Ten years ago, a whale washed ashore on the beach of Lubec in the poorest county in Maine. The people in town had to make a decision quickly—how would they get rid of a 60-ton dead whale?
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Piece Description
Ten years ago, a whale washed ashore on the beach of Lubec in the poorest county in Maine. The people in town had to make a decision quickly—how would they get rid of a 60-ton dead whale?
4 Comments
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Review of Just Another Fish StoryIn the 17th century, Dutch masters were fond of painting a series of works based on the five senses. This piece covers them all in just eight minutes! From word of mouth to weather reports, small town politics to the logistics of grave-digging, the great themes of life, death and immortality are revealed with a good dose of mystery and mythology thrown into the mix as well. The voices are fantastic, the music perfectly evocative and the story - well, near the end, one old-timer says, "If you never did see it you'd never understand it." But he's oh so wrong... This is certainly more than just another fish story! |
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Review of Just Another Fish StoryWhen I heard this there was a smile on my face the entire time. Its pacing is like a raft trip through rapids: quick overlapping cuts that pull you along and occasionally take your breath away. The Down East voices are wonderful and the jaw harp and fiddle music complement them perfectly. Some of the juxtapositions are hilarious; others provide startling insights about community, life and death. A very special piece. |
Musical Works
Several tunes by Tapani Varis are featured in this piece from the album "Jews Harp", 1998, Northside Records.
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Todd Melby
Posted on March 29, 2006 at 05:56 AM | Permalink
Review of Just Another Fish Story
On the face of it, this is the story of a big, stinky whale that washed up on a Maine beach ten years ago. The people who lived there had to figure out how to dispose of its rotting carcass. But dig a little deeper and this is the story of the unreliability of witnesses and mortality. In the documentary film "The Thin Blue Line," director Erroll Morris shows how people who see the same event can have vastly different interpretations about what happened. Producer Molly Menschel makes the same revelation here. She quotes people describing the color and position of the dead whale, but the descriptions vary greatly. "Just another Fish Story" also questions the meaning of life in an unromantic manner. Near the end of the piece, a grizzled old man says this: "There's a lot of people who think 'I'm so big. I'm so great.' No matter how powerful they are something will happen in life that will cause people to say, 'How small am I anyway?'" Amen.