...and for my next trick
So worklife is receding in the rear view mirror, and while I have a few phantom limb pains and pangs, I'm glad to have the time to work on the book and reconsider how my life is structured.
I've started writing the book and I'm pleased with what I've got so far. I don't want a straightforward journalistic recounting of the making of Swordfishtrombones. That feels inadequate with Tom Waits. He can't even give a straightforward interview. He's a crooked man who's walked a crooked path and I intend to use that. There's a mythos in his work that I want to evoke. I want to follow all the intriguing associations I get from his work. I intend to write about Joseph Cornell's basement and George Herriman's desert and Edgar Ulmer's career and Pere Jules in L'Atalante and the whaling church in Moby Dick and the way Edward Gorey dressed for the ballet.
I want the language to be rich and concrete and earthy and a bit dark and also very comic. There's a "thinginess" to TW's lyrics that I want to reflect in the writing. (In short, less latinate and more anglo saxon.) I'm using At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien and A Confederacy of Dunces as linguistic touchstones. Also Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (less earthy but honed and dark), and Stanley Elkin's The Magic Kingdom (long spiels and riffs like a Catskills comic storyteller lifted to High Literary Prose). I plan to steal the index structure from The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney.
One of the best things about this project is that I'm given a tremendous amount of latitude in how I do the book. I'm feeling ambitious about it and confident I can create something that's going to require everything I've got and more. It's thrilling to reach beyond my scope. I want push myself to a higher level as a writer.
Lost in the Grooves was a very satisfying project. I think Kim and I were able to achieve the book we had envisioned. But for my part, the accomplishment was in the editing and putting the whole thing together. I didn't feel like I did my best writing (largely because I was plugging gaps that I felt were necessary for the breadth of the book). I'm ready to flex that muscle again.
I've started writing the book and I'm pleased with what I've got so far. I don't want a straightforward journalistic recounting of the making of Swordfishtrombones. That feels inadequate with Tom Waits. He can't even give a straightforward interview. He's a crooked man who's walked a crooked path and I intend to use that. There's a mythos in his work that I want to evoke. I want to follow all the intriguing associations I get from his work. I intend to write about Joseph Cornell's basement and George Herriman's desert and Edgar Ulmer's career and Pere Jules in L'Atalante and the whaling church in Moby Dick and the way Edward Gorey dressed for the ballet.
I want the language to be rich and concrete and earthy and a bit dark and also very comic. There's a "thinginess" to TW's lyrics that I want to reflect in the writing. (In short, less latinate and more anglo saxon.) I'm using At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien and A Confederacy of Dunces as linguistic touchstones. Also Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (less earthy but honed and dark), and Stanley Elkin's The Magic Kingdom (long spiels and riffs like a Catskills comic storyteller lifted to High Literary Prose). I plan to steal the index structure from The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles Finney.
One of the best things about this project is that I'm given a tremendous amount of latitude in how I do the book. I'm feeling ambitious about it and confident I can create something that's going to require everything I've got and more. It's thrilling to reach beyond my scope. I want push myself to a higher level as a writer.
Lost in the Grooves was a very satisfying project. I think Kim and I were able to achieve the book we had envisioned. But for my part, the accomplishment was in the editing and putting the whole thing together. I didn't feel like I did my best writing (largely because I was plugging gaps that I felt were necessary for the breadth of the book). I'm ready to flex that muscle again.