Casimir Greenfield - Back From The Dead

It's always heartening to be invited to be a guest on another blog, so it was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation to discuss a few things on Deadly Ever After.

Apart from my literary efforts, I also indulge in a little after hours crooning (some may call it crowing) pleasing the multitudes with a few of my hand-made tunes.

The thread of  'Deadly' was all about the link between the book and the song. It so happens that my third book, Red House, now in the inception stage, has also turned itself into a chilling little track on my alter ego's new album 'A Twist Of Time'.

So - have a look at the blog, check out the tune and let me know what YOU think.

Deadly Ever After Blog Link

Red House - the album track

Casimir Greenfield - Semaphore Anyone?

Despite the somewhat sober countenance I display in my blog, I do enjoy a good belly laugh.

I have lived with my best friend in all the world for more than four decades, and I've known her for close to five and we have still not run out of things to laugh about.

Mrs G is full of surprises!

I had been reading a textbook on 'musique concrete' before turning in the other night, when I heard a rustling sound coming from somewhere in the room, in the dark, in the middle of the night.

Of course I asked the question.

'Semaphore' came the reply.

'In the dark?'

'Why not?'

Why not indeed. The incessant drumming I had overheard in a public library recently put me in mind of an irate morse code operator (who is now in a scene in a future book) who may well have been effing and blinding away in the rhythmic tapping. The librarian was none too pleased anyway.

So what do we have now? Semaphore for the blind? Mrs G did not elaborate, but it conjured up images of four snowbound Beatles signalling away at the opening of their oft maligned second feature 'Help!'. Just what was it they actually spelled out. And did it matter. It actually spells out NUJV in the UK original, slightly rearranged to protect the innocent in the US to NVUJ - much more PC!

But what a great idea it was. They hi-jacked the entire concept though, them and the stylish 60s photographer Robert Freeman who came up with the idea.  I would love to do that too on a book cover. But, been done, move on.

Mrs G had other ideas.

Have you worked out the semaphore for 'I Love You' in the last few years? Or ever? You should, you really should...

I guess that's why we still have so much to smile about. Well, we laughed actually. A lot. Woke up the dog. Then the neighbours. Then the neighbourhood for all I know.

We're looking for a ticker-tape machine now.

Casimir at Amazon

Casimir Greenfield - Centenary Celebrations

I've reached one hundred! Cause for celebration? I think so.

One hundred what? I hear you cry from your far corner of the globe.

Let me explain.

I have an alter ego. He broadcasts a weekly show. It's called 'Time After Time - The Vintage Hour'. This week sees the broadcast of the 100th show. That's a lot of fine tunes and choice bull from him to grace the airwaves.

Why the alter ego?

If you've read either Bloodstones or Slow Poison, you'l realise that they are not for all tastes. I also write young adult fiction, or at least alter ego guy does. I could not possibly have the youth of today corrupted any more by my dark novels. They can wait until they come of age. The YA books are enough for now.

So I'm just about to step into my phone booth, whirl around a few times and emerge as alter ego guy. He'll be wearing a stylish dark green double-breasted silk 1940s zoot suit for this special occasion. Putting on the Ritz and cutting the rug with panache.

Then it's back home for macrobiotic canapés and a glass of spring water. We know how to live it up at Greenfield Acres!

To listen in, here's a little link:

Vintage Hour Podcasts

Casimir Greenfield - Candles, I Need More Candles!

Oh, you know that hackneyed expression... 'Burning the candle at both ends'. To do that, you need to place a glass on a saucer (to catch any drips) and lay the candle across the top so that both ends are accessible. Strip back to the wick and ignite.

Okay. None of us are going to try that little trick, but my sleep thing is getting serious. I'm beginning to find sleep to be an annoying interruption. That can't be good for me.

There are too many ideas running around my brain and I could use Lenin and McCarthy's Eight Days A Week to get everything done. (It was them, wasn't it?)

I've learned to multi-task. I'm a guy. It's not easy! So now I can do two or more things really badly instead of just the one. And I can clear the damage up too. The days are getting shorter, so I'm up before dawn again. The ideal scenario would be to follow the long days around the globe. Oh to be Hemmingway!

Ultimately, I just have to go with the flow. Each new task serves to recharge the batteries and dipping back into my past has revived my Zen principles.

I'm Libran, so there is the constant need for balance in my life. There's probably a split personality too. I know there is. I have a life with another name, so I have to switch constantly. I speak two languages fluently also and that brings the split sharply into physical focus. Schizophrenic almost.

So, those candles. Metaphoric they may be, but when I go to sleep there is a gentle glow near my pillow. The glow emanates from two plastic toys that stem from my children's childhood. You remember those little Gloworms? Mrs G thinks that they are probably toxic, full of radiation and would go a long way in explaining my light insanity. Her theory. I'm not insane. I'm just a writer.

I'll leave you with the image of The Two Ronnies. That should bring a smile to your lips (if you're a Brit - everyone else will need to Google them...)

The scene; a hardware store, old style - shopkeeper and customer.

I want four candles.
Fork Handles?
No, four candles.
We're all out of fork handles...


You get the picture.

Has anyone got a light?

Casimir Greenfield on Authonomy

Casimir Greenfield - Past, Present and Future

Wednesday morning markets are wonderful. We arrived at seven, the dealers were out in force, the stalls building around us like a paste table metropolis rising from the car park.

Actually the dealers had monopolised the only good coffee stall. There are two tables, sixteen chairs, ten dealers. Should be some space left over. There would be except that the old rockers gather at the same time. These are a wonderful collection of grizzled guys with tats and pony-tails and out of tune guitars and ukes, mumbling everything from 'Hey Good Looking' to 'Georgia On My Mind'. There are six of them.

So there we are. Dog on lead, ready for a burst of caffeine, and nowhere to sit. The dealers are not moving. Neither are the musos, now into 'Who's Sorry Now?'. We should have brought our own chairs.

This is the time we usually compare bargains, look at each other's treasures and gently hum along. (The set list never varies, by the way - forget romantic requests!) But there's nowhere to sit.

I refuse to pay one pound for instant coffee scooped out of an open tin when there's good Italian Americanos up for grabs. But today we move on. We'll have coffee at home.

Past, present, future: why so?

I found a dog-eared book of photographs of my home town on one of the stalls. A second collection according to the cover. The smell was tolerable, so a quid did it. And the images inside were worth a whole lot more. Nothing past 1947, just an evocative collection of places and faces from a time before I was born.

My current project, 'Red House' is set partly in the place - it doesn't survive the book - something had to go! This collection of images will offer me a wealth of inspiration. I grew up with some of the store fronts, the factories, the parks. It took the planners from Peterborough (100 miles away) to finally destroy that wonderful heritage.

I will achieve much of the same with a few well chosen paragraphs, but when you close the book, everything will still be the same. Or maybe not!

So, in short: no coffee, no sing-along, a few deals done, some ideas hatched and home before the rains came.

Time travel is all in the mind.

Casimir Greenfield at Amazon

Casimir Greenfield - Expletives! What Bloody Expletives?

I don't really swear much in real life. If I do, it tends to be in German. Goodness knows why! I spent about a quarter of a century in the Netherlands, so you'd expect a bit of Dutch (although, I do dream in Dutch...and in technicolor - but that's another story) But for some reason, the rude words are German.

It's in my work that the bad language really begins to rear its ugly little head. I just can't stop the hooligans on my pages from using the foulest language you'll hear this side of a nunnery.

I have thought of tempering the language a little, but it really does serve to distinguish the characters in a way that only language can.

I run a little vintage shop in a small Cotswold market town and my doors are always open wide, so I can hear every sound that echoes through the streets. Some of the language that I hear while folks are pushing prams, using their smart phones, or just yelling at one another sometimes beggars belief.

I'm not a prude. You only need to dip into Slow Poison to realise that, but while kids and old people (hey, that's me...) and anyone really are just minding their own business, they certainly don't need to put up with words of four letters assailing them from all sides.

Cole Porter got it right. 'Authors who once used better words now only use four letter words writing prose, heaven knows, anything goes!'. I applaud rich language. I abhor censorship. I queued up for my copy of Lady Chatterley and the Kama Sutra. But there is a time and place.

Still, without these public intrusions, I would have lost a great deal of inspiring moments that have found themselves woven into my prose.

So, what do you think? What is your take on the use and abuse of 'the expletive' in literature today. Can it work without it? Have you become immune to their power? Or is it the case that used correctly the expletive can raise a mundane scene to Trainspotterly heights!

After much thought, debate, advice and soul-searching, I decided to leave my work intact. I like to feel I have written those scenes with integrity.

I have posed this question on numerous forums and the consensus does seem to be that, in the right place and in the correct context, one should write - and be damned.

Your thoughts please. Just keep it clean!

Slow Poison

Casimir Greenfield - No Sleep For The Wicked

Have I turned into Margaret Thatcher? God, I hope not!

Four hours of sleep should be enough for anyone though, don't you think? I've slept little since I was a boy. I always had the feeling that I might not be immortal, so I had to cram as much as I could into each and every day.

As writers, we're sometimes cursed. Those thoughts and ideas seldom leave us and they tend to spin around clattering inside the brain until something spills out and makes a bit of sense on the page. Well, that's the theory.

I sometimes have the feeling that I never sleep. Sleep is accompanied by the gentle chatter of all-night Beeb, with Mister Adebayo being silly, filling up the space between night and day with bits and pieces that might come in useful one day. The noises mean that I'm still alive, too. That's important to know.

Sleep, such as it is, becomes an amazing filter for works in progress. I don't fight it any more. Any idea worth its salt will seep through the strata of my brain and leave little stalactites of songs and stories hanging in the balance ready to snap off and use. Very much a Benny and Bjorn style of working. You don't know about their writing philosophy? Simply this: if the idea is good enough, you'll remember it! Good enough for me. They wrote 'The Day Before You Came' after all - and that song is one of the most brilliant concept songs of all time (with the possible exception of Da Da Da by German band Trio)

What did sleep bring for Mister G this time? Well, the realisation that creating an animated video using still photographs is quite possible if one is able to compartmentalise. I can, so I will. That should be fun.

Plus, I am almost ready to write my little non-fiction book about Macrobiotic Cookery. That one has been on the back burner since 1971. Not any more. Macrobiotics have stood me in good stead. My one failing (well, the one I'll admit to...) is the overuse of coffee. Or is that abuse?

I don't smoke or drink. No fast foods or junk. Quite a pure existence really. Ha! But I love coffee. There is an instant I adore, but I won't endorse without the right deal. And there are some cafes we frequent that have got it just right. After a quarter of a century in Amsterdam, we know our coffee. The Brits are learning. God bless the Italians! So, the dream hour is spent with best friend in the world, a cheesecake to share (although she never does...) and a cafetiere of strong black coffee, two glasses of iced water and time to drift.

So, as Mister Zimmerman remarked: 'I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more!' But Maggie has gone. I know, not really, but she's not running the funny farm any more.  Sleep patterns were the only thing we ever had in common.

I sometimes feel that I am rushing toward some kind of conclusion. I guess we all are. I'm hoping to leave some kind of legacy behind that will make my kids think: '...was that really Papa?'

Oh yeah. That was me.

Must dash, coffee time!