April 2nd, 2012

Participant

I’ve been doing a few things lately even *in addition* to swanning around the Maritime provinces and basking in the springtime sun here in Ontario. Today, for example, I ran *many* errands in the aforementioned springtime sun, which is somehow much better than the fraudulent summer sun of a few weeks ago. Today was one of those rare days for a 9-to-5-er, when I had time to prioritize those little errands like the library, the post office, the dry-cleaner–instead of cramming them on the tail-end of some more glamourous errand, they got to be centre stage. And I strolled between them listening to Belle and Sebastian (come on! anyone who doesn’t think Belle and Sebastian is the perfect soundtrack to a spring stroll is just a hipster too far). Lovely.

Ok, but also–some writing stuff. I contributed a line to Pass the Ghost Story, which is fun, creepy, and still in progress; I was interviewed by Grace O’Connell about Writers and Day Jobs, and I made the very long but very cool long-list for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. I’ve read enough of the books on the list to know what an honour this is, so I’m basking…just a bit!

And it’s only Monday!

August 4th, 2011

Songs for The Big Dream

The Big Dream has music in it, but no lyrics. Music is ubiquitous in our culture–with the advent of iPods, less and less of our lives is unsoundtracked, and if you’re going to write real life, you need at least some ambient music popping up sometime. When I wrote Once, there were occasional snatches of whatever the characters were listening to. When I was finished, someone told me that you can’t use song lyrics, even just a few, even if they’re diegetic, even for atmosphere, without paying the artist who wrote them, and the licensing company and whatever-expensive-nightmare.

So I went through the whole book and took out all the direct quotations. I left some vague references and titles in–surely they can’t sue for that, and I guess most readers would be at least slightly familiar with the sorts of music I was writing about, so they’d be able to tune in inside their brains. And it’s not as if music is a huge aspect of my work–it’s just there, a part of things, a thread in the fabric… It was just frustrating, is all, to have to leave things out, even little things.

But since I found out the rules, I’ve been writing with them in mind. In Road Trips, when I wanted to show a character flipping through the radio stations and hearing a little snatch of rap, I wrote the lyrics myself (the joke was how bad it was, so it was ok that I that; I’m not planning an alternative career as a rap lyricist). And in *The Big Dream* I found other ways of describing music besides direct quotations. Sometimes it works better than others, but I think I was largely successful in creating the impression of certain music without using the lyrics. Again, this is a really small part of the book, but I worked hard on it.

Except…somehow I didn’t think all these rules applied to epigraphs. I have no idea why I believed this–probably just because I wanted to, as none of the fair use exceptions of study, review, criticism, etc. applied. I just found this really really perfect epigraph for TBD, and I wanted it and I couldn’t write my way around it–an epigraph is a direct quotation and only that.

So I’ve come to my senses, looked into the matter further, and finally deleted the epigraph. I am sad, because the song and the quotation I picked said the perfect thing, I felt, to introduce the book. So I’ll write this post, I figure, reviewing and critiquing all the music that meant a lot to me and the process of writing TBD, and then I’ll have an excuse to include the quotation here–not in the book, where I feel it belongs, but at least somewhere where people can read it and make the connection. And there’s actually a lot of other music to give credit to, here. I think a lot of writers have music they keep in mind as they write or think about their work, whether or not it’s on in the room where we’re actually tapping at the keys–see Dani Couture’s playlists series or Large Heart Boy’s Book Notes. So it’s a proud tradition of us song-listing authors that I join now–onwards.

Believe it or not, I had never ever heard Dolly Parton’s working-girl classic 9 to 5 until less than a year ago, when my friend K played a dance mix of it in the aerobics class she teaches. True! I don’t generally like the “they let you dream just to watch’em shatter” type of song–too reductive, too whingy. But this song is *very* catch, great for aerobics, and it has two great lines: “there’s a better life and you think about it / dontcha?” and “in the same boat with a lot of your friends / waiting for the day your ship will come in / the tide’s gonna turn and it’s all gonna roll you away.” Have *you* heard a better extended metaphor in a pop-song? A nice bit of solidarity, too! And I like “pour myself a cup of ambition,” too. Someday, I may write a story called, “A Cup of Ambition”–or is that not fair use? Oh, probably not. Sigh. (Query: I’ve still not seen the movie nor the stage show; should I?)

My background in songs about work is, well, work songs. I’m from that sort of family. So I was pleased to find a collection of our old favourites in Bruce Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions. A bit more modern than the original Seeger, and also easier to find on CD (oh, sigh, sacrilege), this album is delightful. I certainly realize that a lot of these songs are about work done by slaves, and that it’s grossly offensive to align office work with that history. I don’t do so–I just like songs about work in any form. My favourites are “Jacob’s Ladder,” (that’s actually a really wonderful video there, which I hadn’t seen before now), for the incredible line, “Every new rock just makes us stronger,”  and “John Henry”, about the strongest man in the world. But no kidding, there’s everybody else and then there is Mr. Seeger–a singer for us all.

I’m a literalist, and I always felt that The New Pornographers’ The Crash Year is actually about a market crash–no idea if that’s true or not, although the album being released in 2010 would indicates so, as do lines like “you’re ruined like the rest of us” and “oh my child you’re not safe here.” And there’s a whistle-chorus!

You know you’re a serious Simon and Garfunkel fan when you are into the B sides–the tracks with a horn section, and more ribaldry, less tender reflection. One of my favourite all-time S&G works is Keep the Customer Satisfied. This is essentially a barstool plaint by a travelling salesman, exuberantly sung even when the lyrics are, “And I’m sooo tired / I’m oh-oh-oh so tired/I’m just trying to keep the customer satisfied.” You just don’t hear that line in rock’n’roll very often, and it makes me feel like these guys really know what it’s like to have a not-too-great job–though, as far as I know, they mainly didn’t. I mean, quirky musical icon isn’t a bad gig, right?

Of course, I like lots of music by folks who don’t work at job-jobs or write about them. In fact, I spent most of my time while writing this book listening to music by Vampire Weekend and The National, with a little Neil Diamond and Arcade Fire thrown in. And none of those artists give the impression of having done their time in the salt mine, but that’s ok–I really don’t theme my life by what I’m writing, I just shape it for posts like this.

And there’s Weezer. Silly, irreverent, possibly outdated Weezer, whose music is mainly about flirting and being awkward at parties–not that isn’t awesome, because it totally is. But sometimes, especially this one time, they manage to get right at the heart of things, and write the line that encapsulates not only my book but a chunk of my life’s philosophy. It was in the song Keep Fishin’ (yes, it’s the video with the Muppets–watch it if you haven’t, it’s brilliant). Note that throughout this post I have offered an evaluative judgement on all directly quoted material–it’s criticism, people, and therefore fair use. That *wonderful* line, which really should be my epigraph–fie on the greedy music industry and their selfish need to keep all their good lines for themselves, is:

You’ll never do
The things you want
If you don’t move
And get a job

June 14th, 2011

Which blue?

Please help me settle a debate (which I am having inside my head; no one else is involved):

Which song is better, Lou Gramm’s Midnight Blue or Icehouse’s Electric Blue (please minimize the video while you listen to the song, at least until after you’ve voted; it’ll taint your opinion of the song)??

Note: I’d like to keep this simple and not admit covers into the competition, but for bonus listening, I highly recommend the REM cover of “Midnight Blue” …but definitely not the Cranberries’s song called “Electric Blue,” which is a completely different song from Icehouse’s and which I am not linking to because it is so creepy it frightens me.

So–your opinions please??? I need to get this sorted!

March 7th, 2011

We Can’t Help You If We Can’t Find You

I can’t believe I forgot to mention that my brother did the album art for the new Zacht Automaat album, We Can’t Help You If We Can’t Find You. Go have a look–and if you’re a fan of instrumental jazz minimalist pop prog psych rock, a listen.

March 1st, 2011

Love song for letters

I am into sending and receiving letters. I am actually into all forms of communication. Writing is (natch) a favourite–but the letter-love originates way before I ever anticipated an audience larger than one at a time. As a kid (and still), I had no family beyond parents/brother/pets in Canada. I wrote a newsletter for the household, but that did not satisfy my need to communicate–I wanted to contact with the outside world. My parents attempted to corral a few recalcitrant relatives into writing to me, and I would get the occasional note (I actually got more gifts than letters in the post, so I shouldn’t complain). By and large, though, I couldn’t get the long-form sustained letter-exchange that forms literary collections (I was, at this point, 7 or 8, so you can’t really blame them–often my letters consisted of descriptions of the houses on our road).

My most attentive relative, a step-uncle who, unsurprisingly, was a writer, used to call me “my faithful correspondant” because I usually responded to whatever he sent by return mail. He also once sent detailed instructions for folding a letter into thirds so that it would fit into a normal envelope–a trick I’d been having trouble with.

In grade school, a popular writing exercise was to pass out overseas penpal addresses to anyone who was interested. I signed up every time the program was offered, and quickly exhausted pals in Argentina, England, and Norway. These days, most people who want to keep up a long term correspondance do so by email, which is fine with me–old-fashioned as it is, I’m more concerned with the medium than the message. But I do *like* getting letters, when someone chooses to send me one. There are a few people in the world who send me mail, and it does make me very happy to see a penned address in the mailbox (unless it is my own handwriting on a self-addressed stamped envelope, signifying literary rejection).

The point of all this is that I was so charmed by Arcade Fire’s We Used to Wait when I realized it was about nostalgia for sending and receiving letters. It’s a strangely sweet song, I think, off the (I hear) Grammy-winning album *The Suburbs*. You can listen at the above link, and/or read the lyrics I will now attempt to transcribe for you below (yes, I still believe the exercise of listening closely enough to transcribe song lyrics is somehow helpful for my writing. I’m just not sure how.)

We Used to Wait/Arcade Fire

I used to write
I used to write letters
I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met
By the time we met the times had already changed
So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart
I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was lost standing in the wilderness downtown

Now our lives are changing fast (repeat)
Hope that something pure could last (repeat)

It seemed strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive
What was stranger still
Is how something so small could keep you alive

(We used to wait)
We used to waste hours just walking around
(We used to wait)
All those wasted lives in the wilderness downtown
(Ooo, we used to wait) (repeat 4x)
Sometimes they never came (repeat 2x)
Still movin through the pain

I’m gonna write a letter to my true love
I’m gonna sign my name
Like a patient on a table
I wanna walk again
Gotta move through the pain

Now our lives are changin fast (repeat)
Hope that something pure could last (repeat)
(We used to wait) (repeat x3)
Sometimes they never came (repeat)
Still moving through the pain
We used to wait (repeat)

We used to wait for it (repeat)
And now we’re screaming
Sing the chorus again

We used to wait for it (repeat)
And now we’re screaming
Sing the chorus again

I used to wait for it (repeat)
And now we’re screaming
Sing the chorus again

Wait for it (repeatx3)

January 24th, 2011

Music recommendations

I got some new cds for Christmas, and they are the best. Well, currently, anyway, in my mind–the very best in the world. I do this with music, go through periods of intense infatuation where I can listen to a song 40 times on repeat. It never entirely goes away–I don’t start to hate the music or anything–but gradually other favourites move in. So basically what I’m saying is, you can trust the picks, but perhaps not the extreme intensity with which they’re offered.

One of these most-beloved albums is If I Don’t Come Home, You’ll Know I’m Gone by The Wooden Sky. Dangerous, to have an album title with a comma in it, but they totally pull it off. My current favourite, listen-to-ad-nauseum obsession is the track Something Hiding for Us in the Night, which has this wonderful powerful beat that’s just about my walking pace, so as I listen to it as I walk down the street, it’s like I’m in the Wooden Sky army. What do the lyrics mean? Not sure, but I think they’re beautiful, nonetheless: “Yeah, but you’ll keep a car running / outside of my bed/ So baby, don’t you worry now / it’s all in your head/ But I keep on repeating / all the last things you said / Oh, I know at first / you probably wanted me dead.” What? I don’t know, but something–definitely something.

Everybody knows about The Arcade Fire, they’ve been in the New Yorker, etc–but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t actually as good as the hype suggests–they are. I have loved every album so far, and I think The Suburbs might just be the best one yet. Some of the songs are little stories, and some, again, I can’t quite parse, but City with No Children is my favourite now, a gently rockin’ number about missing childhood as well as children and, a theme of the album, writing letters. Lovely, powerful, catchy–all the best stuff.

Truly, Katy Perry’s inane song Firework shouldn’t be included with the above complex music. Its only lyrical achievement is reminding us that the word fireworks has a singular. The rest is just synth’d up strings and inane high-school inspirationals, eg., “You don’t have to feel/like a waste of space / You’re original / Cannot be replaced.”

Even the video is mainly histrionics and CGI, but I can’t resist suggesting you watch it (link above) for the moment around 1:50 where a magician on the way home from a gig gets mugged. The muggers go through his pockets and get…long strings of silk scarves. And then they rip open his jacket and…doves burst free. It’s really beautiful, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that set-up before. Wonder who on the Katy Perry Brain Team came up with the idea??

November 30th, 2010

Writerly Snark

A few things that, while essentially un-rose-coloured in tone, are too amusing not to pass on:

1) Alex Boyd and Jacob Arthur Mooney wrote a Facebook Constitution for Writers, which is pretty funny, and full of good suggestions, though by far the best one (and the summation of the whole constitution is) “Facebook offers you innumerable opportunities to be a passive-aggressive wimp. Don’t overdo it.”

2) Scott sent me this video about crazy people who want to write novels just because they “can write and speak your native language.” Grim, but funny!

Or maybe you’d just like to watch Arcade Fire’s Sprawl II (Mountains beyond Mountains) video? Ok, then.

November 18th, 2010

Bookish music

I think I’ve done a post like this in the past, but I don’t remember so it’s like it never happened–let’s start over! While Mark takes on the rock’n’roll novel, I’d like to  look at the literary song!

I’ve actually been meaning to do this for a while now, but literary songs are hard to spot–you really have to sit down and listen. The problem is–as usual–metaphors. People use the acts of reading and writing, and the physical objects of books, as metaphors for all kinds of “feelings” and “relationships”! You think you’ve got some lovely literary tune, and it turns out to be about love or something. Neither Elvis Costello’s Every Day I Write the Book nor the Magnetic Fields’ The Book of Love is about an actual book (though that Merit fellow is bloody clever in making you think so). Even less literary are songs about writing that isn’t a real book even in it’s literal form, like diaries, or even not a book at all, like letters.

In the above examples, even what writing there is is pure metaphor–I don’t get the feeling an actual pen was ever involved. You know what song always makes think of someone at a desk? Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen. Though a song (formerly a poem, I think) it has the exact pace and tone–even the rhythm–of the best things I get in the post (it’s good when Jennifer Warnes sings it, too).

My favourite litsy songs are actually literature–lyrics that are smart or funny or thoughtful or, even better, all three. Still, I wouldn’t want to listen to Loreena McKennit’s “Lady of Shalott” every day. More accessible, and yet stranger, are REM’s songs about stories and poems–they don’t sing them, they reimagine them, and sing their imaginings. Back to Mr. Cohen, REM explores his song/poem Suzanne, both the words and the tune, in their trippy wonderful song “Hope” (what? why can’t I find a link for that? also, I don’t know where the alligators come from). I also adore their investigation (no other word for it) of Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery in the song “Falls to Climb,” which gets weirder and more interesting the more you listen to it. Unfortunately, I can’t find a link to the REM version–all that’s on the web, it seems, are terrible covers I can’t be responsible for bringing into your life. But you should hear that one if you can. (And whoever the person was who explained that song to me–I think it was a blog reader–should remind me of his or her identity, since I remain grateful.)

Sometimes I think a song is about writing or reading, but I’m not sure. I guess that’s the nature of pop music. Like, these lyrics:

Now I’m hunched over a typewriter
I guess you’d call that paintin’ in a cave
And there’s a word I can’t remember
And a feeling I cannot escape
And now my ashtray’s overflowin’
I’m still starin’ at a clean white page
Oh and morning’s at my window
She is sending me to bed again

Now that’s as apt a description of the writing life as I’ve seen, but it’s from Bright Eyes’ Another Travelling Song, which is pretty much adamant in its title that it is not a writing song. The rest is about driving and cell phones and maybe child abuse? I’m not sure…it’s a really good song though.

And then there’s stuff where I *feel* like I relate, but I actually don’t have a clue. Like “Language City” by Wolf Parade sounds promising, but what is it actually about? “Language city is a bad old place / we all know / our eyeballs float in space / we all know / we were tired / we can’t sleep / it’s crowded here / others leave / Language City don’t mean a thing / to me.” Yep, not a clue–though the refrain, “All this work just to tear it down” does sound familiar.

This is my favour sort of puzzle–books, music, pointless theorizing–so if you’ve got some litsy music to recommend, please share!

September 28th, 2010

Things to do–busy edition

Do you want to come out with me to the Combat Camera launch tonight at the Garrison? Or without me, tomorrow night, to the mayoral arts debate, which sounds fascinating and educational (and includes free snacks). I, of course, bought my Jays vs. Yankees tickets months ago, so that’s where I’ll be tomorrow. And then on Thursday I’ll be very tired, and on Friday getting ready for my trip to North Bay, where on Saturday I’ll be reading in the Circus Wonderland at WKP Kennedy Gallery. And on Sunday returning from that, again tired. And on Monday at the Cadence cd launch party. And then the thing that I am doing on Tuesday October 5 at 6:30pm, I can’t read in my calander (I have lousy handwriting, ok?) but if I was planning on doing it with you, could you please let me know??

August 10th, 2010

Elvis Costello: Totally Messing with Me

So I am having a complete meltdown tonight because (brace yourself): there are TWO “American without Tears,” which is a song, well, two songs by Elvis Costello. And then I knew, the one I thought was the only one and wrote about in a short story once (as you probably do not recall, it was “Chilly Girl”) is the “other” one, some sort of freak song or “Twilight Version” Costello seems to have recorded the following year and stuck on *Blood and Chocolate* as a bonus track for the version released in the UK. The version it seems people actually *know* was on side 2 of King of America and is completely different lyrics, different instrumentation…

Don’t panic, the scene in “Chilly Girl” makes sense no matter which version you are thinking of, as they have the same time sig and basically the same melody. But nothing else makes sense any more–my brain can’t process this. It’s like finding out your boyfriend has a nice clone you can take to parties if you want. Ok, it’s nothing like that, but it’s still really really weird.

I actually like the “new” version a lot, too, but I guess my roots will forever remain with the Twilight version. And so I leave you with…

December 1965 in Caracas
When Arnie LaFlamme took his piece of the pie
When he packed up the casino chips, the IOU and the abacus
And switched off the jukebox in a “A Fool Such As I”

He was a leg man who was open to offers
But he couldn’t get her off his mind as he passed the tourist office
And as he entertained himself singing just like Sammy Davis Junior
He toyed with a trip to Miami

…

Swoon. Costello is totally a short-story writer in musical form.