What I have on my plate is stretching in different directions

Saturday, Feb 5 at the Waterford Eagles Club, I'm playing slide and rhythm guitar to backup my cousin Audrey. We're doing a half hour opening for Magic Bus at the MAGIC BUS HIPPIEFEST.

I have two video mashups I want to finish but will require several days devoted to them. "Finger upon finger upon finger" is something I want to do to that Endhiran "best action scene ever, ever ever", but I'm afraid it's freshness will expire within a week or two. The other longer project is "O dysseus, where art thou?" Audio from the trailer of "O Brother Where Art Thou" matched with clips from 1960s sword and sandal movies like "Hercules versus the Moon Men" and "Vulcan, Son of Jupiter".

Three writing projects. I just got a rejection letter from Quirk Books in response to my query letter about LORD JIMI (the novel by Joseph Conrad modified to describe a young guitar god). I feel kind of reinvigorated by getting a rejection letter, because I know that everyone gets them, and it's almost like a signifier of the work that you have to do in order to eventually be a success, collecting enough rejection letters. Read up on how many publishers rejected the first Harry Potter or Lolita. There are all kinds of stories like that among financially successful and critically successful literature. (I know, it's not a guarantee that you'll be successful after collecting X number of rejections, but let me have this illusion for a while.)

I just bought a biography of Agnes Moorehead to research a series of fictionalized stories or novel I want to do about her. Actually paid about $15 for this bio, so now I feel obligated to work on it, which is good.

Finally I'd like to do an essay for the Journal of Cartoon Overanalyzations about the shifting morality in Igor. Not sure if it will pan out, but we'll see. You'll hear more if I actually finish any of these projects.

Sopa Chez Deidzoeb

I thought spinach, tomato and onion would make a good mix of flavors in a soup. Using broth always seems like cheating, but everybody does it and I don't know how else to make good soups. So I started with that and kept adding. Maybe they blended nicely over night because it tastes better today.

Sopa Chez Deidzoeb

1 cup onions, diced
veg oil or olive oil
3 Roma tomatoes, diced
5 ounces spinach, chopped
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced (would have added more, but that's all I had)
5-6 cups chicken broth
cumin
leaf oregano
black pepper
salt?
1 can of garbanzo beans
some instant rice
some rizo or orzo pasta

Saute the onions in oil until they reach a state that you like. Add tomatoes and cook about 5 minutes.

Add broth. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer.

Add mushrooms and garbanzo beans. Cook five minutes.

Add spinach and spices. Cook til wilted.

Then I added some instant rice and let it boil for five minutes. But it was still soupier than I prefer, so I added rizo pasta and let it boil ten minutes for that to finish.

Garnish with cat hair.

Serves several hundred if you get Jesus to pass out the bowls.