Ponytail Picks #11 - Siblings
Brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings, thank you for gathering with us here today. Enjoy these picks, and keep your hands to yourself! Don’t make us pull this car over, cuz we’ll do it!
LISTEN
My favourite HAIM songs
“The three sisters,” as my 6-year old calls them, are a favourite in our little Dad-daughter household. I came pretty late to the party (nothing new for me when it comes to new music these days), discovering them just before the pandemic as they were releasing singles and videos in advance of their third full-length album, the mid-2020 Women in Music Pt. III, but I quickly dived into their previous two releases as I waited for number three.
Their punchy pop rock sound remarkably never seems to miss the mark, with its variously used guitars, jaunty bass, snappy beats, and endlessly catchy melodies, not to mention the easily accessible lyrics about relationships and soul-searching. It feels like they’ve carved out their own unique space in the world of popular music, straddling the line between guitar-driven rock and more keyboard-based pop, with each song somehow always feeling fresh and new. Here are six of my favourites, in alphabetical order because it’s hard to rank them otherwise:
1. “Don’t Wanna”
Nothing like the hit of a snare into a rolling bassline and Danielle Haim crooning in her unique husky tone “Ooooh, yeah” to start off a song. And it only gets better from there, with its instant classic of a sing-along chorus complete with a delicious guitar lick.
2. “Hallelujah”
Este and Alana join their sister at the mic in this gorgeous stripped-down folk number. “How’d [we] get this ‘Hallelujah’?” Like the sisters, we’re not sure, but we’re sure glad we did.
3. “I Know Alone”
Haim switches things up with this moody and synthetic pandemic dance anthem, perfectly capturing our collective restlessness and isolation (“‘Cause nights turn into days / That turn to gray / Keep turning over”) and inner desire to shake it all out to a big beat. They nail the music video, too, keeping it simple with an effortlessly cool choreographed dance spaced six feet apart on their backyard basketball court:
4. “Nothing’s Wrong”
I play that bass line on my air guitar every single time I listen to this song. Just fantastic.
5. “The Steps”
An infectious pop-punk-tinged guitar jam. Danielle’s vocals are given a distorted edge as she wails to her lover, “I can’t understand why you don’t understand me, baby” before resolving the matter with a chill “come what may” attitude:
If I go right
And you go left
Hey, I know we’ll meet up againAnd if you go left
And I go right
Hey, maybe that's just life sometimes
6. “Summer Girl”
The track (and accompanying music video) that started it all for me. The cool vibes here are immaculate: the shuffling beat and chill bass line; the scrumptious sax and breezy vocals; the three sisters peeling off and discarding without a look back (well, maybe one) the metaphorical and physical layers weighing them down as they do their now patented strut down a sun-glazed sidewalk.
-JB
WATCH
Stories with Aspirational Sibling Relationships
A lot of writers use sibling relationships as sources of conflict and rivalry. The following depictions give other, kinder examples of what brothers and sisters can mean to each other. If you got ’em, you’ll want to hug ‘em once the credits start to roll.
Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
I promise I didn’t choose this film because the main character’s name is Andrew. His friendship with his younger brother David will give you all the feels. It’s an impressive first full-length film for director and lead actor Cooper Raiff, too. If you have an Apple TV+ subscription, definitely press “play” on this one.
Little Women (2019)
The women of Little Women are legendary characters, and rightfully so. Like all sibling relationships, they fight. But when it comes down to it, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy have each other’s backs. If you haven’t had the chance to see it, Greta Gerwig’s recent adaptation is well worth your time.
Atypical (2017-2021)
I worked in disability services for six years, an experience that spoiled a lot of depictions of autism and other conditions in film and television for me. So often, it comes across as condescending to the real people living with these labels every day. Atypical is the exception, and the relationship between Sam and his sister Casey is a highlight of the show.
-AK
READ
My brother’s novel novel project
I am very fond of all my siblings, which isn’t something everyone can say, and I am very grateful. All three of them are wonderful and compassionate and artistic human beings that I hope to plug at some point in this newsletter but in this week’s “READ” section, I’m going to highlight one particular brother, who uses the pen name A.S. Ember, who is working on a novel entitled This Curious Island.
The afore-linked blog that he is using to document his progress summarizes it as an “all-ages work of fiction [that] follows two teenagers at a colourful boarding school as they make friends, get up to hijinks, and solve a mystery involving a missing locket.” Ember includes a few tidbits from the novel on the blog (including the complete first chapter) and it’s remarkably engaging, even before said hijinks. The narrator is sympathetic and sweet in their omniscience—
Anthony is heading to the train station to buy a ticket to Far, Far Away. He doesn’t know that there is no such thing on the small island where he lives, just like he doesn’t know that the rusty ha’penny in his raggedy vest pocket, meant to pay for his travel, is actually an old nickel washer.
—and seems be having just as much fun as their early wide-eyed protagonist:
Rushing towards and from the terminal are tall people, short people, people with hats, people with pets, people with children, people who are children, people who do not like children, people who do not mind children—a person with fruit in her hat forgets to mind children and runs into one, causing the child to drop his ice cream and cry—people who are reading books, people who walk into other people because they are reading books, people who are walked into because they are minding their own business when suddenly people who are reading books walk into them, people with dark hair like Anthony, people with no hair, and even one person with a hare on a leash.
Ember also describes his project as “textually inclusive & feminist”, an approach that when added to the already fun and lively story reminds me of the way actor Daniel Levy described the creation of his hit Canadian comedy series Schitt’s Creek, particularly in regards to how it handles his own character, David, a pansexual:
On the show, it’s a very small town, yet it’s completely accepting; there’s no judgment. We wanted to create a world where things are as they should be… a world where sexuality is not part of the conversation — it’s just who people are.
Ember’s intention to create a new world is evident when after introducing the story’s setting (Arualt, “a metropolitan city on the southwestern coast of a small northern island”), he reminds you to “forget about our world” because “our world is Arualt, for the time being,” and this “as it should be” world, on the page and in your head, feels like a warm “late summer breeze” when you’re on vacation: It’s subtle, refreshing, and novel, and you feel like it should be this way all the time. A boy says to another, “Here are the dads… gotta run.” A mysterious stranger needs no gender identifiers. A gym class gives different options for physical activity for its many different kids (though you still “have to wear the shorts”).
The book kicks off with the aforementioned Anthony running away from his abusive and monotoned childhood home and already entering into a space more inclusive and colourful mere minutes down the road. That was in Arualt, but we have our own oppressive structures here too. When will we dare to run from them and follow A.S. Ember’s footsteps in narrating a better world?
-JB
Thank you once again for reading our little newsletter. We hope you can join us two weeks from today to talk about two weeks from today. Or maybe two millenia from today. We’ll be talking about the future.