Tag Archives: B-Sides & Rarities Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Let’s Just Let Life Happen, Shall We ??

What a lovely Sunday here in Crazeysburg, gang! And even though yesterday was mostly about thunderstorms and torrential rain all day long — that, too, was wild and sort of beautiful.

And the skies cleared up unexpectedly by 5PM. The storms were supposed to go on straight through until today. But the skies cleared and then last evening was sunny again and really lovely.

I streamed two episodes of Professor T. yesterday (the Belgian TV crime series on PBS) — I know, I said I wasn’t going to binge watch it, just sticking to one episode per evening.  But the rainy afternoon sort of called out for an episode of Professor T! So I watched an episode in the afternoon, during a thunderstorm, which was atmospheric and wonderful. Then another episode in the evening, when it was just so fucking  beautiful outside the screen door in my kitchen.

I also got a lot of work done on a new chapter for In the Shadow of Narcissa yesterday. I might finish it today. (I like to think I will, since each chapter is well under 1000 words.) Then I’ll get back to Letter #8 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse.

Things with Valerie in Brooklyn are still exhausting and very emotional for her right now, so any book projects requiring cover art are still on hold.

Oh, and that reminds me. In July, I will once more be participating in the Smashwords Summer Sale. All my eBooks there will be $1.00 and one of the Muse Revisited books will be free. I don’t know which one will be free, I simply agreed to participate and they take care of the rest. (And I think you have to buy at least one eBook this time to get the free one.)

And just a head’s up — once the new cover art is made for The Muse Revisited collection, those manuscripts will be re-edited. The editing in those books right now is not that great. I look forward to editing them myself and completely re-packaging them, not to mention having them available in trade paper for the first time, ever. (The stories themselves have all been in trade paper, many times over.  However, the 3-part collection as it is now has never been in traditional print.)

And Twilight of the Immortal will once again be in trade paper, as well. That one did come out with a traditional press several years ago, but has only been available as an eBook for quite a while now.

So, I’m excited!! Because, God knows, I need more stuff to do here at my desk!!!!!

All righty. On that note, I’m gonna get back to work on this new chapter for In the Shadow of Narcissa. I hope you have a really great Sunday, wherever you are in the world!

I’m leaving you with a song I was reminded of on Instagram this morning. “Cassiel’s Song” — by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. It’s from the soundtrack of a Wim Wenders film from 1993, Far Away, So Close! (A sequel to Wings of Desire.) (The song is also on the Bad Seeds’ album  B-Sides & Rarities. 2005)

And oddly enough, just yesterday afternoon, I had taken Judy Stone’s awesome book from 1997, Eye on the World: Conversations with International Filmmakers, down from the bookshelf and had re-read her Wim Wenders interview from  June 1988.

Eye on the World: Conversations with International Filmmakers by ...

It was a really interesting interview because he talked a lot about when he was young and sort of struggling to not only be a filmmaker but to come to terms with his nationality. (You can still buy the book, even though any filmmakers who became successful after the mid-1990s won’t be in it. And a number of the very well known international filmmakers who are in it have passed on now. But if you love international cinema, it is a real treasure. (And huge!! Almost a thousand pages, with 200 interviews with filmmakers from 40 countries.)

Okay!!  I’m off!! Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya!

We’ve come to bring you home
Haven’t we, Cassiel?
To cast aside your loss and all your sadness
And shuffle off that mortal coil and mortal madness
For we’re here to pick you up and bring you home
Aren’t we, Cassiel?
It’s a place where you did not belong
Were time itself was mad and far too strong
Where life leapt up laughing and hit you head on
And hurt you, didn’t it hurt you, Cassiel?

While time outran you and trouble flew toward you
And you were there to greet it
Weren’t you, foolish Cassiel?
But here we are, we’ve come to call you home
And here you’ll stay never more to stray
Where you can kick off your boots of clay
Can’t you, Cassiel?

For death and you did recklessly collide
And time ran out of you
And you ran out of time
Didn’t you, Cassiel?
And all the clocks, in all the world
May this once just skip a beat in memory of you
Then again those damn clocks, they probably won’t
Will they, Cassiel?
One moment you are there and then strangely you are gone
But on behalf of all of us here we are glad to have you home
Aren’t we, dear Cassiel?

©  1993 Nick Cave

Simplicity is So Fucking Cool!!

Tuesday in Crazeysburg!!

The house is clean. The laundry is well underway. The fridge is full of food. The weather is unbelievably perfect. I at least look like I’ve lost some more weight today but I’m not gonna get on the scale and find out for sure, I’m just going to assume that I did!!

And the cell phones seem to be up & running again!! (T-Mobile claims it was an “IP traffic-related” issue, but I’m sure we all know it was really another white anarchist domestic terrorist attack…)

But, regardless — it’s over! Today is officially perfect!

Okay.

I am going to try to make some significant progress on Letter #8 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. It has been such slow-going around here. But I’m feeling like today could be the day where a bunch more words are going to finally come out and land on the page!! We shall see!

One of the things I really like about this collection is that each “Letter” comes out so differently. And I honestly never know what to expect from them until they do come out. And, obviously, since these are memoirs, they are intensely personal, which can also be very illuminating (to me, I mean).  And then each of the finished “products” (each letter) sets me apart from myself and I become an observer of my life for a few minutes.

It is a very cool process, even though it’s also almost stupidly personal at the same time.

And another thing I love is knowing that I’m self-publishing everything from now on. I don’t have to worry about whether publishers or booksellers are going to be uncomfortable with what I’m writing about.

You know, back in 1999, when Neptune & Surf came out, the largest bookstore chain in America, Barnes & Noble, refused to carry the book — the same book that the Guardian newspaper in England called one of their Top Ten picks for summer reading that year. If a person went into a Barnes & Noble here in the States and asked for it to be ordered for them personally, the store would do it, but they refused to carry my book in their stores because of the novella, “Gianni’s Girl”. It offended them beyond belief. Even though the publisher had made sure (for once) to put a beautiful, non-sex-related cover on the book — it still didn’t help.

(And Trump actually had nothing to do with that!! Can you imagine?? Life used to suck a lot, even back then!!)

Well, a lot has changed since 1999, still, it is so mentally liberating to just write now and not worry about how I’m going to pitch the thing to an editor somewhere.

The plays and the movie scripts are different. They’re sort of eternally evolving processes that are always collaborative, in a sense. A lot of input along the way from others  in those projects . But my books are still just me, by myself, sitting at my  (indescribably tiny) desk, writing.

All righty. Well, I need to get going here. Finish the laundry and then call my dad — with the phones out for so many hours yesterday, I was not able to call and check in with him. So I need to do that.

I hope you are having a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are  in the world, and that maybe your weather is as perfect there as it is here today. Not too hot, but totally sunny and just so peaceful. (And I am still totally obsessing about getting some flower boxes in that barn window, gang, so I need to figure out what the heck I can do about that!)  Meanwhile…

I leave you with a song I haven’t listened to in awhile, but it came up on Instagram this morning, so I leave you with that today — “Babe, I Got You Bad”,  from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ B-Sides & Rarities (2005). (I think I’ve posted it here before, but here it is again!!)

Okay, enjoy. And thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys! See ya!

 

“Babe, I Got You Bad”

Babe I got you bad
Dreaming blood-wet dreams
only madmen have
Baby I got you bad
I wish to God I never had
And it makes me feel so sad,
O, Baby I got you bad
Yeah, Babe I got you bad

I long for your kiss,
for the turn of your mouth
Your body is a long thing
Heading South
And I don’t know what I’m talking about
All of my words have gone mad
Ah, baby I got you bad

Seasons have gone wrong
And I lay me down in a bed of snow
Darling, since you’ve been gone
well my hands, they don’t know where to go
And all of my teeth are bared,
I got you so much I’m scared
Ah, baby I got you bad

With the sweep of my hand
I undid all the plans
that explode at the moment I kissed you
on your small hot mouth
and your caramel limbs
that are hymns to the glory that is you.
Look at me darlin’ it’s sad sad sad
Look at me darlin’ it’s sad sad sad
Baby I got you bad

Smoke billowing from the bridges
and the rivers we swim in are boiling
My hands are reaching for you everywhere
but you’re not there, or you’re recoiling
and a weary moon dangles from a cloud
Oh honey, I know it’s not allowed
To say I got you bad.

I got you bad…
I got you bad…
I got you bad..

© 1997 Nick Cave