New TSR: Maud Newton

The Fall season of my SOCIALIZED RECLUSE pod has begun as the inimitable Maud Newton, author of the absolutely brilliant ANCESTOR TROUBLE: A RECKONING AND A RECONCILIATION, joined me to discuss the ins and the outs of writing ANCESTOR TROUBLE; of “making the line well”; of Aristotle at two in the morning; of freedom from and fealty to form in books and in blogs; of creative evolution; of taking the time to get to the truth – be it via NYT-lauded books or via seven-year paragraphs published to a website; and of freeing oneself from the creative and personal boulders we push up the hills before us. You can check out our complete conversation – and pertinent linkage to buy ANCESTOR TROUBLE – here.

wed/20220914

58°F, clouds: First assembly of my TSR return / interview with Maud Newton complete: usually try to get to it within a few days of the interview, but I managed to pick a newsletter week to record, so I put it off until this morning which provided ample time for me to think about whether it was worth continuing the pod at all which, of course, it – despite the insane amount of work involved (at least I don't do transcriptions) – is: I enjoy doing the work so I'll continue doing it. Next up: write up a cheat sheet for the intro and outro that gives context to WHY I wanted to talk to Maud (other than it's Maud and she wrote a fucking brilliant book). Unless some delay pops up, on schedule to release a week from today.

(Also: learned that my desktop metal dry erase thing is BRILLIANT for taking notes during pod-assembly. VICTORY.)

Nintendo Direct inspired me to download ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD and ok I get it. What an amazing game: I've no clue what I'm doing, but I'm absolutely hooked. I've chopped down many a tree.

Funeral today for my great aunt. Coffin lifting and all that good stuff.

i am adrift in rhythmic narrative permutations and still think like a composer, apparently

Not that there's anything wrong with that but yes, the days of yore are still present, in some recess of my brain. Could I still write a piece of music to save my life? Not sure I could back in the back when, to be honest – but it's moderately comforting to feel that the rhythmic sense is still there, simmering.

Realizing that, in my own way, this thing, this process of mine, is something akin to how The Necks do music: small, incremental and improvisatory changes to rhythm, tone, and modality around one basic idea that coalesce into a previously unimagined (to me at least) whole. Maybe this is the way I've always done things and I'm only now figuring it out – or maybe I'm repeating myself; fuck if I know.

Finished Mieko Kawakami's BREASTS AND EGGS yesterday (fantastic): since I've made my way back to these once-daily things – the original design of this site –  I'll be publishing a "Reviewed" post coming at some point in the next few days, probably Saturday, a compilation brief thoughts and recs on things I've let sublet my brain over the last week.

Fantastic TSR chat with Maud Newton last night about ANCESTOR TROUBLE, one of those conversations that remind me of why I started the show in the first place: rejuvinative creative discussions in the vein of the chats I have with Jess when she works her tattoo-artistry magic on my arms. Chat with Maud should be live sometime in the next couple of weeks. Have to wrangle the newsletter for the rest of the week, think about and write about my background in music, as per Maud's request. Also have to make appointment with Jess to start the left sleeve.

awakening, 0200

66ºF, clear: The first section of LAST CHRISTMAS IN JULY – in, perhaps, a descent into amateur hour – was a recounting and extrapolation of a dream, a nightmare, I had the night before my self-imposed deadline on the project, a dream which obliterated the deadline and resulted in a large-scale rewrite. And, as I'll be talking this evening with Maud Newton about her work with ANCESTOR TROUBLE, a conversation in which elements of LAST CHRISTMAS and my own TROUBLE will (probably) come up, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when, at 0200 this morning, I woke from another nightmare which I had to, again, claw my way out of. While I was able to return to reality via a systematic running through of rational evidence and facts, I'm still shaking it off.

i am/will be drumming again and only for myself (unless EJK asks) for the first time in 20 years and other auditory news

60ºF, sun: yes, Scott, I ordered the electronic kit (Roland TD-1K) and it's due to arrive today. VERY excited: can already tell that my informal workings with a regular practice pad are helping to reduce hand pain and increase wrist strength. Movement, movement, movement: working to get my main problem from previous drumming life – too right-hand dominant (even though I'm left-handed; have a feeling that the drumming past explains my ambidextrous acumen in all things but writing – efforts at writing with my right hand look even worse than with my left) and a blind spot for flams – ameliorated before I let myself move forward: cobweb and rust dust-off/pressure wash via metronomic warm-ups and flam accent (without terrifying the dogchildren) variations for FTW. If nothing else, it helps me think.

In other audio news: Phone-maleXLR cable arrived so I'm ready to continue fiddling with the next part of the Vocaster Two: so far I love the thing. The gain feels right, and the auto-enhance/gain is perfect: while I can do the production side of things, I prefer to focus on the conversation - anything that lets me focus more on the conversation is worth the expenditure. Test run this weekend then first for-real conversational trial on Tuesday evening. Sorry, Maud.