She breaks the sound barrier heading directly up to the starlight goals of her summer. Oooh, that sounds good. I wish I was on track this sixth day of July. I made some motivational changes to enhance my July 2021 promising myself to write every single day of this month. Write something: a blog post, a journal entry, a few paragraphs of a chapter for my novella, compose a song, write one line of dialog, extricate any number of screenplays I’ve been working on over the years that are unfinished, and vacuum up some of the words to replace them with fresh ones. How is it going? Well, I’ve been writing a lot, but not every single day. So, I’ve decided to make up the difference for the non-writing days by covering twice or thrice as much creative work in one (make-up) day. (sans mascara and eyeliner, of course)
On Monday, July 5th, I spent the entire day writing a song for a new group I’ve joined that requires its members to write and post a song every week by Tuesday night at 7p. Sometimes there are writing prompts/themes and for this first one, the prompt was “Opening Lines.” Ooooh, right up my alley! Opening lines can be of books, films, songs, the first day of publication of various periodicals…it’s a perfectly wide theme. If you’re someone (like me) who enjoys all these things, you can relate to the experience of my soul jumping to joy after reading the prompt. My brain flew into immediate ticker-tape flybys and Rolodex scrolling. Reeling with ideas, my fingers swiped across numerous screens of options.
12 Novels Considered to be the Greatest Books Ever Written.
20 of Our Favorite First Lines in Literature.
39 Songs with Opening Lines that are Legitimately Iconic.
27 Opening Lines From Songs That Make Everyone Go Absolutely Wild.
In the end, I settled on the type of music I began to compose without the theme nor words. I just started to use my keyboard to lay down some parts (including drums and guitar!) and let that dictate. The vibe ended up being SciFi. No surprise there as it had been on my mind since Friday when I summoned my two favorite English faculty pals (one is now my Dean) to a game of opening lines of SciFi novels while we sipped beer in Alameda.
Aside: did I just write that we sipped beer in Alameda? Is this planet earth? Are we actually out and about and able to see each other outside of a Zoom version of Hollywood Squares on steroids? OMG, it feels SO GOOD to be among humans again in 3D!
So, I played with some opening lines that we volleyed back and forth that day and the one that fit best (for me) was Douglas Adams’, “The Hithicker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” (The link is to the song I composed and recorded on SoundCloud.)
Speaking of breaking the sound barrier (my opening line to this blog post), this historic clip barely goes beyond a very narrow band of sound frequencies and that is because back then we could NOT broadcast a wide range of audible frequencies heard by humans. Where are we NOW with this? Oh my heavens! We not only hear a full 20Hz-20kHz in many forms of distribution (read about Apple Music Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio if you don’t already know about high-resolution sound), but we can also hear it in IMMERSIVE AUDIO (that’s the “spatial audio” part) and that means the sound feels like it’s all around you, surrounding you. Woof! (An added warning about the “historic clip:” This was from the days when America put forth all the BS about its grandeur and excellence. Oh? You mean we still do that? Yeah. It just sounds better now; not the message but the audio.)
Sorry, but I need to interrupt this July missive for a quick and thought-provoking (I hope) rant. Can one of you put me in touch with the genius who came up with the idea of a front-loading washing machine? What on earth? We all learned about gravity in 4th and 5th grade (some of us earlier if you had the non-pleasure of hopping off a trampoline from too high or falling out of a tree). There comes a point when loading a front-loading washer that the items you’re attempting to put into it come tumbling out. Yeah, that’s about at the 2/3 point of filling it up. What the hell? And nearly every finished wash I find one of my little socks soaking wet caught in the big rubber lip of the entry. I squeeze out the water and can’t add it to the load going into the dryer. It must hang in the bathroom air drying. harumph. And why did they need to add a warning about not drinking anything from the container? Is not the average human intelligent enough to see that the dark blue chemical liquid is probably not good for one’s tum? {head in hands} Imagine cave people drawing warnings on the walls about mundane things and not about the dangers of larger animals who could eat them.
Well, it’s July 7th now, doggone it. I didn’t complete 2 extra writing things yesterday to make up for July 3 and 4th, so that means I will try today. Notice the change in tone? I will try today. I like the feeling of that word much better as opposed to “I must.” So, for today, I will attempt something for July 3, 4, and 6 (though technically this piece counts as July 6 since I started it yesterday, right? And if I post it today will it count for July 7 too? I mean, I’m adding to it…so that must count for something.) “Dana, it’s your summer and you can do whatever the flip you want during your break. You can even stay in bed for a day!”
I just did a huge thing that I must say I’m proud of. I mean, it wasn’t huge as in it took a lot of physical effort because all it took were some strokes of my fingers on the QWERTY keyboard and a couple of clicks of the mouse. I finally canceled my HULU subscription. I’ve had it on pause since April when I discovered that since I moved to this fabulous new Skypad with an amazing view, I simply no longer watch TV. I was paying nearly $80/month for HULU with an HBOMax add-on. That’s a lot of money when you don’t watch it! So, I paused it to see where I would be by the middle of summer when I would have more time. You know what? I’ve got more time and I’m using it to write, compose, read, swim, and frolic. I am not watching shows. HUZZAH, that feels so good! So, I had marked today in my calendar to take a review of my viewing habits (since the pause ends on July 9th when I will be charged again) and I sat with it. Do I need to watch shows? In one month, I will have no time to watch shows as the Fall semester will be upon me. Alas: CANCEL SUBSCRIPTION.
WOOF.
Do I recommend HULU to those of you wondering? Absolutely! I loved it when I was watching it. I think it’s one of the best OTTs out there. Dana, what is an OTT? (Follow the link to know…)
And that is that.