I had never heard of Modest Mouse, but was gifted “No One’s First, and You’re Next” on December 25th by an aunt⁽¹⁾ who’d perused my CD collection and though I’d like them.

She was right, I instantly loved their jangly, up- and off-beat indie rock sound. “The Whale Song” was all she promised it would be, but “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” and especially “Autumn Beds” were the two that stuck in my brain and refused to leave, and which I’d find myself humming and tapping, all a-jangle at inopportune moments.

I ended up buying another of their CDs, an earlier one called “Good News for People Who Love Bad News“, and listening to it realized I’d heard “Float On” before, after all.⁽²⁾ Then suddenly they were everywhere, at least, I suddenly seemed to recognize their presence in a way I hadn’t before.

Reading Zoe Whittall‘s excellent Holding Still for as Long as Possible in January I got excited when one of the characters put on one of their CDs. I know them! I thought it was nifty, but a fluke.

Then they turned up again in the book I just finished reading, A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore.⁽³⁾ Continue reading »

Footnotes:

1. She’s actually a step-aunt, as she’s my Grandfather’s wife’s daughter, though she’s only a few months older than me. As such, it seems hilarious to call her “aunt”. “Step-aunt” sounds unnecessarily remote. [↩]
2. I frequently hear music I like, then promptly forget the name of the band. I need to own CDs, see the case, the CD, the artwork, the lyrics to get the whole gestalt and remember things properly. Perhaps that’s why I’m so attached to books, too. They’re things. Lots of abstract ephemera, but I can remember that Zoe Whitthall wrote Holding Still for as Long as Possible because it has a white dustjacket with splashes of colour and a big red circle…but we’re coming to that. [↩]
3. Also a gift, and another excellent book. Although Moore overuses exclamation points. Every would-be humorous sentence is exciting! You can get used to it! Or despair! [↩]

I’m at work on a short story I first started about six months ago. After a few initial re-writes around that time it’s been sitting abandoned in a folder, though not forgotten.

Today was the first time I’d re-read it in full since that time. It’s better than I remember it, though not as good as I know it sounded in my head when I first began drafting the idea. They never comes out as well as I want it to on the page. I understand this is common, but it’s still frustrating.

More tinkering today, but the last five pages need a complete re-write. I probably ought to scrap them all together, but it would mean re-writing or completely re-designing some 500-800 words. It’s for the best, but it still hurts.

I’m hoping to have it finished by the end of the week, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m really enjoying working on these stories again, and just being in this world. So many ideas to play with.

Back to work!