transcript
00:00.00
jeffekennedy
Good morning everyone this is Jeffe Kennedy author of fantasy romance and romantic fantasy I’m here with my first cup of coffee.
00:14.42
jeffekennedy
Ah, excellent. Today is Monday March Twenty Eighth last week of March Twenty Twenty two um yeah I had a busy weekend. Um lot of different things mostly like non writing related. If you’re on video you will see I did some office rearranging. It may not be obvious to you mostly? it’ll look like that you have a wider perspective and that’s because I moved a printer cart that was on the far side of my desk. Over to underneath the window on that side the east window because I no longer need to have and it’s this has been the case for a long time I’m no longer limited by the cable on it. It’s a wireless printer which I seldom use anyway. And for some reason last week I started thinking about this more I wanted to be able to see out my window more and put the monitor against blank wall instead of having the monitor block the window. So this way I will be able to see the birds being merry. So as a result I am now farther away from this wall behind me so and you could see my bookshelves so that was something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Got that done this weekend. A lot of little things done like that and it was very beautiful weather especially yesterday and I got out into the garden and big news baby learned to use a chainsaw so one of the things that I have discovered about. Landscape here sort of landscape maintenance and the desert southwest when we moved into the house there had been landscaping done xeriscaping um xeri- not zero- I’ve seen people write it as zeroscaping which is just a level of I’m going to say ignorance that just amuses me I understand why people make the mistake and yet there’s a big difference between xeriscaping and zeroscaping.
02:45.36
jeffekennedy
And now I’m totally gonna have to fix that on the transcript anyway. So there are these yucca that are planted in clumps and so it turns out that yucca over time they sprout new greenery on around the edges. But the center of the clump can die off especially in severe drought like we’ve been having but I think it’s also a factor of age and some of this might have been like original landscaping from when the house was built you know and now we’re um, coming up on I think we passed 25 years anyway actually we’re coming up on 30 years yeah 30 years since the house was built I used to live in a a nineteen oh six house so I always think this is like a brand new house. So. This had been something that I’d been noticing for so the last couple of years was that we had these sort of dead clumps of yunk yucca in the middle with the greenery around the edges but they were kind of being smothered by the old stuff. And I thought okay I need to dig this out and I was talking about this with my friend Megan Mulry who I saw yesterday we we went to see the lost city I’ll talk about that. Ah actually all I could say about is he it was great. Was so great. But I was telling her about my my yucca travials and she was sympathizing because it’s like you know I’m using the big rake the heavy rake you know, sort of digging it in there and inking pulling and some of the dead stuff will come out but then there are these bowls these very deck. Trucks that are at the base of it. You know that are like I don’t know um I’m showing it with my hands I’m trying to think of how to describe that I mean we could just say like ten inches across and they’re surprisingly dance I commented to David that. When I’ve seen things about you know, like the native americans having woven stuff out of yucca if you’ve ever been to an exhibit that has shown that kind of thing where they show all the different stuff. You know the baskets and the you know tunics and all of this stuff that they’ve woven from yucca fibers and I’d always kind of wondered. How do they get that much now I know because it’s like these things are just compressed fibers and you could sort of draw out the fibers and everything I was kind of tempted to play with that and see um a reader I’m not going to. But if I were someone who did spinning and weaving.
05:34.14
jeffekennedy
It would be interesting to play with that stuff. So anyway I had tried like cutting some of it hacking at it now this is gonna work so I asked David to show me how to use the chains up. Yeah. And he helped me some he doesn’t quite have the physical strength or endurance really anymore to do a lot of that because it’s a lot of work even with the chainsaw I you guys my back is sortidated but shoulders are sore um I knocked off around two and went and took a shower because my allergies were also killing me where. Our junipers are just full of pollen and probably hear it my voice like a gust of wind will blow and you’ll just see this huge cloud of pollen flying out of it so I went and showered off all of the pollen and then just. Read for a little while while I before I went to meet me and for the movie but up to the movie. Ah, you know I stood up and I was like oh I stiffened up a little bit during that time. So I got it part of one clump I got at. Very worst clump. So I’m gonna sort of do this by increments. This is one of the things that I am learning to do is not to try to do everything all at once. So now I can get at some of these It’s just kind of it looks messy and unsightly I don’t know. If a lot of stuff I leave if I think it’s part of the natural progression of plants. So I leave stuff over the winter. That’s the other thing I did was I raked up a whole bunch of stuff from over the winter I cleaned out in the secret garden our first just in time for our first daffodil to bloom i. Clean that out Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning our death bill had popped open so crack open the window here. It was almost warm enough to sit outside this morning can move out to the secret garden soon. So I’ll put the. Brand new daffodil on the show notes and let’s see so the lost city lost city of d. It was fabulous but can I say it was fabulous. Um, it was. The exact right amount of homage to romancing the stone and with a blend of new invention. Um, the arc was fabulous character arcs ah.
08:23.85
jeffekennedy
I really loved I mean the the nods to romancing the stone were amazing and and like the very best moments from romancing the stone but then also Sandra Bullock has her character take. Agency in a way that Kathleen Turner’s character didn’t always have and that’s phenomenal and then um, Channing Tatum he’s just great I mean I don’t know that I’ve ever really been a huge fan of Channing Tatum but he um. He brought a a depth to a character that doesn’t have a whole lot of depth. He really just and he’s got this comedic sense. They really played off together. Well apparently they’d considered Ryan Reynolds for the role and I love me some Ryan Reynolds and I thought he was great with Sandra Bullock and the proposal I loved that movie too. But I don’t know Channing Tatum was perfect. Perfect for this role. Ah, he plays her fabo esque cover model. They make one fabio joke in there which was. Ah, good fabo joke as opposed to all the tired fabio jokes and and they they had some interesting things to say about romance and so you tune out if you don’t want any spoilers at all I won’t. Spoiler anything important but I’m going to tell you a little bit about the movie Sandra is obviously a writer and very smart and her she’s a linguist and historian and so she’s written these books about this character who’s an archaeologist. And she’s she’s in mourning because her husband died and she’s also conflicted I want to I don’t want to say completely bitter. She. She doesn’t want. She’s an introvert she doesn’t want to go leave her house. She doesn’t want to go out and do this book tour stuff you know coming up with a plot arrangement for her to be wearing a hot pink sparkly Jumpuit in the jungle is is fabulous I mean it’s just It’s great and for them to have it end up in shreds around her very shapely figure I was looking and Sandra Bullock is 2 years and one month older than I am and she she’s looks amazing I realize this is her job. But.
11:09.57
jeffekennedy
She looks amazing. So um I thought was very funny because when she goes out onto the stage where channing Tatum is also going to appear as her cover model for her books dash. Um, and. You know she doesn’t want to do it anyway and her editor or publicist says I think she’s our editor you know tells her not to use big words which I think is funny because I think I’ve mentioned here that my agent tess asked me not to use big words on occasion. So I mean there was some. There was a nice interplay there of of these things and Sandra Bullock says at 1 point how like her linguistic history books never sold and now she writes schlock and jenning tatham says something to her about that which is great because. He’s also you know obviously beautiful. There is an extended shot of his naked ass gonna tell you guys right? there and and it was it was fine fine with a capital maybe in all caps fine. I’m gonna have to fix that on the transcript too and he’s um, not a super smart guy. He’s not a super intellectual or educated guy and he gets stuff wrong and she corrects him on stuff. But he’s also this very nurturing caring person. Um, and you know they play it for comedic effect. But he’s also just kind of you begin to appreciate him. As along with Sandra as the movie goes on and at one point she says something pretty sharp to him about basically being a brainless model and. And he says something to her later about that you know like not knowing who he is and yes, what he has tried to do and it’s it’s this wonderful mirror of of her. You know that like he he tried to be a serious actor and. Couldn’t make it and but he could make it as this cover model and so that’s what that’s what he’s doing and and he says to her about not to call her book schlock because she you know he said you know talks about.
13:55.66
jeffekennedy
The enormous amount of pleasure that it brings to people and how meaningful it is so it’s just all really well handled. It’s um, the romance is handled in exactly the right way with a certain level of um. I what’s what are the words that I want with delight and affection and respect. But at the same time going in for for the full romance. So yeah. And there’s there’s a really wonderful epiphany at the end about about mourning and about what’s meaningful and yet it’s still funny. so so yeah enthusiastic thumbs up weld done Sandra Willock well done chenning day. Ah. Red Pitt is amazing. He’s in it for a surprisingly short amount of the movie. Ah, but it was great. So um, um, excuse me. So yeah, it was um, it was good weekend. It was productive and was while. Oh and I did something else I did tell during I was running a little behind for no good reason I slept a little long still getting used to that. Um, even though I went to bed plenty early. So also been watching Bridgerton this weekend I through 3 episodes of Bridgerton really loved how they handled in episode 3 the Anthony’s backstory and all of that at Aubrey Hall I thought they’re doing a great job in some ways. Almost better than the books showing his um trauma from watching his father die that is not a spoiler. We know that about Anthony um, and and the way that any hint of that sends him into a panic really well done. And I love love the cow playing Kate and I I like the um you know making Kate and eda be East Indian I think that is a nice um, folding in of diversity I’m I’m perfectly good with it and I think. Kate has just the right amount of self-protective rigidity for the character and dignity a lot of pride and dignity on Friday evening I went to a reception. Um.
16:45.58
jeffekennedy
That was put on by Ucross Foundation Ucrosss foundation does writers residencies and when I was a baby writer sometime back in the mid 90 s I did a residency at ucross for two weeks and I think I mentioned this on the podcast before um, just amazing, just incredible. Couple of weeks of my life. Ah pivotal for me as a writer I would say transformative and just in seeing myself as a writer. So the ucross board usually meets in Santa Fe because the founder. Who originally started the cross foundation raymond planck had a house here in Santa Fe before he died and I believe the board still meets here. They they fly in and they usually bring in some kind of guest. In this case, it was a poet M.L Smoker who I very much enjoyed meeting. She was lovely. And enjoyed her reading very much and they also invite like local fellows people who have been you crossfellowship recipients in the past. So you know free food open bar, interesting conversation with people. Um. It was funny though because I did talk with a few people. It’s a very arty crowd very artsy as you may imagine and when I mentioned they were asking me what I was up to now you know and I said oh well I was mainly writing fantasy novels and that I’m the current president. Science fiction and fantasy writers of America they were just all oh that’s nice, but I may be um, adding the lip curl there but um, yeah, totally not impressed. Not interested so speaking of genre. Related prejudices there. We go so the more things change right? Ah there’s a new director of the foundation and I should have chatted up with him more but you know like what does it matter I think that’s like maybe a thing we do when we. Imagine going to like reunions or to in some ways that was a reunion right? because like they knew me when I was a baby baby writer you know and hadn’t didn’t have my book yet and um, not. You know, just a few publication credits and was working on something totally different which is why they probably admitted me if I’d been working on genre fiction. They probably would not have given me the fellowship which is you know, interesting to contemplate but you always think you know you go back and say look look at all these.
19:34.60
jeffekennedy
Things that I’ve done and then they’re like totally not impressed. I was like okay well you know everybody’s got their um goal posts. You know like we’re all playing on different fields with different goal posts that. Meaningful to us and I think that’s what’s important is that the goalposts we’re shooting for are meaningful to ourselves if you are always aiming for the goalposts that are meaningful to other people I think you will not be happy. So on that note I’m going to go. Work on the storm princess and the Raven King I’ve been rereading the eras of magic books so far so reread the long night of the crystalline moon and I’m partway through the golden griffin and the bear prince which is good because I’m encountering details that i. Need to incorporate so that’s my project right? Now you all have a wonderful Monday hope it kicks off a fantastic week and I will talk to you all tomorrow take care bye bye.
