Yesterday was the day that writers across the Internet threw their weight behind the paperback publication of Patry Francis’s The Liar’s Diary. Consider this my two cents, a little late. And check out Patry’s blog, <a href=”http://simplywait.blogspot.com/”_blank”> Simply Wait</a>, which is as impressive as her debut novel.

Meanwhile, I had always planned to do a third contest for an ARC of ANOTHER THING TO FALL. This one centers on soundtracks. And, providentially, John Rickards’ blog <a href=”http://www.johnrickards.com/archives/2008/01/25/music-memes-and-you/”_blank”> showed me</a> the meme or memes. In this one, you open the music program on your computer, hit shuffle and match up the subsequent playlist with the following categories: Opening Credits, Waking Up, First Day at School, Falling in Love, Fight Song, Prom Night, Life, Mental Breakdown, Driving, Flashback, Getting Back Together, Wedding, Birth of a Child, Final Battle, Funeral, Final Credits.

Now, I don’t have access to my “real” iTunes library, which is massive, but I do have my laptop, which includes quite a few things not on the household’s master list. Mainly musical comedy, with a big emphasis on Sondheim. Still, out of 2,052 songs, fewer than 20 percent fall into the soundtrack genre, so the fact that three Sondheim tracks showed up in my personal soundtrack is interesting. Plus, two are BIG favorites.

At any rate, here’s what iTunes came up with for my movie. Some of it works, some of it didn’t, and I confess that I was tempted to cheat, try it again and see if I got a better result. Three songs in, the new playlist was so fantastically awful that I realized I was courting bad music karma. So here’s the original, flawed as it is.

Opening Credits: Thelma, Paul Simon
Waking Up: Someone is Waiting/Barcelona (Symphonic Sondheim)
First Day At School: Problems, Everly Brothers
Falling In Love: Arrimate, the Iguanas
Fight Song: King of Thieves, Elvis Costello
Breaking Up: Ebony Eyes, Everly Brothers
Prom night: We’ll Be Together Again, Rosemary Clooney
Life: God Bless the Child, Billie Holiday
Mental Breakdown: Anyone Can Whistle (From the Carnegie Hall Sondheim tribute)
Driving: The Long Division, Elvis Costello
Flashback: I’ll Go Crazy, Eva Cassidy and Chuck Brown
Getting Back Together: Night and Day, U2. (Yes, it’s the Cole Porter “Night and Day.”)
Wedding: It Doesn’t Matter Anymore, Eva Cassidy
Birth of Child: Boddhisvata, Steely Dan
Final Battle: The E and D Blues, Ella Fitzgerald, with Duke Ellington
Funeral Song: Water Under the Bridge (Unsung Sondheim)
Final Credits: Don’t You Just Know It, Huey “Piano” Smith

So, how does this turn into a contest? Well, over the past several years, I’ve often had secret soundtracks for the book-in-progress. So here’s a quick quiz: Match the songs below with the titles below.
The songs: Constant Craving (k.d. lang), Call and Answer (Barenaked Ladies), Whenever You’re On My Mind (Marshall Crenshaw) Cherish (the Association) That Loving You Feeling Again (Roy Orbison and Emmylou Harris) I Remember You (Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris)
The books: In Big Trouble, The Last Place, Every Secret Thing, To the Power of Three, No Good Deeds, What the Dead Know.

First correspondent to email me – please, no answers in the comments section, although you’re free to speculate on the lameness of my musical taste – gets an ARC of ATTF. It helps to know the books, although perhaps not as much as you might think. Enter as many times as you like. If I remember my math correctly, there are only 720 possible combinations. (Hmmmm. I’m really doubting my math there, but I think the proper formula is 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1.)