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I put on a profile, as a joke, that I was writing the libretto for a musical called THE MISEDUCAMACTION OF HONEY BOO BOO. I got a response from a person who was interested in producing the final musical and wished me luck for my endeavors. |
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The last two episodes of the new season of Dr. Who were kind of disappointing. It's like they jammed too much information and various subplots into a too-short one hour time frame. This was particularly true during last's episode. There were a bunch of extraneous, under-used characters and the frenetic, frantic pacing didn't help. Nefrititi! A British Game Hunter! Rory's Dad! Plus a villian, and an ultimate deadline. They need an editor in a bad way. |
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Not much to report. Still working on the novel. I've created an Amazon Author Page during my "downtime" (aka procrastination). This weekend, I'm looking forward to seeing the new Doctor Who tonight, and then going to the Julia Holter concert tomorrow. I got a weird email from a writer yesterday that kind of looks spammy: Hello Craig I am a writer. My focus was previously on erotica and romance stories. I find I am drifting more and more into transgressive fiction. Unless I say 'Fight Club' people just don't seem to know what I'm talking about, or even how to respond. My intent on joining this group is not to sale my work, but to find the words to easily talk about what I do in a way that doesn't scare people. Thank You! I have no idea how to respond. |
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Dead Can Dance played last night at Wolf Trap in Virginia, an outdoor venue. Under a waxing moon, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry sang their world music influenced tunes backed two keyboardists, and two percussionists. Lisa wore a sea foam gown with a golden priest's shawl, while Brendan wore grey trousers and a slightly rumpled buttondown shirt. They performed a good chunk of the new album, Anastatis, along with such songs as "Nieraka," "Sanvean," "The Host of Seraphim," and "The Ubquitous Mr. Lovegrove." Brendan did a couple of unreleased Arabic and Greek folk songs, while Lisa sang the theme to "Gladiator." The concert closed with Lisa singing an almost a capella Celtic-styled hymnal and gushing, "You're fabulous!" before floating off the stage.  |
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Hellbent is the name of the sacred/profane art photography service that the late Alex Ulrich (known as  13thofnever on Livejournal) set up. Do yourself a favor and visit it, and you will get a sense of the person he was, and his artwork. |
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 I never met Alex Ulrich in 'real-life.' Only online, first through Livejournal and then through Facebook, then Tumblr. Through his online postings, I saw a funny, raunchy, earthy man full of joie de vivre. We had a bunch in common, mostly music and movies. When I learned that he moved to Baltimore, about an hour away from me, I had as one of my goals to visit him in Charm City. I knew that he was going to see Dead Can Dance later this month, and it was a distinct possibility that I would meet up with at the venue a little before. I learned this morning that he was senselessly killed this weekend by a gunshot wound. I will miss his rambunctious postings, and am deeply affected that I will never get to meet him. |
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The memorial service for my Aunt Lou (4.24.47 – 7.9.12),a beloved fixture of my childhood, was perfect. Lou hated funerals; when she was a child, she was dragged to one, a 'wailer' as she called it, one of those funerals that are typhoon-like outpourings of grief, full of fainting, screaming, halleluiahs and hosannas and gnashing of teeth and rending of hair and it traumatized her. She vowed never to go to one afterwards. This memorial service, however, was the polar opposite. Yes, there was sadness but it was mostly a celebration of the best of her life and personality. It was a High Tea, complete with finger sandwiches, cookies, and of course, tea, both hot and iced, sweet and Southern style. This was done in her honor, because she collected teapots. She apparently had over 800 of them, culled and curated from yard sales, antique shops and I'm assuming eBay, from England, from China, porcelain beauties and novelty ones shaped like cats. A display of a smattering of her collection was placed on the church auditorium's stage, with a giant teapot, containing her urn in the center. Teapots from this collection acted as centerpieces for the various tables. During the service, groups of her friends got up and told mostly funny, sometimes touching stories about Lou. Despite liking teapots, a stereotypically 'girly' interest, she was anything but dainty. Once, while she was waiting in a bank line, a man asked her, “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” and she replied, “That's none of your business so turn right back around!” She was also a fixer of things, from cars to copy machines. I learned that she sang in a Catholic gospel choir (though she wasn't Catholic), travelled to Morocco by herself, worked for the FBI (admin) and even made a pilgrimage to London to visit the teapot museum—and managed to meet its curator. In the midst of these remembrances, there was a lovely solo by her niece. Aunt Lou also told a fascinating piece of family history. Her great grandmother on her mother's side grew up most of her life believing that she was a fair-skinned African American. In fact, she was Caucasian, the illegitimate offspring of the daughter of Northern Civil War general who gave the baby to his maid to raise to avoid scandal. |
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Here's the blurb: Rafael Fannen is a 13-year old boy who has won a minority scholarship to Our Lady of the Woods, an all male Catholic college preparatory school. He lives with his mother who is chronically ill with an undiagnosed illness and also suffers from mental illness, which no one will discuss. Winning the scholarship quickly turns into a nightmare, as Rafe has to deal with the racism of his fellow students and his teachers. Rafe has an ally in Tomas, another scholarship winner from his neighborhood, and they bond against the racism and classism of their fellow students. But that connection is soon sundered. In addition to the culture shock, Rafe also has to deal with his burgeoning sexuality. Rafe is caught staring at Toby, an attractive and charismatic classmate, in the shower, Toby begins a relentless campaign of bullying against Rafe, including violent encounters. When someone tags the school campus with graffiti, Toby makes sure Rafe becomes the chief suspect. It becomes so bad that even Tomas distances himself from Rafe. The only person who seems sympathetic to him is the chaplain, Vicar Angus Connell. But it soon becomes apparent that the Vicar has designs on Rafe. When Rafe decides to fight back and take control of his life, the lives of everyone around him will change. But none more than his own. Bereft addresses the issues of bullying, sexuality, child abuse, mental illness and racism in a haunting and deeply compelling style.  http://www.amazon.com/Bereft-Craig-Laura |
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My aunt Lou died today. This will be a post about her. The standing joke is, everyone in my family is a Black Sheep. We're all outsiders, in one way or another. Aunt Lou definitely marched to the beat of her own drum. She was fiercely independent and never married. Once, she took a trip to Egypt by herself on a whim, and when she took early retirement, she moved to Denver, Colorado, where she didn't know a soul. At the same time, she was quirky and funny. Remember the sitcom, What's Happenin'?!!? Shirley Hemphill, the wisecracking waitress on that show, could've played Aunt Lou. She was always calling people Turkey, as in, "shut up, turkey!" She called my younger brother and me, "Space Cookies." Remember the C.B. Radio craze? (It was a cross between ham radio and internet bulletin boards). She was in on it--she bought a c.b., and talked to truckers out in the highway. Aunt Lou, my father's first cousin, came from a small town in Pennsylvania to work in DC at Howard University. She was like a black Mary Tyler Moore: a career gal. She was lightskinned with loose brown curls that she'd occasionally braid. She was friends with a bunch of artsy folk from the University. She was apart of my childhood, and the preferred babysitter of my parents. She was tough as nail and took no guff. She would babysit us frequently, and she was the one babysitter you couldn't fool. But she was loyal. I remember when I was a little kid, I had a 104 degree fever and my mother was on work travel, Lou was the one who picked me up and bought my fever down. We lost touch when she moved to Denver. She will be missed. |
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1.1. A possibly transgender woman gets coffee in the workplace cafeteria. She radiates warmth and grace. When she leaves the coffee station, a bunch of middle-aged dudes start cracking up like she's the funniest thing they ever saw, turn into hissing, chortling junior high kids. She gets referred as "it." 1.2. It's superhot, and I left my inhaler at home, as I was feeling vaguely asthmatic when I step into the the tepid soup that is DC in the summer. |
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