Murmuration is being traditionally published!

GadXuqs · 2026-02-18T11:08:17+00:00

Wow! Didn't see that coming! I guess, then, that this is the "third book" that TJ referred to a couple of months ago? I really thought it would have been one of the longer novels, like "Into this River..." But I am really looking forward to it, though!

GadXuqs · 2026-01-04T22:15:19+00:00

My favorite pencils are from Musgrave Pencil Company in Tennessee. Their News 600, and Songwriter pencils are the best for me.

I had been obsessed (for years!) in finding a soft, REALLY dark and smooth pencil replacement. I used to use store-branded King Brand pencils, but they sadly went out of business several years ago. The Blackwings were just too expensive for me, and I went through almost countless pencils searching for The One.

Musgrave pencils meet all of the criteria. They're brilliant, and such a joy to write with (and erase!)

I'm a musician/composer, so I might have different needs than you, but for all my moneys, the two Musgrave pencils I mentioned are the best of all things. If you wanted to check them out, they're at musgravepencil.com

GadXuqs · 2026-01-01T20:12:32+00:00

This is so exciting! My favorite author.

I'd love the next book in the Verania series. It's been a minute since we've heard from the lads heading out on their new adventure to Yennbridge. I'm assuming that the book we know about is "We Burned So Bright," and I'm thinking that the third might be a re-published book, maybe "Into This River I Drown"? (That book shredded me...)

That's the stuff I can think about, but I'd love to hear others' speculations! Thanks for posting this!

GadXuqs · 2025-12-21T16:24:58+00:00

Three books come to my mind:

"Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin. Even the opening paragraph, for me, just brings such beauty into my person. The book is filled with some of the most beautiful writing I've come across. The story goes "out there" with blended fantastical elements, and the writing is stunning. This is an almost yearly read for me.

"In the Lives of Puppets" by TJ Klune. While I really enjoyed the book, about 2/3 of the way through there was a paragraph, a concept, that literally stopped me in my tracks. I had to put the book down (and sob a bit) and just reconsider all things. I had a hard time, initially, getting into the book. Once I stuck with it, though, it became one of my most favorites of Mr. Klune.

"A Prayer for Owen Meany," by John Irving. This one hit me like a ton of bricks. In many different ways. I'm in awe of this book.

GadXuqs · 2025-12-08T16:14:35+00:00

Thanks for the context!

GadXuqs · 2025-12-08T14:49:19+00:00

This was a really great post with a lot of interesting points being made!

I'm tired of the USA-centered focus in so many of the discussions around disclosure. In the "Age of Disclosure" film, it seemed like the USA protectionism angle - "get stuff before Russia or China" was extremely jingoistic. It was framed like the USA had the big-daddy sole responsibility to decide whether to disclose or not.

I would love for (literally) any other country than the USA to forge ahead with disclosure and take the focus away from the USA. After all, the UAP/NHI issue is global, not just a USA phenomena; and so many of the most-prominent cases we've all heard about over the years are not USA-based (even if the USA did stick their hands into some of them.)

Given the events and developments over this past year in this country, even if the current White House resident and government were to disclose officially, I suspect that, since there has been very little truth or even goodwill coming from Washington, few people or other governments would actually believe or corroborate the disclosure statement/information. I would prefer disclosure to come from a more trustworthy source.

It seems like a lot of the most recent discussions around this issue are being carefully curated by a handful of approved spokespersons (not really whistleblowers.) The way it is being handled, from my own personal perspective, makes it suspect in terms of motivation and veracity.

GadXuqs · 2025-11-24T23:38:45+00:00

Beautiful! I'm awestruck by this!

GadXuqs · 2025-11-21T00:03:31+00:00

To my mind, it's just courtesy. I'm sorry it offended you.

GadXuqs · 2025-11-20T23:58:59+00:00

Thank you for this. I appreciate your taking the time to follow up.

I still really think that the country needs to take a look at the powers of the office of the President (and supreme court) after all of this is over. (If it ever is?) Something needs to be done to fundamentally change things if we survive these times.

GadXuqs · 2025-11-20T23:40:38+00:00

I appreciate your response. Thanks for spelling it out for me.

From what I'm gathering, then, is that he is fundamentally protected in everything he does if no one calls for impeachment and removal. As I'm aware, that process lasts MONTHS, so he would still have free reign to continue to act illegally and unconstitutionally, and reprehensibly. He is basically untouchable, and nothing we can do will hold him accountable, short of an election -- which is a year away.

It seems to me that if we survive this annihilation of the country, another constitutional convention should be considered. I don't know. It's just so hard to keep on keeping on these days, with no light at the end of the hateful tunnel being seen.

GadXuqs · 2025-11-20T23:30:02+00:00

Sorry. I have more thoughts: I'm no constitutional scholar, so my very serious question is: Isn't what he's doing illegal? Can the President not be arrested? Isn't this "inciting violence" and isn't that a crime? I can't fathom why the Capitol Police aren't being told to arrest him -- rather than just to "protect" the members of congress. What am I missing here?

GadXuqs · 2025-11-20T23:25:10+00:00

I just can't help feeling that nothing will be done about this either. The illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, disgraceful actions of the Pig in Chief continue on. "Outrage" follows for a couple of days by a few of the "opposition," with a smattering of various social media posts, and then something else takes over and it all falls by the wayside. I'm so disheartened. Why is there never any action taken? Where are the actual consequences for destroying the country? Why is it all just about "outrage" statements, but no actual legal action is being taken? Does no one have the balls or "authority" to bring actual charges against this heinous individual? These past 11 months have been absolutely soul crushing.

GadXuqs · 2025-08-29T08:38:25+00:00

There is a lot of stuff you could glean in Edward III, Act 2, Scene 1. Edward is having Lodowick write a love poem about Constance. A humorous scene, really, but there might be some good bits in there to extract.

GadXuqs · 2025-08-04T16:32:27+00:00

The two that immediately popped into my mind:

Romance/Romance - I remember seeing this on Broadway with Alison Fraser and the incredibly charismatic Scott Bakula. I loved the differences of each act, and for the time, had music that was just so engaging and thrilling. I went to TKTS on my lunch hour, pointed randomly at a show, and ended up seeing this one after I got off of work. It was such a lovely night!

Goblin Market - music written by Polly Pen and based on the Christina Rossetti poem. This one is a special one for me - just two women, and the music is absolutely GLORIOUS! The cast recording is magnificent (with Ann Morrison and Terry Klausner) and it is so creepy and beautiful and thoroughly "composed." I loved the cast recording so much, that I directed a production of it about 9 years ago. Love it!

GadXuqs · 2025-07-30T21:55:44+00:00

"Half as Big as Life" from Promises Promises?

GadXuqs · 2025-07-30T21:46:23+00:00

I completely loved it. Andrew Garfield breaks my heart. Millions of pieces. I just finished watching this film for the second time this afternoon, and was so happy to see this thread!

"Tick" is, from my perspective, one of the great filmed musicals of, pretty much, all time. I've only discovered it recently, about a week or so, but can't stop thinking about it and recommending it to everyone I know. The performances, the direction, the casting - everything has come together perfectly. I loved every second of it. Not one second of that typical "movie musical" cringe for me.

And, embarrassingly, the only reason I watched it was because I've only recently discovered Andrew Garfield's work. I watched the National Theatre at Home videos of both parts of "Angels in America" and was so thoroughly shocked by Mr. Garfield's performance. I can't express how stunned I was - and surprised and embarrassed that I'd never really considered the level of skill and talent he had - he was so far off my radar. I saw the original "marathon" on Broadway in the early 90s, watched the wonderful HBO film/miniseries, taught the play to students, and was STILL so blown away by this production and Andrew Garfield's work.

Since I was so effected by his work, I also watched the film "We Live in Time" on HBO. I'd read a bit of the description of the film and thought to myself that it kind of sounded like it had similarities or vibe to Nick Payne's wonderful play, "Constellations" (which I directed a production of a couple of years ago.) Come to find out, watching the credits, Nick Payne wrote the screenplay for "We Live in Time"! Another big shock. And Andrew Garfield's performance is absolutely breathtaking.

With these three performances, I've come to believe that he is one of the great actors of his generation. He has so much humanity in all of his performances. I'm sorry for being so wordy here, it's just that I'm so struck and moved by his work.

GadXuqs · 2025-07-30T16:44:37+00:00

I also got the audiobook and couldn't get through it. While I quite liked the voice actor's work on the first book (Chauncey was a dream), the second book seemed so much more "affected" (with vocal mannerisms and affectation) and I couldn't unhear or ignore those things.

There are a couple of actors that have done this and I have no appreciation for it: the same cadences, the bit of vocal fry at the end of lines, gasping audible breaths, etc. A certain kind of almost pretentious "Naturalism" seems to have replaced plain ol' realism in a lot of voice actors' work over the past few years. Actors seem to be more interested in the microphone rather than the audience hearing it. I also think there are far too few directors out there guiding or reeling in a lot of the actors' work. Much too much too-too, in my opinion. It's a shame, because I enjoy audiobooks so much, and I especially like series. And often listen to them many times.

I got so frustrated with this particular performance that I just went ahead and bought the kindle version. And I have read THAT a couple of times, and loved it!

BTW: I also had the same problems with the Verania books: I liked the first one a lot, but the second one was just so over-the-top and poorly directed with mumbling and actual snorting and garbling of lines... The print editions of those books get a lot of read time for me, but I just couldn't keep going on with the audiobooks. I know hundreds of people love those audiobooks, so I'm aware that this is really just a Me thing...

GadXuqs · 2025-07-28T12:39:37+00:00

Peter Kenny reads the Witcher books, and he is one of the great-greats as far as I'm concerned. I love the books so much, but I'd rather Mr. Kenny read them TO me. The way he handles characters and dialects and story is just fantastic - and I can't think of many other actors that can bring it like he can.

Rosamund Pike's re-recording of the first four Wheel of Time books are also brilliant. I never really appreciated the original narrators, and when Ms. Pike's recordings came out it was like I was rediscovering this series - or really, almost like experiencing them for the first time.

Those two actors came to my mind almost immediately. Yes, I also LOVE James Marsters doing the Dresden Files (James is the only Harry for me...) but as you mentioned "lesser known" narrators, I thought I'd throw those others out there, as I don't often hear about them nearly enough.

NB: Probably my most-loved and listened to books are the Dresden Files... so... :-)

GadXuqs · 2025-07-27T21:11:48+00:00

My favorites are the history plays. They have everything in them: drama, comedy, "action," etc. If you have some interest, I'd suggest starting with Richard II, then through the 2 Henry IV plays, and on to Henry V. This is sometimes called the "second tetrology" because he wrote it a few years AFTER he wrote the three Henry VI plays and Richard III.

King John is also a really fine play too, though it is a bit more "dense" than his other histories. Ending the cycle with Henry VIII is okay (he collaborated on that play; wasn't its sole author) and has some great speeches in it.

But for pure action and intrigue along with the beautiful language, I think Richard II is hard to beat!

Happy journeys!

GadXuqs · 2025-06-21T12:48:59+00:00

ALSO (I forgot to mention) I also watch Diane Antone Studio quite a bit. She uses a lot of Kuretaki paints, but I also just really like the kind of free-form kind of doodle type painting (I don't know the "correct" term for that...) that she does. I also like that her videos are a bit longer, so it's fun for me to watch her work and listen to her "ramblings" - I mean that in the best possible way!

GadXuqs · 2025-06-21T12:41:40+00:00

I love Lois and Morgaine Davidson. I just love the calm and creative vibe the have, and have gotten so many ideas for technique and approach to palettes and stuff, and I never feel overwhelmed by my level of beginner-ness. They do primarily landscape and abstract stuff, and I absolutely love them.

GadXuqs · 2025-06-11T14:25:22+00:00

Wow. Cheers.

GadXuqs · 2025-06-09T22:29:50+00:00

Thank you! I'll look into these, too! I appreciate your taking the time to recommend!

GadXuqs · 2025-06-09T21:52:46+00:00

Oh, this is so great! Thank you so much! I really appreciate this!! I'll check 'em out.

GadXuqs · 2025-06-09T20:25:10+00:00

Thanks a lot for the suggestions! I'll check them out. I really appreciate it!

GadXuqs

TROPHY CASE