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Blog started in Jan 2005: 1st entries for Write in Every Genre. Then the REAL ME begins |
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It Hurts When I Stop Talking Sometime in Fall of 1998, when a visit from Dad was infrequent, and primarily at the mercy of his 88 Toyota making the 50 mile journey, I was being treated to lunch. The restaurant was my choice, I think. Sisley Italian Kitchen at the Town Center mall was somewhere my dad had not yet tried, so that was my pick. Either I was being treated to the luxury of lunch and adult conversation without my husband and 5 year old son in tow, or that's just how the moment has lodged in my memory. The more I think about it, they probably were there, but enjoying the Italian food too much to bother interrupting. Daddy and his lady friend at the time, Anne, came up together and made a day of it with me and the family. We were eating together and talking about some of my scripts, stories, coverages, poems and other creative attempts that really were not seeing the light of day. I think I'd just finished a group reading of The Artist's Way and was in a terribly frenetic mood over my writing. I think I'd just given them an entire rundown on a speculative Star Trek script. My Dad asked me point blank, “Why don’t you write it?? Anne agreed. It sure sounded like I wanted to write it. Why wasn't I writing seriously? It's what I'd set out to do when earning my college degree in Broadcasting many years earlier. Heck, I should, I agreed non-verbally. “I will.” But, I didn’t. Blogs can be wild, unpredictable storehouses of moments, tangents, creative dervishes, if you will. I'm getting a firmer handle on my creative cycle. My mental compost heap (which is a catch phrase from Natalie Goldman or Julia Cameron - I can't think which, right now) finally seems to be allowing a fairly regular seepage of by-products. That may be a gross analogy, but I give myself credit to categorize my work in raw terms. It proves that I'm not so much the procrastinating perfectionist that I once was. Still, I always seem to need prompts and motivation. Being a self-starter is the next step. My attempt to keep up in the Write in Every Genre Contest at the beginning of the year seemed like a perfect point to launch the blog. |
Soundtrack of my Life I truly felt transported in the year Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales album was released in 1993. I was a new mum, and high school seemed far in the distance. Yet, I felt privileged to have read Chaucer back then, not in college. It meant I understood the album name reference, and I felt just a bit more connected to a a continuous story. And yet..and yet, I bring you to the doorstop not of that album, but again to The Last Ship album. August Winds was the only song that sounded reminescent of Sting pop songs as I'd known them. All the other songs on the album surely told a solid story, but they were theatrical, and this one harkened back and clung to my skin, as I'm sure it was meant to -- like a strong navy wool coat billowing out, exposing my tapestry waistcoat with brass buttons. A total picture, one I could paint when one stands on a Summer pier...I'll have to think a bit more on why it has that effect of transporting me, or more on what I mean. When August winds are turning The fishing boats set out upon the sea I watch 'til they sail out of sight The winter follows soon I watch them drawn into the night Beneath the August moon No one knows I come here Some things I don't share I can't explain the reasons why It moves me close to tears Or something in the season's change Will find me wandering here And in my public moments I hear the things I say but they're not me Perhaps I'll know before I die Admit that there's a reason why I count the boats returning to the sea I count the boats returning to the sea And in my private moments I drop the mask that I've been forced to wear But no one knows this secret me Where albeit unconsciously I count the boats returning from the sea I count the boats returning from the sea Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Gordon Sumner August Winds lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC  |
Soundtrack of my Life A few weeks before the release of 2019's Mr. Rogers' movie, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, I presented a workshop to about a dozen folk informing and entertaining with details about the lide of Fred Rogers. I really enjoyed the research and was able to give a more complete picture of his incredible career. Few realize his Bachelors Degree is in Music, and that his wife, Joanne, also held advanced degrees and was a continuously working concert pianist. Rather than pick one of the standards, as it was performed on his Mister Rogers' Neighborhood program, I have selected to expose you to the Autotune PR campaign that PBS collaborated on. Trip out to it, and love it -- And see the You Tube sidebar, because it is not the only one! Fred Rogers' "The Garden of Your Mind" remixed by John D. Boswell for PBS Digital Studios. |
Soundtrack of my Life This is the point where you'll start to realize that I was brought up by Choir geek parents with a collection of vinyl covering all the musicals from the 40's through the 70's, then they had me, and couldn't afford to spend cash at the record store anymore. In the first decade of my life I spent hours with a reel-to reel tape player microphone and my parents albums on a portable turntable. And despite my young age, I was a careful curator of those albums. My first mishap with an LP wouldn't happen until I was on the cusp of puberty and left a record on the turntable all day, not realizing the sun hit that window powerfully for several hours, warping it -- I blame the hormones and or my baby sister who came around about that time, for distracting me -- At least the casualty was one of my own albums...but why WHY! did it have to be one disc of my Star Wars Soundtrack double disc album? I divert from the original point -- The production, Carousel, combining in my mind: the "Life is Good" messages of A Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol, or the death comes to everyone messages of Man of LaMancha or West Side Story are powerful teachers in the form of dramatic music. It does not matter to me when music actually presents itself in our timeline, or actual time of the world -- to me, some songs have existed much longer than that time in which they become noticed and are birthed into consciousness. So, You'll Never Walk Alone speaks to me from many angles as one that has existed long -- even the recollection of it in the final movie scene puts forward the idea that it is a parable that has carried on generation to generation. It is a short, sweet easy to memorize set of lyrics and eventhough its tempo is almost exactly like breathing, it can be technically difficult to perform. My own mom surprised me by saying she wants it sung at her upcoming retirement, and I am going to do just that. I love Shirley Jones, but it's less heartbreaking to listen to Claramae Turner as Cousin Nettie starting at 1:19, or jump to the end scene of the 1956 Carousel movie (Richard Rodgers, lyricist) Then there's this type of staging; I am assuming this is the entry song the heavenly choirs sing... |
Soundtrack of my Life Late November or early December I found out that the Broadway musical written by Sting several years ago was coming in January to Los Angeles. I first invested in the album back when iTunes was still in existence. In anticipation of seeing it, I dug out my iPod to listen to some of my favorite acts. Although it is the title track of the album, conversely in the staging of the play, The Last Ship takes place just before intermission after many other rousing songs. It evokes Biblical reference with a bit of a twist, and that was how Sting's album originally captured my delight...in the unexpected twists. I had long been a fan of his marvelous lyrics, intelligent and sometimes biting with humor or just pure romance. This whole album has much to enjoy, and this song should have its lyrics at hand. He can make literary references like no other singer-songwriter I know (Eventhough I am sure Kris Kristofferson is as well-read). Also find one who can use the word, austere, both properly and in a song lyric as he does. Lyrics: It's all there in the gospels, the Magdalene girl Comes to pay her respects, but her mind is awhirl. When she finds the tomb empty, the stone had been rolled, Not a sign of a corpse in the dark and the cold. When she reaches the door, sees an unholy sight, There's this solitary figure in a halo of light. He just carries on floating past Calvary Hill, In an almighty hurry, aye but she might catch him still. "Tell me where are ye going Lord, and why in such haste?" "Now don't hinder me woman, I've no time to waste! For they're launching a boat on the morrow at noon, And I have to be there before daybreak. Oh I canna be missing, the lads'll expect me, Why else would the good Lord himself resurrect me? For nothing will stop me, I have to prevail, Through the teeth of this tempest, in the mouth of a gale, May the angels protect me if all else should fail, When the last ship sails." Oh the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers, The noise at the end of the world in your ears, As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea, And the last ship sails. It's a strange kind of beauty, It's cold and austere, And whatever it was that ye've done to be here, It's the sum of yer hopes yer despairs and yer fears, When the last ship sails. Well the first to arrive saw these signs in the east, Like that strange moving finger at Balthazar's Feast, Where they asked the advice of some wandering priest, And the sad ghosts of men whom they'd thought long deceased, And whatever got said, they'd be counted at least, When the last ship sails. Oh the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers, The noise at the end of the world in your ears, As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea, And the last ship sails. And whatever you'd promised, whatever you've done, And whatever the station in life you've become. In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, And whatever the weave of this life that you've spun, On the Earth or in Heaven or under the Sun, When the last ship sails. Source: LyricFind Songwriters: Gordon Sumner The Last Ship lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC |
Soundtrack of my Life I'll go on the opposite side of the spectrum now...Access to Netflix and Disney + causes some unique choices. No, I don't mean Die Hard as Christmas movie...but in December, I recall poking around in the new playground of Disney + and watching the gaming episode of World Accoding to Jeff Goldblum, in which Jeff joins a pair of sound editors in creating sounds related to play in Wonka's World of Candy (an app game)-- this made me nostalgic for the Willy Wonka and the Chocolte Factory movie of the Seventies. And my favorite part? The performance by Gene Wilder of the song, Pure Imagination. This was also re-established in the collective social memory due to his rendition being the background song to a current ad campaign for Adobe Creative (cloud computing) Advertisers have used the song in a PSA on Alzheimers as well, I'm thinking there's alot of sentimental adverting agency personnel of a certain age...I should know. Performed by Mr. Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) Songwriter(s): Leslie Bricusse; Anthony Newley Label: Paramount (1971) |
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