let go.  Which led to writing books.  But he still wanted to write for the paper and then he remembered: Hey, Yellowknife had a newspaper.

This book is about journalism.  But it’s also about the Canadian North.  And while the journalism stuff is interesting–and the way it ties to the North is interesting too, it’s the outsider’s perspective of this region of the world (that most people don’t even think about) which is just amazing to read about–the people, the landscape, the conditions.  It’s fascinating. (more…)

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Hanif Kureishi–“She Said He Said” (New Yorker, July 22, 2019)

Posted in Allen Baekeland, Canadian Music, Hanif Kureishi, Jealousy, Marriage Trouble, Negativland, Rheostatics, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, The Rembetika Hipsters on July 22, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ALLEN BAEKELAND-“Drinkin’ Ex and Askin’ Why” (Moose: The Compilation, 1991).

Back in the 1990s, it was common to buy a compilation or soundtrack or even a band’s album based on one song.  Only to then find that you didn’t really like anything else on it.

Maybe that single sounded like nothing else on the album.  Maybe the movie was almost entirely one genre, but they had that one song that you liked over the credits.  Or maybe the compilation was for something but a song you really wanted was on it, too.

With streaming music that need not happen anymore.  Except in this case.

I bought this compilation used recently exclusively for one song, Rheostatics’ “Woodstuck.”  The compilation was not well documented, so i didn’t know what the other bands on it might sound like.

This is a country song.  You can tell by the fantastic title “Drinkin’ Ex and Askin’ Why”  But it also contains everything else about a country song–slow, kinda mopey, pedal steel guitar and bad grammar with lyric about beer.

There is one saving grace that elevates this above a typical country song. Allen Baekeland is from Toronto and not the south of the U.S.  So his voice doesn’t twang.

This actually sounds kind of like a Negativland song–like a parody of a country song, even though it’s not.

And because it’s from Canada, it’s amusing to hear the line “yea I’m a grown man so I won’t cry / instead I reach into my two-four / for one more / and sit here and get pissed.”

In the 1990s Allen Baekeland started The Rembetika Hipsters who are still active today.

[READ: July 21, 2019] “She Said He Said”

In this story Sushilia was walking in the park.  She saw Mateo and his male assistant sitting on a bench.  Mateo worked for her husband Len for over ten years.

Mateo was very drunk though, and he greeted her by kissing her checks and then asking if she would sleep with him–right now, at his place.  He said he’d always found her sexy but was too nervous to say anything to her.

Obviously, she was shocked by this.  She was friendly with Mateo’s wife Marcie and considered her a confidante.  She chalked this behavior up to drunkenness.

But the next morning Mateo saw her again in the supermarket.  He was sober and yet he reiterated his desire.  He said she must be bored with Len after all these years. She kept her temper but pointedly refused his advances.

Then she called Len and told him what happened. (more…)

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Jonathan Dyck & Christine Kampen Robinson–“Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews” (The Walrus, July/August 2019)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Bolivia, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Chris Ware, Christine Kampen Robinson, Jonathan Dyck, Mennonites, Miriam Toews, Radco, Religion, Sexism, Sexual Assault, The Poubelles, The Walrus on July 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: RADCO-“Didn’t You Know” (2017).

Since this essay is about Mennonites, I decided to see if I could find any Mennonite rock bands.  Well, Radco was a “punk” rock band from Vancouver, BC.

Drummer Amber Banman described their music as

A heart crushing, unstoppable, rock and roll machine. Ha-ha .We like to say we’re too polite for punk rock as we all generally mind our P’s and Q’s. But oh boy, can we rock!

They have a few songs on bandcamp.

This song does rock (although there is a xylophone melody at the end).  It’s catchy with solid guitars.

The lyrics are indeed a polite diss track:

Pay attention
Before you miss
All of these things
That you could have kissed
Didn’t you know I wanted to go
But you left me standing by my front door

As of 2018 Radco were no more, although three of them went on to form The Poubelles (Amber sings lead in this band).

[READ: July 1, 2019] “Mennonites Talking About Miriam Toews”

The July/August issue of The Walrus is the Summer Reading issue. This year’s issue had two short stories, a memoir, three poems and a fifteen year reflection about a novel as special features.

I really enjoyed Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows.  I haven’t read her book A Complicated Kindness, but I gather that it (like Sorrows) shines a light on Mennonite culture.

The introduction to this piece says that Kindness introduced the world to the Mennonites of Manitoba’s Bible belt.  Her 2018 novel Women Talking is a fictionalized account of women living in the aftermath of sexual assault in an ultraconservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia (that book sounds painful to read).

This piece is a collection of cartoon panels each one a person expressing a real sentiment about Toews (although the panels are fictionalized). (more…)

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Adam O’Fallon Price–“The Maid’s Story” (Harper’s, June 2019)

Posted in Adam O'Fallon Price, Frou Frou, Harper's, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Hotels, Humiliation, imogen Heap, NPR/PRI/PBS, Polio, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, The O.C., Thieves, Tiny Desk Concert on June 27, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: IMOGEN HEAP-Tiny Desk Concert #859 (June 20, 2019).

I know of Imogen Heap from a song called “Come Here Boy” that she released way back in 1998.  It was stark and dramatic and somewhat sexual. In short, a quintessential 90s track.

Then she disappeared.

Well, she actually made an album with Guy Sigsworth as Frou Frou.  And then she disappeared a again.

Actually she didn’t disappear at all. She released a song, “Hide and Seek” which was mostly just her singing into a vocoder (and was quite transfixing.  It became a huge hit (which I didn’t know about because I didn’t watch The O.C.).

But in 2011, she started experimenting with these high tech gloves that allowed her to do all kinds of audio manipulation just by moving her hands.

She even says, some people know me because I am interested in block chain technology and some people know me for these gloves.  They don’t even know I make music they just know about the gloves.

But in this Concert, the gloves come last.

Up first is the first song that she and Guy Sigsworth have written together in 17 years.  “Guitar Song” (she tends to leave placeholder names, so that will likely change) is a quiet pretty song with a lot of, yes, guitar from Steve Jones.  It’s a simple melody fleshed out with keys from Sigsworth.  It’s really pretty and very catchy.

Up next is “Speeding Cars” which she says was a B-side that was never released as a single but which her fans really love.  Zoë Keating plays cello and Imogen says she has a terrific album of her own called Snowmelt and she hopes Keating gets her own Tiny Desk someday.  Tim Keiper is on drums and vast array of percussion.  Imogen is on the piano she has an excellent falsetto for this very pretty song.

Then she puts on the Mi.Mu gloves.

Imogen Heap not only has an enchanting voice but also the talents of a world-class audio engineer. She’s completely engrossed in a technology she’s helped to develop, one that makes it possible to alter sounds, create loops and compose tunes all with the wave of her glove-wearing hands. The high-tech gloves, now called Mi.Mu Gloves, were first shown at a TEDGlobal conference eight years ago. Her performances, with her sound-altering arm and hand gestures, resemble a summoning of spirits, a far more compelling live experience than what Imogen said used to look like she was standing behind her laptop checking email.

She gives a lengthy explanation and brief demonstration of these very cool loves.  Then it’s on to “Hide and Seek,” which she had re-imagined for the Broadway play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and which she says that if she doesn’t play people throw tomatoes at her.

It really sounds nothing like the original but it is amazing to watch her make the song with her hands waving around.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “The Maid’s Story”

This story introduces us to the Gersons, a family on vacation in a hotel. The husband is small and insignificant. But the wife is larger than life.  Both physically and in personality.

Hannah Kohl, the maid, was taken with Mr Gerson’s red brooch and when she went to clean the room later, she pocketed it.  As she did so, she promised herself it would be the last thing she ever took from a patron.

But Mrs Gershon walked in before the maid had time to close the jewelry box.  She told her it was costume and worth nothing but how could the maid have thought Mrs Gerson wouldn’t notice?

The maid is very apologetic.  She begs not to be ratted out and pleads with the woman.  She says her eight-year-old son has polio (“So did our president, but Eleanor doesn’t go around stealing jewelry).

Mrs Gerson asks where Hannah is from–Wroclaw Poland.  In the camp? No, her father moved them before.  And the hotel owner’s second cousin helped them.  Then Hannah did something unexpected–she opened up to Mrs Gerson about her travels and her life.

Mrs Gerson diagnosed her as a kleptomaniac (she compulsively stile things she didn’t need).  But she was mostly concerned about the boy, Isaac.  She insisted that he receive proper care for his polio  The doctor Hannah’d been going to was an elder in the old country synagogue who showed no evidence that he knew anything about medicine  He said the polio would clear up and go away on its own.

The new doctor was in Manhattan, a lengthy trip for Hannah and Isaac.  Mrs Gerson said they could stay with her family when they traveled in.

The doctor gave many recommendations and said that Mrs Gerson was paying for it all.

The Gerson children were uninterested in Isaac until he told them a story about people dying at the hotel.  They found his story (which was partly made up) to be engrossing.

After dinner Mr Gerson excused himself and left the two women to talk.  Mrs Gerson pulled Hannah on to her lap  She soothed her and stroked her head but soon the stroking became sexual.  This made Hannah very uncomfortable and she froze, enduring the touches which gave her revulsed pleasure.

Hannah and Issac went to Manhattan twice a month.  Each time, the same thing happened.  Mrs Gerson never said anything about it, but it happened nonetheless. It was especially upsetting because Hannah very much liked Mrs Gerson otherwise. She was funny and bold and seemed genuinely interested in their health and prosperity.  And Hannah would put p with anything for Isaac;s welfare.

Soon, Issac was deemed just about normal;–one more visit would do it.

One night, Mrs Gerson revealed that all of their money was her husband’s–her family is as poor as Hannah’s. Nobody least of all Mrs Gerson really understood why Bert chose her.  Plus, he always knew that Mrs Gerson liked girls better.

Bert wants things to be easy.  So Mrs Gerson does everything—raises the kids, takes care of family affairs.

The thing with wives is they can leave. Mothers can’t.

Finally Mrs Gerson declared that she loved Hannah.

Hannah grabbed her things and Isaac and left.

When Hannah returned to the hotel, she was called to the office and informed that a guest said that Hannah had stolen from them.  They had to let her go.

What could Hannah possibly do?

 

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Jill Ciment–“Then Again” (Harper’s, June 2019)

Posted in Ensemble Signal, Excerpt, Harper's, Jill Ciment, Jonny Greenwood, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Memoirs, Memory, NPR/PRI/PBS, Olivier Messiaen, Radiohead, Sex, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Tiny Desk Concert on June 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ENSEMBLE SIGNAL PLAYS JONNY GREENWOOD-Tiny Desk Concert #850 (May 20, 2019).

The blurb for this piece is actually by Jonny Greenwood (instead of an NPR staffer), so I’ll keep the whole thing.

I’ve watched a lot of Tiny Desk concerts over the years. It’s good to see musicians in the raw, away from stage lighting and backing tracks — as if they’ve just stopped by an office to play over a lunch break, with desk-bound employees watching on. The performances should expose flaws, but instead they tend to expose musicians being casually brilliant, like the members of Ensemble Signal, who certainly play these pieces beautifully.

Unfortunately, I was nowhere near Washington, D.C. for this recording. And I still find it bizarre that you can put a musical idea on paper and have it reproduced at such a distance — and with such added life. We’re used to sounds and images being shared as exact clones of one another, but the pleasure in using ink and paper is that the music is interpreted rather than just reproduced. All those years of practice, in all those players, distilled into 15 minutes of music. It’s a big privilege — and a continuing motivation to write the best I can.

The first piece, Three Miniatures from Water, was originally a sketch for an Australian Chamber Orchestra commission in 2014. I thought it’d be easier to approach writing for full orchestra by starting with a piano miniature and scaling it up. In fact, only some of the material made it to the final commission, and I always felt the original three miniatures hung together well enough as its own piece of music.

I’m a big admirer of composer Olivier Messiaen, and one of the musical scales he favored was the octatonic mode. It’s a lot like an Indian rag in that it’s a rigid set of notes, yet isn’t necessarily in a major or minor key. There are hundreds of rags in Indian music, but I was surprised to find that Messiaen’s octatonic scale isn’t one of them. Despite this, it sits nicely over a drone — and that was the starting point for this music. That and the glorious sound of the tanpura, the drone instrument that underpins everything in classical Indian music.

The piece is called Water, after the Philip Larkin poem with the same title, and was especially inspired by the final stanza:

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

The second piece, called 88 (No. 1), is also in one of Messiaen’s modes in the first half, before becoming a celebration of the mechanical nature of the piano. The performer has to put fingerless gloves on halfway through, partly in tribute to the immortal Glenn Gould, and partly because the technique requires some painful hammering. But don’t let that fool you into thinking the music is dark or angry: It is — or is meant to be — joyful.

“Three Miniatures from Water” features lots of drones from the strings ( Lauren Radnofsky on cello and Greg Chudzik on bowed upright bass).  There’s also the excellent tanpura drones from Paul Coleman and Elena Moon Park. The violin from Olivia De Prato plays a slow melody that seems to appear and disappear while the piano plays a somewhat spooky pizzicato melody.

“88 (No. 1)” is a solo piano piece by Lisa Moore (who played piano on the other piece as well).  It does seem to use all 88 keys in various fashion.  Indeed, she does put on fingerless gloves a little more than half way through the piece where she does play quite possibly every note (I can’t imagine what that looks like on paper).  For the last 45 seconds, she seems to be banging relentlessly (but tunefully–are there chords?) all over the keys.

Neither one of these pieces seem particularly joyful to me–they both seem kind of scary, but I am fascinated at the kind of compositions the guy from Radiohead makes.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “Then Again”

This is an excerpt from The Other Half, a manuscript that Ciment is writing to rebut her own 1996 memoir, Half a Life.

In that original memoir, she wrote about meeting her husband.  At the time she was seventeen and he was forty-seven (and her art teacher).

She asks what should she call him now.  “My husband”?  Yes, if it is the story is about the man she married and lived with for forty-five years.  But what if it is about an older man preying on a teenager.  Should she call him “The artist” or “the art teacher.”

She says he didn’t know what to expect when he kissed her for the first time–she could have screamed or slapped him.  But she had fantasized about him for the last six months, so that was not going to happen. (more…)

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Lucinda Rosenfeld–“The Male Gaze” (New Yorker, July 3, 2000)

Posted in Anti-war, Artists, Big Black, Feminism, Lucinda Rosenfeld, New Yorker, Nick Hornby, Racism, Selfish Cunt, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Throbbing Gristle, War, Yuck! on June 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SELFISH CUNT-“Britain Is Shit” / “Fuck the Poor” (2003).

I had not heard of this band until reading about them in yesterday’s Nick Hornby essay.  He didn’t name them, but he mentioned a review in which the band were described as combining ‘the hammering drum machine and guitar of controversial 80’s trio Big Black and the murky noise of early Throbbing Gristle.”

The band was formed in early 2003 by Martin Tomlinson and Patrick Constable, and was noted for provocative lyrics, aggressive stage shows, and electronic-influenced rock.  In 2004, The Guardian placed Selfish Cunt at #40 on its list of “top 40 bands in Britain today.”  They broke up in 2008.

This was their first single.  It surprises me that both of these songs are over three minutes long as they seems like they would be about 45 seconds.

“Britain is Shit” opens with a fast electronic drum beat with jagged guitar stabs and shouted vocals.  Big Black is an excellent touchstone.  After a few verses, all the music drops out except for the drum machine–it’s quite a bold musical statement (not to mention the lyrics).  A ringing guitar chord keeps the semblance of melody going.  The lyrics resume:

Are you having fun / when war is on
put your kettle on / cause the war is on.
Britain is shit / it’s full of lies
white men start their shit / in their shirts and ties.

“Fuck the Poor” is quite similar.  A simple drum machine beat with loud distorted guitars as the only musical element.  The lryics:

Fuck the poor / make war

sung in a heavy British accent,  After the first verse a second guitar chimes in with a guitar riff on top. and more distorted guitar.  The melody doesn’t change.  The song ends in a cacophony of noise.

These songs aren’t original (although combining the sharp electric drum with punk guitars is pretty novel) but they are provocative.  Evidently their live show was quite something.

A 2004 thread on Drowned in Sound describes the live show

I saw them last night, not sure if they could live up to the hype. I went with an open mind but thinking they might not pull it off.

But fuck me. They pulled it off. They fucking rocked. The singer was incredible, hypnotic, acrobatic, snarling, wearing a ripped up catsuit and eye makeup, prowling round the crowd and singing in people’s faces, coming on to all the straight boys, singing in the girls’ ears… like some kind of crossover between iggy, rotten and … grace jones or something. he threw himself around, doing these balletic poses, completely confident and… fucking ace.

Songs? yeah, there were some, they were loud and good. Britain Is Shit is the best anti war song I’ve heard. Fuck The Poor is an anthem. And, one more time, for the record, when he says those vile things like “bang bang another nigger dead” it’s not his own opinion, it’s the voice of someone else – soldier, politician, whoever. It’s a PROTEST not an advocation. come on, haters, get with the fuckin programme.

I think racist types are not really going to latch onto Selfish Cunt because Tompkinson is one of the most obviously gay frontmen i’ve ever seen, and i doubt many racist bigots are particularly accepting of gay people… and i honestly think that the disdain with which he spits out the lyrics make it pretty obvious that there’s something more going on than just the straight lyric.

Of course, you’ll never get a song on the radio with a name like that.

[READ: June 3, 2019] “The Male Gaze”

I enjoyed the tone of this story although the main character was a bit of a puzzle.  She is sophisticated and aware of the male gaze, but seems willing to succumb to it anyway.

Phoebe is a young, sexually active New Yorker: “sometimes she felt like hot shit, sometimes just like shit.”

The first section of the story is called The Most Important Artist of the Post-Second World War Period.

At a party, Phoebe meets Pablo Miles who approached her and says “you’re very fuckable.”

Of all the affronts!  But Phoebe knew the game and made big eyes at him and said “Do you really mean it?” (more…)

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Matthew Klam–“European Wedding” (New Yorker, May 8, 2000)

Posted in Elvis Presley, Matthew Klam, New Yorker, NonComm, Orville Peck, Parenting, Sex, Sexism, Short Story, Unlikable main character, Weddings, Yuck! on June 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: ORVILLE PECK-NonCOMM (May 16, 2019).

I have been intrigued by Orville Peck what with his masked face and all.  But then I heard this set and was disappointed.

What was even more disappointing was this blurb

Yeehaw is having a moment … country’s future has never seemed brighter.

My only hope is that the moment is brief and goes away soon.

Toronto-based Country crooner, Orville Peck, treated NonCOMM attendees to a taste of that future.

It’s interesting when you read a review of something and you wonder if you are listening to the same thing.

With his bulletproof voice, punk-inspired playing, and masked face, Peck put on a rousing and fringe-filled set.

His “bulletproof” voice sounds like a preposterous Elvis impersonation for most of “Dead of Night.”  I’d heard this song on the radio, but his voice is even more insane here. I mean, if someone came out and started singing like that I’d be on the floor laughing, assuming we were both in on the joke.

Although reading this, I’m inclined to like him more:

His backing vocalist joined only for the line “see the boys as they walk on by,” perhaps to highlight the novelty of a country song being about a gay relationship.

And, yes, I do like that part of the torch song because his falsetto is much better than his Elvis.

Punk-inspired? Well, “Turn to Hate” has some fast guitars for sure, although it slows down in a way I don’t like by the end.

“Big Sky” just sounds so absurd to me, like he is trying so hard to hit those notes that it is comic.  Again I feel like I listened to a different song that the blurb:

The somber “Big Sky” started slow, and dripping with melancholy. By the time Peck reached the second verse, it exploded.

In this case, exploded means it got slightly louder.  Weird.

I do agree with the “thunderous stampede of ‘Buffalo Run’” which would have been great aside from the “head on by” croon.

The final song, “‘Take You Back’ was played like a straight-up country jam, complete with a whistled intro and outro.”

I obviosuly don’t like country music, but I do enjoy a good stomping track like this.  Once again, it would be so much better if he didn’t try to croon like Elvis.

I guess people like him for this voice, but I don’t and, even worse, I found his voice mixed too loud throughout the show–it always seemed to be louder than the music.

His masks are cool, though.

[READ: June 1, 2019] “European Wedding”

I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve read by Klam, but I found this story to be a little offputting.

It’s the story of, yes, a wedding in Europe.  I enjoyed many of the details of it, but the characters all sucked.

Nobody wants to get married in France except for the bride’s mother who has family there.  Gynnie the bride doesn’t want to get married there.  No one in the groom’s family wants to even go to France.

The groom, Rich, is terrible. (It’s also odd that I recently read his 2017 novel Who is Rich about a man named Rich.  It’s not the same Rich, but it is weird to have recycled the name).

Anyhow, as the story opens Rich is having sex with Nora, a client of his.  He wanted to have a little makeout session as a kind of last fling before his wedding.  But as soon as he kissed her, Nora took it really far. As she stripped, he found himself revolted by her.  And as she was sitting on his face and he was gasping for breath, he was revolted by himself. (more…)

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