Category Archives: Uncategorized

Night Lights

15 Monday Apr 2013

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I’m not much of a runner and haven’t gone night-jogging in years. Last night, still full from Saturday dinner and finding that the gym closed early on Sunday evenings, I ran around the neighborhood.

The weather was comfortably warm/cold, Jupiter was bright near the moon, and although I missed a huge green meteor that two friends witnessed from locations two-hundred miles apart, I made the enjoyable discovery that neighbors around the block illuminate their garage year-round with decorative pastel lights. The photo doesn’t do it justice. It made the whole little hill road cozy.

Photo1

The Next Big Thing: Author to Author

01 Friday Mar 2013

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frankenstein-torch-1931It’s like an Olympic torch-pass without fire or athleticism! I love this idea, much as I enjoy a good torch. Many months ago, somebody came up with a bunch of questions for an author with an upcoming or new project. The author answered those questions on his or her blog, and then passed the questions to another author. The current participant always links to the blogs of both the previous and upcoming author, so everybody ends up connected in a big chain of mutual support. The original author was Kevin Bacon.

I recently got to know Nicola Griffith via Twitter. We share a love of the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels, and we also share a publisher with FSG. Nicola has a GREAT sounding novel called HILD coming out on 11.12.13. It has a gorgeous cover. I’m looking forward to scoring an advance copy as soon as they’re available.

Nicola just answered The Next Big Thing questions and kindly passed them along to me. You can check out her answers (and learn more about HILD) over here at her blog.

I’m passing to Nathan Kotecki, who wrote a terrific YA novel called THE SUBURBAN STRANGE. An even better sequel, PULL DOWN THE NIGHT, is coming this fall.

Hey, remember when Evil Superman blew out the Olympic torch? What a jerk.

Here are my answers about FELLOW MORTALS:

  • What is your working title of your book (or story)?

THE NOVEL I WON’T SHUT UP ABOUT: A NOVEL, by Dennis Mahoney

  • Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’ve explained this a lot more thoroughly in an essay I did for Barnes & Noble, but here’s the gist: I started with the main character, Henry Cooper, who’s based on a minor character from an earlier failed novel. I needed a hero who would drive the story and create his own drama, not someone who simply had things happening to him. I had a very good sense of Henry right away. He’s old-school, decent, big-hearted, active. A great guy. The kind of person you’d love to have as a regular mailman. Then I needed to put him through a grueling self-generated ordeal, and I kicked a lot of ideas around, waiting for something vivid and elemental. I eventually thought of a tragic neighborhood fire that Henry accidentally starts along his route. Once I had that, Henry did a lot of the rest.

  • What genre does your book fall under?

It’s literary, which basically just means it isn’t any other recognizable genre. The book is primarily about personal and interpersonal struggles, in marriages, friendships, and a tiny community, but the characters do stuff and there’s a lot of motion in the plot, so it isn’t a book of broody rumination.

  • Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Of course my wife and I play this game from time to time. She’s usually better at it than I am. I’d love to see a lot of great character actors take it on, rather than anyone super famous. I do think Gosling would make an interesting Sam Bailey, the sculptor whose wife dies in the fire, but I can see plenty of people playing Sam.

dean norris toilet

Dean Norris

Michael Shannon is beginning to corner the market on fascinatingly disturbed outsiders, and might be perfect as the spiraling neighbor Billy Kane. I have no idea who would play Henry’s wife Ava, who’s a major character and really just lives in the book for me at this point. The only actor I can see playing Henry is Dean Norris, who plays Hank on Breaking Bad. He’s got that amazing mix of goofball manliness, awkward but profound emotion, and real strength. He’s has some of the funniest and bleakest scenes in that series, which is saying something.

  • What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

When an affable mailman accidentally starts a neighborhood fire, he risks his life and marriage trying to make amends with the victims, especially a sculptor named Sam whose wife died in the fire.

  • Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m published by FSG and repped by Jim Rutman at Sterling Lord Literistic.

  • How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Six months. I spent a lot more time revising and rewriting.

  • What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Shakespeare, The King James Bible. Those books by Homer What’s-His-Name… the old man who used to read at weddings.

I honestly have no idea. FELLOW MORTALS been compared to the works of Stewart O’Nan, whose books I love, and who was gracious enough to write a front-cover endorsement, but flattering as that comparison is, I don’t entirely understand it. I suppose we share a pursuit of telling detail, especially about characters and relationships, but you can say that about most literary authors. I’m going to have jump ship on this question.

  • Who or what inspired you to write this book?

See Answer #1.

  • What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Bones, who is essentially Wingnut come to life

Bones, who is essentially Wingnut come to life

I’ve been happy to find that different readers have different favorite characters. There’s a danger in writing a book with multiple points of view; it can be hard knowing whom to root for, and a reader might connect with some of the characters but feel cold toward others. So far the general reaction has been concern for the cast at large, with one or two characters really striking chords.

And I love that it’s different characters and chords for various readers. It’s like when somebody knows your aunt, and you can talk about your aunt, and then another person knows your spouse, so you talk about her. I was thrilled when a recent reviewer fell in love with Henry’s dog, Wingnut. I cared about Wingnut, too.

—

Now The Next Big Thing passes to Nathan Kotecki. Be sure to check Nathan’s site in the coming week for his own answers. Thanks again to Nicola for including me!

The More Knockouts the Better

11 Thursday Oct 2012

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Bones keeps finding leaves like special toys fallen just for him

Item
Good boxing match coming up this Saturday night on HBO between junior welterweights Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarez, who have a combined 63 victories, 45 by way of knockout.

These guys are known for action-packed, aggressive fighting. It’s being hyped as a potential Fight of the Year, and there’s hope of seeing something legendary like the bouts between Castillo & Corrales or Gatti & Ward. If that’s the case, we’re looking at a Fight of the Decade, but these heralded match-ups generally fall short of expectation when either (1) nothing much happens (they neutralize each other into a snore-fest) or (2) somebody gets clocked early on. The “nothing much happens” possibility is low here, though, since Rios and Alvarez are so reliably explosive. Whether it’s one wild round or a long, grinding war, it’s almost certainly going to be worth watching.

One can only hope Pacquiao/Marquez IV on December 8 will avoid the boring neutralization problem of their previous encounter. It actually might, now that both fighters are determined to win by KO instead of a safe decision.

Colonial-American Word of the Day
Nutmegs: (n) testicles

Go Forth!
The rare double knockdown

Music
Handel, “Concerto Grosso, Op. 3, No. 2, Adagio”

That Breaking Bad Ending Last Sunday

17 Friday Aug 2012

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The following post discusses the ending of last Sunday’s episode of Breaking Bad, so I hereby present the necessary

** SPOILER ALERT **

in case you DVR’d it or something.

Breaking Bad Dirt Bike KidTerrific tense episode with the train heist and, as usual, scene after scene of high-caliber writing and acting. But I’ve spent the last five days pondering the ending, particularly how masterfully it worked, because it’s rare to see a narrative trick executed that perfectly and even rarer for a show, already in its fifth season and known for surprising twists, to deliver a chest-punch that thoroughly bruising. As a writer myself, I’m fascinated with how they got it to work so well. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. The opening scene. As with numerous BB episodes, it’s both mysterious and quietly riveting. We know it’ll matter but we don’t know why.

2. At first we see the kid on the dirt bike and think, “Something bad is about to happen.” Then he sees something and we probably think, “Uh-oh, the kid found a body,” because kids are always finding bodies in movies and shows. But nope, it’s a tarantula, which he gets off the bike to examine.

3. He picks the tarantula up, which even if you know tarantulas are often docile, is hair-raisingly tense. But now we like this kid because he isn’t your typical Symbol of Innocence, but an independent boy riding his dirt bike around the desert and bravely collecting tarantulas in jars. A jar he brought along because he planned to find a tarantula. And then he rides off with his newfound pet, and how can anybody not like this kid and wonder what the whole scene is about?

4. Of course the next 35 minutes are so engrossing that we immediately forget all about the opening scene, and that’s impressive in itself. Walter’s doing this scene where he’s crying that Sky doesn’t love him anymore, and Hank’s afraid of the emotion and desperate to leave and get him a coffee, and then we learn that Walter’s tears are a ploy to get Hank to leave so he can plant bugs around the office, and yet the phony tears were so real and affecting that it’s just too great and complicated for the viewer to process, and then before you know it we’re smack in the middle of an honest-to-God train robbery. What kid with a tarantula?

5. Because things so often go awry with Walt and Jesse’s plans, the heist is a nail biter and genuinely exhausting. And then it all works out and we’re bathed in relief, thinking wow, what a very long and nerve-wracking scene, and look at how they’ve once again gotten us to root for drug-cooking villains we would despise in real life, and we’re almost disappointed that the episode wasn’t as full-on evil and bleak as the previous week when suddenly there’s the kid on the dirt bike again, having witnessed the entire secret heist, and even though the shooter draws his gun pretty slowly (I rewound the scene a few times), it’s shocking when he fires because, again, our brains are simply too overloaded from all that’s come before.

6. The shooter himself (whose name I cannot remember) has been teased along for several episodes as a nice, naive accomplice in the Mobile Cooking Plan. From the first time he dares to speak to Walter about that one home’s nanny cam (directly disobeying Mike’s instruction to never address Walter or Jesse directly), he’s been groomed as an inevitable victim. And he seems so guileless in this particular episode when he’s asking about the water tank and Walter’s saying, “No one can know about this. No one.” And it’s him, the shooter, we’ve been led to see as the eventual loose end they’ll probably have to kill.

7. The trap is set. We’ve completely forgotten about the kid, but his sudden appearance as a Random Plot Twist is believable, and earned, because of the leisurely opening scene. We like the kid because he’s brave and independent, two characteristics that also explain why a boy that age would sit there, unafraid, watching a bunch train robbers in action. We’re too tired to predict, in the span of ten seconds, what might happen. But even with several minutes, we would never expect the sweet, naive character — who takes the time to smile and wave — to draw a gun and blow the kid away. Which of course he does because he’s actually, we now understand, a dutiful member of the team and one who’s willing to follow orders, without question or hesitation, and is acting on Walter’s “No one can know” instruction from fifteen minutes ago. Jesse yet again delivers the perfect expression of shock when it happens, acting out the very emotion we the viewers are experiencing. And quick as that, the whole episode is as evil and bleak as anything this season, and we’re reminded for the hundredth time that we’re actively rooting for murderers and drug lords and we’re going to watch this series to the bitter end, however dark it gets, because the darkness always feels earned instead of gimmicky, and they’re still able to knock our wind out and make us ponder it all after 50+ episodes when the show is somehow picking up steam instead of petering out.

Twin Shadow, Dark 80s

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

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I happened upon Twin Shadow’s Confess after seeing the album art and thinking, “Who’s that Cameo/Prince-looking dude?”

No accident a couple of heyday 1980s pop stars came to mind. After playing the album all weekend, I read a few reviews and discovered that yeah, everybody thinks about the 80s when they hear these songs. I’m not a crazed 80s fan who watches VH-1 retrospectives while lamenting the demise of MTV, but I did grow up in that decade, and even the songs I didn’t love can conjure up serious nostalgia.

Remember when you saw the movie Drive last year and discovered that night-road, vintage synthesizer sweet-spot you didn’t know you had? Twin Shadow’s Confess might be just the album you need. This thing makes me want to grab my scorpion jacket and jump in the car PRONTO.

Twin Shadow is one man named George Lewis Jr. (that itself makes me think of Ray Parker Jr.), and I decided not to read about his background because I enjoy the mystique of an atmospheric album like Confess, and prefer to play it as I played so many cassettes and 45s a quarter-century ago: uninformed and impressionable.

A lot of the best hits from those early MTV years had common qualities — sonic effects and moods that affected me regardless of whether or not I actually liked the songs in question. I’m talking about eerie synths, electronic percussion, guitar echoes, and other sounds that elevated ordinary hooks and made the era so distinct.

Many of those songs had a peculiar high-low dynamic, too. The rise of videos created a multimedia, mass-appeal culture that encouraged serous artists to write bubblegum tunes and hit-makers to attempt Profound Aesthetics. Musicians tried everything, and for a while it was thrilling. You got pretentious disasters and watery stew and yet the alchemy worked, over and over, in producing songs — some of them truly great — that sounded absolutely new. A common structure of these songs is the brooding verse followed by the over-bright chorus. That’s common to songs of any era, but somehow the 80s over-seriousness shifting directly to top-of-the-lungs anthem singing resulted in a two-tone, art-pop power that’s remarkably distinct.

Twin Shadow does this a lot, establishing an early mood, often sinister or somber, and building to a singalong chorus that sounds bigger and brighter because of what preceded it. Along the way, he’s calling up all manner of 80s ghosts that are liable to drive you nuts, they’re so familiar, even while the music sounds immediate and fresh.

“Run My Heart” is a good example. It opens with a tap-beat and pensive guitar that feels like The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” A low-key verse, Stingish, brightens slightly when the guitar shifts hues and begins to recall The Cure’s “Lullaby”, and then he opens up — “This isn’t love! I’m just a boy, you’re just a girl!” — in a chorus that ought to be melodramatic but isn’t, at least not in a bad way, and might have emerged from a hundred 80s relationship songs you can’t quite put your finger on but know and feel compelled to identify because it just feels right and hits some button in your brain.

One minute his voice is like Peter Gabriel, and then it’s Cory Hart, Martin Gore, Morrissey, and a bunch of other singers without ever quite sounding like any of them exactly. Sit around with friends who know the 80s and you’re liable to recognize flourishes of Depeche, Prince, John Hughes movies, Simple Minds, “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks, on and on. The guitar in “Five Seconds” has the energetic drive of dance hits that borrowed a real rock guitarist — I’m thinking of Eddie Van Halen on “Beat It” — or a B-movie scene where the hero is about to win the big race against the preppie blonde dude, played by William Zabka.

I don’t want to reduce what the guy has accomplished here. It’s not a retro gimmick or lightly earned hodgepodge. There’s an ominous complexity throughout; the dark-romantic lyrics, mostly about messed relationships, sound emotionally honest; and he finds the right balance between specifics and generalities. The 80s trimmings work in service to an original sound, a daring blend that’s very much in the spirit of the songs that must have inspired him. Plus the dude has superstar charisma — a touch of unfakeable crazy and brio — and I suspect he’ll keep getting better over the next few albums.

Analysis aside, Confess’s greatest strength is that it sounds good. As soon as I heard “Five Seconds”, I downloaded the entire album without hesitation. That grab-before-you-preview-the-rest is often a disaster. I think of the countless bad cassettes I bought in adolescence on the strength of a radio single, but the times when I was right, when the single wasn’t just representative but topped by even better songs on the LP, made me a music addict. I still get a rush from that tantalizing first taste of an unknown artist, I’m still disappointed by most of the full LPs, and I still come across stuff like Confess that reinforces my addiction.

So “Five Seconds” is a good place to start. The video’s below. The song itself doesn’t begin for several minutes, but the dog on the motorcycle ought to tide you over during the spoken-word intro.

Confess on iTunes

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