INTRODUCTION TO THE CASE OF THE KEARNEY MUSIC SCHOOL MURDERS (2007), by Tim Bosworth

Later the homeless kid Ben told us how Ian Kearney fell
from the Kearney Music School’s balcony. At ten to eight
on a rainy and muffled Philadelphia night, a week after
Thanksgiving. Cars sizzled around Rittenhouse Square. The
light posts on the square had red and green plastic Christmas
fuzzy stuff wrapped around them. The door above Ben
opened, and Ian’s short and spindly frame appeared on the
balcony. Ian looked around as if expecting someone. He bent
over the railing, groaned and released a stream of vomit. Ben,
standing below, jumped to his right just in time. Ian wiped
his mouth. Ben followed Ian’s gaze and saw a tall man on the
corner. He was wearing a handlebar moustache.

A New Kind of Autobiography

Why do autobiographies all look the same? They start with childhood and try to find reasons why the person ended up the way they did and they never can because no one really knows and besides like Kierkegaard says, you live your live forward but understand it backwards, so you're always coming up with rationalizations for everything not explanations.

What am I to autobiographize about? Yes, I inhabited a space on this earth for a bunch of years, but what is that space about. It's so tall, so wide, and so deep. That's me. I've gotten taller and shorter and fatter and thinner over time. I'll probably keep it up until I die and then become just a bunch of stuff.

So, you can tell what I am as well as I can. I've cranked up Mahler on the stereo and decided that my life is the connections between all the people I have known and all the things I have done. You'll have to figure out what those connections mean, you'll get no help from me. I'll just tell you what I did and whom I know and I may sometimes hazard a guess but how am I really to know.

So here's a new kind of autobiography. I'm in here somewhere but who knows. Maybe I should call it my autoblogiography. That's it. I'm writing my autoblogiography.

Changes in the Publishing Industry

I cannot idly sit by and not comment on what's happening in our industry.

Nathan Bransford, a literary agent whose blog I follow, complains about distress in the publishing industry. Publishers are shutting whole divisions down, bookstore chains are shedding employees like everyone else. With the market tanking, the same forces are affecting publishing as all other sectors of the economy.

Every time I google the subject, I see new companies wanting to publish your stuff as an E-book. I see newer and better Kindles coming on the market. A kindle is a hand-held devise that can store literally hundreds of thousands of book. By some year in the not too distant future, one kindle will hold everything that has ever been written in any language.

A kindle is an improvised electronic device [IED] which is killing hundreds of writers' hopes every day. It's a boon for consumers but an absolute disaster for writers because it moves their break-even point further down the road and maybe out of reach. It means that writers have to sell even more books befor they can make any money. It also means that the writer has to have even more cost-effective ways of getting the attention of readers. It's part of the increasing disrespect for creativity and increasing narcissism among readers.

What is means is the creative industry is going through through transition just like others. How are we to navigate through it?

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Richard Wright's Black Boy

One of the really rich autobiographies available to us is the one by Richard Wright, Black Boy (American Hunger) A Record of Childhood and Youth, originally published in 1945 by Harper and Row. The copy I have, reissued in 1989, starts this way:

One winter morning in the long-ago four-year-old days of my life, I found myself standing before a fireplace, warming my hands over a mound of glowing coals, listening to the wind whistle past the house outside.

Who wouldn't want to read about a black boy who was standing in the warmth out of the cold wind. The hands again, a symbol of the way we touch other people and things. Warming his hands against the cold wind.

Yet the winds of change were blowing even in 1945. Truman had recently, or would soon, send segregation in the armed forces. Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, dealt a blow to the "separate but equal" rationale. The Montgomery Bus Boycott would come soon as would the voting rights act and other national legislation.

It's hard to look back at that world through the lens of the Obama victory. But we lived in a time then when a president could never be elected if he was black. I kid growing up in this world will never know that one. Wright's autobiography is one that should be read by anyone who cares about America.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: David Simon's Homicide a Year on the Killing Streets

David Fine's terrific book, Homicide a Year on the Killing Streets (New York: Ivy Books, 1991) starts out like this:

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19.

Pulling one hand from the warmth of a pocket, Jay Landsman squats down to grab the dead man's chin, pushing the head to one side until the wound becomes visible as a small, ovate hole, oozing red and white.

Red and white are American colors. The detailed description of the bullet hole. The idea of the hand going from the warmth into the cold to touch somebody. Then some gallows humor to relieve the horror inherent in the work homicide detectives have to do.

The cover says this book is "engrossing." Engrossing it is. I couldn't put it down. I was also a fan of the TV series made from this book. But as a piece of creative non-fiction it's a masterpiece. So much exposition yet the horrendous details of homicide investigation and the awful toll it takes on the people who do it just gripped me and couldn't let me go. It flips back and fourth between third and second person and is in the present tense, all things I normally don't like, but here it works.

I recommend this soon to be classic true crime book.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Umberto Eco,'s The Name of the Rose

I read The Name of the Rose (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1980) on a trip to Europe. I started it on the plane, then continued reading it during the jet lagged period awake during the middle of the night. I like to read things related to where I travel. With the exception of Richard Russo which I'll read anytime. He needs to write a new one for me to read.

Here's how it starts:

On August 16, 1968, I was handed a book written by a certain Abbe Vallet, The Manuscrit de Dom Adson de Melk, traduit en francais d'apres l'edition de Dom J. Mabillon (Aux Presses de L'Abbaye de la Source, Paris, 1842

Very formal.

Eco obviously wants to set a quasi-official tone, as if this were some kind of report. Not my strategy, but, hey the book was a best seller in every language it was translated into, and mine isn't even close. I've tried to read others of his, particularly Foucault's Pendulum, but to no avail.

This one served up a delicious mixture of Sherlockian whodunit, European history, Catholic doctrine, and heretical literature. I was engrossed from start to finish which means there's a lot of ways to write great stuff. So much exposition so adroitly handled. An amazing achievement.

This novel did for me what novels were originally supposed to do: inform, teach, and move. I was different after having read it than I was before. All this, and a spectacularly fine ride. My wife didn't really dig it though, which means not every book is for everybody, no matter how well crafted.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: William Gibson's Neuromancer

William Gibson in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, gave us "cyberspace" and "the matrix." And he made all sorts of other fiction possible. It threw me for a loop the first time I read it. Sentences like this, from p. 5:

He'd operated on an almost permanent adrenaline high, a byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into a consensual hallucination that was the matrix.

Egad. I mean--"disembodied consciousness?" Consciousness doesn't have a body, so how can it be disembodied?

And "custom cyberspace deck"?--what was that?

And "consensual hallucination"? Come on.

I was wondering what kind of hallucination he was on. I was also realizing that this book was either genius or trash.

Sometimes you have to do when reading what William Saffire once said you have to do when you use language. It's taking an elephant for a walk. You just have to go where it wants. Then afterwards you can decide whether it was worth the trip. Or, if you find out the trip's not worth it when you're half way through, drop the leash and go on to something else.

Well, here is his first sentence:

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

So what is that? I wasn't drawn in by this sentence, but I was curious about what that might be about that I kept reading.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Helene Stapinsky's Five-Finger Discount

Helene Stapinski has written a terrific piece of creative non-fiction: Five-Finger Discount; a Crooked Family History (New York, Random House, 2001). It's the story of a crooked family, as she says in the subtitle.

Here's the way she starts it out:

The night my grandfather tried to kill us, I was five years old, the age I stopped believing in Santa Clause, started kindergarten, and made real rather than imaginary friends.

How about that? Who wouldn't want to go on. It's amazingly engrossing. Though crime and corruption are baked into this family, in some ways it's as American as apple pie.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Dalton Conley', Honkey

Dalton Conley's Honky (New York: Random House, 2000) is an amazing book, the memoir of a white man who grew up in the projects where just about everyone he knew was black or Hispanic, the Huxtables upside down.

He starts:

I am not your typical middle-class white male.

Introduction through understatement.

This is creative non-fiction, but you still have to have a good first sentence causes you to ask why isn't he typical. The cover of the book of course tells you all about it. Read it anyway.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

This is a really profound and wonderful book. The overleaf says he was born in the mountains of North Carolina. It has the feel of that. Cold Mountain was published by Random House in 1997. A movie with a lot of famous actors and actresses was made of it. I didn't see it.

Here's the first sentence:

At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring.

"At the first gesture", the morning personified, beckoning you into the dawn of a new day and into the novel.

"Flies stirring," your interest stirring. The story stirring you. Nine simple little words, and you're in.

He could have written, "At morning's first gesture, the flies began stirring. That's actually 8 words, but it wouldn't have had the punch as the way he said it, did. It would have sounded too much like "Through rockets'red glare."

If you haven't read this strange and beautiful novel, you're missing something.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Alex D. Pate, West of Rehoboth

Here's what I said on April 21, 2009 about this engaging novel. I'll just repeat it here:

Alexs D. Pate [Yes that's how his first name is spelled.] begins his wonderful novel, West of Rehoboth (New York: William Morrow, 2001] "The soft summer held them all." Just six little words encapsulates the entire novel. It does what all sentences are supposed to do: lead you to the next one.

But what is "them?" Dreams? People? Cups of coffee? We are intrigued. At least I was when I read it. You should read it too.

But I'm going to go further and quote the first two sentences:

The soft summer held them all. They gently sat upon the shimmering flecks of sun hidden in the cut grass.

The shimmering flecks of sun hid in the grass. They were in there, you just couldn't see them. Why did the flecks have to hide? What did they have to fear? It was a soft summer sun, but they had to hide. Hmm, threatening and comforting at the same time. Kind of gives you hint of things to come.

He goes further: "They came together like this every Fourth of July." A symbol of American independence and a celebration of our success as a nation. "It was a time when Lemon Hill Park was at its height of sweetness." Something foreboding in the air.

I'll stop. Read this most excellent book.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train

One of the things that fun for me is to revisit all this stuff I haven't read before. I got that rush again when I pulled down Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train New York: Norton and Company, 1950). She got some attention when The Talented Mr. Ripley was made into a good movie with a lot of famous actors in it. A friend of mine once compared my writing to hers, which made me warm all over.

Here's her first sentence: "The train tore along with an angry, irregular rhythm."

"Tore along"; "Angry"; "irregular rhythm." Kind of like bad music. What a tone it sets up. A devil's bargain on an angry irregular train. Hmm.

When you read that, you say, "Ooh, I want to read that."

I must confess I was curious about the book after I'd read the three Ripley novels and a couple others of her and heard about the movie Alfred Hitchcock made from this one, and I wanted to see what the book was like. I think if it had been a bad intro, I would have put it down, but I didn't

It's a good first sentence. Had I come upon it cold, who knows. But, once you have an audience you can get away with just about anything. But getting that audience...

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Carson McCullers, A Clock Without Hands

Wow!! When I pulled this off my book shelf (Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin,1989) 1 to share it with you, I experienced a heavy endorphin rush. I loved this book.

Sometimes when you read a really good novel, that works for you on so many levels, it can't be expressed what you experience.

Here's the first sentence:

Death is always the same, buut each man dies in his own way.

Here's a 2nd-person POV sentence starting off an omniscient-POV story. That's a great technique and it causes the reader to ask a "Why are you telling me this?" kind of question which moves you right into the next sentence.

I recommend this and any of her other 10 books. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter won Alan Arkin an academy award and is one of my favorite movies.

When I get done with first sentences, I'm going to do titles I think.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Wyman Richardson, The House on Nauset Marsh

Wynan Richardson's The House on Nauset Marsh (Woodstock, VT: The Countryman Press, 1997) is one of my favorite books on Cape Cod. It's creative non-fiction, but it could be a novel. The writing is extremely fine and the narrator is a really interesting character, and others are as well.

But, so what. Whether it's fiction, creative non-fiction, or a textbook on how to remove a bullet from you skull, you need a good first sentence.

I can't resist quoting the whole 1st paragraph:

You can go to Eastham, on outer Cape Cod, and live in the little old Farm House at the drop of a hat. The pump, the kerosene lamps, and the open fire are always ready without fear of frost or storm. You can drive up the lane, stop the car by the kitchen door, and unload your gear. You can look out the south windows over the nearby grassy hills, over the bright blue water of Nauset Marsh to the darker blue glimpses of the sea beyond the dunes, and draw a deep breath

There you have it, a magical place where you an go back to over and over and it never changes.

Eastham, founded in the early 17th century, was one of the first towns on Cape Cod. It's population grew so fast there was some interest in moving the capitol of the state from Plymouth to Eastham.

But what subtext: "You can go" empowers you; "little old Farm House" means a place where you loved as a kid. "Drive up," "Unload your gear," "Look out," "over the bright blue water," "without fear", "draw a deep breath"; it's so enabling and just makes you yearn to escape the confinements and go into you mind into such a place. And the details, "the pump, the kerosene lamps, and the open fire" just want you go come along. You can go into the book and get lost in it, which I recommend you do.

This Cape Cod no longer exists, of course. Eisenhower's interstates delivered the first bow. It was going away just as Richardson wrote the first edition of this fine book.

I think I'll drop my hat and go read it.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Dylan Thomas, Adventures in the Skin Trade

I have never read through this strange and wonderful novel [New York: New American Library of World Classics, 1960]. It's in the vein of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Edgar Lee Masters's, Spoon River Anthology. In that group, but not of that group.

My problem, I can't get past the beauty of the words and phrases. I get about halfway through the page and I'm lost somewhere out in the stratosphere. He was such a gifted writer and what worlds he drafted with his pen. "Do not go quietly into the night." Or something close. What power in the language. How can just 26 letters produce what it produces.

Anyway, here's the opening sentence:

That early morning, in January 1933, only one person was awake in the street, and he was the quietest.

I'm not even going to try to parse this one. Dylan Thomas stands far above the crowd, probably the greatest writer the English language ever produced.

Dylan Thomas is, well, Dylan Thomas.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Cormac McCarthy's The Road

Cormac McCarthy again in The Road [New York: Random House, 2006]. I like his stuff, though I think this one and All the Pretty Horses are the best of the 5 or so I've read.

Here is the first sentence:

When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him.

Here we go again. Those haunting, quasi-poetic lines, drawn into his complex, mysterious post-Apocalyptic world. Why was he always sleeping in the woods in the cold. Who is the boy and why are they together? We don't know at this point, but we're in.

I loved this novel. It's a terrible world he's writing about. Cold. Hostile. Threatening. Starvation everywhere. Death and destruction all over the place. Just the man and his son, the man dying we find out. Trying to survive and get somewhere. I couldn't put it down, but others react differently.

Still, I'd like just a hint of why the world is like it is. Was it a global ecological catastrophe? Nuclear attack? Why are there virtually no people around. A few, but most seemed to have picked up and left for somewhere else.

I could make a poem out of this:

He'd reach out to touch the child.
Nights dark beyond darkness.
Days more gray each one, like the
Onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.

His words not mine.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File

Frederick Forsyth, another one of my favorite authors. I've read The Odessa File (New York: Bantam Books 1992) twice if not more. I know how it turns out and I reread it again because getting there is so amazing.

So here it is:

There was a thin robin's-egg-blue dawn coming up over Tel Aviv when he intelligence analyst finished typing his report.

What does this tell us? It's a clear day. The intelligence analyst has been working all night, so something must be up, unless he always works nights in which case it's just another day in his life. We are told it's a beautiful day dawning, suggesting good things maybe on the way, but the use of the adjective "robin's-egg-blue" attributes a kind of fragility to the coming dawn as if something bad could well happen.

Well, kind of a limited start. But the first sentence has to do less work this time around because, if for no other reason, Mr. Forsyth is well know from his books, including Day of the Jackal, from which a brilliant movie was made, and which, by the way he had a lot of trouble getting published which tells you what the hell publishers know--Nothing. And if the reader doesn't know about the author already, the Author's note and the Foreward do a lot of the work for it.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite book or first sentence? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

I've written elsewhere about Ralph Ellison's Wonderful Book, Invisible Man (New York: Random House, 1995).

Here's the first sentence: I am an invisible man.Just four words and you're in. Invisible man, what could he be talking about? What do you mean, invisible.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses

Okay, now for another one of my favorite authors: Cormac McCarthy. I've read a fair number of his books. All the Pretty Horses (New York: Random House, 1992). How I can like Richard Russo and this guy, I have no idea. They're as far apart in style as you can be and still be on the same planet. This book is the first volume of a trilogy, the second two I read but was not that thrilled about so didn't keep.

Here goes:

The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted with he entered the hall and again when he shut the door.

This first sentence announces that you're in for a world which is grayer than most. Where images change and transform themselves before your eyes in ways over which you have no control. Where words run together and you're not sure what is really happening so you have to take it as it comes.

This guy takes a little getting used to. First of all, don't count on quotation marks or clear speaker attribution. Don't count on a lot of commas and semicolons. Faulkner used them all up, I think. Just spare, staunt prose, and haunting narrative and compelling characters. Just thinking about this makes me want to read him again.

Take this sentence from later on page 1.

It was dark outside and no wind. In the distance a calf bawled. He stood with his hat in his hand. You never combed your hair that way in your life, he said.

How could you not love that writing, even if you're a Virginia Woolf devotee?

I would like some quotation marks, though. I also don't like writers who don't identify who they're characterizing before they refer to them as "he". Tony Morrison does that too, and it used to drive me nuts.

Somebody once complained about a famous writer because he used bad grammar. The writer said something like, "They give Pulitzers for writing not for grammar."

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion

From Ken Kesey's expansive novel:

Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range. . . come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River ...

There, in this little sentence, Ken Kesey has captured the entire world of the Pacific Northwest. It's somewhere under the words, I don't know. The book lives somewhere between prose and poetry. "The hysterical crashing of tributaries"--wow. Who can write like that? How can you not read on?

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Great Introduction: Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey dedicates his wonderful novel Sometimes a Great Notion (Penguin edition, 1977) to his parents this way.

To my mother and father--
Who told me songs were for the birds,
Then taught me all the tunes I know
And a good deal of the words.

I rediscovered this poem reproduced just before the first page while flipping through to the first sentence. I read the book a number of years ago, but don't remember this quote. Either I flipped by it or I forgot it. I am a different person now than I was then and it has stuck. I like the idea of teaching your children things that will help them soar when they grow up.

We should never give away books we have read. We should let them lie fallow on our bookshelves and then come back to them. They're exactly the same, if a little yellow, but we're different, so we have a different relationship to them and they will make a different sense to us.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Camus, The Stranger

Another all-time favorite book of mine, Albert Camus's The Stranger [New York: Random House, 1946]:

Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.

Okay, so technically it's two sentences, go ahead and shoot me. Maybe the translater did it.

Of course, if he'd written it this way--"Mother died today or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure."--it would have been one sentence. But that would be Tim Bosworth writing, not Camus. And who am I to change what Camus wrote? And who's counting anyway.

Back to Camus, a very powerful sentence that just sketches out the narrator's complete lack of concern with anybody, even himself. Why doesn't he know when his mother died? Why didn't he find out? Why wasn't it important to him?And this way he has of intellectualizing everything, what's that about? Amazing.

These are books that demand we keep on our shelves and go back and reread them. We're different each time, nevertheless they change us over and over.

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Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Sapphire, Push

Here's the opening from this intendedly unpleasant novel, Push [New York: Random House, 1997] by a one-named author, Sapphire, a writer and teacher in New York City:

I was left back when I was twelve because I had a baby for my fahver.

So here we go, troubled waters ahead. The story is in the 1st person and the narrator, whom we soon find out is named Claireece Precious Jones, doesn't have great grammar.

But she's insightful in spite of the awful cards dealt to her. And how she could survive with a sense of self through the awful situations she winds up in is a testimony to the endurance of the human spirit.

That first sentence draws us in, though. What are the circumstances? Why did this girl get in this situation? We want to know these things. But should it have read, "I was lef' back..."? Maybe. It seems almost out of character that she would use the standard English word when she talks in dialect a lot. Just picking nits.

This novel has a soul and in engaging the reader helps him or her reclaim theirs.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Joseph Conrad, Victory

Here's the way Joseph Conrad starts one of my favorite novels of all time, Victory. I have the Penguin Books edition published in 1989. The novel was written in 1915. World War I had just broken out.

The story begins on p. 57:

"There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific age, a very close chemical relation between coal and diamonds."

Huh? What's this got to do with anything?

The note on p. 388 says,

Coal and diamonds are allotropic forms of carbon. Conrad uses this display of some degree of scientific knowledge as part of his characterization of the narrator (see notes 14 and 17)

Remember that the narrator, even if never named, is a character in the story through whose experience all the story gets filtered.

Well, in 1915, people were accustomed to this kind of stuff. All that scientific stuff in the first paragraph worked then. And you could get the point that

And I suppose those two considerations, the practical and the mystical, prevented Heyst -- Axel Heyst -- from going away." [p. 57]

I've reread this book at least four times and I can't ever get my mind around it. It's intrinsic inscrutability leads to my endless fascination with it.

This first sentence wouldn't work today. Conrad probably would never get published today. But we know about him already as one of the great writers in the English language and are going to go ahead regardless of the first sentence. And when we're done, we'll look back and say, "Of course, what a brilliant first sentence."

And English was his second language. He was actually Polish. Not bad huh? Try becoming one of the great writers in the Polish language.

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Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Johnny Glynn's Seven Days of Peter Crumb

This is about seven days in the life in a psychotic schizophrenic.

That sounds redundant, but one of the two words by itself wasn't strong enough to do it for me. Crumb's last days--maybe--are chronicled in Johnny Glynn's Seven Days of Peter Crumb (New York, Harper, 2007), as I said yesterday, an evil, disturbing, violent, psychotic novel. But a really good one.

Glynn starts this way:

Write it down, he said--every dirty word, he said--the truth of it--the awful truth of it.

Well this tells you you're in for it. The only questions are who the narrator is and who the "he" is.

Well, in the third paragraph we find out who the "he" is. The rest of it you have to slog through the whole novel. But what grips us about this is that Solzhenitsyn quote that started it out. This guy is in every one of us. We spend the novel denying it and accepting it at different levels. We're moved by it and are different at the end, which is the goal of great fiction.

I wouldn't put up up there with The Great Gatsby, but it's worth a read. If you have a strong stomach.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Evil

I was going to give you another first sentence. This one from Johnny Glynn, The Seven Days of Peter Crumb (New York, Harper, 2007). This is an evil, disturbing, violent, psychotic novel. But a really good one.

Flipping through to page 1, I ran into this epigraph from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipeligo. I think I'll share it with you because it says to us--Don't pass off easily as not you what you're about to read.

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of humanity and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.

This is not a joyful book to read, and I don't recommend it for everyone. But if you like good novels and have a strong stomach, this one is excellent. If you don't have a strong stomach, you'll never make it through.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs

Here's Richard Russo's first sentence from Bridge of Sighs (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007): "First, the facts."

Not much, is it. It tells you only that there's more to come, which you can tell by the bulk of the book's 527 thick hard-backed pages. Also, I'm not sure that in beginning a novel you should start with facts without first establishing character. It goes against everything I have been taught and believe.

But, I'm a big fan of Richard Russo which I can never understand about myself because his writing violates everything I believe about good writing. Still, I can't help myself.

I think it's because I first saw the film version of his novel Nobody's Fool, and got interested in his characters. Then I read the book and found them somewhat different, but I loved the book. Then I went back and read his other stuff, which I liked to varying degrees, from a lot to a whole lot.

I grew up in upstate New York, Schenectady in fact, and his books just drip upstate New York. He grew up in Gloversville, which went south after women stopped wearing gloves in the 1960s and has never ever quite recovered. Schenectady has gone south since GE pulled most everybody out of there and is, I understand, in a bad way. I haven't been back in a while.

So, when I picked up this book, I didn't care what the first sentence was. I just wanted to get into another of his worlds.

Which tells you that once you establish an audience, you can get away with just about anything. But, for us who haven't gotten to that yet, we have to do things differently.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Possley and Kogan, Everybody Pays

In any genre, the writer needs a good first sentence. If you're going to dive into the swimming pool, you need to get off the platform or board cleanly.

Maurice Possley and Rick Kogan, in Everybody Pays, Two Men, One Murder, and the Price of Truth, (New York: GP Putnam and Sons, 2001, p. 1, start their true crime story this way: "When you are going out to murder a man, it;s always a good idea to know where he is."

Reading this sentence, how can you not read on, at least a little way. The authors' almost comical sentence and use of 2nd person establishes a really interesting relationship with the reader, and activates the reader's inner cynic. By now there are so many stupid criminal stories out there, we're familiar with how most of those who commit crimes are not really the sharpest tools in the shed.

I recommend this book if you like stories about crimes. I do. I avidly watch Forensic Files, Cold Case Files, The First 48, and so on. They are very interesting stories. I don't like their "dramatic" counterparts so much anymore, those like Law and Order, Cold Case, the CSIs, and so on. The others have the ring of truth.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know. And follow me on Twitter.com

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham, starts out The Moon and Sixpence , New York: Random House, Modern Library Edition, originally published in 1919, p. 1.

He says:

I confess that when first I made acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the ordinary.

This is a very innocent sentence, maybe I would have deleted the "that there was" to make the sentence a little tighter, but in 1919 that was the style. People had more leisure time.

Here point of view is established right off the bat. It's clear you're going to see Charles Strickland the artist filtered through the experience of the narrator. You detect a little unreliability about the narrator and wonder what that's about. And the exaggeration in "never for a moment" establishes an attitude. And here again, it's retrospective, so the time of the action in the novel is in the past, but the narrator is telling you this in the present.

And he says, "I confess." Why does he feel the need of confessing.

This is an absolutely wonderful book. Read it and keep it on your bookshelf. Then read it again a year later.

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Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: John Le Carre Again

I can't keep away from this guy. Here's how he starts off A Small Town In Germany [New York: Dell, 1968], p. 1:

Ten minutes to midnight: a pious Friday evening in May and fine river mist lying in the market square.

When I read this, I had to read the rest.

Think about it: "Ten minutes to midnight"--time running out on something. "A pious Friday evening"-- Why pious? We don't know but the word raises questions in us that must be settled. "A fine river mist"--when I read this the Main River jumped into my vision. A mist obfuscates things.

And the next sentence draws us inexorably on, gleaming just as brightly as the first sentence: "Bonn was a Balkan city, stained and secret, drawn over with tramwire." I could go on and on, but I won't. Get the book and read it.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know.

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Elmore Leonard's Swag

Let's look at another of my favorite authors: Elmore Leonard. His novel, Swag [New York: Avon Books, 1987] p. 1, starts like this:

Frank Sinatra, Jr., was saying, 'I don't have to take this,' getting up out of the guest chair, walking out. Howard Hart was grinning at him with his capped teeth.

This activates what I call the "huh?" factor. First time I read this, hell, the sentence not even making sense. I went "Huh? What is this I'm reading?"

But it kept me reading, and not very much afterward found it was a television show the characters were watching. But, I'm a big fan of his books, so I was semi-hooked before I even opened the front cover. A lot of other people are hooked on him too. He gets some kind of flow going, you turn page after page without even knowing you're doing it. Talk about narrative drive!!

It's an unusual way to open a book, but in an odd way, this sentence works. I think it's the "I don't have to take this" statement. Don't we all feel that way about something>

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know.

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

Fear of what's inside

I read a review of Charlotte Roche's new book Wetlands in Sunday's New York Times book review section. The book's been called disgusting and taboo-busting.

Well, the discussion of the book suggests that it's disgusting, how the girl narrator explores her own private parts and internal fluids. Too much information, way too much. And thank you, I'd rather not experience such things in my reading. I think fiction about what we have inside us and how we deal with the hidden parts of us can be fascinating, but I don't need to be revolted by a book, so I'm not encouraged to read it. Going into the swamp is interesting, Wetlands doesn't sound so.

What do you think? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know.

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentence: Alexs D. Pate

Alexs D. Pate [Yes that's how his first name is spelled.] begins his wonderful novel, West of Rehoboth (New York: William Morrow, 2001] "The soft summer held them all." Just six little words encapsulates the entire novel. It does what all sentences are supposed to do: Lead you to the next one.

But what is "them?" Dreams? People? Cups of coffee? We are intrigued. At least I was when I read it. You should read it too.

Are you intrigued? Tell me. Post a comment. I'd like to know.

Writing is for me an entrepreneurial activity. For my ideas on entrepreneurship, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.

First Sentences: John Le Carre

While I'm on the subject of first sentences, I started John Le Carre's latest effort, A Most Wanted Man (London: Scribner, 2008), p. 1:

A Turkish heavyweight boxing champion sauntering down a Hamburg street can scarcely be blamed for failing to notice that he is being shadowed by a skinny boy in a black coat.

This is a pretty good one. The thing about the Turkish boxing champion is unusual and gets our attention. And why is he sauntering with his mother? Sauntering? The impression of leisure and that they are walking along because they enjoy each other. That could stimulate sympathy or curiosity. And the word "scarcely," attempts to exhonerate the referrent at the same time as it atributes a small degree of blame to him. But why? And what business does this skinny boy have with the champ. And what's the significance of the black coat?

The first sentence is important. It hooks the reader (or not). It's like a little flag out there saying, "Read me. I'm interesting."

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

The Enemy Within, Upstairs

Sometimes going to deep places within yourself means going up. On p. 52, Henry takes Will up to the studio now being used by another faculty. "I taught in this sudio for more years than I care to remember," Henry says. Is this just a phrase of convenience, or is it some key to his inner soul. He says nothing to allow us in. But then, Henry doesn't let a lot of people in.

I wish I'd explored this a little bit.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Alfred Hitchcock and The Enemy Within

Related to fear of the underground is fear of the enemy within. Alfred Hitchcock was a master at exploiting this fear the enemy within as a way of manipulating us into his films. I remember an episode of his TV series set in an old house out by the sea during a thunderstorm. With the power out. Right, sounds hokey right?

Well the resident was an invalid being tended around the clock by two nurses, a frail, beautiful, vulnerable-looking one, played by Dana Wynter, and a large, masculine one played by someone whose name I don't remember. Dana Wynter was in a lot of stuff back then. She was very beautiful, but very petite and vulnerable-looking.

The plot thickened as it's learned that there is a psychopath on the loose killing nurses. Here we go, right, so here's these two nurses in an isolated location with the power out, so they don't know there's danger out there. You think, okay, the killer's going after these two next, I'm ready for this, and old A.H. is not going to terrorize me.

Wrong.

Well, you see Dana Wynter and hear a man's voice off camera. You think, Oh, my God, he's in the house. You want to yell at the screen, "Dana, get out of there. He's in the house."

It turns out the killer is the other nurse. You realize the big nurse is a man only when Dana rips off his wig while he's strangling her.

Scared spitless.

Hitchcock is saying what's inside us (the nurse in disguise in the house) can come and kill us. And when we least expect it.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Kafka, The Metamorphosis

And while we're talking about Kafka, which we were until yesterday, how could I ignore his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis (Galtzer, ed., Franz Kafka; the Complete Stories. New York: Schocken Books, 1971, pp. 89-144).

It starts out: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect." [p. 89] Again, the master of the first sentence. But what comes after is truly magical. After inspecting what he can see of himself and wonders what has happened to himself, our hero sees hanging on the wall,

a picture which he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and put into a pretty gilt frame. It showed a lady, with a fur cap on and a fur stole, sitting upright and holding out the spectator a large fur muff into which the whole of her forearm had vanished.

Here we have it, the metaphor for what has happened to our hero: he's vanished into himself.

Then he tries to get away from himself. He can't. He wants to forget "all this nonsense," roll over on his right side, and go back to sleep. But he can't. He keeps rolling back.

Many of Kafka's characters share an overwhelming and ultimately self-destructive desire to deny the seriousness of what is happening to them. And it's a keen perception of human nature. We see it in ourselves. It's as if by putting down on paper Kafka's showing us a side of ourself we'd like to deny we already know. It's one reason we identify so strongly with them.

Anyway, what fate could be more horrible than actually to become that which one fears the most.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Repressed Memory and Ian's Filing Cabinet Exploding

On p. 50 Henry's talking Jung. I love it when people talk Jung. I think I'll always be Jung at heart.

Anyway, Will says, he's heard about that, when Ian's filing cabinet exploded on him. Henry was surprised Will knew about it but it makes sense when Will tells him he'd learned about it from Julie.

Now, here we go: the filing cabinet exploding--Ian's underground coming up to bite him?

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

The Trial: The Opening

While we're on the subject of Kafka, always one of my favorite subjects, what happens when your fear of the underground, or what's inside you, comes up and bites you when you're not expecting it? This is, of course, what happens in his novel, The Trial.

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.(Franz Kafka, The Trial. New York: Schocken Books, 1992, p. 1.)

In an absolutely brilliant opening sentence Kafka establishes a 3rd person limited point of view, creates intrigue ("someone must have been telling lies...").

And then he's arrested. By whom? On what authority? We want to find out so we read on.

And why? Did he do something wrong? Were they telling lies? The narrator said "must have."

It also exploits our indignation at being manipulated by authority figures and helps us feel sympathy with Joseph K. K. is us and we are him. He has been abused by these so far unknown individuals who have broken into his private living space to arrest him. And for what? What could be so important it couldn't wait at least until he got up.

A whole world in one sentence. Will he be convicted or will it go away? We don't know. A tremendous sense of anticipation generated by this one sentence.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Kafka's Burrow.

Jennifer Toth in Mole People; Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City Chicago Review Press, 1993, reminds us of Franz Kafka's short story, The Burrow . See Nahum N. Glatzner ed., Franz Kafka, the Complete Stories (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), pp. 325-359.

Kafka's burrowing entity, we don't know whether it's a person, some super-conscious rodent, or Dostoevsky's voice from Notes from the Underground, goes on and on about the burrow he, she, or it has built.

The narrator says on p. 318,

My constant preoccupation with defensive measures involves a frequent alteration or modification, though within narrow limites, of my views on how the building can best be organized for that end.

Go on and read the whole short story. Each sentence contains a whole world.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Fear of the Underground

Jennifer Toth in Mole People; Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City Chicago Review Press, 1993, p. 170, goes on to talk about our fear of the underground.

I think we all feel it. I know I do when I think about taking the subway up to north Philadelphia at night. It's not a place we're used to. Everyone is a transient. We feel alienated there. Cell phones don't work down there. It's dirty, often smelly if people have urinated there. We don't want to live down there and wonder about the people who do. It's dark, hard to see. There aren't very many crowds at night. People seem stiff and uncomfortable. There is limited access, and where there's limited access, there's limited egress. There may be a person taking money, but he or she's separated from the crowd by a glass window.

It wasn't always so, she says, on p. 170. Drawing from the work of Rosalind Williams, Notes on the Underground; An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (Cambridge, Massachusetts: the MIT Press, 1984), she writes,

Historian Rosalind Williams explains that subterranean iconography is based on historical and literary interpretations of underworlds as technological environments. Fear of the underground emerged historically, at the same time as fear of technological progress.

I'm not familiar with this work. I think I'm going to search for it.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Mole People Revisited

I'm reminded in all of this of Jennifer Toth's book, Mole People; Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City Chicago Review Press, 1993.

She writes, on pp. ix-x,

The people of New York City who live underground are most commonly known as mole people. And it is no accident that the term conjures freakish images. I hope this book will revere the horrible and striking image of 'mole people' simply by showing what I saw and found. I hope the stories from the tunnels will bring a better understanding of the underground people. By writing their stories, I hope to dismiss the myth of animal-like underground dwellers, so that you, the reader, can come to know that mole people don't exist between the surface of New York City, but people do.

She's saying that what you find when you go within yourself or probe below the surface, is just humanity lurking there. By seeing it, we realize it's not so bad after all.

But maybe it's something not everyone wants to see.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Invisible Frontier

Going into yourself, into the mud below the crust you enter an invisible world. At least invisible before you entered it. Barbara Hurd entered this world when she went into her caves, and again in Stirring the Mud

L. B. Deyo and David Leibowitz, in Invisible Frontier: Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins, and Rooftops of Hidden New York (New York: Random House, 2003) talk about this in different terms.

In a sort of modern version of the merry pranksters, they embarked on, visiting a forbidden location. Here's what they say about going into an aqueduct, from p. 3:

In the shadows of the city waits an invisible frontier--a wilderness, thriving in the deep places, woven through dead storm drains and live subway tunnels, coursing over third rails. This frontier waits in the walls of abandoned tenements, it hides on the rooftops, and it infiltrates the bridges' steel. It's a no-man's land, fenced off with razor wire, marked by warning signs, persisting in shadow, hidden everywhere as a parallel dimension. Crowds hurry through the bright street,s insulated by the pavement, never reflecting that beneath their feet lurks a universe.

Digging down into the mud and exploring deep dark places isn't much different than going inside yourself to understand why a set of footsteps heard coming toward you was such a red barn.

What do you think of this? What are your ideas? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing and real estate practice. For entrepreneurial ideas go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

On Memory Slips and Stirring Mud

Linda Katherine Cutting's memory slip was brought on by hearing the sound of footsteps which, like the red barn for Jung's patient, cued memories long since gone from recent memories.

For me, this hooked into something I just read in Barbara Hurd's Stirring the Mud; on Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001). If you remember, she wrote Entering the Stone; on Caves and Entering the Dark (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

What Hurd says about the mud is:

"to drop to our knees in algae, push hands into the fringed and seepy edges into which pieces of our lives have sunk, places where year after year the crust grows thin, too thin, finally to mask the sense the underneath the unkempt border something else is breathing: the origins of our worlds, wiser afterthoughts, the whispered asides of the spirit." [p. 3]

Notice the words: "seepy", "algae", "edges", "unkempt", "underneath", "border". They support the narrative text tremendous subtext.

When Linda Cutting stopped performing and entered therapy, she was doing exactly what Hurd describes, dropping to her knees, searching beneath the crust.

What do you think of this? What are your ideas? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing and real estate practice. For entrepreneurial ideas go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Memory Slips

Linda Katherine Cutting, in Memory Slips: a Memoir of Music and Healing (New York: Harper Collins, 1998, pp.6-7) writes, "In July 1989, on stage, six and a half bars into the opening of the Beethoven, [Sonata in E, Op. 109] I heard footsteps. Suddenly I was in the wrong key. The footsteps came nearer to the piano. Start again, I told myself. I couldn't. Keep your hands on the keys. Impossible. I had to make sure it wasn't him. I stopped, put my hands in my lap, and looked out into the audience. It was only a latecomer taking his seat. I started again..."

This is the fear of every performer, that they will forget their music. In this case, though, sound of the latecomer walking served as a reminder of past abuse. It produced a red barn effect on her.

The rest of the book chronicles her withdrawal from performing and entrance into therapy, and return to the stage. It's a compelling story, I recommend it to you.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing and real estate practice. For entrepreneurial ideas go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Jung and the Red Barn

Jung comes in to the book on p. 50. I got interested in his work sometime early on in this project. I don't know where I read it. I liked his ideas about archetypes and symbols, where things can cue other things. A thing isn't just what it is, it is what it is and a whole bunch of things.

There's a story I remember about how Jung was walking across a field with another man. The other man saw a red barn. That cued a whole bunch of memories that he reported after being cued by the red barn.

That's made a huge impact on my thinking, not just in the context of this book but in my other work as well. I'll extend this over the next few posts.

What do you think of this? What are your ideas? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing and real estate practice. For entrepreneurial ideas go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Information or Disinformation?

P. 46 comes in Jana Pope with some information. Will allows her to tell, wondering if he should tell Henry. He waits to hear what it is. Does he tell Henry? You'll have to tell me.

But is what Jana tells him accurate or not? Am I informing the reader, or muddying the waters? It never hurts to confuse the issue. It keeps the reader interested because he or she doesn't know how this piece of knowledge fits in or whether it doesn't or whether it's even important.

But like making mayonnaise, it doesn't due to dribble in the oil too quickly.

What do you think of this? What are your ideas? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing and real estate practice. For entrepreneurial ideas go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

Keys

On p. 46, Henry tells Fenton that Will needs to get back into Ian's office to get his hat. Fenton throws him the key, and Will lets himself myself into Ian's office. Fenton is giving Will a chance to get out of the jam he's in if he can find what he need. He looks everywhere, but no key. He gets his hat, though, so he feels calmer. The key didn't work and he has his hat. He's back within his comfort zone.

What do you think of this? What are your ideas? I'd like to know. Post a comment.

Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing and real estate practice. For entrepreneurial ideas go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com and for entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog

More on Pechivik

On page 44 we dump on Pechivik a bit. Here's some more. Pechevik calls Henry Mr. Harrison, rather than Harrier, just to send the message that the detective doesn't think Henry's so smart. "I've heard a lot about you, Mr. Harrison. People say you're quite the detective." Then Henry corrects Pechivik's missing of his name, for which the detective never apologizes, then says "I would never presume to be your equal."

If I were writing it again, I'd use the word "pretend." Quibbling, probably. Nonetheless, Henry's saying he wouldn't stoop so low as to be on a level with Pechivik, which the detective misses and thanks for the complement.

This is double characterization. With the dialogue that they share their personalities leak out a little. Which is what we want. And the humor makes it all go better because it's grounded in Henry's personality.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

Richard Pechivik

On page 44 we meet the police detective who is investigating Ian's death. He's right out of Sherlock Holmes, ignorant, inept, stupid, a comic figure which we are free to ridicule. I wonder how Scotland Yard felt about Doyle ravishing their detectives. I but at least some of them were upset about it.

If I were living in Philadelphia then as I am now, I would probably given him a different name, maybe George Passyunk, or Carl Kingsessing or something. I don't know. But this will well enough.

Whatever his name, he has absolutely no respect for Henry, whom he incorrectly calls Mr. Harrison. And he tells Henry in no uncertain terms to butt out of the matter and that the real professionals [the police] will handle it.

He also tells Henry that his favorite student is being charged with 1st degree murder. This of course drives the story forward.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

William Primrose

On p. 40, Henry is giving Will a tour of his studio. There's a picture of William Primrose on the wall. Will asks, "William Primrose?" Henry nods, and Will says, "I only bought every record he ever made." Henry says he taught at he Kearney school for a time.

Primrose was the first really prominent violist. Walton wrote his viola concerto for Primose and he together with Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifitz, two of the preeminent soloists of the 20th century made a series of chamber music recordings which I devoured as a youth.

No I didn't buy every record Primrose made. I don't think he made all that many. But there are certainly a lot more fine violists out there today then then. Primrose did teach at the Curtis Institute for a while. Primrose was British, Piatigorsky (cellist) and Heifitz (violinist) were Russian.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

The Great Room

Page 39, "I [Will] followed Henry into the Great Room and plopped down on the bench..."

This great room isn't so big, but it is great in every other sense. This continues the bit about going into narrow openings and finding a larger world beyond. Like Alice sliding down the rabbit hole or Dr. Who entering the tardis, which looks like a phone booth, but is a time/space ship that is a universe inside.

It's this travel through time and space that's so fascinating in classical music. You listen to Beethoven or Bach and you're transported to their world. Actually, it's a world that you and the performer, and they make together, their selves filtered through their personality give to us filtered through the performers, the instruments, and your own filters. What's left after that process is completed is indeed a joint creation.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

The Kearney World

On p.39, Will says: "Henry led me through a narow door into the middle of a small auditorium."

This tells you what a tiny entree people have into this world Henry operated in all those years. Yet some of the greatest performers played there. Kreisler, one of the great violinists of the 20th century. This is, of course, modeled on the Curtis Institute where some of the greatest music ever made is made.

You know, if I were rewriting this, I'd say, "Henry unlocked a small door and led me into the middle of a small auditorium..." That would reemphasis the key thing. But, you can't relive your life, and you can't rewrite your book.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

Henry on Teaching

On pages 38-9 Henry tells Will that Ben was one of the most gifted piano students Kearney ever had.

Will asks how Ben got that way. Henry says Ben's teacher, Wenger, was very abusive: "Wenger insisted all his students wash their hands before playing. He's merciless to his students. He belittles them constantly. Tries to make them so mad they'll play better." [p. 38]

Will asks him, "You didn't teach that way, did you?" Henry shrugs and says some students thrive on it. "Wenger's had some great ones," Henry says. Will says he can't even imagine Ben's demons.

[Not hard to believe; Will can't even imagine his own]

Finally, Will says, "I know why he keeps his gloves on." [p.39]

We should consider these gloves a little bit next time.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

Letting the Story Run

Sometimes you just have to let the story run. In basketball, it's analogous to dribbling the ball down the court rather than passing it.

After we got done characterizing Ben on p. 37, the story starts to speed up. Henry has just said good by to Ben. Here's how it went:

Ben looked up at Henry. "Mr. Harrier?"

"What, Ben?"

Ben moved his hands faster. "I saw that thing."

"What thing, Ben?"

"Where Mr. Kearney fell on his head."

Henry bent closer to Ben. "You saw Ian Kearney fall off the balcony?"
Ben described Ian's fall in exact detail."

Detail, but the reader doesn't see it.

Characterizing slows down the pace of the story. So you have to think about what the story needs. How fast does the story need to go. Don't slow down when it needs to run fast.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

The Meaning of Keys

As I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday, I got to thinking about how what the word "key" means to each of these three characters really sets them apart.

For Ben, piano keys kill. They're threatening, and he's afraid of them. Maybe afraid of success. Afraid of the bullying teaching techniques Wenger used on Ben hard-wired into him the association of piano keys and pain and torture. Keys could kill, they certainly killed his spirit.

Henry associates piano keys as entry points. They unlock the wonderful music of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and any of the other composers who contributed to the vast literature written for the piano. Keys give us access to that repertoire which has given such meaning to Henry's life. They're not a threat to him, they're a fantastic ally.

To Will, the key he's looking for could be his salvation. He thinks if he can just find the key, he will give it back to Ian. He'll cut himself loose and be able to put his life back together. For Will, the key locks away stuff. Do you think Will's expectations will be met? Will Ian let go of him? I have my doubts.

Isn't it amazing how there's a whole story embedded in the way one word means to different people.

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

Keys, Locking Devices, Killers and Meaning.

Ben says on p. 37, "Those keys, nothing between me and them, I die." Henry asks him where he got that idea. From Professor Wenger, his teacher, Ben says. Then...

"Those keys are your friends," said Henry, sounding even kinder.

Ben shook his head. "Keys kill. Keys kill." [He senses danger in the keys, that the music so unlocked with consume him. He's afraid of that. Wenger once said the those keys would kill him unless he worked on developing his skill, an awful thing to say.]

"Well it was nice to see you again, Ben," Henry said.

What Will must have been thinking is not revealed to us. In fact I just realized that there's a link here between Ben and Will: fear of keys.

For Ben, keys are things that operate a piano, that unlock the music. For Will, keys are things that unlock doors. Of course music is a door to another world, but that's another thing.

There's an idea for a book: a music student who takes a job in a locksmith shop to support himself and he studies to be a concert pianist.

And there's quadruple meaning here. Keys unlock doors. Keys allow playing the piano. Keys access the emotional depth of music. Keys are islands, as in the Florida keys. What do they unlock?

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

Music and Mental Illness

There has always been some connection between music and madness. The composer Robert Schumann spent the last years of his life in a mental institution. Beethoven exhibited characteristics of an unstable person. Mozart was certainly a case.

This has gotten into films. Geoffrey Rush played a pianist who had been ruined by mental illness. The real character made a comeback, but fell short. A recent book, The Soloist profiled a very talented cellist who's a schizophrenic. There was a segment on him last night on Sixty Minutes.

When I was doing research for this book, I ran across a teacher who was very hard on her students. One one of her students I used as model for the homeless man, Ben:

Henry bent over him [Ben]. "When are you getting back to your piano, Ben?"

Ben played an imaginary piano with his hands, "They don't want me to."

Are artists a little on the edge of sanity?

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Writing is, to me, an entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ideas are the life's blood of my writing. For my entrepreneurial course, Entrepreneurship on Line, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For entrepreneurial real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.

More on Hats

Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia, says:

A hat is a head covering. It may be worn for protection against the elements, for religious reasons(such as the Papal tiara), for safety, or as a fashion accessory. In the past, hats were an indicator of social status. In the military, they denote rank and regiment.

Regarding hat-wearing customs,

The general rule with removing hats in Western culture is that men do so frequently, while women do not, because they traditionally wore much more complex headgear, often requiring hatpins to hold down, making removal hard. Men remove their hats when entering a Christian church, for example, and women do not.

An older custom in fact requires women to cover their heads in church, often with a scarf, which is still followed in some places, such as Germany or southern America. Similarly, when being introduced or talking to a woman, a man would always remove his hat, and "tip" it (a brief touch to the brim) when briefly acknowledging a lady but not conversing or meeting another man.

Hats are removed by men when indoors, except in public or open places, such as stations, stairwells, lobbies or shops. Removing a hat can also be a sign of respect, so it was traditionally required in various other situations, such as public speaking outdoors.

In Eastern Orthodox cultures, it is customary to remove one's hat in the presence of a religious icon. Traditionalist Catholic women wear a headscarf or veil when entering a church or, more generally, during prayer. Religious Jews wear a head covering at all times, indoors and out. When entering a synagogue, men and married women must cover their heads. Upon entering an Islamic place of worship or religious learning, headscarves are required for women.

Because of changing associations of hats, for example their use as gang indicators, they may now be forbidden in certain contexts, such as schools.

Will of course does not take off his hat when he is indoors, a habit which marks him as challenging convention a little.

I've done some informal counts, and except in Winter when it is cold, the small minority, perhaps 10%, of men wear hats at all.

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Again With The Hat

Again with the hat, on p. 36, Will observes:

Outside, getting into the taxi with no hat, I felt cold and exposed. The day had become brighter, but no less damp, and the clouds persisted. The Christmas lights smiled at me on the way over. I asked them why they had to be do damned cheerful.

A decidedly grumpy Will, nothing is going well for him. He can't find the key. He's stuck feeling exposed from his situation. He wants to go home to Julie. He doesn't want Henry to find out what he's been up to. Poor boy.

This part doesn't come from me. I don't know where he got it from. These characters, like your adult children, are taking on lives of their own.

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Barbara Hurd,'s Stirring Mud

A lot of Will is below the surface, an area of his psyche he'd rather not look into

I just picked up a copy of Barbara Hurd's Stirring the Mud; on Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). I commented a few weeks ago on another book of hers, Entering the Stone; On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.

I haven't begun to read it, but I want to. For example, on p. 3 she says,

When the German poet Rilke tells us to leave our houses and enter the enormous space outside, surely what he means is to...drop our knees in algae, push hands into the fringed and seepy edges into which pieces of our lives have sunk, places were year after year the crust grows thin, too thin, and finally, to mask the sense that underneath this unkempt border something else is breathing: the origins of our worlds, wiser afterthoughts, the whispering asides of the spirit.

This is amazing writing which takes us right into the mud and bogs of our own minds. Do we want to go there?

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What Writers Owe Readers

Nathan Blansford asks what writers owe readers. My response is that writers owe readers what readers have always expected from writers. Good fiction entertains, informs, and moves. The reader should be different somehow when he or she finishes a good novel, short story, poem, or comes home from seeing a play or a movie. Anything short of that, the book is not living up to its end of the bargain.

As for writers selling their stuff directly to readers off their website, an incoming tide that will not ebb in the foreseeable future, they owe what any good business owes: value provided to the customer delivered according or exceeding what was advertised.

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Will's Hat

Page 36, Will can't find his hat. He's perturbed because he always wears his hat. To not have on is to be vulnerable, incomplete, in some danger. Something's missing from your normal persona. He would no more leave his hat behind than forget to bring along his right arm: "I couldn't think of what to say. Imagine going off without a hat. It just didn't feel right."

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Harpsichords

Henry makes another joke on p. 35. Again, when Will suggests he talk with Julie. Changing the subject one more time. He says, "Do you know what is worse than a harpsichord?

If you don't know, a harpsichord is a keyboard instrument that, rather than producing sound by striking the strings with hammers as does a piano, plucks the strings with things called plectra. It produces a pluckier and janglier sound than a piano.

Someone once described (or rather denounced) the sound of a harpsichord as the sound of two cadavers having intercourse on a tin roof. How two cadavers could have intercourse has never been thoroughly enough explained to my mind.

Anyway, Will says he doesn't know what's worse than a harpsichord, and Henry says, "two harpsichords."

The harpsichord was commonly used in the 17Th and 18Th centuries, along with it's smaller cousin the clavichord, which actually struck the strings with hammers. In the late 18Th and early 19Th century it went through the process of disuse as it's tinier, tinnier sound was unsuited for larger concert halls and for the increased demands being placed upon it.

I got this stuff from Orlando Cole who once, when he saw a harpsichord in a colleague's studio, said: "Imagine, managing a career on that miserable instrument."

I've always like the sound, myself.

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Light

On p. 34, Will and Henry have been working all night and are not quite done. Will says, "And it's starting to get light." Code for someone might see us, we're no longer operating under the cover of darkness.

Light stands for all kinds of things. Shed light on. Make light of. Light up a room. The light of one's light, "et cetera, et centra, and so forth!" as the King of Siam used to say.

I tried to use weather to deepen the story and the narrative by adding more layers of meaning.

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Jazz

Also on p. 33, Will and Henry find among Ian's papers a proposal that the school train piano students in jazz. Ian was against this. So, should the school stick to classical music performing, or should they train jazz performers as well.

The issue is thorny one in real life because few artists can cross over from one to the other. Winton Marsalis does it as does Kieth Jarrett. A number of pop singers have tried their hand at opera. Michael Bolton put out a cd of arias. But that guy sings like his pants are too tight.

And there was some noise about Aretha Franklin going to Julliard to study opera. I never heard what happened to that. I suspect at that point in her career she had more money than God and decided she rather not go through it.

There's a hubris where someone, like Michael Jordan trying to play pro baseball, thinks because they excel at one thing, they'll excel at others. Turned out that though he was one of the greatest basketball players ever and an an excellent athlete, he was a pretty sub-par baseball player. Of course if you're him, and you say you want to do it, who's going to say no.

But back to Jazz, a lot of Curtis kids take up bluegrass and other genres of music performance. And they're pretty damn good at it. Maybe there should be some training in it. But Ian didn't believe there should be. But anyone who wouldn't move beyond Beethoven, has to be pretty conservative.

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Mission

On p. 33, Henry and Will are going through Ian's papers, discussing different issues that are recorded in the documents.

One issue for educational institutions, whatever their stripe: what is the mission of the school. In this case it's to train classical music performers for careers in classical music. But how much academics should be mixed in and how far should they go.

There has been a discussion at Curtis of a number of things. First, some people want them to offer graduate degrees. Students graduate from Curtis and then go on to other schools, like the New England Conservatory, or to public universities with music departments like Indiana University, and get MAs and PhDs. It's thought that the training there is inferior to Curtis (don't know whether this is true or not) and besides they take the money elsewhere. Why not stay at Curtis and get further education and training there?

Another issue is whether or not to have dormitories. Curtis is about the only institute that doesn't have them. So, they're building them.

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Shifting Nationalities of Students

On page 33, Henry talks about changes at Kearney since he started. This is straight from Orlando Cole. He told me these things as he was giving me a tour of the Curtis Institute when I started to work on the book.

It seems that there has recently been a slight shift away from foreign students coming to Curtis. Maybe it has to do with the restriction on foreign students coming to the US after 9/11. For whatever reason, it appears that the students' ranks are more often now populated by native born Americans, often of Asian descent, though.

I haven't done a statistical study of it, but it just seems that way from going to the concerts.

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Will's Proximity Bias: "I thought everybody..." [p. 29]

Henry has just explained to Will that Ian did not like filing cabinets. He didn't want anything more things than would fit into his desk. Kind of a Procrustean thing.

Procrustes was a character who measured everything in relation to his bed. If it didn't fit in his bed, he didn't recognize it as anything. Like the Flatlanders who couldn't believe that there could be a third dimension to the world because they only saw things in two dimensions.

Will's surprised. He says, "I thought everybody had filing cabinets. Meaning, he did and could compartmentalize. He didn't anticipate that others would be different.

Aren't we all the same way? We suffer from proximity bias in that we think everybody is like us because the people we see, on a daily basis in a social setting, are. Once in a while something different happens and we're surprised.

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Compression

When I look back at this sometimes I see where I could have written it better. When I first got my author copy in the mail I hated it. Absolutely hated it. I wanted to give it all up right then or change every sentence.

But I gave it a while and now that I look at it, I think it's really pretty good and I see how I've evolved in my writing since then.

But sometimes I have to shake my head: on p. 29 I wrote: "He nodded and said, "Something like that." I should have written, "Something like that," he nodded. From 7 words to 5, and more succinct and powerful.

Oh well, live and learn. I suppose I'll always feel that way about my writing.

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Franz Kakfa's The Trial

What happens when you don't go to what's inside you, but it comes out when you least expect it?

Franz Kafka's "K" found this out in his novel The Trial [New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992, p. 1] Here's how Kafka's insides came out:

"Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning...At once there was a knock at the door and a man entered whom he had never seen before in the house. He was slim and yet well knit, he wore a closely fitting black suit furnished with all sorts of pleats, pockets, buckles, and buttons, as well as a belt, like a tourist's outfit, and in consequence looked eminently practical, though one could not quite tell what purpose it served. 'What are you?' asked K., half raising himself in bed.

What a perfect discussion, in highly symbolic terms of course, of meeting up with your subconscious as though it were a person calling on you. Knocking at the door. Mirroring your own appearance. Not having a clue as to what it is. Joseph K spends the rest of the novel trying to get a handle on himself until he dies trying.

Kafka gave Max Brod clear instructions to destroy all his stuff upon his death. What a gift to us that Max couldn't do it. I would be a poorer man today with Kafka's work on my bookshelf.

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