A Poem, a Film and an Agent 25 January 2008
Posted by Suzi Moonlight in Once.Tags: events, Once, personal, poetry, screenplays, writing
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I once won honorable mention in a poetry contest. I don’t like poetry, really. I don’t read it very often. I’ve read some Roethke, some Bukowski, a little of this and that. I don’t get most poetry. The good stuff I sometimes get, but couldn’t tell you what it’s about in words. It’s like my right brain ‘gets it’, but won’t tell my left brain what it means. My right brain is evil like that.
I can’t stand the whiny stuff. We’ve all read it. Women write most of it. You know you do. Don’t get mad at me for pointing it out. Your boyfriend left you. Your heart is a melon, smashed and rotting in the sun. Or, you’re a witch, all spooky and scary and full of mystery. Pens should be taken. Keyboards broken, possibly fingers.
I write poetry, sometimes. Only when absolutely necessary. Only when prose will not suffice. I usually store the poems away carefully, where they will never see the light. Maybe, I’ll post an example here sometime. Maybe, not.
At this particular period of time, I wanted some cash, so I pulled out something simple and sent it off to the contest. I got a notice of honorable mention and a ‘judges notes’ on the poem. I thought it was probably one of those contests where they say your poem will be published, and then they charge you a fee – which covers their publishing charges, but X.J.Kennedy was one of the judges. His note on my poem said something about liking the iambic-something or other. I don’t know what it was. It’s some poetry thing that I didn’t know I had stumbled into. I only remember the last lines of the poem. The title was Black Ice, and the last lines were:
How can I fall, so many times
When I can see the ground?
I once had a short screenplay win the [insert capital city name] film festival competition in [insert state name]. The would-be director contacted me after reading some of my writing online at [insert my domain name]. He asked if I could adapt something I’d written to his city. With his help and the help of satellite images, I made a few changes to a short story and had a short screenplay ready. The prize was the production of the script. I flew out for the festival, with a showing. It was kind of neat. I met everyone who was in the film and the director. Several planes and very little sleep later, I was back at home. I planned to move to that city. I loved it. Then, I read somewhere that everyone wants to move to whatever place they visit. I thought it was just me.
I once had an agent for screenwriting. A WGA agent. That means a ‘real one’, incase you don’t write screenplays. She read some of my writing online and contacted me, asking if I was currently represented. She signed me right off. I wrote assignments for her to send around. She never sold anything. Then, she had a nervous breakdown. I don’t think it was my fault, but I’m willing to take a tiny part of the blame. I haven’t heard from her in years. She might still be my agent. I’m not really sure how that works.
A Cat, a Turtle and a Russian Band 19 January 2008
Posted by Suzi Moonlight in Once.Tags: events, Once, personal
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I once had a cat for a week. It might have been a ghost cat. It might have been an angel cat. I’m really not sure.
I agreed to stay at my parents house, while they were on vacation. I didn’t like the idea of staying there alone, but I do like being alone. Maybe, I just like being away from other people, but still like feeling safe. On the day they left, a cat showed up at the door. They didn’t have a cat, but there he was. I let him in. When he meowed, he didn’t say, “Meow,” he said, “Bra-ow.” I named him Brow-Brow. Every morning he drank coffee from my cup. That sounds little gross, but I’ve never met a cat who drank coffee – not in the feline sense of the word ‘cat’.
Brow-Brow would go out several times a day and come back. He stayed with me the whole week. On the day they came home, he went out and didn’t come back. They never even saw him. I have a picture I took of him. I think I sort of knew he wouldn’t be around very long. I appreciated the company.
I once saw a box-turtle laying eggs. It was about 10 months ago, in my gravel driveway. She had made a hole as big around as a quarter and straight down for several inches. After she left, I put a metal basket upside-down over where the hole had been, with a rock on it. I waited the months they said it would take online. Then, one day, I came out and saw a tiny, tiny turtle standing up against the sides of the metal basket, like a prisoner asking to see the warden. I took him and his two siblings inside. I have them in a small tank. They’ve lost their egg-tooth now, and their collars have come in. They like 9-Lives chicken nuggets – a lot. I don’t want to keep them, but I want to let them get a little bigger.
I once had my credit card number stolen. It was used by a Yugoslavian band to buy friends on MySpace. They have programs to add friends, that’s what they bought. I had the charges reversed, and I still want to get a t-shirt declaring:
We’re Almost a Majority 11 January 2008
Posted by Suzi Moonlight in Night Person.Tags: art, clocks, night people, sleep
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I was reading the latest issue of History Channel Magazine, because that’s how I roll, and they have an article about clocks. I love clocks. I love gears. But, the article wasn’t so much about clocks as one specific type of clock, the alarm clock.
I doubted the accuracy of the article in the second paragraph, because it says people do not have internal alarm clocks. I know someone who can tell you the time within a few minutes of the actual time – every time. However, towards the end of that same paragraph the author, David Shapiro, says that without an alarm clock, most would sleep till noon. Most. M-o-s-t. If night people are a majority, shouldn’t we have a bit more say in how the world works?
Nine to five could be eleven to seven. It even rhymes. It’s kismet.
Later in the article, Shapiro says they halted production of alarm clocks during World War II, to use the factories for the war effort. They had to put them back into production, because too many people were missing their shifts.
I had this concept of history with everyone waking with the sunrise and night people coming after the creation of electricity. Turns out they used roosters (the organic alarm clock) and an interesting idea of a candle with a nail in it. As the candle burned down, the nail would fall into a metal pan, making a clatter. Imagine waking up to that every morning? It sounds like the spoon-in-hand set-up Dali used to capture his near-sleep images. Personally, I prefer Yves Tanguy.
We are a sleepy, sleepy creation.
Sleep is as close as we come in this life to heaven, yet we’re taught to feel guilty for it. I say, morning people are the devil’s children or, at the least, his minions. Who else would want us to feel guilty for catching some much needed and delicious sleep?
Singles vs. Albums 4 January 2008
Posted by Suzi Moonlight in Once.Tags: music
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I mentioned in my description page, titled What?, that I once sang on the radio. This was purely a ‘by chance’ thing. I had to drop something off at a radio station. I was wearing my leather jacket with… well, stuff I’d painted all over it. The DJ asked if I was in a band. I said, “No, I sing.” I don’t know why I said it. Everyone sings, so it wasn’t a terrible, terrible lie. The DJ asked what I sang. I said Blues. He had a Blues show, but I really did write a few Blues songs for my own amusement, so that wasn’t so much a lie. He said, “Do you want to be on my show?” I said yes. He gave me a date, and I agreed. I had to find a guitarist and teach him my songs. I let the guitarist do a song in the set. I also covered Bell-Bottom Blues by Clapton. I still don’t know how I did it.
I read an interview with someone saying they prefer singles to albums. I thought it was weird, because I could have sworn I read a different interview with them bitching about people not writing albums anymore.
I guess I’ve been lucky. I own only two albums I cannot listen to all the way through. All my other CD’s I just hit ‘play’ and let them go. They are so much to me like one long song, that I was surprised recently when I looked at the song titles. I didn’t recognize the titles. If the title wasn’t the hook, I didn’t know what song it was by the title.
Maybe, it isn’t luck. I used to have a rule that I would only buy an album after hearing three songs from it I like. I gave up this rule when I heard Macy Gray on SNL. I immediately went to Amazon and bought the CD. I did the same with Mike Doughty, after hearing Busting Up a Starbucks. I wasn’t wrong in either case. Both are solid albums, all the way through.
The two albums I bought previously that I can’t listen to all the way through are Stabbing Westward – Wither Blister Burn & Peel and The Verve Pipe – Villains.
The Stabbing Westward lyrics are too whiny and insecure for my tastes, though I saw them live and it was a captivating show. They had something going on with the lighting that made it feel like you were underwater. Oddly enough, it fit the mood of the music.
The Verve Pipe album I bought for the song Photograph. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I expected the organ-pipe sound throughout the album. I would have loved that. As it stands, I only like that one song.
I do believe MP3 players take away some of the initiative to build a great album. People load them up with singles. They randomize and categorize the songs, so the original forethought of this leading into that is lost. You can play albums straight through, but I think artists are thinking more in the terms of singles than albums.
I have to stop here and point out that I am, in no way, referring to ‘theme’ albums. Lardy! I cannot stand theme albums.
Imagine decorating a room. A theme album would be like a theme room – people who ‘theme’ their rooms usually go tropical and jungle – and they are always a jumbled mess of sameness. A solid album is like a well decorated room. Accents from one piece may show in another, but the differences are enough that they compliment, rather than clash together. The curtains flow, but the chair is full and sturdy. The dissimilar pieces somehow fit together to make a pleasing whole.
There are some singles I like, that I’d never consider buying the album. I have tons of them, but I think if you look for an artist, rather than a catchy tune, you can find some great albums still being made.
I’m a Liar 4 January 2008
Posted by Suzi Moonlight in Night Person.Tags: blogging
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I was going to try to relate this somehow to being a night person or a once, but I’m not. Since I’ve already lied when I said I’d never, ever, ever, blog and here I am doing it, it shouldn’t matter whether I relate this directly to being a night person or a once. That sentence is long enough for Henry James.
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(I was at the gas station today. I set the pump handle and went off to clean my windshield. I came around the corner and saw this. Gas pouring everywhere.) |
No one wants to read other people’s blogs.
I have only two blogs I read. One is funny. One is thoughtful. No one will read them. I have sent the links repeatedly. Everyone I send a link, says they’ll read it. When I ask them about some new post, they always say they forgot. They will read it. Today, maybe even. But, they never do.
I think you have to know someone to want to read their blog, or admire them. I’ve come across blogs I really liked, bookmarked, and never went back again.
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(This dog can unwrap itself from around any tree/object. I’ve never seen a dog do that before. It’s amazing!) |
Why do people continue to post if no one is reading?
Is blogging really like a diary? Do we know, as we type, that what we type will likely never be read? Is there a percentage, somewhere deep in our subconscious, of the likeliness of it being read vs. the unlikeliness? That whole bit sounds like Carrie from S and the C.
Even with those little locks and keys, I would think everyone expects a diary to come into the wrong hands. I’ve never really had one. I had a journal. They are different. Diaries involve your daily life. Journals are more about your thoughts, ideas, ponderings. I wrote my journals believing they would be read. I hoped, and still hope, it would be after my death, because I have some crazy theories. Nothing that could get me in trouble. Things that I wouldn’t want to have to explain more than the journal’s endeavor.
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(This is a painting I did last week. I can’t sketch it well. It was something I saw while I was driving.) |
So, I’m a big, fat, liar for saying I wouldn’t blog, then doing it. But, I don’t tell anyone I have a blog. Does that count?
