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A PULP MAGAZINE COVER FOR TODAY
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THE DARKTOWN STRUTTERS’ BALL
This song was a favorite of Chief Tam-Tam, from West Africa — leader, in 1935, of the “Ubangi” troupe in Greenbaugh’s Majestic Circus, in my short novel Circus. Tam was homesick and often drunk, dreaming of going back to the old country, but he had a “special friend” at the colored whorehouse in Wichita, Kansas and every time the circus played that town, she took all his money, leaving him no choice but to stay with the show.
A CIRCUS POSTER FOR TODAY
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SHE STILL LOVES YOU
. . . and you know you should be glad.
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TWO HANDS
A good song for bad times . . .
[Via Ray Sawhill]
COME AND TAKE IT
This contemporary sign is a goof on an old Texas legend. As the war for Texas independence was gathering steam in the 1840s, the Mexican general and dictator Santa Anna sent a canon to a small Texas town to help its residents fight the insurgents, but the town joined them instead. Santa Ana demanded the the return of the canon and the town sent him back a message — “Come and take it.”
The insurgents made up flags honoring the incident, and the phrase became a rallying cry.
You still see the emblem all over Texas today, a symbol of the true Texan’s resistance to tyranny. Texas men have not lived up to the emblem, as shown by their ugly attempts to control women’s bodies through state power, but the ladies of Texas still get it.
PROGRESS REPORT
As I mentioned earlier, I got off to a good start on my short novel Circus but about 3,000 words in I ran into a problem. I realized that my plan to use a first-person narrator wasn’t going to work, because I needed scenes that my narrator couldn’t possibly have known about.
This was discouraging, since I’d already discovered a voice for the narrator that I was comfortable with. I tried to fudge my way out of it, by suggesting that my narrator was telling us about things he learned of later, but it felt false.
So I started revising what I’d written as a third-person narrative. It wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined and I’m now forging ahead from where I left off.
And so it goes . . .
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A CIRCUS MAGAZINE COVER FOR TODAY
THE GLADIATOR MARCH
In my short novel Circus, the band plays this song as it marches off the circus train just after its arrival in Wichita, Kansas in 1935.
AN AMY CREHORE FOR TODAY
A Gymnast’s Memory Of Fall
[© 2013 Amy Crehore]
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PROGRESS REPORT
2,200 words into a short novel that will probably run to 27,000 words. It’s a story I’ve had in mind for a while — a tale of the big top, of the golden age of the great American circus trains, in the 1930s.
After a couple of days of work on it, I feel a certain amount of momentum gathering in the narrative, and I know where it’s going — both good signs.
So I created a cover for it, to make it seem more real, forced myself to stop writing and fixed a nightcap to keep me away from the keyboard — I can’t write when I’m drinking.
Writing is a tiresome business most of the time — but it has its moments, like this one, when I feel excited about getting back to it tomorrow.
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FOREPLAY
Pulling the record out of the shelf, removing it from the record cover, then the sleeve, spinning it on the platter, dusting it off with the record brush. Using the needle brush on the needle, setting the needle onto the LP.
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A GIL ELVGREN FOR TODAY
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AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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