I know I had a weekend around here, but it seems to have slipped away, while I was blinking…

We spent all day Saturday down at the Smithsonian, attending a seminar on “Neighborhood Walks Through London.”  We’re going to London later this year, so the presentation was particularly welcome.  The charming presenter did a great job of highlighting major and minor sites in her home town, relaying history, bits about art and architecture, and generally making me wish that my trip could last for about three months.

Yesterday, I continued the salute to Britain by indulging in afternoon tea with the incomparable Christi Barth.  We had a lovely time at the Park Hyatt (although both of us stuck with rather traditional teas, rather than the $150/cup “there are only three bricks of this tea left in the world” or the nearly as expensive “this tea is harvested only on the third night after the full moon”).  The Park Hyatt provides a buffet of savories and sweets, which allows customers to avoid their least favorites (egg salad, for me…) and to indulge in extras of their favorites (cheddar-scallion-bacon scones and goat-cheese-artichoke crostini for me).  The savories were actually somewhat better than the sweets, which is not my usual experience at tea.

I ended up taking the Metro downtown both weekend days — rare, given the system’s spotty weekend coverage.  Somewhat frustratingly, there was a scheduled break in the line between my station and downtown — they used shuttle buses to bridge the gap.  I walked the difference both directions on Saturday, but I availed myself of the shuttles on Sunday.  The buses are an annoyance, but they run *very* frequently, and the Metro staff are extremely friendly and helpful (and there are *thousands* of staff to guide people, or so it seems.)

Back home for the evening, we power-watched Masterpiece Theatre’s MR SELFRIDGE (although we still have the last double-episode to view) — a not-entirely-successful soapy biopic about that Chicago man who opened the Selfridge department store in London in the early 20th century.  I’m not at all enamored of Jeremy Pivens’ acting choices, and I’m suspicious of a lot of the social rules depicted, but I *am* intrigued by the transition of retail that the show presents.

In between all that, I almost finished reading Lea Nolan’s CONJURE (a fun high-middle-grade, low-YA book, with pirates, curses, and Gullah magic).

And that’s the weekend that was.  How about you?

We had a pretty quiet weekend around here — at least, not much to write about.  In a word, our weekend was:  Baseball.

On Thursday afternoon, we went to see the Nationals beat the Tigers.  (This was a makeup game, after the original got rained out on Tuesday.)  The game was exciting — it all came down to the very last out, with Prince Fielder at the plate.  After, we went to Five Guys for dinner, where I indulged in a burger and fries and didn’t even think about feeling guilty

On Friday, relatives came to visit from North Carolina, and we went to see the Nationals beat the Cubs.  I was surprised to find that two games, back to back, weren’t too much for me.  I suspect that the two wins helped that to be the case!  We sat one section over from our usual seats.  (Enter long, boring explanation for why there isn’t an usher posted near our usual seats.)  It was fun to watch a good usher properly handling the crowd — helping people find their seats, holding them in the aisle until breaks in play, etc.  I ended up tracking down the ushers’ supervisor — both to compliment the usher we saw, and to try to remedy the lack of an usher in our usual section.  I was pleased with the customer service, at least the lip service ::wry grin::

On Saturday, I went to see the yarn bombing to which I had contributed several pieces over the winter.  Then, on Saturday evening, I watched BULL DURHAM with our visiting Carolina relatives.  I haven’t seen the whole movie in a long time, and I was surprised by a couple of things — how much baseball I’ve learned since the last time I saw it, and how utterly unquotable-in-a-family-blog most of the dialog is.  I think it’d be about a one-hour movie on TV, once they deleted all the lines they couldn’t satisfactorily bleep…

I’m reeling a bit from the discovery that this is a Monday, and it’s time for me to head to work.  Nevertheless, it’s Writing Day, so I’d better settle down and get my words in – 5000 is today’s target!

So?  Did anyone have a more exciting weekend than mine?  (I like to give you easy assignments, once in a while )

Last weekend, we headed down to the Newseum for a new documentary, BLACK AND WHITE AND DEAD ALL OVER.

Having attended Silverdocs (a film festival that exclusively shows documentaries) last year, and having watched dozens of them on our own, outside of the festival, we have become something of documentary snobs.  We talk a lot about whether the subject is worth the investment of time, whether the story is told in interesting ways, whether new facts were illuminated, whether the movie itself was enjoyable as a movie.  We have pretty strong opinions — and sometimes they differ from the critics’.

BAWADAO got a solid B from us.

It is subtitled “A Film About the End of American Newspapers”.  As a unifying features, it shows a map of the United States, with dots placed to show cities where newspapers have been severely curtailed or, in some cases, shut down forever.  The film cites various statistics, including the average age of readers (55, and growing older).

But that’s not really what the film is about.

BAWADAO is about the death of *investigative journalism*.  It’s about those reporters who invest months — sometimes a year or more — in developing a story, ferreting out injustice, exposing bad government.  Investigative journalism is very expensive for newspapers; it requires fronting salaries for months, along with the costs of the actual investigations.  It is the very opposite of tweets and Facebook and other social media news.

BAWADAO tracks two investigative journalists from the Philadelphia Daily News, telling their story — both the Pulitzer-Prize-winning series that they wrote and their precarious job position.  The film spends a *lot* of time talking about Philly papers, about how they’ve been bought and sold five times in six years, about how hedge fund managers make lousy publishers.

These are all part and parcel of the problem.  But ultimately, the film claims too much when it says it’s about the (absolute) end of (all) American newspapers.

The Newseum welcomed us to the screening, handing out totebags with the slogan from the movie (“Democracy dies in darkness”.)  The bags also contained a copy of that day’s Washington Post, a bottle of water, and a bag of SmartFood popcorn (you know, so we could enjoy popcorn and a drink at the movies.)

In fact, we’d already read that day’s Post (even though we’re younger than the 55-average-age.)  How about you?  When was the last time that you read a print paper?  How about a mainstream paper, online?  From where do you get your news?

Once upon a time, I loved having noise around me as I worked.  (I grew up in the 1970s, and I attended a “school without walls”, where classrooms were open, and there was a huge amount of ambient noise.  I grew accustomed to working in that environment, although I understand that education is trending away from such things these days…)

I used to have a whole variety of writing music, with different mix-tapes (yes, this was a long time ago!) for different emotions.  I relied on some pre-recorded music, too — often, the soundtracks to movies.  I could still probably hum the entire soundtrack to Star Wars (A New Hope), if you just start me off with the first note!

Over time, though, I have found that I need to concentrate much more on my work.  I find all but the *most* familiar music distracting (and even that becomes unworkable for me, if there are lyrics.)  I have a small handful of fall-backs, about a half dozen albums that I listen to through my headphones, when I’m forced to work in an environment with a lot of background noise.

Today, I’m working at the public library.  As has happened the last few times I was here, a group took over two tables and started talking — in street-level volume — about their real estate project.  I shot them dirty looks and grumbled to myself and complained inside my head.

And then I remembered that there is a Quiet Study Room.  One used to have to get permission to use it, signing up in advance.  These days, though, it’s first come, first served, and there are spaces for about forty workers.

I’m in the Quiet Study Room now, and it is heaven.  The *only* noise is from people shifting in their chairs, the occasional turn of a page, the tap of fingers on a keyboard (and I’m the loudest at that, much to my embarrassment).  No talking.  No cell phones, even for a quick call.  No headphones with music bleeding.  Sheer, unadulterated silence.

How about you?  Are you a silence fetishist?  Or a background noise person?

As a writer, I am frequently asked, “What books most influenced your writing?”  I have my stock answers — Lord of the Rings, Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni books, a bunch of other old favorites.  But last week, I heard a segment on NPR that completely threw me for a loop, because it made me recognize a huge influence on my writing, one that I’d never consciously thought of before.

Pippin.

The musical (music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz; choreography by Bob Fosse).  About the son of Charlemagne, sort of.  About the quest for the meaning of life, sort of.  About sex, drugs, and rock and roll, sort of.

I first saw Pippin in the late seventies.  I was visiting my grandmother in Los Angeles, and she had tickets for a production at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  For reasons long lost in the mists of time, my grandmother didn’t go to the show; instead, she sent my cousin and me.

I remember being absolutely, 100% enchanted by the performance.  And I remember being somewhat embarrassed by the show — there were scenes about men and women (and men and men and women and women) who were sexually interested in each other.  There was rather suggestive dancing.  There were somewhat revealing costumes.  I wasn’t quite sure what to say to Grandma when she asked what I thought of the performance.

But, in my heart, I loved it.  I loved the lyrics.  I loved the music.  I loved the costumes and the staging and the laugh lines and the sheer energy of the entire thing.  And most of all, I loved the message — all about what it takes to be free and committed and independent and bound and, and, and.

I can probably sing every single word of the musical, by heart.  I used to use the soundtrack as one of my writing pieces, because I knew it so well that it didn’t disrupt my creativity.

But it wasn’t until last week, it wasn’t until I was listening to the NPR segment — about the current revival in New York — that I realized something I’d never consciously thought about.  Pippin is about a person who goes on a quest.  And while he’s searching for the meaning of his life, he comes across a troupe of traveling actors.  He becomes one of them, only to find that his future does not lie with them.

And when I heard that, when I thought about that, I realized that I’ve told that story over, and over, and over again.  Rani Trader finds her Players.  Keara finds her Travelers.  Even the As You Wish Series is about women finding their true selves against the backdrop of contemporary theaters.

I love the otherness of acting, the ability to literally and figuratively don masks.  But I never realized just how deep that love was, just how early I learned to tell that story…

(Incidentally, the revival of Pippin sounds ***amazing***, with circus performers interspersed with the acting company.  ::eyes New York with longing::)

So?  How about you?  Ever had a deep epiphany about what you write or what you read?  Care to share it?

Often, I’m asked about my favorite books.  I usually answer by saying that The Lord of the Rings has been the most influential book in my life, because it made me want to write a sequel, which led to my first finished novel, which led to my first published novel, which led to my current daily life.

But when I was in middle school, I very well might have answered, “Anything by E.L. Konigsburg”.  Her Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth remains one of my very favorite books — and there’s a touch of Jane Madison lurking amid all those names.  And From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was probably the first time I fell in love with a museum.  And with Michelangelo.  So, it only made sense that I learned about Leonardo da Vinci from The Second Mrs. Giaconda.  And I actually wanted to be reincarnated as Eleanor of Aquitaine after I read A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver.

Along with books by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Ruth M. Arthur, the stories of E.L. Konigsburg were some of the very first that sparked my imagination, that taught me about secret worlds where I could explore very far away from the suburban streets of North Dallas.  (And I’m a bit astonished to realize that virtually all of Konigsburg’s books are set in the real world — historic world sometimes, but not in made-up secondary venues.  I’m surprised because those books carried a sense of wonder, a vision of different-ness, that flavors my speculative fiction today.)

E.L. Konigsburg died over the weekend, at the age of 83.  She’ll live on, though, on my bookshelves, and on the shelves of every kid I buy books for in the future.

Off to re-read some favorites…