"Mr. President, have pity on the working man."

The Song: "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)," Randy Newman. Words & music by Randy Newman. Track 4 of Good Old Boys, 1974.
How/when acquired: Purchased LP, 1988.
Listen to a clip here.

This might be the last vinyl album I ever bought. The turntable wasn't mine; it belonged to my then-fiance, and I haven't owned one since. I still own the LP, though. It lives in a cedar chest in my bedroom, and I wonder how badly the years have warped it.

Good Old Boys is a concept album that became the soundtrack for a musical version of All the King's Men produced at Washington's Arena Stage in 1988. The show blew me away, and it's still one of the best live performances I've ever seen; I don't know why it never went anywhere. But I needed the music, so I bought the album.

I voted for President Barack Obama. I still believe in him. I still like him. It still makes me happy that we elected him President; I was never prouder of my country than I was on Election Night 2008. But I have to admit that he seems a little out of touch.

It's not so unusual in Washington, a city full of people who grew up being the smartest kids in class. It takes a while to figure out that "smart" is not always what the situation calls for. Some people never do. Today's election might deliver that lesson in some painful ways, and I hope we all learn the right things from it.

"Get up, stand up/Stand up for your rights."

The Song: "Get Up, Stand Up," Bob Marley & the Wailers. Words & music by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Track 6 of Legend, 1984
How/when acquired: Gift cassette, 1989; gift CD, c. 2002.
Listen/watch here.

Yes, reggae purists, I know that "Get Up, Stand Up" was originally Track 1 of Burnin' (1973). Legend is what I own. In fact, I'd be surprised if any college-educated, 40-something white person in America doesn't own a copy of Legend. It is the best-selling reggae album of all time, and was essential to the cultural enlightenment of my whole generation.

It was not, however, my first exposure to reggae. That would have been Jimmy Cliff's movie The Harder They Come (1972), which my friend Adrienne and I saw at the Naro Expanded Cinema in 1980 or 1981. I don't remember much about the movie, but the music was thrilling. Our friend Melissa had grown up in Jamaica, and had all these records; she played them for us, and did not make fun of me, as would have been justified.

Tomorrow is Election Day. Maine's choices aren't great this year, but I'm voting anyway. If you can vote and don't, please leave a comment to remind me why we're friends.

"And in my best behavior/I am really just like him/Look beneath the floorboards/For the secrets I have hid."

The Song: "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.," Sufjan Stevens. Words & music by Sufjan Stevens. Track 4 of (Come on Feel the) Illinois(e), 2005. Track 13 of Into the Dark, a soundtrack to the novels of John Connolly, 2007.
How/when acquired: Gift CDs, 2007.
Listen/watch here.

If you're looking for an extra scare this weekend, that video is one of the most chilling things I've ever seen.

"Humani nihil a me alienum puto," wrote the Roman playwright Terence: "nothing human is alien to me." This is why I read crime fiction, and probably why I hang out with crime writers. I can imagine myself capable of almost anything, given the circumstances; what would would those circumstances be?

In his very entertaining talk on Wednesday night, my friend John Connolly read from his new novel-in-progress, the next book in a series about a private detective who is literally as well as metaphorically haunted. The scene he read made a passing reference to what I think is the most important truth of stories about any human atrocity: the speed at which the horrifying becomes normal, once you're living it.

I'm sure that John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and others knew that other people wouldn't think that what they were doing was "normal." I'm equally sure that fairly early on in their stories, what they were doing became normal to them.

This morning I got up, checked my e-mail, threw a load of laundry in the washer, took the dog for a walk. I'm making coffee right now, and have the TV on for white noise ("Being John Malkovich" is on, which I haven't seen in ages). All of this is normal to me. I won't kill anyone today if I can help it. But I can imagine a world in which I did things I would not want the neighbors to know about, and I think — in fact, I hope — most of us can.

Five Semi-Random Questions with SCOTT PHILLIPS

Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, and Cottonwood, is a man whose deceptively sweet nature masks a twisted soul. I mean that in the best possible way. He'll be at Noircon next week, but took a few minutes to answer five semi-random questions about his life and his newest book.

1. What sport did you play in high school?

None. I did not play any sport. I was a nerd.

2. What kind of car do you drive right now?

A sleek 2005 Hyundai Accent.

3. Do you currently have any pets?

I do not. The last one died and I didn’t replace it. It was a cat. A really obnoxious cat.

4. What’s your favorite place you ever lived?

Bordeaux, 2006. I was there for a couple of months, as writer in residence in the Department of Gironde. I had to go talk to libraries and schools, and be interviewed frequently by my friend Christophe Dupuis, a bookseller and scholar. It was great. I wish they’d ask me again. It helped that I spoke French, so they didn’t have to hire an interpreter.

5. Briefly describe your new book and how readers can get it.

RUT is the story of a small town in Colorado, 40 years from now, as it spirals toward extinction. It’s the story of a place and a time where nothing really works any more, and I hope it’s a funny book about decline and fall. It is available from Concord Free Press. Readers are asked to donate to charity in exchange for receiving a free book, and report their donations at www.concordfreepress.com. At the moment, Concord Free Press is the only place the book is available.

"It's not a deal, not a test nor a love of something fated (death)."

The Song: "Nautical Disaster," The Tragically Hip. Words & music by The Tragically Hip (Gordon Downie, Paul Langlois, Rob Baker, Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay). Track 7 of Day for Night, 1994.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, c. 1996
Listen/watch here.

In honor of Halloween, the next few posts will be lyrics that send chills down my spine. This line does it every time, a distillation of the randomness of disaster and survival. The meaning we assign to things has no effect on its outcome.

According to an interview with Gord Downie, "Nautical Disaster" was inspired by the sinking of the Bismarck, and ties that disaster to the end of the singer's relationship with a woman named Susan. Devastation comes from any direction, at any time. Some live, some die. There is no why.

My brother Ed is responsible for introducing me to The Tragically Hip, and to this album in particular. I think I remember buying this CD at a store in a strip mall on Little River Turnpike in Alexandria. I'm pretty sure I've seen them live, but I can't remember when or where. The Hip are like that; they hide under the surface of your consciousness, until you happen to hear one of their songs and remember anew, "Wow, this is a really good band." Maybe that's a Canadian attribute?

Continuing the spirit of the season, I'm headed down to Kennebooks tonight, where the internationally-beloved John Connolly will discuss and sign his latest Charlie Parker novel, THE WHISPERERS, at 7:00 p.m.

"So I gave myself to God/There was a pregnant pause before he said OK."

The Song: "The State I'm In," Belle & Sebastian. Words & music by Stuart Murdoch. Track 1 of Tigermilk, 1996.
How/when acquired: Downloaded MP3, 2007.
Listen/watch here.

I would like to pretend that I'm so cool I bought Tigermilk when it was new, but of course I didn't. I did not become aware of Belle & Sebastian until I moved to Los Angeles, and heard them on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Around the same time, they got a funny shout-out in the movie High Fidelity:

Barry (Jack Black): Holy shite. What the fuck is that?
Dick (Todd Louiso): It's the new Belle and Sebastian...
Rob (John Cusack): It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry.
Barry: Well, that's unfortunate, because it sucks ass.

Transatlantic friends refer to them as "cardigan music," which may be a reference to the fact that the second track on this album, "Expectations," opens with the sound of Stuart Murdoch unzipping his cardigan, or maybe just to the clothing preferences of Belle & Sebastian's fans.

Anyway, I was late to them, and did not acquire Tigermilk until 2007, after my friend Kevin quoted this song to me and expressed surprise that I didn't own it. An iTunes gift certificate at Christmas remedied the omission.

"Precious" is a word I've heard used to describe Belle & Sebastian, and "twee" is another, although "twee" is one of those words that seems to mean whatever the person using it wants it to mean. But if they take themselves a little seriously, even when they're joking, what is wrong with that? I have said before in this space that I often feel wistful for the days of my adolescence, when I took myself seriously and felt I had a right to do so.

"Don't listen to your teacher, you're not crazy/Just smarter than the rest of them"

The Song: "Life is Sweet," Maria McKee. Words & music by Maria McKee. Track 11 of Life is Sweet, 1996.
How/when acquired: Purchased used CD, 1999
Listen/watch here.

I bought this CD and You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, McKee's 1993 masterpiece, at Amoeba Music in Los Angeles during my month-long scouting trip in 1999, before I moved there. Life is Sweet was exactly the album I needed, and hit so close to home that the first time I listened to it, I burst into tears. (Today's quotation was almost from another song off this album, "Smarter," but it's so close to my own life story it's too personal to post here. And no, you can't listen to it online. I checked. Buy a copy if you want to know.)

Yesterday a friend asked, in an apparent non sequitur, "How patient are you?" I had no idea what he was asking. We've been friends for almost ten years, and I've been plenty patient with him in that time (as he has been with me, of course).

I gave him a blank look and he said, "Well, you're really smart. How patient are you with people who aren't as smart as you?"

Here is something that should not be a secret: I am not as smart as I pretend to be. I am not as smart as anyone thinks I am, and quite often that includes myself. I never have been. I have an uncanny verbal memory, and I'm good at words. That is not "smart." I can barely multiply two-digit numbers without a calculator. I am terrified of money. I'm an awful driver, and had no hand-eye coordination even before I started to lose my vision. I didn't learn to tie my shoes or tell time until I was well into the first grade. Anyone who has seen my apartment knows that I lack quite a few basic life skills. Everybody does certain things better than I do.

What, then, would I have to be patient about? I'm busy being grateful that people are patient with me.

"And I need a job,/So I want to be a paperback writer."

The Song: "Paperback Writer," The Beatles. Words & music by Lennon/McCartney. Single, 1966. Track 14 of The Beatles 1, 2000.
How/when acquired: Gift CD, 2000.
Listen/watch here.

That link is to a short film the Beatles themselves made to promote the single, along with one they did for the B-side, "Rain." They were arguably the first two true music videos. "Paperback Writer" is one of Paul's, though both Lennon and McCartney are credited as usual.

The great paradox of readers' conventions and book events is that they put me way behind on my reading. I have two manuscripts to finish reading for notes and a book to finish for script coverage, and I declined some books I actually want to read at Bouchercon simply because I have no idea when I'll get to them. I don't read as fast as I used to, for reasons that range from the proliferation of distractions to the fact that the way I read has changed. It's getting harder and harder for me to turn off the editor in my head, even with books I'm reading for pleasure. Earlier this year I had to set aside an award-winning debut novel because I could not restrain myself from picking up a red pen and slashing away at needless words.

A good bit of my living comes from aspiring authors, and I'm always excited to find new good work. But I worry, coming away from Bouchercon, about aspiring authors who are more interested in being read than in reading. I heard more than one say he or she was too busy writing to read, and that alarms me. I also worry about the aspiring writers who count on being able to support themselves by writing fiction, because only a fraction of the published novelists I know can do that. A couple of my friends do very well, but the vast majority still have day jobs, even with multiple titles in bookstores.

It's a great leap and a lonely effort to sit down and write a book. It's a hero's journey, and money isn't enough reason to do it, even if you sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars — which about as likely as winning the lottery, in that we all know someone who has, but it wasn't us. It has to be about something more important, or you're almost bound to be disappointed.

"If songs were lines/In a conversation/The situation would be fine."

The Song: "Hazey Jane II," Nick Drake. Words & music by Nick Drake. Track 2 of Bryter Later, 1970.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 2004.
Listen/watch here.

I often think I'd communicate more effectively if I could just carry around my iPod and play songs for people, rather than try to put words together myself. Presumably that's the point of mix tapes, or at least the point of mix tapes that aren't assembled for the sole purpose of impressing someone with one's musical taste (I've gotten a few of those).

The music of Nick Drake (1948-74) has enjoyed something of a revival over the past decade, at least in part because it's been part of several TV advertising campaigns (VW, AT&T). But I discovered him because his music is a key element in Phil Rickman's fine novel The Wine of Angels, which launched his Merrily Watkins series. A major character in the novel (and in the series to follow) is obsessed with Nick Drake's music, and more dangerously with the legacy of his early death. I am old enough to understand that there's nothing romantic about early death; it's just wasteful, and it makes me angry as much as it makes me sad. But Rickman wrote so beautifully about the music that I had to find it for myself.

Nick Drake only made three studio albums, and I bought them all: Five Leaves Left, Bryter Later, and Pink Moon. (A compilation of unreleased home recordings, Family Tree, was released in 2007; I don't have it.) The music is light but heartfelt, almost mystical, and formed the soundtrack for the six weeks I spent waiting to move from Los Angeles to Maine. Nick Drake's death — an overdose of anti-depressants — may or may not have been deliberate, but he made it clear that he never felt at home in the world. During my own period of homelessness, it was exactly what I needed.

Blatant self-promotion alert: A piece I wrote to mark Agatha Christie's 120th birthday is now up on Gale-Cengage's Books & Authors blog. Check it out here.

"I'm so tired, I don't know what to do."

The song: "I'm So Tired," The Beatles. Words & music by John Lennon & Paul McCartney. Track 2 of side 2 of The Beatles (the White Album), 1968.
How/when acquired: Gift LP, c. 1979.
Listen/watch here.

I have no real memory of when or how I got this album. I think it was a gift for my 14th birthday, but that might be confabulation. If you remember giving it to me, speak up. My mother, who worked for Capitol Records before her marriage, owned all the American Beatles LPs through Beatles '65. Those records were the soundtrack of my childhood, but everything from Rubber Soul on, I found on my own.

Although credited to Lennon/McCartney (like most Beatles songs), this one is John's, and he sings it. He wrote it on that famous Transcendental Meditation retreat to India, in February-March 1968, and it's addressed to Yoko ("I wonder should I call you/But I know what you would do . . .").

On my second day home, I ought to be back to the normal routine. Instead, I woke at 4:00 a.m. for no reason, and could not get back to sleep. I got up at 6:00, had five productive hours, ran some errands, then crashed hard for about an hour and a half. Now I need to get back to work but feel fuzzy, with a catch in my breathing that bodes no good at all. I always get sick after Bouchercon, a combination of overexposure to other people, sleep deprivation, and (just possibly) alcohol abuse. I'm pounding Vitamin C and fluids, will go to bed early, and hope to catch whatever this is in the bud.

"For your kindness I'm in debt to you."

The Song: "Kind & Generous," Natalie Merchant. Words & Music by Natalie Merchant. Track 3 of Ophelia, 1998.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 1999.
Listen/watch here.

Twelve years after I first heard this song, it can still surprise me into tears. I listen to it whenever I need a reminder to be grateful, which is often.

I was telling a story at a party a couple of years ago when my friend Jenny said, "Yeah, but you live that kind of magic life." It's true. My whole life is a series of miraculous surprises, starting with my birth as an unexpected twin. From day one, the universe has come to my rescue; I try never to take it for granted, and I try to be grateful.

It happened again last night. I took buses from New York to Portland, then a cab back to the airport, where I'd left my car. I found my car, but could not find my keys.

I carry a giant black tote bag, a gift from my friend Karen L., that is something like a magician's hat. I never know exactly what's in there, and sometimes it's best not to look too closely. But I dumped the entire contents on the hood of my Beetle, sure that the keys would fall from the bottom. They didn't.

The last place I remembered having them was at the airport a week ago, so I thought it couldn't hurt to ask whether anyone had found them there and turned them in. Otherwise, they could be anywhere: on a plane, at Dulles Airport, somewhere in San Francisco, somewhere in New York City, on a bus traveling the Northeast Corridor.

"We don't have lost-and-found on site any more," the woman at the Traveler's Aid desk told me. "It got to be too much. There's an automated system. I can give you the phone number." I called it and got voice mail. I left my name, phone number, and details of what I'd lost, with no real hope that anyone would return my call.

Plan B was to return to the bus station, catch a bus to Augusta, then take a cab home and get my neighbor to let me in. I have an extra car key somewhere in the apartment (though to be honest, I don't know where), so figured I could beg another friend for a ride to Portland today to pick up my car. Dizzy wasn't scheduled for pickup until 4:00 this afternoon.

So I walked to the taxi booth, staffed by a tall, handsome older man (a man who looked very much like old pictures of my grandfather McLaughlin, in fact) named Dan, who knew I had not come in on a plane. I told him my whole sad story and he said, "Let me make a phone call. Or two, actually." He did, and asked, "How many keys were on the ring?" I told him, and added that the key ring also has an old card from the Beverly Hills Library (sentimental; I couldn't give it up). "Let's go upstairs," he said.

"They found them?" I said. "They have them?"

They did indeed. Twenty minutes later, I had ransomed my car and was headed for home. I picked up Dizzy first thing this morning, just because I missed him.

So thank you, Dan, and thank you, St. Anthony (finder of lost things), and thank you, whatever forces in the universe continue to save me from myself, time and time again. I will try not to make it so hard for you, I promise.

"From an uptown apartment to a knife on the A train/It's not that far."

The Song: "Walking Down Madison," Kirsty MacColl. Words & music by Kirsty MacColl and Johnny Marr. Track 1 of Electric Landlady, 1991.
How/when acquired: Purchased used CD, c. 1994.
Listen/watch here.

It's an interesting life I lead, I'll be the first to admit. My daily life is a constant scramble, and in many ways I live more like a college student than like a real grown-up. But I have friends and clients who are real grownups and very prosperous, and invite me into their worlds, which I appreciate very much.

Yesterday I visited one of those worlds, for a luncheon and reception to celebrate this year's winner of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, Secret Keepers by Mindy Friddle. I've been honored to serve as a judge for that award for the past two years, and Secret Keepers was one of my favorite novels of last year.

Last night's reception was a lovely event at the New York Yacht Club. I'd never been there; it is a spectacular Gilded Age building, full of America's Cup memorabilia. It's a visit to another world in many ways: dazzling, enchanting.

But New York is a city of contrasts, as Kirsty MacColl notes. From the opulence of the Yacht Club, I walked across town to the N-Q-R train, which I took to Brooklyn. Along the way I passed people sleeping on the sidewalk, tired house cleaners on their way home, parents with small children up way past a suburban bedtime, and signs in at least five different languages.

The whole world lives in New York City, but I'm headed home today.

"You think you're alone until you realize you're in it"

The Song: "Watching the Detectives," Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Words & music by Declan Patrick MacManus (Elvis Costello). Track 7 of My Aim is True, 1978 (US release).
How/when acquired: Purchased cassette, c. 1987
Listen/watch here.

Music geek trivia: "Watching the Detectives" does not appear on the U.K. version of My Aim is True, but was added to the American album, released a year later. I'm a little worried that we're barely six weeks into this blog and I'm already on my second quotation from this record, but it might be possible to do an entire year of nothing but lines from Elvis Costello songs. Anyway, what could be more appropriate for a Bouchercon wrap-up post?

The highlight of this year's meeting for me was the culmination of a year-long project, a reading of "I Can't Get Started" by Declan Hughes. "I Can't Get Started" was Hughes' first play, and is a biographical riff on the last 30 years of Dashiell Hammett's life. It moves back and forth between scenes from Hammett's life with Lillian Hellman and scenes from an imaginary novel Hammett never wrote, during the years of his famous writer's block.

I first read the play after meeting Declan at the Baltimore Bouchercon in 2008, and thought it would be great to include it in the San Francisco meeting, because of Hammett's connection there. Declan gave his blessing, with the warning that he wouldn't be in San Francisco himself. I pitched it to Sarah Weinman, who thought it was a great idea and brought it to Rae Helmsworth, the conference chair. Rae liked the idea, too, and gave me a slot on the program.

The question then was how to make it happen. I had some ideas about casting, and approached a few authors; many crime writers come from backgrounds in theater and film. Martyn Waites and Alison Gaylin were enthusiastic about it from the beginning, following a three-hour breakfast at last year's Bouchercon. I approached Brett Battles, who writes great espionage thrillers and did theater in college, in the airport on the way home from Indianapolis. Queen of noir Megan Abbott was a no-brainer, but needed to be persuaded that she would be great, as did the incomparably hard-boiled Christa Faust. Declan, God bless him, changed his mind and decided to come to San Francisco after all, and he recruited his friend, international bestseller, standup comic and consummate professional Mark Billingham.

We met Saturday morning for a table read that was hilarious and reassured everyone, I hope, that this was a good idea that would come off. We had an excellent turnout for the last slot on a Saturday afternoon, and although we warned people we'd run over the 60-minute time limit (which we did, by 20 minutes), almost no one left. I could not have been more pleased with how it all went, and am so grateful to everyone involved in making it happen. My only regrets were that 1) everyone had to scatter to different obligations after the reading, so that we weren't able to congratulate each other over drinks; and 2) no one videotaped or recorded the session.

Over dinner that night, though, Mark said — and I, obviously, agree — that every Bouchercon should include something like this, maybe even more than one: sessions of actual storytelling, in addition to the endless panels in which authors talk about their process. Sessions like our reading remind everyone of what brought us to this genre to begin with, and of why it's so much fun to assemble once a year to talk about it.

Congratulations to Rae Helmsworth, Jon Jordan and Judy Bobalik on a fabulous four days. Jon and McKenna Jordan are co-chairs of next year's meeting, in St. Louis, and Judy will once again be coordinating the panels. Family obligations will keep me away next year, but it's not too soon to register yourself.

In the meantime, if you're in the Los Angeles area, you can see Declan Hughes himself at an event with author Laura Caldwell this very night at The Mystery Bookstore. 7:00 p.m., in the heart of Westwood (1036-C Broxton Avenue), with plenty of parking available. Wish I could be there.

"Ah Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in/Are you aware the shape I'm in?"

The song: "I and Love and You," The Avett Brothers. Words and music by The Avett Brothers (Seth Avett, Scott Avett, Bob Crawford, Joe Kwon). Track 1 of I and Love and You, 2009.
How/when acquired: Free download, 2009.
Listen/watch here.

At dinner last night with a small group of much-loved friends, the discussion turned from popular stuff we hate (always a favorite topic) to the rare things that are both popular and excellent. I'd put this album in that category.

This track, in particular, I downloaded not because I knew anything about The Avett Brothers but because it was free. On first listen I didn't much like it. It sounded jangly and discordant, and I wasn't even sure the instruments were in tune. By the third listen, it was one of my favorite songs of the year.

This morning I'll head over to the last session of Bouchercon and say goodbye to my friends, many of whom I don't know when I'll see again. Then I'll get on a plane and fly to New York, and I'll spend tonight in Brooklyn, in the sanctuary of another friend.

I am not a demonstrative person, but have hugged more people in the last three days than I had in the previous 12 months. I almost never tell the people I care most about how I really feel, because I honestly think it would embarrass them and I know it would embarrass me. Instead I've listened to this song five times in a row while I wrote this blog post, because The Avett Brothers understand:

Three words that became hard to say:
I and love and you.

"Look, I'll call you in the morning/Or my service will explain . . . "

The Song: "Another Hundred People," Pamela Myers. Words & music by Stephen Sondheim. Track 7 of the Company soundtrack, remastered 1999.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 2007
Listen/watch here (that's a concert version with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin, not the version I own).

Busy. Too many people to see, too many people to talk to, too many places to be. It's lovely to be in San Francisco, and I am very happy to be seeing so many friends in one place. Normal service will resume on Monday.

"She only sleeps on planes."

The Song: "Suzie Lightning," Warren Zevon. Words & music by Warren Zevon. Track 2 of Mr. Bad Example, 1991.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 1993.
Listen here.

Greetings from San Francisco. I slept all the way from Portland to Dulles, and for about two hours during the five-hour flight from Dulles to San Francisco.

Sleeping on planes is a gift I'm grateful for. I've mentioned before that this song was my personal anthem in 1994, when I spent most of the year on the road. Congress had enacted the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking & Branching Efficiency Act, and I worked for an organization that needed to explain it to our members. It might be an exaggeration, but I swear I remember spending all of January in a King Air flying around Missouri. I got snowed in for several days there, but that's a story for another time.

I don't travel anywhere near as much as I used to, and that's a mixed blessing. My basic travel skills haven't left me: I can still fit everything into one suitcase, I still remember to keep dollar bills in my pocket, I still know how to get out of people's way if they're in a bigger hurry than I am. But I do notice, when I travel, just how narrow my range of vision is becoming — literally, not metaphorically. I've also lost a lot of my old urban pedestrian instincts. I hate nothing more than looking like a tourist, and that's going to be a challenge over the next several days.

If you're at Bouchercon, please say hi. If you wave at me and I don't respond, please don't take it personally; chances are I didn't see you (see previous comment about my shrinking field of vision). And everyone has permission to poke me any time I say, "We don't have that in Maine."

"Insanity laughs, under pressure we're cracking"

The Song: "Under Pressure," Queen & David Bowie. Words & music by Queen (Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor) and David Bowie. Single, 1981; track 4 of Grosse Pointe Blank soundtrack, 1997
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 1997



I'm leaving for San Francisco on a 5:45 a.m. flight from Portland tomorrow. See you on the West Coast.

"Those who find themselves ridiculous, sit down next to me."

The Song: "Sit Down," James. Words & music by James (Tim Booth, Jim Glennie, Larry Gott, Saul Davies, Mark Hunter, David Baynton-Power, Andy Diagram). Single, 1989.
How/when acquired: Purchased MP3, 2009
Listen/watch here.

James played the HFStival in 1994, and one of my most vivid memories of that day is of dozens, maybe hundreds of people literally skipping around one of the upper balconies of RFK Stadium to this song. Listening to it again makes me want to skip even now.

As I watch the coverage of this year's election cycle, what surprises me most is the tenacity of this idea that people should conform to some idealized standard lifestyle. The Republican candidate for Governor of New York is dismissing the "homosexual lifestyle," rather than talking about whatever he might have learned from dealing with the consequences of his own life choices. The independent candidate for Senator from the state of Florida got married, rather than ignore or address rumors about his personal life. Everyone seems so sure that American voters are unwilling to accept candidates as they are, rather than holding them to some weird 1950s-era standard of conformity that no longer seems to apply to anyone. That assumption, more than anything else, is causing some truly bizarre distortions in our public discourse.

Or maybe it's just me. It's true, as a close relative said recently, that my circle of acquaintances is slightly more bohemian than average. But am I really that unusual? Doesn't everyone now have friends and relatives living in ways that would have shocked 1950s suburbia? Was the idea of "normal" ever more than an illusion?

Today is National Coming Out Day, among other things. As a straight woman, I look forward to the day when we don't even need this, when it's just no big deal to be whatever kind of responsible, loving adult you are, with no need to explain it or justify it to anyone who doesn't ask.

We're all a little ridiculous. If you're willing to admit it and enjoy it, sit right next to me.

"Get smart, get scared, get lost, who cares."

The Song: "Highwire Days," The Psychedelic Furs. Words & music by John Ashton. Track 9 of Mirror Moves, 1984; track 7 of All of This and Nothing (Greatest Hits), 1988.
How/when acquired: Purchased cassette (All of This and Nothing), c. 1989.
Listen/watch here.

Scrambling on many fronts between now and next Wednesday, when I leave for Bouchercon 2010 in San Francisco. None of this stuff is life-threatening, I have to keep reminding myself. And time I spend banging my head on a table is time I could use to get the next thing done.

I had to double-check the date on this album: were the Psychedelic Furs already releasing a greatest-hits collection in 1988? Yes. They formed in 1977, released Forever Now (which I consider their masterpiece) in 1982, and disbanded in the early 1990s, although they've since reunited for tours. I saw them live at a converted roller rink in Adams-Morgan — in 1991, maybe? — with The Ocean Blue. I strongly suspect that Richard Butler was under the influence of something stronger than alcohol, though it was an excellent show.

I saw Richard Butler as part of his next band, Love Spit Love, in the old 9:30 Club before it moved. In fact, that was the first rock show I ever went to by myself. Everybody should do that once, but I don't recommend it. It's not like the movies; live performances are much more fun with friends.

"Wake up, put your shoes on/Take a breath of the northern air."

The Song: "Smile," The Jayhawks. Words & music by Gary Louris. Track 1 of Smile, 2000.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 2004.
Listen/watch here. (That's a live version that is a little janglier than the album cut, set to scenes from David Lynch's The Straight Story. The album version is here.)

For some reason I pull this album out around this time every year, when I start waking up in the dark. The days shorten fast up here; if I wake up at 6:00 a.m. (my usual time), I've got 43 minutes of darkness before the sun shows up. Dizzy's night vision is declining as fast as my own, maybe even faster. He won't take the stairs in the dark, so we wait for sunrise to start the day in earnest.

I bought this CD at the same time I bought the Blue Nile's High, from the Best Buy in Westwood as I prepared to move across the country. It became part of the soundtrack of that move, and still has an almost magical power to make me feel better during times of frustration and confusion. The chorus of this song feels like advice from friends I've never met:

Chin up, chin up
You don't really have a problem
Chin up, chin up
In your hour of despair
And smile when you're down and out . . .

All set to a wall of music that feels like ocean waves, lifting us up despite ourselves.

Doesn't it feel like we're all due for a little good news? I feel that way, anyway. If you've got any, share it in the comments section.

"If you want the things you love/You must have showers."

The song: "Pennies from Heaven," Frank Sinatra. Words & music by Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston. Track 7 of Songs for Swingin' Lovers, 1956.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, c. 1998.
Listen/watch here.

The rain hasn't started yet, but it's supposed to rain all day today and all day tomorrow. It's a good day for lounge music, but most days are good days for lounge music.

Aren't we about due for another revival of Cocktail Nation? It's been 14 years since Swingers set off the last one, and the deaths of Eddie Fisher and Tony Curtis remind me once again of how cool everybody was back then. Repressed, oppressed, suppressed, and all the rest of it — which was why people drank so much and died of heart attacks in their early 50s — but man, they looked good while they were doing it.

"Pennies from Heaven" was originally recorded by Bing Crosby in 1936, at the depths of the Depression. By the time Frank Sinatra recorded it, 20 years later, it was already a nostalgia piece. Did people living through the Depression know it was a depression, or was that just a label applied after the war started and recovery began? Twenty years from now, will we call this era the Second Great Depression?

"I'm sorry I missed you/I had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain."

The Song: "Secret Meeting," The National. Words & music by The National (Matt Berninger, Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner, Scott Devendorf, Bryan Devendorf). Track 1 of Alligator, 2005.
How/when acquired: Downloaded MP3, 2007
Listen/watch here.

I believe that my brother-in-law Scott first brought The National to my attention, although it might have been my friend Tom, or my friend John. They are the quintessential sensitive-guy band of the turn of the 21st century, and speak directly to my specific subculture of anxious, over-educated white people.

"Secret Meeting" is a song about the voices in one's head that keep us from connecting with people we might want to know, people who might wish us well.

I think this place is full of spies
I think they're onto me
Didn't anybody, didn't anybody tell you
Didn't anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room

That ability to disappear gracefully in a room is valuable for people like me, who gather information as a bulwark against anxiety. Better to be one of the spies surrounding this song's singer than have other people watching you, although the line between paranoia and delusional narcissism is a fine one.

But this song is also about that moment when we realize our brains have tricked us into misperception, and that the world is going on without us while we're locked in our own craziness. I had a moment like that this morning, where suddenly things seemed to clear. It might just be that the weather is beautiful again; it might be that I finally seem to have found an over-the-counter allergy medicine that's working. It might be the sense of making some progress on some long-term tasks, or the fact that it's only a week until I'll be seeing many of my closest friends at Bouchercon in San Francisco.

But for the moment, at least, the secret meeting in my brain has gone the dull and wicked ordinary way, and is adjourned to the call of the chair.

"Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking/When I hear the silly things that you say."

The Song: "Alison," Elvis Costello. Words & music by Declan Patrick MacManus (Elvis Costello). Track 5 of My Aim is True, 1978 (US release).
How/when acquired: Purchased cassette, c. 1987
Listen/watch here.

I watched the Sunday morning news shows yesterday instead of going to Mass. My mistake.

Elvis Costello was 23 when he recorded this song, which regularly makes lists of the best pop songs of all time. Like much of humanity's greatest artistic achievements, it seems inspired by a painful breakup. The singer of "Alison" suggests that he plans a more permanent remedy to his heartache — the last line, which provided the album's title, is "My aim is true." Better for all of us that Elvis Costello chose music instead of bullets as his weapon.

I bought this cassette from a cut-out bin — probably at Kemp Mill Records in Georgetown, if that store was still open in 1987. Kemp Mill was probably the most important music retailer in the Washington, DC area during the 1970s and '80s; they expanded and collapsed, and now seem to have only one physical store, in Hillcrest Heights, MD.

This weekend I saw The Social Network, which posits that the entire Facebook empire happened because of a breakup. It's a terrific movie; I'd heard so much about it I thought it was bound to be oversold, but no. Even if you take it as fiction (which is probably safest), it's an important picture of the transformation of information delivery in the first decade of the 21st century. Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster, tells the movie's main character that he destroyed the record companies and changed the music business forever, and it's hard to deny that.

Still, I miss the old Kemp Mill stores. I miss cut-out bins. I miss the adventure of walking into a store with five bucks in my pocket, pawing through a box of old cassette tapes and coming away with treasure. Browsing iTunes offers nothing like that experience.

"Just a few more weary days and then/I'll fly away."

The Song: "I'll Fly Away," Alison Krauss & Gillian Welch. Words & music by Albert E. Brumley. Track 9 of O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack album, 2000.
How/when acquired: Inherited CD, 2006.
Listen/watch here.

It's the end of a long week, made longer by the news this morning of Stephen J. Cannell's passing. He was a regular visitor to The Mystery Bookstore, a living legend, and a true gentleman.

"I'll Fly Away" is a Baptist hymn that may be the single most-recorded gospel song. (Check out Kanye West's surprising cover here, and Johnny Cash's here.) This version is part of the phenomenal soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coen brothers' Depression-era riff on the Odyssey.

I bought this CD as a gift for my mother, either for her birthday or Mother's Day. I took it back when we divided her belongings after she passed away — but it's not on my shelf, which makes me think I must have passed it along again, maybe to one of my siblings.

Anyway, it cheers me up, which is handy on this rainy day.

"I wish it was a small world/Because I'm lonely for the big towns."

The Song: "Raining in Baltimore," Counting Crows. Words & Music by Adam Duritz. Track 10 of August and Everything After, 1993.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 1994
Listen/watch here.

It is, in fact, raining in Baltimore as I type this, according to the news and an email I just got from my friend Sue Lin. We're supposed to get that rain, but not until tonight; right now it's just overcast and muggy.

This album will always be my soundtrack for 1994, beginning with New Year's Eve 1993, when it was playing at my friend Joanna's as we got ready to go to a party/concert. Almost 17 years later (!), it still holds up. I never got tired of it, although by the summer of 1994 Adam Duritz was apparently so tired of these songs that the versions they played in concert were almost unrecognizable.

I don't know how I feel about that. I respect an artist's need to keep material fresh for himself, but fans pay large sums of money to hear the songs they love. I fell asleep once at a Little Feat concert that turned into an extended jam session, with no melody I recognized as a song; shades of "Spinal Tap Mark II."

There's so much I love about living in a small town, but on days like this I wish I were closer to my family and friends. Here it is 2010 already; where's my teleportation device? Where's my jetpack? In a perfect world, I could spend my days in Gardiner and step through a door at 6:00 p.m. that would deposit me in Greenwich Village, or Cleveland Park, or Westwood.

"May the angels bright/Watch you tonight/And keep you as you sleep."

The Song: "Lullaby of London," The Pogues. Words & Music by Shane MacGowan. Track 11 of If I Should Fall From Grace With God, 1987.
How/when acquired: Illegally copied cassette tape, 1989. (Purchased import CD, 1997.)
Listen/watch here.

We live in a world of marvels and wonders, if we let ourselves pay attention and believe it. The Catholic Church doesn't talk much about angels any more, but today is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, who by tradition has primary responsibility for defending us from "the wickedness and snares of the devil."

"Angel," of course, is a feeble human attempt to explain the fact that sometimes forces we don't understand seem to be looking out for us. The Catholic Catechism quotes St. Augustine: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you see the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit,' from what they do, 'angel.'"

Although I'm sure I heard this album earlier, it imprinted itself on me during a snowy weekend in Williamsburg in February 1989, during a visit to my friends Scott and Nancy. We played board games and hung out at the Green Leafe and watched college basketball and listened to this album more or less in a continuous loop. I was newly single, baffled and at sea; what I had were good friends and the unjustified but unshakable suspicion that I was going to be fine.

And I was. And I am. The angels probably get some credit for that; according to St. Basil (also quoted in the Catechism), "Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life."

On a related subject, the extraordinary Claire Bea will be making her national television debut on "Jeopardy!" tonight. Check your local listings for details, but in the meantime, you can see her "Hometown Howdy" here.

"Stories and cigarettes ruined lives of lesser girls."

The Song: "Strange Condition," Pete Yorn. Words & music by Pete Yorn. Track 2 of musicforthemorningafter, 2001.
How/when acquired: Gift CD, c. 2002.
Listen/watch here.

This album is forever linked in my consciousness to Thanksgiving 2001, when a group of my friends and relations and I rented a cabin in Yosemite National Park and spent a long weekend hiking, drinking, eating, drinking, singing, drinking, playing goofy board games, drinking and trying to figure out what it meant to be an American after September 11. And drinking.

I think it was Meredith who brought this CD along, although it might have been Moira (if either of you check in, can you clarify/confirm?). I'd heard a few tracks on KCRW, but had not listened to the whole CD, and was enchanted. My sister Susan gave me the CD a few months later; it might have been for Christmas, but I think it was one of those "no reason" presents, which made it even more precious.

It's no exaggeration to say that I am addicted to stories. Books, movies, TV shows, drunks in bars — tell me a story and you have my attention, for as long as the story lasts. I am even willing to ignore or bend facts in the interest of improving a story, which is one of many reasons I will never (and should never) seek public office.

Doesn't everybody love a story? I think so. I think that is what distinguishes humans from other animals: the need to find reasons and predict outcomes, so that our lives are narratives and not just a string of sensory events. Dizzy doesn't do narrative; he goes from walk to cookie to car ride with few expectations and no context, just a series of unrelated incidents that please him. It's not a bad way to live, and sometimes I envy him; his whole life is a cascade of happy surprises. But I, like most human beings, want it all to mean something.

What I've Read Lately

It's been a while since I posted a reading list, and most of what I'm reading these days are manuscripts. But these are the highlights of the published work I've finished in the last month or so.

Alexandra Sokoloff, BOOK OF SHADOWS. I started this book a couple of months ago, but didn't finish it until a few weeks ago — not because it wasn't good, but because it was on my Kindle, and my Kindle's battery died. (Do I need to underline the moral of that story?) But it was a great summer read. Detective Adam Garrett and his partner investigate a gruesome murder with Satanic overtones. The obvious suspect is a college student who dabbled in witchcraft and was in love with the victim, but a local witch tells them they've got the wrong guy — and that the killer plans to strike again. Sokoloff does an excellent job of blending police procedural elements with the supernatural, leaving the nature of the attacks in doubt almost to the end.

Olen Steinhauer, THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. I'm late to this book, but how glad I am that it finally reached the top of my reading pile. Steinhauer's debut introduces young homicide inspector Emil Brod, whose first case is a politically sensitive murder no one expects (or wants) him to solve. The identity of the killer is not as important as the ways people behave in this new, post-WWII society. Corruption is an inevitable byproduct of totalitarianism, but it might just be human nature. Brod does the best he can in pursuit of justice.

Harlan Coben, JUST ONE LOOK. The discovery of an old photograph, randomly inserted in a batch of new ones, sets Grace Lawson on a path of inquiry that leads to violence, death and the revelation of 15-year-old secrets. Grace is such a compelling character, and the action moves so quickly, that I had a hard time putting this book down — but the explanation of how it all happened is complex and hard to follow. It didn't entirely hold together for me, but I was so entertained along the way that I didn't care.

Victor Gischler, THE DEPUTY. Toby Sawyer is a part-time deputy in Coyote Crossing, Oklahoma. He has a toddler, an unhappy wife, and a teenaged girlfriend. A routine assignment to stand watch over the corpse of a murder victim turns into the worst night of Toby's life; when he sneaks off for a quickie, the body disappears, and Toby's efforts to find it reveal a tangled, sordid web of corruption. Fast, smart, violent and darkly funny, with a most satisfying ending.

Laura Lippman, I'D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE. Eliza Benedict has a loving husband, two smart children and a beautiful home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. What almost no one knows is that 20 years earlier, she was Elizabeth Lerner, the only survivor of a serial rapist/killer. Weeks before the killer's scheduled execution, Eliza gets a letter from him, asking for contact. This extraordinary book is less a crime novel than a meditation on how people survive the unimaginable, how we become who we are, and what we owe the living, the dead, and ourselves.

"Shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather."

The Song: "Like the Weather," 10,000 Maniacs. Words & music by Natalie Merchant. Track 3 of In My Tribe, 1987.
How/when acquired: Illegally copied cassette tape, 1987
Listen/watch here.

This morning's news reported that the rest of the country expects record temperatures today. Here in Maine, it's rainy and cold.

Almost six years after I moved here, I am still not used to how quickly and abruptly the summer ends. Leaves are turning, and my heat's come on a couple of times already. The days are noticeably shorter.

At this time of year, I can point to Maine's change of seasons as a major advantage of living here. I like the reminder that the earth is traveling around the sun, that we're all getting a little older, that everything sleeps and wakes, lives and dies and lives again. Ask me again in January, and you might get a different point of view.

Having praised my brother Ed in yesterday's post, I'm poking him today with this one. His distaste for Natalie Merchant is violent and vocal, though I'm not clear on exactly what he objects to; maybe he'll leave his views in the comments section. She seems to be a polarizing figure, but I've always liked her. I suspect that you would find a copy of this album in the collection of most white, college-educated American women between the ages of, oh, say 38 and 45.

Do you own it? Admit it in the comments section.

"For the ones who had a notion,/a notion deep inside/That it aint no sin/to be glad you're alive."

The Song: "Badlands," Bruce Springsteen. Words & music by Bruce Springsteen. Track 1 of Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978.
How/when acquired: Gift LP, 1981
Listen/watch here.

Happy birthday, Bruce Springsteen. He is 61 today, and as far as I'm concerned, his importance in American pop culture cannot be overstated.

He's saved my life more than once, with this song among others. Darkness on the Edge of Town, released the year I turned 13, was my first real exposure to Bruce Springsteen. I'd been dimly aware of Born to Run, but I was too young to understand what he was talking about. Darkness, released around the time I started ninth grade, distilled everything hopeful and magic about what might lie on the other side of adolescence.

I still own this album on vinyl. It was a gift from my brother Ed — reparations, really. He'd cracked one of the two discs in my copy of The River, and I'd reacted exactly as you'd expect the 14-year-old sister of a ten-year-old brother to do. Ed, gracious and honorable beyond his years, tried to replace the album, but the Exchange had sold out; he bought me Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town instead. So thanks for that, Ed, and I owe you.

"It is time for you to laugh instead of crying."

The Song: "Stop Your Sobbing," The Pretenders. Words and music by Ray Davies. Track 7 of Pretenders, 1980.
How/when acquired: Downloaded MP3, 2007
Listen/watch here.

I sang this song to Dizzy all the time when he was a puppy, and when I played it this morning he grumbled and whined along. He almost never pays attention to the music I play; he must remember this song.

Anyway, the last ten days have had more than their share of bad news, and I'm ready for it to stop. Tonight I start rehearsals for yet another show — My Three Angels at Gaslight, November 12–20 (closing night is my birthday, so you have an extra reason to come). I'm looking forward to sitting around a table and laughing for a couple of hours.

It's mildly alarming to think that this album is 30 years old. (This song, by the way, is older than I am; this version is a cover of The Kinks' original, released in 1964.) It's also a little strange that I didn't own it until recently, because it was an important piece of the soundtrack of my late teens. But this was one of those albums everyone owned, so I didn't need to; my best friend had it, my boyfriend had it, my roommate had it, my next boyfriend had it . . . now Dizzy and I own it together. I would put it on a short list of best first albums of all time.

"I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch/He called out to me, 'Don't ask for so much'..."

"...And a young man, leaning on his darkened door
He cried out to me, 'Baby, why not ask for more?'"

The Song: "Bird on a Wire," Jennifer Warnes. Words and music by Leonard Cohen. Track 2 of Famous Blue Raincoat, 1987.
How/when acquired: Purchased cassette, 1987.
Listen here.

Happy birthday, Leonard Cohen. He's 76 years old today, and still touring; he's on a short list of artists I've never seen live and would really, really like to.

At the risk of heresy, however, I'll say that Leonard Cohen is a better songwriter than singer, and is not always the best interpreter of his own songs. I own five different versions of this song, and this is my favorite.

I bought this cassette in the spring of 1987, at Olsson's Books & Music in Georgetown. It was an unjustifiable extravagance. I was working two jobs that paid just over minimum wage, and picking up as much extra babysitting as I could. I was living alone in a basement apartment, my student loans had come due, and I've always been terrible with money anyway. I never had any cash in my pocket, and am pretty sure I bought this cassette on impulse, just because I had a ten-dollar bill.

The cassette's still in my car. Remarkably, it still plays. I probably listened to it every day for the first four months I owned it, and it's been in heavy rotation, in one format or another, ever since.

Recently I saw a comment on a friend's Facebook page about how $250,000/year shouldn't be considered wealthy, especially for people with mortgages to pay and children to send to college. The median household income in the United States was $52,059 in 2008; in Maine, it was $46,419. I don't make that much, but I'm just one person, and I don't need to (see previous comment about being bad with money).

It would baffle me, if Leonard Cohen hadn't explained it all so elegantly. As birds on the wire, we shouldn't ask for so much — but why not ask for more?

"And the leaves that are green turn to brown."

The Song: "Leaves That Are Green," Simon & Garfunkel. Words and music by Paul Simon. Track 2 of Sounds of Silence, 1966.
How/when acquired: Illegally copied from a friend's LP, c. 1981; CD acquired c. 2000.
Listen/watch here.

The autumnal equinox isn't for another three days, but fall's already here in central Maine. The temperature when I woke up this morning was 40F, and has now risen only to 48F, although it's supposed to be much warmer later in the day.

I didn't get enough sleep last night, because I stayed up to watch the encore presentation of "Mad Men." The current season is set in 1965; last night's episode happened in June, still at least five months before my twin sister and I were born. But I'm starting to see things in the show that evoke my earliest memories, and a surprising number of those are media-related.

My father, a Naval officer, was at sea for most of the first five years of my life; my mother was a de facto single parent when they were rare creatures. She loved music (she had worked for Capitol Records before her marriage), so my earliest memories all include the radio in the background. She kept it on for company, and when we were colicky, drove us around in the car until the music and the movement put us to sleep.

This song was the B-side of "Homeward Bound," which made it to #5 on the Billboard charts (although "Homeward Bound" wasn't even on Sounds of Silence, but was included in the next album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme). It's quite possible that this is one of the first pop songs I ever heard.

Simon & Garfunkel played this song the one and only time I've ever seen them live — in 2003 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, a birthday treat from my friend Gary. Thirty-eight felt old, which makes me laugh seven years later.

"Don't confront me with my failures; I have not forgotten them."

The Song: "These Days," Jackson Browne. Words and music by Jackson Browne. Track 5 of For Everyman, 1973.
How/when acquired: I have no idea. I can't remember not owning some version of this song, in some format. I currently own eight different versions, including two by Jackson Browne and covers by Nico, Gregg Allman, and Fountains of Wayne, among others.
Listen/watch here. (That's an acoustic version; Nico's original cover is here, and Gregg Allman's version is here.)

Yes, I own eight versions of this song. It's important to me, and this line in particular surfaces in my consciousness once a day or more. Jackson Browne was only 16 when he wrote it. When he was 19, he sold it to Nico, who recorded it for her album Chelsea Girl (that's Browne on guitar accompanying her). The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush, Kenny Rogers' band Gator Creek and Iain Matthews also covered the song before Browne recorded it himself. The version on For Everyman credits Gregg Allman for the arrangement; Allman recorded it around the same time for his first solo album, Laid Back, which changed this line to "Please don't confront me with my failures; I'm aware of them." I like the original lyrics better.

As an editor, I spend a lot of time pointing out other people's mistakes — not failures, exactly, but things that could be improved by adjustments large and small. It's a big responsibility and can be a stressful one, as what everyone really wants to hear is that their work is good, that I love it, and that they don't need to fix a thing. Clients ask "Do you like it?" and "Is it good?" Those are questions I usually can't answer until the very end of the process. While I'm editing I'm often almost hostile to the work, because if I let myself get sucked into the story I might miss an error or a plot hole. It's best if I don't talk to clients while I'm editing their work; I'm scary in editing mode, sometimes even to myself.

But recommendations for improvement and correction, and queries about plot holes and inconsistencies, are not — and should not be — a confrontation with failure. Writing is less like target practice than like mountain-climbing; you didn't miss the goal, you just haven't gotten there yet.

Anyway, I've never seen a book published without flaws. If you're a reader and have ever been tempted to write an author about a mistake you've found in a novel, I can only say: Please don't. It makes them crazy, as I know from close observation of clients in the wild. An author's ability to correct errors is limited once a book goes into print. If a book doesn't go into multiple printings (and most don't), all your helpful feedback does is remind the author of a failure he or she will never be able to remedy. If you must tell someone, send the publisher a letter. If you really can't let it go, stop a minute to think about how you feel when a stranger approaches you in the middle of the working day to say, "You did that wrong." Chances are, they already know, and have not forgotten.

"Daylight is good at arriving at the right time/It's not always going to be this grey."

The Song: "All Things Must Pass," George Harrison. Words and music by George Harrison. Track 5, Disc 2 of All Things Must Pass, 1970.
How/when acquired: MP3 download, October 2007
Listen/watch here.

Woke up this morning to a thunderstorm so violent and close that at first I thought the ruined paper mill across the street had exploded. I had a minute to think about what I'd need to grab if Dizzy and I had to leave the apartment in a hurry, before I looked out the window and saw nothing on fire.

When I booted up the computer, though, disaster of another kind was waiting: the news that David Thompson, manager of Houston's legendary Murder by the Book and publisher of Busted Flush Press, had died suddenly at his home.

Every death diminishes us, as John Donne says, but this blow hits hard. I didn't know David well, but you couldn't know him and not be his friend. His enthusiasm was contagious, and his goodwill seemed boundless.

I first met him over the telephone, probably close to ten years ago. I was behind the counter at The Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles, and he was at the store in Houston. We had books they wanted, or vice versa (independent mystery book sellers are collegial that way), but one or the other of us said something about a book we'd just read, and away we went. My last phone conversation with him, in June, was just the same; a quick request turned into a 20-minute conversation about our favorite books of the past year.

The world runs on the passion of people like David, who loved his wife, his dog and his books, and expected the world to share his appreciation. His death is a terrible loss, and my heart goes out to his wife, his colleagues, and his authors.

"Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed/That I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed."

The Song: "Sister Golden Hair," America. Words and music by Gerry Beckley. Track 10 of Hearts, 1975.
How/when acquired: Downloaded MP3 single, December 2008
Listen/watch here. (This is a concert version at a faster tempo than the studio version I have. I like the studio version better.)

Born Yesterday closed on Saturday night. After a strike that went faster and more smoothly than I dreamed it could, most of the cast and crew went over to the Liberal Cup and closed it down. I hadn't planned to do much yesterday, but even those small things wound up neglected; I wouldn't say I was depressed as much as exhausted.

This morning I got up full of good intentions, and took Dizzy for a walk to our usual place, Gardiner's Oak Grove Cemetery — only to find a brand new sign:

NO DOGS ALLOWED
POLICE WILL BE NOTIFIED

A sad, unfriendly way to start the day. Dizzy and I have been walking in the cemetery since we moved here; it's one of Gardiner's few open spaces, especially now that Waterfront Park is closed for construction "until further notice." Now I'll have to put him in the car to take him to the woods or the reservoir in Hallowell, or the new dog park in Augusta. It makes me feel unwelcome, and will probably speed up my decision to leave Gardiner. Well played, town leaders.

This song is an old favorite, and was one of the first things I learned to play on the guitar. (I no longer own a guitar, which is bad. Maybe I'll pick one up in a pawnshop over the winter.) Somehow or other, though, I never owned it, an omission I remedied a couple of years ago when my brother James mentioned it over the holidays. While I miss albums, I do love the convenience of 99-cent downloads.

"I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,/But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime."

The Song: "In a Big Country," Big Country. Words and music by Stuart Adamson, Mark Brzezicki, Tony Butler, and Bruce Watson. Track 1 of The Crossing, 1983.
How/when acquired: Illegally copied from boyfriend's roommate's LP, 1985. (Acquired legally on gift CD, c. 1997.)
Listen/watch here.

In a big country, dreams stay with you. I would hate to see this day turn into anything that ignores just how big we are — how resilient and optimistic and inclusive and righteous this country is supposed to be.

I don't understand the uproar about the proposed Islamic center in southern Manhattan (it's not Ground Zero, please), but now I think it's important that it go forward. America is supposed to be a melting pot, and New York is its most visible face. The surge in anti-Islamic prejudice has many precedents in American history; every new wave of immigrants has met its own customized opposition, from "No Irish Need Apply" to the WWII detention camps for Japanese-Americans. It almost seems to be a necessary stage in the process of assimilating new cultures, but it would be nice if we could skip it this time around.

The United States was the first nation in the world to create a citizenship based on a common acceptance of ideals rather than ethnicity or religious belief. We honor the people who died on September 11, 2001 by remembering the power of the American dream, and the promise of Lady Liberty, who still lifts her lamp beside the golden door.

"I know I'm shouting,/I like to shout."

The Song: "I Confess," The English Beat (yes, I know it's just "The Beat" in the rest of the world). Words and music by The Beat (Andy Cox, Everett Morton, Rankin' Roger, Saxa, David Steele, Dave Wakeling). Track 1 of Special Beat Service, 1983.
How/when acquired: Illegally copied cassette from roommate, 1983 (but now I own this track on a best-of CD I purchased in 2006)
Listen/watch here.

I watch too much television news. Living alone and working at home, I often turn on the television just for white noise, and it's usually tuned to MSNBC. Thus I know far too much about some really stupid things, and nowhere near enough about the things that MSNBC doesn't cover (a lot).

There's been an awful lot of shouting this week about this pastor in Florida who's planning to burn the Qur'an (side question: when did "Qur'an" supplant "Koran" as the standard English transliteration?). It's ridiculous, a crazy plan by a crazy man, and the reactions to it are becoming equally crazy. Send in US Marshals to stop it? Invoke sedition laws to trump this man's First Amendment rights?

Please. Didn't these people have mothers? My own mother gave me the obvious response when I was four years old, and that mean Mark Giampolo was teasing me: "Just ignore him, and he'll go away."

If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? And if a book burns without an audience, does anybody care? Printing is cheap. Burning a book in this day and age is meaningless, unless you force people to pay attention. Anyone with a computer can read the Qur'an in 20 different languages, right here. Allah, the great and merciful — who is also the God of the Jews and the Christians — is not affected by the presence or absence of 50 extra copies of a book.

If all the news cameras and reporters left Terry Jones alone, he would go away, or at least be known only in his immediate community as the pathetic eccentric he is. More important things are happening in Gainesville this weekend: the University of Florida's football team is playing the University of Southern Florida, for one. All the camera crews should go cover that instead.

"I love everybody, especially you."

The Song: "I Love Everybody," Lyle Lovett. Words and music by Lyle Lovett. Track 18 of I Love Everybody, 1994.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, 1994.
Listen here.

You can't always take Lyle Lovett at face value, but this song works just as well whether you take it sincerely or ironically. In fact, I think it makes a nice lullaby, in 3/4 time:

I love everybody, especially you
I love everybody, especially you
So if you feel lonesome, remember it's true
I love everybody, especially you.

That's pretty much all there is to the song. It closes out an album of mostly quirky songs, older pieces that didn't fit on his earlier albums (including the classic "Creeps Like Me," which I will undoubtedly quote at some point later this year).

Lyle Lovett brought me back to country music. Mary Chapin Carpenter gets some credit, too, but it was Lyle P. who reminded me that country music didn't have to be the loud and glossy stuff being played on the radio. I almost met him once; our eyes met (I swear!) at a PBS reception my friend Sue Lin invited me along to. Ah, Lyle. What might have been.

Wednesdays are Onion Ring Night at my favorite bar (the previously-mentioned Liberal Cup), so I stopped there last night before going to a brush-up rehearsal for Born Yesterday (which got a nice review in today's Portland Phoenix).

An attractive woman who might have been overserved was sitting at the bar, telling her companion, "I just love people. I really do. I love people. They don't always love me, but I love people."

"Don't start conversations with drunk people" is one of my rules for a happy life, so I didn't ask the obvious question: what does this mean? Would she love Hitler? Would she love Jeffrey Dahmer? Would she love Saddam Hussein?

As Lyle Lovett says in another song on his very first album: "God does, but I don't/God will, but I won't/And that's the difference between God and me."

"I know all of this and more."

The Song: "Feed the Tree," Belly. Words and music by Tanya Donelly. Track 9 of Star, 1993.
How/when acquired: Gift cassette, c. 1994.
Listen/watch here.

I just realized that I haven't been identifying the writers of these quotations I'm posting; sorry about that. I'll go back and add that information to the earlier posts . . . but in the meantime, this is the song in my head this morning.

Love and death are the two great subjects of music, and this song combines both. It's about the need to honor our ancestors, I think; the refrain goes, "Take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me, and be there when I feed the tree." (Feeding the tree = buried under it.)

In this case, a simple quotation of the lyrics doesn't convey its full impact, because the song stutters them over several lines: "I know all of this and — I know all of this and — I know all of this and more." But the official version only gives a single iteration, so that's what I'm quoting.

Belly played the first HFStival at RFK Stadium in 1993, as part of a lineup that included Matthew Sweet, the Stereo MCs, Iggy Pop, X, and INXS. They didn't make a particularly strong impression on me, but my upstairs neighbor, an aspiring rock musician himself, was deeply smitten, and made me a mix tape that included this song. (What is the MP3 equivalent of mix tapes? Do people still do this?) Several of the artists on that tape have faded into well-deserved obscurity, but this song stayed with me, and I bought the track from iTunes last year just because I wanted to hear it again.

Anyway, I like to know stuff. It comforts me and gives me the delusion of order and control. I get a little competitive about it, which is why I play pub trivia weekly at The Liberal Cup in Hallowell.

My team doesn't win all the time, or even that often — in fact, most of the time we come in second, often by a fraction of a point. But last night we won by so much that Quizmaster/Brewmaster Geoff invoked a slaughter rule: any team that wins by four points or more must split its winnings with the second-place team. The slaughter rule is added to the usual practice of splitting the trivia pot between the first-place team and the middle-place team, so the spoils of last night's triumphant win came to $4 apiece. We'd have done better, at least financially, if we'd come in fourth.

I call myself a liberal Democrat, but that kind of income redistribution makes me rethink . . .

"Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence, and smile."

The Song: "Consequence," The Notwist. Words and music by Micha Acher. Track 10 of Neon Golden, 2003.
How/when acquired: Gift CD, June 2005.
Listen/watch here.

My friend John hands out CDs the way some people hand out business cards. He's an evangelist for the music he loves, and much of my collection in recent years has come from him. This CD, however, was special. He gave it to me at a book signing and said, "If you don't like this, we can't be friends anymore."

Fortunately, I did. In fact, it's one of my favorite CDs of the last decade, in heavy rotation on my iTunes playlist. The Notwist are a German band whose music has evolved from grunge into electronica over the last 20 years; members play with members of Themselves as a group called 13 & God, which I've seen live. They're moody and smart and bizarre, and this CD hit me so hard when I first listened to it — on a drive from Cambridge, MA to Newport, RI — that I had to pull over at one point to listen to one of the tracks again.

The day after Labor Day still feels like the beginning of a new year, 20+ years after I left school. I have a list of resolutions for a new regime of diligence, focus and — especially — risk-taking. I live a safe life in too many ways, a life that seeks to protect me from the consequences of bad decisions by deferring those decisions until they make themselves. Cowardly, and what it gives you is a life without meaning. Failure is a natural consequence of endeavor, part of the process, and nothing to fear. Or so I'm telling myself.

As Samuel Beckett put it in Worstward Ho: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

"Think of me what you will/I've got a little space to fill."

The Song: "You Don't Know How it Feels," Tom Petty. Words and music by Tom Petty. Track 2 of Wildflowers, 1994.
How/when acquired: Purchased CD (used), c. 1997
Listen/watch here.

Tom Petty's an underrated giant of American music, in part because of his uncanny ability to distill complex truths into simple lyrics. "You don't know how it feels to be me," he says, and that's as true as it gets. But where would we be if we didn't even try?

This weekend I crossed paths with one of the handful of people I actively dislike. Dislike is an emotion that surprises and unsettles me. I'm not a particularly benevolent person, but disliking someone takes energy that I don't usually want to spend. It always puzzles me when I realize that my subconscious has made the leap to active dislike, when it would be so much easier just to stop paying attention.

"How would you like it?" my mother used to say when I was mean to my siblings; she taught us empathy by fair means and foul. Weirdly, I've come to the conclusion that it's this very empathy that makes me dislike people, but not in a good way. I do imagine myself in their position, and that's the problem. The people I dislike have this in common: they do things I secretly wish I could get away with. The dislike comes from a sense of outrage that they've given themselves permission to behave in ways I never would (or have, and feel guilty about).

Like every other human emotion, it has nothing to do with the other person. It's all about me. Because Tom Petty is right: I don't know how it feels to be him.

"If being afraid is a crime, we hang side by side/At the swingin' party down the line."

The song: "Swingin' Party," The Replacements. Words and music by Paul Westerberg. Track 6 of Tim, 1985.
How/when acquired: Purchased cassette, 1987
Listen/watch here.

Tim is one of the albums I'd need on a desert island. It's one of a handful of records I've owned in three formats; I had to download it when the CD was stolen from the front seat of my car in 2005. I hope the thief loves it as much as I do, or at least got a couple of bucks for it.

At the risk of sounding like a geezer, I miss the structure of albums. On vinyl and cassette, this track closes the first side. The first six tracks of Tim are a self-contained 18-minute meditation on the traumas of young adulthood, running from self-conscious despair to longing to joyful infatuation, anger, petulance and finally resignation. "Swingin' Party" plays with the double meaning of its title, juxtaposing images of revelers in lampshades and victims of a lynch mob. The end of adolescence may be no more than the revelation that everyone else really is struggling just as hard as we are, and that's the point of "Swingin' Party." I still need that reminder.

Gaslight's production of Born Yesterday opens tonight at Hallowell City Hall. I have a small role as a housekeeper, so if you've ever wanted to see me dressed as a maid, here's your chance. Performances run through September 11; call 207-626-3698 for reservations.

"For the sake of momentum, I've allowed my fears to get larger than life."

The song: "Momentum," Aimee Mann. Words and music by Aimee Mann. Track 2 of Magnolia, 1999
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, c. February 2000
Listen/watch here.

I don't own a lot of DVDs, and approximately half of that collection were gifts. Magnolia is one of a handful of films I bought myself. I watch it when I'm feeling stressed, to remind myself I'm not alone (or even, at any given time, especially bad off).

This song, in particular, was a revelation. People who knew and worked with me in Washington in the 1990s are likely to remember me (if at all) as tense, sharp and angry. I remember myself that way, but it was all about fear. I had one of those Washington jobs that's impossible to explain to anyone outside D.C. (association executive), and had managed to convince myself not only of its importance but of its urgency — fueled by nothing but the fear that I would be discovered as an incompetent impostor. Once people discovered my secret I'd be fired, and without my job, who would I be?

Magnolia came out soon after I moved from Washington to Los Angeles, and the movie's soundtrack became my own for most of that first year. I had many reasons to leave Washington and an equal number of reasons to land in Los Angeles, but in retrospect the most important one was just to find out who I was when those fears weren't driving me.

Of course, I traded in the D.C. fears for a whole set of new ones, but that's life in a Darwinian universe. And my big decisions still require a certain critical mass of fear — because the law of momentum says that objects at rest tend to remain at rest.

"An ordinary miracle is all we really need."

The song: "The Days of Our Lives," The Blue Nile. Words and music by Paul Buchanan. Track 1 of High, 2004
How/when acquired: Purchased CD, September 2004
Listen/watch here.

Happy September 1. The theme of this year's blog is "Songs of Experience." Every post will quote a line from a song in my iTunes collection — sometimes a song I choose, sometimes one that comes up randomly.

Music seemed the obvious next choice for a blog theme, since I've already done movies and books, and it holds an equally important place in my life.

At the moment my iTunes library comprises 7,013 tracks, which some of my friends will find pretty feeble — male friends, in particular, as music collections seem to be a predominantly masculine obsession. Quite a lot of my music collection are gifts from male friends, going back to cassette tapes I've owned since high school and vinyl albums I haven't been able to play in 20 years (but can't seem to give up). Even now, male friends and relations are responsible for most of the new material in my collection, which I appreciate very much. Women who like (and can talk) music are about as common as women who like and can talk sports, and I am happy to do it with my attached male friends who have long since bored their partners silly on the fine distinctions between punk and New Wave, or the relative merits of Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, or the historical significance of the Velvet Underground.

Today's track, however, is one I bought myself. The Blue Nile, a band from Glasgow, is famous for its limited and long-anticipated output. High, its most recent album, came out in August 2004 and was the band's fourth album in more than 20 years. (The first, A Walk Among the Rooftops, came out in 1983.) I bought the CD at the Best Buy in Westwood in September 2004, days after the mishap that kept me in Los Angeles for six weeks longer than I'd originally planned (see the September 2004 blog entries for details). The purchase was an extravagance, as my music purchases almost always are; I needed every penny for the move to Maine, but I needed this album more.

This track starts the album with a lone piano playing a single chord as background to the melody, which is sung by band leader Paul Buchanan. It's a song about the disappointments of midlife whose refrain is "Are these the days/Are these the days/Are these the days/Of our lives?" What saves it from despair is the last line: "An ordinary miracle is all we really need."

My life is full of ordinary miracles that save me every day. Sometimes, that miracle is nothing more than the right song at the right time.