Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Tuesday Tunes: "There is nothing new under the sun..."

Heard this song on the radio for the first time the other day...


... and I noticed the first five notes of the verse sounded awfully familiar!
(Compare the first line of the song above, from 33 to 35 seconds, with the first line of the chorus from the song below, about 53 to 55 seconds.)


Spanish Gold is only like three years old, and they're ripping off a one-hit wonder from the 80s?? Seems desperate. Although, maybe they're banking on the fact that 1984 is now THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO, and their audience is too young — and too uncultured! — to know this creepy classic?

Who knows.

I've also wondered about The Black Keys' "Fever" (2014) and Peggy Lee's "Fever," (1959, cover of the 1956 original by Little Willie John) but I can't actually put my finger on (or ear to) the similarity between those two, beyond the name(s) of the song(s).

ALSO...

I heard on the radio the other day that Portugal. The Man's new hit, which I referenced a few posts ago, apparently "borrowed" the melody from a much older song. At first, my love for that song totally deflated. Then I did some research (I mean, Googled it and read the Wikipedia entry, then went to YouTube), and found that the "borrowed" song — "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvellettes — didn't really sound like "Feel it Still" at all. But the band said it! They're the ones that volunteered the information! Right?

Anyway. This has me wondering how many new songs are really just recycled old songs and what constitutes as copyright violation or plagiarism and what doesn't.

Anyone know the rules or have a philosophical opinion on that?


Monday, October 16, 2017

MCM: Ryan Gosling

So I meant to post this last Monday — the day after watching "Blade Runner 2049" in theaters — but then I got super busy, so...

This week's #ManCrushMonday, because I'm running with the whole hashtag thing, is Ryan Gosling.

Huuunkkk.

Yeah yeah, he's the one with the "Hey Girl" smolder of magical memedom, but as I said on Instagram, my love for him is as an actor today, and not from "The Notebook" (which, again, I hope he someday lives that down). His performances in "Drive" and "Ides of March" (though I wasn't much a fan of the story of the second one) are spot-on and largely unromantic. Plus, if you've seen him in "Crazy Stupid Love" (OK, another RomCom, maybe not a great example) and "Nice Guys," hopefully you've experienced his rolling-on-the-floor-laughing kind of humor.

But the latest blade runner movie was on a whole other level of intense and phenomenal acting. His portrayal of a stoic *spoiler* replicant who cracks with the understanding that he might have been *spoiler* born is nothing short of spectacular. I hope that he, like Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and Ryan Reynolds even (though I think he still has a ways to go) can break out of that cute, quiet guy role and show people how serious of an actor he is. 

Plus, he's a great interview (and he plays great piano!!) :)



Wednesday, September 6, 2017

WCW: Lauren Graham




Don't think I've ever made a #mcm or #wcw post on social media...but to use a cliché, there's a first time for everything!

I only started watching "Gilmore Girls" for the first time this year, right before the reboot came out on Netflix. I fell in love with the show on episode one, and quickly realized that, for once — and in contrast to at LEAST the last two seasons of "Once Upon a Time," my other TV addiction — it was largely because of the writing. GG is the best-written show I have ever seen/heard. The original, that is; the reboot was jarring and weird, complete with that ridiculous musical that took up like 1/3 of one of the four episodes (which Lauren apparently enjoyed, but I fast-forwarded through on the first viewing, something I have literally NEVER done before).


So, even though I pretty much hated every bit of the reboot, I still wanted to read her latest book, the memoir-ish one called "Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls." I finally got around to it this weekend, and I was not disappointed. At first, even as I read the first chapter, I worried it would be another fluffy celebrity slushpile in disguise, but it wasn't. Lauren Graham is as sharp (maybe more so) and witty as the character she played so well for so long. Great advice, pretty woman, decent writer (maybe I should give her more credit?). Plus, I found out her beau went to my alma mater! So cool!

Here are some gems I captured while reading:



 

 



If you're a writer, actress or fellow creative trying to make her way in the world, check out this book! And let me know what you think!



Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Ultimate Glory

What a great name for a memoir, right?

No, it's not about Valhalla, but in some ways it might as well be.


A post shared by Caitlin Buxbaum (@chitlinfork) on

I discovered this book after I had sprained my ankle this summer, two days before an Ultimate tournament I had been looking forward to for weeks. There was no way I could play, so naturally, I threw myself into living vicariously through any means necessary and available. I do this when I can't do a thing, like sing or play guitar or run or ski or play ultimate — I must suddenly become an expert on the subject by all my book learnin'. (I did also find a documentary on Ultimate's beginnings, narrated by Alec Baldwin, which I have yet to watch.)

My searching expanded from Facebook, where a friend posted an article about one of the greatest Ultimate players of the day, who I later found out hailed from my home state of Alaska! Then of course I read more articles and discovered that Joel Silver, the guy who produced "The Matrix" (AND "V for Vendetta," "Die Hard," and the first RDJ Sherlock movie) is also credited with the invention of Ultimate Frisbee! On the east coast, in 1968/69 (the latter year claimed by stereotypical college-age Ultimate players who prefer dirty humor). Look it up.

"The author, wallowing."
The above photo depicts David Gessner, the author of Ultimate Glory: Frisbee, Obsession, and My Wild Youth. The other photos you see in this post also are from the book (screenshots from the e-version), and offer a taste of the sport for those unfamiliar with it.

What these images don't show you, however, is the utter artistry of Gessner's writing, his dedication to the craft of composing sentences that describe the spiritual — yes, I said spiritual — side of Ultimate. Few amateur players, I think, experience Ultimate in the way Gessner has; few professionals, even, might share his mystical view of what some still deem a ridiculous sport. But I'm telling you, this guy nails it.
Ultimate Glory, as Gessner says early on, is not a history of Ultimate. There are pieces of that within the story, but the book is really about Gessner's journey through life, of which Ultimate was (is?) a big part. He made a lot of mistakes, pulled a lot of pranks, spent a lot of his time under the influence and depressed, but along the way he managed to be a respectable player (in terms of skill, maybe not personality...) and an amazing writer.


Honestly, I'm amazed I didn't dogear more of the pages with all it's poetic prose and witty wisdom (is that a thing?), but here are a few of my favorite passages — see if you can guess why:

From "East Coker" by T.S. Eliot




So, lots of different kinds of highlights you can see here (hopefully). Maybe less about Ultimate than you expected?
In any case, if you are a literary type or a Frisbee fanatic (or, preferably, both), you should read this book. Or if you're just curious about this mythic sport thing! Give it a go. See what you think. And then let me know!

Saturday, September 2, 2017

A picture worth thousands of words

I don't know if this ever happens to you, in some fashion, but sometimes I'll see a photo — or snap one, in my mind, of a scene before me — and think, 'that belongs in my writing somewhere.' My whole 2015 NaNoWriMo novel started in 2012 with the image of a youngish guy in a white T-shirt driving an old red truck down a rainy Canadian highway. We hadn't seen anything but semis for hours and even those had been going by less frequently when I saw him. I don't even know anymore if it WAS a young guy in a white shirt, but I that's how I remember it, that's what fed the idea. I immediately wondered who he was and where he was going, all by himself in the middle of nowhere.

Today, a distant photographer friend of mine (shout out to @sarahjchaput) posted a picture on Instagram that reminded me of this moment :)


A post shared by Sarah Chaput de Saintonge (@sarahjchaput) on

So, how do you gain/use inspiration?

Thursday, August 31, 2017

♪On the radio, oh-oh♪

Do you ever hear a song on the radio while you're flipping stations that just kind of catches you? Makes you stop and listen, sort of passively, but intrigued? I heard both of these songs for the first time on the Valley's newest station, Hatcher Pass Radio, the other day. They both have a kind of indie sound, though Snow Patrol isn't. Both bands are from the UK, so maybe that's where some of the similarity comes from? Idk, I just feel like there's some kind of connection between these two songs.

Listen and see what you think!



(That was a Regina Spektor reference in the title, btw)

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Holy Hollens!

How have I never mentioned Peter Hollens? I think I discovered this guy on Pandora (on my super slow sad station), but his real presence is on YouTube. He has SO MANY VIDEOS. And his voice is absolutely beautiful. He does a bunch of cool collaborations and covers, and I think it's all crowd-sourced. It's pretty much all a cappella, but I think reaches a whole other level than Pentatonix (which I also like). In fact, here's one he did with Avi Kaplan! And a Charlie Puth cover with Mike somebody, and one from The Hobbit, and a Disney one...





I have a dozen favorites (actually I'm not sure I can even narrow it down that far), but you'll have to browse the rest yourself!

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

'Hide and Seek'

Do you know that Imogen Heap song Jason Derulo sampled, made famous by, I don't know, the internet and whatnot? Well, the other day I entered one of those weird Twilight Zones of memory and couldn't decide if I had actually heard the original song or just listened to it so hard this time it sounded familiar...but when a choral version of it showed up in my YouTube queue, I (re)discovered the first iteration and damn was it powerful. "Hauntingly beautiful," reviewers called it, and I cannot think of a more accurate description. I just know as soon as I heard that first line I was spellbound, and could see a scene from one of my novels playing out to it perfectly. It's a novel that started in bits and pieces one October, I think, not even in an attempt at NaNoWriMo. It's still stuck halfway in the idea phase, I think, but when I heard that song I thought, this story has to be a reality. If it could become a movie, even better!  I saw a flash of a scene I haven't written, in slo-mo, perfectly fitted to that song. And then I slipped into that mindset again that maybe I should be a screenwriter instead...

But for now, I guess I'm just a dreamer.

Anyway, for your listening enjoyment, Imogen Heap (that's her real name! I didn't know):


Friday, June 16, 2017

Portugal. The Man

Have you heard of Portugal. The Man? The biggest band to come out of Alaska, as far as I know, and they're from my hometown! I even wrote about them once for the local newspaper.

At the time I scheduled the interview, I, shamefully, didn't know any of their music. Even after I spent a couple hours listening to their songs, there were only a few that I really liked -- honestly, I kind of felt like a bad Alaskan (though with album names like "The Satanic Satanist" and "Evil Friends," maybe you can understand my lack of enthusiasm, at least for some of their lyrics).

Then I heard this song on the radio the other day, and I'm pretty obsessed with it.

Enjoy!

Saturday, January 28, 2017

F-bombs and other profanities...in fiction

Got a wild hair up my @$$ to count the number of curses in my most recently completed novel and was actually kind of embarrassed by the total.

Eight swear words and their variations, adding up to 231 profanities/vulgarities/obscenities/etc.

$h!t.

(On the bright side, 231 is only .03% of the total words in my manuscript.)

Here's what Writers Digest has to say about using such words.


Happy writing!

Saturday, January 21, 2017

The First Novel

Found this on The Writer's Almanac today; fascinating!

A version of the first novel

The first American novel was published in Boston on this date in 1789. The title of the novel was The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, and its author was William Hill Brown, although he published it anonymously. It’s an epistolary novel, told entirely through the letters that the characters write to one another; Brown modeled its form after novels like Pamela, by Samuel Richardson.

The Power of Sympathy tells the story of a young New Englander named Thomas Harrington. Harrington has fallen madly in love with a girl named Harriot — who is, unbeknownst to him, his illegitimate half sister. Harrington’s father must decide whether to reveal his own dark secret to save the couple from sure damnation. He dashes off a quick note to his minister: “He is now even upon the point of marrying — shall I proceed! — of marrying his Sister! I fly to prevent incest!” Mr. Harrington Senior intervenes on the eve of the wedding, and the engagement is called off. Poor Harriot dies of consumption, and Thomas — after many letters to his best friend, Worthy — eventually shoots himself.

Brown was inspired by a local scandal: a Boston woman named Fanny Apthorp had had an affair with her sister’s husband, a man named Perez Morton. She became pregnant and ultimately committed suicide. The Apthorps lived next door to Brown, so he had access to all the inside information. He changed the names, and relocated the story to Rhode Island, but the Mortons and Apthorps had political connections; with Brown’s agreement, they stopped publication of the book and requested that all unsold copies be burned. For many years, people believed that the novel’s real author was Sarah Morton, the betrayed wife, but eventually Brown’s niece came forward and confirmed that her uncle had written the novel.

Lest you should choose the racy tale as your next must-read, the Paris Review diplomatically warns: “The passing centuries have hidden its charms.”

-Garrison Keillor

Sunday, January 15, 2017

And the winner is...not me. Obviously.

Hello again web friends,

I knew this post was coming, and perhaps you did too. Sorry to myself (and you, reader, if you care) for the delay.

The New Wrinkle Publishing 2016 Writer's Contest just ended, with Australian children's song and script writer Melanie Schubert named the winner. Read more about her here.

Now, I want you to know that I'm not disappointed. Not now. I was a couple weeks ago, but not for the reason you might think.

A couple weeks ago, NWP offered Lynette Kraft's second book, Archie of Outlandish, for free download, with the soundtrack. Catchy title, nice illustrations, great soundtrack (although I would've liked if they'd noted which scenes or chapters in the Table of Contents to be read with the music), and an intriguing concept. But as I read on, I also found the book dishonest.

My biggest complaint was probably the church- and prayer-related content/themes that abruptly appeared in chapter 6 and increased throughout. As a Christian, I have struggled to find a way to spread the gospel as a writer; I have reasoned, on occasion, that the occupation of novelist (or journalist) is completely incongruous with Christian life, and often still have my doubts. I have been dying to read a modern novel that is at its core Christian, but not poorly written, cliche, cheesy or distasteful to the general, non-Christian public. But this was certainly not it. (I'm not even sure it can be done, though that's not Archie's fault.) The references to prayer, God, church, etc. were totally inauthentic to this story. I think Lynette Kraft did her story, her characters and herself a serious disservice by forcing religion into this book. It would have been a much better book without it, especially this SPOILER! part of the ending:

“I can’t just live with you, Archibald. It goes against my beliefs. You know that.”“No, that came out wrong. I’m not asking you to just live with me, Tallie.” He laughed. “It goes against my beliefs, too.” [...]“Tallulah Z., I was hoping you might agree to marry me.”

I understand people (in real life) who feel this way. Really, I do. And maybe it's not unreasonable to try and plant a perceived moral seed, as a writer. But this is just way, way too overt (not to mention Archie and Tallie's "beliefs" were never specified in such detail until this moment, making their declaration of such awkward and prudish). AND there's no mention of Archie's "faith" or anything of the sort in the book's synopsis, so it almost feels like a trick when you read about it a few chapters in. This is what I'm talking about when I say dishonest.

Since we're talking about honesty and authenticity (and lack thereof), let's talk about those English accents she gave Archie's mom and the book agent; not necessary, inconsistent and totally artificial by the end. (Tallie's life situation also seemed contrived, but it was something where you could "suspend disbelief;" kind of like Carrie's set-up in Carrie Pilby, which, by contrast, is one of my favorite books.) The neat little wrap-up with Archie getting his SPOILER! book deal in the end was also too good to be true. Too many things went right for him (and Tallie, and everyone else in the story) without a hitch.

But there was another important thing I noticed: Archie was most certainly a NaNoWriMo novel.

If you haven't heard of the National Novel Writing Month program, the goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November. There's a not-totally-fool-proof verification method on nanowrimo.org, along with all kinds of pep talks and networking and message boards to give you ideas; like giving your character an accent. Playing with names. Throwing in curveballs everywhere just to get your word count up. And it's great. It helps a lot of people accomplish things they never thought they would (myself included). But if you can't figure out how to cut that stuff and flesh other things out before you publish it — or get another pair of eyes that can help show you what needs to change — you're not going to be a good author. If you magically find some financial or other kind of success, great. But you're not going to be good. You're not going to be that writer that the world talks about, that schools want for commencement speeches.

That's who I want to be.

So I don't want a company like NWP, as it is now, editing and representing my book, and I realized this weeks ago. I'm so glad I didn't win that contest, not just because I don't trust NWP to put out a book I can be proud of, but because my novel is not ready, and Archie of Outlandish showed me that. That's the great thing about all this: Even though this company and their book turned out to be a disappointment, they showed me how to find those writing tactics and plot devices that, while they might seem "good enough" in the context of my whole story, they're not. They stick out like sore thumbs to readers, and they bring down a novel that has the potential to be great. I saw some of my failings in Archie, and I'm glad for it.

Because like I said, I want to be great. And I'm not sure if there's any point publishing if I'm not willing to put in the time to become great.