“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape – the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.” ~ Andrew Wyeth

There’s a new documentary in the works called “The People vs. George Lucas.” They’re looking for Star Wars fans to submit videos for it.

Whoo hoo!!!! I might actually sing for this one. Deadline is September 30, 2009.

For more info, go here: http://www.peoplevsgeorge.com/

Teaser trailer:

It’s my turn again at Publishing Renaissance. In today’s post, I talk about green eyeshadow.

Among other things.

aka Kel is cheap frugal

My latest graveyard shift produced video, featuring the many and varied joys of coffee.

I don’t usually weigh in on this kind of stuff here at Da Blog, but this time I’m going to. I know I’m a week late, but better late than … well, you know.

To those out there who are horribly shocked/dismayed/indignant by the fact that Mr. Phelps was hittin’ a bong: WHY? The dude is twenty-three years old and has more money’n God. Think he’s spending his free time going to prayer meetings, or what? He’s been caught driving drunk in the past, so we know he’s no choir boy.

Besides, I deal with drunks and stoners every time I work. I’ll take 10 stoners over 1/2 a drunk (figuratively speaking, because literally speaking that would be gross) any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. They’re laid back, easily amused, and need little more than a handful or two of Little Debbies to keep ’em happy.

In this day and age, anyone who holds professional athletes up as role models … well, let’s just say that there are much smarter options out there.

Lori Tiron-Pandit posted an interview she conducted with yours truly today. You can read it on her website.

While you’re there, you should check out her poetry. Amazing stuff.

This one – and I’m not kidding – made me cry. But in the good way.

I read this book, all the way amazed by the vitality of the writing, all the way trying to label it, to encase it in some sort of genre. I have decided to call this realist idealism. No, they are not mutually exclusive in my book, and believe me, when realism and idealism meet, spectacular ensues.

The protagonist (Tess) “looks like shit” most of the time and works as a cleaning lady and her love interest (Brian) has a construction company. They are working class, real people with even more real problems that make our real lives look absurdly fictional. They deal with abuse, drugs, absent parents, abortions, beatings and death. Still, although they live in a seemingly endless ”cold, cruel, frigid winter” nobody ever stops waiting for spring.

Tess drinks a bit too much, without apologizing or trying to make it look cute. But Tess is also an artist who sees the world in crayon and paint colors.

“I still can’t remember his name, but his hair was Goldenrod and his eyes were Sky Blue.”

For me this sentence was convincing enough. If it isn’t for you, then read further.

With her self-worth crushed to nothingness from childhood, Tess finds the strength to defend aggressively the ones she loves. She fights with God for them. Because Tess remains pure and beautiful all throughout a life in which she obsessively cleans offices, her past, bathrooms, sins, kitchens, a path for the future.

“The next day I cleaned, all day long. First my apartment, scrubbed every inch of it, from ceiling to floor. Then Brian’s. I called Laura at work, begged her to let me watch Cassidy at her house after school instead of mine so I could please clean something there,[…]”

I needed to do a lot of re-reading, a lot of going back to the same passage to understand exactly what was that about, because this author assumes her readers are of the intelligent sort. And I love it when somebody thinks of me like that.

This is the kind of book that I like: not a fast read because it is too thought provoking, multi-layered and simply beautifully written. And besides being beautifully written, the story flows seamlessly like a good movie, pulling the reader in that universe for a good amount of time, much longer than it takes to only read the book.

I could write more about the leitmotif of flying, falling, landing hard, the symbolism of the hard soil and the spring, the counting, or the the repetitive phrases of internal dialogue that  torture Tess. But I’m gonna stop now, because I just finished reading the book and I am too overwhelmed and because I want to let you find the scattered beauty in this novel on your own. It’s a good book, if you don’t mind reading through a haze of half-shed tears. Just until the last fifty pages or so. Those you read shaking through an overflow. It’s a good book to read while we’re all waiting for a spring of our own.

Read it HERE.

Thank you Lori.

We’ve got all your ice fishing and Valentine’s Day supplies…

I’ve had three takers so far in the “Whoo hoo, I’d love to be in a commercial trailer for Waiting For Spring!” offer. It would be awesome if I had a few more.

Just to ease your mind:

• It doesn’t require you to dress up in a costume (unless that’s your thing. Just please wear pants. Unless you look like Brian LaChance.)
• It will consist of reading two lines, and (if you’d like) a brief mention of why you enjoyed reading WFS.
• If you’re super shy, or if you’re in the Witness Protection program, I can pixelize your face if you want. I have the technology. (Come to think of it, I guess that means you don’t have to wear pants if you don’t want to.)

If it’s something you might even be REMOTELY interested in, please let me know, either here in the comments box or by emailing me at rjkeller.wfs@gmail.com

Also, today is Wednesday…my day for waxing poetic at Publishing Renaissance. Check it out.