tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7563857955550075512024-03-04T23:25:53.154-08:00Fists & Angles, Christs & Angels...a solipsistic take on art, music, and the written word.Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.comBlogger198125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-36273515020621328442017-12-18T06:04:00.002-08:002017-12-18T06:04:42.910-08:00"The Salesman of the Self," or "Why I Gave Up on the 'American Dream'" <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don't remember when it happened, but I stopped believing in certain
things way back when.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I no longer expect to have a retirement fund.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I no longer expect to own a house.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have no expectation of paying off my student loans before I die.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have no expectations of getting married or having children.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I no longer expect to work the same job for 30 years, and then retire
from it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I no longer expect the best out of the majority of people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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These may sound like bleak ideas, but...broken down, I don't think many
other people could argue against these ideas. I know plenty of my friends, both
here in the Midwest and those across the country, who hold these same beliefs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Your first response to this might be something along the lines of
"you should be more positive" or "with enough hard work, you can
achieve these things." Don't say that or you'll miss my point entirely.
I'm nearly 40 years old and, while I have plenty of life left to live, these
are my OBSERVATIONS and ANECDOTAL STORIES rather than any kind of hard factual
or statistical analysis leading to a greater truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>RETIREMENT FUND</u></b>: I've been in the work force since I was 15, starting
off doing construction work during the summer to pay for a trip to Washington,
D.C. the following year. From then on, I've worked the last 23 years non-stop
with maybe a grand total of three months where I've been unemployed during that
entire time. Work is not a foreign concept to me, having had three jobs during
undergrad and a full time, hard manual labor job during graduate school. I'm
currently looking for a second job purely so I can, yet again, simply have a
buffer to help take care of the important stuff: car repairs, medical, a dinner
out more than once a month, etc.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have a 401k plan like most, but after experiencing the events of 2007
and 2008, I don't trust that it will be there long enough for me to actually do
anything with it. I'd love to add money to it, but I'm barely scraping by as is
after FINALLY getting a position situated in my career choice. For now, I have
to build up the experience necessary before moving on to something else. This
is fixable on my end, dependent upon the choices I make.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>HOME OWNERSHIP</u></b>: Honestly, at this point? I could give a shit about
owning a house. There's certainly the argument that I'm just wasting money by
not having my rent payments be mortgage payments, but I find that to be a
garbage argument based on the POSSIBILITY of the home becoming a kind of
savings account (the expectation being that one will make money on the home
later, which isn't guaranteed by any means). Add on the fact that I don't have
to worry about paying out of pocket for HVAC repairs, plumbing, electrical
repairs, etc...and why would I want to own a house/home/condo? I do
not trust the market or the fluctuation of time to hold steady enough for this
to be a viable thing any more.</div>
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<b><u>STUDENT LOANS</u></b>: I mean, what can I really say about this one? We're sold
the idea that education will open up more opportunity, but with stagnating
wages often stagnating more, why would I ever expect my student loan payments
to disappear? Despite making monthly payments for the last seven years, my
grand total is some $30k more than I originally borrowed, which is a pretty
messed up situation. What the student loan industry is doing to the vast
majority of people in this country is criminal. Plain and simple.</div>
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I took out the loans, I make the payments, so I accept the
responsibility of all of that. Still...<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>MARRIED/CHILDREN</u></b>: This directly ties into the previous issues because
it's wrapped up in finances - apparently, it's expensive to raise a child. And
while, yes, I understand that nobody is ever really financially ready for
child-rearing, the longer I live, the less I want to have a family of my own.
I've come to really enjoy and appreciate my solitude and the freedom of time
and space it provides me in terms of my creating. If that sounds selfish,
well...it probably is. But at least I can admit it better than most.</div>
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And though finances are tied to this, this is another concept where my
stance can be easily changed in the future. Is it likely to change? Maybe only
on the marriage front, but pretty unlikely on the child front despite how
amazing an experience it might be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>RETIRE FROM ONE JOB</u></b>: I'm finally working a corporate job
now. I'm actually in a cubicle farm. I've been here for two years and, in a
building of about 500 people, I've seen two people actual retire while several
people (who had been here for 30+ years) were "let go" right on the
cusp of their retirement. I'm obviously making assumptions (correct or not)
about the intent of the higher-ups in these firings, but that doesn't bode well
when more people are let go near the end of their working life as opposed to
allowed to retire when they're supposed to. Not only am I seeing these
instances happen right in front of me, I continue to hear about them from
friends and family.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I'm fully expecting to work until I am planted in the
ground. I've had zero illusions about that for a very long time and that's a
little depressing.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>EXPECTING THE BEST OF PEOPLE</u></b>: This is something I see on a
daily basis and I believe it's getting worse. For whatever reason, I see a more
selfish nation. Sure, there are people out there doing the good work, but
ultimately I experience a "screw you, I got mine" kind of attitude
that's pretty damn disappointing, honestly. I'm not saying we should go
full-on socialist, but holy hell...where do we end up drawing the line on
selfish behavior?<o:p></o:p></div>
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The number of people in my groups of friends that I can
trust is dwindling. Perhaps this is the nature of aging. Perhaps this is me
being more cognizant of my time and being pickier about who I share it with.
But I've seen some former friends do some pretty sketchy things and it makes me
wonder what led them to that point. It also makes me wonder why I didn't step
in, or if I did, why I was unable to stop their soul from plummeting ever
downward.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We're all trying to sell ourselves to the general public,
whether it's something we've created, something we do at work, our ideas, our
hopes, our fears...maybe this is just the nature of the era of social media.
Maybe the tools that we use have moved us to become salesmen of the self. It
goes beyond "look at me/pay attention to me," but at its heart,
that's exactly what it is, affecting some more and affecting others less. We
all, to some degree, want to be exalted. Many of us badly want to be remembered
or have our voices heard, so we all end up shouting over each other.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In many ways, I can't really fault that line of thinking.
Honestly, who really wants to be forgotten?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me be clear: I'm not complaining about my place in this
life. I'm certainly far better off than many and I've been given many
opportunities that others will never experience. These are just a few things
I've observed over the last 20ish years as someone who's taken an active
approach in paying attention to my surroundings and those of the people in my
orbit.</div>
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I'm a mostly positive person, but I'm also a pretty cynical
person because I've seen how these situations play out time and time
again...and the results are overwhelmingly disappointing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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/rant.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-14941089818902699062017-09-17T12:05:00.000-07:002017-09-17T12:05:48.654-07:00A PSA for the Non-Creatives Looking for Favors/Work from Creatives<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
is a PSA for all you non-creatives out there. This is also for those of you who
have never tried to enlist the "services" of another creative
(whether that be music, art, writing, sculpture, fashion, whatever...), but may
want to. Please pay attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I've
been writing since I was in elementary school. I've been doing it seriously
since about 2005, hoping to one day teach it at the college level because I'm a
whore for language. I've also been a DJ since around 2000/2001 because I'm a
whore for music (but I've loved music since I was mad young). These are my
passions and I have spent an uncountable number of hours, full days, full
months (possibly full years at this point) practicing, perfecting, researching,
trying/failing, performing/bombing, experimenting, schooling (myself and
others), and living these two artistic mediums.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I've
been asked on numerous occasions to help people out with their various
projects. Some I've been more than happy to help on; the time and effort
required by me was minuscule or I was paying back a favor or another creative
simply needed a hand. Other times have left me scratching my head - like having
multiple people ask if I'll write their books for them. While I'm honored,
that's not really what I do; I don't ghostwrite. I will, however, help edit,
review, give notes, or general (or specific) opinions on how you should
approach your project. But understand, the more time it requires of me, the
more money it will require from you. My "expertise," such as it is,
in both of these mediums comes at a price.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">You
may see my posts about new stories getting picked up for publication or the
times I've done readings. You've certainly seen my annoying posts trying to
hype my debut story collection (of which I most certainly made sure to pay the
artist that did the cover art and the logistics of making that happen). What you
don't see are the full Saturdays or Sundays where I go through my absurdly long
list of places to publish, double-check that I've not submitted there recently,
and spend the next several hours sending out submissions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What you
don't see the 40 rejection letters I get in a single month. You don't see me
pacing my apartment floor trying to figure out if the concept I'm working on is
something I'm both enjoying AND that others will enjoy. You don't see the notes
I scribble out onto spare slips of paper or in an app on my phone for later
use. You don't see me vacillate between ideas, hoping one works better than
another. And you damn sure don't see me, splayed out on my living room floor,
writing (or trying to write) from early Saturday morning to early Sunday morning
on the weekends I'm not sending out story submissions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
this kind of behavior isn't just indicative of writing or music. The other
artistic disciplines require the same kind of patience, practice, number of
failures, number of successes, and those artists get the same kind of people
asking for those artistic favors to be doled out like candy simply because
they're not able to do it themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We,
the creators, have been putting in the work since day one. It is annoying and
it is disrespectful of the talent and the time required of us to become just
good enough that you would ask of them those particular favors and NOT seem to
understand that payment would be required.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> This goes for any non-creative work as well; plumbers, interior decorators, accountants, lawyers, whatever...but this seems to be most prevalent in industries dominated by creative output. Quit asking favors of people who have taken the time to be excellent at what they do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Bottom
line: if you expect someone to create (or do) something for you, expect to pay for that product or service.
We done paid our dues and it's not unfair for us to start collecting on them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(108,823)</span></div>
Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-87074255579743302452017-08-08T11:11:00.001-07:002017-08-08T11:11:35.952-07:00I've Been Spending Time on Steemit Messing about with Cryptocurrency<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIfDLECDaarjwqYw4znBWRA09-Z-ntsBU2BcNJ5DRQUhJ-Kwpjs235ZvNzCc6mZf__SiummFiTkwLeIpwtu2mDEzah-75OLibvHl5TzR-xHS96a06Xw4CX7C-U2InGd1SDwGdrwA9YWUgz/s1600/Steemit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="620" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIfDLECDaarjwqYw4znBWRA09-Z-ntsBU2BcNJ5DRQUhJ-Kwpjs235ZvNzCc6mZf__SiummFiTkwLeIpwtu2mDEzah-75OLibvHl5TzR-xHS96a06Xw4CX7C-U2InGd1SDwGdrwA9YWUgz/s400/Steemit.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A couple of DJ buddies of mine got me hip to this site. The payout process is a little convoluted, but it's allowing me a little time to interact with other writers and people with interests not too dissimilar from mine. Basically there are multiple ways you can get paid: as a curator or as a writer. Then there are several 'currencies' you could be paid in: Steem, Steem Dollars, and Steem Power, all three of which (though a number of processes) can be turned into Bitcoin, which can then be turned into actual money.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk-QKNiJH2OxSqobsjxU46itMhvBF1Esb_xcdDMoJGhPvF7kDIvSDCdBJ69IT7BZcnro4Jqn6KnvNYB-PQXn14NcQ6I2ct17cWHTuF3zpl-oMojuMxoGspWV7JRBHCAnqwjW04rUBA2BEl/s1600/conversion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="1055" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk-QKNiJH2OxSqobsjxU46itMhvBF1Esb_xcdDMoJGhPvF7kDIvSDCdBJ69IT7BZcnro4Jqn6KnvNYB-PQXn14NcQ6I2ct17cWHTuF3zpl-oMojuMxoGspWV7JRBHCAnqwjW04rUBA2BEl/s400/conversion.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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For now, I'm just writing and interacting. I'm sure at some point I'll cash out my earnings (as soon as I figure out the paying taxes aspect of things so that I'm totally aboveboard with all this), but even if I don't cash out, it's an interesting concept to get involved in: cryptocurrency.<br />
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I'm cautiously tentative about the whole idea, but here's the Wikipedia article on the nature of cryptocurrency: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UC9CFW_jUq0r46QPDhk0FDVWcol-uB7wgiVL19zE3ErxIMi-DRicihdTHNfNiL4DZtz1PPh3qx24LeTRbTd-E0G7AX42vBF8RypnSNcSZQ6KZkJ2FUVegSG0wPxvGYUzff7yFfWQGepx/s1600/wallet.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="1193" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UC9CFW_jUq0r46QPDhk0FDVWcol-uB7wgiVL19zE3ErxIMi-DRicihdTHNfNiL4DZtz1PPh3qx24LeTRbTd-E0G7AX42vBF8RypnSNcSZQ6KZkJ2FUVegSG0wPxvGYUzff7yFfWQGepx/s400/wallet.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The whole Steemit site is full of people from all walks of life: anarchists, housewives, models, writers, musicians, day traders interested in the new monetary market, etc. It's pretty much a melting pot of people from all over the world.<br />
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For whatever reason, many users feel like Steemit is the site that will finally put a halt to Facebook. I think that's nonsense. FB is a behemoth and offers a whole host of things that Steemit does not and very likely will not, to say nothing of the fact that Steemit is monetized and requires a significantly larger amount of work from its users in order to function. The majority of internet users simply aren't that invested in putting that much work in. They just aren't.<br />
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Anyway, if your interest is piqued, come find me over on the site. I'm mostly posting the same stuff I post here: music, art, books, writing...nerdy creative stuff. You know the deal.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIgy4zzjgtSN2X41TvZktmtXrcl5D_G5pEW2X29hLwV4VG72RNcv6MvJOY5CstpZjnF-Dk9cAQDYbXvBYG9HTcY57_YXLsEoW6MKrm6VHy5r0wbURHBs9NVjrSUIIrlrM8XHIK5Gq8rCp/s1600/profile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="1482" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIgy4zzjgtSN2X41TvZktmtXrcl5D_G5pEW2X29hLwV4VG72RNcv6MvJOY5CstpZjnF-Dk9cAQDYbXvBYG9HTcY57_YXLsEoW6MKrm6VHy5r0wbURHBs9NVjrSUIIrlrM8XHIK5Gq8rCp/s640/profile.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>(107,411)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-85173762273015060312017-05-25T05:33:00.000-07:002017-05-25T05:33:55.865-07:00Creative Ebb and Flow (Publications & New Mixes)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6Xb4TusHnHZyj78n7GEmkqCZ74ffrLtf1vLre8svZt1W9IA1daAth4wsRb16AA8UHxtqqcmQJgKqrosjypDQqBjDQf3jopCIi-to4m-ZXjYN5imZWAlE09BZBuj8-sdOddvlFGZFBGCN/s1600/wave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK6Xb4TusHnHZyj78n7GEmkqCZ74ffrLtf1vLre8svZt1W9IA1daAth4wsRb16AA8UHxtqqcmQJgKqrosjypDQqBjDQf3jopCIi-to4m-ZXjYN5imZWAlE09BZBuj8-sdOddvlFGZFBGCN/s400/wave.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
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Every creative has their own process for bringing something into being. Mine has changed significantly over the years; before, I would stumble during the last few months of the year due to holidays and massive amounts of traveling to visit family. Now that I'm back home near family, I travel less, which means the holiday season takes up less head space.<br />
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It took me awhile to find my proper writing place in the new apartment. First I tried different sides of the table in my cramped dining room.<br />
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No dice.<br />
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Then I tried sitting in the living room chair. Again, nada.<br />
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It took me herniating, and then rupturing, the disc between my L5 and L4 vertebrae to find the perfect place to create: right there on the floor.<br />
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It's been over half a year since the surgery and I still find myself splayed out on the floor working on the next book. I find it strangely comfortable and the position puts me in a mental place that's conducive for massive output. Since January, I've completed 6 stories totaling close to 100 pages and I can tell you that these pieces are easily some of the strangest I've ever written and I love that.<br />
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On the writing front, I had an older piece finally published over at <a href="https://newdeadfamilies.com/">New Dead Families</a>. Zack Wentz, the editor, saw promise in the story and offered up some editorial suggestions over multiple emails. Without his help, the story would not be nearly as good as it is now. He made some great points and nearly all his edits appear in "Los Comederos," which you can read <a href="https://newdeadfamilies.com/links/current/current-2/los-comederos-by-adam-bucho-rodenberger/">right here.</a><br />
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I've also created a few new DJ mixes since my last posting in March (sorry; I was riding the creative wave and had zero interest in updating this blog at the time). We had a ton of rain near the end of April and much of May (the weather remains chilly and wet), so the climate fundamentally affected my mood. This, of course, translated into making some new mixes, which you can find below. The rain can be a great creative influence for its rhythmic nature and the chaos it can create simply by being.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUhIa1i5X3A0Nx7rSbMWHtZrcQhPbL-5CQIZ0fsJfzM3Ya57Eo86RArrpzuxwt4Y6c-Q9DgGDYJdrchI7WryL6Dv0GiX9IRRcq1iGosajHh9Zxh1gwhYNmllbSL09aPE9QVWXDus8N1b98/s1600/bnbstorm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUhIa1i5X3A0Nx7rSbMWHtZrcQhPbL-5CQIZ0fsJfzM3Ya57Eo86RArrpzuxwt4Y6c-Q9DgGDYJdrchI7WryL6Dv0GiX9IRRcq1iGosajHh9Zxh1gwhYNmllbSL09aPE9QVWXDus8N1b98/s1600/bnbstorm.JPG" /></a></div>
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A lot of classic old school hip hop instrumentals along with some new school cats making some great chillhop stuff. Dark and jazzy. </div>
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You can listen to this one <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/trip-hop-instrumental-hip-hop-bourbon-blunts-storm/">right here.</a></div>
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19 tracks</div>
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54 minutes</div>
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89 bpm</div>
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<b><u>Bourbon & Blunts: Storm</u></b></div>
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J.Dilla - Flyyyyy</div>
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The Basement Khemist - Vibrate (Instrumental)</div>
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Sadat X ft. Grand Puba - Open Bar (Instrumental)</div>
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Shadez of Brooklyn - Change (Instrumental)</div>
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Lord Finesse - True and Livin (Instrumental)</div>
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O.C. - Can't Go Wrong (Instrumental)</div>
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Lord Finesse - Gameplan (Instrumental)</div>
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Blackstar - Respiration (Flying High Instrumental)</div>
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Mono:Massive - Do Some Real</div>
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Philanthrope - SoulandBody</div>
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Anitek - Little Nails</div>
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Mono:Massive - Bamboo</div>
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The Unspoken Heard - Elevator Music (Instrumental)</div>
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Philanthrope & Devaloop - Forgotten Nights</div>
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1st Down - Front Street (Instrumental)</div>
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Nomad - Blessed 2 Mic Check (Instrumental)</div>
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Saukrates - Hate Runs Deep (Remix Instrumental)</div>
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J.Dilla - R U Listening? (Instrumental)</div>
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Anitek - Mechanism</div>
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Inspired by the weather, but recorded on a sunny morning. More old school hip hop instrumentals mixed with some new school chillhop; all jazzy and perfect for a slow sunny morning or chilled out on the patio during a light thunderstorm. </div>
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You can listen to this one <a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/trip-hop-instrumental-hip-hop-bourbon-blunts-thunder/">right here.</a></div>
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23 tracks</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
65 minutes</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
89 bpm</div>
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<b><u>Bourbon & Blunts: Thunder</u></b></div>
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Mono:Massive & Philanthrope - Live It Everyday</div>
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Mono:Massive & Philanthrope - Monothrope</div>
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Shag - Cerulean</div>
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Jurassic 5 - Thin Line (Instrumental)</div>
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O.C. - The Crow (Instrumental)</div>
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Philanthrope & Devaloop - Takealookaround</div>
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Full Crate - Never Never</div>
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Anitek - Room Chase</div>
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O.C. - Hypocrite (Instrumental)</div>
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Soul Position - Run</div>
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PH Theme - Le Peuple de L'Herbe</div>
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The ParanormL - Shapes of Jazz</div>
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Figub Brazlevic - Father & Son</div>
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Haz - Ghetto Morning</div>
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El Sun - Dorothy Dillarock</div>
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Dj Four One One - Highest Melodies (Intro Loop)</div>
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Shingo Suzuki - Red Earth</div>
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Mass Influence - Rhyme Placement (Instrumental)</div>
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Lord Finesse - Soul Plan (Instrumental)</div>
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Philanthrope & Devaloop - Tito</div>
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Grimeshine - Freefall</div>
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Presto - Avenues </div>
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Gyvus - Koi</div>
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<i>"The monster I kill every day is the monster of realism. The monster who attacks me every day is destruction. Out of the duel comes the transformation. I turn destruction into creation over and over again."</i></div>
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- <span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87);"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Anaïs Nin</span></span></div>
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(105,839)Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-88432850290444495562017-03-31T06:35:00.000-07:002017-03-31T06:37:40.612-07:00The Pervasive (and Vitally Important) Nature of Language Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Language has a problem...and it is us.<br />
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I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that we've not only butchered language in many ways (Twitter and text speak, anyone?), but we've also gotten very, very good at layering words and phrases to have multiple meanings.<br />
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Practicing linguists probably find this evolution interesting, and in its own right, it absolutely is at the purely academic level. But once we dive headlong into the ramifications of where language seems to be heading, it stops being academic and starts being indicative of something else, something far less pure. Every culture has its own subculture(s) of language evolving up and out into thousands of nuanced levels of slang. In medicine, politics, even just the most basic of corporate offices, language is used to both simplify complex conversations and communicate without being offensive (usually).<br />
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But what I want to focus on is the use of language throughout the current electorate. We now have an election process that lasts for an ungodly long 18 months (if not longer, in some cases). Throughout the course of this time frame, we the people are bombarded with campaign slogans and what used to be elevated trash-talking. This last election cycle may have been the worst on record, purely from an outside perspective. .<br />
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We were already at odds with each other politically through much of the social media world. I didn't think it was possible for the fever-pitch to achieve its own fever-pitch, but here we are in what can only be described as one of the most divisive times in American history (maybe world history as well, but that's for someone far smarter and more globally-minded than I to decipher).<br />
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There was a mass of unfriendings on Facebook during this last election; those on the right unfriended those on the left and those on the left unfriended those on the right. Every day, I witnessed new examples of it popping up in my news feed. I didn't understand why. I understand better now, though I disagree with the response.<br />
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I enjoy a good political discourse. Anyone who holds a different opinion than I do always has the opportunity to change my mind based on a few things: the argument/discussion is civil, there are clear, untarnished FACTS being presented, and we're still able to remain friends if the discussion ends in a stalemate where one of us has not convinced the other of our position. Evidence of these three things in most of the public debates I've seen is seriously lacking. In many ways, we can blame the anonymity of the internet (in regards to the comments sections of most news articles). But with Facebook, unless the discussion is completely public, we tend to know the people involved in the conversation.<br />
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There's the old saying by Edward Bulwer-Lytton goes "the pen is mightier than the sword." In its original context, the phrase was meant to be empowering, meaning that communication (or the power of an independent press) is a more effective tool than violence. Taken out of context, one could also say that "words cut deeper than any blade is able," and we're getting very, very good at using language as a weapon rather than as a salve.<br />
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More often than not, I've seen the political arguments devolve into baseless, presumptive name calling. Part of this is obvious frustration at one party's denial of irrefutable evidence that their position (often also their opinion) is incorrect. Other times, this devolution is based purely in cognitive bias; we believe what we believe and screw you for believing differently.<br />
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I'd love to say that I'm some bastion of the unbiased life. I am not. I have, early on, fallen prey to using language as a weapon. Whether aimed at a former lover or at someone who disagreed with me politically, the words acted in much the same manner and garnered the exact same ineffective result, only serving to make me look like a total asshole...which is exactly what I was in those moments.<br />
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The current president does us no favors in many ways. And full disclosure: I didn't vote for him, but I hope I'm treating all of this with as much neutrality as possible. Not only do most of his off-the-cuff comments lack a great deal of nuance, the lack of complexity in his language does very little to keep the elevated status of the White House.<br />
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Throughout the campaign, we saw and heard things at a linguistic level that essentially made him sound like every trolling Youtube commenter. The way he spoke about women, the way he treated the other candidates that shared stage time with him, and the repetition of zero-calorie phrases (<i>tremendous, the best</i>, et.al) are all fairly indicative of where we're at right now. Language no longer seems to mean anything.<br />
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There's the pervasive idea that politicians lie, and they do, so we as an electorate expect it. But when the lies are so obvious, then proven wrong, then double-down upon by the people in power, this is an immense problem in need of fixing. When the facts disprove your claim, you should be humble (and intelligent) enough to know when to apologize or retract your previous claim. If these continual lies are unintentional, they can be forgiven. If they are intentional, meant to divide and conquer further, then that is absolutely unforgivable. Using language in bad faith does no one any good save for the speaker.<br />
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We can certainly branch off into the unfortunate nature of news as a business model, but the way headlines in periodicals of all political stripes have become hyperbolic (and quite frankly, ridiculous) also does us no favors. They appeal to our deepest, but most easily accessible, biases. Are there some news outlets that favor one party over another? Certainly. Does every news outlet have a political bias? I'd argue no. I believe that mostly comes down to the individual except in cases of obvious political leanings on the part of the organization (Huffington Post, Fox News, etc.).<br />
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But here we are, wondering why we can't talk to each other while all the evidence is right there staring us in the face every day. We don't seem to care about language unless it does something inherently beneficial on our behalf. We need to break ourselves of this. We continue to use language as a weapon and we keep sharpening the blades like we're preparing for war when we should be preparing for deep, in-depth discussion instead.<br />
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There are plenty of instances I could continue to point to that show just how far down the rabbit hole we're going in terms of language being abused rather than being used to its full potential in better, more meaningful ways. And lord knows I'm constantly trying to be better about that myself, though I falter the way a normal person does. But I've also kept all the people I disagree with in my Facebook news feed. I find it more interesting to see their opinions, to engage them when I'm in the mood for a political conversation. I have no problems with changing my mind; having an opinion flipped on its head due to facts is how it's supposed to work. Your opinions aren't supposed to be set in stone, especially when there's evidence to the contrary.<br />
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But we should all be doing a better job of preserving and using language in better, less self-serving ways.<br />
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<i>(96,442)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-50860509454095898842017-03-10T04:56:00.000-08:002017-03-10T04:56:34.209-08:00New Writings, New DJ Mixes<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttZZJlJ_bEfLDcf1RHhtktmUnQBHJc9YqmUDUUekhnO5wnPWC2Pr3DJbmcbHPUfknJdEoypEVEUoQoH-XPyd534arX-V9OUMkZDIQzpkJR8Q3mOZP7h-FYfr2uwN0fgvEjfN4Uhyphenhyphenen7g1/s1600/Typewriter_-_Underwood_typewriter_-_Kroton_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttZZJlJ_bEfLDcf1RHhtktmUnQBHJc9YqmUDUUekhnO5wnPWC2Pr3DJbmcbHPUfknJdEoypEVEUoQoH-XPyd534arX-V9OUMkZDIQzpkJR8Q3mOZP7h-FYfr2uwN0fgvEjfN4Uhyphenhyphenen7g1/s400/Typewriter_-_Underwood_typewriter_-_Kroton_001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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February was crazy busy.<br />
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With all the trappings that come with getting promoted also came a lack of anyone being hired to replace me in my old position and it seems like we got hit with twice the work. I've had quite a few 60-hour weeks just trying to help us get caught up. It's been exhausting, but a good learning experience as well. I went from *maybe* 5 emails from writers a day to about 40 from writers, higher-ups, and outside contacts.<br />
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A lot of office fires have been put out since my last post almost a month ago.<br />
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Sales of "Scaring the Stars into Submission" have....let's say, dwindled. It's not surprising, but it's mildly disappointing. There was a 10-day stretch where nothing shipped. That was rough, especially since I bought ads hyping the book to show on three sites: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/">Goodreads</a>, Facebook, and Instagram.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-p_nWspaT7i-WhTBqwBSD6XkAdeuzpGfYUoaN26pVXFOHytot7H7z5NX1UT0n8MC5L8vnaByFKTaequ0tn47Q6PK4zwTJwHXOds79xHXyLaoUgAjHkC7qS_4wfKZjYlxCHxrozITwAmt/s1600/Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ-p_nWspaT7i-WhTBqwBSD6XkAdeuzpGfYUoaN26pVXFOHytot7H7z5NX1UT0n8MC5L8vnaByFKTaequ0tn47Q6PK4zwTJwHXOds79xHXyLaoUgAjHkC7qS_4wfKZjYlxCHxrozITwAmt/s400/Cover.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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I started with the Facebook ad. Figured it would reach the most amount of people, and it did. But I found that the most action came from the Instagram ad. Something like 15,000 people physically interacted with the ad (liked it), while only about 400 of them actually clicked the link to check out the book. There was zero bump in sales.<br />
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So I moved over to Goodreads, a place full of nothing but readers and authors. To date, 45,232 people have seen the ad; 17 have clicked on it. Maybe 2 or 3 people have added it to their reading queue. No idea if they've bought a copy or not.<br />
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But as of right now, 177 copies of the book have sold since it's debut on New Year's Eve; 8 kindle copies and 169 paperbacks. That's a pretty damn good number two months out considering I don't have the backing of a publishing house or anyone else to really help me hype the book in other markets. Response to it, thus far, has been overwhelmingly positive, which is great considering how strange a book it will be for most people.<br />
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And honestly, I'm just really happy it's out there. I hope it gets a small cult-ish following of rabid fans ready for the next collection (which is done, but won't be released until the end of the year or early next year).<br />
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In the meantime, as I wait for the foreword and cover art to be completed for "The Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories," I've been working on a few new pieces for the third collection. At the moment, it's tentatively titled "Trying to Prepare for a Life I'll Never Have." Where TMotH:LS ventures into more realism in most of the stories, I'm actively trying to bring out the weirdness that made StSiS such a fascinating read, both as a writer and as a reader.<br />
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After all, if I'm not excited about what I'm putting on the page, why should the readers get excited? If there's no passion there, people can tell. In writing, in cooking, in art - people know when something's been done half-assed. It's often easy to tell.<br />
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Currently, I have 22 stories in various states of completion for TtPfaLINH. I'm most excited about the ones that have come quickly and decisively, the ones that actively tried to claw their way out of my brain onto the page.<br />
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"Dust" - The story of a woman who has lost interest in her marriage, but finds a kind of exhilaration every Tuesday when she cleans her house from top to bottom in a very unconventional way.<br />
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"The Museum of Mirrors and the (Mostly) Dead" - I started this one a week before reading Millhauser's story "Miracle Polish" and decided after that I'd throw in a little homage to his piece. 10 mirrors from different historical points in time are on display in a nondescript museum. Each has a wild story to tell, showing the viewer different things.<br />
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"Terroir" - The story of a man's morning ritual being turned on its head while he recounts the way in which he ended up in his current situation. This one is very Kafka-esque in a few ways. I'm curious to see how it plays out.<br />
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And now, for some music news. I've got a few gigs coming up in the next few months, so I've been trying to put out new mixes again post-back surgery. Sometimes a mix just doesn't want to be made, which sucks, but then other times a mix HAS to be made and comes out far better than you originally expected. Below are two of my latest mixes along with links to where you can hear them over at Mixcloud.<br />
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<b><u>Upcoming Gigs: </u></b></div>
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Gate 89 @ Niche, Kansas City, MO. - 03.16.17</div>
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Selekta & Friends Present: Warehouse Revival, St. Louis, MO. - 04.15.17</div>
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Hit Squad Reunion, Topeka, KS. - 04.29.17</div>
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Escape in the Beats @ the Kirkwood Lodge, Ozarks, MO. - 05.26-05.29</div>
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Wet Hot Electronic Summer @ the Kirkwood Lodge, Ozarks, MO. - 07.21.17</div>
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(I've not been booked for this one yet, but I'm hoping it happens. I'll be going regardless.)</div>
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<b><u>New Mixes:</u></b></div>
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(Click on the title of the mix to head to the streaming site)</div>
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Funk/Electro-Funk</div>
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19 Tracks</div>
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85 Minutes</div>
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117 BPM</div>
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Guaranteed to shake the junk in your trunk and put a hobble in your wobble.</div>
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All eras of caboose juice ready to let loose. </div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/funkelectrofunksoul-rumpalicious/">Rumpalicious</a></div>
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Kashif - Don't Stop My Love</div>
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The Temptations - Treat Her Like a Lady</div>
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Gino Soccio - Try It Out (Instrumental)</div>
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Discotron - Disco Ballin'</div>
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First Light - Daybreak</div>
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Rockers Review - Walking on Sunshine</div>
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Newcleus - Jam On Revenge (The Wikki Wikki Song)</div>
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Evelyn Champagne King - Your Personal Touch</div>
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Kashif - Stone Love</div>
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The Pointer Sisters - Automatic</div>
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Dayton - The Sound of Music (Extended Version)</div>
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Curtis Hairston - I Want You (All Tonight)</div>
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Newtrament - London Bridge is Falling Down</div>
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Roger Troutman - West Coast Poplock</div>
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Dam-Funk - Boogie Slyde</div>
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Delegation - You and I</div>
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Midnight Star - Wet My Whistle</div>
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Aurra - Such a Feeling</div>
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The Detroit Experiment - Think Twice</div>
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Jazzy, heavy on the basslines, and plenty of horns.</div>
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The soundtrack to the spy movie you never seen,</div>
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but maybe the one you wanted to act out.</div>
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19 Tracks</div>
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75 Minutes</div>
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90 BPM</div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/triphopjazzchillout-espionage-at-night/">Espionage at Night</a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Kool & the Gang - Messenger of Wisdom</div>
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Beanfield - Breeze</div>
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Rae & Christian - Catch a Rude Awakening</div>
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Coffee Shop - If You Got Soul</div>
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George Pallikaris - In Search Of...</div>
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Alex Cortiz - Afterworld</div>
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Ingrid Schroeder - Paint You Blue (Muggs Instrumental Mix)</div>
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Guardner - N.Y.C. (Edit)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Air - Modular Mix</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
David Axelrod - House of Mirrors</div>
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Omega One - Body Double</div>
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Anitek - Chamomile</div>
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Sven Van Hees - Ocean Jive</div>
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Towa Tei - Technova (La em Copacaban)</div>
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3582 - Early Morning</div>
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Alex Cortiz - Room 505</div>
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Anitek - Fixation</div>
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Menahan Street Band - Karina</div>
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Dj Cam Quartet - Tribute to J. Dilla</div>
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Things are about to get busier on a personal level, what with gigs, this new writing momentum, and all the traveling and pool time that comes with summer, but hopefully I'll have more to update with soon.<br />
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<i>(93,337)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-34892899032312021732017-02-16T04:22:00.000-08:002017-02-16T08:48:19.115-08:00Rachel Nagelberg's Debut Novel "The Fifth Wall"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnIKJLG1zbAZVI-u6CvQ_JwNv4yV-QB4cPYnhrba8O6tS8yIzM7LX0zK4wOT9Pcz9d7WqtU0R80ADL8dwxGt-yxCs9ZtiuA9bVv_q9DEF24iCXpF5EuYZ8JpuGw3V-rjLDVktwc3Op29m9/s1600/TFW+front+cover+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnIKJLG1zbAZVI-u6CvQ_JwNv4yV-QB4cPYnhrba8O6tS8yIzM7LX0zK4wOT9Pcz9d7WqtU0R80ADL8dwxGt-yxCs9ZtiuA9bVv_q9DEF24iCXpF5EuYZ8JpuGw3V-rjLDVktwc3Op29m9/s640/TFW+front+cover+copy.jpg" width="412" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Fifth Wall</i></span></b></div>
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<b>by</b></div>
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<b>Rachel Nagelberg</b><br />
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(<i>Black Sparrow Press, 176pgs</i>)</div>
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Available for Pre-Order and Released on May 15th</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Wall-Rachel-Nagelberg/dp/1574232282%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAIS3LK4ULG464ALIA%26tag%3Dleebrii-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1574232282">Purchase Link</a></div>
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There are horror stories that come out of MFA programs, stories that talk of unscrupulous and catty authors-to-be. That was, as I've said before, not a thing I experienced during my time at the University of San Francisco. My philosophy has always been "support other writers" since not one of us will ever know how our books will sell, if they'll sell, or how they'll be critiqued by readers. It makes zero sense to *not* lift up the other writers around us and wish for their success.<br />
<br />
So when a former classmate puts out a book, I like to do my best to help hype their work since we are often relegated to hyping our books on our own. An extra voice is always good and welcomed and I am always stoked to be able to help out my former classmates and friends.<br />
<br />
I didn't have any classes with Rachel during my time at USF, so I never had a chance to read her work in class, but we interacted often and I know a little about what and who she reads, so I have a decent take on her literary aesthetic. I would be lying if I said I was not super excited to dig into her debut novel immediately.<br />
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You can read an excerpt at 3AM Magazine: </div>
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<a href="http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/fifth-wall-rachel-nagelberg-excerpt/">http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/fifth-wall-rachel-nagelberg-excerpt/</a></div>
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Another excerpt should be forthcoming from The Brooklyn Rail. </div>
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She currently has two readings scheduled to promote the book: </div>
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Tuesday, May 16th w/Stephen Beachy @ Skylight Books in Los Angeles</div>
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Thursday, May 18th w/TBD @ The Booksmith in San Francisco</div>
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<b><u>About the Book</u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"In this debut novel by Rachel Nagelberg,
conceptual artist Sheila B. Ackerman heeds a mysterious urge to return to her
estranged family home and arrives at the exact moment of her mother’s suicide.
In an attempt to cope with and understand her own self destructive tendencies,
Sheila plants a camera on the lawn outside the house to film 24/7 while workers
deconstruct the physical object that encases so many of her
memories. Meanwhile, as she begins to experience frequent blackouts, she
finds herself hunting a robot drone through the San Francisco MOMA with a
baseball bat, part of a provocative, technological show, <i>The Last Art</i>,
and resuming a violent affair with her college professor. With a backdrop
of post-9/11 San Francisco, Sheila navigates the social-media-obsessed,
draught-ridden landscape of her life, exploring the frail line between the
human impulse to control everything that takes place around us and the futility
of excessive effort to do so. <i>The Fifth Wall</i> allows readers to
explore from a safe distance the recesses of their own minds, leaving the
haunting feeling of depths that yet remain unknown."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u>Blurbs</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"Set into motion by an inexplicable, traumatic
and violent real-life event, Rachel Nagelberg’s <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">brilliant first novel begins at the limits of
contemporary art, as it attempts to reflect the <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">ungraspable present. Born in 1984 into a familiarly frayed
American family, her protagonist Sheila B. Ackerman, a former art student, is
neither especially likable or unlikeable: that is, she’s incredibly real.
A close artistic cousin to Joni Murphy’s Double Teenage and Natasha
Stagg’s Surveys, The Fifth Wall is a new kind of novel. Female and philosophical,
emotion flows through the book across a dense and familiarly incomprehensible
web of information, from satellite selfies to awkward sex to
internet beheadings and shamanic tourism in the third world. Nagelberg's
engrossing narration is littered with stunning perception: <i>We look into
the distance to be able to see what’s right in front of us. </i>She
writes without affect, and with unselfconscious acuity. That is, she writes
really well." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">– Chris Kraus, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">author of <i>I
Love Dick</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"Nagelberg has a true gift, able to write gorgeously on
the line level with unctuous images. And simultaneously, there's a readable
page-turner here. Most of us are lucky to do one of those, which is a testament
to the singular talent. This book cascades beauty and meaning and truth."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">– Joshua Mohr, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">author of <i>All This Life</i> and <i>Termite Parade</i>, a New York Times
Editor’s Choice pick<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">"The
Fifth Wall</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> crackles with braininess and sex. It's
hallucinatory and interactive and funny and sad and it has something
incandescent to show you." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">– Stephen Beachy, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">author of <i>The Whistling Song</i> and <i>Distortion</i>,
and professor at the University of San Francisco<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><b><u>About the Author</u></b></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssQ3vR_ZosmeoUlizLIzb1fyE-9yoT_8gmGZpxZb_1HzTkRrZ9zf7S6rRLWmTGFcrMCjUysvUuBcn3ZsBLhX0W8AJRcMBV5SS492mBr-pTLMch3ah4ouoDAgaGliiMjRhxA0s7zt4ZIVR/s1600/author+photo1+final+v_watermarked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssQ3vR_ZosmeoUlizLIzb1fyE-9yoT_8gmGZpxZb_1HzTkRrZ9zf7S6rRLWmTGFcrMCjUysvUuBcn3ZsBLhX0W8AJRcMBV5SS492mBr-pTLMch3ah4ouoDAgaGliiMjRhxA0s7zt4ZIVR/s400/author+photo1+final+v_watermarked.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Rachel Nagelberg is an American novelist, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">poet, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">and conceptual artist living in Los Angeles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Fifth Wall</i> is her debut
novel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>(89,531)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-9662892234871992972017-02-02T11:15:00.002-08:002017-02-02T11:16:26.572-08:00Brain Swapping<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVD_kAgk_kIZN5J_ZPWINlIldHByo3pDH1kswKIsRurm51d9XN0iTNJywUsJc6-YXpNrzTwaj3mUzhXqH_E9Jo-YsiPonBtAYChvOLTSi6ea6v20DQBYv7yPFkZKz41XRhjUGZE4Dzmlcg/s1600/brain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVD_kAgk_kIZN5J_ZPWINlIldHByo3pDH1kswKIsRurm51d9XN0iTNJywUsJc6-YXpNrzTwaj3mUzhXqH_E9Jo-YsiPonBtAYChvOLTSi6ea6v20DQBYv7yPFkZKz41XRhjUGZE4Dzmlcg/s400/brain.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
With the publication of my short story collection "Scaring the Stars into Submission" (which you can buy <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520229844?ref_=pe_870760_150889320">HERE</a>), I've found myself in a hyper-creative state of mind. I've shuttered myself up in my apartment the last two weekends to do editing and revising on two more literary projects: "Rise," a magical realism novel about a two year flood that drowns a large part of a tropical countryside, and "The Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories," a collection that's been completed for awhile now, but won't be released until later this year.<br />
<br />
I always knew my thinking changed when I started focusing on writing more than the many extraneous trappings of daily life, but it was never as obvious as this week in a text exchange with my friend Mike. We were discussing weekend plans and I told him that I had fully planned on staying in to focus, that I wanted zero distractions all weekend. He said he understood and that it sounded like I had a plan as far as productivity over the course of the next three years goes. To which I responded "No plan means huge gaps between releases. Sometimes you gotta drown in the silence to hear the whispers of the fiction.<br />
<br />
He laughed and said he could tell I was writing again solely from my syntax.<br />
<br />
And he was right. I once wrote about disconnecting (from technology) in an effort to allow your brain room to breathe (you can read that <a href="http://triphoprisy.blogspot.com/2013/10/you-need-to-disconnect.html">HERE</a>). It's essential for the creative mind to often forget about the projects, whether it's painting or writing or music. Stepping away is a good thing. It often allows new inspiration to bubble up in the back of your mind...at least it does for me.<br />
<br />
I spent most of 2016 simply reconnecting with friends and trying to go out and do more up until I threw out my back. Even then, I had several friends keep me company many of those nights as I struggled with pain management and eventually surgery. It was a good year to really step back from the writing and focus on the important things. The life/work/creative life balance can be a hard one to achieve.<br />
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<br />
And I think I've finally found it. I recently got promoted at work to the Senior Content Editor position. There's still editing to do, but the majority of my work is administrative in nature. Payroll, hiring and firing, etc. This allows me to do more editing and revising of my own work once I get home. The more work done during the week means more time to spend with friends on the weekend. We're not quite there yet, but we're closer.<br />
<br />
But I digress. Making a conscious effort to slip back into full on writing has certainly changed the way I approach everything else. I say things with more thought behind them. I leave my phone in the bedroom while I write on the floor of my living room, preventing myself from checking it every five minutes (which is completely unnecessary). Time slows down and I become more productive. Last weekend I edited 17 of the 18 stories in "The Machinery of the Heart" and it's nearly 400 pages long at the moment. Currently, every edited piece is perfectly formatted and ready to be published by Amazon.<br />
<br />
Rereading through all those stories has brought up other ideas and notions worth exploring in future stories, many of which I hope will find their way into the third collection currently titled "Trying to Prepare for a Life I'll Never Have." That same Mike said that phrase as we spoke about past relationships and I was hit by the weightiness of all the narrative possibilities found in that single statement. It encapsulates so much in just nine simple words.<br />
<br />
So for now, I've swapped out the social brain for the creative brain. I always like to feel that I'm moving forward, that there is some personal goal I'm approaching. If I feel like I'm stagnating, I become frustrated. There is always something else out there to be gained when one exercises the discipline to make it happen.<br />
<br />
I put out my first book. I sold 146 copies in the first month and I couldn't be more thrilled about that. People seem to be enjoying it. I also got promoted at work, which is the first time that's happened since working at a pizza joint in high school some 20+ years ago. These are the things that keep me moving forward, that keep me pushing myself to do better and to be better. Sometimes brain swapping is necessary in order to make sure you get what you want out of life...just make sure you're putting plenty back into it.<br />
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(86,732)Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-14798933232949310952017-01-09T05:05:00.002-08:002017-01-09T05:09:08.649-08:00The Struggle of Independently Publishing Your BookRegular readers will know that I released a short story collection 10 days ago through the Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing site. Should you wish to buy a copy, you can find all the requisite information <a href="http://triphoprisy.blogspot.com/2016/12/scaring-stars-into-submission-now-on.html">at this link here. </a><br />
<br />
It has, understandably, not been without its workflow hurdles. And if you're thinking about releasing a work of your own through Amazon, you'll find some good notes below on how to approach it all.<br />
<br />
The last story I included in the collection, "Marina, Patina, Corona," was finished in July of 2015 before I moved back to Kansas City. Otherwise, all the stories in the collection were written right after I finished grad school in December of 2011 all the way through 2013. It was a fun project which forced me to keep writing, even if the format (the short story) had not been one that I really studied or focused on during my grad school days.<br />
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<br />
Compiling the collection was easy; many of the stories felt connected in some way, so placing them in a particular order in the book itself wasn't difficult. I had no skill in creating cover art, but as a reader, I knew that the cover was <i>muy importante</i> and needed to convey a similar aesthetic feeling to that found within its pages.<br />
<br />
As I'm the type to try to spread the artistic love around, I enlisted the help of my old and dear friend Rob. An artist (and DJ) himself, I thought he'd be a solid candidate for the job. We'd played many gigs together and had a lot of late nights playing records in basements and clubs around town, but we hadn't done anything non-musical together before and I wanted to see what his brain could come up with based on a few stories I emailed him and a few things that I was looking for. I was not disappointed with the final version of his creation.<br />
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Once Rob had a general idea of what I was looking for, he set to work. Meanwhile, I tried to make sure all my pages were formatted correctly, paginated right, and the table of contents matched up to everything just so. It would not be a stretch to say that I completely revamped the formatting of this book at least 20 times before we finally nailed it.<br />
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<b><u>FOR THE PAPERBACK:</u></b></div>
<br />
I chose a standard 6x9 book through the KDP site. It's a good size without being too strange or too bulky in any direction. When saving your Word documents to upload to the Amazon site, ALWAYS make sure you change the size of your Word docs to fit the size of your book. Amazon does NOT alter that for you...though they have plenty of for-pay services that will do all this for you; pass on that. You'll be glad you did.<br />
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You can change the size of your documents in Word by choosing "Layout" in the top menu bar, then clicking on "Size," and then choosing "More Paper Sizes" at the bottom of the drop-down menu to input 6.00 x 9.00. SUPER easy, but if you have strange formatting like I did, you'll definitely want to spot check every line to make sure the layout looks the way you want it to. Actually, you'll just want to do that with everything throughout the process. Again, it's a slog, but way worth the work you put into it.<br />
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I set my margins on each document to be 1" on all sides. It looks like a lot of white space through the previewer on the site, but I can assure you it will be fine when it all prints out. My book could not have come out more perfect in regards to the text and its placement.<br />
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For the actual font, I chose a 12-pt Garamond. It's both classy and stylish without being overly one or the other. Plus it's just super easy to read for most people. Win/win.<br />
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Because I did not have the ability to combine all my Word docs into a single PDF (though I've figured out how to do so now through other avenues), Rob helped me achieve that as well. It's important to note here that you'll have plenty of blank pages at the beginning of your book. I should've included about three more and really thought harder about the layout, but I'm still very happy with the final product.<br />
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A good rule of thumb when turning your text all into one large document: two blank pages, your title page, your info page (ISBN number, rights reserved, copyright, etc), two more blank pages, then your table of contents. It can be hard to wrap the brain around the formatting of a book when looking at single documents in Word.<br />
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When you finish with the text of one page in this first section (and you plan on adding more pages), go to the end of your chosen text, click "Insert" in the menu bar, choose "Page Break," and then begin adding the text for the next page. Repeat the process as needed. This will provide clean pages that translate well through the upload and review process.<br />
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Because I had a story collection, pagination was difficult to get done right. There was a foreword included by my dear friend Surya at the beginning (page numbers were in lower case Roman Numerals) and then the collection came after. Had I been thinking more clearly, I would've made sure that the title of each story, while on its own singular page, fell on the left side of the book rather than fell on whatever side came next. This is a style issue and a personal preference for me, however. With enough playing around, you'll figure out what works for you. <br />
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I put the acknowledgments/dedications at the back of the book. Some people put these at the front. Again, this is up to you. After that, the author bio. I should've added maybe two or three blank pages after that.<br />
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Once you've got your documents paginated and combined correctly, you *should* be able to upload the entire document to the paperback option on the KDP site. It won't spellcheck your document for you, so make sure you've already done that and everything's solid on that end. If there are any conflicting issues with the sizing of your cover art and the size of your document, the KDP site will let you know. If no conflicts arise, then you're off to set pricing on your book!<br />
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I honestly reformatted this book some 20 or 30 times. Different fonts, different font sizes, different margins...everything. Don't get beaten down by the amount of work you have to do on the front end. If you want it all to look right the first time, spend the extra couple hours making sure. Your readers will thank you and you'll be less likely to beat yourself up later for having not taken those extra steps in the beginning.<br />
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<b><u>FOR THE KINDLE / E-Reader:</u></b></div>
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Luckily, formatting your pages is a bit easier (I think). You don't need page numbers and you don't need to worry about margins. If you have titles in different parts of the book that tie back directly to your table of contents, you should do this for every title in your document: highlight the title within the text (not the one in the table of contents). Choose "Heading 2" in the right side of the formatting menu in Word and biggity bam. This should allow e-readers to simply click on that particular title in the table of contents and jump them right there. </div>
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After each separate section/chapter, go to the end of your chosen text, click "Insert" in the menu bar, choose "Page Break," and then begin adding the text for the next page. Repeat the process as needed. This will provide clean pages that translate well through the upload and review process. </div>
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Remove indentations. Read that again and make sure you understand. Paragraphs that start with indentations are going to translate funny in the digital readers. Just remove them all to eliminate that headache. It looks funny on the page, but it will look fantastically streamlined in the digital format. </div>
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Once you've got your entire single document ready to upload to the Kindle option on the KDP site, save it as a Rich Text Format file. You can do this in Word by clicking "File," then "Save As," then choose "Rich Text Format" from the drop down menu provided beneath the file name of your document. Whereas it took me several times to upload a proper document to the paperback side of things, I only had to do the Kindle side of things once and it all came out looking pretty great. </div>
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It should go without saying that you should check EVERY page of your manuscript through every step of this process. Technology ain't perfect and neither are you, so double, triple, and quadruple check everything EVERY step of the way. If you put out an imperfect product, you'll hate yourself for not spending the extra hour or two doing this. It will genuinely eat you alive from the inside out and it will definitely disappoint your readers. If you can't be bothered to make sure your book looks right, how can a reader be sure your actual book is worth reading? </div>
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And now...there are tons of digital markets out there, so you don't need to start with Amazon/KDP or CreateSpace, but there are certainly some benefits to doing so. I imagine if I had started with CreateSpace first, I'd be a little happier, but I'm not sure. What I do know is this: after 5 days, Amazon started discounting my book from $15.00 down to $12.00. I wasn't notified about this. After contacting them, I was told they could offer discounts if they wanted, but if the price needed to change, then I needed to go through my distributor or publisher to make those changes. Frustrating, as that put a damper on my profits (after printing costs and Amazon's take). So, that's something to keep in mind.<br />
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Otherwise, I'd say the whole process has been (thus far) pretty easy. If you don't know how to hustle your own book to people, you may want to do some research on that months before you ever plan on releasing it. Social media is a good way to get people interested, but you're more likely to have friends and family already in place ready to support your writing habit. If not, you're going to have a very tough time getting people to find and read your book in a sea of books that already drowns the reading public.<br />
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As always, your best bet is to simply write something people have not read before, something that doesn't feel or read like anything else, something that makes you stand out as an author people should start paying attention to.<br />
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<i>(81,052)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-21080007904864851722016-12-31T07:51:00.001-08:002017-01-02T07:56:25.980-08:00"Scaring the Stars into Submission" - NOW ON SALE!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>"Scaring the Stars into Submission" </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>by Adam "Bucho" Rodenberger</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
16 stories across<b> </b>354pgs</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
A blend of science fiction, magical realism, and dark surrealism spread out across a dystopian landscape. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
$9.99 for the Kindle/E-Reader Version</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
$15.00 for the Paperback Version</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Available for Purchase Here - <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MS3DOWA" target="_blank">Kindle/E-Reader</a><br />
<br />
Available for Purchase Here - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1520229844?ref_=pe_870760_150889320" target="_blank">Paperback</a></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A great, unnamed event. A world both drowning and
engulfed in flames.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Autopsies reveal gardens of lilies sprouting up
inside the rib cages of the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Clouds fall to the earth and affect the behavior of
those that come in contact with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Revolution and violent uprisings spread through
nations across the globe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Twelve blind men in a basement transcribe the
history of the world as it burns down around them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nightmares become reality; reality becomes
nightmare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Families turn to reluctant cannibalism in the hopes
of waiting out the horrors beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Corporations push to create a new population to
replace the old one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Philosophical musings from a balcony overlooking a
dark, empty city.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">A brief moment of something good between lovers as
the world begins to slowly recover.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are the stories before the event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are the stories during the event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are the stories after the event. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are the stories of people coping and
surviving, fighting to live, or fighting just to be doing something, anything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The stories in this collection are brief moments, tiny
pockets of surreal happenstance, but pure emotion. Each piece ties into the
next by the tiniest filament, each story connected to the one before and the
one after, each trying to hold on to some bit of normalcy, but failing in
spectacular and terrifying ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Maybe we had
reached a point where we were forcing ourselves to believe in something better,
something different than what this current reality was spoon-feeding us on a
daily basis. The psyche can’t cope with such bleak surroundings for long.
Something inside breaks, either for good or ill, but it breaks regardless.
Maybe we were just tired of being broken and didn’t know how to go about fixing
ourselves.”</span></i></div>
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<br />
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<i>(78,854)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-4951768186877840142016-12-30T21:12:00.000-08:002016-12-30T21:13:03.642-08:00Today We Made a Book; Tomorrow We Try to Convince People to Read It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
I graduated from the University of San Francisco in December of 2011. Over the course of three summer semesters, two fall semesters, and two spring semesters, I had completed a single novel ("Impasto"), half completed another ("Rise") and completed most of a four-part novella (currently called "Green Leaf, Brown Leaf"). I would've wasted my time had I not left the program with tons of material to work with upon graduating.<br />
<br />
Ironically, it was none of these projects I returned to immediately after graduation. I had a wealth of seemingly disconnected pieces of flash fiction, the longest measuring *maybe* 4 pages. I knew I had to keep producing new work post-grad school, but realized a full on novel was a lot of work for where my head was at then. Instead, I tried to see if any of these flash fiction pieces were worth expanding and fleshing out, worth completing to find the end of the story.<br />
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<br />
For months, I remained on my strange sleep schedule; go to bed at 7pm, wake up at 2am, have a smoke outside my building in the black San Francisco night, and type out whatever ideas came to me on my phone. The fruits of that labor are now available in a single collection called "Scaring the Stars into Submission," which is now up for sale on Amazon in hard copy. Digital copies will be made available soon; their formatting is significantly different from that of their hard copy brethren.<br />
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From February 6th, 2012 to September 1st, 2014, I spent every writing moment focused almost entirely on completing this collection. "Marina, Patina, Corona" was the last story to be completed while "Firebug for Hire" was the first. There was often no rhyme or reason to which story was completed when, only that sometimes one felt more ready to be written over the others.<br />
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What I did not expect was the stories left untold in the pages I had yet written. I flat out love this collection. At the time, I was reading a lot of Blake Butler, Ben Marcus, and Matt Bell, all of whom do fantastic work linguistically in some very strange narrative situations and settings. These authors were my base and had a great influence over me. Their books "Scorch Atlas," "The Flame Alphabet," and "How They Were Found" (respectively) have been read over and over again because they are just that good. They are also just that engaging in subject matter for me.<br />
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I did not want to self-publish. I had read entirely too many excerpts of books that were poorly edited, poorly written, or both. This tainted my ideas of the nature of self-publishing through Amazon. Publishing houses and editors alike had no interest in publishing the collection as a whole, so I finally decided this summer (2016) to do it myself. <br />
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I cannot explain to you how vital my friend Rob Romine was in the final stages of the process. I've known Rob nearly the entire 16 years that I've been a DJ. He worked at one of the record stores I would often frequent on the weekends and, eventually (with mutual friend RJ Bass), asked me to join them in their Sunday night downtempo/trip hop residency in the Martini Corner part of Kansas City. I've made mixes in his basement, partied with him long into the night, and gotten to make some fun music with him over the years. But having his patience and his technical skills in handling this cover art and making sure the page formats were up to snuff has been invaluable through this entire process. There was scotch a-flowin' once we realized we'd gotten both the manuscript and the cover art perfected and accepted. Especially considering how much we volleyed back and forth with ideas, whether on cover art or simply trying to get the right formatting on the page to fit the templates through the Amazon site. Today alone, I spent no fewer than 8 hours on preparation for this. A lot of good lessons learned, a lot of mistakes that won't get repeated again so the process goes smoother next time.<br />
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There is also an incredibly beautiful foreword by my good friend and brother-from-another-mother Surya K Kalsi at the beginning of the collection. We went through literary boot camp together and we could not be more different in our personal aesthetics, but we are both very, very serious when it comes to the craft. He keeps a blog called <a href="http://suryakalsi.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Headers, Margins, and Footnotes</a> that is always worth reading. He also has a book out, published by Little Feather Books that can be bought <a href="http://www.littlefeatherbooks.com/sk-kalsi.html" target="_blank">HERE</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Stove-Junker-S-K-Kalsi/dp/0990779068" target="_blank">HERE.</a> It is an unbelievably, beautifully written book that's easy to get lost in for several hours at a time.<br />
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For now, my book remains "In Review" on the Amazon site. It's also currently only available in paperback since digital copies require a more stringent and particular formatting (which I'll be doing this week). So don't worry, a digital copy is coming soon for those of you that love the e-readers.<br />
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Once the link goes live on Amazon for the paperback copy, I'll create another post. Until then, you'll have to wait the same way I do for this link to be available. I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I know it's WAY the hell outside of the average reader's wheelhouse; it's far too strange in places for most. But I honestly think the heart is there. I think there is some very solid storytelling happening in several of these stories and I could not be happier with the finished product.<br />
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It's looking to be a solid start to 2017. <br />
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And speaking of 2017, a little memory popped up on my Facebook news feed today about the number of places I submitted to over the years. The post is worth repeating here: </div>
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"2012: submitted stories to 15 places.</div>
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2013: submitted stories to 148 places. </div>
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2014: submitted stories to 237 places. </div>
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2015: submitted stories to 262 places. </div>
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2016: submitted stories to 116 places </div>
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and released a full short story collection. </div>
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Hustle harder. Do more with your time. It gets easier the longer you do it." </div>
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And it's true, it *does* get easier the longer you do it. I've already got a second collection of stories ready to go, but which I'll be sitting on for most of 2017 while I work on a third collection and one of my novels-in-progress. I'm not a fan of floating in place; if there's no forward momentum happening in my life, I feel like I'm simply wasting it. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for more literary news on my end as it comes. </div>
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Quit wasting your talents. Grab the bull by the horns, gather up your supplies, and go create the hell out of something for people to enjoy. You'll be glad you did. </div>
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<i>(78,703)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-45633157017427787892016-12-20T11:18:00.000-08:002016-12-20T12:26:21.771-08:00Wrapping Up the Weirdness of 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Where do I even start with this year?<br />
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Musically, we lost Prince, David Bowie, Phife Dawg, Sharon Jones, Maurice White, and Leonard Cohen. Other notables include Gene Wilder, Muhammed Ali, Alan Rickman, and so many more. Some were less surprising due to health issues, but no less sad to see pass on.<br />
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I also lost two friends this year, John and Cheri, two fantastic people. You can read more about them <a href="http://triphoprisy.blogspot.com/2016/07/2-deaths-3-weeks.html" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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Personally, however, my year was full of creativity. As a DJ, I played 22 gigs and made 19 mixes of various musical styles, 5 of which were recorded live at their respective events. You can enjoy my entire collection of mixes at my mixcloud site <a href="https://beta.mixcloud.com/bucho/uploads/" target="_blank">HERE.</a> There are 59 mixes of various styles of house, trip hop, hip hop, downtemo, techno, funk, soul, boogie...you get the idea. If you can't find a mix I've done that you enjoy, then you haven't checked them all out yet. There's a little something for everyone, guaranteed.<br />
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As a writer, I finished writing fewer stories than I would've liked (3), but had 2 short stories picked up for publication and wrote 9 articles for the Weekend Collective / YeahKC! sites. I'm also releasing my first short story collection called "Scaring the Stars into Submission" on Amazon in both digital and hard copy. I could not be more excited about it as my good friend Rob Romine did the cover art and was infinitely patient with my constant revision requests to his evolving work.<br />
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I think the contents of the collection will be a deeply disturbing surprise for those that have never read my stuff before, but who may know me as an individual. The contrast between the art and the artist is stark. I've never been able to really explain why so much of what I produce lies firmly at the bottom of deep, haunted canyons other than I find that the stories first birthed and then unearthed in the dark are the most interesting to me. Trite, happy endings tend to leave me feeling like I've been robbed of some kind of reality, like some kind of truth has been glossed over and hidden away from hearts and minds seeking something tangible due to a need for something pretty in the end. Fiction should reveal truths about ourselves, not obscure them.<br />
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I did a fair amount of traveling, seeing my degenerate West Coast family in San Francisco in May, the Missouri Ozarks twice, Chicago with that same West Coast family in August, and then Phoenix in November. I spent the majority of the summer in my pool, entertaining friends and family alike. The days in the unbelievably hot sun (95+ degrees most of the summer) were tempered by the water, a small pleasure I've not gotten to enjoy for the last several years. Pretty sure I made up for all that lost time with my afternoons in the pool.<br />
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In November, I saw my youngest sister get married to a guy who I immediately liked the moment I met him. That's pretty huge considering I'm the older brother and there's always the inherent tendency to protect our sisters from those that don't have their best interests at heart. They seem to be perfect for each other, which pleases the hell out of me. They always seem to be in good spirits around each other and in relation to each other. That bodes well for the longevity of their union.<br />
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And then there was the Presidential election, which I won't even go into, mostly because I've always wanted to keep this blog politics-free despite having minored in it and having followed political discourse since high school. Suffice it to say, I'm less than enthused by who the country decided to elect. I'm mildly terrified by the quality of people being put into cabinet positions. Not terrified for myself, mind you; I'm terrified for all my people of color, my womenfolk, and my LGBTQ family across the country. They have the most to lose right now.<br />
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A light injury in February turned into a very serious injury in September. What I first imagined was a pulled muscle in my back became something much more dangerous: a herniated and ruptured disc between my L4 and L5 vertebrae with pieces of the disc having broken off and fallen down my spinal column. There, they pressed against my sciatic nerve, which caused severe pain down my entire left leg. Xrays, an MRI, and a surgery later, things are back to being semi-normal. There's still a significant amount of pain in the mornings, but with a little movement and forced walking, that tends to go away relatively quickly. Another few weeks and I should be back to 100%.<br />
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Every year brings new lessons to learn if one is paying enough attention or bothers to take the time out for reflection (as I often find myself doing more the older I get). Some lessons hit harder than others; some are just purely surprising in their repetition or their suddenly obvious nature. I am easily distracted by certain things or people and that was certainly true this year. But, with the deaths of my friends early in the year, I made the conscious effort to spend more time with the people I left over six years ago and returned to last year. It's a decision I would gladly make again despite how some of the situations turned out. It's all been worth it.<br />
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I came away with two lessons this year, both worth discussion and revision, but both feeling apropos of the events of my moving back to Kansas City.<br />
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Lesson 1: <i>Some doors aren't meant to be opened; not by keys, not by words, and not by force.</i><br />
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Lesson 2<i>: If the status quo is good enough, don't go asking or looking for more; always be grateful. </i><br />
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I don't know quite what to expect out of the next year. I'm fully planning on making serious creative moves, having decided to pick up painting as another outlet to my writing and my music. Perhaps, if I get good enough, I'll try to pain the cover of my next story collection "Machinery of the Heart: Love Stories," which is completely and totally done. I've also commissioned my friend Makenzie to do some of her collage work for the cover, so we'll see which route we go. I'm realizing I'd like to be able to showcase the talents of my friends on the cover of each book I release. Plenty of them don't get enough credit or exposure for the cool things that they produce, which is disappointing.<br />
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It'd be nice to see "Scaring the Stars into Submission" do well, however. No publishing house, no agent, just all hustle on my end and a little high gloss sheen by a friend. Weird that publishers and agents didn't want the collection despite so many of the stories having already been picked up and published by a large number of reputable magazines and literary journals. Maybe it's just too weird for most, which is fine. My stuff has always been far left of center conceptually. I always knew I'd be writing for a very small, niche group of readers with very specific tastes.<br />
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Regardless, it's not worth worrying over. The only thing left to do is create and never stop.<br />
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<i>(75,891)</i></div>
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Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-35265043330825199812016-12-16T20:44:00.000-08:002016-12-16T20:44:29.517-08:00Ki Russell's "The Wolf at the Door"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If done right, your life gets filled with different casts of characters on a pretty regular basis. I've been fortunate to have known some pretty amazing (I think) writers, entertainers, and thinkers. One of those, a writer, I met during my creative writing days at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her name was Ki Russell. While we never hung out outside of the classroom, she was always incredibly friendly and her critiques towards other student writings were always fair and never laced with subversive barbs or jabs, even if she didn't particularly like the piece in question.<br />
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She put out a book (her third) last year called "The Wolf at the Door," which I was able to read an advanced copy of before it came out through <a href="https://www.createspace.com/4941819" target="_blank">Ars Omnia Press.</a> It is incredibly interesting in that it takes the fairy tales we all know, fractures them, then puts them back together in Picasso-like fashion. Below, you'll find a link where you can purchase the book, a review by Piers Anthony, and a summary of the book itself.<br />
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Per usual, yes, I am maybe showing a little nepotism towards former classmates by spreading news of their published works here, but I'm of the mindset that I'd like to see them ALL succeed. Anything less than that kind of thinking is petty and not worth vocalizing or printing.<br />
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<b><u>Summary</u></b></div>
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"The Wolf at the Door" combines fiction and poetry to present
the interrupted narrative of Lana, a contemporary revision of the Little Red
Riding Hood figure. Each snippet of Lana’s story weaves her life ever more
densely and intimately into the weft of a wider world of fairy tale-inspired
figures, against which the protagonist’s story unfolds and through which she
discovers who and what she is. Interwoven between the sections of this
narrative are poems exploring other fairy tale figures, the perspective of
these poems alternating between the contemporary and the timeless time of fairy
tales. Baba Yaga appears in her hut in the woods and also as a Kali-figure
living among us in the suburbs: devouring, monstrous, sexual, divine. She
subsequently appears in the fairy tale tavern where she guides the heroine of
the disrupted narrative, who works and interacts with other fairy tale figures
traditionally cast as villains. Ultimately, Lana must come to recognize her own
identity as both the maiden (Red Riding Hood) and the crone (grandmother) which
allows her to draw power from both of these extremes of the female archetype.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><u>Review by Piers Anthony </u></b></div>
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I read The Wolf at the Door, by Ki Russell. This is not your
usual fantasy. It is set in a pub where fairy tale characters congregate in a
neutral setting. I'd have to review a number of fairy tales that I was familiar
with when my daughters were children if I wanted to catch all the references,
but did recognize the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, who is trying to
recover the harp that Jack stole. Also Little Red Riding hood who now has a
fairly familiar association with the Wolf—they sleep together, though I'm not
sure there's sex—and dances at the pub. The story, of a sort, is told in
snatches, some of which is blank verse. I am intrigued by a blue rose plant
that can be affectionate or deadly, and clearly understands those who interact
with it. Definitely not a garden variety plant. Also by an old crone who knows
more than she tells, and has powers she mostly conceals. Read this for an
experience in outlook, rather than for a coherent story. Adult fantasy, not as
a euphemism for sex, but in the necessary maturity of perspective.<o:p></o:p></div>
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(The full review can be found <a href="http://www.hipiers.com/15feb.html" target="_blank">HERE.</a>)<div>
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<b><u>Link for Purchase of All of Ki's Books</u></b></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ki-Russell/e/B00NQXZ30K" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/Ki-Russell/e/B00NQXZ30K</a></div>
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Ki Russell teaches writing, literature, and creative writing
at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon, where she resides with
her husband Timothy and two children, Rook and Ashe. They share space with a
cat called Draco and a dog named Dooby Dooby Doo.<br />
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She holds a Ph.D. in English literature (Creative Writing emphasis) from the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an M.A. in English (Creative Writing
emphasis) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.<br />
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Medulla Publishing released her chapbook, HOW TO BECOME BABA YAGA, in 2011. Ki
also has a full-length poetry collection, THE ANTLER WOMAN RESPONDS, from
Paladin Contemporaries in 2014.<br />
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Ki researches fairy tales and then butchers them for her own uses. She steals
time from grading to wrestle with words, converse with the cat, dance with the
dog, and paint. She believes people should laugh more.</div>
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<i>(74,784)</i></div>
Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-4651407389090923242016-12-14T09:46:00.000-08:002016-12-14T09:46:53.131-08:00Anatomy of a Mixtape Videos (Pt. 2)Back in May of last year, I created a post (which you can read <a href="http://triphoprisy.blogspot.com/2015/05/anatomy-of-mixtape-videos.html" target="_blank">here</a>) in which all the videos corresponded to a short story that I'd completed called "Anatomy of a Mixtape." I was hoping that whichever magazine or journal picked it up for publication would leave the link firmly embedded within the text so that future readers could always reference the post and hear the music described all in one place rather than go hunt down every song on their own. That was not to be.<br />
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But thankfully, the Summerset Review has published the story in their December 2016 issue and you can read that <a href="http://www.summersetreview.org/17winter/mixtape.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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Below, you'll find EVERY video of every song described in the story. Choose how you want to listen to them. Read the paragraph first, then listen to the song? Great. Listen to the song as you read the paragraph? This might be tough with some, but probably the best bet. There's no one way to experience the story and the music together; you'll figure out what works best for you. </div>
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Robert Glasper - "Maiden Voyage / Everything in its Right Place"</div>
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Al Green - "What is this Feeling?"</div>
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Jose Gonzalez - "Heartbeats"</div>
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The Cinematic Orchestra feat. Roots Manuva - "All Things to All Men"</div>
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Explosions in the Sky - "The Only Moment We Were Alone"</div>
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Failure - "The Nurse Who Loved Me"</div>
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Jimmy Eat World - "For Me This Is Heaven"</div>
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The Radio Dept. - "Tell"</div>
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Washed Out - "Don't Give Up"</div>
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Bjork - "All Neon Like" </div>
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Billie Holiday - "Don't Explain (Dzihan & Kamien Remix)</div>
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Little Dragon - "Cat Rider"</div>
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Jeff Buckley - "Lover You Should've Come Over"</div>
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4Hero - "Conceptions" </div>
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<i>(73,897)</i></div>
Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-47945858701430499752016-12-03T06:38:00.002-08:002016-12-03T06:39:09.417-08:002016 Reading ListI keep saying it, but it remains a truism; 2016 has been a supremely weird year. You might look at this list of books I read and think "That's it? That's your list? C'mon, son."<br />
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Much of my creative output didn't happen until the tail-end of the year, thanks to this back injury, of which I'm having surgery in a little over a week. During that time I've done some writing (which I'll talk about in another post) and very little reading. It's been a struggle to juggle the creative life with the normal social life, more so here in KC because I moved back with a pretty diverse bunch of friend groups from all walks of my life.<br />
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With the death of two friends this summer, it became paramount to me that spending time with them was infinitely more important than sitting at home reading or writing. It just felt like the right move...and it still does.<br />
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But now I'm settled in and I seem to have found a good groove. Plus the winters here are crazy cold, so plenty of people just go into hibernation most nights anyway, which makes it easy to divert my time to other endeavors. With the back surgery in a week or so, I'll have plenty of time to do some more reading before the year ends. Below you'll find my incredibly anemic list for the year.<br />
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Because I knew that my social life was going to be outshining my personal life, I mostly chose to dig into books that I'd already read before. Somehow that makes them easier to finish when life gets a little chaotic, I think. Plus they're just really enjoyable books, which is why I read them over and over again every so often. The last two by Bolano and Dick, however, I'm planning to read during my recovery time as they've been on my "to read" list for a cool minute now.<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">2016 Reading List</span></u></b></div>
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<b><u>April</u></b></div>
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01.) Carlos Ruiz Zafon - "The Shadow of the Wind" (487pgs)</div>
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02.) Carlos Ruiz Zafon - "The Angel's Game" (531pgs)</div>
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<b><u>May</u></b></div>
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03.) Carlos Ruiz Zafon - "The Prisoner of Heaven" (278pgs)</div>
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04.) Haruki Murakami - "Hear the Wind Sing / Pinball, 1973" (233pgs)</div>
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<b><u>June</u></b></div>
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05.) Lev Grossman - "The Magicians" (402pgs)</div>
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<b><u>July</u></b></div>
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06.) Lev Grossman - "The Magician King" (400pgs)</div>
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<b><u>August</u></b></div>
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07.) Amber Sparks & Robert Kloss - "The Desert Places" (87pgs)</div>
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08.) Amber Sparks - "The Unfinished World and Other Stories" (223pgs)</div>
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09.) Stephen King - "The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1)" (231pgs)</div>
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10.) Stephen King - "The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2)" (399pgs)</div>
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<b><u>September</u></b></div>
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11.) Stephen King - "The Wastelands (The Dark Tower, #3)" (420pgs)</div>
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12.) Stephen King - "Wizard and Glass (The Dark Tower, #4)" (672pgs)</div>
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13.) Stephen King - "The Wind through the Keyhole (The Dark Tower, #4.5)" (322pgs)</div>
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<b><u>October</u></b></div>
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14.) Stephen King - "The Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, #5)" (714pgs)</div>
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15.) Stephen King - "Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, #6)" (413pgs)</div>
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<b><u>November</u></b></div>
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16.) Stephen King - "The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7)" (845pgs)</div>
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17.) Bo Fowler - "Scepticism, Inc." (256pgs)</div>
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<b><u>December</u></b></div>
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18.) Philip K. Dick - "The Man in the High Castle" (274pgs)</div>
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19.) Roberto Bolano - "The Insufferable Gaucho" (164pgs)</div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Total Pages Read</span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">(7,351)</span></b></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(70,930)</i></span></div>
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Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-46273210342842119302016-11-01T22:32:00.002-07:002016-11-01T22:33:21.287-07:00The Weekend Collective / YeahKC - 4 New Articles Online & A Broken BackIt's been a weird year all around. Or maybe it's just been a normal year and I'm just over-analyzing things, which I tend to do. The philosopher's brain often takes over when the creative brain isn't firing on all cylinders. Thankfully, however, the creative brain has been taking over this month. It's been far too silent for far too long.<br />
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I was recently the recipient of a back injury that left me pretty much immobile. After finally finding a doctor within my insurance network, I had x-rays and an MRI done. Issue: herniated L5 disc with impingement of the sciatic nerve. I haven't been to work in nearly a month, I'm waiting for my short-term disability payments to come through, and I've been given some great drugs that have serioiusly alleviated the pain and allowed me to be more mobile. Thus, I've had a LOT of free time.<br />
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First up, I spoke of a publication that was forthcoming. Bluestem Magazine published my story "The Same Night Waits for Us All" last month. A weird piece for me as it's more rooted in realism than my normal stuff. I feel like I wrote it last year around the anniversary of my grandfather's death a few years back. Interesting that that date is coming soon again. You can read that piece <a href="http://bluestemmagazine.com/online/october-2016/the-same-night-waits-for-us-all/" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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I also just got word that another of my stories, "Anatomy of a Mixtape," will be published by Summerset Review in their December issue. That one went through a lot of rejections, with one of those rejections coming with a critique that pretty much gutted the entire story of its heart. If I accepted the changes, the magazine would accept the story. I passed on that. Their critique made no sense in context. I'll post a link to that once it goes live.<br />
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I've also been writing for a site called the Weekend Collective. They recently changed their name to Yeah KC! I've had a few articles posted up there as I've had more time to focus on writing them:<br />
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1.) The Plaza Art Fair. It's a massive fair of artists across the country who come to sell their wares to the general public. You can read about that and its history <a href="https://www.yeahkc.com/visiting-kc-september-try-plaza-art-fair/" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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2.) I've got a buddy in the rap game who's done work with a lot of great producers over the years and who has turned me onto more new music than I'd ever thought possible. I got to do a write-up on him and a night he's doing here in KC that's spotlighting local talent in the hopes of getting them more exposure. You can read about that <a href="https://www.yeahkc.com/buttonpush-reach-emcee/" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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3.) Another friend (who is also a DJ) does a lot of graffiti work around town. He's been commissioned by several local businesses as well as national businesses with locations here to create his particular kind of art on their outside walls. He also does awareness work. You can read about him and his endeavors <a href="https://www.yeahkc.com/sike-style-art-awareness/" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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4.) "Black Mirror" just released their third season of Twilight Zone-but-with-more-technology weirdness on Netflix. It's seriously a fantastic show that highlights how our dependence on technology might just end up ruining us. The writers of this show do phenomenal storytelling, often bringing about a twist that is completely unexpected by even the most well-read of people. You can read about that <a href="https://www.yeahkc.com/black-mirror-season-three/" target="_blank">here. </a><br />
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Beyond that, I've returned to some old stories that remain unfinished, hoping I can create decent endings for them. Just last night I finished one called "Movie Music" that's been sitting around for about two years waiting for an ending. I finally found it and submitted it out to several magazines yesterday evening.<br />
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Tonight, I've found myself mired in the world of "The Motel Palms," a run-down place full of some very interesting characters that may finally get the ending it deserves sometime this week. I added about 1,000 words to it tonight out of nowhere, so this might be the next one to get finished before I head to Phoenix this weekend for my youngest sister's wedding.<br />
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<i>(67,659)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-51070391771757991012016-10-01T09:48:00.001-07:002016-10-01T09:49:13.908-07:00Four New Live DJ Mixes The last year has been a solid one for me in terms of DJ-ing gigs across the city and the state. I played a couple spots at the Kirkwood Lodge in the Lake of the Ozarks. Luckily, I've been fortunate to have been booked for the more beat-oriented, jazzy hip hop stuff more suited for a martini lounge or a poolside afternoon as it's not only my favorite stuff to listen to, but to play as well.<br />
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The below mixes are mostly that kind of vibe. The first one, from the Lake of the Ozarks, was from a gig called Wet Hot Electronic Summer: Hot Miami Nights, which was a weekend-long party with some friends from both Kansas City and St. Louis and a TON of strangers that became friends later that weekend. There is, unfortunately, no tracklist.<br />
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The three mixes following that are from a night here in Kansas City run by my long-time DJ partner Mr. Nuro. He calls the night "The Listening Room" and works as a kind of spotlight on music that doesn't always get played on dance floors across the city. The weird, the abstract, the dark, the bizarre...it's a good venue for experimentation.<br />
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The first mix of the three is a more jazzy hip hop/instrumental/lounge vibe. The second mix is a more uptempo/funk/boogie style made for a more dance-centric crowd. The third mix is a blend of older 80s & 90s retro stuff that I love playing when the vibe is right. There are tracklists for all three.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdb0TAG5vv5s3t6L_Nxy4Gd4zmj2SGN7jFs-NzRowOtGw75p9C5ykDWMM2xRE2LB9_LwwCZgLDUkXyMX2ZTm7_TM6SNhE9XKpWIfxIqFiUcnVhJXU2g1qGeZKUhjelcYvsE5GPTWsXJMb/s1600/WHES.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdb0TAG5vv5s3t6L_Nxy4Gd4zmj2SGN7jFs-NzRowOtGw75p9C5ykDWMM2xRE2LB9_LwwCZgLDUkXyMX2ZTm7_TM6SNhE9XKpWIfxIqFiUcnVhJXU2g1qGeZKUhjelcYvsE5GPTWsXJMb/s400/WHES.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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You can find the link to stream this mix here:</div>
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<a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/jazzy-hip-hop-instrumentals-live-wet-hot-electronic-summer-hot-miami-nights-july-2016/" target="_blank">Bucho - Live @ Wet Hot Electronic Summer VI: Hot Miami Nights</a></div>
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You can find the link to stream this mix here:</div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/trip-hopchilloutlounge-live-the-listening-room-pt-1-092416/" target="_blank">Bucho - Live @ The Listening Room, Pt. 1 (09.24.16) / Minibar, KCMO</a></div>
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24 tracks, 83 minutes</div>
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FloFilz - Gitdown</div>
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Galimatias - Sunlight Reigns Supreme</div>
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FloFilz - Keepitreal</div>
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Galimatias - Major Crimes & Unicorns</div>
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Vanilla - The Winter</div>
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Miguel Migs - Give Me Something</div>
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2Pac - Old School (Cookin' Soul Remix)</div>
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Alexis Davis - The Lift</div>
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Mono Massive x Vertual Vertigo - Can't Let Go</div>
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Brandy - I Wanna Be Down (Grades Remix)</div>
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Muneshine - Venus & Mars (Freddie Joachim Remix)</div>
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P.SUS - Midnight Thoughts (Breezewax Remix)</div>
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Dam Funk - I Wanna Thank You For (Steppin)</div>
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Austin Brown - Groove 92 </div>
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Chris Malinchak - So Into You</div>
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Q-Tip ft. Busta Rhymes - For the Nasty (Freddie Joachim Remix)</div>
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She Said Disco - Ocean Love</div>
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Bondax - Gold (Snakehips Bootleg)</div>
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Duck House - Flaw</div>
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Willie Hale - Groove On (Snakehips Edit)</div>
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Dam Funk - 10 West</div>
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Kartell - Two Step</div>
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Gang Starr - Skills (Oll-Zen Remix)</div>
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Banks - Warm Water (Snakehips Remix)</div>
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You can find the link to stream this mix here:</div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/funksoulboogie-live-the-listening-room-pt-2-092416/" target="_blank">Bucho - Live @ The Listening Room, Pt. 2 (09.24.16) / Minibar, KCMO</a></div>
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18 tracks, 63 minutes</div>
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Kraak & Smaak - Money in the Bag</div>
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JT Donaldson - Leave Your World (Hydro's Disco Dub in the Hour of Chaos)</div>
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Kenny Dope - Can You Handle It (Pt. One)</div>
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Tuxedo - So Good</div>
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Michael Tello - Black Thought</div>
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Jazzanova - The One-Tet</div>
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Dj Cam Quartet - New York New York</div>
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Cassius - See Me Now</div>
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Amp Fiddler - Faith</div>
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A Tribe Called Quest - Luck of Lucien</div>
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Ohmega Watts - What's It Worth (Instrumental)</div>
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Paolo Archenza Trio - Mondo Cane</div>
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Jazzanova ft. Vikter Duplaix - Soon (A Touch of Jazz Mix)</div>
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Dwele - Let Your Hair Down</div>
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Up, Bustle, and Out - Compared to What (Chase Mix)</div>
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Ohmega Watts ft. the Procussions - That Sound</div>
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Coolio - Too Hot</div>
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Dzihan & Kamien - Airport</div>
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You can find the link to stream this mix here: </div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/80s-retro-live-the-listening-room-pt-3-092416/" target="_blank">Bucho - Live @ The Listening Room, Pt. 3 (09.24.16)</a></div>
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15 tracks, 60 minutes</div>
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Joe Jackson - Steppin' Out</div>
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A-Ha - Take on Me</div>
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Billy Idol - Dancin' with Myself</div>
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Berlin - Riding on the Metro</div>
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Shabba Ranks - Mr. Loverman</div>
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Hall & Oates - Maneater</div>
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The Cure - Close to Me</div>
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Soul II Soul - Keep on Moving</div>
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New Edition - Mr. Telephone Man</div>
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Hall & Oates - Method of Modern Love</div>
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Tears for Fears - Head over Heels</div>
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Howard Jones - What is Love? </div>
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George Michael - I Want Your Sex</div>
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Stereo MC's - Connected</div>
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Bob Marley - Could You Be Loved?</div>
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<i>(67,086)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-11136864742613066032016-09-29T19:37:00.003-07:002016-09-29T19:39:12.330-07:00The Weekend Collective: Adaptive Skate Kollective and Janet Cardiff's "Forty-Part Motet"A quick update on a couple things:<br />
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Just had a story called "The Same Night Waits for Us All" picked up for publication in Bluestem Magazine. It's part of the second short story collection I completed during the first half of last year while I was dealing with a work injury in San Francisco. It's been good to start shopping these unpublished pieces again, even though the only writing I've been doing has been less fictional.<br />
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Which leads me to two new articles of mine that have been published over at the <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/" target="_blank">Weekend Collective</a> recently.<br />
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The first is about another upcoming exhibit coming to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in November. Janet Cardiff has done some crazy interesting audio installations over the years and this current one has a pretty interesting history, both musically and in terms of some of its early showings in NYC. No lie, I'm pretty stoked to sit in this room for awhile and just soak up the exhibit for a good hour. You can read more about that <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/human-and-heavenly-forty-part-motet/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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The second article is one I really enjoyed writing as it involved a long-time friend of mine who lost his right leg years ago and turned his accident into a pretty phenomenal opport, unity for others with adaptive wants and needs. He and others have traveled across the country trying to remove the stigmas and social stereotypes associated with amputees or those originally born without limbs. You can read more about that article <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/hope-skates-eternal-kcs-adaptive-skate-kollective/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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For now, the hustle continues. I'm hoping to get a few more articles knocked out this weekend, but I've been laid up with a back injury (again), which has put a crimp in many of my plans. That back injury stemmed from a DJing gig I had this weekend, but out of that gig came three solid recordings which I'll post in a future entry.<br />
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Until then...<br />
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<i>(66,957)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-52184326782194894882016-09-17T18:47:00.004-07:002016-09-29T19:39:21.561-07:00The Weekend Collective: The Dark Tower, Kansas City Poetry, and Photography at the Nelson-Atkins MuseumI've been busy.<br />
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Crazy busy. And while there's plenty of updates to give, I will simply pop on here briefly to hype the latest work I've been doing, which is writing up news articles and profiles about things and people happening around Kansas City. The site is called <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/" target="_blank">Weekend Collective</a> and I got to meet most of the crew this week, all of whom seem incredibly down to earth and fun to kick it with.<br />
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Luckily, the bosses want us to write about things that we're passionate about; if you're bored with your own story, chances are good the reader will get bored with it pretty quickly too. That's the nature of not loving what you do. The finished product suffers and it's obvious to EVERYONE. So in this way, I appreciate the approach.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Poetry Slam in KC</span></b><br />
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The first article I got published was about at monthly poetry slam contest held at the Uptown Arts Bar downtown. I went to the show that night, had a blast, and did a write up on the crew putting the event on. You can read that <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/snap-can-kansas-city-poetry-slam/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Photography Exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art</span></b><br />
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My second article was about an upcoming exhibit of photography at the Nelson-Atkins. The theme of the show is "Surveillance," and contains a mix of collections from various photographers around the globe, but I found one whose life story was simply too interesting not to write about in more detail. You can read that one <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/cartier-bresson-surveillance-nelson/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Dark Tower, or O, Discordia!</span></b><br />
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The third article was definitely a more personally interesting piece for me as I've been a fan of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series for many years. It's currently being adapted into movie form and the nature of the narrative (which has changed from the book) has completely changed, so it's not just a straight up adaptation. I make the argument that this is a VERY good thing for superfans of the series <a href="http://www.weekendcollective.com/o-discordia-an-argument-for-the-dark-tower-movie/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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That's all for now! I'll keep posting up new articles as they go live, especially since my name isn't attached to the articles on the site. Happy reading!<br />
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(66,732)Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-80185006308163386152016-08-29T04:33:00.001-07:002016-10-01T09:49:25.553-07:00Beats for the Blunted, Vol. 9: Homecoming (New Dj Mix)<br />
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<b><u>Beats for the Blunted, Vol. 9: Homecoming</u></b></div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/trip-hopchillout-beats-for-the-blunted-vol-9-homecoming/">http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/trip-hopchillout-beats-for-the-blunted-vol-9-homecoming/</a></div>
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Quantic - Archipelago</div>
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Anitek - Tip Toe</div>
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Nomak - Spiritual Home (Feet Remix)</div>
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Anitek - Burden Queen</div>
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Anthony Hamilton - Better Love</div>
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Ta-Ku - Trust Me</div>
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Victor Malloy - The Girl Who Wasn't There (Quantic Remix)</div>
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Four Tet - And Then Patterns</div>
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Massive Attack - What Your Soul Sings</div>
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Anitek - Mind Growth</div>
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Beacon - Fault Lines</div>
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Vaults - Lifespan (Instrumental)</div>
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Ta-Ku - Sunrise / Beautiful ft. Jordan Rakei</div>
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Shapeshifter - Summer Haze</div>
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Dj Krush - Edge of Blue</div>
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Portishead - Numb</div>
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Ta-Ku - Love Again ft. JMSN & Sango</div>
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Just recorded a new DJ mix a week or so ago. 17 tracks at a little over an hour. 77 bpm.<br />
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The final installment of the series that got me my start way back when at the turn of the century. Airy, spacious, atmospheric beats that remind me (in many ways) of the home I left for 6 years and then returned to in 2015. I started this series way back in 2001 or 2002, first trying to record to tape (as that was the only medium I had available to me then). When I finally released volume 3, I was surprised to find that many people really enjoyed it. Distributing the mix on CD across the city at random events got me my first few gigs in Kansas City, which led to more gigs after both here in KC and in other cities: St. Louis, Omaha, Sioux City, etc.<br />
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My life would be very different had I not been forced by my friend Scott to record the first BFTB mix. VERY different.<br />
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Sometimes when I put a new mix together, I know the overall vibe I want to achieve. This one, weirdly, started with the last track. Ta-Ku is one of my favorite producers and "Love Again" had been in heavy rotation; in the car, at work, while I showered.<br />
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Quantic's "Archipelago" was a track I stumbled upon in my collection a couple months back and the melody never came unstuck in my head, so it seemed to be the best way to open up the mix. Heavy on the drums and soulful saxophone, it turned out to be the right decision.<br />
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<i>(66,416)</i>Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-10720877323743304382016-08-08T05:27:00.000-07:002016-08-08T05:27:28.092-07:00A Year in the Midwest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWnkSyuvCIrJR31KNXZEUkIpnPnvuZKisIJxtVlJbfGSGG5px7hv5Gmqe2qvPfDHHyGCG1OuuRidp9r1jPhs051B-I8afHNpLLcUz376nbs2gSBrpMc2dpkocg82RuGhjGoYh49xJ2J5i/s1600/image1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifWnkSyuvCIrJR31KNXZEUkIpnPnvuZKisIJxtVlJbfGSGG5px7hv5Gmqe2qvPfDHHyGCG1OuuRidp9r1jPhs051B-I8afHNpLLcUz376nbs2gSBrpMc2dpkocg82RuGhjGoYh49xJ2J5i/s400/image1.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The summer is drawing to a close. It's been an interesting transition, moving from northern California (where air conditioning isn't a thing) back to the Midwest (where it is a necessity). Mine has gone out three times in the last three weeks and, luckily, I live in an apartment complex with a maintenance staff who are not only fast and friendly, but good at what they do. But the nights where the AC has gone out have been the longest as I've been unable to sleep or I've simply been sleeping poorly as of late. I have an active imagination; I play scenarios out in my head over and over with differing results and this is what keeps me staring up at the popcorn ceiling until the alarm goes off at 4am. Sometimes you listen to the voices, sometimes you have to drown them out or suffocate them altogether.<br />
<br />
I'm coming up on being home a full year. I have recorded 14 new DJ mixes, all of varying styles. I have had 27 separate DJ-ing gigs, I've done one public reading, two old friends have passed on to other worlds, and I had the joy of a brief summer fling that has since, I imagine, fizzled out. This is life; this is how things go.<br />
<br />
I am still broke, despite finally being in a job that has the potential to be a long-term career, but I am happier. I knew I would have to start from the bottom (as I have done over and over and over again, much to my consternation), but it is not the literal backbreaking work of my previous job. I am constantly called on for my brain, which is all I've ever really wanted. I am a "puzzle guy," as my work wife likes to say. I see problems, I offer up myriad solutions. I never approach my boss with a complaint unless I have a multitude of ways to solve said complaints, all with varying degrees of success upon implementation.<br />
<br />
I have spent more time in my pool than not, my skin more bronze now than pasty white. My apartment has become a hub for friends and family to rest their heads after spending hours in the water or after a long weekend night out. It has been a good vessel with which I have reconnected to the people of my previous life. It remains the perfect size, allowing plenty of space for sleepovers, movie watching, boozing, and all the various detritus of my life spread out on the bookshelves that line every wall. i am not displeased by how things have gone this year despite the few instances of dissatisfaction or sadness in the things I cannot control.<br />
<br />
I have tried to find a place in my apartment that is conducive to my writing, but to no avail. This weekend, I attempted to revisit some old pieces to update and revise them, to finally finish them and send them out for publication. My mind remained blank as I touched on each of the characters in their respective settings. I worry that I have let them lie dormant for too long, that I have not allowed myself the time to marinate on their worlds and their problems because I have been far too focused on my own world and my own problems. This in itself elicits a whole other host of issues that need to be dealt with sooner than later. The tattoo on my left arm was originally a reminder to myself to never stop writing, yet that is exactly what has happened. Finding the balance between enjoying a real life and creating fictional ones has been difficult.<br />
<br />
In many ways, my mental struggle has been the propellant force that allowed for so much writing to erupt out of me. Internal battles necessarily find themselves on the page because that is where I seem to find some measure of closure in them. Those internal battles are now fewer and farther between, though I have no doubt new ones will arise again soon enough.<br />
<br />
They always do.<br />
<br />
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<br />Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-923373796041619652016-07-06T09:49:00.001-07:002016-07-08T23:33:11.327-07:002 Deaths, 3 Weeks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>John Stone</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>1976-2016</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
Two deaths in three weeks. That’s how my first summer<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
back in KC has started. Both separate instances, both
with assumed different<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
circumstances, both leaving me a little emptier than
before. Both people were<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
unbelievably friendly and giving and completely
undeserving of such a young<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
passing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
But the great world turns, never stopping for a moment<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
to grieve for each member it loses. We as individuals
get that luxury, but<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
still…time does not stop, it does not yield its
momentum on our behalf. It’s up<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
to us to carve that time out and steal it, make it our
own to do with as we<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
please.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
I personally have been making an effort to reach out<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
to more people, to let them know I’m thinking of them
randomly, to let them<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
know I have not forgotten about them, to let them know
that they still exist in<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
someone else’s memory and history, that they matter,
that they are important,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
that they are loved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
It’s worth saying that many of us have fallen down on<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
that particular job over the years. Life gets in the
way and we become<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
unselfishly myopic. Our own problems tend to take
precedence over those of<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
others' sometimes. It’s an easy trap to fall into;
shouldering the weight of<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
someone else’s problems, even for just an hour, can be
exhausting.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
But sometimes I wonder if we don’t all exist *because*<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
of our ability to help those around us handle the
things they cannot handle on<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
their own, like it’s what we’re actually built to do
but we lost the<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
instruction manual several generations ago. I
personally have been the<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
beneficiary of a ton of immeasurable love and support
over the last several<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
years from family here in the Midwest and from family
out on the West Coast.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
What that kind of outpouring can do for someone's
mental is unbelievable until<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
it's experienced.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
22 years ago, when I first moved to Kansas City from<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
Oklahoma City, I found myself on the precipice. I was
15, I was losing every<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
person I’d ever known, and moving to a city I knew
nothing about. I went to a<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
very dark place where ambivalence took over; I could
jump out the window of my<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
top floor bedroom. If I lived, I could run away. If I
didn’t live, it didn’t<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
matter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
Now this may have been the overly dramatic results of<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
being a hormonal teenager, but the emotion was real
and it had a suffocating<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
hold on me. I’m glad things turned out the way they
did and that I can be here,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
22 years later, writing about my experience personally
rather than having<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
someone else convey their sadness over how things may
have potentially gone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
So take this message as a welfare check, something<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
police officers do when a family member is concerned
for the safety or<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
well-being of a loved one. Whether we’ve talked once
or a million times, if you<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
find yourself moving into that dark place in the brain
that won’t allow for<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
rational thought, that won’t allow you to see the sun
shining while you stare<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
right up into it, unblinking…call me. Send me a
message. Tell me you need help<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
and I’ll be the first person on your doorstep. Never
let anyone or anything make<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
you feel “less than”…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
Because I can assure you that you are not. You are most certainly more.</div>
<br /></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; position: relative; text-align: center;">
<span data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Cheri Jean Sweaney</b></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="background-color: white; direction: ltr; position: relative; text-align: center;">
<span data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>1982 - 2016</b></span></span><br />
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<span data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bfjnb-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>(64,614)</i></span></span></div>
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</div>
Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-68634917447587362242016-06-17T05:23:00.000-07:002016-06-17T05:25:35.061-07:00Sabbatical<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
This is maybe a weird thing to admit, but I can't write at the moment. I haven't been able to sculpt language to do my bidding since I moved back to Kansas City.<br />
<br />
Maybe I'm trying to force it, as a good friend suggested. Maybe I'm just not in the right head space because what I should be doing right now is reconnecting with my Midwest family, which I've been doing with some serious gusto as of late, leading to some pretty great nights out and some very exhausting days in the office. All very much worth it, however.<br />
<br />
But it's had me thinking (for awhile) that, perhaps now that certain aspects of my life are back in balance, I am drawing less artistic "pain" from the reservoir, thus feeling less inspired. Other than finances, I really don't have much to complain about at all. I wonder if maybe my agitated headspace for so many years was the reason I was able to produce so much material, much of it dark and surreal in nature. Not because I'm an unhappy or dark person (I'm not), but because I find the dark corners of a room far more interesting to explore than the bright outdoors, speaking from a literary standpoint. <br />
<br />
There will certainly be writer friends who say you don't have to be mired in this kind of emotional state in order to write, and they're correct. A writer writes no matter if they want to or not, no matter if they are inspired or not. I often deviate from these schools of thought. I like to be struck dumb by an idea so thoroughly that nothing can keep me from putting it to page. The piece becomes an obsession that I can't seem to finish fast enough (if at all) and many of the stories in my last collection arrived in that fashion. I also had the time to finish them, working two days a week due to a work shoulder injury.<br />
<br />
For now, however, due to said conversation with the good friend and another friend's passing, I'm putting the writing on hold for the next year. I may try to rehash and rework a few stories that haven't been published yet, but beyond that, this year feels like one for re-connection more than anything else.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
The Kansas City Dj/Club scene got news this week of a dear friend's passing. I hadn't seen him in many years, but we'd exchanged a few comments here and there across Facebook while I was in California and he was in Florida. Truly one of the most genuine people you could ever meet. I actually can't think of a time when I saw him out and about in a foul or sour mood.<br />
<br />
I don't know all the details of his death and, if I did, I doubt I'd post them here. But his funeral service is on Saturday. I was supposed to do training for a new job at the same time as the funeral service, so obviously I won't be doing that now. I think the stark contrast of those two events against each other is a pretty great reminder of what's important: people over work, friendship over money, community over self.<br />
<br />
There will be many at his funeral service that I haven't seen in a very long, long time. And while the circumstances are sad beyond belief, it'll be good for all of us to reconnect and reevaluate our own lives. Maybe we'll hold each other a little longer next time, maybe we'll second guess our decision to stay at home remaining comfortable and, instead, go out to make a little magic in the moonlight.<br />
<br />
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<br />Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-22806275177479700702016-03-31T10:30:00.005-07:002016-04-24T20:16:22.431-07:00Wishes Can Be Dangerous<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
The new year has started off in many fantastic ways, but for two and a half months, I've not read a book for leisure, done any work on any of my short stories, or begun any serious editing on my book. This is a problem.<br />
<br />
But it's a good problem. Kind of. That which I am most passionate about has fallen to the wayside in favor of finally working a job that I'm not only trained for, but well educated to do. I work with good people in a hyper-positive environment where my ideas or criticisms are taken seriously and then, unbelievably, actually put into effect more often than not. Higher positions within the company open up and my coworkers and I are actively encouraged to apply for them by our boss despite the fact that we may not be the right people for the positions. It's a little disarming, but it is all to the good. All of it.<br />
<br />
Currently, I'm editing out-sourced articles written by contracted writers. I tell my friends that the content is typically the kind of stuff your mom would google. Furnace repair, taking care of your pool, how best to rid your home of pests, that kind of thing. I edit, on average, anywhere from 25-45 articles a day, most topping out at about 600 words a piece. On the low end, this averages out to about 15,000 words (or roughly 60 pages in Word). On the high end, this averages out to about 27,000 words (or roughly 108 pages in Word).<br />
<br />
Summation: I'm doing a lot of reading and I'm doing a lot of editing during the course of the day. By the time I get home, my brain is fried, but I feel good about the work. Some of the writing is good, some of it not so good. Some articles are edited faster than others and I've been able to pretty easily identify the "good" writers from the "bad" ones.<br />
<br />
Once I'm off work, the desire to read more has diminished, which is disappointing as my entire apartment (which I moved into at the start of the year) is completely covered in books. And art. And all the minute detritus that I have collected from years of living. It is a good space, one that I'm incredibly happy and comfortable in. It is my own; the messes are mine, the decor is, in total, the essence of me. After three months, it finally feels like home.<br />
<br />
The start of April brings a few new things, the first of which is my team being completely caught up on all our work. I'll be reading less during the course of the day and working more on special projects around the office and with other various teams under the Social Media umbrella. I've also taken off the entire month of April (from Facebook and all but one dj-ing gig) to focus entirely on editing and revising my novel. It will take much longer than a single month, but I hope that this new shift in work duties will allow for more concentration outside of work, thus fomenting some much needed editing habits on my own writing. I also have several books I'd like to read, both for the first time and for the second, third, or fourth time.<br />
<br />
In music news, I've been dj-ing a great deal since being home. These have mostly been weekly or monthly gigs playing 80's and retro, but it's been good to play entire nights with my homegirl WestEndGrl (formerly cQuence). In between gigs, I've made a couple new recordings as well, which you can find at the very bottom of the post.<br />
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All in all, many of the things I have sought after and struggled to achieve are finally coming to fruition. Like any good thing in life, some sacrifices have occurred, but that's too be expected. Now I've just got to find my footing again and figure out how to balance it all appropriately so that I can have my cake and eat it too. I've worked too hard not to enjoy the cake that I've been baking for nearly 10 years. Never believe your own hard work is all for nought - it may just take a while for the results to appear and there's nothing wrong with that by any means.<br />
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<u><b>New Mixes (since November of 2015): </b></u></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhljzd39u9ud8Ts03x5sV6aCU_jXtkTqdMcE-y1GXtHV9ZIZjXdQwra7sFs-s3VzpHsx0lhxH1cxWpqVKC1NufhFGPScTo0n3mFWm1HY-SriNKTsW-4zqGBtdZwa-0bRB9dcgC1UqJoJq_b/s1600/flow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhljzd39u9ud8Ts03x5sV6aCU_jXtkTqdMcE-y1GXtHV9ZIZjXdQwra7sFs-s3VzpHsx0lhxH1cxWpqVKC1NufhFGPScTo0n3mFWm1HY-SriNKTsW-4zqGBtdZwa-0bRB9dcgC1UqJoJq_b/s1600/flow.jpg" /></a></div>
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From my first gig back in Kansas City. I'm on for the first hour or so, followed up by Elle Vulf and then Oj Shrink.</div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/OJshrink/flow-live-niche-kc-91015-w-bucho-elle-vulf-and-oj-shrink/" target="_blank">Live at Flow @ Niche, KCMO</a></div>
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Disclosure - "Holding On ft. Gregory Porter"</div>
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Fouk - "Kill Frenzy"</div>
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Teenage Mutants - "Elle (Original Mix)"</div>
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Rene Amesz - "Big (Original Mix)"</div>
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Dusky - "Dummy (Original Mix)"</div>
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Danny Serrano - "Osaka (Original Mix)"</div>
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Dj Dep - "Get It (Original Mix)"</div>
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Joyce Muniz - "You Always Get Me High"</div>
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Miguel Migs - "Little Star"</div>
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Rene Amesz - "Like It Deep"</div>
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Enzo Siffredi - "Sometimes"</div>
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Submantra - "Lilly (Original Mix)"</div>
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Spiritchaser - "Ride (Earnshaw's Ride)"</div>
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Joeski - "Monkey Funk (Original Mix)"</div>
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Sergio Fernandez - "Stone Age (Original Mix)"</div>
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Spencer K - "Pandole (Original Mix)"</div>
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Harry Romero - "Puma (Original Mix)"</div>
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Jay Lumen - "Roots 88 (Original Mix)"</div>
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Julian Jeweil - "Meteorite"</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ZywVADzizFDKwEvLlwalulKsjKTNK02IC25vgNqpx-Rf9IzdoSsRi3O7XJSIxE_FDSkyDfj0x0g_Xd7eFSeq7h1jPMn9ETGg3GnWYzZlAnECX0HW9ypqCsvqVv0eW1OGyE8D0ohkbtiM/s1600/spacetime.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ZywVADzizFDKwEvLlwalulKsjKTNK02IC25vgNqpx-Rf9IzdoSsRi3O7XJSIxE_FDSkyDfj0x0g_Xd7eFSeq7h1jPMn9ETGg3GnWYzZlAnECX0HW9ypqCsvqVv0eW1OGyE8D0ohkbtiM/s1600/spacetime.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/chilloutambienttriphop-live-spacetime-kansas-city-110715/" target="_blank">Live 2-hour, 27-track Chillout/Ambient/Trip Hop set from Space/Time @ Niche Arts Bar - KCMO</a></div>
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Beastie Boys - Shambala</div>
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4 Hero - Conceptions</div>
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Alina Baraz & Galimatias - Show Me</div>
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Alina Baraz & Galimatias - Make You Feel</div>
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XXYYXX - About You</div>
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Cinematic Orchestra - All Things To All Men</div>
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Dj Cam - Underground Vibes</div>
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Sir Sly - You Haunt Me (AMTRAC Remix)</div>
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Nalepa - Flatlands </div>
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George Palikaris - Woman</div>
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Yasume - Sing the Noises</div>
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Skalpel - Sculpture</div>
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Dj Cam - Mad Blunted Jazz </div>
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Bliss - Reveal ft. Lisbeth Scott</div>
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Rae & Christian - Bring the Drama</div>
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Slowdive - J's Heaven</div>
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Lapalux - Without You</div>
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Eric Del Mar - Mykonos Sundown Feelings</div>
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Gerd - Seduce Me</div>
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MOODORAMA - Behind the Scenes</div>
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Eluvium - All the Sails</div>
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Tennyson - Lay-By</div>
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Dj Cam - Return of the Jedi</div>
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XXYYXX - DMT </div>
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Nujabes & Fat Jon - Ole</div>
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Simon Burnett - Theme for A New Day</div>
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Sigur Ros - Svefn-G-Englar</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiklrxmCwckMRCxHZokMARSk182HYoqoim-8BNpdNLjOdFFUE24fbWvndHRXw-BGHa_vh32J1iyyf7thEPULGFGoLzWOU-rK9vAWgtgxqhKDg5ATEqfFPoQZRRcVanW6b37oz5P67TJwt0/s1600/twerk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiklrxmCwckMRCxHZokMARSk182HYoqoim-8BNpdNLjOdFFUE24fbWvndHRXw-BGHa_vh32J1iyyf7thEPULGFGoLzWOU-rK9vAWgtgxqhKDg5ATEqfFPoQZRRcVanW6b37oz5P67TJwt0/s1600/twerk.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/tribal-housetechno-live-the-upstairs-lounge-in-st-louis-mo-112515/" target="_blank">Live 1.5-hour Techno / Deep Tech / Tribal House mix at Twerksgiving Day, Live @ The Upstairs Lounge - St. Louis, MO</a></div>
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Gino G - Insidious Soul (D Unity Remix)</div>
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Banda Sonora - Guitarra G (Warren Clarke Dub Mix)</div>
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Stanny Abram - Shine On (Miki Mad Remix)</div>
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VIP Room - Late Night (Original Mix)</div>
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Carlo Cavalli & Eros Locatelli - Mexico (Massimo Russo Remix)</div>
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Massimo Russo - Gladiola (Dj Troby Remix)</div>
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Doomwork - Life Element (Original Mix)</div>
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Carlo Cavalli - Welo (Tech House Mix)</div>
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Carlo Cavalli - Tanzmania</div>
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Fabio Montana & Freiboitar - Bring the Funk (Teenage Mutants Remix)</div>
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Rafa Barrios - Daledalehey</div>
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David Vasquez - Baila Con Miego (Johnny Fiasco's Unreleased Remix)</div>
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Ken Ishii - Traffic</div>
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Tyree Cooper - On Tha Floor (Live Element Remix)</div>
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Mario Ochoa - Burning (Original Remix)</div>
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LxS - Can U</div>
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Dj Navigare - Piter Pen</div>
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Arda Gencer - Zero (Harun Karabulut Remix)</div>
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Rodrigo Risso - In The Forest (Original Mix)</div>
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Matals - Tester (Original Mix)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj98BHyRu9x3lSqDU1zNVBGY__NK9IhyphenhyphenKJ92mBMMgaV1PR5JruTI9c0YtVKcfZ8r9s4naPDo7jVBlJsxnYg6zAUjhoH0jBmLRr4kP88oXYdxMHVOy4BWRF6ph8-sVf3O0QQFA40meCrSj9X/s1600/bk5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj98BHyRu9x3lSqDU1zNVBGY__NK9IhyphenhyphenKJ92mBMMgaV1PR5JruTI9c0YtVKcfZ8r9s4naPDo7jVBlJsxnYg6zAUjhoH0jBmLRr4kP88oXYdxMHVOy4BWRF6ph8-sVf3O0QQFA40meCrSj9X/s1600/bk5.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/deeptribalfunky-house-the-bounce-kitchen-vol-v/" target="_blank">Nearly 2-Hour long Tribal / Funky / Deep House mix recorded at The Manthercave</a></div>
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<b><u>The Bounce Kitchen, Vol. V</u></b></div>
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Maax 52 - Just Away</div>
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Maax 52 - Sidespin</div>
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Chus & Ceballos, Dj Chus - Mamasitas (Original Mix)</div>
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Detroit Swindle - Figure of Speech</div>
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Dj E-Clyps - So Gone</div>
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Secondcity, Kydus - The Light (Original Mix)</div>
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Jetro - Why I Lose Control (Davydov Deep Mix 2)</div>
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Miguel Migs - Heartbeat</div>
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Maax 52 - Seehunger Love</div>
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Umek & Mike Vale - All I Want (Dosem Remix)</div>
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Fifth Avenue Ensemble - Lightness of Living (Fashion Mix)</div>
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Martin Villenueve - Uhuru Sunset (Deep Mix)</div>
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Detroit Swindle - Ballin'</div>
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Luke Hassan - Everything I Need</div>
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Le'Funnk - Insane</div>
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Michael J. Matthews - Memories</div>
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Rene Amesz - Like It Deep (Original Mix)</div>
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Dario D'Attis, Yvan Genkins - Afro Call (Original Mix)</div>
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South of Roosevelt - This Is How It Is (Deeper Dubstrumental)</div>
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Nero - The Thrill (TCTS Remix)</div>
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Joeski - Monkey Funk (Original Mix)</div>
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Camilo Diaz - XYZ123</div>
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Fred Everything - Come On Everybody</div>
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Joe Silva - Spam</div>
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Tom Lown - And Again (Original Mix)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicxWucavMh_XTnX6OY-1XsYQQI3EHzQ_m2g8KX_gyKNYqQ54lSMiRgPs9vd10j_bu6V5F2a57PUiOOKzhttGPDQoqbDIZbdZStCM5M4wZTzcTPlU3TEAalOV-6VMFy5k2uILluP5rjMIcV/s1600/bk6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicxWucavMh_XTnX6OY-1XsYQQI3EHzQ_m2g8KX_gyKNYqQ54lSMiRgPs9vd10j_bu6V5F2a57PUiOOKzhttGPDQoqbDIZbdZStCM5M4wZTzcTPlU3TEAalOV-6VMFy5k2uILluP5rjMIcV/s1600/bk6.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/bucho/housetribaltechdeep-the-bounce-kitchen-vol-vi/" target="_blank">A 1.5-Hour mix of Deep / Funky / Techy House perfect for getting a night started or for keeping it going until sunrise...</a></div>
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<b><u>The Bounce Kitchen, Vol. VI</u></b></div>
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Homework - Pleister</div>
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Diem & Romano Arcaini - Time (South of Roosevelt Mix)</div>
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Wehbba - Common Ground (Original Mix)</div>
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Dj Max Mad - Tek My House (Tribal Version)</div>
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Sebb Aston - Hold Me Down</div>
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Fabio Bacchini - Funk Player (Homero Espinosa & Cubase Dan Remix)</div>
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Alex Morgan - El Aquelarre (Original Mix)</div>
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Cavalier - Lipizzan</div>
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Nigel Hayes - Moving On (Fred Everything Movin' Dub)</div>
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Roberto Rodriguez (Manolo) - Giving It All (Original Mix)</div>
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Miguel Migs - Runnin' Away</div>
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Mettle Music Collective - Glider</div>
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Sigother - Natural Tone</div>
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Escape - Just Escape (Justin Martin Remix)</div>
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Ahautzab - Last Pretty</div>
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C'est Moi - This Song (Dario D'Attis Remix)</div>
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Danny Cruz - Time to Go Back</div>
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Jimmy Chronic - Beans (Swirl Peepz Mix)</div>
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<br />Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-756385795555007551.post-45293196571061139142015-12-07T15:31:00.002-08:002016-03-31T10:31:41.790-07:002015 Reading List This will be my last post for a cool minute for a number of reasons, not that I'm super regular with new content or anything.<br />
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This year was bittersweet in so many ways. It began with me getting injured at work. Strained trap, sprained tricep, tendinitis of the bicep, strained rotator cuff capsule, and (after x-rays and an MRI) we found that I'd had chronic tearing of my labrum. For a few months, I could barely wash my own hair in the shower without some serious pain shooting up my back and down my arm. After 6 years of heavy lifting at my job, I was probably due for a serious injury and boy did I get it. The pain has subsided, but still returns on random days. There's no rhyme or reason for its appearance and I've desperately tried to establish the pattern to no avail. It's apparent the pain will not be going away any time soon. This was not a good thing.<br />
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What was a good thing was being put on paid medical leave from work for three days a week and not having to lift anything for the other two that I was there training my replacement(s). This afforded my arm and shoulder time to heal (slowly) while also making sure my rent and bills were paid. Once I realized this was going to be a lengthy healing process, I understood that I had been given a gift through the injury: more time to write.<br />
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So while this year's reading list is significantly smaller than the last few years, I'm not too embarrassed by it. Especially considering how few books the average person reads in a year (<i>via Pew Research Center: median number of books read by an individual per year is 6 while the average is 15; that's pitiful</i>). I can do better, but with the process of moving back across the country and the amount of really solid writing, submitting, and eventual publishing that got done this year, almost 40 books is still pretty damn good.<br />
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What to say about the list this year? Heavy on the Murakami, for sure. After years of putting him off, I finally decided to dive headlong into his work. He is a polarizing author for me, not unlike some of Millhauser's work wherein, I love parts, but feel the author could've tried to step just a little further into the weird without sacrificing the story. Murakami's later stuff is better written by far, however. His early stuff really had me tearing my hair out due to some pretty terrible metaphors and similes, though I wonder how much of that is due to the translation.<br />
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The Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series ended this year. Pretty great finish, honestly. It'd be nice to see Riggs put out another book involving that world or one just this side of it. Really fun read, conceptually.<br />
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Mark Z. Danielewski's latest project hit shelves. I'm still working through Book 1 despite it being listed below. It's a bit of a slog at the moment and hard to latch on to. I hope others are enjoying it more than I am currently, but I'll finish it by the end of the year.<br />
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For now, most of my books remain in storage until I move into my apartment in January. Strangely, it's the bookshelves I'm looking forward to filling the most, second only to hanging all the art I've been collecting from friends and friends of friends over the last few years.<br />
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<b><u><span style="font-size: large;">2015 Reading:</span></u></b></div>
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<b><u>December</u></b></div>
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01.) Gilbert Sorrentino - "The Abyss of Human Illusion" (151pgs)</div>
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02.) George Orwell - "Animal Farm" (139pgs)</div>
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03.) Kurt Vonnegut - "Slaughterhouse-Five" (215pgs)</div>
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04.) Haruki Murakami - "The Strange Library" (96pgs)</div>
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<i>(601pgs total)</i></div>
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<b><u>January</u></b></div>
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05.) Junot Diaz - "This is How You Lose Her" (217pgs)</div>
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06.) Roberto Bolano - "The Secret of Evil" (144pgs)</div>
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07.) Madeline Roux - "Sanctum" (343pgs)</div>
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08.) Ransom Riggs - "Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children" (396pgs)</div>
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09.) Haruki Murakai - "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" (607pgs)</div>
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<i>(1,707pgs total)</i></div>
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<b><u>February</u></b></div>
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10.) Joe Hill - "Horns" (397pgs)</div>
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<i>(397pgs total)</i></div>
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<b><u>March</u></b></div>
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11.) Albert Camus - "Exile and the Kingdom" (213pgs)</div>
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12.) Dean Koontz - "Odd Thomas" (446pgs)</div>
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13.) Ayn Rand - "Anthem" (253pgs)</div>
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14.) C.G. Jung - "Modern Man in Search of a Soul" (244pgs)</div>
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15.) Nic Pizzolatto - "Galveston" (258pgs)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(1,414pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>April</u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
16.) Phantom Drift, Issue #1 (153pgs)</div>
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17.) Phantom Drift, Issue #2 (159pgs)</div>
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18.) Phantom Drift, Issue #3 (155pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
19.) Phantom Drift, Issue #4 (160pgs)</div>
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20.) Thomas Pynchon - "The Crying of Lot 42" (152pgs)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(769pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>May</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
21.) Horowitz, Derby, & Moffett - "The Silent History" (513pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(513pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>June</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
22.) SK Kalsi - "The Stove-Junker" (334pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
23.) Jean-Patrick Manchette - "The Gunman" (155pgs)</div>
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24.) Dia Felix - "Nochita" (242pgs)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(731pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>July</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
25.) Amelia Gray - "Gutshot" (207pgs)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(207pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>August</u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
26.) Sjon - "The Blue Fox" (115pgs)</div>
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27.) Roberto Bolano - "Tres" (175pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(290pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>September</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
28.) Madeline Roux - "Catacomb" (330pgs)</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(330pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>October</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
29.) Haruki Murakami - "Kafka on the Shore" (480pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
30.) Imre Kertesz - "Detective Story (112pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
31.) Mark Z. Danielewski - "The Familiar, Book I" (839pgs)</div>
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32.) Ransom Riggs - "Library of Souls: The Third Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children" (458pgs)</div>
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33.) Catherine Fisher - "Incarceron" (442pgs)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(2,331pgs total)</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>November</u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
34.) David Young/Keith Hollaman - "Magical Realist Fiction: An Anthology" (519pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
35.) Haruki Murakami - "After the Quake" (147pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
36.) Haruki Murakami - "The Elephant Vanishes" (327pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
37.) Miyuki Miyabe - "Brave Story" (816pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
38.) David Young/Keith Hollaman - "Magical Realist Fiction: An Anthology" (528pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(2,337pgs total)</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>December</u></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
39.) Matt Bell - "Cataclysm Baby" (105pgs)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>(105pgs total)</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Total Pages: 11,732</i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
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Buchohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09297948322445910219noreply@blogger.com0