Words + Music = The Blues

Blues performer John Rogers gave WAG (Writers Alliance of Gainesville) members a glimpse into the life of a wordsmith who sets his tales to music, in the tradition of the Blues.

He traced the source of the blues, words recalling deeds and woes set in a sing-song form which made the telling easier to recall for the teller and easier on the ear of the listener. Unlike lyrical Broadway musicals with Moon, June, Spoon rhyming words, the blues can be childish verse (Mary Had a Little Lamb)or a litany of woeful episodes, told against a rhythmic musical beat.

He strummed his acoustical guitar for an hour or so talking/singing a potted history of the blues and those who had carved a name for themselves in the genre. Rather like writers known for their romances, historical novels, mystery and war. Those who attended could be seen reflecting on incidents in their lives which might qualify for the Blues.



And the good-news for those musically challenged - the blues can be talked or croaked within the comfort-zone of the story-teller. Hitting High-C is not a requirement. However, playing an instrument would be a plus!

ps: spoons are considered an instrument ;^))

http://johnrogerspresents.com/

Tools To Write By

I don't know what children use to write their first words today, but white chalk and a grey slate board was my first tool.

It's not quite as archaic as it sounds. Teachers communicated to students by demonstrating on a wall-mounted blackboard, using chalk. A classroom toady, inevitably seated as close to the teacher's desk as was humanly possible, gleefully grabbed the chalk-eraser at the end of class to expunge the lessons of the day.

Later it moved up to colored wax crayons which, fortunately, I did not develop a taste for. I vividly recall watching the rigorous efforts of the matronly schoolteacher wielding a rough cloth towel on another kindergartner, trying to expunge the purple lipstick-like glob from him.

Teachers indulged in a lot of “hands-on” activity, from tweaked and cuffed ears, to knuckle ruler-raps. Lurking in the background was the ever-present threat of a canning and the ultimate humiliating punishment – a thrashing before the assembled school. In a world which readily accepted the premise of “spare the rod and spoil the child”, and heartily subscribed to the concept of corporeal punishment as a valuable teaching tool, watching one's P's & Q's was a survival tactic.

Transferring oversized block letters from chalk to crayon to pencil and reducing word size to fit between the lines of ruled paper, was a milestone moment.

The ritual of pencil-sharpening, at the hand-cranked pencil-sharpener mounted on the wall – within striking distance of the teacher – encouraged most to acquire a pencil box with rubber-eraser and hand-held pencil sharpener. It also introduced pen-knives into the lives of children who were repeatedly admonished to “don't run with an open blade.”

Another major leap forward, from creating whole words in pencil, was to join block letters into cursive, using steel-nib pens and black ink. The institutionally issued ink, carefully measured into porcelain ink-wells by ink-monitors before being placed into individual desks, became a constant source of consternation. Not only did it react to weather conditions, rather like syrup in the winter and watery during summer, but it seemed to have a mind of its own.

Along with pen and ink came the indispensable blotting-paper. A thick, usually pink or green, absorbent paper whose pores soaked up spilled ink and dried-off freshly penned prose. [Also, most effective as pellets, the ink-soaked missiles most found – and always left - their mark.]

The skill of cursive words was not so much in the steady hand of the writer so much as the careful intake of ink. To much created messy disaster and to little created chicken-scratch paper rips.

School-issue pens, with their slender white-wood handles the size of a drinking-straw, and sharp steel-nibs, were strictly utilitarian. They were designed to get the job – children, writing for the use of – done. The nibs may have been designed to create cursive words; the split point spreading for broad down-strokes and together for other maneuvers, may have looked identical but each reacted differently. Either they delivered to much ink to the point of the pen, or not enough. The first resulted in ink blobs on paper where their should have been a letter – the other called for a quick flick ( which could result in a Jackson Pollock-appearing page... and neighbor) or a student's saliva. The theory was, moistened pen-nibs allowed the ink to flow more freely.

One very apparent reality, based on the appearance of black-ink lipsticked students, is it was a common practice. Also, a precursor to smoker's nicotine-stained fingers, ink-covered fingers were a sure indication of a pen-writing student and an introduction to a pumice-stone scrubbing session.

No all of the writing disasters were a result of the product issued.

Boys being boys, numerous other uses were found other than writing, for pens. They became darts or arrows, depending whether they were thrown or projected from a sock-garter or rubber band. They were excellent close-quarters swords or daggers in impromptu fights and scuffles. They became catapults for rubber erasers broken into capsule-sized projectiles stuck on the nib, braced back and released. They were also quite handy and retrieving coins in floor-cracks, and other objects just out of finger reach. Following their extra-curricular activities, the nibs did not fare well in the intended purpose, consequently exercise book writing was not of prize-wining copperplate quality.

Depending on the depth of the student's parents pockets, school-issue pens could be replaced with store-bought pens and special gold-tipped nibs or fountain-pens with platinum tips. The ritual began with unscrewing the bottle of quality ink. Blue was most popular, followed by purple, red and green; although the red was usually reserved for diagrams – or teacher's comments, corrections and grading. A rubber tube within the shaft of the pen was depressed and inflate – siphoning ink up from the bottle – by a lever in the body of the shaft. Depending on the bladder size, a writer could complete several pages in luxury, with no need to dip a pen nib.

That was the extent of school writing tools, despite the newly invented ball-point pen marketed by Biro and later, Bic. The schoolboy scribblings which some teachers described as “marks left by a drunken spider who crawled out of an inkwell” caused ball-point pens to be banned from school.

Pen-nibs may have created pools of ink, blots and scratches but they forced students into measured and methodical strokes to ensure fewer errors. The universal point of ball-point pens had so such restrictions and the resulting writings were often as indecipherable to students as well as teachers.

My quantum leap into the writing tool future, beyond handwritten notes, essays and stories, came for me with an ancient early 1900's Oliver typewriter, retrieved from a junk-shop after school. It weighed in at 30-pounds, looked like the twin-peaks of a two-hump Asian camel (or Mae West) and took a major down-stroke workout to get the keys clacking onto the roller.



It may have looked odd, and could give me a hernia relocating it from one desk site to another, but the wobbly printed letters were legible. Writing produced on paper via a black-ink ribbon, began to look like a book.

It launched a lifetime love and a career in the craft which has lasted to this day.



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Save The Sahara Forests - Before Its To Late [pre-BC Press Release]

Protesters turn Parliament effigy into a pyre at Forest of Dean site (Guardian)

I'm getting emails from County folks and others in UK concerned with the fate of the fading forests. They're looking for signatures on a petition, and to raise awareness before it becomes a fait accompli. You probably know more about it than me - but if not, here's the gen.

BTW, earlier tree-hugging procrastinators (see headline) paid the price ;^))

@ @ @

Dear (YOUR Name),

Happy New Year! Over the holidays 50,000 more people joined the campaign against government plans to sell off our woodlands. That means that over 135,000 of us have now signed the Save Our Forests petition.

Together we're making sure the forest sell off plans are noticed. The huge petition has encouraged experts to speak out and it's been on the news and in lots of newspapers.

But the government is still trying to sneak through new laws so they can sell all our forests. We need to stop them. A huge petition will force them to think again.

Please help get past 150,000 signatures by forwarding this e-mail and asking your friends to sign as well:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-forests

If they want to read more about what could happen to our forests before they sign the petition, there are links to lots of recent newspaper articles explaining what's going on here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-forests-media

A lot of people still haven't heard about the government's plans to sell off our woodlands. We need to spread the word. We need to make sure people know about these plans while they are still just plans - not when it's too late and forests are already being fenced off, run down, logged or built over.

If enough people sign the petition, we can make the government think again. This campaign is growing every day. Thousands of us have chipped in to raise nearly £20,000 for the Save Our Forests campaign fund. That's money we can use to put pressure on the government by holding Save Our Forests events across the country, hiring experts to expose the flaws in the government plans and making sure that politicians know how many of us want to protect our forests.

A petition of 150,000 will be one of the biggest ever - something the government can't ignore. Please ask your friends to join the Save Our Forests campaign by signing the petition at:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-forests

If you use Facebook, please also spread the word by sharing the petition on your profile:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/forests-facebook-share

If you use Twitter, please send a “tweet” about the petition by clicking here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/forests-twitter-share

Forests like the Forest of Dean, the New Forest, Grizedale, Thetford, and Alice Holt are national treasures. Once they’re gone, they are lost forever. If we get enough signatures on the petition, we have a bigger chance of making sure they are protected for wildlife and future generations.

Please ask your friends to join the campaign to save our forests by signing the petition here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-forests

Thanks for being involved,

David, Hannah, Johnny and the 38 Degrees team

Notes:
[1] You can read articles and find links to videos about the campaign here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/save-our-forests-medi

Kindle's "Mini-Books" Balloon - Is It Just A Marketing Ploy?

Those wonderful people I love to hate -- Amazon -- the brick 'n mortar bookshop killers, floated a test balloon before writers recently. This ploy requires wannabe contributors to respond, presumably to determine if enough writers go for it.

Dunno if the idea burst or is still being calculated by the Bezos Bean Counters, but it might be a potential venue for short-haul story-tellers.

It could plug the gap between 99-cent short stories at one end, now being offered on other sites, and $9.99 tomes at the other. The more markets the merrier.

Here's the skinny in case you overlooked it:

SEATTLE, Oct 12, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) --
(NASDAQ:AMZN)--Less than 10,000 words or more than 50,000: that is the choice writers have generally faced for more than a century--works either had to be short enough for a magazine article or long enough to deliver the "heft" required for book marketing and distribution. But in many cases, 10,000 to 30,000 words (roughly 30 to 90 pages) might be the perfect, natural length to lay out a single killer idea, well researched, well argued and well illustrated--whether it's a business lesson, a political point of view, a scientific argument, or a beautifully crafted essay on a current event.
Today, Amazon is announcing that it will launch "Kindle Singles"--Kindle books that are twice the length of a New Yorker feature or as much as a few chapters of a typical book. Kindle Singles will have their own section in the Kindle Store and be priced much less than a typical book. Today's announcement is a call to serious writers, thinkers, scientists, business leaders, historians, politicians and publishers to join Amazon in making such works available to readers around the world.
"Ideas and the words to deliver them should be crafted to their natural length, not to an artificial marketing length that justifies a particular price or a certain format," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. "With Kindle Singles, we're reaching out to publishers and accomplished writers and we're excited to see what they create."
Like all Kindle content, Kindle Singles will be "Buy Once, Read Everywhere"--customers will be able to read them on Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, Mac, PC, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices. Amazon's Whispersync technology syncs your place across devices, so you can pick up where you left off. In addition, with the Kindle Worry-Free Archive, Kindle Singles will be automatically backed up online in your Kindle library on Amazon where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.
To be considered for Kindle Singles, interested parties should contact digital-publications@amazon.com.

Behind the Scenes of The Jekyll Island Enigma Creation

“...Jekyll Island is shaped like a leg of lamb.”

Some of the mind-prompts, gizmos, gadgets, maps, notes and references which supported the creation of my Jekyll Island story, are shown here.

Visiting and photographing the scenes where action takes place and assembling a collage to re-create a visual hook to hang the action on, was another essential to authenticity. I visited the site several times before it was re-opened to the public, before the story surfaced. And again as a guest at the renovated hotel, years later, I began writing the first page of the first-draft of the first chapter – and didn't stop for 800+more pages!

The hardest working item in any writer's toolbox is the 3x5 index card. I've used them for half-a-century as a journalist scribbling notes fairly unobtrusively – compared to a spiral-bound Reporter's Notebook which to often firmly closes a source's mouth when they realize; despite being cautioned, they are about to be quoted. The 3x5 is also handy for page-marking – before stick'ems were invented, flagging down a taxi (from a distance they could be mistaken for a folded Fiver), impromptu tooth-pick and crumb-brush.

They come into their own though as story-sorters, fiction or non-fiction. Any in-depth feature story with an overload of information, can be reduced to “scenes” or events written on 3x5 cards, then shuffled to get the best storyline flow.

In an intricately interwoven mufti-charactered novel like 'The Jekyll Island Enigma”, where several sub-plots and story lines are playing in concert, they become essential. They are/were, practical devices to rearrange sequences, before re-writing and re-writing reams of copy. There are electronic programs, nowadays, to capture changing structures and record variations of rewrites but – they would take ME longer to learn than to hand write.

Oh, the bicycle-helmet on my desk? That's a gift from a guy I met at the outset of his 13-year pedal around the planet. Another “The Day...”story to come ;^))

FINALLY! The Jekyll Island Enigma is out there

After 16 years, a girlfriend, two agents, one cat, two dogs, countless rewrites, critics and distractions -- its GONE!

The story-behind-the-story (I should live so long) will be entertaining backstory for the alert Hollywood scout, trapped in Atlanta's Airport this holiday period, who happens upon it via his NOOK, KINDLE or app. Recently the X-Men paid a visit to Jekyll Island, so the camera tracks are already in place ;^))

JIE was uploaded to Barnes & Nobel's PUBIT, the ebook publishing arm of the company, last night. It will eventually work its way into other electronic outlets. I'm sure book-pirates worlwide are waiting with bated breath to re-work and package it. Lottsa Luck!

Now, where did I put those paints and water-colour pencils I picked up a while ago?

The Day...We Sailed Around The Lightship

Charlie Nichols was the least likely person I would ever have expected to take an interest in me.

He was the plumbing instructor at Eastbourne Technical School, one of eight institutions of higher learning I can remember attending. To this day, more than half-a-century later, I seemed an unlikely candidate for the benign attention of a school master.

Mostly it was of the ear-grabbing, ruler- whacking, bum-roasting, cane-wielding methods of retributions that Masters singled me out. Mister Nichols was a salt-and-pepper wrinkly-haired craggy red-faced character, with a permanent nose-drip, who slouch-lurched in a peculiar rolling gait. My first impression was of a local yokel, clad in a long grey workshop coat, complete with rural Sussex drawl.

His classroom/workshop was an echo-chamber barn-like space converted above the former indoor swimming pool of the prewar mansion housing the red-brick ivy-covered school. Below its reinforced wooden floor, via a trapdoor, supplies of copper and galvanized pipes were stacked in racks in the tiled pool area.

Charlie, as we referred to him amongst ourselves, would call on me to help lug supplies up into the classroom. It is possible the faculty had been warned not to let me out of their sight by “Basher” Blackwell, principal. I quickly learned the deceptive weight of a thin, pliable sheet of lead. It was like having my own personal weight-lifting trainer.

It helped build my 129-pounds frame without bulking up.(Many years later I mentioned it to Charles Atlas - billed as the “Strongest Man in the World” during what may have been his last interview, but he may have sensed his days were numbered and was more interested in religion at that time). Lifting lead prepared me for my evening job; collecting deckchairs from the beach. (Another "Day").

One perpetual trait about the building trade is that raw materials, lead and copper especially, are prime targets for thieves. Always expensive, it became almost impossible to obtain following the end of WWII. Consequently our “rations” to practice the craft of plumbing, were zealously guarded.

Mostly what I remember about the never-ending classes was the ability of a master-plumber to turn a square sheet of lead into a three-dimensional pipe by bossing it – using peculiarly-shaped wooden “mallets” above and below to bash the metal into submission and work(move) it into the required shape.

One of his showpiece exhibits Charlie would proudly show off was the work of a former apprentice who had created a replica of Eastbourne lighthouse and rocks, from a nondescript slab of lead. All I can recall of my efforts to produce a T-joint plumbing fixture was; I probably created a new letter in the alphabet!

So it was a complete surprise when one Friday workshop session he asked me if I would be available the next day to be his crew aboard a dingy to go sailing. I had no idea it would be the start of a lifelong love/hate relationship with pointy-ended rag-bags extending to the present.

The sea, ships, and an abstract yearning to join the navy if I ever completed the endless sentence of school, always lurked in the recesses of my mind. While other kids floundered about when asked by adults, parents and relative the inevitable questions: “What are you going to do when you leave school?” I responded with alacrity: “Join the navy.”

At that time, in my mind's eye, the Royal Navy ruled the waves and England ruled the world with its far-flung colonies and Empire being touched by sunrise and sunset around the globe.

The fact that we “rulers” were still surviving on ration cards and shortages and meat, butter and eggs still a luxury, didn't enter my mind. It had always been thus for me, growing up during the Blitz to D-Day and beyond.

Near the Redoubt, a fortress created on my south coast home town to thwart the ambitions of Napoleon a couple of centuries earlier, the sleek, colorful light-weight carvel and hard-chine boats of The Eastbourne Yacht Club nestled on the beach above the high-tide mark.

Charlie's heavy clinker-built center-board dinghy was a sturdy working boat appropriate to the tenets and tenants of The Artisans Boat Club. It was built beyond the public bathing beaches and esplanade. Beyond the Fishing Club, the bowling greens, the tennis courts. Even further away than the black-tarred fisherman's shacks, lifeboat station and fleet of heavy-duty fishing boats.

The Club sat on the edge of the Crumbles, miles and miles of stones and shingle, reinforced concrete piles of uprooted invasion barricade blocks and tank-traps. Within sight and smell of the tip where refuse and garbage was dumped, and we went rummaging and ratting on a Saturday morning, before cinema matinees replaced that activity.

Of all the four-letter words I picked up from the artisans, POSH was not one of them, when referring to themselves or the organization.

Charlie patiently explained the difference between lines and ropes and halliards, port and starboard, fore and aft, cleats and pulleys, life-jackets-proper-use-of and where they were stowed, the centerboard trunk, and most important, the bailing-pan-cum-pee-can.

Luckily the tide was high so the group of of club members, wives, kids and onlookers were not required to help us launch, and could comfortably watch as Charlie clambered aboard and I waded crotch-deep into the chilly English Channel keeping the dinghy's nose facing into the breaking waves.

Charlie's purple face and open mouth urged me in nautical terms; not used in his classroom, to clamber aboard as he tightened up on the jib and mainsail and kneed the tiller over to get the dink under way.

A teeth-chattering soggy whirlwind launch became a sauna bath of satisfaction following dozens of rapid-fire orders and instructions to prevent broaching, being headed by the brisk breeze fetching across the mud-gray water. A cacophony of slapping canvas sails, whipping sheets, creaking boom working its neck around leather-collar on the mast when we took our first tack, moved from hell to heaven as the little craft dug her keel into the waves and lifted her bow toward the open sea.

For one blissful moment it was akin to flying.

Then, the chorus of commands and task of unraveling a tangle of bristling hemp and cord, preparatory to our next tack to avoid stout oak groynes looming dead ahead.

There was so much going on, and Charlie's boat was so lively, I never had the faintest inclination to react to the dreaded mal de mer. That would come later, when I sailed with Charlie, his friend the master boat-builder aboard his 30-foot open-deck pride and joy, the builders son and former schoolmate, and one of my current school's architecture masters,

Nothing like a quality audience to applaud the anticipated performance of leaning over the side and “Calling for Ralph”.

Sadly for them, the day we rounded the red-painted “Royal Sovereign” lightship a few miles off-shore, in a stiff breeze which put white caps of foamy surf atop the pea-green seas, I quelled the reaction to a queasy stomach.

However, the motion, the high spray coming over the bow and occasional wallop as a rogue cross-sea struck the heeling vessel, triggered an urgent desire to pee.

No way could I could brace against the lee gunnel, winkle out my shriveled member and let loose downwind under the the gaze of that crew.

As I bailed ankle-deep water from the bilges, and the pee-can floated by, I realized everyone aboard was soaked to the skin. And nobody had taken a leak during the entire two-hour haul.

I don't know if they all had cast-iron bladders or what but I resolved to christen the new boat in a unique personal manner. Once the thought entered my mind, it was just a matter of timing – a shuddering smack and a quartering sea flung a sheet of water inboard to cascade in a stream across us.

Amongst all the yelping and joshing, with their minds and activities directed elsewhere, I experienced the nirvana wet-suit divers in frozen waters briefly enjoy. For a long moment I was warm, again. Before the next wave flushed the brief euphoria away.

I'll always remember the day we rounded the lightship – but probably not for the same reason the others did.

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