The Mother Tongue...

Last week I stepped by accident or good fortune into Alice's rabbit hole.

All my life I've spoken on occasion a language in musical improvisation. I never encountered a fellow live human I could converse in this tongue with until I stepped into a class at the 92nd Street Y called Creative Music/Improvisation.

As a girl I studied piano a bit at the Bristow Hardin School of Music in Norfolk, Virginia. But I never got the hang of how to read music! Notes and I were at war, like my battles now with computer keys.

I did pretty well in other languages, like French, where I won state tournaments. And Latin, which I majored in, then taught. I had the kids speaking Latin. Drove their families nuts!

Even re-wrote Lucretius' De Rerum Natura as a 20th century dance-drama!

But every now and then my fingers longed to touch the ivory keys.

When the organist got sick at the college prep boarding school in Sewanee, Tennessee, I subbed for her. Pulled the wool over the keyboard and actually played all the hymns and masses for the Episcopal services.

My most fun stint on a keyboard was when my boss was head of the Manhattan Kiwanis Club and hired me on to play for their meetings.

How many women have had the chance to play the piano in the wine cellar of Mamma Leone's restaurant???

My royal salary was lunch and a glass of wine.

When I taught modern dance I recorded my "improvs" for the classes - it seemed to work okay. The audiences clapped.

Time passed. I found places where I could sneak in and talk with an empty keyboard on occasion.

To get back to Alice's rabbit hole - the class at the Y is taught by a real pianist. A composer with a sterling track record in composing soundtracks for films and documentaries. A young musician named David Cieri. He has played at Carnegie Hall.

***Hear him play: David Cieri - Little Dusk***

He sat at one grand piano. I sat at another, equally grand.

You start to press the blacks and whites. He does too, matching your rhythm, tempo, tone, mood.

Neither of you has any idea where this is going! But you are in sync, giving a real concert to the class!

You are speaking in a tongue never heard on the planet since Adam and Eve!


By the way, the next time I have to fill out an application this is what I shall write:


Language - Improv

Race - Yes, as fast as I can

Thelma Jacqueline Straw

Watch Out, the Sociopaths are Coming

I just finished reading a book by a clinical psychologist by the name of Martha Stout, called The Sociopath Next Door. It's been out since 2005, so I'm late to the party, as usual, but I did want to talk about it, because pop psych books are cool and especially pop psych books that allow you to nail your neighbor. One person in twenty-five in this country is a sociopath, she says, as measured by one of those tests they give you. I haven't had so much fun since Games People Play. (Nor have I taken the test. I'm pretty sure, though, that I'm not a sociopath.)

Sociopaths have no conscience, Ms. Stout says. They feel no remorse for anything they do and are unable to form loving connections with other people or pets. The way you can tell a sociopath is that he will stab you in the back and then want you to feel sorry for him because you got blood all over his knife. Also they have hard eyes.

I bought the book because I'm writing a story about a sociopath. The guy is based on a man I used to know slightly, one I had the good sense to keep away from. He murdered his first wife, and then he wanted the neighbors to feel sorry for him because he suffered the suspicions of the police. Yeah, that's a sociopath. The book gave me a little more insight into the type, but actually told me nothing surprising, other than the high proportion of these people in our midst.

Most of them aren't murderers. Most of them are simply liars, cold-blooded manipulators, and selfish pains in the ass. When the Inuit identify one of them in their midst they take the sociopath to the edge of the ice pack and kick him off. Not every selfish pain in the ass is a true sociopath, but a handful of your acquaintances are. Only twenty percent of the prison population are sociopaths, which works out to there being more of them outside of prison than in. Makes you think.

While you're thinking, go ahead and buy this book. Ms. Stout writes very entertainingly, whether she's describing the sociopaths you love to hate, or explaining Stanley Milgram's experiments, those horror shows that demonstrated how good people will accept and carry out evil instructions from a sociopathic authority figure. Unless we're careful, we could all be Nazis, but not all of us are sociopaths. And if the idea of being perceived as a sociopath causes you shame, relax. You aren't one. True sociopaths are incapable of feeling shame.

Kate Gallison

Some Things Don’t Change…

In a world of constant change it’s nice to know there is one constant: The seashore.

Last week, I spent the one clear day, among six rainy ones, at Ocean City, NJ with my grandchildren. I hadn’t been to the “Shore” for over twenty years. How do I know this? The last time I went I didn’t wear glasses; this time I had to find a place to stash them when I went for a swim. But that was the only thing that had changed.

Everything else was the same. The bright beach umbrellas, the salty smell of the sea air, mingled with the smell of popcorn, hotdogs, and funnel cake. The children were still building sand castles and drip castles (a refinement of the former), searching for seashells, and digging holes “to watch the sea come up,” a la Robert Louis Stevenson.

Airplanes tugged ads for restaurants across a pristine sky, while kites and seagulls decorated the same sky. The seagulls were a bit more aggressive than I remembered. They came right up to our blanket, greedily eyed our sandwiches, and in one case, snatched a sandwich from a boy’s hand. Maybe they’d seen Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” and been inspired.

A high point of the day was the taffy-making machine at Shriver’s candy store. This store has been on the boardwalk for over one hundred years. I know, because my grandmother used to go there when she was a girl! My grandkids were fascinated to see the great golden globs of taffy being pulled and stretched on one machine, then transferred to another to be chopped into tiny rolls and packaged in not one, but two, different kinds of paper, twisted at each end and popped out ready to be eaten. And the variety of flavors was overwhelming – from root beer to coconut, from mango to chocolate mint. Needless to say, we bought a big bag and our teeth stuck together for the next few hours.

A ride on the Ferris wheel, climaxed the day. A nearly full moon hung over the ocean and the lights of Atlantic City winked in the distance, reminding us of less innocent pleasures available just a few miles away.

Robin Hathaway

Self Assessment for Crime Novel Writers

by Thelma Jacqueline Straw

Can we "invent, adapt and reinvent our jobs every day, in a market that changes faster than ever?"

Thomas Friedman wrote in an Op Ed piece (NYT, July 13, 2011) "The rising trend in Silicon Valley is to evaluate employees every quarter, not annually. Because the merger of globalization and the IT revolution means new products are being phased in and out so fast that companies cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to figure out whether a team leader is doing a good job."

He stated that an employer today asks . . . can this person help my company adapt . . . by reinventing the job for tomorrow . . . can he or she adapt with all the change . . . In today's hyperconnected world, more and more companies cannot and will not hire people who don't fulfill those criteria.

He continues . . . You have to "find a way to add value in a way no one else can (and) strengthen the muscles of resilience."

Translate his terms to Reader, Writer, Agent, Publisher.

Add the rapid changes in what sells, what readers are looking for - paper, e-book, cozy, thriller, series, standalone, occult, private eye, etc.

Silicon Valley becomes Harper Collins, Penguin, St. Martin's, Random House.

Employer morphs into reader and publisher.

I used to collect the books of J.S. Fletcher and mystery novelists of the 20s and 30s, published by Grosset & Dunlap. Today these books would probably not pass the Agent-Editor-Publisher test. Alas, not Reader.

Today's reader is shaped by forces that move faster than light or sound.

The book publisher must be in sync with what the reader wants, in order to stay in business.

Every writer has definite ideas about where the current state of publishing is headed:

• Going to hell in a handbasket
• Moving as fast as a cruise missile
• Neither or both of the above

Do I as a crime novelist change to meet the wishes of my readers? Do I periodically self-assess to insure that my product meets a real need? Am I resilient? Do I change with the times?

Will a reader fork out $29.95 for my darling?

The employee has to fit the demands of the employer.

My employer is the buyer of my book (or part-time owner through his/her library.)

As a writer, I need to be nimble. I have to assess the market, know what kind of writing style, topic, story it is looking for.

The market changes as swiftly as the sun or the ubiquitous Internet!

Do I have the grace or the courage to ongoingly evaluate my direction?

Do I listen to my peers, keep an ear to the rumbling ground, absorb the ever-present nudges the business climate gives me through print, advertisements, the media?

Am I gutsy enough to flow with the tides of both local and global markets, the stone cold sales figures of publishing?

It's an individual choice.

Major Company – Small Press – Self-publish
Agent – Sans-Agent

There is no one answer that fits all of us.

We all march to a different drumbeat.

But we need to listen and assess.

N.B. I am aware there are many sides to this topic and welcome your comments. tjs

Seven Ways to Achieve Success for Your Book

1.  Write a brilliant book. Or anyway do the best you can.

2.  The week your book is released, do a blog tour. Guest post on as many blogs as will have you. (THE BRINK OF FAME came out this week. Here are the links to my blog tour.)

3.  Create a brief, interesting trailer. Don't spend a lot. Make your friends forward it to everybody they know.

4.  Get your book into the hands of a famous person, preferably the President of the United States (it worked for Walter Moseley). Make sure the photograph of your book in the president's hands is seen by as many people as possible.

5.  Make a big QR code for your book and post it in prominent places.

6.  Offer to pay some famous person whose support will lower the tone of your book a thousand dollars not to be seen reading it. If this person accepts your offer, leak the arrangement to the media.

7.  Go to the animal shelter and adopt a cute puppy. Threaten to kill the puppy if people don't buy your book.

Good luck in your publishing endeavors!

Kate Gallison