I have received several-not complaints per se but, comments I think we'll call them-lately to the tune of "Your last couple posts were way too long!" To that, I say, "Dem's da breaks, kiddo."
But really, here's a good summary: Downloaded music okay. Physical media better. Vinyl records best. Electronic books stupid. Physical books awesome. Electronic media mixed bag. Easy for new players to the media game. And finally, iPad stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
I know I have talked about my family a little bit in the past. I count myself lucky to count myself amongst not only my parents and sister, but also amongst my sister's husband, their two little girls (link), my wife, her parents and their nine other children and their various and varied family members. There are a lot. Six brothers, three sisters, five sisters-in-law, one brother-in-law, three nieces, two nephews and one more nephew to be born in the next three weeks (so, you know, by the time you get around to finishing my last two posts and this one, that kid will be halfway through with his doctorate). So that's a lot of family for me to keep tabs on.
Add to that, I have close friends who I consider family. Sure, some of that family I may not see all that often, or call consistently, or...wait, now I look like a bad friend/relative. Anyway, I am getting to a point. That point is that with all this family plus the time that these families have spent together (separately and together) comes a slew of traditions.
The traditions range from the weekly to the annually and all other sorts of permutations. I think that traditions are important when building and maintaining a family, so I'm going to talk about some of my favorite ones.
Sunday Dinner - Growing up in my parents' house was kind of...odd. I don't intend that to sound mean, but, for most of my childhood, the house was in a constant state of flux. Not the household, but the house itself, the brick-and-mortar and four-walls-and-a-roof house. One of my earliest memories is of my dad and my uncle Tim working together on remodeling the bathroom. Then together (and with the help of other uncles from both sides of the family) they tackled the deck, tore the old one down and built a new one (which still stands). My sister and I had bedrooms upstairs in what had been the attic but which had been (as my father would say) remuddled into living space. But it had lackluster insulation and no air conditioning, which meant it got ridiculously cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. Winter wasn't a big deal, really, because there were always plenty of blankets. Summer, however, usually meant camping out in the couch in the living room. After a while, I just moved permanently onto the couch. My sister, however, got her own bedroom; what had been the dining room was remodeled into a bedroom and I couldn't understand why she got it and I didn't (at the time, anyway, but now I get it; she's a girl and she was entering those teenage years and I can't think of a better place for a teenage girl than locked up in her own room...haha, kidding Mo). What this meant was that we were now short a bedroom for me and a dining room. We ate a lot of our meals in the living room, which is where I slept.
Anyway, eventually the remodeling process took a huge leap and we had a real life second story to the house. Finally, I had my own bedroom and my own closet and I moved off the futon in the living room and onto a twin bed (later replaced by the futon, which is currently in the basement, and if you're a regular to the blog you've seen it as I am sitting on it in my video blogs). My sister's old room (which, remember, was the dining room) became the living room and we started working on turning the living room (and my parents' old room) into new space. The front half of the living room was going to remain living room, with my parents' old room becoming the rest of the living room. The old back part of the living room was going to become the dining room. But that took a few years. Meanwhile, we had a table in a small room we called the breakfast nook (a sun porch leading out to the deck, which, again, is still there to this day) but we ate most of our meals, again, in the living room. The temporary one. It wasn't until I was mostly done with high school that the whole project was finished. I don't want to make it look like my parents were lazy or anything like that, they just worked when they could and when they could afford it, and when you've got two kids to raise and you're looking at paying for them to go to college maybe, and my mother was in school for a majority of that time and working full time (I did it and I don't know how she did it because I was stressed enough without two kids to take care of), so it went slow and steady. And though I sometimes went without a bedroom, I never went without a bed and though I sometimes went without a dining room, I never went without dinner. So I'm not complaining.
The final piece of the remodel came after I left for college (attempt number one). The summer between my first and last semesters at the University of Minnesota was filled with tuckpointing, new driveway and no kitchen. That's right, that summer my parents remodeled their kitchen, which needed it, trust me. The old one was, shall we say, retro in a very not-cool-retro-but-actually-held-over-from-the-seventies way. The appliances, too (aside from the oven, which had been replaced due to the utter failure of the oven door of the old one, which is a long story I actually won't go into here, surprisingly). But, what that did mean was that summer is written in my memory as the summer of the grill. We grilled almost every meal we ate. We had a charcoal Weber kettle, my late Grandpa Rauscher's Char Broil gas grill, a Coleman camp stove...it was all set up outside on the deck. We ate so well. And we had a brand new refrigerator in the room that had been the dining room and then became my sister's room and then was the living room (side note; that room has actually been very many rooms since my parents moved in; dining room, bedroom, living room, kitchen, office, music room, storage room, pretty much every room my parents have in that house aside from the bathroom), so we had a good summer eating in the relatively-new-dining room. I went back to college before the counter tops arrived.
I am getting to Sunday Dinners here. When I moved back-well, no. After I moved back, actually, and my sister was living with Kevin (who is now her husband), she would come back and eat dinner with us on Sundays. It was nice. We had a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, all functioning. All those meals we had eaten in the living room in my youth, not to detract from them because the food was uniformly good and the company some of the best the world has to offer (sucking up to the family much? Elliot, do you need money or something? No, I promise, it's all part of the literaryness of the post), there is something about gathering around the table with the family once a week and catching up. We kept this going after Kathy and I got married and we moved into our apartment, and it's a tradition that has grown. My sister and her family spend alternating Sundays with her husband's family, which is only fair. We'd probably do the same it weren't distance prohibitive to drive to Kathy's parents' house just for dinner once every two weeks. My grandmother Mary Beth (my mother's mother) joins us. Other extended family members have come. Of course my sisters' girls come along with their parents. And whenever one of Kathy's family members is in town, they tag along as well. Basically it's a great comfort to me to know that each week, I get to spend one meal sitting at the table, laughing with my parents and spending time with people I love.
Gay Schnucks - Okay, having ended that last tradition on a sappy note, I'm going to go for funny now. And no, you didn't read that wrong, that says Gay Schnucks. Schnucks is a supermarket here in St. Louis (I'd link to them but 1. they're not paying me to and 2. I don't think they'd be too keen on any publicity that is preceded by the qualifier "Gay") which is quite nice in its selection, location and hours. The closest one to my parents' house is about a five minute drive and it's open 24 hours, which is helpful to someone planning a get-together in the midst of the holiday season.
That's right, Mom, I'm talking about our Christmas Eve tradition.
Early in the morning on Christmas Eve (or, really, generally late in the evening on Christmas Eve Eve), my mother will do the last minute shopping for the annual(ish) Christmas gathering she and my father host. This gathering consists of my mother, my father, myself, my wife's self, and some other selfs who are wont to comment on the blog occasionally (hi Bridget). This past year it grew in scope to quite an overwhelming proportion, so maybe next year it'll be toned down a smidge. Anyway, the last minute shopping takes place at the aforementioned nearby Schnucks, and the four years I was in high school (and the next couple years after when I lived at home), I would accompany my mother on this shopping trip to provide moral support/push the cart/keep her company. The reason this Schnucks is called "Gay" Schnucks is because it is located near a vibrant gay community, and many of the shoppers you see there are in fact gay couples. The first year I accompanied my mother on this trip I was fifteen, and as I recall this was the first time I had heard the store's unofficial nickname. I thought little of it; so what? Gay people shop there in large, noticeable numbers? Good for the boys! But we were there so late that they made an announcement at a quarter to two in the morning stating that if you had liquor you wished to purchase, buy now or regret it later. Or something to that effect. My mother indeed intended to buy several bottles of wine, so she left me with the list and the cart and rushed to buy the wine in one bulk purchase, promising to return so we could continue shopping together. This was not my first time alone in a grocery store, but it was the first time alone so late at night in a grocery store. I, again, didn't think much about it.
Until...a creepy man started tailing me. Smiling at me, but not in a "Oh, I'm just being polite and we made eye contact" kind of way. More in a, "So...come here often?" Kind of way. I smiled in a way that I was sure said, "No, especially not this late because generally I have a curfew and I'm only fifteen and my mother is just getting some wine. Really, I'm awfully flattered but, as I said, I'm fifteen years old and also, not that there's anything wrong with that but I don't play for that team. Did I mention my mother is just buying some wine? Yeah, she'll be right back any minute. I appreciate the smile, you have lovely teeth for sure but, honestly, I'm fifteen and you're kind of creeping me out and you're standing in front of the milk and I really need a gallon of it so if you could just, say, shove off in a totally different direction, life would be a lot less stressful for me at this moment in time." I'm not sure how it came off, but eventually he wandered away.
You'd think I'd have been deterred by this, but no. I kept coming back. At least five more years. And every year, I think, "Oh, I should go help my mom. This time, though, I'll pick up the wine myself and leave her getting the rest of the groceries."
Weier Family Classic - My wife's family is large, as I said, but they're also spread out across five states (Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado and Missouri). With ten children and a branching family tree, it's difficult to get everyone together. So several years ago, they initiated the Weier (and that's pronounced like the conjunction for "we are" or, if you prefer, like the last name of US Figure Skating pretty boy Johnny Weir though spelled differently) Family Classic. The idea is that each year, the family gets together and holds a contest of some kind, and the winner gets to take home a trophy which is as tall as my wife.
The first year, it was a fishing challenge, and the trophy went to my wife for catching the biggest fish. She wasn't even using bait. And the fish isn't a legal fish to catch, as it's endangered. Of course it's endangered! It bites unbaited hooks (this one bit hers not once but twice). The second year it went to my niece Morgan for "Best New Attraction" (they scrambled for a category that year). The third year (my first participating year, as my wife's fiance) we went bowling, and the trophy went to my wife's brother Joe for getting the most strikes in a row. The fourth year we bet pennies on a minor league baseball game (we were each assigned a batter and for each hit they got, everybody else gave you a penny for a single, two for a double, etc). This contest was held a week after I had married Kathy. And I won.
We've had lawn olympics, rock-paper-scissor tournaments and Diet-Coke/Mentos fountain contests. It's a good way to get the family together and see each other at least once a year. It's been a couple years now, as families have grown it's gotten even harder, but the trophy (wherever it now resides, I can't remember) beckons to each of us. There are those who still lust after it, upset that startups (like myself) can just stroll in off the street and claim the title. They're still waiting for their day. For past champs like myself, we miss the thrill of competition. Also, there's always food involved. Really, ridiculously good food.
Olympic Ribs - This is a relatively new tradition. And by relatively new, I mean it's only happened once, and that in the very recent past. Though it has its roots elsewhere.
The roots lie in another tradition that Kathy and I started; Each night, before we go to sleep, we generally watch one or two episodes of M*A*S*H. You know that show, right? It's been in syndication for my entire life almost, held a viewership record that stood until the most recent Superbowl for most viewers watching a single program (the series finale in 1982). Alan Alda, Jamie Farr wearing dresses, Harry Morgan, Korean War...you've got it now I'm sure. Well, there is an episode in I want to say Season Two called Adams Ribs, in which Hawkeye (Alan Alda) is sick and tired of army food and calls a BBQ joint in Chicago and orders forty pounds of frozen ribs and two gallons of barbecue sauce, then has to have his tent-mate Trapper call up a girl he used to know in Chicago to pick it up, pay for it and put it in a box marked "Medical Supplies-URGENT!" and send it to them in Korea. Every time we watch this episode, we crave ribs.
One night, the craving hit us so hard we called in an order to Applebee's and I picked it up. The ribs were...disappointing. Another time, we had our own barbecued ribs at my parents' house (for a Sunday Dinner). And in 2008, a few days after we watched this episode some friends of ours came over to watch Olympic Gymnastics, and they offered to get dinner. They asked us what we wanted, and we told them, duh, ribs! So we recently started watching the series again (for the nth and not the final time), and two days before the Vancouver Winter Olympics opened, we saw that episode. We knew that we would be glued to the opening ceremonies on that Friday (because we're suckers for that kind of stuff) so we decided to get ribs and watch them. So we did, and I decided that regardless of when the last time we watched that particular episode of M*A*S*H was, come the 2012 Summer Games in London, we will be ordering a slab of ribs from Bandana's BBQ here in town, with some cole slaw and potato salad, and we'll watch those opening ceremonies while we stuff our face with ribs. That's the kind of tradition Kathy has no problem getting behind.
So why bring up all these traditions, anyway? Surely these things would have been more present in my mind over the holidays or directly after the rib-sauce-soaked opening ceremonies? Well, sure, but we've had other things on our minds. My digital music/book rant one of those things, maybe. Watching the Olympics, perhaps. But mostly, we've been preoccupied with the thought of incorporating a new family member into these traditions. This isn't just idle speculation, either. Come August 19th or thereabouts of this year, I'm Not Just o.k., I'm not Just All Write, I'm also a father. Which makes Kathy a mother, and that way we keep it all in the family. And that means the blog might take on a little bit of a different character (again, link for some perspective).
So you've all got that to look forward to. Who's excited?
I know I am.
Showing posts with label Previews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Previews. Show all posts
Monday, March 08, 2010
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Coming Soon
Everybody is doing their top ten lists nowadays. Makes sense, as it's the end of the year and also the end of the decade. NPR Music has been doing a great recap of the best music of the decade, including All Songs Considered's 50 Most Important Recordings.
Well, I thought, why not do some of that myself? So, starting later today, you will begin seeing my top ten lists of the best of the decade. Topics will include best albums, best books, best movies and best television.
A caveat: This will be limited to those albums, books, films and shows I have actually heard/seen/read. It will include some very obvious entries (nobody expects Fox's Arrested Development to not be my top television show) and some really obscure entries as well (I doubt many of you have actually read All Things, All at Once by Lee K. Abbott). So be looking for those.
Just so everybody knows, I am aware it has been nearly two months since I last posted. Again, I thrive on comments, and when nobody comments on my posts, it makes me less likely to post again in the immediate future. I understand that my last few posts were, um...lengthy? And also very in-depth about an obscure subject. I promise to be more brief with my top-ten list justifications than I was with my Sunny Day Real Estate reviews. That did get a little out of hand, but it had to be done.
Something very cool; I got a Sunny Day Real Estate t-shirt sent to me by my good buddy Zach (who also happens to have been the bass player in my old band The Hitchhikers, the best man at my wedding, and a former cycling team mate) who attended their show in Boston. I was then wearing this shirt on my 27th birthday when my friends Melinda and Jake gave me LP2 (The Pink Album) on Vinyl. The remastered one with bonus tracks. It's pink. I don't mean the cover is pink, because if it wasn't pink it would be a travesty. No, the vinyl itself, is pink. Pink vinyl. I also received a receiver so that I could hook up my record player so I could then listen to pink vinyl. It even sounds pink it's so awesome.
Other than that, I failed at NaNoWriMo this year. I just, for some reason, have hit a wall. This is a bad thing. I need to power through it. It's among my new years' resolutions, and anyway, 2009 has two weeks left to redeem itself and all signs point to it being a major let down. There were good things that happened in 2009, but...well, that's a post for another day. New Year's day, probably. That, I have been working on. I have my farewell to 2009 all written out already. Expect that.
Let's see; I turned another year older last month on the 21st. Got the album, the stereo receiver, an electric razor (Kathy was tired of having to buy me Mach 3 turbo blades), Up In the Air by Walter Kirn, three albums via iTunes giftcards (The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists and Raditude by Weezer), some cash and a six pack of Magic Hat Not Quite Pale Ale (top ten beers of the decade sounds like a dangerous list). Good haul. Most importantly, I got to spend my birthday with good friends and family.
After that, well, nothing much. Took a trip to Chicago and fell in love with our friends' condo. Get this: two grocery stores, a CostCo and a Menards, all within walking distance. Drew carried their Christmas tree home. How awesome is that? Don't answer, I'll tell you; Super awesome. We did some shopping at Ikea and came home with a new CD shelf and a new bookshelf (with glass doors on the bottom half). Got my Christmas shopping done, really excited because I bought Kathy a really nice *** ******** **** of **** ******** ***** *** *********** even though I **** **** ******, but it will **** **** ** *** ********* (the preceding was redacted to preserve surprise for Kathy on Christmas morning). Trust me, she'll love it.
Okay, well, look for a blitz of posts in the next few days. Starting with this one.
Well, I thought, why not do some of that myself? So, starting later today, you will begin seeing my top ten lists of the best of the decade. Topics will include best albums, best books, best movies and best television.
A caveat: This will be limited to those albums, books, films and shows I have actually heard/seen/read. It will include some very obvious entries (nobody expects Fox's Arrested Development to not be my top television show) and some really obscure entries as well (I doubt many of you have actually read All Things, All at Once by Lee K. Abbott). So be looking for those.
Just so everybody knows, I am aware it has been nearly two months since I last posted. Again, I thrive on comments, and when nobody comments on my posts, it makes me less likely to post again in the immediate future. I understand that my last few posts were, um...lengthy? And also very in-depth about an obscure subject. I promise to be more brief with my top-ten list justifications than I was with my Sunny Day Real Estate reviews. That did get a little out of hand, but it had to be done.
Something very cool; I got a Sunny Day Real Estate t-shirt sent to me by my good buddy Zach (who also happens to have been the bass player in my old band The Hitchhikers, the best man at my wedding, and a former cycling team mate) who attended their show in Boston. I was then wearing this shirt on my 27th birthday when my friends Melinda and Jake gave me LP2 (The Pink Album) on Vinyl. The remastered one with bonus tracks. It's pink. I don't mean the cover is pink, because if it wasn't pink it would be a travesty. No, the vinyl itself, is pink. Pink vinyl. I also received a receiver so that I could hook up my record player so I could then listen to pink vinyl. It even sounds pink it's so awesome.
Other than that, I failed at NaNoWriMo this year. I just, for some reason, have hit a wall. This is a bad thing. I need to power through it. It's among my new years' resolutions, and anyway, 2009 has two weeks left to redeem itself and all signs point to it being a major let down. There were good things that happened in 2009, but...well, that's a post for another day. New Year's day, probably. That, I have been working on. I have my farewell to 2009 all written out already. Expect that.
Let's see; I turned another year older last month on the 21st. Got the album, the stereo receiver, an electric razor (Kathy was tired of having to buy me Mach 3 turbo blades), Up In the Air by Walter Kirn, three albums via iTunes giftcards (The Crane Wife and The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists and Raditude by Weezer), some cash and a six pack of Magic Hat Not Quite Pale Ale (top ten beers of the decade sounds like a dangerous list). Good haul. Most importantly, I got to spend my birthday with good friends and family.
After that, well, nothing much. Took a trip to Chicago and fell in love with our friends' condo. Get this: two grocery stores, a CostCo and a Menards, all within walking distance. Drew carried their Christmas tree home. How awesome is that? Don't answer, I'll tell you; Super awesome. We did some shopping at Ikea and came home with a new CD shelf and a new bookshelf (with glass doors on the bottom half). Got my Christmas shopping done, really excited because I bought Kathy a really nice *** ******** **** of **** ******** ***** *** *********** even though I **** **** ******, but it will **** **** ** *** ********* (the preceding was redacted to preserve surprise for Kathy on Christmas morning). Trust me, she'll love it.
Okay, well, look for a blitz of posts in the next few days. Starting with this one.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
I Know Where My Towel Is
Warning: The post you are about to read is long, rambling, and certain to take up way more of your time than you currently have budgeted for reading this blog. You might want to tackle this one in spurts. And you're probably going to need a cup of coffee while you're at it. And a donut. In fact, get me a donut, too. Thanks.
I am going to broach a subject that I'm pretty sure I have never broached before on this platform, possibly because it seemed so redundant to anyone who knows me to for me to speak on this subject, but also because...well, no I don't really know why at all. I just, for some reason, haven't talked about this on the blog yet and I feel that, what with certain things currently in the works in the wide world outside of my own writing, I thought now is as good a time as any to do so.
What I am gradually coming to the point of is this: DNA. Not DNA as in Deoxyribonucleic acid but DNA as in Douglas Noel Adams, British humourist, scriptwriter, performer, environmentalist, atheist, tech-head, and (both most importantly and least effectively) author. I'll clarify that in a moment. This man's work has had a profound effect on my life, my sensibilities, my thoughts, and my early approach to writing. And though I have read many many books that are technically, verbally, artistically and generally better than his books, no book will ever supplant the Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the crown jewel of my book collection.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden. In fact, as recently as the year before she had been Ms. Derby (which is how I knew her anyway, because my sister had, three years before me, sat in Ms. Derby's classroom on a daily basis) but had, as many women see fit to do (thankfully my wife included, otherwise I'd likely be a shiftless bum) gotten married to a rather sensible gentleman by the name of Mr. McFadden (I am basing my assessment of his sensibility solely on the fact that he asked Ms. Derby n/k/a Mrs. McFadden to marry him). This is not the point of the story. I shall return to the beginning.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden, who had, three years previous and under her unmarried name of Ms. Derby, taught my sister in fourth grade. It was sheer luck I got her as my teacher, as there were four teachers for each grade at my elementary school (I think that's right, but it has been a number of years) and there was no system whereby you could request specific teachers (but I think if a parent asked gently enough, it could only help, which I think is why the next year, in fifth grade, I avoided a disaster my sister was not so lucky to have missed), but having seen how wonderful Ms. Derby was for my sister, my parents were thrilled for me to have Mrs. McFadden. I guess the general thought was that having gotten married would not negatively affect her teaching ability. And, thankfully, it didn't. She recognized my sense of humour, my (not to toot my own horn here) intelligence, and my skills with words. She was the first teacher I remember truly encouraging me to explore creative writing. But what was cool, looking back, was the way in which she encouraged it. She encouraged me not just to write, but also to read, which is a doctrine that each and every writing teacher I've had at any level of creative writing since has preached.
I had always been an avid reader, and had many times put pen (or, I guess back then, #2 pencil) to (wide-ruled loose leaf) paper. I was even, during fourth grade, in the midst of writing a comic book (based on the adventures of my stuffed animals) as well as a novel (called "Aliens In The Backyard") about a group of kids who get abducted by aliens in an attempt to better understand humans' fascination with baseball. These are the things I would work on when we'd have a free period, or when recess was confined to the classroom due to inclement weather. Both of these pursuits were grounded in material I was reading, not for class but for personal pleasure. I was reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (perhaps a precursor to my college days, when I took a philosophy class and read several treatises by Calvin and Hobbes?) and also the My Teacher is an Alien series. You can see how easily it was for me to write in such a genre if I was so immersed in it.
There was only one problem with my comic strip, just a tiny little one; I couldn't draw a straight line unless I were trying to draw a curved or squiggly one, and that was just the beginning of my drawing problems. Let's face it; while my wife and I are both artists, only one of us can draw, and it's not the one who's words you are reading right now (unless, at that moment, you got an e-mail from her or read one of her comments or something). And the problem with my novel was that I was ten, and had no idea how to structure a story, really. There were all kinds of POV shifts and narrative lapses and tense shifts and (as I recall I agonized over this) even an inclusion of the word dammit, which I remember at the time made me blush just to type (and, shit, now would ya fuckin' look at this damn mess?) and which I'm pretty sure I eventually removed thinking it was too risky.
Amidst all of this, though, Mrs. McFadden (ah, you thought I'd forgotten about her all ready, I'll bet) kept encouraging me to write, to draw (though once she actually saw my drawings, I think she mostly encouraged me to write), and to read, and to listen to the things happening around me. And she let me borrow a set of tapes.
These tapes were my introduction to the world of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a rather large sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. These tapes were a recording of that wholly remarkable radio series about a wholly remarkable book which was eventually then turned into a wholly remarkable book based on the radio series about a wholly remarkable book, all of which shared the same title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
At this point, let me interject more relevant past; I can remember staying up late and sneaking halfway down the stairs (and often getting caught doing so) trying to catch snippets of Doctor Who, which my parents used to watch on PBS. And in my household, Saturday nights were held sacred in that we would sit in the living room with popcorn and soda and watch the newest episode of Star Trek. The relevance of these points are as follows: 1) Being an avid Star Trek fan meant I had a foothold on the general world of science fiction (and, trust me, I grew up in the 80's and had every intention of becoming a Jedi someday) and 2) Even though I was little and didn't understand why it was funny, I understood that Doctor Who was funny in a particularly different way than most funny television I was familiar with was funny. And it wasn't just their funny accents. Also, Douglas Adams wrote scripts and was for a time the script editor for Doctor Who in 1979). Okay, background info to the background info done.
I took these tapes home and decided it would be a good idea to play them on my boom box while I tried to fall asleep (at this time, due to construction at my house, I was without a room of my own and was sleeping on the futon in the living room, so I had to keep the radio low) but this was clearly a mistake. I couldn't stop listening to it, it was that good. And it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. I would have to corroborate this story with my parents, but I am fairly sure I woke them up with my laughing. I finished the set of tapes Mrs. McFadden had given me and started them over. And again. In fact, I'd probably still be doing that if, after three weeks, she hadn't said, "Elliot, have you finished with them? I've got other things I wish to share with you."
I returned them, but told her she had to let other kids listen to them. She agreed, but warned me that not everybody would like it as much as I did. I picked out three friends I thought would get it (all of whom, by the way, did like it as much as I did) and she gave me-gasp of gasps-another set of tapes, these bearing the title The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was more of the same, and three weeks later she had to ask for them back again.
This patter continued throughout the year, though sadly no more Douglas Adams was forthcoming. I did not see the books in fourth grade (I think Mrs. McFadden thought, quite rightly, that perhaps the books were a bit more mature than the radio show, which was all ready pushing it for a fourth grader). I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth at her suggestion, but sadly I can't think of any more books she suggested I read. I know I read them all, but it was, as I said, many years ago.
Fast forward several years to seventh grade; I'm older, much less wise though I think I know everything, and I'm perusing the bookshelf in my English teacher's classroom when I happen upon something that jolts my memory.
It had been three years since I had seen the title, and I remembered it mostly as a tape recording, so to find it on the shelf was exciting. I pulled it off. It was a very dog-eared copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was held together with tape and looked like it had actually seen the galaxy. I started reading it. I read it twice, three times. My English teacher (Mr. Eckert, I believe) told me to take it home, that he had his own copies at home and anyway the only books in the series he had left in the classroom were the first and the fourth and I might as well take that one, too.
Wait...the...the fourth? There are more of these books out there? I embarked on a quest (after gathering up the fourth book, entitled So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) to find all of the books. I even read the fourth one before acquiring the second and third, in the interest of reading something, anything, by Douglas Adams that I hadn't read before. I began collecting.
At it's height, I had, decidedly, too many Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books. I had the original dog-eared copy of book one I had taken from Mr. Eckert's class room, as well as the even more dilapidated book four. I had a mass market paperback set of books one through four (the fourth being identical in cover to the fourth I all ready had, the first being very different and in fact containing several typos and omissions which, I found out in much later research, resulted from the fact that the copy I had originally was a British pressing and the second one I got an American pressing of the third run, after which they finally stopped editing out all the British references they thought Americans were too dumb to get...for instance, in the American version there is a reference to a "crosswalk" while in the British version it was a "Zebra Crossing." Apparently, the American publisher thought American readers would think it was a street crossing specifically for Zebras). I had a trade paperback version of the fifth book. I had an over sized "illustrated" version of book one as well (mainly illustrated with photographs and computer-rendered landscapes, and it was quite beautiful really). I had a cloth-hardbound omnibus edition with an introduction from the author himself and an extra short story between books four and five. But that wasn't all. I obtained copies of some of DNA's other works, notably both of his Dirk Gently novels and also a strange book called Starship Titanic which was actually written by Footlighter and Monty Python alumn Terry Jones (the novel is billed as "Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic; a Novel by Terry Jones" and is based on a computer game Adams was working on, which in turn was based on a short passage of text in the third book of the Hitchhiker series called Life, The Universe and Everything which was, in turn, actually, adapted from a "Doctor Who" script treatment written by Adams titled "Doctor Who and the Cricket Men"). I could never, however, find cheap copies of Last Chance to See or The Meaning of Liff, both of which he co-wrote, the former with biologist Mark Carwardine and the latter with his friend John Lloyd (the two also worked on an updated version called The Deeper Meaning of Liff several years later which was, counter-intuitively, even harder to find).
At some point, though, I lost track of the Illustrated Guide (Jon, Zach, Will, I'm looking in your directions. Ah hell, I think Dave has it. Shit, it's in Alaska, I'll never get it back now) while my pristine new copies of books one and four dissolved into tatters quicker than books two, three and five for some reason. I lost the dust jacket to the omnibus edition. And about a year ago, I finally gave up the paperback editions of each book...except for that original dog-eared copy I pulled off the shelf in seventh grade. Also, I now have a leather bound, gold-leafed edition of the omnibus collection. It looks like a bible and I truly do treat it as a holy book. I'm strange like that.
There are gaps in that history. I started a band named "The Hitchhikers" and we had songs like "I'm Sold on Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters" because we were all really into the books. I wrote stories through high school which were at first imitations of Douglas Adams' style but gradually became my own voice, a voice which has now little of the Adams influence apparent, unless, of course, I, as I am doing now, allow it to seep in, ever so softly, to the edges of my speech, from time to time, now and again.
But the simplicity of some of his work is astounding. The idea that one need only to know where their towel is, and everything will be just fine, is a great metaphor. You just have to find what your towel is, and then find it, and know where it is at all times. My towel is writing, I guess. The day I lost the ability to write, to use my voice, I'm lost. I don't mean writer's block, oh no. Even days when I can't get word one on the page, I at least have the desire to do so, the drive, and I can muster out a little here and there and, perhaps, get the creativity flowing. I mean if I ever sit down to write and realize, "Nope. Not any more. Can't do it now, won't be able to ever again. Might as well go buy an automatic transmissioned Buick and drive with my blinker on and never remember which meal I've just eaten or where I put my damn keys that were, I swear, right here in my left pocket just a minute ago, or was that last month?
Whoa, where did I go there?
You know what I mean, though. I think. The towel; your lifeline. And maybe even your answer, or even your question to match your answer. These are things that will make sense if/when you've read the books. It nothing else, it should clear up any confusion you may have over my seeming obsession with the number forty-two.
Anyway, the point of all of this; Douglas Adams was a profound and confounding person. Ever novel he wrote was a best seller, which is a great track record, but the problem is that while ostensibly it would take him three or four years to actually write a novel, he would do most of the actual writing in the month or so before the unusually mobile deadline, which would likely have been passed and extended more times than should be allowed by law, if there were people sensible enough to make such laws. When he died in May of 2001, he was rumored to be working on what was either going to be the third Dirk Gently novel, something entirely new or, much to the delight and subsequent sadness of millions of fans who felt Mostly Harmless was a sub-par and thoroughly depressing fifth book in the series, the sixth Hitchhiker novel. He was also working on the feature film version of the original novel, which he had been working on for over twenty years (and which was finally completed in 2005, possibly the only incarnation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy we're likely to see on a big screen for many years, if ever again).
The fragments from this novel in progress (the most completed of which were quite clearly meant to be the third Dirk Gently novel) were collected alongside several letters, speeches and articles Adams had written over the years and published as The Salmon of Doubt, which had been the working title of the novel.
Over the next few weeks, I will be talking more about Douglas Adams, his effect on me, and his work. I'll do reviews of each of the books in his two series, and finish with analysis of the next bit of news I am about to drop.
As I mentioned above, many fans believed Mostly Harmless to be rather bleak, and Adams admitted as such. I, for one, have always been upset at the end of it. Each year, I re-read the series, and each year I contemplate stopping at the end of book four (some years, when I was feeling really wretched about things, I would even consider stopping at book three or book two or, chuck it all, not even starting) but each time I read all the way through. Earlier this year I was greeted with news that Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, has been selected to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker series. He has the blessings of the publisher, the estate of Douglas Adams and also Adams' widow. He even initially turned it down, fearing what he could not avoid should he accept; the wrath of the fan boy. It's like spending tax money; no matter how he does it, he'll be wrong. Yet, I will support him. I will take his book with a grain of salt. It is not the sixth book in the series by Douglas Adams. It is the first book in the series of six books not written by Douglas Adams. I can only hope it's a tenth as good as Adams himself would have made it, were he still alive today.
I have a sense, right now, of looking up, up through the words I have written at this lofty and gangly British man named Douglas Adams, standing atop the words I have written like some sort of God. I don't feel good about doing that. I don't want to elevate him that much. But it's hard not to; so much of the last, what, almost twenty years now, my life has been peppered with his words. I'm afraid I've built him up too much, but the good thing about that is, now I will never have to meet him and embarass him by being starry-eyed.
For those Hitchhiker fans who have not heard of it yet, the new novel will be called And Another Thing... and you can find out more information about it here on the official website.
That is all for now, folks. See you next time!
I am going to broach a subject that I'm pretty sure I have never broached before on this platform, possibly because it seemed so redundant to anyone who knows me to for me to speak on this subject, but also because...well, no I don't really know why at all. I just, for some reason, haven't talked about this on the blog yet and I feel that, what with certain things currently in the works in the wide world outside of my own writing, I thought now is as good a time as any to do so.
What I am gradually coming to the point of is this: DNA. Not DNA as in Deoxyribonucleic acid but DNA as in Douglas Noel Adams, British humourist, scriptwriter, performer, environmentalist, atheist, tech-head, and (both most importantly and least effectively) author. I'll clarify that in a moment. This man's work has had a profound effect on my life, my sensibilities, my thoughts, and my early approach to writing. And though I have read many many books that are technically, verbally, artistically and generally better than his books, no book will ever supplant the Great Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as the crown jewel of my book collection.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden. In fact, as recently as the year before she had been Ms. Derby (which is how I knew her anyway, because my sister had, three years before me, sat in Ms. Derby's classroom on a daily basis) but had, as many women see fit to do (thankfully my wife included, otherwise I'd likely be a shiftless bum) gotten married to a rather sensible gentleman by the name of Mr. McFadden (I am basing my assessment of his sensibility solely on the fact that he asked Ms. Derby n/k/a Mrs. McFadden to marry him). This is not the point of the story. I shall return to the beginning.
When I was in fourth grade, I had this amazing teacher named Mrs. McFadden, who had, three years previous and under her unmarried name of Ms. Derby, taught my sister in fourth grade. It was sheer luck I got her as my teacher, as there were four teachers for each grade at my elementary school (I think that's right, but it has been a number of years) and there was no system whereby you could request specific teachers (but I think if a parent asked gently enough, it could only help, which I think is why the next year, in fifth grade, I avoided a disaster my sister was not so lucky to have missed), but having seen how wonderful Ms. Derby was for my sister, my parents were thrilled for me to have Mrs. McFadden. I guess the general thought was that having gotten married would not negatively affect her teaching ability. And, thankfully, it didn't. She recognized my sense of humour, my (not to toot my own horn here) intelligence, and my skills with words. She was the first teacher I remember truly encouraging me to explore creative writing. But what was cool, looking back, was the way in which she encouraged it. She encouraged me not just to write, but also to read, which is a doctrine that each and every writing teacher I've had at any level of creative writing since has preached.
I had always been an avid reader, and had many times put pen (or, I guess back then, #2 pencil) to (wide-ruled loose leaf) paper. I was even, during fourth grade, in the midst of writing a comic book (based on the adventures of my stuffed animals) as well as a novel (called "Aliens In The Backyard") about a group of kids who get abducted by aliens in an attempt to better understand humans' fascination with baseball. These are the things I would work on when we'd have a free period, or when recess was confined to the classroom due to inclement weather. Both of these pursuits were grounded in material I was reading, not for class but for personal pleasure. I was reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes (perhaps a precursor to my college days, when I took a philosophy class and read several treatises by Calvin and Hobbes?) and also the My Teacher is an Alien series. You can see how easily it was for me to write in such a genre if I was so immersed in it.
There was only one problem with my comic strip, just a tiny little one; I couldn't draw a straight line unless I were trying to draw a curved or squiggly one, and that was just the beginning of my drawing problems. Let's face it; while my wife and I are both artists, only one of us can draw, and it's not the one who's words you are reading right now (unless, at that moment, you got an e-mail from her or read one of her comments or something). And the problem with my novel was that I was ten, and had no idea how to structure a story, really. There were all kinds of POV shifts and narrative lapses and tense shifts and (as I recall I agonized over this) even an inclusion of the word dammit, which I remember at the time made me blush just to type (and, shit, now would ya fuckin' look at this damn mess?) and which I'm pretty sure I eventually removed thinking it was too risky.
Amidst all of this, though, Mrs. McFadden (ah, you thought I'd forgotten about her all ready, I'll bet) kept encouraging me to write, to draw (though once she actually saw my drawings, I think she mostly encouraged me to write), and to read, and to listen to the things happening around me. And she let me borrow a set of tapes.
These tapes were my introduction to the world of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a rather large sperm whale and a bowl of petunias. These tapes were a recording of that wholly remarkable radio series about a wholly remarkable book which was eventually then turned into a wholly remarkable book based on the radio series about a wholly remarkable book, all of which shared the same title of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
At this point, let me interject more relevant past; I can remember staying up late and sneaking halfway down the stairs (and often getting caught doing so) trying to catch snippets of Doctor Who, which my parents used to watch on PBS. And in my household, Saturday nights were held sacred in that we would sit in the living room with popcorn and soda and watch the newest episode of Star Trek. The relevance of these points are as follows: 1) Being an avid Star Trek fan meant I had a foothold on the general world of science fiction (and, trust me, I grew up in the 80's and had every intention of becoming a Jedi someday) and 2) Even though I was little and didn't understand why it was funny, I understood that Doctor Who was funny in a particularly different way than most funny television I was familiar with was funny. And it wasn't just their funny accents. Also, Douglas Adams wrote scripts and was for a time the script editor for Doctor Who in 1979). Okay, background info to the background info done.
I took these tapes home and decided it would be a good idea to play them on my boom box while I tried to fall asleep (at this time, due to construction at my house, I was without a room of my own and was sleeping on the futon in the living room, so I had to keep the radio low) but this was clearly a mistake. I couldn't stop listening to it, it was that good. And it was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing. I would have to corroborate this story with my parents, but I am fairly sure I woke them up with my laughing. I finished the set of tapes Mrs. McFadden had given me and started them over. And again. In fact, I'd probably still be doing that if, after three weeks, she hadn't said, "Elliot, have you finished with them? I've got other things I wish to share with you."
I returned them, but told her she had to let other kids listen to them. She agreed, but warned me that not everybody would like it as much as I did. I picked out three friends I thought would get it (all of whom, by the way, did like it as much as I did) and she gave me-gasp of gasps-another set of tapes, these bearing the title The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It was more of the same, and three weeks later she had to ask for them back again.
This patter continued throughout the year, though sadly no more Douglas Adams was forthcoming. I did not see the books in fourth grade (I think Mrs. McFadden thought, quite rightly, that perhaps the books were a bit more mature than the radio show, which was all ready pushing it for a fourth grader). I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth at her suggestion, but sadly I can't think of any more books she suggested I read. I know I read them all, but it was, as I said, many years ago.
Fast forward several years to seventh grade; I'm older, much less wise though I think I know everything, and I'm perusing the bookshelf in my English teacher's classroom when I happen upon something that jolts my memory.
It had been three years since I had seen the title, and I remembered it mostly as a tape recording, so to find it on the shelf was exciting. I pulled it off. It was a very dog-eared copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was held together with tape and looked like it had actually seen the galaxy. I started reading it. I read it twice, three times. My English teacher (Mr. Eckert, I believe) told me to take it home, that he had his own copies at home and anyway the only books in the series he had left in the classroom were the first and the fourth and I might as well take that one, too.
Wait...the...the fourth? There are more of these books out there? I embarked on a quest (after gathering up the fourth book, entitled So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish) to find all of the books. I even read the fourth one before acquiring the second and third, in the interest of reading something, anything, by Douglas Adams that I hadn't read before. I began collecting.
At it's height, I had, decidedly, too many Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books. I had the original dog-eared copy of book one I had taken from Mr. Eckert's class room, as well as the even more dilapidated book four. I had a mass market paperback set of books one through four (the fourth being identical in cover to the fourth I all ready had, the first being very different and in fact containing several typos and omissions which, I found out in much later research, resulted from the fact that the copy I had originally was a British pressing and the second one I got an American pressing of the third run, after which they finally stopped editing out all the British references they thought Americans were too dumb to get...for instance, in the American version there is a reference to a "crosswalk" while in the British version it was a "Zebra Crossing." Apparently, the American publisher thought American readers would think it was a street crossing specifically for Zebras). I had a trade paperback version of the fifth book. I had an over sized "illustrated" version of book one as well (mainly illustrated with photographs and computer-rendered landscapes, and it was quite beautiful really). I had a cloth-hardbound omnibus edition with an introduction from the author himself and an extra short story between books four and five. But that wasn't all. I obtained copies of some of DNA's other works, notably both of his Dirk Gently novels and also a strange book called Starship Titanic which was actually written by Footlighter and Monty Python alumn Terry Jones (the novel is billed as "Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic; a Novel by Terry Jones" and is based on a computer game Adams was working on, which in turn was based on a short passage of text in the third book of the Hitchhiker series called Life, The Universe and Everything which was, in turn, actually, adapted from a "Doctor Who" script treatment written by Adams titled "Doctor Who and the Cricket Men"). I could never, however, find cheap copies of Last Chance to See or The Meaning of Liff, both of which he co-wrote, the former with biologist Mark Carwardine and the latter with his friend John Lloyd (the two also worked on an updated version called The Deeper Meaning of Liff several years later which was, counter-intuitively, even harder to find).
At some point, though, I lost track of the Illustrated Guide (Jon, Zach, Will, I'm looking in your directions. Ah hell, I think Dave has it. Shit, it's in Alaska, I'll never get it back now) while my pristine new copies of books one and four dissolved into tatters quicker than books two, three and five for some reason. I lost the dust jacket to the omnibus edition. And about a year ago, I finally gave up the paperback editions of each book...except for that original dog-eared copy I pulled off the shelf in seventh grade. Also, I now have a leather bound, gold-leafed edition of the omnibus collection. It looks like a bible and I truly do treat it as a holy book. I'm strange like that.
There are gaps in that history. I started a band named "The Hitchhikers" and we had songs like "I'm Sold on Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters" because we were all really into the books. I wrote stories through high school which were at first imitations of Douglas Adams' style but gradually became my own voice, a voice which has now little of the Adams influence apparent, unless, of course, I, as I am doing now, allow it to seep in, ever so softly, to the edges of my speech, from time to time, now and again.
But the simplicity of some of his work is astounding. The idea that one need only to know where their towel is, and everything will be just fine, is a great metaphor. You just have to find what your towel is, and then find it, and know where it is at all times. My towel is writing, I guess. The day I lost the ability to write, to use my voice, I'm lost. I don't mean writer's block, oh no. Even days when I can't get word one on the page, I at least have the desire to do so, the drive, and I can muster out a little here and there and, perhaps, get the creativity flowing. I mean if I ever sit down to write and realize, "Nope. Not any more. Can't do it now, won't be able to ever again. Might as well go buy an automatic transmissioned Buick and drive with my blinker on and never remember which meal I've just eaten or where I put my damn keys that were, I swear, right here in my left pocket just a minute ago, or was that last month?
Whoa, where did I go there?
You know what I mean, though. I think. The towel; your lifeline. And maybe even your answer, or even your question to match your answer. These are things that will make sense if/when you've read the books. It nothing else, it should clear up any confusion you may have over my seeming obsession with the number forty-two.
Anyway, the point of all of this; Douglas Adams was a profound and confounding person. Ever novel he wrote was a best seller, which is a great track record, but the problem is that while ostensibly it would take him three or four years to actually write a novel, he would do most of the actual writing in the month or so before the unusually mobile deadline, which would likely have been passed and extended more times than should be allowed by law, if there were people sensible enough to make such laws. When he died in May of 2001, he was rumored to be working on what was either going to be the third Dirk Gently novel, something entirely new or, much to the delight and subsequent sadness of millions of fans who felt Mostly Harmless was a sub-par and thoroughly depressing fifth book in the series, the sixth Hitchhiker novel. He was also working on the feature film version of the original novel, which he had been working on for over twenty years (and which was finally completed in 2005, possibly the only incarnation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy we're likely to see on a big screen for many years, if ever again).
The fragments from this novel in progress (the most completed of which were quite clearly meant to be the third Dirk Gently novel) were collected alongside several letters, speeches and articles Adams had written over the years and published as The Salmon of Doubt, which had been the working title of the novel.
Over the next few weeks, I will be talking more about Douglas Adams, his effect on me, and his work. I'll do reviews of each of the books in his two series, and finish with analysis of the next bit of news I am about to drop.
As I mentioned above, many fans believed Mostly Harmless to be rather bleak, and Adams admitted as such. I, for one, have always been upset at the end of it. Each year, I re-read the series, and each year I contemplate stopping at the end of book four (some years, when I was feeling really wretched about things, I would even consider stopping at book three or book two or, chuck it all, not even starting) but each time I read all the way through. Earlier this year I was greeted with news that Eoin Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series, has been selected to write the sixth installment of the Hitchhiker series. He has the blessings of the publisher, the estate of Douglas Adams and also Adams' widow. He even initially turned it down, fearing what he could not avoid should he accept; the wrath of the fan boy. It's like spending tax money; no matter how he does it, he'll be wrong. Yet, I will support him. I will take his book with a grain of salt. It is not the sixth book in the series by Douglas Adams. It is the first book in the series of six books not written by Douglas Adams. I can only hope it's a tenth as good as Adams himself would have made it, were he still alive today.
I have a sense, right now, of looking up, up through the words I have written at this lofty and gangly British man named Douglas Adams, standing atop the words I have written like some sort of God. I don't feel good about doing that. I don't want to elevate him that much. But it's hard not to; so much of the last, what, almost twenty years now, my life has been peppered with his words. I'm afraid I've built him up too much, but the good thing about that is, now I will never have to meet him and embarass him by being starry-eyed.
For those Hitchhiker fans who have not heard of it yet, the new novel will be called And Another Thing... and you can find out more information about it here on the official website.
That is all for now, folks. See you next time!
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Tess
In the interest of 1) continuing to write in spite of writer's block (no way out but to write through it, I've come to learn) and 2) continuing to garner interest from my readers, something I've been working on for the book.
===
When Bravo Little Gavroche would go on tour, it was always Ryan who would set the schedule. He'd be the one on the phone with the club managers, the other bands (or their agents, if they were big enough to have one), the hotels, anybody else I may be forgetting. He'd then give each of us an itinerary. "And," he would always stress, "this time, we have to follow it. To the last letter." That last summer we toured was no different. What was also no different was that thirty seconds into the itinerary, we were already behind.
Johnny and I were sitting in Bingo, our van. We were parked on Tamm Avenue in front of Adam's apartment. The van was loaded with drums, amps, microphones, two of Adam's guitars (one electric, one acoustic), two of Johnny's basses, two guitars of mine (an electric and an acoustic, merely for back-up purposes) and four of Ryan's guitars (two electrics, one electric/acoustic and a fretless hollow-body electric he had built himself). Johnny had picked the short straw the night before, so he sat behind the driver's seat drumming his fingers out of time with The Cure as they quietly played over the speakers. I sat next to him in the passenger seat, tapping my fingers in time. Johnny honked.
"Let's go, Adam!" he said, to himself. After a second or two Adam emerged from the two-story brick apartment building onto a second floor fire escape, a soft guitar case slung across his back, the better of his two electrics, and in his right hand an overnight bag which held enough clothes to last him the first three nights of our two month tour. Even as he made his way down the steps, Johnny honked again. This time he yelled out the window. "While we're breathing, Adam!"
The back door opened and Adam laid his guitar in and haphazardly threw his clothes in, then climbed up and shut the door. "Sorry, guys, the dishes were really stacked up, I lost track of time."
"You should have been doing laundry, let Amy do the dishes while you're gone," Johnny said, checking the mirror and rashly pulling out into the street before a Honda, which honked. The equipment shifted in the back and Adam lost his balance and fell against the back doors.
"Jesus, Johnny, take it easy," I tried. "I'd like to get out of St. Louis alive and with everything in one piece, right?"
Johnny laughed a short, evil laugh. He looked at me and his smile turned sour. He elongated his syllables. "Sorry."
"Amy doesn't do the dishes on Tuesdays." Adam had regained his balance and made his way onto the rear bench seat. "We divide up the chores."
"You two are way to fucking cutesy and domestic," Johnny said. He pulled onto the highway and in a few minutes of reverent silence (you don't talk through a live recording of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" which had just started playing after The Cure) we were at the loft, which was close enough to the brewery that it almost always smelled of hops or barley. Not that any of us minded. Ryan was waiting for us, duffel bag in hand. We pulled up in front of the building.
"Running late, I see," he said as he lifted himself in through the side door and set his bag on the ground. "For a change," he added. I looked at Johnny, who was looking at Ryan in the rear view mirror, and I turned around to look at Ryan.
"Don't blame me," Johnny said defensively."
"Nobody was," Ryan said.
"No, that's bullshit; it's always my fault and I know that, but this time it's not. Ask Adam."
Adam leaned forward. "It's true. I had to do the dishes."
Ryan shrugged and put on a pair of sunglasses. "That's fine, Adam. I forgot it was a Tuesday."
Johnny broke a rule and turned the stereo off before the end of a Bob Dylan song. "What? So uncool! Every time, no matter what excuse I have, if I'm making us run late, you jump down my throat!"
"Johnny-" Ryan tried to say, but could get no further.
"But Adam or Elliot has an excuse and it's all, 'I understand guys. It's the third Wednesday of an even numbered month during a leap year, it could happen to anybody.' How do I get that kind of credibility?"
"Be on time, almost all the time," I said. He paused. "I know, right? The treatment sounds worse than the disease." Johnny shot daggers from his eyes at each of us in turn, faced the road and turned the radio back on. He pulled away from the curb.
"Johnny," Ryan said again, "I was trying to say that it's okay, this time, because even if you had been on time, we can't leave yet. We have to go to Eddie's."
"What for?" I asked, as Johnny maneuvered the van around a left turn.
"I'm picking up Tess."
The brakes squealed lightly as Johnny came to an abrupt stop at a red light. "Tess?" Adam asked in the following silence.
"That's what I said."
"You're bringing Tess?" I asked.
"Yes."
The first time Ryan saw Tess was at Eddie's Guitars on Manchester. This was before Adam had joined the band, and Johnny did the singing. We were all there, and though all three of us saw Tess and recognized how beautiful she was, she affected Ryan in a different way. We were fifteen, maybe sixteen, only there to buy picks and strings for an upcoming show, and while Johnny and I decided to leave and get some lunch, Ryan opted to stay behind. "So we can get acquainted," he said, motioning to Tess, who was behind him at that point. He had only taken his eyes off of her long enough to acknowledge that we were leaving and to let us know he wasn't joining, then his attention was once again riveted on her. Craig, the guy at the counter, merely nodded his head at this.
"She's good looking for sure," he said. "But not to everybody. She's charmed quite a few guys come in here. Ryan's a little young, but, well, I don't know. She may be twice his age, but they do look...nice together." We agreed, but left to get lunch anyway.
Ryan kept going back, some weeks he'd be there every other day just to see her, to be with her. We started to worry. He even showed up late for practice one day. He barged in half an hour late, which was a problem back then because we used my father's basement to rehearse in, but when my father came home we had to stop. Time was precious. Ryan was excited, though.
"You guys; I wrote this song today," he said. "At Eddie's. Tess totally inspired me." This was the first time Johnny or I had heard the name. We liked it, but we liked the song even better. That was the birth of "Welcome to the Ballroom," the song which Johnny calls our panty melter and which my father referred to the week he died as a hymn for the Church of Rock.
After a month of Ryan visiting Tess at the guitar store, he came to practice one day with her. We were amazed. We needed to know why, and how he was able to manage it.
"I've just had my eye on her for a while, you know," he said later. "And I was in yesterday, and noticed somebody else eyeballing her. It was Eric, that terrible guitar player from that terrible ska band we played with at The Hi-Pointe. I wasn't going to let that happen."
We liked having her around; she had a good voice and was beautiful and somehow gave us a little credibility. If we came to a show and the manager thought we looked a little young and started trying to back out of the show, all Ryan would have to do is grab Tess. One look at her, and it was almost instant; if we had Tess with us, we were real musicians.
The problems started, though; she'd get trashed in the middle of a show and embarrass us. Once she fell apart onstage in the middle of one of the more quiet parts of the very song she had inspired. Similar things began happening when Ryan would bring her to rehearsals. The last tour she came on with us, she came completely undone onstage and we were almost asked to leave a club in Boston.
These are the points I tried to make as Johnny drove us on surface streets (which I know he had done to buy me time) towards Eddie's. Ryan would not be gainsaid.
"Look, if you look at the law of averages," Ryan said, "she's due. She's been a problem at every show she's been to in the last three years, but I've taken care of everything with that, so she should be perfectly okay this time."
"That's only sort of a good point. I could use the same argument and say that she's ruined every show she's been to in the last three years, so the law of averages states that she'll probably be a problem this time."
"I agree with the drummer," Johnny said, and we knew he was serious. Johnny never referred to us by name when discussing matters of utmost import to the band.
"Me too," Adam said. His arms were crossed in the rear seat.
Ryan looked desperately for an ally, but he had none in the van. "Come on guys." He looked up and must have noticed Johnny driving conservatively. "Hurry up; they close at five, that's in like five minutes. And I promise, this time, it will be different. Band vote?"
We nodded our agreement for the band vote. "Good. I vote yes," Ryan said.
"No," Johnny said.
"Abstain," Adam said. Ryan and I turned to look at him. Johnny joined us as he pulled to a line of stuck traffic. "What? This is a thorny issue. I love Tess, I do. I think she could be very good for the morale of the band, but she doesn't have the best track record. So abstain."
The traffic was moving again as Ryan and Adam looked to me. "Elliot?" Johnny asked, looking at the road ahead. I joined him to give myself something to look at while I contemplated which member of the band I most wanted to be murdered by that night.
"Fine. Johnny, get us to Eddie's." I heard Ryan give a triumphant "yes" under his breath. "But," I continued. "But...one slip up. One embarrassing moment. She's gone."
"Agreed," Johnny said through gritted teeth.
"Acceptable," Adam said.
"Agreed, then!" Ryan nearly shouted. He looked very pleased.
We arrived at Eddie's just before it closed. "I'll run in and get her, then we can get on the road," Ryan said, flinging the door open and jumping out. He ran into the store.
Johnny turned the music up. "Riders on the Storm" seemed to seep from the speakers and hang above our heads in the van, ominous and foreboding. A minute later, Ryan skipped happily out the door of the shop, holding tightly to Tess. Together they skipped to the back, where he opened the door for her and picked her up, set her neatly next to the other guitars. He climbed in behind her and shut the door.
"She looks so good with the brass colored strings; it matches the volume knobs. So exciting!"
"What was she in the shop for?" I finally asked.
"New pickups, adjustment on the truss rod, the trim around the edge was coming up a bit by the neck pocket, and I got the output rewired." He giggled and carefully lifted Tess out of her case.
I had to admit, as I looked at her lit from the sunlight slanting into the driver's side windows, for a forty year old hollow body electric twelve string, she was incredibly beautiful.
===
===
When Bravo Little Gavroche would go on tour, it was always Ryan who would set the schedule. He'd be the one on the phone with the club managers, the other bands (or their agents, if they were big enough to have one), the hotels, anybody else I may be forgetting. He'd then give each of us an itinerary. "And," he would always stress, "this time, we have to follow it. To the last letter." That last summer we toured was no different. What was also no different was that thirty seconds into the itinerary, we were already behind.
Johnny and I were sitting in Bingo, our van. We were parked on Tamm Avenue in front of Adam's apartment. The van was loaded with drums, amps, microphones, two of Adam's guitars (one electric, one acoustic), two of Johnny's basses, two guitars of mine (an electric and an acoustic, merely for back-up purposes) and four of Ryan's guitars (two electrics, one electric/acoustic and a fretless hollow-body electric he had built himself). Johnny had picked the short straw the night before, so he sat behind the driver's seat drumming his fingers out of time with The Cure as they quietly played over the speakers. I sat next to him in the passenger seat, tapping my fingers in time. Johnny honked.
"Let's go, Adam!" he said, to himself. After a second or two Adam emerged from the two-story brick apartment building onto a second floor fire escape, a soft guitar case slung across his back, the better of his two electrics, and in his right hand an overnight bag which held enough clothes to last him the first three nights of our two month tour. Even as he made his way down the steps, Johnny honked again. This time he yelled out the window. "While we're breathing, Adam!"
The back door opened and Adam laid his guitar in and haphazardly threw his clothes in, then climbed up and shut the door. "Sorry, guys, the dishes were really stacked up, I lost track of time."
"You should have been doing laundry, let Amy do the dishes while you're gone," Johnny said, checking the mirror and rashly pulling out into the street before a Honda, which honked. The equipment shifted in the back and Adam lost his balance and fell against the back doors.
"Jesus, Johnny, take it easy," I tried. "I'd like to get out of St. Louis alive and with everything in one piece, right?"
Johnny laughed a short, evil laugh. He looked at me and his smile turned sour. He elongated his syllables. "Sorry."
"Amy doesn't do the dishes on Tuesdays." Adam had regained his balance and made his way onto the rear bench seat. "We divide up the chores."
"You two are way to fucking cutesy and domestic," Johnny said. He pulled onto the highway and in a few minutes of reverent silence (you don't talk through a live recording of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused" which had just started playing after The Cure) we were at the loft, which was close enough to the brewery that it almost always smelled of hops or barley. Not that any of us minded. Ryan was waiting for us, duffel bag in hand. We pulled up in front of the building.
"Running late, I see," he said as he lifted himself in through the side door and set his bag on the ground. "For a change," he added. I looked at Johnny, who was looking at Ryan in the rear view mirror, and I turned around to look at Ryan.
"Don't blame me," Johnny said defensively."
"Nobody was," Ryan said.
"No, that's bullshit; it's always my fault and I know that, but this time it's not. Ask Adam."
Adam leaned forward. "It's true. I had to do the dishes."
Ryan shrugged and put on a pair of sunglasses. "That's fine, Adam. I forgot it was a Tuesday."
Johnny broke a rule and turned the stereo off before the end of a Bob Dylan song. "What? So uncool! Every time, no matter what excuse I have, if I'm making us run late, you jump down my throat!"
"Johnny-" Ryan tried to say, but could get no further.
"But Adam or Elliot has an excuse and it's all, 'I understand guys. It's the third Wednesday of an even numbered month during a leap year, it could happen to anybody.' How do I get that kind of credibility?"
"Be on time, almost all the time," I said. He paused. "I know, right? The treatment sounds worse than the disease." Johnny shot daggers from his eyes at each of us in turn, faced the road and turned the radio back on. He pulled away from the curb.
"Johnny," Ryan said again, "I was trying to say that it's okay, this time, because even if you had been on time, we can't leave yet. We have to go to Eddie's."
"What for?" I asked, as Johnny maneuvered the van around a left turn.
"I'm picking up Tess."
The brakes squealed lightly as Johnny came to an abrupt stop at a red light. "Tess?" Adam asked in the following silence.
"That's what I said."
"You're bringing Tess?" I asked.
"Yes."
The first time Ryan saw Tess was at Eddie's Guitars on Manchester. This was before Adam had joined the band, and Johnny did the singing. We were all there, and though all three of us saw Tess and recognized how beautiful she was, she affected Ryan in a different way. We were fifteen, maybe sixteen, only there to buy picks and strings for an upcoming show, and while Johnny and I decided to leave and get some lunch, Ryan opted to stay behind. "So we can get acquainted," he said, motioning to Tess, who was behind him at that point. He had only taken his eyes off of her long enough to acknowledge that we were leaving and to let us know he wasn't joining, then his attention was once again riveted on her. Craig, the guy at the counter, merely nodded his head at this.
"She's good looking for sure," he said. "But not to everybody. She's charmed quite a few guys come in here. Ryan's a little young, but, well, I don't know. She may be twice his age, but they do look...nice together." We agreed, but left to get lunch anyway.
Ryan kept going back, some weeks he'd be there every other day just to see her, to be with her. We started to worry. He even showed up late for practice one day. He barged in half an hour late, which was a problem back then because we used my father's basement to rehearse in, but when my father came home we had to stop. Time was precious. Ryan was excited, though.
"You guys; I wrote this song today," he said. "At Eddie's. Tess totally inspired me." This was the first time Johnny or I had heard the name. We liked it, but we liked the song even better. That was the birth of "Welcome to the Ballroom," the song which Johnny calls our panty melter and which my father referred to the week he died as a hymn for the Church of Rock.
After a month of Ryan visiting Tess at the guitar store, he came to practice one day with her. We were amazed. We needed to know why, and how he was able to manage it.
"I've just had my eye on her for a while, you know," he said later. "And I was in yesterday, and noticed somebody else eyeballing her. It was Eric, that terrible guitar player from that terrible ska band we played with at The Hi-Pointe. I wasn't going to let that happen."
We liked having her around; she had a good voice and was beautiful and somehow gave us a little credibility. If we came to a show and the manager thought we looked a little young and started trying to back out of the show, all Ryan would have to do is grab Tess. One look at her, and it was almost instant; if we had Tess with us, we were real musicians.
The problems started, though; she'd get trashed in the middle of a show and embarrass us. Once she fell apart onstage in the middle of one of the more quiet parts of the very song she had inspired. Similar things began happening when Ryan would bring her to rehearsals. The last tour she came on with us, she came completely undone onstage and we were almost asked to leave a club in Boston.
These are the points I tried to make as Johnny drove us on surface streets (which I know he had done to buy me time) towards Eddie's. Ryan would not be gainsaid.
"Look, if you look at the law of averages," Ryan said, "she's due. She's been a problem at every show she's been to in the last three years, but I've taken care of everything with that, so she should be perfectly okay this time."
"That's only sort of a good point. I could use the same argument and say that she's ruined every show she's been to in the last three years, so the law of averages states that she'll probably be a problem this time."
"I agree with the drummer," Johnny said, and we knew he was serious. Johnny never referred to us by name when discussing matters of utmost import to the band.
"Me too," Adam said. His arms were crossed in the rear seat.
Ryan looked desperately for an ally, but he had none in the van. "Come on guys." He looked up and must have noticed Johnny driving conservatively. "Hurry up; they close at five, that's in like five minutes. And I promise, this time, it will be different. Band vote?"
We nodded our agreement for the band vote. "Good. I vote yes," Ryan said.
"No," Johnny said.
"Abstain," Adam said. Ryan and I turned to look at him. Johnny joined us as he pulled to a line of stuck traffic. "What? This is a thorny issue. I love Tess, I do. I think she could be very good for the morale of the band, but she doesn't have the best track record. So abstain."
The traffic was moving again as Ryan and Adam looked to me. "Elliot?" Johnny asked, looking at the road ahead. I joined him to give myself something to look at while I contemplated which member of the band I most wanted to be murdered by that night.
"Fine. Johnny, get us to Eddie's." I heard Ryan give a triumphant "yes" under his breath. "But," I continued. "But...one slip up. One embarrassing moment. She's gone."
"Agreed," Johnny said through gritted teeth.
"Acceptable," Adam said.
"Agreed, then!" Ryan nearly shouted. He looked very pleased.
We arrived at Eddie's just before it closed. "I'll run in and get her, then we can get on the road," Ryan said, flinging the door open and jumping out. He ran into the store.
Johnny turned the music up. "Riders on the Storm" seemed to seep from the speakers and hang above our heads in the van, ominous and foreboding. A minute later, Ryan skipped happily out the door of the shop, holding tightly to Tess. Together they skipped to the back, where he opened the door for her and picked her up, set her neatly next to the other guitars. He climbed in behind her and shut the door.
"She looks so good with the brass colored strings; it matches the volume knobs. So exciting!"
"What was she in the shop for?" I finally asked.
"New pickups, adjustment on the truss rod, the trim around the edge was coming up a bit by the neck pocket, and I got the output rewired." He giggled and carefully lifted Tess out of her case.
I had to admit, as I looked at her lit from the sunlight slanting into the driver's side windows, for a forty year old hollow body electric twelve string, she was incredibly beautiful.
===
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
It's Coming...
...the Annual I'm o.k, I'm all write end of year reflection blog dealy thing whatsamajigger.
It will be filled with reflections on school, the writing process, love, family, felines, age, money, politics, work and others. Keep your eyes peeled for it!
And now, an announcement:
Kathy and I would like to announce to the blogniverse (and, I suppose, to the blogosphere, too) that our family has recently grown. We have adopted a new kitten.
She is four months old, weighs about two pounds, and is a long-haired red tabby (orange tabby, as I like to call them because they are way more orange than red). Her name is Amethyst, and despite my mother's suggestion her nickname will not be Meth. I will post a picture (because apparently, blogs with photos are more interesting than just words) as soon as she stays still long enough for us to snap one. If we're lucky, we'll get a picture of the both of the cats, Acrodyl and Amethyst, so that you can see the contrast between a long hair and a short hair and also the even more alarming contrast between a two pound cat and a thirteen pound cat.
This is likely my last post of 2008, so enjoy your New Year's Eve! I'll be back shortly after the start of 2009.
It will be filled with reflections on school, the writing process, love, family, felines, age, money, politics, work and others. Keep your eyes peeled for it!
And now, an announcement:
Kathy and I would like to announce to the blogniverse (and, I suppose, to the blogosphere, too) that our family has recently grown. We have adopted a new kitten.
She is four months old, weighs about two pounds, and is a long-haired red tabby (orange tabby, as I like to call them because they are way more orange than red). Her name is Amethyst, and despite my mother's suggestion her nickname will not be Meth. I will post a picture (because apparently, blogs with photos are more interesting than just words) as soon as she stays still long enough for us to snap one. If we're lucky, we'll get a picture of the both of the cats, Acrodyl and Amethyst, so that you can see the contrast between a long hair and a short hair and also the even more alarming contrast between a two pound cat and a thirteen pound cat.
This is likely my last post of 2008, so enjoy your New Year's Eve! I'll be back shortly after the start of 2009.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Sorry To Let You Down...and Tuesday Excerpt...and Promise of a New Feature
Elliot = Bad Blogger.
And now, for my Tuesday Excerpt.
After the ban on posting my Three Day Novel lifted, I didn't post it. And I'm not going to do so, now, because I'm going to do something else.
I turned a chapter into a play, and the play can sort of stand on its own while the chapter really can't. So I'm posting the play. Which is awesome. So here goes.
===
The Funeral Dinner, September 2007
Characters:
Quentin, 26, eager and bright eyed
Colin, 27, the solemn type
Amy, 28, also solemn
Meredith, 24, Quentin’s ex with whom he is reconnecting
Scene opens on a small, cramped apartment. QUENTIN is cooking a dinner in the kitchen, upstage right. Upstage center, there is a living room set up, with a television, coffee table, sofa, stereo, bookshelf, and a desk with a computer. Directly downstage from the kitchen is a small dining room table set up. There is a door leading off stage left to the bedroom, another stage right that is the entrance to the apartment. There is a large window with open shades next to this door, through which light is streaming. Quentin is wearing a yellow dress shirt, a pair of dark khaki pants and brown shoes. There is light music playing.
QUENTIN
Add the cilantro, and, there! Should be done!
(he stirs the pot and puts the lid on it)
Candles...candles...
(he searches the apartment for candles, which he finds on the bookshelf in a set of glass candlesticks. he sets these on the table)
Everything is set. Any minute now...
(there is a knock on the door)
Yes.
(he picks up a bottle of cologne and sprays his neck and wrists)
Coming!
(he puts the cologne on the bookshelf behind a picture frame and goes to open the door)
Hell...oh, what are you two doing here?
(Colin and Amy are standing at the door, carrying plastic shopping bags, Colin in dark pants and a white dress shirt, Amy in a black skirt and dark pink blouse)
COLIN
This is an intervention of sorts. Let us in.
(the two visitors push past Quentin)
AMY
(looking around)
Oh my God, Quentin...did you actually clean your apartment?
(she sniffs the air)
And are you cooking chili?
QUENTIN
(shutting the door and rushing to stand between the two visitors)
Yes. And yes. What do you want? And make it quick, please I have plans to...um...eat alone, tonight. Yeah. Alone.
COLIN
(looking around the place)
Dressed like that? And listening to “The Postal Service?”
QUENTIN
Yes. Yes, really. What is this about?
AMY
What’s all this about?
(looks at candlesticks on the table)
You didn’t get back together with Kristen did you?
QUENTIN
No, not at...no. Absolutely...no. Never. It’s nothing. I just wanted to...treat myself to a nice evening.
COLIN
Good, well, you’re dressed nice, we were going to force you into some nice clothes anyway. Amy, let’s set up, shall we?
(Colin and Amy begin taking items out of their shopping bags, Colin producing a shoe box painted brown and a stack of photographs, Amy a handful of votive candles in plastic holders. Colin places the box on the coffee table)
AMY
Is it okay, Quentin, if I just light these candles on the dinner table? That way I have more for the coffee table.
(she sets candles on every available surface, including creating a ring on the coffee table and two taller pillar candles on each side of the top of the television)
You have matches, right?
(she heads into the kitchen and begins searching)
This chili smells fantastic, Quentin.
COLIN
This music has to go.
(he presses stop on the stereo, pulls out the CD and puts in a CD he drew from his bag, and the apartment is filled with the opening strains of Carmina Burana)
Carl Orf. This is a nice compilation of some good requiem music.
AMY
(walking up to Quentin, who has been watching each of them with surprise and alarm mounting on his face)
This is the most recent picture we could find of Meredith.
(she hands him a framed picture)
I know it’s about four years old, and yeah, she’s dressed kinda goofy, but she’s having a good time at the State Fair, it’s a good way to remember her.
QUENTIN
What the hell are you talking about?
AMY
I’ll take care of this.
(she takes the picture and puts it between the pillar candles on top of the television)
Colin?
COLIN
Of course, Amy, if you would?
(Colin shuts the shades on the window as Amy cuts the lights and strikes a match, lighting the candles)
Quentin?
(stands right beside him, puts a hand on his shoulder)
It’s a time for grief, but also a time for growth and healing, my son. Shall we begin, Amy?
QUENTIN
Okay, seriously, you both have to leave right now.
AMY
Quentin, please...take a seat.
(she has finished lighting the candles, and escorts him to sit on the couch)
COLIN
(he has put on a dark suit jacket and a pair of reading glasses)
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the symbolic passing of Meredith Katherine Wallace.
QUENTIN
What the hell?
AMY
Quentin, sh, please.
COLIN
Meredith was a good woman, full of life and spirit, and served the children of the Minneapolis Public School System as a student teacher for a year, before moving on to become a full time instructor and guide for the young minds of the Duluth Public Schools. We now commit our memories of her to their final resting place, inside this, er, casket, and eventually, um, outside in that park across the street, underneath a magnolia tree, which I’m pretty sure she’d find a relaxing place to be.
(beat)
I would now like to invite those of you who knew her best to please step up and say a few words about her.
(stands aside; there is much pushing and prodding on the couch)
AMY
(standing up)
Well, I would like to say a few words, thank you, Reverend.
COLIN
Father.
AMY
Ew, I sleep with you.
COLIN
Deacon?
AMY
(considering)
Yeah, they can be married.
QUENTIN
Good GOD what have I done to deserve this?
COLIN
Quentin, sh, please.
AMY
I only met Meredith once, at a Violent Femmes and Afghan Whigs concert for which she didn’t stay to see the second half. I understood, as it takes a certain kind of person to like the Afghan Whigs, and their particular brand of post-punk pop-rock music is not for everybody.
(pause)
But she and I will always have the handshake outside of First Avenue, and I’ll never forget how much I wanted that pleated peasant skirt she was wearing that night. I wish I had told her that now, especially because she asked me where I got my jeans and I told her. For all I know, she owns a pair of those jeans, and I have never been able to find a skirt like that one anywhere.
(beat)
Meredith, you will be missed.
(she kisses her hand and touches it to the “casket” on the coffee table)
COLIN
Thank you, Amy. That was very sweet. Anyone else?
(Amy sits down next to Quentin, who merely crosses his arms and shakes his head)
Well, if nobody minds, I would like to say a few words.
(beat)
Quentin, you have suffered much from the loss of Meredith, but I urge you to remember her as she was, three years ago, when you were in love. Think of that person, and ask yourself; “what would she say if she could see me suffer?” I believe she would say, “Let me go, Quentin. Let me be at peace, so you can be at peace as well.” So please, my friend...
(beat)
...be at peace.
(bows his head, turns to face the picture of Meredith atop the television)
Be at peace.
(faces Quentin again, his face grave and solemn as Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings plays)
Be at peace.
(beat)
QUENTIN
(stands)
Well, okay, Colin, Amy, thank you for that, really, great stuff but you have to leave right now. Like, right now.
(there is a knock on the door, which was not closed all the way and therefore swings open, revealing Meredith standing there in a white pleated floor length peasant skirt and a purple tank top)
MEREDITH
Am I interrupting something?
(the men are frozen, staring at each other)
AMY
(getting up and running to Meredith’s side)
Where did you get that skirt?
COLIN
(shrugs)
This is kind of embarrassing, huh?
(grabs the picture of Meredith from the top of the television and hides it)
MEREDITH
Um...thrift shop? Quentin? Are they staying for dinner? Please say no.
QUENTIN
No, they’re just leaving. Right Colin, Amy?
(both slowly stir)
COLIN
Right, should...Quentin, everything’s...you’ll get the, um...candles back to me?
QUENTIN
Out.
AMY
I love that skirt, Meredith, love it.
QUENTIN
OUT!
(Amy and Colin exit, but Amy comes back)
AMY
Quentin, I’ve been meaning to ask you for your chili recipe...
QUENTIN
(mock cheerful)
Take a pound of beef and three whole tomatoes and GET OUT!
(she exits)
(End)
===
And now to introduce the possibility of a new feature; Video Blogging. Now, it won't be a really regular feature, I don't think. But it should be fun to give it a try. I was hoping to do a little bit tonight, but it's not looking promising. But still, maybe...
It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. -Sinclair Lewis
And now, for my Tuesday Excerpt.
After the ban on posting my Three Day Novel lifted, I didn't post it. And I'm not going to do so, now, because I'm going to do something else.
I turned a chapter into a play, and the play can sort of stand on its own while the chapter really can't. So I'm posting the play. Which is awesome. So here goes.
===
The Funeral Dinner, September 2007
Characters:
Quentin, 26, eager and bright eyed
Colin, 27, the solemn type
Amy, 28, also solemn
Meredith, 24, Quentin’s ex with whom he is reconnecting
Scene opens on a small, cramped apartment. QUENTIN is cooking a dinner in the kitchen, upstage right. Upstage center, there is a living room set up, with a television, coffee table, sofa, stereo, bookshelf, and a desk with a computer. Directly downstage from the kitchen is a small dining room table set up. There is a door leading off stage left to the bedroom, another stage right that is the entrance to the apartment. There is a large window with open shades next to this door, through which light is streaming. Quentin is wearing a yellow dress shirt, a pair of dark khaki pants and brown shoes. There is light music playing.
QUENTIN
Add the cilantro, and, there! Should be done!
(he stirs the pot and puts the lid on it)
Candles...candles...
(he searches the apartment for candles, which he finds on the bookshelf in a set of glass candlesticks. he sets these on the table)
Everything is set. Any minute now...
(there is a knock on the door)
Yes.
(he picks up a bottle of cologne and sprays his neck and wrists)
Coming!
(he puts the cologne on the bookshelf behind a picture frame and goes to open the door)
Hell...oh, what are you two doing here?
(Colin and Amy are standing at the door, carrying plastic shopping bags, Colin in dark pants and a white dress shirt, Amy in a black skirt and dark pink blouse)
COLIN
This is an intervention of sorts. Let us in.
(the two visitors push past Quentin)
AMY
(looking around)
Oh my God, Quentin...did you actually clean your apartment?
(she sniffs the air)
And are you cooking chili?
QUENTIN
(shutting the door and rushing to stand between the two visitors)
Yes. And yes. What do you want? And make it quick, please I have plans to...um...eat alone, tonight. Yeah. Alone.
COLIN
(looking around the place)
Dressed like that? And listening to “The Postal Service?”
QUENTIN
Yes. Yes, really. What is this about?
AMY
What’s all this about?
(looks at candlesticks on the table)
You didn’t get back together with Kristen did you?
QUENTIN
No, not at...no. Absolutely...no. Never. It’s nothing. I just wanted to...treat myself to a nice evening.
COLIN
Good, well, you’re dressed nice, we were going to force you into some nice clothes anyway. Amy, let’s set up, shall we?
(Colin and Amy begin taking items out of their shopping bags, Colin producing a shoe box painted brown and a stack of photographs, Amy a handful of votive candles in plastic holders. Colin places the box on the coffee table)
AMY
Is it okay, Quentin, if I just light these candles on the dinner table? That way I have more for the coffee table.
(she sets candles on every available surface, including creating a ring on the coffee table and two taller pillar candles on each side of the top of the television)
You have matches, right?
(she heads into the kitchen and begins searching)
This chili smells fantastic, Quentin.
COLIN
This music has to go.
(he presses stop on the stereo, pulls out the CD and puts in a CD he drew from his bag, and the apartment is filled with the opening strains of Carmina Burana)
Carl Orf. This is a nice compilation of some good requiem music.
AMY
(walking up to Quentin, who has been watching each of them with surprise and alarm mounting on his face)
This is the most recent picture we could find of Meredith.
(she hands him a framed picture)
I know it’s about four years old, and yeah, she’s dressed kinda goofy, but she’s having a good time at the State Fair, it’s a good way to remember her.
QUENTIN
What the hell are you talking about?
AMY
I’ll take care of this.
(she takes the picture and puts it between the pillar candles on top of the television)
Colin?
COLIN
Of course, Amy, if you would?
(Colin shuts the shades on the window as Amy cuts the lights and strikes a match, lighting the candles)
Quentin?
(stands right beside him, puts a hand on his shoulder)
It’s a time for grief, but also a time for growth and healing, my son. Shall we begin, Amy?
QUENTIN
Okay, seriously, you both have to leave right now.
AMY
Quentin, please...take a seat.
(she has finished lighting the candles, and escorts him to sit on the couch)
COLIN
(he has put on a dark suit jacket and a pair of reading glasses)
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the symbolic passing of Meredith Katherine Wallace.
QUENTIN
What the hell?
AMY
Quentin, sh, please.
COLIN
Meredith was a good woman, full of life and spirit, and served the children of the Minneapolis Public School System as a student teacher for a year, before moving on to become a full time instructor and guide for the young minds of the Duluth Public Schools. We now commit our memories of her to their final resting place, inside this, er, casket, and eventually, um, outside in that park across the street, underneath a magnolia tree, which I’m pretty sure she’d find a relaxing place to be.
(beat)
I would now like to invite those of you who knew her best to please step up and say a few words about her.
(stands aside; there is much pushing and prodding on the couch)
AMY
(standing up)
Well, I would like to say a few words, thank you, Reverend.
COLIN
Father.
AMY
Ew, I sleep with you.
COLIN
Deacon?
AMY
(considering)
Yeah, they can be married.
QUENTIN
Good GOD what have I done to deserve this?
COLIN
Quentin, sh, please.
AMY
I only met Meredith once, at a Violent Femmes and Afghan Whigs concert for which she didn’t stay to see the second half. I understood, as it takes a certain kind of person to like the Afghan Whigs, and their particular brand of post-punk pop-rock music is not for everybody.
(pause)
But she and I will always have the handshake outside of First Avenue, and I’ll never forget how much I wanted that pleated peasant skirt she was wearing that night. I wish I had told her that now, especially because she asked me where I got my jeans and I told her. For all I know, she owns a pair of those jeans, and I have never been able to find a skirt like that one anywhere.
(beat)
Meredith, you will be missed.
(she kisses her hand and touches it to the “casket” on the coffee table)
COLIN
Thank you, Amy. That was very sweet. Anyone else?
(Amy sits down next to Quentin, who merely crosses his arms and shakes his head)
Well, if nobody minds, I would like to say a few words.
(beat)
Quentin, you have suffered much from the loss of Meredith, but I urge you to remember her as she was, three years ago, when you were in love. Think of that person, and ask yourself; “what would she say if she could see me suffer?” I believe she would say, “Let me go, Quentin. Let me be at peace, so you can be at peace as well.” So please, my friend...
(beat)
...be at peace.
(bows his head, turns to face the picture of Meredith atop the television)
Be at peace.
(faces Quentin again, his face grave and solemn as Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings plays)
Be at peace.
(beat)
QUENTIN
(stands)
Well, okay, Colin, Amy, thank you for that, really, great stuff but you have to leave right now. Like, right now.
(there is a knock on the door, which was not closed all the way and therefore swings open, revealing Meredith standing there in a white pleated floor length peasant skirt and a purple tank top)
MEREDITH
Am I interrupting something?
(the men are frozen, staring at each other)
AMY
(getting up and running to Meredith’s side)
Where did you get that skirt?
COLIN
(shrugs)
This is kind of embarrassing, huh?
(grabs the picture of Meredith from the top of the television and hides it)
MEREDITH
Um...thrift shop? Quentin? Are they staying for dinner? Please say no.
QUENTIN
No, they’re just leaving. Right Colin, Amy?
(both slowly stir)
COLIN
Right, should...Quentin, everything’s...you’ll get the, um...candles back to me?
QUENTIN
Out.
AMY
I love that skirt, Meredith, love it.
QUENTIN
OUT!
(Amy and Colin exit, but Amy comes back)
AMY
Quentin, I’ve been meaning to ask you for your chili recipe...
QUENTIN
(mock cheerful)
Take a pound of beef and three whole tomatoes and GET OUT!
(she exits)
(End)
===
And now to introduce the possibility of a new feature; Video Blogging. Now, it won't be a really regular feature, I don't think. But it should be fun to give it a try. I was hoping to do a little bit tonight, but it's not looking promising. But still, maybe...
It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. -Sinclair Lewis
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)