Learning Your A B C’s

Back from lovely New York where the tulips were a blooming and spring has sprung.
The world of mystery writing is a microcosm of the ‘real’ world. It’s high school, college, business, and society, complicated and status-driven.
Having a book published as an e-book, and having taken it to the print level by myself, after the publisher reneged, I am on the C-list, with all the writer wannabe’s. C-list people don’t get no respect, and C-list writers talk to other C-list writers and occasionally to a B-list writer.
A B-list writer has a few books out there, but they are not bestsellers and the B-list writer hobnobs with other B-list authors and looks longingly at the A-list. The A-list is people such as Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Connolly, Lawrence Block and the bestseller crowd, along with their publishers and agents. A-list people are unfailingly gracious and nice, but they have no reason to be interested in the C-list.
The C-list listens intently when editors and agents talk, and sometimes they ask pointed questions with a subtext of anguish. Editors and agents claim to be looking for the next new thing, but their idea of the next new thing is another Dan Brown.
There is a mad scramble to get off the C-List. This can be only be done without actually publishing a book or two if you are very young, blond and good-looking, and can schmooze up a storm.
The state of publishing is such that most of us will stay on the C-list. The New York shindig is home to the heavy hitters. The BIG B-List is convening in Washington at Malice Domestic, which was dissed with extreme prejudice by one of the A-list bookseller/publishers in New York. Folks, it’s dog eat dog in the writing community just like anywhere else.
I did meet one agent who wants me to send her my query, but she didn’t sound totally enthused. A form letter arrived in today’s mail, another rejection to the World’s Best Query.
On the plus side, I have the first scene of the Wisconsin book put back together, and it is a strong, interesting beginning. A nice man from Texas told me he sent out 118 queries before he found an agent. St. Martins bought his book. 118. I didn’t even know there were that many agents. I did meet some nice folks. Not everyone is status-driven.
Now it's again time to suck it up and write. Write more. Write better. Write the next new thing. Sure. Dog eat dog.
Aloha

Beantown Goes to the Big Apple

I'm off to NYC for Edgar's week, hopefully to schmooze with agents and editors who might develop a sudden interest in my books. As a basically nerdy computer type, the angst that accompanies me on such endeavors is like one of those suitcases you see circling on the carousel that is so big you wonder if the person it belongs to had anything left in the house after packing. My unease is about the size of that suitcase. So, as we are wont to say on this blog, suck it up.

The new new new new opening pages of Promiscuous Mode are just about there. Maybe this will be The One. My editor pointed out that I use "just" just about every other word. I'll just have to get rid of all those "justs." Most I delete, some I change to "only", and I leave a few in the dialog that sound just right. Ooops!

Another reject, this one of the Best Query Letter Ever Written. Merde and merde again. "Please forgive this impersonal note.. blah blah blah."
Time for some quick mirror talk to convince myself I'm the best and the brightest.

Aloha

Grapeshot

Looking for a Needle in the Haystack

The past few days I've been doing research on topics I know absolutely zilch about, like SAR (search and rescue) by airplane and what it's like to take off and land at the Burning Man Festival. My character has the hots (how quaint!) for the pilot who flies her about and I'm trying to develop that tension as well. So with all this stuff going on it's hard to write more than a couple hundred words a day. Probably I should wing it, but the comfort level is greater is one's writing is informed. Nice thing about a blog. You don't have to know nuthin'.

The other thing that has been formulating in my head is the beginning of the Wisconsin book. Another idea has appeared, but now my constant worry is, what if it's as half-baked as he last one? I recall with more than a little rue, The Shadow Warriors and the bitch it was to get a good beginning. It finally came, more or less out of the blue. At least the current book, The Tipping Point, has a bang up (I think) beginning. I haven't written it yet, but it seems o.k. in theory and I have a hell of an opening sentence.

Friday, I found a foreign publisher that is willing to look at my query, my synopsis and the opening chapter of The World of Mirrors. Now I'm afraid it's a little too mainstream "lite" for them. Always some damn thing. Not one word of feedback from the new query. Maybe someone is at least thinking about it. There are nameless agents (with my 37 cent SASE) thinking about it since August. Suck it up. Suck it up.

This week is the Mystery Writer's of America Edgar festivities in NYC. Have new haircut, trendy (somewhat) clothes, motivation. Will travel. NYC is always energizing. Something GOOD may even happen.

Aloha.

Grapeshot

Cruelest Month to the Max

Cows, shoes, eggs: what happened to the writing blog?

Glad you asked. What’s new with my writing?
Query letter for World of Mirrors
Rewrote (for the n + 1) time my World of Mirrors Query; the writing group loved it. Sent it on to three or four agents. Haven’t heard squat.
No one is falling in love with the query and I’m thinking of trying British agents and publishers. I can’t tell you how depressing this is.

The Wisconsin book: Promiscuous Mode
Got back the 100 pages I sent to be edited. Good suggestions. Some of them killed “the voice” and I have to be careful with this. I ran across one of my gazillion books on how to write, and read the chapter on beginnings. Decided my beginning sucked, although the editor liked it. Rewrote it. Significant other and writing group thought the new beginning sucked. Deeply depressed. Grumped at writing group and Significant Other. Slept on it. Driving by the lake yesterday (very early on the way to work) I had another thought. What S.O. had suggested the beginning should be. Now I need to rewrite it again. Need to do the rest of the edits. Need to get a life.

The Tipping Point: Burning Man Section
Found a “tribe” that could help with some airplane questions, since I know nada about planes and flight. Got a good response to the first question, and none whatsoever to the second. Wondered if I had broken some unspoken taboo and was being shunned. Just another reason to be depressed. What is it about April? Cruelest month to the max. Merde.
Another kindly writer gave me some good tips. I would really like to get back to this book.

Lots and lots of computer problems to deal with. Aggravations galore. Time to. . . you guessed it! Suck it up and get busy.

Mellow Yello

The forsythia bloomed this week, along with masses of daffodils with accents of dark purple hyacinths. . This morning the sun rose over the lake in a big red ball. It relaxes one's soul to see such beauty.

On my drive to work I traverse many different neighborhoods and travel for a short distance through a kind of ex-urban rural area of houses, a few estates and one farm. Sometimes on the farmhouse porch there is a hand-lettered sign that announces "fresh eggs for sale." Either I am in a hurry or we have sufficient eggs in the refrigertor, so I have never stopped.

This week, on a lovely late afternoon, I see the sign and remember we have 2 eggs left. U-turn and back to the farm. Because I am a nosy writer, I am hoping to see the inside of the house, which is old and looks to have an excess of charm. I ring the bell and a middle-aged man comes to the door. He explains that the eggs are in the metal box where in days of yore the milkman left the milk. Another box has change. You pays your money, you takes your eggs and gets your change. It's the honor system! I don't have any change, and so I stop by the house the next morning and put the money in the milk box. Just like back in the days of my grandmother. I only see a center hall (rather dark) but I am charmed by the whole idea. I forget to ask where the cows are. Last year they had a cow and a calf, but I didn't see them all winter and think they are gone. Sigh!

I fed "my" cows last weekend. All I have to do is get out of the car and they come running toward me in a big cow stampede. This week they took turns nicely. The babies horns are growing. Youngest baby still a little skittish about being petted, but Jewel likes it. She offers a loud bleat before she stampedes.

Nature is nice this time of year. The birds sing in the morning and the frogs at night. Life is good.

The shoe is on the other foot

Enzo and me and a "string-haltered camel." This blog is for women only.

When I was seventeen, I bought a pair of really cool black velvet thongs with little turquoise flowers sewed on the thong at Baker's shoes in downtown Denver. The last time I strolled through downtown Denver, I couldn't help but notice that all the nice old department stores were gone. Downtown was a rehabbed area that catered to tourists, with souvenir shops and cheap eats. No doubt an excellent place to buy a Broncos tee shirt, but all the department stores of my youth had packed up and left for the suburbs. The old Daniels & Fisher tower still stood, once the tallest building in Denver. (I never told anyone this but my young friends and I used to spit off the top of the tower). The May-D&F, gone! Neustetters gone! Denver Dry Goods gone! Lerner shops, all gone. The tower still stood, a graceful memory of times past.

Those thongs, which might have cost $5.99, lasted for years and carried me through all sorts of romantic situations. I think they were the first shoes I ever bought on my own.

Let's talk about feet. Mine are rather difficult. Somewhere between narrow and medium with cute little hammer toes. Always difficult to fit. Long foot, short toes, between widths. You get the picture. I was the only kid in first grade to still be wearing high topped leather baby shoes. Once I ran away from my mother (whose wrath I still recall) in downtown Denver in a passionate, public argument about loafers versus tie oxfords.

When I was a sweet young thing I wore very high heels and walked, in the words of my father, "like a string-haltered camel." If I had grown up in the south like he did, my prose would be so colorful that by now a whole string of novels would be mine. But I digress.

Shoe styles came and went over the years and I slavishly followed them until the big clunky shoes of whenever which made me look like Minnie Mouse. Skinny ankles and clunky shoes don't cut it. A few years ago, when all these slides, mules and shoes without backs arrived, shoes that would fall off your (my) feet at the drop of a hat, I regretfully bowed out of the "fashion" shoe. This was not such a big deal as it would have been in days of yore, because I slave away in a "business casual" office and oxfords and flat shoes look good with slacks and a jacket. Sitting in the home office writing this blog I am barefoot. Low pumps carry me down Huntingon Avenue to Symphony Hall from the Pru Parking Garage and to the occasional fancy restaurant.

A few years ago I found a shoe brand so comfortable it was like slipping my foot into a houseshoe. Enzo Angiolini. Cheap, too. O.K., inexpensive. Now everyone has a different idea of cheap. Since my foot has always been difficult, cheap is anything under $80.0o. Enzo makes nice flats to wear to work or to stroll down Newberry Street. A week ago the New York Times carried a Bloomie's ad for some really cool Enzo sandals: white and gold and bronze. I fell in love, envisioning a easeful sandal, both affordable and stylish.

Yesterday, Significant Other and I trekked up Route 9 to Chestnut Hill Shopping Center, in Newton, one of the glitzier malls in the area. The Enzo store didn't have the shoes in yet, this being Boston and not NY, so we hied ourselves over to the shoe department at Bloomies. What can one say about Chestnut Hill Bloomies? A little bit of Manhattan price and style deposited in one of the thirteen villiages of Newton. I declare 2005 a good shoe year, with lots of footwear without an open heel for your foot to fall out of or twist and break your ankle.

I confess I haven't bought department store shoes for a while. Let's just stay that yesterday I suffered sticker shock. The cute little numbers, casual shoes that one would be tired of after a couple summers, colorful things to window shop in the Hamptons, cost anywhere from $250.00 to $450.00. What happened to shoe prices while I was off writing books? What formerly cost $195.00 is now $300.00. So 2005 is a good shoe year if you have a fat bank account and loads of discretionary income. For me, it's back to DSW shoe warehouse and the end of summer sales at the Wrentham Mall.

I did buy the Enzo's. They were 15% off, and soooo comfortable. I'll be the lady in the gold sandals with a smug smile.

The Road Ahead. . . from Reno to Gerlach under the big sky.  

Cheap Healthy but not naked Lunch

Grab a package of pita pockets- the whole wheat if you can stand the over-sweetening. I buy the regular without the extra sugar. Procure a container of hummus. I like red pepper or vegetable or (woof!) garlic.

Chop up some scallions, red pepper, olives, cucumber, tomatoes, either feta or Armenian string cheese and moisten with oil and vinegar salad dressing. When lunchtime rolls around, split the pita pocket and smear some hummus inside each half. Pack the veggies into the pocket and make sure you have plenty of napkins. Use your favorite veggies if you don't like mine. Green beans, celery and carrots are cool. Parsley is good. Any herbs. A little fresh mint would be dynamite.

Eat a piece of fruit for dessert. Then enjoy your favorite cookie. Life is good. You aren't one of those guys who eats a burger and fries every noon are you? For shame.

Are you one of those guys
Who eats a burger and fries?
Who forever balks at the salad bar ?
And never walks but drives the car?
Scarfs down two hotdogs every noon?
Alas, you're going to die too soon.

Hmmm. I'm a poet and don't know it. Obviously with less then nothing to say tonight. I'd do most anything but write. Blogging is blathering. The novel is hard work. And no agents have come to call.
aloha

Grapeshot

The blogger spell checker really needs a makeover. It suggested gravesite for grapeshot. omigod.

The Red Fox, the Lavender Room and the Purple Hyacinths

Every morning I drive by a lake and see the sun rising over the water. The first glimpse of this daily sight sets my mind loose and some of my best writing thoughts bubble to the service as my car hugs the curving shoreline. Today, I remembered why the woman in the chorus seemed so familiar.

Last Friday night we were in the audience for a thrilling performance of Brahm's Requiem performed by the Handel & Haydn orchestra with a 50 member chorus and two soloists. Big orchestra with even a Serpent. Bet you've never heard a brass serpent make music. I had two hours to look at the chorus, and most of the singers reminded me of someone. Classical music frees up by mind as good as a drive by the lake.

One of the singers looked like a woman I noticed a few years ago having breakfast at Henrietta's Table in Cambridge, MA. She was young with short hair and no particular style, good or bad, at a table with 3 or 4 others. She had obviously ordered the "healthy breakfast," and for a long 40 minutes she took tiny bites of a bran muffin and a humongous bunch of purple grapes. One at a time grape by grape and crumb by crumb. Well, it sure didn't look like anything one would want to gobble down. I felt condescension and pity that anyone was so constrained as to order such fodder to while away a pleasant occasion when all around her were eating something tasty. She'll outlive us by a week.

Today, still driving by the lake, I thought about the year I graduated from high school. Two days after graduation, my folks moved to Denver, the far far edge of Denver into a development where all the houses were basically the same. My mom like to watch The Price is Right. Whenever I walked through the living room (back then the only room with a television) I would yell "freeze!" much to her annoyance. For the first time I was allowed to pick the color of my room and chose a soft pale lavender that looked great with my first modern art, a Raoul Duffy print. My mother, whose choice of paint for any room was always beige or white, burst into tears when she saw my room. I loved it. I read the Molly Bloom soliloquy from Ulysses in that room.

Today at noon I took a walk, and where I work the only place to walk is a) the parking lot and around the building by the loading and unloading docks and where the empty trucks are parked and b) the industrial park next door. Last spring, I saw a fox sunning herself at the edge of the Industrial Park parking lot. She wasn't shy at all, just scratched herself and looked at me. A week or so later, there was a dead fox, hit by a car, along the road and I just knew it was my fox. I never saw her again. Ttoday, on my walk, I looked for her again. No fox.

There was so much trash and refuse along the route that I wanted to weep. Every yucky kind of plastic, paper, metal. Nowhere to rest one's eye without seeing garbage. Yesterday I noticed the snow drops blooming in a particularly icky area. I keep meaning to take a trowel and a plastic bag to work and rescue them. Never have.

Just when I was beside myself at the sight of so much dreck, I rounded a corner and there, in the sandy soil, someone had planted a little circle of hyacinths, which were about to burst into bloom. It was such a pleasant shock. Then I noticed a bush with tiny leaves and even some trees budding out.

I thought about addressing a letter to all the offices in the area.

Dear Mr. Office Park Resident:
Kindly send someone out with a big contractor bag to pick up all the disgusting crap and garbage on your property. It looks like the worst kind of slum and is ruining my noonday walk.

What to you think? Should I? Or just suck it up and get on with the walking? Always some dilemma. Always.

Grapeshot

Spring Peepers

The frog chorus, a cacophony of white noice in tiny frog voices, sings from the slough behind the house. Said slough had a duck parade yesterday, the first time I've seen ducks on the water, which is usually a turbid mucky affair, but due to spring runoff is now flowing and fresh. The spring peepers really make a racket, but a nice one.

Every day or so now, I make an inspection tour of the yard. Casualties (suspected) from the winter: the bleeding heart that I've been growing for years hasn't popped out of the ground. My mother's variegated leaf iris is also among the missing, as are the dwarf iris. I knew last summer that I had planted the iris in a too wet spot where the sprinkler comes on all the time. So sad to lose my mother's plant. I carried it from Illinois to Boston and it survived all but this move. One does get attached to plants, somehow. The wild ginger made it thru the winter. Not sure about the red lily. It might be too early to mourn some of the missing. I have a Christmas cactus that my mother-in-law gave me when we moved into our first house. It did not like the move here, but finally, this Christmas, grudgingly produced one bloom, and then a plethora or red blossoms. The jade plant that I grew from a one leaf cutting also barely survived the move to this house, but is strong and healthy again. I have to confess that I do talk to them.

At work , my windowsill is full of inherited plants from people who left. I look must like a person who will take your plants, water them and love them. A sad cactus I inherited a year ago has produced an usual bloom out of a big long shoot that appeared out of the center. Like when my sansevaria bloomed in our dark library out of the blue one season.

We have wrens, cardinals, crows building a nest, lots of robins and a peewee. The birds of winter are less active, either gone or nesting already. It's been warm this week and walking is a pleasure instead of a painful duty. The cows galloped toward me, mooing and bleating today. They know I have treats. Lots of parsley and a wonderfully big orange peel. They have green grass now, but still enjoy a treat. It's really cool to have five cows come running to see me.

Sunset at the springs, August.  

The Black Rock City Airport as the first light of dawn hits the mountains.  

Work is the Curse of the Drinking Class

Now that I have your attention. . . . my old Dell has been acting up this week, always an irksome, paranoid-making situation. Significant Other is giving me his PC once he gets his new MAC working online with the cable modem and the airport whatchemacallit. There is a critical path here somewhere, and it's kind of complicated and not by any means the primose path.

Monday morning, the last day of my on-call month, the dreaded beeper sounded at 5:30 a.m. Wouldn't have been so bad but we just set the clock ahead one hour. Someone I like had screwed something up, and my PC was barfing so I hustled into work without growling too much. Hustled in early today, too, in a not very succesful attempt to get a jump on the day. Today was hard because of being out carousing last night with some of the local writers. Not good to carouse on a Tuesday. Tomorrow I hustle in for the new credit card processing. Many years ago, when the company I worked for put in a new payroll system, I spent the night at work with the payroll manager, and she admitted, "I've never spent all night in the office before." Been there. Done that. Did that a lot for the Y2K testing. What a nightmare that was.

In between work gigs, I've been doing a lot of research for my new book. One of the characters flies an Ultralight, and I've been reading about those flying machines. Sounds like fun. Something else that maybe sounds not so much like fun but like bizarro is a fund raising effort to raise money for the Black Rock City (Burning Man) post office. I am quoting and I kid you not:

Get a Mile High With Your Lover! The Black Rock Travel Agency, the official FBO at Black Rock City Airport and infamous leader in the BM Aviation Community, has been gracious enough to donate to the Black Rock City Post Office a few chances to actually join the Mile High Club ! Scenic & Erotic Flights are being offered over Portland, San Francisco/San Jose Area, and the main event itself, Burning Man 2005. Don't miss this chance to help support the BRCPO and to tell your friends that you "did it" while circling The Man or enjoying the beautiful scenery in your hometown. Indoor & Outdoor photography is encouraged and all landings are "Clothing Optional". These incredible flights will be raffled off on May 28th. The last day to buy ticket(s) will be May 27th. The Portland & Bay Area flights are 2 hrs long so there's plenty of time for "everything". The Playa flight is approx 50 mins long, since everyone at Burning Man is already in a perpetual state of arousal and circling The Man for extended periods has been known to cause irreversible Nirvana. Tickets are only $10 dollars each and can be purchased via PayPal www.paypal.com

I wonder what "irreversible Nirvana" would be like. Surely different that going in to work early to check out the credit card processing. Very different. Now you know why it's so much fun to write about Burning Man.

Grapeshot

The backyard on Dogwood St. in Gerlach. In summer, a great garden will appear and the fruit trees will bear. Gerlach is at the End of The Road.  

Rainy Saturday

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen today making lamb shanks, except when all was said and done they were definitely mutton shanks. Old mutton shanks, actually. That sounds like a nickname, doesn't it? Old Mutton Shanks. Let's just say that it was a dish that made it easy to leave the table a little hungry. Thought about complaining to the grocery store, but for various reasons, I won't. I don't have very many culinary disasters.

The worse ever was a gumbo. The recipe was in the Chicago Sunday Tribune years ago. It called for gumbo file powder, Smithfield ham, shrimp, tomatos, peppers, all kinds of good stuff. We couldn't eat it. I have never made anything that tasted that bad. Put it outside for the critters. The raccoon turned up her nose. The possum finally gave in and gobbled it down. After all it was midwinter and a possum will eat carrion, which is what my gumbo tasted like. That possum also eschewed brussels sprouts. I don't use words like "eschewed" in my novels. You can say anything in a blog.

Since I am on a Proust kick, we rented Swan In Love and watched it this evening. Jeremy Irons as Swan, with Alain Delon (god was he cute) as Baron Charlus. A pretty fair adaptation, except the language didn't sound right. All those long sentences broken into conversation, I guess. Music was a bit off, too. There were a few nice touches, like the coachman swigging from a flask while waiting for Swan. The love affair of Swan and Odette is captured in a musical phrase, "le petit phrase" by Vinteiul, one of Proust's characters, a composer. Scholars, or at least Proust's biographer, belive the phrase was actually inspired by a Saint-Saens sonata. After watching the movie, I found myself searching the web for Saint-Saens Sonata in D Minor for Violin and Piano, Opus 75. It is possible to find absolutely anything on the web, right? Guess what? Except for sheet music, the only recording I could find of the Saint-Saens sonata was used for $39.95. I don't think so. I listened to a bit of it online, but what I like to do is pop the CD into the player in my car and play the piece about 50 times. Really get it into my head. Won't be doing that with "Vinteuil's Sonata."

Tomorrow is cow-feeding day. I have all the vegetable scraps and a dozen wilted tulips. And some cheap bread, which we save for bovine dessert. Maybe the rain will stop. My god the rain. We are going to have May flowers in abundance! Green things are peeking out of the ground: the garlic chives, the chives, and the sedum. But its cold and wet and dreary. When is my spring coming? Winter was definitely a suck it up season. Waiting, waiting, always waiting for spring. The cats know the season is changing. They sniff the air when we open the windows and are very interested in what's going on outdoors. I am sick of the dark drab heavy wool clothes staring at me from the closet every morning. I want pink and green and silk and linen. Sandals! And a straw hat. Spring, where are you?

New England Crime Bake Seeks Mystery Short Stories

If you are a New England Mystery Writer or have a short story set in New England, do think about entering your story in the contest honoring Al Blanchard. Details below:

In memory of Al Blanchard, co-chair of the first three New England Crime Bake Conferences, NEMWA President, and member of Sisters in Crime; the New England Crime Bake Committee is sponsoring the Al Blanchard Award. The prize: $100 plus publication in Level Best Books' third anthology of Crime Fiction.
GUIDELINES The Story:
Story must be a crime story by a New England author or with a New England setting.
Story must be previously unpublished (in print or electronically).
Story must not be more than 5,000 words in length.
Story may include the following genres: mystery, thriller, suspense, caper, and horror. (No torture/killing of children or animals.) The Submission:
Send your submission to crimebake@aol.com
Type "Al Blanchard Award" in subject line. (Without it, attachments will not be opened).
Include your name, address, phone number, and e-mail address, as well as your story title and word count in the main body of your e-mail.
Send your story as an attachment in Word format, double-spaced.
We will promptly acknowledge the receipt of your submission. The attachment will be coded to insure anonymity and be sent on to the judges. Therefore, your name should not appear anywhere in the attachment.
There is no entry fee.
Deadline for submission is May 31, 2005.

The Man Burns

From my novel in progress: The Tipping Point

Setup: the narrator goes to the Burn on Saturday night.

The boat carried us out of Black Rock City and moved across the playa always avoiding the people, bicycles, and mutant vehicles that converged on the fixed point of the statue. In a perfect state of inebriation, I had arrived on a strange but friendly planet of flat alkali desert surrounded by dark mountains. The desert dwellers came to this place and formed an immense circle around the god of fire, who had assumed the mythic shape of a man, glowing over the desert in blue neon. Dancers twirling hypnotic flames spun around the statue while ships and dragons and animals belched propane-fueled fire. Weird and wonderful shapes descended from the sky, lit by a yellow moon that crept above the mountains. The fire dancers swirled like dervishes, and drums throbbed in the eerie light where glow sticks burned like neon candles. With sated senses, I was conscious of each detail of this carnival night with its colors, sounds, tastes, smells and absolute anticipation. The dancers spun in their circles of fire, and the drums pounded to a crescendo. Alone, the man loomed over the desert, canopied by thousands of twinkling stars.
The ritual began with shooting rockets and fireworks illuminating the man, then a blaze of fire and a magic conflagration roared to life in a burst of heat and flames. The inferno raced up one of the man’s legs and consumed him even as one triumphant arm remained raised, as in defiance. Everyone was yelling and shouting and music thumped out of a hundred speakers. In an eruption of galactic grandeur, the man was burning bright. The man was burning.