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Michael Chabon–Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces (2018)

March 10, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: GABRIEL GARZÓN-MONTANO-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #147 (January 19, 2021).

Gabriel Garzón-Montano did a solo Tiny Desk Concert a few years ago, as the blurb quickly points out

If Gabriel Garzón-Montano’s solo Tiny Desk back in 2017 was an exercise in restraint and vulnerability, his home set is the polar opposite. It beams ingenuity and unveils multiple layers, figuratively and literally.  In this performance he brought the full band, sporting all white from mask to toe and bringing to life all the sonics we hear on the record, last year’s genre-snubbing Agüita.

They play three songs.

Garzón-Montano morphs into three different characters from Agüita and stretches the boundaries even more, adding salsa flavor to “Muñeca” and delivering some bonus bars on the set opener, “With A Smile.”

“With A Smile” opens with just his face surrounded by flowers as he plays a pretty acoustic guitar.  The flowers move away as the Gracie Sprout’s harp adds more pretty notes.  As the song moves along with Gabriel’s soft and sexy voice, Itai Shapira’s bass and Lenny “The Ox”‘s drums come thumping in.

Like the rest of his band, Gabriel is in all white, including white Uggs and a long white coat with tails.   The only color is from the sweater underneath.

At the end of the song he raps in Spanish, which has a really nice flow.

Taking advantage of of the rare opportunity to gather musicians in quarantine times, he says “It’s like being a child who’s allowed to do what they always wanted to do when they didn’t wanna get up for school, and it’s also felt like an adult who didn’t know what to do at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. I’m focusing on oscillating between those states with ease.”

For “Muñeca” he takes off the big coat and shows off the colorful sweater which has a fascinating cut, including tails.  For this song, it’s a trio of bass and Daniel Rodriguez on drums. Rodriguez plays a funky middle with conga and cowbell as Gabriel gets up and dances.  He picks up the guitar again at the end of the song for a little strumming outro.

Before the final song, Gabriel moves to the piano.  He takes off the colorful sweater to reveal a sleeveless shirt underneath (which shows off his tattoos).

“Tombs” features the KROMA Quartet and everyone else on synths.  Nicholas Semrad plays the lead, but everyone else adds melody.  It’s a delicate song with an interesting and slightly creepy synth melody.  About half way through this six minute song he gets up and picks up an electric guitar.  He and  Justin “Jhawk” Hawkins play a harmony solo together, which sounds pretty cool.

I am quite intrigued by this singer, and I love the description of genre-snubbing.

[READ: February 28, 2021] Pops

I have often said I wanted to read more books by Michael Chabon.  And after finishing this I realized that the only novel by him that I’ve read is Kavalier and Clay and that was 21 years ago.  So maybe it’s time to get into some of these other books.

Pops is a collection of (very) short essays.  Most were written for Details Magazine (which folded in 2015), one for GQ and a final one I’d already read in the New Yorker.

“Introduction: The Opposite of Writing”
It’s not too often that you really enjoy an introduction, but this one was pretty great.  In it, Chabon talks about when he was an up and coming writer and he met a well-established Southern writer.  This writer told him that the secret to being a good writer was not having children.  That for every child you have, you will lose one book.

Chabon had no children with his first wife but has had four with his second wife (the writer Ayelet Waldman).  So clearly they have lost eight books between them.

The writer’s argument was that children take away time from novel writing and that novel writing takes away time from children.  Chabon had always felt that his father was not very present (as one of the essays says) and he promised to be much more involved in his children’s lives).  These essays suggest that he was.  So how did he find time to write?  He does not say. Continue Reading »

Posted in Ayelet Waldman, Baseball, Coronavirus, Details, Essays, Fashion, Feminism, Gabriel Garzón-Montano, GQ, M*A*S*H, Mark Twain, Michael Chabon, New Yorker, Quarantine, Racism, Rush, Sexism, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

César Aira–The Musical Brain and Other Stories (2014)

March 9, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: CECIL TAYLOR-Jazz Advance (1956).

As the biography below states, Cecil Taylor was ahead of his time and harshly criticized for being so.  This was his first album and it made waves–as did his subsequent performance at Newport Jazz Festival (it’s like when Dylan went electric, but for jazz).

Since I’m not a big jazz follower, I’ll start with those who are.  Here’s some notes on the album from The Guardian.

A Taylor group comprised of Buell Neidlinger on bass and Dennis Charles on drums is augmented here and there by soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy; the repertoire mixes tunes by Ellington, Monk and Cole Porter with the leader’s fearlessly personal reinventions of the blues. Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing” is played even more cryptically and succinctly, the lines breaking up into jagged fragments and jutting chords. Taylor’s “Charge Em Blues” is a 4/4 walk with a surprisingly straight Lacy sax solo, and “Azure”‘s lazily struck chords and delicate treble sounds might even remind you of Abdullah Ibrahim, until the cross-rhythmic improvised piano patterns clattering chords typical of later Taylor emerge. …  It’s a historic document that still sounds more contemporary than most jazz piano music being made today.

As I listened I first thought it didn’t sound all that shocking and I wondered if that was because I was listening in 2021 and not 1956, but around two minutes into “Bemsha Swing” he starts throwing in some atonal and dissonant notes.  You can tell that he knows how to play, but that he’s deliberately hitting either “wrong” notes or just letting his fingers fly where they will.   And it still sounds surprising today.

“Charge ‘Em Blues” sounds far more “normal” at least in the beginning.  Lacy’s sax solo is fun and bouncy.  Then around 5 minutes a back and forth starts with Taylor’s wild free-jazz atonal improv and a drum solo.

“Azure” is a more chill track although about halfway through the improv starts going off the rails.

About half way through “Song” the solo is all over the place–sprinkling around the piano and pounding out a few chords here and there.  It’s dissonant and off-putting, but seem more like it’s trying to wake up the listener. When Lacy’s pretty sax comes in and plays a delightful improv and Taylor is bopping around behind him, the contrast is stark.

“You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” is the only song on the record that I knew before and I never would have recognized it here.  As AllMusic puts it

At his most astonishing, Taylor slightly teases, barely referring to the melody of “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” wrapping his playful, wild fingers and chordal head around a completely reworked, fractured, and indistinguishable yet introspective version of this well-worn song form.

This is a solo piece and he is all over the place.  At no point did I recognize the original melody.

“Rick Kick Shaw” features some lively drums and walking bass while Taylor goes to town.  He plays some really fast runs which slowly turn experimental. I’m very curious if future renditions of this song were in any way the same or if all of this soloing was improvised each time.

“Sweet and Lovely” is very slow and more traditional sounding.  Without the speed of his solos, this song comes across as almost like a standard jazz song.  Although at the very end he throws in a few sprinkles of chaos just because he can.

[READ: February 2, 2021] The Musical Brain

I’d only read a couple of short stories from César Aira (all included here).  His novels are so short it almost seems weird that he’d write short stories, but some of these stories are very short indeed.  They do also tend to meander in the way his novels do which makes it seem like some of them don’t end so much as stop.

“The Musical Brain” was the first story I’d read by Aira, and what I wrote about the story has held true for pretty much everything I’ve read by him:

There are so many wonderful and unexpected aspects to this story that I was constantly kept on my toes.  This also made it somewhat challenging to write about.

“A Brick Wall”
I thought I had read this story before but I guess I hadn’t.  It begins with the narrator saying that he went to the movies a lot as a kid–four or six films a week (double features). He says he has an impressive memory for details.  He remembers seeing Village of the Damned decades ago.  A small village’s children are all born as zombies. The zombies can read everyone’s minds so the hero thinks–erect a brick wall.  He also remembers North By Northwest which was titled in Argentina: International Intrigue.  He and his friend Miguel loved the elegance of the movie. And they decided to become spies.  So they created a game in which they would “forget” that they were spies. They would leave notes for each other and then “discover” them so that when they came upon them they were new and exciting.  It was surprisingly easy to forget the game, apparently. Continue Reading »

Posted in Artists, César Aira, Cecil Taylor, Cole Porter, Dogs, Duke Ellington, Huh?, Humiliation, Leonardo Da Vinci, New Yorker, Newport Jazz Festival, North By Northwest, Origami, Ornette Coleman, Ovenbird, Pablo Picasso, Regrets, Religion, Short Story, Sun Ra, Sun Ra Arkestra, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Thelonious Monk, Village of the Damned, Yuck! | Leave a Comment »

Acid Mothers Temple / ST 37 (Underground Arts, Philadelphia, PA, March 8, 2021) [rescheduled date CANCELLED]

March 8, 2021 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: March 8, 2021] Acid Mothers Temple / ST 37 [rescheduled from May 3, 2020]

indexI had just checked to see the status of this show and the following day it was announced that their tour was cancelled.  Not surprising of course, but still sad.

A message from the artist

Acid Mothers Temple’s upcoming US tour dates that were set to take place in February – March have unfortunately been cancelled due to COVID19.  Refunds will be available at your point of purchase.  We do look forward to having them back out in North America once the pandemic has settled down and it’s safe to do so.

I have seen Japanese psych rockers Acid Mothers Temple twice and each show was a whirlwind of fun and insanity.

I promised myself I would see them any time they came to town.  So I was very excited to see them again. Continue Reading »

Posted in Acid Mothers Temple, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Cancelled, Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Quarantine, ST 37, Underground Arts | Leave a Comment »

Octavia E. Butler–Kindred [Week 2: The Fight] (1979) [week 2]

March 8, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: NINA SIMONE-“Mississippi Goddamn” (Live in Antibes, July 24-25, 1965).

This song is amazing for so many reasons.

Nina Simone wrote this song in less than an hour as a response to  the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers in Mississippi, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama (see the posts from John Lewis’ March).

It is simple and straightforward.  She pulls no punches, from the title to the explicitness of the lyrics.

The intro (and chorus) get right to the point

Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn

She doesn’t stop there.

Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you
Me and my people just about due
I’ve been there so I know
They keep on saying
“Go slow!”

But that’s just the trouble “too slow”
Washing the windows “Too slow”
Picking the cotton “Too slow”
You’re just plain rotten “Too slow”
You’re too damn lazy “Too slow”
The thinking’s crazy “Too slow”
Where am I going What am I doing I don’t know

Having the band chant back “too slow” during the bridge is a nice call for support.

What’s most scary about this song is how little has changed since she wrote it fifty years ago,

Picket lines, school boycotts
They try to say it’s a communist plot [substitute Antifa or BLM now]
All I want is equality
For my sister, my brother, my people, and me

In the Antibes version, she substitutes Governor Wallace in one of the lines–and you can tell how intensely she feels these words.

Then there’s the music–a sort of bouncy jazzy number that could easily be about anything.  The lyrics are straightforward, but the music almost softens the bite, or at least.  In the Carnegie Hall recording she even jokes “This is a show tune, but the show hasn’t been written for it, yet.”

The middle section, which is a little quieter, definitely sounds a bit more sinister.  And justifiably

Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day’s gonna be my last

Watching this video is really intense.  I wonder how impactful this was in France. And I can’t imagine what the impact was like at Carnegie Hall.

[READ: March 8, 2021] Kindred [the fight]

This week’s read is one long, painful chapter.

After the first few sections have established the scenario, the more you think about it, the more you realize how many things can (and likely will) go wrong for Dana.

Each time Dana is sent back in time, the gap between instances grows.  Time doesn’t pass in the present the same way it does when she goes back.  She had been gone for nearly two months but when she returned home she had been “gone” for less than a day.

Now that Kevin has remained, she fears for him as well and those fears are completely reasonable–he was treated well in that world because he was white.  He looked forward to watching the expansion of our country West.  Could he become a hardened white person if he was there for too long?  Kevin seems like a pretty decent fellow and doesn’t seem like he would become an owner of anyone, but you could see him getting caught up in everything that’s happening. Continue Reading »

Posted in Death, History, Infinite Zombies, Nina Simone, Octavia Butler, Racism, Scholarship, Sci-fi, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Slavery, Time Travel, Violence | Leave a Comment »

Stephen King–“The Death of Jack Hamilton” (New Yorker, December 24 & 31, 2001)

March 7, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: mxmtoon-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #137 (January 15, 2021).

mxmtoon is another young musician who has gained success through the internet.  Two years ago when All Songs Considered played her, they noted that the then 18-year old has “amassed a sizable following on Twitter and YouTube on the strength of her endearingly intimate presence.”

mxmtoon sings songs filled with dreams and anxieties. Much of the music comes from her recent 2020 EPs, Dawn and Dusk.  Those EPs included collaborations with Carly Rae Jepsen and Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus. For this Tiny Desk (home) concert, her sweet voice and ukulele are accompanied by Nicole Wakabayashi on piano and Cale Hawkins on guitar.  Her melodies are simple, with the words up front mighty and personal.

They play five songs and the blurb is absolutely right.  These are simple, pretty songs.  Maia’s voice is wonderful and she happily allows th eband to play behind her.

On “Fever Dream” Nicole and Cale play the delicate melody (which gets slightly large after the first verse) as she sings her intelligent and thoughtful lyrics.  Nicole throws in the occasional backing vocal harmony which adds a nice touch.  A

After the sing she jokes,

“Hi, I’m mxmtoon, and I’m doing my Tiny Desk at the world’s biggest desk!” And so it begins, from an eerily empty New York City office building,

It’s been almost two years now since we first played the Oakland-based mxmtoon on All Songs Considered. She was just 18 then, singing about crying in her “prom dress” (which I’m thrilled she is performing here).

On “Prom Dress” she adds her ukulele to this amusing and sad song about going to prom.

I can’t help the fact I like to be alone
It might sound kinda sad, but that’s just what I seem to know
I tend to handle things usually by myself
And I can’t ever seem to try and ask for help
I’m sitting here, crying in my prom dress
I’d be the prom queen if crying was a contest

One of the first songs she released is called “Feelings Are Fatal,” which she also performs. It’s a candid song about emotions and why we’re often afraid to share them. It’s a model for what mxmtoon does so well: humble, honest songs, sung here behind a massive desk.

She says she credits her writing style to “Feelings Are Fatal” because this was the first song that she was completely honest in wanting to share her feelings with the world. (According to bandcamp she had about a half dozen songs before this one).  It’s just her on the ukulele (it’s a large ukulele) singing these clear words.

i’m always sad
and i’m always lonely
but i can’t tell you
that i’m breaking slowly

closed doors
locked in, no keys
keeping my feelings hidden
there is no ease

“Wallflower” opens with the piano and her singing very clearly.  Her voice sounds like someone else’s here, although I can’t quite place it.

“Bon Iver” is a cute song started on the ukulele before the band joins in with lovely backing oohs.  The title comes in in this verse:

Playing Bon Iver on late night drives
My window, moon, and fireflies
Holding onto moments that we found
Even when the sun goes down.

It’s a lovely little concert and I look forward to hearing more from her.

[READ: February 21, 2021] “The Death of Jack Hamilton”

This is a long story about John Dillinger.

It’s told by Homer, a Dillinger flunkie.  He’s a colorful character who speaks colloquially.  He wants to set the record straight about Dillinger’s death.  He does this by talking about the death of John’s closest partner Jack Hamilton.

The three of them were escaping from a job and the police were after them.  After some bullets were fired, they realized that Jack was hit.  He said he was fine, but over the course of a few hours he started to look pretty bad–with a lot of blood leaking out.

The realized they needed a new car so they pulled over and waited for a car to come help them.  A family of three pulled over to help.  Dillinger and his men showed off their guns, but the family recognized him and seemed pretty thrilled to be meeting Dillinger himself.  He promised no one would get hurt–Dillinger robbed banks, he didn’t kill people  Dillinger was charming and could always make people smile. Continue Reading »

Posted in Carly Rae Jepsen, Coronavirus, Death, Gangsters, Guns, mxmtoon, Quarantine, Short Story, Stephen King, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, tUnE-yArDs, Violence | Leave a Comment »

The Tallest Man on Earth / Courtney Marie Andrews (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, March 6, 2021) [rescheduled date rescheduled again]

March 6, 2021 by Paul Debraski

[POSTPONED: March 6, 2021] The Tallest Man on Earth / Courtney Marie Andrews [rescheduled from May 8, 2020; moved to March 12, 2022]

indexOn February 2, Union Transfer posted this update:

The Tallest Man On Earth show has been officially moved to March 12 2022. With a date this far out, it ensures there will be no issues with TMOE entering the country and most important – we are near guaranteed to have a safe and normal show (finally!).

My first show for 2022!

I wonder if Courtney Marie Andrews will still open?

I have wanted to see The Tallest Man on Earth for a few years and things always seem to come up to cancel my opportunity.

In 2018 I had a ticket to see him, but then a camping trip came up.

In 2019, he had to cancel his tour for the first time because of a personal crisis.

And now this.  [And now this again].

This show was awkwardly timed to be on a very important person’s birthday, but I was hoping that the family would forgive me if I ducked out to see Kristian Matsson finally.

Courtney Marie Andrews was on my bad list because she put out her last album right around the time that Courtney Barnett put out her last album, so whenever the DJ would say Courtney I was excited until they followed it with Marie.

Courtney Marie is a folk singer who veers too far into the country lanes for my liking.  Although I did find that she had a powerful voice, which goes a long way.

Posted in Coronavirus, Courtney Marie Andrews, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Tallest Man on Earth, Union Transfer | Leave a Comment »

Amy Tan–“My Mother” (New Yorker, December 24 & 31, 2001)

March 6, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: JAZMINE SULLIVAN-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #132 (January 8, 2021).

I know Jazmine Sullivan from a previous NPR set from 2014.  I hadn’t heard anything from her since then.  The blurb says

We don’t see or hear much from Jazmine Sullivan until she has something to get off her chest. She drops a body of work every five years or so, shakes up the world of R&B with each offering, then quietly goes back to minding her own business.

That’s pretty awesome.

Her latest project, Heaux Tales, is a bold and timely conversation piece addressing truths regarding relationships, sex, social norms, self-worth and a myriad of other topics that women grapple with. Each song is masterfully connected to another through unique yet familiar testimonies by women from all walks of life.

Sullivan’s set is five songs in nearly twenty minutes.

The singer-songwriter, draped in a trench coat while her band sports all black, are nestled in the corner of a dimly lit space resembling a cabaret.

She starts her Tiny Desk (home) concert with three extended and reworked selections from Heaux Tales,

“Bodies (Intro)” is jazzy an old-fashioned sounding with prominent piano from Eric Wortham and gently echoed guitars from Simon Martinez.  But it’s got very non-old-fashioned lyrics.  The end even has her scatting and crooning and there’s some wild drum fills from Dave Watson.

“The Other Side” features prominent bass from Jermaine Blandford and piano open this set.  It’s got a really nice catchy chorus.  The backing singers (Alisa Joe, Natalie Curtis and Ayana George vocals arranged according to height) add really nice harmonies and at the end they do a nice vocal fugue.   The song ends with a smooth bass riff.

“Lost One” is the first single from this project although I think the other two songs are much catchier.

“Let It Burn” a blast from the past and

thee fan favorite from 2015’s Reality Show,

For the last song, “Girl Like Me, she invites Tiny Desk alum H.E.R. to the stage to close.  H.E.R. plays a delicate acoustic guitar.  The song is just guitar and bass until about half way through when the rest of the band joins in.  I liked this song least because there was a lot of vocals acrobatics that i did not care for–something that it seems like Sullivan doesn’t do much.  The graphic lyrics with the gentle acoustic guitar was a nice contrast though.

[READ: February 21, 2021] “My Mother”

Like Nadine Gordimer, Amy Tan had a “memory” in this issue as well.

Unlike Nadine, this memory was concrete and very poignant.

She says that when she was sixteen she said some hateful things to her mother, including “I hate you, I wish I were dead.”  Her mother replied, “Okay maybe I die, then I no longer be your mother.”

They would not speak to each other for days after fights like this.

A Couple of years ago when Amy was 47 and she was already a successful writer, she was writing a story about a girl and her mother when the phone rang. Continue Reading »

Posted in Amy Tan, Books about writers, Coronavirus, Essays, Jazmine Sullivan, Memory, New Yorker, Parenting, Quarantine, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert | Leave a Comment »

Amber Ruffin & Lacey Lamar–You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism (2021)

March 5, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: TH1RT3EN-Tiny Desk (Home Concert) #146 (January 18, 2021).

I had never heard of TH1RT3EN before this Tiny Desk Concert. But I was hooked from the beginning.  I liked everything about them.  The fuzzy distorted guitar from Marcus Machado, the excellent delivery of Pharoahe Monch and especially the fascinating drumming and drum style of Daru Jones (look at the way his drums are set up!).

Both the moniker TH1RT3EN and supergroup were born out of a frustration with the veneer of American society that underestimates the darkness of white supremacy.

“I knew 5 years ago where we headed,” Monch shared over the phone. “Sure, we’ve always done socially and politically aware music, but I’m tired of this “love will win” nonsense. Love may be the most powerful vibrating force, but consciousness is spreading and it’s impossible not to be more aware of the evil that has kept the world in complete darkness. TH1RT3EN is the musical personification of me and my comrades at combat.”

“The Magician” is based around the riff from Yes’ “Roundabout.”  Machado plays the riff throughout which I find much more interesting than if it was sampled.  Monch’s lyrics are smart and pointed.  There’s an incredibly fast rapping middle section with some amazing drumming.  I really like his delivery.

Moinch says that that song is about a student who was bullied and grew up to be a school shooter.  Ironically there hasn’t been any school shootings because we’re in the middle of a pandemic–a pandemic that has taken the lives of 250,000 Americans.  And yet Americans reman more afraid of Black Lives Matter than of COVID 19.

TH1RT3EN recorded this set in August 2020, as evidenced by Monch’s interlude, this four-song set still channels the discontent outside our windows today.  Shot in a padded “panic” room, this Tiny Desk (home) concert reflects the rage felt by this three-man battalion.

Monch continues “We are in need of cleansing and an exorcism.  “Cult 45” opens with a sample of a horn riff.  It’s quieter musically so it’s mostly vocals.  When the guitar joins in it’s mostly to add free jazz noises along with some wild drumming.

“Scarecrow” returns to the slow dirgy, aggressive guitar sound behind some fast rapping.

He says he started the band because he wanted a bit more authentic aggression by finding these two musicians.  And the set ends with “Fight” which has a nice big riff and crashing drums.

How’s this for an aptly aggressive verse

Burn a cross, water hose, dogs and nightsticks
Yeah, that’s what it used to be, see, they would usually
Just hang a nigga, fuck ’em
Now they don’t have the time to decorate the trees so they buck ’em

I’m going to have to check out this album.

[READ: February 28, 2021] You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey.

Amber Ruffin is a writer and comedian, most notably from “Amber Says What” on Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Amber Ruffin Show on Peacock.  Amber is hilarious.

But Amber is also righteously angry about the way Black people are treated in America.  Somehow she manages to take the most horrible things you can imagine and report about them with enough humor to make you listen and laugh and still get outraged.

This book is a collection of stories of racist things that happened to her sister Lacey.   Lacey lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where they grew up.  I don’t know anything about Nebraska or Omaha.  Apparently Omaha is a big city and has sections that have a lot of Black folks.  White people who are not from the city find the thought of going to Omaha scary.  It also means that when Lacey gets jobs outside of Omaha she is typically the only Black person in the building.

Which seems to make all of the white people there think it is okay to say whatever crazy racist shit they want to say.  But even outside of work, it seems like Lacey is a magnet for racist comments.  Is it because she is tiny and good natured?  Maybe.  But she is a also a bodybuilder, so watch out.

About this book Amber says:

When you hear these stories and think, None of these stories are okay, you are right.  And when you hear these stories and think, Dang, that’s hilarious, you are right.  They’re both.

There are going to be a lot of time while you’re reading this book when you think There is no motivation for this action. It seems like this story is missing a part because people just aren’t this nonsensically cruel.  But where you see no motivation, you understand racism a little more.  It’s this weird, unprovoked lashing-out, and it never makes any sense. It’s why it’s so easy for people to believe the police when hey beat someone up–because no one would be that cruel just because the person was Black.  But the are!  So as you read this book, when you see there’s no motivation, know that there is: racism.

The Preface has an anecdote that really sets the tone for the rest of the book.  Lacey paid at a store with a check. The checks had Black heroes on them.  Lacey paid with one with Harriet Tubman on it.  The cashier who had been very nice up to that point said “Wow you have checks with your picture on ’em.”  There is then a hilarious juxtaposition of the check with Tubman and one with Lacey’s photo.

Amber contrasts her life in New Yorke City.

Everyone I work with is stark raving normal. We don’t have any crazy bigots (dumb enough to run up) and I’m no one’s first Black friend.  Now I’m not saying no one ever says anything crazy to me–I’m still a Black woman in America–it’s just that we all know there are consequences for talking to me as if you’ve lost your mind.

But in the Midwest it is an unchecked tsunami of dumb questions and comments.  People think it your job to answer “Why can’t I (insert the most nonsense shit you’ve ever head)?”

Lacey chimes in (in a different font) from time to time with things like that she’s happy her little sister is successful in New York:

where someone would get fired for out-and-out racism.  I love that that really happens.  Never seen it, but I love it.  Like Santa Claus.

Amber ends the preface by saying

Hopefully the white reader is gonna read this, feel sad, think a little about it, feel like an ally, come to greater understanding of the DEPTH of this type of shit, and maybe walk away wit a different point of view of what it’s like to be a Black American in the twenty-first century.

And I did.  Boy did I ever. Continue Reading »

Posted in #RESIST, Activism, Amber Ruffin, Antiracism, Black Lives Matter, Charity, Coronavirus, Depressing, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Hate, Humiliation, Idiots, Kindness, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Magicians, Marriage (Happy), Morality, Omaha, Nebraska, Parenting, Priests, Propaganda, Quarantine, Racism, Religion, Shoplifting, Superheroes, TH1RT3EN, The Amber Ruffin Show, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Yes | Leave a Comment »

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell [art]–March: Book Three (2016)

March 4, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ROKIA TRAORÉ-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #136 (January 14, 2021).

Rokia Traore.GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience.  I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.

The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world. 

Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.

The final artist of the fourth and final night is Malian singer Rokia Traoré.

Rokia Traoré performed at globalFEST in 2005, the music festival’s second year, and it’s a thrill to present her meditative performance as part of Tiny Desk meets globalFEST. Her work is rooted in the Malian musical tradition, but defies the confines of a single culture. Born in Mali to a diplomat father, Traoré had a nomadic upbringing that exposed her to a wide variety of international musical influences. She joins us from Blues Faso, a theater inside her Foundation Passerelle in Mali, which she created to support emerging, interdisciplinary artists, from music and the performing arts to visual arts and photography.

She plays three songs that more or less segue into each other.  I don’t know a lot about music from Mali, but the little I know I can recognize from the Ngoni played by Mamah Diabaté and the guitar played by Samba Diabaté, with lots of speedy runs.   In “Souba Lé” melody is played on the balafon by Massa Joël Diarra (although I wish they’d have shown us it up close).  Both this song and “Tiramakan” feature subtle bass from Aristide Nebout.  The final song “Fakoly” is a little louder and drummer Roméo Djibré is a bit more prominent.

But all of these songs are all about Rokia Traoré’s vocals which soar and ring out.

[READ: February 25, 2021] March Book 3

Each book has gotten longer.  Book one was 121 pages, Book 2 was 187 and Book 3 is 246.

This book begins right after the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.   You meet the victims before they were killed.  It continues through until the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  Holy cow was there a lot of violence in these two years and the amazing art by Nate Powell never shies away from showing it.

Eagle Scouts at Klan rallies who then go on to kill Black teenager’s, hicks in pickups celebrating the deaths of the girls in the church with anti-integration chants and, as we see more and more in this book, police killing innocent people and not getting in any trouble because of it.

This book has opened my eyes to what Black people have known all along about police forces.  That they are completely corrupt and need to be restructured from the ground up.  When you see that it was their job to be racist in 1963, is it any surprise that they are still racist in 2021?

Reading a book like this I can’t help but think that the best thing we could have done for our country would have been to let the south secede.  Bring all people of color north and let the racists fester in their own lack of diversity.  Because their racism poisons the whole country.  And yet that is exactly the opposite belief that this book is based upon.

I’m embarrassed at how naïve I am. Continue Reading »

Posted in Activism, Andrew Aydin, Barack Obama, Coronavirus, Death, Fannie Lou Hamer, Fascism, Free Speech, Genocide, GlobalFEST, Graphic Novel, Guns, History, Humiliation, John F. Kennedy, John Lewis, Law, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Memoirs, Morality, Murder, Nate Powell, Poverty, Propaganda, Quarantine, Racism, Rokia Traoré, Rosa Parks, Supreme Court, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Universities, Violence | Leave a Comment »

John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell [art]–March: Book Two (2015)

March 3, 2021 by Paul Debraski

SOUNDTRACK: ELISAPIE-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #136/156 (January 14, 2021).

ElisapieGlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience.  I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.

The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world. 

Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.

The second artist of the fourth and final night is First Nations singer Elisapie.

Elisapie returns to Tiny Desk for a show-stopping performance from Montreal, with the disco globe of our dreams helping to light her set. Elisapie, in both her songs and work, is a resounding advocate of First Nations culture in Canada. In her set, she harnesses an incredible energy with electrifying, emotive vocals.

I had really enjoyed Elisapie’s previous Tiny desk.  I found her to be a less extreme, but no less dramatic performer than Tanya Tagaq.  Her band is outstanding creating all kinds of textures to surround her voice.

The first song is “Qanniuguma.”  It starts quietly with a single ringing guitar note from Jean-Sébastien Williams and little taps of percussion from Robbie Kuster.  Joshua Toal adds some quiet bass as the guitar plays some higher notes.  After a minute Elisapie starts singing.  Another 30 seconds later the drums get louder and Jason Sharp start sprinkling in some raw bass saxophone.  As the song grows more intense, Elisapie adds some breathing and chanting–throat singing.  Things quiet down and then build again with the sax and the guitar soloing as the drums and bass keep things steady

Behind her you can see Mont Royal, which has a lot of history.

The second song “Wolves Don’t Live by the Rules” is “a small song” but very meaningful.  It starts in a similar way with ringing notes an thumping drums.  She sings this one in  English and it feels like a much more conventional sounding song.  It’s pretty quiet but the instrumental breaks adds huge guitar chords and the end is really loud.

Introducing the final song, “Arnaq” (which means Woman) she says women tend to forget that we have a lot of strength and we should celebrate it loud and clear.  This one opens with a loud raw sliding guitar like an early PJ Harvey song.  The song’s chorus builds with an “ah ya ya ya” as the instruments add chunky noises–scratches from the guitar and skronks from the sax and all kinds of precious.  It’s a cool noise fest, although the guitar could be a smidge louder.

I’d really like to see her live.

[READ: February 25, 2021] March Book 2

Book Two picks up John Lewis’ life.

Like the first, it starts with Lewis’ preparations for the inauguration of Barack Obama.

Then it flashes back.  Lewis was in college and had moved to Nashville where the growing student movement was gaining strength.

The visuals are even more striking in this book.  The panels of the white woman pouring water and then soap (or flour) on the quietly sitting Black diners and then hosing them down is really arresting.  As is the sequence (which is almost entirely black) of a room full of peaceful protestors being locked in a room when the fumigator was set off.

I couldn’t believe that a man couldn’t really left us there to die.  Were we not human to him?

Then next round of protesta was at the segregated movie theaters.  I love that they chose the Ten Commandments to protest (the irony was lost on the whites in Alabama).  The Black protesters would line up and would be refused seating.  Hundreds of people who would then get back on line and be refused seating again.  Whites would throw things at them and hurl abuse at them. Continue Reading »

Posted in Activism, Andrew Aydin, Barack Obama, Bob Dylan, Canadian Music, Coronavirus, Death, Elisapie, Fascism, Free Speech, Genocide, GlobalFEST, Graphic Novel, Guns, History, Humiliation, Joan Baez, John F. Kennedy, John Lewis, Law, Mahalia Jackson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Memoirs, Morality, Murder, Nate Powell, Odetta, Peter Paul & Mary, Poverty, Propaganda, Quarantine, Racism, Religion, Rosa Parks, Supreme Court, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Universities, Violence | Leave a Comment »

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