Writing from the Dialog

After reading A Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate, I have changed my writing style. She writes her novels from a first person perspective of each character. The tricky part in writing this way is getting the context descriptions to fit in. Its quick and easy to write what a character should be saying, its a lot harder to write how they said it or where they said it without breaking the narrative.

If you read her books you will discover an author that seems effortlessly fluent in her writing. She has taken out most of the bumps that change the rhythm. I am studying her writing style to get a handle on the "Aunt Betty" rescue narrative that I am writing.

Taste of Salt is a book about a black girl growing up in Cleveland who is enamored by the sea. She becomes a marine biologist on the East coast. Her family struggles with alcohol addiction. Mom a registered nurse, her dad an auto assembly person that reads the classics after working hours provided the background for her growing up. Her brother who was a trainer for the Cavaliers, a professional basketball team in Cleveland lost his job from using, despite repeated attempts to engage in rehabilitation. Her father becomes estranged due to his alcohol addiction. When that happened his reading after work stopped.

There is little sub cultural dialog in her writing. The reader does not have to "translate" from white to black English. The author is well versed in writing a story from an educated black perspective.

The reader can just roll right along into the narrative dialog as it tells the story. The diad is often the reader and the character in the book rather than the character and another character in the book. This adds to the intimacy of the writing.

As a public figure Martha Southgate  was outspoken in objection to the movie and the book The Help. When she was interviewed by the morning talk shows about The Help, she said that it was well written but should have had an authentic black author writing it since it was written from black person's perspective.

I hope you get a chance to enjoy this book.
: ) Pat

Tuesday Morning

Its Tuesday morning in Merced.
This morning it seemed a little warmer. Looking at the weather forecast it should be warmer today. I collected the sunrise today without any clouds in the sky. Since my walk however, the breeze has picked up and is jangling the wind chimes in the front. This time of the year we have winds that come down off the mountain and warm up from the friction. We seldom get coastal fog but during this time of the year, sometimes the coastal fog is non existent. The friction in the air and no fog was part of the weather conditions the resulted in huge losses in the Oakland fire a few years ago.

Top of the agenda today is to cut the yard with the lawn mower, do some laundry. Maybe I will go after some volunteer berry bushes in the back yard.

What is really nice about this time of the year is that when you have the thermostat set in the high 70's it the air conditioner does not go on. In the evening it is not so cold that you need a jacket on if you are not up in the wee hours.

Today I was up before the sun to get my walk in. They have changed the layout of the furniture in our Starbucks. The walls were painted new colors and new corporate artwork was hung. New furniture was added. We now have a section of tall bar stools and tables in the center. On the outside edge of the turret shaped interior are low tables of 4 instead of more smaller tables of 2. We got back a couple of upholstered chairs and we now have a coffee counter with chairs as we come in. Most veteran customers are not at all amused by the new set up. While I have been going to this one for about 4 years this is the second time this Starbucks has incurred a furniture switch. On the surface it would seem that those that sit down and need to work with the wifi and the lap top computers would be the most pleased of the customers. They have turned out to be the least tolerant. When a group of students came in and sat at the center tables they "hogged" all the electrical outlets that the regular laptop customers use. We will see how all of this washes out.  Some customers were so concerned that they have threatened to move their business to another branch of starbucks. Its a mile and half away. I guess if you arrive and leave using your car it wouldn't matter.

Have a happy day! :  ) Pat

A New Brush

I have been playing around with a new brush.
Yes they are dear... I won't go into details about their cost.
But

I got my hands on a couple of

Isabey Kolinsky watercolor brushes.

They are made in France from Russian sable. They are accurate and hold a huge amount of water  and paint for their sizes. 

My current art work has taken me out of the atmospherics temporarily to some small canvases that can reflect a smaller subject.

The first one was the monarchs that are in my daughter Linzi's possession. My latest number is a very small 4x12 of my Starbucks coffee shop from the outside. My first inclination was to draw an outline with a pencil. The problem became that the lead in the pencil entered into the value structure of the painting. This was not good. I decided to "sketch" this new brush using non staining paints.. and it really helped to keep the painting from going grey. I have never been very good using a brush as a sketching tool. This new brush with its accuracy and its supply made sketching much easier. I am headed for some bigger versions of this brush.

The retail list on a bigger version of this brush is almost 300 dollars. Ebay to the rescue! I am hoping to get a size 12 for around 100.  I am keeping my fingers crossed!

: ) Pat

Fall Mix

 Inspiration

One of my nieces, Cammie, published her latest Summer of Happiness Mix. Its really pretty good. There are a number of reggae rhythm songs connected into to a very pleasant listen. Congrats! You are an inspiration!

I got to thinking about a new mix for myself.  Using my library from ITunes I started to think of some songs that would be great together.

The criteria for these is an interesting premise. I want a non or at least a non love song dominate mix. I wanted a mix that was pop but not country.. or at least particularly country.

I just could not resist to put one in... its one that could run around in your head for a long time.  Norah Jones does a duet with Sasha Dobson. It goes back to the reference of rodeo from Garth Brooks that we included in the 2000 fouth of July. I think that the background support tracks are what make this song special.

These songs all have a special support tracks for the vocals. There is a very unique rhythm and musicality for each.This is a very unusual mix in that these singers are seldom mentioned together since they represent diverse musical backgrounds. It is actually a fusion mix.

How was song order determined?

I arranged them in an order of song energy. Each song was rated on this scale. 1 repsented a whisper song and a 10 was a screamer. There were no songs in this group that bit anywhere near either of these polls. The softer songs at the beginning of the CD are rated as 4s. Near the end of the CD there are some 7s and 8s. Many of these songs are not by the original artists.  These tracks were selcted for there sounds not for their origins.

There are 17 tracks in the mix:
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Pat's Fall 2011 Mix

1. Pills Stopped Working- Hem
2. Blue Bayou- Norah Jones, M Ward
3. Innocent Bones-Iron and Wine
4. Its Gonna Be- Norah Jones
5. Bull Rider - Sasha Dobson, Norah Jones
6. Lets Get Lifted- John Legend
7. Huym4 My Soul- Joe Crocker
8. Ride my See Saw- Moody Blues
9. Takin Care of Business- George Throogood
10. Museum- Herman's Hermits
11. Burn this Disco, Michael Jackson
12. Bring it On- Seal
13. Nag- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
14. Treat me Right- Pat Benatar
15. River Deep, Mountain High- Celine Dion
16. Gear Jammer- George Thorogood
17 Dancing Queen- The Yayhoos
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Okay.. So what do you think?

: ) Pat

Transition into Fall

The first storm of the fall came this week.

In one day in Merced 3/4 of an inch of rain dropped. Its very unusual to have thunder and lightening with it.

This pretty well ends the commercial tomato season... too much mold in the product unless they are harvested immediately.

Highway 99 was replete with tomato trucks driving like made to make their way to the paste factories.

With mold in the air it will not be long until we see the cotton harvesters working their wonders through the fields and in their deposit long white caterpillar mounds upon the field.

I know it is darker now in the morning. Its much easier to collect sunrises on my walk.

Contrails in the sky are now much more visible. They are going North/South

We were in the Bay Area this week and it was Fleet week. This weekend is Columbus Day weekend.

The hills look really dry

The evening temps are down in the 40s where last week the were in the high 50's

The front yard grass loves the rain and the cool weather. Its the best its looked all year.

Baseball is just about over.

There is no sign this year that basketball will ever return to the airways.

Hockey is back.

Its long pants and tee shirt weather. The shorts get put away. It looks like the end of 90 degree weather.


All this happening with one storm. Yep.. That is California Central Valley weather for you.
: )  Pat

Facebook video call

Facebook Powered Skype.

There is a new feature on Facebook that is pretty interesting.
I pulled one of my sisters out of the chat cue last night and facebook asked if I wanted to video chat instead of IM chat.
I pushed the button. A small program downloaded to my computer and called up my sister who was on Facebook and text chatting with me. We then connected via Dick Tracy.

The Historical Dream

Dick Tracy was the mythical police officer in the daily comics in my youth that had a watch that allowed him to communicate by wrist TV to his headquarters and to his support team. This added a Sci Fi twist to crime solving. Who would know that now that is within the range of all of us through our computers via Facebook.


We also watched a demo of the future in calling with video back in the 1980's Disneyland. We were enthralled as it was to be able to talk in a group booth to a phone somewhere in the US and all contribute to the conversation. As in "Guess where we are? We are all in Disneyland. Do you want to talk to Mom? She is right here!" Video chat was still a far off dream and who would ever guess that the connection would be through the internet.. Internet what was that?

Chatting with Live Video

Last night we rang each other up through Facebook and had a nice conversation using the new technology powered by Skype. Our connections were good and the sound was great. It was mac to mac.  We were able to show each other things that we referenced in the conversation. We have both been doing some art work and it was nice to talk artsy talk too.

In the past, my complaint with Skype has been that it didn't keep up with the audio let alone the video. Last night it was all working and the lips synced and the audio didn't echo.

It was interesting that Facebook became the badge of required info for the use of this technology. Social network spin alongs have been using this info to validated members playing all sorts of games and interest categories.

Groups with Facebook

I signed up to an event for our cruise and have seen many helpful posting on the cruise. It is interesting to see the social network stars for the cruise appear in the log-blog. Princess set this up so that passengers would have a chance to network.

I set one up for our class to communicate with a Facebook entity. It is important to set it up in the right category. There are definite differences between a personal page and a group page. If you are setting up a web page to do siimilar things it takes an imbedded engine to sort and sift and allow for moderation. This has become the new interactive source on the web that does not require programer interaction. what you give up in the process is some degree of privacy.  

Have a great week  : ) Pat