a V of geese

OK, a little more than blue skies from now on.


Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road [see below]
Shelby Lynne, Revelation Road [a juicy, sour lollipop with a dry chunk of raw sugar in the middle]
Dire Straits, Love Over Gold [Took sampling 8 Mark Knopfler solo albums to get to this and I still wish it was "Sultans of Swing" instead] and Brothers in Arms [also surprised how it holds up]
Sondre Lerche, Don't Be Shallow and Sondre Lerche [here's lookin' at you, Offbeat deadline]
Fred Neil, Rhino Hi-Five: Fred Neil [Thanks, Clarke! I'm never prepared for how deep Fred Neil's voice is]
Bobby Charles, Bobby Charles
Tony Joe White, Rhino Hi-Five: Tony Joe White
Sister Gertrude Morgan, Let's Make a Record
The Meters, Struttin'

• Revolutionary Road took me forever to read only because you can run yourself through the wringer only so quickly, not rushing each snapping bone or squashed organ, not hurrying the deflated emotional pancake of a person this book will make of you. It started out a marital horror story, the kind where you yell at the screen "No! don't go there! Just say she was good in the play! Don't try to fix anything!" to become a vigil over a heart monitor or a bomb, either way one that periodically stops beeping and you are a little relieved and then it it starts beating faster and faster until you can do nothing but watch the clock run out on love. Devastating, ruthless and, in that, beautiful.
  (x-posted at Goodreads)
  
  
• My book has a cover! Or a cover is being floated down the editorial ice floe, a visceral, Egglestonian interior shot of Teddy's Juke Joint by my buddy Frank McMains. We bat our mutual admiration back and forth like an air hockey puck.  I believe that's how this business works, but really, Frank is not only talented as hell, he's a real mensch for doing this.
   
• The book also has a very perfunctory website LouisianaSaturdayNight.com, the spiffing up of which should be my next project.
     
• Speaking of projects, I just sent off 5,000 words of a thing that has been weighing on my conscience because what I originally proposed was just not working. Once I stepped back and said how would I do this, as if someone else was every really involved, it fell together like a V of geese, migrating off the horizon.
    
• ESPN-U taped my afternoon class for something so if somewhere you see a guy with hair falling somewhere between Yahoo Serious and Jimmy Swaggart on some sports/education backchannel it might be me. I've grown tired of the mental patient buzz cut and, thanks to a lovely gift from my lovely wife, am experimenting with product.