LIFE, IN 500-WORD SLICES

by Rob Lopresti

I have a cold and last night it provided a dramatic soundtrack in the form of a cough that was keeping me and probably my wife awake, so I moved to another room where I have a Barcalounger. This big, ugly chair has the wonderful ability to let me sit/lie in any position that keeps my throat clear and permits me to sleep.

And as I lay there, waiting for blessed slumber to soothe my fevered brow, I naturally thought as follows: Can I get a blog entry out of this?

Because when you have to come up with something to say every week, you start to see the world through blog-colored glasses.

Robert Benchley lamented this about eighty years ago. He complained that decades of writing humorous essays had left him unable to read the newspaper. He couldn’t focus on the big, important articles, racing only to the trivial ones he could turn into bits of profitable fluff.

Listening for songs

One summer at a music camp I took a class from Geof Morgan who was, until he reformed, a successful Nashville songwriter. Geof assigned us to spend the rest of the day listening to other people’s conversations, waiting for the sort of hook you could build a country song around.

Sure, I remember thinking. Someone is just going to happen to shoot out a song hook as I walk by.

A few hours later I heard a woman talking about a friend who lived in LA. “She’s thinking about giving up California,” the woman said. I grabbed my notebook.

She’s thinking about giving up California
And moving someplace farther to the sea
But when she talks about giving up California
I think she’s really giving up on me.

Years later a friend was telling me about her new relationship. She and her significant other were so in sync that they would often think of a tune at the same time and both burst into song. But when they got to the word “love” in the lyrics, they both mumbled.

The first time I heard that story it went right past me, so to speak. But when she told it to someone else in my presence, out came the old notebook:

We walk together, we talk together
We sing to the moon up above
Our voices fly but they mumble and die
Whenever the lyrics say luh luh luh, lah lah lah lah

The question

The subject for today, if you haven’t figured out, is that old chestnut: Where do you get your ideas? Because largely, you get them by telling your brain what you are looking for and letting it do the work without you. By now my brain knows that ideas for blog entries, songs, and short stories are welcome and will be snatched up. Ideas for romance novels, spiffy little cocktail dresses, and sure-fire football plays are not needed and will probably be ignored.

Dave Barry wrote a column once about visiting thriller writer Ridley Pearson. During a trip to the supermarket Pearson stopped by the coffee grinder to figure out how to use it to poison someone. Then, satisfied with the way his brain was plugging away with ideas, he strolled off. But Barry, for some reason, was disturbed.

You’ll notice he got a column out of it, though.

The other question

So. can you get a weekly blog entry out of a night on the Barcalounger?

Of course not.