I'm not crying, it's just raining on my face.

I volunteer at the Poetry Center once a week (and now teach there! for a little while!); among the numerous lovely things about this is that I can read from their complete collection of literary journals. I took a stack of Fairy Tale Reviews to my desk today and was happily reading. 

In the grand female tradition, I get strangely weepy at certain times of the month; usually a feeling of great sadness descends upon me at some embarrassing moment, and I get weepy over a tourism commercial for California or sob inappropriately at some song on the radio that's really not worth tears, like Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away." (NOTE: I have never actually wept over Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away"; this is just an example). 

Anyway, today the strange wave of emotional weepiness that overtook me today was from a non-embarrassing source: a piece by Donna Tartt in "The Blue Issue". It involves a grandmother, and as Cher Horowitz says, "Old people can be so sweet!": 

But a few books we loved especially, and read doggedly again and again, almost as if they were religious texts, and chief among these was Peter Pan. Did I love it so because of the mysterious Scottishness that colored her voice as she read?...Because we ourselves--so passionately close--had crossed paths in time so very strangely: she like Wendy at the end of the book, bent in the back and with white in her hair, and me still a child? (In my edition of Peter Pan, there is a line drawing of Peter stranding in the firelit nursery regarding Wendy, who is no longer a child like himself, but an old lady: it might almost be great-grandmother and me, drawn from the life). I suppose in the end Peter Pan was such an important book to us both because it is ultimately such a dark book, about change, loss, again, mortality, death: the very questions that hung so heavy between us. She was in her eighties: our days together short, and we knew it, which was why our every goodbye on the corner of Levee Street held within it the vertiginous terror of permanent separation. And when she did actually die I refused--fierce sunburnt little pagan that I was--to direct any prayers Heavenward on her behalf: instead, at her funeral, I silently beseeched Peter, small fitful god of our household religion, to go with her part of the way so that she would not be frightened.

At that last line, I became this:

Old people + emotional power of literature + death + childhood + Peter Pan = I just need to go home and eat some Red Vines now.

I Want to Call This Post "The Mysterious Case of Sherlock Holmes and His Many Adaptations" but I Also Sort of Hate Myself for Wanting to Call it That

So writing this made me think about how much I love all things Sherlock Holmes -- from the original stories, to the Jeremy Brett TV show...wait.

Hold up.

Before I go any further, I've just got to blow a few minds.

Jeremy Brett played Sherlock Holmes on a well-known BBC adaptation of the stories from the 80s-90s. He was awesome and weird. He looked like this:

He was a bit dark.

Por ejemplo:

Hey, does he look a bit familiar? Something nagging at you? You know who Jeremy Brett also played?

Fucking Freddy Eynsford-Hill from My Fair Lady!

THIS DUDE:

Okay, sorry for the digression. So: if there's anything better than the original Sherlock Holmes stories, it's all the sequels and reimaginings, some of which are arguably better than the original.

The Secret Miracle: Don't Be A Douche

Okay, so as I mentioned, the $100 that I finally earned from folks clicking on the ads on this blog was used for a writing project--a deposit for a residency at the Prairie Center for the Arts where I'll be for a month-ish this summer (it's a key deposit--I'll get it back if I don't trash the place). So: your support here on my blog = time writing this summer. And once/if I get the $100 back, I'll totally take suggestions as what I should do with it (Bedazzling? Fine liquor? Objets d'art?).

In honor of writing, I thought I'd share that I'm currently rolling around in awesome books. I just finished Colm Toíbín's The Master, which was bliss, and I'm still reading his short story collection The Empty Family.

And for all those authors out there looking self-promote, this is why I started reading him: my friend S. lent-then-gave me the book The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook, edited by Daniel Alarcón. It's interviews with authors--divvied up by theme--about various aspects of the writing process (well, specifically the novel-writing process). 

Anyway, S. and I both agreed that some authors came off wonderfully--as in, "How insightful/charmingly self-deprecating! I'd bet we'd be total BFFs and could go down to the pub and have a pint and talk about George Elliot/insert author of your choice! And even if we cannot or should not ever develop a personal relationship, some of these writing insights are both reassuring and useful!" --while some came off a utter douches.  

I aggregate Writing is Hard stuff

Becky Tuch, of The Review Review (to which I contribute; you know, just FULL DISCLOSURE and everythin') recently wrote a post called "Writing. It's Hard." I really liked it. In the comments, I wrote "I'm share this on facebook, blog, etc. IMMEDIATELY"--apparently so excited over the post that I typo'd (I meant to write, "IMMA SHARE this").

Anyway, as a wriiiiiiter I of course have a special fondness for "Writing. It's hard" posts/articles, because they make one feel a little less alone/crazy. So I thought I'd aggregate of a few of my recent and/or easily accessible via web favorites.

1. "Writing. It's hard."  This is, like, so true for me! Except for the part about "For years, you've been getting up at six-thirty." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

2. "Peter Bognanni writes a blog post." Sample quote: "But then I couldn’t help thinking about how I actually work when I write. And how random and strange and totally un-process-like it is in every sense."

3. pamie, "Eyes on the Prize." Sample quote:

"One time I had gotten out of the shower having finally figured out an ending to a chapter, and the only thing I had to write on was an ATM receipt that was in the pocket of the clothes I’d been wearing before I got into the shower, and the only implement I had was my index finger, dipped in my own blood from a cut I’d given my shin with my razor in the shower.

It had better be the best damn chapter in the novel, because I wrote it in shinblood."

Sort of gives a new meaning to that oft-repeated quote about "Writing is easy. You just sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." In this case, "Writing is easy. You just cut yourself shaving, get struck with a good idea, and write out said idea on an ATM receipt in shinblood."

4. Solipsism.  

Speaking of typewriters. 

5. Referenced previously, Zadie Smith "That Crafty Feeling."

6. I had to. Yes, I have a problem. Even though this clip doesn't have my favorite lines: "If I'd known it was real, I would have done another pass" and "If I were a psychic, do you think I'd be writing? Writing is hard." (No worries: I transcribed that on my facebook page.)

7. Holy crap, I almost forgot this! 

8. ETA: continuing in the funny vein, Jason showed me this.

Really Real Inspector Hound

Wot I Wrote about Wot I Didn't Write: Minneapolis Star-Tribune book review of the The Free World by David Bezmozgis.

I also fulfilled a long-held dream last night and finally saw Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. I'd read the play before and even suggested it to my college's summer stock company, UNCO (which I think, sadly, doesn't exist anymore. Am I wrong about this? I hope so) -- as  a friend of mine was going to be directing and was looking for suggestions. And they actually did a production of it! Which I did not get to see, as I never got to be around for/participate in UNCO, as I always had a summer conflict. (This has always made me sad).

So, despite my fannishness of the play, and the fact that I was extremely indirectly and casually responsible for a production of it coming into being, I'd never seen it performed.

And it was well worth the wait! As funny as the play is to read, it's much, much funnier performed (obviously); anything confusing about the script makes perfect (albeit, absurdist, dream-like) sense in production; AND it was done very well by The Rogue Theater company, who have a great track record and put up this extremely cool-looking sign on the Historic Y building:

If you're in the Tucson area, see this immediately! The also open with another (very short) Stoppard play called New-Found-Land.

Things That Are Sad and Signs of Life in Norway to Cheer You up

Hey, I reviewed the Spring 2011 Virginia Quarterly Review for The Review Review. 

Here, I detail my feeling-y feelings about reviewing literary reviews and problems I sometimes encounter therein.

After the review was all done and published, I found about this, which I had had no idea of before. It makes things in my review echo uncomfortably -- but also, not really. Blergh. I'm glad I didn't know about any of that beforehand. THINGS THAT ARE SAD.

I guess, for once my obliviousness helped me out.

To cheer you up....pictures?

Rage Distorts Creative Title Abilities: The Eurovision Song Contest Entry

Some time ago -- actually, (gulp!) this was nearly a year ago -- my parents were both highly amused over a New Yorker article on the Eurovision song contest and kept pressing me to read it.

I think my parents simply enjoyed the article as they had not thought about the Eurovision song contest in a long time, and it made them nostalgic about living in Europe/being European. Which is fine. But I simply couldn't stand this particular article, though I didn't take the time to deeply analyze why.

For your reference, most famous product of said contest:

When my parents asked what I found so objectionable about the article, all I could articulate was that I found it too condescending. It's all very well to write about something you affectionately find tacky or awful, but there's a fine line being light-heartedly snarky and simply being a patronizing ass.

Recently, a few things have brought the Eurovision song contest to my attention again, and I decided to write a blog about these new perspectives. But in order to do so, I had to go back and read the article online (bless you for your amazing online archives, New Yorker).

Reading the article again, I got so angry that a) my jaw actually popped, due to my unconscious clenching of it; b) at one point, I grabbed two chunks of my hair and pulled, causing myself physical pain. This article actually made me try to pull my hair out.

Anyway, here it is. It was so anger-making that it derailed my entire post, which was simply going to be a few links to different perspectives on the Eurovision contest. Instead, the other articles and links and perspective will be incorporated within this rant. You've been warned: it's a rant. I'm about to get all polemical up in here.

I write about Nick Hornby too much, I think

ETA: Ha! That totally read "I write about Nick Horny too much, I think." I fixed it now. Also: Nick Hornby is SO lucky he did not grow up in the US. He would have been tortured over that name.

Here's a review I wrote for The Minneapolis Star Tribune that went up ages ago: The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy (not to be confused with Kate Spindler nee Kennedy). Anyway, I compared Kennedy's writing to Nick Hornby's and I realized I did this, too, when I interviewed Peter Bognanni for the dislocate blog.

It's odd because I don't think of Nick Hornby as being particularly relevant to me as a writer. Like, if you asked me, "Who are your favorite/most influential/whatever/whatever writers?" I'd never think to say "Nick Hornby." But he seems to come up almost immediately as a reference point for me when trying to discuss/articulate something about the writing of others, particularly if they are at all: a) funny; b) contemporary and set in contemporary times; c) write in a more-or-less "realist" mode; d) streak in larger social issues/concerns with small-scale, contemporary, funny stories.

And, really, maybe I wouldn't say "Nick Hornby" when asked about my influences because -- I dunno. Because he's an older British dude, because he writes a lot about masculinity, and maybe because he's so popular and I want more street-cred or something. But really, Fever Pitch, High Fidelity, and About a Boy*, not to mention his series of essays on reading for The Believer and some of his other non-fiction, are a tremendous influence.

*But there you go -- all these books have become big Hollywood movies. And High Fidelity and About a Boy were pretty good movies (Fever Pitch, not so much). But when you mention them as favorite books, you feel a bit silly, like you're someone who only reads novelizations of popular TV shows or movies.

"But what is wrong with popular TV shows and movies, Easy O?" you might ask. "Do not you love these things? Are you not committed to the Fusion of High and Low--or, less problematically, Popular and Literary (this phrasing is still problematic, but let's move on) forms of art? Did you not write a novel fusing in the structure and themes of popular Romance Novels with a literary style and plot? Isn't that, in a phrase, Sort of Your Bag?"

Well, yes, I would reply. But--But--

....But I still want to sound smart at intellectual cocktail parties! And answering "Marilynne Robinson" when some impressive person dressed in hipster-chic peers at me over their plastic cup of cheap wine just makes me feel more impressive than saying "Nick Hornby." And it's not untrue! I DO like Marilynne Robinson!

Reviews, Literary; Failings, Personal

I've written this and this for The Review Review, a website that reviews, well, reviews. Literary reviews, that is. And lately they've gotten some pretty sweet media attention, from the LA Times, and The motherfucking New Yorker: mostly for this piece by Lynne Barrett, which is succinct advice to aspiring submitters to the literary journals.

The Review Review editor/creator, Becky Tuch, sent all reviewers and interviewers (which included me) a "thank you" email for their contributions after the website received this attention. This of course sent me into a guilt spiral, as the last assignment they gave me was one at which I failed parlously (dude, Blogger, PARLOUSLY is so a word! Go Away, squiggly red lines!). I was sent this issue of Ploughshares to review and failed utterly (oh, so THAT word is okay with you, Blogger?) to do so.

I failed utterly because the stories included in this fiction issue included a story by Charles Baxter, my onetime professor and thesis adviser, and a story by Ethan Rutherford, my onetime MFA cohort. It was edited by Jim Shepard, who wrote a really good introduction to this particular Ploughshares issue about "weirdness" and fiction writing and once said cool things about weirdness and Yogurt's writing when he visited the University of Minnesota and gave a talk, which I meant to go to but forgot what day it was.

Anyway, I was overcome with anxiety about reviewing an issue to which I had several--admittedly, some of them somewhat tenuous--connections. So I employed the tactic easily recognized by all Passive-Aggressives everywhere: I emailed Charlie, Ethan, and Becky and told them about the connection and asked them if they had a problem with it? To which they all sensibly replied that no, of course not, as long as I put a FULL DISCLOSURE: I KNOW SOME OF THESE FOLKS thing on the review.

What I was hoping for, in true Passive-Aggressive fashion, was for someone else to read my mind and say: "No, no, I have a problem with it," thus absolving me of all responsibility.

Hey, here's another blog to check out: The Dictionary Project.

And it features flash fiction by the lovely (music-playing) lady Esme.

Now, for your delictation: A Photo Essay.

Places available for me to work:

Place I do 90% of my work:

Am I:

a) Spoiled

b) A stage 2 hoarder

c) A possessor of back issues

or

d) All of the above?

I'm Not Dead, Just Resting My Eyes

Hey lookie! It's me. Among the many things that cause me on occasion to lie sleepless and twitching in my bed, trying to sleep but unable to as the many things I have left undone dance tauntingly before my eyes, there's the fact that I did an awesome residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts and told them I'd do a write up of my experience on my blog, to give the Center its due kudos. And then I never did. SO I AM NOW. AFTER I SAY A FEW OTHER THINGS.

Warning: this is going to be a links-a-palooza. But which I mean: lots of links! Because it is my terrible misfortune to know lots of talented and successful people, to whom I wish to give due kudos. Also, you should know that I am not only famous but also a great listener.

MORE LINKS! The fabulous Ms. S (or, as I like to call her, "Pants, Bossy" -- not to be confused with Tina Fey's Bossypants; first name Pants, last name, Bossy) has a blog, Yogurt is Cultured! It's on my blog list, but right here I linked you to the entry where she talks about seeing an opera with me when I visited her in New York, cause we shouldn't get confused about this not being all about me.

Speaking of ME, I recently finished the second draft of my novel, so I'm now emerging from the cocoon of writing, blinking a little at the harsh sunlight of the world outside, forced to deal with all the undone tasks, neglected friends, etc. Amelia recently blogged about the empty nest syndrome of sending off her manuscript, but then her novel manuscript has been sold to Farrar, Straus and Giroux because she's a motherfuckin' rockstar, while mine is still at, em, an earlier stage of the publication process. So it feels a little bit presumptious to be like, "Yeah, I totally know the feeling, right??" But I am feeling oddly empty-nesty. I miss my novel. It must be Stockholm syndrome, considering how much I moaned about it. I've come to identify with my captors! They just wanted the best for me! They loved me in their way!

I just read Zadie Smith's collection of essays, Changing My Mind, in which she has an essay called "That Crafty Feeling." (Originally published in The Believer -- I believe (pun totally not intended, but nevertheless awesome) that you can find it online.) Anyway, she says that in novel writing there are "Macro Planners" and "Micro Managers" (bold mine):

You will recognize a Macro Planner from his Post-its, from those Moleskines he insists on buying. A Macro Planner makes notes, organizes material, configures a plot and creates a structure—all before he writes the title page. This structural security gives him a great deal of freedom of movement...I know Macro Planners who obsessively exchange possible endings for one another, who take characters out and put them back in...
I can’t stand to hear them speak about all this, not because I disapprove, but because other people’s methods are always so incomprehensible and horrifying. I am a Micro Manager. I start at the first sentence of a novel and I finish at the last. It would never occur to me to choose among three different endings because I haven’t the slightest idea of the ending until I get to it...Macro Planners have their houses largely built from day one, and so their obsession is internal—they’re forever moving the furniture. They’ll put a chair in the bedroom, the lounge, the kitchen and then back in the bedroom again. Micro Managers build a house floor by floor, discretely and in its entirety. Each floor needs to be sturdy and fully decorated with all the furniture in place before the next is built on top of it. There’s wallpaper in the hall even if the stairs lead nowhere at all.
Because Micro Managers have no grand plan, their novels exist only in their present moment, in a sensibility, in the novel’s tonal frequency line by line...the whole nature of the thing changes by the choice of a few words. This induces a special breed of pathology for which I have another ugly name: OPD or obsessive perspective disorder. It occurs mainly in the first 20 pages. It’s a kind of existential drama, a long answer to the short question What kind of a novel am I writing? It manifests itself in a compulsive fixation on perspective and voice...months are spent switching back and forth. Opening other people’s novels, you recognize fellow Micro Managers: that opening pile-up of too-careful, obsessively worried-over sentences, a block of stilted verbiage that only loosens and relaxes after the 20-page mark is passed. In the case of On Beauty, my OPD spun completely out of control: I reworked those first 20 pages for almost two years. To look back at all past work induces nausea, but the first 20 pages in particular bring on heart palpitations. It’s like taking a tour of a cell in which you were once incarcerated.

I'm a Micro Manager, and so I wrote the whole first draft from the first sentence to the last, in order. I reworked the first few chapters a ridiculous number of times (over the course of...four years?). Then I started over and rewrote it. I stalled, once again, about the third/four chapter mark, got some feedback, pseudo-started over again, and then kept writing till the last sentence.

MY POINT, and I swear that I am getting to it, is that I couldn't have done it without the residency at KHN, in a very real and very literal sense. Like I said, that first draft took about four years (and then I did a little tinkering with it before starting over). The second draft, which was longer and more structurally complex, took about nine months. Of course there are lots of reasons for that, but the residency at KHN helped in several crucial ways:

Snow Follows Me Everywhere

I don't know if I've mentioned here before that I'm giddy with joy that my story is featured in the upcoming issue of American Short Fiction.

They had a reading scheduled for this past Friday, at which an excerpt from my story was going to be read -- but it was rescheduled due to snow. Yes -- snow in Austin. Clearly, simply speaking my name was enough to bring wafts of snow down from Minneapolis. I am a chilly mortal.

Anyway, check out the saga on their blog, which is worth reading.

Also, check out the blog of this Austin resident: Amelia Gray.

Once upon a time, Amelia and I went to high school together, back in Tucson, Arizona. We didn't become friends till Senior Year, which I viewed as an opportunity sorely wasted. Amelia intimidated me because she actually wrote things, while I just thought about writing things. She had a play in the school's student playwriting contest (which I didn't know existed). She and her writing were funny and sharp. We stole hard cider and sherry from my parent's fridge to drink (that's what you get when you raid the liquor cabinet of academics). We went on a camping trip together, if you can picture that (I'm not sure camping naturally springs to mind when you think of me).

She went to Arizona State and I saw her briefly in Phoenix once, when I was in town for a night before catching a plane. She was reading If On a Winter's Night a Traveler and was a little distracted.

We crossed paths again briefly after college. She was on her way to an MFA program while I was just thinking about going to MFA programs.

We've crossed paths twice as AWP; the first time, in Austin, she was mid-MFA program, and I was mid "Maybe I want to switch MFA programs?" This last time, in Chicago, I stopped by the American Short Fiction table and was delighted to find excerpts from Amelia Gray -- excerpts from her book!

I think I babbled something incoherently to the person manning the table "She's my friend! From high school! She has a book! Is she here? Have you seen her?" Which I'm sure did make me sound weird at all.

I tracked down the table of the publisher -- Featherproof Books -- and there she was, with copies of her very own book. Which I bought and read the entirety of on the L train the next day. It's really good.

Now we are both in the latest issue of Annalemma. Here's a review of the issues that praises Amelia's story and says "there isn't a dull story in the lot," which I guess by implication calls my story...not dull?

And, full circle, Amelia lives in Austin, I've got a story in American Short Fiction, and a friend of Amelia's is going to read it, when I stop sending snowstorms their way.

Sorry for the fangirl babbling. Hi Amelia! I still think you are funny and sharp and still feel a little intimidated by you, in a good way. Come to Minneapolis sometime if you like snow! There's plenty to enjoy.

Meta-food -blog stuff

Okay, being technologically deficient, I am the last person in the world who DOES NOT own a digital camera (and nope, not even a camera on my phone). This means, that these days I barely count as a blogger.

It means that I can't show you pictures of my new yogurt maker (!) and the greek yogurt it made for me.

I can, however, link you to this food blog (which doesn't really need my wee little link) and tell you that I'M EATING THE KUGEL IN THAT PICTURE RIGHT NOW. That's right, bitches. It's so meta it kills me.

I can also link you here, because the Divine Miss M is Divine.

I can also link you here, to pretty, pretty issue #5, where my story "Grillz" is published and ready to ship out.

So, that's some pictures, right?

In good news, my phone provider, Altell (which I like to affectionately refer to as the RC cola of service providers) has been bought-en out by Verizon (the Pepsi-Cola of service providers?), which MAY result in things looking up in the technology department for ol' Easy O. So we shall just have to wait with breath that is bated.

Okay, clearly I'm ridic

I ordered some books from amazon today, and among their recommendations (most of which were right on: Margaret Atwood, a book of fairy tales, a cultural studies book), they suggested Camus' The Stranger.

Obviously, amazon thinks I am going through an existential crisis. Or that I'm an angsty teenage boy.

Clearly I'm obsessed with what computer systems think of me. It's like how in middle school I obsessively took quizzes in lady magazines. It's a chance to pretend you can understand what you never really get a chance to understand: what someone else thinks of you! Even if that "someone else" is a magazine or a computer system. And the intent at the end of the day is for you to buy things.

In honor of Camus:

Feeling hot, hot, hot

Yes, so creative I know. But it's hot! And humid! And...dang!

Added a blog to the right: "Punching Little Birds in the Face." A very talented lady who is becoming, like, a famous poet.

Am a winner in the Mnartists flash contest. I think this is awesome,and I get to be in a reading in August! However, they do call me lauren. Still, you can't have everything, I suppose.

Off-Leash Area

Hey guys!

So, I wrote a blog review a long time ago about this theater group, Off-Leash Area. And they contacted me. And they're very nice. And now I'm on the board.

So one of my first duties as board member is to "host" one of the shows. That means I'll greet people, give a little speech before the show, and be around afterwards to chat to people over beer and snacks.

Check them out on their website, or check out this information:

With a cast of three powerful women, including
Jennifer Ilse,
Co-Artistic Director  OLA
Karla Grotting,
2007 McKnight Dance Fellow,
and
Elena Giannetti

DATES AND TIMES
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
2 Weekends ONLY
October 3rd through 12th
ALL Shows - 7pm

TICKETS
Attendance to shows in Our Garage are
by Advance Reservation Only
Please call: 612-724-7372
Suggested Donation: $10-$15
(donations at the garage)

Join Us
after the show
refreshments by the fire pit in Our Backyard

RIP DFW

I'm behind the times on this, ridiculously, but I feel like I have to note something about David Foster Wallace's death. I mean, all the obvious human and compassionate reasons aside, most of this blog content is devoted to talking about Infinite Jest. The fact that I "discovered" David Foster Wallace this summer only to have news of his suicide shock me this fall is -- strange and queasy. But then, I suppose it's the heart of narcissism to think there's something especially weird about this. Lots of people connected to his work, and I'm sure there were many in the same or similar situation.

People have been talking about it a lot obviously, and the theme that's come up with many writer friends is the absurdity of the notion that if you achieve a certain degree of success as a writer, you'll automatically feel validated and happy. It's so easy to think that as soon as you write a best-selling novel or get a Macarthur grant, suddenly you'll never fell hollow or despairing about your self worth, ever again. And more than the worldly things, if you get to a DFW point where your work is so respected and means so much to so many people...surely that will be enough, you think? Surely that's enough to get you out of bed? And this is a particularly shocking reminder how untrue that is.

But I think Jake brings up the most moving and troubling point here. To be a writer, you take it as a given that writing and analyzing and contemplating despair and darkness is purging and elevating -- that there's something worthwhile and healthy in the sensitive contemplation of human frailty. Events like this make you question that assumption. I can't help thinking of a quote I heard from John Cleese (of all people) a long time ago, when he said it was nonsense to think making art about your problems helped those problems -- why then did so many artist obsess about the same things over and over? Write the same play or book over and over? And that's a good point.

This blog is named after a Dorothy Parker poem, Thought for a Sunshiney Morning, that goes like this (from memory, forgive me if a word or two is wrong):

It costs me neither a stab nor squirm
To step perchance upon a worm.
"Ah ha my little dear, " I say
"Your clan will pay me back someday."

Dorothy Parker is another favorite writer of mine and, distressingly, another depressed and prone-to-addiction writer. She wrote many a poem and story about suicide. However, she never did it: she died a very old drunk lady in a house full of cats.

That strikes me as a better way to go.

RIP, DFW and DP.

The next post will be cheerful and full of pictures of food.

That's some BULLSHIT

Last day up at the cottage. We head down to Toronto in a couple hours, then I'm in Toronto for a few days. Back in Minni-snaps on Thursday night.

I'm totally bummed to be leaving (see: title). My uncle and aunt keep congratulating me on having survived so much time up here on my own (there was a full two weeks they weren't here, and I've been here for a month, total), but honestly, I don't feel like I've been that solitary. I've enjoyed the time alone, I've read a lot, written a lot (not as much as I wanted, but then, one never does...), swum and biked and cooked a lot (pictures forthcoming) and Taken Stock a lot, and the solitude never felt weird or oppressive. And thanks to high-speed internet and the occasional phone conversation, I've been in touch with a lot of friends and it feels like due the to the distance or all the free time I've had up here, the conversations I've had with people have been meaningful: we've actually emailed and talked About Stuff, and I've caught up with some people I've haven't talked to in a while. Plus the lack of social time has made me appreciate my friends and look forward to spending time with them. I feel like the time here has deepened my connections to people, not severed them. I've spent a lot of time with my uncle and aunt and realized that I need to spend more time with my Canadian family. I like to complain/boast about being an only child with no cousins, but the truth is, I _do_ have family, and I should take more advantage of it.

Gosh, though, apparently being up here has made me maudlin.

It's time to go back to the flatland, though. I'm reading The Magic Mountain, which is about this dude, Hans, who goes up to visit his cousin at a retreat for people with TB, up in the mountains. He get so seduced by the orderly, reflective way of life that he sort of psychosomatically gets TB, too. He becomes addicted to leisure--a not particularly intellectual guy in the past, he's exposed to all these thinkers, all these different ideas about society, life, death, disease, the whole process of Taking Stock, in other words. He gets so wrapped up in it he becomes unfit for actual life, down below.

So I don't want to end up like old Hans. I do believe in the importance of quiet, of Taking Stock, of reading (reading, as DFW points out, is like the least lonely thing you can do, in a way -- it's a really intimate connection with another person's mind), of reflecting, of taking time to synthesize. But you need some action in your life, too. You can get too seduced by passivity, because the rewards of passivity can be great. After all, you need a lot of quiet and leisure, you need to spend a lot of time by yourself, if you want to write. I guess it's about having the discipline not to get too wrapped up in your own head; to make sure what you do has a connection to the world.

Or something. What do I know, anyway?

Writing: The Soundtrack

Had a good morning of writing so far today. 2 pages or so. Wrote four or so yesterday. So, instead of continuing on the productive streak, I thought I'd obsess briefly about music.

In a tribute to the power of displacement behavior, I've created what I believe to be the perfect writing soundtrack. I used to be a big needer of quiet: perfect silence had reign all around me for me to write. Now, I honestly crave some background noise. If the noise is created by me--i.e., music I have specifically chosen and associate with writing--this is much better than random noises that I can't control.

The current soundtrack is a little short, but otherwise I think awesome. The songs are all songs that a) have some thematic connection to writing or b) aren't so distracting that they can't fade beautifully and atmospherically into the back of my consciousness. As anyone who knows me knows, I like melancholy songs, damp with sonic atmosphere, bleating guitars, plincky-plonky piano solos and trembling voices. For writing, this is perfect. I don't have to feel apologetic for my sad mixes. I tend to make playlists entitled "Spring Happy Mix" only to put the songs on and have friends say, "What is this? The wrist-slitting soundtrack?" But for writing I can get as quiet as I like.

1) Cake, "Open Book." Pretty obvious choice, seeing as how it begins, "She's writing, she's writing, she's writing a novel..." But my first play was called Open Book and...whatever.
2) The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver." Another obvious choice, seeing as how the chorus runs "I am a writer, a writer of fictions..."
3) Devendra Banhart, "At the Hop." If you read gossip magazines, you'll have seen Natalie Portman with her new boyfriend, a bearded and scruffy hipster who looks chic-ly homeless. No one seems to get the relationship, but upon hearing that the boy in question was the author of this song, I got it. This song was on a mix Cybele gave me -- I don't know any of his other music, nor do I want to, because this song breaks my heart. And it fits on my writing mix, because the lyrics are all about the break between imagination and reality (my Great Theme) -- the singer keeps exhorting his love-person to imagine him in various impossible ways: "Pack me in your suitcase...cook me in your breakfast..." He admits that he won't "stop all of my pretending/that's you'll come home/you'll be coming home soon."
4) Neutral Milk Hotel, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." Okay, I can't think how this has to do with writing. It's just moody and atmospheric.
5) Radiohead, "All I Need." I was never a big Radiohead fan, but "In Rainbows" is not only a great album, but it's the best album I've come across to write to. It's lovely without being over-the-top and I've done so much writing to this song in particular. It doesn't hurt that the song is also Dead Sexy.
6) Rufus Wainwright, "Imaginary Love." Forget "Poses" or the later stuff. I'm all about his debut, self-titled album. And this song fits in the writing mix because of the "Imaginary" theme...and it's also a dope song. And he doesn't mumble! As much.
7) Ryan Adams, "Sylvia Plath." On the writing playlist for the literary reference, obvs, and also for the Moody and Atmospheric qualities. It's from the "Gold" album and is quite different from his usual guitar-heavy-country-blues-influenced stuff (which I also love). There's just a piano and some strings. The song isn't about Sylvia Plath so much as Adam's evocation of "a Sylvia Plath" that he "wishes" he had: "busted tooth and a smile...with cigarette ashes in her drink/the kind that goes out/and then sleeps for a week." There's something incredibly charming about his imaginary lady: she's a mess, but she's awesome. The fantasy gets more elaborate: "Maybe she'd take me to France/Or maybe to Spain/She'd ask me to dance/In a mansion on the top of hill/She'd ash on the carpet/and slip me a pill/And she'd get me pretty loaded on gin." And maybe because I drink a lot of gin-and-tonics up at the cottage, and because I discovered this song up at the cottage, and maybe because I used to ash into my drinks when I smoked, and mostly because of this part: "And she and I/would sleep on a boat/and swim in the sea without clothes/with rain falling fast on the sea/as she was swimming away, she'd be winking at me/Telling me that it would be all be okay/On the horizon and fading away/And I'd swim to the boat and I'd laugh/Gotta get me a Sylvia Plath" this song really reminds me of being up at the cottage, going skinny dipping, going out in the boat. I'm pretty sure the swimming part is actually about death, but nevertheless, the song makes me feel happy and peaceful, not sad at all.
8) Modest Mouse, "Dance Hall." Name check!: "Woke up this morning/Seemed to me/That every night turns out to be/ A little bit more like Bukowski/And yeah I know he's a pretty good read/but God who'd want to be...such an asshole." Says it all.
9) New Order, "Age of Consent." Okay, I just like this song.
10) Radiohead, "Videotape." Also great for writing to. And it sort of fits! "When I'm at the pearly gates/This'll be on my videotape." Good song to end a mix to.

So obviously I'm procrastinating. I've also made several mixes for friends: Jake (belated birthday present -- also, guilt trip. Give me music!); Min (I made you a cheerful mix, I swear); and Dan. Anyone else want one?

I am so SMRT

Although on a discussion over at Jake's, I repudiated the idea that authors wrote "difficult" books so that some people could "feel smart" I have to say that the experience of reading Infinite Jest has made me feel smart. I toughed out the rough beginning of a long book, and got into it; I feel like the points I've gotten from the book--judging from the secondary materials I've looked at, interviews with DFW, etc.--seem pretty close to "right" (for whatever that's worth); and the questions I was left with, plot-wise and theme-wise, seem to be the questions that most readers are left with, questions that seem to be quasi-deliberately left up in the air. DFW designed the book so it would be "thinky" but entertaining, and that's just how I found it: it made me think, it challenged me, but it was fun. It made me feel smart.

No, before you're all like "Oh, Easy O, you think you're so much smarter and better than everyone else," let me just say that, come on, I need things like IJ to make me feel smart. Let me share the following stories:

So, making coffee. Making coffee is not that hard. But hear this tragi-comic Catch-22 of making coffee: You need to make it before you've had your coffee. And, honestly, without coffee, I'm dumb. So very, very, very dumb. And I know coffee is #1 on the List of Stuff White People Like, but who are we kidding? If I was any whiter I'd be off the visible spectrum.

Things I have done trying to make coffee, in blurry coffee-less morning state:
1) Place unground beans directly in filter.
2) Put lid of coffee pot directly on filter. Ponder for several minutes why filter would not fit in machine with mysterious lid on it.
3) My uncle and aunt's coffee pot has this springloaded thing that the coffee drips out of. I couldn't figure out how to open it, and was too embarrassed to ask, so when making coffee by myself, I would stand there and hold the springloaded clasp open by hand. The other day I put the coffee on and wandered away, knowing full well the coffee was going to build up inside the filter. I got distracted by something, I don't know, my own navel or whatever, and when I went back to check on the coffee pot, found coffee overspreading the entire kitchen counter. When attempting to clean this up, I knocked the filter out of the machine entirely. Stared at mess, making something between whimper and a sob.

So you see, I need stuff like books to make me feel smart. I need all the help I can get.