An article in the Christian Science Monitor today discusses the decline of the author tour due to virtual encounters—podcasts, film tours, blog tours, book videos, book trailers—“without the hassle or expense of travel.”
So what was the first thing that popped into my mind when I read the following?
The videos have another advantage: They eliminate the humiliation for an author of showing up at a bookstore event only to find the place empty.
Spinal Tap’s in-store signing. Poor old Artie Fufkin.
Morrissey is getting pilloried in England for the following comment in an interview with NME:
[W]ith the issue of immigration, it’s very difficult because, although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British [sic] identity disappears. . . . If you travel to Germany, it’s still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity. But travel to England and you have no idea where you are. . . . England is a memory now.
The England I grew up in is certainly a memory now. Whenever I go home I’m faced with the sad fact that England’s green and pleasant land is now relegated to myth status. Things change, but that’s not always necessarily good.
“Englishness,” for lack of a better word, is all but dead and with it dies my only home.
Before fiction became my sole creative output (outside of the occasional meal that teases even the culinary gods), I was a bass player in search of rock stardom. Had I succeeded you’d certainly have read my obituary by now—another young soul lost to sex, drugs & rock ’n’ roll. . . .
It would’ve made sense, though: “Whole Lotta Love” is the first song I remember falling in love with (way back in 1970 at the tender age of five) and Led Zeppelin became the band I most wanted to emulate—in success and excess.
In twenty years of serious playing my most successful band was Zen Pirates, formed in 1991 on the beaches of South Padre Island, Texas, and then again in the living room of our (first) singer’s mother’s house in Plano, Texas. I could write for weeks about the band and all its adventures, misadventures, successes, failures, near-death experiences, and ever-changing lineups . . . and perhaps one day I will. . . .
Yesterday I received an e-mail from Zen Pirates’ second and longest-serving drummer (and, honestly, the best drummer I’ve ever played with). Included were six ZP songs recently transferred from the original DATs. (Others, including a myriad of live recordings, will shortly receive the same treatment.)
Of these six songs (two are actually different versions of the same song), one in particular has stuck with me all these years.
“I Caught A Wave” captures the essence of Zen Pirates in our tumultuous 1992–93 period. This particular version was recorded in 1993 at Planet Dallas Studios after we had become a power trio. The performances aren’t particularly great (our manager-producer, Adam Mitchell, insisted we play with a click track—rock ’n’ roll don’t need no stinkin’ click track!) and neither is the sound. The song, though? To say I’m still proud would be putting it mildly. It rocks as hard today as it did then. . . .
Enjoy.
“I Caught A Wave”
Jeff VanderMeer interviews Steve Erickson over at Amazon’s Omnivoracious.
As I’ve mentioned before, I write “organically” and I’m always interested in hearing from authors who do the same.
I’ve encountered the following scenario countless times:
There have been times I thought that when I got a certain point in the story, a certain character was going to do a certain thing, only to get to that point and have the character make clear that he or she doesn’t want to do that at all. That long phone conversation I thought the character was going to have? He hangs up the phone before the other person answers, and twenty pages of dialog I had half written in my head go out the window.
For me, that is the one of the great pleasures of writing.
While working out a technical problem.
This is what happens when you let American money invade the beautiful game.
I’d rather Liverpool Football Club be a mid-table team with local ownership than be in the position we are now in with the combined ignorance of George Gillett Jr and Tom Hicks in control.
From the Times:
Most recently, Benítez has taken umbrage at the insistence that all transfer negotiations be left to Rick Parry, the chief executive, and that no such talks should even take place until after [Gillet and Hicks’] visit to Merseyside in mid-December. Benítez—eager to sign Ezequiel Marcelo Garay, the Racing Santander defender, and to tie up a permanent £17 million deal for Javier Mascherano—expressed disgust at the proposal and has compounded matters by suggesting that the owners do not understand how the transfer market works in European football.
Perhaps Frederick Exley said it best:
. . . [I]t was my destiny—unlike that of my father, whose fate it was to hear the roar of the crowd—to sit in the stands with most men and acclaim others. It was my fate, my destiny, my end, to be a fan.
Exley was writing, of course, of things larger and greater than sports. . . .
We may not all be sports fans . . . most of us, however, are fans—be it of popular or esoteric culture. So what is it that impels us to ignore the last bad result, bad novel, bad film, bad album, bad painting, bad dinner in hopes that the next one will deliver us happiness & pleasure again? . . .
Why do we forgive the failings of those we love from afar faster than the shortcomings of those we hold dearest?
Why are we such dedicated fans?
Seems to me the world would be a better place if we offered the same forgiveness we bestow upon our heroes upon everyone else.
At this point in life, however, I’ve only one hero: my father. And we’ve already forgiven each other.