Archive for February, 2012
Leap Year: the day that never was, but probably should be.
Happy Hump Day! Err, I mean, Happy Leap Day. Or, um, wait, can a day be both leap and hump? I feel like either we’re doing something here that defies both the Newtonian and Einsteinian physical models of the universe, or worse, something that one’s mother shouldn’t find out about.
Maybe let’s keep it on the down-low, just to be safe?
More seriously, though, I feel like I’m getting gypped today. This year has a whole extra day in it, 24 guilt-free hours, to be used as you like. Except, they’re not really to be used as we like. It’s not a holiday in any way shape or form: federal, secular, unrecognized, or even one of the 217 French labor holidays, like Pain Perdu* Day or anything.
Nope, today is just, well, Wednesday.
Leap year should get it’s own day, Leipzday or something. The calendar shouldn’t just have an extra Wednesday. The way we do it now, instead of getting a tidy little congratulations-for-making-it-through-another-4-years-of-this-nonsense bonus, it’s actually an extra day for all of us rats to spin the cage wheel. Now, I suppose that might be okay if there was, like, cheese or something—a nice aged gouda, perhaps—at the end of that wheel race. But no. If we’re lucky, we’ll get one of those fibery pellet things that seems like food, but really isn’t.
You know, like pink slime beef, uh, pellets.
Where was I? Oh yeah, so everyone who follows the modern Julian calendar gets an extra day this year, and that day is today. Unfortunately, instead of doing something truly worthy of an event that comes only every four years, like an all-day “hour happy” starting at lunch or a twelve-hour Little House on the Prairie TV marathon in one’s jammies, most of us will waste our bonus day working for The Man.
If you ask me, that sucks as much as being packed in a 1962 VB Beetle with the entire staff of Ringling Bros’ clowns after an all-you-can-eat taco bar.
I say we carpe the diem here, people. But before everyone’s beanies get all wrinkled up, I’m not some commie suggesting we all stage a walkout and demand our Leap Day rights. Yes, put that picket sign down, granny. What I do mean is, maybe let the brown bag sit for a day and treat yourself a nice lunch. Or, skip the evening dinner dash to get the Hamburger Helper on the table and pick up something on the way home. Later on, why not relax tonight with a hot bath, a glass of wine, and this week’s People magazine. Err…I mean, a six-pack of some really strong IPA and an action movie with a ton of stuff blowing-up.
Whatever, do something special for yourself today. Sure, “Leap Year” isn’t really that big a deal, but it should be. You passed Go! four times since the last leap year, and hopefully never got sent to Jail. I’d say that’s something to celebrate.
Even if it’s only with a cheese coney and a good beer.
Which damn sure beats a taco bar with a crapton of scary clowns.
Pud’n
*That’s French Toast to you and me, Russ
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Dreams, determination, and the Pinewood Derby Tank
“I want it to be like a tank,” he said, face alight with eight year-old glee. “And I want to paint it with camo.”
A tank.
My son, Mini-Me, held a rectangular block of pine in his hands, undoubtedly envisioning his combat-ready pinewood derby racer as it screamed down the track, blasting opponents out of its way.
And somehow I had to figure out how to make that happen.
At first I suggested that perhaps a tank wasn’t the best possible design for something that was, you know, intended to race. “It’ll be big and blocky,” I told him, “and that might slow it down compared to the other race cars.”
“I don’t care,” he replied, demonstrating the kind of resolve I’d like to see in just one elected official these days.
There was no putting him off, a tank it would be. I had to decide, then, how best to turn a block of wood into a heavy assault vehicle, complete with camouflage and a big honking cannon.
Of course, when it comes to design and planning this sort of thing, I’m about as useful as a frightened box turtle in the middle of a busy intersection. And I only hope my building skill with tools will someday be nearly equivalent to the turtle’s. But I’m the Cub Scout Dad. This was my responsibility. No one was going to do it for me.
Don’t think I didn’t consider it. But that would have been cheating.
So I stared at the block. And stared. And scratched my beard. And poured myself a nice pale ale. And stared some more.
Somehow, slowly, light began to burn away the dimness in the soft, grey, atrophied building stuff portion of my brain.
Cut off a chunk there and mount it on top for the turret.
Slice off a wedge here.
Another wedge over here.
Maybe it could work after all. And really, do aerodynamics mean anything when it comes to a 5 oz wooden car? It’s not like the thing had to be able to escape Earth’s gravity or would undergo wind tunnel testing or anything.
And so the lad and I went to work with my drill and my multi-tool. We lopped off chunks here and there, we sanded it to his satisfaction, we mounted the turret, and we added a drinking-straw cannon. I stopped at the local hobby store and bought three tiny, squarish bottles of paint that took me back to my model-building youth. When we cracked them open and Mini-Me started to apply them, the smell had me reminiscing about the A-4 Skyhawk and the F-14 Tomcat that used to hang above my bed from monofilament fishing line.
More importantly, just like that, the impossible block of wood had become a tank.
But the question still lingered: would its complete lack of aerodynamics doom it to failure?
The first heat it ran didn’t bode well: 3rd place out of three, and trailing at that.
The second heat, though, showed some promise: 2nd place, and a close finish.
In the third heat, on its last chance, our blocky tank crossed the finish line in first place, to cheers and grins (and a great sigh of relief from someone’s old man).
In the end, Mini-Me’s tank didn’t win a den trophy or place in the big pack race. But it was a winning racer, nonetheless, if only in my heart.
My eight year-old knew what he wanted. He dreamed of a wooden tank that raced like a car. When I tried to talk him out of it, to suggest he go for something sleeker or, well, faster-looking, at least, he stuck to his guns and would not be dissuaded.
A tank, he said, with camo.
Lo and behold, by the end of the day, he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
Perhaps there’s a lesson here for all of us.
Do you know what your dream is? Whatever it is, stick to it, no matter what they tell you.
And, hey, maybe paint it camouflaged, just for good measure.
Pud’n
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The Novel Query (or, How NOT to get a prom date)
So it’s come to this, finally. Two years ago, I wrote this post about a guy waking up by himself. Now, nearly 25 months and 97,434 words later (well, a lot more than that, actually, when you consider revisions), I finally have the novel I always swore to myself I’d write and try to get published. Now, then, it’s time to send my precious baby manuscript* out amongst the horse traders to have it’s teeth checked, it’s height and weight gauged, and its tires kicked.
What? It’s, um, mixed metaphor Friday. Get over it.
Anyway, the point is that it’s high time to put together my query package**.
*Duh-duh-duh*
Holy burnt melba toast, Batman, where does one begin?
First things first, the query is not one single thing, it’s several things, typically including, at minimum (for a novel), a pitch letter and synopsis. And every agent, editor, and Dark Lord of the Underworld waiting to trade for your soul has different submission requirements. And you must observe them all if you want any kind of shot, even if they demand you hollow out a sheep’s stomach and send your manuscript bundled within.
In other words, if you think you’re going to slam together a quick email and mass merge it, replacing the “Dear <publishing gatekeeper>” with “Dear Ms. Mcgillicutty” just like a bulk spam blast pimping CHEAP MAKE-IT-HARDER-LONGER pills, well, odds are good the only people likely to ever read your life’s work will share your last name.
That’s not so much the goal, here, right?
So, yes, doing this querying thing and doing it right is going to take some time, thought, and effort. But, really, after wrestling with 90-100k words and bending them to your will, that’s not such a task, is it?
The hard part, though, is that putting together a successful query isn’t quite as simple as doing your taxes or trigonometry.
Let’s break it down. First, the pitch letter. In a perfect world, a pitch letter would be straight-forward and to the point:
Dear Mr. Agent,
I wrote a novel. My mom and my wife like it. I’m pretty proud of it, especially as finishing it was more work than pushing a 13-lb baby out an opening the size of a plum. It’s got some people in it and they do some stuff that many readers will probably find interesting. Plus, jellybeans. Everbody likes reading about jellybeans. Sorry, no sparkly vampires this time. That’s okay, though, right?
So, anyway, like I said, my mom and wife like it. So please sell it to a publisher for 18 gojillion dollars so I can quit my day job, choke on my sophomore novel, and start abusing drugs and women with daddy issues.
In closing, please please please please please please please please please!?
Thanks,
Clueless Debut Author
Sadly, my sources indicate such an approach might be, um, less than effective.
All joking aside, it seems to me that this query business is a whole lot like trying to get that special prom date in high school. There you are, sure of how you’re a great dude and would make an excellent date for some lucky girl, even if your love for collectable science fiction action figures is misunderstood. The thing is, you’ve only got one chance to prove you’re the fellow to make her the Belle of the Ball. When the time comes, then, for laying out that question to her, you’ve got to be smart, clever—but not too clever, confident—but not an arrogant asshole, and above all, yourself.
If you’re standing in front of a girl with nervous, shifty eyes, a pained look as if you’re weathering some serious intestinal distress, and a case of flop sweats that would make Chris Farley proud, you might as well skip asking her out and instead just explain about how your mom still picks out your clothes and cuts your Salisbury Steak for you. Instead, what you need to do is talk like a normal person, keep it calm, be sure of yourself even if you don’t feel sure of yourself, and get the important question across without becoming a pile of blubbering jello.
The query seems like it’s kind of the same way. Be yourself: use your writer’s voice, so the agent/editor/queryee will know what to expect from your writing. Be confident, but not arrogant: if you don’t think your work is good, no one else will either. But don’t go too far, it’s not as if anyone who reads it will immediately begin crapping solid gold. Above all, stick to the point and get the important information down: hook, pitch, author bio, done. No one who might want to represent you or buy your book will care that you foster feral ferrets.
In additional to the pitch letter, your query will require an synopsis of your novel. A synopsis is a (relatively) short summary of your book, again, using your voice. The writer’s voice, that is, not the one tells you to stab your spouse with a fork when she tries to steal a bite of your nachos. More importantly, the synopsis should not sound like a book report for Mrs. Hausdingle’s 5th grade English class. In other words, avoid this:
In, “Anderson meets Molly”, Mr. Anderson is a regular guy. And then he meets Molly Maureen getting his oiled changed. She steals his car and he chases after her. He catches her, and then they rob a bank together with nothing but marshmallow fluff and packets of fast food hot sauce because Molly tells him she need 10,000 dollars for a cockular transplant. Then the cops chase after them all over the city and the cars go ZOOM and the crashes go “CRASH” and the horns go “HONK” and the school kids and the nuns and the grandmothers going to liquor store for their whiskey all dive out of the way. And then Mr. Anderson and Molly get away, but break up because he finds out the stolen money is actually to open a custom doll making shop, which really, dolls? Creepy. Then he realizes he loves the creepy doll-making thief anyway, so he goes back to her and then they do it and live happily ever after.
So then, I’m crafting my query and building the first list of agents who’ll be getting my submission. It should be noted that any advice I might have inadvertently provided above should be taken with a grain of salt. I’ve done plenty of research about this, but to date I’ve successfully queried the same number of times as the plastic clown that pops out of a jack-in-the-box. I think I know what not to do, but I’m not sure what I’m going to provide will be quite right, either.
Again, it’s like getting a prom date; you never know if the question’s going to work until someone says “Yes”.
Here’s hoping I don’t end up going alone.
And if you’re querying, I hope you find a good date too.
Pud’n
*Thank you, Keri Stevens, for the perfect description
**Huh-huh-huh. He said “package,” Bevis.
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Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and (not) making that obligatory sacrifice
Yesterday was Fat Tuesday. I largely let it slip past without observation this year, which is kind of unlike me – I’m not one to overlook any excuse to relax and do a little good-natured partying. Granted, Mardi Gras isn’t exactly a core tradition to someone mostly German and Scotch-Irish, but, hey, I’d celebrate Guy Fawkes Day if there was even a tenuous excuse to have a few beers.
Case in point: If I recall correctly, I made a big deal out of Cinco de Mayo a couple of years ago. For the record, it’s not like my life has been affected greatly by who won or lost the Battle of Puebla in 1862, but that hasn’t stopped me from making margaritas and dancing around under an oversized sombrero.
Anyway, because I’m old and lame, and it’s been a busy week, I skipped the Fat Tuesday revelry and instead spent the evening watching Downton Abby. Yeah, that’s right, I rock that hard. Nothing says party like kicking it with a PBS English period series.
Of course, if yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, that means today is Ash Wednesday. First admission: I’m Catholic. Second admission: I’m not really a to-the-letter-of-Roman-policy Catholic. Still, I am better about observing certain practices today than I was in my wild and crazy youth. Back in The Day, I’d roll in to work with an ugly Fat Tuesday hangover – likely still absent-mindedly wearing a string of beads or two – and be dumbfounded by the dark ashes adorning many of my coworkers.
I do live in the greater Cincinnati area, mind you, which I’m pretty sure has more practicing Catholic folks per capita than just about any other city on Earth outside of the Vatican itself*.
At any rate, in those days, once I realized the ashy forehead crosses weren’t some new-fangled body art fad, like, um, earrings and, uh, the tattoos all the kids were getting, I’d acknowledge the beginning of the Lenten season by spending 0.723 seconds considering whether I’d give anything up.
The answer was almost universally no.
It’s not that I was just being contrary and refused to participate as the basis of some kind of personal crusade or anything. It takes much too much time, energy, and passion for even that sort of activism, if you ask me. Truth is, I’ve just never really seen the point. Exactly how does giving up, I don’t know, pepperoni pizza, or coffee, or crack smoking** prepare me for the upcoming Easter season?
I do have to admit that it’s a pretty timely thing, though. Just as everyone has officially thrown in the old white towel on those New Year’s resolutions to get fit, quit smoking, or stop parading around the neighborhood in a full Nell Carter costume at 3 am, here’s this brand spanking new opportunity to make some a sacrifice and better ourselves. So if you’re down on yourself for giving in already, you’ve got a clean slate and another shot.
To me, though it seems like there are other, better ways I could be more serious about Easter. Like maybe by being a better person all the way around; be slower to anger, quicker to forgive, less judgmental, more accepting.
Yeah, I like that idea.
So tell me, are you giving up something for Lent this year? Me, I just made up my mind.
I’m giving up being a jerk.
Man, it’s going to be a long 40 days.
Pud’n
*Almost certainly not true at all. I make facts up to suit me, as needed.
**Just kidding. Obviously that’d be a good first step for Easter.
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A brief time-out for personal stuff
I know, I know. You find my lack of posts this week….disturbing.
Like I said last week, sometimes Life just flat doesn’t cooperate, and when that happens, well, let’s be honest, it isn’t like this is my first responsibility.
Long story short, the Puddinette had minor surgery yesterday. Now, don’t get all worked up, it was on of those planned-weeks-ahead-of-time outpatient deals, no big deal. Not like an emergency puddinectomy or anything (as if anyone could be rid of me as easily as surgical removal). Anyway, when you take a household with four non-adult and two adult humans and effectively bench one of the grown-ups, things get a little hectic.
She’ll be fine in a day or two and back on the field in tip-top shape. Until then, I’m trying to keep her comfortable while preventing the kids from either setting the house on fire or covering it in flour. You know, because, hey, it’s flour.
I guess I’m earning brownie points or something because she keeps telling me what a great guy I am to be doing so much. I don’t know about all that, really. I figured this was just what you’re supposed to do when one’s spouse is under the weather for a spell. To my mind, it’s part of the job, not a special achievement.
Of course, by the same token, the poor Puddinette is in for it when I finally beat my liver into submission and have to get that Uber-Cyborg-Liver implant. I’ll be on the couch for a week, minimum, ringing a little bell to have my pillows fluffed while I watch a Simpsons marathon of every episode ever produced.
At any rate, my beautiful wife is on the mend and will be back to being disappointed in me soon enough. Which will give me more time to disappoint all of you as well. The perfect win-win scenario, right?
So wish the Puddinette well and let’s all hope I’m not scarring my children too badly in the meantime.
Pud’n
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A little more on Waiting, plus (bonus) Breaking Dawn, Part I
The Puddinette, being wise and smart and, well, Just. Plain. Awesome, pointed out to me last night that I had unintentionally trod upon ground long ago surveyed by Dr. Seuss. The good doctor, by the way, is a personal hero of mine. And I don’t mean like, it’d be kinda cool if he gave me a stinky, bloody, grass-stained, game-worn football jersey in exchange for a bottle of Coca-Cola. I mean that he sits so high upon a pedestal in my mind that the ancient Babylonians, when attempting to build their tower, didn’t spec it tall enough to reach up there.
Is that laying it on a bit thick? Hey, look, everybody’s got role models. Mine just happens to have had a wonderful imagination and made up nonsense words. I say that’s better than being held in great esteem for the ability to score points or make music while abusing either women or controlled substances.
But I digress…
Anyway, in one of my favorite and perhaps most meaningful of his works, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss gave us this.
:
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place……for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.NO!
That’s not for you!Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
*squeals with fanboy delight*
Ahem. What I mean to say, there, is that if you ask me, it’s pretty cool I happened to lay down the same basic idea he did, independently and years later. If only I’d written it so well.
Speaking of wishing things were written a bit better, I watched The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I last night, which is nearly as big a mouthful as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Sadly, I’m betting the baseball team is more exciting.
And we all know that baseball can be the dullest sport on Earth sometimes, with the possible exception of televised bowling, right?
Why did I subject myself to that on a Thursday night, you ask? Well, I’d had a good day so I was in the mood for a beer or two and a movie, and hey, look, there it was, ready on my DirecTV Cinema playlist. It was either that or something certifiably terrible like A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas. I don’t, um, smoke, and Christmas is, well, over, so that wasn’t hitting me in the sweet, tickly spot, if you know what I mean.
Of course, glittery, uh, vampires, don’t usually either, but if you’ll recall, I do have a personal responsibility to watch the entire “saga”. Also, I figured if I fell asleep, as I’m wont to do, I could just pretend I saw the whole thing and call it day.
Surprisingly, I did manage to stay awake the whole time.
But not because the movie was really all that compelling.
I expect that I’m going to take a bunch of crap for this, but Breaking Dawn just wasn’t terribly impressive. I will admit that I thought it had potential, but after sitting through the thing, I felt like I should go make one of those funny posters that says something like, “Renehenesamumblecoughixpialadocious (or whatever): It’s a baby, not a 118-minute plotline”
I mean, I suppose watching a recently married and newly knocked-up 18 year-old waste away as her progeny devours her life is possibly entertaining to some, but I figure those people already have 16 and Pregnant DVR’d. No reason to make an entire movie about it.
The film needed an Andre the Giant-sized dollop of additional conflict. Sure, there’s some weak effort at in the whole Jacob vs his pack thing and, of course, the glittery set against the overgrown growlers, but neither was really set up to any degree. It seemed like those adversarial positions were just suddenly there, and the viewer was expected to go along for the ride. Which kind of lost me, because didn’t the wolves and the shiny, sparkly Cullen people play nice against the mean vampires just one movie ago?
The thing is, I get what they were going for, but the whole thing felt too much like it was made with the book readers predominantly in mind. Guess what? I haven’t read the books. So, yes, I felt some underlying tugs of what was supposed to be going on, but it all seemed glossed-over at best.
And as Part I of a theoretical two-part adventure, I would assume you’d lay some groundwork for the upcoming film when you could. You know, kind of prime the pump and get Suzy Moviegoer all a-twitter for the next one? In other words, at the end of the this one, I totally should have been, “Oh, dude, I’m all tingly in my cockle parts and can’t wait to see the next one to find out what happens with blabbity-blah-blah”. At this point, though, if something else is supposed to happen to blabbity-blah-blah, I don’t really care. The series could be over as far as I’m concerned.
Which seems an odd way to end a “Part I”.
I guess maybe the two are entwined somehow with one overarching plotline and conflict. If so, though, I missed it completely. At the end, all I thought was, “Whoopee, more sparkly people with makeup that ends at their neck.”
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part I wasn’t awful, but it could have been better. Hopefully Part II will deliver more compelling plot points and conflict.
Now then, fangirls and boys, flame away. My comments are at your disposal.
Pud’n
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The waiting is the hardest part
I spent most of yesterday waiting for a particular piece of news. After I got the kids to bed last night, finally, I got the call that my newest niece had been born after a day of labor, and everyone was doing well. Obviously, hooray for that.
Today, though, I find myself waiting for something else. The kind of gut-wrenching, throat-tightening wait that makes you check the clock every 17 seconds before getting back to wringing your hands together in an apparent attempt to flay the skin off of them.
It’s awful. I hate it.
And I might as well get used to it; waiting for word from agents or editors about novel queries isn’t going to be any more fun.
It occurred to me, then, as I was biting my lip and checking the wall clock for the 763rd time, that life is often filled with an absurd number of these kinds of torturous, agonizing, soul-crushing waits.
Waiting in lines…
Waiting for good news…
Waiting for bad news…
Waiting to get your grades…
Waiting for your taxes…
Waiting for her to say “Yes”…
Waiting for that damned stick to make a “+” sign…
Or a “-” one…
Waiting for your driver’s license…
Waiting to take the test for it…
Waiting to go on stage…
Waiting for the right time…
Waiting for edits…
Waiting for opinions…
Waiting for approval…
Waiting to live…
Waiting to die…
Something else occurred to me: those last two seem to be opposites. They’re not.
It’s been said to death and back, beaten into the ground over and over and over. But repetition doesn’t make it untrue; we’ve all got limited time to run around on this little blue marble. Just a few precious years of Life.
If you spend the time you’ve been given just waiting, you’re wasting it, flushing it away as surely as someone who’s morbidly waiting for their time to come. And yes, there are such people, more than you’d probably realize.
I’m not going to be one of them. You shouldn’t be either.
The time for waiting is past. The time to act is now, always now.
Especially because, see, the wrong action can be corrected.
The good things in Life, though, don’t come from waiting for them. They come from grabbing on and not letting go.
So go grab something. Hold on.
And stop waiting.
For me, that means it’s time to send out novel queries.
What’s it mean to you?
Pud’n
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A Puddintopia Valentine
Valentine’s Day isn’t everyone’s favorite. In fact, for years I was a card-carrying member of the Valentine’s-Is-A-Stupid-Corporate-Trick-To-Sucker-You-Outta-Cash Club. Back in my lonely bachelor days, I figured it was all an insidious plot to make me feel like a huge loser because all my friends were off having fancy dinners while I was treating myself to a Larosa’s “It’s Great After 8” special, a couple of VHS movie rentals (ask your parents if you don’t get the VHS-thing, and if you’re brave, ask about in Betamax too) and a six-pack of beer.
I know it sounds pretty awesome, but it really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
After the Puddinette and I got hitched and my Valentine’s Day woes had gone by the wayside, I still tended to mutter and grumble every February 14th. I mean, how could it not be manipulation by Hallmark and the diamond industry. Surely she wouldn’t want me to waste our money on silly baubles when a truly connected, loving relationship is something you express every single day, right?
Plus…plus…this whole Valentine’s Day tradition is a big wide load of hooey! That story about Valentine of Rome marrying young couples against Roman imperial decree until he lost his head over it is cute and all, but it’s really just a story. In fact, even according to The Church, the feast of St. Valentine references three different martyred Valentines. Nobody’s got the 411 on this business. And the feast was removed from the church calendar in 1969, anyway.
Oh, and all that love and romance and candy and flowers and Valentine’s cards and whatnot? Yeah, none of that business was included on February 14th until Chaucer tied the two together, apparently unintentionally. As far as I was concerned, then, that was all reason enough to just ignore all the nonsense. In those days, I hoped The Puddinette would understand—perhaps even appreciate—my pragmatic approach.
Uh. Yeah. Not so much. Turns out newlywed husbands are dumb.
Now that I’m a bit older and a bit wiser, though, I ‘ve come to recognize that sometimes, well, often, Life is a pain in the backside. And that can make it damned difficult to truly give your special someone the time and attention they deserve. For instance, at 11 PM on Valentine’s Day 2012, I was replacing the flow valve assembly in our powder room toilet.
Because I rock that hard.
Uh-huh, that’s right, nothing says “I love you” like a working potty.
So, yeah, since Life has a habit of being a nuisance (and it’s been a real sonuvabitch around here lately), I’m okay with there being a day on the calendar built-in for couch snuggles and a few moments of togetherness.
You know, before you get back to replacing that plumbing.
I hope everyone had a marvelous Valentine’s Day today, even without the plumbing problems.
Here’s to everyone finding someone to Valentine.
Me? I’m a lucky guy; the Puddinette apparently hasn’t tired of me yet.
Te amo, Querida. Tu eres la luna, el sol, las estrellas, y todo mi mundo. Te amo mas que…
Happy Valentines Day!
Pud’n
Tunes Test: The Tallest Man On Earth
Before I really get going on this week’s music meanderings, I feel compelled to point out that I’ve removed the “Tuesday” from tunes testing around here. After several weeks of it, I think it’s apparent that Tuesday was wishful thinking at minimum, and straight-up make believe in practice. I really love writing the new music feature, but I think I’m likely to end up making myself look like procrastinating slug-knob if I don’t pull this car over right now and strip the Tuesday off of it.
So, there you go. Sometimes? Tuesday. Other times? Who knows. But I promise I’ll get one out each week, if at all possible.
Now then.
This week’s new band/artist is The Tallest Man On Earth, who is, apparently, a person rather than an ironically named band as I’d assumed. I suppose that in retrospect, any act with a name describing an individual fellow, resident of the Guinness Book of World’s Records or not, should be considered a person until proven otherwise. So, see, I’ve learned something already!
The Tallest Man On Earth is Kristian Matsson, who I don’t actually believe is, you know, all that tall. I mean, he’s Swedish, and maybe he’s tall for Swedes, I don’t know. That is, I don’t know either how tall he is nor how he compares to his countrymen. But, really, the height thing isn’t all that important. You probably shouldn’t dwell on it.
We should, however, dwell on the fact that I enjoyed listening to two albums this week, The Wild Hunt (2010) and Shallow Grave (2008). Admittedly, there isn’t much difference between the tracks on either, but each is a solid choice if you’re looking for something that’s simple yet still manages plenty of complexity through depth.
Simple? Well, as far as music goes, you can’t really get simpler. The whole thing is 95% a guy with an acoustic guitar. That’s it. No bass guitar, no drums, no keyboards, no gospelly (it is too a word) background vocals, no cowbell.
Yes, I said no cowbell. Trust me, it’s okay.
Fine, if you’re really freaked about it, I guess there’s, like one track featuring piano. So, relax.
Complex? The Tallest Man On Earth brings it with thoughtful, lyrical vocals that are some of the most poetic I’ve ever heard from an individual source. Listening to it for the first time, it was impossible not to think of Bob Dylan; I’d imagine there are probably worse things that could be said about you as a musician. It’s folksy, of course, but I’d say that’s to be expected from a gravelly-voiced guy singing with an acoustic guitar. Besides, the world could use a little more folksy every now and then, if you ask me.
My biggest problem with The Tallest Man On Earth is that I’m not sure there’s much place for it in my life as “everyday” music. Being as lyrically focused as it is, I would love to see him play a cozy little place with a stage a foot off the ground 10 feet . But if I’m at work or writing (concentrating on something else, in other words), it all fades into a kind of similar-sounding guitar-plucking stream on my subconsciousness picks up on. On a couple of occasions last week, I found myself at the end of the CD without realizing I’d missed most of it.
Then again, maybe that’s just me and some undocumented attention deficit disorder.
Regardles, if the worst thing I can say about it, though, is that it’s a bit of music that you really need to listen to, well, I’d say that’s not so bad.
That’s really kind of the whole theme of tunes testing, to be honest.
Pud’n
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