JILL OF ALL TRADES, MASTER OF ONE

I've moved to Word Press

2009-07-06T15:57:00.002-05:00

I'm not going to shut down this blog yet, but operations have moved to Word Press. I've written two new posts since making the switch, so I hope you'll follow this link and set your bookmarks accordingly.

Moving is always a whirlwind of emotions, so I hope most everything makes the transition without breaking. I'll be brushing packing peanuts off for a while, but eventually the new place will feel just as much like home, if not more, than my home here.

Still figuring this out...

2009-06-27T19:14:00.001-05:00

After much advice to switch to Word Press, I'm trying it out, here. Let me know what you think.

Bragging on some friends...

2009-06-26T17:54:00.002-05:00

First, from Nick Fox's latest email newsletter (I know y'all loved reading his guest post/newsletter before):

"Every city has its personality, and every personality has its moods. When traveling, you’ll find your mood may or may not match the mood of the place you’re in. A city that felt like home in the past, or at least an old friend, suddenly feels distant, on to other things. The idea in this situation is to find a place to hole up, because no matter the city, there will be a corner somewhere that feels like a valentine. It can be difficult to find. It’s taken me almost three days to find the Esperanto Café on MacDougal Street in Manhattan. But I’ve found it, and now I sit here looking at this quiet stretch of the city that not only never sleeps, but never rests. And I rest. And I write.

Writing is the order of the trip. An adventure in the middle of an adventure. And sometimes the adventure gives you a place to land. I didn’t expect it, but last Tuesday, I found a landing. A complete first draft of my novel. 451 pages. 134,000 words. THE END being the last two of those words.

The last time I finished a book was five years ago, and I followed that experience by shrieking and running up and down the hallway, leaping in the air, beating my chest and howling at the roof. Nothing of the like this time around. I hit those last two words and saved the file, then went outside and sat for about a half hour, considering how much further I have to go. I don’t think the last 100 pages of the book work at all, and the second draft will involve massive rewrites. But the draft is DONE, by God, and the feeling that accompanies that is not exaltation, but relief."

And the second book in Toni's Bobbie Faye series is coming out at the end of the month. You can pre-order it now. More on that in a later post...

Last night, Jamey and I went to Clarence's book party where a fun mix of family, friends, book groups and artists celebrated him and his newest book, Too Much of a Good Thing Ain't Bad. It was a lot of fun. Celebrating my friends is a good thing I can never get too much of. Clarence and I met in grad school at LSU, were neighbors for a time in Baton Rouge and traveled together to D.C., North Carolina and Atlanta to promote the prequel to the new book, Three Sides to Every Story. We've had the same scary dream from two different hotel rooms in a rural Georgia town, given each other advice, spent time with each other's families and I know he'll always be a part of my life. I'm incredibly proud of him and I can't wait for you to discover his words. Do it now, before his first novel is made into a movie. That way, you'll be ahead of the curve. :)

When I get them, I'll put up a pic or two from the party. Unfortunately, my camera crapped out. But there was a photographer there and Jamey got some pics as well.

A new gig

2009-06-24T17:36:00.004-05:00

A quick post to tell y'all some news. Perhaps you will see less SYTYCD comments here, because I've been asked (okay, after significant campaigning, I've been allowed...) to write occasionally for Pure So You Think You Can Dance, one of my favorite blogs period. I've linked to it a lot on this blog and especially love it because John, the host, goes to significant trouble to track down the extraordinary music that appears on SYTYCD.

Look for my intro post soon. Don't worry, I'll let you know.

The best part? I now have a bona fide "excuse" to never miss an episode. Dude, it's my gig! :)

[6.25.09: My first post is up! Check it out!]

SYTYCD judges answer some questions

2009-06-20T16:31:00.005-05:00

As part of a piece I'm working on for 225, I was able to pop by the SYTYCD auditions in New Orleans today and speak for a few minutes with the judges. Two of them anyway. Mary Murphy, Adam Shankman and Lil C were there, though Lil C went back into the auditions before I could speak with him. You're going to have to forgive me if I seem needlessly mysterious. Because these auditions are for Season 6, which won't air for a few months, information about the progress of individual contestants is protected until particular episodes air. However, it's my understanding that everything not related to the progress of conteststants that was said to the press (that would be me, as well as reporters from The Times-Picayune and offBeat), or in front of us, is fair game.

Adam spoke about how the SYTYCD judges tend to give lots of (positive) feedback to the dancers, even the ones they know won't go forward or even appear on the show, because every single one of the judges has been in the contestant's shoes, trying to begin careers as professional dancers. He also commented on his tendency to encourage contestants to continue dancing even if they might not necessarily be the best, if it's clear that dance brings them joy.

Something I enjoyed finding out about was that the judges now often watch monitors (on the show) so they can give feedback on what the audience sees after a performance. A while back, Adam mentioned, he gave feedback that he got lots of flak for and he realized later it was because what he'd mentioned hadn't even been shown on the televised show. They are live shows - so the camera doesn't always catch details the judges see.

He said that the bar's been set higher than ever for the contestants currently trying out for Season 6 because not only are they having to follow memorable dancers from every previous season, but they're essentially competing with the current Top 20 for the judges' attention. They have to stand out not only in their own cities, but also against the tough competition of Season 5's Top 20. That being said, I'm happy he was so impressed by a contestant in New Orleans, saying in one of his latest Tweets, "Just saw a kid audition that I swear will be top 20. Unreal."

It's no secret that Adam Twitters, but I was not expecting him to Twitter while he was answering our questions. Presumably, from what I gathered at the time and since, someone sent Adam a direct Tweet, telling him to keep his eyes open for a particular contestant. Can't name names, and this is all hearsay (I was standing next to him at the time) of course, but I have good reason to believe that the contestant Adam was Tweeted about may be the same contestant he mentions in his Tweet. :) For the record, Adam and the other judges had already seen the contestant in question by the time Adam received the Tweet. Whew! Technology!

What really gets me is this picture Adam Tweeted - I didn't know Cat Deely was there! Why didn't I get to interview her?

One of the reporters asked Mary how well the judges are able to keep track of former contestants after each season and she amazed me by reeling off (without any notes or hesitation) many contestants' names and their current projects. You definitely get the idea from watching the show that it's a pretty tight community, that the judges remember and look out for the contestants, so I suppose I shouldn't have been so surprised she was able to name around a dozen contestants and what they're doing now. I didn't know, for instance, that Neil had been injured and probably won't be able to perform for a year.

While the other reporters interviewed the other two judges, (the reason I missed Lil C!) I stayed behind to ask Mary more questions.

Mamma Mia! wanted me to ask her how the hot tamale train got started. When I did, confessing that my mom wanted to know and that we watch the show while texting each other after every routine, she laughed her trademark laugh and told me that she's called dancers hot tamales throughout her career. She happened to put one of those hot tamales, Anya from Season 3, on the "hot tamale train" and the catchphrase was born.

If you read my blog, you know I go on sometimes about SYTYCD and that I was recently upset about Natalie Reid getting cut without being asked to dance for her life. The circumstances of that seemed odd to me (and others in the blogosphere, from what I can tell). So, I asked Mary what happened with Natalie. She seemed genuinely sad when she said that Natalie hadn't been standing out throughout Vegas week, hadn't been living up to the expectations of the judges, who remembered her (of course) from last season. Many dancers, she said, are able to stand out in their cities and sometimes don't carry through in Vegas, when the best of the best are together. She said that by the time Natalie was cut, there weren't any more opportunities to dance for your life. In the episode, other contestants dance for their lives after Natalie was cut, but it looks like the editing of the episode may have a lot to do with our confusion. In the clip, Natalie even mentions, "They just kept saying 'you're not living up to our expectations,'" which you don't really see them say in the episode. I just keep coming back to Sonya using Natalie and Brandon as the example of her choreography, Sonya jumping up and hugging Natalie after she got cut (Nigel did, as well, I should say).

Both Mary and Adam seemed genuinely warm and demonstrated that they're very passionate about discovering new dancers and mentoring them. SYTYCD has always seemed like "kinder, gentler reality show" (as reality goes) from my viewpoint as a fan on the couch and that's only been strengthened by meeting two of its judges. And before our interview ended, Mary asked me to tell my mom "hi," which Mamma Mia! loved, of course.

When Season 6 airs in the fall, I'll confirm whether the Mystery Contestant Adam's excited about now does indeed progress to the Top 20. And of course, when it prints, I'll link to the 225 piece that started it all...

Some updates

2009-06-17T17:32:00.006-05:00

The Book: One reader has gotten back to me - finishing the book in a day and a half! Which is good news itself. She had some really good feedback and I did break down after 9 days and begin a bit (very little) work on the book. The things that need to be fixed are relatively minor and just a matter of layering in a bit more, fleshing some things out. Which is what I was hoping for. Now, it's been two and a half weeks and except for that bit of work, I've been focusing on other things. But the cool thing is that my brain is still processing the book, coming up with the things that I need right before I lay down to sleep or in my sleep, etc.

The Next Major Project: I already have what I believe will be my next book in mind. It will be drastically different from TCB/TWC, very genre. Me said that it sounded like the kind of thing I used to write when I was younger, before grad school, more like the books we read growing up (Dean Koontz). I won't divulge here, but it will have a kick-ass female protagonist who will literally kick ass. For now, I may do some plotting and research occasionally, but probably won't get to working on this in a major way till NaNoWriMo in November.

SYTYCD: Very upset that Paris and Tony got booted last week. I really liked them both and enjoyed their hop-hop. Honestly, I think Tony experienced some reverse-favoritism because of his looks, his lack of experience and his height. I suspect Paris got sent home primarily because none of the other boys in danger were tall enough to partner her. She clearly danced better than the other two girls in the "dance for your life" aspect. I really hope Asuka leaves soon cause she annoys me and she seems really one-dimensional as a dancer. Of course I'm watching tonight.

[6.18.09: I claimed that no one was tall enough to partner Paris and watching last night, I realized that Ade probably is (of the guys in the bottom three last week). But I tend to forget about him. He's a great dancer when he's right in front of my face, but I never remember him. After watching last night, I'm agreeing more and more with this post by Lyndsey Parker where she discussed the potential for the judges to be giving opposite feedback. Something is off with the judges this season - they claim to be wowed by routines that leave me cold and needlessly pick on routines that I love. For instance: they loved Asuka and Vitolio's waltz (Mary cried, which I don't buy) and I was so bored and disinterested. I can't connect to either of those performers and luckily, it seems like people (other than the judges) agree with me. Whereas I love Randi and Evan, adored their performance last night and the judges seemed to be looking for negatives to pick at. I tend to agree with this break down of the couples and last nights' performances. We'll see how it goes tonight. What I really love is that Mamma Mia! and I text each other throughout the show.]

Last night: I experienced a phenomenal show last night, The Devil Makes Three at Hi-Ho Lounge. I hesitate to say much about it here, for the moment, because I'm hoping to review the concert. We'll see. However, it was perhaps the best live show I've seen in a good long while. I've already listened to the new c.d., Do Wrong Right, twice since I bought it at 1:30 this morning. The show was opened by a (local? it's hard to tell, I can't find them online) band called Death By Arrow that was pretty interesting, especially once they hit the mid-point of their set.

Some quick links:

An SLS teacher of mine, Tom Swick is in the latest issue of Oxford American.

I'm writing about the latest One Book One Community read, Poor Man's Provence, for 225.

Dave Eggers writes non-fiction about Katrina.

AP Style gets with it re: Twitter.

Toad and Frog, some of my favorite characters, have new adventures.

This piece about race in a community magazine has a bit of a Rorschach test in its title.

Christian Group wants to burn Francesca Lia Block books as part of an effort toward "Safe Libraries" and I'm thinking they've never read Fahrenheit 451. Which would make sense. This makes me very angry and there's a lot more flip and funny and mean things I could say, but I won't. Read the piece, read all the press and I'm sure those flip, funny and mean things will come to you naturally.

Ending on a good note, Flashlight Worthy Books is on Twitter. And everywhere else, too. :)

One week later

2009-06-07T18:57:00.004-05:00

So I finished my "quick edit" on the book a week ago, after finishing it and not looking at it for 24 hours. I'm making myself not read it for a least two weeks so that I can do another read-through and edit relatively fresh-minded. And you know what? It's actually pretty hard. I haven't so much wanted to tinker with it as read it. I want to read my own book! I hope that's not another indication of delusion. :)

In the vein of not thinking about it, I have been reading a lot, watching SYTYCD, having dinner with my Papa Bear and friends and spending way too much time on Facebook. I haven't worked any on the essay that I wanted to go back to, not yet. So basically, I've been giving my creative juices a big ol' break.

Speaking of SYTYCD, I've been enjoying it immensely (and will even more next week, when the Top 20 are paired up), but I'm very, very angry about one thing. Why did Natalie get cut without even a chance to dance for her life? She'd done everything right up till that point, had even been asked to demonstrate (with Brandon) the dance she got cut on. What's with that? I smell some sort of conspiracy or cover up, but haven't been able to find anything online, just other people really upset and angry over it. Did she get offered a contract at the last minute and rather than explain that she had, they cut her? I don't understand. Were they being accused of favoritism because she's Katee's former roommate? They've been really hard on favorites who tried out and almost made it in other seasons, but why cut her? She didn't dance the routine that badly, and even if she had, it was her first mistake (televised anyway). I guess that's enough rumination there.

Some great stuff:

Video of Toni Morrison talking about post-Obama writing.

Awesome journal, One Story.

I'm like the last person to discover Texts from Last Night. Kinda painful. And glorious.

You might've noticed something new...

2009-06-03T09:35:00.004-05:00

Yes, I've succumbed and I'm trying out ads on my blog. Let me know what you think.

Also, for your viewing pleasure, this amused and impressed me endlessly:

Cool news, not 'fessing

2009-06-01T19:03:00.013-05:00

Two of my favorite writers (and people) have upcoming books.

First: Toni McGee Causey's first two Bobbie Faye books are being renamed and re-released this month. The first, called Charmed and Dangerous now, is out tomorrow, but I can tell you now that it's on shelves in at least one Wal-Mart already. They can also be found at Target, your local bookstores and online retailers. Toni's books are some of the funniest I've ever read, really suspenseful and action-packed. It won't be too long, I'm confident, before they're made into movies, cause they're really visual. If you hit the first link, her website, you can read the first chapter. The second in the series, Girls Just Wanna Have Guns, is coming June 30th. And the third book, When a Man Loves a Weapon, which hasn't been released yet (and which ROCKS!), will be published August 4th. I can't recommend this series enough.

Next: Clarence Nero's new book, Too Much of a Good Thing Ain't Bad, the sequel to T hree Sides to Every Story, is out June 23rd. His books are racy and engrossing, it's impossible not to invest in what's going on, just like the best gossip.

I came back from BR today with a lot of books to read for fun and these books are at the top of the list to re-read and enjoy.

Also, for those of you asking, "What's next?" now that my book's done, have no fear. Before I'd even finished, I was excited to return to a long-form essay about the 10 years it took from the moment my father said, "We're moving to New Orleans" for me to actually get to New Orleans. If you want to know how that's possible, well, you'll just have to read it. Which means I'll have to finish writing it and find someone to publish a long-form essay in this economy. LOL.

P.S. The New Moon Trailer made me soooooo happy. Check it out and watch is several times as I did. The first half is kinda slow and awkward, but the second half (and Jacob's exploding jeans) makes it so worth it. Did I ever officially come out as Team Jacob? Well, think I just did folks.

Fess Up Friday (the so glad to be done edition)

2009-05-29T21:51:00.004-05:00

Let it be known that around 7:35 p.m. today, I finished my book and my first act upon said completion was to launch myself across Cheers, throw myself into Jamey's arms and sob for about three minutes. And then she took me to Juan's for some melted cheese and margaritas where I occasionally sighed with relief and randomly grinned and was generally goofy.

Just prior to this launching and sobbing and celebrating, B. came by and knocked on the window and made silly faces at me, to which I very meanly held up a finger and mouthed "ONE PAGE" and then made a rude gesture for him to leave me alone. But he's forgiven me, so that's okay. This is what happens when one finishes one's masterpiece at a public venue.

At this point, my computer has threatened to die several times, my hands and wrists hate me and I am incredibly sleep deprived, but I never once had to consume an energy drink and I've slept at least four or six hours each night. I think we can surmise that my coffee habit is so much more pervasive and deeply rooted than the last time I pushed to finish a book (ha, also this one, but in a different version) that I had no need for energy drinks (Rockstar didn't come through anyway).

But let's rewind to where I left off with the last FUF. N. came into town and we assembled a motley crew for a bit of drinking and dinner at the local and the next morning, we recuperated with some yummy at Slim's. Then, we hit Magazine and the Quarter for some fun shopping and indulged in the best candy in the city. And then, like a good girl, I stayed in to write while N. went out. Though, we did hit the local after that, so it's a toss up how good I actually was. And then we recuperated again the next day with Slice and some Borders browsing before she went home. I spent the rest of Sunday doing some last minute hurricane research, which was pretty traumatic, but helpful. I watched a short movie (41 minutes) about the affects of storms on Louisiana's coastal wetlands called Hurricane on the Bayou that's pretty remarkable and I highly recommend it. It features some awesome local musicians and there's a pretty amazing story behind it, but that's for another time.

I finished a wonderful book called Cures for Heartbreak by a writer I adore, Margo Rabb. I managed to keep my (few) appointments and I did watch SYTYCD both Wednesday and Thursday, though I almost forgot about Wednesday and missed the very beginning. But largely, people knew to ignore me and I felt qualified to ignore them.

And so, some final word counts for you:
5/23: 68
5/24: 1,074
5/25: 4,118 (yeah, I know)
5/26: no new words, but lots of editing
5/27: 2,205
5/28: 1,688
5/29: 4,619 (whew)

The days got kinda strange there. For several days in a row, I was up till 3 and then 4 and then 5 a.m. I'd get a few hours' sleep, address bills and emails (the least amount I could get away with), talk to Jamey and drink coffee, putter around a bit, then go home and eat. Around 7 or 8 p.m., I'd begin writing again. This morning, I was up till 7 a.m. and almost finished the book. I had ONE chapter left and had to stop because I was exhausted and had an appointment in the afternoon. Even after I forced myself to shut down the computer and go to bed, I was jotting down notes in a frenzy. So after the appointment and puttering around, I got back to work about 5 p.m. and by 7:35, I'd finished. Which brings us back to the beginning of this post.

Thank you to everyone for your support.

In parting, some links to things I've found interesting this week:

This person gives me hope for the youth of America (and also makes me sad about that status of education in America).

This is mostly a test to see if W. reads my blog. :) Horror novels on toilet paper. What next?

Men love Twilight, too.

Yay for Louie - this is fun.

To bed, go I. My blog is a year old, my book is finished and I get to see my Papa Bear tomorrow. Life is good.

Nine Lives

2009-05-23T17:27:00.001-05:00

It's research:

"Stop thinking of New Orleans as the worst-organized city in the United States, they often say. Start thinking of it as the best-organized city in the Caribbean."

-Dan Baum, Nine Lives, Death and Life in New Orleans

Fess Up Friday (Just Tell the Story edition)

2009-05-22T16:38:00.006-05:00

I've been writing throughout the week and socializing like a fiend on the weekend. Big sigh. But how do you say no to drinking at new bars with visiting friends, 12-hour adventures with D. (a seasonal treat) that involve the recording studio, Elizabeth's, Apple Barrel and the casino and then matching R. and B. drink for drink at the local after said 12-hour adventure (never, never, NEVER again)? Why are y'all colluding to make me have fun? Stop the conspiracy! :) I need better willpower.

I wish I could say it'll be better this weekend. But with N. in town and J.'s birthday...that might not be likely. At least there will be less drinking...right?

And of course, with the t.v. I watched AI, yes, I did, and saw Kris win (very glad because though I love me some Glambert, I think Kris needed the positive reinforcement and we all know Adam needs nobody's approval to be hisself). It was a great finale, with a lot of fun performances. Could've done with less Gokey and more Alexis and Megan, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Allison singing with Cyndi Lauper - AWESOME! And loved Megan and Michael with Steve Martin on "Pretty Flowers." I agree that "No Boundaries" is The Worst Song Ever, but Kris did an admirable second go of it (I prefer his to Adam's, and with a singer like Adam, that's probably no accident) and it was really good to see him embrace his wife right as the show signed off.

But probably the worst news for my book - So You Think You Can Dance started again Thursday. I love that show. Like seriously love it. Cat Deely is The Best Host Ever - case in point, she went to congratulate a contestant and being profusely sweaty after his audition, he was wary of messing up her couture jacket. She grabbed him in a hug, crowing, "Dry cleaning!" Hysterical.

Finished The Song Is You and while the plot got a little weird for me, the writing was always incredible and, most impressive of all, Arthur Phillips managed to consistently convey those indescribable things that music makes you feel. Utterly personal things and yet somehow universal at the same time. I'm reading some new books now (I can never read just one), so look to your right for that.

I took a quiz on Facebook called "Are You a True Bengali?" The questions were in Bengali (I assume, I don't know Bengali) and I used deductive reasoning and picked whichever answers sounded the best when I tried to read them out loud. Turns out I'm 100% Bengali. I thought perhaps the quiz was rigged, but one of my non-Bengali friends (lol) took the quiz and her result was of the "why, dude, why - why did you even bother to take this quiz?" variety. I feel like I have achieved something here.

Enough with that, my deadline is ticking ever closer, so the fun may have to be quarantined. Hands off Sunday! I have nine days left and I'm going to crush this sucker - just watch.

New words -
5.15: 183
5.17: 601
5.18: 1,714
5.19: 526
5.20: 637
5.21: 248
5.22: 710 (so far today, one monstrously difficult scene).

In a weird sort of reverse logic, it's a good thing to see fewer words because that means I have less new writing to do (don't worry, there'll be some whopping numbers coming up next week). I'm making some real strides in understanding a few things that eluded me previously. But I made the mistake of going to read the rules for a contest I want to enter soon and that stymied me for about a day and a half. Bad idea - I need every day and a half I can get. And I have a few of these hard scenes coming up, so I've been floundering a little bit.

But, as the card I wrote and put on my desk says: JUST TELL THE STORY!

It's a bit early, but on the 26th, I will have been writing this blog for a year. You won't hear from me again till the 29th with the last Fess Up Friday this month, so I thought I'd say something now.

In parting, some links:

D. worked on one of these top Sundance films.

Longest running fictional character.

Green Day takes on Wal-Mart. Finally.

JUST TELL THE STORY, EMILIE.

Guest blog

2009-05-15T19:00:00.000-05:00

My friend Nick is so low-tech, but really funny and brilliant, so I kinda forgive him for it. He sends out an email newsletter to his friends and family all about his travels and adventures, which I've quoted from before. Well, it's really hard to show how funny his newsletters are just quoting a little passage, so I asked Nick if I could just post the entirety of the latest one and call it a guest blog. That way, you get to know him a bit better and he has an excuse to read my blog. Ha! I'll include one of the pics he sent, as well. My Fess Up Friday post will go up later.

If you're in New Orleans, check out Nick's poetry slam this Sunday at 8 p.m., at Dragon's Den. It's the Dead Poets Slam this week, so everybody should bring the work of their favorite dead poet, instead of their own. Show up at 7:30 to sign up if you want to read.

Here is the newsletter, with no further ado:

Hello everyone.

I’m playing hooky today. Was going to work a double shift with the mules, but decided to skip the first part of the double and write to all y’all instead. This was the best plan I could think of.

Well here we are at the end of the high tourist season in New Orleans. Jazz Fest wrapped last week, and the tourists who came down for the two-week shindig have gone their way back to their homes. In the next couple weeks, many others will follow them out. Everyone from wealthy snowbirds on their way back to New York and Chicago, to street kids who will hop the freight trains to the Pacific Northwest. Everyone is going to leave before the heat drops down on this city like a wet blanket and makes breathing feel like swimming.

I’m going to be doing some traveling myself next month (more on that in a moment), but for the most part I’ll be sticking around. Growing up in Florida, the thing I loved about the summer was that everybody left and we had the place to ourselves. I like that feeling. I’m looking forward to a summer in my new home, enjoying the peace and tranquility, even if I have to take three cold showers a day to keep my blood from boiling.

SATAN: The heat is conducive to a greater amount of sin.

Satan, do you actually need heat to generate sin in this town?

SATAN: …I see your point.

DICK CHENEY: The amount of sin in this city creates a haven that makes America less safe. I suggest—

Dammit, Dick Cheney! What the hell are you doing here?

SATAN: He’s my nephew.

Oh…

That explains…so much.

It’s a beautiful time in New Orleans right now. The light is soft in the evenings, the days aren’t too terribly hot yet, and everyone is in a kind of slow coma following Jazz Fest. Bartenders and musicians and everyone else who hasn’t stopped working for the last few weeks get a chance to breathe now. The city feels like it’s catching its wind. Even the River looks like it’s on its back as it continues downstream.

But I think I’m seeing a lot more beauty these days, and that has a lot to do with where I am right now internally. I finally started writing again. I wrote about five poems last month (first drafts, anyway), and am moving forward, very slowly, with the novel.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: I wrote five books last month.

I also started working out, which is also helping me find my center.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: I shot and field dressed a Cape Buffalo.

Ernie, this is not a competition.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: I’ll wrestle you.

Wrestle Dick Cheney.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Done.

DICK CHENEY: Ow! OW! Get your terrorist beard off of me!

I’ve been having a really good run of late. The writing is coming along and the work is still highly enjoyable. I’ve been playing the guitar for almost a year now and am having fun with it, and twice a month I run a poetry slam here. This Sunday will be Dead Poetry Night.

JERRY GARCIA: Groovy!

By which I mean, you can only read the work of dead poets.

JERRY GARCIA: Oh. I was thinking of something else.

The last month has been a blur. I’ll try to cover everything as best I can. But I’m in a good place, and the last stretch of time has been very good to me. Here are some highlights…

MUSIC, MUSIC EVERYWHERE:

French Quarter Fest went down in mid-April and Jazz Fest took us into May. I actually prefer French Quarter Fest, because it’s in the middle of the Quarter, it’s less crowded, and it’s free. All local acts, too. There’s something to be said for being able to walk through a massive music festival on my way to work.

This town is an embarrassment of riches for a music lover. On any given night, you can hear music that sets your head on fire. I can tell you about standing on the stairs at the Saturn Bar, with Debauche ripping through a set of Russian hooligan songs (see photo), the crowd in the small room stamping their feet in time, and the guitarist being so buried in his song he doesn’t even notice he cut his finger and is spraying blood all over his guitar. At the end of the song, he tapes his finger up and keeps playing until the Zydepunks come on and launch into a punk rock version of a Mexican wedding song and the whole room bounces like it’s on springs.

And I can tell you about going out on a Friday night and seeing three bands that blow my mind, one after the other, from the Jazz Vipers on Frenchman Street to Zazou City and their gypsy jazz/tango fusion at Mimi’s, to local blues legend Little Freddie King, swinging a whole crowd of sweat soaked dancers in a funky little bar called BJ’s Lounge, five doors down from my house.

And I can tell you that there’s no way to stop any of this. The Spotted Cat, my favorite live music venue in the city, closed its doors last week. It will reopen shortly as Jimbeaux’s, though no one knows exactly what to expect. The club closed with a big second line parade to send it off; a jazz funeral for The Cat, with the Treme Brass Band leading us around Frenchman Street while the crowd sang “I’ll Fly Away” at full volume and the grand marshal waved the umbrella and Uncle Lionel pounded the bass drum and danced with a woman in a red dress at the same time, and you just knew that when the place reopened, it was going to be okay. The music was always going to have somewhere to go.

VISITORS:

There have been plenty of tourists here lately, and since I make my living on that, I’ve been more than happy with it. They come down, and maybe they don’t tip too much because the economy has them on their heels, but they do take the rides, and they do feed the mule carrots, and I get to spend my day at work outside, far from a computer screen or office lights.

I had a realization recently that all of my favorite jobs have had one thing in common: I was working outdoors. I’ll need to remember that.

I’ve had other visitors, too. People who give me an excuse to show off the city some more, and even to see things I haven’t seen since I moved here. My friends Joel and Beth came down from Chicago and treated me to a tour of the Honey Island Swamp.

There’s something about having people visit. They become these little time capsules. When I haven’t seen someone for a while, I immediately go back to where I was the last time I saw them and observe the distance between then and now. A few weeks ago, my old friend Suzy visited me from Austin. I’ve known her almost eight years. The last time I saw her was August of 2006. It’s staggering to look at what’s gone down between then and now, and yet, there we are, having dinner and still close, and it occurs to me that each friend I have is a bridge, something that holds another part of me together, that keeps me from shaking loose who I’ve been, and reminds me that, whatever I may not like about who I was at the time I met them, I was good enough to find a way to bring this person into my world.

I think these are the things that hold us all together. They do for me, anyway.

PRESS STREET:

I want to share a moment from the last month with you. Press Street is the street that separates the Bywater and Marigny neighborhoods. It has railroad tracks running along it, and when a train goes by, it can make me late for work, or make me wait to go home. That’s part of the deal. But for some reason, I find Press Street impossibly beautiful. It is more beautiful than it has any right to be. Train tracks. Vacant lots. Warehouses, empty and otherwise. But I love how it’s this big empty expanse in the middle of a city, this strange little no man’s land where you can stand in the middle of nothing and talk to someone you’ve run into while the train makes you wait to go home.

Here’s the moment. I’m coming home around sunset, and I get to Press Street and the ice cream van goes by. I buy an ice cream and sit and eat it under a tree by the railroad tracks in this big empty space, with the river and the Huey Long Bridge in the distance to my right, while the soft light plays with the church ahead of me on Dauphine Street.

I have moments here, almost every day, where I’m so happy I can hardly believe it. That’s one of many.

TRAVELS:

I’ll be hitting the road for about a month starting at the end of May. I’m headed down to Florida to pick up my grandparents’ car, which I will drive up to Ohio for them, stopping to visit some friends in North Carolina, then spend a few days in Dayton. From there, it’s up to Detroit, then out to Boston, around Maine and Vermont, and over to Cape Cod for a few days of relaxing at my friend Lili’s family home on the far edge of the country. From there, drop down into New York and New Jersey to see friends and family before flying to Chicago to catch up with everyone in my old home. Finally, I’ll take a train called The City of New Orleans back to my new home.

If you are in any of these places I’m going, I’d love to see you.

For now, I’ve got a couple more weeks of working, writing, and enjoying my city. And it does feel like my city now. I recently figured out that I’ve moved somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five times in my life, but this is the first time I’ve lived anywhere and not thought at all about where else I’d like to be. This is Home. I expect to be here for quite some time.

I think that’s a good note to close on. I’ll send all of you some dispatches from the road. Maybe traveling will light a fire under me to make these updates a little more frequent.

Until then, I hope you are all doing as well as I am, and I look forward to crossing paths soon. Thank you for being part of what holds me all together.

All the good songs,

Nick

Debauche

Fess Up Friday (the short hair edition)

2009-05-15T18:30:00.001-05:00

That's right, I have chopped off my hair for Locks of Love, the official summer hair cut. When I get a pic I like, I'll maybe switch it out so everybody can see. I've gotten "Amelie," "retro," and "babydoll" as comments, if that gives you any idea.

Wasn't sick at all this week, but I did somehow lock myself out of my bedroom while I was in my pajamas. Thank goodness for those painters and their paint knife after my letter opener broke.

So, I'm doing better with cutting down on my t.v., though I did watch AI and I have to say that, all respect to Danny Gokey, but the voters got it right with Adam and Kris. And Kris! He totally showed Adam up, which I didn't think was possible. I had just been saying that though I love both "Heartless" and "Blame It on the Alcohol," both songs were pretty silly performed live on AI. A lot of posturing and rough negotiating with all of the synths or whatever. And as if he heard me, Kris performed an acoustic "Heartless." Whoa! Freaking whoa! And not only was it just a freaking great arrangement, it also demonstrated how amazing the lyrics are (that was clear in the original, but with a stripped-down version, they just jumped out at you). So even though I was unfortunately wrong with the top 3, I was spot on about the top 2. And you know what? Kris could win this, he really could. And Adam's gonna have an amazing career no matter what, so it's all gravy.

But you know what I've been overdosing on this week? Reading! I read 3 young adult books in like 2 days. The last, Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, I read pretty much straight through last night/this morning. Thought I'd read a chapter as I was trying to fall asleep and got so consumed with the story, just had to know what happened, that I read until I finished at 5:31 this morning. And of course, it's the first in the series and of course the next isn't coming out till September. Oh, how will I ever wait to find out what happens next? Somebody send me an ARC! So even though my site says I'm reading, The Song Is You and that is true, I'm usually reading like five or six things at once. But The Hunger Games. Seriously, read this book. It is inventive and brutal and gorgeous, about a future society in North America that sends 24 "tributes" from its 12 districts to fight until only one survives. I love how some of the best characters in these brutal future-society books (think John Marsden's Tomorrow series) are kick ass girls like Ripley and Barbara.

The socializing - I'm still doing quite a bit of that. Drove up to Baton Rouge for an "Electric Ladies" lunch celebrating David Madden (see pic) and went to Bud's Broiler for the first time and the Insectarium. Overall, however, I'm doing pretty good at saying no to invitations (sorry!!!! I promise I'll be less of a hermit soon!!!).

But that's enough about how I'm failing to use my time wisely. Let me update you on all the progess I've made.

New words:

5.10 = 1,547 (3 scenes)
5.11 = 3,179 (2 scenes)
5.12 = 613 (1 scene)
5.13 = 558 (1/2 scene)
5.14 = 599 (2nd 1/2 scene)

But it's not all about new words. I actually generated a significant amount of new words and scenes since last October, in preparation for filling out the parts that needed more. I have one complete draft and lots of loose material to work with. So the greatest part of the work I've been doing has been splicing the new work and the old material together, or editing. So, how's this for linear thinking - I made an enormous jump and I have about 180 pages "done." I'll continue with my splicing and hope to have a few days or a full week at the end to do one more pass to make everything connect and work the way I'd like it to. Makes the book sound like a machine, doesn't it?

During all the test runs I've taken it on, the book is performing well. Just like a top-end sports car, purring and growling enthusiastically, just revving up to show off what it can do. A friend recently asked me how the writing was going and for the first time in a long time, I didn't sigh and shake my head and offer a lot of excuses. I grinned and chirped, "Great!" And meant it. That feels so good.

Toni sponsored a book-giveaway on my blog. Someday I'll be more democratic with my book-giveaways, but this time instead of making y'all work for it, I gave the books to people I knew would love them. So the copy of Allison Brennan's Sudden Death went to Pam Gauxtreaux and the copies of Toni's first two books (they're gonna be re-released this summer under new titles) went to Kristin Sanders.

So, to conclude, a few items that grabbed my attention this week:

This is a GREAT idea (Amazon to reprint books).

This makes me incredibly sad (Coconut Beach).

And this is fascinating (Dan Baum, New Yorker, a story told on Twitter).

Fess Up Friday (First)

2009-05-08T23:59:00.010-05:00

So I decided I just couldn't NOT post at all this month. I'm going through blog withdrawal and that's a bad thing for me to focus on instead of the book. Therefore, I will do a Fess Up Friday edition through the month and let you know where I'm at with the book and with my promise to give things up in order to focus.

I've been doing very badly with the less t.v. and socializing, first off. As you will see below when I post pics from Bustout Burlesque last night (I'm updating on Saturday, though this post will be dated Friday). And I watched the season finale of Dollhouse, am completely wrapped up in that (Mr. Whedon, I understand everything and I'm STILL confused. Can't wait for that DVD with the "Epitaph One" episode). Though, it will probably help that most shows are going to be on hiatus soon. And willpower, there is always that...

So for the first two days of the month, my intense period of work, I was insanely sick. A stomach virus or food poisoning, that was never officially determined. So, I didn't get much writing done and that was pretty disappointing cause I'd been all geared up to attack. It lingered, even after I felt much better, for quite a few days.

However, I'm doing very well with the book. Have been writing the new scenes I needed, getting a handle on the new edits and I made a major breakthrough with a specific major character who's been bugging me for a few years.

Also, I came up with a great answer for the, "So how close to finished are you?" question. Wanna hear it? Okay. Ahem. Ahem. "The writing process is not a linear one, so it's difficult to say how close to the end I am." I'm working every day and I still feel like I'm closer to done than I allow myself to believe on a day-to-day level. We'll see what my answer is next Friday, if it will be a more linear-minded one.

And now your pictures. Bustout Burlesque is a regular show that will next be at House of Blues July 10th (though I didn't see it on the calendar yet when I just looked). I definitely recommend going, it's good old fashioned vaudeville. And yes, nudity. But also jokes and magic. And no matter your take on girls getting nekkid, it's really hard not to appreciate their personalities and athleticism. I was lucky enough to sit practically on the stage at a reserved table and can I just say (i.e. rub it in) that backstage at House of Blues is pretty fun and interesting. So you see why I gave up working for the night to go. Forgiven? I forgive myself.

I'm pictured with Foxy Flambeaux and Praline DuPree in one picture, then with Athena.

Somehow, I missed my photo op with Kitty Twist, who also performed last night.

Last is the featured performer, Sugar from last season's Survivor with Foxy and Praline. Enjoy.

Now, back to work.

A catch up

2009-04-28T22:39:00.003-05:00

If you follow me elsewhere (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or even [gasp] real life), you might've heard my plea recently for you to enforce a May 1st deadline for my book. Like the heroes that you are, you responded with threats, promises, treats, condolences, coffee and chocolate.

I never intended to be done May 1st. Instead, I was practicing with a deadline. The first draft of the book got finished when I cut off almost all human contact, locked myself in my house for 10 days subsisting almost entirely on Rockstar Energy Drink (I'm plugging it in the hopes that they'll send me a free supply for my new deadline) and vegetables suggested by Steph. I had to finish that book, there was simply no other option. A lot of crap resulted, but a lot of sleep-deprived genius also happened. Okay, some sleep-deprived genius, a respectable percentage when you consider the vast amounts of crap.

I'm a lot closer to finishing this book than I allow myself to believe on a day-to-day basis and around the new year, I set myself a deadline of June 1st. So this is my for realz deadline and I hope you won't feel punk'd, I really did need your help for the dress rehearsal. And I continue to need your threats, promises, treats, condolences, coffee and chocolate. Not to mention Rock Star and veggies.

In return, I pledge to:

-spend less time playing with music
-watch less t.v.
-refuse most of your offers of recreational activities
-take on the least amount of freelance work I can
-ignore this blog and all of you as much as possible.

But only for one month.

With any luck, there will be only one blog post for all of May and it will happen somewhere around the 30th and will say something along the lines of: We won! The book's done!

And then I will sleep and spend time returning your calls and begin the process of sending the book to its new interim caretaker.

So, for perhaps the last time for a little while, here's some stuff I've noticed recently:

Seth Grahame-Smith is inventive, crazy cool and now rich.

I've been saying for years that we needed this.

Stephenie Meyer rocks - sold 16% of all books last quarter and reminded us all what a writer with a fan base is capable of. In case we forget, I'm sure there'll be another reminder from her soon. Perhaps a spin off featuring J. and R. (aka N.)???

Just to prove I read other things besides MediaBistro, passenger lands plane.

This is a bad idea, but makes a great point about the length of AI.

Wonder if you can get carpal tunnel of the thumbs from texting. Or heart attacks from the bills.

Angelina will star in movie(s) based on Patricia Cornwell's series.

Ron Howard defends Angels&Demons. Hasn't the Church figured out they're the only reason anybody cares about this movie at this point? Audrey Tautou gone? Me too. Though at least it looks like the mullet's also gone.

I have two desks, too. Have for years. It's a good idea. If you count Cheers, I have more like three.

Note to self: Don't marry another writer. Or at least make sure you can communicate very, very well before you do.

The Soloist. I dug the long music/color sequence. Admired the chutzpah of Joe Wright. Had other issues, but not that particular one.

'Bout to be kicked outta Cheers, gotta run. Cheers.

Gotta talk about it...

2009-04-28T22:10:00.004-05:00

Okay, so they need to rename American Idol "The Adam Lambert Show with Friends." That's incredibly rude to say, especially considering that the other four contestants are hugely talented. But it is true. Kris blew me out of the water with "Ain't No Sunshine," and Allison Iraheta is solid every week, doing her thing. But who can top Adam's showstoppers?

If anyone else wins, it will be primarily because they've had to raise their game so much to match Adam and surprised everyone.

I mean, take a look at this latest, "Feeling Good." Simon nailed it when he said that complaining that Adam is too theatrical is like "complaining that the cow moos." That's exactly what Adam is, theatrical and not afraid of it. He plays with whatever material he chooses to tackle, collaborates with the house musicians, packages himself and the performance in an always-memorable way. You have only to see his entrance on those stairs to feel like (and I'm borrowing a Paula-ism, but it's true) you're watching an Adam Lambert concert (event) rather than a talent show. I mean, was that a white satin suit he wore tonight? He was the exact opposite of Ryan as he stood next to him. Not many men can make eyeliner, falsetto and impeccable fashion sense as masculine and sexy as he can. I guess it's the swagger.

Speaking of that falsetto, I must say that it is incredibly hard to hit the note Adam hit at the end, hold it as long as he did and then maintain that level of control when you're coming down quietly. You don't have to know anything about music to know that, but I know just enough to say confidently that it's hard and not everyone would be capable of it. When the hell did he breathe?

I suspect the final three is going to come down to Adam, Kris and Allison. Although I enjoyed Matt Giraud tonight, I think he'll be the next to go. Then Danny Gokey next week. He did well tonight, even with Jamie Foxx right in front of his face, but he's a bit bland for me. I've heard folks predict that it'll come down to Adam and Danny and that may happen. But my money's on Adam and Kris at the end. Unless people assume Adam's gold and don't vote - the judges' save is gone now, so he'd be toast. I highly doubt that'll be the way of it.

Let us see. Only Adam (and Kris's "Aint' No Sushine") could've made me watch again after Alexis and Megan left.

[4.28: This is ridiculous, but I was curious. The high note lasts at least 8 seconds with the controlled notes coming down lasting another good three or four before he can even think of breathing and surprisingly, the breath isn't a loud heaving one. So hard.

I compared the different versions of "Feeling Good" I personally have after listening to Adam's like 5 times straight through today. Recently heard an awesome cover from the Dark Was the Night charity album by My Brightest Diamond which owes a lot to Nina Simone's version. While Adam's version is not original - those edgy opening notes gave away his debt to Muse - he cut their 3:20 cover down to a 1:59 version that didn't suffer for it. AND, that high note? His own, entirely. Muse's is quieter and less showy. Gorgeous, of course, but not anything as oh-my-f'ing-gawd-how-did-he-do-that as Adam's.]

Characters taking charge

2009-04-25T19:37:00.004-05:00

Well, in the midst of changing a relatively minor detail in the second scene of my book, that crazy wonderful moment of "I'm not writing anymore, it's the characters possessing my fingers" happened and then I realized, "Oh wow, is this gonna change a thing or two."

So good news. The best news. But a lot of new work.

And I'm trying to finish by the 1st. Here's my grocery list since I'm about to become a shut-in:

1. Energy drinks, lots and lots of them
2. Vegetables and fruit
3. Some chocolate

*
Something I've wanted to post for a little while. From Nick's email newsletter, something that spoke to me about what I'm going through right now:

"Then, last night, my heart started trying to crawl out of my chest. This would be a signal that something is wrong. I’ve missed an important detail. And, of course, I know what this detail is.

I’m not writing.

....But it has been too long already. I am far past the point where it is okay for me to not be writing. I am not working, and I can feel my blood gathering for a mutiny.

There has to come a point where I stop making excuses for myself, for why I'm not writing, and realize that my time is finite and, sooner or later, I'm going to get cut down by something I cannot understand, and until then I have this thing called time, and I don't know how much of it I have, only that it will run out, and the only sin I won't be forgiven for is not using it while it sat in my hands. Because I was lazy. Because I was ignorant. Because I was afraid.

I started five poems last night. I also worked on my book for the first time in two months. Pretty much everything I wrote was crap, but it’s a start. Just get the engine running. The detritus will clear itself out eventually.

And tonight, I write this. You’ll probably read it tomorrow. Funny how that works."

Seal vu play

2009-04-25T15:07:00.003-05:00

While I try to stay away from posting personal items, I received pictures of my brother's trip to Paris today and they're so typically Norm that I had to post. You did want me to forward them, Norm. ;")

Writing about music...

2009-04-13T15:36:00.003-05:00

is still writing.

Today I am faced with a short review of The Song Is You by Arthur Phillips in EW and then his playlist blog for Living with Music. Guess which was more effective in making me want to read the book?

EW gave The Song Is You an A-, but the reviews are so wildly unreliable in determining what I will like that it's amusing. But then they're not reviewing for me, are they? Who are they reviewing for? Who does anybody review for?

I'm not going to answer that.

So I read Living with Music religiously, yet somehow seemed to have fallen behind. Today, I caught up and when I read the following, I was like, "I'm sold..."

2) Sympathy for the Devil, the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger, channeling Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” and feeling more than up to the task of speaking for Satan, ends up producing one of the great works of the 20th century, encapsulating a couple millenniums of evil in six minutes and, like a good alumnus of the London School of Economics, blaming the Russian Revolution on the Prince of Darkness.

I managed to write about music and a book. I'd say that was a pretty successful use of my time.

[4.17.09: My copy of The Song Is You came in today. At Cheers, I read the prologue and since it deals with Billie Holiday's I Cover the Waterfront, I put that on while I read. I honestly got chills. It was hard to put the book down and get to work.]

Loose Marbles

2009-04-08T17:23:00.006-05:00

Montana's not even two hours in the city and she gets to see something I've been waiting almost two years to see. :)

Driving around the Quarter randomly, we saw The Loose Marbles playing and are lucky enough to find a spot that while probably not technically legal was legal-enough-looking that we could leave it there for 10 minutes to watch the show.

Not the best pictures, but here's an idea. You can't really see what the crowd was like, but there were lots of people who'd just stopped to see what was going on. At one point, two mounted police went by and (I kid you not, Montana can back me up on this), the horses danced to the music as they went up Royal.

I've seen The Loose Marbles (in one configuration or another) playing at two different places, but have never been lucky enough before to catch one of their street shows. They played "When I Get Low I Get High" at my request, though I suspect they would'a played it anyway...

Customer service

2009-04-03T15:24:00.004-05:00

Something I've noticed is that the ratio of good customer service to bad that I've personally experienced has gone up since this economic crisis. Perhaps businesses are realizing just how valuable every single customer is to their business. Yeah, there's still some incredibly awful customer service, especially at big box stores. However, it seems like the consumer is viewed as an important and powerful resource again by more and more companies. Let's just hope that continues to improve as our economy does.

With that in mind, read this about a boycott of digital books priced above $9.99 on Amazon.

And this one about books for soldiers.

And about the short story published in spreadsheet format where you can add changes.

And this about a mother's memoir of her daughters running away. Probably important research material for my book. :)

I'll tell you something (unrelated to power in the marketplace, to my knowledge, but related to writers and emotions) - I watched the series finale of ER last night (haven't watched ER for many, many years, but I was 12 when it started, so I had to watch) while reading Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. While I recommend both ER and Olive Kitteridge, I don't recommend double dosing on that much powerful, emotional media.

Clarence Nero

2009-04-01T18:04:00.006-05:00

The 225 Magazine piece on Clarence Nero is now up on the site. Go take a look. This is their great photo of Clarence, used with permission.

Clarence is a good friend of mine and has been struggling with a medical set back since Mardi Gras. I really hope that everyone keeps him in their thoughts and takes a moment to check out all that he has accomplished and continues to accomplish. Clarence, you know you're always close to my heart and never very far from mind.

American Idol thoughts

2009-04-01T17:37:00.008-05:00

I didn't say anything last week after the results show because I was satisfied with Michael Sarver going home. That sounds kinda cold...well, it is cold. Here's my problem with this season so far (as I realized last night). I think people are sticking around longer than they should based on their voices because they're likable, have gotten air time because of their likability. Let's face it. Michael's a cool guy with some kids and a tough job - incredibly likable guy. Not a great voice compared to the others. Same with Scott and, as Paula calls it, his "challenge." He's blind - he seems like a great guy, I have tons of respect for his courage for doing a show like this, especially the group numbers at the beginning of the results shows. But his voice is boring to me and ditto his performances. There was absolutely nothing special about his "Just the Way You are." It was decent, but absolutely nothing special. I don't think I would be doing him any favors if I pretended to love his music just because he's got a special challenge in life.

Alexis Grace going home pissed me off because she has a great voice. She struggled with one song, "Jolene" and went home. Folks - have you listened to "Dirty Diana" and "I Never Loved A Man"??? Don't you want to know what she'll do next? But how does a young mother with an awesome voice compete for likability against a blind guy and a roughneck daddy with okay voices? Everybody has kids this season: Lil Rounds (I cringed when Ryan picked up her daughter and handed her to Randy - but its horrific cuteness will probably save her after a wretched performance of "I Surrender"), and Megan also. Danny's a widower, which they made a big deal out of for a while, but I'm relieved they seem to have let go of a bit. It's a big deal to let us "get to know" the contestants because likability is a huge factor.

But it turns my stomach when it comes down to Allison being "the 16 year old," Scott being "the blind guy," Danny "the widower," Michael "the roughneck daddy." The contestants who've stood out to me did so because of amazing voices, incredibly strong or new performances.

I also hate that Alexis went home right after a lot of Internet speculation that the contest was rigged (as folks speculate it is every season). Maybe it is rigged and Alexis had to be sacrificed so that people would believe that it wasn't... See how my conspiracy theory mind works? Honestly, I seriously doubt that AI is rigged because that would kind of defeat the purpose. And because the judges/producers (ahem, Simon) already do so much visible maniuplation to try to save the contestants they think have what it takes. Anyway, if AI is rigged, how the hell did Taylor Hicks win?

Let's talk about last night.

1. Kris Allen - Oh my. I was about to walk out the door for a volleyball game, almost decided to skip his performance. The first thing I said to my roommate when I heard he was performing, "Ain't No Sunshine" (one of my most favorite songs ever) is, "Oh no, he could really screw this up." I have 10 versions of this song in my iTunes and no matter how great someone covers it, it's hard not to think of Bill Withers. And then Kris pulled some magic out of somewhere and presented me with an "Ain't No Sunshine" I had never heard before and really, really loved. He changed up the phrasing, delaying that first "gone," playing against expectations so beautifully to give us something new and special. Artistry, truly. Not that I didn't miss Bill Withers's rasp a little on the "I know, I know, I know, I know," but Kris made this song so new and so current that it took my breath away. Now there are 11 versions in my iTunes and Kris has gone from "oh no" to "oh my."

2. Adam Lambert - It's an interesting week when Adam is second to somebody else for an original and experimental performance. I thoroughly enjoyed his "Play That Funky Music," and think he's a fascinating performer. But he did play second fiddle to Kris this week. Nobody could touch that final performance.

3. Megan Joy (Corkrey) - Really, really liked her "Turn the Lights Down Low." She's got a weird voice (which I love) and you can always tell it's her singing. I think that's an incredibly good thing. I still think she hasn't picked one bad song. Not one. "Rockin' Robin" was good for her and so was "For Once in My Life," and if you don't believe me, go listen to the studio versions. She may have had small stumbles in performance, but so has everybody and she is learning so much about how to hold herself on stage every week. I'm getting sick of "the new judge" Kara (it works both ways) spouting out, "Adele, Duffy, blah blah blah" after every performance. Yes, their songs will be incredible with Megan's voice, but I like what she's picking. I voted for the first time this season, trying to make sure that Kara and Simon don't get her voted off.

4. Allison Iraheta - Gave me exactly what I've been asking for with the first section of "Don't Speak" and then started screaming again. She's got a great rocker rasp. I like her a lot. But I want more of the unplugged Allison singing softly. She proved to me that she can do it this week. Now I want an entire song.

5. Lil Rounds - Disappointed me with "I Surrender." I thought if anybody could make me like a Celine Dion song, it'd be Lil. Nope. This song sucked. Lil can sing, I want her to give me a performance I like again.

6. Matt Giraud - I really liked his "You Found Me." I kinda get what the judges say about his rock band songs ("Drops of Jupiter"), but then again not really. I enjoyed both of those performances and I like that he has dimensions - not just R&B and soul, but rock too. I thought it was a bit manipulative for him to play the piano in a sea of adoring girls, but that'll probably work for him.

7. Danny Gokey - Liked his "What Hurts the Most." Had no complaints, but it wasn't my favorite. I think he picks the same kind of songs every week and that bores me.

8. Anoop Desai - "Caught Up" bored me and I forgot what he sang and had to look it up. I respect him for asserting exactly what kind of career he wants to have. But I'm not likely to buy his cds, maybe just buy a download or two.

9. Scott MacIntyre - You already know how I feel about "Just the Way You Are." It's hard to top the Piano Man and I don't feel like he made it his own at all.

I'd like to see Scott or Anoop go. I'm afraid that folks will listen to the judges on folks like Megan and Matt (negatively) or Lil and Scott (positively). The judges supported both of the second two's performances and I highly disagree. I'd like Lil to stay, though, because I like seeing what she does. So, in short, I'm not quite sure what's going to happen tonight.

Know what else I'd like to see? Alexis come back. You think if the judges' don't use their save they can recall her, even weeks later? That would be lovely...

[Later 4.1.09 - I'm disgusted. Megan was voted off. Too bad it wasn't an April Fool's joke. Simon really pissed me off as well because he spoke for all of the judges without consulting them (as far as I could see) before Megan even performed. This whole judges' save things has brought out a whole new rude side in Simon. I'd like to say I'm going to stop watching now and I probably won't watch as often, but I am intrigued to see what Adam and now Kris get up to. And yes, Allison. Really liked her sweet vocals on the group number. But I don't particularly care who stays or goes any more, am not invested. You know what would be nice? Besides Alexis and Megan coming back? They should have a duets week where nobody gets voted off so we can see how the contestants sing together. Could be cool. It was nice seeing David Cook back and I liked what he said about only selling 1,000 copies of his cd in a year before AI and going platinum in 3 months after. And Lady GaGa's performance of "Poker Face" - looooved it, especially how her singing straight at the clear pink piano was a million times more demented than her regular performance.]

[Also, and I know this is random, but I noticed my last name in the AI credits tonight. Just looked it up and Laura Staat is a deko operator (whatever that is, sounds cool) on the show. Hmmm, wonder if we're related. Also random - if you Google "American Idol" and Staat, my blog pops up on the first page of search results.]

Rabid

2009-03-29T20:14:00.004-05:00

Sunday is often my catching up with tv day (after volleyball). And that's what I did.

I've become rabid about two new shows - Dollhouse and Castle. Just found this article about the campaign to save Dollhouse that started before the show ever aired. Let's just say us Whedonites are nervous nellies (justifiably, I think).

Basically, my thoughts echo the title of this discussion thread: Fox - Don't You Dare Cancel Dollhouse. But ABC, you consider yourselves similarly addressed regarding Castle.

I'll burn a cd of my favorite music for the person who can best describe the link between Dollhouse and Castle (and the constant fear of their cancellation) to my amusement and satisfaction.

Film snob?

2009-03-26T17:45:00.006-05:00

Last weekend, I was accused of being a film snob because I have (very legitimate) complaints against Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

It came on t.v. while I was at a friend's house visiting and her husband insisted that as an Indy fan, I should just appreciate the movie rather than pick apart its (many) faults.

I studied film, so this isn't a new thing. My defense against accusations of snobbery is always - Dude folks, I own and enjoy Crossroads. And I make people watch it when they come to my house.

Accordingly, I am super excited about Fast & Furious. Seriously. The fact that Vin Diesel and Paul Walker and the uber talented Michelle Rodriguez are back - "New model. Original parts" - makes me a happy, happy girl.

And then there's the fact that I may actually watch the Hannah Montana movie. Willingly. Even...maybe...happily.

I think I have successfully acquitted myself on all counts of snobbery here. Just remember, not everybody can be this refreshingly honest.

American Idol again

2009-03-25T21:49:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I was still hoping that there'd be a, "hey, after thinking about it and letting her sweat, we decided to invoke the judges' save and here's Alexis..." all the way up to when Matt first started singing. Probably I'm in denial, but I still want it to happen.

I'm gonna rank my favorite performances from tonight. Megan Joy (Corkrey) is still my fav in the competition, however -

1. Adam Lambert - Holy shit. Just, like, holy shit. Seriously. He's never been my fav - sometimes he strikes me as cocky and disingenuous. But I have never denied or been able to deny that he has voice and originality. After his take on Ring of Fire, I was flabbergasted. There aren't words for his Tracks of My Tears. Smokey Robinson gave him a standing O. When he ended on that last "I need..." oh my. This performance was incredibly controlled (mostly in falsetto!), but I don't think anybody could call it disingenuous.

2. Allison Iraheta - I have been begging for her to do something softer and more tender so that we can see that she's a great singer with dimension to her voice. She didn't exactly do what I've been asking for, but I feel like she gave me what I've been wanting with Papa Was a Rolling Stone. This kicked ass, it wasn't screamy and those final notes... Loved Kara's "It sounds like you've been singing for 400 years." But seriously, the judges need to stop reminding us she's only 16. It's getting incredibly annoying. As they always say (before they say she's 16), it doesn't matter how old she is - it sounds like she's been singing for 400 years.

3. Anoop Desai, Kris Allen and Matt Giraud - I couldn't really pick between the three of them. They were all supremely excellent with Ooh Baby Baby, How Sweet It Is and Let's Get It On respectively. Oh sooooo excellent, guys.

4. Megan Joy, Lil Rounds and Danny Gokey - I feel like all three of these performances had some really awesome moments but were generally a bit too frenzied or off in some way. For Once In My Life was a a good song for Megan, but she didn't really nail it. Heat Wave really should have worked for Lil, but she was screaming and pushing for some reason. And Get Ready really worked for Danny, but was a bit campy.

5. Michael Sarver and Scott MacIntyre - They're both just incredibly redundant to me at this point. I dig that they're both nice guys and reasonably talented. I think they can both have successful careers and I'll probably even download a song or two of theirs one day. But I very seriously doubt I'm ever going to want to listen to an entire c.d. straight through (let alone over and over) or attend a concert of theirs. I hope one of these two goes home and I think their performances of Ain't Too Proud to Beg and You Can't Hurry Love reinforce my prediction. I'd give them both up if we could have Alexis back - I can't help wondering what song she would've picked for Motown week. :'(

Yay for Jamey Redux

2009-03-25T16:28:00.003-05:00

I've thoroughly embarrassed Ms. Hatley again. However, not only am I incredibly proud of her, I'm also a big fan and I wanted an autograph for posterity. So there. :)-

The piece is amazing, Jamey. I can see all the pieces coming together and it's really a pleasure to witness.

What a wonderful experiment... Redux

2009-03-25T15:31:00.001-05:00

I had a bitty panic after announcing I'd essentially review the cds I bought blind from cdbaby.com. I'm in a place where I'd rather rave about the things I really like rather than spend time ranting about things I don't (Crystal Skull is an important exception). So I thought, "What if I don't like one of these cds, what am I going to do?" And purchasing four cds in a very random way seemed to pretty much guarantee I'd dislike at least one.

And I'm not exactly qualified to review cds in any way that pretends to be objective and technically informed (Dave tries, but I just like what I like, despite how great the production quality is). I mean, keep in mind that you're about to read reviews by a person who tends to dislike one word song titles. Not necessarily the songs themselves. But one word song titles annoy me. They remind me of when I was writing poetry and when a title didn't come naturally, I'd just slap one word on it that seemed evocative or, even worse, "Untitled."

Luckily, I liked all of them (despite a plethora of one word titles). Some more than others, granted. But I don't regret purchasing a single one. In the order I listed them before (i.e. alphabetical), drumroll please:

Aquaboy The World Still Turns Without You - I'm only just now, as I'm looking up links, realizing that Derek Buckner and Aquaboy are one and the same. I purchased TWSTWY because it was recommended if you like Beck, Wilco, Pavement and Air. And I do like all those folks. The title track is my favorite and also Mediocre Man. One customer likened them to the Beatles. Not really seeing that one, but I'll vouch for the Wilco and Pavement.

Derek Buckner Symptoms - I saw Lucinda Williams in the recommended if you like and I was all in. This was an okay cd for me. Nothing, after repeated listens, has really stood out, but it was an excellent soundtrack for part of my recent road trip.

Sarah Burton Love Is For Pussies - This is recommended if you like Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow and Feist. While I like the first two ladies, I'm a big Feist fan so it was that and the title that struck me. Sarah Burton is probably a compulsive self-Googler (important for an indie musician, in my opinion) because she contacted me the same day I posted about the experiment. On the previously referenced road trip, I was writing the review for her cd in my head. I really like Sarah's voice, but I'm left hungry by this c.d. It's not a full meal, but rather an appetizer. In the best sense, it whets your appetite for more and I'll definitely follow whatever she does next. I think she can ditch the first version of Barcelona because it felt a bit jerky and loose to me whereas the extended flamenco version settled those issues very nicely. Also liked I Hate You quite a lot. Every time I've listened to this EP, I've liked it more and more, heard something new each time.

Tiffany Randol Kiss Me Kiss Me - Recommended if you like The Cardigans, Regina Spektor and Feist. Then compared to June Carter and Kate Bush. The cover art is a tad reminiscent of my favorite Suzanne Vega cd, Nine Objects of Desire and I wouldn't say it's inappropriate to compare Randol to Vega. If I had to pick a favorite of the four, this would be it. Loved every second of this too-short EP. I would recommend it enthusiastically.

So cdbaby - let's do this again. If you ever need someone to test whether your "recommended if you like"s work, please feel free to send me cds. Or if you're dying for some really random, entirely subjective reviews...

Now, in other music thoughts.

So, I've been really struck by those great Liberty Mutual ads, especially the music. I took a sec to try to find out about the songs in the ads and I'm a bit embarrassed because all of the songs are already in my iTunes. They're all the work of Hem, a band that Dave turned me onto a while back. Then, I found this really wonderful piece where Mary Chapin Carpenter talks about the ads and Hem for The Washington Times.

And it probably goes without saying that I'm pretty devastated that Alexis Grace got booted off. I have to say that I don't think that her performances of Jolene proved that she should've been given the judges' save. The entirety of what she's done on the show does. Part of me keeps hoping that it's not too late and they'll change their minds and save her. Why not? This season's been incredibly wacky anyway. Regardless, I look forward to seeing what she does next.

I felt like Randy Travis was rather wasted in that duet with Carrie Underwood, but I was in love with it anyway. Her voice when she belted out "I told you so." Wow. It was incredibly cute the way Randy Travis kept looking at her adoringly while she sang. If you don't believe me, watch this. Didn't know this song existed before and now it's in regular rotation - and I still get chills every time.

Things I'm excited about...

2009-03-23T18:45:00.002-05:00

Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival

French Quarter Fest

And that they're not the same weekend this year.

Also, the piece I did with Clarence Nero will be in next month's 225. It's not on the website yet as far as I can see, but until then, you can whet your appetite with this groovy pic I found of him there.

I'm curious...

2009-03-18T13:57:00.003-05:00

I missed AI last night (out having a real life) and caught up the only way I could (listening to the performances without video on YouTube and reading recaps about the judges' comments). And I'm curious to see if I can still predict who leaves today.

Going home: Michael Sarver or Scott MacIntyre. Probably Michael.

Judges got it wrong: Loved Lil Rounds with "Independence Day." She's always been solid, but she hasn't really gotten my attention before this. I thought it was a great performance, solidly country but still her own take. Adam Lambert with "Ring of Fire." Ditto as Lil Rounds. I've always known he's a good solid performer, but he's not my favorite. I'll give him this, his performances are *always* completely original. He really does his own things with the songs. It might not be Simon's style, but it was definitely risky and creative. And it sounded amazing.

Lovin': Anoop Desai and Matt Giraud and Kris Allen. Great performances.

Alright now: Danny Gokey and Allison Iraheta, great solid performances but they are not surprising me. I just wish they'd mix it up, surprise me. Danny should sing something about bitter, dark hearbreak and not something tender and inspirational. Allison should sing something tender and soft and show us that her voice has dimension, that she's not just a rocker chick. Sure, being true to yourself is great, but I can honestly say I wouldn't listen to an entire cd or concert of theirs if they're only going to sing the same type of songs.

Still loving: Alexis Grace and Megan Corkrey. It helps that they both sang songs I know well and really love. Though not terribly surprised that Alexis sang "Jolene" - because it's a great song for her. She didn't quite do with it what I know she can. Megan sang sick, had a couple of rocky notes, but did a really nice "Walking After Midnight."

So let's see how my predictions turn out...

[3.23.09: I did a very bad job of predicting this one as half of my favorites group went home. Put out a cd Alexis. Like, right now. I'll buy it. Just like I'll see Kherington in the remake of Fame.]

Yay for Jamey

2009-03-12T14:30:00.005-05:00

Featured in this photo shoot: the gorgeous Jamey Hatley and the glowing Race Issue of the Oxford American.

American Idol predictions

2009-03-11T15:38:00.005-05:00

I can't promise I'll do this every week, but gonna make some AI predictions.

Going home: Jorge or Jasmine. She looked gorgeous, but she's not ready for this. Sucks cause everyone else is pretty freaking awesome.

Surprised me (pleasantly): Kris Allen. He rocks. And I think he handled Simon pretty well, though I suspected he wanted to beat the crap out of him for the, "Wouldn't have brought the wife out just yet" comment. Anoop did a pretty good job, I thought, but got trashed by the judges. I always enjoy Matt when he's singing, but I never remember him.

Not surprising me (unfortunately): Allison Iraheta. She needs to sing something soft next week, to show us she's not going to be screaming every week. Love her, but we need some variety. Scott can sing, but he's singing the same stuff I'm not terribly interested in every time. Like Michael, but he doesn't have a lot of variety either.

They rock, but not my favs: Lil Rounds, Adam Lambert and Danny Gokey. Not worried about any of them.

My favorites: Megan Corkrey and Alexis Grace. Megan looks like she has a lot of nervous energy onstage and physically does the same thing every time. Hasn't mattered to me one bit cause I love the sound of her voice and I don't think she's picked a single bad song. Alexis has got it all. I'm worried she's pulling a Kherrington (my fav from SYTYCD) and getting cocky. But I loved "Dirty Diana," especially when she belted out, "make me a star!"

[3.12: So they sent two people home - Jorge and Jasmine, both of the two I said were in danger.]

Post-graduate studies

2009-03-09T14:22:00.006-05:00

Someone commented recently in a private response to my blog that, "You don't talk about your writing as much as you used to...is this because you're not writing?"

Yes and no. Yeah, that's the answer.

I'm making HUGE strides and progress and then standing still. Trying to motivate myself without beating myself up. Having issues with authority (writing about about an elderly, gay, multiracial man can be a real bitch, you know, when you are none of these things yourself, and this is on top of wanting to represent the circus and New Orleans aspects of my book respectfully and accurately as well).

So here's the answer to what's going on with my writing at the moment: I'm doing rigorous post-graduate studies with Professors Hatley and Causey (both of whom have cool news on their sites - go read!) with numerous visiting lecturers that range from the baristas at Cheers to my new roommate to whatever music happens to catch my fancy.

I'm continuing with a bit of freelance work, as always, which I realize I'm extremely fortunate to do. For instance, recently met Louie Maistros at a local signing and had a lot of fun hanging out with him, his wife and friends before, during and after the show. Check out his book The Sound of Building Coffins. He's got a Baton Rouge event this coming Sunday, as well as more New Orleans ones. I'm going to interview him soon for 225, so be on the lookout for that. Speaking of, the 225 feature on Clarence Nero will be out next month.

Always, the book is foremost. Even if I'm not talking about it. There are just gonna be times when it's a lot more fun to talk about yummy media or President Obama being a die-hard Twitter tweeter. I may actually join now, just so I can follow his tweets.

While I don't condone thievery, of course, this short piece was heart-warming because it reminded me that at least books are still considered valuable...

And maybe it don't seem so relevant, but I promise this is: I looooove the NY Times' Paper Cuts Blog and here's a great quote from Karan Mahajan, the latest author to blog a soundtrack. "I was post-colonial and didn’t even know it....Before globalization, the English-speaking middle class [in India] trusted things that were “imported” more wholeheartedly anyway — a sort of colonial hangover. So we embraced [Freddie] Mercury like he was our own because we thought he wasn’t our own, even though he was our own."

Care to speculate why it's relevant?

What a wonderful experiment...

2009-03-06T17:30:00.002-06:00

After hearing part of "Unbelievable" by the Sleepy Rebels on that JC Penney commercial and getting it stuck in my head, I moseyed on over to my lovely cdbaby.com to purchase it.

Where, oh my, they are having a sale. From their website:

"Buy 3 of these, and they become $5 each. All of these 20,000 albums sell for full price if you buy them alone. But once you have at least three different “$5 specials” in your shopping cart at the same time, you will see their price drop to just $5 each. We did this so you could afford to experiment. Have fun! Get as many as you can!"

I love their mentality - we did this so you could afford to experiment. And in that spirit, though my personal times are tough, I bought four albums from artists I've never heard before. All based on the "recommended if you like"s that cdbaby puts under each c.d. Foolish? Perhaps. We'll see. I'll blog about what I think after I've listened to them.

Here are the c.d.s I picked:
Aquaboy The World Still Turns Without You
Derek Buckner Symptoms
Sarah Burton Love Is For Pussies
Tiffany Randol Kiss Me Kiss Me

A yummy all-media post

2009-03-04T17:49:00.004-06:00

Going back to one of my favorite things to blog about - media. Yum.

Let's start with movies. In a distant time and place (okay, say for a while before spring 2007 and in Baton Rouge), I used to have a Sunday-movie tradition that got disrupted by graduation, my European tour and moving to New Orleans. I re-established it with Confessions of a Shopaholic. I haven't read the books, but I did enjoy the movie. I remember reading somewhere (EW?) a review that questioned whether big-spending would go over well with a recessed audience. But I think some of the messages of the film - don't count just on material possessions, credit cards and debt collectors are the devil - is all the more poignant because of this recession. Isla Fisher is amazing and I always love Hugh Dancy (oh yes, I do), so even though I felt like the romantic elements were a little rushed, I still believed them cause the actors are awesome at what they do. I love that Isla Fisher is such a physical comedienne, which is reminiscent of the best of Debra Messing (I've been a fan since 1998's 13 episodes of Prey, which was NOT comedy) and, even better, Lucille Ball (who I've been compared to in my dizzier, hopefully more brilliant moments).

Now let's talk t.v. I think I've come out as an American Idol fan before and if I haven't, I suppose this is my big confession. I started watching a few seasons ago and probably got hooked cause it was fun to watch with my neighbors and friends. Now I'm just hooked. The good, the bad, the ugly, I'm there. Sad to say. I am more reluctant and less enthusiastic about the early train-wreck auditions, if that does make you feel any better. Enough defense. :) So far, though this season is definitely weird, I'm entirely satisfied with the first six going through. I looooove Alexis Grace and Allison Iraheta really blew me away (she wasn't really on my radar before her performance). However, if anybody is reading this, I do hope this is heard - Megan Corkrey and Stevie Wright MUST, must, do you hear me, be wild card picks for the top 12. I'll tell you now, I don't care what happens to Megan Corkrey on this show - I will buy any c.d. she puts out. I love her voice. It's probably too early to say the word "favorite," since I haven't even seen 12 people perform and I do love some others, but... Predictions for the three picked from this last set of 12 (really, AI, confusing) are: Scott MacIntyre, Lil Rounds and let's say...Alex Wagner, but I remember liking Kendall Beard, too. Let's see what happens tonight.

[3.6: I must've had a premonition that they'd pick four contestants, rather than just three. And I was right about two of the last set of three before the wild cards. That was a pretty easy call, though.]

More t.v. Can I just say that, after catching up with all three episodes of Dollhouse so far, I am a BIG fan. No, I won't be staying in on Fridays to watch it, but YES, I will watch it. Hear that, Fox peoples? Let's have a deal here and now, between you and me. I will watch it, do not cancel it. But then, I knew I would love it, since I do love my Joss Wheadon (insert collective sigh for Firefly here). Big fan of Eliza Dushku, too (in part thanks to Joe, love you dear). This show is smart, funny, addictive. And it's slick and pretty. Has all the best elements of classic Whedon, also reminds me of Alias a bit (which is great as J.J. Abrams is another big love of mine). I think, honestly, it would've been paired better with Fringe than The Sarah Conor Chronicles (Fringe has a strong, kick-ass woman lead, too and my mamma mia! and I text throughout the episodes), but maybe the Fox folks felt that was too much science and technology and weird conspiracy for one night. I will bow to their greater knowledge of these things - provided they don't cancel either Dollhouse or Fringe. Have I revealed yet just how big of a dork I am?

Now, books. Reading this cool French girl-adventurer book called The Princetta (and the Captain, apparently). It's massive and translated and really, really good. Just finished a fun (if a bit weird with the Brit-infected "New Yorker" main character) book called Me and Mr Darcy . Not as good as Austenland, a bit too reminiscent of Bridget Jones, but fun nonetheless. Also, while I'm always a big fan of Sarah Dessen, I was blown away by Lock and Key. Even wrote the author a very personal fan letter.

And something I've been wanting to blog about for a few weeks. Let's see if you can follow this. In a distant time and place (okay, circa 1996 as far as my documents certify and in Georgia), I started reading an author named L.J. Smith. I became a BIG fan, getting involved in a massive fansite online (remember in my first blog when I talked about first engaging in an online life?) called The Night World, which was devoted to all of her books. She wrote several trilogies and a quartet of books (after two linked stand-alones) before beginning a longer series called The Night World, which was supposed to be 10 books long, the last of which, Strange Fate, would be released right before the new millinnieum (which featured in the series). However, due to mysterious illnesses and etc., the book's never been released. Now it's 9+ years later and, to my knowledge, the book's still not out. She's reappeared, writing under the name Ljane Smith and according to her website, she's still writing Strange Fate. And coolest of all, as I discovered while at my not-so-local bookstore (I was in Baton Rouge), her series' are being re-released, omnibus style!! There's lots of L.J. (as I'll always know her, short for Lisa Jane) news lately, actually. The CW is apparently creating a t.v. show from The Vampire Diaries. It has a lot to do with the success of the Twilight books and movie, almost certaintly, but these books pre-date all that and rock in their own right. As I said in my comment responding to this piece on Pretty Scary. However you get into L.J. Smith, get into her. I love these books. They predate when I was educated about writing (and judgmental) and just enjoyed books for all their cheesy potential (see: Dean Koontz). And you know what? I was a kid when I read L.J. Smith and Dean Koontz. And all these years later, I still get crazy excited about them, still enjoy their books. So that must say something... Can you tell me what? :)

Think - it's not illegal yet

2009-02-28T17:44:00.005-06:00

I have a magnet on my fridge that I love. It's an image of a boy's face and hands covering his ears and it says "Think - it's not illegal yet." It's one of the awesomest things about being human and about being American. We have the ability as humans to think and communicate with each other, so we should, I think. And Americans (technically) have the power of FREE thought and speech, which means we shouldn't be persecuted for this and we are (theoretically) encouraged to think and speak with each other. Which is why I blog, why I love my commenters.

Thanks Sleepydumpling for your comment on my last post. Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to quote it here and my response.

Sleepydumpling:

Wanna know the truth? Our parents had the same bewilderment at our using the boring old telephone when we were teenagers.

THEIR parents had the same bewilderment at them watching TV.

And THEIR parents before them had the same bewilderment at our grandparents listening to the radio.

And it goes right back to the parents of those post Gutenberg who wanted to learn to read and own books.

Technology is inevitable, it's just always getting shinier than it was for the previous generation.

Roll with it baby!

My response:

You make a good point. But I think you also help to illustrate mine. This kind of change, generational confusion and miscommunication is NOT new, no.

However, it's speeding up. What's a generation? Didn't it used to be like 20 years, the median length of time in which, theoretically, a human could begin to mature and become sexually active and reproduce? However, everybody I ask seems to be confused about whether this is still a typical generational length because the people born at opposite ends of a twenty-year time period have less and less in common with each other.

Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

"It is important to distinguish between familial and cultural generations. A familial generation is defined as the average time between a mother's first offspring and her daughter's first offspring. This makes a generation around 25 years in length give or take a few years. Cultural generations are significantly shorter, as noted below. Many experts now believe, partly because of the acceleration of culture, that cultural generations are approximately 10-15 years long. This trend of shorter generations is increasing, so that it is most relevant for recent generations."

So my point is that while it's normal for OUR PARENTS and THEIR PARENTS to be bewildered at their children, etc. I AM NOT A PARENT, there is technically no generational shift and I am currently bewildered at people who are 5 and 10 years younger than me, part of my generation, officially. While I was teaching, most of my students were about 5 years younger and often didn't get many of my references (keep in mind, I'm a dork and I'm an only child raised by what was considered "older" parents at the time) and I was consistently bewildered by them. My family got their first home computer when I was 16 whereas my students, most of them, have never lived in a home without at least one computer. Many of them don't remember a time before everyone had cell phones, before GPS and etc.

So one of my points, I suppose, is that technology makes it easier to communicate, but it also makes it much, much harder in ways that are hard to quantify and understand. The real point - we need to make constant, conscious efforts to understand, take time to hesitate before jumping into the latest craze.

One of my exes said that he would be happy to replace one of his flesh and blood limbs with a rocking mechanical one and be a cyborg. Regardless of whether he would, if really faced with this, er...opportunity, there ARE people who would, undoubtedly. And this worries me. While it's amazing what mechanics can do for people who do lose their limbs, why would anyone voluntarily give up some of their natural body, their human qualities, in order to become more machine-like? Please keep in mind I'm not saying that people with prosthetic limbs are less human; my point is that the mentality behind replacing our bodies, our minds, our skills with computers, without thought, without consideration, without hesitation, is confusing and upsetting to me.

Maybe this sounds extreme to you, but check this out, it's already happening...

But you know what I'm saying? About communication, hesitation? Dentyne gets it. Really gets it. Not to mention, they're smart.

Technology Resistant

2009-02-19T15:50:00.004-06:00

It's time for a new post. Beyond time, probably. I stand by my accordion post, but I got a few emails about that one. LOL. Eh, at least you're writing me.

So I recently described myself as technology resistant. I should clarify that I understand most technologies, especially the ones I need to become accustomed to as a writer and for jobs. You're looking at the product of one, actually. And, I was a squealy squealy girl when my friend Mel plugged a dohicky cord into my MP3 player, attaching it to her car radio and we got to drive around South Louisiana to my favorite songs. Her iPhone is pretty fantastic, actually. She can solve trivia disputes, find the times for movies, get directions, play music, etc., all with a single tool.

I resist, resist, reeeeeeesiiiiisssst the iPhone, however. I acknowledge its greatness and this is WHY I resist it. Once you pop, you can't stop. Every iPhone owner I know tells me this and I take one look at it's glittery goodness and I know. I will be come THAT person, the one none of us can stand, who is addicted to technology and helpless without it. I purposefully buy the cheapest, least glorious phone I can find and limit all the bells and whistles. And you know, as much as I complained about my basic red Samsung, I have dropped that thing a million times and it's still going strong. It's so dinged, cracked and scratched nobody would steal it. I took that thing to Europe, to Russia, to New York and back. It did the trick.

And what about cell phones? It used to be, you screened calls if you didn't want to talk to someone. "Oh, I wasn't home." But there is something about my cell phone answering that urges a Pavlovian respone. I can't bear to ignore the call. And I feel like, if I miss a call, I must respond very quickly. Texts have to be returned asap. I'm connected. Some of the happiest moments are when I forget my phone at home or in my car, except then I'm worried my car will break down and I can't call for help...

The thing is, folks, I can't even remember phone numbers anymore. I'm entirely reliant on the pre-programed numbers in my phone. I can remember two of my best friends' parents' phone numbers from like 10 years ago with barely any prompting, but I can't tell you my last boyfriend's phone number. Or my best friend's. If I should upgrade to a shiny iPhone, how much more helpless and dependent will I become?

The other day, I struggled for 20 minutes to find phone numbers for a friend using Google, etc. I got the wrong person when I did find a potential number and she promptly opened up her phone book and gave me several helpful numbers. Her phone book. You know, old school, a book. That thing the phone company throws on your porch periodically.

Are we capable of keeping our McGuyver-like, practical, real-world skills as we allow machines to further simplify our lives? Somehow I doubt it.

Another friend (you shall remain safely anonymous) recently asked me sheepishly, "What does LMAO mean again?" We're not even 30, so don't call us fuddy-duddies, but the thing is, everything is changing so much faster now due to technology. Sometimes, that's a cool thing. But more often, it's bewildering. I find myself saying old-fashioned things like, "Can you turn that down? Do you know correct English? WHAAAAT?!!" quite often. I dream of cabins in the woods without electricity and plumbing, then I kinda shake myself and wonder, "But what would I DO? I'd miss Bones and American Idol. I couldn't write after it got dark. And outhouses??"

I'm the girl who's almost desperate to go on Survivor and has confessed to friends that I'd like to be turned into What Not to Wear (Stacy would kill me), except I don't want to be on t.v. I don't want my 15 minutes of fame, my blogger stardom. I remember thinking, as a kid, that one of the best things about being a writer was that, unless you were Stephen King, everyone could know your work and not know your face. It was possible for your name to be famous, but you could also go to the grocery store unaccosted. We're all competing in a super-saturated market.

So how do we market ourselves and our work and still lead private lives? That IS the question. This world is getting faster and smaller and to me, often, scarier.

Take Google Earth, for instance. Ohhhh. Yesterday, I walked up to one of my neighbors at Cheers and he waved me closer to look at his computer screen. And there was... our street. My front door. Satellite images (not real-time, thank goodness) of our street. Up close and personal. It was cool, but I felt a wave of terror and revulsion. I got a bit distracted, back at my own table, by plugging every address from my address book into Google Earth. I was fascinated and really, really creeped out. And you know what? With every address I checked, except for one, I could see front doors, yards, cars, whole streets outside their houses like I was going to visit for lunch.

When did we stop asking, "Just because we can -- should we?"

And structured controls of things like satellite imaging and say cloning can get scary too, cause then we're looking at Big Government, Big Brother type situations. So I guess it comes down to each of us choosing to make active decisions. To try to remember phone numbers, to stop morbidly typing in every address we know into Google Earth. Hesitate. What's wrong with that? Take your time. We don't have to jump into everything without thinking about it first, evaluating how it makes us feel, how it may change our lives.

Sigh. So this post all came together because I accidentally got AIM. I signed up for a MapQuest account so I could save my searches and apparently, simultaneously signed up for AIM. This entire blog/rant began there and then I remembered everything that's happened recently that also pinged the same technology anxieties.

How do we have a private life these days? Between MyFace (let's go ahead and add AIM, OkCupid, Twitter into all of that) and Google Earth and our iPhones. Everything is connected and some days, that can be great. But it can get problematic. I'm looking for a job right now. All a prospective employer needs to do is type my name into a search engine and this blog comes right up. Perhaps my MySpace, as well. Instantly, they read this latest post "technology resistant" and they're uncertain whether I can work a fax machine (I can), scan (yep) or probably even type (fastest fingers in the southeast, folks). Maybe they're resistant to hiring me because I'm technology resistant.

The consequences of everything are harder to escape because the world is small and faster. There's nothing wrong with being careful, using our problem-solving and analytical abilities to work out what feels right for us, how and when we're going to invest in the McMyFace world.

Another thing that sparked this blog for me was watching a slideshow of "weird news images" and seeing a picture of a robot acting in a play with a woman. This isn't where I saw it, but where I found it, second image down. Let me know what you think.

The whole technology issue is brought up in He's Just Not That Into You, by Drew Barymore's character. Her technology stress and anxiety is eerily spot on, very valid. Also, watch the hysterical Top 10 Cliches (under videos) that has three of the male actors (Justin Long, Bradley Cooper and Kevin Connolly) playing girls in cliche romantic comedy scenarios. Very, very funny.

Also, from a little while ago (and wordsmith.org), A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Myth: we have to save the earth. Frankly, the earth doesn't need to be saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained. Saving the environment is really about saving our environment - making it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so. -Robert M. Lilienfeld, management consultant and author (b. 1953) and William L. Rathje, archaeologist and author (b. 1945)

There must be something wrong with me...

2009-02-09T14:43:00.002-06:00

Confession: I think the accordion is one of the sexiest instruments ever. This twisted part of my psyche is made doubly worse by the fact that my mamma mia! was forced to learn the accordion as a girl and hated it. I *am* researching the circus, so perhaps that makes it better. Probably not. Let's see if she reads this blog and learns that her daughter is obsessed with the accordion. Should be interesting.

Every time I mentioned the word accordion in this post, I linked to a great song that uses the accordion. Check them out. One of them has not one but TWO accordions playing at the same time (and it's not the one linked to in this sentence). Sigh. :)

Personal change and political change, a recap and celebration

2009-02-01T17:54:00.007-06:00

Where in the world has Emilie been?

So I fully intended to write a blog responding to the inauguration, was super excited about so many things that day. However, in addition to that good kind of excitement, the rest of the day was devoted to a lot of personal emotional highs and lows. It seemed like drama and emotion was coming at me from every angle and all at once. I did get to cap the evening with a drink to toast President Obama with some friends and that was nice, to come back round to that excitement.

I'm kinda surrounded by President Obama at the moment. I've been reading Dreams From My Father for some time now. It's a brilliant achievement in and of itself, but reading it while knowing that the author became America's president a few years later is pretty cool. I'm consistently amazed at Obama's storytelling ability, impressed as a writer studying another writer. And I'm fascinated at how troubled and conflicted he is in the book, that he's brave enough to demonstrate that. And awed at how fluently he describes things I feel every day and struggle to capture.

Additionally, he's been on pretty much every cover of Newsweek and Time Magazine lately, or at least it seems so. C., my out-going roommate subscribed to both of those, so I got to peek at his copies when they came in the mail. I believe he was even prominent in EW, which is the mag I subscribe to. A few days after the inauguration, I remember grabbing several magazines and DFMF and laying them out on my desk, suddenly struck by the fact that Obama was featured in and on every one. Luckily, I'm happy to be so surrounded. But it's gotta be tough to be so exposed. I think this is going to have to subside a bit or we'll all get a little overwhelmed, even and especially President Obama himself.

Right after the inaugration, I planned to break down my favorite portions of his speech, to discuss my feelings and opinions quite lesiurely and completely. But since some time has passed, I've come to feel that words are largely inadequate to describe everything I've thought since the inauguration completely. There will be no completeness - I can't blog once and finally about this. It'll crop up later, I'm now quite confident.

In an opening summation, I feel like the speech hit all the right notes. We need to celebrate Obama's historic presidency, but we also need to get to work right away. So many of us have such faith in him, faith that he can bring about at least some of the change that we need. But for that faith to work, we need to give him time and have patience and he needs to roll up his sleeves and begin immediately. His speech delivered a confidence that he knows this and is ready, while also celebrating what we have already achieved just by choosing this man for the job. His election stands already as a vote of confidence in our future, a willingness to embrace change and each other.

I was rapt for the entire speech, but my favorite parts were mostly toward the end.

- "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end."

- "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

- "And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

- "For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass..."

- "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." [By far, my favorite moment of the speech.]

- "Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

Read the entire text of the speech here.

Newsweek's latest issue commemorates the inauguration and I very much enjoyed the quotes at the end from artists, actors and writers. "What Obama Means to Me" in the Voices section is a must read. Here are some of my favorite parts.

"The United States, a country that (to borrow from Kanye) never really cared about black people, has elected a positive, liberal, non-self-loathing black man to the most powerful office on the planet! WTF?! Who besides the science-fiction writers and the producers of 24 and the most optimistic among us could have imagined this? .... I grew up in a world where people in power didn't look anything like me. I grew up in an America that didn't reflect me at all, where I was therefore a ghost. .... India and Matteo, though, will grow up in a world where the most powerful man reflects them back, at least in part. This might mean nothing. It might mean everything. But for the first time in human history we'll have a chance to find out." - Junot Diaz

"He is a person whose head and heart are connected, who sees people as linked rather than ranked..." - Gloria Steinem

"The world can put faith in our elections. We finally picked the most qualified man." - Wynton Marsalis [Despite my desire to someday have a woman president, I actually think we finally picked the most qualified PERSON this time around.]

"...and for the first time in the lives of a lot of white Americans, and maybe even Latino Americans and Asian-Americans, there is going to be a black person in their midst on a daily basis. And over the course of time, gradually, they're not going to see his color, and certainly won't focus on it. They're going to see him as Obama. His race is going to disappear. And in and of itself, that'll be a tremendous relevation: that, to quote the Muppet movie, 'people is people.'" - Scott Turow

"He's a very smart guy. I'm sure he will eventually get that his beliefs should not infringe upon my rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The same way he fell in love with a beautiful woman and had the right to marry her, I should be able to do the same." - Wanda Sykes

"He is not a black man. He is a black man and a white man. That's running in his blood, and this is important. It's a symbol of the bringing together of two sides..." - Nadine Gordimer

"When we look at Obama we see our own possibility. When we look at ourselves in the mirror of our new leader, we aren't looking for a single simple narrative to take our differences aay. We know that's not real. We know how complex we are. Maybe we didn't realize how ready we were to accept our complexity." - Anna Deavere Smith

"Obama means a world I never thought would come to pass. At least not with me here to see it." - Sidney Poitier

"I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on earth is my story even possible." - Barack Obama from his "A More Perfect Union" speech (near the end of the Newsweek issue).

For the record, I couldn't find any of the Commemorative Inaugural Edition online so I could link to it - I think Newsweek's trying to keep it special so people will buy the issue to commemorate the event. I recommend you do so, cause I only selected partial quotes and there was a lot of cool stuff in the issue.

Right after the inauguration, I was talking with anybody who'd listen and started musing over an Obama/Superhero analogy. Because he's become an important historic figure and such a pop icon (so relatively quickly), I think it's important that we keep things in perspective. I'm not so worried about President Obama himself - anyone looking at his family can see they've got that covered. Now for my superhero comparisions, let's take the various movie editions because they're the ones the greatest majority (including me) are more fluent in, because they're the pop culture result of another pop culture entertainment format that often embodies a lot of psychology and philosophy.

Batman - At first, I thought Obama and Batman are only shallowly related because of the Chicago/Gotham City aspect. Batman is essentially a vigilante and that goes against my vision of Obama. But then I found this blog discussing Obama and politics in relation to the newest Batman movie and I thought it was interesting. It made me think maybe they do have more in common. Batman has no powers and has to use the resources he does have to compensate in order to protect Gotham - intelligence, cleverness, money. And then I remembered an EW piece I read where Obama and McCain were asked their favorite superheros and Obama said, "'The guys who have too many powers, like Superman, that always made me think they weren't really earning their superhero status. It's a little too easy. Whereas Spider-Man and Batman, they have some inner turmoil. They get knocked around a little bit.''

Which brings us to Superman - Superman is iconic of America and though he grew up here and protects America, he's from elsewhere, Krypton. He was sent here in order to give him the opportunity to survive and thrive, but he remains an insider/outsider. Though American, Obama was raised in Hawaii (at the time a new addition) and Indonesia, his father and many of his family members are from Africa. Like Superman (Kansas), Obama was influced by the midwest (Illinois/Chicago). As Superman can treasure and come to embody American ideals, Obama is an insider who has the perspective of an outsider, who can truly value America because he can see it for what it is, both positive and negative.

And finally, Spider-Man - Remember when Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man gets full of himself from all of the acclaim and attention? Remember how he is brought low? Sometimes the public depicts him as a villian himself. The lesson this should teach us, President Obama included (though I suspect he knows it), is that Spider-Man is a man who does great things. Sometimes he messes up, sometimes he saves us. Despite a superhero's superhuman status, the essentially function to remind us about human qualities. We need to allow President Obama his humanity, value and respect him, appreciate all that he has done, is doing and will do for this country and our global community. We need to have faith and give him time and we need to keep this pop-frenzy in check so that we do not lose sight of the man within the image, the legend.

So I smile when I see Barack Obama's face everywhere, but I worry too. We'll get it right, I know. When it's hard to have faith, I have faith in President Obama's humanity and in his awareness of ours.

The economy is troubled and rapid, vast change is underfoot. Ironically but probably appropriately, my life mirrors this. Whenever change happens in my life, it usually comes from all directions and all at once. That is the case now. I was a little preoccuped the past few weeks, but I hope to be writing here regularly again.

Mary McMyne

2009-01-19T12:57:00.002-06:00

I have been terribly, unforgivably and bizarrely remiss in neglecting to promote my piece on Mary McMyne in 225. She and I had a wonderful series of conversations last year about her novels, both of which are eagerly anticipated and will hopefully find good homes in the future - not just in their publication but on your bookshelves.

Check her website out here. Prepare to bookmark. :)

Some reading for you and thoughts from me

2009-01-18T18:54:00.004-06:00

One of the things I hate about real life is that it so often intrudes. So I need to be working on the book - every time I have a conversation about the book with a stranger, say a med student in a coffee shop or catch up with my old friend Frankie and he asks about my progress relative to the last draft he's read, I'm reminded that I have to finish this book. I can feel an anxious, excited, terrified, exhilarated little fire re-light in my stomach. Is it burning fuel so I can get a move on or is it going to burn me up? - and everything happens all at once. I've got to reestablish my whole life all at once, all over again. At least that's how it feels. Nothing cataclysmic - maybe I just need to do the laundry. :)

After Toni sent me the link to the online version (ironically, the print version was sitting right beside my computer, demanding to be read), I finally got down to finishing the New Guard interview in Poets & Writers. Had some good laughs at how the interview got even smarter and more honest the longer it went on (and the more wine consumed) and then at the end with the "anonymous answers." Check it out, definitely worth a concentrated read. It's inspiring and terrifying. I could literally say something about every sentence and statement, but I think I'll just mention that early on in the piece, an essential confusion, terror of the writer (as I understand it) was perfectly illustrated.

BARER: You know what? Stop looking around. Focus on your own book. Focus on your own career. It's not about what everybody else is getting. [I've abbreviated this paragraph to the last few lines.]

and later...

BARER: I think an ideal client is somebody who is obviously an incredibly gifted writer who also understands that, these days, being a writer is more than just writing a book. A writer who is willing to participate in the publication. Brainstorming. Working with their publicist. Working with their marketing department. Getting themselves out there. Using their connections. It's hard because I think a lot of writers happen to be introverts who are shy and kind of just want to be left alone to sit at their desks in solitude. I think it's somewhat unfair that the business has changed so much and that we now rely on them. But we do. And, truthfully, the writers who are the most successful sometimes are the ones who are really willing to be a part of the business aspect of it.

I'm not picking on Julie Barer by selecting these two quotes because I think they very neatly illustrate this issue. It's about the book and you as a writer and the writing. You're supposed to focus just on that. BUT. Then, you have to switch gears and focus on sooo much else: audience, marketing, whether you're likable, what you say, who you know, how your sales will affect what book you write next and whether it'll ever get published. There's no point whining about it, so I'm not trying to do that, but I think a lot of us find this difficult because we would like to be introverted and enjoy whatever space we can carve out in our lives to be insulated and listen to the voices in our heads. My experiences so far have been such that I'm a fairly business-minded writer, and I've done a lot over the course of my life to become more extroverted and confident (ask anybody who knows me if I'm shy - they say no, I say yes) and I still struggle with this. But I'm learning that I need to get better at shutting all of that off, especially at this stage of my process, so I can hear those voices, so they don't get drowned out by thoughts about genre, reviews and blurbs, cover art, touring and whether any of this, the good stuff, will even happen.

So I was intrigued by how this was laid out in the piece. Among other things. Read all the way through for the debate about whether the form of the book is archaic and no longer viable. Love the part especially about how editors and publishers will Google a writer, see what they're online presence is (of course). It brings back to mind (for me) the question of whether I want more people to read this blog or fewer, how personal, how opinionated I can be, should be. This is a venue in which I am lazier about my writing in some contexts and sometimes more careful and concerned. Sometimes indiscriminately, randomly, unfortunately. It's an outlet, but also a platform. And perhaps that can be dangerous and is probably, at the very least, messy.

For more reading, check out Toni's latest Muderati blog, it's a good one. About creating heroes who are worthy of themselves and of their villains.

And if you need to laugh and not think about literary concerns after all of that (and who can blame you?), check out F*ck You, Penguin (not the publisher, the cute animal) which is hysterical and two videos on YouTube that I'm obsessed with at the moment: Katy Perry's Thinking of You and Beyonce's If I Were a Boy. (W. says of the first, "She doesn't even sound like the same person who sang I Kissed a Girl," and of the second, "She's so pretty there at the end.") Oh, and you know what? You have to see Kanye's Heartless. I forget how much I love videos sometimes, how much they can enrich a song. In all of these three, that is certainly the case.

Liberty House needs help

2009-01-13T21:38:00.002-06:00

So tonight on the news, right after finding out it's going to get even colder tomorrow, I see a piece about a place called Liberty House. This is a place that offers transitional housing, meals and training to women and their children. Liberty House is currently serving 16 women and 24 children and employs 10 people. And it may have to close due to the dire need for funds.

I'm struggling, as we all are right now, but I'm sending them money tomorrow and I urge you all to do the same. Whatever you can do. And if you can't send money, please tell somebody about their need. This is one of the purest functions any form of media can serve - spreading the news of community need. If I'm ever in the position that any of these women are in, I'd like to believe there are places like Liberty House to turn to. Places like Connections for Life, which I volunteered for in Baton Rouge while I was a student. Most of these women have no other resources to protect and house their families, to completely rebuild their lives. Places like Liberty House and Connections for Life can be all the difference.

The thing that moved me most - and this is odd considering the images of the children staying there, the very touching accounts by some of the women - was that the employees are still working despite not being paid since last month. Can you imagine? In this jaded day and age, in this economic climate.

Every little bit counts.

The mailing address: P.O. Box 15856 New Orleans, LA 70175
The physical address: 2020 S. Liberty Street New Orleans, LA 70113

Womanizer

2009-01-11T19:02:00.002-06:00

Check out the All-American Rejects covering Britney's "Womanizer." It's got scary eyes, "So Happy Together" and beer bottle cymbals. Fan-tassssss-tic. Makes me happy. My birth day, weekend and week are over and this is a nice note to end it on.

I kinda dig this birthday thing

2009-01-07T19:34:00.004-06:00

So, right on time, I've only fully accepted that it's a new year when my birthday rolled around. Got back to work this week, right in the thick of things, motoring ahead on the book, dealing with some personal loss and pretty much all the life you can jam-pack into the first seven days of the new year.

But this is how Emilie does her birthday 2009 style:

-Wake up late (ignoring several early-morning well-meaning calls, including the first at 5:45 a.m.)
-Have breakfast at Sucre at 11:30 and breakfast means cake and champagne, just for the record
-Swing by Cheers for some coffee, then pick up your birthday present at the post office
-Enjoy a steak lunch at O'Henry's while catching up with Jamey
-Get your second tattoo, show it off the remainder of the day, especially back at Cheers
-Answer all the birthday calls (and return the ones you ignored) and emails throughout the day, including several in which singing is involved.
-Finish the Next Great American Novel.

:)

Also, this video is pretty freakin' awesome:

Emilie's 2008 Best List

2008-12-31T16:40:00.000-06:00

What a crazy year this has been. It's the year that my big appetite for music became voracious and I sought out friends and resources to feed it. It's the year that I "discovered" audio books as a natural result of driving for work - a lot. It's the year I didn't go to the theater as much as I used to, but everything came to DVD so much quicker. It's the year I hoped to finish my book. It's the year I started this blog.

This is a very personal best list, so the things that I'm highlighting as my favorites of 2008 may not have been released in 2008, just discovered by me in this year that's soon to be past.

Books - 2008 is the year I read more nonfiction, romance and thriller than ever before, not to mention almost all of Jennifer Weiner and Jennifer Crusie, Spiderwick and Neverland and a lot of David Sedaris. Out of the almost 150 books I've read this year, my 15 favorites in roughly the order I read them:
1. His Dark Materials (3) Philip Pullman
2. Gregor and the Code of Claw, Suzanne Collins
3. When a Man Loves a Weapon (this will be released in 2009), Toni McGee Causey
4. Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, Ed. Ben Karlin
5. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (about halfway through the year now), Junot Diaz
6. The Rescue Artist, Edward Dolnick
7. The Ruby Key, Holly Lisle
8. To Kill a Mockingbird (finally read this!), Harper Lee
9. Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician, Daniel Wallace
10. Calumet City, Charlie Newton
11. Finn, Jon Clinch
12. A Very Long Engagement, Sebastien Japrisot
13. Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl
14. Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
15. The Wolfman, Nicholas Pekearo

Notables: Continued reading some of my favorite series - the "Alice" books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson books, and Fourth Comings by Megan McCafferty. Also was blown away by a trio of historical romance writers - Gaelen Foley, Sherry Thomas and Suzanne Enoch, who gloriously re-invent the genre and write freaking well. Agnes and the Hitman and Faking It made me laugh myself hoarse. And I've been crazy about the Twilight series, of course, really impressed with how things wrapped up in Breaking Dawn.

Movies - I used to go to a movie by myself every Sunday, but that habit sadly went away. However, as a three year + member of Netflix, I still saw over 100 movies this year (and I did get to the theater some, of course). I'm going to try to approximate the order I saw them in.
1. Stardust
2. Once
3. Juno
4. Shoot 'Em Up
5. Across the Universe
6. Wanted
7. Live Free or Die Hard
8. Dear Frankie
9. I'm Not There
10. Persepolis
11. Dark Knight
12. My Blueberry Nights
13. The Brave One
14. Penelope
15. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
16. Mamma Mia!
17. Wall*E - in some ways, my favorite of the year
18. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
19. Twilight
20. I Could Never Be Your Woman
21. Rachel Getting Married
22. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Notables: Much, much better than I'd heard/you'd think - Speed Racer, Good Luck Chuck and The Cutting Edge 3. 21 and Atonement almost made my list, so I guess that makes me a big James McAvoy fan.

TV - This was the year my t.v. became largely decorative. When I forgot how to hook the cables and wires back up after Gustav and relied almost entirely on watching t.v. on my computer. But the shows I love, I love all the more for it. No particular order here.
1. How I Met Your Mother
2. Bones (NOT happy it's moving to Thursdays)
3. So You Think You Can Dance (Cat Deely's the bomb, Joshua wasn't my fav and we need DVD)
4. Survivor (yes, I still love this show)
5. In Plain Sight
6. Top Chef
7. Moonlight (NOT happy this got canceled)
8. Pushing Daisies (NOT happy this got canceled)

Notables: Big Bang Theory surprises me, whenever I manage to catch it, with how funny it is.

Music -This was the year of music. I've never been such an avid music listener and collector.
Singles -
1. Wagon Wheel, Old Crow Medicine Show (most listened to song in my iTunes)
2. Forever in Blue Jeans, Jason Castro (he wasn't my favorite, but this stuck in my head)
3. Toxic, Yael Naim (cover of Britney, haunting and freaky)
4. Fake Is the New Real, Alice Smith
5. Johnny and June, Heidi Newfield
6. Be My Husband, Lisa Hannigan and Damien Rice
7. So What, Pink
8. Another Way to Die, Alicia Keyes and Jack White
9. American Boy, Estelle and Kanye
10. Just Like a Woman, Charlotte Gainsbourg
11. Holding Out for a Hero, Frou Frou
12. Are You Strong Enough to Be My Man, Sheryl Crow
13. You Got Growing Up to Do, Patty Griffin and Joshua Radin
14. Echo, Cyndi Lauper
15. Comes Love, Billie Holiday
16. Whatever Lola Wants, Ella Fitzgerald
17. Love Song, Sara Bareilles
18. See You Again, Miley Cyrus (say what you want, but this song is catchy and cool)
20. Missed Me, Dresden Dolls
19. Hide and Seek, Imogen Heap
20. Arms of a Woman, Amos Lee
21. Lilac Wine, Katie Melua
22. Do I Move You, Nina Simone
23. Hurt, Johnny Cash

CDs -
1. Across the Universe soundtrack (oh glorious TV Carpio, put out a cd already! Dana Fuchs!)
2. Juno soundtrack
3. Once soundtrack
4. Acid Tongue, Jenny Lewis
5. Volume 1, She & Him
6. Black Snake Moan soundtrack

Performers, period -
1. Patty Griffin - I'm delirious over Patty Griffin
2. Jenny Lewis
3. Lucinda Williams
4. Emmylou Harris
5. Allison Moorer
6. The White Stripes, Jack White notably
7. The Dresden Dolls
8. Roisin Murphy
9. Katie Herzig
10. Sugarland
11. Krista Detor

Notables: My love for Nina Simone, Johnny Cash, The Magnetic Fields, Cake and The Beatles, always vibrant, has been renewed. I grew to really appreciate Kanye West (though my first love for him came after his infamous quote after Katrina). And I learned that, as amusing as I find it when my neighbor M. sings the lyrics to "Ding, Ding, Dong," I am NOT a fan of Gunther.

Websites - These are the websites I checked every day in 2008, once I knew about them!
1. Post Secret
2. I Am Fuel, You Are Friends
3. Living With Music - writers blog about music!
4. GalleyCat - how could I leave this one off?
5. Wikipedia
6. imdb
7. cdbaby
8. Amazon
9. Craigslist
10. YouTube

My Favorite Things - What I've been loving this year
1. Favorite Home Away from Home - Cheers, my coffeeshop
2. Friends - you know who you are and likely, you've introduce me to a lot of great music and food this year. I love you for it, this year and all years.
3. Family - for the pictures, the drama and the support.
4. Local Music - The Zydepunks, The New Orleans Bingo! Show, Loose Marbles and Gal Holiday
5. Food - the roast beef po'boy at Parkway just may be my favorite thing I've eaten this year
6. Lessons - dancing, parallel parking, how to be a better writer (friends again, thank you)
7. Libraries - Nola and BR, so very excited about having multiple library cards
8. Writing - NaNoWriMo, PerNoWriMo, Write or Die, Jamey
9. Epiphany - being excited and finding others who're also excited about the same things.
10. City - New Orleans. Of course and always.

That's it, Emilie's Top List for 2008. Enjoy. Argue. Applaud. Whatever. :)

Lazy last day of the year afternoon

2008-12-31T14:48:00.004-06:00

I won't call them resolutions (cause that's just asking for trouble and, usually, failure), but there are a lot of things I want to change and accomplish in 2009. I'm excited.

So on this last day of 2008, let me post a couple of things that please and amuse me (my Top of 2008 list will be up later, just for you).

First, I adore this short piece about a 5 year old chef with a television show. I sent a link of it to a few of my favorite people and Mamma Mia! wrote back in an email: "I would probably give it a test run. He looks cute. Your dad and I watched that angry chef that goes to restaurants and helps them turn them around and the chef acted like a 2 year old most of the time." Which made me laugh so hard I scared a few people. I have to assume she's talking about Gordon Ramsey.

Checking out Living With Music today, I'm reminded of how much Norah Vincent rocks. A while back, I read her Self-Made Man and I continue to believe that every American man needs to read this book. Also, women and non-Americans. But, having met quite a few guys with Peter Pan syndrome who struggle to know how they're supposed to be MEN in this day and age, I think they need to read a book about how a woman managed being a man for a year. We're all a bit confused these days about what it means to be a woman or a man, to be ourselves and our genders. It helps that Norah Vincent's a very good writer. (I met her when she came to LSU to promote S-MM, but I'm not posting the picture, sorry). Here's my favorite part of her LWM playlist: "Here Comes the Sun, Nina Simone. I had to put Nina on this list, because, to my mind, her voice, her music, is proof of the existence of God. She makes me feel less alone in the world, which is why, even though she’s usually singing the lowest of the low down dirty blues, I feel better when I listen to her. Her cover of this Beatles classic is just about the only even vaguely upbeat song she sings that isn’t about sin, heartbreak, injustice or all of the above. Still, be warned, she’s not for the unalloyed. This is a long-steeped melancholic’s brand of sweet tart, so don’t try this at home. There’s always a bit of bite to the sugar in Nina’s bowl but, for my money, that just makes the pleasure last longer." Looking forward to reading her new book, Voluntary Madness.

And we can't forget GalleyCat and their Year in Publishing (wish, wish, wish, there was one link I could give you for all of them, but here's January and December, just to get you started).

Look for the Top of 2008 List later today...

The Curious Case...

2008-12-30T15:59:00.004-06:00

The other evening, I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I enjoyed a lot. Somehow, in everything I read about the movie (and one of my friends from FD4 worked on it), I never found out that Katrina features in it. That's not necessarily a spoiler. But I will say, the way Katrina happened in Benjamin Button is similar to how I want it to take place in my book. I was fascinated by the locations of the movie and was pretty convinced that Queenie's retirement house was (at least in part) the "wedding cake house" on St. Charles. Well, I went and read F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story and yes, they're nothing alike. Nothing. They pretty much just have a title in common. I prefer the movie, but then I've never been a big F. Scott fan, so I may be prejudiced. It is fascinating to me how a roughly 20-page short story written at the beginning of one century can be the genesis of a film so evocative of the beginning of the next century. Check this out if you want to read a discussion of the short story and movie.

From wordsmith's word of the day today: "There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad." -Salvador Dali [Word of the Day]

And to recycle some stuff from Christmas Eve that I never posted:

My horoscope (Tarot.com): Your imagination cannot be contained by traditional rituals and safe family activities. No matter what's happening on the surface, you have a metaphysical ticket to ride as the Moon moves through your 12th House of Spirituality. Make a commitment to be present for holiday festivities, while also keeping an eye on your inner journey.

Adem's 208 best songs of 2008 was my Christmas present to myself. It helped me discover some bands I'd never even heard of. Check it out, it has links to the songs on YouTube, MySpace, etc. Here's some music I've been liking (from the list and also recommended when I watched the links).

Crying Blood, VV Brown (Adem's #1, not as scary as it sounds, really fun and up-tempo)

No Can Do, Sugababes

A hysterical parody of Britney's Womanizer.

A bit scattered, but hope you enjoy.

I think this is really cool

2008-12-29T20:26:00.002-06:00

Five female writers on the "Thinking Man's Sexiest" list. (Yes, yes, GalleyCat).

Hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas and is anticipating a glorious year ahead.

Catching up

2008-12-21T17:50:00.003-06:00

So the 9th Annual Spaghetti Christmas Dinner went off without a hitch, thanks to everyone who celebrated with me. Next year, we'll have to do it up even better to commemorate a decade of spaghetti and friends. I'll put together an album of pictures from all the s'getti dinners, I think and have that out for everyone to see. What began in a dorm room at LSU and just took place in an apartment in New Orleans is now a tradition going strong.

There are a lot of things I've been meaning to talk about. One is my growing appreciation for Barack Obama, my increasing delight that his inauguration is coming up. What's to be so excited about? If for nothing else, I'm thrilled that our incoming president not only values reading and books, but is already a published author. I just finished listening to Audacity of Hope, read by Obama, and I'm looking forward to seeing him accomplish the things he discusses there - though it'll take time and continued support. He has big ideas and big hopes for this country and I can't believe it, but I finally have confidence in a politician.

Now, hoping that Obama and Oprah and continue to help the publishing industry (and the economy) make a comeback, here's a plethora of humorous, terrifying, and informative links about these scary times in The Industry:

Which creative writing programs produce the "best" writers? (GalleyCat)
Publish your rejection letters. (GalleyCat)
This pisses me off, wish I wasn't so jealous of a nine year old. (GalleyCat)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new book. (GalleyCat)
The self-destructing poem. (GalleyCat)
Best American Short Stories will include online writing. (GalleyCat)
And online journalism is now eligible for the Pulitzer Prize. (GalleyCat)
Y.A. too sexy? (GalleyCat)
Elizabeth Alexander to read at Obama's inauguration. (GalleyCat)

I honestly do read something other than GalleyCat, but they're usually the ones I want to link to most. Is there a prize for that?

So what I've been loving lately: Barack Obama and his books, Krista Detor , Special Topics in Calamity Physics (I really wanted to hate this book, but I just can't - it's one of my favorites now) and Unaccustomed Earth, which I just finished (Jhumpa Lahiri is scary talented). Maybe I'll do a list of 2008's Favorite Things before the year's over. Maybe...that'll be really hard.

Indie movie

2008-12-14T13:36:00.002-06:00

So if you're looking for a film that ends with two naked people in a tub playing trumpets, I've got a recommendation for you. :) Happy Sunday everybody. I have sooooo much work to do.

SNOW IN NEW ORLEANS!

2008-12-11T12:40:00.017-06:00

I woke up this morning to several people texting me about snow in Nola. One said (after the excited expletives): "It's snowing in New Orleans. Next up: Zombie Apocalypse." Another, simply "Snow!" Have I ever said how much I love snow? I ran downstairs in my pjs, ridiculously underdressed, to gaze in stupefied joy at at the rather skimpy but still glorious covering of snow on the cars, trees and neutral ground in front of my house. W., my neighbor, came out, shivered and said glumly, "I just hope next year's hurricane season isn't awful. We had snow the Christmas before Katrina." And a side affect of snow in Nola: sirens. People just do not know how to deal with driving on icy streets here, unfortunately. By the time I saw it, icy rain was beginning to disintegrate the snow on my car and the ground. But the fact of the matter, beyond all that, is that it SNOWED IN NEW ORLEANS TODAY and that makes me ridiculously happy. It finally feels like the Christmas season to me.

With that in mind, check out this video by Krista Detor that Dave sent me today. I fell in instant love. It's not the actual video Dave sent, but one I found after watching the one he sent.

For the first time in a long time, I heard something last night that made me want to pray. I am not a religious person, but am still rather spiritual. And I heard a story that made me, not exactly pray, but wish fervently for something, for someone's health, for the happiness and security of their family. It feels like a gift, the snow and the ability to want something ephemeral so badly for someone I've never met.

Here are some pictures of the snow (thanks to Jamey for making it possible for me to get them where I wanted in this post):

Four years ago...

2008-12-07T11:10:00.001-06:00

Today is an important and highly personal anniversary for me. So I'm going to have a happy vacation day and celebrate. Happy Sunday everybody.

Some bad news

2008-12-06T16:42:00.003-06:00

It's a bad time of year for folks to be losing jobs, not that it's every a good time. But we need to get this economy in shape fast.

This video got me. Read the article: ABC News: 533,000 Jobs Lost in November

Posted using ShareThis

I love this city

2008-12-05T12:01:00.006-06:00

"New Orleans ain't a city, it's a star.
It's a home."

Saw that in a public restroom today, the second part added by somebody else in different-colored ink. It's in keeping with my own thoughts, feeling a resurge of my adoration of this city.

So Toni gave me some vital feedback on TCB that kind of forced some issues to a head, much like Jamey's feedback at the beginning of this year did. How is it possible to get so entrenched in a massive book and forget what it's actually about? So taking Toni's "you have too many cats" comment to heart, I have to decipher what is the story and what is me "not trusting that the story and its emotions are enough and packing the book with more." It feels like a house of cards to me, if I finagle out one character, subplot, issue, etc., the rest is going to come tumbling down.

There's something I have to remember. When people ask me what my story is about, I've been saying, "it's about the circus," and that's not true. The circus is a landscape of my book, as is New Orleans. But waaaaaay back in mid 2004, when the first recognizable inkling of this book (not counting my aborted story that I realized was a precursor) came to me, this is what came:

A woman is awake in bed next to her sleeping lover. She's just found out that morning that she's pregnant. She's terrified and doesn't know what to do. She climbs out of bed without disturbing him, packs a few things and leaves.

That's what I'm writing about.

I was clearer about that last night when M. drove me around the French Quarter, the Marigny, the 9th Ward and Mid City looking for a good location for something important near the end of the book. It was amazing, as a writer and as a new local still breathlessly in love with her city, to take that ride.

But my favorite part of the evening, I have to say, was going to Parkway to get po'boys. A little while ago, M. and I had their roast beef po'boy at the Po'boy Festival and it was incredible. We only had one napkin between the two of us and we ate walking back to the car, getting messy, but eating greedily anyway. I raved about it here on the blog and I've been wanting to go to Parkway and have it again. Sometimes, when you have such an astounding food experience, it can't be replicated and the food never lives up to that first time. That's NOT the case here. I ordered the roast beef again and M. got the Thanksgiving Dinner po'boy (turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce) and we shared some sweet potato fries at the bar. It was a good choice to sit at the bar because the owner came by, chatted with us and seemed to enjoy watching us enjoy our food. I employed my super-secret turn-the-po'boy-over eating technique, but near the end, had to ditch the bread unfortunately and just finish the roast beef, as there wasn't enough room for it all. M. quoted his friend, saying, "Go for the gusto." We were too full to have dessert (and we'd scored some sweet potato pies from Hubig's for later), but I asked the owner what he'd suggest we try next time we come. Perfect timing, it turns out, because his nephew came out of the kitchen with a rum cake they'd made by mistake for somebody. Hearing me ask his uncle about dessert recommendations, he said, "You can try this first," and gave us the rum cake. So of course we had to try it! It was warm pound cake, soaked just right in rum and it was heavenly. We couldn't finish it, of course, so I took it home (and you can bet it's all gone now. Yum).

So today I'm trying to get back to my story, dreaming of rum cake and roast beef po'boys and idly asking myself, "Is New Orleans a star - celebrity or celestial object?"

When in doubt...

2008-12-01T22:41:00.003-06:00

...dance sequences from Bollywood movies on YouTube! Or these from Lagaan: Radha kaise na jale and Chale Chalo. Sigh.

Christmas spaghetti

2008-12-01T21:10:00.003-06:00

Invitations have officially gone out for the ONE party I throw every year, so now I'm getting excited. Only now, I have to start thinking seriously about cleaning the house.

You know, it's great that Cheers has gotten so much busier and popular. Except, you know, that it's not so great. It's not the place where everybody knows your name anymore, because there are A LOT more people, strangers. Though, the people who do know your name have totally bonded over the experience, even setting up buddy systems for bequeathing tables to Cheers regulars when we leave. Gotta look out for each other, us Cheers regulars.

And, apparently, I really like Wilco. Huh. Who knew.

'Fess Up Sunday - the NaNoWriMo edition

2008-11-30T20:31:00.002-06:00

So now that NaNoWriMo is ending tonight, I'm ready for one final November fess up.

I'm not going to make 50,000 words. It turns out that (and yes, I did know this, but now I know it) trying to do massive amounts of new words on an old project is very, very hard. But, I still won.

Oh not by NaNo's standards. However, this month was a massive epiphany, rolling waves of insights.

Here's a shortlist of my accomplishments:
1) I edited and wrote new scenes up to page 230 or so.
2) I rewrote, just this weekend, an imperative new edit of the first chapter.
3) I managed about 15,000 new words, including 1882 today alone -- and today's word count was entirely without the aid of Write Or Die (though can't tell you how happy I am that it exists).
4) Best of all, I'm still committed (more so now than ever) to finishing the book by the end of the year. I may have to escape from all human contact the last week or so, but I think it can be done.

So, good luck to all of you NaNo-ers, especially those of you who are in a writing frenzy to cross the finish line. No matter what your word count is for this month, isn't it cool what we've done?

MUSIC!

2008-11-28T20:49:00.003-06:00

Hope everybody had a cozy, happy Thanksgiving (or as my friend R. called it, "steal a country and kill a turkey day"). Today, Black Friday, I'm giving you oodles of Christmas presents early, from me to you (and all without my favorites to back me up, on my parents' computer).

I have an enormous, voracious, ravenous appetite for new music. To that end, I have several tools that I use to find more. Whenever I see a movie, I often look up the soundtracks at imdb or Amazon. I'm likely to email my friends Dave and Nick and beg for suggestions. The Gossip Girl website is good for new music (there are separate playlists for all the characters) and cdbaby is always there for me (and now sending me a newsletter!). Another good source of music you hear on t.v. is TuneFind. Just while looking for one of my links, I found this blog called Song a Day, which didn't last long but looks interesting, but alas, I can't find the one I was looking for. I'm a big fan of Cassette From My Ex (though I wish they'd update more often), which I've mentioned before. One of my happiest finds was NPR's Song of the Day newsletter (they have a Music Notes newsletter, too). Another extremely good find was the NY Times' Living with Music blog where writers are asked to make playlists. One of my recent favorites was Elissa Schappell and I, of course, adored Nick Hornby's. He made me extremely angry about a Ben Folds song I can't find anywhere. And best of all, he introduced me to the music blog I Am Fuel, You Are Friends.

Okay, don't say I never gave you anything. Hey! If you want to give me something, send me some links for great new music finds. I always need new music. Have a great weekend everybody.

Lying to tell the truth

2008-11-24T21:58:00.001-06:00

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It was actually a bit over 45 minutes, but the timer re-set itself while I was writing. Still pretty freaking awesome!!

Emily the Strange and Cyber Space

2008-11-24T12:50:00.003-06:00

I'm amused this morning to see Emily the Strange and Lauren Conrad side by side on the main page of MySpace. Oh what a world we live in.

And in my inbox, Megan McCafferty's newsletter showing me the cover and synopsis of the fifth and final Jessica Darling novel, Perfect Fifths. These books have pretty much shadowed me at every turn of my growing up so far, since I read the first one, Sloppy Firsts. And I read an amusing blog from McCafferty on her Fifteen Minutes on Facebook and MySpace. I feel like that pretty much every day, but I will persevere on in this cyber space.

You have everything you need

2008-11-23T20:24:00.007-06:00

Jamey told me that my new mantra is, "You have everything you need," and I am invoking it as frequently as possible. It's already helped the past few days and considering how crazy I've been, imagine how much crazier I would've been without, "You have everything you need."

Let's talk about food for a moment. Or an hour.

Can I just say how impeccable and lovely the meals always are at the Monteleone Hotel? The food is wonderful and the service is to die for, cordial and consistent. I always feel like I'm living my dream life when I'm in the rooftop dining room, looking out over the curve of the Mississippi and eating my vegetables like a good girl. Words and Music, the parts I attended, was divine this year, as usual. It's always chock-full of memorable people and experiences.

Afterwards, I dashed into Beckham's Bookshop (which, if I remember correctly, was the first bookshop I ever visited in Nola ten years ago) to buy James Nolan's Perpetual Care. Then, went into Southern Candymakers to buy some pralines. I'm always welcomed there like an old friend and I amuse them by selling candy while I'm in line by recommending my favorites to the tourists. I was shocked and enormously pleased when they gave me a discount. I once had an argument with somebody over which was the best candy shop in the city and after about five minutes of intense disagreement, we realized we were talking about the two locations of the same shop (at either end of Decatur). Another friend insists Laura's Candies is the best, especially their truffles, which I'll admit I haven't tried, but my money is always on Southern Candymakers, especially for pralines (but also try a Jackson Square or their huge peanut butter cups or their white chocolate macadamia tortues or their covered Oreos or their fudge or anything really). One of the candy sellers and I have an intense ongoing debate about whether pralines are best served warm (him) or frozen with milk (me). Either way, peanut butter and coconut are my favorites.

After my candy purchasing, I hopped in the car with Martin and was whisked away from downtown to Oak Street and the New Orleans Po'Boy Preservation Festival. Great fun all around and ran into some of Martin's friends and some of my own, which was nice and always the best part of festivals. However, I will name my favorite discovery of the festival. At the suggestion of Martin's cousin's friend's girlfriend L, and then the smell of my friend T's po'boy, we ventured down to the Parkway Bakery tent and got a $2 roast beef po'boy that was simply to die for. We'd already had two excellent po'boys (and a beer) between us (and there's no counting how many the two of us have had in our lifetimes), so you can trust me when I say that this was one of the most amazing gustatory experiences I've ever had. My friend V created the best adjective when I was clumsily trying to describe it to her later: po'gasmic (you'll have to bring it up with her if you want to use this in advertising). [Martin loves picking on me when I'm tired and reminded me that L is not his cousin-by-marriage's girlfriend, but rather his cousin's friend's girlfriend. Oh, south Louisiana...]

Which brings me to the last thing I wanted to discuss today. My novel has been TRULY making me crazy lately and in her usual, knowing way, Toni has written what I needed to read in today's Murderati blog, called Comfort Reading. Go read it now. If it doesn't make you cry or start writing immediately, as it did me, you have no heart and no eyes.

I've been enjoying watching the counter shoot up. Thanks to everybody who's reading.

The alchemy of reading

2008-11-22T11:52:00.005-06:00

What happens when a room full of editors and agents get asked the question, "What would you do if you were Oprah for a day and could change the publishing industry?" Well for one, if you're extremely lucky and make like Jane Goodall (stay still, downwind and silent), they'll forget that you (lots and lots of writers) are there and inadvertently engage in an industry meeting that *every* writer should witness. To every person involved in that panel at Words and Music, every agent and editor, thank you. I'm so glad that I and a gaggle of other writers got to see that. I was going to quote some of you because I did manage to jot down some of the pithier things you said verbatim. But the thing I think needs to be stressed most is that to change the publishing industry, we need to change the way our culture reads, change the way we think and speak about reading. When we love a book, we need to use the power of our voices and our fingers to tell everybody we know. At heart, despite everything else, writing and printing books has an intended goal - for people to read them (the "selling" and "buying" parts are secondary processes that allow the writing and printing to continue, but it's not the goal or product). How can we forget, allow others to forget or neglect to teach our youth what it feels like to not only hold a book (paper, ink, words) in your hands and read it with our very own eyes and our very own minds and our very hearts, but to be transformed by a book. The alchemy that reading is capable of is like nothing else out there. Nothing.

That said, here's a book that looks like it'll be really good and I soooo wish somebody had asked me to write for, Zombies Versus Unicorns. Anybody wanna guess which side I'm on???? :) And another book that I'm gonna read after hearing James Nolan read from it, Perpetual Care. And one of my favorite books ever, the one I buy every copy of in used bookstores to give as Christmas presents, re-read every year or so, Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. That should keep you busy while I play hooky from writing conferences and writing both...

P.S. This is my 100th post.

Outlook good...

2008-11-20T17:03:00.002-06:00

So today kicks of Words and Music, whooo hooooo and I've been lucky to meet Laura of The Three Ps of Post-MFA '08, not to mention a gaggle of other writers/filmmakers with whom she's associated, which is exciting AND NaNoWriMo is still on-going (so there's still a breath of a chance that I might actually do 50,000 words). So much going on.

The funny thing about working for a writer (who also happens to be your friend and mentor) is that eventually (even if you try to avoid it) you end up talking about writing and she (the writer, your friend and mentor) ends up figuratively kicking your ass in a much-needed way. Thank Gawd for Toni. After the figurative kick in the pants, I drove home from Baton Rouge in UTTER silence (which I never do) and sometimes spoke my story out loud and realized about seven major things in the book that I needed to know. Example? The biggest one - I realized one of my favorite characters has died by the last third book and oddly, the character has been trying to tell me that he's dead already for a while now by not appearing for the scenes I want him to be in. He just doesn't show up. I have every intention for him to be in that scene and then he stays in his apartment and won't play with the characters like I want him to. Whew.

So, I got home and went to pick up Chinese food at this place I like and it turned out I didn't have an acceptable mode of payment with me. Since they've seen me in there before, they were kind enough to let me leave without paying, trusting that I'd call them with a credit card. I did, of course, but I love that kind of trust in this day in age. And I had two fortune cookies in my bag, so I opened both of them (of course) and amazingly, it was the SAME fortune (different luck numbers): "Use your abilities at this time to stay focused on your goal. You will succeed."

All of my fortune cookies (and horoscopes) seem to be telling me the same thing - focus and you can finish this book by the end of the year.

So I had a great writing night that night and a pretty good one tonight. Hence:

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I'm off to get pretty for dinner.

Further signs of the apocalpyse

2008-11-14T12:33:00.000-06:00

Proposed New York library budget cuts. If anybody reads this, it'd be awesome if you'd sound off in the comments about why libraries rock. Why they're essential for an educated, healthy society and should be elaborately and lavishly funded.

[11/17: Nothing? Really? No one wants to say a word in defense of public libraries? I know there's been a bit of traffic here over the weekend...]

Oh thank Gawd

2008-11-13T16:55:00.001-06:00

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Lucinda's luxurious lyrics lulling...

2008-11-13T15:33:00.000-06:00

Listening to Lucinda Williams' Little Honey, which I finally broke down and (found!) bought myself. I have hereby bought my first Lucinda Williams cd, after all of the cds SOO's given me just bursting with her songs. Mr. Fox asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I said that, so then I thought I was being silly and should treat myself to what I wanted...

So much to discuss! Where do I start??? The physical act of writing has been crummy lately, but I've been getting tons of insights and everything I see, hear, read, feel seems to be influencing. I should be woken EVERY morning by one of my doctors calling me and gamely diagnosing my fictional character for me via the telephone. LOL. He's a good sport, he is, for taking the, "Uh, did your nurse tell you the question's not about me but about the character in my book...?" so very well. And the last line of my horoscope (Tarot.com) is telling: "Staying true to your character today is the best course of action."

Amusing me lately are these:

Code names for the future first family.

Apparently, I grew up in one of the best places to raise kids. But I'm no longer anywhere near such a place...

Enjoy the Rachel Getting Married website, then go enjoy the movie. It's a bit tough, but sooo beautiful and extraordinary. And I'm not just saying that because Demme somehow, magically picked my brain and filmed MY WEDDING years before it takes place. Seriously. I wasn't the only person to think so. Two people who know me both independently told me, "It was weird to watch your perfect wedding in the middle of that movie." Before I said anything about it. Between the multicultural aspect (for no explained reason, but which felt so right for the family and the couple), particularly the Indian influence (THAT CAKE! THOSE SARIS!) and the loose collection of musicians constantly playing and demonstrating, that is my wedding. Almost exactly as I've described it to friends. One part talent show a la Dr. Angelou's family Thanksgiving celebration, one part ongoing, random music concert and lots and lots of friends and family being angsty and loving and impossible and gorgeous. Seriously. On the other hand, if I ever do make a movie, I want to make it just as Demme et al did with this one. He invited his friends and family to be extras, guests at the wedding, armed guests/extras with cameras and had everybody at risk to the camera constantly, including the musicians, who played whenever and however they wanted. Seriously, SO COOL. (Somebody could give me the soundtrack for my birthday... if they wanted...)

Speaking of music, saw a great show at Circle Bar earlier this week: Simon Lott, Helen Gillet and Lucas Davenport. Check any and all of them out if you get the opportunity, highly recommended.

So sitting here at Cheers, I saw a girl who couldn't have been more than 8 or 9, entirely self-possessed, walk into the coffee shop with a copy of Twilight under her arm. She went and ordered a TALL coffee and then, equally self-possessed, walked out. It touched me and scared me to see her reading that book. It's a great book and I'm glad to see an 8 or 9 year old reading such a large book (not that the vocabulary would be too tricky...) BUT part of me wanted to stop her and go, "PLEASE don't grow up looking for love like this. Love like this in real life is SCARY. It's all well and good in a novel, but loving somebody or being loved like Bella and Edward love each other in these books is NOT something you want to aspire to. It's debilitating and dangerous." I like the books a whole lot, but it really scares me to see young folks looking at love through this lens - probably like it scared people when Wuthering Heights came out. Or even Romeo and Juliet, probably.

Now, I'm going to have to use this nifty little tool that comes to me by way of both After the MFA and GalleyCat and get some writing done.

It must've been a slow news day...

2008-11-08T19:15:00.001-06:00

...which is good news, I suppose. Enjoy.

The good life @ Yahoo! Video

Cake

2008-11-08T11:36:00.000-06:00

I'm rediscovering Cake lately. The band, not the food. But that reminds me that I seem to be obsessed with bands with food names lately. Hot Chocolate. I wondered if anyone else had the same problem and found this question on Google. Anyway, just listened to, "Friend Is a Four Letter Word" and apparently I will do *anything* rather than write.

An ode to Cheers

2008-11-07T16:33:00.002-06:00

The thing I love best about Cheers, as I just told Martin and as indicated by its (fake) name (let's call it a nickname) - if you sit still there long enough, eventually all people and things come to you. Just ran into my old friend Simon Lott and out of town musician Tim Collins walking down the street hitting as many coffeeshops as possible in one afternoon (they call it morning, but same difference).

The one thing not coming my way after hours of sitting at Cheers? Words. But eventually. All things in time, in good time, in their time...

Can I count these words?

College at 16??

2008-11-07T11:58:00.001-06:00

Do you think you were ready for college at 16? Not sure how I feel about this. I was in the IB program in school, so I can see the advantages and disadvantages of accelerated education. I think the important thing would be some sort of opt-in and opt-out options for the students.

One of the links within the article is to a Times photoessay "If Teens Could Vote." Here's my favorite teen Aaron, 17, and his quote, "I want to conquer the fascist American regime."

Have written 5,290 words this month so far. It's a lot, but need more. :)

OBAMA

2008-11-05T16:42:00.001-06:00

I watched both McCain's and Obama's speeches last night and I have to say that I think they're both great men, but I'm most certainly satisfied with the results. Let's see what Obama can do with four (and hopefully more) years. I think that the air of excitement and expectation that we feel now is remarkable and will hopefully propel great changes for our country.

The Vote so far

2008-11-04T12:26:00.001-06:00

So after frantically searching for both my voter registration card and my social security card (which I realized was "missing" while I was looking for the first), I discovered that I'm much more organized and rational than I expect myself to be (yeah, they were both in safe, obvious places) and went to bed.

Was a little later than I would've liked leaving the house for the poll. But once I got started, I was feeling good. Walking in brisk, but not cold breezes and happy-making but not sweltering sunshine, I ate a nectarine and was at my poll in less than five minutes. And sure enough, there in line is one of my favorite celebrities who make New Orleans home, chilling with his neighbors and waiting to vote. Gave him a big grin, glad he's part of the neighborhood and got into line.

And not long after (really short wait), I voted in my private booth and walked out happy. I fulfilled my responsibility, exercised my right and communicated my choice. Yesterday, I was inundated by a lot of stress that Obama wouldn't take the day and worried about less-than-happy citizens should he do so. I've never worried so much over an election (four years ago was close, but I had a pissy certainty of what was going to happen, despite our being a reasonably intelligent country) or a candidate. But today, I'm filled with joy that I did my part. I'm proud of M and N for campaigning the last two days and proud of everyone who's voted already or will do so, especially YOUNG voters who are taking this very seriously and very personally, as they should.

As for the McCain-Palin truck that came driving through my neighborhood honking its horn and begging for attention and votes - we may lose Louisiana, much to my chagrin. But you don't have me and you don't have my neighborhood. That's something.

Fess Up Sunday

2008-11-02T15:59:00.000-06:00

I guess I feel compelled to fess up again so soon because I've committed to not using my writing for TCB on NaNoWriMo. So I want to be accountable here, cause it'll help me keep writing. Thanks be to Jamey, who sent me a link to Tayari Jones' blog (so pretty and nice) where she named at least part of the process I'm doing - NaFinWriNoMo. Good to know there are others! Community is helpful to create pressure and propulsion and keep making progress. Good luck Tayari!

So, ahem:

D&R: 1,154 words so far ("official" NaNoWriMo word count)

TCB: 1,872 words last night.

I went from about 185 "done" pages to 202 "done" pages, in addition to that new writing. Let's see if I can keep it up...

A cheer for everybody doing NaNoWriMo. Keep it up, you can do it!!!!

Fess Up First

2008-11-01T16:41:00.001-05:00

In lieu of Fess Up Friday, which I abandoned early last month in shame because I wasn't generating new words, I'll fess up to my pre-NaNoWriMo word count, which is about only about 1,167. Wasn't working all that often, wasn't counting much when I was because I wasn't generating new words, but editing. So, toward that end, I'll confess that I have about 186 edited and "done" pages of TCB. I'm roaring toward the halfway mark and the pieces are falling together.

Crazy proposition that it is, I'm doing a dual NaNoWriMo project. I'm going to work on a brand new fun project in order to fulfill the mandate of NaNoWriMo, though I may not "win" this year as my focus will be on using the in-built propulsion of NaNoWriMo to finish all of the new writing for TCB. The new, fun project will serve as a writing exercise to open up my writing pores and get me going so I can get into the new writing for TCB more easily. We'll see how this goes, exactly how crazy it'll prove to be.

For the new project, which I'm lazily calling "Ryan & Dana" at the moment, I wrote 1,154 words today. Those are the only words I'll input into my NaNoWriMo word counter, but I'll confess both here.

A side note - t.v. studios are great bunches of idiots

2008-11-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

Though I should be noveling and kick-starting my NaNoWriMo project, I took a second to queue up The Ex List as a reward for getting my words done today since, of course, I didn't catch it last night. And I discover that it's been canceled. Four episodes in. CBS, for shame!

There's several points I want to make here:

-CBS, nobody watches t.v. regularly on Friday nights except for older folks and young marrieds. Singletons like me will watch irregularly, but not enough to give you the numbers you want. So therefore, do you really think that The Ex List's demographic was the same as THE GHOST WHISPERER? Really? You put it on the wrong night. Face it, you're idiots. It would've been okay if you'd just let us watch it online when we wanted and been happy with that.

-EVERY studio is guilty of making this massive investment of money and NOT INVESTING TIME! Four episodes?! Did it ever occur to any of these pinhead executives that modern t.v. audiences a) don't like to sit down at the same time every week to watch t.v., even their favorite shows and b) don't trust that a show's going to last and often wait to see if the show makes it before they'll commit their time and affection to it. So we're developing a vicious cycle here. The studios put the shows out, but we've been burned before, so we go into wait-and-see-cautious mode. Therefore, after a very small amount of time (4 episodes!), the show gets pulled cause not enough people are watching. Because you've TRAINED us to realize that shows are likely to get pulled, no matter how much we love them, early on unless enough people get on board quickly.

-WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE between me watching the show on my t.v. (paying for cable, watching commercials) and watching it later, at my own convienence on my computer (paying for Internet, watching commercials). AND, All-Wise-and-Knowing-T.V.-Idiots, you can actually keep better track of how many unique hits there are on the Internet than you can of who's watching on t.v. the night it airs. Think about this - people get up and walk away from commercials to make popcorn, etc. You can't control whether they see it or not. When we watch it on the Internet, we can still get up and walk away, but there's only one ad, so we're less likely to. We can browse away from the ad, but we can still hear it. AND, because there's only one ad, rather than a handful, we're more likely to remember the product and message. We're more likely to be exposed and affected to the spots that are attached to the shows online than we are on t.v.. It's to your freaking advantage for us to watch the shows for free when we want to.

-Just because younger generations of t.v. watchers are known to have shorter attention-spans doesn't mean you shouldn't commit to a full season of a show and give everybody a chance to get into it. They already freaking shot 11 episodes! Why not air 11 episodes, rather than a RERUN OF NCIS (which is a show I like, but don't watch - I wait for the DVDs). Face it, pinheads, t.v. watching is forever changed by the Internet and by DVD episode sales. Get with it and invest your time in a show, not just a shitload of money. You owe it to us, the people you're trying to make money off of, to let us have a chance to reject or accept a show. A real chance. Our hearts are not yo-yos. We can't take the uncertainty of not knowing if a show's going to last or not, or all of the re-scheduling and rumors. Make a show. Air a show. Give us a season to like it. That's fair, all around.

Get ready, get set, WRITE!!

2008-11-01T13:05:00.000-05:00

NaNoWriMo is on!

And my horoscope for today. See if you can make sense of it:

Saturday, Nov 1st, 2008 -- You may feel pretty set in your ideas, yet something's gnawing at you from deep within your subconscious mind and you cannot make it go away. Perhaps it first arose in a dream or a passing thought. Now, however, you may be ready to embark on a journey of discovery that could include a quick getaway in the real world. There's no reason to struggle trying to separate facts from fantasy. For now, let them be the same thing.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T13:19:00.000-05:00

Everybody be safe and have fun this Halloween, whatever that entails for you. I'm excited about my plans.

And tomorrow, NaNoWriMo begins, so get ready...

Phenomena

2008-10-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

What does it mean that I keep thinking it's 2009 already?

The opening of fiction as seduction

2008-10-26T18:55:00.000-05:00

Once again, Toni has a great writing post over at Murderati. This one is all about how to write the opening of a book, thinking of it as a seduction... Dammit (but also thank you).

Worried and sad

2008-10-26T16:44:00.000-05:00

I'm horrified to read about Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother. Hoping for the safe return of her nephew, Julian King.

[10.28.08 Update: Sadly, I just learned that Julian King was found dead yesterday. My thoughts are with Jennifer Hudson and her family.]

Voting, NaNoWriMo and extraneous fun

2008-10-25T14:53:00.000-05:00

On the very precipice of NaNoWriMo (Nov. 1st) and the all-important vote (Nov. 4th), I'm finally writing again. Not that I haven't had things to say, but it seems like I haven't stood still long enough to say them lately.

First - very excited about the kick off of NaNoWriMo ONE WEEK from today. I still haven't decided if I'm going to participate fully and officially by writing something new or if I'm going to try to use the crazy in-built propulsion of NaNoWriMo to do the rest of the new writing I need for TCB. If you want to keep track of my new words and be my novelling buddy, here is my NaNoWriMo profile. I will say that it's important for me to participate in some way this year as last year was my first year and saved my life and/or my writing. Seriously. No hyperbole here. I've written "seriously" (my definition) since I was 10 years old and after 7 steady years of studying creative writing, I'd forgotten how fun writing could be, how much joy there was there for me. I had a memory of what it was like to want to write more than anything else, to enjoy it, and I desperately wanted that feeling back. NaNoWriMo helped give that back to me last year and I think I need a booster shot. Sign up and be my buddy. Commit to 50,000 words in one month - shoot for the stars. Even if you don't achieve 50,000 words, you will have achieved something you never would've thought is possible - even if it's 5 words you wouldn't have written, 50, 500, 5,000.

And while I'm encouraging participation, it is ESSENTIAL that everybody vote. No matter how you vote (though I think everybody knows how I'd prefer this one to go), we MUST remember how much the power to vote means, how hard so many people fought for the right. And it is a right and a responsibility. We owe it to ourselves to do our part and speak up. Up until yesterday, I wasn't entirely certain if I'd remembered to register to vote in Nola and I can't tell you how pleased I was to learn that not only had I done my civic duty and registered appropriately, but I can WALK to the polls on my day off. That's going to make it a very fun activity for me. Everybody vote - you won't have any right to complain unless you do because you wouldn't have done the bare minimum we can do as citizens to affect change.

Now that the advertisement and public service announcement are over, here's some links to things I've been paying attention to:

Hannah Tinti's new book and a tiny tidbit more on the humorously, pointlessly heated YA/adult fiction schism (from GalleyCat). [REALLY folks, WHY is it so necessary to define the difference as if both aren't as difficult, as valid and as if they don't crossover as much as they certainly do?]

WHOA - Christopher Buckley. Good for you. Also from GalleyCat.

Jewel of Medina's only sold 3,000 copies, probably cause people are having trouble finding it. And a link from the above piece on Borders' book buying. Both from GalleyCat.

I feel like there's so much more I'm forgetting to say and to link to. That's what happens when I don't keep up with my interests and thoughts diligently, religiously. :) Am very excited and conflicted about the multitude of amazing Halloween shows (Zydepunks and the New Orleans Bingo! Show. In one night! And this is even without trick-or-treating and costumes. Oh man.) Speaking of costumes, I love that I keep seeing people randomly walking around in them. Loving the cool weather, but not looking forward to retiring my flip-flops and being conscientious about sleeves. I'm not good at that stuff - am in serious denial. Maybe I can find some furry flip-flops and get away with just a scarf... I think I seriously need to consider buying a coat. Sigh.

I'm in love...again...

2008-10-19T15:22:00.000-05:00

I have reunited with my love, The Magnetic Fields, and come away from the event with my love renewed and amplified and electrified. Sigh. Drove 1,000 miles in 48 hours in order to catch them in Atlanta at the Woodruff Arts Center, picking up my sister and nephew on the way. We got stuck in really gross traffic (road work, accidents, rain), which made the trip into Atlanta, delivering my nephew to Grammy and getting ready take at least twice as long as it would've normally. But, we listened to "69 Love Songs," "Get Lost," and "The Charm of the Highway Strip" all the way from her house in Alabama to Atlanta (deliriously following a combination of MapQuest and sweetly surly Woodruff operator directions to the parking garage off of Peachtree Street ("JUST Peachtree Street, after you cross over West Peachtree Street..." - thank GAWD I grew up in Atlanta, thank GAWD I'm used to driving in a city) on 16th. The whole way, Me was blissfully "Not Mommy at the Moment," throwing up her hands with her charming, pleased-to-be-out-even-if-we're-not-there-yet smile. :)

Demonically exhausted and residually sick, I sat with Me in the 2nd row, to the left of the stage (if you're facing it) and lapped up every sound, every second of the event. It's the first time I've seen them live, after all. First, we watched Michael Hearst, their opening act, who was amusing and interesting and, best of all, a producer for Cassette from My Ex, which I discovered recently and adore. On the way back from dropping Me and the kid off, I got one of my typical "road trip brainstorms" for what, I realize now, is essentially Cassette from My Ex. Ooops. Good idea. ;")

I was blissfully happy while The Magnetic Fields were playing and dismayed when they weren't. They didn't play either of my two utter favorites, but they did play some songs I hadn't heard and some of the lovely familiar ones. Here's a set list from a show earlier this year that was pretty similar (though, yes, different, so be warned).

One of my favorite moments was Stephin's introduction to "California Girls," "This is a song about media literacy. (decent length pause) And feminism." He didn't speak much, but was very funny when he did. It doesn't matter what he says or sings, his voice is astounding. He's one of the few people who embodies that saying, "he could read me the phone book," which brings to mind "The Book of Love" lyrics, "I love it when you read to me and you can read me anything" and later, "I love it when you sing to me and you can sing me anything." Really Stephin, those lyrics embody my feelings for your voice. On top of the "he could say/sing anything" sentiment is a ever-present thrill at how intelligent, witty and canny his lyrics and delivery are. I know I'm raving about Stephin Merritt and there are many other gorgeous vocals on their songs - Claudia Gonson and Shirley Simms. They deserve miles of appreciation for their vocals, it's just that I don't want to marry their voices like I want to marry Stephin's. :) Oh Stephin, you brilliant, funny, human Eyeore "Something bad will happen to them anyway," he says about children on Good Day Atlanta, his persona underscoring the inanity of the newscaster's. Priceless. I was amused, but not surprised, to read recently that ABBA is Stephin's favorite band and whenever Shirley Simms sings, I have little flashes of Fleetwood Mac (in the best possible way). My other favorite moment was hearing "This Little Ukulele" for the first time. You can see it in Pt. 2 of this interview here (and here's Pt. 1 for you, too).

In other things-I'm-interested-in, read this and watch the two SNL clips featuring Fey as Palin, Palin as Palin and a whole lot of can-you-name-what's-wrong here. (Vising my parents' home on my whirlwind Atlanta 48 hours, I was HORRIFIED to see my parents sandwiched in my McCain-Palin yard signs. There goes the cul-de-sac.)

Congrats to all the National Book Award Finalists, but especially E. Lockhart for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (via Publishers Lunch).

And: Oct 16 marks the 250th birth anniversary of Noah Webster (1758-1843), lexicographer extraordinaire, who compiled the American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), the first authoritative lexicon of American English." The word of the day that day (via Wordsmith) was epeolatry, which is the worship of words. Hmmm. Maybe that's my religion. I could really get into that. What would the appropriate church be? Perhaps Cheers, as everyone here is the loving-words type. Well everyone I talk to.

Did I say how good it is to be back? It feels like weeks and months since I got to lounge at Cheers. And whoa, somebody or other even made an appearance today, right on cue, all the way from NYC. Great timing SOO (as your nickname is anagrammed).

My coughing fit (yes, still coughing) is disturbing the others and I have a casserole dish full of Mamma Mia!'s world-famous, belly-infamous tuna casserole to enjoy. So, I now depart Cheers, stage right.

Vote or shut yo' mouth!

2008-10-09T15:19:00.001-05:00

Becks just sent me this link. I especially love the campaign slogan, "Vota o quedate calla'o" — "Vote or keep your mouth shut." I think we need our American version to be, "Vote or SHUT YO' MOUTH!"

Today's horoscope (Tarot.com): Thursday, Oct 9th, 2008 -- Today you may get a glimpse of the intense times that lay ahead for you. This little "fast forward" can be instrumental as you try to figure out what you want to do next. But don't try to make any important decisions yet, for you haven't had sufficient time to explore the different paths. Instead, remain open to wherever you are led; you'll have time later to make a more educated choice.

So sad and so true, 2008 is particularly bad (and that's SAYING something!) for post-MFA graduates trying to find jobs. And I thought I had it rough last year. Well, I suppose I'm still technically a post-MFA looking for a job. Ish.

And in the MOST EXCITING NEWS EVER (E-V-A-H!), I just bought tickets to see The Magnetic Fields, one of my favorite bands if not THE favorite, in Atlanta next weekend. Whoooo hooooo!! Here's a pretty cool video someone did of their song "Busby Berkeley Dreams":

And another that Martin sent me that's just cool (NOT Magnetic Fields):

And one I found that I really like:

HOW could a whole week have gone by already??

2008-10-08T18:16:00.000-05:00

I have even less context telling me WHERE I'm at (BR or Nola) than usual lately. Which has kind of kept me spinning, kept me from blogging and from writing much. Not much to confess for last week's 'Fess Up Friday. I'm working, but not so much in terms of word count. Thinking, editing and adding slowly but surely (only about 185 new words last night, but BOY are they brilliant).

Via After the MFA, a great quote from thank-goodness-for Junot Diaz:

What I learned was that to write a book you have to first become the person you need to be to write that book. I had to, like, literally change. I had to become a new person. I had to grow the f— up.

Here's something I like. My most recent fortune cookie: Your present plans are going to succeed within the year. Since the only plan I currently have is to finish the novel (and I hope to finish it by the end of the year), I'm taking this as an EXTREMELY good sign. We'll have words if you don't take it that way too (and maybe we can count them and I can add them to my 'Fess Up Friday tally...).

Today's horoscope (from Tarot.com): Wednesday, Oct 8th, 2008 -- Your key planet Saturn is locked in a tense dance with healer Chiron today and it's up to you to figure out how to take this uncomfortable energy and turn it into a positive expression. You have the potential for grace in your life now, but you must be able to forgive someone or even yourself. The realization that no one is to blame can free you to process an old wound and move on with your life. (This one, I'm thinking might not have so much to do with my writing as my personal life, though since my writing is personal and a part of me, I'm sure it relates, also).

The Louisiana Book Festival this past weekend was awesome. WORLDS more organized and slick than it was during the first one, which I volunteered for (they were actually pretty organized for that one too, which just goes to show how far they've come). It was nice to catch up with a lot of my BR writing peeps at the author party I attended with Toni the night before, mostly former teachers and always mentors. Toni was kick-ass during her talk and it was a VERY pretty day, so perfect for an outdoor festival in Southern Louisiana.

The best part, though? (Sorry Toni...) ZYDEPUNKS!!! Whoooooo hoooo!! I missed their cd release party cause I went to GA after Gustav and then I missed the show they had the night before, Friday, cause I was in BR for the author party (DAMN you, Nick Fox for that little snippet you sampled for me over the cell phone. LOL). So, I got to catch their action for the first time in a long while AND snap up the new cd Finisterre, which is only available in Louisiana at the moment, until the 21st. I linked to cdbaby.com, though Finisterre isn't available there yet simply because it's the BEST cd-buying experience one can have online. Anyways, as soon as I had the new cd in my hot little hands, I ripped open the shrink wrap on my way to the car and shoved the sucker in immediately, listening to it all the way back home to Nola. Sooooooo good, so perfect for my long-deprived ears. How can you not like a band that's a little bit punk and a lot zydeco and every bit delicious?

I got another cd at the festival, too. My good friend, Randolph, was kind enough to give me his band Flatbed Honeymoon's cd (self-titled). I listened to it the same day and was very, very pleased and proud. I forgot several times that I know 2/3 the band from my English Dept. days and just felt like I was luxuriating in some classic, tried-and-true tunes I'd loved forever. Especially "Constantly Insecure," "The Electrician," and "The Moon is Blue." You can listen to "The Electrician" and some of the other songs from the cd on their MySpace page.

So I had a glut of amazing music, all in one day and I've been compulsively re-listening ever since. Also been listening to Kerli's Love is Dead pretty intensely. And got wowed by Linda Ronstadt's "We Will Rock You," which is short but delightfully sweet and creepy.

Caught the first episode of The Ex-List online yesterday and very thoroughly enjoyed it. It was funny and I hope the show's given a decent chance cause I'd like to see where it goes. Elizabeth Reaser is hysterical, but I like that they're making it more of an ensemble with her sister and friends/housemates (DO they all live together in that house? Seems like it.) Kinda reminded me a bit of my soft spot show Quarterlife, which I believe can only be found online now (SUCH a good show, hope a DVD comes out soon). And also kinda reminds me of Friends and How I Met Your Mother a bit - in the sense of a group of young friends living together (or near each other) and trying to figure life out. That's a really sappy description, but you get my drift, I hope.

Speaking of How I Met Your Mother, it's been VERY good so far this season.

I think that's pretty much all I have to say at the moment. Till next time...

Nibbled to death by ducks

2008-10-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

Via my emailed Publisher's Lunch from a few days ago, I find that Scotland Yard has foiled a terrorist attempt on the life of The Jewel of Medina's UK publisher. Here's the link PL sent. The next day (yesterday), PL included this snipet:

"Managing director of Compass (the sales company for the UK's Gibson Square) Alan Jessop tells the Bookseller that Martin Rynja "has put publication [of THE JEWEL OF MEDINA] in suspended animation while he reflects and takes advice on what the best foot forward is." The book was supposed to be published in the UK on October 15. Jessop added, "Everyone is going to have to be patient. This requires some careful thinking."

That report follows author Sherry Jones's agent Natasha Kern telling the NYT that Gibson Square "is planning to go ahead with the book, as are other publishers worldwide, despite this shocking attack."

President of Beaufort Books Eric Kampmann indicates to the AP "that there were no immediate worries about safety" in the US and his company is proceeding with publication."

I'm not liking the direction that all of this is taking - terrorism and censorship. The news about the terrorist attempt begs a chicken or egg question: did the terrorists get the idea to target the publisher of this controversial book from the NEWS reporting that terrorists might react negatively to it? Which came first? The speculation about terrorism or the idea on the part of the terrorists to terrorize?

Some speculation about Donna Tartt changing houses, via GalleyCat.

It feels wrong to speculate about terrorism and censorship in one breath and then talk about the more frivolous things I want to talk about, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

From Becks, a photograph of the world's largest cupcake. That makes me happy.

In more sugar-related happiness news, I got to tour the Hubig's Pies bakery today with a friend who works there. The private tour was complete with fresh (fresh!) off the press (?) apple pies and a beautiful mandatory hairnet. Too bad there's no pictures of that - Emilie in a hairnet eating an apple Hubig's pie. They don't really advertise, but I bet they would've used that one and really moved some pies. LOL.

And to end on a not-frivolous, but still fun and touching note, read about Ruthie the Duck Lady.

(The nibbled to death by ducks comes from Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which I'm listening to in the car.)

Feeling good for October

2008-10-01T11:13:00.001-05:00

Today is one of the prettiest I've seen in a long time. I'm in Nola, there's a cool breeze and good things are happening. Groovy.

What good things, you ask?

My volleyball team won 2 of our 3 games last night. My serves improved, even if my communication hasn't improved much yet. The team rocked and I was very proud of all of them, to be a part of them.

A few days ago, I finished Part I of TCB and barreled straight on through a good portion of the first chapter in Part II. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but it feels like the rest of the book could come faster now because a significant portion of the new material is in Part I. I have a lot of new material left, but it feels like the rest of the book is more a matter of finessing and editing that creating from scratch. Almost all of Part I was brand spanking new. Maybe about 75% at least.

Looking forward to the Louisiana Book Festival this weekend. Hope the weather continues to be so pretty.

I forgot to watch t.v. and a belated Fess Up Friday

2008-09-27T16:08:00.000-05:00

I'm a t.v.-holic and I've been forgetting for weeks now that most t.v. shows have returned from hiatus. Honestly, I'm having fun not watching t.v., not being chained to the boob tube. There's lots of shows I want to be watching, I don't think we've necessary lost quality. But I don't want to be told where to be and when any more than I have to be. Don't have Tivo, so that means I'm going to watch t.v. shows like Bones, which I don't want to get behind on (my favorite show), online. The studios need to get with it and start counting downloads rather than cancelling quality shows based on out-dated and inaccurate Nielson ratings. We're still getting our dose of advertising, so what's the difference? Did catch most of Survivor this Thursday, after forgetting it was premiering till an ex-coworker and always friend reminded me. I'm way behind on House. And I missed How I Met Your Mother, but I'll rectify that shortly. How does anybody have the luxury of being bored anymore?

From somebody or other, here's a hilarious video of the mock Sarah Palin Disney movie Head of Skate. Oh watch it and laugh, for ye will.

And my Fess Up Friday reckoning:

9/20 - 1,646 words (finishing 5/I and working on 5/II)
9/24 - 607 words (probably continuing work on 5/II)
9/26 - 1,303 words (finishing 5/II and working on 5/III)

Still lame, but getting better all the time. Let's see if I can get into better habits and pick up the pace in October before NaNoWriMo kicks off November 1st. That means, I need to write today.

So sad

2008-09-27T15:24:00.001-05:00

RIP Paul Newman. Really wish I'd gotten to meet you, you seemed like a really awesome person and I always loved your movies. I think I'll watch The Long Hot Summer today in memorial.

"...and stalk them..."

2008-09-24T15:52:00.000-05:00

Nifty little video on agent research.

Late Fess Up Friday

2008-09-20T14:32:00.000-05:00

9/16: 1,092

That's it. Slightly less depressing than nothing, but nothing to brag on. I'm getting closer to what I want and making some solid realizations. One of which is that I don't think I'm letting anybody read the book anymore until I finish a draft that I'm happy with. This is so opposite to how I usually work - I thrive on feedback. But, I'm figuring out that with TCB, there are too many cooks in the kitchen and I'm kicking them all out till I finish my masterpiece feast. Just wait till you get to taste it - it'll be worth it then. Promise.

So my friend Nick Fox, a writer, doesn't have a website or a blog or anything. He's amazingly low-tech, with only an email newsletter (in which he often argues with Ernest Hemingway and others) sent out to family, friends and folks he meets on his travels. With his permission, I'm quoting from his most recent (a return to New Orleans on The City of New Orleans):

"There’s something to be said for inefficiency, I think. If I’d flown to New Orleans, I would have been here in a couple of hours. But that’s like entering a time machine. You go through elaborate security measures, you find a neatly ordered seat inside a round capsule, there’s some noise and bumping and a couple hours later, there you are, on the other side of the country. It’s time travel. And it’s not very interesting.

On the train, you wait. You watch the scenery go by. There is the sense of an actual journey to a destination. You do not click your heels three times and say, “There’s no place like Basin Street. There’s no place like Basin Street.” You wait. And if you have to wait three hours at a standstill because of trouble with the line, that’s just part of the deal. And if the rails are flooded around New Orleans due to Hurricane Ike and they have to bring busses up to Mississippi to pick up the passengers and take them the last hundred miles in the rain, then that’s just the way it goes. It’s a journey. And you enjoy this journey."

I'm passing along a link about Gustav with a picture of Anna West (one of the infamous Baton Rouge Annas) and here's a link to an interview Nick did with C.J. Hribal (in lieu of a link to an actual, you know, website). Welcome home, mister.

A friend, James B. (one of the roommate candidates) forwarded me a bit of hilariousness regarding Brocabulary. Here's some funny ones (the source of the forward):

brostalgia - Nostalgia for something you did with your bro or bros. 'Oh, man, all this talk about keg stands is making me brostalgic.'
duedonym - A name that only your dudes call you. 'I used to play football with this guy, Kevin. But everyone knew him by his duedonym, 'One Ball Rosenthal.''
fellodrama - Melodrama between fellows. 'Brody peaced at Stephanie Pratt's bday to avoid any fellodrama with Spencer.'
friendjamins - Hundred dollar bills, lent to a friend. 'It's all about the friendjamins, baby.'
guyamese twins - Two guys who are pretty much inseparable. 'Can you believe Brad Pitt and George Clooney are doing another movie together? Those dudes are like total guyamese twins.'

And The Magnetic Fields are coming to Atlanta next month, on the 17th. Anyone want to go to the show with me? I can't miss it, haven't seen them live yet and they're pretty much my favorite band. Or one of them.

A friend of a friend of mine rescued an adorable puppy in Baton Rouge. I want to adopt it so badly but can't, so I'm making it a mission to help find it a home. If anybody relatively close to BR wants this puppy, let me know.

[Thanks to my friend M. and his friend M., the puppy has found a home. Thanks to K. who originally rescued her in BR and to C. for connecting K. and me.]

[M. has informed me that his friend M.'s friends (the new family) have named the puppy Kia. Now there's a name for "the puppy." Yay!]

Political correctness burns me up, especially when it's worthless

2008-09-18T18:24:00.000-05:00

So I'm at a notary public's office where they do vehicle registrations for the DMV and they had a display of possible license plate choices. One of them read: "Choose Life." I'm not going to get into my personal beliefs on the abortion issue or attack anybody else's. But on a very real, rhetorical level, I object to the very way we discuss abortion and our stance on the issue.

PRO CHOICE or PRO LIFE. That's absurd. ABSURD. AB-S-U-R-D. How can there be two pro sides on an issue? If we're debating, we're already screwed. Therefore, many people would have us think that it's "Pro life" and "Anti life," but that's not the issue at all. The issue is about CHOICE, not about LIFE. If I support a woman's right to choose, I'm therefore pro CHOICE. If you don't support somebody's right to choose (and want to pick a DMV license plate to announce that), then you're really ANTI CHOICE, not PRO LIFE. It's that simple. Nobody who supports a woman's right to choose wants to kill babies, is against the idea of babies or new life. We (ahem, they) merely support the idea that a woman should be able to decide. But the pro lifers would NEVER agree to be on the anti stance of this debate and they don't want to discuss the real issue, which is about choice (do we not live in the land of the free? the "freest" country in the world?) because then people would actually have to THINK about the issue, what the issue really is, rather than make an emotional decision. And it's hard not to be emotional about babies. That's biology.

And where's the pro choice license plate option? So much for separation of church and state.

Then there's this: Rose McGowan's comments. When did we get so afraid of people having opinions? Even if they're different than ours. What kind of an idiot would assume that Rose McGowan's personal opinions represent the thoughts and opinions of her studio? I mean, I get that it's for legal purposes. But I just detest this pandering we do to absolute ridiculousness. She has an opinion and it's a little shocking. And, worst of all, she actually spoke her mind. Reminds me of the link I put up a while ago about Katherine Heigl kicking heiny. Yes, they're gorgeous actresses. But that doesn't mean they don't get to speak their mind, even if their studio does think it's ill-timed. What great press, though. Hadn't even heard of the movie and now I have.

I'm getting so tired of people being afraid to argue (even me, y'all). Argue properly in a way that genuinely challenges beliefs, laws, conventions. It's the truth of all things - when your belief in something has been challenged, it is all the stronger when it passes through. But the truth is we're afraid our beliefs won't stand the challenges. And maybe they won't. Scary stuff.

Help

2008-09-16T13:49:00.000-05:00

I've known it, but now I've had to sit still long enough to face it. I'm not writing because I'm scared. It could take a book in and of itself to talk about what I'm scared of. But I'm scared. So I'm going to sit here some more and keep trying to not be scared enough to write.

My oh my

2008-09-16T13:34:00.001-05:00

I feel like somebody gave me a bon bon looking at this delicious piece of SNL with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton.

As soon as I saw pictures of Sarah Palin, I knew SNL would be calling Tina Fey and thank lordy for it. Just goes to show you that the ladies have it - SNL, that is. If anything could restore SNL to anything like it's former hilariousness, it's Fey, Poehler and hopefully new generations of smart, funny, women.

The bit made me side with Clinton a bit, which scared me. But oh, oh, is it funny ("...and you just glided in on a dogsled wearing a pageant sash and your Tina Fey glasses!" and "...please, ask this one about dinosaurs!")...

Toni's lastest Murderati

2008-09-16T12:45:00.000-05:00

Really interesting post from Toni over at Muderati's site. I've had this conversation several times with folks (as a former bookseller) about African-American fiction sections and what that naturally leads to when you think about young adult and any marketing/genre distinctions (in what ways are they helpful, in what was arbitrary).

I especially like her thought about Clarence and the, "I couldn't write that." The reading she mentions was a FABULOUS one at Chelsea's last year with Toni, Clarence and Ronlyn Domingue, arranged as a fundraiser for New Delta Review and also as a way to celebrate these incredible writers. I honestly can't think of three writers who are more different in their style and their subject matters and I adore them all as writers and as people. They all have in common the LSU MFA program, which might be surprising when you see what they've done since their time there. Or it might not be.

Check out their websites and books and see what you think:

Clarence
Ronlyn
Toni

Curious

2008-09-16T12:29:00.000-05:00

Saw this piece that is a curious reversal of our expectations. Sure, we're used to movies taken from books, but here's a book, Love Dare, that was written because of a movie (and not a movie novella).

Loving The Frames' Cry Me a River. What a fun cover.

And more even than the cover, I'm loving the gorgeous fall weather, cool and non-humid, we're experiencing. Too bad it's going to leave soon. Humidity always feels so much worse after a taste of a cool breeze.

Ike

2008-09-13T13:10:00.000-05:00

Ike ignored New Orleans, except for flinging some rain and some very intense winds our way (couldn't drive to BR yesterday because it was so difficult keeping the car on the road, especially on the spillway Thursday night and yesterday morning, it'd only gotten worse). Lots of people in Baton Rouge who'd just gained power after Gustav lost it again.

And Galveston. I can only imagine how that city fares after Ike and I hope they recover as best and fast as they can.

I've been hearing from Baton Rouge an old (and valid) complaint, "There's more to Louisiana than New Orleans!" Hurricanes are an entirely different matter in Baton Rouge. I hadn't completely anticipated that when I moved to New Orleans. Baton Rouge, before Gustav, hadn't been hard hit for years. They'd forgotten how to protect themselves and how to recover - Baton Rouge is the most likely place to evacuate, after all! Not the place that gets hit. So we forget how hard it can be brought to its knees. I lived there for seven years and I was shocked, SHOCKED, by the amount of damage while I was evacuated there and as I've been going back for work. Downed trees everywhere. Demolished houses on Park Blvd where enormous old oaks with shallow roots gave up the good fight and toppled into houses they'd sheltered for years. The house right next to a former boss of mine, so badly damaged that it made me shake.

It's entirely understandable why so much attention goes immediately to New Orleans whenever a storm even threatens to go into the Gulf. We're a bowl, so susceptible to flooding and we've never recovered from Katrina completely, never covered from any storm the way that we've needed to in order to stand an honest chance against a direct hit. Add in the economics of it all (hello, tourism, we are generally understood to be the cultural center of the state, not that makes us superior, just incredibly important in terms of economics and culture) and you can see why, not that that makes it right that other places lose focus. Let's not forget how Katrina made the world extremely aware of New Orleans's vulnerability. Nobody wants to see that again...

Anywhere. Gustav and Ike remind us that no, it's not just New Orleans. We need drastically better protection against these ever-increasing storms all along the coast, especially the Gulf. We need better plans. New Orleans had a handle on it this time... nobody dreamed Baton Rouge would be hit the way it was, but we need to start assuming that anyplace can and will be hit, ferociously and without mercy.

And in the end, there's always going to be times when there is something we can't anticipate, can't protect against. We have to try, but we can't guarantee.

Fess Up Friday

2008-09-10T19:20:00.000-05:00

I called in "can't keep the car on the road in this wind" to work today, at Cheers working instead. So let's get Fess Up Friday out of the way first because - I've stalled. Nothing. I did some good editing last Sunday, but that's about it. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm a bit spastic and distracted.

More pleasant things abound...

Really digging the new PolyAnna strip and there's LOTS of stuff my inbox insisted on sharing with me and therefore, with you.

NPR review of Alan Ball's Towelhead.

"In the unlikely event that Earth and humanity are destroyed, mankind can be resurrected with Stephen Colbert's DNA," Garriott s aid in a statement. I couldn't have said it better, so I just copy and pasted. Dying laughing here. Who would you choose to be cloned in the event that humanity is destroyed? I love that I posted a piece a while back about people wanting to vote for Jon Stewart as President and here I am posting that Stephen Colbert's DNA's going into space in order to potentially one day resurrect humanity.

NPR on The Bechdel Rule, 23 years later. I wonder if Alien is STILL the last movie Bechdel's been able to see...

Thanks be to Jenny Rappaport. This is a cool idea. Hope it doesn't get too overwhelming too quickly. Here's just her Book Block website. (Via GalleyCat)

Short shorts, micro-novels and text stories. Interesting. (Via GalleyCat again) The deadline is September 19th and here are the rules. You win free chocolate for a year and an Apple iPhone. Jamey, you have to enter this contest.

Also via GalleyCat, Guide to Literary Agents blog had a worst storyline contest, read about the winner here.

Cool article about how babies begin to recognize words.

And another about letting misspellers off the hook. I see the point, but we have to have standards and we have to correct students' mistakes so that they'll learn something. In this day and age, what with texting and instant messaging and just plain emailing already messing changing the face of our language and our spelling, punctuation and even salutatory standards, we have to continue to at least TEACH our standards, not just throw up our hands and say "oh well, your spelling is variant." Everyone misspells and wrongly punctuates on occasion, and some times it matters more than others. But we still have to TEACH the standards of our language. Yes, they'll change and mutate with our technology and culture, but we still have to TEACH them. Big breath. "In 1906, Mark Twain lobbied the Associated Press to use phonetic spelling. "The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet," he once wrote. "It doesn't know how to spell, and can't be taught." I agree with changing the standards, perhaps (because they're changing and have always changed on their own, regardless) but this quote bothers me: "The senior lecturer in criminology at Bucks New University in Buckinghamshire, England, sees so many misspellings in papers submitted by first-year students that he says we'd be better off letting the perpetrators off the hook and doing away with certain spelling rules altogether." Yes, I know correcting it consumes so much of a teacher's time. That just means we need to focus on perhaps better standards and better METHODS FOR TEACHING those standards, not a throwing up of our hands and no standards. Where'd that rant come from? I don't know, but here's another related article. (Last three via WordSmith's newsletter)

A word about my bevy of Word of the Day links. I'm trying to improve my vocabulary. Not because I don't know a lot of word, but because I'm lazy like everybody is and tend to use the same ones a lot. Which isn't a great idea for a writer. So I'm overdosing on words of the day. They're not all created equal, but they're all good. I like the format of Merriam-Webster's the best, and the "did you know" about the origin of that day's word the best. I like Dictionary.com's format a lot. And I love WordSmith's perhaps best of all because it contains an audio file where you can hear the word pronounced AND a bonus thought for the day. Like this recent one:

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all." -Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) [Through the Looking Glass]

Do you know why libraries rock? Because both of my local ones have decided not to charge late fees after the hurricane. Here's a shot out to East Baton Rouge Parish Library and the Nola library.

For the record, speaking of libraries, Sarah Palin scares me a little. She's starting to remind me of Umbridge from the Harry Potter books. Here's one of the reasons why.

A friend sent me this video on Facebook. Take a look at it.

It might seem like I'm random, but that's because I am. My reward for finally finishing this blog (think I was feeling guilty about having nothing to fess up to for Friday) is to watch the first episodes of Bones, which I missed. So happy it's back on, though. Just have to remember to go plug in my cable...

[This amuses me endlessly - The title of this post is Fess Up Friday, but it looks like I posted it on Wednesday. Posted it on Friday, in fact, but it's from a post I started on Wednesday, saved and then deleted. I am easily amused...]

Back in Nola, back to Normal

2008-09-09T17:15:00.000-05:00

Wow, that was a whole lot of all over the place. I got back in Nola last night and went back to work today. Now we're all playing catch up - paying the bills, putting evacuation-ready homes to rights, returning library books - and hoping Ike nor Josephine nor any other as-of-yet unnamed storm comes near us.

Let's see - Samurai Girl pretty much sucked, as could be expected. The main actress wasn't a phenomenal actor, but the main problem I had was the adaptation from the books. I mean, it's ABC Family, so I wasn't expecting great writing, but even with the ability to lavish 2 hours on each of the first three books, the plot was so terribly condensed. It could've been done. But this was one level above soap opera writing and acting. The ONE consistent exception was the actress Saige Thompson, who played the best friend Cheryl. She had the best lines and the best delivery. I pretty much watched the rest of the installments for her. She was hysterical. And the music was really good.

Was really sorry to miss The Zydepunks and their new cd at One-Eyed Jack's on Friday. However, it was almost worth missing in order to catch up with J, her husband B and their son Jack (I'm always going to call him that, J!). J and I have known each other since we were 7 years old. Or as we told just-turned-6-year-old Jack (who thinks he's almost 7), "We were just a little older than you." And then we both looked at each other and gasped, "Oh my gawd! TWENTY YEARS almost!" I think we were proud and horrified in equal measure. And then A and I caught up on my way through Auburn, of course, as we always do (we've known each other more than twenty years).

Read this crazy article about how dogs perceive time. WEIRD. And this even weirder one about an anti-wedding that made me think of C and R, who's wedding celebration I missed while I was in NYC. I always miss the best stuff when I'm out of town.

Tonight, I play volleyball. Hurrah! This weekend, I dance! Double hurrah!

First Post of September and a Fess Up Friday Confession

2008-09-05T15:34:00.000-05:00

After waxing lyrical about being home, I promptly hopped on the highway and drove overnight to Georgia. Yes, really. Sigh. Really. It's good to be here, I guess, though I'm sad not to be there. I had a great couple of hours back home, checking out Cheers and having dinner at my favorite place with a cute puppy and his owner too. And on the way here, I finished the audio of "To Kill a Mockingbird." If I thought I was a fan of Sissy Spacek before, that's nothing compared to how in love with her voice I am now. BIG fan of Harper Lee, too. Near the end of the story, this line caught me, "His heavy boots punished the porch." Did you know that all of Alabama's rest stops have to be staffed 24 hours a day? Even at something like almost 2 a.m. when you're stopping to charge your cell phone.

Getting into Georgia, it was about 4 a.m. local time and I couldn't sleep!!! I couldn't get my muscles to stop twitching (Damn coffee. Open Letter to McDonald's #2: THANK YOU for letting me charge my cell phone in your office, exit #13 McDonald's. You're still evil for the vanilla iced coffee, but you help a girl out, too.) and couldn't shut off my brain. So I ended up checking my email and catching up with a few things while Mamma Mia! was waking up for work.

I have a local Cheers in Georgia too, a cool place called Cocoa Bean Cafe that has the smooth operation of a chain and all the local friendliness you could want. Great drinks, too. TONS of options. And now, apparently, homemade cakes.

Here's my horoscope today. Erlack, as Louise Rennison's most famous character would say (why do I still read those books? Because she smears the pages with crack, taking a page from McDonald's book). "Friday, Sep 5th, 2008 -- You may lack direction about how best to handle this next phase of your life. Everything at work may have already started to change, yet you aren't prepared to push the shift any faster than it is already going. A well balanced approach will work best for you today as long as you don't let your attachment to material things get in the way." (Tarot.com)

Holy fangs! The rough draft of Stephenie Meyer's Midnight Sun was leaked on the internet. Why am I so surprised? You know what I am incredibly impressed by? Her reaction on her website. She wrote a letter to her fans saying how she felt about the leak and then POSTED THE DRAFT herself. She continually impresses me. Who gives a flip what her teeny bopper fans thought of the recent book? I was AGAPE at how she managed that one. Somehow, she gave me BOTH things I wanted at once, though I thought they were opposing AND she did it in no way I could have foreseen. And you know what? I am so freaking excited about the movie. I watched all of the teaser trailers again today. I don't do that folks. I don't watch trailers over and over and over again. But I'm excited about this movie.

Another book-to-movie I'm excited about is a bit more immediate gratification-y. Samurai Girl, based on the series, on The Family Channel tonight. Oh yeah, I'm gonna catch me some Family Channel on a Friday night with Mamma Mia! Yeah, I just admitted that in public (ish) forum.

Here's some super coolness about The Times-Picayune during Gustav.

Let's talk PerNoWriMo for Fess Up Friday. I made about 1/5 of my projected goal word count at a grand total (ish) of 9,936 words. But, in keeping with the spirit of its parent NaNoWriMo, my PerNoWriMo is not a failure. Here's why:

1) That's 9,936 words I didn't have before.
2) I made a lot of other, less quantifiable, progress on the book.
3) That's a lot of words when you consider the distraction of NYC and a hurricane. Let's do the math, if you count NYC and Gustav, I was out of commission for pretty much 2 weeks this month, so the 9,936 words is really a 2 week total. Yeah yeah, I could've written during Gustav and I'm splitting hairs, but...
4) I'M DOING PERNOWRIMO AGAIN THIS MONTH. So keep it coming with the support and goading, guilting and cheering. Let's see how I can do this month with a 4-day handicap.

A lightning frenzy of links for you (all via my inbox via GalleyCat):

Great idea from Cory Doctorow.

Duh. But you know what? The short story, like everything, needs a little adversity to thrive. So it doesn't get complacent. Ask the poets.

A home for Jewel of Medina.

My now-favorite bartender/literati.

Let's keep the tradition of writing horror stories on Friday going with this.

It's a good book, one of the best I've ever read. But I just really love the title of the piece: "Hey, Diaz! Save Some Awards for the Rest of Us!" So true.

And here's some fun words of the day, don't let 'em go to your head: pleonexia, nadir, peccant, prorogue, comestible, dissert and bevy.

[Oh and yeah, this is the SECOND post of September. It's not like I've had a ton of sleep, folks.]