Sir John Edward of Lawson infected me (like I always knew he would,) and now it's my turn to spread the disease. Basically, it involves searching for the first use of the word “look” in your work in progress, then pasting that paragraph, and those immediately before and after, into a blog post, after which you spread the disease to five other authors.
This is from the very, very beginning of THE REVELATIONS OF PRESTON BLACK, a little alt newspaper article about an upcoming show. Kind of tells us a little about Katy and Preston since last we saw them.
From the moment
she walks across that stage, you know Katy Stefanic is the kind of girl you
could fall in love with. Though romantically involved but not married, the pair
play off of each other like they have been attached at the hip for no less than
twenty years, instantaneously responding to frequent and impulsive key and
tempo changes. Call me jaded, but watching Stefanic and Black work the aural space over the crowd mesmerized me in a way only more seasoned acts
have been able to do in recent years. Except for the random, "Marry
me, Katy," (or, "Call me, Preston,") the crowd remains stone
silent during ballads and quiet instrumentals. Even more curious is the way
audience responds to the mix of old time throw-down melodies and punk-fast
tempos with fists in the air and good old-fashioned foot stomping. And when the
lights came up for the first encore the frenzied crowd responded like Joe
Strummer himself
was going to join them for a song or two.
I had a chance to talk to Stefanic
and Black after their show in D.C. last Saturday and asked them about their
relationship and how it affected their musical development. Preston was more
than content to let his beloved Katy do most of the talking. With a wide smile,
she folded her
hands over her knee and explained, "Sharing music with somebody is a lot
like sharing a bed. After a while you start to know when something's building,
when things are going to sour, when the temperature's going to change with just
a look."
Preston added, "It's like yinz and y'all. Same language, just different ways of saying things. What
the audience hears is where we meet in the middle."
