What's New
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What's New
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| Heartsmoke; GV photo |
1/29/12
A tip, something I've been getting daily now for several weeks: "A Word A Day" by Anu Garg.
He sends you a new vocab word, Mon-Fri, and on Saturday, a number of letters from readers across the English-speaking world discussing the words, reinforcing your weeks learning. Nice to get e-mail with educational value, and no hard-sell or hype. In this stochastic world, filled with damascene ornamentation and sybaritic indulgences, what a joy to infuse the ol' frontal lobe with some fresh verbiage.
http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscribe.html
While we're at it, here's a bit of Tennyson inscribed on the wall of Auckland International Airport:
"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costely bales.."
1/25/12
Check out the 2012 surf reports for some big wave action.
And: another six-worder from Chris. (He's got the idea, people).
"Spouse abused. Resolution failed. New address."
1/14/12
We have a winner! Well, it's in first place. Still time for more entries, but this one is very good for an election year:
"Politicians talk. People fooled. Nothing changes."
Chris Milbank
1/4/12
Six Word Short Story Contest: Rumored to have been started by Ernest Hemingway, on a bet that he could write a complete short story in a restaurant on a napkin (but may have originated in John deGroot's one-man play, Papa):
"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."
How about Michael Pollan's lengthy diatribe on healthy eating?
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Six words, Michael. Please. Not seven. Maybe cut the "too"?
Here are my humble offerings:
"Surf daily. Or swim. Smile follows."
Or:
"Play music. Every day. Feed soul."
And, finally:
"Read books. All kinds. Flex brain."
Got one? Send to forum@vanstrum.net. Winner will get a free e-book!
12/28/11
Many writers think it's bad luck to discuss new work. I've never been the superstitious type and am excited about a new project. I can't share much, but the following will out: It's a music novel, the working title is Opus 1, No. 3, and it's about a trio of musicians who all have serious mental illnesses. Sort of a Cuckoo's Nest on Beethoven and Halidol. We'll see.
What is this compunction to write all about? David Mamet notes that those of us with the disease create new works (and forgive me, David, if I misquote you) "to resolve the terrible contradiction between our conscious and unconscious selves." !!
12/22/11
We survived another solstice! The days grow longer, and now, in the heart of winter, maybe we'll get an epic north swell, cold bombs in the fifteen-foot range sweeping down from Alaska, giant walls of ice-water mansions, walls for drawing epic lines and frozen memories. There's always hope. At present, though, my surfin' guns are sitting in the garge, gathering dust.
For no good reason, maybe too many doses of eggnog (here's to you and yours!), I've slashed prices on four of seven available e-books: for a limited time only (how's that for a worn marketing cliche); Certain Stars Shot Madly, S.I.C. Memorial, Of Lion Paw and Tiger Jaw (Stories) and Disease Beyond My Practice (Stories) are all now $0.99 @! On amazon.com and smashwords.com, and all e-book platforms.
12/1/11
The surf is up, the water is cold, e-books are out there, and we gave another concert. Pretty busy for a November. I took the train up to Santa Ana yesterday--during a 50 mph Santa Ana wind, to see a beautiful piano. Read some, worked some, snoozed some, all on the train. Now, I don't know about you, but for me it sure beats driving. If...and sometimes it's a big if...you don't need a car when you get there. The Southern California dilemma. Thank Firestone and the other automotive businesses for buying and shutting down the Red Line in the 40's. A bit of California lore, and one of many reasons why we have no mass transit.
10/31/11
Against all odds, the Nobel prize for 2011 went to: Not Bob Dylan (the five-to-one favorite in British betting circles) but to........Tomas Transtromer, Sweden's greatest poet. Hey, I've read some of his work. It's damn good, sort of a Swedish Seamus Heaney, lots of cold, dark imagery, stark landscapes...thoughtful. Soulful. In the spirit of supporting my ancestors back in Svenska land, I have ordered up a few of his works (in English, OK, OK, I know I should speak Svenska, but hey, the Spanish we use daily here in SoCal kinda pushed that project onto the back burner). Look for some new reviews in Man Bites Book.
How about them e-books? They're selling, and it feels good after years of work to share some literary goodies with others. Thank you, readers!
10/6/11
Played a concert Sunday at the LJ Library, 80-100 in the audience. Roy and I did OK, of course we played it better during rehearsal, but the performance had some moments. That Brahms D minor is one handful of notes. Meanwhile, the novel Humboldt is now up on Kindle, and soon to go out via Smashwords on the rest of the e-book platforms. First rain of the season, blue whales at Seawind, and we're all getting ready for the swells of November, if they come early...
8/3/11
FLASH ALERT !!!!!
Already up on Kindle/Amazon (or soon to be!): Six Novels, Two story collections. A decades worth of work. Right. Fuhggedibout print publishing, at least for now. Save a tree. Go e-book. Look for these novels: CERTAIN STARS SHOT MADLY , LET FALL THY BLADE, S.I.C. MEMORIAL, HUMBOLDT, NORTHERN LIBERTIES, and YELLOWSTONE, 1876; now up or soon to be on Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, and iBooks. $2.99@. That's right, a steal. Years of work, outside editing, University of Iowa classes--now they're out there. Don't forget the SS collections: DISEASE BEYOND MY PRACTICE and OF LION PAW AND TIGER JAW. See the new page, Fiction, for synopses and taglines.
Also: new page alert: Piano News, news of upcoming concerts, current repertoire, etc. Check it out.
7/19/11
Finished the novel HUMBOLDT. I've been reviewing this and other novels and have made a strategic decision. With publishing the way it is, Borders closing, and my new Kindle humming, I'm gonna put the thing up for sale ($2.99) in electronic version only. We're talking redwood climbing, pot farming, big wave surfing, Yuroks, and Sasquatch here, folks. Everything Northern Cal. Will let you know upon the grand release. Stay tuned!
2/6/2011
Roy and I flew to Atlanta to give a piano/violin recital. The concert went great; we played Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, Roy on his fiddle and myself on a very sweet Mason and Hamlin. Lots of family there, but we skipped the party afterward to escape a nasty winter storm. Heavy snow and ice was predicted to fall at midnight, so we booked a flight through Indianapolis. As we boarded the plane at 8 p.m., snow blew through the cracks of the jetway: not a good sign. Roy and I were stranded there in Atlanta at an airport Hilton. But hey, we found an old piano in the hotel and managed to practice.
Southern California never seemed so nice as when our jet finally landed in LA and we drove south in light traffic. Good to be home.
10/24/10
A new review in Man Bites Book, and an update on surfing in Southern Californa, in pacific surf report 1/10-12/10.
9/6/10
Typed up the flash fiction shorts from Brooklyn--hey, maybe we've got something here. We'll see. Mostly, it's all about music nowadays. Roy Bak and I have a concert, a celebration of the violin/piano sonata, Sept. 19 at the LJ library. Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms.
8/8/10
Just got back from NYC--Brooklyn, actually. A friend, N----------, is a senior fiction editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan, but likes to teach fiction workshops from time to time. He invited 7 students he knew from U. of Iowa, and we all shlepped out to Brooklyn for an intense writing workshop.
I found an apartment via airbnb.com. Every day I worked out and went for a run in Fort Greene park (in the old days, this neighborhood was referred to by some less-than-politically-correct individuals as "Indian country," nowadays, it's gentrified), then joined my colleagues on Dean Street for a writing assignment. We were given a theme, an idea (e.g., "the ticking clock," "a visit to a pet store", etc.) on which to launch a short story, and launch we did. N-------- and company then critiqued each piece, as if we'd worked on it and polished it for months. Nothing like a bit of pressure to bring out the best in you.
Afternoons we work-shopped finished, re-written fiction.
In the late afternoons, class over, my brain fried, I walked over to the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music on 7th Ave and Lincoln Place, a fine old brownstone at least one hundred years old, where they were kind enough to let me play a Yamaha grand piano for three hours every night. Yeah, baby.
After that I would find myself dinner (a real problem with so many varied restaurants to choose from), drink a couple of beers, and crash.
Saturday, the conservatory was closed, so I took the C train to the west side of Manhattan and visited Steinway Hall, a beautiful show room built in 1925, marble everywhere, busts of famous pianists and composers lining the corridors, a nine-foot concert grand sitting in the rotunda of a lobby. I found a brand-new Steinway B and played it for two hours. What a joy. On such a fine instrument, one can hit the softest of pianissimos, the gutsiest of fortes, stabbing staccatos, smooth legatos, and fifty gradations in between. If only I had a spare 81,000 bucks lying around...
Some observations of NYC in August, and Brooklyn in particular:
Lots of people in Brooklyn--3 million.
Lots of trees, compared to Manhattan.
People seem cordial enough, with a hefty dose of NY attitude, but there does not seem to be, socially at least, the racial integration one finds in California. Just a first impression, maybe I'm wrong.
While I was there, a bunch of kids beat another kid to death with a pipe. I could make a big deal out of this, but a similar thing happened here in La Jolla a few years back.
Lots of good places to eat and people-watch in Brooklyn.
I'd go back again in a heart-beat.
7/10/10
Sorry, my friends, for the long hiatus. My excuses are multiplicitous--but mostly one can blame that damn Steinway that sits in our living room. I've been playing A LOT of piano lately, working on a violin/piano duo with Roy Bak, a violinist who studies with Ruggiero Ricci. We've been playing mini-concerts, getting ready for something more grand this fall, playing Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Plus, I've been working on a solo program, Beethoven, Copland, and Liszt.
Also, I've been writing another novel (see below). Can't say much about it right now. Needless to say, these activities have sapped my blog time. As if to add injury to insult, I became the index case at work for some kind of horrific GI thing. The less said about that, the better.
And, naturally, there has been surf. A decent south over the Fourth, for example.
4/7/10
See the Pacific Surf Report 1/10-12/10 for the low-down on Hawaiian North Shore surfing.
3/7/10
I've been working on a new novel, having fun researching it. Can't say too much, but it involves redwoods, tree climbing, big-wave surfing, Yuroks, pot growers, and salmon. Yahoo. Also, I've been preparing for a piano concert, playing Beethoven and Brahms sonatas (sonata-so-good?) with a violinist. It's exhilarating to mix your arts, there's some kind of weird synergy thing that can happen. Of course, the waves have been pumping, too, and I've done my share of surfing. Business as usual.
2/15/10
Another wild stroke of literary luck--THEMA will publish a short story of mine, "Piano Trio," in their "Music and Math" issue, on October, 2010. I have been a subscriber to Virginia Howard's journal for some time, and love her themes and the way writers respond to them. Unlike other lit mags (Tin House comes to mind), THEMA doesn't keep things secret, or only reveal upcoming issue themes to a stable of famous writers. They let you know well in advance, and all are welcome to submit. Check out this magazine.
Note: More surf news in section 3 of the Pacific Surf Report. El Nino strikes the California coast! pacific surf report 1/10-12/10
Lots more surf pix and oceanic musings in pacific surf report 7/09-12/09.
Happy New Year!
December 27, 2009
Best of the holidays to you, dear readers. And all best for 2010.
November 25, 2009
LITnIMAGE, a very cool on-line mag that combines flash fiction with visual art, will run one of my short shorts (Cretaceous Photo Primer) in their January issue. Check it out, and check out the mag, www.litnimage.com/vanstrum.htm. A quirky, fun journal, it reminds me of BLACK CLOCK, only with more humor. The fiction editor, Roland Goity, who has an MFA from SDSU and writes book reviews for the SF Chronicle, has more satire than info in his bio. My kind of guy.
They wanted a head shot, and the best I could do, since the surf has been macking lately and my big-wave gun smacked me a good one at Headkick Reef, is this one:
Remember, dear readers, you saw
it first.
October 13, 2009
Once again the Nobel committees have made their choices. Eleven out of 13 prizes went to Americans. Even the economics prize went to a pair of Americans, that most ridiculous award existing in the known universe, an award for a pseudo-science, a nonsensical world of mathematical mumbo-jumbo, apocryphal theories, and con-artists steeped in mendacity.
A Norwegian committee hands out the Peace Prize--the one prize that does not come from Svenska-land. They gave it to Barack Obama, who, understandably, felt it was a bit premature to accept after being prez for only nine months. Obama (who will no doubt prove to deserve it in the years to come) wisely donated it to charity. A nice gesture, giving away a cool 1.4 mill.
The Swedish Academy, headed by Peter Englund (who made some remarks about American authors that stung last year), bestowed the literature prize upon Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller. As an insular American, I don't know her, but I'll read her stuff and give you a report soon. See Man Bites Book.
A note to the Academy: Yes, he has a mass following. Yes, he is a musician. Yes, his lyrics are abstruse, byzantine, and, at times, cryptic. But please give the most deserving living writer in the world the 2010 Literature Prize. Let the medicine, the chemistry, the peace prize, and the physics prizes go to non-Americans. Donate the economics prize to whom it belongs, to the poor. But give the lit prize to Bob Dylan, ne Robert Zimmerman.
Please. Pretty please. If there is a God...
"And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue."
October 3, 2009
Yet another book review, and meditations on Bob Simmons in Pacific Surf Report.
September 26, 2009
Note the opening of a non-fiction heading in manbitesbook, also a review of Alexander McCall's Smith's books.
August 16, 2009
More book reviews, more surf essays in Pacific Surf Report.
August 2, 2009
After surfing for nine days straight in the third week of July, and revising a novel (NORTHERN LIBERTIES), my body reacted badly. Not to the revising, but to the surfing. Check out pacific surf report for news of the great southern swell, also manbitesbook.html for a review on Steig Larsson's latest masterpiece.
July 5, 2009
South swell on Kaua'i. Book reports.
June 20, 2009
New review, new surf report.
June 7, 2009
There's lots of new book reviews in man bites book, and you'll find the latest in SoCal surfing in the pacific surf report.
March 31, 2009
Took a recent March '09 trip to New York City and Atlanta. Not having set foot in Manhattan since the seventies, I found the city, especially the Village, amazingly upscale, yuppified, gentrified, and clean. Unlike my visits in the seventies, aggressive panhandlers did not threaten my carotids on Broadway strolls. A mugger did not reside behind every bush in Central Park. Even the weather cooperated, the sun shone every day, although the wind whistled through my Southern California bones. Luckily I bought a fine cashmere scarf for a mere $5 from a street vendor (Hey, it felt like the real thing. And if a rube from California ain't gonna support those vendors, who the hell is?). It kept me warm and looked good. Several people asked me for directions in Greenwich Village, so I guess I blended in. Most everybody wore black, though, it seemed. I had a dark brown jacket that made me feel like member of the rainbow coalition. Hey, after the financial markets tanked, after 9/11, I can understand the general mood on the streets. Still, NYC is NYC and there is a buzz there you can find nowhere else.
Saw some scintillating jazz at Small's, a music bar on 7th Ave., the Ethan Iverson (piano) trio, with Ben Street on bass and the astounding "Tootie" Heath banging the skins, what a drummer, the guy played with Coltrane for Chrissake. He's still immeasurably cool, perfect in his control, and varied in his range. Iverson and Street, to their credit, gave him lots of room. I caught a great couple of sessions and found them worth every penny of my twenty bucks. Iverson opens each number with melodic, wandering, almost classical preludes. On one piece, the standard Shadow of Your Smile, he played the melody with his left hand while weaving musical lace with right hand filigrees. The result, with Street's pitch-perfect double-stops and Heath's mastery, made the hairs on my neck stand straight up.
I went to the movie Gomorrah in NY, too. A great film by Mateo Garrone--if you can stand it. Gritty violence from Naples, five stories seamlessly interwoven about the Camorra mafia. Not light entertainment, but searing, heady stuff. Not the quasi-glamorous world of the usual cinematic Mafiosi, this one, down and dirty, paints a realistic picture of how the bastards steamroll ordinary citizens into early graves--or worse. I liked the scenes with the tailor who moonlights in a Chinese sweatshop the best. Based on the non-fiction book, GOMORRAH: ITALY'S OTHER MAFIA.
March 9, 2009
A MUST READ
The latest New Yorker published a last-days biography of David Foster Wallace, author of INFINITE JEST, followed by an excerpt from his unfinished current novel, a meditation on boredom among IRS agents. I found both the biography and excerpt fascinating. Miss it at your peril.
The writing is full of verbal calisthenics, not easy or transparent, but insightful and acrobatic. With such a grim self-assignment, poor guy, no wonder he killed himself. The progression of his disease is not unlike Hemingway's: depression, shock therapy, memory loss, suicide. Their writing styles, of course, are as far apart as one can imagine.
Wallace went off Nardil, a MAO inhibitor anti-depressant, some months before his death. Even though it kept his demons at bay, he felt like he lived on an "alternate planet" when he took it. He thought he might write better off the stuff. Yikes, what a decision. You've got to hand it to the guy, he gave his all to art.
Feb. 22--More book reviews (Man Bites Book), more surf reports.
March 8, 2008
New book reviews, new surf tales. Read a great article in Harper's about the book industry meeting in Frankfurt, Germany--there's still people out there in the business who love books, who want to publish good books. Even in the Great Recession, that's encouraging. Hopefully all is not lost for the aspiring author out there.
Feb. 15, 2009--See new book reviews, news from the Pacific. All best wishes--storm track is giving us rain, finally. Maybe we'll get our average for the year.
News Flash: Forum section up and running. I couldn't figure out the Earthlink blogware, so it's just an e-mail address, have no fear, I'll post your comments without your return address.
Early visitors note, new book reviews and news from the pacific are in.
Best,
GV
Welcome!
What's new is this web site, a new creature complete with an ongoing (and soon to be expanded) book review section, a surfing journal straight to your computer from La Jolla, California, and info on the author, Glenn Vanstrum. Moi.
I've been re-writing novels lately, getting ready for a trip, and writing short stories. The latest tweak to the muse: I pulled twenty bizarre photos from my files (all images I made years ago), picked one out, and stared at it. Stared at it some more. Until...voila. A story emerged.
So far I've got three (addendum: now seven) in the can (see fiction in progress). You can find an excerpt from the story based on the photo above there (Heartsmoke).
All this creative work has been made difficult by an amazing series of six to eight foot waves hitting the coast. Luckily I'm not able to surf much more than two hours per day, not like Erik, my son, who puts in four or five. Nick, my younger boy, can do four or five, too, if he's on his game. Not dad.
Thanks again for joining the site.
All best,
Glenn Vanstrum