An Aries Knows (this site is more fun when people read and comment)
‘Nathan just tweeted the following:
NathanBurgoine Life goal update: have signing at @murderbooks
‘Nathan, I believe this will happen. And I can tell you from experience that Murder By the Book is a great place to have a book signing because the store, the staff, and its readers are the best.
Meanwhile, I have a photo that may remind you of Houston’s best little mystery bookstore:
I couldn’t have expressed it better than one of my favorite writers Tom Robbins did in an interview from 2000:
…you’ve traveled quite a bit.
I do travel. You have to keep moving otherwise you’re a target.
That’s cynical.
Cheerfully cynical. My view of the world is not that different from Kafka’s, really. The difference is that Kafka let it make him miserable and I refuse. Life is too short. My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just [mindless] joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.
I suddenly realized that it’s only eight more days until the return of my second favorite (and maybe the only one I’ll watch this fall) reality show, Lifetime’s Project Runway. It’s moving up an hour (9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, which means 8 p.m. Central–and I don’t know what time Mountain people can see it) on Thursday nights. The format is ninety minutes, but details haven’t been provided as to whether they’ll feature another season of Models of the Runway or are expanding air time for the design competition. This season has more contestants than usual–seventeen–and tonight I watched all their casting videos and picked my favorites to keep an eye on and my favorites to go home early.
Will I be playing along and designing for Mattel’s Model Muse dolls?
Does Barbie have a dream house?
I’m already auditioning my models. In case you think they’ve just been lying around naked in a wicker box all summer, you should know that some of them have joined together to form an all-model rock band, The Opposite of Math. As for whether or not my own personal muse Summer will return–stay tuned!
Taken from far away, with a basic lens, through a window, on an overcast day. I was stalking him as he traveled a fence in fits and starts.
I have absolutely no reason whatsoever for making this today’s button. Some things in life are just random and we have to accept that. Although if I were older than 35, I might remember a Christmas when I got Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads when they were still just things you stuck in actual vegetables and not inserted into plastic potatoes. Apparently those newfangled ones were safer. But could they smell like a rotting vegetable or piece of fruit that would make your older siblings gag? I think not.
In fact, if I were older than 35, there might even be photographic evidence.
In other matters, I greatly appreciate your comments to my previous post. I will try to fulfill all your requests over time. Thanks for giving me ideas for LJ material!
Any photos you’d like to see? Anything you’d like me to write about? Suggestions being taken.
I reserve the right to delete this post at a moment’s notice and pretend it never happened.
Just when you thought it was safe togo back in the dining room.
The Photo Friday folks are on vacation this week, so here’s another in my Windows series.
I’m enjoying tonight’s moon. I’ve always had a fondness for crescent moons. Who am I kidding? I have a fondness for all moons. Must have something to do with one of the names I was given at birth.
Tonight was Murder By the Book’s and Brazos Bookstore’s Moonlight Madness sale, meaning the stores stayed open L-A-T-E. Just my schedule. So I swung by and purchased a few books, took the above photo, and came home to write in LJ.
Oddly, I was writing about an actor and as I was putting it all together, Tom came in to tell me he’d just seen him on a new TV show (Rizzoli & Isles, based on novels by Tess Gerritsen) at the same time that I was reading the actor’s Tweet about the show’s highly-rated launch. ACK! The synchronicity!
But let me get on with it.
If you read here, you know that I like the Twilight books and the movies, and I’ve decided to stop feeling sheepish about it. Somewhere there’s a woman happily reading a paperback with a whimsical little cover, maybe pink, maybe blue, and someone sees her, raises an eyebrow, and says, “You don’t actually like that romance crap, do you?” And for a minute, she probably feels bad, maybe defensive, and then she rests the book on the table while she reads so no one else can see the title and MY AUTHOR NAME on it. So I say, “Honey, lift up that book. Like what you want to like. And I’ll do the same.” If I want to shelve Stephenie Meyer between Herman Melville and Marcel Proust in my living room, so be it. Kidding. Proust is French–he’s nowhere near my American novelists’ shelves.
Now when it comes to the Twilight movies, I can enjoy them on the campy level, on the story level, on the how-do-they-compare-to-the-book level, on the dramatic level, on the special effects level, and for the degree of commitment that the screenwriter, actors, director, and crew have put into their work. I can also enjoy the fun-phenomena aspect of the movie releases, from the Twihards to the Twimoms to the ‘tweens.
But in truth, I don’t get all worked up over Robert Pattinson/Edward or Taylor Lautner/Jacob. I can appreciate their work and their pretty faces and bodies, but if you want to know who I have a crush on, it’s Charlie, Bella’s dad. Not a swooning-OMG-crush. I like the way actor Billy Burke portrays Charlie. He reminds me of someone special from my long-ago past: laconic, reserved, protective, kind–a sports-loving, hunting, hardworking, decent guy. The awkwardness that exists between Charlie and Bella makes for scenes that entertain and touch me. Kudos to Billy Burke for pulling that off so that I like Charlie better in the movies than in the books.
Because I liked his work, I looked up Billy Burke some time ago and followed his Twitter account, which led me to his web site, which led me to his music. I’m a complete sucker for a singer/songwriter with a whiskey voice. So when his new album Removed became available, I downloaded it on iTunes (it’s also been the number one seller on CDBaby) and I’ve been enjoying it. Sort of has a low-key Mellencamp/Tom Waits/John Prine vibe–though I’m not big on comparing artists because that’s the whole thing about being authentically creative–every artist is unique. In addition, a portion of Removed’s sales will go to VH-1’s Save The Music, an organization that helps keep music education in our schools–I’m totally on board with that.
So this is my shout-out/thank you to the multi-talented Billy Burke. Nothing like being an “overnight” success after working your butt off since you were nine years old!
My latest “Work of Art,” along with creative submissions from several others, is now on the Work of Art blog. Thank you again, Lindsey, for providing this forum, because it’s inspiring to see what people do with the challenges.
Statement: No matter where I am inside my adopted city, or coming home to it, my heart lifts EVERY time I see the downtown skyline. I love the skyscrapers and the colors of Houston’s parks and landscaping which are visible year-round. I’m a five-minute drive from downtown, a five-minute drive from several fantastic parks, and as if that’s not enough, I’m less than a ten-minute drive from the works of many of my favorite artists. I’ve tried to mimic some of their canvases here. I never dreamed I’d live where city streets could take me to Rothko, Picasso, Braque, Pollock, Monet, Van Gogh, Ensor, Mondrian, Newman, Cézanne, Magritte, Jasper Johns, Klein, Miró–a visual feast.