What's My (Tag)line?

It’s time for the Golden Globes, and in 1962, “What’s My Line” won an award for the best television show. If you don’t remember it, no worries, it’s not the Ambien amnesia setting in; the show stopped airing in 1967.

The panelists had to guess the contestant’s line of work (hence line) through a series of questions. You might enjoy this clip of Frank Lloyd Wright on the show.

Yesterday I played a different kind of What’s My Line. I tried to finalize a tagline of sorts for my novel manuscript. A tagline is a marketing slogan, often used for movies. And while I do have a treatment for a screenplay on file with WGA, this month I’m writing query letters to agents, and I need to succinctly capture the plot of my novel manuscript in a sentence.

Despite posting on Facebook that my resolution for this year is to drive to the beach the first day it’s 70 degrees in Wilmington, a more serious endeavor is working on my novel manuscript every day. It’s amazing how inspiration flows in effortlessly when you commit to fifteen or thirty minutes of imposed concentration a day. And I really prefer moments of inspiration to hours of fretful consternation.

Yesterday my inspiration came to me over lunch. Since I’m reading The Herald-Sun while my neighbor is away for the weekend, I peeked at the newspaper TV listings for the first time in a long time.

Have you ever paid attention to the taglines of movies in the TV listings?

Try these and see if you can name the movie:

"A youth learns that his father is the Greek god Poseidon."

"A giant mutant lizard wreaks havoc in New York."

"A woman probes a power company cover-up over poisoned water."

"A man spends a disastrous weekend with his lover’s family."

I’ll post the names of the movies tomorrow on the blog.

Reading taglines really energized me yesterday. First, I was able to pick up my index card grocery list for Whole Foods and write a sentence about my story: A song takes a woman back to the man she loves. Next, I was able to frame my life past and future by considering what a writer would say the tagline of my life is.

If you’re looking for inspiration on the heels of your resolutions this January, think like a marketing executive and pen your own tagline. Try writing one for your past and go ahead and acknowledge a weakness if you must. But when you write one for your future, write yourself out of your current conflict.

May all your taglines come true!

She's making movies on location/ She don't know what it means/ And the music make her want to be the story/ And the story was whatever was the song--what it was
"Skateaway" Mark Knopfler

Lunacy

For those of you staying awake tonight to watch the total lunar eclipse, here’s some scientific reading I found through a PubMed search about the effects of the moon on humans. In particular, I like the article by the Swiss researchers because they reference a John Lennon song in the title.

This topic of a full moon brings back memories of my first days on labor and delivery as a medical student. The nurse walked us to the blackboard where each patient’s name was written along with facts like the estimated date of confinement (the lingo is telling my age) and the number of centimeters of, well, never mind that detail. Anyway, the nurse explained that when the moon is full, the board fills up with patients.

My mother-in-law once told me that the phase of the moon at the time of your birth influences your personality, and if you’re into that kind of introspection, here’s more reading for you. Unless you already know the phase of the moon on your date of birth, you may need a chart like this one.

My lunacy impacts two areas of my life: writing and sleeping. Where the pen’s concerned, I’ve noted it’s difficult for me to write fiction unless there’s a waxing gibbous moon. I have trouble sleeping when there’s a full moon, and I relate that to the light that comes in my room despite very thick draperies. When we were students on call for obstetrics, we slept in a room with about ten beds and no windows. The room was called the womb. Since that time I’ve always had trouble sleeping with even the tiniest amount of light. In hotels I put socks and towels over clocks, cell phone chargers and anything else neon that might wake me. Around two o’clock in the morning, I usually wake to find a beam of red or green light somewhere that due vigilance missed.

I’m hoping I won’t be awake for the eclipse tonight. Good night!

And it's a strange lamp that lights the path back into memory/ Showing you not what you have but what you need.
Scrappy Jud Newcomb, "I Think of You"

Blog Writer Plans Hibernation Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Doctoredits via Google account on the comment page for this blog

Blog Writer Plans Hibernation Day

Worthy Tips for Watching Television, Reading Random Stories, and Eating With Little to No Cooking

CARRBORO, North Carolina—December 14, 2010--I am officially hibernating. I last left home at 2:00 p.m. today and don’t have any plans until I fetch someone from the airport at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. And if I play this the right way, and Mother Nature decides to cooperate, I will be able to push that responsibility off onto my husband who’s a more suitable driver on an icy interstate.

Why hibernate? My fridge is stocked. My door is locked and my diamond is hocked? Not really.

I’m hibernating because I don’t like the cold unless it is accompanied by dramatic precipitation and Alpine terrain. I’m seriously living in the wrong country, and there’s nothing like December, January and February to remind me.

I’m hibernating because this is my coldest December on record in Carolina.

And what’s to do? Well, hm. I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps this idea is not fleshed out.

Wait a minute. I could work on my 2010 taxes. I could fill out next year’s financial aid application. I could write query letters for my novel manuscript. I could update my will and spring clean a few months early.

This hibernation needs more thought. I’m already afraid I may squander it fecklessly checking Facebook. Wait! Television might be the answer.

I know, I’ll place a glass of water and a Tupperware of gluten-free banana muffins bedside and stay under the covers all the way through American Morning, my favorite really early morning show. (Have you checked out the acoustic memories they play as they return from commercial breaks? Evidently, Jon Stewart doesn’t like them.) And this just in, John Roberts will not be on American Morning anymore after the month is up. What better justification for watching it past the point of 6:50 a.m. when I normally bail out of bed?

After American Morning I think I’ll walk to my sofa to watch The Holiday for the first time this year and the twentieth time of my life. When that’s over, I can boil some shrimp and green beans for four minutes while my potato absorbs microwaves for eight. Then I’ll take my tray to the sofa to watch last night’s PBS NewsHour minus the commercials. After lunch I can check my e-mail and see what has happened to my shares of GM stock that have a stop order on them.

Then I may have to finish "St. Mawr," the D.H. Lawrence story that Dr. Weldon Thornton recommended to me at a Derby party this year, before starting on Utopia by St. Thomas More (this may seem like a word association, but actually, utopia was the word of the day on WCHL this morning, and Dr. Wayne Pond told us the word originated with St. Thomas More).

Once I’ve tired of reading, I’ll make plans for my husband to cook my dinner when he comes home from the lab.

Individuals seeking ideas for a similar hibernation or needing a sound track for hibernation should contact me via the comments page.

-END-

Permission to reprint: You may reprint any two of the suggestions herein as long as you promise to wake me up when this cold weather is over.

Need an image? Evidently all my blog photos are being placed on Google Images by robots while I sleep. So far, it’s not keeping me up at night, and it probably won’t interrupt my hibernation.


I don’t want to get out of bed/ You don’t want to go out in the snow/ We don’t have to do the things Eskimos do/ Let’s have a hibernation day, me and you.

“Hibernation Day” Jars of Clay

Westboro Baptist Church Needs to Turn, Turn, Turn Away from Elizabeth Edwards' Funeral

Two things are making me sick today: one is a gastrointestinal bug and the other is even crappier. WRAL is reporting that the Westboro Baptist Chuch (based in Kansas) is planning a protest at the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards in Raleigh on Saturday.

These protesters would do well to listen to their acoustic memories, which have evidently short-circuited on the “do unto others” sound track. If that is the case, here is a song, based on Bible verse, for this misguided group.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)/ There is a season (turn, turn, turn)/ And a time to every purpose under heaven/ A time to build up, a time to break down/ A time to dance, a time to mourn/ A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together.

-Pete Seeger, "Turn! Turn! Turn!"

Give us our time to mourn, Westboro! Turn out of Raleigh!

Snow Was Falling Like Moravian Stars

Snow was falling like Moravian stars the day my son suggested we visit Old Salem. When we arrived we crossed a covered bridge and stepped back in time.  The bridge transported us to the eighteenth century.


The Moravians settled in North Carolina in the middle of the eighteenth century on land known as the Wachovia tract. Their religion, the first Protestant denomination, was founded by a Catholic, Czech priest who was burnt at the stake for heresy. The Moravian Church is still in existence today in the United States. At Old Salem, the church sits north of the square.


Farther down Main Street we came across the campus of Salem College for women. Perhaps you’re more familiar with Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Moravians believed that education was essential for salvation. The day of our visit, children were rolling snowmen on the green while a trombone choir performed. The Moravians are credited with bringing classical European music to America.

Needing to warm up, we stepped inside the Winkler Bakery for some sugar bread. Serving sweet buns during a church service (the lovefeast) is one of the Moravian traditions.

In every gift shop, we came across the Moravian star, with its twenty-six points, a symbol of Advent.

Outside, snow continued to fall until it turned purple.



We walked along Main Street in the cold. That's my husband in the yellow jacket, strolling past the Single Brothers' House. Wreaths decked doors with diagonal designs. I turned to wave at the camera.


We saw homes that could have inspired the likes of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Up on the Housetop.” Our thoughts turned toward getting back home before the interstate froze.




The day ended with contemplation of the motto of the Moravian Church: "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love."

MAM at the Improv Slam

The weekend after Thanksgiving I found myself at Dirty South Improv getting an acoustic memory workout. The two improv teams, in their attempt to take home the gold, called on the audience for backup, putting all of us in memory boot camp.

Why so much work?
Audience participation. It's a staple of the improv slam. At one point we all participated in something I'm going to call My Acoustic Memory Shuffle.

An acoustic memory shuffle?
Right. The red team left the stage while the black team asked the audience to list favorite movie lines and favorite song lyrics. And please note, the 7:30 show was an all ages show, and as DSI promised, the show was fit for everyone from the 5-year-old to the grandparent. And that made things even more challenging. More about that shortly.

What movie line did you contribute?
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Was it hard to keep the suggestions clean for the family?
Yes, as you can see, my potty mouth got into my acoustic memory with the “d” word.

What movie line did your 10-year-old like the most?
“Dobby is free.”

Which song lyric didn’t make sense?
De Doo Doo Doo De Da Da Da

What did they do with the lines that the audience suggested?
The black team wrote each line on a strip of paper and then scattered the strips on the stage before calling the other team back to the stage.

Then what happened to the acoustic memories?
The red team came back on stage, and there was a request for the audience to name a place where people get things done. A child shouted out, “the office," but it was pointed out that people really don’t get much done at the office. Someone else hollered out “grocery store,” and the three members of the red team immediately started to improvise dialogue and mime actions of shoppers in the grocery store. As the scene progressed, it became apparent they were portraying two old farts with a grandson in tow.

Once the scene was established for the audience, they started inserting the lines from the songs and movies into the dialogue by cueing up a statement, such as, “And then he said to me…” and then stooping over, picking up a piece of paper, and reading the line to finish the sentence.

But was it funny?
Yes, it was hilarious. Uh, maybe you had to be there. And you can go, but you have to come to Carrboro, North Carolina, to see Improv Slam played Dirty South Improv style.

Can I try this at home?
Yes, please do. It would be the perfect entertainment for family gatherings during that next set of holidays that starts in December. All you need is a pencil, some paper, two teams of three people and some other random family members to make line suggestions, laugh or boo. And acoustic memories. Of course, you need lots of acoustic memories.


De doo doo doo, de da da da/ Is all I want to say to you
-Sting

Sufferin 'til Suffrage

Hey y’all, pull down your levers! It’s time to vote.

Last week my 5th grader memorized the amendments to the Constitution. I had to plead the 5th when he asked me to explain the 9th. But I’ll never forget the 19th amendment, oh no.

Saturday mornings I’d wake up and bake cinnamon rolls from a tin can and eat them while I watched cartoons in the den. Schoolhouse Rock infiltrated the mix of Scooby Doo and Lidsville. Remember "Sufferin 'til Suffrage"? You know the 19th amendment “struck down that restrictive rule.” That lyric refers to the turn of the 19th century, when women who had the right to vote in certain states lost that right. The 19th amendment ensured women would not be denied the right to vote on account of their sex. My grandmothers Elizabeth and Rose were able to vote when they reached the age of majority, but not their mothers, Lucille and Flora, respectively.

Voting rights used to vary from state to state. My current state of residence was the last state to remove the restriction that voters had to own property. That change occurred in 1856. Even in our times, it was not until 1971 that the 26th amendment established that in all states the legal voting age would be 18. So my sister was able to vote in ’74 when she was 19. She’d been waiting, too; I still remember the McGovern poster in her bedroom in ’72.

Here’s more to read on the history of voting rights, but you might want to save this reading material until after you vote—I don’t want to impinge on your voting time!

Disclaimer: There was a time that I was so turned off by politics that I was an independent, not because I wanted to remain impartial, but because I thought I was above it all that way. Now I’m affiliated with a party, and I’m humbled by my right to vote. I see it as part of my duty to model good citizenship for my children, and as a tribute to the people who came before me to ensure my right to vote.

No literacy test, no poll tax. I’m voting. Because I can.

And now we pull down on the lever/
Cast our ballots and we endeavor/
To improve our country, state, county, town, and school.
"Sufferin 'til Suffrage" Schoolhouse Rock