Having looked over more of the stories that I plan to gather together into a collection I’ve concluded that meeting my self-imposed deadline of year’s end will require winning the lottery so I can devote all my time to writing, a miracle on the level of something that would make for a snazzy short story or some combination thereof.
The main problem is that although I have a lot of completed stories, they are not finished. Most are first drafts and a number of them are rough first drafts or simply reflect a level of writing quality that I feel falls short of what I am capable of now. Why toss a bunch of mediocre stories into a collection? That’s not going to make for good dust jacket quotes. “From the author that brought you the so-so collection 10 Pairs of Shorts comes his latest average novel!”
Instead of mildly freaking out about this as I once might have, I’ve adopted a more sanguine attitude. The collection will continue to be worked on regularly but I’m no longer going to pressure myself with the arbitrary deadline of December 31, 2013. Besides, everyone will be drunk that night and won’t want to read, anyway.
Going forward I’m going to work on the collection at a more relaxed pace, dive back into the next draft of The Ferry and start doing the prep work for my NaNoWriMo 2013 novel, which will, I promise*, be a spectacle to behold.
September kind of sucked, just like summer kind of sucked.
But rather than dwell on the lowlights (throat infection, lack of running, rampant illness at work, cell phone being stupid, the first major storm coming in early like an unwelcome preview of winter, etc.) I will instead focus on the positives from the month:
I rediscovered a bunch of old music–and still like it!
I’ve started reading The Dark Tower after having bought the first novel decades ago and am finding it a good romp so far.
The last day of summer was pleasantly warm and sunny.
My birthday was quiet but nice.
I got a replacement phone (just today) that will hopefully not excel in mysterious battery drain like its predecessor.
I did not get hit by a blimp.
Onward to October, the first day of which promises to be wet and unseasonably cold. Hooray!
As expected, I used more of my iTunes funds to dig up another relic from my youth, this time the 1980 album The Game by Queen. I originally had this on vinyl and I remember the album slip was very silver and shiny.
How does it rate on the Neil Diamond sparkle shirt scale 33 years later? Let’s find out.
Queen, The Game
“What I knew of Queen in 1980 consisted of a few hits, notably “We are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You”, both of which I found slightly annoying even while admitting they were effective arena/power-anthem songs. I was, however, a huge fan of their silly mini-epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and played my sister’s 45 enough to get her peeved at me. This was back when media could actually wear out, so her reaction was not entirely inappropriate. She’d also had a lot of her vinyl trashed by being left out in the rain by one or both of my brothers during one of their infamous sibling battles so she was maybe more protective than usual about her music collection. But I digress. I liked the song and yet Queen was never really on my radar.
In 1980 the band released The Game which was the start of a new direction for the group, mainly through the introduction of synthesizers and an overall softer sound. I recall their next album, Hot Space, was condemned in one review as being “over-produced” and The Game was definitely the first step toward that. At the time I wasn’t aware of any of this, all I knew is that “Another One Bites the Dust” was catchy as all get-out and a huge hit and was followed by the equally catchy Elvis callback “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, the video (pre-MTV) of which features the least convincing display of machismo ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE34cSvZCd8
With two solid radio hits I picked the album up and generally lurved it, though it falls into that curious collection of albums I really enjoyed and yet never purchased anything else from the same artist ever again. It remains the only Queen album I’ve ever bought.
Listening to it today some aspects are dated, mainly the way the synths are used, along with reverb and other sound effects. They mostly distract from the music, adding little to the songs.
The songs themselves cover a pleasing variety of styles in the span of a brisk 35 minutes. “Don’t Try Suicide” may still be the catchiest yet most cynical anti-suicide song ever, with lyrics like “Don’t try suicide, nobody cares/Don’t try suicide, nobody gives a damn”. “Rock it (Prime Jive)” features drummer Roger Taylor’s weird growling vocals and Brian May provides an appropriately smooth voice for his ballad “Sail Away Sweet Sister”. The focus remains on Freddie Mercury and he struts through the rest of the tracks with the confidence of a veteran performer (The Game was Queen’s eighth album). There are really no bad songs on the album, though “Rock It” comes across lyrically as a bit inane (Taylor also wrote “Radio Ga Ga”).
While at times a bit dated and dotted with unnecessary flourishes, The Game remains a strong testament to the talent of Queen. I can listen to it now and separate it completely from my time in high school when I originally bought it, which speaks to the overall quality of the music.
The outdoor friend is a very large spider hanging out on the deck, having spun a massive web at the edge of it. I first spotted the spider sitting square in the middle of it but my presence freaked him out and he retreated to a safe position off the web and above it, moving incredibly swiftly in a diagonal line. Sadly today when I checked the spider was still in his safe spot but most of the web had been obliterated, probably due to the storm that swept in earlier today. I am hoping the spider rebuilds because it’s one of the biggest I’ve seen recently.
Tub spider was just that, a large (but not outdoor friend large) spider roaming about the bathtub in the main bathroom. Since there’s no obvious way to get in the tub except via the drain (if you’re a spider, that is), I’m assuming that was where he came in from, but it was clear that even if it was he was in no hurry to return to it. He kept lapping the tub, neatly avoiding the drain each time he neared it. I decided to leave him be, thinking he would eventually give up and return to the drain.
The next day he was still skittering around the tub as before.
The day after that he was no longer skittering. He was sitting, perhaps pondering his probably terrible fate. It was then I fished him up in a glass and found him to still be very agile. I took him outside and tossed him onto the lawn, just past the massive web of his outdoor friend. I like to think he’s off happily hunting bugs now and will know to stay away from drains. I may be expecting too much.
This concludes another “I don’t step on spiders” post.
Average pace: 5:05/km Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Ran Piper Mill Trail, Conifer and Spruce Loops
Distance: 5.03 km
Weather: Cloudy, light showers
Temp: 15ºC
Wind: light
Calories burned: 364
Total distance to date: 2454 km
And 20 days later…
Having my next run delayed by a) a throat infection b( overtime at work and c) gorging myself at a birthday dinner, it was finally 20 days later that I took my first tentative steps back running. In that time we saw the end of summer (yesterday), which was a sunny and pleasantly warm day and the first day of fall (today) which was noticeably cooler and monsoon-like. The Rains have returned to the Lower Mainland.
As often on rainy days I held off, hoping to catch a break in the weather. By mind-afternoon such a break arrived and I headed out, opting to wear my newly water-proofed jacket, not because it was cold (15ºC is still pretty mild) but to ward off any incoming precipitation.
For the first 4 km it looked like it was actually clearing up and the jacket made me feel a bit warm, though not uncomfortably so. The last km it did start to shower but only lightly so the jacket was a bit of a wash, so to speak.
The biggest change I noticed today, apart from the changed weather (it was 26ºC and sunny on September 2, my last run day) were the leaves, Mainly they were everywhere, along with lots of branches freshly blown down by today’s storm.
Fortunately none of this proved to be a negative on the run. I did decide when I got to the lake to only do 5K to avoid pushing myself too hard and I switched back to my Nikes over the minimalist MT110s. I got off to a surprisingly strong start and held up fairly well, coming in with a 5:05/km pace that I deem perfectly acceptable. Bollocks was a non-issue, though the left foot was just starting to complain as I walked back to the Sperling/Burnaby Lake SkyTrain station.
Since seeing this video I have repeatedly had the stupid song get stuck in my head. I hope that my small part in helping it spread throughout the Internet will purge it from my brain, somehow.
The developers of Star Wars: The Old Republic recently added the mood “creepy” to the game. Moods are sort of fixed emotes that are meant to convey the current emotional state of your character. I’m not sure what “creepy” is meant to suggest.
Let’s look at my Jedi consular Nedolin (yes, I am very clever coming up with names):
The black soulless eyes and weirdly stretched proto-grin do indeed convey a level of creepiness, but it also suggest he is under a great deal of strain maintaining the look, as if he were putting on a mask. Perhaps he’s just learned his family has been trampled to death by a herd of Banthas and he is struggling to maintain his composure while at one of those interminable Jedi council meetings.
This is weird. I took another shot of Nedolin feelin’ creepy just tonight and it turned out like this:
Here he looks like the jerk in school who always shook you down for the candy bar your mom packed in your lunch. “You don’t need that snack, padawan. Don’t make me take it from you by force. Get it? Hahaha.”
Now I can’t decide what is more disturbing, that they added “creepy” to the game, that it apparently has different looks or that I’ve spent an entire post wondering about it.
I asked one of my online friends (they are the best because they can never give me an actual wedgie) what else I could put on my blog, to which he responded “Ads!”
So I went searching for some good ads and found this one from the 1950s or as we call it now, The Age of Enlightenment:
I call this “Crazy girl likes jam”. My friend suggested she is thinking about chomping on the fingers and relishing the thought. I think he may be right.
Speaking of The Age of Enlightenment:
Lord a-mercy, am I right?
The real question here is how she is keeping that cigarette in her mouth.
Feeling thirsty after your cigarette and jam sandwich? How about some orange juice?
Crazy kids love orange juice. Gives ’em energy for doing all sorts of things. Like MURDER THE FAMILY IN THEIR SLEEP.
Apologies to the sites I appropriated the images from. I just used Google and did a search. You can find the originals easily enough, especially if you read to the next three lines where I link them:
After picking up The Dream of the Blue Turtles and with more money sitting in my iTunes account it was inevitable that I’d go trolling for more music from my youth. My latest re-acquisitions, in order of re-purchase with the original release date:
Boney M, Nightflight to Venus (1978)
Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms (1985)
Roxy Music, Avalon (1982)
I’ll rate the quality of each re-purchase on a scale of 1 to 10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts, with 1 being “I plead temporary insanity” and 10 being “Still awesome, I had the best musical taste!”
Boney M, Nightflight to Venus This album came out in 1978 and I bought it on vinyl when it was new, making it one of my first-ever music purchases. This doubles as a handy excuse in case the album is awful.
Surprisingly, it is not. Despite the silly title track (which is literally about a “night flight” to Venus) the album as a whole holds up quite decently, even if it is very much a product of its era, when disco was at its commercial (and artistic?) peak. The harmonies are sweet and though the songs often border on the bizarre (“Rasputin” celebrate “Russia’s greatest love machine”) they are just as often catchy. You will probably never hear a funkier version of “King of the Road.”
Bonus: I first bought this album on vinyl, which is now popular with hipsters and audiophiles but is otherwise a niche format. The iTunes album art is a photo of the CD case. CDs are also rapidly becoming obsolete in this age of digital music, so it seems somehow fitting that the cover of this musical relic is of another musical relic (May 17, 2022 note: original link broke, I have subbed something that is close to it):
Rating:
7/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts
Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms This was one of the first CDs I bought, and it is of (pop) cultural significance in a couple of ways. It was the first CD to sell over a million copies–the format had debuted only two years earlier), it was such a giant success it basically ended the band and the hit “Money for Nothing” got banned in Canada because of the following lyric (which is delivered by the song’s narrator, a working class slob who ain’t exactly, y’ know, cultured):
Look at that faggot with the earring and the make-up Yeah buddy, that’s his own care That little faggot got his own jet airplane That little faggot, he’s a millionaire
The best part is the ban happened in 2011, 26 years after the song was released. The ban was later lifted. Details in this Wikipedia entry.
The album holds up very well. This is Dire Straits not only at its commercial peak but its artistic peak, as well. The songs–often sprawling on the CD version–are played with confidence, moving effortlessly between irreverent, rollicking and meditative. There’s a folksiness to much of the work that never feels forced. There is a timelessness to most of the tracks that lifts them above much of the material that dominated the pop charts in the mid-80s. Kids may wonder what all the talk about MTV playing music videos is all about, though.
Rating:
8/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts
Roxy Music, Avalon This album was introduced to me several years after release by a friend. I was not familiar with Roxy Music and have never bought any of their other albums (the friend picked up some of Bryan Ferry’s solo work).
Avalon is one of those albums where everything came together in the right way at the right time. A lot of people who may be able to name Avalon as a Roxy Music album might be challenged to even name another the band put out (Avalon was their eighth and final album). This was the culmination of their smooth, adult-oriented rock sound and in a way they had nowhere to go after this, so the dissolution of the band following the Avalon tour makes sense.
To say this album is smooth is an understatement. The music washes over you like a gentle surf, lush synthesizers sweeping across the aural landscape, accented by guitar, keyboard and saxophone that complement but never intrude or dominate the sound. Ferry’s vocals are delivered just as smoothly, his voice often rising into a dreamy sort of falsetto as he warbles about the tragedies of love.
Somehow the production manages to avoid sounding fey or slick, perhaps because of the earnestness (I almost want to say conviction) Ferry brings to the material.
While there is nothing really comparable to Avalon in today’s pop music scene (that I’m aware of) the album still doesn’t sound dated to me. It is its own thing and a wonderful, lush thing it is.
Rating:
8/10 Neil Diamond sparkle shirts
On balance, it appears I had decent musical taste 25-30 years ago. I’ve still got money in my iTunes account and have been casting back to other albums of yore I haven’t re-acquired. I may have another to re-review soon™.
I didn’t run on Thursday as my recovering throat still felt a little too raw. At first blush it may seem odd that the condition of my throat would determine whether I run or not but consider: when I do an 11K run I am breathing at an accelerated pace for 54-60 minutes and the only way to reasonably scoop in the large amounts of oxygen I need to keep from toppling over is through my mouth, as my nose does not have elephant-sized nostrils (this is, on balance, preferable).
This means that for those 54-58 minutes my mouth and throat are exposed to a constant rush of air. A raw throat would move onto bloody raw after such treatment. Or so I suspect. I’m not willing to test my theory.
I do think I may finally be ready to head out Sunday, which will make it precisely two weeks since the last run, enough time to get me rested to the point of flabbiness. The forecast is for a high of 24ºC with the chance of precipitation starting low in the morning and climbing through the day. I’d likely run in the morning so it may be a bit warmer than seasonal but probably cloudy. Not too bad, then.
I still dread it.
And I finally get my feet/Bollocks looked at when my doctor is back from vacation on October 28th. I want a month-long vacation.
The last month has really sucked for running, as I’ve mentioned before.
I’ve only been out about once a week during this stretch instead of my more typical three times and this week when I was planning on getting back into a regular routine I got hit by a throat infection. I’m tentatively planning on resuming runs on Thursday, which will mark ten days since the last run. That’s enough to lose a decent bit of conditioning, although perhaps the rest will help offset some of that.
The current forecast for Thursday is for a high of 27ºC (unseasonably warm) and humid, the two things that go great together for a yucko run. But it would only be 5K so maybe it won’t be so bad. I’m hoping that writing this out will make this assessment seem more convincing. You know, I read it on the Internet, it must be true and all that.
