Music, Mortality, and Outliving Mozart: The Whimsical Tale of a Slowly-Built Passion

The great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart passed away two hundred and twenty-two years ago today. As I was born on his two hundred and twenty-second birthday, I've now outlived him by... let's see... about fourteen hours. I feel very weird about this. Hence, the following.

January 27, 1756: birth of Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (baptismal name*)
January 27, 1988: music teacher Nancy Wilson tells her fifth grade homeroom class that "Today is Mozart's birthday."

After which Mrs. Wilson said, off-handedly, “Have I missed anyone’s birthday?” I looked down at my lap, too shy to announce that it was my own tenth birthday and risk getting sung to. Several of my classmates raised their hands, and she distributed Tootsie Rolls accordingly. I was disappointed in my own cowardice, but she had given me a better gift than candy. I got to share a birthday with someone awesome.

* * *

Mozart, age 5, 1761: Little Wolfgang begins predicting his musical future by composing his first pieces, which his father notes down for him, and which are pretty dang impressive for a five-year-old (see below)
Jenna, age 5-or-6-ish, sometime in 1983-4: Little Jenni (this is before I was Jenna) predicts her musical future during Suzuki violin lessons: first, by learning off a song above her level by ear; and second, by having a fit of shyness that rendered her unable to play it at speed for her teacher**

* * *

One of Mozart's earliest works, from the Nannerl Notenbuch:

* * *

In fifth grade, my understanding that Mozart was awesome was almost entirely abstract. I'm not ashamed of that, but I am ashamed that it continued to be true until just a couple of years ago.

* * *

Mozart, age 6, 1762: begins touring with his sister "Nannerl" (Maria Anna), both as child prodigies
Jenna, age 7, 1985: Jenni (still not yet Jenna) writes her first musical poem in between reading The Chronicles of Narnia during the family moving trip from Tampa to Missoula. The poem reads and sounds like a crappy countryish commercial jingle, but it's a start.

* * *

My best defense for not knowing much about Mozart growing up is that my family listened almost exclusively to pop Christian radio. This, I should explain, was before artists like Third Day and Jennifer Knapp came along and made pop Christian radio listenable.

The album that rocked the only world I knew.

By "almost exclusively," I mean that I remember most of the exceptions, and I remember them as exceptions. My parents homeschooled us for all but three years, restricted TV and movies, and were very selective about whose houses we could visit unsupervised; they had pretty thorough control over what my sisters and I listened to. I assumed Dolly Parton was a naughty person who sang dirty songs until I was in my mid-teens.

To be fair, my parents let go of the stricter rules as we started graduating high school, and my dad and I actually saw Def Leppard and Bryan Adams together a few years back. But that's anticipating the story a little.

Everybody loves Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid.
Even conservative homeschoolers. Source.

The main source of non-pop-Christian music, aside from movies, was an off-the-radio mixtape my parents had. It contained a few ABBA songs and a tune or two each by Linda Ronstadt, Don Henley and John Denver. A handful of other songs made it to my ears as well, and as far as I was concerned, they were usually made of fireworks and magic:

• "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" by Starship
• "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel
• "Orinoco Flow" by Enya (nowadays, Enya is one of my favorites)
• "Insensitive" by Jann Arden (this played just once in my hearing, on TV; obviously, my parents didn't catch the lyrics)

But my knowledge of music was still mostly limited to Christian radio. Unfortunately, aside from a few markedly sincere anomalies—Keith Green, Twila Paris, and Rich Mullins come to mind—I hated the stuff and preferred silence. I admit, however, to liking those three enough that I will still sing Twila Paris' "How Beautiful" and Rich Mullins' "If I Stand" and accompany myself on the piano. I never bothered learning "Awesome God", though.

* * *

Mozart, age 14, 1770: hears Gregorio Allegri's "Miserere" in the Sistine Chapel and, overlooking the fact that writing it down was at that time punishable by excommunication, writes it out entirely from memory. (The pope was so impressed that instead of excommunicating Mozart, he was all like, "Hey, that's cool! Write it down as often as you want to!")
Jenna, age 14, 1992: having had a few lessons, can now play Beethoven's "Für Elise" and Bruce Rowland's "Jessica's Theme (Breaking in the Colt)" from The Man from Snowy River, just like every other female piano student in Montana. On account of sharing a house with another family for a few months and being too shy to practice in front of them, however, she stops playing the piano. (NB: I was an idiot when I was fourteen.)

* * *

Nothing says "made for greatness" like a list of Mozart's childhood accomplishments. Very few people ever possess the kind of aural recognition and memory that would allow them to write out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" from memory after hearing it just once—let alone this:

* * *

Mozart, age 17, 1773: is appointed court musician by the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymus Colloredo
Jenna, age 16 or 17, 1994-5: discovers that Keith Green, Twila Paris, and Rich Mullins are not the heights of musical genius

This occurred thanks to a miracle: my dad switched from pop Christian radio to country music. I more or less responded with, "I thought most music sucked? This is amazing!!"

Don't hate me! I had to start somewhere.

* * *

At seventeen, according to Wikipedia (I know), Mozart wrote the first of his works to still be widely performed today: the motet "Exsultate, Jubilate." Here's the first movement:

* * *

One of my small consolations for not knowing much about Mozart till recently is that at least my deficiency has not just been limited to the music that's most important to me. Lou and I have had the following conversation a minimum of three times:

Me: "I like this song! Who's it by?"
Lou, with a strange look: "The Beatles."

To be honest, I'm still not sure which is which.
Source.

* * *

Mozart, age 19-22, 1775-8: being under the Archbishop's employ, tosses off concertos, sonatas, adagios, and divertimentos at the approximate rate of the average junior higher's phone texts
Jenna, age 19-22, 1997-2000: joins—and eventually leads—the worship team for a tiny basement-dwelling church. Duties include: providing a weekly music lineup that satisfies both the hymn fans and the praise song fans, playing guitar, singing harmony, and shepherding a worship band made up almost entirely of youth group members, which at one point includes a tone-deaf bassist.

That was fun. Most of the time. :)

* * *

Maia getting into the new camera case.
This doesn't have anything to do with music; it's just so
George doesn't feel gypped this week.

* * *

After spending my eighteenth through twentieth years convinced that I needed to be a country singer, in pursuit of which goal I used to lock myself in the bedroom every evening with my guitar and piano, I was given a second gift of broadened musical horizons, this time by my youngest sister. Through a friend, she'd discovered rock and alternative, and she decided I needed to listen to them with her.

Muse, photographed by swampa

I lost most of my taste for country music in short order. I still think of that sister with gratitude when I listen to Muse and Keane and The Fray, though technically we bonded ten years earlier over Lifehouse and Coldplay and Train.

* * *

Mozart, age 25, 1781: blows off the job with the archbishop in order to begin an independent career, and proves his capability by things like performing in front of the Emperor
Jenna, age 25, 2003 (approx): plays synthesizer for another worship team and discovers just how far behind she is as a musician

Friendly church pianist: "Wow, you improvise off guitar chords? I wish I could do that."
Me: "Isn't that what you're doing? You're way better at the piano than I am."
Friendly church pianist: "Oh, I'm not improvising. I'm just sightreading."
Me: "That's possible?!!!"

* * *

A handful of classical works managed to creep into my consciousness before I got myself voice lessons (at about age twenty-one): Bach's "Air", the occasional Beethoven, and Handel's "Messiah". I loved those, but classical music in general, and Mozart in particular, seemed—in the short, unrepeated clips I was prone to coming across—comparatively unemotional, and young Jenna was always about the feels.

The feels. Beethoven knew all about them.
Love you forever, Ludwig.

My voice teacher, whose lessons were one of the best decisions I've ever made, taught me to like opera and classical songs. Her influence included loaning me a video recording of Mozart's opera Cosi fan Tutte. I liked Cosi, but my preferences still ran to slower, sweeter Handel arias and Scotch love songs.

Mr. Chant himself,
Gregory the Great.
Portrait by de Goya.

At long last, I learned to love classical music when I met Lou. He introduced me to musical traditions I'd never even heard of—Gregorian chant and polyphony, which caught me, heart and spirit and imagination, from first listen—and taught me that the trick to loving classical music is in exposure; it isn't an immediate dazzle and then overplayed, like pop music, but something that grows on you as you got to know it, like a book you can read over and over again and enjoy more every time.

Mozart still took me a little longer, though.

* * *

Mozart, ages 32-34, 1788-90: despite suffering setbacks, possibly including depression, still manages to do some impressive composing, including the opera Cosi fan Tutte
Jenna, age 33, 2011: finally understands why Mozart is awesome

Technically, I was still thirty-two, but only just.

I don't recall who said, in my hearing, that “People who don’t think Mozart’s music is passionate aren't listening carefully.” They made me ashamed of myself for not knowing better, however, which is the surest way to make me learn something. Not long later, just days before Mozart's two hundred fifty-fifth birthday and my thirty-third, Lou and I saw the Requiem and "Ave Verum Corpus" at the Seattle Symphony. I finally understood Mozart that night, and loved him.

I have just four words to say for myself: Better late than never.

* * *

One of the most beautiful works of art in existence:

* * *

Mozart, age 35, 1791: returns to full productivity and writes a number of great works, including The Magic Flute, the unfinished Requiem (completed by his student Süssmayr), and "Ave Verum Corpus"
Jenna, age 35, 2013: devotes herself to piano practice and church choir, regains some of her vocal strength after several years of cord damage, and discovers a knack for choral conducting and arranging

It's been a good year for me, musically. Which is helpful, because when it comes to my writing, this year has sucked—but that's another blog post.

* * * 

Mozart, age 35, December 5, 1791: passes away at one A.M.; may he rest in peace
Jenna, age 35, December 5, 2013: well, the day's not over yet, but I've made it past one A.M. :)

It's a bit humbling to realize you've outlived someone so much greater than you. It raises the question of why he had to die so young when I, who will never accomplish a tenth of what he did, am still living—but such questions are probably better left unasked. (Number 22 is germane here, however. Though I sympathize with practically all of those. Maybe not #8. But oh, gosh, #7, and #11 and 12, and #17.... ;))

Detail of Mozart, from the family portrait
by Johann Nepomuk della Croce

Mozart composed over six hundred works, and that's just what we have on record; he was prone to not writing things down, and was so disorganized that he didn't bother cataloguing his work. After his death, musicologist Ludwig Ritter von Köchel went through the mess and did it for him.

Six hundred remembered works and six children (only two of whom survived to adulthood) are a lot for just thirty-five years of life.

I don't think I was made for great things, but I'm grateful that he was. And I'm grateful that I can sit down to the piano and fumble through his music today, two hundred and twenty-two years after he died. I won't subject you to a sample of that. But here's to Mozart, in life and in death.




* According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know), 'Amadeus' is the Latin form of the Greek Theophilus.

** I never got very good at the violin. My sisters and I had a few lessons when we were little, and I played in fifth and sixth grade orchestra. In seventh grade, when we went back to being homeschooled, I did a few trios with my sister on flute and my best friend on clarinet (which might be the worst combination of instruments for a trio ever) and then put the violin down upon falling in love with the piano. I regret putting down the violin, but not nearly as much as I regret not falling in love with the piano earlier and more faithfully.

Merry Christmas

My husband has tomorrow off, and between music to practice and gifts to wrap and other such things, I don't expect much time for blogging. Besides, it's Christmas. I want to spend it with Lou and our families, not my computer. :)

Next week, posting may be a bit unpredictable. I may choose to throw out memes and post randomly, or simply to not blog at all. Fair warning. It's the holidays.

For your enjoyment, here is a song—highly appropriate to these days leading up to the birth of Christ—that Lou and I have loved learning. It took some doing to find a non-buzzy recording on YouTube, but here you go.



Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Love,
Jenna

The Absence of Vampires and other stories

Congratulations to my friend and fellow writers' group member Annie O'Connor, whose children's book Going to See the King is now available on Amazon! This is just the sweetest, most beautiful little story. Hang around my blog next week, and you might well win a free copy. :)

* * *

After a year and more of working at it, I feel like I'm starting to understand what goes into making a job out of writing. This week's to-do list, in retrospect:

• Finish NaNoWriMo. Toss the manuscript and start over again.
• Be overwhelmed with gratitude toward gamma readers, and spend hours thinking about their suggestions.
• Make trips to Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, and the library, in the name of market research
• Organize Google Reader and subscribe to more book-related blogs and Publisher's Lunch
• Remember that even in an office job, it sometimes took me a focused hour and a half to write an email
• Organize My Documents folder and set up a special folder for the NaNoWriMo manuscript
• Remember that my website still needs designing. Think about it. Waste twenty minutes in Paint.net relearning why a past idea didn't work.
• ...and write. Blog-posts. Novel. Even a few Tweets.

It's a good life.

* * *

I keep breaking a promise to myself. I'd sworn not to respond to my siblings' anecdotes about what their small fry did with the words "The other day, Maia..."

The problem is that she does all these toddler-like things. Giving me a naughty look and then deliberately doing what I just told her not to. Getting into things she shouldn't and leaving disaster for me to find. Attacking my feet with her teeth and claws out... okay, maybe that one is cat-specific. But still. How can I help it?

* * *

Writers' link of the week: Natalie Whipple's What Happens When It IS You. Because it's good to have realistic expectations. And as someone who put neither vampires nor outright sex in her novel, who writes the old-fashioned way (third person perspective, past tense), who could base her life memoir around the theme of waiting (but I'll spare you)—it could totally be me someday.

Natalie Whipple, I hope very much that you get published soon. I love your blog. I can't wait to read your books.

* * *

Cheer-worthy article of the week: This pope plays it right. Okay, this is a couple of weeks old. But many thanks to Jonah Goldberg, not only for rising above the media's usual epic-disaster response to any suggestion of a conflict between church and sex, but for writing a beautiful, sensible, respectful piece. Three cheers, sir.

* * *

Music of the week: Eva Cassidy's Songbird. How has this song been out for years without me knowing it?



* * *

Funny of the week: Eric Pazdziora calls it the "Best. Paper. Ever." From experience, I can tell you that it's medically accurate.

* * *

Victory: Today, I cleaned my house before blogging. (Blogging is one of those projects that expands to fill all available time.) I'm going to go write other things for awhile.

Happy weekend, everyone.

Daisies Standing Guard and other stories

Current word count: 20,268

"I'm at twenty thousand words and I'm feeling awesome/man, I should make writing my career
My main characters have chemistry, my setting is believable/think I'm gonna win this year" *

How I wish that were the case.

Last year I never once considered quitting NaNoWriMo. This year, I've written twenty thousand words that are almost entirely wrong—bad prose, wrong emotional progressions, inane scenes. The story in my head, what shards of it exist, is not what keeps coming out on paper.

I've considered stopping, even though I've been ahead on word count for almost the entire time, and the tingling in my right hand and pain running from elbow to palm are pushing me that direction. The only thing keeping me going is that every couple of days I hit on something that I do actually want to use in the final draft.

Well—that and the fact that I hate giving up.

But as I crossed the 20,000-word mark this morning, I found a little joy in it. I started a new chapter yesterday, and the 1700 words it contains are, for the most part, not crap. One more small encouragement to continue.

* * *

Apart from writing novels at top speed, November means a return to winter weather around here. Much to my amazement, I know people who actually wanted this to happen. Since we didn't get summer weather till the second week in July this year, I would have been just fine not having winter weather till January.

...but we did have such a beautiful sunrise this morning. And sometimes I've even been able to see the stars.

* * *

Yes, the stars. The Pleiades are up this time of year, bright and beautiful. Next on the to-find list: Aldebaran, which should be close by, and the shape of Taurus. Aquila and the Swan have moved to the west during my most-common stargazing hours, and Cassiopeia is nearly overhead. I've never been able to really trace Pegasus—it's hard in town if the constellations aren't composed of very bright stars, which problem has also held me back on Aquarius and Perseus. Oh well. I do what I can.

* * *

Music of the week: This one's for all of you Hunger Games fans. I've got to say, mixed as my feelings were about that series—as a lyricist myself, I loved Collins' folk songs. I might not have imagined Rue's lullaby in a minor key, and the recording here isn't the best, but ultimately, this is beautiful.



* * *

Writer's link of the week: John Green's NaNoWriMo pep talk. Favorite quote:

"Here’s my answer to the very real existential crisis that grips me midway through everything I’ve ever tried to do: I think stories help us fight the nihilistic urges that constantly threaten to consume us."

* * *

Funny of the week: The Oatmeal on How to Pet a Kitty. Not quite as funny as the printer one, which I've already linked some months back, but equally true.

* * *

I'm off to clean house. Happy weekend, everybody.

* Lyric from The NaNoWriMo Song by Kristina Horner and Luke Conard.

Old Glories and Hallelujahs and other stories

First sentence: November 1, 12:00 noon, at my parents'.

* * *

Current word count: 10,827
Today's goal: 8,335

NaNoWriMo started off with a bang and a half. First, I got ahead right away. That beats last year, when it took me an all-nighter on a plane to catch up.

Second, thanks to 170-odd-thousand enthusiastic participants, of which I was one, the site was either painfully slow or down for the first four days solid. Props to OLL for having the cutest over-capacity message ever. And props to the brave NaNo server guy, who has been working long past normal hours to get things running. The site works much better today.

As for word count: It's nice to be ahead of schedule, but it feels a little like cheating. Since I don't have a full-time job, I just have a lot more time to write than most Wrimos. My one handicap this year is creative exhaustion; that last revision really drained me. It doesn't even things out, but it has certainly increased the challenge of getting my daily 1667.

* * *

I had forgotten what dull scenes and incomprehensible sentences I can create during NaNoWriMo. Sometimes the only way to keep going is to remind myself: No one will read this draft. No one, I say. Believe me—you don't want to.

But just like last year, I'm discovering the story in ways I, being a lousy planner, could never do with just an outline. More on that Monday, if I can get my thoughts together in time.

* * *

Last year at this time, I was spending my last hours in Rome. The six of us who went—Lou and I, his parents, Mike and Kay—had a reunion this past Saturday. We went through a bunch of our pictures, ate pizza and pasta and gelato and drank cappucini and Italian wine.

I started typing up some of the memories, but it got too long too fast. Mercy. I feel like there's still at least three or four blog-posts on that trip, waiting to get loose from my head.

* * *

In other news, Maia jumped in the shower this morning. Strange cat.

* * *

Writer's link of the week: The future belongs to the best editors. I consider myself a pretty decent editor, and I'd still take the class he describes. Thanks for the link, @michaelhyatt.

* * *

Music of the week: This made me cry. The idea of a random act of culture is pretty cool in its own right, but this piece is so much more than culture—this is sacred and transcendental.



If I could have gotten past tears enough to hit all those Fs and Gs, I would have wanted to join in on the last few lines. That's all I know my part for... but one of my secret little dreams is to sing the whole song with a choir someday.

H/T CMR
 
* * *

Funny of the week: Farmer's City Wife on How Not to Flirt. I laughed and laughed. It sounded so familiar.

* * *


To my fellow Wrimos reading this: Good luck! (And I missed you at write-in this week.)

To all of you: Happy weekend!

Pokémon Love Songs and other stories

Sixteen days to NaNoWriMo! (Fellow writers' groupers: Have you signed up yet? hint, hint...) With sixteen days to finish revising my novel and about six chapters to revise, I'm feeling a bit crunched. Last spring I revised ninety pages in ten days, but it's hard to polish prose at that rate.

Finish or not, I do plan on writing another novel next month. But I would like to be able to send this to gamma readers November first. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can...

All this revising leaves me next to no time for plotting this year's NaNo novel. November might get interesting.

* * *

New ALL CAPS videos always make me happy. Every time I watch this one, I love it more—even though I was discouraged from getting into Pokémon when it was popular and have therefore neither seen the movie nor played the games. (For that matter, I've played very few video games, not because they're not fascinating, but because—as with television—it just doesn't often occur to me and I would have to actually make the time. Out of all the clips shown in this video, I only recognized Mario.)

But one bit of scenery makes me incredibly curious. Right at about 1:56, Luke is standing in front of what looks almost exactly like the current header to my blog. Whaaat??? I can claim with perfect confidence that he did not get it from my blog. I'm just using Ray Creations' free Dark Forest Theme template, so... did Ray Creations get the image from a video game? If so, which one? I have no idea, and Google searches don't tell me. But now I feel cool by association.



* * *

Lou and I watched the Mike Judge film Idiocracy the day after I'd finished reading Ender's Shadow. I cannot begin to express how opposite those two stories are.

* * *

"Maia, stop batting the basil around."

"Stay out of the palm tree, kitty."

"Little monster! You just ripped two leaves off my African violet."

I have catnip and cat grass seeds. I just need to plant them.

* * *

Writers' link of the week: Dan Simmons' Writing Well, Installment One. I haven't read the rest of the installments, out of fear that they'll all be as long as the first one, but I plan to. I liked what he had to say.

* * *

Funny of the week: On changes in English. Hear, hear!

* * *

I have a book to revise. Happy weekend, everybody.

It was Just a Freaking Love Potion and other stories

Lou: "Not much happens. There are really only three acts."
Me: "Well, it's opera, so: they meet, they fall in love, they die?"
Lou: "Pretty much."

Apologies for not posting yesterday! Lou and I left at 4 PM to see Tristan und Isolde in Seattle and we got back after 1 AM; I didn't get a post up before leaving, and when we came home I was tired enough to go to bed with makeup on and everything.

All those hours of Wagner sounded a little overwhelming going in, especially as listening to the music on its own beforehand didn't do much for me. With the story and the visuals, though, I found it breathtakingly beautiful. Even though I never did figure out which was the famed Tristan chord. And even though the romance was partly killed by the fact that most of the passion arose from a love potion that was supposed to be a death potion. Oh, the drama.

I liked Marke. Good guys don't get enough credit in this world. Besides, he had a superb voice.

* * *

Lou and I are leaving Monday morning to go huckleberry picking for three days. If I can get it together, I'll try to have posts scheduled for those three days... I'll try. But if I post on Monday and don't reply to your comment till Wednesday, it doesn't mean I don't like you. :)

As for huckleberry picking, I'm not quite the camping fiend I used to be in my rock-climbing raft-guiding days. Two years ago we fought more mosquitoes than I've ever seen in my entire life, all together in one place; last year it was hornets. I didn't know the world, let alone Western Washington, had that many hornets. This year--I understand and accept the usual outdoor difficulties, but PLEASE, GOD, LESS BUGS.

* * *

Back on the subject of opera: Can I someday sing like this? Please?



* * *

Another good show: The Perseid meteor shower. When we got home last night, I stopped outside to look at the stars, and one of the brightest meteors I've ever seen shot right through Cygnus and beyond. So beautiful! Despite the late night yesterday, I'm more than a little tempted to take a blanket out in the back yard tonight.

* * *

Writer's link of the week: Nathan Bransford's "Do You Suffer from One of These Writing Maladies?" Many, many props to Mr. Bransford for working the Old Spice Guy into his post. I keep reading this and laughing aloud.

* * *

Time-sucker of the week: Catalog Living.

* * *

Funny line of the week, from EW's Keith Staskiewicz: "Twilight is significantly affecting how Americans name their babies, with a marked increase in Cullens and Bellas. All I can say is thank goodness this didn’t happen with Dr. Seuss, or we’d all be named things like Phooswacker and Bortle."

* * *

Also: I love Microsoft Word 2010, at least compared to the 2007 and 2003 versions. But everybody did not hate Clippy. I liked the MS Word Assistant.

Speaking of Word, I think I'm going to try one more time to scrap/redo the first chapters of my book, and if that doesn't work, then it's time to accept it as is and move forward. First, however, I have to clean the house. Happy weekend, everybody!

Pacific Northwest Greatness and other stories

The last full month of summer has arrived, and NaNoWriMo is coming up again. For some time now, I've had alternating feelings on whether or not to sign up this year. And... I think I will. If I can finish revisions by the actual end of summer, September 21, then I can set myself up to write again in November.

Revisions are a real struggle for me right now, though. I am stuck in Chapter 2, which according to my instincts is the least interesting in the book—but it's also foundational to the rest of the story. I won't submit the book until that chapter is up to par with the rest. Unfortunately, I won't let myself move forward with the rest of revisions either, so I'm really quite stuck. Bah.

* * *

Wait... The Lonely Forest got signed by Chris Walla from Death Cab for Cutie? I did not know this, but I know them—or John, anyway, who'd actually wave at me if I ran into him in the grocery. (Wow, that sounded oddly fangirlish. Thought I was too sedate for that.) Anyway, they have a free download at the link, a fun song about preferring the Pacific Northwest to LA or Nashville. My favorite piece of theirs is the old She Smiles, which I can't find on YouTube, but here's a perfectly good video of the band:




* * *

Well put:

Thanks to Travis Prinzi for passing that along.

* * *

Stargazer's report: Bellingham has had haze this past week, night and day (and one thunderstorm.) I've been able to smile at Arcturus and Vega, both of which are decidedly brighter than the average, but that's about it.

* * *

Writerly link of the week: I don't have one off the top of my head, but there have certainly been enough posts and articles about e-books to inspire this. I laughed, oh yes. Hat tip to Nathan Bransford for the link.

* * *

Funny line of the week: I'm still laughing at Jon Acuff for referring to "Cornelius, the white dove who brings me official Christian blogging rules."

* * *

Time to go water my plants, finish cleaning my house, make pizza, write Monday's post and a couple of things for The Hog's Head, and find a way to rewrite Chapter 2. It's going to be a busy afternoon. Happy weekend, everybody!

Busy

Today I am working on my story. That is all.

Well, that and the usual daily duties... and vacuuming... and complaining about the weather. The first of July, and it's raining? I could be okay with that if we'd had anything in the way of sunshine, but our nicest day this year might have barely scraped 74 degrees. Nothing will dry out, and I still have to sit under a blanket to stay warm in the living room. Please, God. We need summer.

Fortunately, there's always happy music when I need a mental break. Happy music is especially fun combined with a video full of people who dance as dorky as I do.

And the Winner Is...

There were nine comments on the giveaway post, and as multiple entries were allowed, all of them were eligible except for #3, which was me.*

According to the Random Number Generator, then:

Comment #6 belongs to newmaldon! Congratulations!

Send me an email with your address, David, and I'll have the CD sent to you. You'll have to let me know how you like it.

To all of you, thanks so much for participating! This was A Light Inside's first giveaway, but I don't plan on it being the last. I loved hearing from you of your favorite music, and spent a fun half hour rummaging around YouTube and other corners of the internet turning up the artists I didn't already know. I must say, you all rock. :)

If you didn't win and still want to get a copy of Gurrumul's CD, it is available for sale on Amazon and elsewhere!

Happy weekend, everybody.

* In case anyone wonders: to keep from confusing myself in the counting, I went ahead and used 9 for the top number, figuring I could reconfigure it if it landed on 3. Which, in fact, it did the first time. Haha.

Methods, Lost, and other stories

If you're interested in the meaning of story and don't have some compelling reason to avoid Lost spoilers, you should totally read Travis Prinzi's post on the series finale. Having seen only about four episodes, I went ahead and read it, spoilers and all, and it nearly made me cry. My favorite part is what he said about happy endings--well, that or the part about the vindication of imagination and faith and spiritual reality, which was a lot of what Harry Potter did for me. Great stuff.

* * *

My friend and fellow writer Jana has begun a blog series about being single. It's the most real stuff on singleness I've ever read, and her posts lack the bitter taste that "being real" sometimes carries. The most recent, I'm Okay, Right?, is beautiful. How very well I remember that question.

* * *

Writers, do you know your perfect writing method? I prefer to focus on one project till it's done. My natural tendency is--once I get good and started on something--to resent leaving the computer even to get food, let alone to get the housecleaning done in a timely manner. That might not be exactly what that post was talking about, though.

* * *

I put that method to full use this morning with my essay. That piece has required a lot of my time in the last few days, but at this point I'm mostly happy with the first draft (as a first draft--I do want to give it some serious polish before it's set down for posterity.) My writers' group read the first few sections and gave me a lot of helpful feedback; Lou read all of it and upped my confidence significantly by telling me that almost all of my arguments made sense. Today has belonged mostly to fixing the parts that did not.

* * *

...of course, I got distracted around midafternoon by reading something on my late lunch break that talked about how critical agents and editors are of first pages. I had to go read the first scene of my novel, and got completely caught in a weird vacillation between "I love this, it's beautiful" and "This is awful--it doesn't give out enough information." Hmmm.

* * *

“If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars" (Arthur Hugh Clough). I should think of that now and then.

* * *

Last but not least, I love polyphony.



Happy weekend, everybody.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu

This is really beautiful.



According to the video notes on YouTube, this gentleman reversed the strings on a right-handed guitar so he could play it left-handed (as a left-hander, maybe I should've tried that when I was learning to play!) He's also blind. And while he's originally from Australia--the Galpu nation--he's touring America.

Enjoy.

Victimae Paschali Laudes

I was singing the Easter sequence tonight, and while I don't have a recording of that, here's a recording of other people singing it. This piece is so beautiful to me.



English translation:

To the Paschal Victim, Christians, offer a sacrifice of praise.

The Lamb has ransomed his sheep; the innocent Christ has reconciled sinners with the Father.

Death and life confronted each other in a prodigious battle; the Prince of life who died, now lives and reigns.

"Tell us, Mary, what did you see upon the way?"

"I saw the sepulchre of the living Christ; I saw the glory of the Risen One. I saw the angels, his witnesses, the shroud and the garments. Christ, my Hope, is risen; he will go before his own into Galilee."

We know that Christ is truly risen from the dead; O Victorious King, have mercy on us.

[Translation copied from the Gregorian Missal, Solesmes, 1990: The English translation of the prayers, the eucharistic prayers, prefaces, and other texts from the Order of Mass from The Roman Missal copyright 1973, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved.]

I Know It's Random, But ...

Not sure how many of my regular readers are interested in bands who write songs about the TV show Lost, but I've only got the one blog post in me today. The Hog's Head got it, and that's what I wrote about. Enjoy, if you wish; otherwise, I'll be here tomorrow! For now, my novel is calling to me and I must go.

'Bye.

Mood Music: Playlist

One of our neighbors has chosen to play bluegrass, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. Bluegrass is much too peppy for my mood right now. Maybe I should turn on my Asleep and Dreaming mixtape.

[pause]

All right, it's playing! I forgot about this old mix. I love it. Here's the track list, in case any of you need a little iTunes inspiration:

Lay Your Head Down, Peter Bradley Adams
Stars, The Cranberries
The Story, Brandi Carlisle
I Do, Paul Brandt
Out Loud, Mindy Smith
Ave Maria (Schubert), Jim Brickman and Mario Frangoulis
Listen to Your Heart, Roxette
Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful, Julie Andrews and Jon Cypher (from Cinderella)
Overcome, Live
I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You, Tina Arena and Marc Anthony
I Blame Us, John van Deusen
Stanley Climbfall, Lifehouse
You're Always on My Mind, Willie Nelson
Run to the Water, Live
Gira con me, Josh Groban
Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Jewel
Caribbean Blue, Enya
The Gates of Dawn, Secret Garden

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

Happy Epiphany!

For the twelfth day of Christmas, I hereby give you ... ten boys a-singing. Believe me, you've never heard that carol done like this unless you've actually heard this.



Now I have Toto's Africa running through my head. Oh well. It's a fun song.

Music to Write By

As a general rule, when writing I prefer silence. The wrong music can get into a writer's head and mess with mood, characterization, word flow, and all manner of things that shouldn't be messed with.

I do make exceptions, though. For my non-NaNoWriMo novel, I have playlists for all of my major characters, and sometimes playlists to describe their relationships. Not that I ever actually listen to those playlists while I write. Lou, however, put on the Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade one night while I worked on that novel, and now I can't hear Scheherazade without thinking of that story and seeing its images in my mind.

During November, I went silent except for the NaNoWriMo song. But here's my current writing music for this story:

Hayley Westenra's Celtic Treasure album
Owl City's Fireflies
ALL CAPS' rewrite of Fireflies as a Ron/Hermione duet

... with the last two sometimes alternating over and over, thanks to YouTube (and the linked videos are just wonderful, at least for geeks). At this point I'm probably obligated to buy both versions.

This means that Fireflies has run through my head for days, usually mixed up with the ALL CAPS version, so the lyrics will go something like "I'd get a thousand hugs/From ten thousand Viktor Krums" which is addled to the point of mildly disturbing. But I'm not complaining. I thoroughly love the song in both incarnations, and haven't tired of it yet. Besides, having it run through my head keeps all the annoying Christmas music out.

The original is also a good song for listening to when you can't sleep. I played it quite a few times between four and eight AM on Sunday.

As for Hayley Westenra, she could probably sing just about anything and it would suit my writing mood. But Celtic Treasure has Abide with Me on it, which I linked some time back. I love that piece. It still chokes me up sometimes.

NaNoWriMo Song

My new form of procrastination: Listening to techno.



I love techno. It makes me throw-back-your-head-and-dance-in-the-summer-sunshine happy, which I needed today. I got in a virtual bar fight. I hate those.

The above song describes the NaNoWriMo experience quite well. Right now I'm in the "I need inspiration" phase. Ack.

Anyway, I liked the song so much I decided to check out some of Kristina Horner's other videos, and Mrs. Nerimon is especially fun. I'd be all right with losing a bet if it meant making a music video that likeable.

Right. I'm procrastinating. I need to go write a freaking book.

Movie Rant ... and other stories

I shouldn't let it get to me so much.

Last night, at a (hilarious and wonderful, by the way!) girls' night with friends, we watched the movie A Walk to Remember, which is based on one of my favorite books, and which is also one of only a handful of movies for which I own the soundtrack. In fact, there are only two movies for which I own both movie and soundtrack; the other one is Phantom of the Opera. In other words, it's a pretty great soundtrack. Mandy Moore's rendition of Jon Foreman's Only Hope still gives me chills.

But the portrayal of Reverend Sullivan in that movie drove me nuts. It didn't help that I'd just been involved in a debate over the basic meanings and worth of sex and virginity and male protectiveness.

In the book, Rev. Sullivan, despite being incredibly awkward looking and a bit of a pulpit-pounder, is a truly good man who loves his daughter. In the movie--well, it's like the scriptwriters thought "Maybe that idea would have been believable in the Fifties, but nowadays we all know that any Christian father who tries to protect his daughter from the bad boys is a control freak who demeans his daughter and dehumanizes her boyfriend. We'll make him look fierce and he just won't have any subtlety. People will believe that." The sad thing is, people apparently do believe that.

Getting defensive is admittedly one of my biggest faults. I shouldn't let this stuff get to me. But they shouldn't talk about my people like that.

Anyway, I signed onto Facebook this morning and it proved relaxing. Travis had linked this article from the Front Porch Republic; I read it and it was just too brilliant not to pass on.

Logos had linked to Starfield, and I had forgotten about Starfield. Their song "Reign in Us" (the third track on their site right now) is my favorite song to come from popular Christian music since Switchfoot's album with "Dare You to Move" and "Only Hope". Or at least since Third Day's "Cry Out to Jesus". Admittedly, I haven't listened to much, but still.

Music Day

Despite being a musician myself, I don't often pop in a CD. Since my laptop has such a lousy sound card or speaker set or both, I listen to music even less on the computer. But I took a break from my usual silence today to listen to just about every YouTube video of my favorite female vocalist singing.

Hat tip to the Internet Monk, who reminded me of Hayley Westenra. I want to be like her. (Musically, at least ... I guess that's always a dangerous thing to say about a living famous person.)