Burning Down the House

Psycho Killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?; plus, the real greatest generation, ghostwriters, and my new neighbor-to-be.

Sometimes you have a week when things don't go to plan. You know what I'm talking about. Your new ATM card doesn't show up when you think it will, so you call the bank and tell them. They cancel that card and send a new one, and then you walk out to the mailbox and see that the card you've been waiting for is there. Then, like, maybe you're a Capricorn like I am, and you have your time "managed" in a way that will enable you to send in a fairly decent number of stories between now and the start of the holidays. You think you can do this. You believe in yourself. But all it takes is one little thing to screw up your evil plans. In my case, it was a story that was sent back for a very justified rewrite. If you're like me, you sweat it. You have a conversation with your editors. And then, you fix what you can, barring a few extra interviews you realize you need. You email your editors with part of the new rewrite anyway, because you're desperate for affirmation, which you then receive. But you're still in a waiting game for the interviews you need, as you grapple with frustration and anxiety and weird disappointments in yourself. There are other things to do, of course, and you're thinking of them, which is not helping.

(All of the expletives that I originally expressed at this point have been deleted from this part of the episode. Only my sister knows just what they were.)

Having said this, if you're me in this situation, you take yourself on a date to see Talking Heads frontman David Byrne in concert. Byrne, 74, performed two nights in Atlanta this week, and I saw the first of them, not that I was trying to win, even though, again, I'm a Capricorn and that's how we do. Byrne, the Scottish-born performer who studied photography, performance and video production at Maryland Institute College of Art before co-founding Talking Heads in 1975, staged a show that embraced all his art school sensibilities, as well as joy, and eccentricity, and absolute creativity. Given what I was feeling when I arrived, buying this ticket was the best possible thing I could have done for myself outside of my Girl Dinner of kettle chips and a big fat glass of white wine.

When I settled into my seat, I overheard a guy behind me ask someone: "Hey man, have you ever been to Burning Man?" The man replied "nah" which was kind of a disappointment because I was really hoping for some back and forth about an event I'd probably never attend. Then, I checked my email to see whether my interview requests were...going somewhere...and soon I heard David Byrne tell everyone to take their seats, and to be present, but to take pictures or videos in a way that didn't bother their neighbors. Dancing, he said, was encouraged, but to watch the aisles due to fire hazards.

"In the case of a fire, the people in the aisles have an advantage," he said.

People laughed. And five minutes later the show started. What a frolic it was! Byrne, who sounded great, took us on a lighthearted journey through his solo and Talking Heads career against a massive video backdrop that showed planets and corn fields and swirly psychedelic patterns. No one on the stage was tethered to a specific spot, not even the drummers. The performance was a state of constant play and shape shifting. People made goofy faces and acted chaotic in their prison orange jumpsuits. It was kind of like a kiddie show for grownups, and I just loved – and needed – it.

As I sat in a Lyft on my way back home, I thought about what would happen if, like David Byrne, you didn’t follow the typical form of things in your work. What if you juggled and jiggled and took an upside-down approach to things? How much better and interesting to others would your work be if you loosened up, made a bunch of silly faces, and went wild? How much would free-styling and not giving a damn help you do the things you most love to do?

Can any of you think of any music, books, films, etc that may have shaken loose from standard forms to create something that excited you? Can you think of any time when breaking free of the normal and expected way of doing things served you better? If so, hit reply and let me know about it. I’m curious about your experience.

Meanwhile, welcome to December. Can you believe it? Where did the time go?

Sending you all of my very best wishes,

Paige

Writing prompt: Look back on 2025 and write about the good, the bad, the ugly, the surprising, the unexpected in your life.

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don't just give up.

-- Stephen Hawking

Endnotes

The Greatest Generation? Mine.

I think many of us can agree right now that reality does, in fact, bite. But you know who saw this coming and who was incredibly well-prepared for what it meant? Generation X. Yeah, I don't mean to be snooty about it, but we knew certain things were failing us long ago, and that we'd have to be resourceful as a result. We could not count on the man. And you know what? We weren't the slackers we were made out to be. We cared. We just went about things in our own little way, without Google and Pinterest and whatever else to guide us. This week, The New York Times Style Magazine published a great longform piece about Gen X, which is, "a moment, a mood, an ethos and an enduring way of being, the hallmark characteristics of which — anticorporatism, anti-authoritarianism, ironic detachment, artistic independence, an existential horror of selling out and a live-and-let-live philosophy of life — feel like the antidote to a lot of what’s currently wrong in our culture." You can find the piece here. If you read it, I'd love to know what you think.

Ghosting

There was a time when ghostwriters lurked in the shadows, their words credited to high profile individuals without the ability to sit down and write a whole, thoughtful book about themselves. In recent years that has been changing, with public figures like Kamala Harris enlisting authors like Geraldine Brooks to help them give their story a sort of literary gravitas. Elle writes about how and why ghostwriters are now stepping into the spotlight and it's an interesting read that explores the relationship between writer and subject, as well as the dynamics of things like celebrities such as Dua Lipa making books and bookishness look cool. One ghostwriter said: “In the old days, celebrity ghostwriters were seen as hack writers churning out schlocky books, but now, the practice is finally earning some long-overdue respect. As the culture changes from the top down, this rising tide lifts all ghostwriters, empowering us to command higher rates and claim credit for our work.” For the rest of the story, click here.

Kermit on the Move

For the past 25 years, this 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog dressed as Charlie Chaplin sat above the gates of the Jim Henson Company studio lot in Hollywood. Because the Hensons recently sold the property, they donated this statue to the Center for Puppetry Arts here in Atlanta, which is home to the largest collection of Henson artifacts in the world. No word yet on when the Kermit will arrive, but I can't wait to pay my new neighbor a visit!

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