Thank you for this! I've loved the Gits and now I cant wait to read Steve's book. Mia and guys were such a gift. That band was incredible - so talented. Mia's writing and visual art was so powerful, it always blew me away. My favorite song of all time is "Second Skin". I believe it just might be the greatest rock song ever written. I pull out the "Second Skin" 45 often and play it really loud!
I was in a shitty corporate hotel room this summer for work & happened upon a true crime show where Mia’s murder was the topic & it hurt my brain. Looking forward to this book.
I also suffer from the write it til it’s perfect mentality and I’m trying to shake it. The messiness is better, and more important, than the preciousness. It’s funny-I often wonder ‘how does Martha do it?’
Usually I do it by not writing for days on end while telling myself it doesn't matter, no one gives a shit, until I get so bored of listening to this narrative in my head that I realize that hey! nobody gives a shit! and that frees me to spit something out and press send without proofreading. Or a least that's my current "process." xo
a) I seem to remember watching a film about Mia at SIFF--at least ten years ago. I was in Montana for the 70s-90s and missed stuff (poor radio for a long time, young kids)--my own kids got me onto PJ fairly early. Anyway, if you don't know the film, see if you can dig it up?
b) I'm reading a book by Liz Riggs about the indie scene in Nashville--narrator works the door at a club, fairly recent time setting, LO-FI; a great deal of, let's say, intemperate behavior--maybe not the highest of art but engaging and page-turn-y, plus, a number of times throughout she slips in 10-plus song playlists [which I've started to assemble, for the hell of it, on Spotify] . . . I may not be her target audience, but what the hell. When you're my age, it's of course fun to see the the young abusing themselves--a statement that's both untrue and true.
c) The Comet. Well, I missed that scene, too, but I had student in Missoula from Seattle who said it was her dive bar of choice so I made it my business to know it once I moved here at the very end of the last millennium.
d) In the 1980s, I came in second/third two years running in a contest the prize of which was book publication. After grinding my teeth a while, I sent the book to UIL Press and it became one of their short fiction series: HOME FIRES (1982). I later worked with Ann Weir/Lowry for a number of years vetting mss. for them. That series had a design element that linked the covers: A big picture of the author's face. Thus, if I want to confront my first book of fiction I'm obliged to see how I looked then--the photo was from lilac season, 1979--I know that because the uncropped pic was all lilacs, and I have a beard and I shaved it off later that summer on the last day of being an extra on HEAVEN'S GATE. Anyway, it's a situation akin to comparing the cover of, say, SWEET BABY JAMES with a shot of SBJ today. Sigh.
e) So, hey, you unleashed a torrent this morning. Love the Stack.
I loved every bit of this.
Oh thank you so much!
Thank you for this! I've loved the Gits and now I cant wait to read Steve's book. Mia and guys were such a gift. That band was incredible - so talented. Mia's writing and visual art was so powerful, it always blew me away. My favorite song of all time is "Second Skin". I believe it just might be the greatest rock song ever written. I pull out the "Second Skin" 45 often and play it really loud!
"Second Skin" is an INCREDIBLE song. Blows me away every time. Thanks for reading!
I was in a shitty corporate hotel room this summer for work & happened upon a true crime show where Mia’s murder was the topic & it hurt my brain. Looking forward to this book.
I also suffer from the write it til it’s perfect mentality and I’m trying to shake it. The messiness is better, and more important, than the preciousness. It’s funny-I often wonder ‘how does Martha do it?’
Usually I do it by not writing for days on end while telling myself it doesn't matter, no one gives a shit, until I get so bored of listening to this narrative in my head that I realize that hey! nobody gives a shit! and that frees me to spit something out and press send without proofreading. Or a least that's my current "process." xo
So much to respond to here.
a) I seem to remember watching a film about Mia at SIFF--at least ten years ago. I was in Montana for the 70s-90s and missed stuff (poor radio for a long time, young kids)--my own kids got me onto PJ fairly early. Anyway, if you don't know the film, see if you can dig it up?
b) I'm reading a book by Liz Riggs about the indie scene in Nashville--narrator works the door at a club, fairly recent time setting, LO-FI; a great deal of, let's say, intemperate behavior--maybe not the highest of art but engaging and page-turn-y, plus, a number of times throughout she slips in 10-plus song playlists [which I've started to assemble, for the hell of it, on Spotify] . . . I may not be her target audience, but what the hell. When you're my age, it's of course fun to see the the young abusing themselves--a statement that's both untrue and true.
c) The Comet. Well, I missed that scene, too, but I had student in Missoula from Seattle who said it was her dive bar of choice so I made it my business to know it once I moved here at the very end of the last millennium.
d) In the 1980s, I came in second/third two years running in a contest the prize of which was book publication. After grinding my teeth a while, I sent the book to UIL Press and it became one of their short fiction series: HOME FIRES (1982). I later worked with Ann Weir/Lowry for a number of years vetting mss. for them. That series had a design element that linked the covers: A big picture of the author's face. Thus, if I want to confront my first book of fiction I'm obliged to see how I looked then--the photo was from lilac season, 1979--I know that because the uncropped pic was all lilacs, and I have a beard and I shaved it off later that summer on the last day of being an extra on HEAVEN'S GATE. Anyway, it's a situation akin to comparing the cover of, say, SWEET BABY JAMES with a shot of SBJ today. Sigh.
e) So, hey, you unleashed a torrent this morning. Love the Stack.