Category: The Big Rewind
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So It Appears That I’m Living the Dream
Binghamton, 2006. I’m 23, living in a fire-trap basement apartment in the ghetto. I’m that kind of art-poverty broke where I live on black coffee and scrambled eggs and dinner is paid on for on a rotating basis between whichever one of us got paid that week. I’m not sure what I’m going to do…
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Ahead By a Century
I discovered the Tragically Hip in 2005, when I was working at a tiny sandwich shop in Cobleskill. The owner, who’s name I have long forgotten, would put on In Between Evolution. It was magic. It was like love. I asked her to burn me a copy, because I was so poor from the lousy wages…
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Tear Down To The Bones
When I was a teenager, I LOVED buying thrift-store clothes and altering them. (Like everything I did, I did this before it was cool. What can I say? I’m a trend-setter). I was a teen in the age on JNCOs and pointy-toe stiletto boots, and a goth girl, to boot. I had to make due…
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New Notebook: Arche/SuperCola
Time for a new notebook! I can’t believe how fast I went through Lucca. This new WIP (working title: The Lords of Yesterday) has me scrawling scenes even more than I did in the early days of The Big Rewind. It’s a much different book for me, so I’m letting myself play with POV and scene variation,…
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True Confessions: Billy Joel Edition
I’ve had more than one person confront me on my deep loathing of Billy Joel since the publication of The Big Rewind and a series of tweets decrying the fact that “Only The Good Die Young” is a serious neg and terrible song in it’s own right. But I value you, dear readers, and so I…
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Mix Tape Monday: Worst Song On A Mix?
Welcome back to Mix Tape Monday, the blog series that doesn’t care that no one owns a boombox anymore. Last week, while setting my radio alarm, I heard Billy Joel’s “Only The Good Die Young.” And it suddenly occurred to me EXACTLY how much of a dick Billy Joel was being to this girl. Virginia…
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Pen in Hand
I carried two bags to school every day. One was my backpack, which was adorned with keychains and patches because it was 2000 and that’s what we did back then, and the other was this awesome white leather messenger bag, the coolness factor of which can never be replicated. In this messenger bag was everything…
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Mix Tape Monday: The Apology Mix
There’s a lot more to making a mix than just throwing a bunch of songs onto a Spotify playlist or a CD. It’s about creating a mood or emphasizing an emotion, playing to a theme or singing what you can’t speak aloud. You don’t make someone a mix unless they’re really important. So I have a…
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What The Heck Is #RecordSaturday?
I love sharing music with people. It compliments both my generous and my bossy nature (“Seriously, you’ll like this Steely Dan song, I swear….”) and for years, it’s what propelled my love of making mix tapes. To be able to give someone a song that reminds you of them is a profound gesture, a portable party,…
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….And Introducing Valerie
Valerie is my good luck charm. She has been at every reading I’ve ever given; either in my pocket or on the podium right next to me. If I’m in a play, I carry her onstage in my purse. She was with me when I walked across the stage to collect my MFA, tied into…
Libby Cudmore 