Everything I Tell you is Hearsay

i had an idea. it came to me in three parts; as follows…

part the first: i have often mentioned before how much i love explodigdog

Sam, the illustrator, works with the following model; he uses the ideas that are running around in his head, but also solicits titles from his fans and then makes pictures to match the titles. i have always found this very charming. once, i even had one of my titles turned into a picture. this was gratifying almost beyond expression.

part the second: today, while looking at my facebook feed, my friend Sara posted a note that the first 5 people who responded could expect an offering made by her.

part the third: within the last 24 hours my good friend Lyza re-launched her website with an incredibly gorgeous and content-dense makeover that makes me feel simultaneously very proud to know her and incredibly sloth-like creatively.

i was touched by Sara’s idea, inspired by Lyza’s results, and sensitive to the value of external input ala Explodingdog.

sometimes i write songs. occasionally they are kinda good. usually they are really fucking sad. they are also not a little self-indulgent. so i have decided in a Sara Mahan cum Lyza Danger cum Explodingdog manner to offer/request the following:

your song here!

send me titles. and i will humbly try to turn the ones that strike me somewhere, into songs. i will do this with no less than one, but no more than three (trying to be realistic about my time constraints here) and post the results on my website by May 1st. i don’t promise they’ll be good, but i will make my very best go of it.

anyone? anyone? Bueller?

i went into the studio today and recorded this song. i don’t think it’s my best work. i had a bit of a sore throat and a scatterbrain. my playing, which isn’t my strong point anyway, was a little less accurate than average, and my singing, which is usually my saving grace, wasn’t.

which is too bad because i think the song itself IS some of my best work, and getting to the studio is tough. hopefully next time i’ll feel a bit better about the outcome.

How You Don’t

(if you click on the song title, it should play for you)

but it’s a good thing. livingston has been sitting untended all too long. been plucking away at him a bit lately. i forget how good it is for me.

i can’t remember the last time i wrote a song though…

i’m practicing for an open mic night on wednesday. which is the most ambtious thing i’ve done in some time. i mean hell, you should see the state of my bedroom.

i only don’t understand them.

Tuesday Thingers

to what i was saying yesterday about being unable to pick up my guitar, i’ve decided to start trolling for gigs. i’m hoping that as long as i:

• a) am not trying to write anything
• b) avoid those songs that make me want to sob until my eyeballs wash away
• c) do not invite disaster (or certain people) to the venue

i might be motivated by a show for which i must prepare. it worked reasonably well last time. maybe it will work again.

plus this time, i’ll have CD’s to schill!! awesome.

i guess when i think about what qualities define me, i’d be reluctant to admit that “creative” ranks up there pretty high, but it seems to be true. i say this because i know when i’m not playing music, pasting things as my own weenie attempts at art, taking (poor) photographs, or something in that vein i get pretty antsy.

and things have been kinda tough in that respect lately.

i’ve been singing for longer than i’ve been talking, but never one for formal training, i hadn’t bothered to learn an instrument. about two years ago someone thought it worth my while enough to press an acoustic into my hands and suggest i take a shot at some chords. once again thank you caseyface!as such, since then, its been my primary creative outlet. and i’m proud of what i’ve been able to create.

and usually i do my best work when i’m sad. my musical catalogue is pretty heavy on the boo-fuckin-hoo end of the emotional continuum. but, for some reason, in the last little while i’ve been too sad to even play the guitar, let alone try and write anything. i even have a really good songlet chasing itself around in my head. but every time i’ve tried to start work on it, i begin to cry so hard i get Livingston all wet. he doesn’t really thrive in the high moisture and salt environment of a crying jag, so i put him away, if only for his own good.

i have been blogging like mad, reading like they’re getting ready to go Fahrenheit 451 on the library, working out with more regularity than i’ve ever mustered before, and trying to absorb myself in things that tend to focus my considerable attentive powers completely enough to keep me from going completely bonkers. but none of this feel particularly generative and it’s starting to get to me.

so, i’ve decided to take a stab at writing something longer than a blog post. i used to fancy myself quite a writer. i came in second in a poetry contest in 5th grade: a truly atrocious offering about how freedom came with responsibility or some such tripe. the prize was a trip to the opera, my music teacher made me do it. in the wake of which  they sent me to the “Oregon Writers Conference” and told me i was a prodigy. and i was vain enough to believe them. i don’t have any such pretentions anymore, i can write a mean wedding toast, but i’ve read enough miserable novels to know just how easy it is to think you can write something decent, and how much easier it is to be wrong. but i do want to give something fictionish a try.

i have to do something and so, its either this, or sedatives…

Last week I asked what was the most popular book in your library- this week I’m going to ask about the most unpopular books you own. Do you have any unique books in your library- books only you have on LT? How many? Did you find cataloging information on your unique books, or did you hand-enter them? Do they fall into a particular category or categories, or are they a mix of different things? Have you ever looked at the “You and none other” feature on your statistics page, which shows books owned by only you and one other user? Ever made an LT friend by seeing what you share with only one other user?

I have 2 books that no one else has on LT. One is a bodice ripper i read as a teenager called The Captain’s Doxy” which i haven’t even been able to find a cover image for. i remember it mostly because it had pirates. and i, being lazy-eyed, must frequently wear an eyepatch for my vision therapy and am thus moderately obsessed with all things pirate.

the other book i am the only person with is actually a humorous and well-written non-fiction book about Oregon’s social history written by a former professor of mine. i wrote a review a while back which you can read here if you’re curious.

it never occurred to me to contact anyone else who shared my obscure taste in books, mostly because my tastes aren’t generally that obscure. i think it’d be worth doing though…

by Marisha Pessl

I can bestow on this book the highest compliment I have: I want to own it so I can write all over it. I borrowed it from friend Lyza after reading her review and inhaled it. At 500 pages, it was well under 24 hours in my hands.

Written from the perspective of a precocious book-wise teenager, I found her voice resonant and familiar (though in possession of an infinitely better education). Her narrative is self-aware and liberally dosed with quotations and references from books, magazine articles, and movies. And any child this scholarly and still relatively sane and down to earth has my admiration, if not, perhaps, my unmitigated credulity.

Our narrator Blue VanMeer clearly and unabashedly orbits her brilliant and eccentric father both intellectually and emotionally. Gareth VanMeer, who seems to have no compunction about carting his young daughter all over the landscape, still never fails to see to her instruction during countless hours of auto rides and semi-ritualized moments in places scattered from coast to coast. Having decided to finally settle in North Carolina so Blue can complete her senior year at the exclusive St Gallway, the VanMeers begin to feel the gravity of other bodies in the wider universe. Blue is drawn into a clique of privileged students who seat themselves as acolytes to one Hannah Schneider, the film studies teacher at the school. Though they seem initially resistant to her inclusion in the select group, eventually these people begin to influence Blue in ways both subtle and overt: her frame of reference widens in tandem with her wardrobe.

But the appearance of normalcy in this group is fleeting indeed. Ultimately a custom of secrecy and deception begins to reveal itself from beneath the veneer of benign mentorship in Blue’s relationship with Hannah and the others. Inexplicable and bizarre stories swirl between the students about their teacher, as well as tales told by Hannah about her disciples. And disciples are just how these adolescents are portrayed: dazzled by Hannah’s allure and deeply possessive of the intimacy she has afforded them despite the misgivings they frequently recount to one other in her absence. The conflicting stories, coincidences, bizarre behavior, spying and conflict that brews within the group creates a sense of mounting tension and a deepening mystery as the novel progresses. And to Blue’s increasing confusion and dismay there seem to be strange concordances even from within her own unorthodox life that make some elements of these mysteries seem to mean something more to her than to the other teens in the circle.

Eventually a schismatic event completely dismantles any relationship between Blue and her compatriots. When she discovers Hannah’s lifeless corpse, the momentum built in the novel to that point is unleashed in pursuit of answers that become increasingly personal for Blue as the truth begins to out.

Though there were some mechanisms in the story I found a little too pat for complete conviction, overall I found this a compelling and enjoyable read. I found the rhythm of the narrative woven with the citation of sources from classic literature to pop culture rich and satisfying, even if many of said references flew right over my wee little head.

Recommended.
Penguin (Non-Classics) (2007), Paperback, 528 pages

By david rakoff.

This collection of essays are the offering of a compatriot of the laudable “this American life” crew. After hearing him read on the show a few weeks ago I felt it likely worth my while to grab his book if he was anywhere near as thoughtful and entertaining as his fellows david Sedaris & Sarah vowell; lucky me, he is.

Unabashedly intellectual and fiercely opinionated, this author has a facility of language somewhat rare in the ranks of the modern humorist. Not since twain and wilde has such a fierce wit been paired with such keen nuance of the written communique. Highly educated and ruthlessly self deprecating rakoff leads us into a series of fascinating excursions to places no less far flung than Tokyo, reykjavik, & new jersey,

narrating with his distinctly wicked but undeniably compelling perspective. While not more than occasionally laugh out loud funny, this book felt somehow less trivial than most of the humor reading I do. Peppered with words and phrases I had to look up (she admits to her chagrin) I walked away from this one feeling edified; not just because I felt safer armed with my dictionary, but because of the amusing yet nonetheless consistently thought provoking observations of this transparently erudite author. Well worth it, recommended.