greetings from the left coast

Did you make up the name Edmy too? I like it.

What's very nice about this is that it tells the whole story in a very compact little space. We don't really need to know more, although it helps to know the KH "x-names" thing and the way the switch takes place. But even so, this is really rich with detail in a very tiny amount of space. And it is pretty emo, so... well done.

From:

Fandom: original
Word Count: idkmybffrose
Title: "Why I Love Little Feat"

When I was in college a million years ago, a guy named Lee who had a thing for me. Picture Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters but with long blonde hair and you've got Lee exactly. Glasses and all. He worked production for Don Law, a Boston-area concert promoter. To get on my good side (and to try to get into my bed), Lee invited me to see Little Feat with him. Because of his status he had comped tickets (they were all comped; in our music production circle it was a question of honor not to pay for concert tickets) and the seats were pretty good. I didn't know a whole lot of Little Feat's music, not really being into the whole trucker rock thing outside of an abiding affection for the Grateful Dead, who used to blow through Springfield on a regular basis. This guy friend of mine had a story about being picked up hitchhiking by Bob Weir (yeah right) who shared his exceedingly good Columbian with him. Stoned people make up the funniest stories. I was more into the whole neo-punk movement: the Clash, the Damned, Richard Hell, stuff like that. I wore a black leather motorcycle jacket covered with pins and buttons and they were all full of attitude. The night of the Little Feat concert the one featured right on my lapel was a Clash one: I Want Complete Control. It was very bright, black and white and pink, but small so you had to bend over to look at it because I'm a little bit tiny. 5'3 on a good day. A petite prize for Lee and his long blonde hair, maybe, like that was going to happen.

So we got to the Springfield Civic Center and we had pretty good seats but not the best. It only took a few minutes' contemplation to assess Lee's importance to the Don Law organization based on the seats. Nowhere near the most important guy, nowhere near the least. Yeah, just as I'd suspected, and the lights went down and the Kaz-Fuller band (Pure Prairie League in disguise) opened. At that time, who didn't know their hit song "Amie?" But you know concert crowds and opening acts, and besides, this was Little Feat so the joints were flowing freely down the aisles, one lucky concert-goer to another. Wasn't the Feats' theme song Don't Bogart That Joint? For those in the know it sure was.

My future-Mythbuster-in-disguise date took advantage by throwing his arm around me for the whole set, passed the jay on to the next person. Between sets I was too wasted to remember if he got up to "check" on things backstage or not -- he wasn't working this concert -- but he was back and forth a bit. Maybe he was out buying condoms in hopes of a lucky post-concert thing, I'm not sure. What I do know is this: Little Feat, once they got going, kicked ass. I even wrote down the set list sometime later, because when you worked as many concerts as I did in those days, you had a tendency to forget. And it wasn't just because of the smoke.

(Teenage Nervous Breakdown. Rock and Roll Doctor. Time Loves A Hero. Day Or Night. Texas Rose Café. Keepin' Up With The Joneses. All That You Dream. Fat Man In The Bathtub. Spanish Moon. Gringo Jam. Day At The Dog Races. Old Folks Boogie. Dixie Chicken. Then there were the encores: Willin'. Don't Bogart That Joint. Feats Don't Fail Me Now.)

All that in a three-and-a-half-hour concert. And damn if it wasn't one of the best concerts I'd ever seen, both technically and artistically. I ran stage crew in those days for a lot of bands. Roadied, set up lights and sound systems. That gives a girl a unique perspective on the craft that goes into a stage show and Lee had the same appreciation although he did more of the grunt work than me. I didn't want to lift 40-pound amps. I just wanted to crawl up around on top of a cherry picker adjusting lights and swapping out gels. Back in those days we ran everything manually. An actual human ran the lighting board; it wasn't all computerized and pre-programmed. We did what worked in the moment, and it was a precision art and a thrill and a privilege. This Little Feat setup -- their Waiting for Columbus days, Lowell George's last gasp with the band -- knocked my socks off, or would have if I'd been wearing any.

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And then the concert ended, and end of story, right? No, this is where my story gets started. We stand up and the crowd files out and Lee says "I gotta go find Don Law. Come with me." Now, I was no stranger to backstage and I was no groupie. Like I said, I was there in my punked-out leather biker jacket, my hair all spiked, my makeup ridiculous and I wore fishnets and a mini and a Sex Pistols t-shirt with more holes in it than fabric, safety-pinned together within an inch of its life. It was pink with blue letters on it that said Never Mind the Bollocks. Not your typical Little Feat jeans-and-long-hair combo. So Lee brought us backstage, stood me in a corner, and said wait here.

Not the thing to do to a girl when you want to get her into bed, cowboy! But he disappeared so fast that all I could do was wait there. And that's exactly where the band members decided to make their post-concert backstage appearance. First it was the bass player, then the drummer, and soon I was surrounded by Feats taking notice of my garb and get-up. Luckily I wasn't easily starstruck: I'd been mistaken for a band member myself more than once and even had someone follow me around asking me for an autograph assuming I was Patti Smith one day, so I knew how to behave. Bass player looked at me, leaned over, read my Clash button. "Complete control, huh?" he said with a pretty lascivious grin.

"Down, boy." It's easier to talk to people when you don't want anything from them, and that night was no exception. All the time I was pretty peeved at Lee for just leaving me there: who knew how long his little conversation with the Big Guy was going to take? I was a captive audience, had nowhere to go, no way of getting home. I thought for a little while that it would serve him right if I palled around with the band enough to head off with them. It wouldn't have been the first time, although usually the tech guys were more my thing. The thing about being backstage was always this: it might start out as a small and intimate party, but eventually the groupies showed up. And the Little Feat groupies were skanky. I mean, disgusting. The minute Lowell George showed up, this chick jumped on his back like he was going to carry her around piggy-back style, her arms around his neck, and wouldn't let go. One of my most priceless memories of those days is the pleading look he shot me -- me, of all people -- trying to get her off his ass. I'll give him this: he was a hot shit. If I had a small abiding love for the band before, that one look made me love them a whole lot more. My hey, let go, get off him didn't even register with her but eventually some security guy came over and peeled the broad off him and kicked her out.

I don't know how long Lee was gone. It was probably only a half hour or so, but it felt like longer. I have to tell you that the guys in the band were all so nice. So nice. After I explained that my boyfriend (I wasn't above abusing the circumstances, I guess) with was off talking to Don Law, they were respectful and flirtatious but hands-off, even if I kind of wished they hadn't been. They were sweet, but I wasn't a groupie and they couldn't sway me. My earlier dismay at being left alone backstage at a place like the Civic Center faded soon enough and it proved to be a memorable cap to the concert.

Eventually Lee showed up and took me home. He stayed as long as I let him but eventually, from my chair in the living room, my eyes wouldn't stay open and he realized he wasn't going to be asked to stay the night so he took his leave. It was our last date, but I didn't mind. He'd given me a night to remember, even if it wasn't the way he would have chosen. He was actually a pretty good guy after all.

A few years later when I was living outside Boston and my rock-and-roll days were no longer an everyday reality, Lowell George dropped dead of a heart attack.

I couldn't help but cry.

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wow. that reminds me of a whole lot of stuff. i don'teven care if it's about real stuff or not, except that i hope the band exists. this makes me think of a friend I had some years ago. she ws sort of liek that. maybe ishould tr yto find her again?

and you, will definitly stay oen of my favourite authors. whether you'll end up on the bookshelves or not. oe of thoe peopel of whom i'm almost glad they're not jsut writing fanfic any more. {hugs}

From:

Thank you! Someone finally read it!

Here, have some live Little Feat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FekVR_SC5M). They really were fantastic. Lowell George sings lead on this one.

Actually, a lot of this story is true. It's an amalgamation of a bunch of different concert experiences, but Lee's real and Don Law's real and Little Feat are real and getting ditched backstage at their concert is real and the Clash button and leather jacket and fishnet stockings and Sex Pistols t-shirt are all real too. Some of the post-concert conversation happened with these guys and some with other bands other times.

But I'm not that tiny. :D

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what? i am the only one who read it? oh well...i still have your umm other story tucked in somewhere. wouch. ocnei asked for something i got swamped with manuscritps from nano-writers and so forth soyeah.
well y ouwhere to coo lto be made any cooler by knowing these bits about you. but oh well. aaaha. i'll give this a listen. maybe it makes me dig out the grateful-dead tapes i got years ago. and seriously. it might be the spur form e to look up that friend i lost track of.

From:

lostinapapercup.livejournal.com

Fandom: Samurai Champloo

Each silken string of the shamisen is pliant under your fingers; it pours its soul out to you at the gentlest tug of your fingertips or stroke of the bachi.

You know each song you sing by heart. You know the lyrics as if they were your own. You feel as though you've lived them yourself.

Your voice never breaks.

You're a goze, and you're not a goze. Blind from birth and orphaned at too young an age, your options have always been limited. Very early on, you began to learn the shamisen.

Your senses are sharp: you can feel the ground beneath you tremble when another approaches, and you can feel changes in the air around you. You "see" a certain aura for every living thing, and even soft breaths can be audible.

At the age of eight, you were teased for the last time about your blindness. The master of the local dojo saw you fight that day, and your life hasn't been the same since.

Masterfully trained for years by that respected teacher, you took up the kama-yari as your second instrument. In your mind it wasn't hard to liken each fight to a song, and in a short time you were as noted for your skill as a fighter as you were for your skill as a musician.

One day a man, Kariya Kagetoki, came to observe your dojo. His name meant nothing to you, but within a month you were pursued by the Shogunate, wanted on their side, needed in their employ.

You listened to their proposal. You reluctantly considered it. You refused.

Six months later, you refused again. You enjoyed having the skills you did, but you never wished to become an assassin. The Shogunate didn't like it, but you had nothing to lose.

Later that year, you met him. He approached you after hearing you perform, and he was kind. He was charming. You could hear his smile in his voice, and you liked it. You grew accustomed to his presence, to his kindness, to his aura. He respected you. He complimented you. He knew his boundaries with you.

The first time he kissed you, you'd been starting to wonder if it would ever happen. He didn't know the first thing about music, he said, but he came to listen every night you performed and you thought his voice was the sweetest melody you'd ever heard.

For six weeks you were happy. For six weeks you lived as you never had, and you loved him. You loved him when he stopped coming around, when he stopped showing up on nights you performed. You loved him for days after that, for weeks. You loved him when nobody could tell you what became of him, when there was no trace left of him. You loved him when you discovered you were going to have his child.

He never came back.

The child was a boy, and you had an undivided adoration for him from the moment he was born. You don't know which of you he looked like, but you suspect it was you. Being a mother was something you had given up much hope of before, but you took to it with the same quietly burning passion that had driven you with your music and your spear.

You had help but refused charity. The baby was yours, and you wanted to raise him to be strong.

He was just over a year old when the Shogunate came back into your life. This time there were no offers, no pleasantries, no requests. There were only demands, threats, and this time they took your son to gain your loyalty.

They got what they wanted.

From:

lostinapapercup.livejournal.com

You murdered for the Shogunate. You were one of their finest assassins. And yet there was always another task for you before you could be reunited with your son.

The last task sent you after a group of three on the road to Nagasaki. A teenage girl, a ronin, and the one referred to as a vagrant.

You played your shamisen, the amulet hanging from it a reminder of the sweet son you couldn't be with, for two nights at the tavern you'd been pointed to before they arrived. You befriended them easily and started traveling with them.

You grew to like them.

It's possible you liked Mugen the most. Of the three of them, you felt he actually had the most in common with you. It was unexpected: he was rough and tactless, had no manners, and flirted with you shamelessly. He didn't care that you were blind. He watched out for you, but mostly when he thought you wouldn't notice.

He challenged you. He said if you were so content with the way things were you wouldn't sing such sad songs.

He was right. And you identified with him even more because the more time went on, the more it occurred to you that you had never been loved.

Wanted and maybe even used, but never loved.

Prodded by reminders of your son, you continued to lie to them. You nearly killed Jin. You hid the truth from Fuu.

You tried to ignore the change in Mugen's voice when he found your shamisen and staff and brought them to you, but you knew that everything had changed. He had found you out.

He was smarter than anyone gave him credit for.

You fought him, and he was thrown completely off-guard. He wasn't expecting your skill or didn't believe a blind woman could be so capable, and you almost had him. You did have him. It would only have taken a final blow, but suddenly Fuu was there.

Fuu in tears -- you could hear them in her voice -- and begging you both to stop, and it wasn't until you knew she'd flung herself between the two of you that you turned away, unable to go on.

You tried to leave town the next day. The Shogunate operative who'd been shadowing you under the guise of a pinwheel seller knew exactly what you were doing. The breeze made pinwheels sing under his words: Have you become attached to them? The child's life depends on you. Finish it by tomorrow.

And just like that, it seemed the pinwheels sounded different than before.

Maybe you'd imagined it. Maybe you'd simply realized what you'd been too stubborn, too naive, to see all along.

You were being used. You would never see your son again.

Again, Mugen meets you after nightfall by the river. Despite the ringing of steel and the rippling of water and the labored breath that comes from him, there is no music to this fight.

There is nothing to fight for. You've never wanted to kill someone less in your life.

When you both swing your weapons and it's him or you, you pull back on purpose.

Your song is over. You won't be the one to end his.

From:

Sigh.

That's so painfully beautiful. I can't remember the last time I read something that actually moved me to tears. I know it's late and I know I'm a sucker for your writing, but this is so perfect that I can't imagine any other backstory for Sara and I can't imagine this having happened any other way.

Hand over heart.

From:

whaaaaa!!!
if this is an actual character from the series you probably got to know this through the series itself but if it's an oc..well you pretty damn well captured how blindness works and how the other senses substitue it.
i actually heard some kind of soundtrack in my head while I read this. which is pretty weird and hardly ever happens.i can see why people love making rp threads with you. yay!!

From:

prplhez8.livejournal.com

Fandom: LOST
Word Count: Um....yeah.
Title: O Holy Night

It's really all I have left in the right now.

Our songs.

I pick up the album's and 45's that we listened to carelessly in the not so distant past. They're everywhere in taste, really. Just like us, I imagine. We floated along on the balmy sea of us for quite a time until everything went wrong and we capsized. That makes me the rescue vessel now, doesn't it?

I walk over to the window. I stood here and cried after he last left me.

"Eight years, Penny..."

I didn't believe him, you know. Who would? Who in their right mind would believe that I wouldn't hear from him for eight years? Twinkling red and green lights shine through the window and I can hear carol singers walking and spreading their seasonal cheer.

I miss him every day. Every beat of my heart echoes his name.

The phone rings.

"Penny?"

It's him. It's really him.

It's just a small thing to get me in the spirit of things. HOpe it's not over terrible.

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Aye.

♥

From:

well at least you posted something. i gotas far as writing abit,thinkign it was comlete dump adn erasing it for good. not to say that this was blah. i'd say keep it somewhere and try to play with it whenever ith hops up again.

From:

This is so late I'm sureno one will even know it is here, but I said I had something for this and here it is! I'm sure it'll get edited more and the second part will get longer.

Fandom: Original
Word count: Erm... 1,123 to be exact.
Title: Astraea's Song

**

On the last day of my Astraean life I remember the sound of bells playing. Thousands of them, great and small, with voices as deep as my oceans once were and as high as the thin winds that sang through my mountains. The bells rang with the voices of my younger children, with their song of love and of mourning for what they had lost and for what I could no longer give them. But their song was also laced with hope and with desire to know what lay beyond my boundaries. I knew my younger children would endure their loss. They would embrace the challenges their new world would offer to them. They would cherish their bells and remember me in their songs but their lives would go on. They would lend their wisdom and their understanding to others and become wiser and more beautiful. My pride for the Lemari- my gentle Bell People- was without bounds.

With the bells of the Lemari I heard also the glorious voices of my cherished elder children. Voices that pierced my soul with the depth of their feeling. There was no joy or hope in the songs of the Mithic. Their cries of despair and of their devotion to me broke my heart. They who had sought in vain to change what must be; what is the fate of every world when the star to which we are irrevocably bound perishes. They could not accept my fate and toiled ceaselessly against it. They grew greater in power and deeper in the wisdom of the universe, but it could not avail them. I pleaded with my elder children to look to their own fates, but they would not listen.

Yet all of my pleas had not been vain. At the end of all my hope one among the Mithic listened and understood. He who would now save all of my people from sharing in my fate. He who learned more of my secrets than any other. He who discovered the secret pathways that lie hidden in the darkness between worlds. I heard his voice above all, singing of his love and his sorrow, but also of his determination. I heard the vow he made to me in his heart. He knew I would find life again and swore to return to me, no matter how long he had to seek for me. As I listened to his vow and felt his tears falling I knew that Fate would hear his words and would heed them.

Despite the heats of my parent star stealing away my oceans and my rivers. Despite my rains having long ago ceased to fall; upon the face of my beloved as he sang fell my last tears.

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Altennimer’s song faltered when he felt the sweet, cool raindrops fall upon his face. It had not rained naturally upon Astraea in many years, as her atmosphere grew hotter and drier with the immanent death of her star. He knew too well that Astraea had no rain left to give.

He watched with astonishment as two tiny green shoots sprang forth from the droplets in the parched dust at his feet. They grew quickly, their leaves unfolding to reveal deep violet and gold buds. He fell to his knees and gathered the precious seedlings before the heat withered them. It was over as quickly as it began; the bloated red star quickly burned away the frail wisp of cloud which had given him his priceless treasure.

He held the little plants in his shaking hands, watching with wonder as they continued to grow, their roots entwining around his fingers and feeding off the magic that protected him from the heat. He did not recognize their shape but he knew their significance. Astraea had heard his vow and had answered it with a promise of her own.

As evening fell on Astraea’s last day the Lemari stilled their bells and the Mithic ceased their singing. By nightfall not a sound could be heard upon her surface.

Altennimer closed his eyes and listened.

In the perfect silence he heard her begin to sing. Her song was of regret, of love and of the anguish that echoed in the hearts of all her people. It was played by the hot wind through the dry grasses and keened mournfully in the deep hollows of her valleys and canyons.

As he listened Altennimer remembered Astraea’s true voice. A voice as soft as her once-frequent showers and as powerful as her oceans. He knew that Astraea’s song could always be most clearly heard in her waters. He had never been able to dwell far from them for long. It was by her lakes that he first heard her disquiet when her star began to reach the end of its life. It was from her rivers he first listened to her pleas to save her people, when most Mithic still believed in the power of their magic to save her from her star’s fate. He worked ceaselessly to do as she bid, to solve her deepest mysteries and find the pathways that would, before dying Astra reappeared in the sky, see the Mithic and Lemari begin their new lives in the young and wild worlds of their exile and leave Astraea’s spirit free to be reborn.

Altennimer gazed down the dark valley that lay before him. He did not share the hunger of the Lemari to see new lands and impart Astraea’s wisdom to the primitive children of other worlds, but nor would he sever himself from the world the Mithic had chosen for their exile. His desire was to learn and to observe. He could not yet guess what power would lead him back to Astraea, but he knew it would not be found by forever looking behind him and forgetting to listen.

Astraea’s farewell song died in the valley. The last of her power spent in its making. In Altennimer’s hands the seedlings burst into exquisite flowers of deep violet shot with gold. In their petals he heard her voice as it had been long ago. As it would be when he found her again.

Altennimer turned away from the valley and headed quickly down the path where his people waited for him to open the portals. He was now anxious to be away, before the terrible silence settled too deeply upon the people of Astraea. Before the aching beauty of her last song ceased to buffer him from the emptiness and robbed him of his strength. He held the seedlings of her promise close to his heart. Despite his conviction, he knew he would need all the help she could still give him to complete his task.

**

From:

Wow, those are both strong and lyrical and evocative. I take it they're part of a longer work? I had to go back and read the first one after the second to fully grasp what was going on and how they were related. These are really, really nice.

Thank you for sharing!

From:

Thank you. :) They are just two pieces of my forever-growing epic. There are literally thousands of years and dozens of interwoven stories before and particularly after. The tale of Astraea and Altennimer is among the longest and most important story-threads. It has been on my mind a lot lately and the challenge idea helped me pull this part together in a way that is very fitting.

I will take note of the fact that it was not as clear as it should be. That is a big challenge area for me in part because, aside from the fanfic, I have only been writing for myself so far. I’ll work on it for next time to see if I can do better in that area. I appreciate all feedback very much!

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oh my god your writing has grown in leasp and bounds. wow! do you still have my emai laddy? iwantthe whole story for christmas. i can't beleive it's been this logn since I last read some of this stuff (and that must have been back when it was still hp fic?)
yup. another of those cases of 'what are you doing here'where i'm glad you left jkr's playground. but i'mals oglad i'm not an agent. because i think i'd be someone to take on every manuscript that makes me say 'wow!

anyways yeah. i wish i could compose the music for this. aand i invented a new genre category for books. how does etheric fantasy sound?

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Thank you. :) I have been quietly writing away and hopefully slowly improving my skills. Do you still have the same address? What year's Christmas would you like the whole story by? ;) It is one of the core storylines and spans thousands of years! I'll be working on it, though. We will see if it wants to go backward or forward from here. I'm having fun worldbuilding Astraea and her people's cultures.

If I get very rich I will commission the music of Astraea. I could hear it as I wrote about it. Not note for note, but the power and emotion behind it.

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i don't know. i thougth whatever you have in state of finished-so-far. it' sbeen ages since i read some of your stuff. i don't knwo which address of me you still have. i'm thinkin the boxesofthoughts one still works but i am not even sure if i ever changed my email for livejournal comments. we'll see though. maybe it's best for me mot to loook, or i'd fall in a swamp of stuff and get completely lost, lol.
i hereby offer to write the music. i heard somethign too. remember me and my sprite-character and kenneth? i sorto f threw the stuff out the window. felt abit like i was tryign to steal one of your bunnies insteat of writing my own stuff. oh well...

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