The Cutpurse Code is Free to Download this Thursday-Friday

My novel, The Cutpurse Code, about a bunch of would-be thieves in a Europe that never was, is available to download for free from Amazon this Thursday-Friday. It's my first official novel (of 4), though the last one published since I was scared to read it again after all these years. After a few months of revisions I decided to publish it along with the others, mostly to see if I could get a few readers. No one had even seen this work before I let it go (which is a very scary thing). I've gotten some good reviews on Inkitt (where I published a few chapters simultaneously), but only one brief review of the book on Goodreads (which said "good, but hard to get into" basically). So anxious to see if I can scrounge up a few more readers to see if the novel needs more work, or is ready to carve a small niche for itself in the vast ocean of indie fantasy novels.

Here's the link for the book, and the blurb and First Chapter follows below as a preview. Download it for free if it interests you, or pay a whopping 99 cents once the sale ends! Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Cutpurse-Code-Joshua-Grasso-ebook/dp/B01ETWWL0G/ref=pd_sim_351_1?ie=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01ETWWL0G&pd_rd_r=QBMGAXTP4F5PPY29XK4S&pd_rd_w=6j0cJ&pd_rd_wg=wiqua&psc=1&refRID=QBMGAXTP4F5PPY29XK4S

Where Did the Scores Go? Can Movies Survive Without Music?

As a life-long fan of classical music from all periods, I’ve always been drawn to film music—and indeed, I inherited my love of classical music from film music. I cut my teeth on John Williams’ scores for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and E.T., which provided me the basic musical vocabulary for encountering and appreciating composers such as Strauss, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Schoenberg, and so many others—and some without ‘S’’s. The richness of the orchestration, as well as the glorious melodies that seemed to emerge from the characters’ own thoughts and situations, moved me to the core, and helped me ‘see’ similar psychological richness in abstract music such as a four-movement, hour-long symphony. In fact, film music made me question whether there really is such a thing as ‘abstract’ music, since everything has its own story—you just have to find it (for yourself, mostly). Moving from film music backwards was probably the best musical education I could have received, and I attained it early: the first music I ever purchased (or had purchased for me) was the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back in the very early eighties. A handful of years later I was listening to The Rite of Spring and Shostakovich’s Fifth. 

Do Great Books Grow Old? Or Do We Just Forget How To Read Them?

A few days ago, the BookBub blog posted an article entitled “12 Books We Should Stop Making High Schoolers Read”, which you can find here: https://media.bookbub.com/blog/2016/09/01/books-we-should-stop-making-high-schoolers-read/

On the one hand, I’m sympathetic to this list, since I teach high school students—that is, high school students who suddenly find themselves first-year college students at a small regional university in Oklahoma. They haven’t magically transformed from twelfth grade to year one of college; they’re still the same students who (largely) don’t like to read or write, and (mostly) have avoided reading as much as possible. When ordering books for a prospective class, I always think, “oh, can they really read book X? Isn’t it too hard? Will they stick with it? Can I possibly make them see the big ideas here? Shouldn’t I try something easier or more modern?” So on the face of it, this list is an honest admission that students hate reading, so why not at least try to meet them on their own terms? What’s wrong with switching out Moby Dick with The Martian? (though I’ve got to think alliteration had something to do with this switcheroo, since they have almost zero in common). If high school students bitch about reading A Tale of Two Cities, why not substitute I am Malala, a non-fiction book by a brave woman who is admittedly not a writer and had a professional writer help her along (which doesn’t exactly compare to Dickens, one of our greatest writers of novels). But hey, if it gets students reading, why the hell not? Reading is reading, and all reading is good. 

Heralding Hanson's Symphonies on Amazon

Review of Howard Hanson: Complete Symphonies by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle SO: https://www.amazon.com/Hanson-Complete-Symphonies-Gerard-Schwarz/dp/B01HNSJ9QM/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1472933634&sr=1-1-mp3-albums-bar-strip-0&keywords=hanson+symphonies

I own all these recordings on the original cds, which are scuffed up and barely play without skips and distortion, so it was wonderful to see them repackaged in a bargain set like this. Schwarz's recordings of Hanson are glorious and first turned me onto this glorious repertoire 20 years ago. Thanks to a generation or two of Serialism and its numerous proponents, great composers like Hanson were basically blacklisted from concert life, their works seen as quaint, reactionary throwbacks to an earlier age. Yet Hanson went on composing (as well as teaching future generations of musicians), developing in his own, quiet, original way based on the models of past masters. While Hanson might fit strangely in the hierarchy of 20th century American composers, he will be welcomed by anyone who enjoys the work of Samuel Barber of Nicholas Flagello. Yet to my mind, Hanson is the greater master, as he unapologetically wrote in an "old" style and found so many new things to say. His Seven Symphonies are minor masterpieces just a step behind the great Seven of Sibelius (whom he is musically a student of), and his musical thumbprint is recognizable after a handful of notes. The combination of distinct melodies, superior craftsmanship, and dazzling orchestration, mark out Hanson's music every time. Hanson's music speaks of wide-open vistas on the Northern plains; of long, forgotten struggles among people who were often serious, but never sober; and of a boundless optimism that may have immigrated from another land but remains firmly, and defiantly, American.