I might be a dead string now, but I don’t want to be. I don’t want to die alone. I don’t want to die before I’ve had a chance to live on my own. I want someone, anyone, someone real, to know who I am at last. I want to sing so that someone feels me, hears my voice. I want to sing out like Jimi Hendrix played and play guitar like Janis Joplin sang. I want that someone to listen and then put his head down and cry. Then I will know.
November 6, 2011
Nina Diaz of Girl in a Coma Inspires a Novel
As my upper mind digests my unconscious mind in search of the next right story, my curiosity throws me full-tilt into some music to latch onto. I know my new novel is going to involve music so my guitar has been dusted off and I’m practicing as if I will soon get back on stage to torture the ears of Cambridge. I am also searching for the inspiration in a female character to feature in the plot. I think I’ve found her. She is Nina Diaz of Girl in a Coma. Her new album with the band is called “Exits and All the Rest” and is just out. If you hurry over to NPR site here, you’ll get a listen to the whole album. It should still be us for a few days. After that, you could buy it or search on YouTube. I’ve heard it several times now, and am learning to play and sing “Smart,” a cut from the album. She writes: “And do you ever start to wonder / what’s it like to be alone / to sit and stare and ponder / living a life that’s not your own?” That’s a good question to hang a song upon—and perhaps one appropriate for a novel. We shall see. Enjoy—and keep bugging me to start and finish the novel.
October 27, 2011
I Know, a song by Sara Tavares
If I fly, I do not know where
If I walk, not knowing who I am
if I speak, and the voice sounds with the morning
I know . . .
If I drink this light that goes out on me at night,
And if one day I say I no longer want to be here,
Only God knows what he saw,
Only God knows what will be,
There is no other who knows everything that happens to me.
If sorrow is deeper than the pain
If this is no longer the flavor
And to think that all this already I thought
I know . . .
If I drink this light that goes out on me at night,
And if one day I say I no longer want to be here,
the uncertainty of knowing what to do, what to want,
Even without ever thinking that one day you’ll think
There is no other who knows everything that happens to me.
[link to song is here: I Know, a song by Sara Tavares]
October 21, 2011
Bob Dylan for a Nobel Prize? It’s “crazy speculation”
I think Dylan’s got a bucketful of awards and approbation, he doesn’t need a Nobel. He’s a great songwriter, an average writer of memoir, and a mediocre poet. There are many writers don’t get to perform before huge crowds who deserve it. If Woody Guthrie were alive he’d laugh to think a songwriter should get a prize like that. At least Woody did finish and publish a novel.
“Dylan blew it by reminding everyone he’s a plagiarist,” said Joni Mitchell. “Bob is not authentic at all,” she said. “He’s a plagiarist and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”
April 10, 2011
How to learn to learn to write
Two Girls Invent a Spring Day
(for Charlotte)
A mommy, a doggie, a soccer ball, and two three-year-old girls.
One kicks it to the other and she runs away as if chased by it.
One kicks it to her again and she jumps over it twice as it rolls.
The other, tired, says new rule: kick it to yourself so I can sit.
New rule: I kick the ball to the doggie and I sit, too.
New rule: you stand on your head. I stand on my head.
New rule: the doggie should stand on his head.
Look at the doggie and giggle. Look at the sky and giggle.
New rule: when the doggie runs away, I kick the ball at him.
New rule: you have to giggle when you run.
Uh-oh, Mommy calls. Kick the ball to the far corner so
she has to run after it. Laugh at Mommy as she kicks the ball.
Kick it back to the corner again. Laugh at Mommy again.
If I could imaginate like these girls, I wouldn’t
have to walk across a park to a library
to get a book full of it: I’d kick a ball. I’d run.
I’d stand on my head. And I would laugh at Mommy.
December 17, 2010
Rock&Roll Song from Skeezer
My new character from the new WIP writes a 24-word chorus about how she feels about her ex. Imagine a speed-punk sound welded to a cut-time reggae romp. No? Do your homework.
Twenty-Nine
Deaf dumb and blind heaven, where are you?
Is there a cloud there, not colored blue?
Can I get a bootless note to save me mind?
When will the bootless boy kiss me behind?
davidkrancher.com 