strange radiation: the pool of radiance
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
May 28 08: when in doubt
Meanwhile, The Story With Wikipedia In continues to flounder. I realized today that I’d written four pages of my main characters blabbing on and wondering what the hell the plot was supposed to be. That is probably a sign that the author doesn’t really know the answer either.
I think I need to add a tulpa to the mix and see what happens.
ny moment #47,365
I have had quite a few moments of fabulous metropolitan culture in the last ten days or so: dancing until 3 at Habibi, the monthly bash for NYC’s gay Arab community (yes, really; the dance music, from Egypt Lebanon Syria et al, is fabulous, and the partygoers handsome); seeing Boeing Boeing on Broadway; Fleet Week. Oh, and the new Indiana Jones movie.
But none of them came close to seeing Greg play at the Duplex tonight. The crowd was tiny — me and Velma and Fred, a handful of drunken British tourists — so Greg got to make some calls that he might not have attempted for a fuller house. Including a whole lotta Kate Bush. He did “Wuthering Heights”; he did “Hounds of Love”; he did “Cloudbusting.” And then he went straight into “And Dream of Sheep,” which made me happy; and then he went straight from there into “Under Ice,” and we realized he was making some kinda banzai run through The Ninth Wave, and we didn’t know whether to fall out of our chairs from the shock or just howl with joy and laugh and wave our arms. Because Greg is a Kate Bush geek who plays a mean piano and has a lovely clear tenor voice and was fully capable of pulling something like this off. He did a quick here-are-the-highlights of “Waking the Witch,” he did “Watching You Without Me.” He went straight on into “Jig of Life.”
The other Kate fans in the room were in awe (and did all we could to throw in the umpty-leven other vocal bits). Those too young to know The Ninth Wave — which, because I’m sure my father is wondering, is the astonishing song cycle on the B side of her towering 1985 work Hounds of Love — had no effing idea what was going on or why we were losing our minds. Who the hell tries to perform The Ninth Wave on an upright in a West Village piano bar?
Anyway, just to be cheeky, he went about eighteen bars into “Jig of Life” and then segued gently into some Elton John tune that the Brits had requested. We hyperventilated quietly in the back; I ordered another ginger ale.
It rocked. Sure, I’m hopped up on ginger ale and it’s 3 in the morning, but I wouldn’ta missed that for nothing.
May 26 08: progress
It’s a beautiful day in New York City — sun shining, weather warm but not insane, pedestrians handsome — and aside from a trip to get a sandwich at lunchtime I have spent it at home, either writing or poking about the Internet doing some research.
Today’s progress on the story with Wikipedia in it: first ~1300 words. I have a goal, I have a mechanism, I have some characters who seem willing to banter interestingly with one another. Much of what I have written may be cut, but it got me to where I am, so fine. I have reached the point where the goal must be addressed directly. Once again, I realize I have no overt conflict on the horizon. Not sure what it’s going to be, exactly, and I tire of smacking face-first into this same structural issue over and over. On the other hand, I had no bouts of oh my god run for your life today, so perhaps I should take my triumphs where I found them. Thirteen-hundred words, y’all.
Yay. I’m off to get a margarita now.
May 25 08: estrangement
Am trying to circumvent the antimuse again; the story that seemed so full of promise a couple of weeks ago disintegrates every time I try to touch it. I need to stop trying to think the short pieces through start-to-finish before I sit down to write them, because that way leads to an endless loop of “wait, this aspect of the plot doesn’t hold up under scrutiny; think of something else.” Until the whole damn thing is dead, vivisected into unrecognizable dog food on the table. But the ability to just sit down and go, which used to be something I could plug into so easily, has gotten tangled up in something very frightened. Sitting on the balcony this afternoon I was no more than a page into an attempt at the story in question before I found myself beset by the urge to throw the laptop over the rail, hurry hurry hurry. Because apparently smashing my computer and possibly killing some random stranger 13 stories below was preferable to tuning into the celestial radio without… without I dunno. Without the promise of something “good” in exchange, I suspect. Just to be safe, I moved into the bedroom before continuing. I am very tired of this particular neurosis.
Anyway, here’s something fierce to scare away the demons. Research suggests that it’s an Australian performer named Strykermeyer; the song he’s covering using is Laurie Anderson’s “Sharkey’s Night” (1984). Video is apparently from a documentary made to accompany a DVD release of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Strykermeyer did performance makeup for the film’s drag artistes.
Apr 27 08: infernal machines
I had a dreadful beard-trimming accident this morning, and as a result I have a better idea of what my chin looks like today than I have had for — what, a couple years at least. It’s very short. The beard, that is; the chin is still suitably chin-shaped.
To take my mind off the aarghness of it all, here’s another damn YouTube video. This time, a proper use for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Which are not food. As opposed to, say, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, which are divine. (Thank you, Faustus, M.D.)
Apr 25 08: yes, another geeky youtube thing
If you don’t get this, well, you won’t get this. But if you do: Well. It is — how you say? Bwah.
(Ten thousand thanks to stealthmuffin.)
Apr 20 08: notes on a 4am return
Dear self:
That was fun, again. Here, in no particular order, are some songs from Greg’s repertoire for which I think it’s time to start learning the words — no, I mean really learn the words, so they can be sung without listening to the original recording — if you’re going to continue to hang out in piano bars with disreputable types until much too late in the evening:
- “Alison”
- “Every Day I Write the Book”
- “I Don’t Know What it Is”
- “Wuthering Heights,” because this is a prime demonstration that singing along in the car etc. for 20 years doesn’t mean that you’re not faking bits here and there
- “Rocket Man”
- “Wicked Little Town”
- “Back on the Chain Gang,” maybe
- “Ask,” because how fun would that be?
- “And Dream of Sheep” into “Under Ice” is still a totally brilliant idea, seriously
And of course, see if you can find the music for “Guilty,” that Randy Newman song, in the arrangement (or at least the key) that Bonnie Raitt used.
Apr 16 08: further adventures in encephalophagy
For those who need a break from whatever they’re doing: an exercise in lateral thinking, best undertaken in short bursts: Funny Farm.
Here’s what you need to know: it’s a concept map. Start with the kicker on the first square: “On the Farm.” As you identify the first set of associated terms (things you would see on a farm, i.e.), branches of associated terms appear. Keep filling in. Eventually, I am told, you will end up at four words in the corners of the map that are the clues to the puzzle’s ultimate single-word solution. Be prepared to think laterally. Be prepared to bump into whole chunks that you know right off the bat will probably require Googling.
Don’t forget to eat and sleep. (Via Dr. Virago at Quod She.)
Apr 7 08: get me rewrite!
I saw the Clark GableCary Grant1-Rosalind Russell screwball classic His Girl Friday last night for the first time, in the company of a friend who has been after me for months that my old-movie exposure is so low as to risk revocation of my Gay Card. (He’s threatening megadoses of Joan Crawford. I am uneasy.) Anyway, I need to get this out there, in the hopes that someone will enlighten me: was that intended to read as a happy ending?
Because GableGrant spends the whole movie in repeated attempts to scuttle his ex-wife’s impending marriage — by having her fiancé arrested on bogus charges three times and also arranging for the kidnapping of her intended mother-in-law by his friend the local thug — and generally refusing to take “we’re divorced” for an answer, doing everything in his power to take Russell’s stated dream of leaving the newspaper business for a quiet life of domesticity in Albany away from her. Hijinks ensue, Gable’sGrant’s efforts pay off, and Russell agrees to marry him again.
To recap: The manipulative asshole wins, the nice guy gets sent home to Albany, and Russell remarries the guy who has shown no signs of being any different than he was when she divorced him. And we’re supposed to… cheer? Laugh? What?
I don’t know why I found myself as outraged by this as I did. The film has obvious merits: snappy rapid-fire dialogue, a plot that moves along at a zillion miles an hour, strong performances. But I couldn’t get past that fundamental aspect of the plot. I guess it should be chalked up to 1930s sexism; but as much as I could dismiss a couple of moments of casual racism as being a product of the movie’s day, I just couldn’t do it where GableGrant was concerned.
Am I the only one here? And was this kind of plot a standard screwball device? Because if so I may be in trouble.
1 D’oh! Thanks, pixelfish.
Mar 29 08: I am a fully eroticized being.
Things that you may find the new B-52s1 album reminiscent of, at random points:
- Dieter from Sprockets
- Various fabulous moments from Wild Planet
- Dr. Seuss on some unidentified (but probably illegal) psychoactive chemical
- Some sort of perverse let’s-torture-Babelfish experiment
- Various fabulous moments from Cosmic Thing
- Every truly excellent dance party you ever went to in college
Seriously, dude. It’s not perfect, but it’s everything you want from a B-52s album: love! Science! Consumerism! Aliens! Dancing! Universal harmony! It’s demented geekery in the best possible way, and it puts a big dorky smile on your face and leaves you struggling with the urge to dance your ass off right there on the subway. Kate and Cindy, their voices still as perfectly matched as two fake pearls on an East Village czarina’s bosom, as smooth and shiny as ice. Fred, freaky as ever, busting out the left-footed recitations. Twangly-jangly guitaromania. Buzzy-zippy electronicity. Put on your best wig, whomever you may be, and get thee out onto the dance floor.
Lord have mercy. Has it really been 16 years since their last album? And 19 years since Cosmic Thing? I refuse to think about the ramifications. Keep doin’ what we’re doin’, ‘cause it’s what we like.
1 Yes, it’s true. They dropped the apostrophe. If I wasn’t already ready to sing hosannas from the rooftops, this woulda done the trick.
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