Archive for July, 2013

Write-a-thon, Day 29: It’s the end of the vacation as we know it (and I feel fine)

Posted: July 21, 2013 in music, Record reviews, Writing
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Finally found a boat I could afford
Finally found a boat I can afford!

I’m back from Cape Cod with plans to build either a lighthouse or a windmill in the backyard. We had a wonderful, though emotional, trip, with many indelible moments; for example, the store on the New Bedford waterfront that advertised the four basic food groups of Massachusetts: SNACKS TOBACCO LOTTERY COFFEE. (It was closed.)

How can we not cherish the memories of the bored teenager, the adoring grade-schooler, the parents who can only talk about their cat, and the three hours it took us to drive the 50 miles the hell off Cape Cod? Bliss! Will we ever forget the T-shirt that proclaimed “What happens at the Eastham Turnip Festival stays at the Eastham Turnip Festival” or the bumper sticker at the approach to the Sagamore bridge that said “Never forget Chicken Man”? Sure we will.

Favorite meal of the week: The Reuben Flounder at the Yardarm in Orleans.

Favorite ice cream experience: Poit’s Lighthouse Mini Golf. The ice cream was OK. It was the experience of eating it on a hot, humid night in front of a mini golf course where vacationers have been dodging the mini lighthouses for 60 years that wins the prize.

I could rhapsodize further. But first, my novel.

In our last, very exciting episode, I had discovered that continuing the Write-a-thon while also coping with my family was impossible. I had to fight to hold on to every brain cell. The only writing I did was three hours on the plane to Boston and three hours on the plane back to Portland, but those were six productive hours. Today was our first full day back in the non-vacation world, and when I wasn’t emptying sand out of suitcases and restocking the fridge, I plowed into the pages of dialog, stage directions, character studies, and miscellaneous notes I brought back.

Plus I finished Chapter 6. That last one easily counterbalances the 300-motorcycle parade that stopped us cold in Barnstable on Saturday while we were still trying to escape Cape Cod. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

In life the firmest friend/The first to welcome, foremost to defend
We returned to an empty house. This was the first time since 1992 that we weren’t greeted at the door by happy barking. The silence was louder than the loudest bark. I kept going by keeping going, ticking off chores one after the other.

A dog. Got to get one.

Box score
– I’ve written 23 days out of 29
– 29.5 total hours
– Word count: Got lost in all this unpacking. Next week.
– This was my first post on the Write-a-thon

My sponsors (all hail):
– Karen G. Anderson
– Laurel Sercombe
– Mitch Katz (he and Liz celebrated their 16th anniversary yesterday)

Thanks for waiting for me!

Random Pick of the Day
Peter Rauhofer, Club 69 Future Mix: The Collected Remixes of Peter Rauhofer (1998)
Herr Rauhofer, who died in May, grew up in Vienna and became a pioneering New York dj. Club 69 Future Mix pulls together many of the remixes he did for new wave and R&B acts of the ’80s and ’90s. At this distance, the only names that still resonate are Depeche Mode (“It’s No Good”) and Falco (“Der Kommissar”). The CD falters in the final tracks, but if you like house, try this one. I especially like it because I found it for a quarter at a yard sale this morning.

Random Pan of the Day
Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971)
In the early ’70s the title track seemed like the essence of cool. Now I’ve heard it surpassed many times by jazz players. Also, now I understand that it’s a rant against their record company, like The Clash’s “Complete Control” and The Sex Pistols’ “E.M.I.” If I’m going to listen to someone complain, that someone is going to be me. OK, this 11-minute slo-mo monster still has power, particularly when played at 2am, but the rest of this disc doesn’t. The prog-rock is dull. “Rainmaker” sounds like Yes needs a nap. The only Traffic song I still seek out is the title track from their debut, Mr. Fantasy (1967).

Write-a-thon, Day 22: All the young dudes

Posted: July 14, 2013 in Writing
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I may have underestimated the emotional and physical impact of being with my aging parents and the newest Bielers, the niece (14), the nephew (11), and the cat (1). I wrote nothing yesterday, Day 21, though we did put on a birthday party for the cat.

Thus ends the first half of the Write-a-thon. The second half began today. Despite a family that never stops talking when everyone else is talking, or asking the same question 17 times, or the work in keeping my wife sane, and a semi-rural countryside where every street, widow’s walk, and stone wall remind me of something from when I was a kid and spent my off-hours throwing stones at the Redcoats, and the humidity that’s so thick it’s like wearing another person — despite all of that, I wrote four paragraphs.

This is going to be tougher than I thought.

Miscellaneous notes:
Best Western drapes a sash over the foot of every bed. It looks exactly like something a Vulcan would wear to a Star Fleet awards banquet.

A decommissioned aircraft carrier docked in Newport, the USS Saratoga, is waiting to be scrapped. In the meantime, it’s been colonized by peregrine falcons, barn owls, and great horned owls. These predators enjoy killing pigeons, ducks, and each other. The Providence Journal (“ProJo”) ran an awesome photo today of a peregrine falcon winging its way toward the carrier’s flight deck.

We packed everyone into two cars and drove to the art gallery in New Bedford where my Dad’s rope had been used in a sculpture honoring the New Bedford waterfront. I had seen it online, and it was impressive there, but in person it was a real knockout. The artists had posted a photo of Dad and an excerpt from my blog. We both felt honored.

In 1979 my Dad gave a box of tools each to my brother and me. My brother never claimed his. I’ve been using mine all these years. We wanted to give these tools to my nephew, so today I hauled my brother’s toolbox out of the basement and into the back yard where we could air out the dead-walrus stench from decades of mold. We had to throw away all the packaging and some of the more porous tools. When we spread the survivors out on the picnic table, I felt as if I’d traveled back to 1979. There was my hammer without a single scratch or dent. I’d forgotten that it had a black stripe on the head. There were my screwdrivers with no paint flecks on the handles or corrosion on the blades. The nephew was ecstatic, my sister less so. Sorry, sis, I’m the fun uncle. Logistics are your problem!

Today as I wrote I used a word I’ve never used before: runnel (“A narrow channel or course, as for water”). I was inspired by the humidity.

Somerset Creamery still has some of the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten!

Write-a-thon, Day 20: Carry on my wayward son (or pay $20 per checked bag)

Posted: July 12, 2013 in Writing
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The flight to Boston was easy, just under five hours. I didn’t have to cope with snakes or zombies, there was only one unhappy baby, and the 10-year-old female up-talker behind me was quickly neutralized by Netflix. The overlarge stranger beside me spilled over the arm rest into my area, but he was polite and quiet. The pilot addressed us occasionally, but his monotone muffled all the words so I didn’t have to pay attention.

I wrote for three hours. It was tough getting started at first. The space was narrow, my hand cramped, and I found out why SCRAP sells cool pens for $0.25 per handful when the first one died in the first half hour. But then I warmed up. I tuned out the distractions, worked through the cramp, and pushed forward toward the end of the chapter I’ve been circling around in. Plus I had a brainstorm: Since my book is set in 1947, I could plausibly write obituaries for most of my characters. I wrote three and figured out the general arc of their lives (and thus learned more about my story). I felt pretty good about that.

Traffic around Boston was no worse than it was during the Battle of Bunker Hill. At least today we have HOV lanes. We drove south to Providence, then headed east toward our motel in Seekonk, the city that never sleeps. We drove into Ye Olde Seekonk and found what may be the only restaurant that was owned by locals and not a chain: Lum’s, where I had the fried haddock sandwich and Special D had the clam roll. All of the totally delicious seafood had been caught that day. All of the accents sounded like home to me.

After dinner, there was still some light in the sky, so we tried to investigate the Edna Martin Nature Preserve. Ms. Martin was a ninth-generation Seekonkonoid who donated 35 acres to the town on her death. (I can understand a family that has lived in the same state for nine generations, but in the same town? There’s got to be a story there.) We were swarmed by mosquitoes as soon as we left the car and that was the end of that expedition. What do they eat when they can’t get Hobbit?

Everything’s good here at the motel. And that was Day 20 in the Write-a-thon.

 

Write-a-thon, Day 19: Live and let write

Posted: July 11, 2013 in Writing
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Hit those keys 1

Greetings, literature fans. Tomorrow I embark on my annual tour of the Great Cities of the East (Providence through Provincetown). My challenge will be finding an hour to write amid a daily whirlwind of Bielers. Tomorrow will be easy – I’ll be stuck on a plane.

I’m throwing myself a curve, though. I’m going to do all my writing with a pen on real paper. Why am I kicking it old skool? Have I listened to so much Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young lately that I feel compelled to get back to the land and set my soul free? Hell no, that’s not why I go:

1) I want to see if I still remember how to do this.
2) With a computer, I can keep returning to previous chapters and tinker with them. Revision is instant and effortless. I’m hoping that paper will force me to move forward. (I’m glad Steve Jobs is not around to read that last sentence.)
3) I just bought some great notebooks* and colored pens at this place and I’m itching to use them. (Hat tip to Loyal Reader Tilda who motivated me to get over there.)
4) I love my laptop, but it’s a senior laptop now. It’s put on weight and the battery doesn’t recharge.

I’ll have a computer in the lobby in our first motel but not in our second. I’ll try to post while I can. Expect nothing from Tuesday through Saturday. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I kept the Write-a-thon going. (Another hour today.) Thanks, everyone, for following along and for all your comments. You’ve kept my morale sky-high!

* Special D when I brought them home: “What good are notebooks?”

 

Write-a-thon, Day 18: They just stand back and let it all be

Posted: July 10, 2013 in Writing
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Natl Poetry Month 1

“There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.” – John Ashberry

We enjoy poetry here at the Bureau, but most of the time we never get around to reading any. That’s a shame in a language that includes Robert Frost and the birch trees he observed bent by the snow,

So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

It’s not National Poetry Month (that was in April), but it is July and the outdoors are calling me. This makes me think of poetry about nature that’s really about people but then again maybe it’s about nature.

It’s impossible not to read the entire poem after archy the cockroach gives us this opening in “the lesson of the moth”:

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

William Stafford tells the story of a pile of rocks in “Silver Star.” Here’s how it begins:

To be a mountain you have to climb alone
and accept all that rain and snow. You have to look
far away when evening comes. If a forest
grows, you care; you stand there leaning against
the wind, waiting for someone with faith enough
to ask you to move. Great stones will tumble
against each other and gouge your sides. A storm
will live somewhere in your canyons hoarding its lightning.

But the poem I want to relate this evening is this one, by Paul Zimmer, called “Old Woodpecker.” It’s copyright 1989 by Mr. Zimmer and here it is in its entirety:

In the end his tiny eyes won’t focus.
Punchy, his snap gone, he spends his
Time banging on gutters and drainpipes.
He begins to slurr and churrrr,
His breath descending in a rattle,
He tells endless stories of old trees
Taken, but he has absorbed one too many
Hardwoods to his noggin, his brain is
Pudding. For the rest of his time
He will undulate around, patronized,
Spunky but sweet, remembering only
Nests of teeming carpenter ants,
Consenting grubs under flaps of bark,
The days when he was a contender
Amongst the great woods of his life.

Yes, I did write today here in the Write-a-thon, but no, I am not converting my book to any form of free or rhymed verse. I just felt like reading some poetry, and I wasn’t about to torment you with my own.

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