Curtis Edmonds's Blog, page 15

Clayton Delaney, RIP

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I announce the passing of Clayton Delaney, the master of the biscuit-style single-resonator guitar. He was a true champion of the Appalachian folk-music tradition. Many consider Clayton to be one of the finest bluegrass musicians of his day, and a peer of dobro legends such as Curtis Loew, Shorty Hale, and Teapot Simmerson.

I’ve been a big fan of Clayton since I saw his obituary in the Times this morning. As soon as I finished reading about his remarkable life, I went straight to Spotify to listen to as much of his contribution to bluegrass music. Luckily, all I really had to do today was to get my deck of slides ready for the conference call on Wednesday, which meant I could spend most of the day honoring Clayton’s musical legacy.

In the depths of the Depression, Clayton left his home in Eastern Kentucky behind to play guitar for a variety of trailblazing touring groups in Southern Ohio, including the Columbus Travelers, the Muddy River Trio, and the Shawnee Gentlemen. Some of those early recordings are available on Spotify, but the sound quality has significantly degraded in the digital transfer and I can’t recommend them to anyone except those really looking for in-depth knowledge of Clayton’s early musical talent.

Like most of us, Clayton was deeply influenced by Bill Monroe. Although he was unable to hook on with the original Blue Grass Boys, Clayton put together one of the early bluegrass trios, the New River Mustangs. Clayton played dobro and mandolin behind the “high lonesome” lead singing of Chester Dayton and the inspired guitar licks of Rufus “Pee Wee” Haskell. The New River Mustangs reached their apex in 1950, when they were invited to play their classic single “Cane Syrup Stomp” on The Ed Sullivan Show.

After Chester Dayton’s untimely death in a thresher accident in 1953, Clayton forged a career as a session musician. During this period, Clayton developed his innovative double-thumb picking method. The so-called “Delaney style” produces particularly rhythmic expressions for mandolin and dobro. I haven’t been able to find a really good YouTube instructional video that discusses how you place both thumbs on the frets to make it work, but I’m going to keep looking.

Clayton’s life was scarred deeply by his long-time love affair with discount bourbon. It took an on-stage collapse at the Sourland Mountain Bluegrass Festival in 1982 to get him to stop drinking. That experience led to a religious reawakening that saw him focus on the intersection between bluegrass and gospel music. Although Clayton’s gospel album, Sinner’s Lament, received mixed reviews, he did receive a Grammy nomination for his instrumental recording of “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.’ I found it to be very touching, despite my own personal distaste for organized religion.

Of course, Clayton’s best-known album, 1992’s D is for Dobro, is also his most accessible work. While I prefer the rougher stylings of Clayton’s earlier picking, D is for Dobro undoubtedly represents the pinnacle of his career, and deservedly won the Grammy for Best Folk and/or Americana Instrumental Performance. Songs from this album are in heavy rotation on the Pandora station I set up for anyone who wants to learn more about Clayton and his unique role in American bluegrass history.

Many people have asked me why I spend so much time posting information and remembrances of musicians that have recently died, many of whom I had never heard of before their untimely passing. I can only repeat what I said in my blog post on Chico Novello, the great bossa nova organist, which is that music is a blow against mortality. All of us die, but those of us that leave a lasting musical legacy live on in an important way. When we remember musicians who have gone on before us, we not only honor their contributions, but the impact they will have on future generations.

Clayton died at the age of ninety-three at an assisted-living center in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. The cause of death was reported to be liver failure, which you’d have to expect considering how much he drank before he found Jesus. Unfortunately, I don’t have the funds to fly to Clayton’s funeral, because I spent so much on that trip to Vienna to see all the classical composer’s graves. But I’ll be watching Instagram carefully and hoping that some fans will get some shots of the service.

Two Quick Points

I tell my daughters, “You can’t have everything, and if you had everything, you wouldn’t want it,” which xkcd brilliantly explicates here. (He has a book out today, too, which you should buy.)

The other point is in the article as well; if there are one hundred fifty billion pennies in existence, there is not a need to mint another one ever again, period, stop.

Yes, You Can

That is to say, you can, now, like, TOTALLY order my NEW book (note random CAPITALIZATION of WORDS) on Amazon. As of, you know, right NOW.

Yes. You remember how I said last week (I think it was last week) that you couldn’t pre-order self-pub books from Amazon? Well, that was SO LAST WEEK. Now you CAN, and WREATHED is available for pre-order here. So you can order it now and pay the low, low price of $3.99, or else watch as I turn to a pillar of salt before your eyes.

Preorder WREATHED at Barnes & Noble and iTunes

In case you didn’t know, you can totally pre-order my latest book, WREATHED, from either the Barnes & Noble Nook store or from the Apple iTunes store or from the nice people at Smashwords if you’re in to such things.

If you don’t have a Nook (and I don’t have one) you can use the Nook app to read the book on your Apple device or your Android device or even on your personal computer. Obviously, you’d need an Apple device to read the book from iTunes, or at least I think so. If all you have is a Kindle, you can get the book in Kindle format on Smashwords.

At this time, if you’re a lowly self-publisher, you cannot sell e-books for pre-order on Amazon. You just can’t. It’s a rule, like the infield fly rule, or the rule that says you can’t eat pudding for breakfast, despite the fact that pudding is delicious and has protein and provides necessary nutrients. So if you are an Amazon person (I am an Amazon person) and would like to buy this book there, you will have to wait.

You may be asking yourself, “Hey, Internet author guy, how come you can’t release the book now so I can read it now?” Good question. Now shut up.

Ha! Seriously, though, the answer is that you can read the book now if you are willing to do a book review for me. That would require you to go to NetGalley and sign up there and find the book and, you know, ask nicely. Or if you’re not into the whole signing-up-for-things game, and you absolutely totally pinkie-swear that you will write me a nice review, you can just ask me and I’ll send you an e-copy.

I am delaying the release of the book by a couple of months in the somewhat optimistic hope that a) people will ask to read the book ahead of time b) people will actually, you know, write book reviews that will c) enable me to submit the book to the nice people at BookBub who will then d) put the book up on their e-mail list and e) enough people will preorder it, which you can totally do, like I said or else f) buy it close to the release date to maybe get the book on the USA Today bestseller list, which will g) make me very happy. (And also because the cover isn’t ready yet.)

So. Here’s the plan. Preorder my book. Maybe ask me for a copy ahead of time, too, and write a nice review, which will help me sell lots of copies. And while you’re at it, try pudding for breakfast sometime.

The Southern Gothic Ingredients List

I read Delilah S. Dawson’s post on Chuck Wendig’s site about the Southern Gothic novel and thought it would be fun to see how RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY measures up. Read that first and then come back here, all right, y’all? Good.

Are you back yet? Okay. LET’S DO THIS.

 

The South. RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY is set mostly in the Atlanta area, which is the New South. I very deliberately had the characters (at one point) go to an IHOP instead of a Waffle House if that says something, and I believe it does. There’s a very deliberate attempt to leave all the old Southern baggage behind–you’ll note that Will gets very angry when his daughter’s Chicago-born fiancee brings up the Birmingham church bombing.
A Mansion. Will had one in Buckhead, and that’s where his daughter died.
A Hovel. Will lives in one, although it’s a very nice hovel.
A Witch. I have a ghost (actually two ghosts) (actually four, really) in the book. That’s not quite the same but I think it counts.
A Swamp. There aren’t any swamps in this book unless you count Newark Airport, which is swampy but not Southern.
A Cemetery. None of those, but lots of funerals. I am not a cemetery person. You don’t learn anything there.
A Town. I used the real town of Blue Ridge, Georgia, and I am not sorry. (You can, if you want to, check out RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY in the library there.)
Secrets. Yup.
A Monster. Well, certainly some people in the book see Will as a monster, but he’s not. Again, this is a more modern take on the genre.
A Curse. Yup. (A genetic curse is still a curse.)
A Boo Radley. This I definitely don’t have. I’ve got exactly one stereotypical Southern character in the book, which is the ugly waitress. (I had another one in there, a ninety-year-old librarian, but my editor told me to take her out because she didn’t advance the plot.)
An Unexpected Villain. I think I inverted it by making the obvious villain (Will’s ex-wife) somewhat relatable.
The Elite. This is Will’s ex-wife and her family–but they’re not Southern elite so this probably doesn’t count.
Creepy Plants. I don’t have this at all.
An Innocent. This is the cute waitress at Will’s favorite diner.
A Peculiar Critter. I don’t have one of these but I am totally putting one in my next book.
A Talisman. Francie’s engagement ring.
Malaise. RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY takes place in the winter and spring, so no Southern heat and humidity, and anyway Blue Ridge is high enough that you don’t get the really miserable weather you get elsewhere.
Old Shit. Will’s truck probably qualifies.
Weather. There is a little bit of snow here and there, probably doesn’t count.
A Night Meeting. I’m going to claim this one, yup.
Southern Food. Yes, but there’s some Northern food, too.
Drink. Will is a Coca-Cola retiree and drinks it in practically every chapter.
Religion. I am a Southern Baptist PK, but nearly every character in everything I write is stone atheist. I believe that there is a God, and that He has a lot to answer for.
Colloquialisms. I made one up for the book–something about “you drank enough of that to drown a medium-sized giraffe,” so I’ll claim that one.

 

So, if I’m counting right, that’s fourteen out of twenty-five, which is a nice score in anyone’s book. And did I mention that RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY is 99 cents through August 7? So go buy a copy.

This Is Not a Cover Reveal

Because that’s coming! You know, later.

So here’s the thing. I have several different things I am trying to accomplish with my new novel, WREATHED, all at the same time. Specifically, I am trying to get the e-book versions put together at the same time I am negotiating with an artist to do the cover art. It would be much simpler to have the cover art right this minute so I could do everything I would like to do, but I want the actual cover art to be, you know, transcendentally awesome, and that takes time.

So what I did was to put together a temporary cover, myself, and I think we can all agree that I did a lousy job and that this looks stupid:

So, to recap:

1. This is not the real cover of WREATHED. This is a stupid cover that I, being the talentless person that I am, made myself with MS Paint.

2. There is going to be a real cover, eventually, and it will look awesome.

3. I know this cover sucks and I am not looking for either compliments that indicate that it does not, perhaps, entirely suck, or suggestions to make it suck less.

4. This does mean that the new book is coming out soon, so that’s a real positive for everyone, except people that I know who would just as soon that I keep my mouth shut about writing stuff.

5. In case you hadn’t quite picked up on this, the next novel will be self-published too, and I’ll have more to say on that eventually. Bother.

Random Inspirations

I read this very interesting post by Ayelet Waldman about five random inspirations for her book, Love and Treasure (which I quite liked, mostly), and it sounded like a fine idea and a decent writing prompt. So, therefore, five random inspirations for my book, RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY.

1. Will is from Alabama, which is where my great-grandfather, Leon Curtis Edmonds, was born in 1881. My favorite book about Alabama is RAMMER JAMMER YELLOW HAMMER, by Warren St. John, which chronicles his journeys with Alabama football fans. I ended up making Will an Auburn grad, mostly because I didn’t want his cabin to be decorated with Bear Bryant paraphernalia. (Will would have blocked for Heisman winner Pat Sullivan, both at Auburn and with the Falcons.)

2. Blue Ridge, Georgia, where much of the book takes place, is a real place and you should go there. Will’s cabin is based on a cabin we’ve rented from Above the Rest Luxury Cabins. The restaurant where Will and Dot go on their first date, Toccoa Riverside Restaurant, burned down around the time the story was written, but it has been rebuilt. If you can’t go to Blue Ridge, Mercier Orchards will happily ship a little bit of Blue Ridge to you.

3. When my wife and I were getting married, we looked at lots of different locations, and by far the most expensive was The Palace At Somerset Park, which is a real place and very fancy and where the wedding scenes are set. I live in Somerset County and worked in a couple of references to different Somerset County locations–the country club where the rehearsal is held is here, and Will drives past the Somerset Patriots baseball stadium at one point. And the New Jersey restaurants Will visits are also real places: Stuff Yer Face in New Brunswick and Harold’s New York Deli in Edison. I have been criticized for focusing a lot about the food in RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY, and I plead guilty to that. I like food. I think most people like food. I like putting characters in restaurants and listening to them talk, and having them eat something.

4. My wife and I were big fans of the NBC show “Chuck” when it came out, and the character of Alicia is modeled, somewhat, on played in that show–someone with a deep inner calmness.

5. I was reading Winston Groom’s book, A STORM IN FLANDERS, while I was writing RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY, and that inspired the story of Will’s grandfather, who died in Flanders after being disgraced at the Somme.

Ground Level

I have nothing to say about the Amazon-Hachette spat.

No, really, I don’t. Lots of other people do (my RSS feed is filled with spittle-flecked invective on both sides). But I don’t, because I don’t have any incentive to say anything.

I am a big fan of the novel READY PLAYER ONE, by Ernest Cline, which ends (spoiler alert) with a climactic battle between the forces of a powerful corporate entity against a vast army of, well, consumers, I guess you’d call them. Anyway, point is, the corporate guys have a bunch of giant robots, and the heroes have their own giant robots, and they have a giant robot battle. Except most of the consumers don’t have giant robots of their own; they’re just out on the battlefield, mostly for the hell of it. And a lot of them get stepped on by the giant robots.

And all of them, except for the principal heroes, get vaporized by the end of the book, which just goes to show what could happen to you if you don’t have a giant robot of your own.

I don’t have a giant robot. I am just one guy who’s written one book, which isn’t selling particularly well at the moment (even though I dropped the price down to 99 cents this week, which is my way of saying, oh, come on, just buy the thing already). I’ve written another book, and I’m querying agents right now, so there’s at least a tiny, small, outside chance that I might get an agent, and that agent might sell the book to Hachette, and that would put me in the middle of the fray, I guess, but (sigh) that is not happening today. Tomorrow is not looking good, either.

I don’t have any particular affection for the big publishers; why should I? There’s a very nice person at Harper Collins who sends me books to review occasionally, but that’s about it (and I’m way behind on reading any of them anyway). I am an Amazon Prime customer because I am fanatically lazy about shopping. They help me make money, and I help them make money, but neither of us is doing particularly well at the moment, and Amazon could crush me with its giant robot at any second and there wouldn’t be a damn thing I could do about it.

So don’t put me on Team Amazon or Team Hachette. I’m on Team Me, and we’re down by a few points at the moment and could use a breather at halftime.

Shopping Hints for Parents with Twins

One of the most common issues for prospective parents of twins is that, all of a sudden, you find that you have to buy a lot more baby gear than you’d planned. Making sure you have everything you need for a new arrival can be stressful enough, but when that task gets effectively doubled (or tripled or more with multiple pregnancies) it can be daunting. It can feel like you’re buying two of everything, and a lot of times that’s the case. But often, it’s not how much you buy that’s the issue. Knowing what to buy can be just as important, especially as your twins get older.

Like most young children, twins can have issues with sharing and taking turns. Twins also seem to be born with an innate sense of fairness–which is to say that if one twin gets something, the other will want it. In order to forestall tears and aggravation, it certainly helps to get each twin their own rattles, their own stuffed animals, and their own special blankets. Here are some other strategies that can be useful:

Use color-coding as much as you can. With our twins, it was pretty much a matter of serendipity. We were shopping for sippy cups, and we found one that had a twin-pack — one pink cup, and one purple cup. One wanted the pink cup, and one wanted the purple cup, and ever since we’ve been buying things in pink and purple. This isn’t a foolproof method by any means, because you can’t always get everything in the colors you want. But assigning colors to your kids not only helps you identify whose toy it is that they’re wrangling over, it also helps them identify what item is theirs.

Try to buy personalized items when appropriate. All kids love having things with their name on it, and online shopping makes it that much easier to get things personalized. One of the most helpful things we got personalized was individual toy baskets so that each child could put her own stuffed animals in her own baskets. One side benefit is that personalizing items helps each child recognize his or her name in print.

Don’t get two of every single thing. Perhaps more than most children, twins and higher-order multiples need to learn how to share and how to take turns. It can be a lot easier to buy two of every toy that your twins have (in terms of keeping them from fighting over things you just have one of) but it’s expensive, especially for higher-end toys. Having just one of some toys helps reinforce lessons about sharing and taking turns. Try to develop a balance between smaller, more personal toys (like dolls and stuffed animals) that you have two of and less-personalized items (including books and puzzles) that you only have one of. (Having said that, we did get two rocking horses because we were worried that the one who was riding the horsie would try to pull the other one off, or they’d both try to ride the same one at the same time. Both of these things happened anyway.)

Unfortunately, none of these rules really apply to clothes. Dressing twins is a perennial issue for twin parents, mostly because it’s just so much fun to dress them identically, and it’s looks just so cute when you do it. It’s okay to give in to the temptation now and then, especially if your kids are identical (mine aren’t). But even identical kids have different likes and dislikes, and as your kids get older and want to make more decisions about how they dress, they may not want to dress identically all the time. What we try to do is to get ours clothes that compliment each other but that don’t match. That way they still look cute and adorable but still maintaining some individuality.

You’re still going to have to buy two car seats, though.

So Your Wife is Going to Have Twins. Here’s What to Do (After You Stop Panicking)

As best I can tell, it happens maybe 200 times a day in this country. A nice couple goes into a maternity clinic, a nice medical technician turns on the ultrasound machine, and the scan reveals that the woman is pregnant with twins. And panic ensues.

It may not happen in the clinic – probably it won’t. It may not happen on the drive home. It may not happen that day, or the next. But if you find out that your wife is about to have twins, there’s a good chance that you’re going to panic about it. (Panic is almost guaranteed if you’re talking about triplets or higher-order multiples.)

The first thing to understand is that there’s nothing wrong with panic. Panic is a natural, healthy response to a frightening situation. Panic is completely called for under the circumstances. So go ahead and cut loose, at least for a little while.

All done? Good.

The problem with panic is that panic never helped anybody do anything, and you’ve got quite a lot to do between now and the time that your wife gives birth. Some of the things you have to do – like babyproofing and arranging for child care – you’d have to do anyway with just one baby, but there are plenty of complications with two or more that you need to be aware of.

1. Learn how to handle basic baby care responsibilities. If you don’t know how to care for babies already – I know I didn’t have the first clue when my twins were born in 2009 – you’re going to have to learn. This is a cold hard fact. Everyone knows that as an American father in the twenty-first century, you’re expected to shoulder at least a share of the parenting responsibilities. But if all you have is one baby to deal with, it’s certainly possible – I am not recommending this, you understand-to push off a bunch of the messier parts of the childcare experience onto your wife. But if you have two babies in the house, there’s no way that you’re going to avoid dealing with baby care. You’re going to do diaper changes, you’re going to clean up vomit, you’re going to help feed babies, you’re going to get spit up on. Explosively. Accept this.

So how do you get experience in dealing with baby care? Well, there’s nothing like on-the-job training, but if you want to get a jump start, you could do worse than reading a basic book like The Happiest Baby on the Block. Happiest Baby is not, strictly speaking, a child-care manual, but it does tell you what to do when one or more of the babies starts crying uncontrollably. (This will happen, often, and it’s very helpful to have at least some idea of what to do when it does-see the discussion about panicking, above.)

2. Develop your strategy. Okay, just how do you and your wife plan on caring for two babies at once? With one baby, you can-again, this is not recommended-kind of wing it. That is to say, you respond to that baby’s needs as they come up. You can try that with two babies, but it can be a prescription for disaster.

The best example of how this works is nap time. If you have one baby who’s ready to fall asleep, it’s in your best interest to do everything you can to get the other one to fall asleep, too. This has several advantages, the most important of which is that with both babies asleep, you will get some sleep, too. And you will need it.

But setting aside the need for sleep, if you don’t coordinate it so that the babies are on something like the same kind of schedule, you’re basically committing yourself to 24/7 baby care without a break. And you’re going to want a break, if only to take pictures or check your e-mail or just enjoy your kids for a few minutes. If you feed the babies at the same time, burp them at the same time, and put them to sleep at the same time, you’re sparing yourself a lot of aggravation.

Of course, you’re also going to have to make decisions about how to handle the big, controversial childcare issues-breastfeeding versus bottles, disposable diapers versus other more environmentally friendly options, co-sleeping versus bassinets. Start thinking and researching your approach to these issues now, rather than deciding things later when you’re exhausted and distracted.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, because you’re going to need it. As you let family and friends know that you’re having twins, it’s not too early to ask them to lend a hand once the babies arrive. The more help you can get, the better off you’re going to be. If your parents want to come over for a week to help out, let them by all means – as long as they’re there to help and not just be entertained by their grandchildren. If you can find friends who will bring over takeout, that can be a huge help, too. (This isn’t limited to just your close circles, either. You’re likely going to need some kind of help at your office, for example, in terms of additional leave and support.)

You’re at least going to want to think about getting some kind of professional help. We hired a cleaning service even before the babies came, just because my wife was having trouble dealing with the housework during her pregnancy. You’re certainly going to want to identify people who can babysit so that you can get the occasional night out-two babysitters are better than one, at least when the babies are very young. We didn’t consider a nanny, but I regret not trying to get a doula – someone who comes over part time and assists the mother in taking care of herself.

Also, take the time to try to set up some kind of contingency plan in case of illness. When my twins were six months old, my wife and I both came down with a serious case of the stomach flu at the same time. I couldn’t so much as feed the babies without getting violently ill. We had to call in my wife’s mother, who lives an hour and a half away, to help. That was a lifesaver, but it would have been better if we’d had someone closer to home that would have been available to help. Try to figure out what you’re going to do if there’s an emergency ahead of time.

4. Get a Costco card. This of course assumes that you live near a Costco, or some similar warehouse store. With two babies, you’re going to be buying a lot of your supplies in bulk, partly because it’s cheaper and partly because you’re going to need more. Costco and its competitors are going to be cheaper on a lot of things in a lot of ways. (There are certain things that Costco doesn’t carry, though, like butt paste.) And at least at our local Costco, you have shopping carts that hold two babies at once, which is an enormous convenience.

But shop around-we were able to get a lot of stuff cheaper at some of the specialty baby stores, and elsewhere online. (The “Amazon Mom” service, which got you several free months of free shipping through Amazon Prime, was very useful, not least because you didn’t have to leave the house to buy stuff. However, it doesn’t seem to be open to new members at the moment.)

Along with this, don’t be afraid to ask for sibling discounts. Babies R Us has a discount program, and your child care provider may cut you a break for multiples.

5. Get a minivan to handle all the stuff you will buy at Costco. That’s largely self-explanatory in and of itself, but the real advantage of the minivan is the remote power sliding doors. Make sure that you buy a minivan that’s big enough to accommodate your stroller. (Side-by-side strollers are easier to maneuver but can be hard to fit through doors; back-and-front models are a little easier to deal with but give the twin sitting in back ample opportunity to kick the back of a sibling’s seat.)

Once you get the big issues out of the way, you’re free to concentrate on the fun stuff, like naming your twins (please, nothing cutesy like rhyming names or names that start with the first initial) and buying clothes (pick out stuff that’s complimentary but not quite identical-even if your twins are identical you want to be able to differentiate between them).

The amount of work that it takes to raise two babies isn’t just double the amount of work it takes to raise one-sometimes it feels like the same amount of work squared. Having twins in the house is tough enough as it is. If you take the time to make some decisions now about what you want to do as a parent, it can make things a bit easier and result in less panic for everyone. (You have stopped panicking, now, haven’t you? Good.)