Tag Archives: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Si!! Per due giorni non ho studiato italiano!!

July 23, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yes! That’s right!

This morning, I realized that I hadn’t studied my Italian lessons for the past 2 days. Which also means I missed my Sunday quiz!

Ack!! I’ve been so caught up in revisions of the play, as well as the profoundly intense heat wave, that everything else fell from my awareness.

I’m not gonna spend the rest of the summer giving you the weather report for around here, but I do want to at least say that it is an unbelievably beautiful day here, today. All the heat and thunderstorms are completely gone. It is sunny and mild and supposed to stay that way all week. And by mild, I mean it’s going down into the high 50s Fahrenheit during the night! I feel transformed because of it.

I did not feel transformed yesterday, though.

I had a very challenging day with the revisions for Tell My Bones.

I was getting good work done. I liked what was coming, but it was painstakingly slow going. And I am still having trouble going back & forth between the new revisions for the overall play, and the staged reading version of the play , which is condensed and shorter, less music, etc.

And as I make the revisions to the overall play, I then have to go back to the staged reading version and make sure it gets updated. So the constant switching back & forth was extremely distracting.

After I was at it for 8 hours, the director of the play called to wish me a happy birthday and to confirm our lunch appointment for today — AND to say that he was reading the screenplay version of Tell My Bones and that it was incredibly wonderful and he told me all the reasons why he thought so and that he lamented that the play couldn’t capture a lot of that because they were two different media.

(The screenplay scored really well in several high-profile screenplay competitions the year I wrote it, and won Best Voice of Color at the Cleveland Independent Film Festival the following year.)

While we were talking, I was already so incredibly exhausted from laboring over the revisions of the play for 8 hours, that my “take away” from the phone call was that the play was nowhere near as good as the screenplay and so I had to start from scratch or something.

It blew my evening right out of the water, and not in a good way. I stayed at my desk for 3 more hours wondering, what am I supposed to do here? How do I turn this into the screenplay?

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that Sandra and I struggled with just that very thing for a couple of years before I came to the conclusion (with input from Peitor in Los Angeles) that I had to let go of the screenplay entirely, and approach the play from a whole new perspective. Because it wasn’t working for the stage.

Last night, though, I kept feeling that there must be a way to sort of layer aspects of the screenplay on top of the play…. and have a 90 minute full-cast dramatic screenplay magically become a 90 minute one-woman play with music.

I’m sure you can readily see that I was completely out of my mind.

Eventually I realized that I was starving and needed to eat dinner. So I finally closed the darn laptop and walked away.

This morning, though, I had an entirely fresh perspective on all of it. And I know something magical is going to transform or infuse the play with aspects of the screenplay. I don’t know yet what that is but I can feel it sort of hovering at the edges of my mind.

Even though this also means that at my meeting today, revisions to the script will not be finished. But it isn’t the end of the world. I still have 2 weeks before Sandra gets here to begin the initial rehearsals.

(Here’s something interesting that I just noticed: Whenever I need to type the word “being” it always comes out as “begin” and I have to fix it. But just there when I needed to type the word “begin” it came out as “being”! Clearly, I know how to type the word “being” so why can’t I just type it the right way when I need it??!!)

Anyway. Hey, thanks to new readers who are coming here through the post over at EdgeofHumanity.com yesterday. I appreciate it.

I thought it was kind of interesting that yesterday was my birthday and the first excerpt from my childhood memoir-in-progress, In the Shadow of Narcissa, went out on the EdgeofHumanity.com feed. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting that. I knew it was coming out this week, but I didn’t think it would be on Monday.

I have emotional issues with In the Shadow of Narcissa, only because it is very hard for me to write. It’s hard for me to emotionally claim all the stuff I need to in order to write it. But I do feel 100% sure that I need to write it, so I’m not going to allow my emotions to get in the way of that.

Still, seeing something so personal to me arrive as another entity’s web update in my inbox, was startling. Partly, you know, I just want to remove myself from it. It’s the only way I can handle it, really.

I appreciate so much that they are wiling to publish it over at Edge of Humanity, though, because I think it’s helping me stick with the process of writing it.

Okay, gang. I’m gonna get started around here now because I have to have that lunch meeting in a couple of hours. I hope you have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world!! I leave you with the breakfast listening music from today! “Opium Tea” from B-Sides & Rarities. A song with an hypnotic, groovy little groove to it. Thanks for visiting! I love you guys! See ya.

“Opium Tea”

Here I sleep the morning through
‘Til the wail of the call to prayer awakes me
And there is nothing at all to do
But rise and follow the day wherever it takes me

[Chorus]
I stand at the window and I look at the sea
And I am what I am and what will be will be
I stand at the window and I look at the sea
And I make me a pot of opium tea

Down at the port I watch the boats come in
Oh, watching the boats come in can do something to you
And the kids gather around with an outstretched hand
And I toss them a dirham or two

[Chorus]
Well, I wonder if my children are thinking of me
Cause I am what I am and what will be will be
I wonder if my kids are thinking of me
And I smile and I sip my opium tea

At night the sea lashes the rust-red ramparts
In the shapes of hooded men who pass me
And the mad moaning wind laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs
At the strange lot that fate has cast me

[Chorus]
The cats on the rampart sing merrily
That he is what he is and what will be will be
The cats on the rampart sing merrily
And I sit and I drink my opium tea

I’m a prisoner here, I can never go home
There is nothing here to win or lose
There are no choices need to be made at all
Not even the choice of having to choose

[Chorus]
I’m a prisoner yes, but I’m also free
Cause am what I am and what will be will be
I’m a prisoner here but I’m also free
And I smile and I sip my opium tea

c – 1996 Conway Savage & Nick Cave

Happy Independence Day!!

July 4, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Do all kinds of independent things today, gang, okay??!!

I am not a jingoist kind of gal, or anything, so this is my only annual homage to the 4th of July:

The smallest coffee cup in my house that is not meant for espresso!

The only good thing about this coffee cup is that it is so small, I have to constantly go back down to the kitchen to refill it. So it’s a good “exercise mug”!! (It actually doesn’t look as small as it really is from this angle.)

You’ll note in the background there – my tickets to see Nick Cave in NYC! I decided the only way I would ever remember to bring them with me was to have them in plain sight every single solitary day for something like 4 or 5 months.

Speaking of Nick Cave (and correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I’m always speaking about Nick Cave…), I had a dream about him last night that was so strange. He sent me 2 emails and inside each email was a window – an actual window like you would have in your house. And each window was in the shape of Australia. (Don’t ask me how actual windows can arrive in an email.)

The dream was strange enough to wake me up at around 3am and try to figure out what the heck it could mean. (I have no clue.)

I don’t dream about Nick Cave often, but when I do, there is always that duplicate thing happening – meaning 2 of the same thing. (Oh, and when I dream about him, he’s always wearing a white shirt and a black suit.) (I know, clearly, my issues with his suits extend to unfathomable psychological depths.) (And when I dream about other people, I never notice what they’re wearing at all, and I doubt that if I dream of them more than once, they’re wearing the very same thing every single time.)

Anyway. In dreams, baby!!!

Well, lest you think anything I ever plan to do on any given day ever pans out….

No! The final edits for Blessed By Light did not arrive until very late last night, when I was already asleep. So I was not able to do that final read-through of the novel yesterday. I will likely do it today, even though it’s a holiday.

I did do a bunch of stuff with the new laptop yesterday, though, so that is finally up and completely running. It has great speakers! I’m still not using it as my main computer, though, because the novel is in a WORD Add-in app that I’m not going to transfer to the new laptop.

Even though those novel-writing apps are cool to use, I have found that as soon as I need to send a chapter, or the whole book, to someone, I have to reformat the whole darn thing or nobody can read it correctly because the file arrives weirdly at their end.

So that app’s going, but everything else transferred and I am now a Brave New Girl with a fully updated laptop.

The other thing I wasted a ridiculous amount of time on last evening, was I tried to join a new dating site. One of those sites that is strictly for bisexuals or bi-curious’s looking to hookup, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the L word. (No!! Not lesbian! I am indeed speaking of love right now, and about how I don’t actually want it.)

Bi-curious, I have found, is generally a married woman who’s cheating her brains out, or a married woman whose husband has an agenda that he deeply wishes you to participate in.

True bisexuals are harder to find than you would think, so I’m not too terrifically picky. However, I did have the most ridiculously difficult time setting up my little profile! It kept wanting to use my private email address as my user name!!

You can probably readily see why I might shy away from a thing like that!

But also, it kept telling me that I couldn’t use my private email address as my user name!! And then wouldn’t let me change it. And I couldn’t set up my entire profile without changing that user name problem.

Even so, as I was attempting to set up my profile, you know, realizing that I’m looking for a bisexual gal who is a vegetarian, doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t do drugs, and wants NSA hookups with no LTR — you know. I mean, there are about 14 people who live out here in the Hinterlands. And I seriously know in my bones that none of them are gonna fit this description. Plus, I know I only have about 5 minutes of free time every 3 weeks.

I felt completely confident that I was setting myself up to fail. However, I kept trying to make the darn thing work because I was just in that insistent sort of mood. You know: I wanted a girl! Who doesn’t drink or smoke or get high or eat animals or want to spend more than 5 minutes with me every 3 weeks!!

Finally , I broke down and started a Tech Help ticket to try to make my private email address as my user name go away. And immediately they replied, letting me know that they would look into my problem within 48 hours…

Well, in 48 hours, god knows I won’t be thinking about dating anybody anymore because I’ll be up to my eyeballs in revisions of my play. So that was an evening well spent!

Oh, and then I discovered that the fireworks around here this year won’t be until tomorrow. Well, that totally sucks because I really only appreciate 4th of July fireworks on the 4th of July. By tomorrow, my mind will be on a whole new path, even though fireworks will be filling the sky in plain view of my kitchen porch. (They do that weird scheduling thing because all the little towns around here try not to conflict with other towns’ fireworks, including the event in the main city, which draws millions of people.)

Well, anyway. Onward, gang!! It’ll still be a really nice Independence Day for me!

Okay.

I leave you with this fun video from the Another Man Magazine site in the UK. The band is Wild Daughter and the song is “Mr G.” It’s highly stylized gay fetish, which is always fun on the 4th of July!

All righty! Have a wonderful day, wherever you are in the world!! Thanks for visiting, gang. I love you guys! See ya!

Much Better Morning – If You Don’t Look at My Hair!

June 8, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Yesterday ended up going okay.

All my little claims were staked and my lines were drawn and everyone stayed on their respective sides of them, and basically said, “Oops, sorry, Marilyn.”

So far so good. I only had to send off 3 letters. And writing letters is better. It gives me that time to really, really choose my words carefully. So that by the time a couple of the phone calls started to come in, all I had to do was “be nice.”

I was then able to focus on the always unwelcome fact that my current laptop is lurching into the sunset. (Yesterday was just one of those days on all fronts.)

Rather than hedge my bets, as I have sometimes done with laptops in the past, I decided to just get out in front of disaster and stop it from arriving and I ordered a new laptop yesterday, too.

(I’m one of those people who sometimes likes to see just how long I can go before the laptop completely implodes. I guess because I want to see just how much stress I can endure before my brains start springing out from the sides of my head – you know, when the laptop finally locks up for good and you can’t access anything and you’re in the middle of writing a novel or something and you neglected to put the file back into the dropbox or anywhere else where you can actually get at it ever again and so then you call The Boyfriend (if you have one of those in your life at that particular fleeting moment) and you shriek at him over the phone, loudly and in a wholly unattractive register, “My laptop just died!! What the FUCK am I gonna do??!! My novel is in there!!!” and then he, who is way too calm and maybe even just drinking a pleasant cup of coffee or something, says something stupidly calmly, like, “I’ve been telling you for weeks that you’d better get a new one.” Or some such scenario as that. I’m avoiding that this time.)

The heady days of my fearless youth, you know?

I’m still fearless when it comes to LOVE, baby, but in every other area of my life, I pretty much hedge my bets now.

Okay!

Yes, I did wake up in a really wonderful mood, even though I slept a little bit later than I would have preferred. The sun was already coming up and it enabled me to see myself quite clearly in the mirror when I got out of the bed. And my hair actually made me gasp.

I mean, it really looked that horrible; I gasped out loud. Like, what the hell? It seems to me that I had really great dreams last night. I really did. Vivid and beautiful and sort of flowing. And there was lots of music in the dreams, too. I was really happy in my dreams, and I don’t recall thrashing wildly about. So I’m not understanding the hair at all.

And I hate thinking (or in this case, knowing) that I look horrible because I am still vane (a lapsed narcissist, in fact; ready to rejoin the movement at a moment’s notice) and want to feel like a viable option to anyone, anywhere, regardless of the fact that I live alone now in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Peitor is still en route from somewhere to somewhere – I think he’s finally en route to Los Angeles from Manhattan. But he has been gone now for several weeks, so our usual Saturday-work-over-the-phone-on-the-video-scripts is not gonna happen, and so I am free to just wash my hair and work on the novel.

And it is a stunning day here, gang. Just amazingly beautiful (as I will be, too, once I tackle this hair).

I had no breakfast-listening music today, because I was in a sort of euphoria over just how lovely the morning was and I didn’t want any sounds around me but the birds singing. (And the quiet perk of the electric percolator, assuring me that the gentle thunder of the gods was on its way to me – to my delicate veins, my tenderly beating heart – momentarily. Meaning, you know – the coffee’s almost ready.)

But the music from last night… For some weird and inexplicable reason, the sole gas station here in the village, which usually has very expensive gas prices because we are captive here in the middle of nowhere; for some weird reason, they were giving away gas for cheap last night.

So I filled up the gas tank on the Honda Fit and then drove around the dark valley for a little while, and going not my customary 95 mph, but more like 50 mph, because in the pitch dark of the valley, there are scurrying animals galore.

And this is what I was listening to, really, really loudly.

I just love this song, gang. I love this whole album. (Oh, this is that album that also has that song “God is in the House,” on it – the very same song that people all over Europe this past month were using as a sort of metaphor for Nick Cave’s, well, Divine heritage? Is that the best way to say that he’s God and that God is he?) (PS: I was glad to see that both of his Conversations in NYC in September have finally sold out!)

Anyway. Thanks for visiting!! Have a terrific Saturday, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya!

“Oh My Lord”

I thought I’d take a walk today
It’s a mistake I sometimes make
My children lay asleep in bed
My wife lay wide-awake
I kissed her softly on the brow
I tried not to make a sound
But with stony eyes she looked at me
And gently squeezed my hand
Call it a premonition, call it a crazy vision
Call it intuition, something learned from mother
But when she looked up at me, I could clearly see
The Sword of Damocles hanging directly above her
Oh Lord Oh my Lord
Oh Lord
How have I offended thee?
Wrap your tender arms around me
Oh Lord Oh Lord
Oh My LordThey called at me through the fence
They were not making any sense
They claimed that I had lost the plot
Kept saying that I was not
The man I used to be
They held their babes aloft
Threw marsh mellows at the Security
And said that I’d grown soft
Call it intuition, call it a creeping suspicion,
But their words of derision meant they hardly knew me
For even I could see in the way they stared at me
The Spear of Destiny sticking right through me
Oh Lord Oh my lord
Oh Lord
How have I offended thee?
Wrap your tender arms round me
Oh Lord Oh lord
Oh My Lord

Now I’m at the hairdressers
People watch me as they move past
A guy wearing plastic antlers
Presses his bum against the glass
Now I’m down on my hands and knees
And it’s so fucking hot!
Someone cries, “What are you looking for?”
I scream, “The plot, the plot!”
I grab my telephone, I call my wife at home
She screams, “Leave us alone!” I say, “Hey, it’s only me”
The hairdresser with his scissors, he holds up the mirror
I look back and shiver; I can’t even believe what I can see

Be mindful of the prayers you send
Pray hard but pray with care
For the tears that you are crying now
Are just your answered prayers
The ladders of life that we scale merrily
Move mysteriously around
So that when you think you’re climbing up, man
In fact you’re climbing down
Into the hollows of glamour, where with spikes and hammer
With telescopic camera, they chose to turn the screw
Oh I hate them, Ma! Oh I hate them, Pa!
Oh I hate them all for what they went and done to you
Oh Lord Oh my Lord
Oh Lord
How have I offended thee?
Wrap your tender arms round me
Oh Lord Oh Lord
Oh My Lord

c- 2001 Nick Cave

Ciao, Bella!

May 31, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Well, the good news (sort of) is that my little cat, Daddycakes, hasn’t been gone for 2 months already; it’s only been six weeks. So that sort of made me feel better. Perhaps time isn’t flying quite as quickly as it had seemed yesterday.

The other good news is that the headache is completely gone, finally, and it’s not supposed to rain at all today. My brain feels totally back to normal.

I awoke, though, to the eerie sight of a dense fog covering everything outside my window – for as far as the eye could see. It was too cool. It was almost 4am. Huckleberry was sitting in the window across from my bed – she also seemed quite taken with the fog. One lone bird was already singing in our maple tree – and Huckleberry, being a cat and not an actual berry, was quite taken with that, too.

AND I had once again awakened horny as heck for some mysterious reason and so that, of course, excited me, too! Where is that coming from? I just don’t know!

AND there was already a text on my phone from Peitor! It was a photo of Mont Blanc. No, not the pen! The mountain! He’s in Switzerland and heading to Mont Blanc today.

I was, like – WTF? Two days ago, I had awoken to this photo on my phone (a lovely boat outside his window in that Airbnb on the English Channel):

Yesterday, he was finally leaving the UK and I had texted him some work-related stuff, and asked him if he was stopping in Manhattan on his way back to LA.

And instead he texts me from Switzerland today at 4am (my time).

ME (texting at 4am, my time): Wow! I didn’t know you were going to Switzerland!!

HIM (texting right back): I didn’t either but I am having the best time!

And then nothing more… Silence. No further pings arising from the phone.

So I guess we’ll find out eventually how he suddenly wound up in Switzerland, heading for Mont Blanc, when he should have been heading for LA.

(Methinks he was in a train station and, loathe to return to Los Angeles – a city he has lived & worked in for 25 years and which he pretty much despises – saw a train heading somewhere completely other than the airport and decided he liked that idea a lot better and so, answered that clarion call of “All Aboard!!!”… But we shall see.)

Even though I love their apartment in West Hollywood and would hate like hell to have to pay for an actual hotel in LA, I’ve been selfless enough to mention to him, you know, that if he hates LA so much now, he should move.

And he always replies with something along the lines of: “I know you’re really happy out in that old house in the middle of nowhere, Marilyn, where it’s so quiet and nobody bothers you and there are only about 3 cars during “rush hour” and your muses are flying all over your room all the time and you’re doing your best writing ever. I’m sure that’s all really nice and that Tell My Bones will win some sort of Pulitzer Prize. However. Some of us need to be near an airport.”

And of course he’s right about that. I’m near absolutely nothing. But I don’t mind getting into my little Honda Fit and just driving! (And driving and driving and driving… I’ve never done so much driving in my fucking life.)

And it never fails, when I go to the market and I stand there and I study my cart intently and I say to myself: Think, Marilyn, think! Have you got absolutely everything that you need for the week because God knows you can’t possibly leave your desk again for the next 8 days…

And I study and I study, and I look and I look, and I peruse very carefully the items in my cart and with brave assuredness, I think: Yes! I am ready to checkout!

And then I am on the highway, racing 95 mph toward home, when I almost always realize that I’ve forgotten something. And so, you know, I have to go without it for a week because I am not going back. I am not that kind of gal; I do not “go back.” Plus, it’s really far.

And in Manhattan, of course, there was never such a thing as “forgetting” something at the store because you walked right past the corner bodega 1700 times a day. If you “forget” something, you just go get it 13 seconds later.

Anyway. Okay.

People in Sweden are already posting to Instagram. Showing where they are dining before going off merrily to have a Conversation with Nick Cave! So that seems like a good sign! (Of what, I’m not sure really. It just seems sort of good, you know?)

And I am going to get started here because the very real reality of my life is that I need to finish writing this novel. I need to seriously do this and stop staring all the time. So I’m gonna get started on that business of stopping all the staring.

I let the cats choose the breakfast-listening music today and they unanimously chose “More News from Nowhere” from Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! I thought that was pretty cool. So I leave you with that today.

(Even though the lyrics are amazing and I know every wonderful word by heart, I’m not going to post the lyrics here because they go on and on and on and on and on, and would probably end up spilling over into someone else’s blog and I wouldn’t want to get everybody all upset. So.)

Have a great Friday, wherever you are in the world, gang. Thanks for visiting. I love you, guys. See ya!

Lucky Lady, Indeed!

May 24, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Wow, you know, except for the fact that she slept in some sort of fur stole (yes, I know – it’s a bed jacket), I wouldn’t mind being this lucky lady! Red roses while you’re still in bed?! That’s gotta be awesome.

For some reason, I have been fixating on long-stemmed red roses a lot lately. I have no idea why.

I love flowers. Plenty of men have given me flowers over the years. And my 2nd husband was amazing about that – he brought me flowers all the time. I’ve even received a lot of roses, but never long-stemmed red ones.

And I’ve gotten it in my head now that I really want these. I really do. And I don’t want to buy them for myself, or anything. Sometimes even I get really tired of being so capable. But apparently I don’t inspire this kind of idea in men.

I’m not sure what kinds of ideas I inspire in men. I’m not being coy there, either. I mean, obviously, I know some of the ideas but except for that cute electrician back in the fall – the one who was 20 years younger than me and who was thoughtful enough to assure me that I didn’t look nearly as old as I was – men don’t follow up on what they’re clearly thinking about.

And as far as that electrician – if he hadn’t shown me photos on his phone of his infant daughter and her mom only moments before hitting on me, I might have been more inclined to pursue it.

But I still think it comes down to this overwhelming (and often annoying) sort of personality that I have, plus I don’t know how to be coy. I just don’t know how to do that. I’m usually very upfront. I say what I mean, or I don’t say anything at all. And I think it throws people.

A really nice man I know, that I know is very attracted to me – a lot older than me, very wealthy, his wife recently died after a very long illness. He asked me recently how I liked living out in the country and I told him that it was fantastic. So quiet. So peaceful. And he then said that maybe he should try it; that maybe he should move out to the country and live with me.

I told him, point blank: “You can move in with me. I’ve got plenty of room. You want to?”

And I was totally serious. I don’t believe he would want to live with me, or want to stay if he did move in. I’m unbelievably intensely intense. Not many people in their right minds have pursued that idea of living with me. Nevertheless, I was serious.

And the look on his face. It was like deep in the recesses of his brain, the gates of heaven swung open. Clearly, he couldn’t believe his ears. I know he was thinking that he really, really wanted to do that. To live with me.

And I waited for his answer, but I’m not gonna ask twice, you know? It would look like I’m begging and I just don’t do that.

Well, I’ve got a list of men that I’m willing to beg, but it’s a really short list.

Anyway. The man was just tongue-tied. And I know he thought I was teasing him, but I actually wasn’t. I was deadly serious, but he was completely thrown by it and wouldn’t answer so I sort of said, “Okay. See ya.”

I think I have a sort of weird approach to relationships that, for some reason, confuses people when I think I’m being totally upfront. Or it makes them see me in that self-sufficient way that plagues me – a way that doesn’t inspire a dozen long-stemmed red roses, that’s for sure.

Even though the years are rapidly gaining on me – they are barreling at me now at quite a clip – I’m not officially dead yet, so I’m hopeful that there’s still some sort of amazing future ahead of me where some sort of amazing guy finally decides to buy me long-stemmed red roses. We’ll find out.

On a thoroughly unrelated note…

I awoke at 4:06am today because Peitor texted me from England. My ringer was off, but I think I awoke because I felt him psychically or something. (I had texted him last night, knowing full well it was the middle of the night in London, so then he texted me back, knowing full well it was the middle of the night in Crazeysburg.)

Anyway, I was awake then. And the very first bird of the morning began to sing. It was another one of those amazing mornings, where all the windows were open and this light breeze was filling the whole house. The only sound in the world was that one bird singing. One of the cats was sitting in one of the windows, listening to it. I think it was Doris, but it was too dark to really see her.

And once again, I was absolutely filled with Eros, you know? It was incredible. It’s happening every morning now. I laid there and tried to sort of study that feeling, because, for the most part, my body and my mind were really quiet. I had just woken up. It was like my body wasn’t even really there yet; it was as if I consisted of this wave of Eros and nothing else.

It felt like there was a sort of cord, or current of erotic energy running between my mind and, well, that whole area between my legs. It was quite pronounced, this current of energy. And I thought it was so interesting, that it wasn’t just down there in that one place. It was definitely flowing between my mind and between my legs.

And the more I observed it, the more it sort of overtook me. It was so beautiful. And I know for sure that I have never felt anything like it before. And I do not know where this energy is coming from. It just envelops me. I didn’t want to, you know, pursue it because I was still sleepy, plus I had all those cats in the room, looking at me. Even though it was still dark, they make me a little too paranoid for all-out erotic abandon. I’m not an exhibitionist, even when it’s just cats.

So I just laid there for close to an hour, in that swoon. And then it occurred to me that it’s almost time for all those Boys of Summer to return to the regional playhouse in town. Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that last summer, wow, it was overwhelming. Those guys were so young, so beautiful, and so talented. And of course, they stick around all summer and it was pretty darned intense. The sexual energy.

The young women were very talented, too. Very pretty. Very sort of dynamic. But with women, even though I’m attracted to them, when they’re younger than me, I feel very maternal. Very protective. And I thought to myself this morning, Isn’t that odd? I mean, with actual children, regardless of their gender, I feel maternal and protective. But with guys, the minute they’re not children, man. Everything shifts. And it never shifts back.

I wonder why that is? It was all very curious indeed. But by then every bird in Muskingum County was awake and singing, so I knew it was time to get out of bed and start this magnificent day.

Okay!!

Nick Cave will be conversing with the lucky people in Luxembourg tonight! Of course, it is sold out.

And you know, it’s curious, that everyone without fail says how wonderful these Conversations are; how beautiful, and meaningful, and awe-inspiring they are; how their lives have changed or are finally complete now (I’m not overstating it, either). But nobody ever really talks about what it is he says.

The only thing anyone has posted so far about anything he’s said (and I’m including the tours he did of Australia and New Zealand back in the winter) is that he doesn’t really like cereal. Someone posted that recently.

I do find that sort of interesting, you know. I guess. But aside from wondering how it might feel to ask him, “What would you like for breakfast?” but only because that would likely mean that, well, he was right there; but aside from that, I have never actually wondered what he eats for breakfast.

But it’s kind of curious that no one ever really says what he talks about. They are all kind of too breathless to speak.

I find that amazing. I really do.

All right. Let’s get Friday happening here, gang. If you’re Stateside, I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!! I’ll be buying and planting my flowers this weekend and I can’t wait. As you now know, I love flowers! If you live everywhere else in the world, have a great weekend. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya!

(Oops! Breakfast music today. I love this song!! Okay, see ya.)

You found me at some party
You thought I’d understand
You barreled over to me
With a drink in each hand
I respect your beliefs, girl,
And I consider you a friend,
But I’ve already been born once,
I don’t wanna to be born again.

Your knowledge is impressive
And your argument is good
But I am the resurrection, babe,
And you’re standing on my foot!

But my little boat is empty
It don’t go
And my oar is broken
It don’t row, row, row
But my little boat is empty
It don’t go
And my oar is broken
It don’t row, row, row
(Row!)

Your tiny little face
Keeps yapping in the gloom
Seven steps behind me
With your dustpan and broom.
I couldn’t help but imagine you
All postured and prone
But there’s a little guy on my shoulder
Says I should go home alone.
You keep leaning in on me
And you’re looking pretty pissed
That grave you’ve dug between your legs
Is hard to resist.

But my little boat is empty
It don’t go
And my oar is broken
It don’t row, row, row
But my little boat is empty
It don’t go
And my oar is broken
It don’t row, row, row

Give to God what belongs to God
And give the rest to me
Tell our gracious host to fuck himself
It’s time for us to leave.

But my little boat is empty
It don’t go
And my oar is broken
It don’t row, row, row
But my little boat is empty
It don’t go
And my oar is broken
It don’t row, row, row
Row…row…row…row…

c- 1997 Nick Cave

Buona giornata!

May 23, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

It was another one of those incredibly beautiful mornings around here, gang.

I awoke at 5am to that mighty chorus of Muskingum County birds! All the windows were open, a warm breeze was filling the house. My bed was so incredibly comfortable, and I was, like, totally aroused. Like, for real.

I’m not gonna complain or anything. Because I’d rather spring from the depths of sleep totally ready to make love, than, you know, wake up and think, oh crap, it’s another day.

Still. I’m just not sure where that’s coming from and it’s happening a lot lately. And it wasn’t because of my dream. I remembered my dream and it was interesting & complex, but it certainly wasn’t anything that could be considered even remotely erotic.

So who knows. But it’s a wonderful way to wake up. And it’s happening a lot now.

It was a great day yesterday. I made good progress with Chapter 22 of Blessed By Light. Made good progress in both the Italian lessons and learning the new guitar material, too.

Oh, and I stopped in at the hardware store in town and bought a small pair of wire cutters. I guess I’m committed to becoming the Queen of Guitar String-Changers in Muskingum County now…

So it was just a really good day.

I guess loyal readers of this lofty blog know that I’m on Instagram. I actually joined Instagram when it very first launched, but I hate social media, so I never did anything with it. Until Sandra forced me to get active on Instagram for the sole reason that she didn’t want to.

She hates social media worse than I do. But since I write for her and, in some ways, work for her, I agreed to do it. Mostly to promote her projects. But once I really got on Instagram, I started to just love it.

So I’m on it a lot. But 95% of the people I’m following – I have no clue who they are. Not even the tiniest clue. I mostly follow painters, photographers, and musicians from all over the world. And a lot of the people I follow are extremely famous, and yet I still have no clue who they are. I can tell by their photos that a heck of a lot of people in the world do know who they are, but not me. But I still enjoy looking at their photos. Each photo is a little life story unto itself.

And when it comes to the 4% of people that I follow on Instagram who are famous and I do know who they are, well, as you know already, I get totally pulled in to their photos. And some of those photos make me seriously ponder. Some times it’s what they’re not saying that just astounds me. And so I ponder.

I’m a top-notch ponderer.

Dana Petty (Tom’s widow) doesn’t post very often and when she does it’s usually short videos of butterflies in her garden or something like that. But this past week, she’s been posting more personal stuff about Tom and the past and the loss. And posting at weird times – like at 3am. And I could tell she was grieving. Plus she was having a birthday.

Yesterday, she posted a photo of herself and her immediate family, out to dinner in LA, celebrating her birthday. And she looked positively ethereal. Really just ageless and just so pretty. All that long, straight blonde hair. And she never seems to wear much make-up. She’s just this genuinely pretty woman, who looked about 17 on her birthday. Honestly. So I wrote something to her about that.

And what she wrote back really gave me pause, you know? It is so clear that none of this is easy for her, at all. That she’s trying really, really hard to just keep on “keeping on”.

Instagram can be just so revelatory in that way.

I follow his daughters, too. From a distance. It makes me feel kind of creepy to do that. To “follow” people’s children. I mean, they’re grown women, both artists, and both so much like they’re dad as far as they’re temperaments, and their politics. They’re outspoken and sort of iconoclastic.

But I try to stay clear of people’s kids. And famous people’s kids are all over Instagram. But something about it just strikes me as so strange. Inherited fame, I mean. And being on Instagram because of that.

One famous kid of a famous person that I absolutely adore is Theodora Richards. I truly adore her, but I still won’t follow her because I think it’s creepy. I follow her dad, of course, because I’ve been in love with Keith since I was 12 years old.

But Theodora is just like Keith. Like, seriously. She’s really pretty, but looks more like Keith than like Patti, and has this awesome mind of her own. She doesn’t seem to give much of a fuck about what anybody thinks about anything. Plus, she does stuff. Actual stuff. She doesn’t just “model” – Keith has a seriously huge contingent of models in his sphere. Successful models. Super models, even.

I have nothing against models, you know. But they just don’t interest me. I was a professional model in my late teens, before moving to New York, so I know that it’s hard work and hard to be a really good model. You have to figure out how to become a complete blank so that whatever you’re wearing takes over you, and not the other way around. Designers don’t want your personality; they want their designs or their ideas to become your personality.

So if you have a lot of thoughts in your head that are of interest to you, you might not want to become a model.

This is an actual conversation I had with my agent – my last conversation with him – when I was a professional model. I was 19:

HIM (matter-of-factly): “No one gives a fuck what you think. You’re not being paid to think. You’re a piece of meat, and if that bothers you, then you’re in the wrong business and you better get out.”

ME: (Said nothing. Turned around. Left. Got out.)

The entire agency tried to apologize for him, and kept calling, wanting me to come back. But, honestly, I was a writer. It just wasn’t for me.

Theodora Richards is not a good model, because her attitude and unruly personality take over everything in the picture. Even though all she’s doing is just standing there. Her attitude is larger than life and it’s all you can see in the shot, and that’s definitely not what a designer wants. I’ve noticed, though, that when she does do some modeling, she’s always almost entirely naked, which I think is a really good indicator that she doesn’t give a fuck what other people might want her to wear.

Anyway, I love her! But I refuse to follow her on Instagram. She bleeds over sometimes into Keith’s feed, but that’s as far as I go.

Okay!! I leave you with 2 things today. Some of what I wrote yesterday in Blessed By Light. And then what I was listening to at breakfast today, Good Good Day, by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

So have a good, good day, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting. I love you, guys! See ya.

[Excerpted from Chapter 22, Blessed By Light. He's just survived a heart attack, his best friend has been killed, he's been forced to quit smoking after nearly 60 years of being a smoker, and now the press has found out who his new girlfriend is and where he's living. He's trying to stop taking it out on her and just make love.]

I love you, okay?

Let’s just start there. And then build on it, go places with it. Find a rhythm with our bodies that puts us in sync with ourselves and with everything that we call sacred in this world, this life, and what we’ve come to know about each other. And let’s make love.

It’s so fragile, honey; all of it. In a heartbeat, a gunshot, or a darting stray cat on the road, it’s all over.

And, yes, there’s the Light. And, yes, it blesses us, all of us, ultimately. I know this for sure. But here we are for now. Still among the living. Staking our claim in it, together. In life and in love.

Come here. Right now.

Lie on top of me.

You look so beautiful when you’re naked.

✽✽✽

Who are we now? When I hold you in my arms like this, who are we? We were once naked strangers together, remember that, honey? It wasn’t so long ago, either.

Now I know every curve of you, every round or flat or secret place, and every sound you make that goes along with it, with touching you there.

I thank God that we are never again gonna be strangers to each other. We are eternally connected now. Here or in the hereafter, honey, there is always gonna be a part of you that belongs to me. You’re my girl.

And I’ll never forget that night when you were astride me, my arms full of you; your breasts pressing against my chest, and my cock all the way up in you. George was with us. But, for a change, he was the one sitting it out. He was right next to us on the bed, though.

But in that moment, you were all mine and I was all yours and you looked down into my face, your hair hanging loose, falling so soft all over me. Candle light dancing in the room.

And you said to me, so quietly that I almost didn’t hear you at first, “You’re mine,” you said. “Mine.”

And I could see in your eyes where you were speaking from – that fully aroused place. I couldn’t have filled you up fuller if I tried. You were right down on me, taking every inch of me up inside you, which is usually not easy for you to do.

I was overwhelmed by you that night.

Your arms at either side of my head. You were completely surrounding me, and you kept whispering it right in my face. “Mine,” you said. “You’re mine.”

I didn’t know if George heard you. It didn’t matter. He probably did. But what I really heard, and maybe what he really heard, too, since he knew me so well for so long, was that you knew by then that, except for that wife I had loved more than life itself, there had been way too many girls.

All those years of me living my life without you in it.

Until that first night I saw you, when my heart was pulled right up into you from out of nowhere.

Honestly, I did not know I was gonna stay. I was taking each day as it came. I thought you were, too, but I really didn’t know and didn’t ask.

And then you said: Mine.

And I surrendered to you. Right then. To that word. I became yours. Although you didn’t know it for sure because I didn’t say it. But my heart surrendered to that sound: Mine.

And I thought to myself, Okay, baby. Forever, and always, and only.

You don’t ever talk about getting married. I don’t think you want that. I don’t know if I wanna take that road anymore, either. But I belong to you. I know that for sure.

And I know for sure that it’s what I want.

Move over, come on.

Lie back.

I wanna get on top of you, and get all the way in.

Honey, do that thing you do with your legs up over my shoulders.

I wanna listen to those cries you make, those tiny whimpering sounds that make you sound like such a grown up girl. I need to hear that right up close to my ear, honey. Right now.

Oh fuck.

I love it when you make that sound.

Hold on to me. This is where the rhythm comes in for real.

And I have never missed a beat.

Jesus Christ. Who the hell is at the front door?

✽✽✽

It’s my girls.

What are they doing here at this hour? Why the hell didn’t they call first? Or at least send me one of those angry-daughter texts that they’re both getting so damn good at.

Crap.

You just stay here. Let me find out what’s going on. The two of them together. It can’t be good. They’ve definitely come loaded for bear.

See the little cloud up in the sky
It’s a good good day today
See the little cloud pass on by
It’s a good good day today
Mary comes now, let Mary be
Can you see her down on the street?
Mary’s laughing ’cause Mary sees
That she’s a-wearin’ that dress for me

There can be times
Yeah… When all things come together
Yeah… Under a clear sky and you can believe
Yeah… You hold your breath for this moment
Yeah… But do not breathe for this day I know
Is a good day, yes I know
It’s a good day, yeah I know
Today…
Hear her feet skipping up the stairs
It’s a good good day today
She is the answer to all of my prayers
It’s a good good day today
Mary comes now, she don’t knock
‘Cause she’s runnin’ on her own little clock
Mary’s laughing ’cause Mary knows
That this day was made for us
And any fool knows… yeah
And any fool sees
That the future… yeah
Is a-down on its knees
But let ’em all cry, let ’em weep
Let those tears roll down their cheeks

‘Cause I can believe in the one
That is standing in front of me
Oh this day, don’t you know
Is a good day, yes I know
It’s a good day, I told you so
Today…
See her breasts how they rise and fall
It’s a good good day today
And she knows I’ve used that line before
It’s a good good day today
Mary’s laughing, she don’t mind
‘Cause she knows she’s one of a kind
Mary’s happy just to be
Standing next to me
And any fool knows
Yeah…
That the wind always blows
Something to someone
Yeah…
Once in a while, so let it rain, let it fall
Let the wind howl through your door
‘Cause right now for this moment
I’ll forever be
Standing next to her
On this day, which I know
Is a good day, yeah I know
Oh, it’s a good day, I told you so
Today…

c- Nick Cave

Me, again

May 17, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis 2 Comments

Well, this is just weird and I feel terribly guilty about it. But it was just too weird.

I wanted to see how that Town Hall theater in Dusseldorf was spelled, so I went to the LIVE section of the Nick Cave web site but the Dusseldorf event was gone, and then I saw, by chance or whatever you call it, that another show had been added in NYC, at Lincoln Center, for Saturday 9/21, when I will already be there in town.

So I clicked on it and saw that tickets were going to go on sale in 3 minutes. So for some reason, I clicked on the “tickets” button anyway, and the tickets were already on sale. And there before me was a little link that said: Get the best seat available, and so, out of curiosity, I thought, well, what is the best seat available? And so I clicked that link, too.

And it was like the best fucking seat. And it was available. And it was just so weird. No feeding frenzy. No nothing. Just an amazing seat in the 4th row of the Orchestra, sort of to the side. And I thought, what the fuck is this? A moment before this, I didn’t even know the concert was even happening.

So I bought the ticket. I clicked the link and they basically said, Here you go! Here’s your ticket.

And it just didn’t seem real.

And now I feel terrible, because some person out there is going to want at least one ticket for either show, and I now have 2 good tickets for both shows.

And I don’t really even understand how that happened.

Molto Bene!

May 16, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

Ciao, gang!

Yes, as of yesterday, I began studying Italian again. It gives me about a year to get thoroughly, totally, and 100% fluent. Yay! We shall see!

Of course, I don’t need to be fluent. I really only need to get from the Rome airport to the train that takes me to Perugia. Still, as long as I’m studying it, why not try to finally learn the language, right?

I bought the Mondly app. So far, it’s actually really fun. Yesterday, in addition to a bunch of other stuff they threw at me very quickly, I learned how to say: “This is my mother, this is my father, this is my sister, and this is my brother.”

I feel 100% certain that these are 4 sentences I will never need to say while in Italy, but for some reason, these sentences “took,” while the other stuff they went over yesterday, I have already forgotten. But it was only my first day…

And it actually is really fun. It’s set up like a game and it moves pretty fast, so you just sort of have to jump in and your brain starts clicking. It was a nice break from sitting, literally, for hours in front of Blessed By Light yesterday, with very little new stuff coming. I got, maybe, half a page and I was in front of the manuscript from 7am until 7pm.

I took a little time out, of course, to become fluent in Italian. And I also actually left the house yesterday!

Yes, I made myself go outside and take a walk. It was a gorgeous day, so I made myself walk over to the cemetery. And once I was there, you know the views are so lovely. It’s on a hill looking over the valley, which is full of cornfields that are just now getting planted, with tons of gorgeous hills in the background, trees everywhere, and everything is just so green for miles and miles. And the sky was perfectly blue with those fluffy white clouds. So I stayed a little while before turning around and heading straight back to the cramped little desk.

Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that I always go to the part of the graveyard where all the founders of this village were buried, nearly 200 years ago. They have the best view of the valley, too.

I usually hang out and talk with them, because I’m writing a really fun & sexy murder mystery “starring” them as the frisky dead people who live in the fictional town of Hurley Falls and must solve a murder among the living, in my other novel-in-progress, Down to the Meadows of Sleep. But there were some people in the churchyard across the way, mowing the grounds, and I didn’t want them to think I was completely nuts so I didn’t speak to any of the gravestones yesterday. But it was a beautiful walk. It really helped me clear my head.

BTW, thanks for the really kind words yesterday re: the excerpt from Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. I definitely appreciate it.

Even though it’s presented as erotic love letters to the muse, it’s sort of an erotic memoir at the same time. I’m thinking it’s creative nonfiction. I’m only about 30 pages into it, because I’m juggling about 17 zillion projects at the same time and I really want Blessed By Light completed and off my desk as soon as possible.

I’m guessing that Sandra is still someplace really noisy because she has yet to call me re: rehearsals, and I am now resorting to texts that say things like, “Please let me know when you can chat,” “When can I call you?” “Please call me!” – things like that. And still nothing. It gets frustrating because what I need to chat with her about will take about 5 minutes… I know she’s in rehearsals for something else right now, but it makes me antsy. So that added to the fun of sitting at my desk and staring at a manuscript for 12 hours yesterday.

Also, I have to say that I’m really happy that so many people in Germany are posting photos on Instagram of the Conversations with Nick Cave going on over there right now. Everyone is totally, totally loving it. Mostly they’re saying this in German, which, as you now know, is a language I don’t wholly understand. However, most people are using at least some English and it’s clear they’re loving it.

The only thing that perplexes me is that Nick Cave seems to be wearing a sort of beige-ish colored suit. He’s worn this, so far, at both shows. A sort of “absence” of color and I’m not understanding that. It seems like he usually wears black or this beautiful shade of blue.

So that gave me more to ponder as I sat and stared at the manuscript for 12 hours: Why is he wearing beige? What’s up with that? Is it really beige, or is it just the lighting? I actually asked myself that stuff many times yesterday even though I knew, for 100% sure, that no answers would be forthcoming.

Yes, I really am that nuts sometimes. I can’t stand when a manuscript refuses to write itself. It makes me crazy and my mind wanders.

But actually on a related note…

My replacement copy of B Sides & Rarities arrived in the mail yesterday. I discovered only recently that I accidentally gave that CD boxed set away to charity when I was selling the other house and putting a bunch of stuff into storage, thinking I was moving back to New York.

I was actually going through a lot of grief back then – meaning, I was grieving. Over a lot of things. A lot of loss. And I wasn’t thinking clearly. At all. And stuff that should have gone into the storage piles, went in the “give to charity” piles, and I actually accidentally gave away a lot of stuff I loved. And I didn’t discover this for a couple of years, when I finally bought this house here in Muskingum County and took everything out of storage.

First, I had to deal with the very sad and real fact that I gave away every single Tom Petty CD except for their Greatest Hits. You can imagine that this distressed me last year, when I had to confront what my mind had done. That it had lapsed like that (and that’s only part of the weird shit I was doing, but grief does that to you). And then I had to go about buying them all over again.

It was only a couple weeks ago, when I went looking for B Sides & Rarities, to play in the car, when I discovered that it, too, was gone. And that was the original boxed set from when it first came out, about 15 years ago, or something like that. Plus, a lover had bought that for me. It had been a gift. He sent it to me from San Francisco right when it came out because he knew how badly I wanted it. It was so cool when it arrived in the mail, you know? I was so happy.

And I gave the fucking thing away.

Anyway. So I bought it again, too. But the cheaper version that doens’t have the box. And it arrived yesterday. And it made me think about how crazy I can be and I hope that it doesn’t happen again.

In honor of attempting to not be crazy, I took The Big Jangle out of the CD player in the kitchen, and listened instead to Nobody’s Children during breakfast. Granted, this is still from the Playback collection, and Tom Petty is still dead, but this CD contains songs that were never released so they don’t bring back any sort of intense & beautiful memories from my fair and bonny girlhood.

(Frankly, Nobody’s Children has a lot of sort of “dirty” songs on it -sort of the “naughty” songs that were never released – and I’ve listened to it a lot while having great sex. Actually, not to insult anyone, but I think the CD itself caused the great sex, and that the sex would not have been as good had another CD been playing! Don’t take it personally, though!)

Well, it’s something that I can’t actually prove either way at this point, because all those lovers are gone from my life and I’m not gonna call them out of the blue now and ask them to come out to Crazeysbrug – a village that no one on Earth has ever heard of – so we can have sex while listening to something else and see if the sex is still as good; but the upshot is that when I play the CD, even during breakfast, there is a bit of the Pavlovian response… So that was frisky & fun at 5:33am.

Okay, gang!! I’m hoping that the manuscript lurches ever onward towards its completion today. Meanwhile, I’m gonna leave you with all of this:

First, 3 sort of obscure-ish Nick Cave songs that I absolutely love. I think you could say that, technically, they weren’t released, either.

The first one is on B Sides & Rarities, the other two, I don’t know if you can actually get them anywhere but they’re on Youtube.

The last song is probably my very favorite Tom Petty song from the entire 6-CD Playback collection. It was never released, but it’s on Nobody’s Children. It’s a sexy little song with Lenny Kravitz providing bass and some backing vocals – as well as some very sexy little memories pour moi!

Okay! Enjoy your Thursday, wherever you are in the world!Thanks for visiting, gang! I love you guys. See ya.

Shoot Me Down

I’ve Got Another Woman Now, Dear

I Do, Dear, I Do

You Come Through

Evolving Past This

May 13, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I dropped off to sleep in very high spirits last night. And then awoke in this sort of “not good” place.

I think it’s an energy thing.

You know how it feels when you know you are evolving past things in your life? Not just outgrowing things, but you can sense that everything around you, the reality you’ve pulled together for yourself, is shifting. Maybe morphing into the next adventure, but you can’t completely see it yet.

That’s how I feel around here. Things are changing. It’s not a bad thing but for some reason, I’m feeling blue and I’m trying to sort of tune my dial to a better feeling energy here this morning.

A really cool thing happened last night, though, as I was drifting off to sleep. You know that very early place between awake and dreaming where you can become somewhat lucid? I suddenly realized that I was in a room with about maybe 20 people and they were sitting down, talking among themselves, as well as talking to me.

I awoke slightly and then realized that this is a potential version of that writer’s retreat I’ll be giving. Perhaps the “ghost” version, or the “as yet to be filled in by physical reality” version. I was talking to an older woman and she was very passionate about something.

It was at that exact moment, while talking to her, that I became lucid and experienced myself talking to her. And quickly after that, I awoke. And I realized that this is the other side of the equation. Meaning, I want to do things in life. I have dreams or goals. I know they always involve other people but it never occurred to me in such vividness how a goal or a dream that’s in the process of manifesting brings the energies of others to you as it’s in the process of manifesting. The energies, I guess, pull together until an experience completely fills in and we then experience it as “real.”

I realized that this dream had been a gathering of potential co-creators who are all in the process of manifesting something in their lives that was going to be really joyful. And that it centered around that writer’s retreat.

Over the years, I have taught some really gifted young writers. Writers who wanted to make that transition into being professional, selling their work, getting book deals or selling a screenplay, etc. I know what they’re up against and I try to be realistic with them about rejection if only to give them some emotional armor, but overall, I try to be as encouraging as I can possibly be. Because that part where you do have to be realistic is only the beginning part, and it is completely outweighed by what comes next, when things start to click and you do start to make sales, and get readers and start to develop relationships with publishers or producers or what have you. It absolutely does happen, especially if you’re a gifted storyteller. It absolutely will happen, if you stick with it.

And there is always that moment that arrives when, as a teacher, I cut them loose, because I know I’ve taught them what I could, that they need to go out and try their own wings, and that now I’ve become more of an editor than a teacher, and frankly I charge a whole lot more to edit you than to teach you. So off they go into the world.

I know they’re gifted. I know a gifted writer when I read one. I’ve worked with hundreds of writers over the years, and I’ve been blessed to have had so many close colleagues who were or are incredibly good writers. I can tell in less than a page of reading, if someone has the gift. But as far as younger students go, I have seen so many of them let the fear of failure that comes with those early rejection letters, turn into “I have to have a job to pay the bills and I need to focus on that right now.”

And then I know, sad as it is, that it’s as good as over. I don’t ever say it, but in my heart I know that they’ve opted for safety and conservatism because of fear. And now they’re going to get bogged down in responsibilities that will make everything about having a life of art be just that much more difficult.

I’ve never been about playing it safe, ever. I’ve always been wildly at the other end of that spectrum. I have lived most of my life in fear, things having nothing to do with my writing, but stemming from physical and sexual abuse, where I learned to feel that I was utterly alone and on my own from an early age. I can look on that as a gift now because it gave me stamina, and helped me develop a relationship with my idea of God that, in turn, taught me all about faith. The depths of faith. And also the depths of beauty in this world, and the blessings of kindness. And of course, underscoring all of that, the beauty of love among people who might not even know each other.

I have a deep appreciation for all those things about humanity because I’ve seen the other side of that and it’s just horrible. And so love and beauty and kindness become sacred, you know?

I really want to be in an atmosphere again where people are already in their craft, in that understanding of what they want to put into the world, past that point of fear or uncertainty, where art can really blossom or flow. And it was beautiful last night to realize that I’m not the only one who still wants that. All I have to do is set out that beacon and the writers will come.

For most of my adult life, I had projects that involved bringing tons of talented writers and artists together. The advent of the Internet was instrumental in letting that happen so fluidly. Other-Rooms.com, MarilynsRoom.com, and certainly the EAA were incredibly successful ventures in that regard. But they took over my life. They grew to be 24/7 endeavors and I had next to no time left for me. And certainly with the EAA, I came up against the laws and censorship stuff with this country’s Government. In the past, I had worked for publishers who either literally went to prison for publishing and distributing “pornography” or who’d had to spend a fortune fighting the Government in court. I know that it can happen and that was so much more than I’d bargained for, so I began to step back.

Even though the writer’s retreats will require a huge amount of work for me, since each separate retreat will also yield the publication of a book that I have to basically “curate” from start to finish, each retreat will be bracketed by “only 2 times a year,” at most. And I’ll still have the rest of the year for my own adventures. So I feel really, really excited about that.

Plus, I’m in the process of putting together with Valerie in Brooklyn some initial cover art for 2 of the books I have in progress right now (I do this to avoid, at all costs, any more covers that feature girls in their underwear.) Here they are as they stand right now.

Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse is a book I began writing in January. This one is graphically erotic, creative nonfiction. It pretty much is exactly what the title says it is.

And of course Blessed By Light. This is a novel about an aging, successful musician, grieving the unexpected death of his 2nd wife, falling in love again, revisiting the scope of his life and his career, and the specters of success, love, loss, despair, triumph and redemption, and what that has done to his family and to himself. It’s almost finished. It has a lot of erotic elements in it, but it is literary fiction. The cover art is still in the creative process. No lettering yet.

All right. I’m gonna get going around here and try to turn the energy of this day around, posthaste. I see that there’s a Red Hand Files newsletter from Nick Cave in my inbox and those are always incredibly interesting. Perhaps it will set the tone for his Conversation tonight in Hamburg, Germany! (Lucky Duck-sters!!)

Okay. Thanks for visiting, gang. I tried really hard not to listen to The Big Jangle this morning, in my efforts to adjust to this idea that Tom Petty is in fact dead. It was depressing – that absence of sound. I’m gonna have to re-think all of it , the whole 9 yards.

But I love you guys! See ya.

Heaven

May 6, 2019 marilyn jaye lewis Leave a comment

I booked a suite at the Algonquin Hotel in New York for the night of September 23rd. I love that hotel. For its literary history, mostly, but it’s also just a really pretty, historic hotel that I have always loved.

I’m very happy. And I don’t care that I’ll be all by myself in way too many rooms. Nick Cave is having a Conversation that night in New York City, around the corner at Town Hall. Yay!

So now all I have to do is persuade everybody involved with my play (starting with Sandra, tomorrow morning) that the New York rehearsals for the staged reading (with all the musicians and tech people) have to take place right around that date because I really, really, REALLY don’t want to have to make three trips to NYC in the fall.

But I’m so excited. I love New York in late September. I love the Algonquin, and obviously I love Nick Cave. I even love Town Hall – I’ve seen some really amazing people there over the years.

I also decided this past fall, when I was last in New York, that I don’t do the ex-husband thing anymore.

I used to always, always, always, without fail, let my ex know when I would be in the city and we’d always get together and have dinner, walk around together, like old times, but you know what? I just suddenly came to a decision before that last trip that I couldn’t keep doing it. We still talk on the phone occasionally and email each other (I’m like that with both my ex’s). And they both buy me gifts for my birthday, for Christmas. Which is really nice and I’m grateful that they can each find it in themselves to think so kindly of me after marriages that were so incendiary.

But I finally realized, I left that second marriage because I was really, really, really unhappy. And even though I still interact with my second husband professionally (he was a professional theater actor for a really long time and he’s very good friends with Sandra), I would rather just be by myself in New York then pretend I wasn’t really unhappy in that marriage, which I tend to do when we go out to dinner together.

You know: Don’t say one fucking thing about how it really was; let’s just be nice and be friends. Pretend all that heartbreaking stuff didn’t happen. And then he’ll pick up the tab, which makes me feel like a child.

And I don’t want him to tell me anymore that he hopes my writing is going really well, as he’s helping me into a cab. And I don’t want to hear him say, ever again, anymore, ever: I hope you find yourself, Marilyn. I hope you’re happy.

Because the undertone is, well, you know.

(FYI: We spent our first anniversary at the Algonquin, so, for me, this will be, like, huge. To be there by myself. Just me. Happy little me.)

Another really interesting thing happened to me today. This guy I only know casually begged me to give him piano lessons.

He bought a piano. A really nice one. Really. And I said, “Wow, this is a nice piano.” And he said that he didn’t play and wanted to learn. And I said that it’s easy to learn and that there are those cool apps now that you can put on your phone and learn how to play.

Long story short, though, he wanted a human being to teach him how to play and begged me to teach him, when he found out that I knew how to play. As in, hire me to teach him how to play the piano.

So I finally agreed.

I’m sure it would not surprise any loyal readers of this lofty blog, to learn that playing the piano wound up being a really traumatizing thing for me. I mean, why wouldn’t it? Every single goddamned fucking thing in my life has traumatized me!

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate there, but I used to be an incredibly gifted pianist. And when I was 14, all the local piano teachers said that they’d taught me all they could and that I really needed to go to the Conservatory and study there. So my parents sent me. Well, my mom did because my dad was gone by then.

So this is where I studied, and I hated it:

Why, you may ask? Because it was intensely joyless. And it was frightening. Right away, focusing on Bach, which is, like, 17 different tempos for each hand, at once. and my teacher was incredibly strict. The only time she ever smiled at me was when I gave my first recital and blew everybody away.

And mostly I blew everybody away because I thought that if I didn’t, that crazy lady with the metronome would fucking kill me. I went to every single lesson with rabid butterflies in my stomach — yes, rabid; meaning, butterflies frothing at the mouth! I was so afraid of that teacher.

It was just awful – the pressure. And I couldn’t tell anybody how I felt because not only was I intensely shy, but my boyfriend had been killed by then, and the rapes had happened, and all of that. So my mind was just unraveling and it was hard for me to speak to people, about anything at all. And after the suicide attempt, when I was put in the mental hospital, there was a grand piano there and this really kind music therapist wanted me to play it as part of my therapy.

And I simply couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. It was like I’d snapped. Part of me actually died, spiritually – the pianist part of me – after that suicide attempt. My guitar I could still play, but not the piano. I couldn’t handle it. I had been so traumatized by that teacher and her metronome and BACH… And even though I bought a piano a few years ago, I wound up giving it away. So it’s going to be interesting, teaching someone how to play.

I think it’ll actually be a really, really beautiful thing. I loved playing so very much – before all the pressure. I think it’ll be wonderful to go back to when everything was simple. You know: Here’s middle C.

Okay. Have a great night, gang! Wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting. I love you guys. See ya.