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 |    My primary Writing.com blog. |
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Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics). Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:  "The Soundtrackers Group"  "Invalid Item" "Blogging Circle of Friends " "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" "JAFBG" "Take up Your Cross" Thanks for stopping by!  |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" | Day 6This might be one of the most heartbreaking songs I've heard recently (except the ones that remind me of my mom). The lyrics are so melancholy and yet they're mixed with a somewhat uptempo beat and the quality of her voice is haunting. It's a pretty powerful mix. I've been listening to quite a few songs by Sasha Sloan lately and I'm really impressed with the quality of her music. There's also a Nashville singer-songwriter named Tasji Bachman who does a great cover of this song, and there's a live version that Sasha Sloan does for (I think) Jimmy Fallon's late night show where her voice sounds damn-near studio quality. It was really impressive that she was able to replicate a studio sound to her voice during a live performance. |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" | Day 5Okay, enough with the sad songs and melancholy sentiments for a minute! I originally heard this song on the Season 10 finale of SHAMELESS when Mickey and Ian get married and I haven't stopped listening to it since. I have mixed feelings on Kesha as an artist, but there's no question that she can write an arrange a catchy song. The lyrics are just fun and the song has a great energy to it. And, honestly, "I'm all fucked up in my Sunday best, no walk of shame 'cause I love this dress" might be one of the best might-as-well-enjoy-being-a-sinner lyrics since Billy Joel's "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun" line from "Only The Good Die Young."  |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" | Day 4This is another one of those songs that I've been listening to a lot and thinking about my mom. Late last year, I was left myself a note to include The Chicks' song "Gaslighter" on my "The Soundtrack of Your Life" this year because it's a super-satisfying middle finger to Adrian Pasdar, the ex-husband of lead singer Natalie Maines and their awful divorce... but once my mom passed, this was the song I gravitated toward more and more.The lyrics of this song remind me a lot of their prior hit "The Long Way Around" in that there's something a little bittersweet and self-reflective about the journey through life that both songs really hit on in similar ways. I've always enjoyed The Chicks' music, and their concert was - to this day - one of the best ones I've ever been to. I think they're great musicians, and incredibly courageous for braving the stuff that they've been through over the years, especially the political attacks in the early 2000s. Songs like this are reminders of why they're so talented. They're simple and yet able to evoke a lot of emotion. |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" | Day 3A R I Z O N A is another one of the bands that I've found recently and I'm really enjoying. I almost went with "Nostalgic" or "Oceans Away" or "Find Someone" but this is the song that introduced me to the band and I swear I must've stayed up listening to it on repeat for two hours at least. I don't know what it is, exactly, about their sound, but it really resonates with me. It's a little pop, a little alternative, a little old, a little new. These guys (and The Band CAMINO) are probably the first bands in a long time that I've listened to and can say that I think they have a pretty unique sound. This song in particular is one that I've found helps me write. I think it's the combination of the uptempo beat and the flowing lyrics, but it's one of the few songs I've been listening to lately that just energizes me to write. I've been trying to assemble a playlist of those kinds of songs in my effort to create more content this year. I'm actually trying to do playlists of songs for each project I work on, and this one's definitely shown up on a couple of different ones at this point. |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" | Day 2This was a hard song to pick because The Band CAMINO is probably my favorite newly-discovered band this year. As I mentioned in my prior blog post "Changes for 2021" , I'm trying to spend less time consuming content so that I can create more of it, and a big part of that has been listening to a lot more music and finding new artists. The Band CAMINO has such an incredibly diverse sound, and I'm really impressed with their lyrics. I'm strongly considering doing one of their albums for "Musicology Anthology" later this year as well.While I almost went with "The Black and White" or their amazing collaboration "Crying Over You" with Chelsea Cutler, this is the song I probably play on repeat the most often. It's another of the songs I've been listening to when I want to remember my mom (spoiler alert: that's probably going to be a popular theme in my "The Soundtrack of Your Life" this year). |
"The Soundtrack of Your Life" | Day 1It wouldn't be a true "The Soundtrack of Your Life" without including a deeply personal song, and one that I've been listening to a lot this year. This is probably the track I've listened to the most since my mom passed in early November, mostly because I find the line "'Cause the drinks bring back all the memories, and the memories bring back, memories bring back you" to be a bittersweet sentiment. While the drinking isn't really something that I relate to, I can definitely relate to the idea of spending time trying to dredge up memories because the memories are a way of bringing my mom back so I can remember her again.I honestly don't know how long it takes to grieve a loss like this, or if you ever really get past it but, for now, I'm content to have a handful of songs like this that help me grieve by reminding me of all the memories I can use to bring her back (in a way) whenever I want. On a side note, I'm including this version of the song with a delightful animated story of a little girl who dreams of being an astronaut. The song loops a bit and it's not a perfect rendition but, honestly, this is a 1000x better video than the official one which is yet another "hey let's just hold the camera close on Adam Levine's face while he sings" video.  Do yourself a favor and watch this version... it's delightful. |
So I've decided to try something a little different this year... I'm normally a voracious consumer of information and entertainment. I have a lifelong love of learning, a natural affinity for processing input, and have never had any trouble finding ways to occupy my time. Case in point, over the past five years: Books read: 540 Scripts read: 160 Comics read: 244 Podcast episodes listened to: 6,621 Movies watched: 500+ TV series watched: 100+ And that's not even counting all the newspaper stories, magazine articles, social media conversations, etc. But I'm realizing that all of this has come at a cost. Over that same period of time: Books written: 0 Scripts written: 0 I've written a fair amount of short stories and poetry, blog posts and essays, and other creative writing in that time... but overall, I've been prioritizing the consumption of media over the creation of it, and I've been depriving myself of "free time" to think, plan, and realize my own projects. This year, I'm intentionally reading less. I unsubscribed from a bunch of podcasts so my weeks aren't full of dozens of listening hours. I'm going to be more purposeful about the movies and television I watch, as well as the time I spend online. I want to create the space to spend more time thinking and (hopefully) writing. This isn't some grand proclamation where I'm going to suddenly leave social media altogether or anything like that. I guess, more accurately, it's an effort to rebalance my time and energies. I'm hoping for some real change in 2021, and I realize that's not going to happen if I don't do things differently. And I guess I'm just posting it here to hold myself accountable. Anyone else trying to make any big changes this year? |
It's the end of 2020, which means it's time to review all the reading and listening I've done over the past calendar year. Here's how 2020 breaks down:  = favorite = also really enjoyedBooks (click to expand full list) ▼ This year, I spent a lot of time clearing out my Kindle of all the impulse buys and discount books that I've picked up over the year. That basically meant a lot of mediocre stuff, a lot of which I didn't finish. There were a few high points, though, including Last Call at the Nighshade Lounge which was a fun urban fantasy adventure with a unique magic system, and Peter Sagal's Incomplete Book of Running which I found particularly endearing and more heartfelt than I anticipated. Over the past five years, I've averaged reading about 100 books a year (108, to be exact), but this year I think I'm going to scale it back and focus on being more intentional with my reading. I'm not sure what my reading goal will be in terms of actual number of books because I have a lot of titles lined up that are longer and more complex than what I've typically been reading over the past five years, which means I may not be able to plow through them at quite so quick a pace. That said, I do have a fair amount of Kindle "fluff" left (around 60 titles), so I guess we'll just have to see where the reading muse takes me. Podcasts (click to expand full list) ▼ Ironically, two of my favorite new podcasts didn't even make my end of year "favorite" ( ) or "also really enjoyed" () list because I got tired of both of them pretty quickly. But By The Book (the hosts live out the advice of self-help books to the letter and then report back) and Dirt Cheap (dramatic reading and comedic analysis of bad pulp fiction from decades past) are great ideas for podcasts that were fun to follow along with for a time. Similar to the iconic My Dad Wrote A Porno podcast, they are clever ideas that just ended up getting a little old for me after several episodes. Pod Save America remains probably my favorite podcast which kept me sane during this crazy election year, and as always, the Ezra Klein Show and The Weeds were incredible resources for deep dives on a variety of topics.Like with books, next year I'm going to scale back on my podcasts. There are several on the list this year that I'm starting to tire of, particularly all the self-publishing stuff. I think I'm hitting a critical mass where I don't feel like I'm learning as much as am just kind of going through the motions listening, so that's probably a good time to re-evaluate the time I spend listening to them. Comics (click to expand full list) ▼ I didn't read many comics this year, although I think I'm also forgetting to include all the various ones that I skimmed through during the writing credit arbitration on the upcoming Black Widow feature film. My goal for 2021 is actually to read more comics because I really enjoy them and I've been missing reading them over the past few years. Scripts (click to expand full list) ▼ I'm not putting any favorites or highly recommended on the script section of my reading list because a lot of the writers on this list are my friends and/or colleagues and I don't want to play favorites with my friends and business associates. TOTALS: 111 books, 1165 podcasts, 7 comics, 25 scripts According to Goodreads, my book reading resulted in the following stats (based on the 98 books found on Goodreads): Total Pages Read: 27,562 Average Pages Per Book: 248 Shortest Book: 42 pages Longest Book: 729 pages That's it for my 2020 reading... time to see what 2021 has in store!  |
"Resurrection Jukebox" | Day 15"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen (cover by Connie Talbot} Full Lyrics ▼ Is this real life? It this fantasy? No escape from reality. Open your eyes. I’ve gone and thrown it all away. Nothing really matters. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth. He’s just a poor boy from a poor family. Spare him his life from this monstrosity. Just gotta get out just gotta get right outta here. Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters. Nothing really matters to me. |
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