City of Legends

I took a bit of a tongue-lashing (which sometimes isn’t all bad, depending on the tongue and how thoroughly it is used) from my friend often referred to as "Huerta" on here.  Alternately she gets mentioned as "Jazz" or "Night Blooming" or even "The chick on the cover of that CD (nightblooming)".

Anyway, she wanted to protest that I did a whole blog entry about my male friends and made no mention of her wonderfulness.  She demanded I do a piece about her.  After much dodging and weaving, here ’tis.

I have never touched the woman, first off.  I say this because people are forever making assumptions about whom I have been with, in, near or around.  Never touched her.  Heard her voice in real life (as opposed to over a telephone) precisely once.  That was…I think, around 2002.

She’s very lovely and talented and intense.  That kind of unhinged talented that most people jettison with mediocrity or massive amounts of prescribed pharmaceuticals.  She hasn’t taken either path, and as a result suffers for her intensity.  She says I am her best friend, and calls me "Papa Bear".  I call her "Baby Bear" and try to get her to write more.  She’s pretty good as a writer and could get better with practice.

She’s tall. Five foot eleven, I believe, which is about usual for the women I hang around with…either I attract Amazons or they attract me, not sure which is which.  Black hair, dark eyes and a face like a Mexican porcelain doll.  Quite stunning, although she doesn’t believe it.

We worked alongside each other years ago, back when I was married to wife #2.  Never really talked or anything.  I heard her say something on the order of "Good morning" to me once. I recall because it was unusual for me to hear her speak, and she was very pretty. 

A few years and thousands of miles later we ran into each other online when she had been taste-testing some of our finer fermented beverages.  With a few drinks in her she gets rowdy.  No further details, please.  I am a gentleman.  One of her close friends has dedicated the song "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" to her.

We continued talking and became good friends.  We’ve joked about it being more than that, but I say I am too old and fat for her.  She says she just doesn’t want to lose her best friend, as she is bad at relationships.  And that’s fine, we still get vulgar and rowdy and locker-room from time to time in text or tweets or voicemails or emails or what have you. She has been known to drunk dial me.  At 2 in the morning.  To ask me about my (non-existent) sex life.

Aubergine thought there were some unresolved feelings there. I told her that "nightblooming" was merely used as a generic, sort of like "Abstra" in my works, as I needed a focus for that CD.  She didn’t believe me.  Not 100% sure I do, but it is my nature to question, to ponder, to challenge and to search and to obfuscate when in doubt.

We were supposed to have lunch about two years ago, when I was last touring.  I showed up.  She sent her cousin.  She found it, I believe, uproarious.  I took it in grace and had a nice lunch with her cousin. 

She plays a mean rock bass.  She writes tortured poetry.  She drinks too much and falls in love with guys who are either disinterested or of low degrees.  She’s not listed as one of my muses on any of the breakdowns, and that’s fine.  With me.  She sometimes asks what it will take to get on the list.  I say "unnatural sex acts".  She scowls.

All in all, though she’s a good friend…probably of all the people I know she is the most likely to have my back during a crisis, which is nice, as the notion of a raven-eyed, drunk Amazon Mexican coming at you with murder in her heart is probably enough to scare a lot of people away.  I sometimes think of her when I see the scene in "Desperado" where Steve Buscemi is laying down the tale and describing Antonio Banderas as "the biggest Mexican I have ever seen.  Big as shit.". 

Yes, but I doubt Banderas looks quite as nice in a dress.

I was looking at my friends’ list on Facebook and realized I have an awful lot of people who have played roles of significance in my life on my list.  Present and past.  For instance:

• Relatives?  I have all four of my sibs, as well as the unofficial 5th DeVault brother.  6 neices and nephews.  My Mom.  My poetry bro, Larry Jaffee (founder of Poets for Human Rights as well as the writer of the foreword to my book Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion).
•  
• Book and CD  connections?  I three different editors for my books, including the stalwart Jan Innes.  I have the cover and inside illustration model for The Compleat Panther Cycles.  I have the cover model for my CD Nightblooming.
•  
• Muses?  Nightblooming Jasmine (of course), the Butterfly, Suede, The Selke, The Mad Gypsy herself and the older sister to my first real muse, Alabaster.
•  
• Various and Sundry?  My first girlfriend (from the 6th grade!), the person who has done more interviews with me than anyone else (Barb Holmes), my "Teal Protege" and various friends and inspirations responsible for dozens of my works and some significant good in my life, as well as assorted writers, editors, publishers and recording artists (even Billy Vera).  People I might otherwise not have regular contact with.  People hiding in plain sight (yes, some people are not who you might think they are, some don’t know I know who they really are).  People I have sat down to dinner with, read with and written about, as some have written of me, readers, lovers and critics.

I see there’s a lot of good to my Facebook friends.  I think I’ll keep them.  And collect more as people choose to enter into my lifestream.  I enjoy the process and the people I intersect with.

Just long enough to say

Happy Birthday, Jazz.

Now finish the damn manuscript.

Subject to my imperial whim (and we all know how mercurial that can be) I am making the following changes over the next 10 days:

• The dissolution of peacat.com
• Completion of the first 100 elements of williamfdevault.com
• The gutting, then dissolution of my Random Drafts and Chapters blog
• There are a few cosmetic changes to be done, as well, as well as some behind the scenes changes that no one likely to be reading this note will ever need to be privy to.
• I will make available the entirety of all my CDs, including Evangelist, as free downloads via williamfdevault.com
• Plus, for those who attend my readings on the 17th of this month, there will be some dramatic news about my books, past and future.

That’s all I have to say for now. Thanks to the people from StumbledUpon who notched my new presentation of Soubrette at williamfdevault.com. Mucho attention, mucho gracias.

Okay, I just wanted to show everyone some of the "flair" I created over on FaceBook. It was fun converting book covers, CD case artwork and even a few odds and ends to buttons to send to my friends and acquaintances.

Now comes the fun part. I am declaring a scavenger hunt for my flair. Not too difficult, no? perhaps more difficult than you might imagine, as a few of the pieces, while relevant to my works, are not obviously labeled as such. You’ll figure it out (hint: this will be slightly easier for my "friends").

So, you may find it simple to locate the covers of amomancer: nightblooming or from an unexpected quarter, you may have a harder time with the less obvious flair. To be fair with the flair, I will tell you know that there are a total of 14 pieces.

The first person (based on my received email timestamp) to collect all 14 pieces to their flair corkboard on FaceBook (remember to refresh so they show) and email me here so I can verify by looking at your profile, wins free CDs and books from the City of Legends Store worth more than $50.00. Not a ton of bucks, but if you’re smart this should take you all of 15 minutes to complete, so that’s about, what, $200 bucks an hour? And I’m paying postage, so it doesn’t matter if you’re in the USA, or Australia or Portugal or South Africa (here’s your chance, Rich).

Okay, one miracle down (you have no idea how much furious effort is going on in the background to accomplish all of this)…

The City of Legends Store has re-opened.  You can get there by slicking the linked name (in the previous sentence) or by following the top of the page link that reads "The City Store" (trying to keep it simple).

We’re offering some discounts on some books and CDs as a "Pre-tour Blowout", and as always, free shipping and custom signing.  Shopping cart services are courtesy of PayPal.

Available in the ‘Store are:

Books:

• As such…romantic poetry of rebirth
  
• Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite
  
• Psalms of the Monster River Cult
  
• The Morgantown Suite Poems
  
• The Compleat Panther Cycles

CDs:

• Nemicorn
  
• The Naked Reads
  
• Amomancer:  nightblooming
  
• the last romantic verb

Not in the store?

• from an unexpected quarter
  
• Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion
  
• PanthEon
  
• 101 Great Love Poems (hardback and paperback)
  
• Invocato

But I may later decide to fold them in…I just hate making the store too chaotic and huge.  All of those not in the official store can be purchased elsewhere.

And yes, when Evangelist is done, it will be available through the City Store.

I have an old friend in Los Angeles, name of Phil Brown. He’s a journeyman guitarist who played with several bands…some of them predating my puberty. But he’s an interesting fellow.

A few years back, when he was pushing a solo comeback, he put out an album called "Sex Sells". It didn’t do so well, but he was right.

So, to let you all know, I am making a few minor changes around here. No, not going all-nude all the time. Not even semi-nude part of the time. But I do know the value of a beautiful woman or two.

So, I have modified the Entrecard "cards" that are used by that service to help me trade connections with fellow bloggers. In place of my sad face, you will see the cover of my last CD, "Nightblooming" featuring the…er…face…of Jaz, the musician and poetic protege of mine, plugging this blog. By the way, I have approached her about her laying down the music to a single for the next CD. Her style of old school thrash rock would play interesting counterpoint to Jezika™ and her trance synthesizers.

The Amomancer blog will be fronted by the cover of my book "As such…" featuring…aw, you all know who that is, so let’s not be coy.

Who knows, maybe readership will climb (actually, since I made the change this morning, Amomancer has had a surge in viewership! It currently leads this blog in hits for today!)

Just wanted to leak some of the liner notes from the new CD "Amomancer: nightblooming". These come from South African author Candy, whose Inside candy blog is required reading, as far as I am concerned. This internationally published poet and author has been so kind as to volunteer the following on the new CD:

"Falling into dreams within dreams, Amomancer: nightblooming will speak to your deepest places. It will captivate your private desires. It will stir you to remember your secret yearnings. It will resurrect the passions you have silenced for too long. In a collection of compositions that can only be described as the sanctification of words, the voice of William F. DeVault will come upon you like music." - Johannesburg, South Africa, September 2007

Thanks, Candy. And thanks to the team that put it all together, from my band to my inspirations, to the reviewers, all of you deserve a piece of this. Unless it flops, then it is all my fault.

So for this one we get international liner notes. I am working on a distribution deal with aliens from Tau Ceti 6 for my next book, so we’ll see what happens next.

As we crank up the PR machine on the new CDs (and I want everyone to say something nice about the cover, posted a few entries below…if enough of you say nice things maybe we can get the model to submit to an interview) I thought I’d say a few words about the tracks, to sort of set the frame.

Enchante.
This is a strange one, very much a song rather than a poem with musical accompaniment. Written to the lady, I knew when we first recorded it that it would stand out.

the taste.
When I mentioned this piece the first time to a muse, she laughed and said it was probably something obscene (judging from the title). Actually, it is based on my poem "the taste of remembrance" which is decidedly not erotic, but about memories of someone you love becoming synonymous with the very concept of memory.

Centaur.
I recorded this piece several months ago and then it just plain never made it onto the previous CDs, which is a shame, because it has a very nice flow to it. It crossbreeds several of my favourite themes to become a plea for a constant love and an admission of a need for companionship.

Slitoris.
Okay, I can be a sick and deranged soul when the spirit is upon me. This very arch work dovetails nicely with "Cut Me" and has to deal, as does that piece, with a darker element in my sexuality.

Cut Me
See "slitoris" above. The music behind this piece plays out like something from an old gothic horror movie.

Rivers of Resurrection
A melange of several works, very ethereal, very magical.

sleep
There’s a comfort and a menace to this work, I still find it a little creepy. See if you agree when you hear it.

I want the fire
You can hear on this one where my voice wasn’t sure if I needed to just read it, or sing. I compromised and the resultant timbre of my voice seems to be communicating a puzzled urgency, a certain resolve in the face of a lost path.

Bright and Deadly
My, we are dark on this CD, aren’t we. Monster guitar and some no-nonsense vocals seek a truce.

Mantichore
Originally this was an instrumental (unique to my CDs)…but during a listening session, the words came and the words cannot be refused.

Wailing Wall
I don’t know what happened here to make this what it is. It’s like when the microphone came on the Robert Plant within me made a run for it.

Horizon
I like this. Very gentle, very fluid.

Skyscraper Ambition
Okay, let me explain this one. There’s this woman. She’s very tall…

32fps2
This may very well end up being the last piece on the CD, because of the way it ends, both structurally and thematically.

Golden Apples
Se "Skyscraper Ambition", above.

Burning in this chosen sphere
In the beginning was the word, and the word was hot. Or, as the lady herself says, "strong". There is a masculinity to the sexuality in this piece that seemed like a great balance of lust and dreams.

So that’s my meander on the tracks…I hope you enjoy "Amomancer: nightblooming" when it comes out on the 24th.

Some people have asked me the hidden meaning in the name…well, there’s this flower that blooms at night and I would lay awake in Venice Beach and inhale the beauty. Flash forward a few years and there’s this woman that blooms at night…