I’ve come to the end. My novel, My Bad Side is done. Ending is hard. I’ve worked toward this moment for over four years. I’ve read through some 40 books for research – on everything from zoos and fire fighters to sex work and Newfoundland. 
And I’ve written lots of words – over160,000 – some of them too often (suddenly, everything, turned) and edited those down through four drafts to 99,065. 
And here I am, not as exhilarated as I would have liked – when is it ever like that? It’s almost the opposite actually, like I don’t want to be at this point, finished, like it’s a death. 
I have the ending down to one of three final scenes: a walk with Apollo, a night of music or an ocean swim. 
I have vacillated between each. Each has something, some essence, but then I wonder if it is too much. Is it melodramatic or too damn trite? Then again, I can’t avoid the guts of moment – like The Beatles did in their final album Abbey Road, ending not with The End, but with the lousiest Beatles song ever recorded, Her Majesty’s. 
It’s been a struggle, all of these endings in the mix, and then wondering if there might be another. I’ve considered just throwing it all away and using the Debbie Does Dallas finale where all the characters gather naked and say in chorus, ‘If it feels good, do it!’ 
Something like that. Or I could go with the ocean swim. It’s a tough call to make.
Category Archives: music
Sufjan Stevens on Christmas Tour
Sufjan Stevens began his month-long Christmas tour last night at the Union Transfer in Philadelphia.
The Surfjohn Stevens Christmas Sing-A-Long: Seasonal Affective Disorder Yuletide Pageant On Ice is a night of scattered merriment, featuring a Wheel of Fortune style carousel of songs – “The Wheel of Christmas!” – for audience sing-a-longs and a haphazardly wardrobed Yuletide band. While much of the performance had a wild and unrehearsed aspect, Sufjan Steven’s musical talent remains a wonder to behold. 
Sufjan Stevens might claim to be just goofing around on stage – “How much more stupid can I look?” He asked when he strapped a unicorn horn to his head. – but once he settled into a ‘serious’ song, his prodigious talent hypnotized the boisterous audience again and again. His voice fragile, his notes tenuous, almost lost, he sounds like he is calling us from another world.
Sufjan Stevens concludes his tour in New York on December 21 & 22. Tickets go on sale two days before the performance to avoid ticket brokers from taking advantage of the $20 ticket price. I hope to get back in.
Hurricane Sandy X – Shades of Normalcy
It’s cold today, bright and cold on Saturday, November 3.
We have our power back in the building; however that’s not the case for many of those to the east and south of us. Generators are still the norm.
There isn’t so much water being pumped out now. 
The level is going down in the Battery Park underpass as well. 
Some stores are trying to open…if only half. 
And I’m happy to report that there was finally another animal at the Dog Run.
Biba finds a friend.
There are shades of normalcy coming back to the neighborhood, so much so that we have decided to venture out tonight, across the Brooklyn Bridge, to see Grupo Corpo at BAM. It will be a long, cold walk, perhaps something worth reporting.
Future soundtrack
A few songs have figured prominently in my head as I wrote My Bad Side and thus figure in my dream soundtrack for the film:
Last Day of Our Acquaintance (Sinead O’Connor)
Somewhat Damaged (Nine Inch Nails)
Alas, it seems unlikely that there will be any Grateful Dead. Dee just isn’t a Deadhead.
Good Old Dead
I failed Music in Grade 8. Mr. Clements said I was a “capable student in theory class, but very little effort (was) shown all year instrumentally” resulting in a 47% final grade.
It was the only class that I failed in school – except of course for Grade 13 Physics which doesn’t count because I didn’t go to class. (The teacher was confused: “I find it difficult to understand why a student would let himself get into a situation like this” and awarded (?) me a final grade of 21%.)
I know nothing about performing music (clearly) but I am an obsessive listener. Music is magical and mysterious, all-consuming, so much more so because of its temporal nature, overwhelmingly there, and then…gone. Music is a dream I remember and must get back to.
I have great regard for so many musicians – Alan Sparrowhawk (Low), Robert Pollard (GBV), Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab) and Mozart (eponymous) to cite a few – but nothing compares to the collective of The Grateful Dead. This group played over 2300 concerts spanning 1967-1995 and acquired a devoted following, worshipful during the performances as everything was offered from psychedelic (China Cat Sunflower) and traditional folk (I Know Your Rider) to country (Me & My Uncle) and rock ‘n roll (Sugar Magnolia), covering practically everyone in between (Not Fade Away), and weaving it all through the holy and endless jam…but the thing about The Grateful Dead for me isn’t so much the songs, singing along, as how remarkable it is for making my mind work.
Truth be told, I was stuck as to how to write this blog and listened to The Grateful Dead’s Augusta, Maine concert (October 12, 1984) to get myself on track. That’s where the idea of posting my failing grades came from, citing the Augusta show, indeed focusing back on how the music affects my mind, not to mention helping me fix a problematic scene in My Bad Side, structuring a Middle School lesson on Film Theory and remembering to call my therapist.
The funny thing is that the members of Grateful Dead, well known for the remarkable stage camaraderie, are not so well regarded for their inter-personal skills. (Read Dennis McNally’s A Long Strange Trip for more on that.) It’s unnerving thinking about what a personal wreck Jerry Garcia was; indeed it is profoundly sad, especially knowing that he was in the thralls of heroin for the Augusta concert cited above. What do I do with that? The music is so wonderful, so crystalline and pure; it is of another world. Is that what I should have tried for my Grade 8 clarinet test? That sure would have shown Mr. Clements. Only if.
Megalomaniac Metheny
There is no disputing that Pat Metheny is a virtuoso on the guitar. His latest group, The Unity Band, recently in New York (Town Hall, Friday, October 12), featured not only Metheny’s signature solos on a wide assortment of guitars, including the ostentatious-looking 42-string Pikasso…
but also a wall of Lemur musical robots and a series of duets, each featuring a Unity Band member and Metheny, all of which established not only how musically gifted he is, but more to the point, how he is really into himself.
I don’t know Pat Metheny as a person nor do I question his focus as a musician, but his on-stage persona and the narrative he established both point to megalomania…which made me think that he has the right personality to be a writer.
Hemingway explaining a literary device
Writing is a singular, selfish act. It’s all about the author. It’s my world. As much as I might pretend to care about all of the wonderful people and places in my story, it’s mine and I’ll do what I want. It’s a straight dictatorship, hubris well done.The trick is disguising that for the audience, and coming across as empathetic and magnanimous. Metheny is a master of all of this, a back-handed compliment to be sure, but I think he (we) can take it.
Godspeed Tomorrow’s Parties
All Tomorrow’s Parties is one esoterically overwhelming event. Staged on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, bands – including Autolux (pictured above) and The Magic Band – performed directly underneath the congealing weekend traffic on the FDR Drive overpass. There was another stage inside a converted warehouse – with music such as The Album Leaf – and a mini-festival of Criterion films – Eating Raoul & Harold and Maude and others – in the hull of the party cruise boat, Queen of Hearts, as well as The Amazing Ultran offering to forecast your future. (More on him tomorrow.)
Headliners, Godspeed You! Black Emperor closed the evening with two hours of full-on-and-oh-so-fucking-loud sonic-film-scapes. Click on the picture below to view a haunting and somewhat distorted clip:
It was a lot to take in – eight hours of constant input in the end – including what looked like a perfect fall (?) evening.
All of this should help me write…when my brain stops spinning.
Music: in a trance
As Jerry Garcia sings in the Grateful Dead’s Terrapin Station: “Inspiration, move me brightly.”
I process many narrative difficulties through music: doing my workout on the elliptical, staring out the window from the couch or attending a live concert. Once I get through the problems of the day – Did I send that email? Did I buy that ointment? Is the lawsuit going well? – I find a better path, a more open space, and start to think. Music is my primary place of thought.
My favorite works include Fripp and Eno’s No Pussyfooting, Low’s C’Mon, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, Off the Sky’s Cold Distances and William Basinski’s Distintegeration Loop #5. Each of these works help me shed the harsh light of this ‘sterile promontory’ to bring out the ‘excellent canopy’ instead. (That’s my spin on Hamlet.) Characters grow; the plot thickens.
Another recent inspiration has been the work of Icelandic performance artist, Ragnar Kjartansson. I was fortunate enough to attend his work Bliss at Abrons Auditorium in New York. A troupe of Icelandic opera singers – with full orchestration – sang the final arias of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, a two-and-a-half minute sequence repeated again and again over twelve straight hours. Please click on either the link or photograph below to see a six minute sequence from the production, featuring two renditions of the piece:
The above photograph is from the final hour of production; note the woman climbing out of the orchestra pit to go to the bathroom; full meals were also served on stage throughout the day. Assuming the same pace was maintained, they performed this sequence of arias approximately 240 times. I was there for only four hours and wish I had experienced more. It really was something to live in that music.
guided by voices
The Club is open! Guided by Voices have returned to the stage with their original lineup, including lead man Robbert Pollard. I was fortunate enough to see them at Trocadero’s in Philadelphia (see below) which featured some 60 songs – almost all of them new – as well as dozens of leg kicks, mic twirls, guitar poses and countless bottle spins and cigarettes. (Aren’t those things supposed to be bad for you?) They’ve also released two new CDs with another on the way next month. (How is that even possible?)Dates are set for the fall. Go to see the best low-fi there ever might be! More on Guided By Voices can be seen at their website.
Pollard does a half kick