Bibliography XIII

“Strange Things Happen – A Life with The Police, Polo and Pygmies” – Stewart Copeland

An excerpt from my rock n’ roll journal, dated May 31, 2007:

“Strangely, perhaps because Sting has remained a pop icon and produced commercial hits since 1984, and perhaps because I’ve seen him 3 or 4 times already, I found myself more enthralled with Stewart Copeland’s masterful touch on drums and percussion. He was mesmerizing on all counts. Impossible to ignore, really. A phenomenal drummer, maybe the best I’ve seen. It was a privilege to hear him play live; if I’m glad of anything on this trip, that is it—getting to see him work his magic in sublime testament to Sting’s hilarious descriptions of him in Broken Music. The man is, as Terri said, a mad genius. Completely manic and wild, he ran laps around the stage a couple of times, like a lanky kid hyped on sugar. He actually out-did Sting himself ...”

* * *

Looking back, what I wrote about him that night pretty well describes Stewart Copeland, period, as indicated in his most excellent autobiography. Alas, though it was a Christmas present in 2009, I took almost a dozen years to read it. I say “alas” because it is easily one of the most entertaining books, and maybe the best of the autobiographies, I have ever read. 

It’s not so much the story of his life as it is a bunch of stories from his life, everything from scaling crumbled castle walls as a kid in Lebanon to playing polo against the Prince of Wales to touring with a posse of musicians during Notta della Taranta festivals in Italy to composing operas and writing film scores to judging singers on a BBC reality show to facing off against a pride of lions in Africa ... and I’m not finished reading the book! I have yet to embark on the final section, chronicling Copeland’s 2007 experience touring with Sting and Andy Summers, aka The Police.

These tales are written with such articulate hilarity that he has propelled me into areas (like opera and Africa) that hold no interest for me at all. If I felt lukewarm at the start of any such segment, I quickly learned to pay attention because the story is so brilliantly told I would regret missing it. His acuity is so outrageous that I must put the book down for spontaneous bouts of laughter—Terri asked me yesterday if I was okay because I was quaking on the couch with my hand over my eyes, and given the current health climate, she feared something was amiss. I responded by releasing the laughter I was hopelessly trying to suppress.

Aside from the Calvin and Hobbes treasuries, books that capable of assaulting my funny bone are so few as to be counted on one hand. Comedy is really hard to convey in writing, though the humour here is not in the least contrived. Copeland is genuinely funny.

I have also been disappointed by autobiographies over the years. One actress managed to make a potentially fascinating life into an appalling snoozefest, and some of my rock icons have relied on ghost writers to get their stories told—for which I’m grateful, else I’d not know the stories at all, but still. You want a sense of the artist’s self in any book about him/her. Well, Stewart Copeland’s voice is all his own: a brash, shoot from the hip, sharply witty voice that prevails alongside nuts and bolts detail about subjects too varied to name, including music itself, that few ghost writers could or would affect, and many artists, though outstanding in their fields, will not achieve no matter how expert their command of English.

In short, it’s a cracking good read that even eclipsed Sting’s!

The Best of Times

Remember the good old days? Your first car, your first love, your first real job? The days when you were part of a posse? When every weekend was spent at the movies and you couldn’t wait for the new (insert artist here) album? When you got by on three hours of sleep because life was so fresh and vibrant that sleep was an inconvenience?

I came of age in the 1980s. That’s when I hooked up with Ter, we got our own place, and I got my first loan to buy Blue Thunder. I spent one summer in Europe. I discovered Sting and Duran Duran. I had a good government job and a kinda sorta boyfriend (and that’s the last you’ll hear of that, ever). I dabbled with vampires and wrote a fictional band biography because there was no reason not to. I not only ran with the cool crowd, I was one of the executive. So many good memories were born in those years. Some painful ones, too, but whatever. For me, the 80s were all about growing up and growing out, leaving kidhood behind and becoming an adult. I spent them figuring out who I was, and I had so much fun doing it that I still perceive the 80s through rosy lenses, as expertly polished as the slickest Bryan Ferry tune.

So imagine the surprise when I saw a recent documentary about the state of the world during my glory days. The Falkland War. The cold war. The drought in Ethiopia. Reaganomics. The threatened rainforest. AIDS. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The Challenger explosion. Ted Bundy.

I was living la vida loca and the world was in chaos.

“Surprise” isn’t the right word. I knew about these things on a peripheral level, but they didn’t affect me at the time. Despite the world going crazy around me, those years remain among the happiest of my entire life. Oblivious years? Self-absorbed years? Or just years spent in pursuit of myself, the shaping of the woman I was destined to become?

My point? Those times were not the best because of what was happening around me. They were the best because of what was happening within me. Consider the best years of your life. Think about what happened to make them so, then look outward to what the world was going through at the same time. I bet it was as nutty, as tumultuous and uncertain and just plain scary, as it is now. If so, then I suggest that the “good old days” we old folks long for had little to do with the state of the world and everything to do with where we were as individuals. The 1980s were not as golden as I’ve always believed. Neither were the 50s, 60s, or 70s, though I’m sure lots of people remember them as fondly.

My second favourite Styx song is called TheBest of Times. I heard it on the oldies (!!) station a few days ago, and I smiled because the sentiment is as relevant today as it was thirtysome years ago:

The headlines read these are the worst of times

I do believe it’s true

I feel so helpless, like a boat against the tide

I wish the summer winds could bring back paradise

But I know, when the world turns upside down

Baby I know, you’ll always be around

The best of times

Are when I’m alone with you

Some rain, some shine

We’ll make this a world for two

Those memories of yesterday will last a lifetime

We’ll take the best, forget the rest, and someday we’ll find

These are the best of times

With love,

As the Crow Sings

My music collection has been pared back a few times over the years, but staples remain firmly in place. Duran and Def Leppard, Alan Parsons and David Usher, Sarah McLachlan and Sting figure prominently in that I’ll buy anything and everything they put on the market—sometimes more than once. While de-cluttering for our first residential move in seventeen years, Ter and I discovered no fewer than four cassette tapes of Seven and the Ragged Tiger; a true puzzlement considering that we owned no more than two cassette players in 1987. I’ve grown up a little since then. When the re-mastered special edition was released a few years ago, I sent my original CD of the same album to the used disc shop because, pfft, who needs two?

I recall an interview wherein the father of my unborn children discussed his album collection. Of course he doesn’t listen to everything every day; with any extensive collection, who has the time? But once in a while, he pulls out vintage Bowie or Roxy, gives the LP a spin, then puts it back in the cellar to be enjoyed, like a fine wine, a few more years down the road.

I went on an Alan Parsons bender last year. I just lay on the couch and remembered why I love the Project’s work so much. More recently, the Leppards were trotted out to prep for their tour and, boy, was it fun rocking out to X and Yeah! With Paper Gods due for release in September, Duran is resurfacing on my playlist to reacquaint me with their more recent work (Astronaut is truly brilliant, and not just because it features the Original Five). And, for some reason, last week I began looping my favourite track of Sheryl Crow’s extensive catalogue, so I pulled her CDs on Sunday to remind myself why I liked her so much back in the day.

Actually, it’s a bit of a mystery because she borders on country with her syrupy drawl and penchant for steel guitar, but I bought her first album in 1993 and didn’t stop until Detours in 2008. She played Victoria on that tour; by then she had enough ammo to play a greatest hits set, so of course I went to see her. Great show, lame crowd. I couldn’t tell if I was in an audience or an oil painting. Oddly, I can’t remember if she played The Difficult Kind; I think she did, but nothing beats the album version off The Globe Sessions … currently in heavy rotation on my turntable. This live version got good reviews, though, so please ...

Enjoy.

Little Sting

“After Dark” is Elliot Sumner’s latest single. Who is Elliot Sumner, you ask? She (yes, she) is Gordon Sumner’s 24 year old daughter, also known as Coco. Dad is also known as Sting.

If I heard this song without knowing the artist’s name, I’d have thought that someone unearthed a previously unpublished song by the Police. I can’t get over how much like her daddy this girl sounds. The song is a new wave ditty straight out of the 80s, and darned if the bass in the video isn’t the iconic beaten-up bass that I’ve seen on stage at countless der Stingle concerts over the years. I doubt that she’s trying to cash in on her platinum DNA; my guess is that she genuinely wants to be a musician, and she may even have something to call her own … except that she sounds so much like the old man, one wonders how she can possibly stand on her own merit when the comparison is inevitable.

It’s confusing for a fan, as well. I like the song because it sounds like the Police. I like the vocal because it sounds like Sting. So am I a fan of the artist, or am I simply nostalgic for the early work of her father? Is her paternal bloodline a help or a hindrance? Could be that the next generation, the one that has no idea Sting ever played in a new wave band, will fall in love with her the way my generation fell with the Police, and that would be wonderful because she, like every other child of a superstar parent, deserves success in her own right. Tackling success in the same field takes some steely resolve, though. With traits so obviously inherited from a deity, I’d always wonder if I was famous because I was talented, or was the world just honouring my father?

Parents want their kids to be happy and successful … but it can be scary when a daughter is so much like her father.

Just ask mine.

"Gabriel's Message"

Witness the holiday hat trick – a favoured video by a favoured singer of a favoured Christmas carol. This was the best track on the first “Very Special Christmas” compilation back in 1987 and I’ve been looping it for a while so thought I’d share.

 

Sting reprised it for his album, If On A Winter’s Night, but this remains my favourite version. The video is typical of him as well, all Goth and broody and gorgeous.

 

Enjoy.

 

 

In My Own Way

Despite my recent decision to focus exclusively on writing Reijo’s romance, I’ve been unable to proceed. Yes, I’ve been sick, the Olympics were on, work continues to interfere with everything etc., but those are all excuses and pathetic ones at that (okay, maybe not the being sick one; nothing in life got done while I was down with the cold/flu). Plus, I had written the romance into a corner and writing out of it was tedious, time consuming, and not altogether satisfying. It’s a weak link, but I can fix it in revisions and at least the story is back on the road again.

Next obstacle? I write a scene in my head first, then I transcribe it. In this instance, I know where the character is going, just not how he’s going to get there ... or, rather, what happens to him before he gets there. Truly, I don’t want anything to happen to him because he’s been through enough, thanks very much, and the journey in this scene this is supposed to be a happy one. I really, truly, deeply, do not want to write a scene that delays his path to his beloved ... so I have written nothing. Nothing. Nada. I got sick, I watched the Olympics, I went to work, and when my thoughts turned toward Reijo’s ride through the woods, I almost felt the wall go up. I was not going there, no way, no how. I even manipulated Professor Ekkles and told myself that “writing just isn’t meant to happen right now”. I had no interest, no inclination, nothing. Not a block, per se, just ... nothing.

Then Sting enlightened me.

Ter and I caught him on Great Performances, playing songs from The Last Ship before the show opens on stage next summer. I particularly enjoy his little stories about how songs come about, and the experience of building a Broadway musical from scratch. He told one tale about a character named Arthur, who is partly autobiographical and therefore one of his favourites. Turns out the rest of the team didn’t share his affection for the old guy. They suggested that Arthur be replaced by a younger rival for the female lead’s affections. Well, Sting was crushed. He accepted the decision, but he was deeply unhappy about it. He talked about moping around for a bit, wrestling with his ego and so forth, then he—and I quote—“got out of my own way”. He decided to create a song for the new character. He didn’t want to, he admitted he hated the guy, but he gave it a shot and the song was born.

On hearing that story, I thought about my “problem” with Reijo and realized I was doing the same darned thing! I want him to arrive on cue at his beloved’s side, his progress unimpeded by drama or disaster, yet knowing that ain’t gonna happen has rendered me unable to write anything at all. I’ve been my own obstacle.

I have been in my own way.

Since that little revelation (thank you, der Stinglehoefer), I have stepped aside and let Reijo know that I’m listening—and he’s coming through! Neither is the delay as heinous as I feared it might be; yes, he’ll be late for dinner with his prospective in-laws, but at least he’ll arrive safe and in one piece. Gee, if only I’d relaxed and let him tell me before I shot head first into a writer’s block, I could have saved myself a little extra grief.

It’s a good life lesson. Get out of your way and watch what happens!

Space Opera

Sarah swag:
the obligatory program, tickets and a signed lithograph

If Sting is a god, then Sarah Brightman is a goddess. She continually surpasses mortal expectation and has made me believe in heaven.

Ter and I saw her perform on the space-themed “Dreamchaser” tour on Thursday and we are still reeling. I’m unsure where to begin, so I’ll start with the obvious: the voice. Be it known here and now that I do not appreciate opera at all, especially the eardrum-shredding shrill of a soprano … yet Sarah is most definitely a soprano. She hits (and holds, by the gods) notes that don’t even exist, but she does it with a crystal purity that sends my spine into paroxysms of pleasure rather than spasms of angst against the flight instinct. By the same token, she can tap into the phenomenal power required to push out the richer, more resonant notes of pieces like “Nessun Dorma” or “Figlio Perduto” and make them sound like silk.

She’s considered to be a classical crossover artist. Classically trained, she can sing pretty much anything. She was the original Christine Daaé in “Phantom of the Opera”, the title track of which is a signature piece of her show. I love it best of all, but I think the climactic high note makes Ter wince. Sarah’s style is perfectly suited to performing some of the best pumped-up operatic chestnuts I’ve ever encountered, a hybrid of classical, pop, and New Age that never fails to send me straight into Right Brain. We started collecting her albums a few years ago – Ter was unconsciously aware of her for years previous, but I first paid serious attention when streaming the New Age vocal channel at www.sky.fm; almost daily a piece called “In Paradisum” was played and the vocal on it sucked me out of my chair and into an alternate reality ablaze with life and colour. It turned out to be Sarah Brightman. My office tea fairy and good buddy, Treena, was way ahead of the curve and already a fan; she had most of Sarah’s albums and was happy to lend me “Eden”, which opens with “In Paradisum”. Our CD library grew like a hothouse flower after that, and Sarah’s concert DVDs will soon outnumber those in our Def Leppard collection.

Then there’s the performance artist. Everything she does is on a grand—dare I say operatic?— scale. Her numerous costumes are glamorous – something like eight changes last week – and the light show on this tour is nothing short of spectacular. Her soaring voice, the swelling music, and the increasingly intense light flooding the arena were too much for some folks, I guess, but not for me. I wanted to be overwhelmed, to be swept away by the complete sensory experience, and boy, did she deliver.

She opened with “Angel”, the first single off her new album, and when the first heartbeat struck, I was gone. She doesn’t even have to form words; she can simply peal like a pristine silver bell and I will burst into tears. Gone. Done. Wrecked. Mortified. But really, when you’re sitting in the dark and everyone else is caught in the same spell, no one notices that you’re sniffling out loud. So I gave up and let the tears roll unhindered as the show flowed from one magical piece to another. Once in a while I’d glance at Ter, whose eyes were incandescent every time I looked. We’d nudge each other on occasion, thrilled at the opening notes of a particular favourite, but for the most part, we were content to be completely blown away. I actually forgot to breathe at times and forgot to blink at others. Mostly, I was road kill. Thoroughly mesmerized. And so deeply, profoundly grateful to be in the presence of such precise and powerful talent. This woman is clearly following her bliss and I was privileged to share a tiny part it with her.

When this tour is done, she’ll be in training to become an astronaut. She’s going to the international space station, a childhood dream of hers being to visit the stars. I hope she sings when she’s there. If ever a voice was meant to be heard in space, it belongs to Sarah Brightman.

* * *

I’ve inserted links to each of the songs underlined in this post – if you haven’t heard her sing and want a sample, click on any of the titles and close your eyes. Naturally, she won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but she figures prominently in my creative process and for that I am eternally grateful.

Still A God

Sting’s new album – the first collection of original material he’s produced in a decade (?!) – was released this week. On Tuesday night, I lay in the candlelit Ocean Room and listened to The Last Ship.

Magical.

I may be prejudiced, therefore this is no surprise, but the man can do no wrong. From the days of him heading up The Police, I have listened to him narrate Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, sing Elizabethan madrigals, play jazz-infused reggae and reggae-infused jazz, and seen him front everything from a three-man rock band to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I have read his autobiography, his book of lyrics, watched his films, bought his winter album (can’t call it a Christmas collection because it really isn’t), and snapped up all his solo work. I admit, I gave away Mercury Falling, but like his guitarist buddy, the inimitable Dominic Miller, I neither understand nor share his fascination with country music. That album sparked my fear that his genius had peaked with The Soul Cages, which remains my favourite of his albums and, in a funny way, was his first step on the path to writing the soundtrack to his first musical, set to premier on Broadway in September 2014.

Magical.

He has always written poetry and put it to music. Now he speaks for characters more than for himself, and that’s what makes the story songs so powerful. This album is a story about people, about leaving home and coming home, about love and loss, and smack in the middle of it is the heart that kept his hometown beating for so many years: the shipbuilding industry. It’s wonderful and beautiful and romantic and sad and ancient and elegant and thoughtful and exactly where Sting as an artist is meant to be. Even his liner notes are inspiring! He talks about what moved him to write this album and how he’s grown as a songwriter. He even mentions The Soul Cages as being coldly received except by a group of particularly fervent fans to whom he fondly refers as the “recently bereaved or the chronically melancholy” –neither category into which I fall, by the way.

It’s not a car stereo album. It’s not a housecleaning album. It’s not a background music album. It may not even be a writing album. It’s a lie-in-a-candlelit-room-and-picture-it-in-your-mind album. It’s a dance-though-you-feel-like-crying album. It’s an is-it-over-already??? album. I was transported by his voice and his music to another time and place, and experienced something deeply profound as a result.

Magic.

Sting, Stang, Stung



Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Two days later, I still wake up looping “If Ever I Lose my Faith in You” – the first song Sting played live at the Save On Memorial Arena last Friday night. At last, for the first time in his life and in mine, the deity himself stopped in my hometown on his latest tour. And all I can say in one syllable is … Wow.

An 8 p.m. start, no opening act, no flashy lights, no rinky-dink set, no video screens and no more than six people on the stage. He wasn’t kidding when he named the tour “Back to Bass”. That’s what we got. A stripped down, professionally executed set spanning over 25 years of a career that defies labeling. He’s written so many brilliant songs that he couldn’t possibly have played everyone’s favourite, so he dug into the archive and produced a half-Police, half-solo show that was all Sting no matter how crunchy, twangy, jazzy or rock n’ reggae the piece. He’s a musician first, a songwriter second, and a singer third. The order may change on a given day, but it’s a holy trinity of talent no matter how it’s numbered.

That said, I admit to being a bit confused until I figured out that what he was playing was absolutely relevant to the name of the tour. My first thought was, “Man, that’s loud.” Which actually means “that’s loud for Sting”, though in truth it wasn’t. He was an angry young man when he started with the Police and has since mellowed considerably, so methinks I was fooled into expecting a reprise of his later offerings when in fact what I got was, well, loud. His sound crew remains the best in my experience, though – after I accepted what I was being served, my ears ceased to bleed. This was a rock concert, pure and simple. And it was fun!

More recent fans might have been disappointed. I was a Police fan from “Message in a Bottle”, so I knew every single song he played. He didn’t spend a lot of time chatting, but he told a story about attending his first NHL game a few weeks back. He named the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins, then scolded the audience: “What are you booing them for? Most of them are Canadian, for ***’s sake!” Which got a laugh, but really, not popular teams in Canuck country. Anyway, he used it as a segue into “Demolition Man”, and that’s when I realized where we were headed. A diehard fan has favourites beyond the radio hits, so I had to acquiesce for the most part. “Every Breath You Take” is a great song, but I tune it out when I hear it, and I’m unsure that he’s as in love with it as he may have been a million performances ago. He played it anyway, with a few other must-haves, but sprinkled throughout were gems from gentler times. “Fields of Gold” and “Shape of My Heart” stand out, and I’ll never tire of “Englishman in New York”. “Message in a Bottle” was done so mind-bendingly well that I can’t remember a better version of it over the half a dozen times I’ve seen him. “Wrapped Around Your Finger” was played to this really cool light effect where a dozen white spotlights drew lazy circles over the crowd; we were all hypnotized by the time the song ended. And he ended the show gently, of course, with “Fragile”. *sigh*

Each of his players were highlighted at various times – the most excellent Dominic Miller on guitar, David Sancious on keyboards, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, Peter Tickell on violin/mandolin and Jo Lawry on backing vocals. Each a superlative performer in his/her own right, perfectly blended to support the master. I adore Dominic Miller; it’s as much fun watching him play as it is to watch Sting. I forget that he can play killer rock riffs as well as classical melodies, he’s a tall skinny guy with loads of charisma and an elegant manner of playing that marks him as a natural musician.

I could rave on about every little thing (he does is magic, ha ha), but overall, I had blissfully sublime moments when I closed my eyes and let the joy pound with the bassline. I sang, I laughed, I stomped and clapped and cheered and dreamed and even wept a little … “King of Pain” is a weird one for me. I care for it as much as “Every Breath …”, but every time I hear it live, I start tearing up about halfway through. It’s the line about the black winged gull with the broken back that gets me; I have to quit singing along at that point else I’ll start bawling. I wonder what past life is tweaked by that image? Maybe I was the gull?

When my Cohen-worshipper at work asks me tomorrow how the Sting gig went, I’ll have to confess that Leonard’s show in March was probably the more religious experience of the two … this time. Sting is definitely a god – Ter reiterated his status after the show – but last Friday, he was less a deity than he was a rock star.

Not bad for an old guy.

Who's Your Deity?

vs

My dear friend Nicole attended a Leonard Cohen concert in Halifax last weekend and promptly—perhaps appropriately—waxed poetic about her experience in the presence of this legendary poet/singer/songwriter/icon. Not only did her review cause me to reconsider my blithe disregard for the man’s stop in Victoria last month, it reminded me of a conversation I’d had about it.

I was talking with a colleague at the office and my eye fell on the print of Leonard Cohen that hangs on the wall of her workspace. A musician herself, she’s a huge Leonard Cohen fan, yet I stupidly posed the obvious question:

“Are you going to the concert on the 6th?”

“Of course,” she said in her quiet way.

Comprehending her meaning, I nodded. “He’s one of those people you go to see every time they come to town. I feel the same way about Sting.”

“Are you going to see him when he comes in May?” she asked.

I snorted. “You bet. Sting is God.”

She glanced up at me from her computer screen, smiled softly, and shook her head. “No, he’s not. Leonard Cohen is God.”

Well, really. I’m not a fan of religious wars, so I will concede that there is room in the arts for more than one god. Or perhaps art is the one true god, and Sting and Cohen and all the other artists in the world are prophets or disciples or heavenly messengers called upon to spread the word.

That said, I just got back from picking up my Sting tickets, so ... um ... “Leonard who?”

Write No Wrong

During tea with a friend the other day, I was asked if I’ve ever considered writing something from the villain’s point of view. It’s a fair question. The villain is always more fun to play, to watch, to fantasize about (okay, that might be too much information), and can be more fun to write. After all, he always thinks he’s the hero. Even if he knows he’s doing wrong, he thinks he does it for the right reasons. It’s in the eye of the beholder, right?

I love my bad guys. They’ve been pretty tame compared to the psychopathic serial killers and die hard terrorists currently fashionable in Hollywood, but they were definitely fun to write. Mind you, my heroes tend toward a little darkness as well. Gosh darn it, even the white knight starring in my current project has a few dents in his armour and I thought he was absolutely pure. I’m hardly disappointed in him, since I know what made the dents, but boy, he’s being more difficult than I thought he’d be and that’s been frustrating.

Anyway, I was reminded of the brouhaha that blew up when Bret Easton Ellis wrote American Psycho back in the 1980s. I didn’t read the book, since I wasn’t at all interested in the workings of a serial killer’s mind, but the controversy made me think about censorship and the right to write. It also shot the book into the media spotlight and made Ellis more famous than he might have been without the fuss, but that’s an ironic aside. More power to him, in fact.

After some deliberation, I concluded that he had done what most writers are driven do: he told the character’s story as the character wanted it told. I suppose he could have refused to tell it, but if he had refused, chances are that someone else would have taken it on and the same uproar would have happened at a later date. Worse, Ellis might have regretted saying ‘No’. Censoring yourself is part of the drill, but when a character is adamant, there’s really no choice but to spin the tale to its finale.

Sting tells the story of a song called “Tomorrow We’ll See”. He had the music all figured out and was waiting for the lyric to come. When it came, it came with a character who happened to be a male transsexual prostitute. Sting fought it, the character fought back, and in the end, won her case by accusing him of judging her harshly based on her circumstance. So he wrote the song. I’m glad he told the story of its genesis—not only is it a favourite of mine for the musical style, but the writer in me completely related to the conflict he faced in finding the words.

My poet friend Nicole has lately begun experimenting with short fiction and was hailed by a character who turned out to be a gigolo. She, like Sting, initially fought it but the man wouldn’t leave her alone. In the end, she produced a piece that revealed the potential for more layers than a mille fois in a guy whom she wasn’t even sure she liked. She’s now considering working more with him down the road … assuming she ever gets through the waitlist of characters lined up behind him.

I guess my point isn’t about censorship so much as it is about the writer’s responsibility to honour the characters who present themselves as they are, not as what may be socially acceptable or politically correct. Truly, I don’t know where they come from. Few of mine reveal themselves in their entirety; I have to work with them before the colour of their hat comes clear. I have, on occasion, declared aloud, “I need a bad guy,” and one graciously appears. They’re imperative in plot development, after all. But sometimes a name will drift past my ear or a face will catch my inner eye and I’ll be curious enough to follow the thread …