Darin Bradley

To clarify my previous post on the Sybil’s Garage guidelines change, by “traditional” stories, we do not mean tropes or archetypes.  Instead, we are looking for more stories with complete arcs. This website explains the elements of a story arc: http://www.musik-therapie.at/PederHill/Structure&Plot.htm. We don’t wish to suggest this is the only way, or the best way, to write a story. But it is, perhaps, the one readers are most familiar with, and one method we’d like to see more of in our slush pile.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

Anyone who has been following this blog for the past couple of years or my posts elsewhere may guess how important Andrew Bird’s music has been in my solitary odyssey in this sub-tropical city. I discovered him via my lj feed in 2007, after spending the night crying my heart and lungs out. Elizabeth Bear had posted a video of Andrew Bird’s performance of A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left at Bonnaroo to her blog. Just listening to the song, just watching him whistle and play made me feel like goodness hadn’t left the world yet. I soon got his album, and this song kind of got imbued with special meaning for me, and helped me extricate myself from a very bad situation. But no, Bird didn’t play the two songs that are special for me, the above song and Tables and Chairs, but that was okay.

The set was balanced enough, with songs from all three albums represented. He had Scythian Empires, Imitosis (which he said that he hadn’t played for years but figured it would be fun to play that afternoon), Heretics, Opposite Day, Fake Palindromes, Oh No, Nomenclature and Masterswarm. I can’t remember the rest of it, but suffice to say, despite my gripes about the sound system, it was magical. Magical. Thank you, Andrew. And thank you again, Elizabeth Bear. Let no one say music and art can’t have positive effect in everyday life.

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

I actually really wanted to go to Sunset Sounds because of Andrew Bird. There was no way I was going to miss him, ever, but his only performance in Brisbane was at this venue. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, I loved the festival, overall, but I was rather annoyed with the concert organizers in this one instance. Bring a world-class musician like Bird, and his stellar drummer Martin Dosh, and then blare music during the dj sessions so much so the sound system couldn’t be tweaked? Weak.

I was very near the front of the stage and therefore saw Martin Dosh signal more than once for the blaring music to be turned down so he could test stuff. To no avail. And this caused disruption during Andrew Bird’s set because his voice couldn’t be heard! Yup. Only then did the sound engineers run to fix things. The sound balance was mostly off during Bird’s performance and I was pretty sad about it. Bird’s music, as fans know is a combination of whistles, violin, guitar, drums and feedback loops. The complexity of such arrangements I think should have been taken into account. Sound dynamics instead of loudness because the spinning of pre-concert tracks on the loudspeaker took precedence. However, Andrew Bird’s set was still awesome, both he and Dosh made my day special, and for that I am very glad.

I’m going to be posting my Andrew Bird pictures soon, but since I was so excited at not just Bird but at the appearance of Martin Dosh, I had to have a post especially for him. Martin Dosh plays drums for Andrew Bird a lot, but he also fronts his own band and is a performer in his own right. The music of Dosh is heady and exhilarating, the sort of thing that would make a music geek’s day. I do hope he tours Australia with Dosh at some point!

Originally published at Growing Fins. Please leave any comments there.

I was going to save these for last, since Sarah Blasko was the last act for me. But I loved these pictures so much I had to share them! I very nearly couldn’t get them, or attend the Sarah Blasko set, because my tortured feet were…tortured. However, a drink, and a chair in a strategic position allowed me to enjoy most of the show while resting sore heels. Towards the last thirty minutes, the super-sneaky ninny inched her way to a strategic position. Was almost impossible to get still shots; as mentioned previously, my camera isn’t very good at night-time motion photography. Nor the amateur camerawoman! However, I managed to, against all odds, capture these. Sarah Blasko was lovely, performing “magic acts” for the audience, in her gleewoman’s costume, throwing confetti and pulling out a long, many-coloured ribbon from her dress, which was made for both performers and magical gleewomen who stroll between the interstices of myth and reality. It was the perfect close to a near perfect day, for me. All minor gripes were just that, minor, in the wake of being able to listen to such good music AND be able to take these pictures as well.

• 08:13 Taking a Changeling to the community playspace today. Fingers and toes crossed he doesn't catch any plaaaagues (or, y'know, common colds). #
• 12:19 Oh, Florida avocados, where have you been all my life? (First smartarse to say "Florida" gets the smackdown.) #
• 20:28 Quite possible that JV's UltraCranky 3000 of the past two weeks & change has been due to .. my drinking coffee again. BLAST IT ALL TO HELL. #
• 22:28 Endless Half-Assed Fingerless Glove Armwarmer Thingies of Doooooom: accomplished! #

Originally published at John Joseph Adams. You can comment here or there.

The Grasping for the Wind review blog just issued its bests-of-the-year list, which includes my anthology Federations as “Best Anthology” of the year.

• 10:53 @tiffanytrent Me! I need a writing buddy! #
• 12:55 I'm currently writing about the most hateful character. #
• 13:52 @benitorcorral Thanks! I'm blushing. Tell your friends or blog about it!!!! #