Category Archives: Uncategorized

Today I recorded about half of the short story and poem narrations I promised to a Certain Level of Backers. I hope to finish them up this week.

My brother is working on the final one and a half songs. These would be “Chevalier” and “Black Widow’s Waltz.” The latter just needed a bit of tweaking. The former I have to re-record vocals for, because we were just recording too fast and I didn’t hit all the notes, er, properly. Eesh! But that is getting done FORTHWITH. He’s been dreamy to work with, my brother, even from across the country. What a pleasure. And a nice eerie album we’re making for you!

I cannot WAIT to release this EP to you. Backers first–then onto to Bandcamp it goes.

Meanwhile, Patty Templeton, author of There Is No Lovely End, is working on the cover art for the Backers-Inspired rewards album, now titled “Corbeau Blanc, Corbeau Noir.” It will be monochrome and linocut and full of CROWS! Just the initial sketches are gorgeous. And creepy. Creepy-gorgeous, just like Patty Templeton and her books.

Carlos Hernandez, author of The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria (launching January 2016!!!), is setting all those new songs (thirteen in total, once I finish up that VERY LAST FOXGIRL song!!!) to ukulele in order to accompany me. It’ll be a far simpler album than these last two EPs, released first to backers, then to Bandcamp sometime in the New Year.

As soon as The Headless Bride makes it to Bandcamp, I shall start the Next Phase of the project: that is, physical CDs, with the cover art by Grant Jeffrey and both Alecto! Alecto! and The Headless Bride included.

When these pressed objects are at last in my hands, I shall send them (and the print of the album cover to those who backed at that level) out into the world.

I have all the spreadsheets at the ready. I am so looking forward to getting these out to you. It has all taken longer than I’d hoped, but it is ALL HAPPENING, which is more than I ever dreamed.

I also have a Strange and Wonderful Plan for something to happen next year. But more of that next year. This year has been VERY FULL ALREADY!

This book was extraordinary from the beginning, but about two-thirds into it, it became something transcendent.

I began Swish: My Quest To Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead with an enjoyment for the clever language, the hyperbolic bitchiness, the erudite references, and the elaborate architecture of self-deprecatory humor and neurotic charm that salved the razor wounds of a too-keen insight. I read on for the confessions, the author’s outrageous adventures on his quest to reimagine himself, and the “widening gyre” of a present/past/present structure.

But I stayed for the compassion.

There is a chapter on Musical Theatre that might become, for me, a religious text. And there is a letter in the final chapter that I would do well to reread every year, then write my own version of to those whom I hold beloved.

Also this and geeky David Eddings references too! Plus, a nod to the film Farinelli (which I didn’t think anyone else in the world had seen), and this bit about windmills that made me cry. I learned the words “asah” and “bara” from Joel Derfner, and I’ll not soon forget them. They weren’t kidding when they called this book “searing.”

As I am writing this, I am hearing the rough mixes of “Lavender’s Darling” and the “Headless Bride” from the new EP. I am particularly fond of the mechanical music-box intro to the latter; I think my brother Remi did such a beautiful job!

I’ve just finished writing to the contributors at the $75 level of the Brimstone Rhine Campaign perks. My goal is to have all those narrations done by the end of November! I am very excited about this.

When I ended the campaign, I’d had some experience narrating podcasts like Podcastle and Uncanny, and some of my own poems on Goblin Fruit. Shortly after the campaign, Tantor Media hired me as an audiobook narrator! Since then, I’ve narrated 24 full-length books! Phew.

I am excited to bring my broader experience and deeper understanding of narration to benefit my generous contributors!

Meanwhile, my brother is busy mixing the last 6 songs of The Headless Bride. Soon, I’ll be looking into printing the Brimstone Rhine cover art and sending it out to backers, and also finding a good company to press the CDs for me.

After a hectic summer and early fall, things have finally slowed down enough for me to give this project my full concentration. It certainly has taken me longer than I’d hoped (ha! I had estimated having rough recordings of all the $100 level songs by June! Ha-ha!), but I do believe this project is coming along.

I hope you all are having a fabulous October!

Imaginary Rockstar carrying REAL travel guitar. (Not my own.) (Alas.)

Let’s see, let’s see. Today is Sunday. We did, in fact, record an EP over the weekend.

Jeremy arrived on Friday morning at LaGuardia Airport (United). He was supposed to have arrived on Thursday night, but storms over New York had many planes cancelled and rerouted, so he spent the night at his Denver layover, playing his travel guitar with the stethoscope plugged in, so no one could hear him but himself.

It’s the most CUNNING INSTRUMENT. I love it. He let me carry it when we went to fetch him, and I felt like REAL (and not imaginary) ROCKSTAR. It almost makes me want to learn how to play guitar JUST SO I CAN OWN ONE!

Then what happened? Oh, yes. We came home and started recording. We did four on Friday and four on Saturday, and let me see if I can remember the order… (NOT the “ordure” although I was recently reminded of that word.)

The boys at work. Carlos figuring out midi percussion on the fly.

My word, as I type this, it has just started raining in Queens, New York. Just outside my window.

Now! I have written my list (below), and will ruminate on some of the difficulties/joys of each (below that). If you are interested in reading the lyrics of these songs so you kind of know what I’m talking about, you can find them published at Mythic Delirium! BECAUSE MIKE ALLEN IS AWESOME! 

FRIDAY
“O Loathly Ones”
“Mockingbird and Kestrel Girl”
“Black Widow’s Waltz”
“The Headless Bride”

SATURDAY
“Chevalier”
“Can of Worms”
“Lavender’s Darling”
“Barrow Brine”

What happens to Carlos’s kitchen table when he lets musicians in the house…

O LOATHLY ONES: This was HARD. It’s sort of a relentless poem-song in 3/4 time, and many of the musical phrases are SIMILAR but not THE SAME, and I know that’s how I wrote it, and Jeremy was very good, when setting instruments to the melody and fine-tuning it (har, har) about not changing it. But as I was TRYING to sing it CONSISTENTLY I realized that perhaps it was the WORST I IDEA I EVER HAD, because it’s not very INTUITIVE to sing without SHEET MUSIC. Ah, but Jeremy has a great music program called… (looking it up in text messages) LOGIC 9 and managed to print out the sheet music derived from the midi-keyboard file. So THAT was awesome. Things got a little easier. Barely.

MOCKINGBIRD AND KESTREL GIRL: This one, methought, would be SO EASY–because Remi (Jeremy) and I sang it one million times last year when we went on our BACT mini-tour with the Goblin Girls. It, uh, wasn’t as easy as I thought. NONE OF THIS WAS!

But!  The GREAT thing about “recording to a click” (the metronome) is that even if Remi goes in later and replaces all the rough guitar and music-y bits with a final, polished version, he can fit our voices in easy-peasy. His original rough melody was slightly fast (because he was going off me singing a cappella into my phone to give him an idea of it), but all he had to do was adjust the click and VOILA, THE MUSICAL ALL SHIFTED! Suddenly, the melody was slow enough to sing without tripping over our tongues. MAGIC.

See how we rigged Remi’s posh mic? We affixed it to a wrought iron HANGING LAMP! That’s how we swing in Brimstone Rhine, yo.

BLACK WIDOW’S WALTZ:  I am so excited about this one! Unlike ALECTO! ALECTO!, where it was mostly me singing by myself (with the exception of “Scylla on the Rocks” when Glenn sang with me), much of THE HEADLESS BRIDE SONGS are duets between Remi and myself. Certain “Mockingbird” is one of them, as it’s a bit of a dialogue song, and “Black Widow’s Waltz” is another. We switch off verses until the third, where we switch off lines. He puts on his Sweeney Todd baritone for this one, and it’s a rich scary sound next to my brighter lioness Broadway belt. “Mockingbird” was light fair, and “Loathly” was creepy, chilly, upper register EVIL STUFF, but this is a big, bombastic, ballroom song–very 80’s fantasy movie, like “Legend” meets “Krull.”

THE HEADLESS BRIDE: Don’t you love an EPONYMOUS SONG??? Oh, and I SO LOVED RECORDING THIS ONE, because it’s a call and response sort of thing. Again, Remi and I switched off the call and response verse by verse, until we mixed things up in the 3rd verse, and then just got REALLY WEIRD in the fourth verse. But it makes a HECKUVA GHOST STORY! Very excited about this one!

We ended our Friday session with pizza at Nick’s Pizza on Ascan Avenue. It was past 8 by that time, but we still had a 15 minute wait. It’s the sort of established joint that’s so genuinely good it has the MOST unobtrusive storefront EVER and YET IT OVERFLOWS. Worth the wait though. I had a glass of wine. Much pizza was consumed. It was very calming.

One of Carlos’s favorite things to say to me this weekend was, “¡Tranquila! ¡Tranquilízate!” And then he would hug me.

Well. I won’t say I didn’t need it.

We started our Saturday off with CHEVALIER. This and the following CAN OF WORMS are the most ROCKIN of The Headless Bride songs. Indeed, of ALL THE BRIMSTONE RHINE SONGS EVER! Hard electric guitar, driving bass, maybe drums (a kit if we can get it, back in Phoenix where Remi is based; if not… MIDI DRUMS!), and those MONSTER METAL VOICES coming on the chorus, you know those really big GROWLY bass dudes that sound like MUPPETS singing OPERA in the PARIS SEWERS? Yeah. Like that. “Chevalier” is about Gilles de Rais being visited on the eve of his execution by the ghost of Joan of Arc, and “Can of Worms” is what happens when you piss off an already pissed of djinn by rubbing its lamp the WRONG WAY. These were super fun to sing, but I did feel (folksy, Broadway-ish, light Italian aria-trained as I am) that I was BOXING WAY OUTSIDE OF MY WEIGHT RANGE.

But that’s what this whole project was about, wasn’t it? Doing something I’ve never done before. Which was only possible because of my collaborators. And patrons. Otherwise, I’m just sitting in a corner singing my weird songs a cappella for an audience of about… oh, 12-20 or so. This includes my mother, some friends on LJ, and any roommates who happen to be trapped in the same room with me…

LAVENDER’S DARLING starts with a MUSIC BOX tinkle and then movies into another CREEPY WALTZY THING. It’s very similar in theme and vein to LOATHLY ONES, but maybe SEXIER, with DISEMBODIED WHISPER ECHOES like will o’ the wisps luring you INTO THE HINTERLAND! Remi and I had a lot of fun recording this one. PLUS IT WAS SHORT. Which made a nice change.

We all went out to eat then at a place called BARE BURGER, where there was this papier-mâché bear’s head mounted on wood (see right) that Carlos wants for his birthday (any birthday, really) (and he doesn’t mind if you, you know, just go in and take it) (just kidding, he’s very honorable) (but he REALLY WANTS THAT BEAR’S HEAD), and ate burgers. Well, I ate one anyone. The boys both had DUCK BURGERS. Because, apparently, THAT’S A THING. Huh.

When we returned, we recorded BARROW BRINE. I’m super fond of this song because I wrote it one morning, just before work, after my awesome friend Samu Rahn (of Cairn) and I had a whole text-message conversation on the nature of “kennings.” We kept making up new ones for the ocean (or recycling old ones). The Salt Meadows. The Phantom Shipyards. The Water Ranges.

I came up with “The Barrow Brine” and was so INORDINATELY proud of myself that I wrote a song. It’s very dirge-y and nautical, and both Remi and Carlos did the choral response part. We’re going to see if my brother Declan might want to chime in back in Phoenix, and layer the voices so we have something that sounds like ONE MILLION VIKINGS singing, or perhaps the Knights of the Round Table, as they send King Arthur off to Avalon in his death barge.

After the songs were done, Remi and Carlos worked on the AUXILIARY PERCUSSION while I faffed around on Facebook. This is a lot more work than I make it seem. I would occasionally glance up and give my opinion. Which I found HIGHLY RELAXING. But it’s just possibly THEY didn’t!

Then, suddenly…

WE WERE FINISHED! All 8 SONGS WERE RECORDED!

Maybe not PERFECTLY but at least INTERESTINGLY, and…

And I just keep telling myself (and being told by my beloveds) that it’s GOOD to make music, even if we don’t know what the HECK we’re doing (me), or even if we know WHAT we’re doing but are forced to do it SUPERFAST (Remi), and that it is what it is, and it’s okay. It’s totally okay.

And I look forward to sharing it with you.

***

We celebrated by going to a Dr. Who-themed bar called The Way Station in Brooklyn. Remi wore a Batman shirt, I wore a Superman shirt, and Carlos wore a Dr. Who shirt, even though he’s not the RABID DR. WHO FAN in the family (that’d be Remi. And I’m not innocent of Doctor drool myself.) The bathroom was the Tardis. We called it the Turdis. Because sometimes we are all thirteen years old.

I drank a “River’s Red” something something. And Jeremy had a 10th and a Captain Jack. Ahem. Carlos drank a Diet Coke. Designated Driver.

Flock Theatre: Thursday, September 17th, 6:30-10PM

Dev’s on Bank Street
357 Bank St, New London, Connecticut 06320

The Mustache Fusilier Ball is a fundraising dinner for the 3rd Annual Burning of Benedict Arnold Festival! 

I will be part of the show, performing a song based on the life of Benedict Arnold, with original lyrics to an old American tune.

BONE SWANS APPEARANCES

Bone Swans, a collection of stories Publisher’s Weekly called in a starred review, “brilliantly executed…a delicious stew of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, marked by unforgettable characters who plumb the depths of pathos and triumph,” and endorsed in an another starred review from Library Journal as, “five beautifully crafted stories…imaginary worlds full of flying carpets, fairy-tale characters, and children confronted with a postapocalyptic Earth…”

Author Reading at Bill Memorial Library: Thursday, October 8 at 7:00pm

“Bone Swans: STORIES AROUND THE FIRE”

Gather around the fire for fantastical tales. The Bill Memorial Library invites you to join us for Stories Around the Fire on Thursday, October 8, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Enjoy a dramatic reading by local author, actress, and musician C.S.E. Cooney. She will read from her recently published story collection, Bone Swans.

Call to reserve your spot around the fire! The content of the stories will be suitable for a PG-13 audience.

There is no charge for the event. Registration is appreciated. Please call the library at 860-445-0392.

Reading and Launch at Maize N Manna: Friday, October 9, 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Bone Swans in Westerly! Local Book Launch!

Local poet and artist Amber Langanke opens the night with readings from her collections ATLAS, AT LAST and IF MY EYES HAD EYES.

This will be followed by a reading from C. S. E. Cooney’s BONE SWANS. There will be SNACKS! And CHAT! And possibly… A CAKE! There will be BOOKS FOR SALE! And authors to SIGN THEM! Isn’t that EXCITING???

We think so. Come on out and join us!

Gosh. It seems like THE LIFE AGE OF THE EARTH since I had anything of interest to report! What a busy summer.

However!

A.) My awesome brother/collaborator Jeremy has sent me ALL the rough vocals of The Headless Bride EP so that I can practice for…

B.) RECORDING THIS WEEKEND because…

C.) We’re flying Jeremy out to Queens, New York from Phoenix, Arizona and are set up to record here, in the house of Carlos Hernandez, PhD, Professor and Superhero who helps MAKE THINGS HAPPEN!!!

(Here is what Carlos is helping make happen this week! Meriwether, the AMERICAN EPIC RPG/computer game! It’s been 8 years in the making, so this is pretty exciting!)

As for the REWARD LEVELS FOR OUR BACKERS!

Let’s see. I have written ALL SONGS BUT ONE for those backers who selected YES!MORE!MUSIC! on that “Pink Unicorn Spaghetti Monster” level.

In fact, once it’s finished, I shall have enough songs for a WHOLE NEW (okay, but a very simple one) ALBUM, which I have decided to call Corbeau Blanc/Corbeau Noir. This is partly Byron’s fault, because it’s fun to blame dead poets for album titles.

The next BIG BACKERS PROJECT is to write to all those who donated at the “Rainbows, You’re Rainbows!” level, and collect whatever stories they want me to narrate.

Since starting this project, I even became a PROFESSIONAL AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR at Tantor Media, so that’s doubly exciting. I’d narrated stories and poetry for podcasts before, but since April I’ve narrated almost 20 novels!

Narrating short stories for kind friends? NOTHING WOULD MAKE ME HAPPIER!

As usual, send me any questions and I’ll try to keep you informed!

Oh, and since I haven’t been here for a while… ALECTO! ALECTO! is now available for streaming and purchasing on BANDCAMP!

1. The Youth of America

Last night and tonight it was all waxing gibbous and lengthy gloamings, and as I went dusking down the dim ways of Westerly, I chanced upon two sets of teenagers.

Last night, it was three young men on skateboards. They were well-knit: wiry grace and smiling sinews. They were middle-of-the-road-riders-without-helmets-in-uncertain-light (GAH!!!), and any pack of boys–no matter how young and awkward–is generally enough to make me cross the street. Half-reverence, half-whatever. Just to be safe, you know? Anyway.

But these boys had found a stray dog, a floppy golden-eared retriever-like fellow, obviously well-loved and friendly, but with only a flea collar to its name.

Dogs are another thing I cross the street for, reverently, and in the hopes of not getting my throat torn out. I’m not great with animals.

And these skater boys, these smiling silent swift backstreet cyborgs, more wheel than pedal, were knocking door to door trying to find the dog’s owner.

They asked me if I knew anything. We all wondered if any of us were wearing a belt to act as a leash. We asked a neighbor for some twine.

One of the boys said, “I’ll take it home with me for now… I’ll go get my car.”

And another boy asked me, “Do you live above a kid named ____?” And I said yes, to be neighborly.

It was friendly and not frightening at all. Rather heartening. I was reminded that I have brothers and that they too are kind. Not all strangers are horrible.

Then tonight, downhill of State Street, four young women in that thirteen-to-fifteen range, dressed in their summer play clothes, lounging out in the deeps of the blue hour, stretch full length on the driveway, chatting quietly.

One is leaning on something plastic that at first I take for a sword. Then she hops on and it becomes a pogo stick. I hear one phrase: “No, he’s the Archangel who…”

I remember what it is to be a teenager, lying out with friends on a summer-warm driveway, discussing the Mysteries. Now one meets friends in bars or goes on walks or has them over for tea, but it has been a while since I have been half-clothed and indolent and among peers, outside for hours, doing nothing sleepily while the world walks on by.

2. On Cemeteries

After the girls, I pass River Bend Cemetery. There is a stone angel lounging as indolently as a teenage girl on its tombstone. I wonder if it too is chatting quietly with the mortal remains beneath its peeping feet.

The cemetery is all shades of blue. The trees are indigo. The river is azure. The grass is sapphire. The graves are lapis lazuli.

3 & 4. I do not blog like I used to. Instead, I write outrageous Facebook Status Updates and this was almost one of these.

I have come to view blogging, reluctantly, the same way I came to view playing with dolls. I loved it so much and it consumed so many beautiful hours, but then I got to writing fiction. One day, I tried playing with dolls and I couldn’t anymore. I felt like I lost something. (I still do.)

But today I wonder if I still do play with dolls, in the Great Dollhouse called Word Docx. In fact, I have more dolls than I have clothes for them to wear. I cut their hair and pair them off, rip their heads off, mar and maim them, break their hearts.

Because I am still learning about death, and my dolls teach me.

Most days I do not blog or play with dolls, but I’m still writing fiction. It’s something.

5. Skunks please me. They are cuter than cats, softer-looking, smaller. (Also am superfond of Pepe Le Pew who is, yes, creepy, but charming and oh so earnest.) Yet I will still cross the road when I see a skunk (out of reverence, fondness, and yes, fear), for they are wild and they have a stink that even predators know to avoid. I like that. I liked that little skunk.

SKUNK ON! I will requite thee. On these walks, I myself sweat moonlight and stink of the summer night.

HALLO! HALLO!

BRIMSTONE RHINE’S ALECTO! ALECTO!

IS NOW ON BANDCAMP!

This means you can STREAM THE EP! And share with friends! AND AND EVEN BUY IT EVEN!!!