Back in September, I took myself to see Low Cut Connie for my birthday. I was so pumped when the show was announced at one of my usual venues, and on my actual birthday. What a great present! I will admit that I hadn’t listened to a lot of their songs before buying the ticket, but I had heard great things about their live show and I thought spending my birthday at a slightly raunchy, straight-up rock ‘n roll show in a small club, definitely sounded like my idea of a good time.
They did not disappoint. I danced my ass off and was a proper sweaty mess by the end of the night. If you ever hear they are playing somewhere near you, go. I am not usually that into bands that are piano-forward, nor ones that veer close to a Bruce Springsteen kind of vibe, both of which Low Cut Connie does, but their stage presence is infectious. And not just front man Adam Weiner, though he surely is the driving force behind the antics, the band is right there with him.
At one point he told a story about doing a show in a dive bar in the Midwest. His guitar player noticed some skinheads with swastikas tattooed on the backs of their necks were standing in the back of the bar so they hightailed it out of there. That experience led him to write a song about it, “King of the Jews” and now he has released a film that looks to be part documentary, part concert film. There is a write up about in Rolling Stone and I’m pasting the trailer in below.
I encourage you to read the article about the film here. I have not wanted to say anything about the Hamas terrorist attack and subsequent bombing of Gaza. It seemed obvious to me that not all Palestinians support Hamas and not all Jews support Netanyahu and his apartheid policies. I am not nearly as informed as plenty of other people and I have nothing to add that someone more knowledgeable and more eloquent hasn’t already said.
Recently, however, I have read about some pretty shocking (to me) anti-Semitic incidents here in the US, in places where I would have thought it unthinkable. Jewish friends would probably tell me that was incredibly naive of me. In the Rolling Stone article, Adam Weiner wrote something I thought was worth sharing.
“It’s hard to know what to say about such things,” Weiner continued. “By and large the world generally hates both of us, Jews and Palestinians. Ultimately, they don’t really want us in their countries. It’s the kind of prejudice that can either harden you to violence, or turn you into an artist, someone who paints the world from the margins. I hope for more art, and less violence. Art can heal and connect us. Violence only destroys. Art can lead the way forward, if we let it.”
There was a frost last night, first one of the season. It was 75 degrees on Saturday. This is why we just have coats of various weights hanging out in the hallway year round.
Last year I took to wearing a coat my son had outgrown. You know how teenagers would rather freeze than be caught in school with a coat? I hated that it hardly got any use, and I didn’t have a good in-between coat, so now it’s mine. I put it on this morning and instinctively shoved my hands in the pockets. One pocket had a bunch of napkins from some fast food place, the other pocket had an Aldi quarter. I always enjoy that little moment of acknowledgement. Sometimes it’s a revelation; that’s where my good chapstick went! Most often it’s just a nod and a smile. It’s me, the napkins and Aldi quarter person, gearing up for the day. It would be nice to pretend that the me of spring was thinking ahead for the me of fall, but really it is probably just the reverse of the weather situation we had this week and I hadn’t expected it to be the last time I wore the coat for the season.
Were I the sort of on the ball person who routinely washed the coats and stored them away once it was likely they wouldn’t be worn, I’d have those little aha moments before they went into the laundry. But I like it better this way. I’ll hate putting those coats on soon enough. Might as well rub my fingers over that Aldi quarter and take a second to reminisce.
Hello friends. It is November. Every year I think, I really can’t do this thing; it’s silly, no one cares, and I know I will crap out at some point. However, I worry if I don’t even show up, people will think I’ve disappeared altogether.
The state of the world is so awful and chaotic, and I don’t feel remotely qualified to speak on any of it. No one needs my two cents anyway. At the same time, ignoring current events and posting about music could come across as the oblivious, self-indulgent, ignorant musings of a privileged, white, middle-aged woman. I feel like my regulars know that’s not what I’m about but I am conflicted. This is my place for celebrating the power of music, and songs that have held me together. In dark times I find music is even more necessary than when things are going well. But it is so very dark and I am worn down by everything.
I don’t know where this leaves me, but I wanted to say, I am not gone.
Today my best friend sent me a link to a video from some VH1 program back in 1987. It was a VJ doing the usual VJ thing with Natalie Merchant there to chat about things during the breaks. It was super awkward because the VJ clearly didn’t know anything about 10,000 Maniacs and Natalie clearly didn’t want to be there, but there she was. You can watch the whole thing if you want to but I am going to link to the relevant part at the mark here. Go ahead, watch him ask Natalie about her shoes.
Ok, it kind of drags on a bit but I want to talk about shoes. Natalie’s shoes, my shoes, people’s perceptions of shoes. First of all, I love that Natalie says they are her dream shoes. I also have had dream shoes. Shoes where you find them and you immediately feel like you are complete. Shoes that state, this is me, I am grounded in these shoes. For me, my dream shoes said to the world, everything you need to know about who I am can be read by looking at my shoes. And you should always look at people’s shoes. Always. If, like the interviewer, you are puzzled by my shoes (or Natalie’s shoes), well, sorry, you just didn’t get it. The shoes will speak to the right people in the right way. I have based my life on it. “When you greet a stranger, look at his shoes” is good advice that has never steered me wrong.
Natalie said her shoes remind her of her grandfather’s shoes. My shoes were old man shoes too. Literally, they are men’s shoes. And let me tell you, Natalie Merchant is tiny and finding shoes in her size is probably no easy task. My old man shoes were a men’s size 6. They rarely come that small. What’s great about them? They are sturdy. They are practical but not in a “practical shoe” way. There’s a tiny bit of a heel but not like a woman’s shoe heel, it’s the whole back part of the shoe so it’s stable. And they lace up so you can make them nice and snug, unlike the slip-on nature of so many women’s shoes. They are a little dressy but they are comfortable. You feel strong and confident in a good pair of shoes like that. Perhaps most importantly, you will not look like everyone else in these shoes.
When I got to college I think I had some regular sneakers, maybe a pair of Keds, and probably a pair or two of flats to go with skirts or dresses. I’m sure I had boots for the winter but after two years getting schooled up in Maine as to what is appropriate footwear for snow, they were likely nothing like the boots my classmates in Pennsylvania wore. By my sophomore year I was really on the hunt for “my” shoes. There is nothing like the conformity of your peers to make you long for something that will set you apart. I knew exactly what I wanted but I had no idea where to find it. I had looked in thrift stores and the big army/navy store I. Goldberg’s in Philadelphia, but I kept striking out. I didn’t want combat boots, I didn’t want Doc Martens, I wanted something more refined, slimmer.
My work-study job was in the theater department as a dresser. Sophomore year the spring musical was Sweeney Todd, set in Victorian London, with a large cast and a good number of male roles. We made the costumes in the costume shop ourselves but one day I came in and saw they had been to the storage space off campus and come back with shoes for everyone. There they were. MY shoes. Black, lace-up, ankle height, low-stacked heel, old man shoes. I asked where we had bought them and was given the name of a men’s shoe store down by the bus station in Philadelphia, near Chinatown. When I finally had enough money saved up I took the train into the city, found the shoe store and left with my dream shoes in hand.
I wore them everywhere with everything. Summer, winter, rain, no matter. I had to have them resoled twice and the heel repaired once. I felt invincible in them. I loved nothing more than taking some $20 bills, folding them in thirds and putting them in my shoes, then lacing them up tight and heading off on adventures; sleeping out for concert tickets, taking the train up to New York or Providence. No one was ever going to guess I had over $100 in my old man shoes. Eventually they developed a crack by my pinky toe that was their undoing. I went back to the shoe store in Chinatown and bought a second pair, though they had changed ever so slightly, now with a cap toe design, that was just never quite as comfortable as the originals. I still loved the second pair but at some point I must have allowed my mom to get rid of them because I wasn’t wearing them any more.
Fast forward to middle-age and not being able to wear heels but not wanting to wear what look like orthopedic shoes either, I started looking for my dream shoes again. I had a couple of different attempts with women’s shoes that were ok and I felt sufficiently comfortable in them, but they were a compromise. I tried a pricey pair of Frye boots that looked online as if they might be close enough to work but when they arrived and I tried them on they were not right. Too pointy, the heel just a tiny bit too high. I sent them back and resigned myself to my sensible mom shoes but couldn’t stop hearing, “Oh, how do I feel about my shoes? They make me awkward and plain, How dearly I would love to kick with the fray…”
Then just after Christmas of 2019, I was looking for something on Etsy and lo and behold, someone was selling my shoes. They were a tiny bit too big (a men’s 6 1/2 now being the smallest they make), a little bit too shiny, and they had the cap toe that my second pair had, but they were the actual real Stacy Adams shoe that I wanted, at less than half the price. I was trying hard to not let myself spend the money on them but my husband said I never spend money on myself and I should get them.
They arrived in January of 2020. I wore them to the office a few times but they were on the stiff side and the leather sole on the carpeting coupled with being a bit too big meant I kind of felt comically slippy in them. I was determined to break them in but not really sure how to go about it. When the pandemic arrived and shut everything down, I put them away and didn’t really think about it for a year and a half. I wore almost no shoes at all during the 18 months I worked from home. I was either in slippers or flip-flops around the house and sneakers if I went out for a walk or the infrequent forays to the store. Once we were ordered back to the office in the fall of 2021, the other shoes I used to wear all the time to work had become so uncomfortable I could barely walk in them. It was time for my old man shoes to come back out.
While I would prefer to be working from home full-time, on the days I have to go to the office I lace up my shoes and look down at my feet and it gives me the little boost I need to get out the door. The snug fit around my ankles shoring me up both physically and emotionally. I see them and I see the memories of my old shoes and all the places and things I did in them. I feel like I have my armor suited up for the day, my trusty shoes ready for anything. I may be a middle-aged mom at a desk job but you can look at my shoes and know that’s not the whole story.
Not sure what I was expecting to find when I went looking for this video but this wasn’t it. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t rely on YouTube as the source for the music I’m posting but they seem to be the most reliable and least objectionable.
This week has felt extra long. The Smile concert was just on Monday but I’d swear it was last week. I’m going to blame the early darkness because I can. Then next week is a short week with Thanksgiving in there, so that will mess up my sense of time even more.
The weather is gross tonight, it’s only rain here though my daughter just sent a picture of snow outside her apartment at college. It is likely snowing up at the office too. Three days ago it was 73°F. We still have the air conditioners in two windows.
I really feel like I could use a vacation to someplace warm and sunny but this time of year is crazy for travel what with Thanksgiving and Christmas, not to mention it is college application time and then there’s the whole cost factor. But apart from the handful of visits up to see my mom, the occasional overnight or two with a sister or friend, I haven’t taken any vacations in the past five years at least. I had time off from work but I kept within a day’s drive of home that whole time. The pandemic was part of that but I don’t think I would have gone anywhere even if it hadn’t happened.
Does the travel muscle atrophy if you don’t use it? Getting on a plane, unfamiliar beds, eating out all the time, it just doesn’t sound that appealing. But, man, I would love to get away from this still life. See different kinds of trees. Smell how the air is different. Instead I guess it’s time for bed.
My son and I went to see The Smile tonight, the side project of Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke. I couldn’t believe they were starting the North American leg of their tour in Providence. Providence! Amazing! Someone that well-known I would expect to start in New York, maybe Boston, but I was more than happy to reward their fine decision by splurging on the tickets back in the spring.
The show was great, though not for the uninitiated, and lots of Dudes with a capital D. That’s always a drag, except for if you want to hit the ladies’ room before leaving the venue. Thankfully, after the first song, Thom encouraged those of us who wanted to get up by saying, “just because there are chairs doesn’t mean you have to sit in them,” so we stood for the rest of the time. It’s much easier to ignore douchey bros when people are standing.
In case you somehow missed the debut full-length album from Wet Leg, I’m here to tell you that it’s really good and lots of fun. Another missed opportunity concert in Boston (taking my son to see his favorite, the Microphones, up the road a piece in Somerville on the same night) but someone I know caught it and said they lived up to the hype.
They arrived in January of 2020. I wore them to the office a few times but they were on the stiff side and the leather sole on the carpeting coupled with being a bit too big meant I kind of felt comically slippy in them. I was determined to break them in but not really sure how to go about it. When the pandemic arrived and shut everything down, I put them away and didn’t really think about it for a year and a half. I wore almost no shoes at all during the 18 months I worked from home. I was either in slippers or flip-flops around the house and sneakers if I went out for a walk or the infrequent forays to the store. Once we were ordered back to the office in the fall of 2021, the other shoes I used to wear all the time to work had become so uncomfortable I could barely walk in them. It was time for my old man shoes to come back out.
Noisy Cats 