Music Lover

Two thousand eighteen turned into two thousand nineteen and even a small slice of two thousand twenty. His average concert attendance was probably around once a week.

But averages tell an incomplete story. There were the nights when he zigzagged all over the city, attending three distinct and separate musical performances in one evening. More often than not he could go to as many as four intriguing gigs at any given time, but unable to clone himself, chose the most important, the cheapest, the newest, or the most convenient. If he could be physically present at more than one concert he would. 

Often he extended invitations to other music lovers but having a friend along was not a deal breaker. The truth is, he didn’t care much one way or the other. At least three quarters of the time he went alone. 

He’d go from home, comfortable in his own skin, clad in jeans and a tee shirt bought at another band’s merch table, taking a train to the upper west side or a crazy quilt of transportation to some out of the way neighborhood at the edge of nowhere. He liked stadium shows and tiny intimate venues.

He’d go straight from work, dressed for the office, the oldest guy in the room, people  assuming he was the manager or from the label. 

Eventually he organizes himself differently around after-work performances. He brings jeans, a signature tee shirt and casual socks to work. Concerts outside of the rarified classical or New Music genres can be sticky affairs. He does not relish the idea of spilt beer on his dress shoes or briefcase. In changing from one costume to another, he refuses to be placed in a box. He had the satisfaction of surprising colleagues, who only knew the business side of him.

If good music was playing or had been played, he belonged there. This belonging, giving himself a seat at the table allowed him to stride purposefully to the bar, the front of the stage or backstage to talk to the headliner, the drummer, the raw opening band singer, the accomplished cellist. Knowing that he loved a good musical hang, and would be late coming home I insisted on a cab. He complied.

Rock, folk, hip hop. classical, avant-garde. country. Music impossible to define. Blockbuster acts almost everyone liked, folks no one has heard of but him and half a dozen people. Nose bleed seats at Carnegie Hall. Standing for hours, eyes affixed on the tiny stage. Dancing wildly among strangers at a DJ set. One of the crowd at Madson Square Garden. Folded into a camp chair in leafy Prospect Park. Every one of them is his happy place. He’s not put off by the minuscule smattering of people at a brave, first concert. He is also perfectly fine being cheek by jowl in a  sweaty, overheated mess. 

More often than not a concert will have a second life. He likes nothing better than to tell other people what to listen to and why. He will work his words, his photographs, his intricate impressions into a story. He will remember every musician’s name and every note. He will notice what they do not notice themselves. 

He is not an epidemiologist or a fortune teller. He doesn’t know what a pandemic will be like until he is in one. One day he is squeezed around a table, listening to a vocalist with the voice of an angel, a windswept walk away from home. He thinks nothing of leaning in close to our friends, friends of friends, and friends’ new boyfriends to whisper between songs. The next instant he is locked up. 

Heroes go to work and ride the subway but everyone else is on lockdown. He’s cooped up, but so are the musicians. Everybody regroups. 

He shows up in virtual spaces and is not constrained by the rectangle to which he’s relegated. Singers, guitar players, people making their own instruments. He’s witness to their living rooms and basements, empty stages, the accidents happy and unhappy. 

He casts live concerts, enlarged and hyperreal to the TV. He plays vinyl, old and new on his turntable. He stands before his collection, and transfixed, pulls out a CD and stares. Music accompanies him while working remotely at our dining table, soft and low. His movements are curtailed by four walls but because of screens he travels to other continents, cultures, and time zones. He is witness to musicians reinventing themselves and they see him too.

He is rapt as though this were his chosen path, the only place to be. 

He must miss his former life. There was a time when he breathed the very same air as these musicians. Never once did he behave as though a Zoom concert was second fiddle. Not once did he complain. 

When his turn comes, he’s vaccinated. Afterwards he remains cautious and calmly watchful. The two year old child I lost to cancer was his too. He knows that life is fragile. He is not afforded denial. He makes do without it.

When the CDC says that vaccinated people can do whatever they like, he hangs back. When they change their stance, he is unsurprised. He has an inner compass which tells him what to do. It tells him to be careful.

Like a rare jewels or diamonds in the rough, some live music beckons him and he follows. He attends a concert at dusk in a historic, old cemetery. As the sun sets he walks about, masked and in like company, from one musical station to the next. For one precious evening those living mingle with the dead. 

He briefly digs in his heels about a gathering in a city park to honor a famous dead musician. It is the one time when his patience around the pandemic becomes frayed and britttle. As the guest list expands, then bloats to a number he deems unreasonable he reluctantly stays home. 

He attends an outdoor concert on a brand new island cooled by wind coming off of the water.

A favorite musician plays in an apple orchard and he shows up. Musicians can be afraid too. Musicians gather a community in the freshest, safest, most fruit and tree perfumed air. They do his bidding and he theirs. 

If the weather holds, if the pandemic doesn’t get any worse, if a natural disaster doesn’t threaten the shoreline, he is scheduled to go to a concert soon. He will be listening to live music. He will be listening while seated in a canoe. 

From the archives:
I suffered for their art
Take This Inspiration And Shove It
Lucky

I suffered for their art

I listen for the silence between the sounds
They make more music
They bring great shame upon these instruments

I close my eyes as if to drown it out

They stand and bow at the end
Pleased as punch with themselves
I blame them, though none are composers
They’ve been complicit
They brought it to life

At the end I open my eyes
Just long enough to tap two fingers together
And glare at each and every one of them



From the archives:
Take This Inspiration And Shove It
I answered my own question
I Stand In Judgement 

The Expectation Of Quiet

Jeremy and I were living in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was doing freelance photography during the week and working at a beautiful bookstore on the weekends. I made lots of new friends at the bookstore. Jeremy and I also made friends with the friends of the people I met at the bookstore.

One evening, a friend of a friend of mine from the bookstore had a party in her Park Slope apartment. I remember the apartment. People in NYC always remember details about one another's apartments.

One of the most striking things about this apartment was the large piano in the living room.

It started out as a regular party. There were cocktails. There was conversation. There was recitation of poetry. One of my friends from the bookstore was a poet. That is what she did when she wasn't working at the bookstore. She was reciting one of the poems she'd written that week from memory.

We had all had a number of cocktails. That is when one of my friends suggested that everyone gather around the piano. Fantastic idea. Why have a piano if was just going to sit there gathering dust?

There were these books I was obsessed with a child. They are the All-of-a-Kind Family series. I will tell you that people gathering around the piano to sing together is very All of a Kind Family.

The part of it that was not so All of a Kind Family was that this sing-along commenced past midnight. This was not something at the forefront of our minds. Nor was working at the bookstore early the next morning. There was a remedy for that one. I had recently turned all of my colleagues on to Snapple Iced Tea. Someone would make a Snapple run to the deli next door when we all started to fade.

The friend giving the party sat down at the piano. We all gathered around. There was sheet music on the piano. All of the sheet music seemed to be songs that were popular in the 1970s. I knew all the lyrics already. I have no musical talent except for an uncanny ability to learn lyrics quickly and then remember those lyrics for the rest of my life.

We sang a few songs. What I lack in a melodious singing voice I made up for in volume and enthusiasm. Some of the people there could harmonize. This is good because having them sing with me made me feel like a good singer. That, and the cocktails.

If you are picturing an extremely nerdy scene you would be right. I'll say this for myself. I already know. For a segment of my life, I believe I was cool. That part of my life lasted for twelve consecutive years.  Before then, I was not cool. Afterwards, I was not cool. It was like I was temporarily able to shake off my nerdy features for a bit. Then they came back for me. Once that happened, I put up no resistance.

The evening I am describing is after I became nerdy again.

After much revelry, came my favorite song of the evening. Piano Man by Billy Joel. If you were still thinking that maybe I had some residual shred of coolness left, I am about to put the last nail in that coffin.

I’m admitting publicly that I love the entire Billy Joel songbook. I don’t love Uptown Girl or New York State of Mind as much as Piano Man and Just The Way You Are. Uptown Girl and New York State of Mind are my guilty pleasures. The earlier material is my pleasure pleasures.

It has been suggested by someone very close to me – Jeremy Shatan – that perhaps all of Billy Joel’s material should be considered a guilty pleasure – the entire body of work. I have chosen not to take this suggestion. Jeremy and I sometimes disagree yet he does continue love me just the way I am.

It was without a hint of irony that I joined my friends in a heartfelt, rather emotionally charged rendition of Piano Man.

Then came the knock on the door.

There was a uniformed police officer standing there. Someone had called in a noise complaint.

As I look back over this time, I realize that I was in the wrong. We shouldn't have been engaging in piano playing and singing at such a late hour. There is such a thing, in NYC apartment parlance, as quiet hours. This was beyond anyone's definition of that.

Also, piano playing plus 15 people singing would be a major irritant even during the day, even if you happen to like the Billy Joel songbook, even if you have a sense of humor, even if you drink cocktails yourself.

Knowing that I was in the wrong this one time doesn't keep me up at night.

I love NYC. I love it because of the rich culture, the excitement, the fun. I love that my music-loving husband can go listen to bands that he loves and that we can go to museums. I love that the city never sleeps even as I do. I love the energy. I love that I can take the subway and I am in a completely different neighborhood. In many cases, it's almost like going to another country

But these are not the only things I love. I love the proximity of other people. Even when I don't talk to someone, I like seeing them. Jeremy and I thought about moving to the burbs. A lot of our neighbors were doing it. One of the reasons we didn't do it was the isolation I thought I'd feel.

Everyone who lives in NYC has their own reasons. For some people, it's similar. For others it's not. Some people live here in spite of all the things I mentioned not because of them. Others are doing so by default. They're living here in a state of inertia.

But it's always a choice.

I live in peaceful proximity to most of my neighbors. Some of the most exemplary individuals I've ever met are my neighbors. A lot of them would give you the shirt off their back.

My days of geeky and noisy partying have passed. The parties we have now are birthday parties. They are in the middle of the afternoon. Quiet hours find us either asleep or getting ready for school.

The noise our treadmill makes, the noise our active son makes and the noise of our being alive is upsetting to some people. These people want a sanctuary in a thriving metropolis. These people have a firm expectation of quiet. Some are sensitive souls. Almost all of them have advice about being a parent. We receive this advice in the form of anonymous notes. We receive unexpected knocks on the door from people who have never bothered to say hello or introduce themselves before issuing a complaint.

I could write an entire post about ways to work these things out and ways not to work these things out. I'm saving that for another time.

But here is what I will say today. By leaving me a note or coming to my apartment unannounced you are breaking a social contract. You have an expectation of quiet. But you are not quiet.

I hear you.

I hear the cell phone conversation you had in my courtyard last night. I wasn't trying to listen. It's the acoustics. It comes straight into my apartment at a higher volume than seems logical. Anyone wanting a private discourse in my courtyard should think twice.

You have a delightful and strapping son. But when he was a baby, his cries were so high pitched and pitiful I was in a constant state of gratitude that none of my children had colic. You were having a tough time. I get that.

I hear you running the vacuum when I am ready to go to sleep. When Whitney Houston died, you held a musical vigil. I waited for it to pass. It did.

The sharp click of high heels. The renovation you did before moving in. The sound of your hammer as you decorate. The sound of late summer evenings spilling over as you come home, your children's laughter mingling with your conversation. Your TV. I can almost hear the show you're watching but not quite. It has a laugh track.

I am surrounded by noise. Even as the electric company jackhammers, I hear you. The noise is a two way street.

I wonder if I should be tit for tat. But my heart isn't in it. I'm not a martyr, either. I never have been.

The noise I hear is the sound of NYC. It's the sound of people living. It's the sound of not being alone. It's the sound of living in a community. The truth is that most of it is music to my ears.

Make no mistake. I hear you. It is a choice not to complain. I chose to live here. I chose to live here surrounded by noise.

Granted, none of it is three in the morning, alcohol-fueled, toxic noise. I'm not making that noise either.

There is an alternative to my choice. There is the verdant countryside. A little house on a couple of acres. Tall trees and bushes between you and the neighbors. The sound of birds and wind. A reality instead of a wish. It’s not for me. But it may be for you.

I Changed My Mind About: Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw

Today is Jacob's birthday. He would have been 18 years old. He is 18 years old.

Jeremy and I always mark Jacob's birthday in some way. Every year it's different. This year, I'm writing this.

I could go on and on about how crappy this deceased child having an 18th birthday is.

Jacob was a gift while he was here. That much is true.

If a day like this is hard, days leading up to the birthday are a marathon. This is especially true because this period of time falls during the Christmas season. I call this the old one-two punch.

Thank god I'm not alone. Jeremy gets it. Not only does he understand me, but he experiences it himself. He's great company.

The 18th birthday has special significance. I remind myself that it is a number, nothing more, nothing less. But I'd be lying if I said that number didn't mean something. Jacob could vote. He'd be legally an adult in many respects.

He would have made it through childhood.

I found myself looking for some silver linings during the period we commonly refer to as Christmas break or even the oxymoronic Christmas vacation. This silver lining came in the form of musician Lucinda Williams. She has a new album out called Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone.

Lucinda Williams holds a special place in our family. Her album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road was one of the soundtracks to our lives with Jacob. Jacob especially loved Lucinda Williams.

Jacob did a lot of living in the two and a half years he was here. It may have been a short lifespan, but it was not a small one. One of Jacob's favorite things to do was to listen to music and dance.

Jeremy believes that babies and young children do not need to be talked down to musically. Having raised three children with him, I have to agree. From the time he was born, Jacob was listening to grown up music.

Jacob's relationship with music was special. He seemed to come into the world wired to appreciate it. Jeremy noticed this and provided him with a rich musical palette. Car rides, doctors appointments, meals, and play times had musical accompaniment. Jeremy made a mix tape shortly after Jacob was born to soothe and comfort him. It was a staple of his bedtime routine.

Jacob was a beautiful dancer and had a finely tuned sense of rhythm. Sometimes new music made more sense to him initially than it did to Jeremy and I.

Listening to Car Wheels On A Gravel Road brings me back to playing in the living room with Jacob, long sleepy car rides back from the clinic, my pregnancy with Hannah and dinner times with Jacob making up for lost time in the growth department.

Only an album that incredible could do that.

After Jacob died and I was expecting our third child, Jeremy and I selected names for a boy and a girl. If we'd had a little sister for Hannah rather than a brother, her name would have been Leah Lucinda. We had a Noah Preston. His name has special significance too.

Over the years, Lucinda Williams released more albums, but Car Wheels On A Gravel Road remained my favorite. With its artistic merits and rich family history that album was automatically going to be a tough act to follow.

Earlier last year, I listened to Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. I wasn't inclined to like it. It was hard to listen to. Since Jacob died, Williams voice has evolved and changed. It's more gravelly. My initial read was that there was something predominantly world-weary about her latest work.

Maybe I wasn't in the mood for world-weary. Maybe I wished that Lucinda Williams stayed the same as when Jacob was alive. Maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, I told Jeremy in no uncertain terms that I did not like this album.

2014 was almost over. Jeremy and I took Hannah and Noah to the country to celebrate Christmas. Jeremy and I were sitting at the dining room table.

Jeremy was watching a Tiny Desk Concert on his iPhone. What is that? I asked him wrinkling my nose. Lucinda Williams. I sighed. I wanted to like it. I just didn't.

That was the first song. I had to acknowledge that it went over really well with the Tiny Desk audience. There was raucous and appreciative applause. That band is tight, I said.

Then there was a second song.  Listening to the second song was what changed everything. It was different from the songs I listened to with Jacob. But suddenly, it was just as good.

Her voice changed. She changed. I changed. I loved it.

This is incredible, I said to Jeremy.

Changing my mind like this felt like a whole world opening up. Once I listened to that one song, the rest of the album fell into place. I asked Jeremy to let me watch the Tiny Desk Concert on his phone. Look at her! I said. She looks wonderful.

I had a lot of things to say to Jeremy about Lucinda Williams after that. People should just stop listening to Adele when they break up, I said.  It's funny, but true. I think that they should listen to Lucinda Williams instead.

I'll always remember the play times we had with Jacob with Lucinda Williams’s angelic, clear voice in the background. Just as etched in memory will be the time I had with Jeremy, falling in love with her again in 2014. I wasn't leaving Jacob behind. I brought him right along for the ride.

This post is part of a series about things l have changed my mind about. You can read my other writing on this theme here:

I Changed My Mind About: Cozy Mocs

I Changed My Mind About: It Was A Very Good Year

Why Non-Fiction Living Does A Top 10 Music List

Non Fiction Living is a lot of things. But one thing it is not is a music blog.

Here's the thing. Non-Fiction Living is married to AnEarful. AnEarful is a very serious music blog. So even if Non-Fiction Living wanted to avoid music listening, music conversation and music scholarship, Non-Fiction Living would be unable to do this with anEarful around.

Non-Fiction living has absorbed a lot from AnEarful.

Long before we had blogs, Jeremy and I made our own holiday traditions. One of our favorite things to do in December is compile our top music lists. Jeremy does this in a focused and purposeful way. I do it just for fun. But I suspect that maybe it’s become as important to me as it is to him.

Our Top 10 lists are a full year in the making.

Jeremy is the hunter and gatherer of our household for music. He is a voracious consumer of music. He plays music for me in the car and at home. We also discuss the music. When I hear something I really like, I'll put it on a list.

As it gets to be December, we both get serious about our Top 10 lists. There is typically a period of feeling overwhelmed by all of the great music that has come out over the course of the year. During the month of December, I am transformed into an opinionated and discriminating music critic. To be honest with you, I'm a bit of a know-it-all when it comes to my Top 10 list.

Jeremy is clearly the musical expert. However, if some music he plays me for sucks, I’m going to let him know. He may have all these reasons that he thinks its good. This one used to be the bass player in this or that band and then struck out on his own from the vocalist from this or that band. They all share a thread with Steely Dan’s producer or one of them may have been tangentially involved in the Lost Weekend. That’s all fine and good. But it doesn’t change what I do or don’t want to listen to.

Everything on my Top 10 list has an important commonality. Each album could be classified as a sound track to my life. Years from now, when I put on Hollie Cooke, I'll think about the long summer days of 2014. Beck will make recall the time when it was still gray and winter and his music made 2014 seem fresh and new. Other criteria include can’t stop dancing, can't stop listening and can't stop talking about it. If it fits with any of those qualities, it will end up on my Top 10 list.

Once I start getting serious about my Top 10 list, it is cloaked in secrecy. Jeremy is seeing my reveal for the first time today. I don’t read AnEarful when I’m preparing my final selections. I go on an AnEarful media blackout.

If you want to read the Top 10 (actually Top 20) list of a true musical expert, instead of a regular person like me, check out Jeremy's selections and analysis here and here. I'll be reading it as soon as I'm done posting this.

I used to employ Post-It notes to compile and then display my Top 10 list. Now that I have a blog, this is a good place to do that.

Only a privileged few get to be on my top music list. Many are called. Few are chosen. It’s a tough job, picking the best music of the year, but somebody's got to do it. That somebody might as well be me.

1) Hiss Golden Messenger – Lateness Of Dancers: Sheer, unadulterated audacity. Everything old is new again. Then I realized that this was always new. Listening again and again made me smarter.

2) Hamilton Leithauser – Black Hours: The word romance keeps coming to mind. It is unapologetically unabashed. And nobody gets away with it like he can.

3) Beck – Morning Phase: I love me a comeback story. This is his moment. I didn’t think he had it in him. He showed me.

4) Kate Tempest – Everybody Down: I don’t care if I am a bad dancer. When I put this on, people are just going to have to deal with it.

5) Hollie Cook - Twice: Deceptively simple, unbelievably appealing. I said the same thing about her first album. Here she is charting new territory in her second one.

6) Glen Kotche - Adventureland: This had me at hello. It got frequent airplay from my iMac. It’s really different from everything else here. I’m good with that.

7) Nicole Atkins – Slow Phaser: When I use the word sinewy, that’s always a compliment.

8) Courtney Barnett – The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas: Others try doing what she does. Because she’s so amazingly talented as a musician and lyricist, it is #8 best album of the year. When everybody else tries it, it sounds very bad. She makes it look easy, but its not.

9) Debby Schwartz – A Garden Of My Own: She’s put in her 10,000 plus hours and now has a work of art to show for it. If I didn’t love it so much it could break me in half with unspeakable beauty.

10) Tweedy - Sukierae: Virtuoso. Fresh elder statesman. A lot like watching the Olympics.

The David Bowie Show

The prospect of writing about the David Bowie show is an intimidating one. In the end I decided to go ahead and do it. Writing about it imperfectly is better than not writing about it at all.

The show is called David Bowie Is and my family traveled to see it at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

This post is not from a musical scholar or a critic. It's not from a museum curator or historian. It is from a David Bowie fan. It is from someone whose childhood and teen years happened in the 1970s and 80s. Someone who watched American Bandstand, MTV and listened to the radio.

I remember just where I was and what I was doing when David Bowie and Bing Crosby sang Little Drummer Boy during the 1977 Christmas special. Apparently, Bowie himself doesn't remember it all that well. My young brain was clear as a bell and not compromised by substance. I'm not a rock star, so I'm in a good place for recall.

I am a person with an unapologetic enthusiasm and connection with popular culture. That's the place I'm coming from.

My husband Jeremy is coming from a different vantage point. He has the same pop culture roots as I do. But his relationship to Bowie's music goes very deep.

Anyone who knows Jeremy at all can tell you that he is absolutely passionate about music. Music of all kinds and all genres. He has always loved listening to music, sharing music, writing about music for his brilliant blog AnEarful, and during certain periods of his life has made music.

Jeremy can hear things in music that other people don't. He makes connections other people can't. He remembers stuff about every piece of music he has ever heard. He's not shy about spreading what he knows around.

I kept referring to the trip as a religious pilgrimage for Jeremy. This turned out to be no joke. His blog post about the show is here. 

Here's what it was like for me.

Our whole family went. We spent a little time together in there, then split up and each did our own thing. We were all content with this arrangement. It was the kind of show where it felt natural to do this.

I looked at some stuff quickly but didn't skip or skim over anything. What I do get to do was whatever I wanted. I've never done this in a museum before. If I wanted to watch Bowie performing a number on Top of the Pops five times in a row, then go back later and watch it three more times, I did.

I'd catch sight of Noah drifting about, swaying a bit to the music, quite engaged. They gave us headsets with music and commentary. Usually, I don't take the headsets in a museum. I don't want some dry voice telling me how to see and what to think. This was different - it was a large part of the artistry of it. It was an integrated and rich experience.

This part is what I meant when I said earlier that I'm intimidated. I've been to a lot of shows in a lot of museums. I am a museum type person. This was the very best show I have ever been to in a museum. The show was so amazing and so inventive that it actually re-defined what can happen in a museum and what a show can be. There was love and brilliance infused in the curating and design. Bowie made his entire collection available and I felt a grand sense of generosity in that. I kept saying that I am glad Bowie doesn't like to throw things out.

Spending time at this show was entering another world. We were no longer in Chicago or even the Museum of Contemporary Art. We were in an all consuming, singular space where we have never been before and would never be again.

I already mentioned I've been to many museums. I've seen the work of countless artists. It's something I love doing.

I've never felt so strongly that a show allowed me to enter an artist's mind the way this one did. I got to experience a piece of what it is like to actually be Bowie. I learned that he truly lives the life of an artist. Not just when he is on stage. Not just when he is in the recording studio. He's living the life. He's doing what he wants to do. He takes breaks from music and focuses on painting. He has elaborate costumes he wears on stage. He has thoughtfully designed daywear.

The show made me think of an experience that I had right before Christmas last year. As I usually am, I was fed up with the holidays. That is a time of the year when Jacob's absence is even more painfully notable. The forced cheer of the culture around me, which more often than not feels depressing. Feeling exhausted with fitting gift shopping into an already challenging time. The whole thing made me feel like a fraud. If I could have fired Christmas I would have.

I got off of the subway in Brooklyn on a Monday. This neighborhood is bustling over the weekend, but on a weekday winter morning, it was quiet, and almost sleepy. I breathed in the cold morning air and reveled in the near silence.

I went into a brand new, just opened record store to do some holiday shopping for Jeremy. It was thrilling to do this because at the time he didn't know I was there. The fact that I was visiting this much-awaited new store before he did gave me a fun, slightly illicit feeling combined with a sudden sense of happiness. I anticipated the gifts I would buy him there.

I walked in, list in hand and began to piece together a musical gift for Jeremy. I combined a special box set that I knew would give him hours of enjoyment and scholarship. I also got him a biography from the store's extensive collection of music-inspired books. I also gave him a gift of experiencing the store himself in the form of a gift certificate. There is nothing Jeremy likes better than poring over music in a record store.

Of course, the store has a high quality sound system. Of course, the acoustics in there were good. Seeing as though it was close to Christmas, they played the David Bowie and Bing Crosby performance of Little Drummer Boy. It had been years since I heard it. It was a seminal experience in its beauty and authenticity. It was a sparkling moment. It turned the holiday tide for me. Bowie connected with me in a way that Crosby alone wouldn't have. Art can do that and it did.

David Bowie Is can be viewed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago until January 4th, 2015.

Read about the 1977 Christmas special and watch the video here.

Jeremy Doesn't Get Writer's Block

My husband Jeremy is often described as a Renaissance Man. There is also something a bit mysterious about Jeremy. That’s fine. Its one of the things I love about him.

If you spend any time with Jeremy at all, you’ll notice that he is passionate and extremely knowledgeable about music. Although I am accustomed to Jeremy by now, he can still surprise me with the depth of his musical scholarship.

I will find myself asking, How does he know all this stuff?

Jeremy combines his love of music and his talent for writing in a blog he created called AnEarful.

One day, I really noticed something about Jeremy.  It’s been true since he started his blog, but it took me a while to put my finger on it.

Jeremy doesn’t get writer’s block.

He does his writing the same way someone else might do the dishes or get dressed. When its time to write he writes. That’s it.  

My curiosity to led me to conduct this interview with Jeremy. He is speaking from the perspective of a music writer, but the application is there for anyone who creates anything.

A typical scenario goes like this: we organize our schedule to make uninterrupted time for your writing. You leave the house on Sunday morning right after breakfast, go to a nearby coffee establishment and write until dinnertime. You have never once said that you were uninspired, blocked or not feeling the muse. Why do you think that is? What's your secret?

For one thing, I take that time seriously since I know it is carved out of all the other things we want and need to accomplish. For another, I’m always writing in my head. AnEarful is my way of engaging more deeply with music. It gives me the opportunity to deeply examine my response to it, research the people behind it and search out historical context. Since I’m always listening to music, there’s always fuel going into the fire.

For example, if I’ve decided I want to write about an album, after a few listens the opening line of my review will come to me so I’ll store that up until it’s time to write. Same goes for concerts or anything else. Sometimes I have whole paragraphs ready to go by the time I sit down. I also always have a backlog of potential subjects so if one thing doesn’t work out I’ll quickly move on to another idea – emphasis on the “quickly.” I don’t have time to waste.

You are a very busy person. You have your full time job at Hope & Heroes, are an involved and engaged father, and an accomplished baker. You wear many hats. What would you say to writers who "don't have time to write?"  Do you think there may be a paradox involved in your output? Something counterintuitive?

If we didn’t make this time, I probably wouldn’t get as much done. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. In 2010 and 2011 combined, I published a total of 19 articles. In 2012 and 2013, however, after we started scheduling it in, that number jumped to 88. If it comes down to “not having time to write” there really is only one solution: make the time. It’s like exercise. Doing it infrequently but regularly is a massive improvement over not doing it at all. This means that even if the demands of your life prevent you from writing more than once a month, DO IT that one day a month, every month. You’ll probably find your writing time increasing.

We've discovered together that leaving the house to go to a lovely coffee establishment seems to aid in getting your writing done. Can you describe the particulars of this? Can you offer any advice?

Watching me write might be very strange. I’m tapping away for a time and then I’m reading up on something on Wikipedia or checking the credits on a CD.  I might even look at my email or make a Scrabble move. But the whole time I’m listening to what I’m writing about and formulating the next thought. I might have to listen to part of something several times to clarify how I’m going to write about it, so that looks a lot like fiddling with my iPod or iPhone.

Since it doesn’t look like I’m writing, all of these moments make it easy for my concentration to be broken. Even if everyone at home is being completely respectful, it’s natural to make conversation or mention something that just popped into your mind, or ask that question that you just remembered. And this goes both ways, so removing myself from the house makes me more productive since there are so many more distractions at home, little projects calling my name: organizing my sock drawer, making ice, searching for that CD at the bottom of the basket just because I haven’t seen it in a while…the list goes on.

You do much of your writing during designated uninterrupted time. However, you've also mentioned other smaller blocks of time where you get writing done. Can you describe this?

This often happens after a concert, where I’ll start writing about it on my phone on the subway home, just because I don’t want to lose touch with the immediate experience. I might also do this if my backlog has grown too deep or if I’m on a self-imposed deadline, such as wanting my review to hit on a certain day. The subway is a good place to write, except if you need to Google something – and even that is improving as they add more Wi-Fi to the system.

You're an easygoing person with a sunny disposition. You seem to not fit the cliché of the tortured and suffering writer. You're not drunk, smoking or moody. You aren't burning the midnight oil. Can you speak about this? Do you suffer while you write? Is there a romantic notion about suffering and writing?

One of my favorite quotes is from Red Smith: “There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” Writing is hard, no doubt. Conveying things in a concise fashion that makes sense to other people and is fun to read is a never-ending challenge. Sometimes I get physically uncomfortable with a stomachache when I just can’t get that thought to coalesce on the page. That’s the extent of it – can’t really call it suffering. I think things get worse when you worry about your audience. Obviously I want other people to read my stuff, but that’s not my focus while I’m working.

Any other snippets to give other writers?

Use technology. Programs that allow you to access your writing across many devices help you avoid the excuses: “I’m not at my computer.” “That file is on my iPad.” It’s always there, ready for that next brilliant sentence. I use Blogsy on the iPad and BlogPress on my phone.

Don’t say no during the first draft. Write once - revise twice.

Jeremy Shatan is obsessive about an omnivorous array of music. He works at Hope & Heroes, enjoys skiing, and is the proud father of three and loving husband of one - Karen Capucilli, of course!

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