The hour badly spent

Silver Bullet’s friend Andy is in at least one band, and last night they played at the Malibu Inn (it’s not an actual inn). We picked up Andy’s sister Greta and made the trek up Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu.

The first act was acoustic; skinny black guy — Emory Davis — and his guitar. A girl chimed in for some duets. I liked her voice — it was operatic — but when she wasn’t singing, which was most of the time, she just sort of sat there. Greta was even more annoyed than I.

Gretta’s Jetta: Didn’t he say "she sings like an angel?"
Silver Bullet:   Apparently angels only sing falsetto.
Silver Bullet:   I don’t know about guys in those low-cut V-neck shirts. It disturbs me.

Cattiness or genuine dislike? I didn’t know what to make of any of this either. The guy’s shirt did hang too loosely on him and you could almost see nipple. Oh skinny emo dude, are you trying too hard or not trying hard enough? Does any of this matter? Music is soooo confusing.

 

They finished up and a team got the stage ready for the next band. A guy who looked like Jesus fiddled with some equipment then said "check one check two" into the mic, repeating this about ten times. "All sound guys look alike," Greta said.

After that, Andy’s band — Echo Division — hit the stage.

"I saw them at the Light House a few weeks ago and they were trying to be all pop-ish," Silver Bullet said. "It wasn’t working. They’re ten times better tonight."

True to form, I wasn’t impressed. They sounded kind of dull and the lead singer had this Dylanesque wheezey thing going on.

After a while even Andy started getting bored on the stage, because near the end of their set he started flashing gang signs. Then it was another band’s turn.

"Does anyone know who John Hinckley is?"

The name sounds familiar, but the category I picked tonight was "music for $10" and not "I know something you don’t" so maybe we could get on with the music thing. Hey, just for kicks, why don’t you go ahead and tell us who he is, lead singer? Thanks! Servicey!

Apparently, he shot Ronald Reagan so that Jodie Foster would notice him! It was love! Love drives us mad! That’s what the next song is about! Thanks professor; the lecture was much better than your music. Zing!

"I think these are all church bands," Silver Bullet said.

Makes sense. They all sound like Jars of Clay. You ever hear a rock band in church? They’ve got a captive audience, so they just keep going and going and going with the same languid Guitar Solo Of The Lord until you are begging, begging for the chance to sit down and hear a sermon.

I actually liked the next band. Andy was the drummer in this one. They were loud and upbeat. Then the lead singer wanted to, like, talk to us.

"Who here knows who John Calvin is?"

What is it with these nerdy musicians and their pop quizzes tonight?

Actually, he never explained who John Calvin is; only that "I’m a geek and I write songs about theology." Wankerish, but the music wasn’t bad, although it did not succeed with the stated goal of establishing the moral authority of the church. But this was a tough crowd for that anyway. It’s Malibu! We passed a Scientology church stronghold down the street on the way here.

The narrative of the Red Tent — a book that I have never read (thanks for lending it to me, Rhymes With Leather!) — begins right after Jacob stole the family’s birthright from Esau and fled to escape the wrath of his brother or something. I’m not cracking open a Bible (which I have also never read) to look up the particulars of the story because eww. So, we hear, in a voice and language reminiscent of the Bible’s beautiful formality, the story of Jacob’s meeting Rachel and Leah, and the births of Jacobs sons and daughters, including the book’s actual narrator: Dinah, daughter of Leah.

The Red Tent was an actual tent that travelled with Jacob’s family and housed the women during their menstrual periods. This was not an exile or a punishment; rather, being in the red tent was an honour that all Israelite women shared. Jacob’s family scorned the women of Esau’s family for not having a red tent. In the tent, there was an underlying mood of solidarity among the women — even among rivals, like Leah — Jacob’s fruitful first wife, and Rachel, who, though nearly barren, was the one he loved most passionately. It is in the red tent that Dinah learns what a family is and what womanhood is. As she grows up, the story of Jacob becomes more peripheral while we, the readers, get a distinct portrait of womanhood in the time of the patriarchs (I don’t know if I should capitalize that and I’m not going to).

There is a formal, romanticized feel to Anita Diamant’s narrative voice. Landscapes, personalities, cooking, even sex and death all burn with a gentle glow in Dinah’s narration. I was impressed with how thorough this voice was: perfumey and smooth, somehow encapsulating all of Dinah’s personality.

So what made her story worth telling? Is it because she grew up knowing bigshot asshole patriarchs? There was something else lurking underneath this voice, thorough as it was, that seemed slightly frustrating and dishonest. Dinah doesn’t seem to be fully there when conflict arises. Because of this, at times it seems more like she is more interested in observing her own life than moving it along, as though it were just part of the scenery she was describing so sweetly.

The best example of this is a retelling of Genesis chapter 34: Dinah’s marriage to the Prince of Shechem. Although Dinah is wooed very tenderly and beautifully and falls in love with the prince and they have lots of great sex (yes, that’s pretty much the only part I paid attention to. Or, at least, I would have if I had actually read the book. Ahem), and the prince agrees that he and all of his kinsmen shall be circumcised to prove good faith before Jacob and his god, Dinah’s brothers act as though she has been raped. They take "revenge" by storming the Prince’s house at night, murdering him and all the other Shechemites there.

Dinah, obviously, is not too happy about this. But what could she do? Did I want her to go upside one of her brothers’ heads? Sure. But she couldn’t. Because they acted under Jacob’s sanction, and it is not possible for Dinah to act against the family hierarchy, whether the H.J.I.C. is male or female. And then it hit me: her lack of agency wasn’t dishonesty; it was her reaction to power and the structure of patriarchy: another lesson learned in the red tent.