I’ve been quite busy today, revising, making pizza, eating pizza, going for a walk, reading, doing some more revising. So unusually busy that I almost forgot to write a blog post.
This is really just to keep the unbroken run going: normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
xxx
A bit of a scattershot post tonight: apologies.
I took a break from editing/revising today, and caught up with January 1971 music. This was expensive as I ended up buying a whacky, but excellent, cd that I finally found cheap in Germany. This one. As with the 1970 music, the joy isn’t so much revisiting old favourites, though that is fun, but finding oddities and obscurities or other stuff I’ve never heard of before.
February 1971 will bring:
Unfortunately I can’t go to the library to consult the music press of the day for things I might otherwise miss in the new album reviews.
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Disaster this evening as, for the first time in a very long time, my pizza dough failed. So a carry-out tonight and I’ll make a fresh dough tomorrow, by which time my tomato sauce for the topping will have infused nicely.
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Another day without news, but, glancing at the BBC News app when writing this (19.00), I see the UK recorded a further 1200 Covid deaths to bring the total to 105,571. I’m surprised there isn’t more outrage about this.
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Music: I said last night that I’d post some of the renaissance polyphony I was listening to when revising. If you’re being pedantic, it is towards the end of renaissance and on the cusp of early-modern, but let’s not go there. It was probably (maybe?) composed by Leonora d’Este, daughter of Lucrezia Borgia, and composed specifically for women’s voices. The whole album is wonderful.
A bit groggy at breakfast but made it to sentience and settled in for an excellent instalment of WandaVision which continues to be fun. We moved into more identifiable Marvel territory this week, but with no loss of quality. No spoilers from me, but this is a cleverly made show.
Beyond that, today was more editing/revising. I finished going through the entire set of stories and now I just have to type up my revisions and see what they look like. Fingers crossed I can call that collection done. I’ll be doing more of the same probably for all of next week on other stuff I have to hand. The aim is to take stuff that I think is already good and that friends like, and add a commercial polish.
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Once again I have not watched any news today. I briefly listened in to the headlines on the BBC World Service, but that’s it. My revision was done to a background of renaissance polyphony that I had on repeat. That’s all very well for me, but it does make for a blog post that isn’t a million miles from those of the last couple of days.
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Music : I was going to post some of that renaissance polyphony, but I think I’ll save that for another day. WandaVision played out to Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile today. By a lateral process I decided on All Along The Watchtower instead.
I had an unusual start to the day: I slept in. That’s a relative thing in the middle of a pandemic when you’re retired, but I’m usually fairly regular in the time I get up. This morning I woke at 10.20. I have no idea why, but, if this isn’t too pretentious, I suspect it has a lot to do with all the time I spent editing yesterday. That involved both looking at each sentence but also looking at the shape of the stories. I enjoyed it, but it was still work.
Today has been more of the same but I’ve been focused on a single story that, on re-reading, needed substantial work. I think it’s a lot better now, but will still have another look at it in a couple of days. The main difference between now and when I wrote it is time. Since it was first written I have written a lot and am more comfortable with how I want sentences to look, for example, but the time also allowed me to look at the story now with an almost entirely objective eye, and wield the sword without a qualm.
I have not watched or seen the news at all today, and I’ve barely listened to any music except for a quick dip into the Grateful Dead at Barton Hall, Ithaca, 8 May 1977, a show so legendary that a soundboard recording is in the Library of Congress. If pushed, I’d say the next night in Buffalo was even better, but it’s barely worth arguing.
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Music : The story I’ve been working on, which originally sprung, in a very roundabout way from Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolfe, is largely set on the California Zephyr that ran from Chicago to Oakland. Naturally there are creatures of unspeakable evil to be encountered and defeated en route. With that in mind, here’s an old favourite from my earliest days of listening to pop music. The Monkees : Last Train to Clarksville.
As a special bonus, Carole King’s original demo for Pleasant Valley Sunday.
Yesterday lunchtime I sent three documents to a printers in the centre of town and they delivered them to our front door mid-afternoon: great service. The documents were a collection of short stories built around a vampire theme, and two draft novels. I’ve put aside the work in progress for a wee while to revise and edit these documents. I prefer to revise/edit on manuscript copies.
Yesterday evening, and all of today, I’ve been working on the short stories and am about two thirds of my way through a first pass. They’ve had several rounds of revision in the past and I’m pleased to find that they hold up quite well, with most are needing only minimal tweaking. I know this sounds vain, but I’m having the enjoyable feeling of ‘did I really write that?’ This is all part of a process of getting them into tippy-top shape for future self-publication.
A benefit of all this is that the day has flown by and I have rarely troubled myself to have a look at what is going on in the world. I did see, however, that policy has now caught up with science and the UK government is to stop culling badgers and focus on vaccinating cattle and managing livestock movements. It takes effect next year, but good to get some good news.
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Music: time for a random record from my shelves. I bought several albums by Sniff’n’the Tears in the late seventies/early eighties. I haven’t played them for some time, but this song sticks in the memory for some reason, cheesy synth effects and all.
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