{"id":119,"date":"2007-07-15T20:31:32","date_gmt":"2007-07-16T00:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=119"},"modified":"2012-12-02T00:45:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T04:45:00","slug":"miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=119","title":{"rendered":"miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"

I've never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates, at least as far as I know. I thought I remembered that she wrote some science fiction novels at one point (which I did read and didn't care for), but I can't find any evidence of this, so maybe that was somebody else (Later: that turned out to be Doris Lessing). If I haven't read anything, I don't think I'll start now. She's written 117 books, after all, and I'm not as young as I used to be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I was just reading an article about her, and it said that whenever she finishes a book, she puts it away in a drawer for a year (or more) before starting to rewrite it. I think this is a good policy, and that's about what I intend to do with the new novel. If I ever stop thinking of more things to add to it.<\/p>\n

Recently, I was watching an episode of Dark Shadows<\/I> on DVD. I hadn't seen it since it originally aired in 1969 or 1970, and at one point a character reveals an artifact that he had found on a recent trip overseas. It was a disembodied head (\"disembodied\" meaning \"without a body,\" not \"non-corporeal\" – on Dark Shadows<\/I> either would have been possible), and the moment I saw it, I thought, \"Ah, the head of Judah Zachary!\"<\/p>\n

So, clearly some little part of my brain has been holding onto that name for over 25 years, just in case I might need it. No wonder I have trouble remembering important things, my brain cells are full of the head of Judah Zachary and the hand of Count Petofi and the staircase through time and the I Ching wands.<\/p>\n

Actually, Collinwood (the house where a lot of Dark Shadows <\/em>took place) is a pretty good metaphor for how I want this novel to work. In Collinwood, you could turn a corner and walk up a staircase you'd never noticed before, and suddenly you were in the past. You could enter a room and find a nursery, but the next person entering that room would find a storeroom. You could go through a door and be in \"parallel time\" (don't ask).<\/p>\n

You could be reading a novel, and click on a link you'd never noticed before, and suddenly you're in a collection of short stories about the same characters.<\/p>\n

Another great night of Poco on Friday, out at the Boulton Center in Bay Shore. I got there in one of those fancy new double-decker LIRR trains. I didn't stay for the meet-and-greet after the shows (they played two sets!) because I wanted to get back at a somewhat reasonable hour.<\/p>\n

Set lists are below, for those interested.<\/p>\n

show<\/a>\n

<\/p>\n

First Set:<\/p>\n

Under the Gun
\nCall it Love
\nRose of Cimarron
\nIndian Summer
\nShake It\/Barbados
\nIf Your Heart Needs a Hand
\nKeep on Tryin'
\nCrazy Love
\nA Child's Claim to Fame
\nBad Weather
\nHard Country
\nRain Don't Bother Me
\nMagnolia
\nEncore: Heart of the Night<\/p>\n

Second Set:<\/p>\n

Under the Gun
\nCall It Love
\nRose of Cimarron
\nIndian Summer
\nShake It\/Barbados
\nSave a Corner of Your Heart for Me
\nKeep on Tryin'
\nCrazy Love
\nA Child's Claim to Fame
\nKind Woman
\nBad Weather
\nHard Country
\nRain Don't Bother Me
\nPickin' Up the Pieces
\nMagnolia
\nHeart of the Night
\nEncore: A Good Feelin' to Know<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

I've run out of cut-ups to post over at the utownwriting<\/A> site, so I posted a scene over there. It's not a deleted scene (those are posted here, and there will be another one next week), this is a scene which will be added in rewrites (whenever I start to do rewrites).<\/p>\n

According to the logic of the situation, it's something which would have happened, but it didn't occur to me until I was past the point where it would have fit.<\/p>\n

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I’ve never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates, at least as far as I know. I thought I remembered that she wrote some science fiction novels at one point (which I did read and didn’t care for), but I can’t find any evidence of this, so maybe that was somebody else (Later: that turned out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[80,25,111],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","category-writing","tag-dark-shadows","tag-poco","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3820,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/3820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}