SYTYCD Week #1

All right, so somebody needs to explain why the hell Fox is screwing with my favorite show. This whole past week has been such a disaster. That thing on Monday night was nice enough, but it was obvious "let's not waste an episode of House" filler. Although I quite loved the Wade Robson opening number, I didn't save any of the others. Fantastic dancing, sure, but who are these people really? The whole show is about emotional connection and we don't have any with these miscellaneous faces. Not yet.

The episode on Tuesday continued the WTFery. Cat was stunning, but why did she keep smiling to random unseen people in the audience? It was fake than usual, and only because it's Cat did I forgive her. There sounded like about eight people in the audience, and the cameramen haven't yet figured out to film this new big stage. When we're far away, we're FAR AWAY, which misses the opportunity for a lot of the mid-range performance and close-up expressions.

Weird about Billy Bell, and the whole thing sucked for poor Brandon. And why not eliminate Noelle straight off? That's what they did to Jessie when she couldn't dance with Pasha because of "exhaustion." I don't see that it's fair how Ariana (who danced, although not with any particular flair) was eliminated and Noelle (who sat and watched while wearing a big ass knee brace) was not.

Adam Shankman is awesome. His comments about hot Latina Karen made me snort. I'm so glad he's a permanent judge now. Here's the rundown:

Channing & Phillip (Jason G's jive): What an awkward pairing. She has a good strut but was very stiff. He's the sort of effortless partner who can easily be forgotten when the voting starts.

Ashleigh & Jakob (Tasty Orea's Broadway): Ah, so Jakob is our newest "let's tongue bathe him until the audience gets sick of it and votes him out" male dancer. Duly noted. And I'm forming a distinct dislike of Mrs. Married. He leaped. She strutted. Meh.

Ariana & Peter (Tab & Nap's hip hop): This was some of the best chorey from Tabitha & Napoleon in some time. Too bad it was delivered so unconvincingly.

Noelle (Meredith) & Russell: Melanie is awesome. So is Russell. Why was he in the bottom? Just for effect?

Bianca & Victor (Travis's contemp): I don't mind losing Mia Michaels if we get more chorey from Travis. He does breathtaking work. However, while I agree that Victor was the more technically superior dancer, it was Bianca's emotional performance that sold the piece.

Karen & Kevin (Melanie & Tony's cha cha): Wow, she sizzles. And she seems completely harmless and sweet. She and Bianca are my favorite girls. He held his own, so good job. Where are Anya and Pasha this season??

Ellenore & Ryan (Sonja's jazz): She loses points for the "this is gonna be one of the best ever" comment, and he loses points for the "heh, I guess you can tell I work out" comment. It was visually interesting but not emotional. They have potential as dancers but not as my favorites.

Pauline & Brandon (Jason's smooth waltz): They had to get smooth waltz? Really? Just hang them now. I liked seeing them together much more than I liked their dancing.

Katheryn & Legacy (Dave Scott's hip hop): Ooh, very nice. He's much better than I gave him credit for, although I'll hold my breath if he gets ballroom. They were well matched and nicely connected. She lost sharpness and energy toward the end, which none of the judges pointed out.

Nathan & Mollee (Doriana's disco): Oh, crap. Welcome to the Top 10 via High School Musical. There was some majorly poor unison in parts, but again, the judges didn't mention it.

That said, the judges were quite good in the their critiques tonight, perhaps because they really had to justify kicking people off without an audience vote. Or perhaps I'm just used to the Canadian show that just wrapped up, where each week they needed to import US judges with spines.

Your thoughts? Who caught your eye? Who can't you stand already? That people are already so divided on some contestants means the producers learned their lesson from Season 5's uniformly good-yet-bland mistakes. Bring on disaster television in prime time, apparently.

Writing Update

Herein I make massive apologies for my neglect. I've had a fantastically busy week, all of which deserves to be recounted. So we'll start with the biggest achievement of the week: I finished the first draft of my WWII romance, FLYGIRL, at 12:06AM on Thursday morning. The thing is a bloated, watery 109,153 words, or 384 pages. I'll begin edits...sometime. That depends on when other things fall into place, none of which I wish to mention for fear of The Jinx.

After my big casting party back in August when I asked you to help cast the hero and heroine, I can finally reveal the pictures I went with. Mind you, the men kept changing until Keven and I started watching "Battlestar Galactica," at which point the hero became Paratrooper Medic Helo. Nice. The heroine has always been Keira Knightly from Atonement, looking toward the sky.

In other writing news, I received my first review for SCOUNDREL'S KISS from Working Girl Reviews. Prickly heroine but delicious hero? Yeah, that sounds about right. I also got a surprise mention in Dorchester editor Leah Hultenschmidt's interview with Barbara Vey of Publisher's Weekly. I'm just about the only person she mentions who isn't a) a legend (Kinsale), b) currently huge (Thomas) or c) a Dorchester author (most everyone else), so I'm terribly flattered.

I'm working very hard to get my promotional ducks in a row, including a comprehensive blog tour list. This list will include all the opportunities throughout December and January when you'll be able to win a free copy of SCOUNDREL'S KISS. I already updated my workshops and conferences list, which you can see here in the right column. Some short, some long, some as far off as January of 2011. Fingers crossed I'm not a completely forgotten nobody by then!

Next week I'll be drafting a new project, but I haven't decided which that will be. South African historical to wrap up by Thanksgiving? That sounds right.

My Big Girl Turned Seven

Yup, seven years ago today, Juliette was born at 4:16 PM EST. That night, while trying to figure out how to breastfeed and being so wired and scared that I couldn't sleep--the longest night of my life, it felt like--I watched the clock and waited for daylight. Then at exactly 2am, the minute hand swung backward until the clock read one in the morning. It was the autumn time change! I've never been so disappointed to fall back an hour.

Today we had Juliette's first birthday party. She asked "Why don't we ever have birthday parties with people?" when she attended one for a classmate back in August. So we thought maybe it was time. We chose Alpaca Art Studio in downtown Kenosha, where party goers can paint their own mug, bowl, plate or plaque. After all the invitations went out, we had a total of fifteen girls in attendance, including Ilsa and the birthday girl. Our friends Brad and Josie brought their two daughters and then stayed to help us with the festivities, which was a wonderful relief.

Everything went great. They painted, ate pizza and drank juice, played with some toys in the studio's kid containment area, watched a bit of Madagascar, ate my homemade carrot cake with cream cheese icing--I spelled out "Happy Birthday Juliette" in candy corn, which I thought look a bit goofy but the kids really liked--and then opened presents, played some more, and waited for the parental cavalry to arrive. Two hours on the nose.

Juliette came away with a great huge walloping pile of stuff. Everyone was very generous, which means Juliette now gets to learn the fine art of writing thank you notes. The pottery will be fired and ready next Saturday; I can't wait to see how they all turn out.

I'm finding it harder and harder to get nostalgic about her birthday. I think part of the block is that it's becoming more difficult to really get into the mind and memory of the person I was then and the little tiny baby she was. To kiss the top of her head now, I only have to bend at the neck. She's tall and clever and complex. I knew her when she was born, but I didn't know her like I do today.

Plus I can remember quite vividly being seven myself, which throws a spin on everything from here out. She'll remember these days. She'll remember today, in fact. It makes her growth and push toward self-awareness all the more immediate, and makes the infant I birthed seem like some other creature. But I know she's not. She still makes the same breathless noise after she's done crying, still resists sleep at all costs, still looks so very much like Keven.

Love you, Juliette!

A Hodgepodge of Friday Thoughts

I've spent the evening uploading more WWII-era songs and watching Looney Tunes propaganda cartoons. I think the fascination at this point is that I've never studied an era where audio and visual primary sources were possibilities. Not so many songs and movies for the Old West or medieval Europe!

Unfortunately, reading the YouTube comments to those videos is a threat to my sanity. People spend precious moments of their lives using YouTube of all places to argue about racial stereotyping, as if their snarky gripe that the "Tokyo Woes" video is racially hideous somehow breaks new intellectual or observational ground. I say to them, "Well, duh, my good fellows." Now let's talk about the Louisiana judge who denied a mixed couple permission to get married, which happened last week. It's very easy for us to look back at and deride extreme versions of the bigotry that still takes place today.

That said, we do have President Obama. Yesterday, Juliette wanted to know how it is that some people have darker skin and some people have lighter skin. She couched her questions in evolutionary terms, in that skin color is just another physical feature like spines on a dinosaur or fur on a cat. I'm pleased that it's not about race to her; it's about quantifiable science. So I used Wiki to pull up pictures of Obama and his mother and father. Voila! Say what you will about the president, but he makes explaining genetics a snap. How cool is that?


Anyway, back to WWII. I noticed that a huge number of songs from the era give lead billing to the band leader--let's say Tommy Dorsey--and then a "featuring" credit to a singer such as Frank Sinatra. This reminds me of producers today, guys like Timbaland and Mark Ronson, who command full albums of the music they produce, with Justin Timberlake or Kasabian, respectively, garnering a mention as the featured artists. It's all getting back to its jazz/blues/R&B roots.

What a bizarre post. OK, I'll end with the trailer from HBO's March 2010 10-part miniseries "The Pacific," from the folks who brought us "Band of Brothers." Color me excited. I know very little, comparatively, about the ETO and eagerly await seeing it brought to life by these filmmakers. Here I noticed 600% more color, 300% more kissing, and 500% more female cast members than "BoB." I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they handle any romantic subplots well.

SYTYCD Top 20 Revealed

Welcome to another season, folks! Luckily we know roughly 20% more of this season's Top 20 than this past summer. But with the editing being so fierce, I'm not surprised. The people they focused on sorta became the people who made it through. They didn't have air time to focus on anyone else.

Weird about that awesome girl Paula opting out. Honey, it had better be a seriously good film role to turn down the opportunity to drawl into millions of living rooms for twelve weeks straight. OK, on with the Top 20:

Guys

Nathan: Young! Liz and I were talking on Sunday, wondering why they hadn't shown much of him. We wondered if maybe he'd even been sent home. Apparently not. Damn, he's prodigious.

Billy: Another contemporary prodigy! The boys have their shit together this year. But both, I'm afraid, are too young and/or too gay for me to fixate on.

Russell: Hello, krump guy! Can't wait to see what he can do.

Kevin: Another hip-hop dancer I noticed in their speedy, speedy tour of Vegas week. His celebration with Russell was so cute.

Phillip: Tap!

Peter: Double tap!! (Yeah, yeah, I'm pleased. But I'm going to be moaning about how Everett was the first tapper on SYTYCD up in Canada, so be forewarned. I won't be able to help myself.)

Victor: More contemporary dudes. How much you want to bet he's paired with the tallest girl? Maybe Ashleigh, the married ballroom chickie. She's very tall.

Jakob: Who? Poor guy.

Legacy: I haven't been impressed. He has a lot of ground to make up with me.

Ryan: Ahem. Can we stop playing up the fact he's married? It's messing with my naughty thoughts. KTHXBAI. And it may come back to haunt them as they individually try to sell an emotional connection to other partners.

Ladies

Kathryn: How annoying is her squeaky cry? Even Juliette noticed her voice going up and up and up. But she looks like an amazing dancer.

Channing: She's...curious unaffected? Her reserve/lack of partner connection foretells issues like Caitlyn with Jason last season.

Ariana: Didn't she nearly make it last year? She seems really familiar. Oh, wait! She was! She got to the last cut in US5. Sweet girl, huge smile, great technique. Weird that she didn't get the "she's been in this position before" treatment.

Ellenore: That's her real spelling. I'm never going to get that right through the season. She's technically jazz, though. Cat said she was contemporary.

Bianca: Tap!!! I love her. She's by far the contestant coming in with the most hype and the most history. I'd hate for her to crash and burn on week one.

Mollee: Again, more with the funky spellings. And she's technically jazz too. I find her intensely annoying, but she's probably just young.

Pauline: What does she do? Jazz? No, she may be hip-hop. Her Vegas week was really impressive, even the way she held a final pose after turning her ankle into a skin-covered egg.

Noelle: Oh dear, the friend thing is already petting my fur backward.

Karen: Ballroom latina! She's hot, very natural in her sensuality.

Ashleigh: Oh double dear, this is getting obnoxious. OK, it was cute with Benji and Heidi. And then Lacey. And then with Ivan and his sister Faina. And the Kasperzaks. But seriously, SYTYCD producers, we don't need the cutesy family gimmicks in order to find the show entertaining. Honest! Give us dancers who can entertain and forget the frakin' pre-packaged schmaltz!

(Pardon my grumps. I'm ticked because I haven't been able to see Canada's Top Four performance show from last night. Look at TJ & Everett! They finally did something emotional and I can't see it! *Grumbles* UPDATED: Yay! Link!)

That said, damn is this a fine group or what? I don't know if they can perform but they can dance. I don't think we've had such an amazing collection of jazz/contemp dancers. By contrast, it feels like an intensely streamlined group. Three tappers, three hip-hop, one b-boy, three ballroom...and the rest jazz/contemp. They're going to have to work hard to stand out. First person/couple who gets halfway close to their own style will have an instant advantage.

In other news, Adam Shankman will be doing next year's Oscars, and Mia Michaels officially left SYTYCD on Thurs. What was that comment she made regarding Russell? Something about "things haven't been going my way"? Ah, well. If this show has proven anything, it's that there are seriously talented choreographers out there. I want new blood! And more Pasha & Anya. They're all going to have to work super hard to match Mia's flair for the memorable.

What are your thoughts? I know y'all been watching it!

Wait! Is That...JAZZ??

I got a TON of work done today. Lesson learned: no matter how awesome Write or Die can be, it's better just to stay away from the internet completely until my words are done. In this case, I spent three hours at the library with my Alphasmart and wrote 4800. Niiiiice. Then I got home and made appointments, answered letters, did social networking stuff, updated Unusual Historicals, and other such odds and ends while eating lunch. A good day.

I've been listening to a lot of jazz lately, and by jazz I mean pre-1945 tunes: big band, blues, etc. Part of the bad rap jazz has received (oh, because I'm such an expert) is because, as an outsider, jazz aficionados seem fairly hoity-toity and exclusive. Jazz is guys in turtlenecks making deals with top-hatted devils, among other stereotypes. The conceit is that you have to know a lot about music before you can appreciate the subtleties. Fine.

But before the genre got to that point, it was dominated big bad voodoo awesome or slow, sultry angst. What could be better? OK, maybe wailing guitars and a killer beat, but the right brass section can do wonders. Two of my favorite tunes at the moment are "Time After Time" and "Come By Me" by Harry Connick, Jr., mostly because I can't stand the anticipation! Wait for the orchestra! It's coming! And then the slap bass!

No, not really--that was just for Keven.

(Speaking of Harry, I got his Christmas albums out of the library and uploaded them to my computer. Can't wait till Thanksgiving! Doesn't he look sweaterific and cozy? All this WWII stuff has made me super keen to watch White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life again, but I'll wait. And I think I'll find a copy of Battle of the Bulge and finally watch it with my dad. I'll grumble against Patton on behalf of the Airborne.)

Pardon my holiday-themed digression.

People used to have fun to jazz--true, honest, sweating, hoppin' fun. That what's I'm getting into. I grin like a dork and dance terribly when I'm listening to these songs on my iPod, trying to walk home. There's a reason "Jump, Jive and Wail" and other revival Big Band stuff hit in the late 90s: the fun!

(The revival might've stuck around longer if people could still jitterbug. Alas, no. That link for "Come By Me" shows what's wrong with people who listen to jazz today. They can only do the White Folk Bop and clap vaguely in time. Like I should talk; the best I can manage is the Molly Ringwald step-kick a la 1984.)

And now, because I love my husband and he already despairs enough for my atrocious taste in music, I present The Might Boosh. Howard: "The cerebral musicality of jazz mixed with the visceral groove of funk." Vince: "Funk? Jazz's deformed cousin?"

Experimental Point of View

Head-hopping has become the bane of romance authors. We are told to stay in one point of view throughout a scene and delve deeply into that character's thoughts, feelings and gut reactions, all with the intention of dragging more emotion from our words. All well and good. In fact, books with head-hopping (say, those written prior to 2000) mess with me. What do you mean we get to know the hero AND heroine's thoughts in a single conversation?? Blasphemy!

But I'm fascinated by tenses, and unconscious conjugations in particular. For example, when a person switches to 2nd person singular, it's a psychological distancing technique. A solider who's just witnesses a terrible battle might describe his reaction as: "You just feel numb. You feel like the whole world's on fire." He wouldn't say, "I feel numb. I feel like the whole world's on fire," because that would bring it too close to his vulnerable, personal feelings. He still wants to express his feelings but in a general sense, making it easier to bear.

Another favorite comes from A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens was not generally a guy to mess around with tenses. He stuck with 3rd person--for the most part. I re-encountered this passage after high school (because who notices this stuff in high school?), when I found my breath accelerating and my eyes flying over the page. Why? Because Dickens pulled a fast one. What follows is the chapter 13 description of Lucie and her father fleeing Paris, hoping that Madame Defarge's spies aren't in pursuit and that Sydney Carton's heroic switcheroo will succeed.

"Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!"

Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running--hiding--doing anything but stopping.

Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house.

Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled.

At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pursued?

Notice the "we" and "us" peppered throughout, as well as the present tense? What kind of literary freakazoid uses first person plural? Well, one who wanted to make hearts accelerate! The "we" makes it far more immediate. That's the only place in the entire text he makes use of that particular trick, because you wouldn't want to over-use it! Good ole' Charlie.

And then there's Sting. Sacred Love is fraught with tense changes, which makes me think he was bored. My favorite is "Never Coming Home," where Sting sings to a woman (You turn towards the window); uses omniscient third to describe her (The passengers ignore her, just a girl with an umbrella); becomes the man she's leaving (I stumble to the bathroom door); omnisciently describes the man's thoughts (In his imagination she's a universe away); and declares his liberation, which could be from either POV (I'm gonna live my life in my own way).

I find it all fascinating. But I'll stop my word nerdiness now and leave you with this classic clip from "Cheers." Skip ahead to 3:17.

Juliette's Future

From xkcd, Keven appropriately titled this one as "Juliette's Future":

SYTYCD? Really?

I'm so annoyed by this season of SYTYCD. OK, I know it's in prime time and that changes how they operate. But Vegas Week in only two one-hour programs? I have never seen so little coverage of what is, to me, one of the most entertaining parts of the program. We get to see them unformed and tentative, and we also get to see glimpses of the dancers they will still become. Gah. So frustrating. And now they'll drag out the Top 20 reveal next week.

But on a brighter dance note, I'm SO happy that Everett and TJ both made it into the Top 4 in Canada. I've been a fan of theirs for weeks now, hoping they'd make it back together again. Yay! I've never had a favorite couple reunited before! (I know some people felt that way about Joshua and Katee, but I was too busy being Mark's fan to notice.)

This past week was Top 6 and produced two amazing routines, one from the girls and one from the guys. Let's start with what was the more technically superior, a breathtaking classical piece from Mia Michaels. I was so impressed with the control these dancers exhibited, plus the restraint in Mia's chorey.


And then there's Everett and the boys. I say "Everett and the boys" because, really, Everett owned this number. You'll spot him as the shorter, groovier dude in the middle. The other two were his less engaging posse: Vincent is a ballroom dancer who manages to swing with the funky style--must better than I thought he would--but Emanuel, who is a former Olympic figure skater for Canada and classically trained dancer, just doesn't have any FUNK. I broke it down like this:

Emanuel: "I don't want to do it."
Vincent: "I will enjoy doing it."
Everett: "You're gonna love watching me do it!"


I mean, how else could he pull off that final pose? Why, with a smile and a tip of his hat, of course! Naughty thing. But no wonder, really, when so much of his own tap style incorporates that James Brown/Michael Jackson vibe.


Happy sigh. I could watch him tap all day.

Rant On, Good Man

I have a dark, sick, nasty crush on British satirist and comedian David Mitchell, which is the opposite of my bright unicorns-and-flowers crush on Jon Stewart--although when it comes to their politics and their methods of delivering comedy justice, they resemble each other a great deal. Both are old skool gentlemen, of a sort, and they love to rant when the world's injustices and rudeness gets the better of their decorum. That's what makes them funny: watching a meltdown with a punchline.

In fact, Mr. Mitchell (it feels weird to call him "David" because I know he'd find it presumptuous and rude) is rather well known for his rants; he has them down comedic high art. Here's a delicious one about the Russians, which is short and contains no swearing.


So I've been quite tickled to learn--from Keven, God of Internetness--that Mr. Mitchell has a weekly column in The Guardian, the left-leaning national paper in Britain. Recently he ranted about how the media elevates motherhood, especially motherhood as it pertains to sports figures, to some place of irreproachable sainthood and extraterrestrial amazement.

I've always been galled by this pattern, how being a mother and an athlete, or being a mother and a CEO, or whatever, will make a woman's achievements more extraordinary. I find it all rather cheapening because we rarely hear about a CEO balancing the difficulties of fatherhood, and the few times we hear about sports figures' kids is when child support payments haven't been made or when one gets his girlfriend knocked up whilst still married. The exuberant praise of motherhood still feels a bit "pat on the head." Here's Mr. Mitchell's take on Kim Clijsters (full rant), who came back from babymaking to win the US Open:

What is strange about the reaction to her twofold achievement of becoming a mother and winning the US Open is that, despite the coverage all coinciding with the latter triumph, many openly opine that the former was more difficult. The Times said of it last week: "Winning a tennis match is a doddle compared with childbirth." I'd say it very much depends on whom you're playing. The final of the US Open is often what is known in sport as "a very difficult tennis match" because one's opponent is usually (again excuse the jargon) "amazingly good at tennis".

I'm not underestimating the challenges of child-rearing. The responsibility, sleeplessness and worry seem to me, a feckless bachelor, to be overwhelming. But while bringing up a baby and winning a Grand Slam may feel equally impossible, intellectually I know which I'm most likely to succeed at. I mean, I've got friends with kids and some of them used to try to light fags off an electric hob.

We have a very odd habit of unfavourably comparing remarkable and unusual achievements with feats that, while stressful, unpleasant or all-consuming, are routinely managed by millions. People pass comments like: "Climbing Everest's all very well, but it's nothing to the school run on a Monday!" or: "Try a Saturday night nursing shift in A&E and then tell me balancing the national budget is hard, Mr Chancellor."

High achievers often collude in this, as most are at pains to say that their family is the most important aspect of their lives. But that doesn't make it the most interesting or remarkable. However hellish the nursing shift may feel, working out a year-long spending plan for a G8 economy is objectively more difficult--even if you screw it up a bit.

Many people say the coping skills that parenthood makes you develop help you to succeed in professional life. In which case, it is those who win through without that help who should get extra credit: "He achieved so much despite having nothing at home but a fridge full of beer and an internet full of porn--now that's focus!"

Vintage Sting!

I've been re-immersing myself in old Sting & Police tunes, because no one does pseudo-literary pop tunes like Sting. I've been working on the project in the sidebar labeled "ADOG," which is a acronym for the title, not an indication of a canine theme. Although Sting was still pretty fierce in this video for "Fortress Around Your Heart," his "Seriously, folks, I've gone solo!!" vibe comes across as pretty self-involved now.


But anyway, the songs I've been listening to are either distinctly 40s-era standards, for FLYGIRL, or else these "mythology songs," as I've dubbed them--songs that play out like fantasy novels in miniature. Abney Park is pretty damn good at these too. Current play list:

"The Soul Cages," "Fortress Around Your Heart," "Mad About You," "Shape of My Heart," "Something a Boy Said," and "Gabriel's Message" by Sting; "I Burn for You," "Invisible Sun," "The Secret Journey," and "Tea in the Sahara" by the Police; "Stigmata Martyr," "The Wrong Side," "The Wake," "Dear Ophelia," "Sacrilege," "All the Myths Are True," "The Death of the Hero," and "Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll" by Abney Park; and "Song to the Siren" by This Mortal Coil.

I need to find more. VAST and A Perfect Circle had quite a few, but I used them up on previous projects (NIGHTFALL and SCOUNDREL'S KISS, respectively). If you have any clue what I'm talking about regarding the vibe and content of these songs, I'm open to suggestions for more!

Get on the Road to Victory

Yesterday I checked out a CD by Bing Crosby called Those Great WWII Songs and came across this gem. You gotta love the simplicity of WWII-era propaganda. Can you imagine folks lining up to invest in bonds today--no matter the cause--if they were backed up by "your ever-lovin' Uncle Sam"? Credit crunch aside, I think we left that sort of innocent faith behind a long time ago. The middle bit is spoken.

Get on, get on, get on the road to victory.
Get off, get off, get off the rusty dusty and
Get on, get on, get on the road to victory and
Buy another bond today.

Get in, get in, get in your weekly envelope.
Get out, get out, get out some ever lovin' and
Get on, get on, get on the road to victory and
Buy another bond today.

You know it's a funny thing that people gotta be urged and prodded and reminded to buy bonds. Why, getting into the position to buy bonds has been the angle every guy's been angling for since he found out that anybody can be anything he wants to be under our flags and under our way of life. Buying bonds doesn't really mean a thing, but stashing something away for the future--right now your weekly take is probably a pretty colorful thing. Try putting a little of it away for the future. That's all buying war bonds means: building up a future for yourself and protecting what you've got, everything you've helped to build. Every bond you buy today is not only an investment in freedom, not only the least you can do to help the men who are fighting for you, but every bond you buy today is a hunk of tomorrow's best--signed, sealed, and set aside for you by your ever-lovin' Uncle Sam.

Sure I know you bought a bunch of them in April
Thinking that was all you'd ever need to get
Well, the boys were fighting for you back in April
And they haven't laid a rifle down as yet.

So you'd better get on....

And I liked this lyric from "The Victory Polka": "And we will give a mighty cheer when a ration book is just a souvenir." Although, really Bing--a polka?

***

In other news, I'm sorta glad Ryan Kasperzak was sent home last night. I can't imagine the lopsided fan base he'd have going in if he made Top 20. And I'm totally digging the krump guy who can just, oh, by the way, cha-cha!

Friday Night Exhaustion

Friday night and I'm beat. I have much to do this weekend, including finishing an article and finalizing a workshop syllabus, both of which are due Monday. I also have a critique to do, many promotional emails to send out, and read an ILL book due back on Tuesday. But Sunday afternoon should be good; I'm meeting with my collection of physically deficient homegirls in Chicago for the afternoon.

But that's not tonight. No, tonight is all about television. I'm now a junkie, in that I look forward to having my fix of no-brain entertainment come evenings. On deck: last night's "FlashForward," two episodes of "Top Gear," and two episodes of "Dollhouse"--yes, I'm starting season two. Haven't seen season one. Wonder how that will go. I also have some "Glee" and "Robin Hood" recorded, but I haven't been too fussed about either. Maybe that's because I get my comedy kicks from British panel shows I watch via YouTube.

The girls' swimming went quite well on Wednesday, much better than the last two weeks. And we've been behaving with regard to our budget. A flat tire yesterday, which pre-empted my dentist appointment--I wasn't too disappointed--set us back a bit, but not to the point of despair. A good week, overall. How'd yours go?

Best Research Link EVER

So earlier this summer, my dad mentioned a site where a merchant was selling issues of Life magazine. Each sales entry included detailed notes as to the contents of that issue. He thought this might be a good research tool for me, in that I could look up an issue from any given week during the war and discover what people would've been buzzing about. Excellent idea!

However, Google decided to do one better. And Keven, being the internet perusal dude that he is, sent me this link. Yes, it's every issue of Life magazine from 1935 through the 1970s, including all of the advertisement pages. It's...it's...mind-blowing. If I miss out on valuable TV time because of this, I'll know who to blame/credit. Keven's computer addiction. And the Almighty Google.

(Speaking of which, now I'm all paranoid. What if they take them all down? Gasp! I might have to download a few...or a lot...)

So I looked up the dates around Pearl Harbor. The December 8, 1941 issue apparently ran as planned with no mention of the attack. The Dec 15 issue has a story with many pictures, and the Dec 22 issue is chock full of war news, complete with an American flag on the cover. This is an invaluable resource, not only for the news, photos, advertisements, glimpses at popular culture, and even the writing style--they used a lot more words, descriptions, and colorful adjectives than magazines do today--but also as a window into the pace of life.

Here's a photo that caught my eye. Adorable pose. So sweet! And she looks like she could've been a movie star. Then again, any pretty girl dolled up in 40s gear makes me think that, if only because the dressy garb looks so elegant--clothes we would reserve for Hollywood now. The caption made me tear up. See? That's a very different writing style than a popular news publication would use now.

Damn, this is cool.