Things is the name of a piano piece that my sixteen-year-old just wrote for his end-of-semester recital at the local junior college. He was somewhat hesitant about taking the class when we discussed it back in August, but he seems to have mostly enjoyed it, now that the semester is in the rear view mirror.
Anyway, the event was last night… so here’s Jesse at the recital. As you can probably detect (if you have a few threads of Sherlock Holmesian DNA woven into your deerstalker cap), I’m immensely proud of him.
I’m not sure what the relevance of the name is to the music, but it is undeniable that music is made up of things. Math, frequencies, emotion, sound waves, patterns, vibrations, timbre, pitch, the displacement of air, strange organizations and arrangements of wood, metal, fibre, etc that are sculpted together into various instruments. And creativity, of course.
Music is a strange one. It’s decidedly odd that we (the humans) find it collectively appealing, attractive, inspiring, haunting–all manners of responses that are common to vast multiples of people. True, I might not find certain tonal patterns and scales of other cultures appealing, but it is equally true that vast numbers of those cultures genuinely find them appealing.
Music and sunsets. The affable golden retriever is impressed by neither. Which really does beg a few questions about what exactly we are as humans. And what we are not, seeing that we aren’t golden retrievers, rhinos, gerbils, etc.
…and the fields are stripped bare of all they wear.
“October” October–U2 1981.
I’m not much of a fan of the more recent U2 albums, but I do like their first five albums, from Boy through The Joshua Tree. After that, not so much. Rattle and Hum was their sixth album, and it felt like to me that they lost their raw, earnest soul from that point on. It’s hard to say exactly what happened. Perhaps a mixture of the more poisonous effects of extreme success combined with a change of perspective about God?
Pure conjecture on my part, of course. None of us have the ability to peer into someone else’s soul and definitely diagnose what’s happening within. True, you can make some pretty safe assumptions based on an individual’s fruit. “By their fruit you shall know them,” and all that sort of thing. On the extreme end of behavior, if someone is rushing about beheading people in the name of their religion, you can probably make a fairly dependable diagnosis of the state of their soul and where they’re ultimately heading if they don’t make an abrupt u-turn.
However, most people don’t behave in ways that, from the vantage point of others, precisely and irrefutably correlate to the state of their soul.
Frankly, I’m relieved that I’m not the Judge.
I’m just an aspiring writer with very little time to write. And getting older. It feels like I’m in the October of my earthly existence. If one believes in eternity–and I do–then the earthly stretch of years is quite short, and there’s really not much of a difference between January and October, let alone December. But, while we’re here on Earth, the months feel heavy and valuable with potential. Time feels important, as if there are many things that still can be done and should be done.
Speaking of that, a few writing updates.
I’m almost done with my six-year-long book project. Actually, I might’ve started it seven years ago. I can’t exactly remember. It’s basically done and I’m avoiding publishing it by spending some of that precious time fiddling with characters and details and trying to settle on a map that shows just enough but not too much.
This one is another epic fantasy. Not as serious and as deliberate as The Hawk and His Boy trilogy, but definitely not as madcap as The Fury Clock, though there is a slight bit of cross-over with The Fury Clock in terms of some similar geographical locations, a few very quick references to several characters, and some threads of shared history.
Average Hollywood Executive
I also recently finished a job for an NBC/Universal project. A film script co-written with a small team for a pre-existing Universal property. We were paid for the project (always nice) but the powers that be ultimately decided to kill the project. I’ve been told that this is quite common in Hollywood. Studios will happily throw money around commissioning scripts and then just as happily kill those same scripts when finished.
I suppose there are many reasons for that, ranging from script quality to mental health issues on the part of studio executives, etc, but let me quite humbly say that script quality was not the issue with our particular project. No. I think the reason why they killed it was more off in the realm of the Bermuda Triangle, belief in a flat Earth, too much soy in one’s diet, and/or having had one’s brain harvested by space aliens.
Happily, I’ve been pulled back into another script project, so that’s good. What’s not good is that this means I have less time for my own projects, compounded by the fact that I’m still working a full-time job (feel free to ask me about California water policy and regulations and I will bore you to recyclable tears that must be first cleaned to drinking water quality standards before being injected into an aquifer that has any nexus with potable water supply).
One of my son Jesse’s gamer friends, Alex, recently asked him to write a blues piece. And Jesse, always up for a musical challenge, did so–hence, the aptly named Alex Blues, courtesy of JB Proof music.
Jesse has been experimenting with jazz and blues: chord structures, improv, syncopation, and all that beautifully blurry stuff. I appreciate watching the creative and educational process, particularly in seeing a kid self-propel through the endless sea of music that has not yet been written, finding his own hither-to undiscovered gems and yet-unnamed seahorses as he sails along.
Unrelated side note: have we reached the time in human history when the proverbial pig is flying? I think so. More on that later, but not during this post.
If you have a moment, check out his collection so far at Youtube, written under the name of JB Proof (not the proverbial flying pig, but Jesse). Subscribe and leave a comment–creatives always appreciate the encouragement. I’m not entirely clear on his songwriting name. JB for his initials, obviously, but proof… perhaps proof that he’s alive, creative, has keyboard and will travel? Dunno.
The proof is out there, to borrow from Mulder and Scully.
These songs are just Jesse, a Mac, a midi keyboard, an audio interface, some JBL speakers, and Logic Pro. I probably need to invest some money at Spitfire and buy him some new collections of samples to harness to that keyboard (particularly brass), but good samples are expensive…
In other creative news, I’m just about done with a new book, clocking in at about 200,000 words. Epic fantasy, of course, but reasonably light-hearted. In comparison to my other epic fantasy books, this one is in between the serious Hawk and His Boy series and the comedic Fury Clock, but somewhat closer to Fury Clock.
The new book has a definite plot ending, but the overall story is positioned perfectly for endless sequels. That said, I might publish the initial 200,000 words in five episodes of around 40,000 words apiece (and make them as cheap as possible at 99 cents each, as well as enrolled in Kindle Unlimited); this would be in order to set up an ongoing approach of adding additional episodes. Writing a 40,000 word episode or novella is a lot easier than writing a 200,000 gravestone.
Anyway, still pondering that approach.
In other news, I have come to the almost spiritual realization that bacon is a sublime food. It is the perfect combination of salt, sweet, texture, aroma and seductive visual appeal. Why didn’t I realize this when I was young? I have wasted so many years.
I recently noticed in one of those fleeting, drive-by-news clips that there’s a (sorely misguided) movement in England to ban bacon. Perhaps due to an odd love of pigs and wanting to see them frolicking in fields as opposed to frolicking on your plate? At any rate, this worries me for the future of England. The little rainy island with cramped roads has given the world so much: Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, Shakespeare, Monty Python, the Magna Carta, Drake and other assorted explorers, William Wilberforce, a wider appreciation for tea (which I don’t appreciate myself, but my wife does, so I’ll honor England on her behalf), clotted cream, and Stonehenge.
To sum up the current situation: celebrate England’s past, look with grave concern on her current bacon perspective, tell your Aunt Edna about my books, and listen to some more JB Proof music.
And if anyone has a new comedic fiction book they can honestly recommend to me, I would love that. Nothing with millionaire or billionaire in the title, please. In my modest and incredibly humble opinion, the vast majority of the titles in Amazon’s humor bestseller list do not seem to be humor. Does humor even exist anymore?
The thesis statement of the book of Ecclesiastes is the second verse of chapter one, in which the author remarks “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.” He goes on to make the point that everything repeats itself. The sun comes up, goes down, and then returns and does the same the very next day. The rivers run to the sea, but the sea is never full. The wind blows to the north, to the south, going round and round forever.
He goes on to say that there’s nothing new; everything has been done before and will be repeated and done again.
A generation comes and a generation goes… there is no remembrance of former things by those who come after. That’s certainly a sobering thought. It reminds me of Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias.” He wrote it in 1817, practically antique and ancient from our modern, refined and digitally enlightened sensibilities, but I suspect he was wiser than most of our pontificating prognosticators. Not suspect. Know.
Back in my grim Chicago days, I wrote a song based on Shelley’s poem, used the same title, and my band The Autumn War included it in our regular lineup. Playing late night shows in smoke-filled bars, complete with floors sticky with beer and peopled with a wide assortment of characters, will certainly make you question the purpose of life. Almost get you in a so long and thanks for the all the fish mentality if you don’t watch out.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” No thing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ecclesiastes is a fascinatingly dark book. It’s a book of shadows. However, it can be read in two different ways. If you’re philosophically a materialist (and, by that, I don’t mean a materialist in terms of being consumed with acquiring and owning stuff–material things) and believe that the material matter of the universe is all that exists, then you will find only darkness in Ecclesiastes.
However, you can read Ecclesiastes in a second way. If you’re a Christian, then it’s still a dark book of shadows, but you realize that the shadows exist because of the light. Obviously, that’s a metaphor, but it reflects the reality of physics. Makes me wonder which one is the metaphor… the philosophy of light and shadow, or the physics of light and shadow.
Anyway, that second kind of perspective makes all the difference. And that difference gives tremendous meaning and value to the endless rising and setting of the sun, the endless flow of water to the hungry sea, and the unending need for the eye to see and the ear to hear.
Thank God! That means I can write more stories and songs in good faith that there’s reason for them. Reason and need.
I find myself returning to the question of free will versus predestination, or, if you must be theatrical about it, is the script of our life written by us or Someone else? That begs the subsequent question: if our script is written for us, do we have to perform it as written?
The fires down in Pacific Palisades and other parts of the Los Angeles area certainly weren’t imagined by anyone, other than the gloomy forecasters working for Cal Fire or various insurance companies or whichever crystal ball company out there that spends a little money on R&D or product testing. I mean, who would’ve written a script like that if you’re writing your own script?
I was recently discussing the fires with a co-worker who used to belong to a local volunteer fire company. He said that, when you enter a house fire, it is so unbelievably hot that all of your mind and body bands together and shouts “Run!” But, he went on to say, if you’re part of a team, the psychology of the team effect overpowers that voice and you soldier on.
That’s an interesting metaphor for life. Life isn’t usually as crazy and intense as a whatever-degree fire blowing up in your face. However, the net effect of life can sneak up on you and, before you know it, your body and mind are advising you to run. A strong marriage combined with a healthy relationship with God are your team in that scenario; that’s usually enough to overpower the advice to run.
Hang in there. Keep reading the script, because it’ll end well, particularly if you’ve got your eyes on God. Despite how dark or fiery it might be at the moment.
Speaking of scripts, I’m knee-deep in my secret script project. We’ve been working on this since around March/April of 2024. I’m not allowed to say what it is and who it’s for, but it should hopefully see the green-light of production day sometime in 2025. Hopefully. And then I’ll be free to talk about it. Fantastic project, but it is soaking up most of my limited free time that could be going to other writing projects (notably, a very light-hearted epic fantasy that I’ve been fiddling with for the last five years–almost done, but still needs some work; a humorous series of children’s stories set in modern America [inspired by Daniel Pinkwater’s writing]; a novella set in Tormay, post-Hawk and featuring one of the minor characters from that trilogy-this one’s probably about halfway finished).
What I am free to talk about, though, is Son #2’s music. His latest songs (written and recorded with JB Proof as his nom de guerre) are called Ever After and Leaving. They’re available mostly wherever music is available these days, but you can listen to them for free on Youtube. Pretty darn cool for a 15-year-old! He has about twenty songs out so far, and I’m fascinated by how his songwriting is evolving in terms of arrangement and structure.
