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Archive for the ‘Short Story’ Category

Stephen King–“A Death” (New Yorker, March 9, 2015)

Posted in Death, Jane Siberry, Murder, New Yorker, Rheostatics, Short Story, Stephen King, Violence, tagged on June 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

march9SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Hillside Festival 20th Anniversary, Guelph ON, July 7, 2003 (2003).

hillUntil recently this was the only Rheostatics show listed on the live website for 2003 (a bunch have recently been added).  And there are none for 2002.  I don’t actually know if they didn’t tour much in 2002 or what.

But this is a fun set (and is just barely over an hour) with lot of guests and an interesting selection of songs.

The start with “Self Serve Gas Station,” and then “Song of the Garden” (since Kevin Hearn is with them and later “Monkeybird” too) and “P.I.N.”  Then they play “Marginalized,” the first time I’ve heard them play it live.  Tim says he wrote it the night George W. Bush was elected.

Since Kevin is therer, they play a Group of 7 medley.  I recognize “Wieners and Beans,” “Blue Hysteria” and “Yellow Days Under a Lemon Sun.”  Lewis Melville guests “on the ocean” for “California Dreamline,”  There’s a nice referential moment when the line “all the naked ladies” makes Dave comment “Steve, Ed, Kev, Tyler.”

More guests come out for”Claire” Chris Brown and Kate Fenner offer backing vocals.  And there’s a mellowish version of “Stolen Car” that is pretty cool.

“Horses” is a fun version since every guest gets to take a solo.  And at the end, Dave asks Martin to “ride the wild donkey” so instead of making horse sounds from his guitar he makes donkey sounds. How??

The set ends with a rollicking encore of Jane Siberry’s “One More Colour,” a rare treat.  This is a great show.

[READ: April 10, 2015] “A Death”

I loved this story.  King sets it in the past (the location they are in is soon to become a state: “although we are not one of the United States just yet, we soon will be”), in a place which I assumed was Maine since he writes so much about Maine, but which I see mentions Fort Pierre which is in South Dakota, so which makes more sense.

It is a deceptively simple story.  A girl has been killed.  The sheriff has a suspect.  The townsfolk assume the suspect did it.  So what’s the problem?

As the story opens, Jim Trusdale is working in his yard when the sheriff comes up to his house and  arrests him. Jim says he ain’t never heard of the girl who was killed.  The sheriff asks where his hat is and Jim can’t account for it.  That’s enough for the sheriff.

Turns out it was the girl’s birthday.  She was given a silver dollar.  Later that day she was found dead and Jim’s hat was found on her person. (more…)

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Max Blecher–“In a Waxworks” (Harper’s, January 2015)

Posted in Death, Excerpt, Harper's, Max Blecher, Phish, Short Story, The Breeders, Translation on June 1, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harp janSOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait 10 (2014).

bait 10The last time I checked, there hadn’t been a new Live Bait release for quite some time.  I wasn’t even sure if there were going to be any more.  And then, when I was browsing the Phish site I saw that this had come out a few months ago.  It’s so hard to keep up.

This is yet another great selection of live songs.  There’s eleven songs in over three hours with most of them clocking in around 20 minutes.

“What’s the Use” opens this set.  It’s an amazing instrumental and one I haven’t heard them play very often.  It comes from The Siket Disc and is really stellar in this live setting (from 1999).  One of the great things about the Bait discs is they way the songs jump around from different years  So, the “Stash” from 1994 with its wild raging solos butts up nicely to the 30 minute “Tweezer” from 1995.  The band seems to have been really fun back then with the jam section of the song being really wild.  Right after the “Uncle Ebeneezer” line, they go nuts banging on their instruments.  The jam proceeds along until it comes to an almost staggered halt which morphs into The Breeder’s “Last Splash” (sort of).  The jump to 2010’s “The Connection” is only jarring because I haven’t heard too many live shows with this new song on it.  But it sounds great.

Disc Two (if you burn this to disc) starts with a great 24 minute version of “Down with Disease” from 2011, and then jumps back to 1998’s “Bathtub Gin” which is also kind of wild and zany.  I gather that their shows may have mellowed some over the years.  I like the way the jam section of this song returns to the melody of “Gin” since most of the time the jams just kind of fade out.  1992’s “My Sweet One” is a lot of fun.  There’s a really long intro before the lyrics (almost 3 and a half minutes) during which they play the Simpsons theme and Fish shouts “oh fuck” but who knows why.  There’s also thirty seconds of silence as they try to find the “pitch, pitch, pitch” before the final “name.”  “The Mango Song” is 18 minutes long.  The jam section starts around 5 minutes in and the first five minutes still sound like the Mango Song (because of the piano) then the last 8 are really trippy with lots of echoes.

Disc 3 opens with “Fee” which I always love to hear and assume they don’t play much anymore (based on nothing, really).  There’s a 5 minute jam before the start of “The MOMA Dance” which you can kind of tell is “The Moma Dance” but not really.  The song merges into “Runaway Jim.”  And the final song is a great version of “Chalk Dust Torture” from 2012 (as the liner notes state: Fans of recent performances will also find the “Chalk Dust Torture” played during the iconic “Fuck Your Face” set at Denver’s Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.)

Glad to have the Bait back.

[READ: March 21, 2015] “In a Waxworks”

This piece was translated from the Romanian by Michael Henry Heim and comes from Blecher’s Adventures in Immediate Irreality.  I don’t know what the full book is about and I found this excerpt to be more than a little puzzling.  Perhaps most fascinating though is that Blecher was born in 1909 and died in 1938 from tuberculosis of the spine.

It is a series of thoughts about the infinite and how thinking about things in reality would impact his thoughts about the infinite shadow–of birds in flight, the shadow of our planet, or even the vertiginous mountain chasms of caves and grottoes.

As he was a youngish man, thoughts turn to sex, and there’s some connection to a wax model of the inner ear.

But primarily the story concerns the world as a stage–as if life was some kind of artificial performance. He felt that the only person who could possibly understand the world the way he did was the town idiot. (more…)

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Sheila Heti–“My Life is a Joke” (New Yorker, May 11, 2015)

Posted in Death, Funny (ha ha), Huh?, New Yorker, Sheila Heti, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Wye Oak on May 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »

may11SOUNDTRACK: WYE OAK-Tiny Desk Concert #52 (March 29, 2010).

wye oakI don’t know Wye Oak that well, except for some shows from NPR.  So this Tiny Desk Concert is a good closeup look at what they’re all about.

Wye Oak is just two people: Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack.  Wasner plays a wonderfully loud acoustic guitar.  She has great fingerpicking skills and there’s something about the way she uses her open low strings that adds a great percussive quality–she really wails on those chords!  It’s fun to watch her hands fly along the fretboard.

Stack plays a couple of drums with a mallet and bare hands (the percussion is subdued but effective), although evidently they are generally much louder in concert. But Stack also sings, plays keyboards and guitar.

“My Neighbor” comes from their then new EP My Neighbor/My Creator.  It’s a great song that showcases all of Wasner’s skills.  She has a great voice and I love the way she sings along to her playing. 

“Civilian” was, at the time, unreleased.  It is minor key and a bit darker.  Stack plays keyboard and drums simultaneously (something he evidently does in concert to amazing effect).

“Regret” comes from their first album. For this song, Stack takes over guitar (and the seat where the guitar is played) while Wasner sits behind the drums (to play keyboards).  This song is about not having health insurance.  It is a much more somber song and I don’t like it as much, even though it is pretty and Stack a has a nice voice.  I just like Wasner’s stuff better.

For the final song, they switch positions back.  It also comes from My Neighbor/My Creator and is called “I Hope You Die” (which she promises isn’t as dark as the title suggests).

I really enjoyed this show.  You can check it out here.

[READ: May 11, 2015] “My Life is a Joke”

I simply don’t get Sheila Heti.  And I assume that’s my fault.  But everything I read by her seems just so nebulous that I feel like I’m, missing something.

I liked the way this story started out: “When I died, there was no one around to see it.”  So the narrator is dead. Cool.

She says that her high school boyfriend wanted to marry her because he wanted to have a witness to his life (he eventually got married so he wound up okay).  The narrator never married and was hit by a car–she was not witnessed by anyone.  Well, at any rate the driver didn’t get there before she took her last breath, “So I can say I died alone.”

I even liked that the next paragraph started, “Now you can probably tell that I’m lying.”  About what?  Everything?  No, “If I really am O.K. with the fact that no one I loved witnessed my death, why did I come all he way back here from the dead?” (more…)

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Luke Mogelson–“Peacetime” (New Yorker, April 27, 2015)

Posted in Drugs, Ella Fitzgerald, Funny (ha ha), Luke Mogelson, New Yorker, Omara Portuondo, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on May 28, 2015| Leave a Comment »

nySOUNDTRACK: OMARA PORTUONDO-Tiny Desk Concert #50 (March 8, 2010).

omaraThe only thing I know about Omara Portuondo is what I’ve read in the NPR blurb about her.  She was part of the musical scene in Cuba in the 1950s–a scene full of innovators and pioneers.  And while she is certainly an elder statesperson, she still sounds great.

She sings two boleros: “Duerme Negrita” and “Dos Gardenias.”  She has a classic voice (in the vein of Ella Fitzgerald).  She really holds the final note of “Dos Gardenias” for quite a while.

The keyboards are dreamy. I know that the first song is about dreams (she seems to be cradling a baby as she sings) and the second is titled about a flower (although it doesn’t sound like she’s singing about a flower).  The songs are tender and sweet.

It really does feel like you are transported to another time.

[READ: May 7, 2015] “Peacetime”

I have never read anything by Mogelson before.  This story is an interesting one both for setting (which is unusual in itself) and for the characters.

The story is told by a guy known as Papadopoulos.  He is living in the armory on Lexington Avenue in New York City.  He was given the keys by First Sergeant Diaz.  (The story about Diaz’ limp and how he uses it to pick up women is quite funny).  He assumed it would be for a couple of weeks (his wife kicked him out), but as months have gone by, he is still there.  He sleeps in the medical supply closet.  This means that when he gets drunk at night he can hook himself up to an IV drip and never wake up hungover.

Papadopoulos was in the National Guard.  But since it is peacetime (more or less), he works as a paramedic for a hospital in Queens.  His partner, Karen, has just taken the civil service exam and is on her way to becoming a police officer.  This makes Papadopoulos nervous because he has a habit of taking a “souvenir” from every emergency visit that he goes on.  And she has been giving him the eye recently.

His souvenirs are never big or important things–a spoon or a refrigerator magnet or something like that–but he can’t stop himself. (more…)

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Rebecca Evanhoe–“They Were Awake” (Harper’s, September 2014)

Posted in Diego el Cigala, Dreams, Harper's, Rebecca Evanhoe, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert on May 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harp septSOUNDTRACK: DIEGO EL CIGALA-Tiny Desk Concert #437 (May 1, 2015).

diegoDiego El Cigala has a beautiful voice which sounds to my ear like the strained/aching style of the Gipsy Kings’ singer.  It is just him and his accompanist (Jaime Calabuch) on piano–which sounds very clear and pretty.

It amuses me that through the whole show he keeps playing with his long beard—an almost nonchalant reaction for someone who seems to be singing so passionately.

In the write up Felix Contreras says that El Cigala (Spanish for ‘Norway Lobster’),  is a game changer in the world of flamenco music.  I have literally no experience with this and can’t comment on it.  But Contreras says that he uses his voice for boleros, copla, tangos, jazz and combinations of the above.  I can hear all that in the music he has chosen, I just can’t comment on why it’s a game changer.

The three songs he sings are “Soledad,” “Vete de Mi” and ”Voda Loca.”  And they all sound really beautiful.

[READ: April 15, 2015] “They Were Awake”

This brief story is an interesting one.  Nothing actually happens in it–a group of ladies eat a potluk and share their dreams (actual dreams, not pie in the sky dreams).  Then they head home.

Nothing’s worse than hearing someone else’s dreams, but since this is a story, the dreams are interesting.  And indeed, they are quite telling.

They each talk about how their dreams have been anxious as of late.

Becca says she dreamed she owed money to the gas company.

Emma says she dreamed her ex-lover demanded that she appraise his art and he locked her in his flat until she did so.  When they ask if she was raped, she says, “Of course not.” (more…)

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Isaac Bashevis Singer–“The Cafeteria” (New Yorker, December 28, 1968)

Posted in Bob Dylan, David Albahari, Dorothy Straus, Gord Downie, Harper's, Holocaust, Isaac Bashevis Singer, New Yorker, Rheostatics, Sean Cullen, Short Story, The Tragically Hip, Translation, tagged on May 22, 2015| Leave a Comment »

1968_12_28-200SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, ON (November 08, 2001).

horsetavThis is the final show for 2001 at the Rheostatics Live website.  This show is the second of eleven (11!) straight shows at The Horseshoe.  Since it was part of their Green Sprouts “week,” it is chock full of guests.

Kevin Hearn is playing this night (and a few others), but there’s also guest vocals from Sean Cullen and Gord Downie!

The recording is not quite two hours which I assume means that parts were cut off.  I mean, a Rheos show that’s under two hours during Green Sprouts week?  Unheard of.  Earlier that evening Bob Dylan was playing in town, so it seems like the early parts of the show were a bit quieter than usual.

The show stars with “Fat” which sounds like it may have been coming in from something else or that’s the intro music–hard to say exactly.  Then they play two new songs–“The Fire” (with a funny joke about someone’s folk apparatus (a harmonica)) and “We Went West.”  Then comes their first guest, Canadian comedian and songwriter Sean Cullen.  They play his Stompin’ Tom tribute/parody “I’ve Been Beaten All Over This Land.”

I love the version of “Junction Foil Ball” with th every amusing comment that a Globe and Mail reviewer described one part of the song as “a hippo jumping into a giant puddle of mud.”

There’s a very cool section that’s a Kevin special.  Songs from Group of 7 and Harmelodia: Boxcar Song, Landscape And Sky, The Blue Hysteria, Yellow Days Under A Lemon Sun, Easy To Be With You, Loving Arms and I Am Drumstein.

Then Gord Downie comes out–sadly his introduction is cut off, so we don’t get to hear what they say about him (or the fan reaction).  They start in the middle of his song “Chancellor” from Coke Machine Glow.  Then they play “Canada Geese.” And then Dave asks if they can sing one of the Rheos’ songs (“sure thing, Tim, uh, Dave”).  Ha.  And Gord sings “Take Me in Your Hand.”

There’s a great version of “Stolen Car” and they end the show with three songs from the then new album: “P.I.N.,” “Mumbletypeg” and “Satan is the Whistler.” It’s the best live version of “Satan” that I’ve heard so far–perfect whistling, and they don’t mess up the fast part at the end.

I’m sure the other ten nights were equally great.  But this is all we have to close out 2001.

[READ: May 12, 2015] “The Cafeteria”

I read this story because it was alluded to in David Albahari’s “Hitler in Chicago.”  In Albahari’s story, a character on a plane is reading Singer’s book and the person next to him asks if he knows Singer’s story about a woman seeing Hitler in New York.

Indeed, in this story, there is a woman who sees Hitler in New York, so it was a nice full circle, and I applaud Albahari for playing around with an extant story like that.

This story, translated from the Yiddish by Singer and Dorothy Straus, is set in Manhattan.  The narrator, Aaron, has lived there for nearly 30 years–about as long as he lived in Poland.  He has many friends who he meets up with in the cafeteria.  They speak Yiddish and talk about the Holocaust or the state of Israel.  He looks forward to talking with them but he is a busy many (writing novels or articles) so he can’t stay too long.

Most of the people he meets with are men, but one day a woman, who looked younger than the rest of them, appeared.  She spoke Polish, Russian and some Yiddish.  She had been in a prison camp in Russia.  The men hovered around her, listening to her every word–she was surprisingly upbeat. (more…)

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David Albahari–“Hitler in Chicago” (Harper’s, October 2014)

Posted in David Albahari, Ellen Elias-Bursać, Excerpt, Harper's, Isaac Bashevis Singer, New Yorker, Rheostatics, Short Story, Stompin' Tom Connors, tagged on May 21, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harperioctSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-The Icehouse, Victoria, BC (July 18 2001).

ice-house-oyster-bar-tofinoAfter playing the free show earlier that afternoon, the Rheos played a show at The Icehouse that evening.  And it seems like quite a number of people showed up.  And they were not disappointed.  They also got to see Michael Phillip Wojewoda on drums.

Although the show begins with some slightly sketchy sound quality, it clears up pretty quickly.  This show starts with a bunch of great older material “King of the Past,” “Fat,” “Northern Wish.”  There’s an amazing guitar solo in “Christopher.” And “Fat” is one of the best live versions I’ve heard.

When they play “Four Little Songs” it gives MPW a chance to sing his bit.  But when someone requests “Guns” Dave says that MPW doesn’t do poetry.  At what I believe is a fan’s request, the play “The Pooby Song,” and then joke that they are going to play the entire Nightlines Sessions. 

Then they talk about Stompin’ Tom Connors and how they met a 65-year-old man who scares the Canadian into you.  This is an intro to “The Ballad of Wendel Clark” which includes two Stompin’ Tom fragments “Gumboot Clogeroo” and “The Ketchup Song.”  The seven minute version of “Dope Fiends and Boozehounds” ends with a crazy riff and noisy drums–a rare jam section.  There’s more great drums on “Song of Flight” and excellent harmonies on “California Dreamline.”

This is a really fantastic show–one of their best.  And as Lucky notes the “Dopefiends -> California Dreamline -> Song of Flight -> Self-Serve -> Winter Comes Reprise” is killer.  The end of the show tacks on an amazing version of “Horses.”  But it doesn’t seem like it’s from this show.  The sound is a little different, and it seems pretty certain that the night ended after “Record Body Count.”  But who knows.

[READ: April 19, 2015] “Hitler in Chicago”

This short story, from the book Learning Cyrillic, is fascinating in the way it begins as one thing and then turns into something else entirely.  David Albahari is a Serbian novelist and the story was translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać.

As the story opens, the narrator talks about how afraid he is of flying on planes.  He would much rather ride by carriage.  Why is everyone in such a hurry, anyway?  But he needs to fly and so he does.  He pays careful attention to the stewardesses and then tries as quickly as possible to fall asleep.

On this flight to North America, he falls asleep pretty well, but when the book he was reading falls off his lap, it wakes him up.  His seat mate picks up the book and smiles.  The book is by Isaac Bashevis Singer and is called Enemies, A Love Story (a real book).  The woman says that knows Singer and asks if he has read the story where Singer met Hitler in New York.  He has.

Then she says,

“I spent a night with him.”
“Hitler?”
“No, she said, I would never have allowed myself such a thing.  I meant Singer.”

(more…)

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Robert Boswell–“The House on Bony Lake” (Harper’s, October 2014)

Posted in Death, Harper's, Rheostatics, Robert Boswell, Sex, Short Story, tagged on May 20, 2015| Leave a Comment »

harperioctSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Centennial Square, Victoria, BC (July 18 2001).

victoriaThis concert was a free outdoor show outside of City Hall in Victoria.  It was in the afternoon and the band also played a paid show later that night.  How interesting.  They even joke at the end wondering if anyone will be coming to their show that night.  Someone asks if it will be the same songs and Dave says yes, and same sweat too.  They have a good rapport with the audience (the fact that it is outside makes the crowd sound really tiny although I imagine it wasn’t).

It’s also the first show (online anyhow) to feature Michael Phillip Wojewoda on drums.

The sound is a little odd here, even though it is a soundboard recording.  Maybe it’s because of the outdoor atmosphere of the location–perhaps they mixed it differently?  I have no idea.

They play most of the songs from, NotSS, but there’s also a few classics like “Stolen Car” and “Saskatchewan.”  They even play a great rendition of “Junction Foil Ball” which Dave says reveals was on their Nightlines record but that they re-recorded for the new one (which was not out yet).  Martin explains that the origin of the story is about a guy who collects the tin foil from cigarette wrappers and makes a ball out of them.

In “CCYPA” there’s along part with no singing—it seems as if something went wrong.  The volume also rises and falls a bit which is weird.  There’s a similar pause in “I Fab Thee” where Martin resumes singing ooh ooh ooh.  He explains that “P.I.N.” is played on a tenor guitar.  And then later they joke that they were going to name their album Kid, Eh?

This may be the first time they’ve played “In It Now” at least that I know of.  I love when they play “Satan is the Whistler” but they never seem to get the end right—this one is no exception.

The end, “Saskatchewan” is amazing—a very slow dramatic rendition.  It’s a nice show and as Lucky says in the notes, “Always a treat to see the Rheos twice in one day!”

[READ: April 15, 2015] “The House on Bony Lake”

Boswell crams a novel’s worth of information into this long short story.  It begins as Paul wakes in his Airstream. He is next to Melinda and they are talking about old TV.  She is naked and asks if he wants to have sex again.  He says he’s too sleepy.

Then we get some back story.   Paul’s marriage is over and since that happened he has slept with several women in the area–none of them resemble his wife.

And then we go further back–“In the whole of the twentieth century, the Iris clan floated just two offspring to the shores of adulthood.”  And floated is a good choice of words, because the family, all those generations had lived near Bony Lake the whole time.

His grandfather was Colman Sheelin Iris (there’s an amusing story about their last name).  He built the house that Paul grew up in but he refused any changes to it–no electricity, no upgrades–during his life time.  And during his lifetime his wife bore four children.  Only one, Sean, survived to adulthood. (more…)

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Keith Ridgway–Never Love a Gambler (2001) [New Directions Pearl, 2014]

Posted in DakhaBrakha, Death, Irish Writer, New Directions Pearls, Noir, Short Books, Short Story, Small Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Yuck! on May 19, 2015| Leave a Comment »

gambler SOUNDTRACK: DakhaBrakha-Tiny Desk Concert #435 (April 25, 2015).

dkahDakhaBrakha are a band from Kiev, Ukraine.  There are four members, one man (unsure how he is dressed because he plays the accordion which covers his body) and three women.  The women are dressed in fetching white gowns (with lovely detail work done on them) and gigantic woolen “farmer’s hats.”

The women play drums, (with what looks like a wooden spoon), bongos a horn instruments that sounds a bit like a kazoo (I wish NPR gave more details here) and a cello.  They also provide most of the singing.

The first song, “Sho Z-Pod Duba”features bowed cello.  It opens with the male yelling quite loud and some wild yipping and shrieking from the women by the song’s end.

The second song, “Torokh” features lead vocals by the middle woman (the one with the kazoo).  But it also features interesting backing sounds and hums from the other two women.  The cellist (who is plucking the strings like an upright bass) also sings a partial lead vocal.  When the kazoo (which isn’t a kazoo at all, and is more like a penny whistle with some kind of vibrating piece on it) kicks in, the song goes utterly bonkers for a few measures.  The male singer starts yelling and the song is just insane until it stops and slowly builds again.

The end of “Torokh” and a lot of “Divka-Marusechka” has the women singing in the style of Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (Bulgarian folk harmonies).  This song is the most unsettling of the three because the accordion and cello play an incessant drone that is a two note lurch.  The male sings lead while the females sing harmony and dissonant harmonies as well as a bird call kind of sound.  The end has one of the women signing an almost hip hop style while the other sings a higher, faster lyrics (all of which is in Ukrainian, so I have no idea what they are saying).

It is a strangely familiar music and yet it is also disconcerting.  I listened to it three times and I loved blasting it in my car–t woks great at loud volumes.  I also want to get one of those hats.

Check it out here.

[READ: March 28, 2015] Never Love a Gambler

This is a collection of three short stories from Irish writer Keith Ridgway.  They are quite dark and explore the criminal underbelly.

“Never Love a Gambler”
In this story we meet a family, the father of which is a gambler.  We meet his son and wife as they talk tough to the loan shark’s thug.  The son is pretty tough, standing up to Mossie, who gets the whole bar quiet when he walks in.  Mossie explains that he has been round to their house and they have some lovely things, but he can’t find the gambler himself.  They tell him that they don’t know where he is and then set out to try to find him.  In the meantime, they find a filthy homeless dog and a boy who is waiting to be picked up by his dad.  And they go on a quest together.  The stories converge in a dark but funny (but actually very dark) way. (more…)

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Jess Walter–“To the Corner” (Harper’s, July 2014)

Posted in Adele, Fears, Guns, Harper's, Jess Walter, Jesse Boykins III, Jessie Ware, Racism, Short Story, Tiny Desk Concert, Tracey Ullman on May 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

julySOUNDTRACK: JESSIE WARE-Tiny Desk Concert #434 (April 20, 2015).

jessieI don’t know Jessie Ware.  She is one of those singers who has a beautiful singing voice which totally masks the fact that her speaking voice has a hugely pronounced British accent (have you heard Adele speak?).  Ware’s speaking voice sounds a bit like Tracey Ullman, which I find charming.

She sings three songs.  They feature her and an electric guitar (played by Joe Newman) and they are soulful and pretty.  On the first song “Say You Love Me,” she is accompanied by her opening act Jesse Boykins III (meaning that this post features a Jess, a Jessie and a Jesse).

The other two songs are “Wildest Moments” and “Champagne Kisses.”

The blurb says that her shows are usually pretty big nightclub dramatic events (which is hard to imagine given how sweet she is).  I can see her really belting out these songs.  She sounds very good in this subdued setting, although it’s not my kind of music at all.

You can watch Jesse and Jessie here.

[READ: April 13, 2015] “To the Corner”

I didn’t really enjoy the other two items in this month’s Harper’s and I was a little disappointed with the way this story started out.  Interestingly, I checked and I didn’t like the way the last story of Walter’s that I wrote about started either.

This story starts with a bunch of kids–shirtless, pants hanging low, standing on a street corner. They are being tough, watching as the girl from their bus walks by.  And I just thought–yawn.

But after a few paragraphs, the perspective shifts to an old man who is watching the kids.  The man has lived in this house for nigh on fifty years.  He has been through boom and bust and bust and bust.  His siblings have all moved away and their houses are worth a fortune, but he remained, and his neighborhood has gotten worse.  He looks at the boys and their whole attitude offends him.  He, Leonard, worked hard all of his life: Korea, G.I. Bill, Junior College, marriage, kids.  And his kids are successes (even the one who listens to right-wing talk radio).  But look at these layabouts. (more…)

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