Fingertips, by They Might be Giants, is a set of 21 tiny songs, meant to be randomly interspersed throughout Apollo 18 when the album is played on shuffle.
Mur Lafferty is the brilliant creator of I Should be Writing, an author, blogger, podcaster, and all-around geek demigod.
What do you get when you put them together? They Should Be Giants? I Might Be Writing (ok, that one strikes a little close to home...)?
Actually, you get a set of fun little stories. Mur Lafferty has taken it upon herself to craft a short story for every one of Fingertips' songlets. One of them, Wreck My Car, caught my attention (via Twitter, further proof that Twitter is the coolest thing ever), and it ought to catch yours, too.
What has this got to do with the Burning Zeppelin Experience? Not a hell of a lot, except that today is a rushed day and I'm throwing a link at you rather than a real post.
That said, I have always been amused and fascinated by the strange places authors get their inspirations from. Riffing off faerie tales and Shakespeare? Dreams and nightmares? The mumblings of blind idiot oracles residing beneath the streets of San Jose? They Might Be Giants songlet titles? Man, it's all cool.
Where does your inspiration come from?
More importantly, this phenomenon can be mined - like pretty much everything Mur Lafferty does - for useful and compelling wisdom. You don't hear Mur Lafferty talking about getting her inspiration from any one thing. I've never heard I Should Be Writing talk about how Mur gets all her ideas from music, or dreams, or faerie tales, or blind idiot oracles (plus, the flight from North Virginia to San Jose would get really expensive). Mur doesn't wait for inspiration to come to her, she goes off hunting for it, and that's something we should all use.
Now it's time for me to get back to my redlines. And you? You should be giants.
2 comments:
Hah! This is awesome, thanks so much for the kind words!
Always pleased to share. Such is the nature of the internet.
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