SOUNDTRACK: BRANDY CLARK-Tiny Desk Concert #542 (June 20, 2016).
Country is pretty much the only genre I really don’t like, and, sadly for me, the genre seems to be seeping over into areas that I like (such as what happened in the alt-country movement in the 90s). The one saving grace, (and actually major draw), of a lot of this new country is that the songwriters are exploring new lyrical territory. And in particular, the women are writing sassy, funny, ass-kicking songs.
Brandy Clark (in black leather pants no less) has written for many other singers and finally decided to do her own stuff.
The entire lyric of “Daughter” is hilarious. It’s an awesome revenge fantasy which, as the blurb suggests, “knows that fate is likely to do more damage to a cad than a key would ever do to his car’s glossy paint job.”
It’s got the great chorus:
I hope you have a daughter and I hope that she’s a fox / Daddy’s little girl just as sweet as she is hot / she can’t help to love them boys who love to love and leave them just like her father / Yes karma’s a bitch so I hope you have a daughter.
The second song is a sentimental song about her dead father. The melody is very pretty, but I don’t need to hear songs like this.
But it’s back to the funny with the really sassy “Girl Next Door.” It takes to task another cheating man:
If you want the girl next store then go next door… [much faster] and go right now and don’t look back and don’t turn around don’t call me when you get bored, yeah if you want the girl next door then go next door.
It’s a genius line and I really like the tone of her voice in this song (less twangy and more angry). It could make me like country more.
[READ: April 1, 2016] Mush!
The title of this book promised a very funny story. I really didn’t expect the “issues” to be quite so existential.
This book is broken into 10 chapters, with the first one opening on a man and his sled dogs mushing across the frozen tundra (actually Alaska). We are introduced to The Boss and his Mate and the six dogs (from the dog’s perspective). And then we see the dogs talking to each other. The crux of their conversation is that they are bored and wish they were running. The lead dog, Dolly, loves to run, although she is unsure is she is qualified to lead the other dogs.
For some reason Buddy has a really big nose and is rather dumb.
Then we jump inside the house and see some intense friction. The man of the house is a loner, a rebel, Dottie. He hates society and doesn’t even like going into the city to get supplies. His mate, meanwhile, loves him and wants to be with him–she knows the risks and troubles of doing it off the grid, but she also likes to go into town from time to time. And she misses apricots. Frankly, he is such a dick that I can’t imagine why she stays with him.
The issues were what I found hardest to deal with. Buddy and Venus have been selected by the boss to mate and have puppies on several occasions. And so Buddy keeps talking to Venus about their relationship but Venus wants nothing to do with talk like that and she gets really mad at him whenever he comes around. It’s weird because she says dogs don’t have relationships. So there’s a sort of realism in the way the dogs behave with a major anthropomorphism of the way they think, even if the thinking is also doglike–I found it a more than a little clumsy.
And I found the drawing style ugly and outputting.
Back to the story. Winston is a pure bred Samoyed and is kind of stuck up but he is still willing to breed with the ladies–not that they’ll have him.
Guy also has plan up his (doggie) sleeve. He hopes to instigate trouble and become the lead dog. He encourages Winston to fight Buddy and cause unrest–which will hopefully remove Dolly from lead dog.
Meanwhile Dolly is still questioning her worth as lead dog and when she leads them into an accident it nearly crushes her (physically and psychologically).
The accident also hammers home the Boss’s Mate’s concerns about getting back to civilization in case there’s an emergency.
Will Dolly be able to fight for herself in case anyone tries to take her on? And will the Mate ever convince the Boss man that they can’t be wholly isolated up there?
I was pretty disappointed in this book and wanted it to be something very different.
#10yearsof01
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