Immanentize the Empathy
Hellooooo December! In the interregnum between the last two major holidays of the year, there is nothing to do but try to stay afloat and make it to the new year with sanity intact.
1977: Stevie Wonder, “As”
This is a repeat from last week, so please enjoy this live studio version of “As.”
1982: Kool and the Gang, “Let’s Go Dancin'”
1987: New Order, “True Faith”
1992: TLC, “Baby-Baby-Baby”
1997: Imani Coppola, “Legend of a Cowgirl”
On Wednesday, November 23, I reached 50,000 words in Cacophonous, my 2022 NaNoWriMo project. I still have, I think, 15,000 to 20,000 words to go to complete the first draft. It probably won’t be done by the end of the month, but hopefully by the end of the year.
First up is (Re)Living Mythology: A Collection of Black Magical Stories and Poetry, from Android Press, fresh from a successful Kickstarter campaign. The list of authors here is impressive and I very much look forward to diving into this one.
Next is Nicole Sealey‘s poetry collection Ordinary Beast, which arrived at the best bookstore in West Michigan, Books and Mortar. I first became aware of Sealey when I participated in the “Sealey Challenge” a couple of years ago.
While at Books and Mortar, on a whim, I picked up N.K. Jemisen‘s The World We Make, the sequel to her magnificent The City We Became. This book also has the honor of being the 100th piece of reading material to arrive in 2022.
In reading news, I just finished Duncan Hannah‘s collection of journals Twentieth-Century Boy. Hannah is a wonderful writer, and had a rich and full life. This is one of those books (like Jim Harrison‘s Just Before Dark) where it is easy to read a dozen pages and suddenly think, “What have I done with my life?” The answer, of course, is different for everyone, but usually more than you think.
With the end of the month just a couple of days away, I have started my read for Dostoevsky December: Crime and Punishment (translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky), a book which I am ashamed to say I have not yet read, despite really meaning to for over two decades.
Thanksgiving week. SO many other things to think/worry/stress about. Music helps. Not always, and not necessarily a lot, but it helps.
1977: Stevie Wonder, “As”
I wasn’t sure I had heard this song before, until the chorus of “Until the rainbow burns the stars out of the sky” and I had a sudden memory of…something. Me being quite young, certainly. This song was originally released in 1976, so I would have been seven years old, eight at the latest if I heard it when it when it was still new. A vague hint of Sesame Street or The Electric Company or some similar TV show, possibly a special or the Tonight Show if I had the opportunity to stay up late, which happened once in a while.
1982: Phil Collins, “You Can’t Hurry Love”
In my memory this song blends directly into the original by The Supremes, but given the realities of 1980s music I definitely heard this one a lot more than the original. It’s a fun little video.
1987: Laura Branigan, “Power of Love”
Back in the 1980s I had a HUGE crush on Laura Branigan, mostly due to her huge hit “Self Control.” She had an amazing voice and she left us far too soon.
1992: Exposé, “I Wish The Phone Would Ring”
Exposé is one of those bands where I recognize their sound much more than any of their specific songs. They were all over the place back in the early 1990s, the heyday of my MTV-watching life.
1997: She Moves, “Breaking All the Rules”
I…have never heard this song before. It isn’t bad, but not particularly memorable. Good voices, though.
Brief update this week, on account of I have a very full plate.
No new book arrived this week, so here is a photo of the bird feeder outside my dining room window, before half again that much snow was added to the pile. It’s been a wacky couple of days here, weather-wise.
In reading news, I just finished Jim C. Hines’ Terminal Peace, and it is really good! A fine conclusion to a fun trilogy.
In writing news, I am fast approaching 50,000 words in my NaNoWriMo 2022 story Cacophonous. I expect to “win” before Thanksgiving, and possibly finish the draft by the beginning of December. And writing at this pace is turning my brain to mush.
The middle of November feels like the briefly-held breath before something exciting or unpleasant but not unexpected. Such are the holidays.
1977: Shaun Cassidy, “Hey Deanie”
All I remember of Shaun Cassidy from the 1970s is “The Doo Ron Ron” and The Hardy Boys. “Hey Deanie” is fun but not terribly memorable.
1982: Jeffrey Osborne, “On the Wings of Love”
I heard “On the Wings of Love” when it first came out, though seldom since then, as I didn’t recognize the song until the chorus. Then it all came back. I heard it on the school bus, in the milking parlor, and probably while in houses where people actually listened to music. It has had a well-deserved long life, and still gets play on classic rock stations.
1987: Levert, “Casanova”
Oh, that ever-present drum machine beat. They only place I would have encountered this video would have been MTV, and that probably late at night, considering the realities of MTV racial politics in the 1980s. “Casanova” is a hip song, and I am glad to have encountered it again, 35 years later.
1992: Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”
This song was so ubiquitous that I don’t remember a time when I had not heard this song. “I Will Always Love You” is so much a part of the pop landscape that it is inextricable, and therefore not associated with any specific memory, because it is associated with every memory.
1997: Timbaland & Magoo, “Up Jumps Da Boogie”
Heard this one for the first time when I put this post together. I like it.
With the midterm elections mostly in the rearview mirror, barring a couple of races which were so close that they are going into runoff, or are still being counted, the world is returning to whatever passes for a state of normalcy. Donald Trump, along with all of his supporters, was once again proven to be a pathetic loser, and most of the neo-Nazi bootlicks who rode, or attempted to ride, his coattails into political office were rightfully kicked to the curb. There were the usual tears and accusations of rigged elections from the emasculated wingnut manbabies of the GOP/QANON/OANN/KKK/Fox News bloc (which is many different names for the same undifferentiated mass of jackboot fetishists), and there will inevitably be a backlash of new bills introduced which will attempt to limit voting rights to only conservative white Christian men who own property. Such are the goals of conservative white Christians in America.
Anyway. Enough about politics.
Only one new book arrived this week – Death in the Mouth the most of the recent spate of Kickstarter rewards. Friends, this book is gorgeous!
In reading news, I finished K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro. It was great! When I am ready to start buying books again, I will pick up the sequel which, based on the excerpt published at the end of Wolf, should be excellent.
I just started Terminal Peace, the final volume of Jim C. Hines’ Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse trilogy. So far, it is every bit as good as the previous books in the series.
And on a whim, during breakfast this morning, I cracked open Duncan Hannah’s 20th Century Boy, which I can already see I will need to put down until after November, else I will be so consumed reading it that I will not have any time to write.
In writing news, I am at something over 25,000 words in my NaNoWriMo story Cacophonous. Things are going very well so far and I expect to hit 50,000 well before the end of the month.
The second week of November is a fugue of the end of fall and the beginning of winter, and all we really want to do is sleep.
1977: The Bay City Rollers, “The Way I Feel Tonight”
I don’t think I have heard “The Way I Feel Tonight” before today; at least, I have no memory or associated memories. It’s…okay.
1982: Eddie Rabbitt and Crystal Gayle, “You and I”
This is another of the many songs in this project where I have no specific memory of “You and I,” but it sounds kind of like so many other songs of its type and era that I may have, and the song has since become lost in the crowd. It is certainly not something I, as a disaffected 13-year-old, would have sought out.
1987: John Cougar Mellencamp, “Cherry Bomb”
Oh yeah, I have heard “Cherry Bomb” a lot. It was odd to hear nostalgic songs like this one while starting a new life, because despite my overall unhappiness living on the farm and attending school in that toxic little village, there were parts I couldn’t let go of, and songs like this one probably didn’t help. Of course the song, like all songs, is of its time, and the video of kids having fun before they (I gather, from the imagery in the video) head off to war, is a nice touch, as is the interracial couple slow-dancing, which was definitely controversial back in the 1980s.
1992: Guns ‘N’ Roses, “November Rain”
This is a repeat from earlier in the year, so please enjoy this live video from 1992, featuring Elton John.
1997: Mack 10, “Backyard Boogie”
Another repeat from earlier in the year.
For the tenth year in a row, I am attempting NaNoWriMo. So far things are going very well, in that I am several thousand words ahead of schedule, and the story I am writing is still interesting to me, which is very important when writing. If my work is boring to me it will probably be boring to everyone else.
No new reading material arrived in the past week, which is fine, as I still have over half a thousand unread books and journals to work through, and that takes time. Lots and lots of time. Therefore, please enjoy this photo of a gravid female praying mantis which I discovered on a walk around Blandford Nature Center on the afternoon of Friday, October 21.
Currently I am reading The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso. It’s really good! I should be finished in a couple of days, and then maybe on through a few more issues of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, or something.
In writing news, it is all Nano, all day. Or at least those parts of the day when I am not working or sleeping or hanging with my honey, or teaching or eating or attending to the cats.
At this point NaNoWriMo 2022 has been in full swing for a little over 24 hours. I am a couple of thousand words into my story for the year, and enjoying the process immensely. But that means that I have little time for a long, detailed blog post. That being said…
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for November 2022 is:
November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?
This is my tenth year participating in NaNoWriMo, and I have loved the experience throughout, even in those years where I didn’t get to 50,000 words. I recommend that everyone try it at least once.
The Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.
This was the month I finally made it to the bottom of my stack of back issues of The Paris Review. It was a wondrous, wild ride full of some of the best writing I have experienced in my adult life, but I feel a sense of relief now that I am done.
This was also the month in which I passed 200 pieces of short prose read, which means 2022, for all its chaos and uncertainty, was a stellar year for reading.
Books and Journals
Short Prose