Perth Words… exploring possibilities.

Many years ago, I worked in advertising –  making TV commercials, magazine ads and the like. While casting kids for a tv commercial, this little girl showed up with her sweater mis-buttoned, so I said, “she has more buttons than holes.” Then, of course, I did a doodle…

Which made me wonder if it could become a book…

which made me do more doodles…

My initial idea was that the book would be a collection of “more this than that” situations.

At the same time, I was experimenting with watercolors and created this random image by sprinkling salt onto wet, blue paint, which was clearly meant to be a snow-filled sky.

I liked many of the situations but there wasn’t much holding them together – no Big Idea to give them context. I had about 20 drawings, which I showed to my very smart friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal, asking…

Movie rights for Jessica’s Knoll’s upcoming novel, Luckiest Girl Alive, have been snapped up by Lionsgate, with the feature adapation to be produced by Reese Witherspoon and Bruna Papandrea through their Pacific Standard company. I’ve been lucky enough to see an advance copy of the book. This book’s going to get tongues wagging, that’s for sure. It’s dark, it’s riveting and it’s one of those books that’s hard to put down.

Here’s the teaser:

Sometimes I feel like a windup doll, like I have to reach behind and turn my golden key to produce a greeting, a laugh, whatever the socially acceptable reaction should be. I managed a tight farewell smile for Spencer. She wouldn’t mistake my name again, not once the documentary aired, not once the camera narrowed in on my aching, honest face, gently dissolving any last confusion about who I am and what I did. (p22)

Ray Charles

If I think back, I believe the first music I heard that could be classified as Blues would have been an old cassette tape of Ray Charles.  He was a giant in the world of music, with a musical voice all his own and became a foundational influence in the genres of Blues, R&B, and early Rock and Roll.  That old cassette had to be some sort of greatest hits compilation I’m sure, including such favorites as “Georgia On My Mind” and “What I’d Say”.  The one I remember as a straight up blues was a tune named “A Fool For You”.

Ray Charles, “ A Fool For You”

Robert Cray

I was coming of age in that transition period between vinyl records and the first compact discs.  Most new releases were available on record, cassette and CD all at the same time.  Stores were selling records for…

Scully and Mulder together again

The Truth is Out There about David Duchovny’s singing voice: he really isn’t very good. I am not sure if it even qualifies as singing. It’s more a sort of mumbled warbling, and he obviously brings the same level of energy to it as he does to his acting. Let’s be polite and call it understated. (No doubt it will be lodged in the same cultural memory box as Bruce Willis’ The Return of Bruno.) Still, though, that didn’t stop people from turning out in droves to hear him launch his debut album, Hell or Highwater at The Cutting Room in New York.

Dressed all in black just like a rock star – or a man in mid-life crisis who thinks that being a rock star would be kind of cool – Duchovny hugged the microphone and brought his signature intensity…