Review: Mikal Cronin's MCII
“More rides, after which puking was inevitable”
SOUND WORDS: A MUSIC REVIEW SEGMENT
+ + +
For me, one pure element of summer magic has always been a day at the county fair.
It doesn't matter when the fair actually happened. It could've been May as easily as August; makes little difference. Nor does my not attending any sort of fair since I turned 20 really hold weight. It's not about doing so much as feeling. And for me, it is impossible to sum up the summer feeling without THE FAIR. Boom.
At least once a year, for enough years to make a FACT OF LIFE, my family would wind up at a county fair of some sort for a day.
And what a day! Pure delirium as experienced in childhood on a scale I may never be able to capture again. The buzzing whir of all good things being not only allowed, but encouraged by my parents. A day that started with corn dogs and then elevated into pink popcorn and lemonade. A day filled with carnyesque games of luck and skill, minus the carny creepiness and/or douchebaggery.
By noon, some sort of stuffed bear would be sharing the sno-cone with every flavor of syrup streaking brightly through its crushed ice. By one in the afternoon, at least a half-dozen rides all designed to vacate the guts had been bested. Somewhere in the middle of grounds, all the farmers would show off their blue-ribbon squash and water melons. There was a petting zoo with three bleary-eyed goats and a donkey.
And then the cotton candy rally followed by more foodstuffs deep-fried on sticks, bottle cokes, a slip-n'-slide! More rides, after which puking was inevitable. But hey, room for funnel cake! All to finally pass out on the ride back home.
Regular days did not happen like that. And what was the not-summer part of the year if not a series of regular days? Look, becoming an adult is like cashing out your summer chips for a whole bunch of regular days. But it doesn't always have to be!
As far as I can tell, Mikal Cronin's MCII is the closest albums come to recreating the magic that is THE FAIR: pure sugar and awesome for four or five tracks before you're face to face with some really sweet livestock in a moment of almost sobriety, and then more sugar down the backstretch until it's time to pack it in and drive home.
To think about how days like THE FAIR day can only really happen a couple times a year if they want to be truly special. Lucky then, the album runs a breathtaking 38 minutes, so you don't have to feel quite so empty when it's over.
+ + +
