Nikolai: happy to read your OTP from Russia, with love. OF course, this is a direct reference to James Bond. 🙂
Welcome aboard.
Daniel B. in Canada.
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Barbara — Coffitivity is awesome. I turned on some co-workers to it years ago, and now they can’t work without the murmur.
Regarding background music for writing, jazz is my usual go-to: classic, most of the time, but I’ll swing to some Dixieland when the mood strikes.
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Miller Williams said he wrote a poem (for Clinton’s first inaugural) with a dog at his feet and John Coltrane on the stereo. I find music a distraction when writing.
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Luke, Here under my light-polluted city sky I can usually only see the Moon, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars and a handful of the brightest stars – but the ISS is easy to spot, as is the smaller but still obvious Tiangong. We’re having a particularly excellent flyover by the ISS tomorrow early evening.
Fun fact: NASA said this past week the 600th human being was launched into space (not including Han Wu!)
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Hi, Roger. I’ve subscribed to Noir City from when it used to be called Noir City Sentinel and was about 8 pages long. I used to collect the annuals, and sold the first few for hefty sums on eBay when I was broke (which is most of the time). There’s always something of interest for Noir aficionados, and great photos. I’ve even read Eddie Muller’s first novel featuring his boxing-writer hero. I do regret though that in one of his many Film Noir books (Dark City), Muller describes Raymond Chandler as a ‘ milquetoast’ – despite the fact that Chandler had led his platoon into enemy fire in the First World War trenches and was in three front line tours in just three months, his drinking often ascribed to the mental scars this left behind and ‘survivor guilt’. But Noir City is the best magazine of its kind (and perhaps the only one) with consistently good writing. It arrives as an e-magazine in my inbox every three months or so simply because I paid twenty dollars about ten years ago! And if you write to Eddie Muller, he will write back, busy as he is.
As for Gloria Grahame, possibly the best noir dame…after Ella Raines. (W. G.)
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BRENDAN, thank you for your beautiful and powerful piece. I love it, and it will join a few other select OTP’s that I have printed out and taped up near my own typing space.
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P.S. BRENDAN and all: THE SECRET LIVES OF WRITERS, despite its tabloid title, is full of small stories of writers reflecting on their totems and their relationships to writing. Brendan, your OTP today would easily join the very best of those many stories.
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Correction: the book title is actually HOW I WRITE: THE SECRET LIVES OF AUTHORS.
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H@M — thank you! Your words serve as a pick-me-up on a very challenging day.
I always love hearing about other writers’ totems and practices related to their craft.
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I have to say that the ongoing Lucinda, Adrian/Simon, & Dr. Weizman saga is absolutely riveting.
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Hi, W.G. Enjoyed your comments about Noir City. Looking forward to reading it. Always liked Muller, but agree he’s off base about Chandler. The guy had a hard life before he began writing, and maybe not all that great even then. On technical matters, I saw tead somewhere that Chandler liked the Olivetti Studio 44. Thanks again for the comments. Lots of good femme fatales. Linda Darnell comes to mind, or even better, Lizabeth Scott. Stanwyck too.
Nikolai: happy to read your OTP from Russia, with love. OF course, this is a direct reference to James Bond. 🙂
Welcome aboard.
Daniel B. in Canada.
Barbara — Coffitivity is awesome. I turned on some co-workers to it years ago, and now they can’t work without the murmur.
Regarding background music for writing, jazz is my usual go-to: classic, most of the time, but I’ll swing to some Dixieland when the mood strikes.
Miller Williams said he wrote a poem (for Clinton’s first inaugural) with a dog at his feet and John Coltrane on the stereo. I find music a distraction when writing.
Luke, Here under my light-polluted city sky I can usually only see the Moon, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars and a handful of the brightest stars – but the ISS is easy to spot, as is the smaller but still obvious Tiangong. We’re having a particularly excellent flyover by the ISS tomorrow early evening.
Fun fact: NASA said this past week the 600th human being was launched into space (not including Han Wu!)
Hi, Roger. I’ve subscribed to Noir City from when it used to be called Noir City Sentinel and was about 8 pages long. I used to collect the annuals, and sold the first few for hefty sums on eBay when I was broke (which is most of the time). There’s always something of interest for Noir aficionados, and great photos. I’ve even read Eddie Muller’s first novel featuring his boxing-writer hero. I do regret though that in one of his many Film Noir books (Dark City), Muller describes Raymond Chandler as a ‘ milquetoast’ – despite the fact that Chandler had led his platoon into enemy fire in the First World War trenches and was in three front line tours in just three months, his drinking often ascribed to the mental scars this left behind and ‘survivor guilt’. But Noir City is the best magazine of its kind (and perhaps the only one) with consistently good writing. It arrives as an e-magazine in my inbox every three months or so simply because I paid twenty dollars about ten years ago! And if you write to Eddie Muller, he will write back, busy as he is.
As for Gloria Grahame, possibly the best noir dame…after Ella Raines. (W. G.)
BRENDAN, thank you for your beautiful and powerful piece. I love it, and it will join a few other select OTP’s that I have printed out and taped up near my own typing space.
P.S. BRENDAN and all: THE SECRET LIVES OF WRITERS, despite its tabloid title, is full of small stories of writers reflecting on their totems and their relationships to writing. Brendan, your OTP today would easily join the very best of those many stories.
Correction: the book title is actually HOW I WRITE: THE SECRET LIVES OF AUTHORS.
H@M — thank you! Your words serve as a pick-me-up on a very challenging day.
I always love hearing about other writers’ totems and practices related to their craft.
I have to say that the ongoing Lucinda, Adrian/Simon, & Dr. Weizman saga is absolutely riveting.
Hi, W.G. Enjoyed your comments about Noir City. Looking forward to reading it. Always liked Muller, but agree he’s off base about Chandler. The guy had a hard life before he began writing, and maybe not all that great even then. On technical matters, I saw tead somewhere that Chandler liked the Olivetti Studio 44. Thanks again for the comments. Lots of good femme fatales. Linda Darnell comes to mind, or even better, Lizabeth Scott. Stanwyck too.