{"id":3146,"date":"2024-08-19T23:27:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T04:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/?p=3146"},"modified":"2024-08-19T23:28:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T04:28:03","slug":"lbdg-commentary-12-the-new-abnormal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lbdg-commentary-12-the-new-abnormal\/","title":{"rendered":"LBDG Commentary 12: The New Abnormal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The title of this chapter comes from the<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/album\/2xkZV2Hl1Omi8rk2D7t5lN?si=CFXBVNBcS8OwCDG2-CxqMQ\"> 2020 album by The Strokes<\/a>, featuring cover art by 27 Club member <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jean-Michel_Basquiat\">Jean-Michel Basquiat<\/a>. Here it represents Local Boy&#8217;s reluctant return to (ab)normal life after losing time after his adventures with the redhead. It&#8217;s also the term I used to describe COVID lockdown, apparently inspired by this album title even if I forgot that was the origin until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bird_on_Money\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"213\" data-id=\"3164\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Basquiat-Bird-On-Money-1981.jpg?resize=290%2C213&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3164\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Respect the greats: <em>Bird on Money<\/em> by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a tribute to Charlie Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CupZva1pT_1\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"197\" height=\"256\" data-id=\"3163\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/images.jpeg?resize=197%2C256&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3163\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Respect the greats: <em>My Jabroni<\/em> by Benji Hughes,  a bird-esque tribute to ???<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em><sup>These two paintings have nothing to do with each other, but I didn&#8217;t have any relevant visuals prepared for this post and thought the birds staring at each other looked cool.<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tidbits:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The chapter title definitely came before Local Boy&#8217;s related lyrics. <em>\u201cAbnormally normal, casually formal, I once quit a band \u2018cause stealin\u2019s immoral.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My non-author life bleeds into the novel with the observation &#8220;what people want, what they need, and what they ask for tend to be two or three different things.&#8221; Keeping that in mind is the secret to taking feedback from users on product feature suggestions. It&#8217;s all about the questions behind the ask, as Local Boy astutely observes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Not wanting to introduce the characters of Local Boy&#8217;s parents into the plot, I made it a running gag for their trip to Europe to be perpetually extended.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;d totally hire a service called <em>Lawn Boy Does Grass<\/em> to mow my lawn. Wouldn&#8217;t you?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Every now and then someone who read <em>Timely <\/em><i>Persuasion<\/i> will tell me they love how I included a reference to a certain lyric even if I didn&#8217;t realize it was a lyric when I wrote it. The phrase &#8220;conscientious deflector&#8221; here is a good example. I thought it was just a play on words&#8211;but almost <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=&quot;conscientious+deflector&quot;\">every Google result<\/a> is lyrics from a band called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=d14ZN3ZS7B4\">Touch\u00e9 Amor\u00e9<\/a> (who do not sound like I expected from their name.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Similarly, I thought I was slyly referencing a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stuff_Like_That_There_(album)\">Yo La Tengo album<\/a> title with <em>Stuff Like That There<\/em>, not a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z5tDfzwzsbY\">song by The King Sisters<\/a> Local Boy could have awareness of.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Local Boy&#8217;s research project mirrors his future son spending time at the library in search of blinking beacons in the original TP.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A loose rule I had for names on the list was each had to have a plausible explanation for dying (or not dying) at 27 in an alternate timeline. A few of those are casually explained here as factual. Billie Holiday was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2020\/nov\/06\/billie-holiday-documentary-lost-tapes-racism-in-united-states\">warned by the government not to play &#8220;Strange Fruit&#8221;<\/a> but continued to do so anyway. Sam Cooke was in a car accident in 1958 with Lou Rawls (and Lou Rawls <a href=\"https:\/\/www.malaco.com\/artists\/gospel\/lou-rawls\/\">really was pronounced dead<\/a> but actually lived.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Respect your greats: The songwriting team of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tracklib.com\/blog\/songwriting-king-giant-baum-kaye\">Giant, Baum and Kaye<\/a> wrote over 40 songs for Elvis, including &#8220;(You&#8217;re The) Devil in Disguise&#8221; referenced here in reference to the redhead.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;A phonographic memory does you no good if the record skips&#8221; is a line I still dig as a chapter &amp; part closer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Check out <em><a href=\"https:\/\/books2read.com\/b\/lbdg\">Local Boy Done Gone<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The title of this chapter comes from the 2020 album by The Strokes, featuring cover art by 27 Club member Jean-Michel Basquiat. Here it represents Local Boy&#8217;s reluctant return to (ab)normal life after losing time after his adventures with the redhead. It&#8217;s also the term I used to describe COVID lockdown, apparently inspired by this&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[]","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-scenes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfx3-OK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":736,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/game-show\/","url_meta":{"origin":3146,"position":0},"title":"Game Show","author":"LBDG","date":"September 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last weekend I was the guest contestant for the premiere episode of Coverville: Musically Challenged, the quiz show style spin-off to Brian Ibbott's popular Coverville cover song podcast. We gave away copies of Timely Persuasion to lucky winners, did a brief interview, and then I was challenged with a special\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Musically Challenged","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/MusicallyChallenged_600-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2690,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/of-the-year-2021\/","url_meta":{"origin":3146,"position":1},"title":"Of The Year: 2021","author":"LBDG","date":"December 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Say what you will about life in the last couple years, but musically it's been a creative delight. (Maybe that's just more time to listen?) For the second year in a row I have a full top 10: ALBUMS 1975 \u2014 No-No Boy Melodic and memorable with a great story\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":663,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/another-mans-dg\/","url_meta":{"origin":3146,"position":2},"title":"Another Man&#8217;s DG","author":"LBDG","date":"June 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"While walking the dog I had a random thought: Why did I use \"Local Boy Done Good\" instead of \"Local Boy Done Gone\" in TP? This question came out of nowhere. There was no internal debate over the name of Local Boy or his album during the writing phase. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":622,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/first-impressions-on-wilco-the-album\/","url_meta":{"origin":3146,"position":3},"title":"First Impressions on Wilco (The Album)","author":"LBDG","date":"May 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The new Wilco record is streaming for free at the band's official site (www.wilcoworld.net), so I thought I'd blog my early impressions.\u00c2\u00a0 To be fair, \"first\" impressions in the title is a slight exaggeration; this is technically my third listen that I'm writing about. (And in the interest of full\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3153,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lbdg-commentary-13-the-wedding-singer\/","url_meta":{"origin":3146,"position":4},"title":"LBDG Commentary 13: The Wedding Singer","author":"LBDG","date":"August 26, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome to Part III: Four Weddings and a Fun Era. The part title is 77% to amuse my friend Nate Pepper who introduced me to the similarly named film when it was (relatively) new, 7% a nod to a line about a funeral being a fun era in L Extreme,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/CmcS2OJW8AAW1Bl-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/CmcS2OJW8AAW1Bl-2.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/CmcS2OJW8AAW1Bl-2.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/CmcS2OJW8AAW1Bl-2.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":530,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/20-albums\/","url_meta":{"origin":3146,"position":5},"title":"20 Albums","author":"LBDG","date":"March 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Cross-posting this from Facebook since it seemed to have some relevance here.\u00c2\u00a0 Props to Scott Schnaars for inviting me to participate. Think of 20 albums that had such a profound effect on you that they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3146"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3168,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3146\/revisions\/3168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}