Siouxsie & The Banshees "Kiss Them For Me"

A Throwback Thursday post:

This song was written about Jayne Mansfield and named after a film she was in.  In the early 90s, it would have never occurred to me that this song would be popping into my head on a regular basis 20 years later.

Now that I'm a parent---and I'm doing the parent-thing of constant schedule juggling with my wife, to make sure one of us is with the kids while the other gets stuff done---I hear the phrase "kiss them for me" on a semi-regular basis.

Not what Siouxsie intended, but sweet nonetheless.


Hear the song on Youtube.

upcoming thriller

Title: Chasing Prophecy
Author: James Moser
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Thriller
Ebook available at: Kindle | Smashwords  





Book Description:

Mo is a shy teen who is just trying to survive high school. He has secretly fallen in love with a girl named Prophecy who lives with a group that some call a commune and others call a cult. When she disappears, Mo must find the courage to face the monster that her family has become. Chasing Prophecy is a contemporary coming of age story that is heartwarming, suspenseful, and beautifully written. This book chronicles the adolescence of one boy who must transform himself to save the girl of his dreams.

Kirkus Reviews:

"A stellar read for teens and adults, full of hilarious growing pains, tenderness and a few surprises. Moser’s debut is an unflinching young-adult novel that sees a group of friends tested by bigotry and the illegal machinations of a religious cult. The author serves up an irresistibly wisecracking narrator in Mo Kirkland. Every page ripples with a controlled cleverness. There’s also a rawness to this tale similar to that which many teens face in the real world. Moser can wax rhapsodic about young love, but he shows that he knows how to raise the tension in the second half of the novel."


Excerpt:

Richard said, “Why are you even talking, Maureen, I mean Maurice? Go sit in your highchair and let the grownups work this out, OK, little guy?”

Even with my new growth spurt, he never missed a chance to let me know I lived every second of my life ten seconds from a surfing lesson.

Max said coldly, “Don’t you clowns talk to him that way.”

Kazzy said, “—or we will kick your cracker asses.”

I looked up at her and realized I’d been looking up to her my whole life. She was calm and still when she was standing up for herself. She didn’t have to stand on her tiptoes or raise her voice. When I tried to stand up for myself, I knew people saw the question marks in my eyes.

Kazzy’s eyes were full of answers, and I loved her. Deep inside me I felt something break, heal, and get stronger all at once.

Richard watched another carful of mourners pass us by. “Your little cult funeral all done?” he said.

Kazzy said, “Why do you say ‘Cult’? Do you see a fence keeping anyone in or out? Do you see us trying to blow anything up? There’s not a weapon on our whole ranch. You crackers have more guns than I’ve seen in my whole life.”

I pulled out my pocketknife, found a smooth spot in the pine railing, and pushed the blade into the sun-bleached log. I worked the blade up and down, back and forth, deeper and deeper.

Kazzy said, “So let me get this straight. One of us jumps, and you don’t say ‘cult’ for two years? You don’t say a word to any of us all the way til graduation night?”

“That’s the deal.”

I pushed the tip of the blade across the wood. I made a rectangle and rounded off the corners.

I pulled off my Seattle Mariners baseball cap and dropped in my keys and phone. I found a safe corner to stash my stuff near a gigantic steel bracket joining two logs. I walked to the other side of the bridge, across from the others.

Richard said, “We’re waiting, Kazzy, I mean Prophecy.”

“Hey, Richard!” I said.

He looked at me. They all looked at me.

“Catch!” I yelled, tossing him my knife. I said, “It’s August twentieth. If you can’t spell ‘August,’ just write eight-dash-twenty.”

They all stared at me. I held up three fingers. “Redneck Honor,” I said. I pulled off my shirt, dropped it to the ground, and ran right at Richard and Boo. They stepped back. Their eyes were full of questions.

For the first time in my life, my eyes were full of answers.

“He’ll never . . .” Richard started to say.

“Mo, DON’T!” Kazzy yelled.

Max screamed, “Oh, YEAH!!!”

My left foot landed on the orange Bigfoot “X”.

My right foot landed on the low rail. I pushed off.

I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes. I saw sky and mist kicked up by white water crashing into rocks.

I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes. I looked down. I was either going to just clear the boulder closest to the bridge or I was getting an ambulance ride, or I was about to die.

I screamed, “AAAAAAAAAAAAHH!”

The bottoms of my feet smacked the water hard, then all of me was underneath, then my feet hit the bottom. Knees and elbows on rock. I looked up through ten feet of clear, freezing water. Through the bumpy surface I could see the shapes of my friends, the colors of their clothes. I pushed off the bottom and shot through the surface.

Bloody. Dizzy. Alive. Icy water—snow the day before—stretched my skin tight.

I squinted up at the bridge, saw Max and Kazzy jumping up and down, arms over their heads, screaming. I pulled myself up to the flat top of a giant rock. I stood and raised my arms to the sky, the mist throwing little rainbows all around me. I held up the three-fingered redneck honor salute. My friends threw back their heads and laughed. They turned to Richard and Boo, showed them three fingers. The bullies walked slowly to their car. I stood on a rock but felt myself floating.

I thought, So this is what it means to fly.

About the Author:
James Moser has always loved stories in all forms. He is in his fourteenth year of working with high school students. The author’s goal was to write a book that would inspire even his most reluctant readers. Young adults have always inspired him. As such, he wanted to show teenagers transforming themselves to overcome obstacles, which is what he watches them do, every day.

Moser has a B.A. in English and a Master’s degree in Secondary English Education. He lives in Seattle with his beautiful wife and eight year old son. When he’s not reading and writing, or thinking about reading and writing, he’s watching way too much television while snacking on frozen treats from Trader Joe’s. Man, those things are good.


Where to find James Moser:

Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads

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Yael Naim "New Soul"

When he said "Adele Hazeem" maybe John Travolta though he was introducing Yael Naim. 

(It certainly sounds closer to what he said than "Idina Menzel")


Hear the song on Youtube.


Hear John Travolta mispronounces Idina Menzel's name on Youtube.

Nine Days "Story Of A Girl"

 A Throwback Tuesday post:

It's probably taken you a good decade to forget this earworm . . . and now I've brought it back.  Enjoy it until 2024!


Hear the song on Youtube.

At the Harry Price Library

Karen Attar expounds

Images of a visit with a group of my students to look at early printed books about witchcraft in the 

Harry Price Library, Senate House (London University).

Thanks to the curator, Karen Attar, we were allowed to look at 24 select items from the collection: a couple of copies of the Malleus Maleficarum, all three early editions of Reginald Scot, a Johan Weyer, a Bodin, Peter Binsfield the malefitzmeister, King James's Demonologie, works by John Webster, Glanvill, Francis Hutchinson, the pamphlet about the 1682 witches executed at Exeter, even a copy of the English translation of that mocking novel, Monsieur Oufle. A work I'd wanted to see was elsewhere on display, and as a late substitute I picked William Lilly's Christian Astrology, 1647. I'd seen some of these books before, but by no means all of them. As Karen said, once you see a compact edition of the Malleus, printed in as cheap as style as possible, then you realise the reach of that awful book.

An early owner annotates his (or her) text, happy to live in more enlightened times.

Getting used to book cushions.

Communication technologies meet as Natalie H photographs one of the engravings in Scot.

Nickel Creek "Love Of Mine"

In the same journal that was mostly a month filled with angst, I went to my first Merlefest.

While much of what I wrote about for the Merlefest trip, had to do with the girl I had gone with (we had, in effect, a 2 day first date!), here's the big musical takeaway:

"Chris Thile will be the name to remember . . ."

That was April 2000.  And here I am 14 years later, thrilled to have seen Chris Thile, Sean Watkins and Sara Watkins, together and in other configurations another half-dozen times, with the promise of seeing them together again this summer when they come to Newport Folk. 


Hear the song on Youtube.

E-book Week

Hello!
Did you know it is e-book week on smashwords? From today to the eighth smashwords is having sales on e-books. Of course the author has to okay the sale, but there are a lot of books that are 50%, 70%, and even free! Who wouldn't be interested? I'm going to go through the sale books myself tonight because I love helping out other indie authors. I enjoy finding new authors. Heads up my stuff are free on there right now, but towards the end of the week I'll probably only have them 50%, so grab when you can! Have fun exploring books!

Smashwords
1. Click the link.
2. on the left hand side you'll see 'Read an e-book week'
3. click Browse Books on Sale
Happy Readings!