Station Eleven

 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is an eerie post-apocalyptic novel. I was reminded of California by Edan Lepucki and Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins. All are exciting page turners. All have evil messianic figures. And all are well received, though Station Eleven is the most popular of the group. St. John Mandel is a gifted writer, and there are scenes in the novel of cities slowly shutting down during a bad flu pandemic that are beautiful and terrifying. In fact, the book is a collection of excellent scenes: a party in Los Angeles, a stranded group at an airport in the Midwest, a man dying on stage during King Lear. The connecting threads are varying degrees of successful. Not everything coheres, and many elements are under-developed, including the title symbol. Some late scenes of violence are cinematic, more like a summer blockbuster than a realist novel. Of the dystopian trilogy mentioned above, I would probably most recommend Gold Fame Citrus, imperfect but more bizarre and original. Still, I read Station Eleven quickly and was entertained the whole way. 

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is like the first few chapters of the Book of Job, stretched to the length of the Book of Psalms. It's an enormous novel in terms of word count and influence, and one does not need to have read it to encounter pop-culture references to the Joad family of Oklahoma and their ill-fated trip west. I was prepared for the suffering, knowing some of this context. But I was still surprised that within the first few miles of travel, a dog and then a grandfather die off, and the tribulations continue unabated for the next 400 pages or so. 

I have always been uneasy with Steinbeck, feeling that he "tells" more than "shows" in his narratives, reversing the famous writerly advice. This works for ninth-grade novellas like The Pearl. It does not work as well for longer, more serious tomes. I don't know how The Grapes of Wrath is functionally different than Uncle Tom's Cabin, or books reviewed on this blog that hammer home a political agenda. There is no ambiguity about Steinbeck's position, and while I'm sympathetic to the cause, I am put off by the didactic fiction. It's too bad, because Steinbeck has a great talent for plot and setting, but his characters fit too neatly into their archetypes, and the themes are persistent and obvious. Having read the book, I find myself longing for that less patronizing literature, which has a more nuanced view of complicated political subjects, and trusts its reader to develop his or her own opinions. 

Waxahatchee: Live! Tonight! Sold Out!

 This marks a small break from book reviews to cover an important topic: a record of Waxahatchee concerts I have attended, from present-day to the distant past.

Roseland Theater: (Last night, 5/2/26)

This show was co-headlined with MJ Lenderman, and it was terrific. They shared the stage, which was made to look like a living room, on swivel chairs, and mostly alternated songs, with the other headliner singing backup. They each had acoustic guitars, and the backing band was pared down--a slide/lead guitar and a bass player. For two hours, the music was subdued and intimate, a sunset sound for a weary audience. They played several covers and some excellent new stuff. It was beautiful, evocative, and (in part because Katie Crutchfield is visibly pregnant) familial.

Edgefield: (8/20/22)

I saw this show on my birthday, and it was my first concert after COVID and first at Edgefield. Waxahatchee played second on a stacked bill. Fred Armisen opened, hilariously; then Katie with just an acoustic guitar; then Courtney Barnett, who headlined the tour; and finally Sleater-Kinney. I became a fan of Barnett that night. She's a generational talent. The Portlandia undertones of the rest of the evening culminated in all of the performers on stage singing (recently deceased) Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" in workout gear. 

Online: (6/8/20)

During COVID, Katie had to cancel her Saint Cloud tour, and she offered fans chances to buy tickets to her playing each of her albums, on livestream, each Monday in June. My wife and I opted for our favorite album, Cerulean Salt. We played the board game Wingspan and listened to Katie on the computer live from her home in Kansas City. A fine evening with a fine album during a lonely time.

Wonder Ballroom: (6/26/17)

Supporting her Out in the Storm album with a big band (including her sister Allison), Waxahatchee lit up this show. I remember sunlight outside the concert hall in that solstice-adjacent evening, where a few hours before my wife and I had bougie tapas from a restaurant next door. It was warm in there, and I hung out by the water cooler. The openers were great at this one: Cayetana and pre-debut-album Snail Mail. 

The Old Church: (3/11/16)

The first time seeing an all-acoustic Waxahatchee set, this was a hushed, solemn affair. I remember she covered Lucinda Williams. I remember that Globelamp, the woman that had a troubling falling out with Foxygen, was the opener.

Doug Fir Lounge: (5/1/15)

A wall of sound, this show was. There were perhaps too many guitarists on stage, and the band members appeared inebriated. The people I dragged to this show were a little put off by it. It was Katie at her grungiest. I still thought it rocked, but it was probably the worst Waxahatchee show I ever saw. It came just a few months after her last visit, also to the Doug Fir, and I realize that I have not seen many great shows there, that the audience is almost always distracted and overly chatty. There was a bright spot here, though: Girlpool was an exciting and original opener. 

Doug Fir Lounge: (1/6/15)

I drove to Portland on this Tuesday night to catch Waxahatchee play some new songs from her soon-to-be-released album, Ivy Tripp, which was the follow-up to the seminal Cerulean Salt. I had to work the next day. It was weird--some kind of Red Bull promo show--and the Doug Fir audience talked through the quiet parts. But I remember driving home late that school night thinking, That was how music should sound.

Holocene: (11/30/13)

Waxahatchee continually grows and evolves, and I'd put Katie up against any of the New York Times's new group of best living songwriters. But there's something about this era of her work that is the best. It was the songwriting of American Weekend with the post-punk mixing of Cerulean Salt. An NPR show from that era captures what the music sounded like: quiet then loud, at times distorted and at times crystal clear. I claim, without reservation, that this period of Waxahatchee is the closest we've ever come to occupying the empty space left by Nirvana. 

At this show at a small club in East Portland, Swearin'--Allison Crutchfield's band--opened for Katie. We were all young, and it was a joyous time. The club was tiny, and it was the last time I could talk to the band members (I thanked Katie after the show; I made fun of Pitchfork with Allison). During the set, I was as entertained as I ever am during a show, harmoniously aligned with the whole feeling of the room.

Interestingly, the Auburn football Pick-Six Game happened earlier that day, and we spent time at the bar talking with Waxahatchee's then-bass player about it (they're all from Alabama). During the show, my sister-in-law showed me breaking news on her phone: Paul Walker had died. So that November 30th was a consequential day: Pick-Six, Paul Walker, and my first time seeing Waxahatchee live.