SOUNDTRACK: AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA-Tiny Desk Concert #40 (December 21, 2009).
This was a very nice classical Tiny Desk Concert. The Orchestra plays three songs. The first two are a Ravel String Quartet, and a Kaddish based on Ravel written by one of the members of the Orchestra.
Then comes a surprise. Composer Joseph Tawadros accompanies them on the Egyptian oud and his brother James plays percussion on Tawadros’ song “Oasis.” I love the addition of the oud to the orchestra–it brings a wonderfully alien sound to the piece. You can see the whole show here.
This was the final Tiny Desk Concert of 2009.
[READ: May 29, 2014] “The Naturals”
I have enjoyed just about everything that Sam Lipsyte has written and this story was no exception. As with many of Lipsyte’s stories, the main character has an unusual name: Caperton. Caperton works as a consultant for a marketing firm. He is trying to secure a job for a lakefront property. The man in charge of the meeting keeps calling the kiosk that they are going to install a “koisk” (this alone made me love the story).
Caperton has recently broken up with his girlfriend because he confirmed to her that he did not want to have children. He’s a little bummed but not heartbroken.
But the main action of the story is that Caperton’s father is dying and his stepmother has called him to come home. Evidently Caperton’s father has been on the verge of death many times so Caperton’s not entirely sad about the situation. But he goes nonetheless. And we learn that Stell, his stepmother is nice enough but has always had one rule–stay out of her refrigerator. She is happy to fix anything for anyone as long as they keep out of the fridge. (This also made me love the story).
The flight from O’Hare to Newark is a mildly eventful one for Caperton because he took a boutique line which served shortbread, cappuccino and sea-salted nuts, gratis, at the gate (that might make flying worthwhile). He was in first class next to a very large man who turned out to be the Rough Beast of Bethlehem, a professional wrestler. There’s a short section about wrestling post-kayfabe (the code that wrestlers followed where they pretended everything was real). The Rough Beast says that now everyone knows it’s all about storytelling. And storytelling proves to be an important part of this story.
For in the sales pitch at the beginning of the story, the other man said that they were trying to tell a story, a narrative. Now the wrestler says it and later on, when Caperton is home, Bart, an old friend of Caperton’s father claims to also be a storyteller.
During all of this, Caperton is texting his ex-girlfriend. She doesn’t reply but that doesn’t stop him from pouring out his thoughts and also being a bit of a jerk to her. Eventually he gets a text back from someone named Miles who says that if Caperton texts her again he will hunt Caperton down and kill him.
The story wraps up quite suddenly after that, with a number of threads pulling together in a tidy way. I really enjoyed the way Lipsyte weaved this story, and how it went from mostly comic to rather emotional.
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