a novel idea, or two

"this is what you get" - girl falls in love with rock star who barely notices her. (status: complete - an agent is looking at this)

"everything is perfect" - girl punk rocker and guy heavy metaller fall in love and make strange and new music. also, she unearths deep secrets from her family's past. (status: first draft complete, it is resting so i can look at it again with new eyes)

"not named yet" - girl singer-songwriter with difficult family past yet upbeat fortitude meets guy singer-songwriter with death obsession. (status: about 50 pages, a little of each story, new and just developing)

one day, maybe i'll consider novels without rock music in them. i guess this all has to get out of my system. the best part of this is picking the soundtrack to each scene as i write. i discovered that in 1996 there was a secret radiohead show at the troubadour. the set list is online, and so i created a playlist from it, and was able to play that over and over as i wrote a scene of my heroine attending this secret show and discovering real music finally (she moves from the spice girls to radiohead in the course of one summer).

on itunes right now: "how to disappear completely" so fucking beautiful ..... "i'm not here, this isn't happening."

always read a good book

and this is one i particularly enjoyed.

radiohead. welcome to the machine. ok computer and the death of the classic album. by tim footman.

i finished it recently. i think i will read it again.

web withdrawal

oh wow! i just went 4 days without internet access at my house. i had actual withdrawal symptoms, like i was kicking coffee or heroin. well, coffee anyway. it's a long story - suffice it to say i thought i would change phone services for a better deal, only to find that the new and old phone service companies took their sweet time about making the change, but only AFTER disconnecting my phone line.

I discovered that i "can" pay $6 an hour at starbucks for internet access (to verizon) or $24 an hour at kinko's! I could not find free wi-fi. you know why? because i didn't have internet access to look for it!! suddenly, i found out how much i use internet for, beyond blogging, buying music and checking on the radiohead messageboard.

i also worried, during my 4 days, that radiohead would not only announce the release of LP7, but also tour dates, and sell tickets and be all sold out before i could even get online. i'm paranoid. a paranoid humanoid.

phew. for a minute there, i lost myself. i'm okay now. internet is up and running, radiohead didn't make any announcements (and just when will they??) and i managed to keep my email under control with a couple of trips to starbucks ($12 worth of email).

on itunes right now: Trickster. one of my all-time favorite radiohead songs cuz i love coyotes and ravens, and coyotes and ravens are tricksters and there you go.

so i had this idea.....

people write all kinds of things. books, editorials, funny articles. i often feel like i have nothing to write about (except fiction - i can make stuff up just like that!), because i just look at the internet all day.

then i thought, i could write an article about all the radiohead fans on the internet who are so anxiously awaiting the new album. a lot of these fans are quite funny. sarcastic. emotional. and interesting. so could i make an article out of this? i could at least try.

on itunes right now: ooops! not radiohead! it's muse with "starlight."

planning the summer -- got tickets to lollapalooza in chicago - three days of great music! and then japan in late august... august will be a travelin' month.

the boringest post of all time.

hmmm, wow. missed my birthday and the first days of april and everything! and for no good reason. i'm being lazy. i'm always lazy in the spring. energetic in the fall. sigh.

going to see MUSE tonight. i hear they are really really great in concert, but i don't know that much about them or that many of their songs, so .....

why am i here today? i should be writing. i have so many good ideas. but no spirit to actually do them. so this is a dull post, a nothing post. don't read it. it will numb your brain.

thinking. or not.

so i was sick all week, which somehow gave me time to think. and i thought a lot about music and creativity and life and the big ideas. but it was probably all as useless as those deep thoughts i once had under the influence. magnificent at the time, but inane when things were back to normal.

the useful thing i did was make a playlist and cd of the newest radiohead songs, the ones people THINK will be on the 7th album. even if they are not, i'm having a great time listening to the "new" radiohead album.

and liars. ever heard of liars? i don't know anything about them. didn't read up on them. but i listen to their album, "drum's not dead" a lot. it's vaguely tecno, good drums, strange lyrics. a nice departure from anything else.

on itunes right now: it was "a visit from drum" from the aforementioned album, but now it's "ocean breathes salty" from modest mouse.

what would life be without music? not life. that's what.

radiohead overload

okay, i have photos on my walls, photos on my computer desktop, nearly every known radiohead cd and ep and single, a lot of vinyl, and almost every book. I just got a new one today - Welcome To The Machine: OK Computer And The Death Of The Classic Album. It's so cool! The author, Tim Footman, basically goes through every single track on OK Computer and talks about it from all different angles. Musically, how it was recorded, the lyrics . . . and then the larger picture: references, influences, and things that can be connected (like movies and poetry) even if they weren't the intent of radiohead.

what a treat to read it this afternoon when i should have been grading papers. all the more work for me at school tomorrow, but tonight, i am going back to the book to read about "Let Down."

yaaay for the obsessions of other radiohead fans!

when you were here before

creep is playing. the most maligned radiohead song. too bad, it really is a cool song. and it has only 4 chords, all the way through, or really three, cuz one is a minor. so okay, it's early stuff and doesn't compare to how to disappear completely or 2+2=5 or a long list of other songs. but it is beautiful in its own way and taken out of the context of how it almost made them one-hit wonders.

Tribe: isn't that a good name for a cool, hip, handsome guy? that's the new guy in my novel, my main character's ex-husband. i like him so much, i almost had her get back together with him.

it's march and about halfway through, and then there is april, then may. june - for school - almost doesn't count since we get out so early. so 2 months + until summer. i can't wait. i really want it this year. my summer will be driving rylan to summer school, waiting for a radiohead concert that we hope will take place this summer and going to japan in late august. and lots of reading and lots of writing.

damn. i want to be there now!

but as they say (whoever they are): be HERE now. see how neatly that ties in with the title?: when you were here before.......

the anticipation is ridiculous

radiohead have (has?) drastically revamped their website, which leads one to believe that an announcement about LP7 and a tour is imminent. i have to believe that this is so! the pundits at Mortigi Tempo (radiohead experts all) have suggested this is true.

on itunes: Pop is Dead. Funny old radiohead song. i have a playlist of 35 radiohead b-sides and i play it over and over, loving every song, even Pop is Dead with its goofy metallic bells and whistles and Thom's ironic voice - okay, more ironic than usual.

poetry is needed and is below. as far as my novel goes, an agent liked it but wanted more work, so i did more work - i am going to re-read it with the extra stuff put in, then send it back to the agent. maybe .... someday .... my novel will be published: This Is What You Get. how cool would that be!

Charles Simic again, one of my fave modern poets:

It wasn't even snowing! Everyone I met
Wore a part of my destiny like a carnival mask.
"I'm Bartleby the Scrivener," I told the Italian waiter,
"Me, too," he replied.
And I could see nothing but overflowing ashtrays
The human-faced flies were busy examining.

last stanza of St Thomas Aquinas

arcade fire

yes, i know they are not radiohead. i do listen to other music. sometimes. i just downloaded a live show of theirs, off the npr website. i would love to see them live, i've heard they are very compelling - it becomes a religious experience.

other music -- went to see Silversun Pickups (good, fun, noisy), OK Go (beatle-esque, fun and did a great cover of ELO's "don't bring me down") and Snow Patrol .... who i had pegged as lightweight crooners based on the one song i knew - chasing cars. a good song, but it turns out they rock a little harder than that song implies. i didn't know any of their other songs (well, i sort of knew one other), but i had a great time. they were enthusiastic and loud and strong. their real drummer was off with a broken arm and their substitute was an incredible pounder of the skins. great drumming!

a music extravaganza for me in these couple of weeks: this show above, a trip to the house of blues for an educational experience with some students (not as great as it sounded like it would be), and next week is My Chemical Romance. we have floor tickets, so i'm hoping to watch the MCR fans go crazy to those anthemic songs. should be a kick to watch. oh, and Muse, later in April. IF ONLY RADIOHEAD would release a tour schedule. and an album. aaargh.....

poetry another time.