Harry Connick Jr. Trio’s “Lonely Side” just came up on iTunes– for the first time in over two years. It’s funny how the random shuffle will keep tracks from playing for a long time, but it’s always pleasant when you hear a song that you haven’t heard in a long time.

Lofty’s Roach Souffle , which was the one album that Harry Connick Jr. released with his trio, was the soundtrack to Soap, Scents & Seduction, a live, improvised soap opera that I worked on in 1990. Sharon Elder was the guiding force behind the show, which was a ridiculous send-up of the usual tacky soap opera crap, set in a soap factory. I think, for the life of me, I will never forget Helen Hagan saying the line, “Exfoliating scrub? Mr. Johnson, what kind of girl do you think I am?”

Sharon was one of the first people other than Larry Long who believed that I really had a place doing improv. I was a goofy-looking, 15-year-old kid at the time, which I think is all anyone else saw, but Sharon and Larry really bent over backwards to make me feel like I wasn’t wasting my time. She also set me up with a couple of jobs for different things, like taking photos of people in costume at Harnett County’s Project Graduation in 1991.

I’ve tried a number of times over the years to find a jazz trio that sounded anything like that one Connick album. There aren’t a ton of piano-bass-drums albums that I can find, particularly with my unrefined palate for jazz. Pandora didn’t help me much, but that may be due to the fact that I can’t use any of the Lofty’s Roach Souffle songs as a starting point– they’re not listed anywhere, even though a bunch of Connick’s vocal stuff is (not interested).

via LoFro: The Death of E-mail

I may not be ready for e-mail to die. But I think I’ll be ok if it does.

I spent the day at the NC School Library Media Conference, which was held in Winston-Salem, NC. I went to only one session that wasn’t a LEARN function– a session on social networking that was, I think, too advanced for beginners, too beginner for the advanced, and strongly focused on the technology rather than what we should be doing with it. (But, despite the fact that I know that sell was a little too hard, and I’m not convinced that the uses are even remotely worthwhile, I went ahead and set up a Twitter account during the session, and have Twittered a couple of times today. I swore I would not use a website with such a stupid name.)

When I got back into Chapel Hill, I headed to Linda’s for a blowout, where I showed Iron Scav pictures and just generally made merry for several hours. While I would normally have used the blowout to act the fool, I was quite tame. Stupid cold. I was very well-behaved. I met Team FAT’s Toilet Paper Mummy.

Waiting for me at home was the letter I’d been hoping for all week– the summary of my degree essay from my supervisor and my second reader. In his summary, Pete used a term that struck me as particularly insightful– and I wish I thought to use it in the essay: “deceptive motion.”

My second reader was who I thought it would be. Total hunch. Maybe I should say that’s who I hoped it would be.

Tomorrow, I sit down to write my semester evaluation. Once again, Warren Wilson has provided me with an academic challenge unlike anything I’d ever experienced before, and I’m so thankful for it.

The germs failed to comply.

I took advantage of the time to sleep, eat, and write poem #45. I think I have run out of words. I’m planning to take tomorrow off.

I’ve doubled up on the Vitamin C and been sucking the life out of zinc lozenge after zinc lozenge, to the point where I believe I may no longer be all man: I am part mineral. We will see if it does me any good. Tonight will be the deciding night, the night where the tickle and drip will keep me from sleeping or I’ll wake after 8 solid hours, free of a cold. I have Friday off, so I’d really like to not be sick until at least then. Please, germs: comply.

The daily grind in November has been much less stressful, and I think (hope) that I’m getting better work as a result. I’m less bothered by the poor poems that I’ve turned in, and less inclined to torture myself for an idea. Last night, I simply opened Miroslav Holub’s Supposed to Fly every time I got stuck and looked for a word to use next. The right word appeared immediately the first few times, and then less often, and it was then that I knew the mind had taken some ownership of what the fingers were sending onto the screen. I merely had to question what that ownership was, and why it had been taken. I was not totally satisfied with the answer, but I believe I will find it more fully in revision.

For those keeping score at home:
Nov 1 - Flu Shot
Nov 2 - Idiot Plot
Nov 3 - A History of Deaths in the Colony, Complete to 1656
Nov 4 - Daylight Savings Time
Nov 5 - Birds in the Colony
Nov 6 - People Skills
Nov 7 - Endodontics
Nov 8 - How We Came Upon the Colony
Nov 9 - Spitting Images
Nov 10 - Natural Law Firm
Nov 11 - Teenage Girl in Supermarket Freezer
Nov 12 - Facts About Early America
Nov 13 - Taxidermy and Living Things

Further proof that you should stay off the waterways if you value your life: my buddy John Thompson just landed a 19-foot fishing boat, which he’ll be captaining around.

Words without poems: I have been limiting the number of unnecessary inputs of late, but two that have my attention are Scrabulous for Facebook and Wordie. Scrabulous is a fine application that allows Anthony King and Lee Creighton to absolutely pulverize me in Scrabble at the rate of one or two turns a day, leaving me doubting that I have the vocabulary necessary to be a decent poet. Wordie is a site that Rosalynde Vas Dias turned me on to, which allows me to find new ways to attempt to punish them back, if I have the right tiles…

Iron Scav 10 was a rousing success… with only one minor complication. Team What the Junk won by a tight margin against Team Don’t Tase Me Bro, who took home the trophy for most immoral picture. Team FAT took the honors for best pic, which was Marielle in a freezer, an astonishing shot…

Continuing my push towards the perfect inbox, I have gone ahead and arranged GTD folders for my personal e-mail account. And my Gmail account now has IMAP, so I’m finally bringing that into Thunderbird. Will the wonders never cease?

(Answer: no.)

I don’t mind rejection letters– they’re part of the game as a writer. But this one, received from an online publication that’s had a stack of poems since March, irritated me some.

To: ross@—-.—
From: editors@——.—
Subject: RE: Ross White submission

William,

Thanks for sharing your poems with name removed. We’re sorry to report that they’re not quite right for us. Best of luck placing them elsewhere.

Sincerely,
The Editors

Below was the text of my original message, which included a signature and a short bio, each of which also had my name.

William? WTF?

My less-than-firm resolution to blog at least a little every day hasn’t held up, but my poem-a-day grind, begun on October 1, is still going strong. Recently, I’ve been noodling with James Tate-esque mini-narratives, and will probably continue that at least for a little while, except on days when I’m really pressed for time. Unsurprisingly, the first involved animal-people.

For those keeping score at home:
Nov 1 - Flu Shot
Nov 2 - Idiot Plot
Nov 3 - A History of Deaths in the Colony, Complete to 1656
Nov 4 - Daylight Savings Time
Nov 5 - Birds in the Colony
Nov 6 - People Skills
Nov 7 - Endodontics