throw another bear in the canoe

It would really help me to write this story if I knew what it was about. Other than the ghost of an obscure actor haunting a cheap hotel.

Maybe I should go make blueberry yogurt muffins while I think about it.

Maybe I should read up on industrial musicals.

Maybe I should pet the cat.

(The cat says, MONKEY! PET THE CAT!)

via trollcatz: F.B.I. still looking for D.B. Cooper.

Here's an NPR story on the same topic.

You know, the thing that impresses me most about the Bureau's web page is that it not only has a sense of humor, it's got narrative tension and a through-line. It's well-written.

I now have two pieces of evidence suggesting that F.B.I. agents can write.

This should not trouble me as deeply as it does.

---

In a vaguely related note, stillsostrange reports more progress on the secrit projekt: Reyes, version 3.

Holy *cow*, that's awesome.

In the last post, several people asked what "industrial musicals" are. (I'm currently researching them for a short story, which I have been calling "Smile," but which I might wind up calling "Smile, Smile, Smile!" because really, that seems more like the kind of title that an industrial musical ought to have.)

Because dude, industrial musicals are like, the oddest cool little thing ever. In their heyday, these things were penned and acted by absolute top-quality talent. Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (Fiddler on the Roof). Loretta Swit. Hal Linden.

And in my webcrawling, I just hit the motherlode. Twenty original, danceable tunes from industrial musicals of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, available for download from WFMU's "Beware of the Blog."

Seriously, this stuff is awesome. You owe it to yourself to experience this nearly-forgotten flower of capitalist propaganda.

Now at last I felt like a woman
Completely feminine woman
A pampered, satisfied woman--

As I'm sitting here thinking, gee, this story just isn't quite ripe yet, and writing exactly one (1) sentence of it, a package arrives containing the CEM of Ink & Steel and the page proofs for the MMPB of Blood & Iron. So I have Important Work on a Deadline to do that isn't New Writing, and I get a reprieve.

The story has that feeling in my head that tells me it's filling up its gastank and revving its engine, so I expect it'll take off fairly soon. It's got some kind of thematic development going on, I think. And in the meantime, I can do this stuff I need to do.

Isn't that nice of the universe?

I wait here with a big potroast dreaming of how dinner should be
But he'll grab a sandwich late again, so I've a dried-out roast for company.