RandomCha

that no one has given me any feedback.

My birthday is August 22nd. Help me decide something.

Were I to have a birthday party out, which cuisine should it be? 

Chinese
Mexican
tapas
no food, just cocktails

My birthday is August 22nd. Help me decide something.

Were I to have a birthday party out, which cuisine should it be?
Chinese
Mexican
tapas
no food, just cocktails

Have a finished manuscript, but agents won’t give you the time of day and self-publishing is more than you can afford? Enter WAPYB Writing Contest … the top ten manuscripts get prizes. But hurry! The contest will close afer the 250 entries!

Responding to questions from milehighguy :

1. what’s your favorite televised cartoon?
“Looney Tunes.” Among made-for-TV cartoons: “Space Ghost Coast to Coast.”

2. what is the most important thing that has happened to you in the last 5 years?
Publishing 100 Spinning Plates.

3. what is your single finest quality?
Curiousity.

Responding to questions from milehighguy :

1. what’s your favorite televised cartoon?
“Looney Tunes.” Among made-for-TV cartoons: “Space Ghost Coast to Coast.”

2. what is the most important thing that has happened to you in the last 5 years?
Publishing 100 Spinning Plates.

3. what is your single finest quality?
Curiousity.

Responding to questions from sonatanator :

1. What’s the most flustered/awkwardly speechless you’ve ever been?
One Sunday at church when I was a kid I was suddenly chosen to say the offeratory prayer before the collection plates went around the sanctuary at the morning service. I was absolutely petrified, but obviusly couldn’t say no. I mumbled some lame words into the microphone for the whole church to hear. I remember that my prayer ended something like, “I pray you will use this money for your good, and I know you will.” 

2. Since we had an enjoyable but brief meet-up back in March, what would you like to propose for a second get together (which I hope will happen). Be as fanciful or realistic as you wish.
Well, if you come back to Chicago it’d be cool to catch a flick at the Siskel Film Center and then go for dinks somewhere. After all, you’ve often said that after a few drinks you lose control 🙂

3. Of the five senses, how do they rank for you from most vividly connected to your memory to least? Give an example of a strong memory association for each one.
I’ve always had a particularly vivid visual memory. Which is perhaps one of the reasons I love film so much. A mind-picture acts as a trigger for my memory of the other senses: how I felt at that moment, what the place felt like, the sounds around me.  Lastly would be my senses of taste and smell. Those are more abstract for me. For example, I remember the first time I saw “Lost Highway.” Opening weekend. And every time I see the film again the images and sounds instantly take me back to that afternoon in the movie theater at 600 North Michigan, the goosbumps on my skin, how the last shot of the film completely took my breath away. The thrill that made me buy another ticket for the very next screening.

I’m gonna be a library grad school widow tonight 😦 Anyone free?

Responding to questions from nofunk :

1. Name one jazz album you adore. Or, if you must, name a few. But make sure to tell me why you find it indispensible.

“A Fickle Sonance,” by Jackie McLean. This album is perfectly constructed: not a wasted moment or a wasted note. Jackie was really beginning to stretch out into angular, unusual music and yet the whole things still swings. That’s why it works. It’s really the perfect place to start if you want to hear jazz that’s “out there” yet still has a firm anchor, music that does new things but builds on the familiar. I’ve listened to the title track so often that I’ve memorized every solo. And the album is all the more poignant since Jackie died this year at age 74.

2. I’ve tried writing before, and I’ve been told my writing is good. But when I go back and read what I’ve written, I think it’s total crap and I scrap it. What have you discovered to be your greatest challenge in writing?

The greatest challenges in writing: writing something which I still like the next day, and if I don’t like it the next day the determination to rework it rather than scrap it completely.

3. Oh, what the hell… boxers or briefs?

Boxers 🙂

Responding to questions from sumsinnow :

1. Sometimes literature no matter how “colorful” it’s written seems very flat, so, tell us how you achieve a sense of texture when you write?
The key is selective detail. A passage that’s busy with observation will always pale next to a passage with three well-chosen details. Less is more. You have to give the reader just enough for them to be able to complete the picture on their own. Too much color is confusing, and dull.

2. What kind of cat would want, if Andy let you have one?
Just a quiet, friendly cat who purred a lot, loved being petted, and was mellow about lying around the apartment. One who’d sit in my lap while I read a book or watched a movie.

3. Speaking of Andy, where would you be if Andy wasn’t in your life, right now?
Great question. I don’t have a good answer. I would probably be a lot more “productive,” but also more selfish and more lonely. I’d probably still be living in Chicago but I’d be living alone. No roommates. Other than that it’s awfully hard to picture where my life would be. Knowing myself as I do, I’d be sleeping around a lot more.  

If California Were Iraq …