Music Be the Food of Love...and Writing

I'm talking about music and writing today on LadySmut.com and how the one can inspire and feed the other. 



Come on over and share some of the music that inspires you.

Ipod Baby!!

My brand new, very first, ipod classic just arrived today. YIPPEE!!!!

I've already synced it up with my computer's itunes, corrected the gross error of transferring only Act I of Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, and may have even squeed once or twice. In a professional capacity, natch.

Now I realize that in today's electronic global marketplace, this is probably like saying I've just discovered that there's this new mechanical thing and when you pick it up and dial a number, it allows you to speak to other people clear across town - across the world even! While my writing friends and colleagues are debating the merits of Kindle versus the Sony Reader, I'm just giddy over my run-of-the-mill ipod.

Understand that while I am Gadget Girl, I am not the sort of woman who eagerly plops down hundreds of hard earned dollars on the Next New Thing. Mostly because there's always a better version of That Thing mere months down the road. But really because there always seems to be exponentially better things to plop that money on - like rent and food and petrol. There are easily a dozen different internal justifications I have to endure to allow an indulgence of this level. Imagine what subconscious machinations it took for me to purchase my laptop!

It helps that I (effectively) didn't pay for the ipod.

Thanks to a gift card from my company for my 5 year anniversary, my Christmas gift from my Dad and Judy, my old friend's apple discount, and my sister's Christmas gift generosity - possibly fueled by a latent desire to shut me up and just get the damn thing already! - it's a done deal. (See - self-justification in just four easy steps!)

The snazzy darling finally arrived this morning along with my dark red (but of course!) iskin and complete with personal engraving, which reads "Your Name Is Music. And I Will Sing." I'm listening to my man Van crooned down the electronic pathways this very moment. Yes indeed, it is a very Sweet Thing.

What's something you finally allowed yourself to indulge in? Do you have personal hoops to jump through before you allow yourself (or your SO) to purchase something special?

The Boys Are Back in Town - U2 Mania

I've been listening to the new U2 album No Line On the Horizon on and off all weekend thanks to the wondrous peoples at 107.1 FM The Peak. On Friday, they played the entire album, a new track at the top of every hour, and they've continued to sample tracks all weekend. Already I have favorites and the album doesn't even release until March 3rd! Though Get On Your Boots, the first single released on the radio waves, was a tad disappointing, it was fun and catchy. But the stuff I've been hearing this weekend blows that gimlet away as the meatier, more resonating songs lurk deeper in bowels of the album. Already, I am haunting the airwaves for snippets of Magnificent, title track No Line on the Horizon, White As Snow, and Breathe. I feel echoes of Achtung Baby! in the new tunes while new sounds and influences weave around to create something completely new. And in White as Snow, I swear I hear parts of the Christmas anthem O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Big thank you to The Peak! I'm vibrating with excitement. This is going to be something amazing.

Can't freaking wait. Perfect way to break in my new ipod!

Now I'm off to watch my fantasy lover blow us away as he hosts the Oscars.

All in all, not a bad way to start the week.

007 Is Tone Deaf - Movie Mondays

Oh, Mamma Mia. Here I go again.

OK, this one I had my doubts on. I only had a passing urge to see it in the theater this summer especially as, based on the previews, I thought for once here was something that Meryl Streep couldn't do, namely sing and dance. Turns out she isn't all that bad and actually manages to sing The Winner Takes It All rather well. It's not an easy song and one that goes on for-evah at that, so doing it really well is saying something. As for her dancing, well, not everyone was born with rhythm and she certainly plunges in fearlessly so points for that. It's still looks a tad odd - La Streep cavorting around a Greek isle in overalls while always trailing flowing pieces of cloth, shawls, sweaters, or disco arm bands like some sort of Pied Piper for textiles - but, okay.

I confess, I like ABBA songs, particularly Dancing Queen, Waterloo, SOS, Take A Chance on Me, and to a slightly lesser extent, Mamma Mia itself. Chirpy, bouncing, fun, and romantic tunes with good harmonies. What's not to like? And with this movie, I also get nearly 2 hours of Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard being cute and silly. Plus both Pierce and Colin take their shirts off and get wet - Remington Steele AND Mr. Darcy in the same scene dancing and singing bare chested in the faux rain. I don't need much more than that to be having a good time (maybe a little more.) I think the film may have caught fire at one point.

Good on ya.

The movie is really delightful. I laughed out loud over and over again at all the antics. Yes, it's mostly a chick flick, but so what? Julie Waters - best known far and wide and forever to the masses as Harry Potter's Mrs. Weasley - is an absolute scream and Christine Baranski and her never ending legs and wicked humor are as much of a good time as ever. Plus, it's filmed on location in Greece (or somewhere like it) and the scenery is absolutely stunning. And then there are those three lovely lads. I can turn a deaf ear to the musical missteps and general unlikeliness for the most part to get all that and just fall into the silliness and have a good time, which, after all, is all the film wants you to do.

Except for one thing.

Pierce Brosnan is tone deaf. Lord bless him, 007 can't carry a tune if it was strapped on his back. Only either no one making the film noticed - incredibly unlikely - or it's all good to them as it's freaking Pierce Brosnan and women from 4 to 104 will fill the seats to see him. So he has not one, not two, but at least three solo moments. I cringed every time he ballyhooed, repeatedly groaned Oh poor Pierce!, and prayed for temporary loss of hearing. With the chorus behind him and when he's not trying to be, you know, melodic, then he's - er - um - okay, but please God, don't give the man his own microphone ever again.

Good thing he's pretty. Still, oh so very pretty.

Speaking of the chorus, there is a gaggle of Greek laborers - maids, gardeners, plumbers, farmers, etc - that pop up behind the stars throughout the movie, mostly during the big numbers, to serve as the chorus. The Greek Chorus. I nearly peed my pants laughing when I figured that out (I'm Polish; it took me about 20 minutes, but I was there eventually). An actual Greek Chorus. During the end credits - and do, please watch the credits, don't flip the DVD right back to the menu or turn it off. Totally. Worth. It. - they show the actors who played the chorus floating on clouds, wearing ivy leaves on their brows, playing harps and accompanied by sheep just to point out for those of us that STILL didn't get it that they're the Greek Chorus.

Oh my giddy aunt.

It's not quite free, but take a chance on Mamma Mia anyways.

Rated PG-13 for risque themes and humor and one shot of Stellan Skarsgard's bare butt.

It's Not Old - It's Vintage

I tend to frequent an online radio provider called AccuRadio while I'm working. They have various themed stations that you can choose from. I usually favor the Swinging Standards station, all torch songs, Gershwin, Johnny Mercer and other like tunes from the 40s and 50s. I know a lot of them and can hum, harmonize, or just full out sing along while I edit. Much to my office mates pleasure, I'm sure. The playlists are limited to a degree though, causing lots of repeats, and after hearing Come Fly With Me seven or eight times by four or five different artists, I start jonesing for something else.

For the last few work days, I've been listening to the 80s station called A Flock of Eighties (A Flock of Seagulls - A Flock of Eighties, geddit? geddit?) Locating the eighties station took a little more effort than expected as I just could not find it featured anywhere on the AccuRadio home page. I knew it was there; I'd listened to it a week prior when the umpteenth Tony Bennett song nearly drove me (even more) batty. (Seriously dude, go join your heart in San Francisco and leave me alone.) But alas, the 80s icon wasn't prominent on the home page, so I started clicking on the drop down menus to see if it was sectioned somewhere special.

Where did I finally find it? THE OLDIES LINK.

Just when did the songs of my youth become oldies? Were my teenage years so long ago that the music of the era is now labeled in the same category as Elvis? And when did it become an era anyway? Cripes, I'm not even forty yet and I'm already in the oldies section.

They're not even oldies but goodies - not all of them. I mean the world would probably survive - flourish even - without Relax. (Remember those big white tee-shirts touting FRANKIE SAYS RELAX? I remember thinking Who the hell is Frankie and where does he get off telling me to relax?) For every Faith there's an I Touch Myself and for every Bad Medicine there's Rock the Casbah. I mean, who is Sharee, why doesn't she like it, what exactly is a casbah, and why are we rocking it again?

I feel like I've just become the target audience for Sweatin' to the Oldies. Does Richard Simmons now have an 80s version for those of us new to the geriatric persuasion? I know my ovaries still work - doesn't that automatically give me a pass?

Then I looked at the years that some of these songs came out. 1981? Really? In 1981, I was nine years old and in the mixed fourth grade/fifth grade class of Mrs. Sampson who used to be Miss. Monroe. That was the year I hid out in the bathroom while dressed up as Mrs. Piggle Wiggle for my oral book report. My Aunt Barb and Uncle Dick (the California Krums) had sent me a gift box of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books for Christmas. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is kind of like Amelia Bedelia, only she knows how to correctly draw curtains. (My sister's gift box gift that year was a Tolkein set that included The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy and currently resides in my dining room bookcase. Guess who's the only one of us to ever read them.) Mrs. Sampson - who did have long, thick, dark hair, incidentally, so the name kind of fit - had to come looking for me because I was too embarrassed by the outfit to leave the bathroom. It was some outfit - my mom outdid herself on it. Think Mary Poppins, only American and a little frumpier. I even had the shoes and the hat. It took a lot of work on Mrs. Sampson's part, but she got me into the classroom, where I was, as expected, viciously mocked, but I did the report anyway. Only get a B for it though, which I still think was a gip.

I swear it was just yesterday.

I remember those years. I remember those clothes, though I would just as gladly forget them. And it doesn't feel like a time whose soundtrack should be lumped in with the oldies. Surely not yet.

Consider my casbah officially rocked.

Musical Writing Support

The great Jennifer Crusie has a thing about making collages for your WIP. Presumably this is in order to help generate ideas, solidify character images, basically just give your novel form. (I'm not entirely sure on all her reasons because I've missed some stuff, but that's my take on it.) She's posted pictures of her collages and let me tell you, some of them are elaborate enough to just be beyond me. I'm already having to pep talk myself into writing, which mostly goes along the lines of "You don't have to be Nora Roberts or Jenny Crusie on your first try. Even they wrote lousy books in their early years. It's a process. Just write something," and then there's "Just 'cause no one else has come up with the idea doesn't make it stupid...it's original!" I don't think I could also motivate myself into arts and crafts hour to manifest my novel in artistic form. Especially considering my craft-impaired DNA. Although I can cut up a magazine with the best of them (a handy college-generated talent).

So I've set aside Jenny's superior advice for the time being in this instance.

One other thing she mentions about her creative process that I am definitely on board with is a play list for your character(s). My play list runs more towards relating to themes from the entire novel rather than just the main character, but there are definitely specific heroine and hero related tracks in the mix. That said, I believe it's impossible to remove yourself entirely from such an exercise - I'm not likely to include tracks that I hate, though I would if I felt it necessary. Ergo, many of the artists below will come as no surprise to many of you (what kind of play list would it be without Van the Man and Bono somewhere in the mix?) But I find them still to be very appropriate, with themes of trust, possession, holding on through rough times, sex, strength, violence, separation, loneliness, abandonment, redemption, love, rebuilding, hardening, searching for who is left after loosing a large part of your inner self, surviving, and coming out on the other side of something bad as someone better. Sometimes it's not the lyrics that apply, but the music itself and the sensations that listening to it evokes. I know it all sounds depressing when it's laid out like that, but it's not.

Really.

When I was choosing interval music for the one-woman play I did at the end of my senior year at college, I found that the music I'd been listening to in the months previous eerily applied to the play's themes as well. Such seems to be the case here.

Here then for your listening pleasure is Bronwyn's Mix:

Possession - Sarah Mclachlan
If You Want Me - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
I'll Be Your Lover Too - Van Morrison
Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us - Robert Plant & Allison Krause
Caledonia - North Sea Gas [This is a Dougie Maclean song but itunes doesn't have Dougie's version of it.]
Do What You Have To Do - Sarah McLachlan
Strong Enough - Sheryl Crow Live w/The Dixie Chicks
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2
Trampled Rose - Robert Plant & Allison Krause
All The Way Down - Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
La Belle Dame San Regrets - Sting
Short Skirt, Long Jacket - Cake
Hold On - Sarah McLachlan
If Ya Wanna Be Bad, Ya Gotta Be Good - Bryan Adams MTV Live & Unplugged
Reflejo De Luna - El Alacran
And The Healing Has Begun - Glen Hansard

Enjoy!

Monday's irreverent giggle

I busted out laughing at this response to Sarah Silverman's video on Jimmy Kimmel. At first I thought it inferior, but that's just the poor production of the post. I don't know what I loved more: the hair drying for couples, a scruffy Brad Pitt in a Fed Ex outfit, a fit and ripped Ben Affleck in a metallic, spandex shirt, the cake, the We Are the World spoof, Josh Groban on the piano - no, wait, it's definitely Harrison Ford in a blue Mini Cooper blowing a kiss.
WARNING: Even more NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY than the last one, but oh so funny, not the least because of the star power involved. Heeeee.

Oscar Dish

I'm keeping my Oscar dish short (my kind of short) because the whole world is blogging about the Academy Awards in one form or another. I think we have the Writer's Strike to thank for what feels like an unusual amount of coverage, even considering the hundreds of millions that watch the telecast every year in countries around the world. The dearth of awards shows this season, thanks to fears of picketing and, oh yeah, a distinct lack of writers to write the often cheesy intros and presentation banter, have made the Oscars the one sure thing for Hollywood's self-congratulatory love fest. The only other of note was the Screen Actor's Guild Awards. For once the Golden Globes presentation actually reflected the hypocrisy of the Globes themselves as the pitiful news conference/Entertainment Tonight slag fest it devolved into was an exercise in embarrassment and a case study in not knowing when to quit.

But what made the Oscars shine tonight was a miraculous event not seen in many a year: Everyone was having fun! Usually, by the time the gaggle of actors, directors, producers, cinematographers, costumers, documentarians, animators, and musicians, etc. get to the Oscars, the official conclusion to Spring's annual award frenzy, some just seem exhausted (underneath the layers of make up and designer togs), presumably worn down by the campaigning and the marketing and the glad handing and by answering the same questions over and over again. But with the strike deep-sixing the larger awards shows, last night was a somewhat rare occasion for the Hollywood elite (and aspiring elite) to have a good time looking gorgeous and celebrating each other (never mind the possible catty exchanges in the ladies room.) It was just plain fun.

Here are the bulleted highlights of things I enjoyed:

• How awesome is John Stewart? I enjoyed so many of his quips (I am NOT You Tubing them - much too much work for a Monday morning) but my favorite bit was him bringing out Marketa Irglova after the commercial break so she could add her thanks for the Best Song win, making up for the orchestra cutting her off pre-commercial. A thoughtful act for a woman who may never grace that stage again to have her moment in the sun.
  
• I've loved Daniel Day-Lewis since The Last of the Mohicans, but have admired him and been in awe of his talent and process longer than that. Somehow I missed his poetry of words (which shouldn't be that surprising considering that his father was Poet Laureate of England) but after the SAG awards acceptance speech and last night's speech, I am suitably in awe of his tongue (not that way!) as well.
• The seeming array of foreign winners last night, with Italian-, French-, and Spanish-accented English flowing out from the podium during acceptance speeches.
  
• Enjoyed Josh Brolin and James McAvoy's banter together and with Jack. I always like it when the presenters have fun with what they're doing. (Sorry Katherine Heigel, but get over yourself. You've been headlining Grey's Anatomy and taking on the boys in the Apatow oeuvre - you can handle this. It was like when Ashley Judge said she was just a Southern girl in the big city - for, like, 10 years already. Please.)
  
• Is Jack the Oscar mascot now? Always in the front row, repeatedly referenced by host and presenters alike, yucking it up with Regis. It's fun, but it's a little weird.
• Loved Helen Mirren, Hilary Swank, and Jennifer Garner's dresses (though Garner needs to get the hair out of her face and Mirren should know better than to wear fabric that wrinkles in the limo ride over - see what I learn from reading The Fug Girls!) Not so good? The vine climbing Anne Hathaway's chest, Jennifer Hudson's my-breasts-point- in-different-directions Grecian ode, Diablo Cody's I-really-was-a stripper-see-I- still-dress-like-one, nearly transparent, leopard-print mu-mu, and Tilda Swinton's I-was-so-nervous-I-ate-the-sleeve-on-one-side-of-my-dress-but-spared-the-other- side-so-you-wouldn't-think -I-was-strange black caftan-like dress. Didn't work honey. I think Swinton's an amazing actor, ever since her awe-inspiring turn in Orlando, but the girl seems a tad odd.
  
• Lovely, lovely George Clooney was everyone's favorite gent, despite not winning last night (always a winner in my book though, George!) I particularly enjoyed Tilda Swinton's recognition of the nipple-prominent Bat Suit she claims he continues to wear under his designer togs (I knew it!) And Day-Lewis' recognition of him on his (Daniel's) way up the stairs was a charming nod to lovely George. I love those impromtu moments.
• Daniel Day-Lewis' knighthoood. She may not be the real Queen Elizabeth, but Helen Mirren certainly rules that realm.
• Marion Cotillard. I found her win surprising - I thought Julie Christie had that one locked after the SAG awards - but I found Marion's enthusiasm and delight infectious. (Though what is the deal with having the Best Actress award at 10:30 and waiting another hour for the Best Actor award, coupling that award with the juggernauts of the evening, Best Director and Best Picture? I'm not liking the implications there.)
• Love that Glen Hansard and the aforementioned Marketa Irglova not only sang their ballad "Falling Slowly" at the awards show, but won Best Song over all the productions of Enchanted (which I saw and enjoyed) and the somewhat annoying "Raise it Up". Once is so the little movie that could.

Those were the moments that are still in my head (it was a VERY late night at my house, which had little to do with the Oscars). People said that in 2003 we had a return to glam after the subdued tone the 2002 Oscars had less than six months after 9/11. I would never lift anything to the same significance as 9/11 and certainly nothing as trivial (in comparison) as the Writer's Strike, but I had the sense of a return to having a good time and enjoying the evening in a similar way.

I know I enjoyed it.

Cinematic Harmony

I've been listening to the CD soundtrack from the movie Once in my car since I picked it up last Friday and I just have to mention it here because it's great and makes me happy.

But first a little about the film. Once is an independent film released last year about a Guy in Dublin with a newly dented heart (courtesy of ex-girlfriend) who fixes vacuums in his father's business but whose real passion is music. Every day he goes and sings on Grafton Street as a street musician, his playlist made up of the songs that attract the tourists and their money, but he breaks out his own material at night. He meets an Eastern European Girl who passes out flowers on Grafton Street. She approaches him while he's playing one night and sings (pun intended) his praises. They bond. They make music - literally. She inspires and encourages him to record a demo and helps him secure a bank loan to do so. He rustles up some street musician friends to be the band and they record said demo so that he can go to London, make up with soon-to-be-not-ex-girlfriend, and we are left to believe that success lies around the corner for him as he conquers the music business with his singer/songwriter tunes.

I thought the movie was lovely, but I can't laud it without caveats. It's a little slow and is basically a series of songs linked together by a nice little script, which makes it great if you're a fan of music but not so great if you're looking for a more traditional movie. It's has a typical independent film feel with a little shaky camera work and lots of use of authentic locations, which include the wonderful treat of seeing different parts of Dublin. Movies like this one often makes me wonder whether the people in the background are extras hired for the scenes or just regular people going about their day. I love the ambiguity of that. This guerilla style film making is most obvious when filming our street musician performing on Grafton Street in Dublin while hoards of shoppers and tourist flow naturally around him.

It's such a sweet story of a thirty-something man with a dented heart still seeking his dreams, playing his music when he can while fixing vacuums with his newly widowed father. He clicks with this woman who plays piano in the back of a piano shop on her lunch hour b/c she can't afford one for herself. In a very short time, these people have an enormous effect on each other, their lives subtly reinvigorated from their time together. They're never given names - simply listed as Guy and Girl in the credits - and I for one never noticed the lack till the end. And for a film marketed as a romance, there's very little overt romance in the film. They're just two people who click with together and fill a need in each other's lives long enough to get to the next step in their journey.

And then there's the music. I've been listening to it nearly nonstop since I bought the CD. I really like it; for some reason, the songs are still spinning around in my car and in my head. They're written (with the exception of two Van Morrison covers) and sung by Glen Hansard a singer/songwriter who is the former front man for The Frames and who plays Guy. I'd never heard of him before, but he's very talented and he sings every song on the CD accompanied on many by Marketa Irglova (Girl), also a singer/songwriter who contributes material as well. They're musicians, not actors, which makes me think that they were probably playing themselves for the most part in the movie, but it works, so no worries.

Really, it's the music that resonates with me more so than the movie. One scene that sticks with me where the music and movie function inextricably - one unable to exist without the other in order to create the desired effect - is when Guy takes Girl to a large dinner party where it's loud and boisterous with everyone having a good time eating and talking and then the instruments come out and there was music. I watched this scene and thought "this would be a perfect evening for me" and that's true because that is indeed what I would consider a perfect evening; good friends, great food and conversation, and then music and singing and joy.

I listen to track 14 on the soundtrack "And the Healing Has Begun" where Glen Hansard sings a cover of Van Morrison's great song with such passion and commitment...

we're gonna make sweet music under the stars/
we're gonna play to the violin and the two guitars/
and we'll sit down and play for hours and hours and hours and hours/
when the healing has begun

...and I think of that scene and the times I've sat around with people and music and just sang (something that hasn't happened in a long time) and had joy . I still find myself driving along listening to this track, thinking on this scene and smiling. Sweetly, sadly, but smiling.

Track #2 is another favorite where a very different emotion is evoked when Marketa sings:

are you really here or am I dreaming?/
I can't tell dreams from truth/
it's been so long since I have seen you/
I can hardly remember your face anymore/
when I get real lonely/
and the distance causes our silence/
I think of you smiling/
with pride in your eyes/
a lover that sighs/
if you want me/
satisfy me

It's so haunting, so aching with loneliness and desire, and yet so beautiful. I get out of the car and that song just stays with me, floating around in my head all day. Cinematic harmony.

So go rent the movie for a lovely film about two people at a crossroads who, for a short time, find kindred spirits in one another and are able to move to their next stage of life because of that brief relationship. Then get the CD and dive into the music. If you like acoustic guitar heavy, singer/songwriter music like Dave Wilcox, early Cademon's Call, or the great Van the Man, then give this a listen. And the healing may begin.