Memorial is a Flop

MEMORIAL (2020)

By Bryan Washington

Riverhead Books, 306 pages.

★

 

 

Should a reviewer cut a gay novel more slack than one involving straight characters? How about if one of the characters is African American and the other is Japanese? Or should that reviewer simply call it like it is and say he is in the presence of a bad piece of writing? Given that I am the reviewer in question, I opt to call Memorial a dud.

 

It details the relationship between Benson, a black American, and his Japanese partner “Mike.” They have a lot of sex together, though mostly for the wrong reasons. Sex is what they do when they can’t communicate or resolve their disagreements, which is nearly all of the time. Memorial is set in Houston, where Mike has been for a long time and where “Ben” grew up in some comfort. They now live in the city’s Third Ward, a classic gentrifying but not yet transformed neighborhood. Mike, who comes from a broken home, is a slacker who goes from one low-wage restaurant to another. Ben—who is HIV positive-—works in a daycare center and is good with the kids, though he’s pretty lousy with most adults, including Mike. Not that Mike is much better. If you don’t already think that the F-bomb has grown boorish and tiresome, you’ll be ready to call for an outright ban if you pick up this novel. Take it out and this book would lose half its bulk.

 

Nothing much makes sense in the book. Mike’s mother Mitsuko is jetting her way from her home in Tokyo to Houston where she once lived. So what does Mike do? He flies to Osaka to care for his father Eiju, who has terminal pancreatic cancer. Is that noble? Not really; he despises his father and hasn’t even spoken to him in years. Plus, what kind of partner sticks his boyfriend with his mother, whom Ben has never met, to go to Japan for several months? Ben doesn’t even know if Mitsuko speaks English. She does and expresses disapproval about everything from her ex-husband to Ben and the apartment.

 

Washington tries to salvage the novel about half way through by switching from the Mike/Ben relationship to back stories that flesh out their respective dysfunctional families. This includes Mike’s attempt to help his father run his small bar, much to the chagrin of Kunihiko who has been a surrogate son to Eiju and hoped to inherit the bar. For the record, Eiju speaks with the same expletive-laced overgrown junior high school vocabulary as Mike and Ben. If none of this makes any sense to you, trust me that it’s not worth trying to understand it any more than trying to rationalize Mike’s casual hookups in Osaka or Ben’s attraction to Omar, the brother of a sullen child named Ahmad with whom only Ben can relate.

Yeah, yeah, there is a sort of coming together of the respective families, but do we care? I surely did not. Nor did I care whether or not Mike decides to go back to Osaka after his father’s death, a subplot involving the forthcoming marriage of one of Ben’s colleagues, or whether there is any hope for Mike and Ben.

 

It’s this simple. Unless you’re David Mamet and can concoct compelling drama to accompany foul-mouthed characters, the F-bomb is not cutting edge literature. I know nothing about author Bryan Washington. Maybe he has a great novel in him somewhere, but Memorial is a boring book marred by immature writing. Mike and Ben remind me of something Tom Lehrer once said: “If a person feels he can’t communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it.”

 

Rob Weir

March 2021 Music: Joy Formidable, Rob Williams, Our Girl, Frances Quinlan

 

 

 

If I told you that The Joy Formidable (TJF) sings a really great song titled “Y Golau Mwyaf ywr Cysgod Mwyaf,” where would you reckon they’re from? Wales, of course, a place where Vanna White could have made a fortune selling vowels. Rhiannon Bryan holds down most of the lead vocals, but her voice is often supplemented by the light tenor of bass/acoustic guitar player Rhydian Dafydd, who uses tones that approach falsetto to provide bell-like scaffolding for Bryan. Matthew James Thomas keeps everything steady with all manner of percussion, including tambourine jingles on his shoes. There are lots of wonderful Welsh bands, but the only other place where Welsh is the main language is a small section of Patagonia. Bands with a wider outreach such as TJF also often sing in English. The post-punk “Austere” is one example of this, though I prefer more-controlled songs such as “Silent Treatment,” with its faint echoes of Scandinavian kulning vocals, and their acoustic treatment of the curiously named “My Beerdrunk Soul is Sadder than a Hundred Dead Christmas Trees.” (The album version is loud and obscures the lyrics.) Plus, I love the tone of Dafydd’s Taylor guitar.  But if you prefer big feedback-laden noisy rock, try “Whirring.” If you didn’t pick up before that Bryan is a dynamo, you’ll be clear after this one. And her bandmates can bring it as well. It’s more hype than they need, IMHO, but their mix of soft, hard, and electronica is infectious even when it goes over the top. It’s not the same repertoire by any means, but somehow TJF put me in mind of The Cowboy Junkies minus the covers. In case you’re wondering, the Welsh in the first song translates “The Biggest Light is the Biggest Shadow.”   

 

Richmond’s Rob (“don’t call me Robbie”) Williams has a recent release, Weathering the Storm, Vol. 1 whose title holds a double meaning. It’s a commentary of the past year of coping with the Covid crisis, as well as a nod to his own recovery from depression. His is music in a country folk/indie rock vein. If you’re not familiar with his music, his song “Nameless” helps explain why: If you wonder what became of me, I’m nothing but happy/Don’t want to be famous, I’m content being nameless. He might not get a choice about the fame part; he’s too good of a songwriter to remain forever in the shadows. He currently works with a tight band that toggles between subdued and loud. “Falling Sky” is one of the latter, courtesy of older sister Leslie’s electric guitar. Like a lot of Rob Williams’ songs, this one opts for depth rather than just being catchy. It’s about a different kind of noise–the litany of media-driven doom and woe–that tries to convince us the sky is falling. Williams is also a fine narrative songwriter. “Ghostwriter” is a wordy semi-love song, though each syllable matters. It’s one of two love-that-burns-but-burns-out stories, this one between characters titled Rosie and Justin. The other is “Long Distance” and its hook line–Sarah does what Simon says–presages what happens. It’s about a bicoastal relationship that eventually dissolves when Sarah decides to stop doing what Simon says. Williams is his own man, but for those fishing for analogies, his acoustic-driven songs evoke Josh Ritter.

 

Our Girl is a trio from Brighton, England, fronted by Soph Nathan, who sings and plays electric guitar. The band has been compared to a mix of The Pixies and My Bloody Valentine. I like Nathan and she can shred, but the repertoire needs refinement. “I Really Like It” has some nice pop tinges to balance the grunge, but by the time it’s done, Josh Tyler’s simple but effective bass lines are more memorable than the noise that follows. “Two Life” is like this as well. There’s potential in the band’s blend of charm, energy, and garage guitar, but I heard four songs and they were all very similar.

 

I heard a bit of Frances Quinlan with the Philadelphia-based indie band Hop Along and enjoyed her. I was, alas, totally underwhelmed by Quinlan’s three-song set at Paste Studios. Several things. First, when you’re 34, don’t sing like you’re 14. Second, hire a guitarist. Listen to “DetroitLake.” If you don’t like it, move on as the other two have the same feel.

The Only Good Indians Thrills and Chills

 

THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS: A NOVEL (2021)

By Stephen Graham Jones

Saga Press, 312 pages.

★★★★★

 

 

Social scientists use the word “thin” when referencing cultures in which the boundaries between the natural and supernatural are porous. This describes well the world views of many indigenous peoples. Steven Graham Jones­­—a member of the Blackfeet nation—plays upon thinness in a new novel that’s equal parts mystery and horror tale. He keeps us guessing through the entirety of the novel. Are we reading about an elaborate murder revenge plot, or something beyond our comprehension?

 

It is set in and around Great Falls, Montana, where there is a Blackfeet reservation, but also a lot of Crow Natives who have migrated northward. The story centers on four Blackfeet friends from childhood—Ricky, Lewis, Cassidy, and Gabe—and opens in North Dakota, where Ricky dies after being trampled by a herd of elk. Sudden death of young Natives is, alas, an all too common phenomenon, but Ricky’s death unsettles his friends, especially Lewis, who long ago moved off the reservation with his longtime white partner, Peta.

 

Lewis is trying to break away from the reservation’s cycle of poverty. He and Peta live near Great Falls and Lewis holds down a steady job with the U.S. postal service. He makes up joking headlines to parody himself and Native life, such as “Indian Man First in History to Pick Up After Himself,” and immerses himself in reading graphic novels. He is, though, haunted by an incident from his high school years when he, Ricky, Cass, and Gabe trespassed on lands reserved for the elders and blasted away at a herd of elk. Much to his eternal consternation, he shot a calf and had to kill it rather brutally as it struggled. It was pregnant and he felt so horrible that he butchered it, gave away the meat, skinned it, and has carried the hide with him for more than a decade. Imagine the chill when he thinks he sees an elk-headed woman as he is trying to fix a ceiling fan. Is he being pranked by Shaney, a Native woman who seems to have designs on him? Have the graphic novels warped his perspective? His conclusions are chilling to say the least, as is his fate.

 

Back on the reservation, Cass and Gabe prepare for a sweat that will help teach young Nathan, the son of game warden Denny Pease, the ways of the Blackfeet, not that they are necessarily the best representatives of those traditions. Before the night is over, they too will be imperiled, as will be Denny, Cass’s Crow girlfriend Jo, and Gabe’s daughter Denorah, a high school basketball star who finds herself in a pickup game and flight for her life. And again the question arises as to who is responsible for what transpires. I sincerely doubt that you will anticipate the novel’s resolution or how it gets there, though I’m sure you will admire the resourceful Denorah. 

 

Jones is a consummate storyteller who doesn’t care whether or not you think myth and reality can collide. Does the Elk-Headed Spirit haunt in the material world, in the mind, or is it merely an elaborate and sanguinary ruse? Must old debts be paid before anyone can rest? Do ghosts walk among us, correct the past, and then fade? In a thin world view, all things are possible. Or do they merely appear to be so? The Only Good Indians bears some resemblance to literary works employing magical realism, but even this doesn’t quite get it. Think thin. Think also of maternal determination and female self-empowerment.  

 

This is a white-knuckle novel masterfully told. It will make you quake and rethink what you think justice demands. It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold. You have no idea how cold!

 

Rob Weir

Source Code is Miles Better than Tenet

 

SOURCE CODE (2011)

Directed by Duncan Jones

Summit Entertainment, 93 minutes, PG-13

★★★★

 

 

 

On February 15, I slammed Tenet as both junk science and a rotten movie. Lots of movies engage in junk—or if we wish to be polite, speculative—science and it’s possible to make a decent flick using it. I recently came across Source Code, a 2011 science fiction//action/thriller offering that does so very well.

 

If, like me, this film simply slipped off your radar screen, here’s a brief synopsis. Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been given a mission whose mechanics he can’t understand. He is inside of something that he presumes to be an experimental machine and is told by Captain Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) he is being sent into to an unfolding event in which there is a bomber aboard a commuter train bound for Chicago. In order to avoid a major catastrophe, he will have 8 minutes to identify and neutralize an on-board bomber. He barely has time to sputter before he is spun and jolted out of his capsule and finds himself sitting across from an attractive young woman, Christina Warren (Michelle Montaghan) who knows him as Sean Fentress. He’s confused and who wouldn’t be? Who is this woman and how does one find a bomber amidst a car filled with commuters?  How do you do process gazing into a bathroom mirror at a face that isn’t yours? In 8 minutes, not much. The train blows up in a fiery ball that kills everyone aboard.

 

Suddenly, Stevens is again in the capsule. Goodwin tells Stevens his mission has failed and she is sending him back again. Before he can sputter, “Wait!” he’s thrust back and the same scenario unfolds. This occurs several times and in each trip back he picks up clues and is drawn closer to Christina. But it doesn’t take long before the befuddled Stevens knows that something very weird is happening and demands answers. He is given just information from Goodwin’s superior, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), and is sent back to avert a crisis, though he does learn it’s not necessarily the one he thinks. Stevens also has reasons to think he is actually dead and is only “alive” inside a computer program.

 

This beat-the-clock thriller works because it uses some actual science to mask its pseudo-science. We know that in some individuals, brain waves can be detected as long as 10 minutes after clinical death has occurred. What this actually means is anyone’s guess, but brief postmortem delta waves do exist. The junk science part of the equation is that no one has actually built any sort of time machine and even if they had, the principle of uniformatarianism would make it impossible to alter an event that has already occurred. But here is where Source Code succeeds and Tenet failed. The latter film’s unending volleys of jargonistic nonsense call attention to its contrivances, whereas Source Code uses science­­-–delta waves—to divert attention from not actually explaining how anyone can be sent back in time numerous times. To put it glibly, our deus ex machina protagonist makes us not “see” the machine.

 

Source Code sometimes slides from thriller to sentimental fluff, but this too is a matter that is easily overlooked because, well, Gyllenhaal and Monaghan make a wicked cute couple. Wright’s Rutledge probably could have benefitted from being more nuanced and less Dr. Frankenstein. He stands in marked contrast to Farmiga as Goodwin. In many ways, hers is the most difficult role in the film, as she is called upon to decide between her orders and her moral center.

 

Source Code is sci-fi and if that’s not your genre, it won’t be the film to make you reconsider. If you do like sci-fi, though, I’d say that this 93-minute $32 million film beats the plutonium out of Christopher Nolan’s bloated 150-minute $200 million Tenet.

 

Rob Weir

Luster Doesn't Shine

 

LUSTER (2020)

By Raven Leilani

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 229 pages

★ ★

 

 

Luster is Raven Leilani’s debut novel. Let me say from the outset that one day Leilani is going to be a major writer. She has an enormous vocabulary and crafts beautiful sentences. Luster, though, is not the work that will cement her place in the world of literature. It violates one of literature’s unspoken rules in that it has no sympathetic characters.

 

Leilani’s protagonist, Edie­—a name that is hardly ever mentioned—is young, gifted, and Black. She’s also annoying, unreflective, reckless, and prone to blaming everybody and everything for her circumstances. She’s the sort who acts as if the world is going to end if she’s not had sex in a week, which presumably justifies why she’s slept with most of the staff at the New York children’s book publishing firm at which she’s toiling at a low-level job she’s about to lose. That’s what she does instead of building actual relationships or actually trying to improve the skills necessary for the job rather than fancying herself an artist, a calling for which she has demonstrated minimal talent.

 

Put another way, Edie is a Generation Z mess. She lives in a crummy apartment infested with rats and roaches, has a mountain of student debt, and is lousy at conversation. Hers is not a life filled with Black rage, rather one of delayed social development and bad decision-making. The latter includes forays into soft porn and kinky sex. The novel is sometimes identified as a bildungsroman–one dealing with one’s formative years–but we don’t really get much of a sense of anything being formed. What would compel the 23-year-old Edie to have an affair with Eric, an often-distant white dude twice her age who has a wife and a daughter?

 

Because she has no boundaries, she crashes a party at Eric’s house in suburban New Jersey and insinuates herself into their household. As it transpires, Eric, an archivist, and Rebecca, a medical examiner, have an adopted black daughter named Akila. Rebecca cares less about Eric’s affair than expected and the two of them are willing to try Edie as a live-in nanny and teach Akila about being Black. The flaw in this is, as you might expect, triads are not so easy to sustain. Plus, Akila is savvier about life than Edie. She’s been fostered several times and has grown into her upper middle-class existence and the privileges that go with it. 

 

Some have remarked about the humor embedded in Luster. I’m not convinced about that. Leilani’s book touches upon too many serious topics for us to chuckle our way through. These include race, but it would too simple to identify it as the novel’s core. It’s also about the gaps between suburban and urban life, desire versus just sex, having money and doing without, art and artifice, and responsibility juxtaposed with immaturity. The key phrase, though, is that Leilani “touches upon” these subjects, which is all she can do in such a short book. At a key moment in the book Edie protests, “This isn’t my fault.” When Rebecca retorts, “The slogan of your generation,” I couldn’t but think, “Exactly!”

 

Luster is an ironic title. There simply isn’t much sheen or glow to Edie and an attempt near the end to give her luster is contrived and unconvincing. Were it not for those gorgeous sentences and Leilani’s obvious promise, this would be the sort of book one would read, shrug, and toss aside. Okay, I also liked Akila a lot and think a bildungsroman about her would have been a lot more interesting. In my view, Leilani’s next step is to pay more attention to characterizations and narrative arc.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

Altan Local Ground March 2021 Album of the Month

 

ALTAN

Local Ground

Compass Records

 

 

Here’s an early St. Patrick’s Day present. If you are a Celtic music fan, chances are you need no introduction to Altan, a veritable Irish supergroup that has been around since 1987. Nor do I need to sing the glories of Altan cofounder Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh (roughly ma-RAYd nee WEEnie for the Irish-impaired), she of the delicate bird-like voice that enraptures listeners.

 

Altan’s newest release is an old one, a statement in need of illumination. Altan has 21 recordings to its credit, of which Local Ground was its 10^th—if you could lay hands on it. It was recorded in 2005, but was available only in Japan except for a brief reprint on Virgin Music’s Narada label. That’s how I originally came across it back in the days in which SingOut Magazine had a global reach. Nashville-based Compass Records has gained redistribution rights so that more North Americans can have access to this wonderful release.

 

Again, for those less familiar with the band, Altan’s signature sound is its combination of Donegal-influenced instrumentals and Ní Mhaonaigh vocals. Donegal music is distinctive in that it generally features two lead fiddles, those of Ní Mhaonaigh and Ciaran Tourish. These give the ensemble a strong melodic base, and fretted instruments (Dáithí Sproule and Mark Kelly on guitars) act as rhythm and percussive supplements. Back then, Dermont Byrne’s accordion acted as a third melody instrument, though he has since left the band. Most Altan instrumental sets are of the step-lively variety and Ní Mhaonaigh’s vocals are slower and more fragile grab-a-breather interludes that are often sung in Irish. “Éirigh’s cuir ort do chuid éadaigh” is an example of this. It’s a song about a man trying to convince a lass to elope with him. You can take my word for that and hear for yourself what’s going on in English-language offerings such as the well-known immigration ballad “Adieu, My Lovely Nancy;” “As I Roved Out,” a variant of   “Blackwaterside;” and “TheWind and Rain,” an Irish take on a Scottish song. There are several other songs in Irish as well, including the lullaby “Dūn do Shuil” (“Close Your Eyes”). Somehow, Ní Mhaonaigh and lullabies seem made for one another.

 

As noted, Altan mixes things up via up-tempo sets such as “Tommy Peoples,” four tunes bookended by reels, and “Is the Big Red Man Within?” a jig and reel combo. Sproule penned “The Roseville” when he lived in Minnesota, and it has a suitably barn dance vibe. The “Bό Mhín na Toitean” combo of a march, a Highland, and jig is a bit like “The Roseville,” though more distinctly Irish in structure. There’s also Altan’s take on a classic slip jig and jig originally performed by the legendary John Doherty. (Slip jigs are generally in 9/8 timing and straight jigs in 12/8.) For the re-release, Compass has added a bonus track, the breakneck “Andy Dixon’s” set that’s a dynamic addition to an already superb album.

 

If, like me, you’ve collected the entire Altan oeuvre, Local Ground is a must-have recording. But, I also envy those who are just now discovering Altan; Local Ground will delight and make you want to hear more. Me too, though there’s no comparable rush to the one that first makes your jaw drop to your ankles.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: Most of these links are slightly different from those on from Local Ground. 

 

Nomadland is Deeply Moving

 

NOMADLAND (2020)

Directed by Chloé Zhao

Searchlight Pictures, 108 minutes, R (brief nudity, mild language)

★★★★★

 

 

 

Nomadland manages to be two seemingly incompatible things: a love letter to America and a middle digit amidst its amber waves. It may not win much come Oscar time—it is decidedly not usual Hollywood fare—but it has already carried off a fistful of prizes in every critics’ circle and film festival that have thus far weighed in.

 

Nomadland is cinéma vérité with a twist; much of the film is a pure documentary that is unmediated by director Chloé Zhao. We meet a lot of colorful and interesting people, most of them from the walks of life in which they actually stride. Or, perhaps, drive would be a better word. It is about real-life nomads, those individuals who, as Fern (Frances McDormand) puts it, are not homeless but houseless. They live in vans and follow both jobs and bliss. In essence, they are migrant workers.

 

McDormand doesn’t just play a nomad, she inhabits the role to the extent that she can’t even sleep in an actual bed. She is on the road because her husband has died and, though she’s tough as nails, she’s grieving. There’s also the fact that her town has gone out of business-—literally. She and her late husband Bo lived in Empire, Nevada. When the housing industry cratered in 2008, the demand for drywall dropped and U.S. Gypsum closed the entire company town. Imagine a scenario in which the place you lived, worked, loved, and socialized for decades becomes a ghost town overnight.

 

Even nomads need community and here is where the film becomes a masterful slice of cinéma vérité. We are taken to the Arizona desert where we encounter Bob Wills, who operates an actual network for nomads. Wills is equal parts motivational speaker, swap meet coordinator, support service facilitator, anti-corporation evangelist, and bear-like shoulder to lean on. Fern also befriends the grandmotherly Linda May and late-in-life Swankie, a lover of rocks and all things natural. They are both mavericks addicted to freedom of the swim-against-conformity variety. The burly 75-year-old Swankie speaks of being resigned to dying because of the wonders she has seen.

 

Life on the road sounds romantic, but the flip side is something Wills rails against: the nomads are poor. They work hard, mostly in jobs most of us never see. We observe Fern on the frenetically paced floor of an Amazon warehouse, shoveling mountains of beets in Nebraska, cleaning filthy bathrooms in South Dakota, and performing other menial tasks. McDormand is 63 now and we see etched on her weathered face both grit and weariness. Another friend, David (David Strathairn), is also aging—he’s 72 in life—and pathos abounds when we see him in a soda jerker paper hat flipping burgers. Linda May speaks of having worked since she was 12, but finding she was eligible for a mere $550/month in Social Security benefits. In other words,  these nomads are not the Wally Byam Club.

 

In The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien’s namesake tale is about what soldiers chose to heft in their field packs. Muse upon your possessions. If you lived in an Amazon-sized van, what would you actually need and what else would you try to find room to take? For sure you’d need warm sleeping gear, a cook stove, pans, clothing for all seasons, water jugs, and a large plastic bucket into which to do your business. You’d probably pack other things that you’d find you didn’t need and swap them at one of Bob’s desert gatherings. (They are akin to Burning Man for the non-moneyed set.)

 

Chloé Zhao’s light directorial touch hits the target better than an arsenal of big production movies. Usually there is no musical soundtrack beyond occasional mood-setting transitions. When needed, Ludovico Einaudi provides gorgeous and deeply moving filler. Joshua James Richards’ cinematography is equally evocative. He allows the camera to dwell upon the vastness of the West, the sweep of an empty road, the otherworldly jaggedness of the Badlands, the glowing beauty of a desert sunset, the sheer majesty of tall, snow-covered peaks, and the absurdity of human-built “attractions.”

 

And let us again praise the fearless Frances McDormand. She has already won two Academy Awards and it would be a major injustice if she doesn’t win a third this year. She is indeed fearless. There are very few actresses with the moxie to appear as unglamorous as she, to float naked in a mountain creek, to sport unkempt hair, and wear nothing more elegant than a cheap loose shift and sandals. Were it up to me, this movie would sweep the Oscars. Nomadland is a stunning film that will both exhilarate and make you hug your Kleenex box. Call it down but not yet out in America.

 

Rob Weir  

 

Postscript: Some critics have compared the nomads to Dust Bowl refugees. I disagree. The latter had no choice whereas most of the first I find more analogous to the Roma.