PICTURES IN THE HALL
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Whether or not that’s what she actually thought isn’t the point. The point is that Pictures in the Hall invites us to imagine thoughts like that. Gently loving, gently anguished, gently funny, or gently hokey, Carnelia’s songs are almost always about love and allegiance–about passing time in the presence of other people. Or at least–as in the case of a tune involving a woman and her avocado tree–other living things. Pictures in the Hall considers that part of us formed when nature left off and nurture kicked in.
Often, probably too often, this theme gets expressed as nostalgia. And rather pat nostalgia, at that. There’s less Proustian reverie here than Wonder Years wistfulness. The first song, in fact, all too precisely echoes a bit I actually saw on The Wonder Years, where little Kevin Arnold whacks a game-winning, ninth- inning homer.
Unfortunately, there’s no chance of your seeing what I mean. Pictures closed on Sunday, after just a four-day run. I don’t know why. This review isn’t so much a review, therefore, as a “thank-you and good-bye” to Carnelia and Silliman. They may be hopelessly sentimental, but they gave me a genuinely pleasant, pleasantly genuine hour.
