For someone who loves music, listens to it all the time, and is kind of building my whole identity as a writer around it, I go to a shocklingly low number of live shows these days. This wasn’t always the case. When I wasn’t a forty-something, hermit-esque mother of two with a deep love of going to bed early, I used to go to a lot of shows. One of my weird middle-aged brain glitches is that I often forget if I’ve seen a band live, or how many times I saw them live. But now, especially since COVID, I can sometimes count the number of shows I go to in a year on one hand.
All that to say, hey, I went to see Le Tigre in late July in Montreal and it was really great. A fantastic trip in general and also a really amazing show. My friend Jess (who I once drove from Ottawa to Toronto with for one Sleater Kinney show, turning around and coming back in the wee hours of the next morning, after crashing on a friend’s floor for a few hours) came down from where she now lives in Thunder Bay to attend the show as well. We drove up with my friends Megan and David and the four of us ate vegan food, went to the show, and then walked the wild, late night streets of Montreal together.
(I wrote more about the trip in my column for Razorcake issue 136)
One of the more delightful results of this trip came long after the show was over, after Dave had driven us all back to Ottawa, after I’d gone back to my normal life.
My kids are off school for the summer, and they’re thankfully old enough to have a bit of flexibility in their summer schedules. For two of the summer weeks, we do “Mom Camp”, where I take time off work to hang out with them and we make a schedule of local adventures to fill our days.
One of the important aspects of Mom Camp is the driving playlist. We take turns picking songs and end up with a long list that becomes the soundtrack of our time together.
Like any music-loving parent, I definitely thought my kids would end up with the same musical taste as me. If these summer playlists prove anything, it’s that this imagined scenario has not become our reality. On our current playlist, my older son’s Broadway musical selections mix with my younger son’s favourite songs about videogames recorded by YouTubers (yes, this is a thing), and then lead into my random picks of seventies folk music, riot grrrl pop songs, and Talking Heads tracks.
After the Le Tigre show I added “My, My Metrocard” to the playlist. It had always been one of my favourite Le Tigre tracks, and I especially enjoyed the fervour with which the 2023 audience had screamed along with the lyrics “Oh fuck Giuliani! He’s such a fucking jerk!” The more things change, I guess.
To my surprise, the kids really liked the song, especially my youngest. He’d get excited every time it came on. So today, when we were creating a new playlist to listen to on our way back from the beach, I mentioned that I thought he’d like this other Le Tigre song too, and added “Deceptacon” to the mix.
Later, in the kitchen he said to me, “I did like that song. The other song by the Metrocard band.” I told him I was glad.
“And if you liked both those songs,” I said, proceeding with caution, “I mean, maybe you’re a Le Tigre fan.”
He nodded. “I think I am.”
My heart beat faster. I smiled at him in a way that I hoped made me look chill.
“Cool. Me too.”
August 2023 Songs
In Ottawa our public transit cards are called Presto Cards, which means that if you want, you can sing “My, my Presto Card” instead of My, My Metrocard. You know, if you’re the type of person whose brain is constantly playing amusing songs to help them deal with life in general.
Another Le Tigre song that I love, that I don’t think gets enough attention is Mediocrity Rules. I had this on a constant loop in my head when I was in the phase of my life where I went on a lot of mediocre dates. They played this at the show in Montreal and I remembered how much I like it.
Not a Le Tigre song, but still Le Tigre-adjacent is this favourite from Kathleen Hanna’s other project Julie Ruin. She seems very keen on the theme “the internet is kind of awful” in her songs and I am here for it.
August 2023 Feelings
My birthday is in August and of course I asked for a bunch of books and then forgot and went and bought some of those books for myself but NEVER MIND that because what really matters is that I got read some great stuff this month. Pebble & Dove, by Canadian author Amy Jones was a beautiful and heart-squeezing story of a mother and daughter who, for a variety of reasons, find themselves in a trailer home in Florida, enamoured with a giant manatee at a nearby aquarium. I was so moved by this book, I felt like it kept me on the edge of tears for days. It was hopeful underneath its darkness, very funny in some parts, and just generally a special, beautiful work of fiction.
You probably don’t need me to tell you about Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, since last I checked it was number one on the New York Times bestseller list, but just in case you’ve missed it in the media, let me tell you it is absolutely wonderful. The story grabbed hold of me and I really didn’t want to do anything except read this book for three days straight. As I finished it, I cried so hard I alarmed one of my children, who was innocently waiting in the living room for me to watch Heartstopper with him. This is a dual-timeline story of a woman’s life, her younger days as an actress and her present day reality as a cherry farmer locked down during COVID with her husband and three adult daughters. There are a few twists and mysteries, but mostly it just a gentle, heartfelt story about how hard it can be to predict what will be meaningful in our lives.
Thanks for reading! See you next month.
J.W.
Instagram : @JenniferWhitefordWrites
Razorcake columns, reviews, interviews etc
My debut romance novel, MAKE ME A MIXTAPE is coming from Doubleday in 2024.