About Appaloosa

RIP Robert B. Parker.


I just finished listening to Robert Parker's Appaloosa. There's construction on my commute from now until, well whenever they're done I guess, so I'm laying in a good supply of audio books to get me through.

In Appaloosa Parker tells the story of Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, itinerant lawmen who are hired by by the alderman of Appaloosa to protect the town from Randall Bragg, a local rancher who has taken over. It's postmodern in that the men say "fuck" and that much of the action and momentum is emotional instead of plot driven but traditional in its themes of the murkiness of law and order and of the honor in the code of friendship between men. In fact, I would say it's as good a story about friendship as Lonesome Dove or Monte Walsh which is high praise indeed. My dad compared it to Tale of Two Cities, which he is prone to do any time there is even a whiff of self sacrifice. Parker's characterizations are so strong there is never any question of what will happen, only of how it's all gonna go down-the sense of inevitability made me drive around the block or take the long way more than once.

Appaloosa is flawlessly performed by Titus Welliver of "Deadwood" fame and really you couldn't have asked for a better narrator. Not only does he already have a "western" name, Welliver has a great low voice that is well suited to the story. Like many actors who also perform audio books he does do voices but he doesn't go crazy with it. Since "Deadwood" is essentially over except for the closing movie perhaps HBO could produce this. I'd sure watch it.

Oh, Hitch

In light of the death of Robert B. Parker yesterday I am reposting a few of my appreciative entries from the past. Thank you sir for the gift of Everett Hitch.

Now I'm as much a Jane Austen fan as the next chick, maybe even more so since, as an occasional fiction writer, I fervently acknowledge her as a foremother. (If you remember your literary history novels started as a strictly feminine art form.) But after seeing the movie of "Appaloosa" on Monday I gotta say you can keep your Mr. Darcy, for a literary soulmate, one who is just the right combo of tough on the outside and tender on the inside, I'll take Everett Hitch every time.

Oh yeah.

Sometimes

Thoughts I'm Sending West Today

Or, as the Hem song I adore and have been mentally sending westward for weeks goes:

"think of every town you've lived in

every room you laid your head

and what is it that you remember?

Do you carry every sadness with you?

Every hour your heart was broken?"

(diary entry by sealegs)

Remember

My Tiny Voice

WFPK is the super cool local listener supported station that I'm permanently tuned to. When I moved back home last year (well, in 2008 now) I was happy to be back but lonely in a displaced kinda way and FPK was a huge solace. They have a segment called "Off the Record" where a member of the local music scene picks 5 songs and talks about them. I was flattered when 2 of my loyal bleaders nominated me. Once I stopped laughing at being considered 'part of the Louisville music scene' I had a fabulous time considering all my choices and recording my piece. Many thanks to Marion and Brad for letting me play with them and making it sound so great. The following is what I wrote about my songs.

This is Sam Miller. I frequently write about music and review local shows at my blog The Hoyden: Musings from a Loudmouth Girl. I'm the kind of listener who gets fixated on a song until I unravel all its emotional strings. There's a name for that-captured by a song. So here are 5 songs that have got their hooks in me:

First, my psych up song "Scared Straight" by The Long Winters. Whenever I'm staring down a big task or the great big world is making me feel small, this is what I'll be playing, no, blasting. Part soul, part rock, all heart this song has a terrific build with lots of soaring swoops that never fail me. It's the most restorative secular song I know.

I'm a torch carrier from way back so it's no surprise I love, love, love Ryan Adams. He does bittersweet longing better than anybody. One particular favorite is "Oh My Sweet Carolina". I saw him perform it years ago at a show in LA and cheered long and lustily at the line, "I miss Kentucky and I miss my family" cause, well, I did. When I got the bootleg weeks later I was dismayed to hear the people standing around the recorder letting the hick jokes fly. Paying good money for a bootleg on which you are personally mocked? Priceless.

Kathleen Edwards' song "Alicia Ross" tells the true story of a murder victim killed and brutalized by a neighbor. The song is masterful in its economy. Alicia goes from "the girl with the forgettable face" to "the girl they'll never forget" in just 5 minutes and 6 seconds not because of any deeds she did but rather by the cruel and singular way her death took away all possibilities for what she might have done. It's a chilling song for its matter of factness but its true heartbreak is that the murder isn't the worst violation nor the descretion after-no, the worst violation is that her mother will never know the truth of that happened. I am not a parent myself but that feels right to me and gets more right the more I listen.

The National's "Fake Empire" was given to me on a mix and completely stuck. I asked other fans of the band, everyone I knew who was familiar with the song-why? Why is the empire fake? After a year or more of consideration it wasn't till my long distance love was here in my space and place for the first time that I think I cracked the mystery. We were unwinding after a party, laughing till 4am, feeling like the only people on the planet when I thought, with a sudden clarity, this is what The National were singing about. The empire is fake cause it's an empire of two, a construct between two lovers. It's wholly real because their feelings are genuine but in no way an actual empire.

The latest song to obsess me is Richmond Fontaine's "You Can Move Back Here". I love this song like I love pressing on a bruise (it hurts, it's cool, it hurts, it's cool). One of music's greatest joys is the song that comes at just the right time that says either what you need to hear or what circumstance won't allow you to say for yourself. It's both delight and relief. The lyrics couldn't be any simpler. You know the Robert Frost line about home being the place where they HAVE to take you in? Well, lead singer and lyricist, Willy Vlautin, does Frost one better-trust a man whose novels deal so convincingly with life on the bottom to offer absolute acceptance and total support. And his delivery of the 'please' is just heart wrenching and hands down his most evocative singing ever. I want to pack my bags just listening to it. And listening to it. And listening to it.

Happy New Year!

I've got a good feeling about 2010. Trust me on this one.