2009: A Retrospective Playlist

This time, it’s short, sort of.

I decided that for this year’s rendition of my yearly Retrospective Playlist (see the previous entries here and here), I wanted to do something different. Namely, something short. So I took the same format, and a simple goal– roughly one CD’s worth of music. I didn’t succeed, but I did alright. And so here we are. Without further ado, here is 2009, A RETROSPECTIVE PLAYLIST, ARRANGED IN 13 USEFUL CATEGORIES(provided by mully ), AND WITH HELPFUL ANNOTATION TO UNDERLINE THEMATIC RESONANCE. I hope you enjoy it. And as always, feel free to ask questions, criticize my taste in music, etc.

The Ballad of Norton I

I wrote this in one sitting today, the day after the 89th anniversary of his death. It’s a little long, but I’m pretty happy with it. I might someday set it to music, or I might just let it sit, I don’t know. Here, for your pleasure and his, is The Ballad of Norton I, Emperor of these United States of America, and Protector of Mexico.

Unfinished Song- Hal Jordan, test pilot

I wrote this song over the summer. I was originally going to turn it into a longer form project, which I may still, but as of right now I think it stands pretty well on its own. For reference, it’s the story of Hal Jordan’s origin up until the moment he meets Abin Sur. The first half is Abin Sur crashing, and the 2nd is Hal Jordan flying and getting pulled towards Abin Sur. I hope you enjoy it.

Ana Ng in Ana Ng

In the interest of variety, I thought I would provide something different today. This is a close reading of They Might Be Giants’ “Ana Ng” I wrote recently for a class. I am quite proud of the results, and hope you enjoy it.

Unfinished Song- The Ballad of Camus

As some of you may know, I am in a two-man acoustic novelty band. As some of you who knew that fact prior to seeing that link may know, last summer my two-man acoustic novelty band was involved in a songwriting competition with Quick Stop entertainment. We snuck into round 2 of the competition on a technicality, and were given the prompt to write a song involving two elements from a given list, and to include at least 3 instances of a monosyllabic phrase,  repeated 5 times (so for instance, la-la-la-la-la done 3 times). We ultimately settled on “Dracula’s Beach Towel,” one of my all-time favorite songs we’ve written, but in terms of vote-accumulation, a horrendous failure. But I tell you that story to tell you this one.

“Dracula’s Beach Towel” was not the first song I wrote for the competition. The first song I wrote was this one, “The Ballad Of Camus.” It tells the story of Albert Camus, famous Algerian philosopher who spent his life fighting Nihilism. I really liked it, and so I offer it up here.

The Aftermath- short story

The flies buzzed around the room, settling on a new droplet of blood with every step Carlyle took. He paced across the room, hands on his hips, shaking his head all the while. Andrew, his colleague, leaned back against the wall, arms crossed in front of him. Carlyle turned and faced Andrew, pointing back with his thumb to the scene behind them, his mouth agape, unsure whether to grin or scream. Andrew shrugged. He did not leave his position. His eyes fixated on a fly fluttering around the room. Carlyle turned, and kicked up the edge of the cape with his foot. He shook his head, and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. Andrew checked his watch- 8:37, they were even early. He raised his eyebrows and nodded, before flicking a piece of lint off of his jacket sleeve and putting his hands in his pockets. He began to fiddle with the volume buttons on his cell phone- it wouldn’t do anything while the phone was closed, but it gave his fingers something to do. Carlyle walked toward the window and looked out, breathing a long breath, watching it condensate in front of him. It was getting colder, darker earlier. Fall was giving way to winter. Elbows on the windowsill, he watched. He watched a bird settle on a wire. He listened to the engine of a plane soar by. He looked up further and tried to see stars. The sky was empty. He looked in the windows of the apartments across the street. He tired to smile, but a tear fell from his eye. He turned to face Andrew. Andrew glanced over towards him and rolled his eyes, kicking himself off of the wall, and walking slowly over to the fridge. Carlyle watched Andrew walk to the fridge and begin rooting through the many cans and bottles stored inside. He pulled out a Clark bar from his coat pocket. It had begun to melt. He bit into it, careful not to drip any onto the floor. They could track that type of thing. He saw it on TV. Andrew rifled amongst the various drinks. Nothing too empty, or expensive, and something that isn’t alone- they’d surely notice things like that. He settled on a can of Hardcastle near the back. He glanced over to Carlyle, and the candy bar, and chuckled. Carlyle looked up, eyes wide, scowling. Andrew shrugged and loudly opened the can. Carlyle stared at him for a long time. Andrew sipped his beer and looked idly about the room. He started walking slowly towards the door. Carlyle hesitated, looked back at the mess, looked to Andrew, crumpled his wrapper, put it in his pocket, and followed suit. They walked down the hall of the complex, then down the stairs and out of the door before Andrew spoke.

“It gets easier, kid. It gets easier.”

“Are you telling me that or trying to convince yourself?”

“Can’t it be both?”

A Day In the Life

I wrote this story for a creative writing class I took 2 years ago. It’s forever remained one of my favorite stories.

On The ISPA

I’ve created a page chronicling all of the published Stormametric Poetry so far under one roof. I have called it the International Stormametric Poetry Archive, and provided a link to it up top. I hope you enjoy this.

Unfinished Song- Comic Book Romance

I don’t know any instruments. I never learned any as a child, and while I tried to learn the ukulele, most agree it was a foolhardy endeavor and should be stricken from the record. Because of this fact, I have a lot of song lyrics lying around which I never used for anything, as I cannot manifest them myself. But, in the spirit of this experiment, I figured I’d post some here, because even without music, it’s still work I’ve created, and still needs to be released to be effective. So here is the first of such songs, an unfinished song entitled Comic Book Romance.

Thumbnail stories: Green Lantern Musical Mashup

I took this from a Deviantart drawing meme, and adapted it to writing.

The Rules were simple:
1.) Choose a fandom, property, pairing, character, etc.
2.) Turn your music player on shuffle.
3.) When a song begins, begin writing a story having to do with the theme of the song and the property you chose.
4.) Stop when the song ends. You have exactly the length of the song with which to create- no more, no less.
5.) Do 10 such thumbnail stories, then post them.

I chose Green Lantern as my property, and set off.