Welcome to the latest episode of Watch/Listen/Read brought to you by the 2 Rules of Writing team. This column is our chance to relax a little, share what we’ve been diving into this week, and to get your recommendations, too.
Erika writes:
Art for the Exhausted
I’ve had one of those weeks where I cannot keep my eyes open. We had one really nice day at the beginning of the week, and I did a bunch of things, and then the weather began to cool off, and I suppose in some self-protective effort, my body said “go to bed.” And I did—the problem is that when that happens I can barely keep my eyes open. It means a lot more in the “listening” department than “watching” or “reading,” although I do try and get some audiobooks in, which always seems to involve rewinding until I find the last place I can remember before the sleep fairies took over.
Stick to the Familiar
I try to stick to familiar things when I have days like this, otherwise I miss out on too many nuances. If I’m spending so much time under my warm blankets, I might as well wrap everything up in things that are warm, comfortable and familiar. I’ve been binge-watching Schitt’s Creek again. I’ve watched it enough times that if I fall asleep during an episode, I can still pick up where I left off and remember where the story is going. The same goes for Hannah Gadsby’s Douglas, although when I’m laughing it’s harder to fall asleep.
It’s the old, comfortable and familiar things. I watched the movie Booksmart again–there’s something I love about the storyline between Amy and Hope, and the beautiful awkwardness of first times. I admire the way the story is told and it’s something I want to capture in my own writing, and I find that I keep going back to that particular depiction of first-time love as I try and learn to write that kind of emotion.
I often put on favorite playlists, curl up with an article or a well worn book and wait for the next wave of sleep. Suzanne Vega’s Left of Center has been on a few times this week. I didn’t put on the film (Pretty in Pink) but I do love the whole soundtrack.
The soundtrack contains the first Echo and the Bunnymen song I remember listening to, too. There’s a definite trend in my music choices to the music of my late tweens and adolescence. The heyday of alternative/indie/college rock was a good time to grow up.
Adam mentioned Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana last week, which had me pulling out Mozart’s Lacrimosa this week–a piece I performed not as a string player, but with a choir I was singing in (and I’m not much of a singer). I don’t listen to a lot of choral music if I’m doing other things–as much as I like it, I find it distracting. This week though, with so many hours spent drifting between sleep and other low intensity activities, I did enjoy this.
Returning to Shel Silverstein
Reading is especially difficult during weeks when I just need so much sleep. Drifting in and out of sleep means I lose my place and have to keep going back, so it’s, again, a time to draw out familiar favorites. If you read my piece on Monday, you had a chance to see my reflections on Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. Right next to it on my shelf are several other Shel Silverstein books and I perused A Light in the Attic as I wrote the piece. “Listen to the Mustn’ts” is still a favorite poem today and one whose advice I try to hold on to. It goes:
Listen to Mustn’ts, child, listen to the Don’ts.
Listen to the Shouldn’ts, the Impossibles, the Won’ts.
Listen to the Never Haves, then listen close to me.
Anything can happen, child, Anything can be.
(Re-)Reading my Favorite Bildungs… Bil… Wait–What’s the Plural of Bildungsroman? Is it Bildunsgromans? That can’t be right.
I tried to pick up Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks again. I started it months ago, misplaced it and found it again but I just haven’t been able to concentrate. I’m definitely going to go back to it as I’m feeling better though. As someone who played field hockey, I have been enjoying the hockey parts of the book as much as the rest of the story, and the line very early in the book about how one of the characters thought only boys could be gay felt very familiar. (The book, a story about a high school field hockey team, is set right at around the same time that I started high school.)
Instead I turned to Scott Westerfield’s Uglies series, which I have thoroughly enjoyed every time I’ve read it. I also dug way, way back and read John Knowles, A Separate Peace for the first time in a very long time. The first time I read it was when a babysitter was also reading it; she was reading it for school, I read it because I was bored and she’d left it at the house. It’s left me just as sad every time I read it. I’ve read other books by John Knowles, but none have captured my attention the way that one has.
There are other incredible bildungsroman I’ve read–Dorothy Allison’s Bastard out of Carolina still sticks with me more than two decades after I first read it. And Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are not the Only Fruit was my introduction to her work (although I think Written on the Body is probably my favorite of her books).
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women was my introduction to the genre as a child. It’s precious to me as a great book and because my sister gave me a beautifully illustrated, unabridged copy, bigger than any other book I’d ever owned at that point, and it felt so very special. I still have that copy, too–almost forty years after I received it. My ever-growing wish list has Okasana, Behave by Maria Kuznetsova and Kim Fu’s Today I am a Boy on it. Next week we’ll probably return to Shakespeare, but in the meantime, I’d love your recommendations for your favorite bildungsroman.
Adam Writes:
My Watch/Listen/Read this week has been a bit eclectic. Shostakovich, Bette Midler, Queen, Cowboy Bebop, and of course the Wheel of Time. Spoilers, by the way.
Viola Wars, Continued
I was listening to some viola music this week (gasp! shock!). Yes. You could say curiosity broke the back of stubbornness and you wouldn’t be wrong, but part of it was frustration. Nearly every instrument of some prominence in the orchestra has an important concerto or sonata. I have some favorite pieces among those. There’s Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto (performed here with the keyed-trumpet that had about 20 years of popularity exactly when Haydn’s piece was written, and no later. It looks super weird, doesn’t it? It looks like a trumpet trying to be a saxophone.
Anyway, my love for Shostakovich brought me to listen to Shostakovich’s very last published work, a sonata for viola and piano… Although I got a bit suspicious when his Wikipedia page revealed that, on Shostakovich’s death certificate, the cause of death was listed as: “Viola Sonata.”
Listening to Roger’s Legacy
Last week, I talked about how my high school music teacher’s death caused me to listen to some of his music again. This week I’ve been listening to some of the music that he, in turn, listened to. I have vivid memories of entering the chorus room to hear him listening to a CD while jamming along at the piano as he worked out how to arrange it. (If any younger readers don’t know what a CD is, please say something down in the comments and I’ll be happy to explain.) Or pointing excitedly to the stereo when the singer was about to hit an impossibly high note. That last one refers to Queen’s “Barcelona,” starring the wineglass-shattering Monserrat Caballé.
The Mentors who Kindled the Flame
I think we can mostly agree that, where there is a subject that continues to fill us with joy as an adult, we can reliably trace our delight back to a teacher whose enthusiasm for their subject was infectious. In any case, one of the pieces I thank Roger for introducing me to is the aforementioned “Barcelona.” I had not known much about crossover-musicians, that is, artists who perform both in the classical and the pop world, or who perform classically inflected pop songs.
It’s easy to remember that even for such a simple concept as crossing the boundaries of genre, it’s relatively rare to make these discoveries on one’s own. Teachers so often stress adherence to boundaries. It’s sweet to remember the ones who open us up to the possibility that there are no boundaries as such, except for the ones we create or acknowledge. They can be useful things, boundaries. But the ability to see beyond them can be useful, too.
The Rose
Speaking of boundaries, another piece I am glad to have shared with Roger was “The Rose.” I think I remember asking him one day what his favorite piece of music was. There seem to be two types of answers to this question. One type is to give five or six answers (or to deny the possibility of there being a single answer, even a select few answers, given that such things can change based on mood). The other kind of answer is the one that’s already chambered, ready to go like an assassin’s bullet. Roger’s was the latter. Without even a moment’s hesitation, he answered “The Rose.”
I pressed him for an explanation. After all, I was scandalized. I was a cocky 16-year-old kid whose sense of self worth (what little I had) came from deliberately flouting convention. I told him my favorite (at the time anyway) was Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony (a piece that is about 75 minutes long). He smiled and said: “That’s a great piece.” But his explanation was simple: “The Rose,” he said, “is a perfect song. The last verse is set up perfectly by the first versel. The music, lyrics. Everything” Listening back to it, it’s hard to argue.
Being an Edgy (i.e. Insufferable) Teenager
I’m sure I could have grown up to despise a song like that. “It’s too kitschy,” I might say, or “It’s too poppy.” Or: “It’s too cliché.” My mind does go that way sometimes. There may be a pop-song that I can acknowledge is technically well-executed but that I find myself hating for those reasons. But not that song. Never that song. For one thing, I’d have to be able to listen to it without crying.
BeBop (Re-) Watch
I finished rewatching Cowboy Bebop. I had seen the anime years ago. In high school. And just recently, they started showing a reboot on Netflix. I did see the live-action reboot, and it was… fine. But not as gripping as the original. The reboot is too… focused. It plows ahead from plot-point to plot-point. Vicious is in basically every episode. It’s like those reboots of Sherlock Holmes that are all-Moriarty-all-the-time. Tell us you don’t understand the source material without telling us you don’t understand the source material. I wonder if producers will ever realize that we fall in love with stories because of the characters, and we fall in love with characters because of the downtime.
Watching Cowboy Bebop again, though. It really is astonishing how much you can get across with so little dialogue. That is to say, there are plenty of spoken words, but so little discussion of feelings. The unprocessed grief is all the more obvious in such a show. Each silence is pregnant with it, if not poisoned with it. I was filled with new appreciation for the anime.
I Frigging Love the Song “Green Bird” by Yoko Kanno
For one thing, I had no idea that the lyrics to the show’s most recognizable song are made-up syllables. It’s quite a beautiful song. It’s so pretty that I’ve considered learning the made up lyrics. Loving something so much that you’ll talk nonsense is a certain kind of love; one I like to think I got over in college. But there you are. Except that when the piano solo takes over about half way through the piece, Kanno slows down an infinitesimal amount, and for some reason that bothers me every time.
Read Wheel of Time. Thank me Later.
I just finished Book 6: The Lord of Chaos in my reread of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I am enjoying it quite as much as I did last time, which I didn’t think I would. There are a few components to a book that re-reads well. First, the iconic moments—battles, love–scenes, have to be of such joyful brilliance that they do not fade upon repetition. You may not learn anything new, but they are a joy to experience each time.
The very best scenes in The Wheel of Time (and there are many scenes of this highest quality) definitely hold up to this test. The scene in which Perrin meets Faile’s parents is one such scene. It is by turns funny and heartwarming. I also think it’s true what Perrin’s new mother-in-law says: There is a real strength in letting a partner be as strong as they can be. In not being afraid of their strength. In growing together as a couple and as individuals, supporting each other, like a double helix.
It’s also hilarious that Perrin notices his mother-in-law is hot and is gratified by the idea that Faile will continue to be too, even when she gets older. We are so used to in-laws sizing up their children’s potential mates that we forget that the street goes two ways. When you meet your significant other’s parents for the first time, you make a hard decision: how sane are they, and will it be okay if your S.O. turns into one or both of them?
If I Have to Read One more Book with Likable Characters…
One thing I deeply respect is that so many characters in Wheel of Time are so goddamn irritating. Especially the main characters Authors are so preoccupied with making us like their characters, that the reverse is like a breath of fresh air. Nynaeve will not stop misunderstanding the Aes Sedais’ intentions towards her. Mat will not stop misjudging a situation. Nor will he stop trying to treat the women around him as if they were delicate jewelry. And most of all, Faile will not stop being a brat, pouting when she doesn’t get her way. It’s so satisfyingly, refreshingly lifelike. I mean. We all know that one guy who seems all reserve and circumspection, but who is involved with the loudest, brassiest, most frustrating woman. But enough about me. The book is like that, too.
A Question of Structure
Book 6 does something quite bold: it saves the battle for the end of the novel. Five or six factions have been moving around the map, seemingly without cessation, the entire book. The Tower-Aes Sedai. The Salidar-Aes Sedai. The Asha’man. The Two Rivers army. The Aiel and the Shaido-Aiel. Jordan builds the tension between them for the whole book and as we reach the end it seems we will have to wait for the next book to have the conflict resolved even temporarily. That is, until we read the words: “Chapter 55: Dumai’s Wells.” The audiobook hammers home the point even stronger, with Michael Kramer intoning, in that portentious baritone of his: “Chapter 55. The LAST Chapter. Dumai’s Wells.” Even then, it seems as though there will be a holding pattern and the armies will disperse. But then we hear those two words: “Asha’man, kill.”
Shit gets Real
The male channelers cause their enemies to literally explode, shocking and sickening even the most battle-hardened onlookers. And then the book is over. Jordan has dropped a bomb on his audience. Male channelers have the ability—and the will—to murder people with a glance. And there are hundreds of these “asha’man,” following a leader of uncertain loyalties. Jordan does a magnificent job in these large scenes of making sure we the readers know where every character, every faction, stands.
In fact, when we see Jordan handling a small intimate moment, he does it so well that it’s easy to forget he also writes these huge, operatic moments. The small moments would not be out of place in a comedic novel. And then when he writes the big battles and standoffs and negotiations, it’s easy to forget that he also handles the small scenes with such care. He is not hurrying us through the small scenes to get to the big ones. Nor is he hurrying us through the character development to get to the moments that move the plot forward. No matter the scene, every character is clearly delineated. Their respective motives clearly defined. A person could do worse than to learn from this example.
I am curious if anyone of our readers has encountered Wheel of Time. What are your thoughts?
