Look What I Found At House Of Blues...

We were staying at Myrtle Beach a couple weeks ago and we always have to go down to House of Blues for their Gospel brunch Sunday morning (something I highly recommend ).

Anyways, my friend Becky was with us and she'd never been, so we were walking around exploring the place (something else I highly recommend) and we found this piece of art. I thought you all would appreciate it.

-'gina

Shape Note and Sacred Harp Singing

Couple of folks have asked about Jesse singing Sacred Harp songs in the cave, wanting to know what that meant.  Sacred Harp music, a type of "shape note" singing, was and is a distinctly Southern kind of 

a cappella group singing. It was not done for performance in front of an audience, but instead was done for the sheer joy of of it.

Have a look at some of these links, they show some good examples of what the "sings" that Lily dragged her reluctant brother to might have sounded like, and what type of songs might have been sung.

 Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - Present Joys

Northern Harmony Shape Note

Sacred Harp 189: Montgomery

This last one is a trailer for an indie film that I must see. Like now. I didn't know about this, I stumbled on it looking for good links on You Tube. Time to check and see if it's on Roku. You can actually see glimpses of the "shape note" music sheets used in the singing on this trailer. 

"Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp" Movie Trailer

In case you're wondering, Jesse is a baritone. There's no baritone section in Sacred Harp, so he'd probably sing with the tenors.  In the scene in chapter 141, where he's singing "fa so la" is probably how he'd warm up and practice his pitch.

 

Help Me Out Here

Howdy, all. I have to send Diego some specs for the cover to the second book.*  I am thinking this book should have Wash, Jesse, Tommy, Luis, and Rosie on it.  It has been my experience that every now and then you all send me the name of someone and say "This person would make an excellent so-and-so." And I'm usually left openmouthed and saying "where were you when I was sending stuff to Diego?"

So, here's your big chance. I'm not going to completely re-tool the characters, as I'm pretty happy with his take on them. However, some of these characters I really did have a tough time coming up with models for. For instance, none of the models I used for Wash were particularly Irish. And as you can see from the first cover, the paintings Diego does are pretty detailed. So I'd like to beef up some of the model examples I send him.

I'm not particularly good at this, being sort of clueless when it comes to pop culture and such. So it's hard for me to come up with faces for Diego to use as models. 

Any suggestions? I could really use them. Let's make a sort of game out of it. Who would you cast for "Five Dollar Mail: The Movie"? They do not have to be current or even alive. I'm looking for pictures to send and artist. Their current box office draw is irrelevant. (We had a party once, drank too many mojitos, and proceeded to cast ourselves in a movie. It was fun. And sad. Man, are our egos out of control. )

*I may have mentioned elsewhere on the site that I'll be putting out a second book right on the heels of the first. So, to bring you all up to speed, I have way too much content for just one book. It would be cumbersome and cost prohibitive to do it all in one big toe stubber. So to keep production costs down (and ultimately reader costs), we're going to do two cheaper books. Evidently, if you go over a certain page count, things start getting disproportionately more expensive. So we're planning on timing it in such a way that we can divvy it up into two sections of roughly a hundred chapters each. There's already talk of doing a third right after that, to tie it up into a nice neat trilogy. And I'm not going to tell you who will be on the cover of that one.

Anyways, have a good week. See you Friday.

Nanna

My mother’s mother, Vivian Rose Fazzone Jones, passed away from Alzheimer’s on Saturday morning. She was ninety. Nanna was a huge part of my life. I was lucky enough to live my entire life in the same town she lived in. Back when I was a kid, we all lived in New Jersey. She and her “handsome husband”, my Poppy, gave my parents some of their land here in South Carolina to build a house on, and that is why my family and I live here in South Carolina.

I will continue to miss her. I’ve been missing her for a very, very long time. Some you love loses themselves to Alzheimer’s, you spend your time in this weird, angry twilight of mourning that goes on for years. So I’m glad her suffering is over. But I am not glad she is gone. And I’m not glad she and all the rest of us got so profoundly cheated.

It’s just been kind of a rough year and I’m rambling. I guess I was not as ready for all this as I thought I was.

My Nanna was creative and fun, and she was an amazing cook. She loved us children, and she helped raise my sister and I. I would not be the same person had she not been in my life. And I thank her for the gift of herself, not just to me but for the entire family.

She was the last survivor of an enormous Italian family, and she was never quite the same after her beloved husband passed away. How happy she must have been to see them all again, and I have no doubt that she is with them all now. My cousin had a dream Friday night, before he knew anything was up, that all her family was sitting together, waiting for something. Sometimes the veil is thin and you can see through it a little.

My six year old said she knew Nanna was nearby. She said she could smell her. I believe her. That sweet essence will always be part of our lives.

Nanna, I love you. I won’t forget. And I know you won’t, either.

Kendall's Fight

Hi, all

A friend of ours has been diagnosed with cervical cancer. She has also found out the hard way that her insurance does not cover her treatment, which is insane. This is a young woman with children. My husband and hers built a website to chronicle her recovery and raise funds. Please consider visiting her site and keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Thanks,
gina

Ask Wash Updated Today

I have to tinker with this to see if I can get the pages to refresh in a reader. Anyways, if you're following this in a reader, there is a new Ask Wash today.

Have a good one. See you Friday!

-Gina

Ask Wash On Irregular Schedule For Now

But the regular posts will continue as scheduled on Fridays.

Right now, I have a lot going on doing re-writes and edits as I prep this thing for print and for Kindle. I'm writing some extra stuff, wrangling new exclusive artwork, and editing what's already written.

I'm having a hard time spinning all those plates. Plus, I don't have a question for this week. Please feel free to send questions in. I'm not halting the column. I'm just not going to sweat it if it misses a week or two for a while.

See you on Friday. :-)

-gina