30 seconds

From an article by a professional screenwriter about hating it when random people ask him to read their scripts:

There's a great story about Pablo Picasso. Some guy told Picasso he'd pay him to draw a picture on a napkin. Picasso whipped out a pen and banged out a sketch, handed it to the guy, and said, "One million dollars, please."

"A million dollars?" the guy exclaimed. "That only took you thirty seconds!"

"Yes," said Picasso. "But it took me fifty years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds."

Dan Brown: deep meaning and spiritual enlightenment

From literary agent Nathan Bransford's blog:

"And now that THE LOST SYMBOL is out, I'd like to make a personal plea that literary bookish types abstain from the whole "I'm so above his writing but okay the books are kind of fun to read" attitude. People! They're entertainment. It's okay to like them without apologizing. Or don't like them. Whatever. Just don't be too cool for school. It's not like I watch The Bachelor in the hopes of finding deep meaning and spiritual enlightenment!! That's just a bonus."

Mary Travers

I haven't really had time to process the death of Mary Travers, of Peter Paul and Mary. This is one of the bands I grew up on, because my dad owned a few of their albums. I used to stare at this cover, because I thought Mary was just so beautiful.

I loved their harmonies, and I loved learning the lyrics and singing along. And they were a band that grew with me, in the sense that as I got older new songs stood out to me, and every couple years I get new favourites.

This is one: "Hangman."


It's about a man who's going to hang, and he sees various members of his family arriving to the hanging site. You have to listen to the emotion and nuance they give it. As each member of the family arrives, they sing with more desperation. Except for the line "hangin' from the gallows tree" which is always sung very quietly and solemnly. And in a harmony so beautiful they sound like one voice, though they're singing different notes.

He gets a smackdown from each family member, until his True Love finally arrives and saves him. This whole section is sung differently--the three singers sing the "Slack your rope hangman" section in harmony instead of solo. They don't sound desperate, just intense. And then the song ends with a solo of Mary replying:

"Yes I have brought you hope. Yes I have paid your fee. And I've not come to see you hanging from the gallows tree."

I think it's so beautiful. Check out Mary's emoting, and that low note she hits!


Here's one of the songs I *discovered* in my teens. It's the first version I ever heard of "The First Time" and therefore my fave. I can't even imagine this song without Mary-many of their songs are carried by her voice rising above the male harmonies.

just sittin' around...

I just finished Jilly Cooper's The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous. Heavens--funny and a great romance. When deciding what to read on vacation I purposely chose romantic comedies so I can get in the right frame of mind to think about my next book. And Jilly is a great writer to study... her plotting and pacing and descriptions and dialogue and detail and romance chemistry and funny animal characters... she's seriously talented.

I spent the first week of my vacay at my mum's in Vancouver.

Here's Yoda, reading Jilly & eating my
bagel when my back is turned.

Me and Sassy at the beach.
Sassy is one of my muthah's 3 dogs.

For a couple days now I've been at my dad and step-mother's in Nanaimo, and my brother's staying here too so we can visit. (He usually lives at Muthah's, but there isn't really room enough for us all to hang there. The Folks' house has three levels, so we can all escape each other when needed.)

Now I'm just sitting in the living room having some Alone Time. Actually, it's not so much about being physically alone. I just need time each week to listen to music, and if I go too long then I end up doing this... sitting here for hours going through my music collection and building a list of Stuff I'd Like to Listen to. The list now has 101 items, or 9 hours of listening. Not really gonna get through all that tonight. Ahem.

It's almost 5 AM. But I don't want to go to sleeeeps! Maybe I'll just listen to Metallica's "No Leaf Clover" before I go...

Confession: On another note... I have to confess that today I bought a book. It's an Adrian Mole that I don't think I own, though it's hard to tell because of the way the books are put together into collections and such. My first failure in my attempt to Stop Adding to My Fiction Collection.