Spitball Army

Lacking inspiration after a long string of consecutive Sunday playlists, I struggled last week to come up with a theme – or even a good completely random selection of songs. I was unsuccessful, and didn’t post a program on the 12th. This week, I stumbled upon an idea. The concept: make a playlist using a bunch of the 130-character true stories that I’ve written over the past year for the daily Creative Nonfiction contest on Twitter. I barely started when I realized I’d traveled this ground before (I, after all, had written them!) and was bored by it. I decided to give the idea a twist.

Beginning last Monday, I solicited my followers on Twitter to write a tweet inspired by music. The plan: gather a handful of interesting stories by some ridiculously-talented writer folk and apply the original process to one of them. The tweeps were, at first, a little bit shy about participating but, after five days, there were several nicely thought-out vignettes.

The one I chose (and it wasn’t easy) submitted a story that had an irresistible kinetic energy that puts the reader smack in the middle of a packed, steamy club, just within feet of the lip of the stage:

The bass player strums, the crowd presses forward. We are one breathing body, mouthing the words to our favorite song.

The writer of that tweet  – Twitter handle: @devakali – has been a prolific Creative Nonfiction tweeter over the last several months, so I only had to go back as far as mid-November to find enough material to inspire a playlist. You’ll see her vivid stories below, preceding the music track from today’s playlist that was inspired by it (or them, as was the case in a couple of instances).

And, if your curiosity has been piqued, go to Twitter and read the wealth of true-life microessays that get submitted daily using the tag #CNFtweet. They run the gamut in content and tone, and you are sure to discover some new favorite writers.

Approximate playing time: 47 minutes.

[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_121910.mp3]

– Nothing says desert holiday like a palm tree wrapped halfway in lights, except maybe a saguaro pinned with plastic snowflakes.
1. “Phoenix City” (1965) by Roland Alphonso & The Soul Brothers

– With no one to cook for this year, her grocery cart is a rudderless boat. A frozen smile for all the clerks, she affects a hurry.
2. “Eleanor Rigby (strings only version)” (1966) by The Beatles

– The desert by full moon reveals itself slowly: as pupils adjust, the branches of palo verde recede from dark fans to long fingers.
3. “The Desert” (1986) by Jonathan Richman

– In summer, she wears sunblock under her eyes, like a football player. In winter she fishes a torn coat out of some forgotten nook.
– The shoulders of our winter coats shush and whisper against each other in conspiracies of static over the space of empty bus seats.
4. “Winter Coat” (1991) by Paul Kelly

– They move across the sky as almost-one, bird-shaped cutouts in violet sky. In the feathered grasses below we wait and watch.
5. “Birds Fly Backwards” (2001) by Ed Harcourt

– Crisped sage, caramel apples: fragrances of abundance warm us, feel like the days before care weighed us down like freighters.
6. “Shine On, Harvest Moon” (1931) by The Boswell Sisters

7. “Intermission” (2002) by Peter Bruntnell

– I stare at the screen: daydream through an embargo to a man with a cigar stub bouncing in his mouth as he counts crocodile teeth.
– Like elephant seals on a warm agatey beach, we bask in the glow of the TV, arms across swollen bellies, twitching whiskers, full.
8. “Television Man” (1985) by Talking Heads

– He left cairns behind all over the house, little mountains of every small thing I had given him. Cards, mix-tapes, notes: stacked.
9. “Box Full of Letters” (1995) by Wilco

– We were taught to carefully toe over the chunks of fossil-rich tuff and listen: a whispered ripping sound meant Black Widows.
10. “Boris the Spider” (1966) by The Who

– A rosy arc of moon hangs over the dull town like a judgment, like a merciful guillotine about to swing loose.
11. “Hangman” (2007) by The Redwalls

– We are not good at missing people. When a chair at the table goes empty, we fill it, quickly, with some orphan, misfit, or dog.
12. “Empty Chairs” (1971) by Don McLean

– He left cairns behind all over the house, little mountains of every small thing I had given him. Cards, mix-tapes, notes: stacked.
13. “All the Things” (1970) by The Byrds

– My grandma knows integrity, crouched down behind the car in her nightie, kissing her wrist to call grosbeaks, neighbors be damned.
14. “My Grandmother” (1997) by Archie Roach