My Musical History
My short story, History of Early Music is set to appear in the November issue of Hobo Pancakes . This is a nearly-entirely fictional account of my young love affair(s) and music, guaranteed to not contain more that 10% truth. I wrote History early in 2009, and although it came close to acceptance a couple of times, it only found its current home more than two years after it was first submitted to a publication (which was, for the record, Taddle Creek ). The story (in its submitted form) contains several musical excerpts which I wrote specifically for the story, being somewhat inspired by the musical fragments that appeared in Margaret Laurence's The Diviners , as well as my own early musical compositions. The other inspirational source for the story was Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint , a brilliant novel of sexual self-gratification, frustration and guilt - not to mention neurotic family relationships - in other words, a book that has everything any reader would w...