A Scene From the Latest Chapter of Self’s Hunger Games Fan Fiction

Writing this in New Hampshire. Snow drifts pile high outside. Nashua has no beauty salon, although there is a Supercuts. And one art gallery.

Last night, self attended a reception for the Symphony New Hampshire, which is premiering The Marife Suite. Found out it will be taped. Portions from the dress rehearsal may be uploaded to the Hampshire Symphony website.

Drew invited self to attend the dress rehearsal. But, thinking of her on-line students, she begged out of it (Waking up this morning, however, she greatly regrets that decision)

She opens her fan fiction, and writes:

Finnick is terribly confused. He only prays they don’t lay a hand on Annie. Is she already here? He fears the worst. She might survive, for a time. But they might do things to her — her brain. He’s seen those women wandering around Snow’s room’s as if lost in thought, barely able to remember their own names.

Please, he thinks. Please don’t turn Annie into one of those.

Could he strike a bargain with these people? He’ll do anything to save Annie. He should have known the rebellion wouldn’t work. He’d lost sight of his own greatest weakness.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

 

Wall: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is WALL.

As the prompt on The Daily Post states:

Share an image of a wall that reveals something about a place, or a people, or you.

Here are some examples of notable walls self has taken pictures of in the recent past:

A few days ago: Had breakfast in Egghead’s Restaurant, Fort Bragg, and took a picture of this wall mural.

Karen Bowers of the Mendocino Art Center invited self to go gallery-hopping in Fort Bragg, a monthly ritual called “First Friday.” This is Bones, a graffiti artist. He’s standing in front of his latest creation, in a gallery on Laurel Street.

One other mural by graffiti artist Bones.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Orange Accents, Harvard Square

From The Daily Post Photo Challenge:

This week, share a group of photos where orange is either the dominant color, or provides a bold highlight. Shoot for at least three photos, and look for different shades — bright neons, deep rusts, delicate peaches.

Yesterday, tried something called the Sophie Burger: medium rare beef patty, topped with blue cheese, prosciutto, and arugula.

It was just a burger place, across the street from an office building:

There are shots of orange in each picture. Ha!

Stay tuned.

 

Self Wrote the Libretto for a Two-Act Opera!

Self wrote the libretto for a two-act opera.

Self doesn’t watch opera. But she is never one to let a little thing like not knowing anything stop her from writing!

Self’s composer/collaborator, Drew Hemenger, is sick, as self was before she left California. A few shots of chili-laced Szechuan soup near Harvard Square and she’s all better!

The world premiere of The Marife Suite is this Saturday, in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Boston is freezing cold. Self tried walking around Harvard Square this morning. CRAAAAP! She didn’t even make it five blocks. The wind and — ugh, ugh, ugh! Lips are chapped! Yikes! Hands look like wrinkled prunes!

She’s switching all her fan fiction (the ones that had Peeta as a Harvard undergrad) to Palo Alto.

So glad. Just so glad she chose to study in Palo Alto, where giant palm trees line the broad avenues etc. May the Heavens preserve us, she just can’t take this bitter Boston cold.

Self brought with her the libretto for The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, the opera by Philip Glass and Doris Lessing. Believe it or not, reading this libretto, six years ago, was what started self thinking that maybe, just maybe, she could pull this one off. Maybe she could actually write a full-length opera.

Lessing’s libretto combines two of self’s most enduring interests: science fiction and terse language. Here’s an excerpt from Act II Scene 4:

BELOW THE WALL

The people stand huddled together, waiting. Beside them is a great heap of insulating material.

The People (variously)
Like coats for houses.
In this new time of ours buildings must wear coats and skins.
Like us.

They sink down into the snow. Sit listlessly. Some go off to sleep.

Reading the above, self wonders how much of her story The Freeze, the one that’s coming out in Bluestem Magazine (It’ll be on sale at the AWP Book Fair. Yeessss!), consists of lingering echoes from The Representative for Planet 8. In self’s story, the temperature drops overnight, everything stops working, every living thing dies — except for huddled bands of starving people, who decide to head south.

Her story follows one intrepid band (teen-agers and one very old woman) who decide to follow Highway 1 to Mexico.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Orange 3: Various Settings

No matter how many times self watches the sunset here, she will never tire of it. It is always beautiful.

Mendocino Sunset

For a change of pace, something NOT Mendocino. In case dear blog readers are wondering: the tiles. Orange much? Kidding.

Cubberley, Stanford campus: the day self spoke to Valerie Miner’s students

She wore a red top that day (Because the Stanford color is Cardinal). And the first thing Prof. Valerie Miner told her when they met up at the Faculty Club was: “I know where you got that. Mendocino. The Great Put-On. I have one just like it.”

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Orange 2: WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

Laundry Day! Which meant self had to bring some books downstairs with her, to read while she waited for her clothes to dry.

The book she chose today was The Annotated Brothers Grimm, edited with a preface and notes by Maria Tatar.

The illustrations in this book are simply gorgeous.

Since this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is ORANGE, self decided to take pictures of the illustrations that had the warmest orange glow:

Maxfield Parrish illustration of Sleeping Beauty, published in a 1912 issue of Collier’s Magazine

Warwick Goble, Illustration for The Six Swans: “The Queen cast spells on six shirts and threw them over the six boys, who were instantly transformed into wild swans . . . “

Warwick Goble, Illustration for Little Red Riding Hood

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

Local Nomad

Local Nomad took self’s Biblical Revisionist Story “The Ark.”

YAY YAY YAY YAY!

The editor called it “lovely and disturbing.”

Here are their submission guidelines.

Stay tuned.

 

Orange You Glad It’s Photo Challenge Time?

This week, share a group of photos where orange is either the dominant color, or provides a bold highlight. — WordPress The Daily Post Photo Challenge

Self decided to go with the Orange as Highlight. Without further ado:

Gallery-Hopping, First Friday, Fort Bragg

A Fort Bragg Gallery Dedicated to the Graffiti Art of one man, who goes by “Bones”

The artist’s full name is Bones Graffix. His number is painted on the window facing the street:

Graffiti Art in Downtown Fort Bragg, Last Night

There are sufficient splashes of orange in the above pictures to conform to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge: ORANGE. Wouldn’t you agree, dear blog readers?

Further from The Daily Post Photo Challenge Prompt:

“What’s not to love about orange? It’s vibrant. It’s cheerful. It makes a statement.”

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

2666: Moving BACKWARDS

Today, self awoke in near-dark (pretty much par for the course, the past week).

She reached for Roberto Bolaño.

Decided to quote from the page she’s on.

Checked the last post she wrote on Roberto Bolaño.

Amazing, she’s apparently moved backwards.

lol

Without further ado:

She sat at the windowsill and looked out at the city. A sea of flickering lights stretched toward the south. If she leaned half her body out the window, the humming stopped. The air was cold and felt good.

— Roberto Bolaño, 2666, p. 108

Yesterday, self stood at the bottom of Ukiah Street, staring at the headlands. And it was cold. And there was a chill wind. And she felt it whipping her thin hair practically off her scalp.

The cold that self has felt building up for days finally arrived in earnest. And she can even point to the exact time it hit: Thursday, 8:09 a.m.

She ended up running to Corners of the Mouth Organic Market and telling Vicki: I am going to be extremely busy in the coming week. And I feel something coming on. Can you give me something that will at least keep me ambulatory.

Here’s what she ended up giving self: zinc lozenges; Elderberry Syrup; Lung & Throat Herbal Drops; Macro-Biotic Nasal Spray; two fresh lemons to squeeze into her tea.

But the best, the absolutely best cold remedy? Peeta Mellark. Thank God for fan fiction. Would that she could spend all day in bed, just reading.

You know, she only brought a few books with her to Mendocino. In two months, she’s read exactly 2 1/4 books. (In the long-ago time of her fulsome-ness, she would have whipped through about eight)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

“The Lost Coast”: Sunset Magazine, September 2014

Self is re-reading an article that appeared in the September 2014 issue of Sunset Magazine, an article about “The Lost Coast” — “the remote 200-plus-mile stretch (80 miles of which is called the Lost Coast) between the Oregon border and the logging town of Fort Bragg.”

The Lost Coast is where you encounter (culling from the article):

• rain-soaked forest
• mysterious little towns
• rogue marijuana farms
• elk
• campgrounds “hidden in the dense forest and brush”
• estuaries
• rocky headlands
• long sandbars
• Sitka spruces
• good local Sangiovese
• local Humboldt Fog cheese
• Redwood National Park

Well, there is still time for self to cross off a few of the things on that list, starting with good, local Sangiovese.

Two days ago, she had to borrow 30 cents from a teen-ager working the concession stand at the Fort Bragg Coast Cinema. Yes, she has sunk so low.

She drove there to see “Focus” starring her Number 1 Male Chest of all time, Will Smith (Margot Robbie is in it, and also has a chest, for those of you who play on the other team). And when she got there, she found out she had just enough for the movie ticket, and $2. And she had left her credit card in her apartment.

@@##!!

And to think she had been anticipating stuffing her face with buttery popcorn, since any Will Smith movie these days is cause for celebration, but the smallest popcorn cost $4.50, and the girl said why not have a candy bar instead? Self could have a giant Kit Kat bar or Maltesers or M&Ms for $2.50.

So self emptied out the entire contents of her coin purse, right there on the counter. And she was only able to come up with 20 cents, even counting pennies. So she was still short 30 cents. And bless that young girl, for she said: “Oh, just choose a candy bar. Never mind the 30 cents.”

##@@!!!

Self, You are despicable.

“Are you sure?” Self practically squealed. “I’ll come back tomorrow and pay you back! What’s your name? What time are you working?”

The girl just laughed and waved self off.

Damn! Self is going to go back there right now, newly armed with cash.

AND she’s going to post a glowing review of Coast Cinema, Fort Bragg, on Yelp.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.