5 – Twenty Five Things Tuesday: Follow My Ears With Feet

I’ve seen plenty of Tori Amos concerts. Unfortunately, I’ve lost count, but the number is somewhere in the 20s at this point. But it is not enough!! I read about Ears With Feet (Tori fans) who have been to 100 concerts, or who have saved up a bunch of money, taken a leave of absence from work, and followed her around the world, and instead of having the reaction of a normal human, I think, “Oh, wow, I want to do that. A year of seventy Tori concerts? Are you kidding me? Yesssssss. All the yeses ever to yes!”

The issue? Money, job, responsibilities. If I ever get to do this, I’m sure it will be after my daughter is grown. Maybe she’d even want to come with me. If not, though, I’m pretty sure I could convince my BFF will come along for the ride.

If I were to rate the likelihood of any particular one of these, I’d have to admit this one is pretty low in terms of chances. It’s the sort of thing a person can maybe pull off in their early twenties, but as life creeps in, it becomes more and more difficult to make time for something like this. Perhaps it would make more sense if people understood that Tori Amos concerts are my church. There is literally no other time that I feel so completely connected to the universal, so in touch with my heart and spirit and soul, so uplifted and moved. There’s nothing that even touches it.

Before I die, I’d like to follow my church around the world, experiencing the service in far away lands.

3 – Twenty Five Things Tuesday: Where the Orchids Grow

Sometime before I die, I want to attend a Tori Amos concert with my daughter. It’s been a dream of mine since before I ever had her, and when it became clear that she loves Tori Amos, too, my dream only intensified. One day, we will sit in the audience together. Maybe we’ll hold hands. Maybe she’ll ignore that her mommy cries half of the show. Or maybe she’ll cry too.

Flipping Gender Changes Meaning — Examples

Photo by Michel Dierickx

A question I get a lot is “Why m/m? Why do you write so many books with gay main characters?” I’ve got a lot of reasons behind that, some of them incredibly deep and involved, based in feminism and gay rights and freeing the mind. But let’s leave all that behind for now, and focus on how things change meaning when you change the sex/gender of any particular person within a certain expected dynamic.

I feel like the easiest way to illustrate this is with music, so let’s start there.

Everyone knows Adele’s song “Someone Like You”. What happens to the meaning and to your understanding of the song when a man sings it without changing any lyrics.

Jay Brannan also did a cover of Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games”. When he performed it live, he said, “My favorite thing about this song is knowing that by singing it I make you all picture me in a sundress.” I practically jumped up and down when he said that because it old me that he gets it and isn’t just covering it because he likes it, but that he sees a wider implication in his choices.

Another example might be Tori Amos covering “I’m Not In Love”. As she said in an interview, people grew up in the 1970s and 80s slow-danced to this song, not really listening to the lyrics. She covered it to point out how the meaning of it changes when it’s sung by a woman. What opinions do we have about a woman who sings, “I’m not in love, so don’t forget it. It’s just a silly phase I’m going through, and just because I call you up, don’t get me wrong, don’t think you’ve got it made. I’m not in love, no no, it’s because…I like to see you, but then again, that doesn’t mean you mean that much to me.” How do we feel about her compared to how we might feel about a man singing the same thing.

And then there is the more obvious commentary of “Real Men”.

For me, aside from just wanting to tell good stories with characters that I like, I enjoy the challenging nature of writing away from expectations and exploring how changing the sex, gender, sexuality of characters changes the consequences of certain behaviors within relationships. As I said, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it’s a nice fat tip. Enjoy it. (Heh. See what I did there? LOL!)

Song of Late Spring and Roses

And a live version.

28 Days of Holiday Songs: Our New Year

Liz Schaffer Source

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28 Days of Holiday Music: Harps of Gold

Merry Christmas! This seemed a fitting song for the day. The message being to look up, look onward, look for the coming light, and smile through the pain.

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28 Days of Holiday Music: Holly, Ivy and Rose

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This is my daughter’s favorite Christmas song. She loves that the second voice belongs to Tori Amos’s daughter, Tash, who was only nine when it was recorded. I still don’t have much to say right now, but we’ll go on with this a bit.

28 Days of Holiday Music: Day 13: The Little Drummer Boy (Variations)

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28 Days of Holiday Music: Day 5: A Winter’s Carol & Fanwork Friday

For the month of December, I’m going to combine Fanwork Friday and my Holiday Music fest. The first example is this wonderful video by Hikaru77 featuring the song “A Winter’s Carol” from Midwinter Graces combined with footage from the 2002 film Snow Queen to make this really gorgeous fanvid.

Day Five

As a bonus, PS 22 Chorus performed this back in 2009. Those kids are always inspiring! Check them out!

28 Days of Holiday Music: Day 3: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Back in 1998, you couldn’t find this recording very easily. It was on a UK single called Spark Pt 1 to promote the album From the Choirgirl Hotel. Back then, you had to scour CD stores for it. Now you can buy it used on Amazon for $80 or listen to it for free on YouTube, or buy the tracks for a dollar apiece as .mp3s. Oh, the life of the pre-internet music fan! I remember finding it and being so incredibly thrilled. Ah, good memories. [Edit: Further investigation shows that Amazon prices might be a bit high, since Ebay has most of these singles listed between $2.00 and $19.00 depending on various particulars of the item.]

There were two Christmas-themed b-sides on that single Purple People (Christmas in Space) and this one that I’m featuring today.

Day Three

Some music trivia for you–this recording was featured in a Roswell episode back in the day. The coolness factor of that depends on how you feel about Roswell, I suppose.