4B — Thursday, January 12, 2017
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
This
week
Daily
Music
writers
look
back
—
and
reconsider
—
less
modern
pieces of music.
In
elementary
school,
Sunday mornings were known
as golden mornings to me in
a way that stood completely
independent of the weather
outside.
Golden
mornings
existed nowhere else but my
kitchen, where my parents
liked to lounge after eating
a late breakfast and where
Norah Jones made herself at
home. There wasn’t a Sunday
morning that went by without
her invisible presence filling
the empty seats at our table.
I used to perch myself on the
countertop and observe, with
utter tranquility: the quiet
rustle of newspapers turning,
the gentle murmur of my
parents’ voices curving around
steaming mugs of coffee and,
most
importantly,
Norah
Jones’s voice flowing out of
speakers as her album Feels
Like Home played on repeat.
With the sun reaching out
from behind clouds, her voice
seemed to paint the walls of our
kitchen in shades of gold. Even
in the dead of winter, when the
snow that clung to the windows
bleached the world outside into
a monochromatic bleakness,
our kitchen on those Sunday
mornings never failed to glow
with warmth. Music melted
over my sleep-heavy limbs
like the honey my dad liked to
spread over his toast, filling
every corner of our kitchen
with tarnished sweetness.
So intertwined are Norah
Jones’s harmonies with those
Sunday mornings that when I
listen to Feels Like Home today,
nearly 13 years later, I am once
again in that sun-drenched
kitchen, filled with the same
serenity I felt then. Feels Like
Home isn’t just an album to me;
it’s a collection of memories,
holding between its notes and
rhythms a reflection of my
family’s Sunday morning sliver
of paradise.
Like Norah Jones filling the
cavity of my kitchen, music in
general, I’ve come to realize,
quietly fills the spaces in life
that you didn’t even notice
were empty; it weaves itself
into the very underlining of
an experience, embellishing
and shaping the details around
harmonies and melodies.
My kitchen holds the weight
of many songs. For me, Norah
Jones digs her way through the
floorboards like a sunflower.
For my mother, the song of
her youth travels through the
steam that emerges when she
is cooking. In the hours before
dinner is served, she likes to
sometimes play the song out
loud for herself as shadows
begin to stretch across the
floor. The bruising violet of the
dusky sky outside
perfectly matches
the
song’s
haunting
vocals.
She
explained
to me once that
her song is one
of revolution, of
childhood
hope
and
resistance
during
dark
times.
To
me,
it’s
beautiful,
but to her, it’s something else
entirely; the song folding in on
itself to reveal an assortment
of reminiscences so powerful
that when listening, she has to
close her eyes against the ache
of remembering.
A lifetime has passed since
she
last
heard
its
melody
reverberate among the rolling
slopes in the mountains of her
adolescent home, but I know she
will never forget the memories
irrevocably stained by this
song. I know because her face
as she listens to the familiar
notes is continually distant.
She is instantly transported to
a place I don’t dare trespass.
The influence of a simple
song lies in this: In the utter
depth of memories it has the
potential to hold, in the way
it is simultaneously both a
finished piece of music and
also an empty canvas laying
bare, waiting for listeners to
splatter their own input over
its unfilled expanse. When
we flee to the long-standing
songs of our past for solace,
for strength, for bittersweet
nostalgia, we don’t seem to
be seeking out the comfort of
the song itself but rather the
various memoirs trapped in its
notes. With music, the stories
of the past are easily brought to
mind.
For my mother, these stories
are substantial and compelling.
For me, Norah Jones brings
about a simpler, gentler kind
of recalling. It
is something I
turn on when
the cold makes
even my bones
start to wither
away.
When
I
can
barely
bring to mind
what the inside
of my kitchen
looks like with
light
spewing
from the walls like a mosaic;
when I notice myself spending
more time in bed, heavy with
an
unexplained
loneliness,
drained with an unexpected
sadness. I turn on Feels Like
Home and allow myself to be
enveloped in the kaleidoscopic
memories of bygone golden
mornings.
SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Arts Writer
Spending my Sunday mornings
with Norah Jones ‘Feels Like Home’
ALL THINGS RECONSIDERED
“Hag-Seed”
is
Margaret
Atwood’s latest masterpiece. It
is not only a modern retelling of
Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,”
but revolves around that play
as well. At times, it’s hard to
believe that the same person
who orchestrated the somber
drumbeat of “The Handmaid’s
Tale,” or the hypnotizing pulse
of “Surfacing,” has penned the
frenetic third person narration
in this novel, but Atwood
once again smoothly reveals a
deftness of craft
and the power
that the art of
storytelling has,
no matter the
vehicle or venue.
“Hag-Seed”
follows
the
story of Felix,
who
considers
himself
an
avante-garde
director and misunderstood
genius. Some consider him
eccentric; others view him
as essential to the Canadian
theatre festival; a few consider
him
a
nuisance.
While
wrapped up in his artistic
visions of a bold retelling of
“The Tempest” — including a
possibly paraplegic Caliban
and a cape for Prospero sewn
out of plush animal skins — the
signs of a mutiny by his right
hand man go straight over his
head.
After Felix is ousted, he
opts for self-banishment. He
lives alone for years, before
stumbling into a position that
he never would
have considered
at the peak of
his
career
—
bringing theatre
to
felons.
He
grows
to
love
it,
wearing
a different identity in the
prison, enjoying the romantic
anonymity and the opportunity
to delve into Shakespeare’s
work with those whom society
has largely forgotten. Felix
eventually
learns
of
an
opportunity
for revenge too
satisfying
to
pass up — which
includes putting
up his beloved
production
of
“The Tempest”
—
and
takes
full
advantage
of it. Felix holds all the
similarities between himself
and Prospero close to his
heart, even maintaining an
unsettling relationship to his
dead daughter Miranda. This
relationship takes precedence
over
his
relationship
with
reality, which is often tenuous
at best.
“Hag-Seed” includes not only
two stunning interpretations
of “The Tempest,” but witty
barbed pop culture references,
including
the
Illuminati,
political correctness and kale.
Atwood’s strongest prose is not
the economical storytelling in
which the plot unfolds neatly
(for
the
most
part) but the rare
moments in which
we are allowed a
prolonged glimpse
into Felix’s own
introspection and
uncertainties.
The relationship between art
and grief is prominent, but
it’s shown not only as a venue
to solace but to spiraling into
desperation. The arc of how a
person goes from frightening
themselves with their own
delusions to relying on them is
eerie, but Atwood draws it in
one steady hand.
Some of the themes — how
do we create our own prisons,
and how do we find our way
out of them— may seem kitschy
when laid forth plainly, which
is why Atwood’s weaving them
under plot, over subplot makes
them work.
“Hag-Seed” is part of an
initiative by the publishing
company Hogarth to release
a series of novels based on
Shakespeare’s most beloved
texts, but the intent to reinvent
is subtle. Like Felix, Atwood
has somehow succeeded at
something highly improbable:
taking a text already thought
to
have
been
thoroughly
exhausted
and
breathing
something new into it.
“Hag-Seed”
Margaret Atwood
Random House
SOPHIA KAUFMAN
Daily Book Review Editor
‘Hag-Seed’ is a masterful adaption
MARK HILL/Flickr
Do you feel like she’s reaching towards as she breathe her final breath? Sunmit ideas below!
Norah Jones
brings about a
simpler, gentler
kind of recalling
BOOK REVIEW
So
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a
Ve
rg
ar
a
Ji
m
m
y
Fa
ll
o
n
Do
na
ld
G
lo
ve
r
M
oo
nl
ig
ht
M
er
yl
S
tr
ee
p
Donald
Glover shouted out "Bad and
Boujee" as the best song ever
(and was right).
The
extremely underrated Meryl Streep
ripped real Donald Trump in half
during the most beautiful
speech of the night.
Moonlight won and I can't even
write anything funny about it
because it was just so pure
and wonderful.
Jimmy
Fallon isn't funny that's it.
Leave
"Sofía Vergara can't speak
English" jokes in 2016.
OR
Atwood has
somehow succeeded
at something highly
improbable
THE LONGEST DEAD AD EVER:
DEAD AAAAAADDDDDDDDDDDD
Join Arts for more spoken word wittiness! Email Natalie Zak at npzak@umich.edu for an
application and our favorite gymnast.