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STRATEGY FOR THE DAY: sniff the air

I've found a number of fun books to read lately. Took a couple on vacation and am working on an especially good one at the moment.

"Lost In A Good Book" is the second in the Thursday Next series. The first is called "The Eyre Affair" and the most recent release, "The Well Of Lost Plots." These are nominally mystery thrillers but only nominally... the real focus is on the unusual world which Thursday Next inhabits. It is 1985, but not the 1985 we knew. Somewhere in the stream of history, something went askew and a new thread of historical events ensued, one in which Wellington did not win at Waterloo, dodos are not extinct, the Crimean War continues to the present, the Soviet Union never existed, and art - notably literature - is the most coveted, most valuable, most popular resource in the world, a world in which rowdy Friday night performances of "Richard III" have replaced the "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Thursday Next is a literary detective; her job to root out an endless flow of forgeries, keep plots from being changed, and restore characters to their rightful novels, among other things. The first book in the series dwells a little too much on the literary fun and leaves the story thread a bit light, but the second one is a perfect combination of story and context. It's a ton of fun with lots of twists, in jokes, and literary allusions. (In the second book, Thursday is apprenticed to Miss Havisham of Great Expectations who, it turns out, has a heavy foot on the accelerator and a penchant for cheap romance novels.) But don't read these books out of sequence; you need to know what happened in the earlier books to follow the later ones. the author is Jasper Fforde. Visit Fforde Grand Central for more info and lots of crazy ideas.

I love the notion of a parallel world, one in which things have turned out differently. Good art walks the knife edge between the familiar and the unexpected. It's that point where real and unreal meet that creates a wonderful sense of dizziness.

I gave a songwriting class at Pasadena City College last Saturday. Had a very interesting group of students including a writer and a harmonica player with a blues band. Pasadena always seems to draw the most unusual groups. Perhaps it has something to do with CalTech being just up the street, and JPL around the corner. Or not.

I start a new four-week songwriting course tonight at Culver City Adult School and have gotten the go-ahead to give an intermediate version in the fall so students will be able to continue on. Also picked up Beverly Hills Adult School for the fall. They have a strong roster of entertainment classes, as you might expect, and I'm very excited that my songwriting course will be included.

Copyright 2004 Robin Frederick. All rights reserved.

Read A Brief History Of Love Songs by Robin Frederick at the Sound Experience Music web site.