Yoshimi Battles a Hazy Memory

Saw a stellar Flaming Lips concert this week, reminding me why Benji Hughes calls them the greatest show he ever saw. They played Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in its entirety, followed by a full second set with all of the usual delightful hjinx throughout. If memory serves this was my 5th Flaming Lips show…

Remixing Heartman & Songstress

L Extreme plays out in album order as a track-by-track adaptation of A Love Extreme, but ironically following the song sequence generated a non-sequential narrative that loops back on itself in a series of flashbacks. Keeping score at home? Excluding framing devices, re-arranging the chapters into chronological story would be along the lines of: 21, 3, 8,…

Benji Hughes, Agatha Christie, Anne Rice, Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen King, Cory Doctorow, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut…and me!

One goal I had for L Extreme was to capture the genre crossing styles Benji Hughes uses on A Love Extreme the album through the various song/chapters. Recently I remembered this old I Write Like text analysis website and wondered how well I did at mixing things up. Let’s see… In 15 chapters, I write like Agatha…

Outtake: The Missing Narrator (Extended Version)

This is a fun deleted section that’s a little too meta and absurdist for its own good. I trimmed it waaaay down for the Jubalee chapter of L Extreme, but still dig it enough to share here. I’m a big fan of non-traditional, hyper referential storytelling and loved the setup of the overly loquacious intrusive narrator…

LX Origin Story, Part II

Like I said towards the end of Part I, after chipping away on a novelization of A Love Extreme on and off (mostly off) for a few years I had a song by song storyline that (amazingly) worked so much better than I imagined given the circumstances. I’d also come to appreciate the non-linear structure…

LX Origin Story, Part I

Before I dive into chapter by chapter, song by song commentary for L Extreme I wanted to provide a little background on how this came to be. Let’s start at the beginning… July 2009: I purchased the special music issue of The Believer magazine at Skylight Books in LA. It was a total impulse purchase…

New Novel: L Extreme

It’s been awhile but we’re back with style… Announcing the new novel by JL Civi: L Extreme! Readers of this blog know I’ve been a huge fan of Benji Hughes for years. Somewhere along the line I decided to write a novel based on his album A Love Extreme. For a reason I can’t fully recall…

2020 Hindsight Commentary: Prophet 15, Christine Sixteen

I’m revisiting Timely Persuasion 12 years after releasing it / 17 years after writing it / 6000+ days since I jokingly told Jon Mack “maybe I’ll write a book” with a new round of fresh eyed commentary. Today’s look at yesterday’s chapters is brought to you by Supergrass and Kiss. Prophet 15 “Revelations of her…

2020 Hindsight Commentary: Prologue, One, Two of Us

As promised/threatened, I’m revisiting Timely Persuasion 12 years after releasing it / 17 years after writing it / 6000+ days since I jokingly told Jon Mack “maybe I’ll write a book…” with a new round of fresh eyed commentary. Here we go… Prologue For a few years now I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the…