I was reading a book about the composer Erik Satie by the children's author MT Anderson the other day, and came across the passage that said that Satie wrote in unusual directions for performers. So, for instance, where most composers would say "louder" or "slowly," (except in Italian), Satie would write, "Like a hat of solid mahogany." I just love that phrase...I think I'm going to make it a point to walk around like a hat of solid mahogany tomorrow. And who's gonna stop me? A woodchuck? A haberdasher? A termite?

I was rather intrigued today while reading to discover that Haber was the name of a renowned German chemist that developed synthetic ammonia, earning the Nobel Prize and the nickname, "The Father of Chemical Warfare." This is what I can only consider a cool coincidence, because out of my two main characters in the novel, Tom and Elena, one teaches at an invented private school called Haber Academy, and the other is in fact a chemist.
This led me to a new concept in time-wasting for writers, which of course is not wasteful at all, because any endeavor could presumably lead to serendipitous metaphorical paydirt. The concept is that of googling the names of your characters. This only works with characters that you've already created, who are well-established in your mind, so that you won't be utterly thrown off course by the random things you will are sure to chance on.

Here, then, is what I found for other characters in my own novel:


Lawrence Haber (founder of Haber Academy)
http://www.instituteofliving.org/Programs/Schizophrenia/resumes/lawrence_haber.htm

Trent Cowan (Elena's father)
http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/74286/trent-cowan.htm


Tom Foss (my main character)http://www.blogger.com/profile/4811037

Reddick
http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1286846_1?noconfirm=0

Tara Moffett
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/71b/37

Michlin
http://www.michlinmusic.com/

You know how when you really like someone's music, you have to obsessively ramsack every sonic trace of them ever, every sniffle ever committed to recording technology? That's sort of how I am with Hannah Marcus right now. If she hadn't titled her latest cd "Desert Farmers" I probably never would have discovered her, which seems like an unjust thing but there you have it...I'm an instant sucker for anything with "desert" in it. Anyway, she's got me ordering cds from obscure labels in Germany called "Faith Burns," which just arrived in the mail today. I don't think if I started here I would be so enthralled after a couple of listens...it sort of sounds like the Giant Sand stuff where the music is falling apart more than it's sticking together. But I can remember reading a review of Giant Sand where the reviewer wrote that it sounded like Howe Gelb was playing "the whole state of Arizona" or something to that effect, and I can totally identify with that. It sounds a lot like Hannah Marcus is playing her entire Brooklyn apartment, fire escape and rusty spigots, and ceiling fan and lost beads rolling around under the couch.