Category: Pop

The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects, by Bee Wilson

(W.W. Norton, 291 pages)

Not long after Bee Wilson’s marriage of 23 years dissolved, a heart-shaped cake tin clattered to the floor at her feet. It was the tin she had used to bake her wedding cake, and later to bake birthday cakes for her children. Now she was unsure what to do with the tin and all the complicated feelings it evoked.

Wilson started to think about all the other items that filled her kitchen cabinets and cupboards, and the sentimental attachment that so many held. Many had been passed down to her from family members or arrived as gifts. It is notable, she writes in The Heart-Shaped Tin, that “kitchenware seems to be one of the main forms of currency between grown-up family members, whether given by a child to a parent or the other way around. What is really being exchanged is an idealised memory of the family dinner table.”

We all have the equivalent of Wilson’s heart-shaped tin, some item that, whether used or not, is absurdly precious. Mine is an antique Coca-Cola-branded bottle opener that was attached to the wall of my late grandmother’s home and now hangs in my kitchen. It is rarely used since I hardly ever buy bottled drinks, but I would fight to the death anyone who tried to take it from me.

In her book — part memoir, part history — Wilson delves into the reasons for these attachments, looking at her own family’s treasures as well as the treasures of other people around the world. She explores the psychological and societal factors that influence what we consider priceless or worthless, from a relatively cheap melon baller that her sons fight over, to an iron pan that a South American woman is so attached to that she sometimes takes it with her on vacation.

“We like to think that love is a natural phenomenon that happens all by itself, springing directly from our hearts. But to live in the modern commercial world is to have thousands of desires and longings inside us without our say-so. You wake up with an urge to buy a giant coffee in a paper cup decorated with a green mermaid and you have no idea why,” Wilson writes.

Wilson is an English writer whose previous nonfiction books have also involved kitchenware and food (see 2012’s Consider the Fork and 2010’s Sandwich: A Global History). Her latest is a surprisingly engaging tour de kitchenware that takes us from an ancient ceramic container found in Ecuador that challenged what we thought we knew about the history of chocolate consumption to the mysterious kitchen sieve that Queen Elizabeth I is holding in a 1583 portrait of her. The vast range of items discussed goes from vegetable corers to canisters, from glory boxes (a kind of hope chest or dowry) to burial plates, the blue and white ceramic plates sometimes buried with corpses in England in the 18th and 19th centuries. All together, it is a cornucopia of fascinating historical anecdotes.

Wilson also helps to explain why fine china has been so important throughout human history, to the point where even people of modest means would work to obtain a full setting, one piece at a time, in order to honor their guests. She writes of the legacy of guilt that such household items like this leave when you realize the china either never appealed to you or has outlived its purpose.

“Every time I opened the cupboard that contained the Kutani Crane vegetable tureens they made me feel faintly strangled,” she writes. “These dishes had been handed down to me not just by my own father but by his father. When I looked at them, I felt weighed down by two generations of filial obligation.”

Wilson is a master of the interesting aside, as when she explores the control that the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre believed is at the center of gift-giving. Nowhere is this a greater problem than in Japan, she writes, “which has a culture of gift-giving more extensive than any other advanced capitalist society.” The Japanese not only give lavishly to each other but are expected to give a gift after being presented with a gift. Moreover, next time you complain about the preponderance of “Hallmark holidays” in America, remember that Japan also celebrates Girl’s Day, Boy’s Day and Old People’s Day — all of which come with gifts.

Wilson also writes poignantly about the difficulty of getting rid of sentimental objects, even when you are psychologically ready to do so, and sometimes even when they are broken. She had finally packed up an expensive set of china, having decided to donate it to a thrift shop, when one of her sons protested her giving away those pieces of his childhood. She had better luck when she finally decided to give away the “Elmer the Elephant” plate her sons had eaten on as toddlers, but it wasn’t without pain.

It is possible “to hanker deeply after something which is neither pretty nor useful, just because of the person who once used it,” she writes. “The fact that no one needs it anymore is exactly what makes the wanting so fierce, because it reminds you of a time when you were needed too.”

I approached The Heart-Shaped Tin with some skepticism about whether Wilson’s premise could hold my attention for nearly 300 pages, but it did. Readers will continue to think about not only the stories the author tells but the stories contained in their own kitchens. B+

Featured Photo: The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects by Bee Wilson

Album Reviews 26/04/16

The Alarm, Transformation (Twenty First Century/Virgin Records)

This may or may not be the final album from this Welsh new-wave band under its original name, whose tuneage I’ve previously described as a kinder, gentler Clash or a more aggressive U2. Last year, bandleader Mike Peters finally lost his battle with the cancer that had been attacking him for 30 years; Peters’ son Evan is now fronting the band as “The Alarm Presented by Evan Peters,” while original bassist Eddie McDonald is leading “The Alarm 2.0,” but whatever, this may be it for The Alarm proper, a band that was maligned since birth in the British press for being derivative and pretentious and only scored one hit in the U.S. (“Sold Me Down the River,” which ripped off “Bang A Gong,” for the Gen Xers who can remember all that stuff). This one leads off with “New Life,” which, um, derivatively enough, is basically a jam-out version of Gary Glitter’s “Rock n Roll Part 2.” But most of the other songs are fine, like “Chimera,” a stadium-ready protest-stomper that’s a lot better than that U2 EP I reviewed here the other week, if you’re a fan who needs to read some faint praise. B

Anyma and Lisa, “Bad Angel” (Interscope Records)

You know, if there’s anything that gets on my nerves about the current timeline with regard to the music-tastemaking space, it’s the blinding array of collaborations between (mostly disparate) artists. I mean, I get that we’re in a post-band/post-album world, but every other day it seems like there’s a new pair of strange bedfellows barfing out a single that wants to squeeze money out of today’s youth, a cohort that’s of course more concerned with preserving what’s left of their mental health than maintaining their hipness level. Records like this one remind me of the one-off Marvel Team-Up comic books of my youth, which were cynically intended to, among other things, expose regular Iron Man readers to the improbable world of the Silver Surfer, that sort of thing. This tune, with its dark, melodic techno, could have just as easily been promoted as an “Anyma feat Lisa” joint and added to his next ÆDEN album or whatnot; Lisa’s just got more ethereal reverb/next-gen-Autotune effectage on her vanilla-diva voice here than usual. It’s not any more interesting than Chris Avantgarde’s stuff, let’s say, and furthermore — oh, wait, I get it, she’s headlining Coachella this year, that’s what this is about. Well played, Interscope, well played (eyeroll emoji). D+

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Friday, April 17, is almost here, my dudes, so what will you do to advance the cause of rock ’n’ roll in our republic on that album release day? Just look at all the new albums that are coming out that day, the bigly-est albums ever in the history of the universe, until next Friday! Look at all these new albums, and never even mind that it’s already too late to talk about The World Is To Dig, the new one from famous Weezer-for-dummies children’s band They Might Be Giants, who did the Malcolm in the Middle song at the dawn of the Aughts, before the last flickers of hope for humanity began to falter, remember those days, and all the faltering? Yup, it’s too late to talk about this new They Might Be Giants album, because that one actually came out on Tuesday, even though Tuesdays stopped serving as the traditional album release weekday in 2015, according to this pesky spamming Google AI bot, who says “Tuesdays officially stopped being the traditional day for album releases in the United States on July 10, 2015, when the industry shifted to ‘Global Release Day’ (or New Music Fridays) to align releases with Fridays in more than 45 countries, reducing music piracy and syncing with streaming culture.” Of course, that tradition has been obsolete for years now, now that everyone simply uses YouTube-to-MP3 sites to rip music for their mixtapes, naïvely expecting their virus protection software to — you know, protect them from viruses, which it can’t when people are practically begging to get hacked, but can’t we just stick to Global Release Day Fridays anyway? Is nothing sacred anymore, but belay that patently naïve question, nothing has been sacred since Walmart started making their people work on Thanksgiving starting in the 1980s (that is until 2020, when even Walmart realized how stupid that was). But let’s just pretend They Might Whatever weren’t the Walmart of children’s emo bands and were putting out their new album this Friday, what would I say about their new single, “Wu-Tang?” Well, I’d probably say that it was an uninteresting, strummy, mid-tempo children’s singalong that has no Wu Tang guest-feats on it, but it’s too late to talk about it, so let’s just move along.

• Canadian DJ/producer Tiga releases “Hotlife” this week. As always, “Hot Wife” is a fun and silly track, but this time it is slow and stompy and makes use of the “Bugatti snare” drum sound, which impressed one YouTube commenter enough to make a fuss about it, which was kind of stupid to see. The tune is a collaboration with German producer Boys Noize, who’s usually pretty selective about whom he collaborates with (which is neat and everything, but I’m sure if the Muppets called he’d be on the next flight. See how the Matrix works?).

• Honey Dijon (Honey Redmond) is a renowned Black American DJ, producer and fashion icon with an energetic DJ style that leans heavily on “golden-era disco, techno and house,” so maybe her new single “The Nightlife” from her new album Nightlife will be fun to listen to and have nothing to do with the old 1978 Alicia Bridges song, because my nerves can only handle so much today. Nope, this song is a torchy sexytime thing in the vein of Kylie Minogue, I don’t mind it.

• And finally it’s Canadian alt-rock band Arkells with a new LP titled Between Us. “Next Summer” is a pretty neat tune, catchy, the singer is really good in an old-school way, like a cross between Michael Bolton and the dude from The Outfield (just Google them, guys).

NOTE: Local (NH) bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter/Bluesky (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Featured Photo: Anyma and Lisa, “Bad Angel” and The Alarm, Transformation

The Testament of Ann Lee (R)

I’d have given Amanda Seyfried an Oscar nomination for playing Shakers church founder Ann Lee in this sorta-musical biopic, which is now streaming on Hulu.

Seyfried presents a compelling performance as Lee, a woman who believes she is having visions guiding her religious convictions and pushing her beyond the mainstream Church of England of 18th-century Manchester, England. The musical aspect of the movie — singing and dancing often presented as a heightened form of worship — fits in nicely with the slightly-out-of-the-world nature of Ann Lee. She grows up in Manchester, working in a cotton mill and later as a cook in an asylum, but is also constantly active in her pursuit of a religious home. When she finds Jane and James Wardley, leaders of a Shaking Quakers church in the town, she seems to enjoy the ecstatic movements of their style of prayer, as well as the relatively egalitarian approach to gender. When visions lead her to become a preacher in her own right as Mother Ann Lee, she and the Wadleys decide she should set sail for America with a party that includes her brother William (Lewis Pullman), her longtime friend Mary (Thomasin McKenzie, who is also the movie’s narrator) and her somewhat reluctant husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott). Abraham is not thrilled that one of Ann’s revelations is that celibacy, even in marriage, is the only way to get closer to God — a fact that the movie puts in context of Ann’s four pregnancies that resulted in children who died before they were one year old. In the U.S., Ann and her followers slowly build a church community — one full of some truly lovely furniture — but also deal with the persecution of being a relatively fringe religion with a woman in charge.

In addition to the good work by Seyfried, the movie is lovely to look at — lit and framed like a live tableau of 18th-century paintings. The look of the movie conveys the emotion and helps put you in this world where religion plays this very un-21st-century role not only in society but also in the internal lives of the characters. B+ On Hulu and available for purchase.

Featured photo: The Testament of Ann Lee

Frog and Other Essays by Anne Fadiman

(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 171 pages)

Anyone with a passing knowledge of poetry knows of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the English poet who composed “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan” (the latter said to have been written under the influence of opium).

Far fewer know of his firstborn son, David Hartley Coleridge, frequently referred to by friends and family as “Poor Hartley.” Essayist Anne Fadiman plucks the lesser Coleridge out of popular obscurity in Frog (And Other Essays), a collection that offers an eclectic assortment of subjects, from the titular frog, a family pet that wound up in the freezer, to the men on a doomed polar expedition who produced a newspaper/literary magazine to help them endure the long and depressing Antarctic winters.

All are, in a word, a delight.

“Frog” is the first of seven. It chronicles the life and death of Bunky, who entered the Fadiman household as a tadpole shipped in a Styrofoam container. The brand was called “Grow-a-Frog” and it wasn’t until later that Fadiman learned of Bucky’s heritage: He was an African clawed frog who looked “as if a regular frog had been bleached and then put in a panini press.” Bunky lived, more or less happily, with the family for about 17 years, although Fadiman notes that she would sometimes “hear him softly calling for a mate he would never meet” when she got up for a middle-of-the-night snack.

Bunky’s story meanders. Fadiman leads us through short discussions of various family pets and varied anecdotes of Bunky’s limited life, some of which, she admits, now cause her regret. When he died, “I mourned for all frogs in too small-aquariums. All the fish brought home from fairs in plastic bags. All the turtles bought on impulse, vegetating in plastic lagoons. All the baby alligators flushed down toilets.” Her attempt to honor him in death, however, doesn’t go as intended, and he winds up spending an extended time in the refrigerator, because “It’s easy to forget you have a frog in your freezer when he’s behind the frozen tamales.”

“The Oakling and the Oak” is the surprisingly riveting tale of “Poor Hartley,” which shows that the travails of a child growing up in the shadow of a larger-than-life parent is a story that has existed since Adam and Cain.

Hartley didn’t kill anyone, but he was a disappointment to his father, even though he was not without talent himself, and his father was enamoured of him when he was a child. (“By the time he was seven, it is no exaggeration to say he had inspired some of the greatest poems ever written in English,” Fadiman writes.

In fact, it was that early outpouring of love that could have been a problem: “A penumbra of impossible expectation began to settle around Hartley’s head” and the poems his father wrote about him described the boy “as more spirit than mortal, a child who did not walk so much as levitate.” But STC turned out to be an absentee father, and Hartley turned out to be something of an irresponsible young adult; despite a strong intellect, he lost a coveted fellowship, in part because, as the college dean wrote, “he was often guilty of intemperance and came home in a state in which it was not safe to trust him with a candle.” It wasn’t long before father and son were not on speaking terms. He never married, and Fadiman describes a poignant deathbed scene where Poor Hartley, who loved babies but never had children, asked to hold a neighbor’s infant as he was dying. As is her wont, Fadiman leaves us wanting to learn even more about the various subjects she writes about.

In “South Polar Times” she offers evidence that “the value of a periodical cannot be judged by the size of its circulation.” Case in point: the newspaper/literary magazine produced by Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his team. “There was only one copy of each of its twelve issues, to be shared (depending on the year) by between thirteen and forty-seven readers.” Because the sun in Antarctica set in April and rose in August, depression was as much a problem as the cold. A publication featuring the work of the crew, all submitted anonymously, was one of Scott’s antidotes to misery (along with brandy and theatrical shows); contributors deposited their poems, essays and other articles into a mahogany box for consideration.

The originals still exist; Fadiman, having long held interest in arctic expeditions, once reviewed a compilation of them, marveling at the illustrations done by Dr. Edward Wilson, the Discovery’s assistant surgeon, who also happened to be a zoologist and artist. (Wilson was among the men who perished alongside Scott after discovering that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to the South Pole.)

Again, more books will have to be read, for having read Frog.

Not all of Fadiman’s topics are so poignant. In “My Old Printer,” she rues her unwillingness to part with old printers. (“Why couldn’t I treat my printer the same way I’d treat an elderly relative who, if spared the indignity of intubation, would succumb to a painless bout of pneumonia? Why couldn’t I just let nature take its course? It’s because I and most other people my age are cumbersome ourselves. We are hard to upgrade. We are not adaptable. Our memories are short on disk space. … We are all HP LaserJet II printers.”)

In “All My Pronouns,” she takes us through a brief history of pronoun controversies, from her Yale students adapting they/them to the Quakers who insisted on addressing everyone as “thou” even though the usage demoted in social standing some of the people who were addressed.

(In 16th-century Europe, she writes, “there were few more efficient ways to dishonor a man than to ‘thou’ him.”)

In “Screen Share,” she tells her pandemic story, which while interesting is no more or less interesting than yours — pretty much everyone over the age of 15 has an interesting pandemic story to tell these days.

She finishes with “Yes to Everything,” a tribute to one of her students (“Thin. Beautiful. Long reddish-brown hair. Long legs. Flagrantly short skirt. Nimbus of angry energy.”) who had been told by a visiting novelist “that making it as a writer today was virtually impossible.” It will punch you in the gut, is all I’ll say. Read with tissues. And don’t buy your kids frogs. A

Featured Photo: Frog and Other Essays by Anne Fadiman

Album Reviews 26/04/09

Lee & Dr. G, Girl For Me (self-released)

Although they both cut their teeth in different parts of the country, these two blues-guitar brothers-from-other-mothers, Lee Durham and Brandon Gauthier, have built a sizable following in New Hampshire, where they met and joined forces in 2023. They’ve logged hundreds of shows in the area, culminating in this debut album’s release show at Concord’s Bank of New Hampshire stage in December, a bullet point that should tell you they’re serious about putting the state on the record industry map, at least so they don’t have to go back to slugging it out in L.A. or Nashville, where they did have some success individually. Their net vibe is, as Hippo’s own Michael Witthaus observed, a sort of “psycho-delic” approach to blues, one part Chuck Berry to one part jam-band-meets-Pink Floyd immersion, with looong rootsy passages being driven into your brain until you can’t help but — admire the sound, whether as a musician or a fan. No, there’s something here for sure, at the very least a combination of selflessness between two wonderfully talented guitar soloists and a desire to rebirth their 70-year-old genre, no easy trick. They absolutely deserve your support, so get out there, would you? A+

Neurosis, An Undying Love For A Burning World (Neurot Recordings)

I’m not a fan of this vanguard sludge-metal band, and, um, uh, never really was, but nevertheless I figured it was as good a time as any to see how my tummy would react to this new album, given that some of you are under the mistaken impression that just because I’ll review other self-indulgent doom-soundscapers like Sunn(((O))) it means I approve of this kind of thing. I don’t, but they’re your ears, and if you really like the idea of hearing a blitzed caveman roaring over endless wall-of-sound extreme-metal ringouts, that’s on you. The ever-ridiculous YouTuber Needle Drop reviewed this and took issue with some chord changes here and there but praised it for something or other (does anyone really watch that guy’s videos for the purpose of musical edification?); I was more struck by the guitar solos, some of which are pretty musical but which convey the same comically depressing, angsty vibe as the rest of the tuneage, like every record that the Earache label put out in the Aughts. But knock yourself out, you have my blessing. B-

PLAYLIST

A seriously abridged compendium of recent and future CD releases

• Moving right along, the warmer weather is coming quick, in fits and starts and total fake-outs, so naturally new albums are beginning to pile up, all of them hoping to soundtrack your summer. Let’s pretend you have expendable income and can buy one or all of the albums releasing this Friday, April 10, which one(s) to choose? Maybe it’s the new one for all you Generation X grandparents, Hope And Fury by Joe Jackson, who was famous in the 1980s for the incel national anthem, “Is She Really Going Out With Him,” which everybody thought was Elvis Costello because it sounded exactly like him (and, well, half the songs that came out from pub-pop bands in the ’80s). He also had a hit with the almost as awful “Look Sharp,” but what I remember most from that dude was a totally ignored song from the Look Sharp album, called “Fools In Love,” because back in those days I was a young rock singer on a mission, the wildly idiotic sort of mission that only 20-year-olds who hate college take on: For a year straight, I tried out for every single band in the Boston area that put out an ad for one, and I mean literally every single one, and got an offer from all of them because apparently there were no other singers in the city. Now, because they were all Boston bands, they were mostly unworkable, in fact there was only one band I actually thought was kind of neat. Unfortunately I can’t say their name in this family-oriented newspaper, but they really did have some cool songs, but no way was I going to drive from my apartment in Nashua, New Hampshire, to Stoughton, Mass., three nights a week for a band with no record contract and no hope of ever getting one because stupid band name, but I almost did, but anyway, right, Joe Jackson, so there was a band composed of really good musicians in (I think) Medford, Mass., sort of a joke band, but they were good, and they made me learn “Fools in Love,” a really stupid ska/reggae tune that totally ripped off Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives,” but somehow I didn’t mind it and still remember most of the words to this day, and that is my Joe Jackson story. Anyhow, I’m going to check out what this Elvis Costello clone person is doing these days right now by listening to the advance single “Welcome to Burning-By-Sea,” which sure looks like something British oi-rock, I’m sure it’s dumb. Yup, he’s doing this cockney comedy act during the intro, nope, it’s through the whole song, he’s singing about stuff like fish and chips and getting into bar fights, it’s kind of fun, with a tribal beat and cockney yelling, but I won’t ever listen to it again.

• Ah, another Chappell Roan wannabe heard from, this time it’s British singer Holly Humberstone, with her new album Cruel World, whose title tune is flirty and awkward and sounds exactly like, you know, Chappell Roan, big deal, next.

• Wow, English electronic-music dude and showoff-y bassist Squarepusher is still around? His new album Kammerkonzert includes a new tune called “K2 Central” that’s sort of acid-jazz-y and I suppose pretty neat if you like to hear a lot of really busy bassplaying and mindless prog experimentation.

• We’ll close with Jessie Ware, who’s also British, like everyone mentioned in today’s column, bob’s your uncle! Superbloom is her new full-length; its single, “I Could Get Used To This” sounds like Mariah Carey trying to be Lana Del Rey, which is pretty — marketable I suppose.

NOTE: Local (NH) bands seeking album or EP reviews can message me on Twitter/Bluesky (@esaeger) or Facebook (eric.saeger.9).

Featured Photo: Lee & Dr. G, Girl For Me and Neurosis, An Undying Love For A Burning World

Send Help (R)

Rachel McAdams is a kooky delight as an overlooked office worker who blossoms into her best, insane self when she is stranded on a tropical island in this fun, queasy-making thriller. (Eye stuff, puking, big oozy gashes — this movie has it all!)

Linda Liddle (McAdams) is passed over for promotion by her new nepo-hire boss, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien). Though smart and capable, Linda is also awkward and messy and covered in tuna fish sandwich flecks when Bradley is first reintroduced to her. He nevertheless brings her along for a business conference in Thailand — for work purposes because she can solve the problems his dumb college buddy (who got the job she wanted) can’t but maybe also to have someone to bully. One of the dudes in the bro-pack accompanying Bradley has found Linda’s Survivor audition video, which reinforces both how deeply uncool she is and also her wildlife knowledge bonafides. Chekhov’s fire-making skills do not have long to foreshadow as the plane goes down (gruesomely!) and Linda is soon set adrift in a stormy sea. When she washes up on the island, she finds that an injured Bradley has also survived and sets about making shelter and a fire and finding food for them both. After he makes a few stabs at telling her how to island, Linda reminds him that, as she says in the trailer, they’re not in the office anymore and the power balance is not as it was.

Bradley of course deserves every gross thing that happens to him. The movie nicely never lets him learn and grow; he is an unlikeable wienie throughout. But the movie doesn’t just paint Linda as a poor wronged nerd who never learned to dress for success. She has weird, potentially violent, layers and her time on the island awakens not just confidence but a gleeful enjoyment of her power over a former tormentor.

And sure, this could all come off as nasty in a way that would be less enjoyable to watch. But McAdams is having so much fun here — reveling in the darkness of Linda as much as the earnestness. For me, the fun is what makes Send Help such a solid good time, with its winky needle drops and its dark comedy sensibilities. B+ Available for rent or purchase.

Featured photo: Send Help

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