Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Archives for February 2012

Laptop Meltdown

by

I had a plan of high efficiency for this past weekend. Novel-editing. Blog-writing. Track-mixing. Song-arranging.

Note a common theme: all my object-verbing centered around computing power, which made it the most awesome possible time for my laptop to have a complete meltdown.

So, of course, it had one. Followed soon thereafter by a complete productivity meltdown as I desperately shopped for a new laptop.

This image is a dramatization of the actual events of this past weekend.

Why do these things have to be so hard? My specifications, they are specific: Less than 13″ wide, less than 4lbs. More than a 2.3 GHz dual core. 8GB or more max RAM that’s user-installable. Not completely bloated with helpful programs I will never use. DVD-drive not required, but accepted. HD ideally replaceable with a solid-state version in a few months as prices come down. Under $1k. Bonus points for fun colors. Points lost for systemic issues pointed out by over a dozen one-star reviews on Amazon.

Okay, it’s not the simplest list of demands, but they’re a list! A very defined list. So why, why, WHY, was it an impossibility to find the laptop that fit? Shouldn’t there be entire websites – nay, entire cottage industries dedicated to solving this particular, very specific need of mine?

Well, there are. Sortof. There are cottage “laptop-to-spec” websites, but we’re talking >$2k for a custom-built laptop. They are for serious gamers and, like, Angelina Jolie in Hackers. CNET reviews every possible laptop, but the reviews are either immediately outdated or the laptop they endorse is nowhere to be found for sale.

(HP offers a pretty sweet set of customized builds on their website but, well – they’re HP. I’ve had several long-living PCs from HP, but there is no denying they are the king of bloat.)

The worst part? It’s not as though my laptop emergency came as a surprise, but even with a few weeks of prep time I was still paralyzed by dozens of shitty choices.

My battered blue netbook is now in year-three of its lifespan, and it has been through the wringer with me. I have worked with it in the crook of my arm on elevators and highways and in subway cars and rainstorms. Last year the original charger died, and it took three tries to find one that would work. A chunk of the faux-metal trim fell off, leaving a gaping hole in the front corner. Then my arrow keys stopping clacking, and removing them from the keyboard to try to solve the problem proved disastrous. The screen flickers dangerously any time my body accumulates the slightest bit of static charge. Sometimes it simply shuts off.

Still, it runs, it browses the internet, it edits my novel. What more did I need, really?

On Saturday, even more keys began to give up the ghost. The left-hand shift began randomly firing, creating CrAZEd SCreEds out of my every email. Then it died entirely (which was preferable), with the Backspace key seemingly next to follow. And, boy, let me tell you, if you are going to have one randomly-firing key, Backspace could be the worst possible option.

The result was about 36 hours of close to zero productivity as I cried about not being able to edit my novel and poked at seemingly every laptop spec on the entire internet. Should I cave and get a Mac Air like E, even though I find it unwieldy? Should I cave and get another super-cheap netbook for $300, even if it has the same exact specs as my three-year old version? Should I cave and build a custom HP that would take three weeks to arrive and at least another week to declutter?

As you read this post I am in possession of a brand new Toshiba Protégé R835-P94. CNET reviewed the series well and it fit all my requirements, though I had to hunt down the actual spec sheet to prove it. I’m not endorsing it yet (kinda huge and plasticy), but if you are also looking for a powerful portable, I’d suggest you throw it into the mix.

Hours spent actively shopping? At least 24. Actual credible options that fit my specs? Just this one (plus a similar HP, which I eschewed).

Sunday Night Writers’ Club

by

I am now a member of a highly-exclusive, secret society with strict qualifications for its members.

It’s a Writers’ Club. You know, like a Book Club, only we’re reading each others’ books (and short stories, and poems, etc).

As with many of the intriguing developments in my life over the past two years, my recruitment began innocently enough with a series of tweets to Britt and Eric Smith. They had been pulling all-day writing sessions in a local coffee shop and posting photos of their back-to-back laptops accompanied by mucho caffeine. I commented a few times on how that would be an altogether fabulous idea to get me back into gear in editing my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel.

The tattered, marked-up, hard copy of my novel.

That is when the mysterious invitation appeared in my inbox. No location, no details. Just a question – would I be interested in joining the Writer’s Club?

(Luckily, the first rule of Writers’ Club is not that you do not talk about Writers’ Club. Those sorts of clubs are not ones where I particularly flourish as a member.)

I nervously accepted the invitation and then spent about two solid weeks freaking out about other people reading my novel. Not just any other people. Writers. People who take plot and characterization seriously. Some of them have degrees in English.

Luckily, I was at least slightly prepared for their onslaught of literate opinions, but that preparation hadn’t been an easy process.

I spent the early part of 2011 reading and re-reading my novel, not really knowing what to do what to do next. The book had a lot of good bits, but I knew it wasn’t a very good book yet. It was like the skeletal structure of a very handsome person. No one calls a skeleton handsome, but  good bones are a great start.

I just needed muscles and flesh to cover them up with.

I heeded the advice of many authors more experienced than I – I set the book aside for almost a whole year. Then, a year after I penned its first words, I printed the entire thing out on paper and began a serious edit pass.

Why paper? Because, any proofreader worth their salt will tell you they make better edits with a pencil in hand. Also, it encouraged me to read non-sequentially. Taking on each chapter as an individual entity meant I attacked the weak spots much harder than if I had read them in sequence.

Flash forward to two weeks ago. I had a fist-full of tattered pages that have been with me on every commute to work, every visit to the gym – even on the plane to Vegas. Once I was past my authorial nervous breakdown, the time had come to take all those painstakingly scribbled paper edits and convert them into something cohesive and readable.

How did my first top secret meeting go? Just fine (after I first got drunk and confessed to Eric how terrified I was). It turns out, other people do find my book interesting. Even people with English degrees. They also find all the awkward bits I find awkward to be awkward. They also find some fun turns of language and plot that I didn’t even intend, but that make perfect sense.

I am much less nervous about mailing the chapters for my second engagement with the club. Now the problem isn’t fear of sharing – it’s not being sure when I’ve edited enough.

That and the randomly failing keys on my laptop, but that’s a story for another day.

#MusicMonday: “Shores of California” – Dresden Dolls

by

Three years ago, Amanda Palmer was one of the first people to engage with me on Twitter – and, I’m not just talking famous people. People in general.

I don’t always love Amanda’s solo ukele-based efforts as much as the songs from her revelatory punk-cabaret two-piece Dresden Dolls, but I continue to follow her becasue she is one of the most honest and open full-time rock stars on the internet. She contends 24/7 with the trials and concerns I encounter only in rehearsal (four days of our seven, last week).

On Friday, Amanda was tweeting about recording a new record with a new band, and in the stream of messages this one stuck out…

… and not just because it involved one of my top five tunes by Amanda…

It stuck out because, as with many things Amanda shares, it expressed something I have felt about music but haven’t ever really articulated.

Historically, Arcati Crisis learns songs at a rate of about four a year. Since Gina and I each write on our own, that means we’re learning just two of my tunes – yet, I write anywhere from six to twenty songs in a year.

As a result, my perspective on song-picking for AC is that every one of my choices must be lead-single quality. I don’t like subtle picks. Every new song of mine that we choose has to be awesome enough to obliterate the memory of all prior songs.

A few years ago, Gina picked “Unengaged” from my available songs. It’s a song I love. It’s complex, but catchy. It’s challenging to play and sing, but not impossible. It seemed like a good pick.

It lasted about two rehearsals. The problem wasn’t the complexity … it was the emotion. “Unengaged” is about the period where I had decided I was going to propose to E but hadn’t yet gone through with it. It’s a hard type of energy to connect with – happy, but uncertain if that’s the right thing to be – and because of the delicacy of the vocal, I need to nail the emotion behind it to get it right.

I realized quickly that it was destined to be a “live unfavorite.” I already loved what Gina was doing with it, but I knew it would fall to the bottom of my list as we chose setlists because I wouldn’t always want to summon the emotions to sing it. And, with only two songs to choose each year, what would be the point of picking something if I didn’t want to play it?

(I did the same thing a year later with “Tattooed,” at which point Gina and I agreed that songs specifically about E are generally not the best choice as Arcati Crisis songs, exactly for the reason that they can become live unfavorites for me as some new emotion between E and I supersedes the older one in the song.)

That’s not to say that I don’t sometimes select emotionally hard-to-deliver songs for AC. “Love Me Not,” “Dumbest Thing I Could Do,” and “End With Me” can all be hard to get emotionally right and incredibly draining when I do. I was ready to fall on the ground after delivering a searing “End With Me” at our holiday revue, and had to spend the next thirty minutes avoiding conversation with other guest. Yet, those songs simply aren’t personal the way songs about E are. I get to play a character.

When they were together, the Dresden Dolls learned songs at a much faster rate than 4 per year, so Amanda could afford to bring a song to the band that might not become a live staple. It was still worth hearing the band version, and worth recording. Fans still love it. It spawned a hilarious music video. It’s just hard for her to play.

This week Gina and I are picking our next pair of songs to learn, having already learned a pair in January. That means we’ll have hit our 4-song quota by April. Will this be the year we learn an entire album’s worth of new music in twelve months? If it is, I wonder if I will eventually tap a live unfavorite as one of my choices.

#MusicMonday: Madonna – Give Me All Your Luvin’

by

The other night I drunk-dialed Madonna.

Sortof.

I was drunk (a rarity!) and riding SEPTA (never gets old!), and I decided it was time to lose my virginity in the mobile song downloads realm, because I really needed to hear the new Madonna single on repeat that very minute. So I bought it right there on my phone.

I’ll concede, it was very liberating.

I recall the anticipation of every Madonna album from Like a Prayer to present day. That’s 10 studio albums of anticipation over a span of more than 20 years. In each instance, I can almost viscerally recall my first listen to her lead singles. Some have been the best cut on the album (“Like a Prayer,” “Hung Up”), while others were something subtler meant to keep the full LP a surprise (“Erotica,” “Frozen”).

I am having trouble placing MDNA‘s lead single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” in the wider Parthenon of Madonna. The first time I heard it, I thought, “YES! This is a Madonna single for the new millennium. Sign me up!” However, in my tipsy relisten on Friday evening the song’s myriad faults became obvious – because the faults and the highlights are one and the same.

Good. The live-in a room cheerleader chants calling back to “Mickey” and melodic nods to an era of “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Leader of the Pack”

Bad. Madonna’s singing. It isn’t the weirdly hollowed-out death rattle that plagued Hard Candy, but it’s unsupported and not very in tune. Female singers who haven’t abused their voices find amazing resonance in their 40s and 50s, yet here Madonna seems to have regressed to the teeny-voiced delivery of Like a Virgin with none of the charm of her young vibrato. Why is she phoning it in?

Good. The live-sampled drums that kick off the song and the relentless handclap beat driven by simple guitar and drum hooks – leading to an awesome heavy-stomp bridge, totally unlike any that come to mind outside of Ray of Light.

Bad. Neither the bass or the guitar are a real bass or guitar – both are clearly synth. Why? Though Gaga has been scoring hits on synth pastiche, female-fronted crossover hits in the past few years have not been shy about tangible moments of rock (Gaga included!). The choruses and bridge have an especially cheap plastic sound. I get that is part of the conceit of the song, but that doesn’t made it any good. Is Madonna so terrified of a retread of American Life that she can’t allow an electric guitar to stick out on a song?

Good. Fun, relevent guest-performers drop verses that do not feel entirely shoe-horned into the song. I don’t feel like it warrants a “no-rap” edit.

Bad. Minaj and MIA are wasted entirely here. Minaj partially because Madonna doesn’t have the time for her to drop a totally insane verse, but also because she is a great singer and could have piled on manic harmony anywhere here. MIA is more of a cipher – her allure is in production as much as what she spits, so why not let that sneak into the flavor the bridge more?

Good. The lyrics. They don’t try too hard, keeping the song relateable for a young radio audience, even when delivered by one of the most famous women in the world.

Bad. After a cute reference to “Lucky Star” (if you didn’t know how much Madge references her songs within her songs you haven’t been paying much attention) the second verse is non-existent. “We can drink some wine, burgundy is fine, let’s drink the bottle every drop.” These are placeholder lyrics that should have been supplanted by anything more relevant to the song. Also, maybe I’m over-analyzing here, but I don’t like the casual drunkenness here. Madonna has certainly had her moments of singing about getting messed up, but this tossed off reference bugs.

.

All of these issues? Fixable. Especially when you are Madonna. Yet, the same issues felled Hard Candy, the worst album of her career by a country mile after a major highlight on Confessions on a Dancefloor – at once adventurous and a return-to-form.

Am I excited for MDNA? I’m not sure. After an incomparable run from Ray of Light to Confessions (yes, I LOVE American Life) I feel as though Madge is second-guessing herself in an attempt to stay hip and relevant. Yet, her special power has always been effortless trend-setting (even if the lack of effort is completely contrived).

What happens when Madonna lets us see the strain, the strings and gears behind what should be an effortless hit? We get “Give Me All Your Luvin'” – catchy, enjoyable, but forgettable.

Let’s hope I won’t feel the same way about the LP as a whole.