#804 Exposition- Rebecca Makkai

#804 Exposition- Rebecca Makkai

Another stunning story about the undying power of music. This is written as a transcript of a recording. A spy is being interviewed by his superiors about his last mission. He attended the concert of an enemy pianist, Sophia Speri. It was an illegal concert where she was performing outlawed music.

“It was hypnotic. The Music. The very reason it has been banned, I’m sure. It hypnotized, it entranced, it gave the listener visions of worlds beyond the borders of…the human heart.”

The concert took place in secret hall entirely in the dark. It was supposed to be her last concert, she presumably knew she would be caught and executed. She was shot and killed on stage by the spy ten minutes into the show. She didn’t stop playing even when the gun was put to her head.

The spy is trying to convince the interrogator that he did not enjoy the music, couldn’t remember the music. He was clearly moved by the performance and can’t explain why he waited ten minutes to kill the pianist instead of immediately. The musician is dead, but the music and the defiance lived on.

Notable Passage: “Not to unhear music, but to forget it. Are they not the same?”

Rating: 9-10-10-9 Total= 38

#763 The Dark Dining Room- Felisberto Hernandez

#763 The Dark Dining Room- Felisberto Hernandez

A young up and coming pianist is looking for work, but it is hard to come by. He manages to get a lowly job playing twice a week for a private audience. A strange woman, both widowed and jilted has hired him to fill the house with music. He finds the surroundings odd and uncomfortable, especially his encounters with a disgruntled maid at the estate.

As all the stories in this collection, music plays a huge roll. Here it evokes memories and desire, whether wanted or not. That part of the story was, as always, written delicately and with great effect. However, this was the first of this Piano Stories collection I found disappointing. It was left a bit unresolved or undeveloped in an unsatisfying way. Unlike the others, this was written in a classic style without Hernandez’s penchant for spiritual or other-worldly themes. Classic is fine, but using that as a measuring stick, this fell a bit short (and I’m only using the high level of achievement his other stories hit as a barometer).

Notable Passage: “I hadn’t wanted the title of the song to bring back her bad memories, but I was drawn to the tragedies in other lives.”

Rating: 8-7-6-6 Total= 27

#735 My First Concert- Felisberto Hernandez

#735 My First Concert- Felisberto Hernandez

You can practice all you want, for years on end. Your technique could be perfected and your understanding of the music impeccable.  In the comfort of your own studio you may be the greatest musician ever, but unless you can overcome the nerves of stage-fright, you will never be as good as you think.

This is a charming and all-too realistic look into the fragile nerves of a first time performer. Having been a musician myself, I am very sensitive to these feelings. The days leading up to the performance is a steady roller coaster of emotion that Hernandez writes perfectly. Here are just a few of the telling quotes in this story:

“Rounding a corner I saw my name written large on two huge posters stuck on either side of a cart, and felt even more miserable. If the letters had only been smaller, perhaps less would have been expected of me.”

“I distrusted myself that morning and started going over my program like someone counting his money because he suspects it has been stolen from him during the night, and I soon found out I didn’t have as much as I had thought I did.”

We see the performance, and thankfully is wasn’t a disaster. The lighter moments on stage make for a great tension/release. I love using both a coffin and cannon as metaphors for the piano.

Rating: 9-8-9-8 Total= 34

#704 Cold- John Keene

#704 Cold- John Keene

You have to know a little about American Music history to get the full meaning of this one. This piece is a tribute to a great and tragic musician around the turn of the 19^th century. 

Bob Cole was a composer/songwriter/entertainer with much success, having written and published a couple hundred songs. His music was known to the general public but outside of the black communities he would not have been as recognized physically or by name as well as he should have been. He and his partners, brothers James Weldon and J. Rosamund Johnson wrote minstrel music, some of which has been used to perpetuate negative black stereotypes. After gaining success and creating his own black production company, he used his position to change the entertainment industry, trying to stop the use these stereotypes, of black characters as villainous or aggressive. 

He killed himself in 1911 while staying at a Hotel in the Catskills. The “Cold” of the title represents the creek water in which he drowned himself. This story is the last day of his life. We see his embarrassment at having to change rooms because a white guest requests it, we see his mental anguish at realizing some negative messages in his own songs, and we see the torture of his songs haunting him as they fight to be let loose.

“Then somewhere along the way after the first terrible blues struck you tried to hum a new tune, conjure one, you thought it was just exhaustion, your mind too tired to refresh itself as it always had, that’s why the old ones wouldn’t go away.”

Fantastic story. I love both the music and the history here, and the artistic manner in which Keene delivers a lecture on both.  It’s a shame that Cole’s memory is lost to most people, but I am grateful to Keene for reviving the name in such a meaningful way.  Knowing the reference helps, but even without it, this story stands as masterful.

Notable Passage: “I’m coming until the music breaks into a screaming silence that if you could describe it in a word would be no word or no note or sound at all but fleetingly, fleetingly cold…”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#616 The Balcony- Felisberto Hernandez

#616 The Balcony- Felisberto Hernandez

I am utterly taken with the beautiful writing in this collection. Hernandez is just as much a musician as a writer, taking an extraordinary person and building a magical setting around her like a composer builds strings around a piano soloist.

A pianist is invited to visit the home of a father who’s daughter cannot leave her house. She is afraid of going outdoors and has created a world around herself. Her friends are the objects she sees, the colors of parasols she adorns the hallway with, and the balcony she spends most of her time. Her anthropomorphic eye extends to more elusive things like shadows:

“As the light faded we could feel them nestling in the shadows as if they had feathers and were preparing for sleep. She said they develop souls as they came in touch with people.”

Silence is another theme that gets a lot of attentions here. Like the shadows, silence is seen as something alive with not only personality but emotion:

“I could see it growing on the big black top of the piano. The Silence liked to listen to the music, slowly taking it in and thinking it over before venturing an opinion. But once it felt at home it took part in the music. Then it was like a cat with a long black tail slipping in between the notes, leaving them full of intentions.”

-I was sinking into something like the bowels of silence

-the silence was a heavy animal with a paw raised

These are the types of stories that makes reading more than just entertainment. Enough of the stories that try to relate to everyday life. We see everyday life, exist in it, I don’t want to read about it. I read to escape from everyday life, go somewhere only the author can imaging. I’m glad people still write like this, although that’s not entirely fair…nobody writes quite like this.

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#612 Seeing Through Water- Fatima Shaik

#612 Seeing Through Water- Fatima Shaik

This is truly a story unique to New Orleans. Sister Mary Patrick is having trouble adjusting to her life as a nun in the sweltering south. She is from an Irish Catholic Boston family and was hoping the church sent her out west. Now she teaches children in a town where she feels completely out of place.

Making life hard for her is a child, Pierre, that just cant seem to calm down. He is disruptive and remorseless. When she asks for the child to be removed from class, neither the headmaster nor the child’s grandmother agrees with the change. Pierre likes the Sister and he acts the calmest in her class. One day, in a rain storm, Pierre leads the class in second line parade in a pipe-piper like exercise in disruption.

Disruptive children don’t necessarily mean bad children. Especially in a town like New Orleans, originality and creativity should be celebrated not restricted. Sometimes when the rain falls, all there is to do is start a parade.

Rating: 8-7-7-7 Total= 29

#588 The Voice- Henry Dumas

#588 The Voice- Henry Dumas

It’s been a few months since I did a Dumas story. As always, It’s good for the soul. The Expressions are a local Harlem Gospel group. Their best singer, Spencer has died. The remaining members wander the streets in the snow looking for answers, arguing over the existence of God.

They come across a Rabbi, but find no answers; they met a priest but are no closer to a satisfying response. They visit Spencer’s house and gather with family and friends. They sing a song together and feel at peace. If you can’t find God in music, you can’t find God anywhere.

Notable Passage: “If you got a clean heart, and ask a good, honest question, God will answer you."

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#577 Achille’s Jass- Fatima Shaik

#577 Achille’s Jass- Fatima Shaik

Achille Piron is a old New Orleans trumpet player. He plays as good as ever, but he doesn’t get many gigs anymore. The music scene is a fickle one and talent doesn’t always win out, but even now he has found his own niche. He is the one they call to play a funeral of other musicians. There seem to be a lot of those these days.

“There were only a few musicians alive who could capture a man’s whole spirit—lay him out from birth to death. And even, respectfully honor his foolish heart.”

“Because of his age, he could play loneliness better than ever.”

Mourners would ask for something upbeat or something with more joy, but inevitably they would be swept away by the emotion of Achille’s playing and weep and thank him for his soulful music.

“I’ll Fly Away would play so smooth and sincere that somebody would believe it. The weak-minded, the poor children just learning catechism, the old ladies—all might be apt to believe that God could fill their minds, their stomachs, and remove their wants and regrets. The music would be so convincing that the poor in spirit would let everyone see their tears and their faith for once. And they would convince others that God could relive unending sorrow.”

Somewhere in a cemetery, Achille plays, but not for another poor musician, but for himself and the city hears him and remembers and mourns. “Achille blew now as if he were playing his own funeral.”

I can't tell you how much this story has moved me. For those who see music as a religion and listen to music as if in church, Shaik hits home here. Like the tomb of the unknown soldier, this is a remarkably emotional elegy to the nameless musicians that touch our lives at our most raw moments; and this is a celebration to music itself and its power of transcendence. 

Notable Passage: “A person had to know a little about life to understand music.”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#529 Mississippi Ham Rider- Toni Cade Bambara

#529 Mississippi Ham Rider- Toni Cade Bambara

Mississippi Ham Rider is an old southern bluesman, long forgotten by most of the world. Record executives from New York have come calling to bring him north to record some of his songs. They are trying to revive some of this old music for a collection, included in the records are the old blues stories:

“The payoffs, the bribes, bargains and deals, interviews in jail cells, drug wards, wino bins.” (seems like these could all be names of bands...Ha!)

Ham Rider is quite a character: “He’s quite a sketch—jackboots, the original War-one bespoke overcoat, razor scar, gravel voice and a personality to match.”

There is a cultural divide here. White-Black, Rich-Poor, Old-New, North-South—the oldies, but goodies. Trying to hold on to the past in modern terms always seems false:

“Ole Ham Rider besieged by well-dressed coffee drinkers wanting his opinion on Miles Davis and Malcolm X.”

But, as long as there’s a deal to be made, there’s a deal to be made—as long as you can take it.

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#517 Ambitious Sophomore- Kurt Vonnegut

#517 Ambitious Sophomore- Kurt Vonnegut

The Lincoln High School marching band is the pride of the community. The hundred piece band is marching in the parade and is poised to once again win the prize. It’s leader, Mr. Helmholtz has only one problem…money. He spends too much too fast and he needs to buy one more uniform, a special uniform that will enable the stage-stricken piccolo player, Leroy, to play his best.

“Helmholtz often gave the impression of a man lost in dreams, but there was a side to him that was as tough as a rhinoceros. It was the side that raised money for the band.”

A deal was struck, the uniform purchased and the band was in position to march to another victory. But tragedy struck before the competition and the special uniform was ruined. As it turned out no uniform was needed, Leroy found inspiration in an obvious place.

“That wasn’t school spirit—that was the love song of the full-bodied American male.”

Rating: 7-7-7-8 Total= 29

#504 Wings- Lorrie Moore

#504 Wings- Lorrie Moore

This story is the perfect depiction of how the world sees generation-x and probably a little how generation-x views itself—or maybe just how I view it. KC and Dench are in a long term relationship, in their late thirties and are going nowhere. Neither is their music career. Their last tour has ended and they are renting an old house and KC is doing some mid life re-evaluating.

“She spent a decade barking up the wrong tree.”

“She loved Dench. She was helpless before the whole emotional project of him. But it didn’t preclude hating him and everything around him, which included herself, the sound of her own voice—and the sound of his which was worse.”

While Dench is staying home probably having similar thoughts, KC befriends an old man and finds peace and truth in his presence. She likes the old-fashioned attention he gives her, like the parents she missed. She struggles with what to do from here on out.

The story is a good one, it hits on the right somber notes, not too powerful and not too delicate. The imagery is great, little detail like the old man complaining about age then flashing a smile with “Sepia teeth”…a color usually describing an old photograph.

And of all the movies, books, songs, and random conversations I’ve had over the years, never before has there been a better description of a Generation-X relationship than this one sentence:

“I don’t know what I want…and I don’t know what you’re doing.” AMAZING!!!

As with a lot of Moore’s stories I find this has a little too much “extra” material. There are pages of stuff that would be great for development in a novel, but I find extemporaneous in shorter fiction—but that is just a personal preference. I also get stopped when I come to a phrase like this:

“Patience was a chemical. Derived from a mineral. Derived from a star. She felt she had a bit of it. But it was not always fruitful. Or fruitful with the right fruit.”

It’s nice wordplay, great musical cadence, but it seems like phrase just dropped into the story for its form, and to me feels un-integrated in the flow of the piece. It happens a few times per story where I stop to re-read a passage and wonder why it’s there; They’re not unpleasant, just out of place. It would be like walking in a secluded forest and suddenly coming across a string quarter. That would be a beautiful sight, just not the sight you set out to find...and the rest of your hike you find it hard to enjoy the natural beauty of the forest because you have the string quarter stuck in your mind.

Rating: 9-8-9-9 Total= 35

#483 The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed- Edward P. Jones

#483 The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed- Edward P. Jones

Cassandra is a young wayward girl. She’s a tough-girl, partially homeless, violent, and spends her time skipping school. But she loves music and she love’s her best friend Rhonda. Rhonda is the pride of the neighborhood, a rising star in the music world.

While Rhonda is off to meet with record executives, Cassandra is on a little road trip with some girls like her. Then tragedy strikes.

Notable Passage: “She sang on into the night for herself alone, her voice pushing back everything she did not yet understand”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#446 The Steviewondermobile- Toure

#446 The Steviewondermobile- Toure

We are in Toure’s invented municipality, Soul City. “Soul City was a place where God entered through the speakers and love was measured in decibles.” There were at least twenty-five verified religions in Soul City, all based on Soul music of course.

Huggy Bear Jackson was a Stevie-ite (as were his buddies Mojo, Boozoo, and Groovy Lou) and built a mobile shrine to his idol. The vehicle that cruised Freedom Street or Funky Boulevard would break down all the time, couldn’t go more than twenty five and guzzled gas, but it had a kickin’ sound system that would only play Stevie Wonder. It was rigged so that any other music was put in, it would be immediately spit out. Now, That’s musical devotion!

This collection is going to be a blast!

“But it was Huggy Bear’s world and in Huggy Bear’s world the music could never die. So he sat in the Steveiewondermobile, stuck at the corner of Freedom and Rhythm, chilling with Groovy Lou and Boozoo to the soaring sounds of Stevie’s seamless soul stew and the world he saw with his so wonderfully clear inner vision.”

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#403 Couple of Lovers on Red Background- Rebecca Makkai

#403 Couple of Lovers on Red Background- Rebecca Makkai

She is going through a loss, grief or just a mental crisis, but the narrator is having a delusion, quite a great delusion in fact. She believes that Johan Sebastian Bach has come back to live, came out of her piano and is now living in her apartment.

It’s a charming story, the narrator goes through all the mind experiments you would expect to make the story work. What CD’s would Back listen to? You should probably turn off the TV, that much of a technology and cultural leap would shock him back to death.

Whether this is just a dream she was having after hitting her head, or a mental coping mechanism to get over a tough break-up, the metaphor of her literally living with the music she loves is a strong one.

Rating: 8-9-9-9 Total= 35

#339 The No-Talent Kid- Kurt Vonnegut

#339 The No-Talent Kid- Kurt Vonnegut

Mr. George M. Helmholtz lived in a world of music, and even the throbbing of his headache came to him musically, if painfully, as the "deep-throated boom of a bass drum seven feet in diameter.”

The Lincoln High School band had won every single band competition the last ten years until last year, when the Johnstown High School Band had stunned the judges with their amazing over-sized bass drum.  The loss haunts Helmholtz as he tries to prepare this year's band for the next competition.

Enter Walter Plummer, the least talented kid in the school: “No one else. He realized, no matter how untalented, could fill the last chair of the organization as well has Plummer had.”

When Plummer was able to procure an even larger drum, he tried to make a deal with Helmholtz for a place of honor in the band. The agreement they struck, as would this story, would make O. Henry proud.

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#308 Oragami Prunes- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

#308 Oragami Prunes- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

This story was kind of all over the place for me. Two displaced wealthy Mexicans meet in Laundromat in Austin. She is older and cynical, he is young and naïve. They have a torrid lost-weekend and then part ways never to met again. There is some symbolism attached to wild fires, tumbling inside of dryers, and Michael Jackson’s death, but it’s not apparent to me what they mean.

That said, it wasn’t without some entertainment. It had a few good lines. The first is probably my favorite first line in the 300 stories I’ve covered in this blog:

“I first met Laura at a washateria the day both my washer and Michael Jackson died.”

And then it also had probably the creepiest line I’ve read in the 300 stories covered in this blog:

“Laura’s helplessness was wrapped in a thin layer of arrogance that made her sexy and unnerving, a thing you wanted to put your hands on.”

So, there’s that.

Notable Passage: “Nostalgia is the saddest form of glee.”

Rating: 7-6-5-6 Total= 24

#303 Shamengwa- Louise Erdrich

#303 Shamengwa- Louise Erdrich

Shamengwa is an old man living among the Ojibwa community. His arm was broken when he was young and healed in a mangled way, like a broken wing, and was given his named after the Monarch butterfly. His father played the fiddle but traded it for religion when his brother dies young. The fiddle was put away, and the parents turned despondent and had, in many ways, lost their music. Shamengwa needing life, found it:

“It was a question of survival, after all. If I had not found the music, I would have dies of the silence. There are ways of being abandoned even when your parents are right there.”

Despite his mangled arm, or perhaps because of it, the music he created became the soul of his community:

“The sound connected instantly with something deep and joyous. Those powerful moments of true knowledge which we paper over with daily life. The music tapped our terrors, too. Things we’d lived through and wanted never to repeat. Shredding imaginings, unadmitted longings, fear, and also surprising pleasures. We can’t live at that  pitch. But every so often, something shatters like ice, and we fall into the river of our own existence. We are aware.”

When the violin was stolen, we learn of its incredible history, and when we find out who stole the violin, we learn of his incredible history as well. Instruments, like music often find people most in need of spiritual healing.

This is just great story telling.

Notable Passage: “I do my work. I do my best to make the small decisions well, and I try not to hunger for the greater things, for the deeper explanations. For I am sentenced to keep watch over this little patch of earth, to judge its miseries and tell its stories.”

Rating: 9-10-10-10 Total= 39