Matthew Wayne Selznick

Words: 05-03 ~ 06 -1994
Music: 05-03 ~ 06 -1994

What’s It All About?

Years after losing touch with a woman who I loved dearly and who put me through a good deal of hell, I heard from a mutual friend that she wasn’t doing much differently by her husband. The knowledge created some mixed feelings… it dredged up all the stuff we had gone through, made me feel bad for the current guy, and made me very, very grateful that I wasn’t in his position any more.

I played this song a lot in my solo acoustic sets, and since it was one of those songs Gary Fitch insisted need a full band treatment, that’s what it got when we formed Running Erin with Erin Foster and Tony Dare.

The first version included here is a music video from the “mocumentary” Running Erin made with Not Afraid! Productions in 2000 or so. Then there’s a live version from Running Erin, and finally my original from the cassette four-track mini-album from 1994, “Hundred Seller.”

Lyrics:

Support Independent Music

The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.

I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Recommended price: $1.00

Listen and Download

Music Video:

MP3s:

 

 No New Memories by Matthew Wayne Selznick w/ Running Erin (live) [4:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (284)

 

 No New Memories by Matthew Wayne Selznick [4:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (263)

Words: 03-21-1989 with Theresa Copell
Music: 03-21-1989

What’s It All About?

Theresa Copell was my girlfriend for three or four years (depending on whether you count sequentially or comprehensively) in the late eighties. First girl I lived with, and my partner in a lot of, as they say, DIY independent creative endeavors, including my first actively gigging band, psychopathway.

She wrote a lot of poetry, some of which became songs. I saw a fragment in one of her notebooks, expanded it, and wrote the music. It became “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” a kind of word-picture of an elderly person — perhaps one with a difficult, colorful past — easing into death. Theresa was a little miffed at my interpretation and the final product, since it apparently didn’t match where she was going with the original.

Still, I think it’s a nice song, and it was a staple at nearly every one of my acoustic gigs for many years. By the way, it has nothing in common with the James Agee / Walker Evans book of the same name.

The first version here was recorded live at a coffee house in Long Beach, California in the early nineties. No effects or overdubs.

Lyrics:

Support Independent Music

The media files on this page are provided for your enjoyment — you can listen, and even download the MP3 files, and not pay a dime. I encourage you to share them with friends, provided no one changes or sells the files, and that you attribute them to me.

I do hope you’ll consider contributing an amount proportional to how much you like these songs. When you pay for music on this site, you declare yourself to be a patron of independent creative endeavors… and my supporter. That means a great deal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Recommended price: $1.00

Listen and Download

 

 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Matthew Wayne Selznick (live) [4:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (233)

It’s a month in — how did I do?

14,782 words written in the month of January. That works out to an average of 477 words per day. In fact, I didn’t write every single day of the month; far from it.

I’ve got 189,465 words to go. 16,451 words in February — 567 words per day on average. That’s ninety more words per day than last month’s daily goal… but, heck, that’s just a sentence or so more per day. Piece of cake.

Anyone else doing this thing? How did you do?

January is half over… should I feel an obligation to do that blogger’s tradition, the year-end look-back? Am I even a blogger, for that matter, or just one who blogs?

What the heck.

Even though I’m afraid to check the archives to see that I wrote this every other January…. I’ll say that 2007 was a year of transition.

I started the year with my freelance experiment drawing to a close. I actually went back to Borders for about three weeks. Every day spent there was like walking through muddy fog. Not that the folks who worked their weren’t real nice people in almost every case… it’s that I was back at Borders, after more than a year. It felt like a step backward (it was) and it felt like defeat. Sad Selznick.

Then, two friends threw me a rope woven from plumeria and mediawiki markup, and I joined Mahalo.com in April. This is a company I drive 175 miles every day for, getting to and from Santa Monica. That should tell you something. It’s engaging, challenging, enriching, and the people are awesome. If you haven’t done so already, check them out, join Mahalo Social, and friend me up!

That covers the work front in 2007. The creative front… hm. I completed exactly one piece of fiction in 2007 — one more so than in 2006. That was the short story “Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf,” which was bought by Escape Pod, the science fiction podcast magazine, and read by soon-to-be bestselling author Scott Sigler. I’m a little frustrated and disappointed by my creative output last year, which is why I’m shooting for the unreasonable and grandiose in 2008… I want to write 200,000 words by January 1st, 2009. This should be mostly fiction, but can include essays, non-fiction works, and blog posts that are more than just “check out this cool link.” It’s really only 550 words a day, give or take… yeah… it’s a piece of pie! Wish me luck… and follow my progress by searching for the tag “200K IN 2008″, especially in Twitter.

I attended three conventions in 2007, and spoke on panels at each one — Balticon in Baltimore, Maryland, DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, and the New Media Expo in Ontario, California. It was my third NME, my first time for the others. Doing that much traveling was dreadfully expensive in many ways, and while it was great to connect with friends and fans new and old, I don’t think I’ll be attending anything in 2008 farther than a couple of driving hours away. It costs too much, and with both my wife and I working, it’s harder to leave the house for days at a time.

I did a lot of podcasting for other folks — mostly dramatic readings and a promo or two — and launched two new podcasts myself. Five Minute Memoir didn’t stick, but it may live again with a different host. Writers Talking was a success, and will return in 2008.

2007 was a pits and valleys kind of year. I guess every year is like that. The repercussions of both the high and low moments continue to ripple into this year. If this was an anonymous blog, I’d go into more detail… but it’s not. I’m grateful for the patience, love, support, understanding, and inspiration of all those involved, though. You know who you are.

This is the part of the post where I’m supposed to neatly sum up the entire year with some tidy phrase. A tag line that encompasses three hundred sixty five days. Yeah, sure, okay.

2007 was as much about moving forward with new opportunity as it was about stagnation. It was as much about bright optimism and excitement as it was about disappointment and self-sabotage. It was brilliant and dark.

That’s about as specific and universal as a horoscope — it was my year, but I bet it was your year, too.

And this is the part where I’m supposed to look forward, leaning into the sunrise with my shoulders back. In fact, I am excited… not about a new calendar on the wall, though. The turn of the year is an agreed-upon marker, but the real landmarks in our lives are noted by the events that matter to us. Each calendar year holds a number of these, and they overlap. April was one. May was one. October was one. And, sure, January is one, thanks to 200K IN 2008.

There will be more to come!

Long-time supporter Paul Jenkins, host of the Rev Up Review podcast, features Matt in episode thirty five of the podcast. This was recorded close to the end of the 2007 DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia. Subscribe to the Rev Up Review and enjoy Paul’s look at science fiction and other topics, or just download this episode!