No, this post isn’t about the weather (even if it has been unseasonably cold lately). On Saturday, I had a long-cherished dream come true for me, and I want to tell you all about it. This is a completely rambling and self-indulgent post, so buckle up.
I saw The Decemberists! I have been listening, dancing, and living to the beat of Colin Meloy, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, Chris Funk and John Moen for [lucky] thirteen years now – they’re my favorite band (or at least my favorite currently-active band, since my beloved R.E.M. betrayed me by breaking up before I got to see them play live) but I never thought I’d actually get to see them in person. Until January, when I realized that they’d be making a stop at the Anthem in D.C. on their Your Girl / Your Ghost tour. Tickets for the VIP fan experience went on sale two days later and I was READY.
The VIP experience was incredible and worth every penny of the more expensive ticket price. It started at 4:00 p.m. with sound check, then the band played two songs for the fans and answered a bunch of questions (no one asked them what their favorite books were, which was disappointing, but one person asked what musical they would like to put on – since their songs are very melodramatic and theatrical – and they answered Jesus Christ Superstar).
There were only a handful of people with VIP tickets, so it was a really fun and intimate way to engage with the band. I was there on my own – Steve was waiting for the babysitter, and was joining me for the concert later, and I was sad he missed it, because he would have loved it.
I was basically weeping with the joy of being less than ten feet from Colin Meloy. You guys. I WAS LESS THAN TEN FEET FROM COLIN MELOY.
They played The Crane Wife, Part 3, which is one of my favorite songs – and an old one, from their 2006 album. I started listening to The Decemberists in 2005, so The Crane Wife was the first album of theirs that I bought on release day, and I fell hard and fast for it. Hearing The Crane Wife, Part 3 played live LESS THAN TEN FEET FROM MY EARS (we do need to keep focusing on that part) was a thrill I never expected to experience.
After the “VIP fan experience” was over, we were ushered out of the venue and back into the rather disorienting sunlight, and told that we’d be getting a fifteen minute head start on the rest of the crowd if we came back to the VIP door before showtime. Since the floor was flat and our tickets were for general admission, this was a very big deal to 5’0″ me. My miniature self was not going to see anything unless I was right at Colin’s feet. So I made it my mission to be one of the first people into the venue. I spent a few minutes poking around Politics & Prose, then grabbed a sandwich, called Steve and got in line by the VIP door. Steve arrived around 6:00 to join me in line, and we were about the fourteenth and fifteenth people into the venue. I made a break for the stage and secured a spot along the front railing. Mission accomplished.
Before long, the general admission doors opened and the folks poured in. It’s funny, because whenever I make the mistake of mentioning my love for The Decemberists to my friends and family, I’m invariably met with blank stares, and sometimes a “Who?!” But clearly, there are other Decemberists fans in D.C. I was with my people.
Two things: (1) the Anthem is a super cool new performance venue! We loved it and will definitely be back – not in a month for Fleet Foxes, as cool as that would be, but we will be back; and (2) you know you’re at a Decemberists concert when a not-insubstantial percentage of the crowd whips their books out while waiting for the opening band and between acts. I saw a lot of mystery novels – unsurprising, given the band’s fondness for singing about murder and espionage – including a British edition of Dorothy L. Sayers in the row behind me; its owner and I engaged in an animated conversation about the importance of having one’s books match on the shelf. And then it was time to put the books away, because–
Colin! Jenny! Nate! My face made lots of excited noises.
You guys. It was. The show. Of a lifetime. They played all but one of the songs off their new album, I’ll Be Your Girl – which delighted me, because I have been listening to it pretty much nonstop since it dropped, and I really love it. (It doesn’t top 2011’s The King is Dead, for me, but nothing could. It’s close, though.) But they mixed in a ton of old stuff, too – Rox in the Box from The King is Dead; The Shankill Butchers, O Valencia! and Yankee Bayonet from The Crane Wife, and more. (Colin introduced Yankee Bayonet by asking the crowd “Who wants to hear a ghost story?” and then – not getting the wild cheers he was clearly expecting – “That was kind of a tepid response. What if it’s a Civil War ghost story?”) And there was a spirited rendition of The Bagman’s Gambit, which was a huge hit with the crowd because, dude, D.C. – the lines “on the steps of the Capitol” and “I was working for the government” and “in a bathroom stall off the National Mall” got the biggest cheers. (Colin even stopped singing to reflect: “You guys really like bathroom stalls. I don’t even know if there are bathroom stalls off the National Mall. Are there? Or did the Republicans take them away?”)
The band’s audience interaction was really on point. After the final chord of Cutting Stone died away, Colin mused, “The last song was about a cutting stone but this next one is about cutting… people.” Sensing mayhem of the Shankill Butchers variety, the crowd roared. “I thought you’d like that,” Colin deadpanned back. Later on, he announced that we were going to have “a little State of the Union” before launching into Everything is Awful, which he turned into a call-and-response concluding with “A heterosexual white male telling you that things are awful!” – to which the crowd sang back “la da da da da, la da da da AWFUL!”
They also had the whole venue singing along to Sons and Daughters, another old favorite; “it’s really better as a singalong with as many people as possible; let’s sing so loud they hear us on Capitol Hill,” Colin urged, and then seven thousand people sang in one voice, “hear all the bombs, they fade away,” and I don’t think I was the only one who was moved to tears.
I’m going on and on and on – and on – here, but this concert was a dream come true for me. Or not even a dream come true, because even in my wildest concertgoing dreams, I don’t have a spot right by the stage. And the best part was – the band gained another fan on Saturday. Steve was vaguely aware of their existence, mainly from listening when I occasionally turn them on in the car. (They’re my go-to music for all occasions, but I generally only inflict my own taste on Steve when I think I can definitely get away with it, i.e., when I’m on the way to the hospital to have a baby.) But he was cramming for the show, listening to their newest album and really liking it, for the month leading up to the concert – and when we left the venue, his grin was almost as big as mine. (He did say it was the chillest concert he’d ever been to, which I chose to take as a compliment.) I’m telling you, guys. There’s something about this band, when they can create a brand-new fan with a full night of sea shanties, Civil War ballads, and working in vocab like liminal, augur, tryst, purloined and dirigible – all words they sang on Saturday.
It also didn’t hurt that they performed Ben Franklin’s Song, lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and sent to Meloy by Miranda after Ben was cut from Hamilton. Lin wrote the words, Colin and the folks wrote the music. Because, according to Colin, “Lin-Manuel Miranda gets whatever he wants,” and “he apparently wanted Ben Franklin’s Song to be Decemberist-y.” Steve is a huge #Hamilfan, and this gave The Decemberists instant cred. And they’ve been featured on our favorite show, Parks and Recreation, which sealed the deal. Well – actually, I think their new song, Severed, was what really sealed the deal for Steve. But I don’t care what it was – my husband now loves my favorite band. That’s good enough for me.
I told you this was going to be self-indulgent. But I can’t stop myself waxing rhapsodic about this band. They have been the soundtrack to my life for thirteen years. I’ve spent a lot of time belting out their songs in the car, dancing to them on the rare occasions I’m home alone, and hearing Colin Meloy’s voice in my head at every epic moment in my adult life. (Except for law school graduation, which was narrated by The Shins. But that’s a story for another day.)
So I’ll leave this long, rambling love letter to The Decemberists as they left us, with The Mariner’s Revenge Song, the finale from Saturday night (and I suspect the finale of every concert, because what a way to go out, right?). I highly recommend watching this whole video. But if you only have a few minutes to spare, fast-forward to about minute 6. Right before the “screaming like you’re being swallowed by a whale” begins.
What’s your favorite band? How much do we love The Decemberists?
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?, by Kathleen Collins – I’m not sure how I happened upon this slim volume of short stories, but I’m glad I did. Collins was an African-American playwright and filmmaker, apparently quite widely known, and very well-regarded, in the world of drama, theatre and film. Since that is decidedly not my world, I’d never heard of her until I learned of this book, published posthumously. In it, Collins writes of people like herself – artists, living in New York City, making their way through relationships and ambition and the social scene. The writing is luminous and the characters are fully realized, which is a hard thing to do in the short story format. Short stories are, as you all know, not my favorite – but I really enjoyed this.
Winter in Thrush Green (Thrush Green #2), by Miss Read – There is really nothing I like better than a big cup of tea and a meander through one of Miss Read’s beautifully drawn English villages. In this installment of the Thrush Green series, the reader is taken through a change of seasons in the village, and with it, some changes in the faces from the last book. As autumn settles in, Ben and Molly Curdle are married but gone, off traveling with Curdle’s Fair. Dr. Lovell has taken over the medical practice, married Ruth, and the two are expecting their first baby. There’s drama – a new neighbor and a possible romance for the vicar, plus someone has bashed the schoolteacher over the head and stolen her jewelry box; Paul Young suspects Sam Curdle. There’s joy in the Lovells’ new little one and in love for the widowed vicar at last. And once winter settles in, there’s snow and a daring rescue of Dotty Harmer from her cottage. In short, everything you could want.
This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America, by Morgan Jerkins – Hmmmm. What to say about this book? I had heard wonderful things and it mostly lived up to the hype. I like the personal essay as a literary genre, and I am particularly interested in reading about the experiences of women of color. There’s no doubt that Jerkins is an incredibly talented writer, and I found most of the essays in this collection informative and moving. I thought that her essays about race were the best; the female and feminism-focused essays were not quite as strong, in my opinion. I did try to keep in mind that I was reading about someone else’s experience, and that her reactions to certain things (like breakups) were different from what mine would be because she was coming to them with a different set of life experiences. There was one essay, though – about a medical procedure, and you’ll know what I’m referring to if you’ve read the book – that I cannot un-read. And I really wish I could.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, by Michael Wolff – So, I just had to read this because everyone in D.C. is talking about it. I’m not sure what to say about it here, though – seems to me that everything has been said. I’ll just note that while certain details in the book (i.e. confusing Mike Berman and Mark Berman in the Four Seasons breakfast scene, and misidentifying Wilbur Ross as the nominee to head DOL, when in fact he was nominated for Commerce) are incorrect – likely a function of rushing the book to publication – if even a third of what Wolff writes is true, dayum. And not in a good way. I really wish I hadn’t had occasion to read Fire and Fury. I wish I worked in a Washington, D.C. that was going about its regular business under President Hillary Clinton. I wish my friends who are career government employees (and I know a lot of them – thanks to law school and my own stint at DOL I have friends or acquaintances at DOL, Commerce, Justice, Education, State, GSA and quite a few of the smaller agencies) weren’t so downtrodden and depressed, and that the rest of us weren’t constantly reevaluating our emergency plans. But I wasn’t not going to read this book.
Young Jane Young, by Gabrielle Zevin – I was heartily sick of politics by the time I finished Fire and Fury, but library deadlines dictated that I had to tackle Young Jane Young next. Fortunately, it was a fast and fun read and it only took me a day. Jane Young wasn’t always Jane Young. Years ago, she was Aviva Grossman, a Congressional intern who had an affair with her married boss. The affair came to light, of course, as they so often do, and Aviva took the fall while the Congressman emerged unscathed. Finding herself unemployable, Aviva changed her name, moved to Maine and became a wedding planner. But now she has decided to run for Mayor of her small town – against a notorious local jerk – and the truth is bound to come out. So, I found Young Jane Young engaging but the central plot was kind of unbelievable. Not the affair part – see above, I live in D.C., I can totally believe that everyone in Congress is having affairs – but I just couldn’t believe that Jane ran for public office. I get that she loved politics and that the other guy would’ve been a nightmare, but she spent eighteen years keeping her head down and her identity a secret, and then threw it away? Does not compute.
Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel, by Carl Safina – This one had been on my list for a long time. Safina is a conservationist writer who is clearly passionate about what he does and has some serious writing skill, too. Beyond Words is organized into four sections: there are sections on elephants, wolves, and killer whales, and somewhat confusingly a section on Safina’s dogs and the sea birds near his home (interesting, but could have been condensed into an introduction or epilogue; jammed in the middle as it was, it kind of broke up the rhythm). Safina analyzes animal social behaviors and spends considerable time interviewing experts to conclude that these animals are “who” animals – they have their own family lives, means of communicating (killer whales have distinct language that varies by group, which is a documented fact), and emotions. I thought Beyond Words was beautiful, moving, sad and inspiring.
African Short Stories, ed. Chinua Achebe – I have been meaning to read Achebe’s classic, Things Fall Apart, but I thought this collection of short stories, collected and edited by him and to which he contributed one story, would be a good place to start. I liked, but didn’t love it. The main weakness of the collection is that the quality of the stories is extremely uneven. There are some – such as Achebe’s offering, and one by Jomo Kenyatta – that are really breathtaking and outstanding. There are others that are sort of middling, and a few that are just really, really bad and one that was completely unreadable – as if the idea was to go for a Ulysses-style effect, but without the skill or panache of James Joyce (and I am not a Bloomfan). It’s a short book, so not a huge time commitment, but I have to think there are better collections featuring African writers.
Slightly Foxed, Volume 3: Sharks, Otters and Fast Cars, ed. Gail Pikris – My slow read-through of all the back issues of Slightly Foxed continues. To be honest, I don’t remember much about this one, beyond the titular essay on a biography of Gavin Maxwell, who sounds like a real character. (It didn’t make me want to seek out the biography, but I did note that the Folio Society publishes Maxwell’s A Ring of Bright Water and Slightly Foxed has his memoir.) The other essays were a little less memorable – I think the magazine is still hitting its stride in issue 3, and clearly it has done so, as issue 57 just arrived on my doorstep not long ago. But Slightly Foxed does offer reliably excellent writing, and each issue contributes a few more titles to my inflated TBR.
Love, Hate and Other Filters, by Samir Ahmed – I came to this one hoping it would be 2018’s answer to The Hate U Give. I’m not sure it’s quite in those heights, but it was still excellent. Maya Aziz is a high school senior who loves filmmaking, dreams of studying at NYU, and is crushing on the captain of the football team (of course). But she’s also Indian, and she’s not sure how to tell her strict parents that she doesn’t want to go to college close to home and become a lawyer. (Don’t be a lawyer, Maya!) And she’s Muslim, and finds herself and her family in danger when a terrorist attack a few hundreds of miles away brings out the latent hate in her own community. So – I liked this, but as I said, it wasn’t quite at the level of The Hate U Give. There was a tiny bit too much romance – I counted three possible love interests for Maya – and it distracted from the more important issues that Maya was dealing with. Still a great read, and I blew through it in 24 hours.
1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman – I had kind of a rough week at the end of the month – nothing serious, just a couple of disappointments – and needed some levity, and 1066 and All That fit the bill perfectly. Sellar and Yeatman present a madcap journey through British history, from the Romans to World War II. Along the way we learn about the Magna Charter (a Good Thing), efforts to amuse Queen Victoria (a Good Queen), Mary Queen of Hearts (a Romantic Queen), Anne of Cloves, and more. There were also “test papers” after each chapter, asking questions like “What convinced you that Henry VIII had VIII wives? Was it worth it?” It was a lot of fun, and I giggled throughout.