10 Year Plan Update: Writing

I think this one will actually need to go in two parts, because it ended up going so differently from how I envisioned it. Of course, I have blogged about writing a lot, so this may just be recapping things I have already said.

On one level, I was correct. I said that it could take me up to two years to get caught up on writing, and it looks like it will. That meant catching up on all the blog topics and revising existing screenplays and writing two new ones. I knew that I would need to be more detailed in my writing, but maybe I wasn’t sure what that would mean. Then, when that was done, I could move on to experimenting with photography and video and making shorts and all of the things that would lead to me being able to shoot an independent film in 2022.

Well, I don’t know that I can say that I am caught up in blog posts, as I keep digging myself in deeper. Many of the posts that I have not gotten to yet are tasks, and they are mostly tasks that I either have not completed yet, or I am not ready to talk about yet. One of those tasks is reading the manuals for my camera and video camera, so there is some correlation.

However, one of the tasks that I did complete was doing something with The Bear in the Net. I didn’t do what I thought I would do with it, but I did something, and hey, it has 26 hits now, and while I don’t know what all of them mean, I at least know for sure that a 17 year old in Singapore and her 11 year old sister loved it, meaning that I had a broader age base than I thought, and also some international reach.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-bear-in-net-by-gina-harris.html

I have reviewed all of the previously written screenplays, without having edited them yet, and I have a good start on a new one, though it is going kind of slowly. Still, I believe there is something good there, and the fact that it is more complicated to write, getting all of the emotions right, well, it’s good to stretch some. Not everything can flow like the comic book did.

Of course, the comic book is where things went remarkably off-track, but it has also been the gift that keeps on giving. First of all, it got me into good writing habits, because there was so much to write and to cover.

Because I knew it would never be filmed, and I believed it would never be drawn, I worked harder to make it interesting to read, where there were descriptions and where moods were established, because there isn’t ever going to be an actor interpreting the words, or a director instructing on the emphasis. Because of that, I believe I can write better scripts now.

Realizing that it was not enough for me to write, but that I needed to share it somehow, added another layer. It got me investigating different ways of sharing it, and learning more about technology, and now I am working with sequential storytelling in a new way, because it was just too long. So that led into dividing it into chapters, and deciding where good breaks were, and frankly, more rewriting, which has made it a little bit longer. And again, this is something where I now have some readers. Well, I think I do. I have no reviews or anything, but the different installments views ranging from 45 to 103.

Regardless of the other things I am working on, every week involves revising the upcoming chapter, and posting it, and then linking to it on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. I’m not sure that’s where I’m getting any of the hits, but it’s important to me to get brave about sharing my writing. People may judge it and judge me, and more often they may be completely uninterested, so posting those three links as if I am sharing something of value feels silly and uncomfortable, and yet I feel like it is training for when I am going to need to be aggressively promoting.

(Also, I have learned a lot about fan fiction, and how people use it, and there are some fascinating things to it, but I feel like writing about that and decoding it would be hurtful to the kids who need it. Maybe I will someday get to talk to someone who is freaked out by it, and explain why freaking out is not necessary.)

http://www.ficwad.com/story/207019

Also, and I haven’t even gotten into the drawing yet, but as I start visualizing the frames in my mind, I believe it will give me a better sense of the camera for when that time comes. For a drawing update, it’s like I have too much going on now to work on it, but I see a really slow approach happening. For example, if I just do basic sketches from existing comic books now, and then increase my drawing, and start tentative sketches of my own characters in April, after all of the chapters have been posted and I am no longer revising that, and just start really experimenting with color in the fall, ending the year with a much-better illustrated posting of The Bear in the Net, and don’t actually draw a single panel until January 2014, that can be okay.

I don’t mind taking my time getting it right. I care about the materials, and I care about quality. Whether my tendency towards self-criticism and perfectionism will be insurmountable is anyone’s guess, but I also did post a crudely drawn story and lived to tell it and even found some people who loved it, and I advertise easily marginalized fan fiction across three social networking/media sites, and I am living to tell about it. I guess I am building up some sort of reserves.

That being said, I always feel like I need more time, and that is very frustrating. I want more time to write. I am impatient about getting to when I am making videos of different kinds. I want to move on. The job is the big taker of time, and is the part of my life that I most want gone. For that to happen, I need to making money as a writer. That is the challenge. That will be part 2.

10 Year Plan Update: Travel

On an undisclosed day this week (fine, it’s Thursday), I will turn 41. Two days after turning 40 I posted about three goals that I had for things I wanted to do when I was fifty, and this seems like a good time to go over my progress.

On one level, I have made the least progress in travel. I have gone to no new continents this year, and the next three trips will also involve no new continents. However, the point is the journey as much as the destination, and I believe I can still be on schedule, so it works out.

In 2012 we went to Mexico, Alaska, and Idaho Falls. Mexico was a repeat, but I got to see more of it, and to see things that I had not seen before. That was good. Alaska was completely new, and I got to see a friend in Victoria. Idaho and Wyoming were also new, and I saw many cool things, and got to visit with another friend. All of these trips were shared with Julie and Maria, and a varied assortment of other motley characters.

One thing this led to is that I revived the travel blog. I had originally intended to do a few more posts about Australia, but it seemed like it might be getting repetitive, and then I entered that dark period where I just wasn’t writing anymore, and hey, we weren’t traveling for a while either. It’s good to have both of those elements back in my life.

I have been going in reverse order, so I wrote about Idaho Falls and Yellowstone first (August), then the cruise to Alaska (May), and I am currently writing about Mexico (January 2012). As luck would have it, I should publish the last Mexico travel post on the day we leave for Anaheim.

Oddly enough, I typed up some Disneyland tips for a friend that ended up being seven pages long, and I have since sent them to two other people. I have never really written about Disneyland, but there does seem to be some need, and thinking about that, and how to organize the material, is interesting.

I will probably start with the La Brea Tar Pits and the Santa Ana Zoo, which we visited on our last Anaheim trip, and then the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which we are visiting on this trip, and then figure out how to handle the Magic Kingdom.

In May, we are returning to Italy to visit our family there. This will be different because Julie and Maria have been there with Mom, and I have been there with Mom, but we have not been there together. Also, Lance and Lynn are taking a separate tour and will meet us at the end. Also, we have only been on day trips right around Vicenza, but this time we are branching out, and will take the train to some other places. So it is a repeat, but also new.

Sometime this summer, we will take a road trip to Mount Rushmore and De Smet. I haven’t been on a road trip for many years, and never going Eastward. Family trips were always North to Canada or South to California. Honestly, that time we ended up in Nevada seems to  have been due to a wrong turn, but I can’t be sure.

Clearly there are new things going on, but still limited to North America and Europe, which I have already visited. 2014 is Julie’s next sabbatical, and that will be more Europe—places we have not been, but still Europe. And the clock is ticking.

So, I just told my sisters that in 2015 I am going to go somewhere in South America, one way or another, and whether it an amazing trip covering the Galapagos, Machu Pichu, Buenos Aires, Isla Chiloe, Patagonia, the Amazon River, Rapa Nui, and Tierra Del Fuego, or it is only one of those, or a completely different destination I don’t know about yet, it is still going to happen. Though, I think I will just save Tierra del Fuego for my departure on the Antarctica trip. I’m not sure when I’ll get to Costa Rica, but that’s Central.

Anyway, they agreed that is fine, and the 2017 trip to Africa is their idea, so I know that will work out and the schedule is still totally workable. I have plenty of time to figure out my Asia itinerary. And again, as much as I do want to go to specific places, there are still exciting and new places popping up all over, and this is living the life that I want.

So this is a preview of how the travel blog will look for the upcoming future. If I end up finishing recording the latest trip before I take the next one, other places I have visited but have not blogged about include Vancouver, Toronto, Hawaii, and Italy, and the regular blog has seen some posts on San Francisco, San Jose, and Washington DC, but there is more I could write, and perhaps I will. I have some very strong thoughts on Oahu.

http://sporktogo.blogspot.com

And that leads us into an update on writing.

Finding Music

I started my music blogging in April, though the listening that led to it started earlier than that. Still, a lot has happened in less than a year, because what really kicked it off was Lisa providing her alternatives to my list of love songs, so that was around Valentine’s Day.

Since then, I have listened to a lot of guitar and a lot of crappy pop. I have fallen in love with My Chemical Romance, had my love for other bands deepened or rekindled, and been to four concerts, three of which were ones that filled specific holes in my concert-going history.

In terms of where I am now, I am still working my way through previously mentioned books, movies, and great guitar bands, but that has sort of paused as I have been focusing on preparing for concerts and then blogging about them afterwards. (See yesterday’s post for more on that.)

At one point, when it was just balancing Rolling Stone’s top 100 Greatest Guitar Songs list with exploring tween pop, I would wonder what would come next. I knew I was going to want to know more, and there was so much to know, and I was thinking about influences a lot.

One idea that led to was starting way back in time and moving my way forward. Partly it was thinking about the 80’s, and my theory that Republicans in office leads to bad times, but good music. If I could examine the musical history along with the social history and search for correlation, it would be interesting whether I found any or not.

Other things came up though that broadened the scope. For example, when Donna Summer died, people were reminiscing about how “I Feel Love” changed music. I had not heard it before, but I listened to it then. I didn’t honestly like it, but there was a story about how Brian Eno came to David Bowie with it and said this is the future of music, which is what Bowie thought they had been doing, but…

He said, "This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years." Which was more or less right."

So I was thinking about the knowledge it would take to immediately understand the significance of something, and to be able to accurately predict its future, and that is amazing to me. So, great respect for Brian Eno there, of course, but also, new appreciation for the song.

Also, Rolling Stone’s number one was Johnny B. Goode, and it seemed like part of that was its novelty. This was a new way of doing things, and it had an influence. Looking it up though, there are references to other songs that influenced it.

Also, I was remembering The End of the Century and at one point it showed this map of all the bands that sprung up everywhere the Ramones played. When we saw the rock exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society, they had something on the bands that sprung up from the Ramones concert here. Sometimes, when I was checking out new bands, there would seem to be little clusters that started around the same time, so who toured then?

The point is, I don’t even know how far back to go. Obviously blues, and jazz guitar, going into the 20’s. Do you look at Ragtime? Do you start with the invention of the phonograph? There’s so much to be explored.

That would be the most expansive way. Other thoughts I had were working my way through the diagram on the board from School of Rock which I actually did try once, but some of the bands were disappointing so I didn’t keep at it. I thought I could work my way through a Fanatic! If you are not familiar, Henry Rollins has a radio show, and then he puts together “song lists and notes”. He had a lot of musical knowledge and he gets some variety in there. He was the one who led me to “Babylon’s Burning” by the Roots. I have Volume 2 already. I would learn a lot from that.

As it is, I want to do all of those, but I don’t actually need to search for music, as it seems to come looking for me. Just from concerts I have seen recently, I have another seven bands to review. By the time I am done with them, I may have seen another one or two.

After that, I will start on the bands that have come to me via Twitter. That number is currently at 22. And, there is sort of a combination Twitter/concert thing on that which could add another 6-9 bands.

Also, reading the Hip Hop book and the Emo book has left me with a lot to listen to before I really understand that. I really want to write about Emo at some point, but I will need to listen to a lot more first.

Speaking of which, my young Twitter friends keep mentioning bands about whom I know nothing. I probably should check them out. It is completely possible that they fall into a new wave of Emo that happened after Nothing Feels Good was written. I do not know, but it feels like something I should know.

This is not to mention side projects that different band members have, or the 43 ones left from the comments on the top 100 list, or the question of whether I will try working through Rolling Stone’s top 100 guitarists, or that one book I will read is not finished now, because I realized I needed to go through it slowly, listening to each player as I read his interview. (That’s a collection from Guitar Magazine interviews in the 70’s.)

It also does not get into this feeling that I really want to delve into music theory, maybe take classes or start drumming again. I do not have time for it now, but maybe when I turn 50, and start my next 10 year plan cycle, I will put it there, so that in 2032 I will be part of a small rock combo. Because, you know, people are totally waiting for more geriatric rockers who did not successfully establish themselves before they were geriatric.

I guess all I really have is the continued confirmation that I want to know everything and see everything and try everything. I guess I want to listen to everything too. You know, today I listened to a black metal band from South Africa, and that’s not really my genre, but I liked it.

Anyway, back to the lists that started it all, they are both Spotify playlists now. I still like mine better, but I will always be grateful for the introduction to the Misfits. And Lisa is engaged now, so maybe she knows love songs better than I do. I admit, you shouldn’t listen to mine when you are depressed about no one loving you. Trust me on that one.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/04/non-annoying-love-songs-and-alternative.html

Writing about music

I thought I was falling into this pattern where I would write band reviews on Thursday and Friday, and other content on the other days, until I was done. That will still be the overall pattern, but there are a few glitches.

First off, my writing on Monday and Tuesday this week instead of Thursday and Friday last week was that I did not feel like I had gotten the material down well enough yet. They were both bands I had not seen, which was certainly part of it, but also, I want explain my process a little.

What I like to do is listen to all of a band’s available catalog a few times. Ideally, I will listen to it backwards and forwards. No, not checking for hidden messages. I mean that I think there is some value in listening to the music in the order of release to see how they’ve grown, but also value in listening to the newest first, to see who they have become. I’m not sure that the order actually makes that much difference, but if you are listening more than once, might as well change it up.

Ideally I will have two listens, as well as checking out videos and Twitter accounts and such, and then I will write a draft of the post. On my third listen, I will have the draft up and add notes about my reaction to specific songs, and if there are any key words or things that pop up, and I will incorporate those.

Since that is a lot of listening, and I still want to listen to things I already know I love regularly, I can’t really do more than two a week. Well, I’m trying to figure out what to do about the Killers concert, because there were two opening bands, and I might do three reviews that week, or combine the two into one post, and I will figure that out after next week when I cover the Gin Blossoms concert.

I do always tweet my blog posts when they go up, and use hash tags for key words. I have gone back and forth on whether to actually send it to the band: @ versus #.

First of all there is the question of whether they will care at all. For the bigger ones, it probably doesn’t matter as much, because they will be getting some press anyway. For some of the smaller ones that are coming up, it could be important. Okay, maybe only nine people will read the post, but they could easily be nine who had never heard of you before, and I post all of the pertinent links. Well, I don’t post to iTunes, but if you have any links at all, and are on iTunes, you surely link to it yourself, and besides I really hate them, possibly unfairly.

If I say good things I think, hey, you can show your Mom! However, I have not ended up doing straight reviews. There is always this inclusion of my personal reaction, or how they fit into the overall scene, or how they can improve. Generally I end up being fairly positive, but I am not raving.

Also, I end up feeling very inadequate a lot of the time. Sometimes I just don’t have the vocabulary or the background knowledge. Oh, I really like that…is that a slide? What do you call that? I’m not even sure that I’m using the term bridge properly. (Though, depending on my readers, it may actually be better that way.)

So, those are the concerns I’ve had, and a reasonable concern might be to add that I am inviting every one of those bands into my head, because after all of that listening, they are a part of me. I have songs from Parachute, and Boys Like Girls start playing in my head all of the time now, without that ever being intended. I’m not too worried about that. Plus the entire question of whether it even matters.

However, I am encouraged by a few things. One is that I have been picking up new followers who are not only bands, but also that do promotion or music software or things like that, with a general interest in music. Alright!

Also, I got a tweet from someone yesterday asking if I had ever heard of Sunderland, and giving me links to them. Okay, she is a fan who contacts many people, not someone who has necessarily been reading me and certainly had not read that post. Anyway, I told her I had reviewed them and gave her the link, and this is what she wrote back:

“Well said. Fair and honest. Glad you gave and continue to give them a chance.”

I had a lot of doubts about that one specifically, because of the focus on their youth, but someone who reached her Tweet limit trying to get people to pay attention to the band she loves (I don’t know if she has a personal connection) thought it was okay. So, maybe I’m not so bad.

Which is good, because it is pretty much what I feel like I need to do, and based on material I will be doing it for a long time.

Get attached

Getting back to the Hobbit, in the process of this post I am going to reveal that two of the characters die in the book, therefore I assume they will in the movie. Actually, make it three. So, if you don’t want to know this, skip the next two paragraphs.

I had admitted that I was crushing on two of the characters, and I am not the only one. Cathy, who went with us, is very fond of Richard Armitage, but he usually plays nasty characters, and usually dies. I could confirm for her that Thorin is not a villain, but he will die, along with Fili and Kili.

Yesterday on Twitter, one girl was angry and lamenting because after seeing the movie she cannot bear that Kili dies, which she knows from the book. I could not provide much comfort there. She has about six hours spread out over two years, I guess, before it happens, but it will happen. Jackson may be making some changes from the book, but I don’t think he will alter that. (Cathy is simply not going to see the third movie.)

Finally today another was saying how it is awful to get attached to people in books because there is no one like that in real life.

I have been thinking about this in general. Let me backtrack a little. I am often interviewed in my mind. I have thought this was an embarrassing sign of vanity and thinking of myself as special, but apparently this is common, and I think I understand it now. Sometimes it is helpful to sort out your own thoughts in the form of a dialogue, because it can create the structure that you need. You are getting to where you could explain it to someone else, which is important, but you are doing it for yourself. So if you do this too, don’t feel bad.

I do this a lot with my writing, because often to make something come right you need to understand it on different levels. The comic book has been such a huge part of my life that I have given a lot of interviews about it.

Without giving too much away, some (mental) interviewer was saying that they loved a certain character, and my initial response was to cringe a little and warm him not to get too attached, and then I stopped myself because the whole point is to get attached.

I mean, if you’ve been following along, I’ve made no secret of the fact that the death count is fairly high. This was unexpected, because I started writing it specifically because I could not leave four people dead, and then I just ended up killing a bunch more, including three of the original four.

That wasn’t an accident. The video hit me the way it did because of things I was already feeling and needed to work out, and some of that is that this is a harsh world, and bad things happen (a lot) and the mortality rate of life is 100%. That’s just how it turned out, and it hurts and it should hurt. (I guess my mental interviewers love my characters because I love them.)

And it is still no reason to not get attached. What makes the hard and painful moments worthwhile are the relationships and the love that come before and after. When someone dies, it doesn’t mean that you didn’t love them or they didn’t love you or that you didn’t have some of your best times with them. That not only was real; it still is real. Rejecting that because it is temporary sucks all the beauty and joy out of life.

I admit that it is easier for me to feel that way because I have complete faith that it does not end here, and that we will all see each other again. It doesn’t remove the initial pain of separation, but it does comfort me, and it infuses everything.

Still, not everyone believes that, and so I tried to think, if you believed this life was it, how would that change it? I don’t know the answer, but I believe that holding onto people—enjoying them, loving them, getting attached to them—would still result in a more satisfying life. I think it’s at least worth a shot.

When literary characters die, well, they’re alive again whenever you open the book back up, and probably in death they are helping you feel and know things that will relate to life, so there’s something to that.

As for literary characters not being real, the fact that someone could conceive of them makes them possible. I was surprised sometimes at who turned up in my writing, as I realized that elements of them had come from people I already knew. If nothing else, the author is real, and their mind created something that yours responded to. That’s not bad.

Band Review: In Passing

So, the final post of the Rejects concert, written slightly over two months after it happened.

While we were waiting in line there was this guy working his way through the line, and he was in a band, In Passing, that had nothing to do with anything happening in the concert hall. He had a small speaker hooked up to, I think it was his phone, and he would let people listen to a track, and selling downloads.

Basically, for $10 you could get a card with their site and a download code, so you can go and download the album. That is actually kind of brilliant. Overhead is low, people in line for a concert may indeed be willing to buy your music, and a lot of people are moving away from ever having CDs, though I am not one of them.

He was also selling band necklaces for $10, and you could get the album and the necklace together for $15, which he said they called “the happy meal”. That seems a little presumptuous, because I think I will need to listen to the whole CD a few times before I know that I want to wear your necklace. Also, I don’t really wear necklaces that much. Anyway, Rebecca and I each bought the album. I would be curious to know how he did overall. It’s an interesting strategy.

Having researched a little more, I am assuming it was the drummer, Troy, because although they are from Orlando, he seems to be living in Portland now. Actually, I am going to another concert at the Crystal tonight (Keane), so that will be funny if I run into him again.

I still wouldn’t buy the necklace, but checking some tweets and blog posts, it looks like this fits in with their overall strategy and has been somewhat successful. They borrowed an RV and followed Warped Tour around, selling CDs and necklaces, and people seeing the necklaces and recognizing them when they would run into band members was helpful.

It is not easy establishing a presence, and you need to be open to some creative thinking. It looks like they used a Kickstarter to fund their album, and basically they are doing their own thing.

Looking at some Youtube videos, I heard them describe their music as “radio rock”. I have not heard this term before, but I would expect that to mean music that is very listenable as background, but probably not with a lot of experimental or high concept tracks. That would probably be a fair assessment.

This is not a slam on the music. I have enjoyed listening to it, but it hasn’t necessarily made a lasting impression on me the way some other bands have. If you go to their web site, it plays Lost Your Faith, and that’s a good starting point, and probably the one that makes the strongest impression. Qualms about their edginess aside, there is a definite undercurrent of funk in general, the songs do sound sincere, and also, the very last of the MP3s downloaded, “Home”, sounds decidedly different and makes we wonder if they are branching out.

Anyway, I am sure I will listen again, because I do like the album, and I own it, and I like their pluckiness in going for it by making their own plans rather than hoping for a deal, which means completely different things than it did ten years ago.

http://inpassingmusic.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/inpassingrock
http://www.facebook.com/inpassing
http://twitter.com/inpassing

http://journeytobecomingone.tumblr.com/

Band Review: Boys Like Girls

First off, just to be clear, the name appears to be a statement affirming that boys do like girls, rather than a reference to boys who are like girls. Tyson experimented with different emphases and inflections a bit on stage.

Now, this is where I have to confess a bit guiltily. I did not stay for their performance. I was ready to. I had listened to some of their music in advance, which I had not done with either Sunderland or Parachute because I had no idea they would be there. However, I was there for the All American Rejects, and despite my total enjoyment of the evening, and my confidence that I would enjoy the rest of the show, I was so tired that having seen our band, we ditched.

I am an old person, I hadn’t been to a concert in a long time, and I had been standing and dancing for the whole show, because there is very limited seating there, and in some ways that is cool, and makes the show more fun, but it also wears you down faster and most of the audience was significantly younger.

This feeling of guilt makes me want to give them a great review to make up for it, and I am planning on reviewing some bands that I have not seen as well as the ones that I have, and actually, the other band affiliated with that night is also one I have not seen, so I guess it works. Guys, I’m sorry.

And it is totally not a bad review, though it is somewhat mixed. I mentioned how with Parachute there was an occasional country influence, that really came through on one particular song. With Boys Like Girls, there are several songs that feel country, and others that feel very much pop, perhaps dance club style. Wikipedia calls them a rock band in the heading, then under genres in the sidebar lists pop punk, alternative rock, and power pop. Spotify refers to them as emo-pop, but “emo” gets thrown around rather indiscriminately, and I’m not sure that works; it seems like there should be more self-flagellation for that. In the expanded biography it expands to emo-pop turned country-tinged pop outfit.

Actually, that right there might be an excellent argument that genres are pointless, but I’ll add my two cents, and say in some ways, it feels more to me like you have two bands sharing space, and one is country and one is pop. (I don’t even know how to differentiate between power pop and pop punk; is it the presence or lack of power chords?)

Anyway, some bands will create side projects to try different things, often separating temporarily, or just taking on a different name, like Green Day and Foxboro Hot Tubs. Also, you will often find bands that go through different phases, sometimes as a natural progression. There are certainly musicians who have moved to country after starting as something else (Nelson, Darius Rucker).

What’s interesting with Boys Like Girls is they seem to move back and forth on the same album. “Heels Over Head” may be their most pop song, and “Thunder” and “Hero/Heroine” both feel much more country-tinged, but all three are on their self-titled debut album from 2008. “Broken Man”, also there, may actually be their most representative song, because I hear hints of rock, pop, and country. Of course, it is on the second album, Love Drunk, where we get a title track with a video featuring Ashley Tisdale, of High School Musical fame, but that’s also where they’re working with Taylor Swift for a Hannah Montana movie—talk about your country-tinged pop!

So, it’s interesting to me, and this is where I feel that I really would have a better grasp on them if I had seen them live. Bad concert-goer. Therefore, all I can do is look at the songs, and feel like there is some lack of organization and clarity, and like I don’t really have a grasp on the band.

I will say there is some definite musical diversity. It’s not just that the song styles seem to go back and forth, but they pull out some interesting things, where on “Crazy World” it almost seems like a 70’s throwback, and while I do not really like the term “butt rock”, there are some song intros where it seems to apply.

My favorite songs are the previously mentioned “Heels Over Head” and “Love Drunk”. There’s an exuberance to them. You would think I would shy away from the country-sounding ones, but “Thunder” is really beautiful. “Hero/Heroine” doesn’t work for me. I think the words and tone of the song don’t form a unified concept, and it bugs me. On the other hand, I am pretty sure that I am missing something about “Red Cup Hands Up Long Brown Hair”, and I still love it. “Be Your Everything” sounds to me like it should be a Trisha Yearwood song, and there might be some positives for the band in that happening.

Sometimes timing helps. I started listening to them around New Year’s, so finding “Five Minutes to Midnight” fit just right, and I liked it, but maybe I liked it more due to timing. Regardless, the song is still kind of a party. I also ended up being really fond of “Up Against the Wall”.

Now, I said I wasn’t sure if the “emo” label worked (honestly, I’m still wrapping my head around how to use that properly), but there is definite sadness at times in the music. There is a real poignance to “Great Escape”, despite it being an upbeat song, and to “First Time” as well, though for different reasons. There is the passage of time, and maturation.

I do need to say that Crazy World definitely has the most mature and diverse sound, which indicates growth as a band and I like to see that. It looks like there were questions about whether the band would continue, and then suddenly there is an album and tour dates in 2012, and a bit of a change in the line-up, but it seems to give an extra resonance to the line on “Life of the Party” (which has a really interesting intro and rhythms):

“Smells like Boys Like Girls is back.”

Glad you made it gentlemen. Maybe it did all come crashing down, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

http://www.boyslikegirls.com/

www.facebook.com/boyslikegirls

http://twitter.com/BoysLikeGirls

A year in books

One thing that I have always wanted to do is submit something to Steve Duin’s reading contest. I knew that I could never win for most pages read, because some people are obviously much faster readers, or have more time, or something, and I just can’t compete on that level. However, it occurred to me that I might have a chance at most interesting essay.

I have never gotten around to it. After all, I am a procrastinator, and my reading can end up being kind of random, where forming a cohesive essay might be unlikely. Still, with Goodreads I can easily look over my reading for the year. I am still not entering, but I can totally do a blog post.

My first book of 2012 was the last book of my 2011 Black History Month reading: Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey (by Brian Urqhart). I started my 2011 Native American Heritage reading right away, and I remember starting Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian on the plane back from Mexico, and starting to cry almost immediately.

Of course I blogged about both of those history months, and the 2012 Black History month at the time, and shortly after I started my comic book reading, which led to many blog posts, but what you may not know is that in between there were some books on Tellington Touch and dog obedience training, as well as some true crime and a prison camp memoir. Then, there was reading about music, and finally finishing Guns, Germs and Steel.

I guess the first point to make is that if you are not friends with me on Goodreads, please consider doing so. I love book-related interaction.

Another point is how it all relates to my brain. For example, the true crime book contained issues of questionable confessions and overturned convictions after later DNA testing, which was interesting to me based on other things I had read, especially due to the continued belief by the prosecutors in the guilt of those convicted and then released. Later, when I was reading Anatomy of Injustice, by Raymond Bonner, it just reinforced it.

Thinking about music accidentally led me to thinking about feminism, but researching comics brought up issues, and certainly reading Half the Sky (by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu-Dunn) not only reinforced some point, but also brought me new thoughts on how misogyny and racism relate to fear and power, but in ways that make people sabotage their own self-interests.

Guns, Germs and Steel overturns a lot of the assumptions people have made to reinforce beliefs in racial superiority, making good arguments for why things turn out they way they do, and did, and that reading was enriched by an article I read about the One Laptop Per Child program.

Reading The Real History of the End of the World helped me understand not only why one person loaded his trailer and took it to be near the Hopi before December 21^st,  but also a very strange conclusion to the Black Stallion series. Also, reading about Emo makes my interactions on Twitter make so much more sense.

Obviously, I have written a lot about these various books, and there are other things that I know I will write more about, but it is interesting because there is so much to know, and sometimes it seems like you have to know a lot of different things for the different pieces to click.

I remember the first time that I felt like I would need to go back to a book was when I read Baa Baa Black Sheep by Pappy Boyington. He referred to a lot of things without explaining them. I looked up many, but I felt like I was still missing a lot by not knowing more about World War II, and that maybe after reading a lot more, I should go back.

That happened with many books this year. The first one that comes to mind is Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, by Jeff Chang. There was so much in there that was new, and I don’t think I took it all in. I learned a lot, but maybe not as much as I could. Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia was like that too. Maybe I will return, or maybe as I learn more I will find out that the blanks are getting filled in anyway, and that it will all go together.

Overall, though, what I find is that everything connects. It is all part of some unified whole, and maybe at some point one thing will click so awesomely that it is overwhelming, and there is a flash of light and I fall backwards, but the resulting concussion causes some memory loss and I need to keep at it. I don’t know.

Here is what I can tell you about the coming year. Over the holidays I was not thinking that messing with library requests would be productive, so I started one that had been sitting on my shelf, and it is boring, so I think it will break it up while reading other things. It is time to start requesting the Native American Heritage month 2012 reading. This will consist of Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne, The People are dancing again by Charles Wilkinson, The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara, and Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means. I will also watch Reclaiming Their Voices, by Dorothy Fadiman.

I do already have a request in for Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (I am doing something with poetry right now that will be a different post), and I really need to get around to reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

Obviously, I will start Black History month late, again, but that will include Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus by Ana Maria Spagna, Mirror to America by John Hope Franklin,  Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr, and Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon. There is a related documentary that I hope to watch as well.

There are more music books and more comic books. I want to have more comics read and reviewed before Killjoys comes out (there is a promotional item coming out in May for Free Comic Book Day, and then the series proper starts in June). I have sections on autism and on affluence that I want to get to, and that may be this year and it may not. As much knowledge as I wish I already had, there is enjoyment in the process of getting it, and I don’t want to skip that.

Otherwise, when I first read Reviving Ophelia, I told myself that I should go back and read it again before I had teenage daughters. That does not seem to be happening, but nonetheless, it seems to be time to read it again.

Also, I have decided that before I hit 42, I should read the Hitchhiker’s books. I had looked into somehow incorporating Sum 41 into this birthday, and that will not be happening, but Douglas Adams is in.

It Boys and Girls

I’m not ready to post the next couple of band reviews yet, but I thought I could still do something entertainment-related.

I don’t watch a lot of television, but I do read a lot about it, and that led to noticing two things. From the watching, the series I primarily watch are Grimm, Once Upon a Time, and Person of Interest. I also watch Jeopardy, Modern Family, and White Collar, so one game show, sitcom, and cable series, but of the three network dramas, the interesting thing is that Amy Acker appeared on all three of them this year.

I did not watch Angel regularly, so I was not familiar with her work, but I have to say that she played completely different characters in all three, and actually in both Grimm and Person of Interest she played people who were adopting other personas to accomplish their own nefarious purposes (with varying levels of conflict), and I have to say, I am pretty impressed. I think she is very likely to return to Person of Interest, and I hope she returns to Once Upon a Time, for Grumpy’s sake.

Speaking of Once Upon a Time, that was also my first real exposure to watching Giancarlo Esposito. However, reading about television, he appeas to be on everything. Not having seen the performances, I don’t know how wide of a range exists between Gus Fring and Major Tom Neville, but I’m pretty sure neither of them is much like the Magic Mirror/Sidney Glass. Anyway, reports come back that he is a super nice guy, and he has played some super not nice guys, so I’m guessing he has some range too.

I’m just going to go out on a limb and assume that both of them are liked and respected, and that leads to them getting hired a lot—people know they can deliver the goods and they like working with them. I like that. I know it doesn’t necessarily bring you tons of fame and money. Actually, the acting profession is a few big stars, and a lot of broken dreams, and also a large number who toil away and do great work. They know they are lucky to be able to make a living acting without also waiting tables, and ideally that is enough because they don’t get a lot of fame.

So, I guess the point of this is just to give some extra accolades. Well done Amy Acker! Good job Giancarlo Esposito! You have enriched my year, and the viewing of many others. Thank you.

Walton Goggins, I have only seen you in Cowboys & Aliens, not the best-regarded film, I know. Nonetheless, I really liked you in it, and I read great things about your work. It’s not just your series roles, because it sounds like people are not going to be able to forget your guest spot on Sons of Anarchy.

Ken Leung, you are new to me, but I enjoyed you a lot. Judith Ivey, I am never not happy to see you. Suddenly, I remember that I am missing Joe Morton. I always know he is going to deliver the goods.

There are a lot of you like this. You won’t be recognized as the Most Valuable Players, but you are so valuable! Instead, you are “Hey, it’s that guy!” or “Where have I seen her before?” I usually can narrow it down, but IMDB helps a lot. And yes, I could watch you all a lot more, if I watched more television and movies, but you know, I probably enjoy them more for limiting it. Critics who watch everything get really jaded about everything.

So for now, all I am doing is saying, “Thanks. I like you.”

(I hope you get some real honors too.)

Thoughts on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

There may be some mild spoilers, but probably not many.

As planned, I did go to see The Hobbit on New Years Eve. For the record, we saw it in 2-D. Some people who saw it in 3-D felt like the missed things, which seems weird to me. For me, I wear glasses and I think having the 3-D glasses over them makes it so I am not getting the full effect anyway, so I am usually not interested in 3-D.

I went with my younger sisters, who have seen the LOTR trilogy but not read any of the books, and a friend who has not read or seen anything related, though she is a big fan of British actors, so was happy to recognize some people.

For my background, okay, I know a lot of people criticize the Ralph Bakshi movie, and the truth is, I probably don’t remember enough to know if the criticism is fair, or if I even saw that one. It is possible that all my memories come from the two Rankin Bass movies. I know that I saw all of the Hobbit at an assembly in grade school, and that in fifth or sixth grade I read The Hobbit, but I had seen the movie because I remember knowing the tunes for the songs when I would get to them in the book.

Also, at some point on television I remember seeing Eowyn avenge her uncle, and being completely taken, and reading those books as well. That is more likely from The Return of the King than The Lord of the Rings. (I also remember a completely different interpretation of Denethur than the John Noble one). Anyway, I then had to read those books too.

And this is where the difference really comes into play, in that I know I missed a lot from the trilogy. It was a completely different tone, with a much broader scope, and it was darker, and epic, while The Hobbit was much simpler and more innocent, as well as considerably shorter. I read it multiple times, and sometimes with the trilogy I wonder if maybe I skipped The Two Towers, because there are gaps in my memory, when really based on what I do remember I think it is just that a lot of the trilogy was over my head.

Obviously, I was surprised that they were going to make three movies out of The Hobbit, because it is much shorter than the source material that produced the other three movies, and again, the tone is so different, so I was curious how they were going to go with that, and if I would mind.

Well, there was good and bad. First of all, I was delighted to see Ian Holm get a part, and that goes into a larger appreciation for the obvious loyalty that Peter Jackson feels for his actors, based on who else turned up. That being said, I think it was overdone. They could have had a brief glimpse of Holm and gone straight to Freeman, and skipped the inclusion of Elijah Wood at all, and it would have been fine. That being said, it was interesting to see some of the shared mannerisms of the three actors, as if they observed each other and created a family resemblance. I’m not saying that they used anyone who wasn’t good at what they do.

Based on the book, I was expecting Elrond, which we got, and not Galadriel, thought I think that inclusion worked, and not Saruman, which was distracting because I kept wondering if he was evil yet, or perhaps just on his way, heading there due to pride.

To explain the rest, I will go to after the film when we were talking and I was answering book questions, and Cathy asked me if fans would be mad at the changes. Well, probably some will. On one level, it is bringing in information from the other books, and integrating the related materials, and so they could really like that, and I don’t mind that. Actually, the first thing I wondered when I heard that this would be three films is if Jackson was going to find a way to bring in Tom Bombadil. (I have no idea.) For that part, fans may love it.

On a different level, if you like the book The Hobbit, and its tone, taking that innocence and simplicity and moving it towards something different, though good on its own merit, can feel wrong. And that kind of leads to before the movie, when we saw trailers for After Earth, Oblivion, Man of Steel, and the new Star Trek movie. I did lean over to Cathy and whisper “They sure are destroying the earth a lot,” which was true, after I had my private thoughts about preferring Wall-E to Tom Cruise, but more than that I was thinking, does everything have to be so bombastic?

Now, we were at a big budget blockbuster, so that was the kind of previews we were seeing, and I get that. I just like quiet movies, with relatable issues. (Says the girl who wrote 415 pages set in the post-apocalyptic dystopian future, yes,, but it is full of simple, human moments, would not require many special effects or any CGI, and there are no killer okapi stampedes.)

Also, once you start pumping things up, it becomes so easy to veer into the ridiculous, where you have unrealistic falls and swings and things that were irritating in Pirates of the Caribbean and feel out of place here.

So that leads to the other question Cathy asked, about selling out, because we had mentioned Lucas and Spielberg, and they have all given me some great moments, and I wouldn’t call any of them sellouts, because I don’t think they do it for money. Yes, they end up with a lot of money, but really, I think they are big kids having fun playing with their toys, and falling in love with the possibilities, and at some point maybe they lose touch with reality. After all, it is already in the realm of fantasy or science-fiction, so the rules shouldn’t be as strict, but still, there are things that will seem real, and things that won’t. I need to quote something from a Spielberg movie here:

“Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.” (Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, could very well be from the book)

There were things that were great about The Hobbit, and I had a good time, and I am crushing a bit on Richard Armitage (Thorin) and Aidan Turner (Kili). I am thrilled to see Martin Freeman, because after Hitchhikers he said he was retiring, and I prefer him being around. He makes a good Bilbo.

Also, there were things that annoyed me about The Hobbit, and that took me out of the film, which I don’t remember being an issue with the LOTR trilogy, and so if you liked it or hated it, or were ambiguous about it, yeah, I get it.

You know, there’s a good chance I won’t be in a theater again until Valentine’s Day? My sisters think that’s the perfect time to see the new Die Hard, which will be my first Die Hard ever. I suspect that one may be a little bombastic as well.

Resolved

I have read some impressive  resolutions for the new year. Some of them seem attainable, but most do not, just because they are too ambitious, and life has a strange way of being inconvenient.

I’ve been thinking about it because of how much I used to hate Personal Progress. If you’re not familiar with it, that is a program the young women do in my church. It is somewhat similar to scouting, in that you have areas of focus where you set and complete goals. Where it is different was that it is not so much arbitrary skills for merit badges, as looking for ways to improve. That was the part that irritated me. If you notice something is wrong fix it but otherwise just be happy!

Of course, back then I was someone with a gaping hole inside, and I didn’t want to be looking at it. Part of that was the sense that it would hurt, but I think more of it was believing that it was not fixable, and so it was just rude to look at what was wrong with me, because I was stuck like that. Really, though, it was all more felt and sensed than thought.

I guess I have come full circle now, where I am all introspection all the time. The hole is still there, and I still suspect it can’t be fixed in this lifetime, though I may be wrong about that. The thing is, I thought its size and shape were worse than they really were, and it has become something I can live with by examining it, and also, there is so much more to me than that, and that required looking to see.

So now I totally see the value of goals and of milestones, and yet I’m still not setting any resolutions really, and people get silly. New year, new me? No, almost certainly not. I will spend this many hours exercising/reading/drawing/practicing? Maybe, but probably not.

That’s not to say that you can’t change and accomplish things, which I totally believe it, but sometimes I think we get this euphoric belief in the power of mind over matter and let it go to our head, leaving the mind inadequately prepared for the matter.

2012 was an amazing year, and I did change, and that was good. Some of it was intentional, and some of it was not, but it led to other intentions. I did set long-range goals, and I am working on those, but those happened right after my birthday. I will probably do some follow-ups there. That was intentional.

Part of the writing goal was blogging, and I did try and capture something about love songs, and I did share it with someone, and that did lead to me listening to the Misfits and falling in love with My Chemical Romance. That was not intentional.

Falling in love with My Chemical Romance led to blogging more, listening to more music, and getting traumatized enough by one music video that it led to my pouring all of my hurt and their music into 415 pages of fan fiction, that then led to a lot more blogging and exploring of new technology, including more social networking media. Not intentional.

And of course, the whole social networking thing led to one day where just as soon as I thought “Follow Friday is stupid” I thought, that’s not fair, and accepted all of the suggestions for that day, and suddenly my feed was full of teenage angst and acronyms I did not even understand. Exactly what does “ratched” mean? It is like “wretched” or is it based on that cog-like adjusting thing for socket wrenches? I have no idea. And yet, I have really grown to love them and sometimes I think I am even helpful to them. Not intentional!

The biggest thing that I planned to do and did this year was that I finally broke the computer game habit, which took much longer than it was supposed to, but to write at the level I want it was necessary, and I am glad it was there, and although I could easily fall back, I won’t, even though I know I could be awesome at SongPop and Words with Friends, but it’s better this way.

Oh, and the exercising more was deliberate, and it has paid off, though certainly I have not met my ambitions or my full potential there. I am maintaining it though, and I would probably not be able to maintain what I think I should be doing, so there’s that.

So this is what has happened this year. I wrote 480 pages of script. This is not my most productive time period, back when I wrote the first six screenplays that was 570 pages. However, those happened over a somewhat longer period of time, during which I was mostly unemployed. There is also daily blogging, the revival of the other two blogs, and 185 pages of journal, while working full-time and getting healthier.

Beyond that, I am writing better. My descriptions are better, my dialogue is more natural, and I am doing more things to share it, though there is still a long way to go. Those were totally things that I wanted, that simply did not happen in a predictable way.

It’s not that I don’t think New Year’s resolutions are good; they totally can be, but I can think of two ways in which they can be bad. If you make them, and then don’t take them seriously and completely forget them, that is not helpful. If you set overly ambitious goals and then hate yourself for failing, that is actually destructive. So, find something that is helpful.

What I did put as kind of a resolution is that I will be kind and appreciative. This is not a big stretch for me. Part of it is my nature. As a geek I notice things and get excited over them, and as someone soft-hearted I try to be kind. However, I keep seeing more and more how important it is, and so then I want to do it more, and I look for ways of doing it better, then that does kind of become a resolution, though it is more of of an evolution, actually.

So, I have no idea at all how many books I will read this year, how often I will exercise, or what I will weigh at the end of 2013. I know someo of what is coming up, and what I want to do, and there will be updates, because I do still intend to be blogging daily, until such time as that doesn’t work for me, and then I will find what fits next.

Certainly, something important will be to work out an amicable balance between sleep and writing.

What am I doing New Year’s Eve?

I have a definite pattern on New Year’s, which is kind of gratifying.

I used to be all about the New Year’s Eve dances, and then I kind of stopped liking dances. (Thanks for going downhill, dance music! And other things.) Lately, I am generally home at midnight. I may do something before, like there were two years where I went to the Pink Martini concert, but the early one, and last year we went to see a movie (Tower Heist) with Cathy, and that worked well, so this year we are going to go see The Hobbit, but again, I should be home by 10.

And so how this has played out for about the last four years, is that everyone else is in bed, but I am still awake around midnight, and I am writing, and no matter how terrible the year has been as the clock rolls around midnight I am filled with a rush of optimism, because after all, this time can be better.

I should point out that most of the time the year is not appreciably better, and the really bad times and the really good times do not fit neatly into the confines of a year. 2008 was a pretty good year that ended horribly, and fit in more with 2009, but by the time we got to the end of 2009 it had turned around somewhat.

That’s part of it, really. No matter how many lows come, they don’t last. Time passes and they even out, so regardless of how arbitrary our moment of calling out “Happy New Year”, it is a good reminder. We’re still here. We’re still going.

And things do always get better, and they still remain unchanged. I am still single, and still not a professional writer, and still always worried about money, but I’ve gone places and I’ve done things and I‘ve had my moments, so life goes on.

This is important, because I did hit another low just Friday. It happened because I needed help and I couldn’t get it, and the specifics aren’t important, because those are really only the trigger. It’s always ripping the scab off of the same wound that is always there. It’s usually dormant, but it’s never healed, and I’m not even sure that it can be healed. (This was all covered in June.)

However, time goes on. The scab will form again; it’s already starting. I will write more, and do more, and go on more trips, and I will have lots of fun. Probably, at least twice, I will be hurt badly, and I will not even want to try, but I will anyway, and it will work out. That’s just what we do.

In the past it has usually been journal writing. Tonight I think I will try and finish Family Blood, and right after midnight, I am thinking of posting the next chapter, Black Dragon Fighting Society. It’s a day early, but it’s a new year! And I think people will really like this one. It’s all Mikey and Kung Fu; how can they not?

Band review: Parachute

I nearly subtitled this “Identity Crisis” because a few things got confusing. There is another Parachute, only they are Parachute Band, and they are a worship band from New Zealand. On Spotify, even when you go to the correct band named Parachute, there are songs listed that I am pretty sure are not them. I’m not saying that it’s impossible that they have done some Japanese children’s songs and Slavic(?) ambient music, but it seems like they would mention it on their web site if they had. 

Also, listening to Parachute at the same time as Sunderland threw me, because they both had a “Kiss Me Slowly”, but Sunderland was covering Parachute (one of their favorite bands), so things made sense again. The Parachute version is doing pretty well for fan videos for television couples, incidentally.Anyway, I am confident that Parachute knows who they are, so there will be no identity crisis.

Who they are is a five member ensemble from Charlottesville, Virginia. I use “ensemble” because I really feel like they blend well, in terms of what instruments are used when, and how they go together. Most of the members seem to play multiple instruments, so that probably helps.

They originally played together as Sparky’s Flaw, but changed to Parachute when they graduated from college in 2008. So, they are pretty young, but they did not seem like kids, and perhaps I can illustrate that. 

I am including some pictures here, which I have not done with any of the other acts from that night so far. I am not a great photographer under the best circumstances, and indoors, dark, with people moving around, is pretty much the worst circumstances for me. Still, I kind of like some of these, and that is because of the guitarist (I believe that is Nate McFarland, but I can’t confirm) rocking above the stage by jumping up on the amp, I guess. I don’t know that they fully convey how cool he was, and I was not in any way able to convey the coolness of the others, especially the lead singer. However, I hope this gives some idea of what I meant about them playing like men, and grown-ups. They looked real, even though Sunderland was not unreal.

Will Anderson totally owned the audience, as a lead singer should. He flirted with us, he came out and walked among us, and I think he lost his coat to us, though it may just have ended up with a crewmember. If he really did lose it, that would be an expensive habit. Will also told us that his grandfather had lived in Oregon while Will was growing up, so he had visited here often. You don’t always have that type of connection, but finding some connection with the audience is the frontman’s job, and he was doing it.

Watching them on stage, they seemed to be more straight up rock, but listening to their recorded tracks I hear some other influences. They sound a little bit country at times, maybe more Southern rock, and hailing from Virginia, maybe that makes sense. That influence is probably most evident on “Forever and Always”, which not only has some twang but tells a depressing story.

More interesting is that there appears to be kind of a gospel influence, not so much in terms of lyrical content, but in some of the vocal work, where it is almost chanting, and the beat and tempo, like who’s the worship band now?. Over the undercurrent of funk, it makes many of the songs really fun to listen to. “What I Know” may be the best example of this, closely followed by “Something to Believe In”, though I think that leans more towards blues. I’m almost picking up a Johnny Clegg or a Paul Simon vibe, but it’s been a long time since I listened to those, and I could be wrong.

“She is Love” and “Under Control” will probably be the most familiar, as they were used in Nivea commercials. Again, “Kiss Me Slowly” seems to be picking up a lot of fans as a love theme. Still, we should not neglect some of the other songs. “American Secrets is interesting in that it is divided into two parts, and they both use “Oh’s” in the refrains, and yet they have two completely different tones, and it’s like a story and its sequel in a single track. “All That I Am” from the first album may kind of foreshadow it.

I know that I already mentioned the funk, but I still need to call out “Halfway” for that, because it is funky. Well, really, for most of both albums I was physically grooving. Yes, I am easy this way, but still it’s a good sign, in my opinion.

I can’t quite explain why I love “Ghost” so much. Perhaps it is the unique viewpoint. Something about it makes me listen harder.

Still, let’s say you just take the most recent album, 2011’s The Way it Was, and you start listening there, and the first track is “White Dress”, and it is really buoyant, and that is a good introduction to what is coming. It’s not that all of the subject matter is cheerful, because it’s not, but nonetheless the overall sound is joyful. Maybe they’ve had hard times, but they are making good things out of it, and mark that down as one other thing I like about the record. 

Maybe good things are happening for them. (Except for whatever inspired “Forever and Always”.)

http://www.weareparachute.com/

https://twitter.com/parachute

https://www.facebook.com/Parachute

http://www.youtube.com/artist/parachute