Point of order #1: in my exhaustive recounting of my illustrious blogging career, I somehow overlooked my most substantive blog, the experiment I launched as a grad school project that brought me the most intellectual satisfaction possibly of my life and made me some wonderful contacts in the world of contemporary young adult fiction, a place where I had a home for some time. I like to think I'm not done with that, not by a sight, but even though I'm on a YA-relevance hiatus, it's breathtaking to me that I could have relegated something so important to me to the mental vault. It's the mother-blog to this one, for crying out loud, its name is the address you type in to get here, which makes almost no sense unless you know that blog's origins. Super strange. But there we are. I loved my avengingsybil alter ego, and she still lurks within.
Point of order #2, and the more important point: today is the official release of my brother's band's CD. This is huge, it's the culmination of years of work and re-tooling and recruiting and starting over and playing around. Lots of fun, of course. It's been his opus, his labor of love. But mostly, when it comes down to it, really hard work. The thing about my brother, and why I really really think he's going to make it as a musician, is that he does the work. Of course he's talented, but talent is nothing without drive and discipline and focus. And at this time in his life, he's got it in spades. He is so inspiring to me, because while I LOVE to talk about the process and the work, making myself actually do the work is where I tend to stall out. He just does the work. We've had amazing discussions, but the difference is that he walks away from our talks and gets down to business. That sets him apart from most of the crowd. Add to it that he's got himself a great band and it's a stellar CD. I say as a music fan with only a slight bias. He deserves to make it in music, not just because he promised to take care of me in my old age, but because he loves it so much, and that is clear. He's always had a creative bent, as a kid he and his best friend wrote volumes of stories just for fun, and they started messing around with songwriting before they knew a single chord. His guitar chops are mostly self-taught, and that blows my mind. In HR's imaginative play, I can see many shades of my brother, and Mike and I are doing our best to nurture it without pushing. If he's meant to follow in his uncle's footsteps, he's got to have the same inner fire.
But back to the OG I was talking about. Here's to this guy, who we always knew was something special. Congratulations, Nick Perry's Brass Tax.
And we get to celebrate all weekend long! Damn I'm in the best mood right now.
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