In my current work-in-progress, I hit a stretch of the book where I found myself grinning. For what's going on in the story, and for the way it's unfolding. I recognized what was happening and how I wanted to see it play out in the doing of it. And that is a very fun feeling.
I'll give more detail as I get through it. More or less? halfway through? I think? Maybe. In a stage where I'm hip deep in it and am more interested in the doing and the telling than I am talking about it. Another of the fun parts of this whole business, at my present stage of craft it's my brain's way of saying "shh...working...shut up and write..."
On a different note: one of the little joys of the modern world are the streaming music services. I grew up on FM radio; really, streaming with my headphones on is no different than a transistor radio with an earplug. Considering that I don't mind listening to the commercials, in fact it's almost exactly the same.
Except... except for the kind of day I had on Sunday. Working in the yard, earbuds as much hearing protection as anything as I was using an electric saw and drills and so on, and my streaming service (I've been on Pandora since the gang there migrated from the original graduate school project, not an endorsement just info, everyone's got their favorites by this point) seemed to be fascinated with Concrete Blonde and Marvin Gaye. At one point, Pandora took me from "What's Going On" through "Inner City Blues" (both Marvin Gaye), then "Just My Imagination" (Temptations) and "Evangeline" (Levon Helm and Emmylou Harris), to finally finish up on "Bloodletting" (Concrete Blonde).
Ever a fan of pirate and college radio, I have to admit that even the best DJ would have a hard time keeping up with the things that shuffle up from the deck that the streaming services give us.
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Saturday, April 27, 2019
A notes and bolts followup to that last piece might be useful.
Ok, when you start out a musician, you run into "covers or originals." If you play cover songs, it's a little easier to get to the hundred dollar a night stage. I speak here of pop/rock/country/etc. Jazz is a little different, but the basic structure is similar up to a point.
Originals is a different bag, and a rougher road. Many music venue owners would rather pay the songwriter royalties for cover bands than put up with the raw stages of beginning originals acts.
But the venues that do host original acts are gold.
Now, cover bands get to a little better money, sooner, but there's a cap on what they can make. Originals don't have that cap, assuming they can keep working to larger venues, get label attention, or best of all a combination. And these days, break their own audience and pass the labels by entirely.
That's the economics of it in a nutshell. The songwriting part of it is the interesting part. You write with the ones you're rehearsing with. If you hear a band in their breakout period, or an individual who's scratched their way to that level, you're hearing the songs that they wrote in that blood and beer and bruises stage. All for one and one for all.
And that's the part that's the hardest to keep going. Because at a certain point, they're no longer writing as a team. In many cases, they don't even see each other until soundcheck.
The frictions start to magnify, and that magic team effort tends to come apart under the new stresses. It's a rough way to run a business.
Individual performers have a little different path, then. Some ways easier, because their process doesn't have the dependence on others. But at the same time, they still have to learn to listen to a voice that's changed.
Ok, when you start out a musician, you run into "covers or originals." If you play cover songs, it's a little easier to get to the hundred dollar a night stage. I speak here of pop/rock/country/etc. Jazz is a little different, but the basic structure is similar up to a point.
Originals is a different bag, and a rougher road. Many music venue owners would rather pay the songwriter royalties for cover bands than put up with the raw stages of beginning originals acts.
But the venues that do host original acts are gold.
Now, cover bands get to a little better money, sooner, but there's a cap on what they can make. Originals don't have that cap, assuming they can keep working to larger venues, get label attention, or best of all a combination. And these days, break their own audience and pass the labels by entirely.
That's the economics of it in a nutshell. The songwriting part of it is the interesting part. You write with the ones you're rehearsing with. If you hear a band in their breakout period, or an individual who's scratched their way to that level, you're hearing the songs that they wrote in that blood and beer and bruises stage. All for one and one for all.
And that's the part that's the hardest to keep going. Because at a certain point, they're no longer writing as a team. In many cases, they don't even see each other until soundcheck.
The frictions start to magnify, and that magic team effort tends to come apart under the new stresses. It's a rough way to run a business.
Individual performers have a little different path, then. Some ways easier, because their process doesn't have the dependence on others. But at the same time, they still have to learn to listen to a voice that's changed.
Something else occurred to me on my morning walk, somewhere about mile 3. This is something I've been turning over in my mind for years.
Let's talk band (or singer) recording lifetimes. Here's the cliche, right? First album fantastic => second album good but... => third album what the hell?
and the fans start pointing out that the e.p. they put out before they signed the label deal was better than anything they ever put out at full length. And then everyone starts wondering about the breakup and what happened and let's watch Behind the Music to find out.
That's the cliche; I don't actually think it's right. Oh, there's enough truth there, but really, the lifetime of a major label act is, on average, short as hell.
Ok, a little personal background. My step-father and my grandfather were both professional musicians. They both toured in their respective genres. I played here and there through college, mostly for beer and pizza money but occasionally a little studio work (local commercials and tv stuff, nothing you've ever heard). I had enough friends, family, and personal exposure to working acts to know I was glad I never quite put myself all the way over the threshold into that part of the life.
You can get a taste of it if you find a good behind the scenes documentary of a particular group. The Some Kind of Monster doc for Metallica did a fantastic job. The Beatles docs do a good job as well, showing what it's like for a working group.
Though I think the Beatles stuff, like everything to do with them, is so exaggerated by their position at the time that it magnified the frictions to epic proportions. Still, the basic elements are all pretty universal.
Remember, the Beatles worked as an original recording act (i.e. writing their own music) for only about six years. And then the internal tensions broke them completely. But that's a different essay.
What I was thinking about was that "First Album Best" thing. Like, say, Appetite for Destruction for Guns 'n Roses. Or SupermegaOK for Soundgarden, or Bleach for Nirvana. Green Day fans will argue Kerplunk is better than Dookie, etc.
Note, I'm not arguing that this idea is correct. I'm just pointing out that hardcore fans can often have this perception: First album, or the album that the band recorded before the suits got involved, is better than anything the band did after they signed with the label. And then it all really goes downhill.
Shit. If you want to really start a fight, find a Metallica fan who passed around the "Cage Match" bootleg VHS in the 80s, and then ask them about the Black Album. Let's just say that the first gen fans don't always have a lot of good to say about the Black Album and everything that came after that.
Ok, like I said, I don't actually buy a lot of this. For any singer or group that records consistently over a lifetime of work, they are constantly working on something new and interesting. They may not be all the prolific, but there's always something well worth listening to when they do put out an album. (Or book, if you're thinking of writers. As an example, I've pre-ordered the upcoming Thomas Harris book. I've been reading his books since the first one, Black Sunday, there's only five so far plus six on the way, I figure I owe him and myself the time. He's well earned it.)
And that's the trick, ain't it? How do you keep coming back to the well? Not to repeat what you had before, because you can never properly repeat lightning in a bottle. It doesn't work that way.
But what I realized is that the longtime pros, the ones who keep coming back to the studio (jazz musicians do this consistently in a way that stands out. Jazz musicians record a lot more than any other genre. Look at Duke Ellington's discography; or John Coltrane's, and he had basically a ten year solo career. Current artists may not hit quite this pace, but then look at David Sanborn's list sometime.) always have something new they want to work on.
Part of this is just figuring out what being a pro means. Showing up for work, ready to blow the horn.
But there is, I think, one more secret. And that's never forgetting that fourteen year old self. The one who sat down with the guitar, or the sax, (computer for the writer) and played. And played again. Not to listen to a teacher say "you're doing it wrong". Or a parent say "it's too loud" or "go to bed". Or a date say "why aren't you spending time with me".
But to play the song. Write the story. And all that mattered was the sound of it.
Hold that feeling, and the rest of it comes... not easy. But you never have to ask why you do it. You do it for the same reason you did then. Because it sounds good, and you've got to tell it, play it, make it sound fantastic.
And to get back to "Why's the first album great and then they fall apart?" phenomenon. I think, in those cases where it's true, it's that the group, or the act, find themselves too far away from that feeling to come back to it as a whole. Individually, they can still manage it. It's the group dynamic that tears it apart.
Or, for a singer or single individual, I suspect it's the group dynamic, but instead with the producer or the manager or the label or whatever. And that's a real tragedy when that happens, because a singer signed with a label doesn't have anywhere to run. If that dynamic sucks, what the hell can they do? Buying themselves out of the deal is, on average, financially impossible. For all but the richest performers.
That part applies to groups, as well, and in spades. I caught a documentary on the Clash the other night, and that pretty much describes their denouement to a T. Manager plus label plus group troubles and the whole thing just unraveled.
I don't think I've got any more answers than I did before I had my little thought today. Call it a brain fart, no more than a "maybe" thought, but I figured I'd inflict it on you. There may be some explanatory value, or it may just be an interesting read of an evening. Either way.
At least I didn't point out something like "Ok, Guns 'n Roses are touring in their original lineup, why haven't they tried to record anything?"
There are some rocks nobody wants to turn over.
Let's talk band (or singer) recording lifetimes. Here's the cliche, right? First album fantastic => second album good but... => third album what the hell?
and the fans start pointing out that the e.p. they put out before they signed the label deal was better than anything they ever put out at full length. And then everyone starts wondering about the breakup and what happened and let's watch Behind the Music to find out.
That's the cliche; I don't actually think it's right. Oh, there's enough truth there, but really, the lifetime of a major label act is, on average, short as hell.
Ok, a little personal background. My step-father and my grandfather were both professional musicians. They both toured in their respective genres. I played here and there through college, mostly for beer and pizza money but occasionally a little studio work (local commercials and tv stuff, nothing you've ever heard). I had enough friends, family, and personal exposure to working acts to know I was glad I never quite put myself all the way over the threshold into that part of the life.
You can get a taste of it if you find a good behind the scenes documentary of a particular group. The Some Kind of Monster doc for Metallica did a fantastic job. The Beatles docs do a good job as well, showing what it's like for a working group.
Though I think the Beatles stuff, like everything to do with them, is so exaggerated by their position at the time that it magnified the frictions to epic proportions. Still, the basic elements are all pretty universal.
Remember, the Beatles worked as an original recording act (i.e. writing their own music) for only about six years. And then the internal tensions broke them completely. But that's a different essay.
What I was thinking about was that "First Album Best" thing. Like, say, Appetite for Destruction for Guns 'n Roses. Or SupermegaOK for Soundgarden, or Bleach for Nirvana. Green Day fans will argue Kerplunk is better than Dookie, etc.
Note, I'm not arguing that this idea is correct. I'm just pointing out that hardcore fans can often have this perception: First album, or the album that the band recorded before the suits got involved, is better than anything the band did after they signed with the label. And then it all really goes downhill.
Shit. If you want to really start a fight, find a Metallica fan who passed around the "Cage Match" bootleg VHS in the 80s, and then ask them about the Black Album. Let's just say that the first gen fans don't always have a lot of good to say about the Black Album and everything that came after that.
Ok, like I said, I don't actually buy a lot of this. For any singer or group that records consistently over a lifetime of work, they are constantly working on something new and interesting. They may not be all the prolific, but there's always something well worth listening to when they do put out an album. (Or book, if you're thinking of writers. As an example, I've pre-ordered the upcoming Thomas Harris book. I've been reading his books since the first one, Black Sunday, there's only five so far plus six on the way, I figure I owe him and myself the time. He's well earned it.)
And that's the trick, ain't it? How do you keep coming back to the well? Not to repeat what you had before, because you can never properly repeat lightning in a bottle. It doesn't work that way.
But what I realized is that the longtime pros, the ones who keep coming back to the studio (jazz musicians do this consistently in a way that stands out. Jazz musicians record a lot more than any other genre. Look at Duke Ellington's discography; or John Coltrane's, and he had basically a ten year solo career. Current artists may not hit quite this pace, but then look at David Sanborn's list sometime.) always have something new they want to work on.
Part of this is just figuring out what being a pro means. Showing up for work, ready to blow the horn.
But there is, I think, one more secret. And that's never forgetting that fourteen year old self. The one who sat down with the guitar, or the sax, (computer for the writer) and played. And played again. Not to listen to a teacher say "you're doing it wrong". Or a parent say "it's too loud" or "go to bed". Or a date say "why aren't you spending time with me".
But to play the song. Write the story. And all that mattered was the sound of it.
Hold that feeling, and the rest of it comes... not easy. But you never have to ask why you do it. You do it for the same reason you did then. Because it sounds good, and you've got to tell it, play it, make it sound fantastic.
And to get back to "Why's the first album great and then they fall apart?" phenomenon. I think, in those cases where it's true, it's that the group, or the act, find themselves too far away from that feeling to come back to it as a whole. Individually, they can still manage it. It's the group dynamic that tears it apart.
Or, for a singer or single individual, I suspect it's the group dynamic, but instead with the producer or the manager or the label or whatever. And that's a real tragedy when that happens, because a singer signed with a label doesn't have anywhere to run. If that dynamic sucks, what the hell can they do? Buying themselves out of the deal is, on average, financially impossible. For all but the richest performers.
That part applies to groups, as well, and in spades. I caught a documentary on the Clash the other night, and that pretty much describes their denouement to a T. Manager plus label plus group troubles and the whole thing just unraveled.
I don't think I've got any more answers than I did before I had my little thought today. Call it a brain fart, no more than a "maybe" thought, but I figured I'd inflict it on you. There may be some explanatory value, or it may just be an interesting read of an evening. Either way.
At least I didn't point out something like "Ok, Guns 'n Roses are touring in their original lineup, why haven't they tried to record anything?"
There are some rocks nobody wants to turn over.
I'm supposed to be off 'til summer! My 'third job', aka band stuff for the kiddo, caught up with me. I'm beginning to regret ever giving the band boosters my phone number...
I won't turn this into a craft space, it's not that interesting; I'm building something for one of the upcoming fundraiser events for the band boosters/band kids. One of those things where the ask came via email and no one was responding. So I asked "Anybody volunteered yet?" and now I'm hip deep in it. Fortunately, a drawing, a couple runs to the hardware store and it should be pretty well done.
I've got the rough build sitting in the garage now, I've a few cuts tomorrow and then painting next weekend and I'll be able to deliver it. Of course, I might have to make a few trips. Or, I'll tell the band booster president that his part in the proceedings is providing his truck for the delivery.
I was kind of proud of myself. I figured the basic lumber needs about mile 2 into my walk/run this morning. Came home, after bananna and coffee I drew it out and started figuring based on the drawing rather than my noodle. Everything came out well at the hardware store.
Except for the screws I brought home. I went with inch and 5/16's, should have gone with inch and 1/4's. One of those things where I should have checked my junk drawers first. I had a box of inch and 1/4's from the last time I tangled with 1x4's; I don't have the 'as milled' dimensions in my head the way an everyday carpenter would.
I got most of the way through the rough-in and only had to change a couple pieces of the design. Basically, I'm putting together a two-piece display, a stand and a plywood sheet-based wall. The stabilizing elements of the stand were the parts I had to re-design on the fly due to the difference in screws.
Got the stand all put together, tomorrow I have to trim out the display wall, and then make sure I remember I'm painting next week.
And then, maybe I can go back to enjoying our new roses. We introduced three more this spring, as well as spending some time stabilizing a couple of our older family members. All of them are coming along well this spring.
I'll post a couple pix of our older roses. The first one is our Dawn rose, aka the most vicious thorny beastie in the garden. Careful, she's a terror.
Oh, and it's lovebug season.
And then there's our Yellow Lady; she's a great deal easier to work with. Her thorns are there, and actually quite significant. She doesn't have anywhere near as many as the Dawn Rose, though, and she's less apt to pull a switchblade on you just for wandering by.
In both cases I rebuilt their boxes, so that they both get quite a bit more volume of dirt around the root balls. They've both had a pretty significant first bloom this year, as a result. There's room enough for both of them to accept roommates, as well. The Yellow Lady has a sprig of purple clover sharing space with her.
The Dawn Rose has the world's most protected strawberry sharing her space. I'm terrified to reach in and pick the first berry, which should be ripe tomorrow. I'm not sure I'm quite up to spilling new blood for the guardian every time I get hungry...
I won't turn this into a craft space, it's not that interesting; I'm building something for one of the upcoming fundraiser events for the band boosters/band kids. One of those things where the ask came via email and no one was responding. So I asked "Anybody volunteered yet?" and now I'm hip deep in it. Fortunately, a drawing, a couple runs to the hardware store and it should be pretty well done.
I've got the rough build sitting in the garage now, I've a few cuts tomorrow and then painting next weekend and I'll be able to deliver it. Of course, I might have to make a few trips. Or, I'll tell the band booster president that his part in the proceedings is providing his truck for the delivery.
I was kind of proud of myself. I figured the basic lumber needs about mile 2 into my walk/run this morning. Came home, after bananna and coffee I drew it out and started figuring based on the drawing rather than my noodle. Everything came out well at the hardware store.
Except for the screws I brought home. I went with inch and 5/16's, should have gone with inch and 1/4's. One of those things where I should have checked my junk drawers first. I had a box of inch and 1/4's from the last time I tangled with 1x4's; I don't have the 'as milled' dimensions in my head the way an everyday carpenter would.
I got most of the way through the rough-in and only had to change a couple pieces of the design. Basically, I'm putting together a two-piece display, a stand and a plywood sheet-based wall. The stabilizing elements of the stand were the parts I had to re-design on the fly due to the difference in screws.
Got the stand all put together, tomorrow I have to trim out the display wall, and then make sure I remember I'm painting next week.
And then, maybe I can go back to enjoying our new roses. We introduced three more this spring, as well as spending some time stabilizing a couple of our older family members. All of them are coming along well this spring.
I'll post a couple pix of our older roses. The first one is our Dawn rose, aka the most vicious thorny beastie in the garden. Careful, she's a terror.
Oh, and it's lovebug season.
And then there's our Yellow Lady; she's a great deal easier to work with. Her thorns are there, and actually quite significant. She doesn't have anywhere near as many as the Dawn Rose, though, and she's less apt to pull a switchblade on you just for wandering by.
In both cases I rebuilt their boxes, so that they both get quite a bit more volume of dirt around the root balls. They've both had a pretty significant first bloom this year, as a result. There's room enough for both of them to accept roommates, as well. The Yellow Lady has a sprig of purple clover sharing space with her.
The Dawn Rose has the world's most protected strawberry sharing her space. I'm terrified to reach in and pick the first berry, which should be ripe tomorrow. I'm not sure I'm quite up to spilling new blood for the guardian every time I get hungry...
Sunday, April 21, 2019
I realized this weekend I'm in one of those odd places physically.
Short description: like many, I took a good hard look at my current health level, got a little tired of being tired etc, and decided to do something about it. Timing being ever an issue, I've got 4 days a week in this part of the calendar to exercise.
I've been happy with my pace, and what I can do, I concentrate now on swimming, walking/running, and biking, to build up cardio and stamina. I've a fair few years of self to work away.
I'm happy with the way things have been going; even if I do feel like I'm relearning swimming, especially. Building up running laps, or pace on the bike, laps in the pool, all at a pace I've been quite proud of.
This past week and weekend was the first in the past few that I hit one of 'those' weeks, where it was easy to talk myself out of going in and doing my daily gym trip. Two days out of 4, so it wasn't outrageous, but I paid for it today.
I felt like I was dragging my ass somewhere down around my ankles. Lethargic, rather than tired, and generally just downspirited. Where most Sundays I'm just tired because I usually end up doing both a trip to the gym and then the rest of the day house and yardwork. We had a visitor this morning that put me out of being able to go in and get on the bike. So, understandable.
It's a learning experience; I know that I won't be able to have a 'perfect' schedule, life's out there and has its demands. So I guess I need to recognize the feeling, and expect it.
And not beat myself up over it.
One encouraging thing is that the feeling tells me the exercise has been doing me a ton of good, in terms of how my body and mind respond to the work.
Writing helped a great deal with the mental listlessness. Sitting down this evening, I put in a little more than a thousand words. It felt glorious.
Putting in a blog post was somewhat harder. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything else to write about...
Short description: like many, I took a good hard look at my current health level, got a little tired of being tired etc, and decided to do something about it. Timing being ever an issue, I've got 4 days a week in this part of the calendar to exercise.
I've been happy with my pace, and what I can do, I concentrate now on swimming, walking/running, and biking, to build up cardio and stamina. I've a fair few years of self to work away.
I'm happy with the way things have been going; even if I do feel like I'm relearning swimming, especially. Building up running laps, or pace on the bike, laps in the pool, all at a pace I've been quite proud of.
This past week and weekend was the first in the past few that I hit one of 'those' weeks, where it was easy to talk myself out of going in and doing my daily gym trip. Two days out of 4, so it wasn't outrageous, but I paid for it today.
I felt like I was dragging my ass somewhere down around my ankles. Lethargic, rather than tired, and generally just downspirited. Where most Sundays I'm just tired because I usually end up doing both a trip to the gym and then the rest of the day house and yardwork. We had a visitor this morning that put me out of being able to go in and get on the bike. So, understandable.
It's a learning experience; I know that I won't be able to have a 'perfect' schedule, life's out there and has its demands. So I guess I need to recognize the feeling, and expect it.
And not beat myself up over it.
One encouraging thing is that the feeling tells me the exercise has been doing me a ton of good, in terms of how my body and mind respond to the work.
Writing helped a great deal with the mental listlessness. Sitting down this evening, I put in a little more than a thousand words. It felt glorious.
Putting in a blog post was somewhat harder. I couldn't for the life of me think of anything else to write about...
Saturday, April 20, 2019
For Cosma and Brad and fans of model analysis generally, a question: is this a completed analysis?
I think that not only is there a minimum possible price Alice can extract (11 cents per Cosma, and I don't disagree that this is the proper limit up to transport costs of the turkey, if any, assuming Note 1 below). I find a maximum possible price, of 5000.10 dollars. That is, we know Dives is price insensitive, and Lazarus is as well, since Lazarus, starving, will presumably bid all available for the turkey. This price is obtainable if Lazarus and Dives both have a minimum calorie count of turkey (to survive another day for Lazarus, or "survive" for Dives) which Alice has sufficient turkey surplus available to satisfy. Further, Alice is posited as having, for Lazarus and Dives, a monopoly on turkey, therefore this maximum price is fully realizable.
Note 1 : That Lazarus has bid at all, or otherwise signaled his ability to pay 10 cents for turkey, shows Alice knows of his existence.
Note 2 : If Lazarus really is dying, such that Alice cannot possibly satisfy his starvation regardless of the amount of turkey remaining from her own dinner, then she might as well be selling chalk in the model presented. Unless Bob and Carol + others not in evidence pitch in. Call this result (Lazarus starves because Alice can't possibly satisfy his particular condition) the zeroth solution, 0.0. Call the result in Note 1 solution 0.1, i.e. Alice doesn't even know that Lazarus exists. (I use solution here to mean in particular that Lazarus continues to go begging.) To go any further though, we have to assume that Alice has sufficient turkey to satisfy at least one of the two buyers.
Given a minimum possible price, and a maximum possible price, then we can say that there are two further solutions to the problem.
Solution 1 (Cosma's solution): Alice sells to Dives alone for 11 cents. Or some value between than 1 cent and 5000 dollars if solution 0.1 is somehow active.
Solution 2 : Alice sells to both Lazarus and Dives for some price between 12 cents and 5000.10 dollars. Further, if transport costs are an issue (but still less than 5000.10 dollars), Alice can, via Solution 2, in fact charge Dives and Lazarus together any price sufficient to transport costs plus any number up to 5000.10 dollars total.
Solution 2 in this context is uninteresting, since in this case Alice has managed to both provide Lazarus another day this side of paradise, and Dives with the material for his art installation. However, Solution 2 is very interesting if, and only if, Solution 1 is the only one which is observed.
Meaning, if Solution 1 is the observed condition, then there are three possibilities:
A. Alice has no idea Lazarus exists, but if she did Solution 2 would be available.
B. Alice knows Lazarus exists but does not know that Solution 2 is available.
C. Alice knows both that Lazarus exists, and that Solution 2 is available.
D. Alice knows that Lazarus exists, but Solution 2 is unavailable because she doesn't have sufficient turkey surplus to satisfy both Lazarus and Dives.
A and B are then easily resolved: Let Alice know that Lazarus exists, that she has sufficient turkey and power to charge Lazarus and Dives differentiably sufficient to provide both with their turkey.
C is then the difficult case. Should Alice's monopoly be broken by standing up Bob and Carol + others as additional food suppliers? Should, and can, Alice be subsidized in some way (and the minimum cost estimate for how much would be necessary can be extracted by further results, I think) to provide the necessary? Or do you have to all the way to force of law to get Lazarus fed?
D is a very useful subset of both the solutions and possible resolutions: it tells us that Bob and Carol + others are essential to a long term resolution (i.e. multiple iterations) of the situation.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
A note of little importance, except possibly to other writers/artists of various sorts/hobbyists. I've been noodling an observation, or maybe it's just a brain fart; ok, possibly it's self-justification. One does what one can with what one has, after all.
Any rate, what occurred to me was that art, writing, hobby, playing in the garden, meditating, staring out at the auburn sky, all the things to do that don't have anything to do with the job. Or the chores. Or the bills. Or, really, anything that someone else wants you to do, rather than the thing that quiets the noise and allows for a breather.
All that stuff? It's a defense against the needle-scratch moments. Those little parts of the day where you read something, hear something, see something that makes your brain scratch out of the track it's on. All those little moments that make you go "What in the hell did I just hear? They can't really have just said that, right?"
And I don't mean any particular thing political, animal, or vegetable. Criminal, psychological or meteorological. But I do mean that we all have those elements trip us up.
And then we get to go home. Fire up the laptop, or break out the pencil and paper, or wander out for a walk with the dogs. Or whatever. And spend some brief moment of our day.
Not thinking about anything that matters to anyone else in the world, for some blessed few minutes.
Any rate, what occurred to me was that art, writing, hobby, playing in the garden, meditating, staring out at the auburn sky, all the things to do that don't have anything to do with the job. Or the chores. Or the bills. Or, really, anything that someone else wants you to do, rather than the thing that quiets the noise and allows for a breather.
All that stuff? It's a defense against the needle-scratch moments. Those little parts of the day where you read something, hear something, see something that makes your brain scratch out of the track it's on. All those little moments that make you go "What in the hell did I just hear? They can't really have just said that, right?"
And I don't mean any particular thing political, animal, or vegetable. Criminal, psychological or meteorological. But I do mean that we all have those elements trip us up.
And then we get to go home. Fire up the laptop, or break out the pencil and paper, or wander out for a walk with the dogs. Or whatever. And spend some brief moment of our day.
Not thinking about anything that matters to anyone else in the world, for some blessed few minutes.
Monday, April 15, 2019
Oh, Gene Wolfe has left us. If you don't know, just understand that, when you bounce from one of his stories, that's ok. I've been back and forth on whether I enjoy, as opposed to respect and admire, his stories, pretty much every single time I read or re-read them. I've bounced from pretty much every one of his longer works, sometimes more than once. So I'm not one to tell you what to read first, Neil Gaiman's reading guide is one attempt at it, though. Personally, I'd tackle Gene's short fiction first.
I've always put him into my Bob Silverberg mental folder; certainly, there's some stylistic overlap, but mostly it's because Silverberg and Wolfe were happy to project essentially human futures, but so far away from the present as to be unrecognizable in structure and form. Other than that essential humanity. Moorcock ventured in this territory, as well; they none of them reason to the same conclusions, but they all tangle with the far future, and whether we'd ever be able to communicate with those who reside there. Herbert led us all gently to this place, where god-emperors may or may not await.
Wolfe carried something that those of us who came up Catholic resonated to. Collapsed Catholic I may be, but that's not to say I don't still have those touchstones present, some shoals, some markers. Seeing someone else pass those waters, mark them, return to them, struggle and triumph and drown in them... has a weight. Meaning. Of such things are dreams aborning. I wonder what never was and might have been and the world that could be created thus look like now.
I've always put him into my Bob Silverberg mental folder; certainly, there's some stylistic overlap, but mostly it's because Silverberg and Wolfe were happy to project essentially human futures, but so far away from the present as to be unrecognizable in structure and form. Other than that essential humanity. Moorcock ventured in this territory, as well; they none of them reason to the same conclusions, but they all tangle with the far future, and whether we'd ever be able to communicate with those who reside there. Herbert led us all gently to this place, where god-emperors may or may not await.
Wolfe carried something that those of us who came up Catholic resonated to. Collapsed Catholic I may be, but that's not to say I don't still have those touchstones present, some shoals, some markers. Seeing someone else pass those waters, mark them, return to them, struggle and triumph and drown in them... has a weight. Meaning. Of such things are dreams aborning. I wonder what never was and might have been and the world that could be created thus look like now.
Thank you, Tiger. Seeing your smiles, and the hugs you gave the kids and your mom when you got to the finish line, is a joy worth waiting for. Congratulations, for the work and the payoff. And, as a father of a teenage girl, I turned to my wife and asked whether your daughter was too cool for Dad in that moment, so seeing her embrace you in your family's moment added to the moment.
Now, following the sports world today, I see a lot of people jumping onto the "Tiger's gonna beat Jack" bandwagon again. I'd love to see that chase, one way or another. But I haven't heard a single one of the talking heads mention something that came up when Tiger talked about his day yesterday: he woke up at 3:45 am to get his back loose for a 9am tee time.
The golf season's a long one. Four days a week plus practice rounds, so 5 full days; baseball and hockey, the NBA, that's the kind of grind we're talking about. That's a long hard thing to go through.
I wonder if that moment at the Masters, where Tiger walked off to his family, if that's the moment he's been working for. The old days, that Tiger, this comeback would have been the beginning. He's, by personal admission, not that person anymore. The river moves on; having done so, isn't the same.
I don't doubt his drive remains. I believe it's tempered, though. As iron becomes steel, the drive changes when kids come in. When their smiles and their accomplishments matter now, far more than anything we have done or would like to. The grind is a grind now, isn't it?
Success is tempered as well. It means something different, the little things.
I look forward to finding out what this portion of the road looks like, as Tiger shrugs into another green jacket. To more smiles, more triumphs, more defeats because that's the nature of the beast, but either way, I have a feeling we're all going to get to see something very special.
And, because it's Tiger, I suspect we're all going to be changing our view of what special means, no matter what happens.
Now, following the sports world today, I see a lot of people jumping onto the "Tiger's gonna beat Jack" bandwagon again. I'd love to see that chase, one way or another. But I haven't heard a single one of the talking heads mention something that came up when Tiger talked about his day yesterday: he woke up at 3:45 am to get his back loose for a 9am tee time.
The golf season's a long one. Four days a week plus practice rounds, so 5 full days; baseball and hockey, the NBA, that's the kind of grind we're talking about. That's a long hard thing to go through.
I wonder if that moment at the Masters, where Tiger walked off to his family, if that's the moment he's been working for. The old days, that Tiger, this comeback would have been the beginning. He's, by personal admission, not that person anymore. The river moves on; having done so, isn't the same.
I don't doubt his drive remains. I believe it's tempered, though. As iron becomes steel, the drive changes when kids come in. When their smiles and their accomplishments matter now, far more than anything we have done or would like to. The grind is a grind now, isn't it?
Success is tempered as well. It means something different, the little things.
I look forward to finding out what this portion of the road looks like, as Tiger shrugs into another green jacket. To more smiles, more triumphs, more defeats because that's the nature of the beast, but either way, I have a feeling we're all going to get to see something very special.
And, because it's Tiger, I suspect we're all going to be changing our view of what special means, no matter what happens.
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Looking at the dates on posts, I've been busy away from the blog. Writing, yes,
I've a couple stories finished and I'm into my next longer story. The day gig's
been consuming me, I think. Which is one of the reasons I'm supposed to be writi
ng, I remind myself, leave the day gig at the job site and come home to work on
something more me.
Eh. I've been submitting stories to various markets, as well. I'm sure to get re
jections, that's part of the expectation, but stories sitting in folders on my c
omputer don't get anything but bit rot.
I've also been consumed in various bits and pieces of other things; the world of
stories, because my to-be-read pile grows continuously. Space-X is getting clos
er day by day with their launches, Boeing with a schedule slip isn't all that fa
r from throwing their test capsule to the station. They've imaged a black hole f
or the first time, using a network of telescopes linked across the globe.
And a fair seven billion other things, all of us a story every day. But that's w
hat crossed my eye today.
I've a couple stories finished and I'm into my next longer story. The day gig's
been consuming me, I think. Which is one of the reasons I'm supposed to be writi
ng, I remind myself, leave the day gig at the job site and come home to work on
something more me.
Eh. I've been submitting stories to various markets, as well. I'm sure to get re
jections, that's part of the expectation, but stories sitting in folders on my c
omputer don't get anything but bit rot.
I've also been consumed in various bits and pieces of other things; the world of
stories, because my to-be-read pile grows continuously. Space-X is getting clos
er day by day with their launches, Boeing with a schedule slip isn't all that fa
r from throwing their test capsule to the station. They've imaged a black hole f
or the first time, using a network of telescopes linked across the globe.
And a fair seven billion other things, all of us a story every day. But that's w
hat crossed my eye today.
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