Month: June 2014

Writer How To: my writer website part i

Dear Internet,
It seemed only fair after I doled out all that advice yesterday, I should show you the money. I’m going to throw down my author’s website, software and apps I use, as well as design thoughts and more.
As I mentioned yesterday, TheHusband suggested I keep my author site separate from Exit, Pursued by a Bear (where you’re located at now) and my librarian site. I agreed. However, since I am going to have three sites to maintain, they all need to be consistent and relate to each other in some fashion.
A couple of years ago, I designed business cards using the image of three year old me holding a phone as the main graphic, which was also the main header image at EPbaB for a long time. The cards were a huge success when I handed them out and people easily remembered who I was later on. Since it was time to make new cards, I expanded on that idea and decided to use the same concept across my sites.
(If you click on the images, it will open up a new tab with a larger image for greater detail.)
Exit, Pursued by a Bear – Online Journal (Theme: Mon Cahier child)
EPbaBlanding
Cunning Tales From A Systems Librarian – Librarian Site (Theme: Elucidate)
profeshlibrariansite
Lisa Rabey – Writer (Theme: Arcade Basic)
lisarabeycomlandingpage
The only site I’m not 100% happy with is my librarian site, which I will futz more with later. There are also couple of other things I can do to make all three sites more cohesive, but the idea is there and I like where this is going. The Lisa Rabey Empire is coming to fruition!
Now that I know how I’m branding the author site, I played with the freely available themes at WordPress until I found one that would work for my needs and required as little hacking as possible.
ProTip: I exported a  year’s worth of entries from EPbaB and imported them into the test site to see how the theme handled a wide variety of posts and formating.
I looked for a theme that allowed: Custom header, adding breadcrumbs easily, two column so I could have a sidebar, and top navigation bar that wouldn’t get lost when you scrolled. I like white backgrounds with no textures, and I wanted something that was eye popping. It also had to work mobilized via the Jetpack for WordPress plugin. I settled on Arcade Basic.
ProTip: As someone who likes things quick and to the point, Jetpack for WordPress is one of the best plugins you could install and make your life insanely easy. I know a lot of my more advanced WordPress/coding friends are not a fan of this plugin for a variety of reasons, but as someone who wants no fuss, no muss and ease to use? This thing is a godsend.
When you land at my author’s site, you see a young Lisa with her pops as the landing graphic. There is a top navigation bar for home, bio, fiction, other writing, blog, and contact. Here is all the basic information I mentioned yesterday clearly listed and easy to find.
In the middle of the landing page is a box that says See More. When you click on it, it jumps down to the second half of the landing page where there is additional content (there is also a scroll bar in the right hand side if you want to use that instead).
ProTip: I’m not crazy about the wording of “see more” so I may just change it to something else, which will be easy enough.
lisarabeylandingpage2
Excuse my rudimentary Photoshop.
The navigation bar stayed in place when we hopped down the page, which is why even though I know a lot of people hate these giant graphic landing pages, I loved this one because you don’t lose your navigation.
The main content box is a quick about me / this site. There is also a search box, social media links, and a news feed.
ProTip: Having learned my lesson trying to maintain blogs across variety of sites, I found a work around that allows me to keep this site looking like it’s constantly updated without stress by using the Appearance->Widgets->RSS widget within WordPress. Every category and tag in WordPress has its own RSS feed, so I can pull a specific feeds to show up in this particular widget box. There is no limit to the number of RSS widgets you can use. For the news widget, I mark all my writing stuff under the “writing” category  on EPbaB and the feed is pushed on the author site. I do the same thing on the my librarian site, under recent posts in the sidebar, which has its own category for the very same reason.
To recap: I write everything on EPbaB and the RSS feed for a specific category are fed to specific sites based on feed name. If people are interested in the whole shebang of the blog, they can click on blog in the top navigation.
I wanted two columns because I need the ability to add/remove things as necessary for whatever reason without losing the main content box or forcing people to scroll to the bottom. When I get a newsletter up and running, books to buy, or whatever, it will go in the right hand side bar. Additionally, Jetpack has a feature that allows you to show certain widgets on certain types of pages for more customization.
Tomorrow we’re going to look at the main navigation and why I set it up this way, child pages, what’s left to do on my author site, and base plugins you should use for your WordPress site.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. As my author site is not live quite yet, but I do link to it, so if you find a broken link, that’s why.

This day in Lisa-Universe:

daily walk: meyer may house

Dear Internet,
The recent spat of sporadic rains have not helped with the 93% humidity and high 80s temps. TheHusband and I cracked and turned the central air on Friday, which has been fabulous, but the minute we head out, we melt. Yesterday TheHusband went out to stake our poor tomato plants and I was hauling recyclables out to their respective cannister when I got tagged by some sun. That burned. It was painful. I quickly tossed the recyclables into their cannister and booked it back inside, vowing to never let the Daystar graze upon my body again.
TheHusband, who had the beginnings of heat stroke on Saturday night, was outside for roughly 20 -30 minutes and was nauseous when he got back indoors. Sleeping last night was painful for both of us: His back, including his shoulders and his upper arms, are burnt while the top of my thighs, chest, and arms were burnt. I could sleep on my back, but couldn’t sleep on my side or stomach. He could sleep on his stomach, but not on his back or sides.
We’ve been drinking lots of water, rubbing ourselves down with aloe, and eating ibuprofen to help with the pain. And this is why we never leave the house! Too traumatic!

meyermayhouse
Meyer May House

Distance: 1.17 miles
Walk time: 20:38 minutes
Pace: 16:70/mile
This morning’s walk took me past Meyer May House, which is spitting distance from our house. It has a cousin a few blocks in the opposite direction that was completed by some of Wright’s acolytes.
In the 3.5 years we’ve lived in this neighborhood, we’ve never done a tour of the house.
The rest of my walk was kind of a clusterfuck. The Walkmeter app froze and only recorded half of my walk, so my times above are estimates based on previous walks. My podcast app also froze, as well as the Spotify app, so the last half of my walk was music less. I was getting overly distracted by all of the world around me, I need the music to keep me focused. Music keeps my brain from overheating from the ping ponging of thoughts and ideas, which is super important when I am exercising or doing an activity that requires physicality or else OOOHHH SHINY.
And of course when I got home, everything started working again perfectly. Of course.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe:

i can’t live at this speed

My brother's yet to be named boat.
My brother’s yet to be named boat.

 
Dear Internet,
This past week was chocked full with unprecedented social behaviour.
Sunday, TheHusband and I had dinner with TheDrunk and her husband then headed out to see Skinny Lister at the Intersection.
Tuesday, I had lunch my last, while still employed, work lunch with Work Husband #3.
Thursday, library staff took me out to lunch on my very last day and that night, TheHusband and I saw Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite play at Meijer Gardens. After, we had a late dinner in which I tried to drink my weight in margaritas.
Friday, TheDrunk picked me to hang with her, her husband, and their friend Becky and Pete for unbelievably cheap happy hour at Gippers, where happy hour lasts eight hours. $2.50 for a pint of Perrin Black? Yes please.
Saturday, my brother texted Friday night to see if we wanted to go boating with him on Saturday. YES PLEASE. We spent six or seven hours drinking, sunning, and hopping in and out of Lake Michigan.
Our price for all of this normal, human social activity behaviour? TheHusband and I are too sunburned to touch the other. Despite multiple layers of broad spectrum 30 and 50 SPF throughout the day Saturday, the only thing not burned is our lips and the palm of our hands (and my belly). So instead of rubbing or hugging, we’ve been high-fiving each other all day long.
YOLO. (And why I’m never, ever leaving the house again.)
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 1999

Writer How To: the writer’s website

Dear Internet,
This is a bit of a chicken and the egg conundrum: Do I write a bit on the launch my new writers’ site and then talk about what went into it or do I write about the influences and decision making  first?
I decided to go with the egg first.
One thing I wanted to get done immediately on this new career of mine, even if it was damned near empty, was my writer site. TheHusband suggested, and I agreed, that having a site dedicated to my work would make my life easier in the long run rather than trying to shove everything under the EPBaB banner or tossing it over in my librarian profesh site.
While I’ve always mentally noted what I’ve liked or didn’t like when I came across an writer’s site, I wanted to see what others thought. A couple of weeks ago, I started asking around the Internet what people liked / didn’t like / expected on their favorite writer’s websites. Do writers need one and if so, what should they include on it?
A couple of days later, Katie Dunneback asked the same thing with the intent to write a piece on the results. She and I more or less got the same responses which could best be summed up as:

Short answer: Yes. Everything but the kitchen sink.

Long answer:
(Italicized is Katie’s round up, non-italicized is my addendums)

  • Information about upcoming releases
    • Synopsis, book trailers, ways to get ARCs
  • Excerpts from past, current, and upcoming releases
  • Publication history about previously published works whether they are currently in print or not* – double points for printable (we librarians have patrons who still really prefer getting a piece of paper from us)
    • Sorted by format: Short stories, novels, novellas, and so forth. Also break out non-fiction work from your fiction work. If your work has been published online, links to to the work.
  • Reading order information for series* (this includes “you don’t have to read these in order!”) – again, printable
    • If you write under multiple names for multiple works, make sure the sites connect or list everything in one site
    • Also, book club information would be grand
  • Contact information* – Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, other social media du jour, email (maybe I’d like to book you for a program if I were to book programs for my library), newsletter sign up link/form
    • At the very, VERY least, a newsletter and email form for contact. Many of my friends said they mainly follow people on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr but like Katie points out, having email form for contact is great.
    • Newsletter is fantastic if you don’t plan on writing a blog or have a news page
  • Biography – @surlyspice suggests two: 1 brief and 1 expanded
  • Every cover that your book has ever had
  • Direct links to where to buy your books
    • Not just to your publisher, but also any retailer (online or brick and mortar) that sells them and or you want supported
  • Events /Appearances (online and off)
  • Influences or “you may like me because”
  • News page. Example: “I just sold the rights to Three Blind Mice to Germany — here is the new cover.” “I have a new story coming out in Fairytales Unlimited, you can read it here.” “I’ve been nominated for a Locas, Hugo, and Wednesday awards. Please go vote for me.”
  • Blog. If not integrated into your site, at least a link from your site to the blog, and a link on your blog back to your site.
  • Awards won and reviews
  • Periodically updated
  • Press kit (bio, selected list of works, professional grade headshot)
  • FAQ page
  • Easy to navigate, content is easy to read

The very bare bones site should contain: about (this site), bio (brief/extended), list of works, sorted by format; contact info. If you’re on social media, make sure to link to those sites. Same with a blog. Readers build relationships with the writers just as much as they do with characters of the stories they are reading. Some have said that the less they know about writer, the less likely they would be read more of their works.
With that in mind, I decided to poll the last 20 writers I have or am currently reading from my GoodReads account to see what I could find on their online presences. The genre classifications comes directly from GoodReads and I wanted to see if it had any bearing on site design or content. (Hint: It doesn’t.)
(If the embed isn’t working for you, you can view the spreadsheet in full.)
[iframe src=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TXSjg2dqvbImUJ8MLo7Z3HVp6t6sXcMzwudrYP6EROA/pubhtml?widget=true&headers=false”]

  • 18 had websites
  • 18 had some sort of bibliography available, but five of those were only partial lists
  • 17 are on social media but only 10 actually linked to their social media accounts
  • 16 had an about page
  • 15 direct linked to buying their works online
  • 11 were built on WordPress
  • 11 had a contact page (not social media links)
  • 11 had a news or a blog
  • 6 had a FAQ page
  • 6 had newsletters
  • 2 had a link to donate / tip jars

A million years ago, Kristin and I started a research project on the online presence of public libraries in Michigan and the stats were kind of along the same vein. Libraries bitching no one is using their online services, but libraries aren’t putting the work into building their virtual front door.
I haven’t even dug more into SEO, branding, marketing, and maintenance of the sites either which by looking at what stats I have available now, would be a complete nightmare to untangle.
Some of you are looking at the list at the very beginning and are thinking, “Fuck. That is a lot of work.” And you’re right, it is. But being a writer these days is a lot more than sitting down and spinning stories. My pal Saladin Ahmed recently quipped that he felt like he did more administrative work for his writing than actual writing work — and he’s a 100% right. I’ve been writing for years, but as I start unraveling the pandorica of submission, editing, publishing, and more, my todo lists now have todo lists. Now I have to schedule time when admin work is done versus writing time is done.
Look, I get it. A lot of people think the Internet is a fad, some don’t give a fuck, and even more think it’s a waste of time to have a new fangled website. Or they don’t want to spend the money, the energy, or the time. But as a reader, a writer, and a librarian (not in any preferential order), I can tell you with surety if I can’t find your work, if  I can’t get a list of your books without looking at the back mater of a printed copy, or you don’t have a Wikipedia page, how in the fuck do you expect the people you’re writing for to find you?
If you want your work to be read and you want to build a community around your work, you need to have an online presence and you need to keep it updated. You can’t fuck around anymore thinking having only a Facebook fan page (like Helen Fielding) is enough or that your sparsely, outdated website is sufficient. As a reader, I want to know more of what you wrote. As a librarian, I want to get printed lists of your works to my patron. As a writer, I’m looking at your practices as to whether or not model my own after yours.
Anyone with any level of technology can create a website these days. You can knock out a pretty professionaly looking site with Tumblr or WordPress.com in a few hours if you don’t want the pains of going tits to the wall and buying a domain and hosting plans. And then spend a few hours a month making sure it’s updated with all of your current work and news.
If you’re not willing to put the time in to get your work out there, how do you expect your readers to do the same?
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 1999

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes for June 28, 2014

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,
You can follow me on Pinterest on what I’m reading, watching, and listening.

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Reading

Finished
Bagged & Boarded: Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: In Pursuit of Flight

Watching

  • True Blood
    The 7th, and final, season of True Blood is upon us, and there is a lot going on. Where the fuck is Eric? Is tara really dead? What is going to happen to Lafayette? Is Sookie and Alcid really “together.” Will Bill ever stop being mopey? Will Jessica find her place in this world. SO MANY QUESTIONS.
  • Orphan Black
    I mainlined this like a fat kid eats cake. We watched the first two episodes last year and couldn’t get into it, but now, now it is glorious. The storytelling is tight, the plotlines are engaging, the story is plausible and draws upon a number of profound questions. And Tatiana Maslany is bloody fantastic, she is. Why hasn’t she won an Emmy or a Golden Globe yet? And Season 2 needs to get its little butt cheeks to Amazon post-haste.
  • The Battle for Stonehenge
    Interesting documentary about the future of Stonehenge now that English Heritage has to make some major changes. It also attempts to answer the question: Who really owns the ‘henge?

Weekly watching: Rectify, Halt and Catch Fire, A Place To Call Home, Mr. Sloane, Fargo, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Louie, Penny Dreadful, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, Elementary

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 1999

daily walk: pause

Dear Internet,
Today is my last day at MPOW and this morning instead of doing my new usual morning mile, I lolled in bed slapping the snooze button until I had to get up.
It would be irony to be late on the my last day of work.
Truth be told, it was not overt laziness that prevented me from getting up but downright sleepiness and exhaustion. Starting with Sunday night, this week has been torture for sleep. I could not sleep until 6AM Monday morning and then ended up sleeping for four hours which threw Monday off like woah. Monday night we gutted like pigs in a trough over pizza and I took a Benadryl hoping it would knock me out early so I could actually get some sleep.
That failed as four hours later I took a Klonopin to finally knock me out.
Despite the drugs, Monday’s night’s rest was short which coupled with getting up early on Tuesday to walk, and the same pattern repeating itself on Tuesday meant I was averaging about 4-5 hours of sleep each night.
After dinner on Wednesday, I decided to put my feet up and do some web work with Orphan Black on in the background. TheHusband was off playing a video game, so he was relaxing on his own. I was feeling fairly peaceful as I worked until I got hit with rapid heart beat, which is my usual physical manifestation of anxiety.
A panic attack while watching Orphan Black? Really? Fuck this.
So obviously I took a Klonopin.
Hearts and guts are treacherous souls.
An absolute known, for me, on taking Klonopin on consecutive days is that I feel sluggish and even more tired the more I take it, even though the shelf-life is not long. Klonopin is great when I need to put a rampaging panic attack in its place, but it can never be more than that thought on occasion it has been.
So you will forgive me, I hope, that today’s walk was not done. After all, tomorrow is another day.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe:

Bagged & Boarded: Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: In Pursuit of Flight

captainmarvel Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: In Pursuit of Flight by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Dexter Soy, Emma Ríos 
[Amazon | Worldcat | GoodReads | Comixology]
Rating: 3/5 stars
tl;dr summary: 2012 reboot of Captain Marvel, I really wanted Captain Marvel to be my superhero. Sadly, the convoluted and confusing story lines, dropped plot points, and inconsistent art (within a single artist) turned this hero into a has been.
Review: Captain Marvel is not my superhero.
But I wanted her to be.
After working at a book store for a number of years and then becoming a librarian, superhero graphic novels are the one comic that has always eluded me. The reasons are fairly simple: Derivative storylines, change of artists/writers, inconsistent plots and arcs, layered and cross over stories, and ALL OF THOSE GODDAMN VARIANTS drove me insane when purchasing graphic novels for the bookstore. A few years later when I took up the graphic novel collection at GRCC, I made the concrete decision to not stock superhero for the very same reasons.
Perhaps it is easier buying the trades as opposed to the weeklies, but when there doesn’t seem to be a thread holding some of the storylines together, it still seemed more aggravating than not.
Marvel jumped on the bandwagon when DC announced it was rebooting its entire universe back in 2012. This was the perfect opportunity for those like me frustrated with the previous systems to start getting our feet wet with superhero books. I picked up on Captain Marvel because she’s supposedly a bad ass female, which is totally up my alley.  At the beginning of In Pursuit of Flight, She’s tussling after a big baddie with Captain America who tells her,

You have led the Avengers. You have saved the world. Quit being an adjunct.

ORLY.
After the tussling, we find out Captain Marvel is having an identity crisis. The whole send up of In Pursuit of Flight is Captain Marvel finding herself and forging ahead her future. This sound well and good but then time travel is thrown in, possible evil plot, and some tear jerking moment with one her mentors. The storyline felt uneven and confused. Too much was being thrown against the wall with the hope it would stick while under the guise of sorting out Carol Danver’s new backstory.
Dexter Soy drew the first four chapters while Emma Rios drew the last two. Soy’s version of Captain Marvel (and really any of the other characters) as hyper sexualized. In my notes I mark the roundness and plumpness of Captain Marvel’s ass and then a bit of marginalia that Soy treated Captain America in the same way. The coloring was just oozing with dark, rich royal colors. It made the scenes atmospheric, as if it needed to make up for what was being lost by the words.
Once you get to Emma Rios’ books, the characters that were so overly lush in books 1-4 now look emaciated and overly angular, you almost don’t want to meet any of the characters on the street for fear of being killed by a sharp elbow. But the mood of Rios’ work seems more inline with the story and fits it much better.
At the end of the book there is a four page, tightly written and set back story of Carol Danvers from her origin until this book. And that seemed wholly unnecessary (and often contradictory) to what had happened earlier in this sequence or in the book itself.
There is one more volume in this reboot, THEN THEY REBOOTED IT AGAIN.
That should give you some idea of how much of a hot mess the first reboot was.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2011, 1999

daily walk: steam punk pig in a tree

Dear Internet,
6AM is far prettier in the spring (and summer), which makes it a lot easier to get motivated to get up and do stuff. I keep reminding myself how frustrated I was with the inability to do anything buried under 120″ of snow. Going outside was not an option. Exercising outside was a death wish.
Knowing how short spring was, and perhaps summer might be too, I’m trying to embrace this weather for all its worth, even if the 98% humidity means my hair looks like a bad ’80s perm, I’ll take it.
So here I am, up at 6AM and out the door around 6:20. My walk this morning was not routed and I figured that I would wing it as long as I got in at least a mile, which turned out to be in my favor because I stumbled across a steam punk pig in a tree.

tinpiginatree
Steam punk pig in a tree.

Distance: 1.22 miles
Walk time: 20:38 minutes
Pace: 16:70/mile
After making and consuming my smoothie, I headed upstairs to get ready for work. TheHusband’s voice boomed from under his blanket and pillow fort the WHIR of the blender frightened him so much in his dead sleep, he woke thinking angry robots were attacking.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. I’m still not coordinated enough yet to pause the pedometer, take a few pictures, and then get going again, hence why some images may look a tad out of focus. Or I could just argue – ART!

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2011, 1999

daily walk: welcome to my neighorhood

Dear Internet,
Last night we straight up went Bacchian on the forbidden deliciousness of pizza that we had delivered. As I was predictably feeling terrible this morning when I woke up at around 6AM, I decided there was no point to me laying wide awake in bed staring at the ceiling and I should get up and go do something.
That go do something turned into a brisk walk around my neighborhood.1
As I start to sort my daily schedule, one thing I wanted to make sure to happen, regardless of weather, was that I got up and walked a mile each day around my neighborhood.2 One, it would give me some exercise. Two, it would get me out of the house. Three, I could use this to loosely train for a competitive 5K walk. Four, it would help with the water retention happening in my ankle. Five, exercise helps with the crazy.
So really, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be doing this even if i it is the only thing I’m doing.
As I was walking this morning in the light drizzel, I thought it would be a great idea to get a picture of something that strikes my fancy that I see on my walk and post it as well as my distance and times. This will serve no purpose to really anyone but me, but what the fuck. Let’s see how much I can do this.
welcome
Distance: 1.32 miles
Walk time: 23:32 minutes
Pace: 16:56/mile
For a fat girl with sketchy ankles, I sure do walk fast. And this is my normal speed.
After I came home, I woke TheHusband up show me for the fourth time how to make a smoothie so I can do it on my own. Turned out much easier than I thought and despite the fact it looks like green slime, it is actually quite delicious.
Throbbing Manor Smoothie (base)

  • 8oz orange juice
  • 2 leaves + steams of a major green (I used chard this morning)
  • 1 heaping tsp of hemp protein
  • 1 heaping tsp of chia seeds
  • 1 1/2 cups of frozen fruit (we are currently using mixed fruit)

Add ingredients into blender of your choice in the order above, making sure at the very least the juice is  added first. Blend until thoroughly liquid and then pour into a glass and serve. Makes about 16oz of smoothie.
Variations: If OJ is not on hand, use about a cup or so of ice and swap out the frozen fruit for fresh. The recipe is flexible enough that you really just need liquid + green + fruit to get you going with protein powders added for extra nutrition.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. If I feel a bit — forced on excitement on this whole thing, I have found the more I fake being excited about something I dread, then discovering it is not akin to torture, I tend to be more open to continuing said thing. Rainbow sparkles unicorn poop for all.

1. It took me longer to find my earbuds, sort out music/podcast options, sync everything together, change, put shoes on then it did to do the actual walk. Next time should be a lot faster getting ready.
2. I use the web version of Gmaps Pedometer/Miler Meter to map routes and then sync it with the iOS version and then use Walkmeter to track time/distance/pace. While both are free, I upgraded both to get the extra features. Since it’s cumbersome to use both, and MilerMeter has a shitty interface on iOS, I hope to get intimate with Walkmeter to use it’s full potential.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2011, 1999

we’re bound away at the break of day

Dear Internet,
After having dinner with TheDrunk and her husband last night, TheHusband and I headed out to see Skinny Lister, a British punk folk band, as our first concert of the summer season. TheHusband discovered them via NPR’s All Songs Considered, and they fast became a house favorite.
The band is best known for punk rock variations of sea shanties, such as their take on the nearly 200 year old shanty, John Kanaka:

[iframe src=”https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:track:6ZP5eE9iCgJRenJAW7jBbH” width=”300″ height=”80″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true”]

Once we got to the club, things got a bit awkward. There were maybe, MAYBE, including the band members themselves, about 50 people in attendance. But neither the opening band, The Bangups, a local two piece outfit, or Skinny Lister themselves seemed to care if they were playing 50 people or a thousand, they both gave great shows. I drank more cider than what was good for me and used TheHusband as my maypole as I danced around him.
As I’m always trying to support indie people as much as possible, make sure to go pick up Skinny Lister’s first album as their second one is dropping soon.
I had forgotten how much I loved the intimacy of smaller venues. When we saw Elbow at the House of Blues in Chicago in May, there were easily 1000 people packed ass to stomach, tit to back. It was kind of terrible ($6 cans of Miller Lite! $50 to have a barstool! To fucking hot!) and wonderful (Elbow! Guy Garvey!) at the same time.
Where was I? Oh yes, drunk on cider, dancing the maypole around TheHusband to punk rock sea shanties. Coupled with the great dinner we had with TheDrunk and her husband, we had a fantastic night.
The night was planning on getting better because last night was the return of True Blood, which was patiently waiting for us on the DVR when we got home. Coddling a water bottle to keep myself dehydrated before I conked out, we got caught up in the hot mess that is Bon Temps.
Time is ticking away at its normal pace, but it feels slow and here I am.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 1999