erin's emporium of discount dreams & well-worn wonders » music

how it ends.

erin — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 23:39:02 +0000

I am done with touring for 2011.

I don’t think Thank You is enough for all the wonderful bookstores and booksellers, for all the readers (whether they’d read The Night Circus yet or not) who came to events and for everyone who organized so many festivals and signings and interviews and flights, but Thank You.

I am slowly re-acclimating to my normal time zone, which has involved sleeping a lot. I am also trying to catch up on things around here that have been neglected during the tour, like cleaning and unpacking things that somehow never managed to get unpacked over the summer.

I uploaded my photos from foggy Amsterdam:

More photos (and more fog!) over on my Flickr photostream.

It’s strange to be done, at least with the travelling. I have things to catch up on (if I owe you an email I’ll get to it soon(ish), hopefully) and the to-do list still seems never-ending and despite all that I know I need some rest. I am not used to so many things and people requiring my attention and I am still adjusting. Also, I’d like to be able to write again at some point.

It is an open-windows, reading in the park sort of day which is rare for this late in November. It’s lovely but not helping me regain my concept of time.

On the flight over to Amsterdam one of the in-flight movie options on the individual embedded in the seat in front of you televisions was Midnight in Paris. I had been told by several people that I would love it and they were correct, it is a marvelous magical fairy tale of a film and I loved it more than I have loved any new film in recent memory. And I’m not even much of a Woody Allen fan.

On the flight back to Boston I half-slept with DeVotchKa’s How it Ends on repeat. So I suppose that makes this the song of the end of the book tour:

playlist

erin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:38 +0000

I keep meaning to post proper links to my Night Circus playlist & I keep forgetting, so this time I shall not forget and even give them their own post.

The playlist is up on Spotify, here.

It is also up on 8tracks, which gave me a nifty little code for embedding:

You can also read explanations of all these songs over here via largehearted boy’s Book Notes.

musical interlude

erin — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:46:42 +0000

I meant to have time to put together a proper post today, but time, she is a fickle thing.

Instead, have a musical interlude. This album is going to be the soundtrack of my next novel, I can tell already.

if you feel just like a tourist

erin — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:07:46 +0000

I was in Boston for all of six hours last night before flying to London today. Now I am in a very cozy hotel room, unsure of what time it is and unable to blog properly but I have my nice camera with me so there should be proper photos eventually and I will tell you of other travels and adventures as well.

For now, though, I give you what is currently and likely will stay the official theme song of the book tour.

miscellany & musings & music

erin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:37:57 +0000

Pardon me, but where did August go? Excuse me whilst I cling to this final day, in denial that the morning will bring September in all its autumnal, impending book release glory.

This post is going to be all over the place, be prepared. Proper blogging keeps getting lost in the wilds of the to-do list.

I would have been updating the internet on all manner of happenings were it not for the cumbersome to-do list and also the fact that I had a horrid summer head cold for the last week, so I was hampered by a mucus-y haze. It felt as gross as that sounds. Mostly better now, just slightly sniffly.

I added a tour page to this poor neglected site, I meant to do it ages ago but formatting is hard. It’s still not perfect and it doesn’t have Canadian or UK info but I’ll be adding to it, hopefully in a timely manner.

Last week I spent a delightful evening under tents in a field in Concord, meeting booksellers and flouncing around in a white dress with red feathers in my hair. The lovely ladies of Random House put together a marvelous circusy event and I got to tell the story of why Bailey is from Concord, which is not a story I’ve gotten to tell very much so that was particularly fun. I wish I’d had more time to talk to everyone but I signed a lot of galleys (I ended up with a very nice not-mine pen that I’m pretty sure I was told I can keep, which I hope I’m remembering correctly but it’s always possible that I am just an incorrigible pen thief). I had a splendid time and there will be splendid photos soonish, as Kelly Davidson who did my wonderful author photo was there shooting for the Boston Phoenix and we ran around taking photos in fields with sunflowers and the very heavy crystal ball the tarot reader was kind enough to let us use. (Late in the evening I had my cards read, which was a lovely end to the night.) My sincere thanks to everyone there, from organizers to guests and my darling editor who was my date for the evening, for participating in such a fantastical event.

Now, almost post-head cold, I am in pre-tour mode, trying to get myself organized for the impending whirlwind, looking skeptically at September. I had a lot of things I’d intended to do over the summer that seem to have fallen by the wayside. September seemed far away for a very long time and now it is hard to wrap my head around the fact that The Night Circus comes out in less than two weeks. I waver between terribly excited and extremely apprehensive, so I feel like I am lightly caffeinated at all times, even when I’m not.

I’ve been mostly trying to take care of myself as I think I’m going to need it. I’ve been reading a lot as it tends to calm my brain, escaping into a book. And I have a perfect escape in Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 that I was lucky enough to grab an ARC of when I was in NYC signing thousands of books, it was a much better reward than a wrist massage. I’m about halfway through at the moment, attempting to finish all almost-1000 pages of brilliance before tour so I can take lighter weight reading on planes.

And I have been listening to the new Florence + the Machine song over and over and over. Saw her do this live and delighted that it is just as good now, studio recorded and tipping into autumn as it was under a summer night sky.

So, that is what Erinland sounds like at the moment, tinged with September-eve disbelief.

february music

erin — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:16:05 +0000

Told you I had all sorts of things to write about.

Downloaded the new Radiohead, The King of Limbs, on Saturday. Not loving it the same way I loved In Rainbows, but it’s growing on me. It makes for rather good music to leave on and ignore. I mean that as a compliment.

Got the new Adele album, 21, yesterday and I love it like candy. I was already obsessed with “Rolling In the Deep” and the rest of the album is equally marvelous. And it has a cover of The Cure’s “Lovesong” that’s just delicious.

I’m kind of obsessed with the video for “Rolling In the Deep,” too:

It reminds me of the circus in an odd sort of way. Maybe it’s the paper city. Or the broken teacups. Or the room full of powder fog.

I don’t know, but it makes me happy.

listening

erin — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:52:31 +0000

I go through music phases, especially when I’m writing.

I listen to the same things over and over and over. And over.

I’m not always sure what will end up being the soundtrack of Revisonland. It varies. I don’t particularly plan, something just moves into my head and refuses to let me listen to anything else while I work.

This time around it is all Fleet Foxes, all the time.

so long, 2009.

erin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:38:39 +0000

There is a fluffy coating of snow falling outside my windows, obscuring what’s left of 2009 in powdered sugar white. White primer to paint 2010 over.

Ten years ago tonight I was ringing out 1999 in the dearly departed Grotto nightclub in NoHo. The only bit I clearly remember is asking drag queens about the lyrics to that Whitney Houston song that was all over the place, and they confirmed it was indeed “something about Amistad.” That seems very long ago & far away.

I don’t have the memory or the inclination to do a decade in review. Ten years ago was my senior year of college. Since then I moved around Massachusetts at least five times, got married, got cats, had bad jobs, quit bad jobs, made lots of art, completed a tarot deck and a handful of novel drafts. Somewhere in there I developed a rather poor memory, too.

But here, I’ll look back a bit at 2009 proper, since that’s freshest in the blur that is the ’00s.

2009 was…

A year of literary agent blogs and Absolute Write and query letters and having minor heart attacks every time my phone rang with a 212 call. A year of taking up residence in revisionland and preparing to move back in tomorrow. For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. Or something.

A year of flax-golden tales that made me happy to be a dreamer and a wisher and a liar, especially one that is friends with Carey Farrell.

This year, more than any previous year, made me own the writer half of artist/writer. Even to the point of moving slowly toward writer/artist, which is surprising but nice, all at once.

It was a year of Sleep No More (carrying over into early 2010, seeing it 2x more) which kind of blew open the creative part of my brain. Remember that episode of Six Feet Under where Claire is trying to break her eye open for art school? Sleep No More did that for me.

A year of Bat for Lashes & Azure Ray & new Moby & yes, Lady Gaga.

A year for finishing the tarot deck after 3 years and 78 paintings.

A year of Fluevogs and shiny objects and cutting my hair shorter than it has ever been in my life. I’ll post pictures at some point, I promise.

I had an interesting year, I think. I’m not sure if it was good or bad but it was full and varied and I get to have Prosecco & fondue later so I can’t really complain all that much.

tipping into autumn

erin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:30:33 +0000

We’ve had a very busy, very long weekend.

Thursday night we went to see Moby at the House of Blues. I’d never seen him in concert before but I listened to Play practically non-stop when it first came out and his new album, wait for me, is marvelous, so the boy & I decided it might be fun. It was phenomenal. Quite possibly the best concert ever and it just kept going and going. And Moby is seriously adorable. Go see him if you get a chance. Highly recommended. (And hopefully you won’t have people loudly discussing BC football standing behind you the way we did.)

Friday night we went to the boy’s cousin’s wedding, which was sweet and fun even though the cake was elusive. But for two nights in a row we didn’t get home until about 1:30am. So we’ve been pretty tired.

Rather than sitting around all day yesterday, I suggested we take advantage of the lovely weather and run around outdoors. Our original plan was to go apple picking, but that was apparently also the plan of every other person in New England yesterday, so instead we ended up wandering around Den Rock Park for a couple of hours.

It’s really lovely, and we had great light for it. There’s a beaver pond (we saw a goose, but no beavers) and a river and tall rocks and absurd amounts of acorns. We saw two little snakes and a lot of ferns and I took a bunch of photos. It was a relaxing way to spend the day (and so quiet! We only encountered a handful of other people walking around, and one very pretty dog) after all the raucous late nights.

And then we came home and made apple crisp. There are more photos on my Flickr photostream (of the park, not the crisp). Today is grey and rainy and not so photogenic. I am packing up my wine and cookies to take back with me to revisionland, where I will be pretty much full-time for the next two weeks.

on boston & tori

erin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:39:17 +0000

My feet hurt. But I am not particularly surprised by this considering I wandered around Boston most of the day yesterday and I desperately need new sandals because my old ones, while comfortable, are sort of falling apart and I think they’ve forgotten about a little thing called arch support.

Wandering around Boston reminded me that I don’t particularly miss living there, especially in the summer. I actually prefer Boston buried under winter slush to sweltering in that concrete-flavored heat.

We were in town for the day to see Tori Amos at the WhateverBankIt’sNamedAfterNow Pavilion, but we went in early and walked around and went to see Julie & Julia. I thought it was delightful, even beyond being a 2+ hour air conditioned respite from the weather. It’s a tad too long and made me desperately hungry, but overall I thought it was marvelous. I commented to the boy that it was fun to see a movie that felt like a romantic comedy but was about already established relationships and the romantic stuff wasn’t the core of the film. I can’t think of anything to compare it to, really, but I very much enjoyed it. A great deal of it is about writing, too. Recommended, but do yourself a favor and eat fist. I was crazy hungry afterward.

(After the movie we went to dinner, of course. Good, but not enough butter.)

We were pretty much melting by concert time, but Tori was all kinds of wonderful as usual. This was our sixth show, and we had better seats than we’ve ever had (17th row, dead center) and oddly most of the row in front of us was empty. The show was great, the encore was amazing and really, other than some nitpicky qualms about the setlist (we’d seen a fair deal of the same songs on the last tour and had been hoping for a bit more variety – setlist, for those wot care) and the thermal discomfort it was marvelous. Tori is simply stellar live. All the stuff from the new album was gorgeous. I’m running out of adjectives, but you likely get my point. Really, it’s difficult to write anything other than OMGILOVETORI and things about rocking socks. Not that I was wearing socks, but if I had been they would have been rocked.

Now I have that post-Tori depression where I rather desperately want to see her play again as soon as possible. And my feet hurt.

In other, less foot-hurting news: I spent a large portion of the weekend (and part of the wandering around in Bostonian hot yesterday) bouncing novel revision ideas off the boy and I think I’ve come up with a good handful of ideas worth pursuing. So I’m very pleased about that and I’m going to try to spend some time today and tomorrow outlining & organizing & letting the ideas simmer some more, and hopefully before long I’ll have a nicely seasoned revision stew to eat, or write. Analogies getting away from me again, tricksy things.