On Gigs and Green Monsters

There is much to write about concerning our recent trip to Oregon, and most of it should have already been written on the family blog, but for limited time and kids hogging the laptop. But two things invite rumination here, and there are quite unrelated.

The one that had the most impact was a gig, a playing out, a me- and- Roderick- and- friend- of- Roderick- sitting- on- a- public- sidewalk- with- guitars- and- digital- piano- making- music- for- several- hours- under- shifting- sky- for- a- growing- and- appreciative- audience. That was a great experience that forced me to dust off some muscles I haven’t used in quite a while. When folks would stroll by, stop for a bit, and end up looking for a table and ordering drinks or a meal, it was gratifying. Granted, it was a lot harder to find the chords by ear than it was several nights earlier, in the more casual setting of Roderick’s kitchen. Still, playing with Roderick and Chris was a joy, even the goofs, and playing some solo stuff became more and more fun as the evening (and a bit of liquid courage) developed. It was fun, a small gig that meant a lot because I would be unlikely to do something like that on my own. Maybe now I’m a bit more likely to do so.

The second thing to think about was motivated by a small book I bought at my new favorite bookstore.

In Portland, we stopped by Powell’s Books in Portland and spent two hours there. It was fantastic, and there is something nice to be said about a friendship between families when most of the nine folks involved consider hours at a massive bookseller to be a wonderful use of vacation time.

Flashback: Just one day before leaving for this trip, I had a twilight idea. That’s my wife’s term: the twilight area between sleep and awake, when you’re still in a bit of a dream-state, and you find yourself caught in a story or situation you find compelling, but you’re awake enough to direct the action a bit.

I was in that state, with a story about a character I never thought I cared about in a medium that I never really considered writing in.

It’s a character that is owned by someone else, a character very well established and who is making a lot of folks rich, so there’s little chance that his story would be entrusted to me.

It is also a character that I know only a little about, comparatively.

All of this is a dilemma, yes?

Also, I’m getting a backlog of ideas, with little work to show for it. This is creative quicksand, and I’d best grab a branch soon.

So at the great big bookstore, I looked a bit at the history of this character, with more research waiting for me on the reserve shelf at the library when I return home. The thought is that I might write a story for this character, but I need to know more about his mythology. One thing I found is that someone else already plumbed some of the ideas I was going to use with this character. Another good reason to abandon ship, but I’m intrigued by my idea and am not ready to bail just yet.

I found a book by Alan Moore, the author of Watchmen, called Writing for Comics. And now, days later, on the plane on the way home, I just read it. I found the Afterward, written fifteen years later than the original essays, to be encouraging and inspiring, reminding me, in different language, of a phrase I often say to my students and my kids, too often forgetting to listen to it myself:

Leap and the net will appear.

Maybe I’ll write the story as an exercise. Maybe my lack of enthusiasm for writing stems from the assumption that having had success with a musical, I have to write another musical.

Maybe I should write a script for a comic book.

Maybe I’ll figure out a way to get the enormous publisher who owns the character to solicit a highly non-traditional story idea about one of it’s benchmark characters from an inexperienced, unheard-of writer who has paid no dues.

Uh huh. Right.

Maybe I’ll abandon snobbish judgment and write it as a piece of fan fiction, a huge cultish world I’ve heard of but never visited and know nothing about, including not knowing if fan fiction of this type even exists.

In the Afterward, Moore quotes Shaky Kane, whom I’ve never heard of, with a line I’m considering posting in my classroom:

“Don’t be cool. Like everything.”

We’ve started our descent, so the laptop must go away.