SOUNDTRACK: LAURA GIBSON-Tiny Desk Concert #1 (April 22, 2008).
I have enjoyed many of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts over the years. And while I was listening to an All Songs Considered show, it was mentioned that there have been over 200 shows (I believe it is now over 300). And I realized that I had missed dozens of good ones. So, being the kind of person I am, I decided to start watching/listening to them all. I don’t typically watch most of them as they’re usually not very visually interesting–they’re fun to watch for a minute or so, but most of the artists are there to sing, not to do visual entertainment. So usually I just listen while doing something else.
I toyed with the idea of writing about one a day until I was done. But the logistics of that made my head hurt. So instead, I will write about them all over the course of however long it takes. (And since they don’t post one every day, I will catch up eventually).
Laura Gibson had the first ever Tiny Desk show, and there’s some notable things about the show itself. First, look how empty Bob’s shelves are! And the camera work is a little wonky, I think. I also enjoy how they introduce this performance without a clue as to whether there would be more of them!
I had never heard of Laura Gibson before listening to this. She plays simple but beautiful guitar (I enjoyed watching how confidently she played the chords and individual strings). But the big selling point is her voice. Her voice is very quiet (this was the impetus for the Tiny Desk concept–they saw her in a club and the crowd was too loud for them to enjoy her so they invited her up to their office). But her voice is also slightly peculiar (in a very engaging way), which you can especially hear on “A Good Word, An Honest Man,” where she is practically a capella.
She sings four songs: “Hands in Pockets,” “A Good Word, An Honest Man,” “Come by Storm,” “Night Watch.” The sing-along at the end of the last song is really pretty–shame the audience wasn’t mic’d. All four songs are beautiful and slightly haunting–her delivery is so spare you kind of lean in to hear more. She currently has three albums out, and I’d like to investigate her music further.
[READ: October 31, 2013] “A Comet’s Tale”
Despite the fact that this article talks about and more or less guarantees the end of the world by asteroid or comet it was incredibly enjoyable and staggeringly informative.
Bissell begins by talking about the Biblical Apocalypse and how in 1862 Premillennial Dispensationalism (premillennialism is the belief that Christ will return before setting up his millennial kingdom and dispensationalism divides up the Bible and human history into various eras or dispensations, based on how God deals with humanity) was smuggled into the Americas and it has never left. Fully 59% of Americans now believe that Revelations will come to pass (although what that could possibly literally mean is another question). [Incidentally the book is not called Revelations, it is Revelation or more specifically Revelation to John. And all of that numerology (666) must mean something right? Well, yes, it means that the Ancient world was obsessed with numerology. The bible makes great use of the trick of predicting the future by describing the past.
Bissell pulls back from the bible to look at planet Earth “the most ambitious mass murderer in the galaxy.” He then lists all the atrocities that have happened from natural causes to all species in the history of the planet. But even recent tragedies (which seem to only happen to people in far off countries says the westerner) are only by happenstance happening there. Between overpopulation and global warming we are preparing for our own apocalypse. Although we also mustn’t look too crazy like in The Late Great Planet Earth (which still sells around 10,00 copies a year). In that book Hal Lindsey predicted the end of the world but also the rise of a single world religion, a Soviet Ethiopian invasion of Israel and the obliteration of Tokyo, London and New York. But astonishingly, Lindsey also worked for the Reagan administration, much like Tim LeHaye (famed “author” of the Left Behind series) was co-chairman of Jack Kemp’s 1988 presidential campaign. Apocalyptos have way too much power in this country.
But even if we weren’t preparing for our own doom, there would still be space items to do it for us. Like 1950DA an asteroid that has near-missed the earth fifteen times and may just not miss us in the future. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 