» 2006 » April Peripatetic

I started to write a long-winded rant about what a crappy week at work I’ve had, but then (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) the laptop ate the post, and it’s really not worth reconstructing, because honestly, what’s more boring than people complaining about work? The point of it, anyway, was not so much to just bitch as it was to fret that because of various bits of nonsense that I had to handle this week (which were nobody’s fault, including mine; just the fault of the way my company is structured, which might be the most negative thing I’ve ever said about them/us), I’m now in danger of a) not doing as good a job on my current big project as I hope to do, and b) more damningly, running late on that same project. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t fuss too much about being behind schedule; I’ve worked at enough jobs where there were no significant consequences for missing deadlines that I’ve become far too cavalier about making them. But in this job, if I’m off schedule, that messes things up for a whole chain of other people, sometimes at great and wasted expense…and I really, really hate it when my screwups create problems for other people.

All this ties into my previously mentioned ongoing crisis of confidence about my ability to be good at my new career. (I mentioned this in passing to a friend a week or so ago, and for some reason it prompted chuckles and mutterings behind my back and at my expense; I’m still a little miffed about that.) It also ties in to the several odd dreams (okay, the second most boring thing in the world, after people complaining about work, is people telling you their dreams, but this will just be a sentence, I promise) that I’ve had recently about Minneapolis. Something is calling me back there, I think…not sure what yet, but as I’ve said in the past, in some ways, it’s the last place that I truly felt at home.*

I’ve been idly glancing at the Mpls./St. Paul Craigslist for rental apartments lately, and toward the end of the workday today, I looked at my old employer’s Website (not Twin\Tone, God knows—the job after that) and fleetingly considered writing to the two people who are still there to whom I am closest and saying, “I’ve had enough; I want to come back.” The scary (if somehow comforting) thing is that I probably could go back there; it would take some persuading and pleading, and a big pay cut, but it could probably be done. And here’s the thing: no crises of confidence would ensue, because if there’s one vocation I’ve been good at in my life, it’s being a children’s book editor. This is probably just me being a brat; I’ve always tended to duck out of things that don’t come easily to me, and it would be useful for me to remind myself that I’m still very new at a career that isn’t easy to master, one where you can’t just take a couple of classes in and immediately master; I need to stick with it before I can accurately determine whether or not I suck at it. One reason I refuse to give up on knitting—a skill that does not come especially easily to me, as I am arguably the least craft-ish person in the known universe—is precisely to combat that tendency to walk away from things that I can’t immediately master. It’s different, though, when it’s your livelihood, and your avocation (of sorts), on the line; that’s why it’s tempting to contemplate going back to children’s book editing, at which I am quite literally a seasoned pro.

But you can’t really go back, can you? and it would be pretty silly to waste my MLS—still the thing I’m proudest of in the whole world—to leave the library-related professions entirely.

Wouldn’t it?

I don’t know. I don’t know if I have the energy to venture any farther down this path of contemplation tonight; I think instead I’ll go and put some stuff on my iPod that’s been embarrassingly missing for way too long. And soon I hope to write about some especially exciting new music: the debut album by Dirty Pretty Things, the new band formed by Carl Barat, the non-drug-addicted, non-Kate-Moss-dating ex-Libertine of whom I am a massive fan. It’s due out in the UK in early May, and I’ve already pre-ordered it. Plus, my copy of “It’s Art, Dad,” the for-fanatics-only early recordings comp by the Clientele, should be on its way to me shortly. And there’s still Scott Miller to write about. But tonight, I’m going to go put “Rattlesnakes” and “Easy Pieces” on the iPod. Those are the only records I own by Lloyd Cole, which is sort of scandalous; someone who knows way more about him than I do (I have a vague idea that that someone might be known as The Krueg) needs to fill me in on the post-Commotions world of Lloyd Cole. I’ve heard, and liked, “Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe,” an early Cole solo record, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. I need to be clued in.

*Sort of. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel utterly, blissfully at home when we moved back to Manhattan and then to Park Slope in 1998; thing was, I didn’t stick around long enough to fully appreciate the feeling of being back at home.

Yeah, I haven’t been around much lately. This is partly because it’s getting increasingly difficult for me to be at the computer when I don’t have to, and partly because I haven’t really had a whole lot to say lately. Apart from an ongoing crisis of confidence about my ability to be any good at all at my job, things have been pretty quiet in my world. I’m not depressed, not at all (although I can sense some weather-induced doldrums coming on, as the forecast for this week has temperatures climbing to the mid-80s in friggin’ April); I’m just not up to much, I guess.

A few things have come up that are worth talking about recently, though. For one, against all recent signs and indications, there is going to be a Twangfest this year. It was a nightmare to book this one, and I don’t even do much booking. (As it turned out, in fact, I didn’t do any booking, though it wasn’t for want of trying.) It’s the tenth year, and we wanted it to be spectacular, or something close. We wanted to bring back some performers from the earliest days of Twangfest, and then also have some totally new and dazzling headliners. A major country artist, say, like Marty Stuart or Dwight Yoakam, or someone totally unexpected but entirely appropriate, like Sharon Jones. But when we started putting out feelers and making inquiries, it was one disappointment after another. One artist who we thought was absolutely locked in got some dates in Europe in June, and we couldn’t even be made at him because we know he makes better money there than he does here. (And because he loves Twangfest, as we love him, and wasn’t trying to shaft us, I hasten to add. He’ll be welcome to play anytime he wants, if there are more Twangfests to play.) Others weren’t touring in June and would have had to be flown in to perform, an expense that our budget couldn’t handle.

In the end, we’ve put together, completely out of our asses, a great lineup that I’m quite excited about, with an array of fine purveyors of American roots-ish music ranging from the Dirtbombs to BR5-49, and much in between. See for yourself in a few days when the lineup is posted on the Twangfest site. And in the end, Twangfest X will be as memorable a musical and social experience as all the other Twangfests have been; I’m completely confident of that. I know the next ten weeks or so will be thoroughly dominated by Twangfest, and I’m looking forward to that (though juggling it with my more than usually heavy workload will be, um, interesting). I’m sort of dead weight when it comes to most of the work that makes Twangfest happen—I don’t really do booking, and I’m even less useful when it comes to finding sponsors, because I am almost pathologically incapable of asking strangers for money. But this is the time of year when I try to sort of make up for my uselessness. I coordinate the Dan Pack (named for our beloved friend and Twangfest supporter Dan Bentele), which allows people to make a small donation to Twangfest and get a good deal on tickets and a t-shirt and poster. (Asking friends and acquaintances for money is apparently easier than asking strangers, I guess.) This year, I’m back to answering the queries that come in to our general e-mail box, which pick up in volume this time of year. I’ll be writing a press release.

And then my favorite part: running the on-site merchandise sales and paying the bands. I love paying the bands, because I’d be too shy to talk to most of them otherwise, but paying them gives me a built-in excuse. (And somehow they always seem to like me. I’m sure the fact that I’m handing them money has nothing to do with it.) Paying the bands means I have to stay sober at the club, which is a good thing, and handling merch means that I get to hide behind a table instead of mingling, so that people won’t quite figure out how truly shy and awkward and tongue-tied and unprepossessing I am. It all works out very well. Twangfest is as social an activitiy as I can imagine, and it’s the sort of thing I’d ordinarily fervently avoid—I’d rather eat dirt than go to SXSW, for example—but somehow when it’s Twangfest, its okay. It’s pretty much the best thing I do all year. It’s almost scary how much of my identity is tied up in being part of the Twanggang, actually. That’s something I prefer not to dwell on too much or too often, though it’s been harder to escape this year because there are questions about the future of Twangfest and about my future with it. More about that if and when it’s appropriate, though.

Anyway, Twangfest fever has officially set in, and that’s cause for a blog post if anything is. There’s more to talk about too—for one thing, the new record by (Twangfest X performer) Scott Miller has been out for several weeks now, and I haven’t even written about it. I’ll save that for next time, along with some other musical commentary.

And double blah, no added g

Blah(g), plus: that thing I do in June