I started drafting this post 4 days ago.
In that time, I have added to "One Dead Blonde" and compiled the "Chasing Ashes" scraps into a sample.
I finished my research project yesterday.
There was church on Sunday; the grocery last night and the convenience store on Saturday. No other traveling; today I have not even left the apartment.
Getting ready for a medical procedure tomorrow has left me tired, and I have been spending too much time today sleeping.
I spent time on Tubi, but I cannot rightly think of what all I saw except American Gods.
I will leave you with the scraps of the past few days.
Despite his knack for slick pop, the principled and passionate Chris Rea never took the easy road (The Guardian) - as much s I liked Chris Rea, found him surprising, I never followed him, and found the reaction to his death surprising.
Eventually, a life-threatening illness led him to completely reassess his career and pursue his real musical passion, the blues: he claimed that during his recuperation from the operation that saved his life but left him without a pancreas and in permanently poor health, he’d had an epiphany after finding an old Sister Rosetta Tharpe album in a drawer, bursting into tears at the sight of it. When his label rejected his 2002 album Dancing Down the Stony Road (“because it hadn’t been compromised in any way”), and suggested he make a big-name-packed duets album instead, he walked away from his deal, set up his own record company and happily saw out the rest of his career making and self-releasing the music he wanted to.
He should have gotten more recognition.
Movies I want to see - reviews from RogerEbert.com
This feels like it should apply here, too.
The Testament of Ann Lee - if we're needing the weird to overturn our stagnation, then his sounds like a good start, and yet:
And this remembrance is both in the intention and the failures of “The Testament of Ann Lee.” Fastvold’s film feels like a tribute, an act of instilling memory. And yet, I’d be dishonest to say that the film, on the whole, was very memorable. It is most certainly an expert display of craft: the script is generally nimble, the visuals are stunning, and the choreography is moving. But it is bloated in history and starving for persona. Ann Lee was pious and dedicated, but in this film’s depiction, not much else. Therefore, the extended chapters of the film’s framework become repetitive, as do its themes. There isn’t a single performance in the bunch that can touch Seyfried’s, leaving the film aching for chemistry.
The Choral because I saw a preview and I agree with this:
We need the gift of new narratives to help us imagine beyond present circumstances. While “The Choral” may be riddled with a few too many false notes for comfort, the purity of its song and message make it a hard tune to disregard.
A name to conjure another day and age, even if I barely knew or remember the person to which it is attached: Twiggy.
‘One agency called me Thunder Thighs’: Twiggy and Sadie Frost on sexism, self-esteem and the swinging 60s (The Guardian) - the past is never as neat and tidy as we like to make out.
I forgot this rejection from 12/23:
Dear Samuel,
Thank you for submitting your short story “Going for the Kid” to Gemini Magazine. It was definitely action packed and fast paced. Unfortunately it is not quite right for us at this time but we appreciate the opportunity to evaluate your work.
Please consider us for new work in the future.
Thank you again.
Frances Wiedenhoeft, Reader
Gemini Magazine
How Christmas Murder Mysteries Became a U.K. Holiday Tradition (Atlas Obscura)
Like Professor Lee, Khan finds that the best Christmas murder mysteries offer a challenge and are thought-provoking. But they’re also based on the reality of family holidays. “You’ve got these seething things going on under the surface,” he says. “Crime fiction takes that one step further: You bump someone off. Normally, we’ll just have a fight at Christmas, a sulk, and not speak to each other for a year.”
At their heart, Christmas murder mysteries are morality tales, he says. Using the holidays and an endearing detective to highlight the good and bad in human nature as we head toward a new year.
The terrorist attack at Bondi Beach on 14 December has prompted the shock and grief any society would expect, but I fear that the accompanying public conversation will follow an unproductive and yet familiar pattern. The focus will rapidly shift away from questions of ideology or communal attitudes and toward explanations that require little cultural introspection, such as the existence of “blind hatred” and “ignorance.” Commentators will no doubt emphasise the supposedly individual pathology of the perpetrators and urge restraint, while politicians will warn against division, call for unity, and double down on “anti-racism” programmes.
This is fundamentally misguided. If we hope to prevent further violence, we must trace the roots of the Bondi attack with clarity, since any solution divorced from those roots is destined to fail. Over the past several years, there have been many signs that antisemitism in Australia is becoming more visible and, in some places, clearly linked to ideological and theological beliefs. Much of this has appeared within pockets of the Muslim community committed to a strident interpretation of Islam.
***
In his well-known critique of American multiculturalism, The Disuniting of America, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. notes that a system that encourages the preservation of strong communal identities can also import longstanding antagonisms. These do not dissolve simply because they have been relocated. Australia’s experience over the past year suggests something similar. A commitment to inclusion has been interpreted as a requirement to avoid discussing conflicts that arise from divergent and incommensurable worldviews. The assumption is that harmony can be maintained if difficult topics are kept out of public view. This has the short-term advantage of reducing political tension, but it also creates a long-term vulnerability by encouraging collective blindness.
More rejections came in.
From 12/28:
Thank you for submitting your work to MudRoom for review. We are grateful for the opportunity to engage with your writing and thinking. Unfortunately, we do not have a place in our upcoming issue for "Agnes." We hope it finds a loving home.
All the best,
The Editors
MudRoom Mag
And 12/29, "Agnes" had two more rejections.
This is the only one ever to address me without my name:
Dear Writer,
Thank you so much for submitting your piece to The Hemlock Journal!
We appreciate the opportunity to review your entry, but we regret to inform you that at this moment, it doesn’t align with our vision for this particular issue.
After careful consideration, we want to acknowledge the quality of your piece, and the creativity it reflects. However, due to various factors in our selection process, it did not make it to the final round this time. Please know this was a difficult decision, as your work truly stood out.
We highly encourage you to submit this entry to other journals, where it might be a better fit. Thank you for trusting us with your craft.
We encourage you to continue sharing your writing with us in the future, as we truly admire your talent and dedication to the craft. Thank you for trusting us with your work, and we wish you the very best in all your literary endeavors.
Keep creating!
Warm regards,
Team Hemlock
Not that I did not expect this:
Thank you for submitting "Agnes." We regret that we are unable to publish it, but we appreciate your interest in The Paris Review.
Yours sincerely,
The Editors
And one more for today:
We are grateful that you trusted ANMLY with "Coming Home," however, our readers felt that this particular packet was not a good fit, and we will be unable to publish it. We wish you luck in placing this elsewhere.
Sincerely,
The Editors
http://www.anmly.org
There remain 76 submissions out there waiting for a future rejection.
Done with this post. Going to watch something on Tubi and take my med for tomorrow I see the doctor.
Don't expect tomorrow!
sch
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