Every year, I write a little newsletter to send to family and friends. (It started out as a Christmas letter and morphed into a New Year’s letter as December became busier and more stressed.) I take it as a writing assignment with a deadline–the middle of January–and try to make it entertaining, informative, and brief. If I don’t have your snail mail or email address but you want to read it, anyway, it can be found here:
Square Pig in a Round Hole-January 13, 2018
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
New readers (or even regular readers) of this blog might be wondering why a fantasy novelist is writing about band names. I blame my spouse. He started keeping a music-listening journal way back in 1985 or so. In 2010, he started a blog, Now Music in New Albion, to share his responses to what he was listening to, and suggested that I, at that time an unpublished writer, should start one, too. But about what? The world didn’t need another writing blog, and I didn’t feel like forcing myself to come up with new topics all the time. But every Friday, I would read through the club listings in the newspaper and share the ones that caught my interest. “Why not blog about that?” he said. My assignment to myself: pick five a week and briefly explain why I like them or respond to them in some other way. Square Pig in a Round Hole was born. It seemed completely unrelated to my other writing until September 2013, when I saw a sign for a storage place with a burned-out O. St Rage sounded like a band name to me. Over the next couple of years, I wrote a novel about them. The Gospel According to St Rage was published in 2016 and now I’m writing a sequel. And the blog continues unabated for the foreseeable future. Thanks to all the bands for their continued inspiration. Who made the list this week?
This is either a cozy image of an animal snuggled down in its den for the winter; or a pit of horrors into which one is thrown by one’s nemesis. (To my delight, I find they were previously honored under an earlier name, Garlic Man and Chikn.)
Change one sound and an animal-rights slogan becomes an equation of non-violence with violence. All in lower case, it even looks meek; the better to take us off guard?
This one has a tidy structure of binary opposites sandwiched between binary opposites. It implies being on top but not by much.
The Quadrophenia idea comes full circle. Music is good for your mental health.
Is this the good part of town, or is it that special Hell one hears tell of?
Review: Little Red is Coming Home
Little Red is Coming Home: A Collection of Almost Fairy Tales by Angelika Rust
First things first: I received a copy of this book from the author and this collection of almost-fairy tales is NOT FOR CHILDREN.
Angelika Rust was the first indie author to prove to me that selfpub could be done extremely well, so I’m always happy to read her latest. This clever, charming, and compact collection does not disappoint. Although all the stories are based on Little Red Riding Hood, each one has its own voice and style as it plays with some twist on the theme of a girl in red headgear taking cake and wine to her grandmother and meeting a wolf. “Tradition” is a comic action-adventure in which the characters are forced by family tradition (or the story itself) to go through the same ridiculous acts over and over until one of them breaks out. “Rich Little Bitch” takes laughably awful characters for a humorous erotic spin. “A Cautionary Tale” is exactly as labeled. “Another Body” purports to be about a monster, but who is it, really? “Never Too Old” casts Red as the monster; or as a supernaturally powerful protector of the innocent. “Little Red Queen” has the flavor of ancient saga with roots in human savagery. “The Other Leg” inserts the mythic into a contemporary domestic almost-comedy. “There Were Roses” brings real magic into play as a deceased grandmother comes to the aid of the Duke’s daughter. “Let Them Eat Cake” forges redemption out of malice.
These stories do not answer the inciting question of what would have happened if Red had simply shared her cake (or “basket of goodies,” as it was told to me) with the wolf. Each one raises its own questions and is satisfying on its own or in conversation with the others. The whole collection can be read in an hour or two, or each story read and savored on its own. Either way, this is a worthy addition to the library of any reader who enjoys a grown-up take on a childhood classic.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-January 6, 2018
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
Happy New Year and an enlightened Epiphany to all! Bands continue to feed me excellent writing prompts, so I expect to be here sharing them for the duration. 2018 begins with these lovelies:
The tadpoles and crawdads have the biggest eyes!
Maybe not the time of year to be saying this; it’s only started creeping back! Wait till August.
The writer’s best friend.
That time it rained so hard, you were pouring fish out of your footwear.
Diagnosis: you (are) matter. (I didn’t know the song but I love it as a name for a Black Sabbath tribute band.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 31, 2017
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
It’s another New Year’s Eve! Although I might not make it all the way to midnight, even I am going out tonight. As we stumble toward the finish line of another year, I want to thank my tens of readers for joining the celebration of band names, and especially thank the bands for continuing to come up with names worth celebrating. In a stressful year like this one, we need all the little joys we can get. Let’s close it out with these gems:
I feel better knowing benevolent ETs are looking out for us, don’t you?
Food of choice for anemic whales.
Designing and fabricating their own entertainment. Maybe from mushrooms.
It’s a big party night! Have fun, but go easy on the cheap bubbly.
Cry me a tsunami.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 23, 2017
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
Christmas, Winter Solstice, and Star Wars all teach the same thing: darkness will not overcome the light. To quote Rose in The Last Jedi, “It’s not always about fighting what you hate; it’s about saving what you love.” Music is always part of that. May we continue to sing out, and to name our bands as well as these:
The storytellers will rise at last.
Just us cave people out for a directionless stroll.
Answer to “When can we hang our stockings?” We’ll open presents the day after that.
When it’s so quiet, your own thoughts are deafening.
Structural legumes: no amount of soaking will soften them enough to eat, but they do hold their shape.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 16, 2017
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
At this dark time of year, the light of creativity is a gift. There was a lot to be found in the club listings this week; these five shone brightest:
A thrilling and dangerous romance.
Classic X and the Y structure in perfect balance.
It’s a lot less threatening spelled this way.
Cleanup? Meltdown? Fight? Breakneck romance? The setting is provided. Imagine the story.
For that time of month when you’re dead.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 9, 2017
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
It’s a cold and sunny day in Seattle, now that the fog has burned off. Enjoy it while you can; it’ll be dark before you know it! And yet hours to go before the music starts. While you wait, consider these fine band names:
A ready answer to any question that begins “How do I . . .?”
As a grammar/punctuation nerd of long standing, I can’t pass this one up. When the struggle with how to punctuate a series causes the brain to shut down. (Would like to see them on a bill with past honoree Iffy Comma, also playing this week.)
I like the near rhyme of seeming opposites. There is beauty in the unscrubbed. (Would like to see them on a bill with past honoree Grubby Sweetheart, also playing this week.)
It isn’t really the season for sundresses or to be dressed in nothing but sunlight or to eat plain salad on the patio, but I did see someone this morning walking barefoot around Green Lake.
A fun science experiment that by happy chance alliterates. It also sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon about a team of candy-colored violinists with uncanny powers.
Square Pig in a Round Hole-December 2, 2017
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
At last, it is no longer too early for Christmas music and holiday decorations. If you’re already stressing about gifts, don’t. Get everybody music by your favorite local bands or books by your favorite local authors. And if you need a suggestion, I’m not above recommending my own garage-rock fairy tale, The Gospel According to St Rage. Now that’s out of the way, we can get on with the celebration of band names!
An abbreviation turns into a redundancy turns into a prayer. These best friends are emphatically BEST.
Either the slowest spaceship, or Skywalker’s daycare nickname, before he could walk.
A beautiful, impossible dream born of camping in the piney woods where the wind in the trees sounds like the ocean’s roar.
A View of the Earth from the Moon
When you need perspective. (I have a personal fondness for extra-long band names, especially when they reference an image I have loved for most of my life.)
AKA the beach on Amity Island on the 4th of July. (Actually a region of the Pacific, but whatever. Apparently even sharks need a place to hang out and work on their novels.)
Square Pig in a Round Hole-November 25, 2017
Naming a band is an act of concentrated creative expression. Square Pig in a Round Hole exists to reward five favorite band names each week. Winners are (usually) listed alphabetically.
Selection is wholly unscientific and subject to whim, with a bias toward wordplay, humor, and local flavor. In most cases, I won’t know anything about the bands at the time of selection. Thanks to the Seattle Times club listings for abundant source material!
If you’re over your food coma and down from your shopping binge, let’s get back to the business of celebrating bands and their names. There’s still lots of weekend in which to enjoy some live music!
Endearing either as baby talk or backing vocals.
At the dark end of the year, remember to treasure those sun breaks.
Fun and energetic, and maybe a little bit dangerous. I dare you to come up with a more fitting name for an ’80s hair-rock tribute band.
I love that the wish is not to be IN a punk band, but to BE a punk band. That would certainly simplify rehearsal scheduling.
Odyssian Monday
Some weeks are like that: you get back to work, take one look at your inbox, and assume it will be ten years before you see your home again. (I can’t find any online presence for a band of this name, so it’s possible this was an error in the club listings and they actually meant Odyssian.)
Karen Eisenbrey 