swingin' down the lane

During the six weeks Stephen was laid up with his injury, I hardly wrote at all - too difficult to string together the amount of time my brain needs in order to get any good wordsmithing done - but I had just enough time to work on a graphic design project for a really cool indie CD cover. An album of show tunes performed on one of those great old Wurlitzer theater organs, the kind with a forest of pipes.

Not only pipes but instruments - trumpets, strings, xylophone, glockenspiel ... some instruments I'd never heard of like the unda maris and the vox humana, both of which sound like the names of evil overlords from 1950s alien movies. The Hardman Studio Wurlitzer started out on the Paramount Studios movie lot in 1929, had a stint in radio with KNBC in San Francisco and now lives in a huge barn in Virginia, where organ masters like Clark Wilson give live concerts. On Swingin' Down the Lane, Clark Wilson plays the music of composer Burton Lane, who you've likely never heard of but whose songs I'll bet you recognize.

I like New York in June / How about you?

On a clear day, you can see forever.

You know that famous clip of Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling? The movie is Royal Wedding and the tune is Burton Lane.


Literally the night before I first chatted with the producer about designing this cover, not knowing yet who the subject of the album was, Stephen and I watched the movie Babes on Broadway, for which Burton Lane got an Oscar nomination, for the song "How About You," sung in the film by Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. In fact, Burton Lane is credited with having discovered Judy Garland. Graphic design plus old movie musicals - this job was made for me.

One more lovely movie poster for Royal Wedding.

I decided to design the cover of the CD to look like one of those old movie posters. The kind with the couple dancing, he in tuxedo, she in a big gauzy gown. That was the hardest thing about this project - finding the dancing couple. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to find a good royalty-free stock photo of a dancing couple that doesn't look like it was shot at someone's wedding in the 1990s.

I finally found this, courtesy of GeekPhilosopher.com.

 It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but doing a little Photoshop work and adding some outside elements, I came up with a couple I liked. Her dress is pieces of my wedding dress. [Which Stephen designed and made, by the way.]

And her hair is the wig I wear when Stephen and I play Madeleine and Penny.

Changed-up shoes, changed-up tuxedo, added lapel flower, added color...

Whoops, that was before I added the flower. But close to the final product.


Actually, the hardest thing about the project was building the swirling keyboard for my couple to dance on. Somehow I thought I could just play with warp and distort tools and twist the Hardman Wurlitzer into the shape I wanted. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to do this before I gave up and got out a pencil to finish the job. Once I had my organ "lane" curving the way I wanted it to curve, I went back in and photoshopped it together.

I was fairly obsessed with the project for much of the time Stephen was laid up with his injury. Tinkering between work and physical therapy and doctors appointments and trips to the store was a way for me to have a little respite from the stress of worrying about Stephen's pains and frustrations and the long healing process. It occurred to me, at some point in the month, that this design project was doing for me what those old movie musicals did for the moviegoers of the time. I was creating a magical, little fantasy and it was the perfect escape.


Check out the Hardman Wurlitzer here.

Check out Clark Wilson the organist here.

For some great stock photos, check out GeekPhilosopher here.

a diary of dad

For Father's Day, I thought I'd pull out a quick moment from an old diary, like I did for Mom on Mother's Day. Well, I fell down the diary hole and came out with a few more than one. One of the interesting things to me about this little series is how much my voice changes from April of 1983 (I was 13, about to turn 14) to March of 1985 (when I had learned about things like using big words and metaphors). Also, get ready for some poor spelling. I think I get that from my dad.

From April 7, 1983

The 2nd draft papers are due tomorrow. Dad typed my whole paper out for me on his computer! I wrote it & he copied it. I have the best dad in the world!

From January 13, 1984 [the pool room is the room in our house with a pool table in it]

Comming into the pool room, I heard sounds of music and dingings. Dad had the Jukebox on, playing pinball and so we ended the day with a long round of pinball (He got over 1 million on one game) to the jukebox. Whoever said that Friday the 13th was bad luck? Well, days like these really show me one of the meanings of life.

From October 7, 1984

Dad and I went to a football game today, (Rams against Atlanta) It was a great game. It was really close all through the whole game. Today, was when I was first introduced to "the wave". It was really neat. At the end of the game, the score was Rams-28, Atlanta-27 and there was about 7 seconds to go. Atlanta had the ball and had perfect position for a field goal. The croud shouted the seconds outloud but it was no use. They won. We all watched the debate of the President Reagan and Walter Mondale. From what I know, Mondale seems far better than Reagan but, most of the time, I don't know what they're saying. 

From December 9, 1984

Dad and I went to the best Rams' game today. Of course the Rams won (They played the Houston Oilers) but, that's not what made it so exciting. One player, Eric Dickerson, broke a record today, made by O.J. Simpson some 15 years back having something to do with how far he runs in a season. We were yelling 'Er-ic, Er-ic," until our throats were raw. I cheered and screamed so much. It was also the last season game except they won and get to go on playing. We drove home in the convertible with the top down. It was the greatest game!

From March 3, 1985

We awoke early this morning. Coco, Noni, and My Dad were going to take a balloon ride and we were going to watch. The balloon rides were given my a woman named Dawn who is a stunt-woman. She did stunts for the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk.

Dawn and her partner brought the balloon in a truck. They pulled it out and layed it on the ground. When she took down names of the ones who were going to fly, she said, "we have room for one more." Mom strode over to me and asked, "Do you really want to go up?" because, I had wanted to. "Yes," I said, and, finaly, she allowed me to.

Dawn and her partner began, then, to fill the balloon with air. It filled very quickly, puffing out, enlargening. It was soon fully filled and lying on its side, and then they warmed the air. Dawn pressed a button on a metal device at the top of the basket, and flames shot out of the device, up into the balloon. Slowly, the balloon began to rise, until it was floating above the basket, huge and colorful.

I stood and looked at it. It was huge, squares of rainbow colors running diagonally all over it. The basket looked rather small—very small, and Dawn stood inside it, occasionally turning on the gas to heat the air. We ran over to it, and grasped a strong hold onto the basket, to hold it down.

One by one, we boarded—Coco, Dad (holding his video camera in one hand), myself, Noni. Kathy filmed us from outside, and Dad from inside the basket. I grasped one corner and readied myself. I couldn't believe I was really going.

Thunder blasted above me, as the fire tumbled into the balloon, once again heating the air, and the others backed away from the balloon. Edina, Frankie, and Sal were shrieking things. Mom was yelling for me to "hold tight", as were others So, I hugged tightly to the strip of basket that descended to the balloon. But, I didn't feel at all scared. Excited, I did feel.

We lifted. I felt the gravity drain away. We ascended into the sky, the peoples, cars, houses below us getting smaller. Frankie was running after the balloon as we floated further up.

We began to move across the sky. The fog that had been spread across Canyon Lake was not here, in Peris. The mountains were smeared with snow on their pointed peaks, jutting upward like dunce caps. Canyon Lake, surrounded by hills, was filled with feathery white fog—a bowl filled with whipped cream. The cities below looked like toys—the cities of the train sets Dad and I were going to build, once, long ago.

fortunes

It's been a month since Stephen's fall. A month of lying on his back with his leg up, of physical therapy, of worrying, of enduring not being able to paint. For me, a month of taking care. On the weekend, I ran down to the Chinese restaurant and got us takeout, which was luxurious because Stephen hadn't been really feeling right enough for a long time to care about having a treat. Dinner came with three fortune cookies.

Mine: A small act of charity will go a long way.

Stephen's: Keep up the good work. You will be rewarded.

Nicholas': You will be traveling and coming into a fortune.

a simplified map of the real world: the galley

Here's a quick sneak peek at the galley for Forest Avenue Press' first fiction acquisition, Stevan Allred's linked short story collection A Simplified Map of the Real World. For anyone who doesn't know what this is, a galley (or advanced reader copy or ARC or uncorrected proof) is the pre-publication edition of a book, something that goes out to magazines and other publications in hopes of reviews or to bookstores in hopes that the title will be carried there. A galley is also a great tool for the publisher to use in order to find any last minute errors - hence the "uncorrected proof" designation.

Some galleys look like the finished product, just with extra marketing info on the back and a stamp designating it as a galley somewhere on the cover art. Others have mostly blank front covers with just title and author shown. I like the ones that fall in between, that show the cover art but smaller than actual size so that when the final product is unveiled, the impact is splashier.

In putting together the galley cover for A Simplified Map of the Real World, I also wanted to create a model for Forest Avenue Press' future galleys, something that is recognizable as an ARC but is uniquely Forest Avenue Press.

For more information on Forest Avenue Press and A Simplified Map, you can check out their website here.

a moment in the day: post-op

It's the day after the surgery. Evening. Stephen's in bed with his leg in the brace and up on piled pillows. It's late but he hasn't eaten since he's been nauseous and somewhat heart-burny, maybe because of the pain medication, maybe because of all the lying on his back. On the TV is Montgomery Clift in a priest costume. We've paused the film to tend, again, to the after effects of Stephen's fall of two weeks ago. Ice pack for the knee. Ice pack for behind his back since he threw his back out somewhere between the first and third physical therapy sessions. Water for the latest thing, the twelve-hour bout of nearly ongoing hiccups.

I hand him the glass. He takes it with his good hand - which is the sore hand but at least not the one connected to the broken elbow.

"So, my nose is getting stuffed up, too," he says.

"You have gout yet?" I ask.

"Maybe."

a moment in the day: september, 1985

A little memory moment for Mother's Day. This is from my diary, September, 1985. I was sixteen. Frank would have been just nine. Horatio was our dog.

Poor punctuation and overblown teenager, already-want-to-be-a-writer language intact:


I was feeling really sick Sunday night. Mom & I were watching the T.V., she on the couch, and I on the floor. “Death of a Salesman” with Dustin Hoffman which was well done but depressing as hell.

Frankie got a hug from mom because his teeth hurt, and I wanted one, too. I came crawling over to her, feeling just like Horatio. When Frankie was gone, I got a cuddle from Mom. Oh, I could just feel the mother, daughter love we had between us. I remembered that feeling from times long ago when, as a younger child I got cuddles, and the feeling brought tears to my eyes. I must have looked really funny, my legs curled on the floor, half teenager, half child. I thought for a moment about having lived with her all my life. It was one of the best feelings in the world.

nicholas and the injured man

At first, Nicholas wasn't at all sure he liked the situation. When the man who calls him Dog came through the apartment door wearing the robot leg and with one arm in a sling, Nicholas didn't like that robot leg and barked at it. It was black and full of big hard plastic parts and straps and went all the way from the man's thigh to his ankle, and Nicholas suspected that this wasn't really the man at all but a cyborg lookalike.

"Hey, Dog!" the man said. "Stop that!"

Nicholas was mostly reassured.

The woman with the lap was running around the apartment grabbing weird things like frozen blue ice bags and rattling pill bottles. She put the man in the bed. The man used all the pillows in the house, which wasn't fair, because those pillows belonged to Nicholas.

No, this was not how it was supposed to be at all. The woman with the lap was supposed to be at work and the man who calls him Dog was supposed to be in the studio room, painting, or sitting at the computer and pretending to want to be painting, and Nicholas was supposed to be sleeping on those pillows.

Nicholas was polite and didn't say anything.

But then, there next to the man's ankle on the pile of pillows was a patch of sun. The man smiled a tired smile and patted the bed beside him, and Nicholas made one short, efficient jump up onto the pillows. Making sure to be careful, Nicholas curled up in the sun next to the man's foot and closed his eyes.

It was warm there and he was happy. Yes, he could get to like this injury thing. He could get to like this a lot.