Téa Obreht–”The Laugh” (The Atlantic, August 2009)

SOUNDTRACK: RUSH-The Fifth Order of Angels (bootleg from the Agora Ballroom,Cleveland, 26 August 1974) (1974).

When I was browsing the internet I found this cool blog called Up the Down Stair.  And this blog features some bootleg concert Mp3s.

When I was in college, there was an awesome used record store called The Electric Mine Shaft.  We would go there once a week or so and browse the collection.  He caried all kinds of bootleg shows.  So I have a  lot of Rush live vinyl bootlegs from over the years.  Really they were pretty much a waste of money as I didn’t (and really don’t) enjoy listening to poor quality recordings, so, yes, wasteful.

Anyhow, with the advent of the web and free MP3s, I don’t mind listening to a bootleg.  So, this one, from 1974 is pretty interesting.

Here’s what the notes from the site say:

Neil Peart had only joined the band about a month earlier and played his first gig less than two weeks prior to this concert on the 14th. It’s a great document of the early phase of the band’s career and is notable for featuring unreleased songs as well as versions of a couple tunes that had not yet seen the light of day on vinyl. “Best I Can” and “In the End” were most likely not recorded at this point and wouldn’t emerge for another six months when Fly By Night was released. “Fancy Dancer”, a take on Larry Williams’ “Bad Boy”, and “Garden Road” were never recorded to the best of my knowledge. I believe that the snippet of “Garden Road” that you hear in the Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage comes from this recording.

The most fascinating thing to me about it is that the guitar solos are in stereo (although this is a mono recording, so the solos disappear sometimes).  That’s fine; the weird thing is that it was actually recorded with the solos in stereo! In a live setting?  The guitars went around the room?  Cool!

So, obviously Rush around thier debut were nowhere near the prog mavens that they eventually became, but there’s something fun about these early shows when they just rocked and rocked.  (There’s even a drum solo!).  And I really like that the “Working Man” solo incorporates part of the as yet unreleased solo from “By-Tor and the Snow Dog.”

It’s available here.

[READ: July 30, 2010] “The Laugh”

Téa Obreht is one of the New Yorker‘s 20 Under 40.  They included her short story in a recent issue and I didn’t love it.  It was okay, but it wasn’t really moving.

Nevertheless, they mentioned that she had another story in The Atlantic, and I was led to believe it was her only other published story, so I decided to read it too.

And I am so glad I did!  It wasn’t a terribly exciting story (until the end!) and it wasn’t a very poweful story (until the end!) and I thought something very different would happen (and am so glad it didn’t!).  But there was a sense of danger, forboding, concern, something terrifying that worked as a low level hum through the whole story which made it very compelling.  Maybe it had something to do with the accompanying picture.  I mean, Jesus H. Christ, look at the this thing:

That’s a hyena.

The story is set in Africa.  Neal has recently bought a place on the veldt where tourists come to hunt. He has had a successful run of things and is reasonbaly content.

But as the story opens we see that his friend Roland’s wife has just died, leaving him a single father of a young girl, Nyah.  They are commiserating with alcohol on the porch of Neal’s place when the generator fails.  No big deal it happens all the time.  But Roland is unsettled and he wants to fix it.

He and Neal, both drunk, decide to march down to the shed.  And they take rifles in case any wild things come after them.  And there are wild things galore out here.  Wildebeest for one, but more importantly and danerously, hyaena.  Despite what you’ve heard about hyenas, they are not scavengers, they are not gentle until provoked.

But the trek to the generatoir is only the front story.  It’s the backlstory that carries all of the power.  And it’s the back story that Ohbert unravels slowly, in teasing chunks until POW, the last page is stunning.

I don’t want to say anything more for fear of revealing too much, but I can see, based on this story, why she was selected for the 20 Under 40.  And, if by any chance you weren’t all that impressed by “Blue Water Djinn,” please check this one out.

It’s available here.

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