"I'm singing for the love of it; have mercy on the man who sings to be adored."

[mrissa]

Josh Ritter in concert is good. Good recording artists don't always mean good performing artists, but Josh Ritter is having an awfully good time on stage, and so are the guys who play with him. I expect that I'll want to get to future shows of his, and timprov and elisem seemed to have similar reactions.

In other news yesterday, I remembered when I was walking the dog that I got my first glasses in the fall. I remember what a revelation it was that you could see the individual leaves on trees, that they weren't just a blur of one color with sometimes shading into others. I appreciate that again every fall. I know that sounds all breathy and rose-colored, but it doesn't hurt to remember that some things actually are pretty nice, all things considered.

I've been trying to revise one stupid short story -- all right, it's not stupid, and that's the problem: if it was stupid, I could trunk it and walk away. But anyway, I've been trying to revise this same story for quite awhile, and I've gotten a phrase here and a paragraph there and gone back and redone some of the redone phrases and paragraphs. The time it has been sitting here waiting for me is far out of proportion to its length. (Far. No, really. Farther than that. Very far.) And then yesterday while I was standing looking at a stand of poplars gone yellow and waiting for the dog to finish adequately sniffing a particularly fascinating clump of grass, there was a plot point neatly wrapped and tied with a bow, wholly relevant and fitting the spot where something needed to go, and all of a sudden the story looked un-stupid again. And also the book revisions continue going well, so in general I am very cheerful about revising. Which is most of the writing work I'm doing for the next few days, so good cheer in that area is pretty meaningful in the rest of my life, so...good then. Definitely good.

Comments

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Particularly compared to his older stuff, I find his live shows *wow* better.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should get mmerriam a dog, in case said pooch is equally skilled at finding neat plot points in clumps of grass. Though I understand he has a tendency to find them in the vacuum, and so on, so perhaps it is not necessary.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ooh ooh! The dog could have a really good time looking for them in the vacuum!

Maybe that's what Ista's been looking for!

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Ah ha!

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

To celebrate good revising, check out a picture of your niece getting kissed by a nice boy a few months older than her:
http://vanschepentimes.blogspot.com/2007/10/babysitting-and-other-cute-pics.html

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

For cute!

[cissa.livejournal.com]

We call that level of dog-sniffing "snouting," since "sniffing" does not seem to adequately convey the rigor and scientific approach our dog brings to it.

Including, it seems, flushing out plot points!

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I'm going to hear and see Josh Ritter play at a local club on Halloween evening. I'm quite looking forward to it. Almost everything he's done, I've liked. And now I get to hear him live!
Several reviewers have said he has the poetry of Bob Dylan and the voice of Bruce Springsteen. I think there's a little something to that, but he's uniquely his own style.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'll bet a Halloween show from those guys would be really good fun. Enjoy!

I haven't imprinted as hard on Dylan or Springsteen as a lot of people, so I'm probably the wrong person to evaluate that comparison.

"Don't let me into this year with an empty heart"

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I take it you've heard the newest album? When I first heard it, I thought, "Oh, I don't know if I like this!" It was hmmm, electrified and not quite as folky. Then I really got into it. When Bob Dylan went electric and started sounding louder, a lot of people didn't like it. But I did. (I'm only 32, but I heard his albums in somewhere around the original order, thanks to my father's tape collection). it's a natural progression. Folk rock equals goodnesss.

Re: "Don't let me into this year with an empty heart"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, we are new to Josh Ritter, so we got exposed to approximately all of it simultaneously. I never had the bit where I was comparing it to earlier stuff because it's all come into my life at once. I do like the newest album, and I think the song you're quoting there will likely become part of a family ritual.

P.S.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

If you don't know much about Dylan or Springsteen, but would like to, I can gladly make you a mix CD. I've got bunches of their stuff.

Re: P.S.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't say I didn't know much. I said I hadn't imprinted very hard. There are some Dylan songs that are absolutely crucial to my life, but generally I just haven't found the deep and abiding passion that some people seem to have for each.

Thanks for the offer, though; much appreciated.

Re: P.S.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

Ah, understood. I suppose to explain why I imprinted on him would take pages and pages. It'd be easier to explain why I imprinted on redheaded women as particularly noticeable -- my first serious girlfriend and sweetheart was one. Perhaps I heard Dylan at the right teenage age for impressionable poetry, and I heard Bruce's "Born to Run" at the perfect age of high school.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Thinking that Josh might be one of the Springsteen/Clapton types of male singer-songwriters who get a huge improvement in middle age is a rather exciting possibility.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

He does seem to be getting to be a better lyricisit, and his voice is the sort that doesn't depend on hitting all the high notes He will probably age well, like fine wine. . . Someday we'll look back and compare new Josh to vintage Josh and say, "These are both great in their own way."

:)

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I'm totally with you about the glasses and the leaves. I have the same reaction every year, and I remember exactly where I was when I discovered that you can actually see individual leaves. Amazing.