BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Yeah, cake tops. No, NOT cake toppers, like the bride and groom thing, or silly shamrocks, or cheap plastic stuff for decorations.

I mean the TOPS of CAKES.

Kinda like muffin tops or whatever that was on Seinfeld.

Confused yet? I know I am.

Actually, I spent this past weekend at a secret bunker/undisclosed location for some R&R. Actually, that should be D&D, but not the role playing game kind. D&D as in Drinking and Debauchery…

Anyhow, one of the friends with whom I stayed makes wedding cakes as a supplement to her regular income. She won’t make them for just anybody, usually friends or referrals from friends, but let me tell you she could stand toe to toe with the best of them in the biz if she wanted.

Either way, I had never seen this done. I mean, yeah, I’d seen cakes made and have even made a few myself, but I’d never watched anyone make and decorate an actual wedding cake, which was quite an interesting process, what with the fountain and all that jazz.

And so, this is where cake tops and the “equation” in the title of this blog came from.

After baking all these different sized layers, in order to make everything nice and level for the pedestals and such, she lopped off the tops of the cakes, tossed ’em on a plate, and put them well across the room from where she was working. Why? So all of us idiots who were standing around in her kitchen watching (i.e. getting in her way) would have something to nibble on and therefore would leave her alone.

Just like the origin of the Hush Puppy…

Murv

PS. Yeah, I know. Not much of a blog, but I’m really concentrating on writing a book right now so there isn’t too much frivolity in my head for me to toss this way. I promise I’ll try to make the next one more interesting.

No. I have not forgotten how to spell. Yes, I do perpetrate a typo now and again, but don’t we all?

The title of this blog, in point of fact, means something. (No, not like Roy Neary in Close Encounters running about screaming “this means something”…Nor the spoof, Closet Encounters and Roy Dreary…Betcha’ thought I wouldn’t know that one didn’t you? Uh-huh…)

So, anyway, today’s babbling is about vernacular, accents, and “how ta’ tawk rite.” Those of you who are familiar with the Rowan Gant series know that everyone’s favorite 6 foot 6 cop, Ben Storm, has a tendency to clip his speech, and pepper it with expletives. In order to get it across to the reader, some of his dialogue is intentionally misspelled, or words are truncated by omitting letters and adding that wondrous little thing called the apostrophe. This is NOT something I did because I thought it was cool. I did it because the real life cops upon which he was based in part, actually talk that way. The one and only way to make the dialogue read the way it should sound is to truncate and generate my own phonetic spellings.

Now, those of you who have been following the series right up to the cliffhanger ending of All Acts Of Pleasure also know that Rowan is no longer in Saint Louis. No, he hasn’t moved, but he did have a need to go to New Orleans, which is where a modest portion of The End Of Desire actually takes place. This is what brings us to “tawkin’ rite.”

There is a particular bent to the New Orleanian mode of speech that you won’t find anywhere else. Having been there on more than one occasion, I know this to be true. And, no, I am not talking about Justin Wilson. From what I’ve been told, his accent wasn’t really that thick. He was just a hell of a showman. Either way, folks in New Orleans actually do have a particular mode of speech that will not be found anywhere else.

In social anthropology texts that deal with regional dialect and linguistics, the New Orleanian accent is often described as Brooklyn meets the deep south. Additionally you have a blend of French, Jamaican, Italian, Irish, and just about everything else in between making up the dialect.

So, why am I running off at the mouth about this? Like I said, a modest portion of The End Of Desire occurs in New Orleans. Therefore, in order to set the scene and be true to the region, I have had to not only recall my times there and spend time emailing a dear friend who lives in NOLA (Thanks Velvet!), but I have literally had to learn NOLAspeak in order to write the dialogue for a few of the characters.

Let me tell you…It REALLY is almost like learning a second language.

At this stage of the game there are still some tweaks that may be necessary to the incidental dialogue, however, don’t be surprised if The End Of Desire comes equipped with a one page glossary appended right in the front.

(Actually, not really…But, it crossed my mind )

That’s it for now…Time for some sleep, a couple of nightmares, and then back to writing!

MR/Murv