The "Baroness Sells Books: A Tom Lingquist Mystery by Joseph Adorno" Music Needle-Drop Playlist!

    First things first, in that order:

Baroness Sells Books: A Tom Lingquist Mystery by Joseph Adorno (that's ME) is available now, only at Amazon,

The plot:

Now, in my previous post regarding this book, I toyed with imagining the cast of a film adaptation; this time, I'm imagining the soundtrack...a Needle-Drop Playlist..'Needle-Drop' being the unofficial term often-used when, for example, to describe director Martin Scorsese's ability to insert pop music into his films and integrate them into his narrative to inform and underpin, but never undermine his narratives..it's a gift.

Here's how it'll work: I'll name the song and artist and describe the moments in which they are meant to be heard in the background; you can listen to them while reading the book, certainly; you can even combine this with my casting choices and picture it all coming together in your imagination. Obviously, there's no original score, which would've found a way to integrate the insertion of these songs, or even sample them to inspire riffs on them; a big-budget adaptation, really - a modestly-budgeted version would probably just have the songs and no score..and no room for Leo as Tom Linguist, though it might get Jenna Ortega as Melody..Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollywood..

Which is why I'm insisting this is a playlist for the book..available at Amazon

Let's begin:

1. Jafu - "Bag of Tricks" (2013): This instrumental number makes a nice opening theme, introducing us to my detective, Tom Lingquist, his office, his friend - attorney Alexandra "Alex" Waidbern (the closest I get to giving him a Watson in this book) and introducing his newest case, which leads to..

2. Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson - "Barry Lyndon Is A Boring Movie" (2013): Another instrumental number, with the most misleading title ever - it was created as an original piece for the documentary, ROOM 237, a speculative film in which fans of THE SHINING present theories and observations about the movie and its director, Stanley Kubrick; this music appeared in a scene where one of the fans posits that Kubrick made The Shining to escape from his ennui, which was  manifesting in his work (or so the guy says); he believed that Kubrick, 'With an I.Q. of about 200', made BARRY LYNDON while he was 'bored...BARRY LYNDON is a very boring movie'; the composers must have found that remark so amusing, they decided to name the original music created for that scene after it, thus leading to a lot of confusion on YouTube, where irate fans of Kubrick are quick to vent their anger without being in on the joke.

For my intents and purposes, I imagined this music plays anytime that the story dwells upon the mysterious death of Adrian Hernandez and his book, BARONESS HOLLY.

3. The Midnight - "Helvetica" (2020): yeah, another instrumental number, but I thought it was cute, to be heard while reading the scene introducing Tom's apartment, or the scenes between himself and Alex.

4. Trauma Cat - "Popcorn Machine" (2020): the first song with vocals on the playlist; I found it hilarious that it's essentially a riff on the old 'Let's all go to the lobby' jingle; to be played and replayed with any scene in the book with Tom arriving for work at the multiplex, Persephone29, as well as any scenes during his various shifts.

5. Roman Holiday - Don't Try To Stop It (1983): I LOVE this song! I have no idea why it's become so obscure, but I remember first hearing it in the mid-80's, as a kid, when it was included as a series of music videos by Hanna-Barbera called HBTV, which would take the songs & vocals and mash them with an assortment of stock footage from their library to create a 'music video', similar to what Disney was doing with DTV around the same time:

The song fits perfectly with scenes of Tom, Melody and Rob setting up the concession stand, along with the subsequent chase scene up the escalators...don't try to stop it, don't try to stop it..I might also add that the song sounds like another riff on the 'Let's All Go To The Lobby' jingle.

6. Fire, INC. - "Nowhere Fast" (1984): this is just in here because it's mentioned in the book, but no lyrics are quoted; it's alluded to being used in a film I made-up for the world within-the-book, titled PINK BLAZE. Once that song is name-dropped, as soon as you look it up, it will stay in your brain for awhile; it's become obscure because it's not identified with a particular singer; the female lead vocals were actually an autotuned mix of 3 different singers.

7. Rema, ft. Selena Gomez - "Calm Down" (2022): this song gets mixed in a lot of TIkTok videos and shorts on social media; in the book, it gets used in a bit of dark comedy, the aftermath of Rob taking his big...leap.

8. The Scarlet Pimpernel (Musical)/Terrence Mann - "Where's The Girl?" (1997): Simply, in my opinion, the best song in the musical adaptation of Baroness Emma Orczy's adventure novel. Particularly effective juxtaposition with the sequences where Lingquist begins to doubt his own line of inquiry and ponder if he's going on a wild goose chase.

9. `Panski & John Skyfield Phil Collins cover mix - "In The Air Tonight" - (House mix, 2018): this is interesting..a remix of a Phil Collins classic, it has a different vibe, different energy; when I first heard it, I thought it would've been perfect for a BATGIRL movie trailer to set the mood just right..particularly if the producers hadn't cast a relative unknown in the lead and cast Lily Collins as Barbara Gordon..yeah, I still can't get over what might've been:

         Who's that girl?..Batgirl.

   And the Michael Keaton cameo

One more:

             EMILY IN GOTHAM

One for the road: 

           Maybe there's hope...

Moving on, this song is mentioned playing as part of the playlist heard at Jill's, the restaurant Tom goes to for the beginning of his date with Esther, one of his co-workers; this is the first of 3 songs name-dropped in the book during this key scene. The 2nd song is...

10. The Midnight - "Vampires" (Instrumental, 2016): another Instrumental version of a song in which the instrumental version is arguably superior to the original version, which has vocals, yet the instrumental version realizes how music has a vibe that can be reworked to various moods; in this case, it's another song playing at Jill's restaurant, played after Esther has arrived to meet with Tom and their conversation picks up.

11. Layo & Bushwacka! - "Blind Tiger" (2002): THIS is another song that's fallen into obscurity, but deserves more attention; it was featured in a segment of THE MATRIX tie-in sequel, THE ANIMATRIX, titled, "A DETECTIVE STORY"..and in THIS book, it is name-dropped as the final song playing at Jill's restaurant during Tom and Esther's time there, particularly right after the moment when a jar of pills spills out of Esther's handbag...

12. Madonna -  "Who's That Girl?" (1987),

13. Eve - "Who's That Girl?" (2001),

And..

14. Eurythmics - "Who's That Girl?" (1983): for the end I thought it would be fitting to not JUST have one, but all THREE best-known pop songs titled "Who's That Girl?"; I took some care to arrange the order in which they appear on the list; they sorta lead into each other. 'Who IS Baroness Holly?' is the mystery that drives the book; by the end, the mystery is solved, though the songs serve as an extra coda to the one that appears in the final chapter.

And there you have it: "Baroness Sells Books: A Tom Lingquist Mystery" - The Needle-Drop Playlist. 

Book available only at Amazon

Have a Happy Reading Experience!

AI Art Soup

There is such a thing as a World Record for the "Fastest Drawing of Fred Flintstone". To date, artist Lev Cantoral still holds the record at drawing a recognizable Fred Flintstone in 6.27 seconds.

I didn't exactly time my effort at using AI to create a drawing of Fred, but I would say it took half a minute to type in a prompt and have the software "generate" an image:

Lev has nothing to worry about.

  This was more Ood Abbad Abbay than Yabba Dabba Doo. There is a feature where you can upload an image of Fred Flintstone and the AI remakes it into whatever it thinks it is, but that's not quite as fun...plus, that's the element that makes established artists nervous - the chance of someone selling reproductions of someone else's art, so I stayed away from that. I had more fun seeing what the AI would generate from scratch anyway.

That was supposed to be "Scrooge McDuck drawn by Chuck Jones"...I don't think the software has a grasp of Chuck Jones' style much.

This "technique" is called Stable Diffusion", or "Text-to-Art", the flip side of using talk-to-text. This actually combines capabilities that have been in existence for over a decade: photo filtering, image search, text search prompts, etc.. the results are a lottery...

"Scrooge McDuck in Disneyland"

"Ducktales"

"Kevin Conroy as Batman"

"Full-Body of Batman, drawn by _____."

            Pokies, huh? AI did it.

"Full-Body of David Tennant as Constable Hamish Macbeth, in uniform, overlooking a field in Scotland."

    AI don't know what a Scotland 

    Constable's uniform looks like.

"Lindsay Lohan as Batgirl, as drawn by ______"

                            Ok...

"Leslie Grace as Batgirl, as drawn by ______"

                       Hmm...

"Karen McDougal as Batgirl, as drawn by _____"

        That's...really, really good!

"Lily Collins as Batgirl, as drawn by _____."

    The likeness is very on-point.

"Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, as drawn by _____."

I found it interesting that instead of a mask, it generates glasses or bifocals, while the hair and cowl  form one piece or "helmet" shape, while the facial features are approximate to mimicking the artist I had in mind, but not quite; it might as well be the AI as "student" learning to draw from an influence. Meanwhile, the bat-emblem is a puzzle for it; the one with McDougal created a Power Girl-esque "Boob Window" without revealing anything. The ones with Lily Collins are clearly dipping into photo references, but a lot of flesh-and-blood comic artists often employ the same trick. Also, there's never a repeat of the same costume in each image, although when I specifically wanted Lily to wear a purple costume, then the color was consistently the same, as well as the color of her hair. The eye color was variable.

At this point, I exhausted the free trial on the site I used and wasn't interested in paying to continue, but I thought it was fun - not quite 'there' in meeting up with human imagination and creating images we're thinking, but the limitations are rooted in our ability to articulate what we want exactly. Once the developers crack that, the sky's the limit.

The Batgirl On The Shelf

One Year Later...

   Pictured: Leslie Grace, Michael Keaton.

 I was looking forward to seeing this Batgirl film and see if it's good on it's own terms, for multiple reasons. 

First of all, it's Barbara Gordon. Barbara Gordon is the real Batgirl. Accept no substitutes. 

 And, yes, that is the Batgirl costume Barbara Gordon wore during the "Batgirl of Burnside" era, designed by artist & writer Cameron Stewart.

 We were also going to get a 3rd appearance of Michael Keaton as Batman/Bruce Wayne, in a supporting role, on the heels of his "comeback" appearance in The Flash, as part of an ongoing plot thread that would link these upcoming films. From what little we've been told, this is an older, veteran Batman, wearing an updated version of his costume from the 2 Tim Burton films; it's possible this characterization is somewhat inspired by high-concept takes on the character in spinoffs like Batman Beyond, Kingdom Come or The Dark Knight Returns, while still offering something different. There were clues about the events taking place within an altered reality that was held in place as an amalgamation of different timelines:

     From a yellow belt to a black belt..I just realized that as I was sorting through these pictures that this could be the gag behind the change in utility belt color.

    I miss the yellow belt, anyway.

I found all of this stuff intriguing; they were clearly fast-tracking a deep dive into history and retroactively using the concept of a multiverse to insert a continuity and bring back whoever wants to jump in. Of course, this doesn't sit well with people who wanted a simpler, direct continuation of stories featuring characters and cast members from Zack Snyder's Justice League, but that's a reflection of the paroxysms in leadership at Warner Brothers effecting the content that gets created. To this date, anything we think we know about the future is coming from people on the internet who have the option of denying everything they said - it all has to be taken with a grain of salt. There were a lot of people rooting for the film to fail, without really knowing much about it, beyond what they're told by people claiming to have "sources". Why were they rooting for it to fail? Fidelity to Zack Snyder? Fidelity to Ben Affleck? Fidelity to Henry Cavill? Fidelity to Ray Fisher? Unfortunately, it's not clear if any of them are coming back, yet there were a lot of ugly campaigns employing gaslighting tactics to try to control/derail/influence executive decisions on what gets made and what shouldn't. 

 Everything I'm sure is true can be taken for granted by photographs taken of the cast and film locations in Scotland, both by amateur bystanders, posts on Twitter by the "Batgirl Movie News" fan account and by the crew, as well as any statements or posts made on social media by the film's star, Leslie Grace, co-directors Bilall Fallah & Adil el Arbi and statements made by the studio. 

  

   The casting of Leslie Grace was a surprise and recieved a mixed reaction; a relative newcomer, this was her first starring role in only her 2nd film (she had appeared in In The Heights the previous year), so it appeared she was popular enough with the studio executives, rather than cast a more-experienced actress, who might have a larger following. Nevertheless, in the months that followed, it's clear she always regarded her casting with appreciation, class, charm, dedication & enthusiasm.

    Stop the press...who's that?

     That's Emely Cartagena - Leslie Grace's stunt double as Batgirl.

       Yep, that's Emely up there..

          She's great, isn't she?

                     Exquisite...

    This message she posted was sweet of her.

The reveal of the name and identity of the sexy stuntwoman is bittersweet; this happened a week after the news unfolded that post-production on the film had been shut down by an executive decision to shelve the film.

 

As part of a new corporate merger between Discovery Networks and Warner Brothers, a massive restructuring of the corporate hierarchy took place, and the new boss, David Zaslav, decided that Batgirl wasn't up to a new standard going forward with the films; the implication is that he would rather greenlight  fewer movies than push ahead with content he found mediocre.

  Is Batgirl a bad movie? We don't know. There are people claiming to have seen it, via private focus group "test" screenings of a "rough cut", and their opinions are questionable; these people are anonymous and have no names; the people reporting these accounts will deny accountability for reporting fake news by blaming the anonymous source - that's always their loophole. 

       Written-off...by "Top Men"

   ...representation of Warner Brothers Archive

 What we do know, is that unless Zaslav reconsiders his decision, the footage from Batgirl will be locked away in an archive as proof of a "lost movie" the studio can't do anything with, applicable for a tax credit, reportedly worth 50 million dollars...for a film that cost 90 million to make...

    Locked deep in the Bat-archive

  Honestly, my take on this is Zaslav is going to run the studio like a military operation; he's making an example of this film, as his own message that from here on, he wants the studio to offer nothing but the best content, no compromises. No lazy pandering to demographics inferred by cynical & manipulative marketing research; no room for hustling, uncreative people using Conditioning tactics under the guise of "Social Justice Warrior" psuedo-activism and faux-hip subversion-of-expectations. Or so we think.. 

 Will he reconsider? If the film has been written off already, it can still be released anyway - the studio would have to pay back the credit received, but that's if they did the filing...

 One thing I'm certain of...this move by Zaslav got a whole lot more people talking about this film than at any time beforehand and, perhaps unwittingly created a movement to release it and give it a chance.

#ReleaseBatgirl / #ReleaseTheBatgirlMovie 

 And one other thing for sure...this is the first time I had a crush on a stunt double!

        Lovely view...and I'm sure that window has a nice view of Glasgow, too.

Until next time...same Bat-time, same Blog-channel..