Paper Cut

Honoring the Maze Maven, Jorge Luis Borges at 112

2011-08-24T09:44:00.000-07:00

Find your way out of maze as we celebrate the 112th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges. I’m sure he has had a tremendous impact on your writing. I know he has on mine. When I was introduced to his stories, more than a dozen years ago, I’d found my mentor. The very idea of sneaking hardcore philosophy into literature with such mathematical and narrative precision was an awakening for me.

Reading his brilliant stories, I realized it was imperative to tackle the unknown and deepen one’s prose with academic quandaries while still keeping one’s finger on the human pulse. Borges did this better than anybody I know. We think of HG Wells as the godfather of Sci-fi, Poe the high priest of the bizarre, and Sartre as the Prince of Philosophical lit, but Borges mixed these into his own unique stew.

I’d caution writers to read, but not emulate his style. It is too difficult to master and Post-Modernism has led to very mixed results. Then again, tapping into magic realism’s sly genius is great counterpoint for most of the realistic, hardboiled fluff we leaf through nowadays.

All I’m really saying is this, treat yourself to “The Dead Man”, “The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths”, “The Circular Ruins”, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, really, anything you can get your hands on and don’t let a day go by without toiling over the nagging itch of writing. Grope for it like “The Book of Sand” or pinch for a single grain. One a day, mind you, will get you through the daily toil.

Interview with Robin Stratton

2011-05-04T05:37:00.000-07:00

Today my guest is Robin Stratton. She’s the Editor-in-Chief of the fabulous Boston Literary Magazine.

JG: Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Boston Literary Magazine is a wonderful journal. How long you been running BLM? How did you originally get involved?

RS: I started Boston Literary Magazine in 2006 after spending a week in Virginia at a writing workshop. I didn't know anything about the on-line community until then; came home, checked it out, and decided to become part of it by starting my own, and then sending my own stuff out.

JG: I thought it was originally called Boston Literary Review. Was there a name change?

RS: No, but we are often called that!

JG: What other journals have you been a part of?

RS: Only Boston Literary. One is enough!

JG: You have a few different categories of stories and poetry. What distinguishes them? How did you decide upon these particular categories?

RS: In the beginning we considered everything... but the longer pieces were just taking up too much time... I get hundreds of submissions a week, and if someone sends in three short stories that are 3000 words, it just gets to be too much. We now have a word limit of 250 words.

JG: Tell us the difference between dribbles and drabbles?

RS: Dribbles are EXACTLY 50 words... Drabbles are EXACTLY 100 words.

JG: Are dribbles and drabbles a BLM invention or do other Flash Journals have something similar?

RS: Drabbles have been around for a long time... I think there's a Wikipedia article about them... one of our editors came up with the name Dribble for 50 words, but I have also heard that genre called a Half-Drabble.

JG: What do you look for in a piece of fiction? What do you look for in a poem?

RS: I always look for a strong sense of character... I love feeling as if I am meeting someone whose fate interests me. I think it takes a lot more skill to craft scenes that show dynamics rather than a piece of writing that explains/analyzes characters.

JG: What turns you off?

RS: Anything titled "Untitled." Instant pass! I don't like when a pivotal line is in a foreign language— my rule is that I refuse to google anything... I don't have time for that. I pass on material that clearly makes a lot of sense to the writer, but no one else. This is just a personal preference, but I usually pass on stuff that's very global— "love is this" or "life is that" – and I also got tired a long time ago of stories/poems about characters from Greek or Roman mythology. And as much as I love a good deathbed scene, I've gotten so many that I've had to start passing on them.

JG: What impresses you?

RS: When I send someone feedback about how I think their piece could be stronger, and they rewrite it and turn it into exactly what I was looking for, and they say how much better it is now... I love when writers are open to comments... that tells me so much about them. I have a hard and fast rule that I never ever send a form rejection - every single person who writes gets a personalized reply - and I love when someone writes and thanks me for that... some have the grace to thank me even when I have passed on their work. That means a lot to me.

JG: Define story.

RS: Character, conflict, and satisfying resolution.

JG: Besides BLM, who else is going places in the Lit Mag World?

RS: I wouldn't even know where to begin! There are soooooooooooo many great mags out there!!

JG: Who is your readership? How large?

RS: What a great question— I wish I knew the answer! What I do know is that I've had to start taking breaks from submissions, which I didn't have to do for the first three years... we close for a month and a half after an issue comes out. Gives me a chance to go back to my other life. We also just started putting out a print issue, which has been a real blast!!

JG: How many souls in your staff?

RS: I have the most amazing webmistress who ever lived, and another editor who offers feedback from time to time. So three.

JG: How many submissions do you get a month? What is your acceptance rate?

RS: We get well over a thousand a month... probably 1500 or so... our acceptance rate is low... about 15%. We're fussy.

JG: Do you and the other editors ever clash about which pieces should be published? How do you resolve your differences?

RS: No, I am the only one who makes those decisions.

JG: Besides literature, what is your second greatest passion?

RS: Science... music... the internet!

JG: Any parting words?

RS: Advice to anyone wanting to be published by BLM or any other magazine... I can't stress this enough: Read the Submission Guidelines!! It's such a huge waste of when someone sends in something that's not suitable (non-fiction, a novel excerpt, stories that are longer than 250 words.) It's a waste of their time, too!

Robin Stratton is the editor-in-chief of Boston Literary Magazine. You can check out their Spring 2011 issue which is available now www.BostonLiteraryMagazine.com

Hail to the Guitar Heroes

2011-05-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

I just saw the Guitar Heroes exhibition at the Met and it got me thinking about craft again. How you like them apples? When you look at the beautiful ebony fingerboards and the spruce body you get that strumming sensation. What really surprised me was that much of what is considered modern guitar-making owes its shiny frets to some of the most hallowed luthiers like Stradivari and Guarneri who are often most noted for their exquisite violins. The care and attention given to each instrument was unparalleled.

But as much as I wanted to draw a profound connection between word-building and guitar-making it became apparent to me that I should consider the art of bookbinding. That was the ticket. Of course guitar-making has more in common with bookbinding than writing. I’d been the exhibits at The Center for Book Arts in Chelsea so I’d seen some of it firsthand. They actually have courses in bookbinding. Their exhibitions are a treat. I’ve had the privilege to check out a few of their special events. If you love machines, cool implements and have a penchant for parchment this might be a fun way for you to kill some time. They have a collection of over 2000 books and a healthy archive. So if you’re one of those worrywarts who think paper books are doomed you’ll be pleased to know these special museums will keep cloth and binding alive.

What did strike me as interesting was that bookbinding doesn’t seem to have legacy of famous craftsmen. We know certain locations that produced great work like Nag Hammadi in ancient Egypt and that the monks during the Middle Ages spent a lot of time binding codices, but generally speaking the artists aren’t singled out. Writers have always seemed to play second fiddle to musicians even when classical music rocked the house. Naturally musicians get more hype, but the instrument-makers were also revered. Take a look at a Christie’s auction. Watch the movie Red Violin to get a taste. I’m sure you’re familiar with the names Stradivari and Guarneri. And if you’re a rocker you’re gaga for the genius of Monteleone, D’Angelico, and D’Aquisto (which are a bit more obscure) although you have probably heard of Gibson.

The Paper Chase

2011-04-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

Paul Auster tells the heartbreaking story of running into Willie Mays’s as a little kid and asking the legend for an autograph. The pint-sized Auster didn’t have a pencil to his name and Mays didn’t have one either. After several minutes of frenzied pocket-rummaging, Auster came up with nothing but lint and an empty gum wrapper. He was so stunned he couldn't even cry. He loafed there flatfooted with his t-shirt untucked, one block from the old Polo Grounds and his childhood hero turned the corner and disappeared. Little Paul vowed always to carry a pencil everywhere he strode. The tragedy would become a triumph years later. That episode bore the right of passing for a great New York Author.

Now where fact meets fantasy I’m not sure, but as Auster has pointed out that experience taught him a valuable lesson. To always, always be prepared. Of course, the pen, the pencil, the Crayon, the bloodied finger: all suffice as writing tools.

I’m pretty good about stocking writing ammo. My Achilles Heel is in the scroll. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at a loss for paper when the magic moment hits me. Fortunately, I’m blessed with the resourceful gene. I’ll use a napkin, a flyer, a takeout menu. This happens quite a bit. Believe it or not, I use newspapers. The mad scribble gets a bit messy, but it does the trick. Sure it looks really strange, but it's better than letting my thoughts slide out of my creative ether. Transcribing becomes a bit of a mission. The jumble of words takes on a Sanskrit-type look, which isn’t so bad. It makes me think of the monks and what they must have went through when they were engaged in their own transcription.

Do I recommend this for the casual free-write? It’s not a terrible exercise to undergo, but I wouldn’t want you to make a habit of it and don’t get me wrong this isn’t my chief M.O (modus operandi).

Ideally, I stock a handful of scrap paper in my back pocket, jacket pocket, the side flap of my shoulder bag, and under the sole of my shoe. I’m loaded to the gills with paper. You remember the 80’s shoulder pad fad? Okay, I don’t go that far, but I lose track of some of my storing places which causes its own problems, but I can’t be blamed for being idle. The goal is to keep cranking out genius. I tend to rip up most of what I write. So much for genius. Much of my scrap paper happens to be printouts of earlier drafts of stories, novels-in-progress, and a hodgepodge of other whatnots. It’s nice to see where things are going and be a little bit green at the same time.

Scrap on.

Are We Defined By Our Genre?

2011-04-22T10:09:00.001-07:00

I’m going to level with you. I’ve been guilty of genre-snubbing. You’re lounging at your favorite coffee hub with Portnoy’s Complaint in hand and the guy next to you is reading the latest Janet Evanovich. Naturally, you cast aspirations. You’re a writer. Maybe you consign your guilty feelings into a sestina or a napkin doodle. Then you scope the place to find somebody who is reading something meatier and you plan to sit next to him or her.

This seems childish, but many times this is the kind of knee-jerk reaction you get when you tell people you like Plots With Guns, Zombie Gone Wild, The Great American Sexcapade or Hills Weary of Pink Elephants. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that literary fiction is “Art” and everything else is “Entertainment”. Good writing is still good writing. Let’s not forget fiction is a form of entertainment, at its best enlightenment.

Okay some genre fiction is commercial, bland, and formulaic, but a lot of highbrow literary fiction is meandering and dull. Let’s be honest it takes guts to write a book and it takes more guts to wear a label that may typecast you. It could make or break you and if it makes you it can be hard to break from your genre mold. And top of that, your readers will expect you to stick to your guns so to speak. We can’t seem to think of Stephen King as anything but the master of horror. But, then what do you consider The Green Mile and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption? And couldn’t you argue that Kafka’s Metamorphosis shows that indeed sci-fi belongs to the family of literature?

John Banville, the Man Booker Prize-winning author, writes crime fiction under the name Benjamin Black. It isn’t so uncommon. He’s tapping into a different audience and sometimes he lets some of his fans cross over to the dark side. One of my personal favorite writers Haruki Murakami has written a number of books in the noirish style, but really he goes all over the place. I heard Aimee Bender recently say that Murukami’s After Dark spins the Sleeping Beauty fairytale on its head.

A compelling story is still what hooks the reader. If anything at all, genres help to narrow focus. You have one set of expectations when you step into a romance versus a space capsule adventure. Personally, I’m always on the lookout for a writer who can stuff more than one genre into his goody bag. I like surprises and stumbling upon sentences that humble me as a writer. What can I say, the craft is a chameleon.

Interview With Carolyn Arnold

2011-04-20T09:43:00.000-07:00

Today my guest is the writer Carolyn Arnold. She’s the author of 6 novels and is currently completing her 7th novel entitled Eleven. Carolyn is also the founder, publisher, and author of the blog A Writer’s Journey.

JG: You recently had an amazing post about determining body temperature at the time of death. What kind of research did you do to find this out?

CA: The internet is an amazing wealth of information. Of course, you can’t take everything you read as credit worthy. That’s why I cross-reference the material to ensure the accuracy of what I’m trying to share with the followers, and viewers of my blog. I also suggest any M/T/S (mystery/thriller/suspense) writer get the book Howdunit Forensics A Guide for Writers.

JG: Who are some of your favorite writers?

CA: Love David Baldacci, and Sandra Brown. Other authors I have enjoyed reading are Lisa Unger, John Gilstrap, and Jonathan Kellerman to mention a few.

JG: What turns you off?

CA: Inaccuracies or inconsistencies. If you’re going to write a novel, make sure you know your facts. As writers, we’re reminded that our readers are more educated than ever, and we wouldn’t want to disappoint them. Even keeping in mind that some of our readers may get their education from “Hollywood”, as writers we are entrusted with the privilege to get the facts right. So, if something we present in our work may contradict what they watched on TV, but it’s factual – always go with the factual.

JG: Why did you decide to start a blog?

CA: At the point I started the blog, I was editing. I find the process of editing, although rewarding, to be even more solitary than writing itself. I thought by writing blog posts this would fill the need to get words “out there”. What it became was much more. I opened the blog to guest posters, and found that by getting fresh perspectives I learned from them, and became inspired by them.

I believe that as writers we’re stronger united, and banded together, than we are alone. I also strive to be creative, and unique with the subject matter I decide to discuss. This is how Forensic Friday, The Human Observation Project, and Writing Weekend posts were born.

JG: Are you working on anything special right now? Any assignments, novels, query letters

CA: Right now, I’m working on finishing my seventh novel. ELEVEN is a thriller that follows a FBI team in search of a serial killer. When they think they have everything figured out, it’s almost too late when they realize they don’t.

I’m also working on finalizing edits for my other novels, and getting them ready for agent query. And of course, I’m doing all this while working full-time.

JG: If you had your druthers, would you prefer publishing a story online or in a print magazine?

CA: I’m going to go with print. And this is for two reasons: 1) I love the feeling of holding what I read in my hands, and would love to hold my work, and 2) isn’t everything, even printed work available online at some point? :)

JG: Self-publishing or Traditional?

CA: I praise anyone who gets their work into print, and hold respect for those who choose to self-publish. For myself though, at this point, I still have untapped opportunities that I’d like to pursue in the traditional publishing arena.

JG: Who are your writing influences?

CA: Influences, or support system? Inside, I believe I was meant to write. Now, maybe this sounds absurd, but at this point, it’s what I believe. As far as a support system, I’m thankful to say that I live with my best friend, and largest supporter.

JG: Why do you believe you were meant to write?

CA: I used to write as a way of expressing myself as a teenager. As life went on, I got married, and everything significantly changed. I didn’t even think of writing anymore other than the passing thought “it would be neat to write a novel”, and even then, it didn’t come up often.

But about four years ago now, a situation arose where a co-worker asked me to tell her a story. Work was uncertain at the time, and we knew that the Head Office would be coming in and laying off the department basically any day. So, I emailed her the first two paragraphs of a story, that just “came to me”. She kept wanting more, and then told me I had to finish. By then, I was wrapped up in the characters, and the excitement of writing again so it wasn’t a problem. A year later, I had completed my first novel.

I believe if you come back around to something in your life, it tells you something. I have since written 6 novels, with my 7th in the works.

JG: How long does it normally take you to complete a first draft of a novel?

CA: My first took me about a year, the second six months, the third three, and then my fourth, fifth, and sixth novels anywhere from one to two months each.

JG: What are you reading now?

CA: True Blue by David Baldacci.

JG: What's your daily writing routine like?

CA: I wake up about six during the work week to a cup a coffee and my laptop. I find the early mornings to be the most productive time for writing. I also bring my laptop to the day job and work on my writing during my lunch (but it’s only half an hour). At night, I work on posts for my blog. Weekends – while they’re like the “promised land”.

JG: What’s your favorite place to hang out?

CA: Honestly? My media room. We’ve got it set up with a large screen TV, and surround sound. There’s a sixteen-foot bar down there too. What more can I say?

JG: Favorite Bookshop

CA: It has to be Chapters. You can’t go wrong with Starbucks in there too!

JG: The 5 most important books you’ve always wanted to read, but still haven’t gotten around to.

CA: Wow, this is a tough question. I guess I don’t give a lot of thought to what I’m reading that far ahead. I know there’s a few from writers I’ve met online that I would love to support.

JG: Plot or character?

CA: You mean, which is more important? That’s a tough question. I believe the two are required to make a solid book. While characters drive the plot of the novel, you also need a plot to lead the characters along their journey.

JG: Any words of wisdom you’d like to share?

CA: Keep writing. Even on days you don’t feel like it, make yourself. You’ll be amazed what comes out onto the page. And as you keep writing, you’ll learn and grow. Another key aspect of growing as a writer is to read. Read other books in your genre, read out of your genre, read books on the craft. But on the latter, I’m placing a disclaimer. Books on the craft can be incredibly useful, but don’t take them as rule books, view them as suggestive guidelines.

Open yourself up to criticism. It’s tough, and sometimes it can sting, but you’ll grow from it.

Another thing, reach out to other writers. Whether this comes in the form of an online community, one in your neighborhood, a blog, or Twitter – connect.

Brief Bio: Carolyn Arnold was born in 1976 in the rural town of Picton, Ontario. Currently she lives with her husband of fifteen years and her two beagles in a city about two hours from the well-known Canadian center, Toronto.

While her first completed novel was a romantic suspense, since then she has branched out to the mystery, suspense and thriller genres. Her goal is to become a well-known writer, and a mentor for others striving to reach their publishing dreams.

You can follow her on her blog here. Also on Twitter here.

Flex Your Flash Fiction Muscles

2011-04-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

It’s long been said that a failed poet is a short story writer. That’s a bit of a stretch if you asked me, but maybe I feel that way because I’m a wee bit jealous of the poets and I keep scrapping out short stories. Lately though I’ve been noodling with flash fiction. It’s a great way to map out a plethora of ideas and not have to worry about “going poetry”. I’ve been doing this for a while now. You already may have noticed that Flash Fiction as a style of writing has been growing by bionic leaps.

Flash Fiction seems the appropriate medium in our Attention Deficit Age. More and more journals are offering readers bite-sized portions of prose. Today more writers are dabbling in the various mediums to perfect their craft, but also to connect with readers. Many of us have less and less time on our hands because of work, family, YouTube or gaming habits.

Anybody who writes should practice the art of Flash Fiction because the medium helps you focus on being concise, weighing words, and delivering sweet brilliance. You’ll discover that words carry more than meaning. They own their own shape. When I engage in micro-writing exercises, I approach it like woodcarving. I know absolutely zilch about woodcarving, but I imagine that shaving off excess wood is similar to finding the right words and placing them in the right nook of the sentence.

Sometimes it takes a month or two or nine to write a really good short story and many of us may not be invested enough in our characters to take that much time. What’s the solution to our creative quandary? Drop it altogether? Not a chance. Pick an idea or two and give yourself a page’s worth of free writing. See where your stream of consciousness takes you and then you can go back and let the left brain do its analytical stuff.

When you whip up something that you think meets the taste test you’ll be happy to know there are many online and print Zines dedicated to Micro Fiction. Some Zines are exclusively devoted to Micro Fiction: Smokelong Quarterly, Flashquake, Quick Fiction, and Brevity. Boston Literary Magazine focuses primarily on flash fiction, but further distills its passion by offering 250 words (or less), Drabbles (exactly 100 words) and Dribbles (exactly 50 words). The people behind Smokelong named their journal because one can smoke a cigarette while reading a single prose piece. Non smokers will be happy to note you can gobble down a Ring Ding while fully digesting a story.

Robin Stratton, the editor-and-chief of Boston Literary Magazine, has been doing great things with her journal and they are currently taking submissions for their upcoming issues. You can find out more about them by clicking here.

The consummate flash fiction artist keeps climbing the literary ladder. The Micro Award was established in 2007 to distinguish the work of brief brilliance. Kevin Couture is already this year’s winner. His piece “Choosing a Photograph for Mother's Obituary” appeared in the Antigonish Review.

It won’t be long before that old adage about poets and failed short story writers gets tweaked and short story writers are considered failed Flash Fiction writers. It’s a slippery slope out there. You better find your footing fast.

Let Them Toot Your Horn

2011-04-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

Nobody lusts to be Wilson Betemit or Kosuke Fukudome. Everybody wants to be Albert Pujols, A-Rod or Josh Hamilton. Hell yeah. They’re all pro ball players, but there’s only so much room on top.

In terms of emulating, it pays to learn from top dogs. No argument there. All the same, a lead into how the middling athlete makes it to “The Show” can lend a clue to the would-be Best Seller in the right direction.

Here’s where you need to take notes. Discipline and consistency are the make or break factors. Pujols, A-Rod, and Hamilton don’t necessarily take more cuts in BP (Batting Practice), but they might if they are in a slump. What separates them from the platoon and the pedestrian players is that sanguineous desire to make each cut count. They know their strengths and when they see a ball in their zone— WHAM— they rip it.

I’m getting the point. Writers need to think like All Star Sluggers and figure out their pitch zone. You’re not always going to hit a homer, but if you know your strengths you will hit the ball with authority. Translation: Your focus on production will drive results.

If you’ll permit me to leap from Top Dog to Top Down thinking you need to consider the zealous, undisciplined approach to book promotion. So you want to be the next Barry Eisler, John Grisham or John Irving. Wanting is not enough. Wannabes are a dime a dozen. Results-driven writers— whoa, that’s something.

Okay, you’ve completed a great manuscript. The galleys cut the mustard and the publisher gives you the green light. Your graphic designer has whipped up something bad-ass. You can see your book in Borders and B & N windows, you’re pumped for a book tour, psyched to sign autographs and sip Evian from recycled plastic while you wait the applause to die down as you stand by your podium, microphone clipped to your linen collar. You’ve been waiting for this moment— forever. And, best of all your book has universal appeal. It’s a Techno-thriller with zombies, pitchforks, spiritual gurus, and you’ve even managed to sneak a few yum yum recipes on the inside flap of the book jacket. The story takes place in the 1980s so it’s got Historical Fiction appeal.

Grand slam!

Ahem. Who does this book really, really appeal to? If you had to pencil-sketch your reader who would he or she be? What book clubs does she belong to? What hobbies does he have? If your reader was a snack food what type would she be? You see where this is going. The whole wide world ain’t your audience. Not yet. They don’t even know who you are or that you prefer Twizzlers to Skittles.

The homework assignment is to go to a café or some public place where readers chill. Chit-chat with somebody, ask them why they are reading what they are reading and tell them how much you’re enjoying David Bezmozgis’s new book. Will this launch you to stardom? Not a chance, but it will get the wheels turning in the old brain. You meet enough bookworms and find out what excites them and what kind of people will DiGG your stuff and you might find yourself rising up Amazon faster than you can say Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Hey Bub, You're Not Cutting This Line

2011-04-13T04:56:00.000-07:00

Sometime ago, what’s the difference how far back, I had the notion I’d share Cheetos with Stephen King, crack a beer with Malcolm Gladwell, dance the tango with Joyce Carol Oates. Newsflash. In your dreams. My dreams weren’t even so kind. I’ll admit I used to go to a slew of readings and book signings hoping to become BFFs with the Hardcover Crew, but time again I was nudged to the side like a schlemiel being denied his bowl of mulligatawny by the Soup Nazi.

Okay, Best Sellers aren’t the Soup Nazi. Maybe their agents and pouting publicists are. What I’m trying to say is that no matter how many times I tried bellying up to these Scribe Stars they kept putting up their shield. I’d do the same thing in their shoes.

A little role reversal maestro. In all fairness to them, I went about my schmoozing as a real dink. Authors are constantly barraged. They're propositioned by a gazillion schlubs. You think some smarty pants hasn’t tried slipping them a manuscript on the sly?

The nicest Lit Luminary I ever met was Myla Goldberg, Bee Season. I approached her at the Brooklyn Book Festival in 2009. She was very down-to-earth and a generous chit-chatter to boot. Even after the panel discussion had ended, she had no problem gabbing about books, her influences as a writer, and favorite snacks. How awesome I thought, to be gabbing so calmly with somebody who collects Hollywood royalty checks.

As great as it was to have had the opportunity to chew on her ear for an hour or so it didn’t help me sell one book of my own. We’re not BFFs. I don’t have any contact information from her, but her agent’s. That’s fine. I get it. Sure now I get it. But, the idea of rubbing elbows with Best Sellers and letting their lady luck rub off on me was silly at best. We should never think they are better than us, but I went about cultivating my following the wrong way.

Connect with the reader. I would have been 100 times better off chatting with the rest of the crowd, the Regular Joes and Janes. I’ve since learned to build relationships with readers, those who might actually pick up my book. It’s not about prejudging and excluding readers. Anybody could be your reader, but be realistic about who your target audience is and if you do your job and word spreads, always let the curious cut your line.

Bookmarks

2011-04-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

Is there such a thing as the perfect bookmark? By a show of hands, what’s your favorite? Hmm, well you’re entitled to your preference. For years people have given me these papery trinkets and I have accepted them with a wry grin. I rarely use them. No, I’m not from the doggy-ear school of thought. Shame on you for thinking that.

Technically, I’ll use anything to keep my paperback place. My abridged list includes: napkins, Post-its, bank statements, shoelaces, dry cleaning receipts, broken rubber bands, and oh yeah baseball cards. Baseball cards are my bookmark of choice. I’ve been using them for years.

So you probably suspect that I have some kind of affinity toward baseball and collecting since I have cardboard pics to mess around with. As a kid, I always wanted to be a baseball card dealer. Guess how that panned out? Thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife thing is I hate wasting stuff so I put my cards to good use. I’m not saying I am a hoarder by any stretch. At least I’m not as bad as those two clowns E.L Doctorow wrote about.

I’m also not dumb enough to slip a Mickey Mantle between the pages. I generally use a common (that’s a card of so-so value in collecting parlance). Sometimes people on the subway are more intrigued by my bookmark than what I’m reading. They might scan the cover to see if there’s some sort of connection between my reading and marking habits. The jury is still out.

Nowadays though when we hear the word bookmark we tend to think of the tabs we’ve created via our website links. You tag the sites you’ve found htthttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifmoshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gift interesting that you DIGG and that you’d like to StumbleUpon again. Managing all of your bookmarks becomes a bit of an art, an exercise in organization. I can always use a bit of help in that category. As far as Kindle is concerned, they have their own modus operandi. Kindle saves your place whenever you put it down, but they also have some new stuff.

Here’s a link to some CNET videos that can give you some suggestions.Kindle Bookmark primer http://cnet.co/eznx5p

When it comes to bookmarking, sometimes I use multiple placeholders. This might be just a quirk on my part. I really haven’t seen anybody doing it, but I bet you a shiny nickel there are bibliophiles among us who do. Care to share and make me feel less self-conscious?

Happy One Year Paper Cut

2010-08-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

It appears that I missed the official one-year anniversary of my Paper Cup blog. Big Deal. I am back posting it to the official date August 10th not because I am superstitious, but because I feel like I want to make the belated effort. It will make me feel better. Fat chance.

I didn't start my blog to dig into my inner voyeuristic diary, but rather to build a readership. To connect with others who haven't had the pleasure of poking into my notebooks. Yes, I still write by hand. It's sexy. It reminds me that I can only really attempt art with words and not sketches or pictures. I suck at those things.

I'll admit I have been fairly flaky this year with regards to making regular contributions. I am going to try and change that, but I am not making any promises. Promises are for lolligaggers and suckers.

I've also been putting most of my energy into my Girma Dali serialized novel on my wordpress page.

Sorry that this has been such a blah blog, but I suppose it says a little something at least in the subliminal sense of what I truly think of anniversaries.

The Birth of Girma Dali

2010-07-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's been a mondo long time since my last post. I can admit it when I've been slacking off, but I've been working on a special project and now I'd like to share it with you. So far I have promoted Paper Cut as multifaceted arts blog and included interviews with writers and covered a wide range of topics. Today, I want to plug my new serialized novel Girma Dali which I launched in honor of this 2010 World Cup. The inspiration for this novel is as diverse as my interest in general.

Girma Dali is a one of kind football star who leads his underdog squad The Harambee Stars of Kenya into the World Cup Group Stage. He has gained great respect of his fellow players, fans, and world leaders alike because he is gifted with the ball, but also because he appears to be somebody who can bring peace to the world. Diplomats, senior officials, and political leaders want Girma Dali to use his cultural, motivational, and bargaining capital to stop the bloodshed in his nation and throughout the African continent. Dali rises to the occasion and goes where he is needed. When he learns that his best friend from childhood, who he met while he was living in Kibera, might have fallen into the captivity of an unscrupulous warlord Dali all but falls apart. He promises to save his best friend Benga, but has nowhere to turn.

Girma Dali is a sports novel, an adventure novel, and in a way, a platonic love story. Girma Dali is about brotherhood, family, pride. Deep at its core it is about reconciliation, hope, and the unwavering burden of personal gratitude.

Here is an excerpt.

Amid the swerve and pulse of hungry bodies Girma Dali picks his spot, a tissue-wide patch of net where’s he going to strike. A green-jerseyed defender closes in on him his brute momentum unleashed like a kamikaze pilot swooping into enemy orbit, his lunging body makes Dali cut the other way. After the defender has crashed, Dali has already made another charge, the pull-weight of his monster calves bring him within a sharp angle of the far post. Chalk and turf shoot from his hurried spikes. A rip of adrenaline carries through his thighs up his tall spine his arms pinch in at the elbows calm as old men napping in a hammock. His round wet bold, green eyes, more than anything else, lust for the back of the net. If only that would settle it, there are pyrotechnics rumbling in his gut firing signals to his brain mirroring back all the hardships, sacrifice, how he slipped free by the skin of his teeth and the ball waits before him a microcosm of his life, a crucible of his self-worth, he’d loved to sock the cover off, but its wound too well in his brain.

Sweat beads furiously down his flushed cheeks. He scrambles. A nervous tick clamps hold of his motor skills bites into him like senseless bacteria attacking an innocent host. He’s careful, oh so brilliantly careful with his touch, sending a fake signal left and takes a meek chip right. The boot stopped by the goalkeeper. And just like that the cheers of some eighty odd thousand stadium fans, billions worldwide, whisk to a hush. The goalkeeper hurls the ball to his punchy defender. Life is good for a few more seconds, but at any moment, the ball is intercepted and the hopes and dreams of nations blow away like so much chalk dust.

Football is a game for legs and hearts. Girma Dali has put his soul into the game. He flies through defenders like he’s got wings, his ferocious instinct makes him both feared and loved. He plays with breathtaking fluidity you feel like weeping. The moment somebody thinks they’ve nailed the grand alchemy that makes Dali a genius somebody else came along and offers a new, kookier explanation. All agree Dali is a god in cleats.

He broke onto the international stage, seemingly out of nowhere, and arrived by accident. He played for a string of so-so clubs mainly in the MLS then landed a spot in the Japanese League. He never scored more than three goals in a single season. For five years, he had blown his national team tryouts. Last Spring an outbreak of a mysterious influenza knocked three men off the roster and in a desperate need of a warm, healthy body his name was penciled in. The Harambee Stars needed speed, discipline, a better coach, mental toughness, a goalie who didn’t suffer from narcolepsy— they would’ve settled for one decent chipper whose committed work ethic might rub off on them. They were also kind of lazy. Coach Sangaré had flip-flopped the players’ positions numerous times sure the winning combination was only a shuffle away. The whole while, the great spark, Girma Dali hugged the bench his wide green eyes gobsmacked at the streams of screaming fans that filled the stadium. He’d never seen so many people staring back at him, well, maybe not exactly at him since he was riding the bench, but at the players tearing up the sun-baked field.

The breakthrough game happened to be a friendly against Paraguay, three years ago to the day, when Moussa M’bami sprained his ankle and later Ken Ogolla was thrown out of the game for squeezing the referee’s nipple. The Harambee Stars had bled through their whole roster save for the bright-eyed and jittery Girma Dali.

Coach Sangaré pointed at his last bench man the slouching Dali in his spotless white visitor’s uniform, picking at grass. He had no idea he was being summoned into the game. He froze for an instant staring at a grass sprig wedged under his thumbnail. The Coach’s bearded neck swelled, his nostrils flared, and he rushed Dali as if a manic rhino about to gore a snoozing poacher.

“Get in there,” Coach Sangaré yelled waving his stubby finger.

Girma Dali snapped out of his funk. He ran so fast he zipped out of his shoe. The battered leather lump tumbled end over end with its laces tangled until it stopped to lay on its side, in the middle of the field like a spoiled child waiting to be scooped up by its parent. The other team snickered. Nobody had seen anything so ridiculous. They couldn’t stop laughing, Paraguay’s star forward nearly split his gut, but this didn’t seem to bother Girma Dali who had waited his whole life for this golden opportunity and didn’t bother to put back on his shoe. Big deal, as a kid he’d played many games in the street barefoot. There he honed his craft, his toes long since callused he could play on the side of a mountain, on top of a volcano. He was filled with the same ebullient desire from his youth.

The rest of the game the shoeless Girma Dali hustled with unparalleled zeal. He dashed with feverish glee, a crinkle of a smile splayed on his cool pink lips. In less than sixty seconds, he made his first touch with his shoeless foot. He dribbled to the outside past one then two defenders his ability to switch gears, midfield, left to right was marked by his almost rubbery legs bending at his whim. What looked like a hard pass turned out to be a fake, a short drift to the outside of the defender and Dali caught up to the ball then advanced a few yards from the box. When he ditched the last man he saw the lone Guaraníes’ goalkeeper who was no longer laughing. Dali struck and was blocked. The goalkeeper cleared the ball and precipitated the race to the other end. Dali owned a few slick moves. He replayed the opposing team’s gossipy cackling as he ran the length of the field with the growing urge to prove himself. When he crossed paths with his unlaced shoe he didn’t stoop to retrieve it instead he kicked it past the foul line. This had his teammates, his coach, and the fans shaking their heads. His opponents howled not so much because they found him to be a joker, but because they thought he was nuts. Good, Dali thought. Let them think it. He carried on, majesty, Merlin, merrymaker with the ball. Everybody who had ever doubted his abilities stood before him, an angry phalanx of cacklers, he sped past them putting on what would later be dubbed “the exhibition” full of corner kicks, spirited tackles, and magic.

He did not make a single goal that game, but he was credited with a steal and two assists. His stock shot up in Coach Sangaré’s eyes and the coach told the press that he had a secret weapon in Dali.

The next game he played with both his shoes. They didn’t come off his feet. He didn’t even bother to give his laces a tug. River Plate double teamed him and for the first half this seemed to do the trick in neutralizing the Harambee Stars’ scoring drives. Dali managed to stay hungry on defense making a couple of steals, but when he ran in offensive mode he lost a step. His kicks skittered, didn’t have the same teeth they had in his first game.

They were already in stoppage time when Dali squeezed into the penalty box tip-tapped the ball luring the goalie to the right and then booted it by him on the left. The game ended in a tie, but it was a sweet victory. The stadium erupted. It was astonishing to have such thunderous applause for the visiting Kenyans, but really there were many Boca Juniors fans on hand rooting against their most hated rival, River Plate. For fun, one of his teammates had decided to kick off his shoes. Then another and another until the whole team scampered around in socks.

Coach Sangaré eyed his players, but you could almost tell he’d been itching to join.

When the Harambee Stars matched up with the European squads they held their own. First, Czech Republican then Netherlands, Greece, and Ireland all of the matches fought hard. Dali got better each time out. His passes launched with stealth accuracy and he seemed just as happy to let his teammates take the goal or to drop back on defense and tangle with his opponents. The siren sound of the bench, a frightening ring, he’d always seemed to hear these things his will would not let him fall not now he’d come too far and so fast. The World Cup seemed an eternity away and yet it also felt a day away it was the perfect anomaly summing up Girma Dali’s life things that should have been out of his reach suddenly came into tow. Yes, he’d had luck. Do you want to call it that? He owed a little to chance and didn’t give himself enough credit. In Dali’s eyes nested the ever-looming sense of debt.

To read more please check out:
http://girmadali.wordpress.com/

Saramago's Legacy

2010-06-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

I could recap all that's been said about the Great Saramago, but there have been numerous postings already that have proffered a far better summation than I could slapdash together primarily because I'm not an authority on his oeuvre. Truth is, it took me a while to latch onto his prose. What has fascinated me however, has been is earnest writing style and the hot-aired balloon loftiness of his sentences. I first became acquainted with All The Names and I was enamored by his protagonist clerk dredging through files, a kind of Portuguese Harvey Pekar. The provocations he stirred with the Catholic Church didn't necessarily lure me into his books, but I must confess a spritz of controversy doesn't hurt. Not in my book.

What really got me interested in his writing was a friend of mine who was trying to emulate his style. She is, by the way, a brilliant writer, but didn't give me permission to use her name. Yet. If I coax her long enough maybe I'll update this blog and give her the credit she deserves. The funny thing is that the same comet tail of magical realism sweeps through her stories and chapters. Saramago, in her eyes, is the perfect muse. In both their worlds, characters lope through scenes with the zealous need to understand themselves within the incongruities of their surrounding space. This then is the engine that drives the work. I underscore this word engine because as you may or may not be aware Saramago had been a mechanic when he completed his studies, before he planted himself into the Portuguese bureaucracy that supported him for much of his life.

He was a later bloomer in that Malcolm Gladwell sense. Saramago started publishing his stories when he was in his fifties. You can imagine he had had ample time to accumulate layers of self-doubt, self-loathing, the witch's brew that makes for great prose. Critics seem to consider his art a clever amalgam of the Philosopher King and the Village Idiot, indeed there is a strange, but delightful dichotomy.

I feel there is a great deal to learn from his prose. I feel the labor in his writing not only the labor of revision, but the labor of life. He has peppered the nitty gritty into his prose, stirred our thoughts, and hinted at the profound.

No, I do not I wish to emulate him, but I want to read his work judiciously as my friend has so that I can better inform my own style.

Here's A Fact-Checker For You

2010-02-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

Last summer I had the chance to listen to Debra Gwartney give an argument against doing research for memoir. There’s a certain contradictory ring to this advice since a memoir should be closer related to one’s personal journalistic account than homespun fiction. What Gwartney was driving at was the inherent need to keep the facts straight can sometimes mess with the story.

When you are attempting to fact-check your life story you are bound to get many lopsided opinions from relatives and friends. Naturally, they all have their interpretations. Memoir writing is subjective business, but that’s okay. Gwartney’s point was that “memoir’s job is not to answer the question, but to deepen it. We are puzzling after our own shadows and are trying to shed light on our inner selves.”

Today we are inundated with memoir. This blog is a kind of ad hoc coalition of personal notes. We’re swimming in this stuff. So then what truth, if any, are we really after? Is it only our inner selves? I read a recent blog post by the Southern Bookman, Louis Mayeux, who wrote that we can trace a lot of the preoccupation with our inner selves to Benjamin Franklin’s “Autobiography”, to Thoreau’s “Walden”, and Mark Twain. So clearly we as a society have been preoccupied with this for a long while.

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy sinking my teeth into new stuff. I love to learn. I am not always trying to get to know me better, but the world around me. It so happens that I’m on biography kick. Interestingly enough, one of which was about Benjamin Franklin, the other two I recently finished were about Frank Sinatra and Elvis.

Now ordinarily I wouldn’t pick anything about Elvis. I don’t particularly care for his music. I was lured by the author’s name etched on the jacket, Bobbie Ann Mason, author of “Shiloh and other stories.” Her style is mint juleps. The Sinatra book, “Why Sinatra Matters” is by Pete Hamill who I consider to be a solid, but not a knock-my-socks-off kind of writer. Early on in Hamill’s book the author recalls a night he spent drinking with Old Blue Eyes in which a clutch of newsmen are tossing back drinks in the iconic PJ Clarke’s. Hamill makes it a point to play out a scene of ordinary, beery chitchat. Sinatra flirts with a young woman who he believes is eavesdropping on the conversation. He asks her if she’s ever heard of Jimmy Cagney and she says “He was the captain in that picture with Henry Fonda, right? About the navy?” To which Sinatra responds “You win a dish of strawberries, sweetheart.” The young woman is baffled while the guys rip into laughter. She says “I don’t even like strawberries.” Now Hamill later notes Sinatra himself had gaffed on the strawberries because they belonged in the film “The Cain Mutiny” with Humphrey Bogart. Sinatra should have offered the young woman a potted plant as Jack Lemmon did in “Mister Roberts” the film that Sinatra was talking about.

Why go into this roundabout scenario? Was this really how it unfolded? Hamill is a well-respected journalist. Who knows if this is how it played out bit by bit, but it does say a lot more about Sinatra who saw that era as a blur. Sinatra himself was in a slew of War Pictures though he himself had never served. When you take this mix-up and then hear Sinatra lash out at Jilly Rizzo when Rizzo confuses Joans and says “Joan Crawford” and Sinatra replies “Blondell, dummy” we get the Chairman of the Board’s sometimes imposing persona. Hamill evens things out. In the same scene the talk diverts to favorite literary authors. Care to guess who Frank’s vote went out to? The Great Gatsby. He clearly professed his preference to Fitzgerald over Hemingway. Sportswriter, Jimmy Cannon, cast his vote for Hemingway.

This is the golden fodder of reading biographies, finding out the friends and foes and foibles of famous people. I am sure that Hamill saw his task as depicting the most accurate picture of Sinatra as possible through the limited and imperfect topography of recollection. Let’s not hope Hamill pieced together a stenographic account of those drinking nights with Sinatra, but I’d like to think that he arranged the music of those memories the way Nelson Riddle arranged the late recordings and gave us a distinctive timeless voice.

Throwback Mountain Dew

2010-01-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

Has there been a Back-to-the-Roots campaign in Soft Drink Land? Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew have killed the High Fructose Corn Syrup kick and added real sugar for a limited time. They’ve also rolled back the old-fashioned cans. Throwback Mountain Dew resembles a lowbrow beer. If that’s not going to get you excited I don’t know what will.

I need to be upfront. My first sip had me shaking my head. For whatever reason, it tasted a bit like Theraflu. I think it needed a bit more chill-time. All beverages have an optimum serving temperature. The only lukewarm soft drink I can bear is ginger ale, but that’s me. After a while, the Throwback Mountain Dew opened up. What at first threw me for an ephemeral loop grew on me. The sour side became savory; its sweetness unveiled. It had balance reminding me of the great pour-me-a-pitcher’s-worth homemade lemonade my best buddy’s mom made from fresh-squeezed lemons. Throwback also reminded me of Mellow Yellow. Remember that bad boy.

The more I started to enjoy it I wondered why I had a first impression of Theraflu. Then I recalled one of my most memorable white wine experiences, Coenobium, a wild quartet of four seemingly implausible grapes: Verdicchio, Grechetto, Malvasia, Trebbiano— none of which were indigenous to the parcel in Lazio where the Sisters of the Cistercian Order toiled over the vines. Forget about all the nun-plowing-the-fields hype, which I was fully aware of, I had set high expectations for this Bea blend. I had never been a big fan of the father’s (Paolo) hyperbolic Sagrantino, but I was willing to put aside my hang-up with nepotism to improve my palate.

I was dumbfounded by the rich savoriness of the wine. From the first sip I had this woozy liquid penicillin sensation jitterbugging on my tongue. To another wine slut this might be a turnoff, but I was lulled. I direct your attention back to the Theraflu greeting from my Throwback Mountain Dew. The more I reflected upon it I realized that I was making a connection to pleasant wooziness. This is I had also done with my first taste of Coenobium. Who knows why we make all these weird associations? Some of us have weirder tastescapes than others but it helps to be in tune with it so that you translate it properly long after the first impression has worn off.

Down to the bottom of the can, I wished I had gambled and picked up a full case. The tinny quality pressing into the lip beats anything bottle-poured (particularly plastic bottles). There, I’ve tipped my hand. Throwback MD is cursed with a yucky aftertaste. There’s a brilliant softness like a wet ball of cotton candy melting to its final speck whereas its evil twin with artificial sweetener is loaded to the gills with syrup.

The promo label gets it all wrong. There’s a hick getting rocket-corked through the brim of his skuzzy hat. Call me a sucker for irony. This is the perfect soft drink for unwinding in one’s Jacuzzi, a cold towel wrapped sausage-like around the neck. It’s one heck of a swill.

God Bless you Mr. Salinger

2010-01-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

I guess this will serve as my first elegy to a great writing mentor. Salinger is the first writer I truly admired and tried to emulate. I devoured his books and actually reread them. I loved the way he got under his characters’ skin and slipped under my own. I loved that he topped off by the two-hundred page mark.

Vonnegut passed away a few years ago and I meant to write about how profoundly he had and still influences me, but I haven’t gotten around to it. I’m a champion procrastinator. Updike checked out last year. That didn’t shake me. Frankly, I was more familiar with his criticism, book reviews, and New Yorker pieces than any of his fiction. I paid my respect by dusting off a copy of “Rabbit Run”.

Salinger though is a bitter pill to swallow. Still, his death is anticlimactic. He made himself untouchable. I imagine many folks are surprised he whisked into this new decade. Salinger peeled out of hibernation briefly in 1996 when he gave the green light to a small Virginian press Orchises to publish the last of his New Yorker stories Hapworth 16, 1924. Salinger, of course, reneged and Seymour Glass’s 7-year-old camp letter never made it into book form.

Over the years much has been said about the Sound of Salinger’s Silence. Some have suggested that the reclusive nom de plume William Wharton belonged to J.D. In 1976 John Calvin Batchelor wrote a famous mock-sleuth essay contending that Thomas Pynchon was J.D. Salinger. The following year Gordon Lish tried a stunt with Esquire publishing an anonymous story entitled “For Rupert— with no promises.” After much speculation and hope that Salinger had written the piece Gordon Lish, then the editor at Esquire, admitted that he penned the story.

In 1997, I remember picking up a copy of Esquire from the newsstands and turning the pages with trembling fingers to an article on Salinger. Ron Rosenblum wrote a terrific piece, but it left me along with many others longing for that chance to reconnect with Hermit from Cornish. There’s an awesome line that pretty much sums up what I perceive to be the Salinger Sensibility though Rosenblum included Delillo and Pynchon as also being disinterested in uber-publicity.

“In a publicity-mad, celebrity-crazed culture, they have become in effect the Madonna and Michael Jackson of Silence, celebrities for their reticence and their renunciation of celebrity, for their Bartleby the Scrivener-like great refusal, the resounding echo of their silent "I would prefer not to."’ (Rosenblum Esquire 1997)

Imagine living in the Age of Twain. Anybody who ever crossed his path has long since left this mudball, but Salinger, well, he’s our modern day Twain. Perhaps, a reincarnation if you go for that fluff. The thing that really shocks the pants off me though is how many souls have actually plunked down their cold hard cash to own a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye”. It’s mind blowing. Sixty-five million copies have been sold worldwide. To give you an idea just what that means take this into consideration. In terms of record albums, only Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” has out-grossed “The Catcher in the Rye”. Salinger’s magnum opus has sold more copies than any two Beatles albums combined, including “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Abbey Road” more copies than Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”, The Eagles Greatest Hits”, the Bee Gees, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera”, Madonna’s “Immaculate Collection”, Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana’s “Nevermind”. I’m comparing apples to oranges because in this attention deficit planet of ours it’s a mega phenomenal accomplishment to have your book outsell the heart of rock n roll.

But let’s get down to the nitty gritty. How does “The Catcher in the Rye” stack up against hardbacks and the paperbound? Well, as you might have guessed the Bible, the Quaran, The Book of Mormon, Chairman Mao’s Poems, and “Lord of the Rings” have all sold more copies. Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” and Agatha Christie’s “And then there were None” rank higher than TCITR and I’m sorry but not surprised to say that “Da Vinci Code” has about 15 million copies on Holden’s story. But, it is still encouraging to note that Salinger has a handy lead on Paulo Coehlo’s “The Alchemist”, “Anne of Green Gables”, Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty”, all the Harry Potters, “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “Bridges of Madison County”. Salinger eclipses “Diary of Anne Frank”, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, “The Communist Manifesto” and even “The Valley of Dolls”.

Does this give me new faith of my fellow Homo Sapiens? Not a chance. More junk will be published and read, but it’s a numbers game right? I digress. Sorry Senor Salinger. I went into a momentary sidetrack, perhaps I need to spend more time consulting with my local spiritual trainer to put me back onto Brahmin-track.

If anything at all Jerome David made me wish I was a neighbor of the Glasses. He was somebody I would trade all my Mickey Mantles to sit down and chat with the guy. I really would have loved to tell him how much I thought he pushed personality and time bomb-ticking sentiments over the edge. He plumbed into a new layer of youthful unconscious giving us unfiltered, wry frankness— a hairline between tragic comedy. There’s that part in “The Catcher in the Rye” when Holden admits that Somerset Maugham is a pretty good writer, but isn’t the kind of guy he’d want to call up on the phone to shoot the breeze with, but Thomas Hardy, now there’s a guy I’d love to ring up. Salinger’s characters drop bits of insight as if leaving behind a trail they will someday need to get out of the woods. Before the reader knows any better he’s foraged lifetime’s worth of confessions. We’re torn between hoarding it or mouthing it off to whoever. Certainly not J.D because he enlisted to be a hermit and I’m not saying that in a bad way I really love my solitary confinement.

In “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters” there’s a dwarf camped in the backseat of the limo Buddy Glass is riding in along with the estranged bridal party. Our eyes are glued to that stovetop hat propped on the dwarf’s head as if the supreme adaptive edge for all mankind is hidden beneath the ill-fitting Brobdingnagian-sized hat. It’s as if Salinger wanted to defy the Chekhovian maxim show and shoot. One who has chronicled the Glass family through their many incarnations saw the gun go off in “A Perfect Day for Bananfish”. But while there is a whiff of self-immolation in much of his confessional prose Salinger, the writer, sweats it out through his unbearable lightness of being. He doesn’t Hemingway, Plath, or Foster Wallace his way off this mudball. He goes on. No public readings, podcasts, barnstorming tours, no Charlie Rose or Oprah interviews.

Just think of him as the complete antithesis of failbetter. Where do you set the bar after the Glasses and the Caulfields? Lit scholars can mock him worship him he deserves stones and psalms, but whatever you do you cannot put down one of his books and not mumble to yourself, bastard.

If you nuked his popularity and served his prose as a cold burrito you are still left with raw sustenance— moon juice. He’s on a quest to reveal the sound of one hand clapping. He is the crown prince of people. If Michelangelo forever changed the way we looked at the human form then Salinger dug under the skin and showed every foible. He examined the stuff of humanity under an electron microscope. In “For Esme— With Love and Squalor”, the young soldier makes a little boy furious then want to kiss him on the cheek. Sure that soldier’s motivation was to get his big sister in the sack, but this is Salinger’s brilliance. He’s a writer of love letters. Brothers write love letters to sisters, mothers, brothers, his epistolary style stretches ad infinitum.

Some years back, I actually traded messages by way of the bathroom mirror as sort of a tribute to “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters”. “Emulation is one of the highest compliments, but it is also juvenile” writes Stephen Kuusisto in his seminal memoir “Eavesdropping”. My copycat impulse reified. Instead of swiping J.D’s words I enacted scenes. Maybe I don’t judge a man by his suitcases, but I pass judgment on the books he palms, the way he orders his coffee, and what type of haircut he wears. I’m not only suspicious of phonies I have my own silent restraining order imposed on them.

Memory is the Heart’s Gravity

2010-01-08T12:00:00.001-08:00

“Memory is the heart’s gravity.”
- Riccardo Pau-Llosa

This line stirred me. I read it from the poet Riccardo Pau-Llosa’s “From the Cuban Dead.” Memory has long been a preoccupation of mine. I still subscribe to the Charles Dana Foundation newsletter that snailmails me a copy of the latest noggin news. I am drawn to documentaries that attempt to shed light on our wise ape species and how we came to distinguish ourselves from our hominid ancestors, but as much as I long to deepen my knowledge of purely intellectual capabilities I cannot help but consider the more sensitive side of the brain.

I was struck by a recent episode of The Human Spark on PBS in which Paleo anthropologist Randall White showed remarkable evidence of the first necklaces in the caves of France. In fact, those necklaces were made of strung-together teeth of anatomically modern Homo Sapiens. A bit macabre one might say, but on the other hand endearing. Our ancestors didn’t exactly have a material-clogged estate to sift through. Cousin Ruthie gets the silverware, Uncle George gets the rocking chair, and Aunt Phyllis can make do with the Chiapets and Tupperware. No. The Neanderthal and the ancient Homo Sapiens didn’t have that luxury of picking and choosing what to keep. They were Hunters and Gatherers for crying out loud, they were always on the go. The toothbrush hadn’t been invented so it wasn’t yet going to be buried with loves ones [Ancient Egypt].

Teeth were just about the only memento our primogenitors could take with them for posterity’s sake.

I have a Billy club that belonged to my grandfather and a few china bowls from my grandmother, and also an iron-clad toy soldier from a great uncle I never met. Many of us have some of these forget-me-nots in their junk drawers, attics, basements, independent [cost you an arm and a leg] storage facilities. Some of us even wear these post mortem trinkets on our wrists, necks, and pinkies. And let’s not forget about the urns filled with loved ones ashes stashed our homes in our dining rooms, over on the mantle, peering at the grand piano home. Yes, this too might seem macabre, but also maybe a bit endearing.

I don’t want to lead you to believe that we’ve been evolutionarily wired to remember and pay tribute to our ancestors I am only suggesting that there is a tender ethereal element inside us that wishes to carry the weight of our precious memories around our necks, within in our hearts, but it doesn’t make us human because Neanderthal is the first species to have been recorded as setting funerary practices— laying down flowers by grave sites. But let’s take it a step further because primates don’t have the monopoly on emotion. Elephants mourn the death of their families. They have been observed wailing the loss of their tumbled kin.

What I’m getting at is this, it pleases me to know that with all the preoccupation we have with invention, book smarts, street smarts, yada yada, there is plenty of room in our brains for emotional intelligence. Make room.

The $99,000 Answer Is

2010-01-01T22:40:00.001-08:00

New Years is a time for resolutions, a whole day reserved to get over your hangover. I think of it as a chance to indulge my insatiable appetite for a certain Bensonhurst bus driver named Ralph Kramden. Every year without fail the Honeymooners Marathon is broadcast on WPIX. It’s a chance to relive one of the greatest comedy combos Art Carney and Jackie Gleason to ever gloss the idiot box. As a kid, I was a huge fan of their humor, their improvisational acumen and the simple, sidesplitting chicanery.

I long for a program redolent with their comic signature that never seems to get old. Maybe I am wired for it. the setting is sparse and the scenarios, by and large, are same. Ralph and Norton are cooking up another hair-brained scheme that’s bound to go awry but you keep rooting for them because the two of them are teeming with an unbridled crapshoot in the game of life. They believe they are mere inches away from reaching a big payoff, but they, time and again, grossly miscalculate. They are brought back down to earth. Ralph is back in his two-room, that sink, that stove, and those four walls. No, Alice you are not going to get to see Liberace. And yet they are still happy-go-lucky.

I love “The $99,000 Answer” episode (#18 of the classics) written by Leonard Stern and Sydney Zelinka. Ralph seems so close to hitting his high note. He knows all the popular songs, he can even knows the obscure Italian folk music and operas Mrs. Manicotti crones to him. If Ralph doesn’t get kicked out of the apartment for having Norton playing the piano all hours of the night before the big show then Ralph is, for sure, going to be a champ— he is that sharp when it comes to his musical knowledge. But, of course, it wouldn’t be the Honeymooners if things didn’t go kerplooey by the end. “Mr. Kramden, for one-hundred dollars, who sang Swanee River?” “Huminiahumina humina Ed Norton,” Ralph says and you cannot laugh at the irony of his forgetting the real composer of Swanee River and hazarding his ridiculous guess as his old chum Norton as the composer.

I’m also a huge fan of “TV or Not TV” which is considered the first episode of the classic 39. Who can forget that pithy, poignant line— “Official Space Helmet on Captain Video.” Really I could spend a whole day rattling off lines. Before Seinfeld, this was the most highly quotable show. Was it in fact? I don’t know, but I bet it was at least for me.

Zip zip it is done.

An Open Letter to the Brains Behind Yankz Never Tie Laces Again

2009-12-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

As promised, I am making good on my campaign to get one of my quibbles picked up by

McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Going forward I will cut to the chase and leave out the disclaimer. Happy eggnog-chugalogging!

An Open Letter to the Brains Behind Yankz Never Tie Laces Again

I’ve sat through all the U-tube tutorials, scratched my head through the PDF instructions you’ve written on your website in 7 languages, and read the many bright-eyed and bushy-tailed testimonials touting your one-of-kind lace-replacer. Well, I hate to break to you— mine split, snapped back and added more water to my knee. My knee has been crummy for years, but this little episode didn’t do it any good. Not that I’m going to foot you with my massage therapy bill. I entered a gentleman’s agreement when I bought your product. I’m not the litigious kind in case you couldn’t tell.

What I’d like however, is for you to replace my damaged goods. I’m through with calling your headquarters. I find your taste in Muzak deplorable. I realize that a good hunk of this country digs Uptempo Smooth Jazz, but I haven’t the stomach for it. So when I have to wait ten minutes on the line to get through to a live person you can bet I’m going to be cranky.

All I want is to get what I rightfully deserve, a working set of Yankz. Your ad clearly states in pure English (And I’m assuming, though I cannot read it, in German, Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, and Farsi) that a person who puts on Yankz will never have to lace-up again. Your weisenheimer customer service rep ID number FQ415964 suggested I buy a pair of loafers if I truly abhorred the thought of lacing up for eternity. Now I love a snarky sense of humor as much as the next guy, but not at my expense.

In short, I’m asking you kindly, for the last time, to make good on your national advertisement and send me a good pair of Yankz. I have no intention of suing if that’s what you are thinking, however, so help me, if one of your smarmy customer service reps mocks me again I will have no choice but to unleash my message in a bottle campaign. I’ve already got 100,000 bottles lined up and I have begun to stuff them with Yankz Sucks paper scraps.

Imagine all of these bottles landing on shores from Daytona Beach to Dubai? Imagine one of your fearless tri-athletes getting bopped in the noggin with one of them? How’s that for irony?

Don’t think of me as the pebble in your shoe. Think of me instead as the crusader for a better sneakerhood.

Yankzfully Yours,
John Gorman

New Gimmick

2009-12-14T17:18:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me why but I have decided to include a quirky little section in my blog postings for the rejections I receive from McSweeney's Open Letter To People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond to You. McSweeney's does respond to me, unfortunately they do not accept my entries. So you, dear readers, will get the royal treatment and see my unpublished rejections. Although, since I am posting them on Paper Cut, I guess they will then be considered published. Whatever. The point is, I am sharing my Open Letter To People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond to You. And, should you decide to send them a submission of your own and then have the good fortune of getting it published then please, by all means, let me know. You'll be entitled to a free Inca Cola.

Warm Wishes,
Blogger John

Before Goobers

2009-12-08T18:52:00.000-08:00

Today marks the 115th anniversary of Popeye creator E.C Segar's birthday. Did you have a can of spinach to celebrate? Neither did I. Oddly, enough I tend not to think of spinach when I think of Popeye and I tend not to think of Popeye either, but rather Robin Williams.

I remember going to the movies with not one, but two Daniellas. The date, if you could call it that was chaperoned. Okay, it really wasn't a date. I was six and a little too old for kindergarten. Daniella One's mom packed lunch and snacks for us: baloney sandwiches with Mayo, which I proceeded to rub off into the tinfoil. I had button candy for the first time. I had a bit of trouble grafting it from the paper. So my first impression of it was that it tasted a bit like a sugary spitball.

I was thrilled to sit the the back row with two girls and a chatty mom. We clapped after each of the trailers. We the opening credits to "Popeye" came on we shushed each other, but then as the movie started we made wisecracks when the opportunity arose. I'd never seen Robin Williams before. That was quite a treat. I thought he looked very Popeyeish. I also marveled at how bulky his forearms were, better-proportioned, so I thought, than the comic-strip sailor. I took careful notice of Shelley Duvall too because she was so goofy. A few years later, when I was able to sneak in "The Shining" on HBO I had trouble dissociating the Olive Oil impression I had of her.

I had been primed on live musicals. I already had "Annie" and "Peter Pan" under my belt and I'd seen "Meet Me in St. Louis" with my folks so I was familiar with the genre. I did feel strongly though that it was a bit ridiculous that "Popeye" was a musical too. That was what most of my wisecracking was about. Still, I did watch the whole film through-- not one nap.

By the end of the film, I had finally mastered the art of peeling the candy buttons off their strip. I noticed that Daniella One didn't seem so fond of them either.

"Why did your mom give us these?" I asked her.

"Because she had them when she was a kid," Daniella said.

"And she didn't finish them," I said.

"And she wants us to have them too."

Daniella One stuffed her candy buttons into the brown paper bag she saved. I stuffed whatever I had left over into the bag too. We handed it over to Daniella Two who was only too happy to get the leftovers.

On the way out of the theater Daniella One and I pressed our noses up to the glass candy case. There were Sugar Daddies, Raisinettes, Milk Duds, Chuckles, and Goobers. Daniella One and I looked over at each other. I'm sure sure we were thinking the same thing. It was a long way off till Halloween, but as I left the theater I promised myself not to get shortchanged on my sugar rush the next time.

Pawn Stars

2009-12-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

Did you know that the first pawn shops came from ancient China or that today there are over 12,000 of them operating in the United States alone? With the economy going the way its going it just might be a new business trend. Forget the Starbucks, open up a pawn shop. Better Still, put it on the tube.

The other night I saw the dude’s version of “Antique Road Show.” Guys desperate for cash showed up at their local pawn shop ready to practically give away a 17th century rifle, a set of prehistoric shark teeth, a propeller that belonged to Charles Lindbergh, and even a classic '60s Shelby Chassis.

Although I wouldn’t exactly lump myself into the dude category, I was immediately hooked into the disparate stories associated with each historic relic. The guest experts called in to identify the provenance of these relics made me think of “Antiques Road Show” however there is definitely a reality show element underlying this version dubbed “Pawn Stars.” No doubt the name itself a cheap pun on something else that is very guysy establishes a target audience.

There are also some shady characters who try to turn a quick buck on things like a Willie Nelson keychain and other stuff that whiffs of bogus. In this, I see the possibilities for great fiction. And although I haven’t plotted anything out yet the wheels are turning. Frankly, I think this is an awesome show to flip back and forth while watching Monday Night Football.

Drift in Spate

2009-11-25T07:51:00.000-08:00

In my Sophomore year of High School I had an art class for one trimester. This was all my fancy pants school thought was necessary to instill a creative mind. I won’t go down that route. I haven’t been back there since. You do the math.

There was a cool newly acquired art teacher by the name of Mr. Solo that wanted to jazz things up a bit. I was new to the school too, a transplant from Xavier in Manhattan. In addition to teaching the art class Mr. Solo spawned an art club and also launched a zine called Spate. It was the first time I had come face to face with a no frills creative journal. Students submitted sketches, photography, and even poetry. I am sorry to say that none of my subs made the cut, but I was still eager to participate and went to all the after school meetings.

Things were run like it was an underground Cabbala. The cover for the first issue of Spate was highly debated. There were votes for a Cyclops, a dragon, a clover with a single dew drop. We settled on a generic beast that bore some resemblance to a Beelzebub. When we finally put it out it was the buzz of the school. Most of it was less than kind. A clutch of provincial dead beat parents wanted to know why the heck there wasn’t a young entrepreneur’s club, a young republicans club— God help us— and when they would spring for better computers.

I admit I hoped to be skilled draftsman, but it was far from my reach though I was quite good at shading. I’d like to think of my magnum opus sketch as a brave prophetic interpretation of the Dancing House in Prague that had yet to be erected. You know that warped glass house that tilts gapes into the Vltava that I’m sure would make Billy Joel enormously proud.

Solo never pulled me on the side and said “Hey Johnny I think you need to quit while you’re ahead.”

He welcomed everybody in his class and club. He reminded me of the role Robin Williams’ played in Dead Poets Society or maybe that’s just my imagination running wild. Solo didn’t last a full year. Rumors had it that the Brother Headmaster had enough of the art du jour and wanted to bring in an Economics prof. The next year they did. I don’t know what really happened to my old Solo, but I’d like to think as his named suggested he drifted as a wanderer into his own brand of spate.

Little Treasures From A Shoebox

2009-11-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

I went with my dad and my friend Vinnie and his dad to my first baseball card show. I was new to the convention. Vinnie and his dad had gone many times before and had a game plan. If you didn't know any better you would swear each table had an elaborate cloth of baseball cards spread out in all directions in a giant VFW Hall. There were cards, autographed baseballs and bats, glossy photos. You could buy brand new packs of cards. Some dealers showed their cards behind glass cases, the prices stamped on like supermarket canned goods. I wasn’t shocked at the high prices. I had been reading Beckett price guide for a few months before that first show so I was schooled in the number's department. I wasn’t going to spend a lot of money. I had ten dollars on me. That would only go so far. My dad had already forked over the thirty bucks to get both Don Mattingly and Bret Saberhagen’s autographs. The Royals had just come off their World Series win over their neighbors the Cardinals and I wanted to get the ace pitcher’s John Hancock. My dad wanted me to have Don Mattingly’s autograph too because he thought he had a swing as sweet as the Stan “The Man” Musial.

Getting the autographs was something like a cattle call, the monster of a line dragged out to the front door. All the way off on the stage, the players looked weird in their street clothes. Actually, it was really off-putting. And as I thought about it, standing on the line, it was nothing more than a business deal. I’d asked ballplayers for autographs at the Stadium. That was fun. There was nothing like flagging down a player and having him sign it right there when you caught him off guard his spotless uniform in front of you. And that brief moment before he shuffled off and you looked down at the scrawled initials on your ball or glove or whatever you happened to offer and the rush of adrenaline as if you had just stuck your head into the mouth of a lion that was what it was like to catch an autograph at the stadium.

I stood on slowpoke line with my dad with an awful puss and he called me “smellpot” which was the name he gave me when I was in a mood.

“What gives?” he said.

“I don’t want it,” I said.

“Mattingly is going to be batting champ. Trust me, now is the time to get it.”

“Not like this.”

“You don’t like him?”

“He’s no Dave Winfield.”

This was more or less the thrust of our verbal barb. I moped on line until I got both Mattingly and Saberhagen’s autographs on 8 x 10 glossies. Then I went off and searched the show to find any nifty collectibles that would fit my budget. I shied away from the glass cases. Those cards were well out of my ballpark, but I helped myself to the dollar shoe box. Yes, there was actually a table that had a shoebox filled with mainly old common cards and a few surprises. I nabbed a 1974 Rod Carrew, his bat dipped to his back shoulder in a classic pose waiting to get into the batting cage.

Then I picked up a Ted Williams. He wore the same painless grin as always but was merely a splendid splinter of the early images I'd seen of him from books and newsreels and though he donned a red cap it was with the Washington Senators insignia and not the Bosox. It was a 1971 Topps manager card for only a dollar. Who could pass up such a find? There was also a Willie Mays in an Amazing Mets uniform. Holy Cow. I never knew he even played with them. It was his last card. To round out the playing field I took a Johnny Bench, and a George Brett. My five cards for eight dollars, a frugal but spirited selection.

I walked around some more and saw some odd things like Pete Rose candy bars. Never heard of them. I knew there were Reggie Jacksons and Baby Ruths, but these things looked stale. Who would want to buy old candy? And I never was a big fan of Charlie Hustle.

When I met up with my dad and my friend Vinnie and his Dad I saw that they had 2 boxed sets already clutched under their respective pits. Vinnie also had a few loose cards in hard plastic-coated shields, mostly new stuff with flaming orange letters Hot Prospects. Vinnie’s dad looked down at my stuff.

My dad saw the Ted Williams in my hand and a nonplussed expression washed over his face as if I had pilfered the Missing Link.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked, reaching over to get a better glimpse.

“Over from the shoebox. It was only a buck. I got all these cards for eight dollars.”

I showed them off, the Williams, Carrew, Mays, Bench, and Brett.

“That’s all they’re worth,” Vinnie’s dad said with the vacant eyes of poker player.

What an asshole I thought. He was a stick-in-the-mud if ever there was one, a killjoy from the word go. I felt a little bit crummy because I knew that these cards weren’t worth much. Sure it would be great to have a heyday Williams or a “Say Hey” Mays when he was on the Giants, but where the hell would I get the dough to buy them. But, I liked my cards and I wasn’t ready just yet to fully let the long thread of fantasy that made my cards magical leave my head or hands.

The Cost of the Cake

2009-11-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened at the cafe this morning. I was paying for my chocolate cigar and when the barista rang me up I saw four digits flash on the register. Wow, twenty-one hundred dollars for a chocolate cigar. I guess I shouldn’t have asked her to douse any white powder on top of it. She laughed. “Oh, is that what reads on your side?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “I see the dot now, but I never noticed a three decimal place on a register before.”

Maybe I’m not so observant. Maybe I was starving for my morning sugar rush.

I mulled over the sweet treats that could warrant hefty price tags. First on my mind was Miss Havisham's wedding cake. A single slice would probably ring in at two grand. Also J. Peterman’s Christie’s bought cake from King Edward the VIII wedding and maybe even the bit of Napoleon I snuck off Ann Bancroft’s plate in Fair Harbor when I was five-years old, dining with my mom during our annual vacation on Fire Island.

Okay, so maybe that last one doesn’t weigh in as high on the fiscal scale, but the memory was golden.

I have another child memory that probably better captures the irrational exuberance of sweettooths. It happened at an elementary school bakeoff in which two dads tried to show off who had the deeper pockets. The bidding war started over a single brownie then moved on to a whole dish and then ended up being over a whole table. I remember the wild joy gleaming in Sister Mary Ellen’s eyes. She must have been thinking how awesome it would be for her, a transfer nun/schoolmarm, taking the competition. Sister Ruth, the unhabited wonder Queen of Sheeba of our school, was not about to go down without a fight. She kept pestering Mr. Langone to throw a few more bills into the bid.

“It’s for a good cause,” Sister Ruth kept saying.

And Mr. Langone obliged. Nobody saw any money come out of either Mr. Langone or Mr. Fernandez’s pockets. They raised their hands as I imagined big-time bidders at Sotheby's might do bidding over a rare painting.

At some point Mr. Fernandez scrunched down to look eye to eye with his daughter Marisol. I really didn’t know her all that well, she was a second-grader, but she glowing with hope that her daddy would do whatever it took for her class to win to coveted pizza party. He nodded as his daughter pulled at the elbow of his Burberry's sleeve and you just had that feeling he was done. He was probably thinking what a waste, three hundred eighteen dollars worth of Betty Crocker. It would rot his daughter’s teeth, put a hole in his stomach, and would only be a harbinger of things to come.

Mr. Langone dropped out at three hundred and fifteen dollars. You could see the sweat cooling on his forehead, but what a relief. His bratty kid Charlie didn’t say goodbye to his dad when he shipped off.

I was ambivalent with regards to the whole matter. None of my folks were wasting their coin on this competition. I wasn’t even into these cheesy baked goods. I brought my A game to magazine sales.

USQ Mega Tasting

2009-11-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

The USQ Mega Tastings are a fine way to spend the afternoon. Although I prefer it when there are fewer grubbers there for the free booze. I made it to the second session with a diverse lineup I must admit: Spanish, Italian, French, South African, Californian, and a few other surprises too.

I started off with Etude’s Pinot Gris from Napa. The ’08 vintage is clean, crisp, and an altogether delightful mélange of apple blossom and stony citrus fruit. I next tried a rather interesting Beaujolais Nouveau. I am never really fond of the Beaujolais Nouveau, but I usually sample them year after year because of all the euphoria and just to be vinously hospitable. The ’09 Domaine de la Madone was surprisingly beefy for a Nouveau— earthy to the point where it had much more in common with a Moulin à Vent, a Chénas or another cru Beaujolais.

I later sampled Fattoria del Cerro 2004 Vino Nobile de Montepulciano that also carried a meaty flavor as if I were drinking a delicious wine reduction stew. This didn’t come as such a surprise to me as the Beaujolais because Vino Nobile de Montepulciano has that meatier, earthier stock in its makeup.

A standout for me at the tasting was a rare Aglianico del Vulture. I have always had a penchant for this ancient grape from Southern Italy. It tastes like the sun-baked soil. Many of the Agliancos I have enjoyed have come from a producer called Mastroberadino whose family has been planting vines for centuries. Those grapes are sourced from Campania the region that touches Naples and the old Roman city of Pompeii. Aglianico del Vulture comes from the neighboring Basilicata and is marked by a volcanic richness of its local soil. Tenuta Le Querce 2006 “Il Viloa” was a delightful dark brooding wine and a little bit sweet on the attack and mineralic. I considered an engaging wine

There was also a noteworthy Spanish red made from the Mencía varietal. D. Ventura 2007 Pena do Lobo from the Ribeira Sacra in the province of Lugo all the way Galicia. The Pena do Lobo is culled from 80 year old Mencía vines that rest near the Sil River. I found a pungent aroma of grilled lomo on the nose and almost bready quality that followed on the palate. An interesting blend of wild berries and minerals— a wine that clearly flourishes in its cool environment.

Then I had a Gran Reserva Rioja from Bodegas Lan. A big wine indeed that showed its 5 plus years of oak cask aging. This Gran Reserva wall well-integrated, classic Tempranillo that somehow reminded me a little bit of left bank Bordeaux although Tempranillo usually does remind me a little bit of blackcurrant in taste. The tannin had been tamed, but as I continued to swig my last few sips I thought what a pity not to have, in the very least, some yummy tapas to accompany my vino.

I ended my tasting spree with Royal Tokaji, a 2005 vintage and 5 Puttonyos of pure sin. Before I even retrieved my glass from the pourer, I smelled a burbling hot pot of crème brûlée. That’s how redolent, how powerful the smell of Tokaji can be. And with 5 Puttonyos of sugary glee I was lusting for my glass. Surprise of surprises it wasn’t as sweet up front, but built up into a convincingly profound hyperbolic crescendo of caramelized goodness.

I got out of there as quickly as I could or else I would’ve looped my way into another round.

NaNo Wrimo Advice: Look to the Scene Amigo

2009-11-20T04:19:00.001-08:00

NaNo Wrimo has crossed the halfway point. Now the uphill battles begins. There are eleven more days to make the critical threshold. It might be a good idea to call in sick from work if you are overly stressed and want to hit your number. Maybe you write better under pressure.

I’ll tell you something that often works for me and I do this with all of my fiction. I go to dialogue when I need to spur fresh writing. I want to see my characters respond in different situations. I might even find something juicy about my character and when I learn it a spate of information rushes forth. And there is your writing blitz.

If it were another month I’d spend more time exploring the underlying reasons why my character did such and such. I might even question it and see if it jived with the stuff we knew about him previously. But, that’s not going to cut the mustard, not if you are only at 20,000 words and you need to bang out 30,000 more in eleven days.

The point is you need to do whatever it takes to open up your story so that it will move forward. Let me strike that previous comment. It’s okay to move backward too. Let’s say you feel you’ve hit an impasse because you think you ended your novel. That’s fine, but with the writing frenzy you’ve been partaking in there’s no way in the world you’ve scratched the surface of a fully-realized character let alone a full cast of them.

Go back and develop fresh scenes. Use dialogue to move it along. See how each character responds to plain comments, random comments, and bizarre requests. And especially pay attention to that last one. It might just carry the seed to another chapter or even a whole new novel.

Think of these encouraging words by Philip Roth. “It takes two-hundred or so pages just to get going.” Now this seems daunting, it makes writing a herculean task and frankly it is. But, if it takes a master that long to get going you can see how manipulating your characters will be for the their best interest as well as the success of your novel.

I am also a big believer in taking short pauses to gather yourself and figure out where you want to go next. There is plenty of free-writing. But, I don’t always see the merit in pure free-writing. For the most part, I see it as fruitless typing. I think your best off if you arm yourself with a few simple questions. Have them written down so you can return to them when you are in a writing session. Nobody says you have to answer the question in any particular way. But, by making the effort to answer the question you will have keyed in some words. That’s the point.

I had a great writing teacher by the name of Craig Lesley who was a student of Raymond Carver and Craig always said when you get into trouble always go back to the scene. We talked a lot about this very subject when I was working on some short stories and he asked me, quite slyly, “How many scenes do you have?” and I remember the first time he asked me this I hadn’t a clue. Well, a lot has changed since then. For one, I think in scenes even if I am spouting off in a stream of conscious narrative. Go back to “Portnoy’s Complaint” if you don’t believe me. Roth’s narrator starts off by telling his shrink everything in his head. It’s essentially and unfiltered monologue, but low and behold there are scenes in it and it’s not because after a while you realize he’s talking to his shrink, but because he directly addresses his mother, his father, and even his alter ego. He replays scenes from childhood.

Don’t rewrite “Portnoy’s Complaint,” but if you find yourself coming to a halt then go into interrogative mode. Pit different characters who haven’t met each other yet into scenes. Some really nifty things will happen. I promise you. And don’t worry whether or not you think this is going to make it into the final draft. NaNo Wrimo is about getting it onto the page. Give your inner editor the month off.

What's Inisde The Box

2009-11-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

I'm a fan of Faustian drama. My favorite is "A Picture of Dorian Gray." Goethe's "Faust" is a close second to Wilde's interpretation. The original Twilight Zone from the Rod Serling years had plenty of episodes where characters made deals with the devil and even if you could smell the rankness of the inevitable outcome the acting was divine-- you could make the exception.

"The Box," unfortunately, is far from sublime. Let me be frank, I've never really cared for Cameron Diaz. She's no Laura Linney. Frank Langella does keep it somewhat interesting and James Marsden actually make a great sideburn-wearing junior astronaut. But, as engrossing a premise as this oft-reproduced subject is you have to feel for the characters. I connected with none of them. A blight on my sensitivity? Not a chance. I'm an aesthete.I demand superior performance. I watched schmaltz.

The climatic scene where Cameron Diaz confronts Lucifer in a three-piece-suit is deplorable. I had to keep myself from cracking up not because it was predicable or because Diaz will never break from her "There's Something About Mary" pinnacle, but because the combination of the corny lines, the unnecessary sobbing, the bad delivery and the wooden cast of characters behind this film left me flat.

Sure she dies at the end so that her son will be able to see again. The kid will get a one-million-dollar interest-bearing trust fund. Marsden gets arrested and will never be a sideburn-wearing astronaut. Big deal.

It's not about plot twists, happy endings, or hard-boiled reality, it's about the substance of film. Ironically, with most of the junk parading as film these days, this is an above average flick.

Sometimes it's better not to know what's inside the box. Remember the end of "Barton Fink" with John Turturro strolling on the shore?

The Waterworks

2009-11-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

In preparation for “Homer and Langley” I have decided to tackle E.L Doctorow’s “The Waterworks” first. I’m not a chronological person by nature. In fact, I never read short story collections cover to cover, but skip around because I find that to be more satisfying. I might as well be talking cantaloupes and iPods because there is little, if any, correlation between short stories and novels much less M.O.s for reading them. And, for good measure, there really is no prescribed way to approach an author’s oeuvre.

Actually, I am already familiar with a couple of the chapters from “Homer and Langley” because I recently had the good pleasure of listening to Doctorow read aloud from his newly minted libro. I find the premise, an insider account of the Collier brothers, intriguing although I find the opening “I’m Homer the blind brother,” a bit over-the-top in its attempt to connect with the old world’s storytelling canon. Nonetheless, I have opted to read his mid nineties work about an obsessed newsman.

“The Waterworks” chronicles the life of McIlvaine, a newspaper man and his search for his lost freelancer, Martin Pemberton. That’s the tip of the iceberg. “The Waterworks” is much more than a who done it caper. It’s about seizing ghosts from our past. I imagine, Doctorow’s newsman narrator wincing at the sound of this. He scoffs at the notion of ghosts existing and yet he is plagued by his own ghosts, the papery-thin children hawking papers and flowers in the street and the boy who drowned in the reservoir. Like most Doctorow novels “The Waterworks” flirts with a creative brand of historical fiction. At times, it reads almost as a detective novel as the cantankerous McIlvaine checks in on the missing Pemberton’s fiancée Ms. Tisdale, the lush painter Wheeler, and the Reverend Grimshaw, and so on. McIlvaine is true to his ilk and reports the facts but every once in a while lets on that he is a human being.

There’s something Sinclairian about Doctorow’s novel “The Waterworks” the way the Bronx Bard zeroes in on the inequities caused by the Industrial Revolution. Newsman Mclvaine’s objectivity has a way of unraveling when examining the raggedy paperboys who are responsible for pushing the papers. He describes these “street urchins” and “street rats” as being unremarkable as paving stones.

McIlvaine becomes absorbed in his quest to find Pemberton. It is the confluence of his journalistic acumen and his budding conscience. For me, this is where the story takes off. He develops an affinity for the widow Sarah Pemberton, Martin’s mother, and is enamored by her mothering the youngest boy. This is the flash of McIlvaine’s underbelly— a lightning fast glimmer.

Independent Book Store Week

2009-11-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

Are you tired of looking at the Usual Suspects decked out in the front of the midtown, downtown, and around the town B & N and Borders then try an indie shop this week. If you live in NYC or if you are visiting NYC this week drop in at a local indie bookshop. This is your big chance to really help the lifeblood of the cutting edge in books.

There is also a scavenger hunt. Check out indiebound.com for more details you might win yourself a bookmark or a cool chapbook.

I recommend 191 Books in Chelsea, Bluestocking int eh lower east side and Word in Brooklyn. There are many other, too many for me to spout off about right now

NaNo Plan B

2009-11-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

Kids don't try this at home. I am about to do something that seems a bit cannibalistic. I going to eat my darlings. I started a novel for this year's NaNo that really isn't gelling with me. I take all the blame. I probably should have plotted it out a bit. The thing is I had a great idea months back and it got lost in the back of my mind.

So for National Novel Writing Month I ran with an idea that was probably better-suited story idea. Frankly, it didn't have the brick and mortar to make it as a novel. This is of course my opinion. Nonetheless, I have decided to cut my losses because I feel I'm at a stalemate in terms of story development. It's not writer's block. I am still punching away at my keypad it's just that the story isn't turning into fluff. And I don't endorse fluff. I don't eat fluff and I don't write.

So what's Plan B? Well, it just so happens that there was blog post I made months back about a topic that totally fascinated me. I'm willing to share it because if you can guess what that blog topic was you are entitled to a free copy of Shades of Luz. How's that for stealth diplomacy and promotion?

I figure this. I need to love what I am writing. Does this mean I probably don't have the makings of being a top ghost writer? Probably. But, I'm more interested in pushing the envelope of literature anyway. So don't worry about me.

Here's the hint. It's not about tennis. If you'll recall I did a few tennis posts in late August and early September. That narrows the field a bit.

Am I afraid that I might not hit my NaNo number by the end of the month? Not a chance. This is actually only the second time I've competed in NaNo, but when I first signed on in 2006 I was already a week late. Point is, I'm a prolific writer. And I indeed to bang out my 50,000 words and then some.

Will I share any of my posts? Well, certainly not before somebody has taken a good guess at my topic so I can send off a copy of Shades of Luz. But, I will do a weekly update on my progress.

Go ahead and reply to this and or any of my upcoming posts with answers to what you think my novel topic will be on.

Touching Base

2009-11-10T12:30:00.001-08:00

I want to apologize to my readers for the holdup on new material. There will soon be a bunch of new posts.

Since Shades of Luz of Luz hit Best Seller I have been triple-time communicating with various contacts. Some new and exciting things are indeed on the horizon. Paper Cut will be back to normal in a day or so. And catchup posts will be added as well.

Thanks so much for your patience and understanding. In the meantime, if you haven't caught some of the wonderful past interviews with Bonnie Jo Campbell, Shya Scanlon, Linda Courtland, Katherine Gilraine, and Maria Hooley then please check them out. They all very talented writers

A Taste of Bordeaux A La Wine Woot

2009-11-09T18:27:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I went to an amazing Bordeaux Wine tasting at a friend’s house. He has been a part of Wine Woot for a while and the members are really into their vino. I need to step my game up whenever I go to an event despite my years of imbibing experience and certifications from WSET and ASA.

Some folks tell me that there is a world of wine beyond Bordeaux. Burghounds for example, will pontificate until they are blue in the face and Burgundy in the teeth about their celestial delights: Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny, and of course the untouchables La Tâche, Richbourg and Romanée-Conti.

Give me Latour, Haut-Brion, Margaux, and some of those splendid satellites in Lalande-de-Pomerol and I am happier than a fly on a plate of black truffles. But this kind of partisanship is like Republicans and Democrats or Labors and Tories trying to sit down and have an unbiased discussion about their political leanings.

I digress.

The lineup included a 1976 Haut-Bages-Liberal, a 1983 Cos D’Estournel, a1986 Talbot, a 2000 Château Olivier, a 2000 La Lagune, and a 2006 Prieuré-Lichine. So there was a nice spectrum of vintages and producers in this mini Bordeaux tasting. There were also a couple of Sauternes to accompany pralines, dark chocolate, and espresso-covered almonds.

The ’86 Talbot showed the best. Château Talbot is the second farthest inland of the St. Julien Growths so there is less sea breeze for this property than the Léovilles or Ducru-Beaucaillou. I was immediately taken by the earthy aroma, the whiff of clay, the full mouthfeel and the weight of the wine. I drank it wishing for lamb shank. Steal frites in the very least. I have always been happy quaffing this amiable Fourth Growth, but this was the first time I hailed it a champ amongst a panoply.

Haut-Bages-Liberal is due north of Pichon Longueville and Château Latour and it and bears a Paulliac character of black currants. And as Oz Clarke would note, “There’s a hint of unbridled fruit on the palate.” Though this was the oldest wine we tried for the evening it showed more life than the ’83 Cos D’Estournel. It was my first time I had the Fifth Growth, but I found it well-integrated, mature, yet exuding supple and complex secondary and tertiary flavors. There was darker fruit up front that gave way to a hint of herbal on the finish.

I had to smile to myself realizing as I did after a while that the 1976 vintage was none other than the one chosen by Steven Spurrier and the famous Paris Wine Tasting in which the Americans finally topped the French growers.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the Cos D’Estournel which is usually, hands down, one of my favorite wines. The 1983 however is from a so-so vintage one year after the legendary ’82 vintage. Having met the man behind the estate before, Bruno Prats, I have always had an infinity for the Super Second as it is often referred to. I even have an autographed bottle of the 2000 vintage. Nevertheless, Cos D’Estournel is perhaps the greatest wine from St. Estephe and for years has been billed a Super Second, meaning that although it is a Second growth it is as close as you can get to the elite 5 First growths.

The fruit was somewhat reticent and the scent was reserved, not nearly as earthy as other vintages. In all fairness, there was a bit of trouble opening the bottle and a wee bit of cork plopped in. I made a note too about the wine’s provenance. A pleasant and unexpected scent and taste of green olive found its way onto my tongue. Very feminine.

The Olivier and The La Lagune were both agreeable, but was it not for the labeled bottles and their classic 2000 vintage I would have kept going back for more Haut-Bages-Liberal, mainly because I was amused that the supposedly inferior vintage had made its impression on me.

The 2006 Prieuré-Lichine showed well, but was still a bit young. Fresh blackcurrant and cassis, and a little cola followed onto the middle palate and I swirled the fabulous Fourth Growth. I am very excited to see what other tricks the right bank specialist Stéphane Derenoncourt can bring to this left bank property.

Interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell

2009-11-05T05:05:00.001-08:00

(Photo by Chris Magson)

Today my guest is the incredible Bonnie Jo Campbell. She is the author of Q Road, Women and Other Animals, the her newest collection AMERICAN SALVAGE has been nominated for the National Book Award

JG: It’s a real pleasure having you here today.

BJC: Well, thank you for inviting me. I didn’t know we’d be doing this interview on the Partridge Family bus. This is so wild. Look at these black lights and posters, and all this room to play Twister where the seats are taken out! Even the bathroom is lovely—and I never would have expected a bidet, and such a pretty one. Will the driver stop for cow sightings or pie shops?

JG: You’re an amazing writer. You have what I’d call a magical way of turning the horrific and profane into poetry. Some of your characters are so raw, touching the edge of villainous, but yet they’re lovable. How do you do it?

BJC: Thank you for your kind comments. I guess that your use of “horrific” and “profane” and “villainous” means you wouldn’t want to hang out with my characters. I’m always a little surprised that people think my characters are so bad. As human beings we are all capable of being both gracious and horrible (in fact, within the last 24 hours I have been both) and everywhere in between. I am interested in writing about characters who are in lousy situations, and so often they are stressed psychologically, physically, and financially, and desperate people don’t look quite so attractive as folks who are doing just fine. So I guess I see my characters as human, and I strive to find and show their humanity even when the characters are not looking or doing their best.

JG: In your newest collection, American Salvage, there’s a wonderful story entitled “The Inventor 1979” would you like to share the inspiration behind that piece?

BJC: That story was inspired by a neighborhood story. I grew up in the same house my mom grew up in, and when she was a kid, another neighbor kid drowned in the pond experimenting with his own scuba equipment. When I was young, a friend of mine got hit by a car on the way to school. She was walking with my brother, and she happened to be a niece of the boy who drowned. So I worked from there. Nothing much in the story is actually true, but it’s my pondering of old events that inspired to write what I did.

JG: Joyce Carol Oates described your characters in Women and Other Animals “as real as if perceiving them through an opened window.” You don’t actually spy on people, but how do you make them so real?

BJC: I make my characters real by BEING all my characters. By the time I’ve spent hundreds of hours writing the stories, I have thoroughly embodied the characters in those stories.

JG: From Women and Other Animals it’s a toss up for me, I love both “Shotgun Wedding” and “The Smallest Man in the World” what’s your favorite story in that collection?

BJC: I guess I don’t have a favorite story from that collection. Not sure why. I guess I love “Old Dogs,” but it’s a very sad story. I read it aloud once, and the room filled with despair. I think one poet in the audience was crying.

JG: From your website and from some of your stories I can see you love animals and especially gorillas. You know I have a penchant for our primate cousins too. How’d did your affinity for them come about?

BJC: I don’t know if I love gorillas, but I feel that I sometimes become a gorilla, and it’s possible that one day I won’t turn back into a human, so I need to keep friendly with the species.

JG: What are you reading now?

BJC: I’m reading Kristina Riggle’s REAL LIFE AND LIARS. It’s funny. I’m reading a book of poems by Sharon Dolin, BURN AND DODGE. It’s essential and complicated.

JG: I have to know what was going through your mind the day you got the National Book Award nomination. What were you doing at that moment? Did the announcement come in the mail, was it an email, a text message?

BJC: They called me one day in advance, and told me that I couldn’t tell anyone but my husband. I asked if I could tell the donkeys, and they said that was fine, but not the chickens. Chickens couldn’t be trusted to tell the secret.

JG:Besides American Salvage what other book deserves to win? Is that a leading a question?

BJC: I don’t buy hardcovers, and the finalists are all checked out the library, so I haven’t read the other books. I’m sure Jayne Anne Phillips is most worthy.

JG: What's your daily writing routine like?

BJC: I write every day that I can, all mornings, and I’m sad when I can’t write. When life is richest, I can also grab a few evenings for writing, but that doesn’t happen very often.

JG: You have a pretty cool blog called Screen Porch Literary Adventures. How did it come about?

BJC: I have three blogs. The Screen Porch Literary Adventures blog was for writing about any time that three or more writers congregate on my screen porch. Lately my toilet has been screwing up so I haven’t been inviting anyone to sit and drink on my screen porch. I have to get that fixed. Its at http://screenporchlit.blogspot.com/
My regular writer blog is “The Bone-Eye” http://www.bone-eye.blogspot.com/
I also have an events blog, in case anyone wants to figure out where I’ll be: http://www.americansalvagestories.blogspot.com/

JG: What’s your next stop on the book tour?

BJC: I just got back from Ann Arbor, and next week I go to Elgin, Illinois, to visit Elgin Community College. They’re a great bunch there. They have a great writing program.

JG: You have this reputation for being one of the coolest writers and a bit of a party gal. I saw you once slap-boxing with the poet Kim Addonizio. Care to comment? What other things do you do for fun?

BJC: Oh, gosh, I’m normally a dullard, just sitting around and writing and reading. I do get lively when I’ve got a drink in me, and I remember my former life as wild woman and tour guide. Then anything can happen. I have my reputation to consider, so I won’t tell tales on myself.

JG: What’s your favorite place to hang out?

BJC: I really like to hang out in the donkey barn. The donkeys make a lot of sense to me. If I want to socialize with the humans, I go to Bell’s Brewery, also called Kalamazoo Brewing Company, downtown.

JG: Who are some of your influences as a writer?

BJC: I’d like to say Flannery O’Connor, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck. Realistically, though, I’m probably very much influenced by my mom, who tells outrageous stories about people stealing equipment from construction sites and dancing with lampshades on their heads. I’m also probably my old grandpa, who always started every one of his many stories, “It was kind of cute …” His stories established the basic humanity and commonality of all the folks in his stories.

JG: The word is you used to be a math professor. The only other mathlete writer I know of is Manil Suri. How did this switcheroo come about? Did you secretly always want to write?

BJC: I always wanted to write. I always wrote, but I wasn’t planning to put my eggs in the writing basket. I tried to resist. I was in a Mathematics PhD program. I was going to write my thesis on graph theory. And then I started weeping all the time. My PhD advisor, Dr. Art White, suggested I take a writing class. I took my Master’s Degree in math and jumped ship. I was hooked on fiction writing. I loved teaching mathematics, and I do miss that.

JG: What advice would you give young writers?

BJC: Write, have adventures, write better, have better adventures, get to know other writers with whom you can grow and share. Have adventures with those other writers. Write stuff that other people might want to read.

JG: Would you say you've had an a-ha moment as a writer?

BJC: When I suddenly realized that I should write about my own people, my tribe, I began to write a lot better.

JG: By the way, I love the souvenir tattoos for American Salvage. Did your publicist come up with that idea? How can I get one of those?

BJC: That was my idea. I wanted to have something fun for my book release party. I had matches for my second book, and also a local brewery brewed me a special beer. I’ll mail tattoos to anyone who wants them. I have thousands.

JG: I feel it’s my duty to ask you a question about the craft of literature. I know that sounds hokey but could you share with the readers a bit about the nuts and bolts of what you do. Like how long it takes you to write a solid draft? Do you work on multiple projects at once? I’m guessing because of your math background you’re analytical, but I may be wrong. Maybe your approach to writing is straight from the gut.

BJC: It takes me hundreds of hours to write a short story. A novel seems impossible, so I just keep plugging away without thinking about the time. I work on lots of projects at once. I don’t believe in writer’s block, though I can get tired of working on a given piece. I try to write from the gut, but that analytic mind sure is helpful in revision, which is ninety five percent of what I do. I write as best I can, and then I share my work with fellow writers, and I value their comments immensely.

JG: What are you working on now?

BJC: Lots of things. I wish I had eight hours a day to write. I’d spend two hours a day just on poetry. I’d write an essay every month. Really, though, I can find about three hours a day.

JG: What is the next project?

BJC: A novel. I don’t want to say any more.

JG: Any final words of wisdom you’d like to share?

BJC: Hey, I love being on this crazy bus. Can you ask the driver to pull over so I can get out and take a photograph of that three-legged cow?

Interview with Shya Scanlon

2009-11-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

My guest today is the talented writer Shya Scanlon who is the author of the serialized novel Forecast 42, which will be released by Flatmancrooked in Spring 2010. His poetry collection In This Alone Impulse will be published by Noemi Press next month.

JG) Tell us about Forecast 42?

SS) The Forecast 42 Project is a serialization of my novel Forecast across 42 online literary journals and literary blogs.

JG) I think it’s fascinating that you are doing a serialized Novel it makes me think of Dickens. It’s huge. What drove you to do Forecast 42?

SS) Yes, Dickens. Actually, I just published an article about the history and future of serialization at The Faster Times. But I didn’t know much about it when I began the project. It came about largely because I was fed up with following the usual publication path. The book is difficult and strange, and many of the people who would not balk at those elements of it are involved in the alternative and independent press scene. It seemed to make sense to look for my audience there—but an audience is a difficult thing to build, so I went to where the readers are.

JG) How many different journals have your chapters appeared in? Would you like share some of their names?

SS) I’ve been very fortunate to find the support of a very engaged community of editors and bloggers. I couldn’t have asked for more. There is a full list of the 42 web sites involved on the Forecast 42 Project page at my blog: www.shyascanlon.com/forecast

JG) Your website is pretty cool. It’s a cross between bold minimalism and chic modernism. Did you design it yourself?

SS) For that I have my friend Matty Harper www.mattyharper.com to thank. He’s designed my site, as well as the Forecast cover http://shyascanlon.com/2009/07/06/new-forecast-cover/, and the cover for my forthcoming book of poetry. http://shyascanlon.com/2009/10/14/in-this-alone-impulse-cover/

JG) What’s Nervous Breakdown? I believe you’ve been a contributor there for a while.

SS) The Nervous Breakdown is a web site run by author Brad Listi devoted to nonfiction and memoir by a ton of great writers (over 200), both emerging and established. I’ve been contributing for a few months, yes. My literary agent sold Brad’s first book, and she introduced us. But this is the exciting part: on November 15th, the site is launching a 3.0 version, which will include fiction, poetry, arts & culture, and all sorts of other great content. It’s going to be massive. And I’ll be co-editing the fiction section, along with Gina Frangello and Stacy Bierlein (editors of OV Books http://www.dzancbooks.org/OVBooks/OVfront.html —part of the Dzanc empire), and award-winning author Alexander Chee http://alexanderchee.net/bio.html. We’ve got some tricks up our sleeve, and it’s going to be one of the most exciting places for fiction on the Web.

JG) A few years ago I saw you at a Literary Death Match in the world-renowned Tompkins Square Park. What’s it like doing that live, totally awesome reading series?

SS) I’ve participated in the LDM twice, and lost both times. Along with San Francisco author Andrew Dugas http://www.coyotebreath.com/, this makes me the losingest LDM contestant—a title I’ll defend to the death.

JG) I don’t want to put you on the spot but you are kind of literary maverick. Would you say that about yourself?

SS) Actually, funny you should say that, because I just got back from my weekly lunch with John McCain, and we were swapping battle stories. Of course, his are a bit more heroic, but I think he knows that succeeding in the small press literary scene requires the same mixture: grit, innovation, and perseverance. Seriously, though, I don’t think I’m that uncommon. A lot of authors are realizing they have to step up their self-promotion in order to get their work read, because traditional lines of promotion are being cut, even by major publishing houses. Whether or not you’re “cut out for it,” you have to find some way of establishing visibility. Plus, it can be fun in its own right.

JG) Your new book deal is with Flatmancrooked, a cutting edge outfit from California, when is your book coming out in print?

SS) I don’t think they’ve set a hard date yet, but we’re shooting for spring, so I’d guess April. We’ll see. We want the book to be amazing, in both content and form, so that’s more important than meeting a deadline at this point.

JG) Would you like to add anything about your relationship with the Publisher? Did James recruit you or did your submission make it past the slush pile?

SS) Actually, the author I mentioned before, Andrew Dugas, somehow caught wind of my project in its germinal stages, and since he was writing an article about alternative publishing models for Flatmancrooked at the time, he included a mention of my project in his essay. They liked the project, signed up to participate in the serialization, and ended up liking the entire manuscript enough to pick it up. They’re a remarkably vibrant, optimistic and smart group of people, and anything they get behind is bound to be extraordinary. I couldn’t have hoped for a better fit for pushing Forecast out into the world as a physical object.

JG) What are you reading now?

I’m in the midst of conducting an interview with Terese Svoboda http://www.teresesvoboda.com/ for HTMLGIANT, so for the last couple weeks I’ve been reading and re-reading a number of her books. She’s an excellent stylist, and possesses a strong moral compass to boot. I recommend both her first novel, Cannibal, and her recent memoir, Black Glasses Like Clark Kent. She also has a novel about pirates coming out next year from Dzanc that looks promising.

SS) I’m also reading the surreal comic novel The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien, and am about to pick up Dune for the first time—a book that’s been recommended to me several times over the years, by such a wide range of readers that I simply can no longer chalk its popularity up to nerds.

JG) What projects are you working on now?

SS) I’ve been spending a lot of time revising Forecast for publication, and have my hands in a lot of “side projects,” such as editing a Fan Fiction section for Opium 9, managing an exquisite corpse story involving 65 contributors (must be read to be believed), and of course working toward the imminent launch of The Nervous Breakdown 3.0. It’s been a number of months since I finished my last novel—a novel-in-stories called Look No Further—and I’m definitely eager to get started on my next book, but I’m not sure when that’ll happen.

JG) Where can I buy your books?

SS) Well, nowhere, yet. But In This Alone Impulse will be available in mid-December through Small Press Distribution http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781934819104/in-this-alone-impulse.aspx?rf=1 —a perfect stocking stuffer for your strange, uncommunicative nephew!

JG) Where did the idea for Forecast come from?

SS) Forecast was the result of a number of different interests and forces in my life. It’s ultimately a story about being an author—the book is narrated by a man whose job it is to constantly watch a woman, and to essentially create a narrative of her life, to get inside her head. Perhaps inevitably, he gets too attached to her, and so when she begins to slip from his grasp, it’s difficult for him on a technical level, but also on an emotional level. Anyone who’s written a novel knows something about post-partum depression, and there’s a strong current of this anxiety running through the book. But it’s also about Seattle—a city I grew up in—and capturing the strange combination of high-tech and organic sensibilities that converge there. The city just has a very futuristic feel, an optimistic feel (look at the Space Needle hovering above the skyline), but it also has a lot of rain, a lot of frustration, and not a little apathy. A society in which everyone has something to gain from self-delusion or denial is an exaggeration, sure, but a realistic exaggeration, if such a term is possible, of life there.

Bio

Shya Scanlon’s prose poetry collection In This Alone Impulse will be published by Noemi Press in December, 2009. His novel Forecast will be published by Flatmancrooked in Spring, 2010. Shya received his MFA from Brown University in 2008, where he won the John Hawkes Prize in Fiction. A contest has been named in his honor. He lives in various places with his girlfriend Erin, a strange man named Matty Harper, and their dog Violet.

Flash Fiction Tips with Linda Courtland

2009-11-01T16:27:00.000-08:00

(Today Linda Courtland, author of Somewhere to Turn: Stories will be sharing her expertise in flash fiction. Her collection is comprised of 37 terrific shorts.)

Write and Publish Your Flash Fiction: Ten Tips

by Linda Courtland

1. Kill the Adverbs – Get rid of as many modifiers as possible. Slash them with red ink and pack more action into your story. Verbs and nouns are your friends.

2. Keep it Simple – Use short sentences. Keep proper names to two syllables. Use “said” in dialog tags.

3. Use your Emotion – Stir up your senses with rock ballads, patchouli oil, dark chocolate, or whatever moves you. Then transfer that passion to the page.

4. Laugh a Little – Comic touches can set your story apart. Check out how I tackled environmental issues by hiring dolphins to work in office cubicles: Day Job of the Dolphin
Link to: www.LindaCourtland.com/Story_of_the_Month

5. Name your Baby – Pick a title that will stand out in an online Table of Contents. Be clickable. Go for something unusual or provocative.

6. Make a List of Markets – Read the bios of writers you like, and check out the places where they’ve previously published stories. Do research at www.duotrope.com. Subscribe to flash newsletters and blogs.

7. Study the Submission Guidelines – Follow the rules, exactly. If an online market asks for plain text, don’t copy and paste from Microsoft Word. I tried it, and my story about the Secret Wheat Police now has fractions where the hyphens used to be. Witness my shame at: Not So Simple
Link to: http://ficmusings.blogspot.com/2009/10/not-so-simple.html

8. Be on Your Best Behavior – Be polite and respectful. Say Please and Thank You. Never argue with an editor if she passes on your story.

9. Learn to Deal with Rejection – Always have a back-up plan. If a story is rejected, send it out again, the same day, to the next place on your list. If it’s rejected three times, consider rewriting, or try submitting to a different type of market.

10. Celebrate Like the Rock Star You Are! – When your piece is accepted, do something special. Tell people, lots of people. And revel in your success.

Here’s wishing you fun and satisfaction with all your flash submissions. Happy writing!

Linda Courtland
Author, Somewhere to Turn: stories
www.LindaCourtland.com

Second Skin

2009-10-31T06:24:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I was a pirate, a cowboy, a knight in shining armor, a werewolf, Spiderman, and even a Gary Carter baseball card. And I didn’t just dress up for Halloween. I really dug costumes. At home, I reenacted the Star Wars Cantina scene playing John William’s album full blast. I liked to pretend I was Walrus Man, never Greedo. Greedo got blown away by Solo. I wasn’t a dummy.

I wore a costume to my first Broadway show, Dracula, starring Raúl Juliá. I was five and I donned a cap to the performance. My parents took me to Sardi’s for a snack before the show. When I made my grand entrance into Sardi’s, plastic-fanged, slick-haired, and cape-clad the captain announced, “The count has arrived.”

The whole restaurant set its eyes on me. I grabbed part of my cape to hide my mouth not because I was scared, but because I was a real ham. Know anybody else with the theater bug so early on in life? I really should have been an actor.

Naturally, whenever Halloween arrived I was excited about playing a new part. I wore two different costumes, one for the daytime and one for nighttime. After school, I went trick-or-treating in The Forest Hills Gardens, my neighborhood. Some of the houses had the spirit, cobwebs strewn through the hedges, a plethora of skeletons dancing in the window, fresh-cut jack-o-lanterns. There was none of this storefront candy-begging although the first threat of tampering was making news.

We tended to go to the same houses each year and at night I went in my building. That’s when I put on a second skin. Mom didn’t always have to make two. Sometimes I appropriated a store-bought-job, other times I recycled from previous years. My costumes took up a good deal of space in my toy chest.

Spiderman was my favorite. I really enjoyed slipping into his character though I regretted not having true web-slinging abilities. What especially resonated with me and sometimes weirded me out was the fact that Peter Parker, Spidey’s Alter Ego, grew up in Forest Hills, my neighborhood. He was a science whiz, had tendencies toward being a loner, and is probably the most sensitive Super Hero. When I skimmed through the comic and studied Stan Lee’s sketches I wanted to tread the same ground.

Even though he was hands down may favorite I didn’t wear his getup every year. I reserved it more for private time. I don’t think I liked the way I saw some people gaping at me when I wore his outfit, especially on those cold Halloweens when my mom made me wear a jacket. It didn’t seem right to cover up Spidey’s second skin. And I didn’t like wearing his outfit in the building because my neighbor’s saw me with my dad and naturally this would betray the Spiderman identity.

So you can see my little conundrum.

I guess maybe I took my play life too seriously, but the strange coincidence of my favorite Super Hero living in my neighborhood brought me my first superstition. And it happened during a critical imprinting phase, my youth. To compensate, to quell this little bugger I ate lots Snickers, Mr. Goodbar, Milk Duds, Goobers, whatever was in my goody bag. I wore different skins, twice each Halloween, and other days until I got it out of my system.

Interview with Katherine Gilraine

2009-10-30T06:26:00.000-07:00

Today my special guest is Katherine Gilraine, author of the The Index Series a dazzling fantasy novel.

JG) Katherine, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat with Paper Cut.

KG) Thanks for having me here.

JG) I'm sure my readers are interested in knowing about your creative process. What's it like?

KG) For the lack of a better word, random. Highly, highly random. I can be walking down the street, or be at work, or knit something and notice that it would be great if I wrote this down and spiced it up a little. Usually, that's exactly what I end up doing. Usually, I end up writing completely at random and baste the scenery together.

JG)Love the way you sneak a choice cooking word in there, baste. Mind if I borrow it?

KG) It's recyclable.

JG)How long did it take you to write the Index Series? How did you come up with the title?

KG) The Index has been named by a friend of mine, actually, and very inadvertently. He was working on a screenplay and had been tossing titles around, so we ended up bantering about what to rename my series as well as his screenplay. The Index seemed to be most fitting.

It took me about the better part of two months to finish out the first draft of Book 1. NaNo 2006 was responsible for about the first twelve chapters, but after I claimed the win, the story was effectively writing itself. I let it write itself to completion. I finished it out about a week before Christmas 2006.

JG)How are book sales going? Marketing? Is anybody helping you with getting the word out there?

KG)Sales are slow, but the word is slowly getting out there. Marketing, though, is going fantastic - also in a huge part thanks to NaNoWriMo. I really have to thank my friends, though, because they were and still are instrumental in story development. A talented journalist I know, Miss Lisa Basile, had crafted a press release and is working on distribution. So only a few people have directed my own marketing efforts - business cards, blogs, website.

JG)Where can I get a copy of your book?

KG)CreateSpace.com: http://www.createspace.com/3361877 - as well as on Amazon. I am working on the bookstores as well!

JG)I understand that you hold a regular job in addition to your writing and you also manage a jazz band, what's that like?

KG) It's definitely an exercise in time management! My regular job is wonderful as far as letting me have a "writing break" between work-related tasks, so I usually take about 5-10 minutes at a time to quickly type a something up, and write over my lunch break as well. After hours, I generally stay at the office and multitask my writing with booking calls. The band had actually been there from the conception to publication stage, since I wrote and edited during most of their shows...earned me a lot of points from those guys, but they're fantastic and I love booking for them. Overall, I try to do as much as I can and manage my time to the best of my ability.

JG)With all the things you are juggling how do you get things done? What's your game plan?

KG) In a single word...coffee. My game plan is to focus on the here and now and crank as much as I can to the best of my capacity - I can plan the future until the future arrives, but if I don't act, I will still be exactly where I started. Nothing ventured is nothing gained.

JG)What books do you like to read?

KG)I'm a sucker for history - period history had been a recent fascination and I did a lot of Tudor/Elizabethan era reading; learned a lot about society structure of the yesteryear, so to speak. I am also a major, major fan of true crime, and to be specific, unsolved mysteries. I love solving puzzles; which is why I'm pulled to things that people now either don't think about or just can't figure out.

JG)Who are your favorite authors?

KG)Hands down - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. You can go far and wide, but you can never compare to the original sleuth, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

JG)How long have you been writing?

KG)Truthfully - all my life. When I was a kid, I would do poetry, short stories, various derivative fiction based on classic adventure books. Mostly, I'd just keep a journal, put my thoughts on paper before I got my own comp. Nearly every day involved some form of words being put together into something.

JG)I know you are active in NANO. How many times have you participated? What's it like? And how has it helped your writing?

KG)This will be my fourth year and I credit NaNo fully in being the catalyst I needed to go forward with publishing. Every writer needs some sort of a deadline and without NaNo, I severely doubt that I would have written Book 1, or its follow-ups. Writing on a deadline pushes the creative capacity to the absolute limit in a way that very few things can replicate and it's a great way to lay out the bare bones of the story. The touch-ups are for the editing phase.

JG)Do you have any upcoming readings? Where?

KG)Not at this moment, but I'm hoping!

JG)Share anything else you'd like to about the craft of writing.

KG)I mentioned a saying, that I actually incorporated as a personal motto: Nothing ventured is nothing gained. I see a myriad of authors for NaNo with some seriously amazing manuscripts who never go forward with getting them out there. And I tell them: venture. Even if it will be tough, next to impossible to garner attention to your work - put it out there. Venture. Because there is always going to be a reader, there is always going to be someone who will love it and be inspired by it. For every author, there is bound to be a reader.

JG)What is your next project? Have you begun a new novel?

KG) The Index is my pet project for life, for all I know! The story and the series really began to write themselves after I wrapped up NaNo 2008 (Book 3). The characters' stories are ever-continuing and this year will be Book 4 - the final book of the first arc. The second arc is going to be another story, for sure.
My next big project, however, involves the band. I want to do well on booking them and I'm working for a few places that may be a good fit for their talent. They're a fantastic bunch, really - and who knows, I may well not be the only person that can edit a book at a jazz show!

JG) Well, I want to thank you once again for visiting my home away from home. You've been a fabulous guest. And I'm sure we all will be hearing a lot more from you and The Index Series in the future.

KG) Thanks again.

Check out Katherine's website for The Index Series

Behind The Book

2009-10-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

I want to go on record as saying that the gift of reading is probably the greatest gift a child can receive. It's something taken for granted, but life-changing. When I heard Martha Southgate say she'd met with a young man who had told her that "Third Girl From The Left" (her novel) was the first book he had ever read I was moved.

How lucky that young man was, how lucky the writer for giving a priceless gift, the love of words.

There's something called Butterfly Theory that says the simple flutter of a single butterfly's wing can change the world. It sounds too phenomenal, bordering on preposterous, in fact its almost maudlin in its sense of careless hope.

How much impact can we make on one person's life? And how would we measure it? So many people need so much help it's overwhelming. There's poverty, illness, gross violation of the soul. How can teaching a child to read matter so much?

Well, it's simple really. This small gesture opens a young mind, bridges the gap between what is impossible to what is possible. It takes great effort and discipline. It's almost biblical teaching a child to fish instead of giving the child the fish, yet the irony here is that the reader cannot read without a book.

Pardon my slippery sense of allegory there is indeed a point. I've come to know Behind the Book for a few years and have seen some readings, attended a function or two, and seen some of these extraordinary people at work. They're goal is simple to teach the young to read, but what is so challenging is getting the necessary materials, the books, to the classrooms. Sounds hard to believe, but in today's world with so much corporate and bureaucratic irresponsibility where time and again bailouts go to the deepest pockets while the smallest pockets stay empty pockets. Children suffer.

There are schools who seriously need to beg for books. That is a crime. It's unconscionable. Behind the Book has done something at a critical juncture. While they are not a new kid on the block, they've been around since the Spring of 2003, what they do is heroic. They offer books, they offer time. They put the authors, whose books have been donated, in the classrooms to get kids excited about reading.

Jo Umans is the founder and fearless leader of Behind the Book. She gathered the idea for her organization while serving as a part-time librarian in her sons private school. She saw how excited students reacted to the guest authors as the writers read their words aloud. A kind of magic unfurled. This, she figured, could take place in the NY City public schools if the resources and the right people worked together.

If you peruse the list of authors on their roster you will be amazed at all the support for this fabulous organization. Francine Prose, Myla Goldberg, Jennifer Egan, A.M Holmes, Colum McCann, Rick Moody, Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Lethem, and on and on and on.

It's about cultivating a lifetime love of books.

Guilty Movie Pleasures

2009-10-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

Guess I am in one of those bonky moods. I feel compelled to share a top ten list of guilty movie pleasures. Usually, I pride myself on being this film dweeb who is a snob about everything from cinematography, shot-tracking, dialogue, narrative arc, fade-ins, segues, leitmotif and all this other spiffy stuff, but I'm going sweep that under the straw mat- for today anyway.

1) Rocky IV (the soundtrack rocks and I love that awesome Drago line You vill looose)
2) Wedding Singer (great cheesy flick. Love the scene where all hell breaks loose and the father-of-the bride bites Sandler's leg. Love Steve Buscemi's wedding toast "What were they again oh, yeah hookers)
3) Devil Wears Prada (Guys don't admit to liking it. Love Ann Hathaway. Tucci has all the best lines.)
4) Dirty Dancing ("Nobody puts baby in a corner." R.I.P Patrick.
5) Breakfast Club (Allie Sheedy's response to Judd Nelson's sex question: I'm a nymphomaniac. I'm a compulsive liar)
6)Selena (The late, great tejano star, played by a stunning J-lo. "I would do anything for S-E-L-E-N-A-S")
7)Goodfellas (Can't get enough of it. "Funny, funny how! Am I hear to amuse you?")
8)Sideways (How can any wino not love this. "I'm not drinking any Merlot.")
9)American Splendor (Love Paul Giamatti. I think he's the cat's pajamas. They should post his pic on a box of Cheerios.)
10)Bad News Bears (The Original with Walter Matthau. Nothing better than that Buttercrud, lush and Tatum O'neil playing catch.)

Ommegang's Three Philosophers

2009-10-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

Cooperstown is known for the baseball Hall of Fame, but it also happens to make some great beers too.

Ommegang Brewery, part of the Duvel Belgian empire, is domiciled out there. Great hoppy brew. The one I've been fond of is the Abbey Ale. Tastes like a Trappist treat. Its fruity, nutty, has medium-plus body and is a perfect pair with cheese that bites back.

Recently,I had their Three Philosophers, which is also tangy and tasty. After a big swill your mouth feels like its sucking on fine Ecuadorian cacao with a touch of roasted chestnuts.

If I was forced to say what Three Philosophers this beer brought to mind I'd have to say Kierkegaard, Dewey, and Mo from the Simpson's. I think you'll find it as good good, maybe even better than Chimay's Blue label. Though I've loved that gnarly Belgian in the past my taste buds have been undergoing a transformation lately.

Drink it with a bowl full of nuts and Camembert.

'86 World Series with My Dad

2009-10-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

Since it’s that time of year I feel it is fitting to write about the Fall Baseball Classic. This is not a scoop on whether the Yankees or the Phillies will take this year’s World Series nor do I wish to rehash the playoffs. Instead, I would like to share an incredible memory from childhood, the time my dad brought me to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

If you’re a baseball fan you can recall the drama of that particular game. Redsox fans were sure they had it in the bag with their Rocket on the mound, and quite frankly, the Mets were floundering on the field and at the plate.

The whole complexion of the game changed on a routine-hit-grounder, through the legs of Bill Buckner, (a lifetime .300 hitter) who would unfortunately be known as a goat for the rest of his ballplaying life.

As unbelievable a game as it was there’s a part of my memory that trumps the whole game and the 56,000 crazy Mets’ fans waving foam thumbs, blaring horns, screaming their voice boxes into laryngitis. The most amazing thing about that night was that my dad and I rebuilt a bond that was slowing slipping away.

We didn’t have a ticket for the game. Okay, so you’ve probably bought a scalped ticket at some point in your life: rock concert, charity ball, maybe a football game. This is not that story. We didn’t have tickets and we didn’t buy any. Got me so far? We didn’t sneak in either. My dad simply flashed an usher his fireman’s badge, and the old timer let us pass the gate. It was the greatest magic trick I had ever witnessed, and my dad’s full hazel eyes gleamed with triumph. When I think of it now it’s like a gateway to the past, his beaming joy that moment we made our way in the stadium must have been the same joy he’d experienced going to a ballgame with his dad. But, maybe that’s even a lame comparison because he set a new spark for us, kept us from drifting apart, at least for the magical night.

I think it’s worth mentioning that I was a 12-year-old twerp, who’d been passed the solipsist’s gene from some distant relation. On the twerp-scale, I ranked in the highest percentiles for complaining, whining, nagging, and demanding. “Get me popcorn, get me a soda, get me another hotdog.” I’ve never been a true fan. I love the game of baseball, but I’m the consummate analyst and sometimes prefer reviewing scorecards then actually watching games. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it is what it is.

My dad had to slap the scorecard shut just so I wouldn’t miss a homerun. He must have felt the lost grip he’d had on me. I had already drifted into a pre-teen haze replete with non-stop gaga over pop music, girls, and the mother of all pipedreams that I’d trod the wet dirt of Shea Stadium’s infield, as their future star third baseman. This last point, this hope was one he shared with me, but that too was slowly ebbing as I found less time to take practice swings.

None of this was going to ruin the night. Dad held his badge in high esteem. He was a member of a grand brotherhood, men from a bygone generation willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, their community, their sons. When I saw my dad pull out the last of his bills from his wallet, to get me another dog and Coke, I caught glimpse of his badge, shining in the moonlight. I noticed the right side was dented. It reminded me of his helmet which was partially melted from the excruciating heat of the fires he fought.

His badge poked out of his wallet like a Crackerjack prize. I asked him if I could hold it, and the expression on my dad’s face was pure pride. He put it in my hand. It was surprisingly warm and it made my fingers smell like a thousand nickels. It was unvarnished, plenty of nicks by the ladder company number, but when a bit of moonlight kissed the brass it glowed like a piece of King Tut’s tomb.

We watched the game, huddled in our pullovers, hands stuffed in pockets with a gentle whisk of wind blowing the wisps of hair behind our caps. For a brief moment we were invincible.

Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem

2009-10-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

At the reading last night, Lethem dispels a haggler who lambastes him for talking ill about Russians by saying "For the paperback, I'll say a few bad things about the Chinese." Lethem has a reputation for being an equal-opportunity-satirist, it's his specialty. He also knows something about scribing kickass prose.

I became I disciple after I read Motherless Brooklyn. I remember going on a junket with a couple of droogies of mine and passing by the Gowanus and saying hey that's where Lionel Essrog tread. Then The Fortress of Solitude became a must read for me. Lethem spins a story of Brooklyn that's full of grittiness and whimsy. How the hell does he do it? Well, he's a King's County man for one and he's an urban anthropologist if this city ever had one.

Chronic City is his latest baby. And it's a beaut. Chronic, just so you know, is top-of-the-line pot, the good shit, the antithesis of schwag. Chase, the former child star, Upper East Side dinner party fixture pals around with Perkus Tooth an oddball highbrow cultural savant. Perkus has this ferocious ability to think elliptically-- he doesn't even know when his synapses clank onto their prescient discoveries.

Chase and Perkus get into some mischief and whatnot. There's a lot of choice verbal barbing. Chase is also in a relationship with a female astronaut who pens letters from outer space. I've seen some critics comment that this book seems more Pynchonian than his earlier works. I see Jonathan Lethem busting out identifying with his Chronic-juked Chase.

The Brooklynite plans to read a different chapter at each of his readings so you could listen to his whole book. In a recession like this, that's a sweet deal on his part. Trouble is you'd have to get yourself to all his events. He got the idea while he was chilling out with some pals in Maine before the novel went into print. Instead of reading to himself, whereupon he might've sluffed through slow parts he put his performance voice in high gear and swigged lot's of honeyed tea.

If you don't feel like pawning yourself as a book groupie or plunking down for the lit gem then I suggest catching a bit of him on podcast. Oh yeah, and Wall Street Journal actually offered a free excerpt. What up with that?

The Good Rejection

2009-10-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do one of these posts for a while now. After you're a published author it doesn't get any easier. You still get rejected. Lately I've taken my lumps from independent bookstores, publishers, journals, newspapers and magazines trying to build the buzz, I've even gotten rejected from a few fine chicas hitting on them (what else is new) even though I showed them an excerpt of my novel and blurbs about me on my Blackberry.

So what do you do? Grin and bear it.

Yesterday I got my umpteenth rejection from Pindeldyboz, a pretty solid lit journal. I've been sending to them for 5 years now. Pretty much anything I send them comes back with comments. Mostly praise. I hate form rejections. I only think they gave me one of those, three years ago. But, they've become increasingly more positive over time. In fact, yesterday's letter seemed like a glowing review. The editor in question, since I'm dropping a name this time, actually apologized for passing on it. He wanted the story to turn out somehow differently. I think my ending was a real bummer for him.

This begs a different kind of question. How does a bummer story earn a rave review? Through a twist of Bizarro logic I suppose. I'm not one-hundred percent sure. What I do know is that I will be on Pindeldyboz pronto and sending another story their way. Maybe this time a personal essay. I think I am starting to get the hang of that.

I have a special request. Send your own story out to them. They are a fine journal and publish both in print and online so you don't have to worry about throwing out the journal and never again being able to live onto literary immortality. If you happen to get lucky let me know maybe I can ride your coattail.

Interview with Maria Rachel Hooley

2009-10-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

Today my guest is writer Maria Rachel Hooley, author of New Life Incorporated, When Angels Cry, & The Sojourner series. http://www.mariarachelhooley.com

JG: Maria, thank you so much for taking the time to share your writing experience with us.

MH: It’s my pleasure.

JG: You’ve written 20 books. Tell us a little about your creative process.

MH: I've been writing most of my life, and I think over time the process has definitely gotten a lot easier. Perhaps as writers, we not only grow into our own style, so to speak, but also our own 'skin' the longer we do this. I don't start a project thinking of a specific genre. It typically starts with character and the rest develops around that, which is why I write in so many genres. The process I typically use is what is called The Snowflake Method because it starts with one of the hardest things to write--a one sentence pitch about the whole novel. Then the steps gradually expand until the novel is plotted, and the writing begins. It is awesome for developing conflict and making sure all threads of the story are tied together.

JG: My readers would love to know how you market your books.

MH: Marketing is tough, especially for self-published authors, but there are so many different places online which can help you establish your platform and get your name out there. I have a Wordpress blog and I also have a website. I also have an Author Central page with Amazon. In addition to these, I also frequent Redroom.com, writersmarket.com, and others. One of the good aspects of marketing as an independent author is that a lot of readers take a more active approach, and a lot of the online social and marketing sites are geared toward this. One thing I will say that made it easier for me is that over the years I've built a strong publishing history with poetry and other shorter forms.

JG: How has your writing evolved over time?

MH: I think the biggest thing that helped my writing evolve is poetry. It's one thing to have the basics down, but learning how to use images really transformed my style. I can definitely see a huge difference in the first five novels I wrote and those which came after because that's about the time I started to really hone my poetry skills.

Aside from that, overall, I think the writing is a lot cleaner and tighter. While my writing has always been about characters first, I think my Achilles' heel, description and setting, is finally getting closer to where I want it.

JG: Byline is an impressive journal that does short stories, poems essays, how is Carolyn Wall as an editor?

MH: I really can’t say much about Carolyn Wall because she was not the editor in question when I had the non-fiction piece about greeting cards published. The editor I worked with was Marcia Preston, and Marcia was very good. She had a specific direction she wanted the piece to go and gave great suggestions. I do know that Carolyn is a member of OWFI and I've heard really wonderful things about her.

JG: What books do you like to read?

MH: I really love fantasy and historical fiction. I think the common element is the feeling that a journey is involved.

JG: How do you divide your time between family and writing life, do you have a routine?

MH: As far as dividing my time between writing and family, it's really a juggling act. There's a whole lot of things that vie for my time, from my job as a high school English teacher, to my adjunct job of teaching remedial English classes at a local university. I don't really have a schedule because there are so many expectations, but for me, writing is rather like an addiction. I'm always doing it. If I have fifteen minutes, I'm in the story and writing. I don't wait for huge chunks of time because that might not happen. I tend to write every day, but I never know quite when I'll be doing the actual writing from day to day.

JG: What's the literary community like in Oklahoma?

MH: I know that Oklahoma does have some wonderful writers, and there are several different kinds of events, from literary festivals to writers’ conferences, to poetry readings and more where artists can find a great place to share their craft.

JG: Do you belong to any writing groups or workshops?

MH: I do belong to the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. I have belonged to OKRWA, Oklahoma's RWA chapter. I also participate in The Scissortail Festival in Ada, among others.

JG: Have you hosted any events?

MH: I have never hosted any of the workshops. I have acted as a judge or category coordinator in different writing contests, typically in poetry, but I've also judged scripts.

JG: What are your thoughts on writing workshops?

MH: Writing workshops are valuable for numerous reasons. For a beginning writer, there's lots of information on writing and submitting that will help. For writers who are more experienced, you meet a lot of contacts there, and sometimes that makes a huge difference in opening doors. For a published writer, workshops and conferences can provide places to meet readers and places to sell books, as well as making new contacts.

JG: Favorite books, authors
MH: I love Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, and Ariel by Steven Boyett.

JG: Would you say you've had an a-ha moment as a writer?

MH: I think the biggest a-ha moment was when I entered a writing contest with two different entries, and both judges made the same comment: I was working through personal issues. I consider this an a-ha moment because both pieces were completely fictional. There wasn't a shred of reality in them, yet my words had made the judges believe I had submitted something real. At that moment I knew I wanted to keep writing because I knew I could possibly make a difference with the reality I created.

JG: Here's a silly question: I see you use Wordpress. Did you ever use blogger? Do you have a preference?

MH: I've thought about looking into blogger but because my days are so swamped, I just haven't done it. I don't really like how the widgets work with Wordpress, and I couldn't get the fReado widget to work at all.

JG: What are you working on now?

MH: My current project is a science fiction thriller called Eternity Systems. It focuses on a homicide detective investigating a string of brutal murders tied to a virtual reality corporation called Eternity Systems, a company made famous by its claim that even the dead don't stay dead in virtual reality. Yet now living women are being stalked and killed as victims to feed a serial killer's depraved desires in his own virtual reality.

JG: What is next project?

MH: The next project will probably be a second YA urban fantasy in my Dreamwalker series which deals with a teenage girl whose dreams now affect her waking life in the form of supernatural creatures seeking to destroy her.

Maria Rachel Hooley is the author of 20 novels and most recently Sojourner and When Angels Cry. Below you will find blurbs on both her new books.
Check out her website at www.mariarachelhooley.com.

Sojourner (YA urban fantasy)
Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Moon has been dreaming of her murder her entire life, and in those dreams, a dark presence is there, watching. When she returns home to Hauser's Landing, the very place her father disappeared, she comes in contact with a gorgeous boy named Lev Walker, and it's not long before she's falling in love. But there's something wrong with Lev. When she realizes he's the eerie watcher in her dreams, she'll have to discover the truth. Is he a guardian angel or a sojourner, an angel of death who has come to collect her soul?

When Angels Cry (women's fiction)
Kaylee Renard has never taken the time for love. Independence and financial security have always been top priority. Besides, she believed there will be time for a relationship later, when she can fit it in. In light of a terminal cancer diagnosis, however, her views change, and when Kaylee passes out and falls into a pond, Bastian Connelly, alone and suicidal, goes in after her, hoping that in trying to save Kaylee's life, he will end his own. But life isn't done with Bastian, and neither is love. As Kaylee comes to love him, she wonders what she's missed and seeks to find whatever gifts fate might grant her.

Red Balloon

2009-10-16T20:00:00.001-07:00

As a child I was very fond of The Red Balloon. I guess I had that glorious mix of Curious George and Lewis and Clarke. I loved adventure and mischief. I found the story intoxicating. The librarian from my local branch read the story for us, a clutch of eager Indian-seated kindergartners. I didn’t actually see Lamorisse’s film version until a bit later so I concocted my own image of the boy in earnest pursuit of his red balloon.

Did I know a darn thing about ulterior motives and bunko artists— husbands who’d Wife Swap just to get their pasty mugs on the tube. I must admit I was much to inchoate to know such things. Thank goodness. But, I’m not going into “Balloon Boy”. My memory of The Red Balloon is too special to sully it with a dead-on comparison.

I was a tad over five when I went to the local branch for story time. Ms. Bellamy lulled us with her tender voice and her gift of assonance. She looked up as she read off the page. She’d catch you open-mouthed listening to every word she uttered. I had the princely feeling she was only reading to me, but of course the room was full of other eager ears.

Ms. Bellamy had proffered my first library card a lilywhite, partially perforated paper rectangle that I kept on top of my sock drawer. Babar, Curious George, Lyle Crocodile, and The Red Balloon were all of my original loaners. The books had a peculiar, but dizzying smell of parchment and warm bread. I was nourished by that first delightful panoply of words. Most of all I loved being read to, and unfortunately it would take quite a while before I had the boundless appreciation to read to myself.

Maybe as an only child I wanted the company of a cherubic reader like Ms. Bellamy. I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t carry on myself. I could busy myself with Legos and Girder Panels. I had the making of a city planner both from antiquity erecting pyramids and also in a forward-thinking quasi Frank Gehry sense.

I was very sad when the Parisian bullies destroyed Pascal’s balloon. I think it caused my first hiccup and I couldn’t watch the same scene the second time. I guess seeing that brutality may have contributed to my fictive bend as I tried to give Pascal, a new beginning. I also found it magical, but terrifying he could ride a hot-aired balloon. Back then, I was still afraid of heights.

Coke is it!

2009-10-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

For a long while I’ve wanted to do my own Cola comparison. I’m a sommelier for crying out loud I should be able to spout off about any type of beverage. You pick wine notes from anywhere: Decanter, Wine Spectator, Wine News, peruse through Michael Broadbent comments and you’ll see Bordeaux with a tang of cola. I love it.

Well, the truth is I was born and bred on the stuff. I remember going to family gatherings at my cousin Janine and Jackie’s and drinking cup from Styrofoam cups, shindigs at Uncle Gene’s where I practically inhaled the caffeinated jewel from the can. Okay, so with what you know so far does that make you want to think twice about my palate? Hey, Oz Clarke recalls with reckless ebullience the time he swigged Mouton Rothschild from a Dixie cup, in a parking lot no less. Now you’re talking.
It’s the antithesis of serious imbibing and that’s what makes it off-the-hook. I pledge this and my membership to the American Sommelier Association, my certification to Wine and Spirit Education Trust, and all the hours I’ve logged in consulting collectors— I’m the real deal when it comes to judging beverages.

Let me also say I have a tremendous penchant for Peru’s Golden Cola— Inca Cola— it’s surreal. The ne plus ultra cola experience. It’s made from Guarana fruit which comes from South America and has a particularly high level of caffeine-potency. It’s like pineapple, meets passion fruit to the ninth power. It got me over a cold recently. Banged out 75 pushups like water for chocolate.

But, if I can’t have my Inca Cola I usually gravitate toward Coke— the American version. Moroccan which I’ve had with my buddy Christian back when we were in Marrakesh is good, but will rot the teeth out of your moth if you drink the whole bottle. It’s that sweet. Mexican Coke isn’t bad, but it has this lingering peppery quality to it. I kid you not and reminds me a little bit like Royal Crown Cola which I used to be very fond of.

As a kid, I also liked CC and Cola the cheapie you got by the gross at Waldbaums. That stuff tasted like liquid fun dip. The Technicolor sugar dust from just about any candy store.

Now Pepsi always makes me the most thirsty after I drink it. Can really hardly do more than a twelve-ounce can and I usually don’t finish it.

Zero had me hooked for a bit, but it just doesn’t have the je ne sais quoi of Classic Coke. What can I say I’m a classic kind of guy.

Build a Better Bookshelf

2009-10-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

What do you put on your virtual bookshelf? It’s a fair question. A lot of what is sitting on my real bookshelf is collecting dust. Some books, I’m embarrassed to admit, have gone unread. I have this terrible habit of taking stuff out of the library. I also like to read at bookstores. If I bought all the books I intended to read I’d put myself into a deeper financial hole than I’m already in. But, buying books is not like buying outfits. If you don’t wear that cerulean blue Johnny collar top this season you better give away the next.

You might have heard of Shelfari. It’s an online book lover’s paradise where you flaunt the virtual libraries you’ve put together for yourself. Some are mega eclectic. Some aren’t, but if you look around you will find others who share similar book tastes. You will also stumble upon things you’ve never heard of. You’ll find those who have anointed themselves with a qualified opinion on good reads. Take it with a grain of salt, tune in with keen ears, do what works best for you.

I look at it as another kind of burden for myself because I can’t seem to get my real-life bookcase into respectable order. Actually, I have a section of books I’ve traded with friends and colleagues. For some reason this keeps growing. It’s almost as bad as abusing the library except I don’t get hit with any fees unless you consider threats of bodily harm.

This year I really don’t want any physical presents for the holidays. I don’t even want books. I want somebody to help me organize what I already have and find out the most efficient way to give back all my loaner materials.

Guest Blog by Nannette Croce

2009-10-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

(I'd like to welcome my friend the distinguished writer and editor Nannette Croce to Paper Cut. She is the founder and publisher of Zine Writer and will be guest blogging today on the changing face of the literary journals.)

Online Publishing at the Crossroads

When I started working with online publications at the end of the last century (that term still has me thinking horse & carriage), zine credits didn’t count much, if at all, when submitting to print. The literary cognoscenti equated the relative ease of starting an online publication, the primitive appearance of early websites, and the fact that most zines didn’t pay (now most print pubs don’t pay either) with being less selective.

In fact, many zines like The Rose & Thorn http://www.theroseandthornezine.com/ that started publishing in 1997 were already receiving more than enough submissions to choose only the best. At the same time the lack of competition from well-credentialed and (back then, less ubiquitous) MFA grads, made the Internet fertile ground for new skilled writers who, after years of rejection, just wanted their work to appear somewhere––anywhere––it could be read. And once past the “stigma” of having to publish online, those writers realized the distinct advantages it provided over print.

Once that piece had appeared in the current issue, it wouldn’t be dumped in the trash by everyone but the writer and his Mom; it would be archived online for people to read in years to come and where it could be linked to from a website. Publishing online provided an online presence so contacts could Google a writer’s name and find samples of her work. But by far the greatest advantage was that as more and more people started spending more and more of their time online, zines reached more readers in varying parts of the world than all but the biggest print publications.

It wasn’t long before credentialed writers began to catch on. While exclusively online literary zines still weren’t getting submissions from the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, in my last couple of years working with The Rose & Thorn, we did receive many submissions from writers with credits from the “better” print journals. By then, though, it had become the credo of most zines to remain open to new writers and to ignore credentials when reviewing submissions. (My current employer Sotto Voce http://sottovocemagazine.com/index.htm attaches no names or bios to work under review.) Other characteristics specific to zines were accepting different genres and requiring a good story with good characters in addition to the well-crafted sentences and killer similes that seemed to take priority in most print journals.

Hence, for a short time, online publishing became the most perfect of worlds. Zines (though many dropped the old connotations of that term for “online journals”) had come to be considered valuable writing credits, while, at the same time, maintaining that level playing field where new and experienced writers competed solely on the quality of their writing.

Enter the big guns. It was just a matter of time before the big name print journals, facing a dwindling readership and difficult financial times, would see the benefits of publishing online. Many venerable print journals like The Kenyon Review http://www.kenyonreview.org/kro_full.php and Agni http://www.bu.edu/agni/ now publish online counterparts. Magazines like Narrative http://www.narrativemagazine.com/ have a mainly online presence with the print version being secondary. Narrative has brought to the web the afore mentioned Ms. Oates and other names like Rick Bass, Lorrie Moore, Robert Olen Butler, etc., etc.

This transition to where everyone will be publishing online has brought Internet publishing to a crossroads. Will these former print journals impose their hierarchy on the egalitarian web and relegate the online pioneers to where they were a decade ago, or will everyone have to open up to a broad range of writers and subjects? This will depend on readers and writers.

Readers vote with their clicks and every online journal I’ve been associated with received literally tens of thousands of page views per month. This would imply that people are reading online who never picked up a print journal. It’s hard to imagine that these people were biding their time waiting for Agni to come online.

Writers need to decide how important it is to appear in those “big names.” If tens of thousands of people read your work and it appears in a journal you respect, does it matter if the contributors’ names are Alice Munro and Rick Bass?

Only time will tell.

Nannette Croce was formerly Co-Managing Editor at The Rose & Thorn and is currently Assistant Fiction Editor for Sotto Voce. Her work has appeared in various online and print journals including The Rose & Thorn, Sotto Voce http://sottovocemagazine.com/index.htm, The Writers Post Journal, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her blogs are zine writer http://zinewriter.blogspot.com/: insider tips for getting your work published online and cross reference http://crossreferencebookreviews.blogspot.com/: a book review blog (where she recently reviewed Shades of Luz http://crossreferencebookreviews.blogspot.com/2009/10/shades-of-luz-by-john-gorman.html). She also runs CROSSxCHECKING http://crossreferencebookreviews.blogspot.com/2009/10/shades-of-luz-by-john-gorman.html an editing and critiquing service.

Give Me The Pulitzer For Flash Fiction

2009-10-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

I want to win the Pulitzer Prize for the best first chapter I’ve written. If I’ve bagged the great literary award then I can get down to business and write the Great American Novel. Naturally, the follow-up chapters will have to be as amazing as the first. Does this sound nuts? A bit over the top. There already is a James Jones Fellowship for a first novel-in-progress which means that you must connect on your first try. Stellar sophomore efforts need not apply; although Glimmertrain has just begun a fiction contest for the best start of a short story. And why not? Why shouldn’t creative writing earn accolades for best intentions and for great potential? Obama has won the Noble Peace Prize even though the time bomb is still ticking. Okay, so I’ve switched gears and jumped to politics from creative writing. I’m driving at a bigger point here.

I think a lot of people are stunned about the whole Nobel Prize thing. I think writers were shocked when Herta Mueller won the Noble Prize for Literature a few days ago, but this business of giving the Peace Prize for unfinished business isn’t just a case of being premature or overly optimistic. It’s irresponsible. It puts an enormous amount of pressure on the president. And let’s say he is able to resolve the global balance of power struggle what then? Will he win another Noble Prize as a bookend?

Has the need to create a utopian image trumped the need to create a utopia? How far do we go with this? If peace is the goal then shouldn't, at least, a semblance it be reached.

To me the committee seemed not to put the cart before the horse, but to have committed a fallacy of slippery slope. They've set a bendable precedent. And in the long-run that only shakes heads, not hands.

I fear that there is such a need to get things done in a general sense that we often leave things undone. It’s one thing to put your soul into something and fail at it. Samuel Beckett said it best when he said, “Ever tried? Ever failed? No Matter, try again, fail again, Fail better.” But, when one hasn’t toiled, hasn’t labored in the truest sense one hasn’t completed one’s mission.

Curating the Dinner Party

2009-10-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

At the Opium Live launch Todd Zuniga asked Anya Ulinich what dead writers she'd have over for dinner. She picked Nabokov and Grace Paley. Two great choices if you asked me and they could counterpoint for the other.

My mom always liked to play this game at gatherings. She didn't frame the question what writers she'd ask over to dine, but what people? Coco Chanel, the Mahatma, Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill. Okay, so sometimes a literary luminary popped onto the list. My mom has always been very fond of Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle.

Some people aren't into these games. Not all of my relatives and certainly not all of her friends. But, the ones that are game can give delightful results. I remember once being over at friends of ours. The new boyfriend, Michael, of my mom's friend's sister was a real card. He mentioned people I had never heard of. I was only eight at the time. Michael was convinced he bore an uncanny resemblance to George Plimpton. He didn't. But, he knew a lot about him I would later find to be true. Michael also had a particular interest in Gore Vidal and André Gide. He also had a penchant for collecting trilobites which I was absolutely smitten with. I was still in my paleontological phase. He draw a pretty nifty sketch of a Devonian-aged fish and I gave him a thumb's up.

Why do I bring this up? I really never saw the guy again. My mom's fiend's sister dated regularly and had moved onto somebody else, but I kept asking about Michael. He'd piqued my curiosity. I don't know if he is alive or dead, but he is the kind of guest I would love to have at a dinner party.

And since I'm on the topic of curating dinners for lively corpses I'd be hard-pressed to find better company than Oscar Wilde, Samuel Johnson, and Benjamin Franklin. I really think I'd hit it off with Thomas Jefferson Too. I never really did get over my paleontological phase.

Why the Snapple Top Makes a Good Substitute for a Fortune Cookie

2009-10-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

A Venus flytrap can eat a whole cheeseburger. I learned this fascinating fact #880 from under a Snapple cap. Committing it to memory is not going to stop the Great Recession or save the whales but it got a chuckle out of me. I'm into random musings. Maybe this is why my mind drifts off too far to be a good journalist and I am fiction writer. Maybe I'm a born spin doctor.

I love books where wild sheep chases take place which is why I appreciate Haruki Murakami, Italo Calvino, Thomas Pynchon, Don Delilo, and on. In Veronica Nicolas Christopher's protagonist's whole life changes taking a wrong turn through a hallway. William James calls this stuff the way of the Pathfinder.

Philip Roth notoriously penned a good chunk of his novels from headlines he read out of newspapers. The point I'm driving at is you never know where that glimmer of story, as Pam Houston says, comes from. For me though, I think there is something more. Not to get Cartesian on you, but for me I want to discover an indubitable truth. And in today's world, cobbled from spin, it's no easy task. This is by the way why blogs seem to be spawning healthy, independent lives from the mainstream front.

I still believe a bit in Lincoln's old adage to know 90% of your opponent's argument before forming your own. Something to that extent. And this is why I keep putting various, disparate pieces together in the hope that someday I will have my own Eureka moment.

And the Noble Goes to...

2009-10-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

Have you read any of Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio’s books lately? Hmm. Or maybe you’ve recently picked up 2006 Noble Winner Orphan Pamuk’s Snow.

I don’t want to give the impression that the prize is politically motivated or is a kind of Lifetime Achievement Award, although it does raise brows and draws new readers to the chosen one. Whatever drives new readers is great for literature. To draw to the literary landscape today is a great challenge as we already know. Whatever the motivation to pick up Herta Mueller’s work is well worth it.

I’m a firm believer in expanding the literary landscape. Writing style, subject matter, and rules of syntax lure readers to their favorites, but I’m one who approaches my reading like my wine. I relish a diverse sample. I’m not hung up on Kirkus Reviews, plugs from Slate, or tweets from Salman Rushdie. I read what I read.

Some might consider mine an eclectic, unfocused approach— cherry-picking. I call it stylized discrimination. A healthy lust for poetic memes. But, seriously, I don’t pretend to have the inside dope on all the words, critical and otherwise. I take the Socratic approach, I admit I knowing nothing and work from there.

I am a slow reader and want to experience a book for the work of art it is. In other words, I cannot speed read so I wouldn’t bother reading the plethora of airport fluff. I do take recommendations. I will not pigeonhole everything. I’m a New Yorker, I honor our sacred bird.

So far I know this about our 2009 Noble Laureate. She began her career in 1976 translating for an engineering factory, and was canned in 1979 because she wouldn’t play by the Communist regime’s rules. Herta’s husband Richard Wagner is also a novelist.

I’m not sure if I’ll start with Ms. Mueller’s debut collection Niederungen or Oppressive Tango as I’ve always had a weakness for the Argentine dance. I will make it a point to acquaint myself with her work because I want to expand my reader and writer’s eye.

Tidbit

The Noble Prize in Literature has been awarded since 1901. The only years that no awards for literature have been given are: 1914, 1918, 1935, 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1943.

Virtual Belly Button

2009-10-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

[Click here to enter The Literary Lab Genre Writing Contest]

Webfetti and gadgets are the buttons of our day. It used to be a sign of solidarity to wear a a pin, a patch or button on your denim jacket to show off your favorite band, presidential candidate, ballplayer. Since our days revolve around the keypad it's only natural that we look for stuff to dress up our cyberdomains. Wallpaper is too insular. Too old hat.

When you have a blog or website you want to share it with the world. It a part of of you. Your very own virtual belly button. I've stuck a Duotrope badge on my page. I will soon tack on one for NANO because they are mega keen. I have quotes from Twain because he was the Mack Daddy of his day- for ours too.

If you haven't already done so I suggest checking out the Genre Wars they have a cool badge to stick on your blog. They have a fiction writing contest that embraces all the sub-genres and it will a literary slugfest- so to speak. Above is the picture of the contest and is sponsored by the esteemed The Literary Lab.

One last note before I go. Do you remember candy buttons? Those Technicolor sugar-hopped strips of paper that were usually stuffed into your goodie bag for b-day parties. That was one button I was never really fond of, but I did once proudly wear Billy Joel and The Police buttons on my stonewashed denim jacket.

Long live The Piano Man and Sting.

A Movable Desk

2009-10-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

I’m a mobile scribbler. My movable desk (AKA my lap) finds its way onto buses, planes, trains, and other automobiles. I’ll sit on a rock with my notebook and take stock of the confluence between the world around me and the one passing through my brain.

Yesterday, I decided I needed a real desk. What with my recent move I’ve been typing away on the dining room table. I probably could have kept up for a little while longer, but I’d already been testing my better half’s patience long enough.

My buddy offered me a retro office desk. The thing was as big as a Greyhound. I had no idea where to put it. I needed something simple. Fortunate for me that I live in the neighborhood Furniture Central, Steinway has so many table shops, good stuff, junk, and so-so. You have to have a good eye. The prices are another story. I’m convinced there’s a black hole parked between taste and tacky. Prices not commiserate.

I’m not cheap, but I’m not willing to plunk down a month’s rent for gaudy or impractical. When I veer off onto a side street and see a piece I can imagine in my bedroom/office I poke my head in the shop to inquire on the price. Nobody. I could sweep the desk off the sidewalk and be on my merry way. My bad back is my conscience for the day. I rub my hand over the flat top. Pretty smooth. But, it’s a street model.

A middle-aged man in an ill-fitting fishnet cap and fleshy ears walks to the desk. He has handout written all over his grimy face. I stand my ground.

“Nice desk,” he says.

“It’s ok.”

“How much?” he asks.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

He scratches his fleshy ear and lopes into the shop. At this point, I say to myself you’re not horning in on my desk, bub. When I make it into the shop he is already sidled up to the counter, but there is no attendant to wait on him.

Two can play at that game.

“How much would you pay?’ he asks.
And there’s no way I’ll let him bait me. “You first.”

“Strong pine, last you a long time. Seventy dollars.”

I do a quick mental calculation to make sure I have enough cash on me. My fishnet-hatted foe probably only carries sweaty bills and this place doesn’t look like it takes plastic. When I figure I can beat him by twenty-odd bucks, if the bidding were to go that high, I make a kind of smirk.

Then a skinny kid comes out of the storage room. Finally, we’re going to get a little service around here.

“It come in tan or you like burgundy maybe,” the man says.

“Excuse me?”

“Yuri, go bring burgundy piece for show.”

The skinny kid ducks back into the dusky storage area and then it hits me that this clown is the owner. Somehow I feel more embarrassed for him and the flat beak of his cap that makes me think of a duck-billed dinosaur.

I take two crisp twenties and a crinkled ten out of my pocket.

“Fifty bucks.”

“Strong wood. Yuri carry it for you home and put it together, seventy-five.”

“That’s ok, I can take it myself.”

“Sixty five, we tie it up neat to the roof of your car.”

“I’m walking.”

“You’ll hurt your back.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I take the initiative, put the fifty bucks in his hand. He looks at it briefly as if I’m giving him quarters for the laundry, but then accepts it. Yuri takes his sweat ass time finding the box. They were out of the tan so I settled for the burgundy.

The whole way home, which although wasn’t technically far but it was sure as hell awkward, I reminded myself that I had to put the desk together. And though my back ached, my knees and thighs were bruised from trying to prop the box upright, I had this sweat moment of triumph coming to me. I hadn’t put anything together in as long as I could remember. What better way to get a creative boost than to build my own writing desk.

A Sliver of Turturro

2009-10-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

Back in August, I posted about bit players I noticed as guests on sitcoms. This is sort of a hobby of mine, but today I feel compelled to share two minor parts played by John Turturro that I just discovered. I'm a big fan of his work. He covers a wide range: grandmaster chess wonk in Luzhin Defence, pizza parlor primogenitor in Do the Right Thing, newfangled celluloid writer in Barton Fink, Herbie Stempel in Quiz Show.

When I saw Turturro in Desperately Seeking Susan, playing the part of cheeseball MC Ray I was surprised. It's been quite a while since I've seen the film. And, unlike Barton Fink, starring a more mature, painstakingly brooding Turturro the cheeseball MC had a touch of the actor's unmistakable flair. By voice he is recognizable and you can't forget his face.

I also caught a glimpse of him haggling Woody Allen in Hannah and Her Sisters. If you are not acutely attuned the glimpse is missed. It's towards the beginning and during a madcapped scene of merging and diffusing throngs. Turturro plays a young writer who stops Woody for maybe 5 seconds. There's only a peripherally view, but a good shock of John's curly locks.

I did a quick scan to see some other films I haven't seen him in, mainly recent ones. Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. I won't catch either of those though I was nuts about the toys as a kid. But, I might be on a lookout for him on Flight of the Concords or on a Monk rerun. I'd love to see him teamed up with Tony Shalhoub.

A Glass of Mastroberardino

2009-10-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

I have a proclivity for wines from southern Italy more so than their more famous Northern regions. I think it has something to do with the volcanic soil. Aglianico is king among the southern Italian red varietals though I have had many other pleasant quaffers.

Piediroso may not be a household name unless your house is somewhere near Campania or Apulia. Recently, I had one of Mastroberardino’s entry level reds, Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio. I hasten to pigeonhole this wine with the unflattering moniker, but I'm going strictly by price point. Mastroberardino has great depth in his portfolio, nevertheless, as price points go, the Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio is a bargain. It doesn’t have the complexity as say the Taurasi, but then again the Taurasi is predominantly Aglianico. Think of the Lacryma Christi as the introduction to Villa dei Misteri which hails from Pompei and is comprised of 90% Piediroso and 10% Sciascinoso.

Lacryma Christi is made up of 100% Piediroso. The wine is redolent of violets and undergrowth. You see these descriptions all the time and say to yourself “what are kidding me?” but this wine smells like somebody’s garden. It doesn’t carry the whiff of industrial-strength fertilizer or chemicals. It’s pleasantly bitter on the palate enough to know there is a balance between fruit, acidity, and only an insouciance of tannin.

Drink it with fennel-encrusted rack of lamb or fried eggplant.

Pysanky

2009-10-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Pysanky are Ukrainian-stylized eggs. A wax resist method or batik is used to decorate the eggs and a special instrument called the kistka etches the design.
They are usually made for Easter, but folk artists make them all year round. Some have extremely intricate patterns. Most have designs of animals, wheat crops, flowers, trees.

Their origin comes from a myth in which the egg is symbolized as the source of life. Though Christian Ukrainians adopted it by 988 AD (with the rise of Christianity) the pysanky had a long illustrious pagan tradition.

Iryna Bilianska from the Sokol region of Western Ukraine used an embroiery pattern on her pysanky. Hers are more floral-designed than my mom's. My mom made many with deer patterns, trees, and interwoven geometrical shapes. We had a china bowl full of eggs many years ago, but our cat tested her soccer skills with virtually all of the ornaments in that bowl including a few treasures my grandmother had made.

Helen Levitt

2009-10-01T19:22:00.000-07:00

A small tribute to Helen Levitt hangs in the Met’s halls en route to the Contemporary art wing. Her photographs capture the kinetic charm of the city’s urban landscape. There's an influence of documentarian geniuses Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans although Levitt has less edge, focusing on urban youth in all its free-spirited glory. One of her standout shots is a Mid 40’s picture of two adults and a child stylized into a kind of totem pole. The woman stands tallest has a slack mouth and peers toward the east probably Uptown. The darker-skinned, chunkier man wears a stern look and faces the opposite way. Below him, is a messy-haired child in dreamy, yet frazzled consternation. The boy gapes in the same direction as the woman. His vantage point both physically and chronologically lower may hold the answer to what has grabbed his attention.

Notice the mimetic play of frames within frames in the first shot. The theatricality comes purely from the children (subject's imagination) rather than the artist.

Wonderboy, An Elegy

2009-09-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

There’s something marvelous and sad about Roy Hobbs’ bat. Made from a tree felled by lightning, it is the symbol of the slugger’s youth, his promise, and his fragility. He carries it around in a bassoon case, which is Malamud’s playful touch. People who run into Hobbs find it funny to see a strapping man, such as he is, schlepping such a poindexterish item.

He is so fixed on the bat’s talismanic powers he refuses to hit with anything else. When Pop Fischer forbids Roy to bat with it, Roy is miffed. He’d rather sit on the bench than part with his hand-carved love.

During that long slump “Wonderboy resembled a sagging baloney”. Roy is trying to hit a home run for Mike Barney’s son, the poor chump whose little boy is dying in the hospital. “How could he explain to Barney that he had traded his kid’s life away out of loyalty to a hunk of wood?” Loyalty is not the slugger’s Achilles’ heel, but rather his foolish pride and his desperate need to impress those who matter least. He is so blindly devoted to impressing others he never saw Harriet Byrd’s silver bullet firing his way. Hobbs is a tragic, Grecian figure. His lot seems to be irrevocably chosen. You’d almost wish he had a touch of Machiavellian wit to dodge both these silver and metaphorical bullets.

“The Natural” does not end happily as in the Robert Redford Tri-Star version. The fallen hero Hobbs waits until the angry crowd has left the stadium before he ventures into the outfield to bury the two remaining halves of his faithful bat. He is so grief-stricken, cannot bear to see his Wonderboy split asunder, he removes his shoelaces and ties the wooden shards together. He “wishes it would take root and become a tree.”

A great whim, and Malamud lets Hobbs consider cupping his hands with water as a last solemn gesture when Hobbs realizes the water would merely spill through his fingers. And yes, his youth, his chance at greatness, it all has slipped through his fingers.

O Captain! My Captain! Special Dedication to William Safire

2009-09-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

I need to credit William Safire for reintroducing me to the essay style and giving me a deeper love for words.

When I was nineteen or so, and not the least bit interested in academics but in acting, I developed a penchant for William Safire’s “On Language” column. He had a pedantic yet charming way of delivering his weekly etymology, but I quickly fell, platonically in love with it. I had a so-so vocabulary because I didn’t take my SAT prep all that seriously and was still bearing the brunt of it, two years after I had dropped out of St. John’s University. I wasn’t perceptive to the word maven’s political slant, although I was catching onto his colleague Anthony Lewis— I had a literary rebirth in the nineties.

When enrolled in the City University system, I remember taking an English class with my first Ph. D professor. We had to keep a daily journal and write on random musings in a similar vein to the loggings I pen in this blog. I tried my hand at topical discussions, but seemed to return to the historical pedigree of words. When I arrived at Hunter College, in the Summer of ’95 and took a course on the Greek and Latin Roots of English I was hooked— lock, stock, and barrel. I relished the backstories, the meandering traces of words: Oedipus means false and that dungarees comes from Sanskrit. P.O.S.H, for example, is an acronym that means port side out starboard home. I grew, perhaps, unhealthily smitten with footnotes and wanted to sneak words from five continents into 300-word essays. My grammar was never my strongpoint, but unbridled creativity ensued.

One professor I had wrote on my paper, “You have one heck of a nimble mind, but you spend way too much time going off into tangents— stick to the meat my friend.” He also thought I tried too earnestly to outdo Chekhov. My paper was on “The Lady With the Dog”. Sorry to say my paper came up a wee bit short.

Back then, I was merely developing a taste for prose, but was really digging essays. I didn’t have all the key building blocks in place to osmotically appreciate stellar fiction simply by flipping pages. After I’d been reading for many years, and after I’d realized how truly difficult it was to craft great sentences did my preference for fiction flourish.

To this day, I am still motivated to write fiction based on real-world happenings: current events, obits, natural disasters, genocide, the absurdities of office life, all of these things drive my prose. Today, I’d like to bury a ballpoint pen for Mr. William Safire, the talented speechwriter, columnist, instigator of the famous 1959 “Kitchen Debate” between Nikita Khrushchev and Vice President Richard Richard Nixon.

Here’s to you Word Wonk.

Banned Book Week

2009-09-27T20:26:00.000-07:00

Don't know how you are celebrating Banned Book Week, which technically kicked off yesterday, but it might be a good idea to explore your subversive side. I am going to pick up a copy of "As I Lay Dying" and "Fahrenheit 451". The former is a Faulkner classic and the latter is Ray Bradbury's tour-de-force that tackles censorship and book-burning.

My interest is of course aesthetic, but I do admit to getting fired up by the notion of reading books that are supposedly inappropriate. I will savor these two literary morsels, but I am not speed-reading to have them completed by week's end. In fact, I just might be adding Ginsburg's "Howl" to the list.

Buena suerte!

The Curious Bathroom Incident

2009-09-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

(This piece first appeared in ken*again back in the Fall of 2006)

“But that still doesn’t explain why you treat your dad that way,” Laurie says tome.

“Well, it’s hard to explain,” I say, snapping the spaghetti into the pot.

We have one of those tiny pots that long spaghetti won’t fit into unless you snap it in half. Usually I cook the bottom part first then whip the top over so that we have long strands, but she had me flustered with all the questions.

“There’s only one way I know how to explain it,” I say, “But you have to
promise to let me tell you the whole way through.”

“Here we go again,” she says, “Just make sure you don’t skimp on the
sauce.”

Laurie thinks I’m a monk the way I prepare things with such shameless
simplicity. She even bought me one of those brown robes, with the hood, it
hangs in the bathroom, but I won’t wear the darn thing; instead I use it as a bathmat.

“You see, my mom stopped seeing her best friend after she accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom.”

“I thought you were going to tell me why you’re so mean to your dad.”

“I’ll get to that part, but I can only tell it this way. Can you hang in there?”

“What do you think?”

Laurie had a legitimate gripe. If she was going to become an official part of the family she needed to know the peculiarities that made us the Newtons. She already knew some of the things that made us tick, which is why she still wore dresses when visiting my folks for Sunday brunch and made the effort to talk about quilts and evening bags with my mom and listened to my dad’s war stories with a straight face, even while I tickled her thigh under the table.

We’d been living together for three months before we got engaged. We really hadn’t a clue what the other was like because we had diametrically opposed work schedules. She worked the graveyard shift for a string of law firms because she made more money that way than doing her proofreading nine to five. I was still subsidized by my folks as I was finishing up my Master’s in philosophy,something that had taken three years longer than it should have. Laurie took the late shift hoping that she’d never have to see my mom dig out a handful of bills from the cookie jar when we visited them.

“It all started when my mom and her friend Molly, you know her, she’s the one who keeps thinking you’re Audrey Hepburn’s kindred spirit.”

“The one who has the beach bungalow in Ocean City, but never goes” Laurie says, “so why can’t we crash there?”

It’s true Laurie bares an uncanny likeness to Audrey Hepburn, specifically from Roman Holiday, only Laurie’s skin is bronzed, but like the star her hair is pinched back to the top of her head and it doesn’t muss as she dices the vegetables without making a peep.

“They were exchanging Christmas presents, in the middle of August, because they hadn’t seen each other in a while. It was their birthday week too. You could say they were killing a few birds with one stone. They always told each other exactly what they wanted, clipped out pictures from catalogues in fact so that nobody was disappointed.”

“Sort of takes the meaning out of Christmas, don’t you think?” Laurie
adds.

“It’s not as if she gave me my presents in August.”

***

Molly grew up in the very same tenement as my mother on the Lower East Side
of Manhattan. Long before it was trendy. Their building was full of Slavs.You could smell stuffed cabbage and polish sausage from blocks away. The Italians lived mainly below Third Street where mom preferred to do her dining and she received several invitations to Molly Cabella’s whenever her lanky brothers had early evening baseball games. When the Cabella boys were home, food was rationed for everybody else.

Back then kids lived for the summers cracking open the fire hydrants. My mom was a tomboy, who in her day, could rip a Spaldeen two and half sometimes threes sewers long, armed with a stickball bat. I found that hard to believe since she’s only five foot two in pumps. Molly corroborated all the stories, but then again they’d told them together, God knows how many times, so how could you be certain what was fact from fiction. They also loved to go to the local dances.It’s hard to believe they went to Webster Hall, but back then there weren’t any fire-eaters, stilt-walkers or cage-dancers and there certainly wasn’t any Techno or Tribal music, they played Polkas. The crowd was Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and all those other former Soviet sausage-eaters.

If you saw Mom and Molly together you’d think they were sisters. They hated their own so much they pretended to be real ones. One day they even pretended to cut their wrists to become bona fide blood sisters, spreading ketchup allover their wrists. My grandmother freaked out. No wonder I have such a warped sense of humor.

Now, my mom had what she happily referred to as staying power when it came to holding a grudge. When her sister Tanya didn’t intervene when Laurie, who was just my girlfriend at the time, was stripped of her bouquet at my cousin’s wedding, mom didn’t talk to her sister for three years. Mom didn’t know Laurie for more than two hours and already she was fending for her honor. This impressed Laurie, but it was the principle that mom was after.

***

The fact that Molly happened to be naked from the bottom down when my mom walked in wasn’t any big deal. Although, if it had been the other way around I’m sure that mom would have had a conniption. The great horror for my mom was seeing the strips of tissue festooning the toilet, acting as a makeshift seat cushion. The implication was deplorable. This was what you did in a public restroom, but in my mom’s house this was unfathomable, though I’m quite sure she did this wherever she visited, including relative’s homes, especially her sister Tanya’s.

Six months after the incident, mom saw Molly haggling with a fruit vendor. Molly was known to pull a scam on fruit vendors that involved a thumb-thrust till she punctured the melon or whatever she wanted for half price. She had about a ninety percent success rate. For that reason mom wouldn’t go food shopping with the woman, but she didn’t drop her as a friend because of it.

Window shopping was their big thing. They could waste whole days loafing outside windows admiring the displays, imagining the glistening jewelry on their fingers, fancy outfits hanging in their closets. The only thing mom preferred more than window shopping was going into those fancy shops and buying a thing or two. Molly wouldn’t set foot in Bergdorf’s or Bendel’s; it was too intimidating for her. So she waited outside with her mustard-drenched pretzel. She was always surprised when my mom came out with new toys, when she herself couldn’t even make it past the sales assistants.

Mom was in her shining glory whenever she led the sales people into believing she was a wealthy customer. She had it down pat. I know firsthand how she rejected certain items, not her style, wrong for her skin color, fragrances that were too cloying or simply outmoded.

This time however, Molly wasn’t smushing any fruit, she was instead eating a Golden Delicious right from the cart. The whole situation was flummoxing. How could she chew away at an apple, straight off the cart, from a sniffling vendor with cruddy fingernails? She chomped away without a care in the world, without even wiping it down with a Wash and Dry.

Yet this very same woman, best friends with my mom over decades couldn’t sit on her toilet seat without covering it with tissues. There had to be a good explanation for it, but mom didn’t care to know. The same way she didn’t want to know why my Aunt didn’t intervene when my Laurie got stripped of her bridal bouquet.

Instead of asking her friend or even chastising her in front of the fruit vendor she just passed on by and I nodded my head to Molly who had that kind of expression as if her feet were being trampled by an elephant but didn’t want to make a fuss.

When we got home she blamed my dad for not fixing the lock on the bathroom door, which was always coming off anyway because it was one of those cheap screw-on jobs the ones you might see lurking out in the woods attached to a wooden slab of an outhouse.

“I can hammer it in but it’s just going to pop back out,” dad said, with anail pursed between his teeth.

“You can’t do anything right,” mom said.

“Here, then take a crack for yourself.”

Dad pretended to lob the hammer in mom’s direction, but she made a fist.

There wasn’t anything for me to do but laugh. To tell you the truth I got a terrible charge from watching them bicker over stupid things like that. It was funnier than any of the comic books I read and if I played my cards right sometimes I was able to shake both of them down and get some new toys or stay up later than I was typically allowed to.

In the middle of dinner I noticed something peculiar. It really never dawned on me before, but as dad unsuccessfully jabbed at the string beans on mom’s plate because she kept pulling it away I got to thinking that my mom had her own kind of cootie consciousness. Dad stopped trying after a while then I pushed the soda bottle in front of my plate so that he wouldn’t breathe on my food.

When he was done and it was only my mom and myself I couldn’t keep from asking her.

“Why is it that you won’t let dad eat off your plate?”

Mom made that craggy face of hers the one she usually reserved for garbage detail whenever my dad and I fled the scene. She held the salt shaker mid air and I could almost hear the pistons turning in her head.

“It’s, I don’t know, just one of those things.”

“But you kiss him don’t you, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, I know I joke around with him, not to breathe on my food, but it’s all just a game.”

***

Two days later Molly was back over the house for tea with my mom. The two of them were carrying on as though they were still both a couple of schoolgirls.It was nice that she accepted her friend again, it was less of a burden on me so I didn’t have to feel guilty whenever I said hello to her on the streets.

Mom still wouldn’t let dad eat off her plate so I guess I overcompensated by leaving the soda bottles and milk cartons off the dinner table so that dad could have an uncluttered view.

***

“I hate your mom,” Laurie tells me, “that’s it, no more brunches!”

“Be reasonable,” I say.

“I am she’s not. To think with what your dad has to put up with.”

“Believe me she puts up with plenty too, it’s just, people are weird.”

“Ugh, you’re so like your mother.”

“Take for instance the way you always stick your tuna fish in my face when you know I hate it.”

“But that’s silly because it’s delicious.”

“To you, but to me it’s yuck. You never use my toothbrush, even that time yours fell into the toilet bowl.”

“Sharing somebody’s toothbrush is disgusting.”

“We all know how far our slippery slope slides. It doesn’t make us bad people, just people.”

I do the dishes with a bit of a smirk, because I hate to do them. Laurie winces noticing the rubber gloves draped over our diplodocus-necked faucet. No cold water again just molten hot.

Gorilla Marketing

2009-09-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you know me on a personal level you know my passion for primates, and especially for gorillas. Though they are not as closely related to us as the chimpanzee, I have always had a special affinity for them. As a child, I had the delightful pleasure of being welcomed into my room with a smile from the great brain of the jungle. My mom had painted an image of a lowland gorilla on the door to my room and when I had the lights turned off and my eyes adjusted to the dim glow I felt as if I too was hidden in a canopy of rain forest. That image has never been painted over and is on permanent view as you enter what is now my dad's den.

I think I've always been drawn to the gorilla's eyes. They are so human, and filled with great longing. A gateway to our past.

Today, I've decided to use the bully pulpit of my blog to offer a suggestion. If you haven't done so already please make sure to vote on magazine cover of the year. This seems like silly whim, but really it says a lot about our society. There are a few interesting choices amongst the myriad of feckless images that seem forever recycled through our unfortunately low-brow culture. I don't say this as a blight on the readership because I believe there are a great many splendid minds craving quality. My potshot is directed to the media who ceaselessly tries to hammer their insipid celebrity-gaga agenda onto us.

I'm merely sharing my choice with you gentle reader. Go to Amazon and make your choice. One lucky soul will win a Ten-thousand-dollar certificate-- that's a world of great literary possibility. Make it your own.

Doctorow in the House

2009-09-22T21:13:00.001-07:00

During a radio interview the other day, Leonard Lopate described the Collyer brothers as “upper crust packrats” and E.L Doctorow quickly interjected, as he did not like this description. His whole purpose for writing “Homer and Langley” was to breathe new life into the Collyer’s story. Whereas so many of their past accounts have gone into excruciating detail over their death, Doctorow celebrates their life, has elevated their status into the mythic realm. What struck him as horrific were the police reports from the 40s, how they hacked their way into the townhouse. Such vilification needed a human touch. Doctorow has always taken his well-earned poetic license along with him into his historical fiction forays and many critics are calling this one of his masterpieces.

I had the good fortune of watching him read the other night at Book Court, in Brooklyn Heights. Doctorow stood at the podium like a poet from a bygone era, delivering a lodestar of a eulogy. He bore a certain resemblance to Craig Lesley as he read. He started by saying that Brooklyn was a great place to give a reading with its rich tradition of scribes. “The Bronx,” Doctorow said, “Only has three of us writers that I know of: Dom Delillo, Richard Price, and me.”

He has a pleasant cantankerous quality about him like the know-it-all uncle waiting to share his treasure trove of knowledge if you are patient enough to bear with his circumspect delivery. He admitted that the end of the book crept up on him one day. He looked it over, hmmed to himself, and declared the story wouldn’t run any further. He got up from his desk, went over to the bar, poured himself a stiff drink, and celebrated.

When asked if he had done any research on the Collyer brothers he admitted to checking out a few pictures, but he didn’t want to pollute his head with facts and so opted for the mythic route. The opening line came to him, seemingly from out of nowhere, “I’m Homer the blind brother.” In the Lopate interview, the radio wonk was quick to point out to Doctorow how Homeric the sentence is and yet Doctorow didn’t even realize until he was halfway into the book. Great writers tend to bring the enterprise of literature into their own writerly junkets. The trick is to artistically pilfer so that your style shines through it.

In the past, he has also been chastised for stretching the boundaries of history to suit the needs of his narrative. But, let me just make this point clear, he is a fiction writer.

Hollywood has no problem demolishing the foundation of his stories to suit their needs. Ah, but that’s not the same as delving into history fiction. There needs to be some degree of verisimilitude. Sure but, what Doctorow is doing is taking an almost fabulist strand and running with it. Once upon a time, Dickens’ novels told a greater truth of the old England than the history books of its time and what about “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”. Am I creating a fallacy of slippery slope? Maybe. I just get tired of hearing idiotic gripes when the total effect of the work— its literary gestalt— should be the chief nugget of artistic evaluation. The words my friend, look to the words.

I am going to trust the scribe who depicts his reclusive anti-hero with “Lisztian hair” and can come up with a novel way for driving a Ford Model T into the living room. Leave the biographical notes for the academic journal.

The Brown Chair

2009-09-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

I credit Mrs. Klerkin, my kindergarten schoolmarm, with my love of people-watching— and I guess indirectly with my wanting to become an anthropologist. But, I’ll get to that later. Maybe.

Even in kindergarten, I was garrulous. I barbed with kids about anything. Lincoln Logs rocked building blocks. Matchbox cars smoked Hot Wheels. Han Solo for president. I had opinions on medicine and that the Shah of Iran was being a meanie to his people. Okay, so maybe I was parroting my parents, but a lot of the stuff I blabbered about was highly unusual for the sub three-foot echelon.

Mrs. Klerkin sent me to the Brown Chair by the corner. She wasn’t cruel enough to make me face the wall. The edict was more of a timeout than a punishment. I think Mrs. Klerkin thought I had a great smile so she wanted to keep a gentle eye on me. And I watched fingerpainting, nosepicking, checker-hopping, Crayola-snapping, and the mulligrubs of playing house, I must say, with greater zeal than when I was actively engaged in the activities. Don’t get me wrong I was nuts for playing and pontificating, but occasionally I needed that timeout, to rewire.

I remember spotting Andrew Pichinini trying to stuff a plastic triangle through a circle and thinking boy, this kid hasn’t got a clue.

The thing that strikes me most profoundly now is that when I was evicted from my chair I settled back into the thick of things, recharged, as if nothing had happened, whereas other kids returned from the Brown Chair sullen, blighted by their temporary removal from fingerpainting society. Maybe I was the exception to the rule, the Tephlon John of kindergarten. Then again, I didn’t have to sit in the Brown Chair every day. Sometimes I was so immersed in my farm scene collages and high on Elmer’s glue I couldn’t be bothered with being deported to the other side of the room.

What else can I say, kindergarten was a glorious bi-polar experience.

No Autographs Please

2009-09-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I was really into autographs. I loved the chance of stumbling upon a famous person and stopping them, dead in their tracks, to sign away their given name. I loved smelling the fresh-scrawled ink.

I got both John McEnroe and Jack Kramer’s autographs the same day while they were hitting some tennis balls at the National Tennis Center, in Flushing. Dad clued me in who Kramer was— the great champ. McEnroe, I obviously knew, but wasn’t a big fan. I was more or a Lendl and Wilander disciple, but I took both scribbled papers just the same. For anybody who knows anything about collecting, a paper signature is about the least valuable autograph you can find, unless you nab something really unusual like a personal check, an old contract, a stock certificate or the Declaration of Independence.

I have Andre Agassi’s John Hancock on an index card, Steve Garvey’s on a scorecard, Lenny Dykstra on a bat, Tommy Agee and George Foster on the same first baseman’s mitt, Pete Rose, Brett Saberhagen, Don Mattingly on 8 x 10 glossies, Ricky Henderson, Stan Musial, and Phil Rizzuto on separate balls, Craig Lesley’s book “Sky Fisherman”, Smoking Joe Fraiser on a ticket stub, Charles Schultz on an Illustration, and Lou Ferrigno— the original Incredible Hulk— on a promotional black and white photograph, before the show first aired.

I have many more autographs, but I could go on ad nauseam. I don’t really keep up with it, and yet I am not willing to part with them. Maybe I’m too lazy. Maybe I just don’t want to let go.

It’s a bit moribund appraising these items. Think about it, whatever price they fetch is kind of like saying what a share of their lives are worth. That’s not why I’m not into them now. I’m just not into material possessions as I used to be. And I haven’t gone Buddhist or Trappist Monk. I’m hooked on ideas and possibilities. And so far I haven’t found the material thingamabob that can hold them.

Oops there goes another one.

Seven Minutes in Heaven with Jonathan Ames

2009-09-21T17:55:00.000-07:00

This is as a good a time as any to mention my run in with Jonathan Ames back when “I Love You More Than You Know” came out. Groupies lined up to stake their claim in an autographed copy. I’ll be honest, I’d never read any of his stuff so there was no way I was going to impress him with quotes from his favorite author.

Sometimes I’m really sweaty-palmed and cottonmouthed when I am in the presence of royalty. Other times I can be a bit of a jackass. I’m not sure how we got on the topic of candy bars, but I filibustererd on lamenting the fact that Whatchamacallit was a dying breed. Find me a corner bodega that’s got a box of them and I’ll trade you my lucky rabbit’s foot. The point was I had unusual candy taste. I think Ames appreciated that. When he looked at the book in my hand “Motherless Brooklyn” he got a little stinkeyed. Wrong Jonathan! Yeah, I know, but Lethem’s my homeslice.

I had the itch to have him sign it, but didn’t. Then I went on about publishing in indies. I said it was fine for him to work with the Big Houses. He’s a household name for crying out loud. I wasn’t asking him to do an air violin for my schmaltzy spiel, but I wanted him to see where I was coming from. He tucked his arms to his chest and let his pumpkin orange brows scrimp.

“Go with your gut kid,” he told me, emphasis on the go.

That’s what he wanted me to do all right, but I didn’t take the hint. I mentioned Uncle Walt self-published “Leaves of Grass” and that Joyce got bounced around trying to place “Ulysses”. I’d be in fine company if I had their stick-to-itiveness and bald-faced determination or I’d be like a gazillion other schmoes with his book collecting dust.

I came to my own merry conclusion and when I stepped off the line I could see he was relieved. But, it was better to be bugged by my mellow yellow consciousness than to shove a manuscript in his face. There’s always those humps who try to push their crappy book on a famous author. Not me.

Before I left, I freshened up in the john. American Standard urinals lined the neutral gray wall. I have a short story in Nexus, Wright State University’s journal, by the same name. It’s about a janitor who wants to make the most magnificent toilet in the universe, a flush to be heard throughout the ages.

Who do you thinks putzes in when I’m taking care of business? The author kept his distance, three pisspots away. And then I breached restroom etiquette, sidling up to the Amesmeister.

“I’m going with your advice,” I said. “I’m sticking with my gut.”

“Great.”

“Yeah, I think so. I’ll keep you posted.”

I could tell he wanted me to get the hell out of there, but he went over to wash his hands. He wasn’t even rushing and took his time lathering the soap onto his unique lifelines. Before I knew it, we were in a handwashing showdown, Spaghetti Western style. I washed between the crevices of each finger, cracking a knuckle every so often to the mellifluous swish of water in the marble basin. He patted his hair with water on the sides until the wings slipped behind his ears. I bopped the soap dispenser for another splotch and rub-a-dubbed. I soaked my hands until my finegrs were good and prunish. He shook his hairy wet fingers and I dried my hands along the back of arms and elbows.

I made a false start like I was going for the door and instead grabbed a roll of paper that made my hands stink like butcher paper. Ames, clearly miffed, but relieved, shuffled off and I trailed, a few paces behind him.

We didn’t say goodbye, shake hands or anything, but I have to say if I never met him in person I’m not sure I’d ever pick up one of his books.

Barbaresco VS Stout

2009-09-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

[Hands by Martha, Photos by John]

I’ve been out of vino practice for a while now. I tend to go through cycles. I’ll admit that I enjoy a nice Hefeweizen for summertime, Sam’s Summer, Hoegaarden, and the plethora of Brooklyn Brews. Craft Beer Week just ended and I celebrated with a coffee-hopped stout from Tröegs, the toast of Harrisburg, PA.

Fall is a great time to get back into red wines, especially ones with bigger bodies. I don’t mean Napa obnoxious, I lean toward south western France. Today however, I had a Barbaresco from a producer I’d never had before. I’ve had luck in the past picking out pleasant surprises from this usually cost-heavy northern Italian commune. Now, it’s true that I nabbed one for under twenty dollars so what should I expect, and on top of that it’s from 2005 which wasn’t a bad year (stellar for Bordeaux) but one year past Piemonte's phenomenal six-year streak. I noticed somebody from CORK’d offered 95 points for the 2001 Morando. It would be hard to find anything truculent on the palate for that vintage.

I’m not big on numerical ratings and more on talking points. For me, this wine was a bit warm in the mouth— frankly, it tasted of alcohol. I purchased it from a reputable shop so I don’t think it was the provenance of the bottle in question. And it wasn’t because of lack of food. Martha prepared a gorgeous meal, pasta with fresh tomatoes and herbs, chicken cutlets with melted mozzarella di bufala. The tannins seemed very tame almost non-existent and the sour cherry flavor dissipated even as I held it on my tongue. The texture was thin, watery.

I’ll admit, I’m spoiled, but I wasn’t expecting Angelo Gaja or even De Forville. I just wanted a trace of smoky bacon, a spoonful of viscosity. Even the nose was glib, short, nondescript. I returned to my Java Head to refresh my mouth. There will be plenty of bold reds on the horizon, maybe a Bruno Giacosa or better yet a Leoville Barton winding down the road.

And The Cold Mug Goes To

Brother Ron

2009-09-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

“If you have one friend in life you are lucky,” Brother Ron told us, cutting the volume to Meatloaf.

Class was held in the middle basement below the gym and above the furnace. We sat on threadbare sofas, springs a-popping and we chatted about the Sturm and Drang of adolescence. We had the quintessential Petri dish of personalities represented in my class. There was the Roy Hobbs wannabe, the Burnout with Santa Monica skater locks, the fresh-pressed, Windsor-knotted Statesman, the gifted Scientist or Unibomber (hadn’t figured him out), the Pianopuss, the Dweeb, and then there was me— the cleancut lollygagger. I hadn’t fully hardened into myself. That is, there were lots of things I wanted to be. I didn’t say much the first few sessions. I was still a transplant who started in Xavier before switching over into Molloy. Still, had doubts, but I couldn’t give up yet, not with the way my elementary school principal lobbied to get me in. Molloy had this kind of irritation about letting in those who rejected them as freshmen.

Brother Ron was an amazing soul. I never thought of him as a man of the cloak, but as a human being. I’d have to say he single-handedly transformed my sophomore year. Funny word sophomore. It means wise idiot. I don’t think I had the same stuffing as the fellows in my class. They’d already spent a year in Molloy. I was merely learning the ropes. And I wasn’t ready to admit I’d made a mistake dropping out of Xavier. Later on, I’d drop a lot of things way too soon. Looking at it now through my battle-worn eyes I can make these grand assessments, but then again I still hadn’t reconciled leaving elementary school.

I attended a small Catholic school in my neighborhood. I had the same kids in my class for eight years, with a few transplants and a few émigrés along the way. When you have that kind of continuity, a big change rocks your world.

Here I was listening to this man, Brother Ron, who to me, looked suspiciously like Barney Rubble and here he was saying that in all his life he only had one true friend. Any of us would be lucky to have the same.

The Burnout was quick to interject. He had six or seven Bones Brigade brothers who would ho-ho, halfpipe, grind innumerable stairs, and wallride the Holland Tunnel if given their druthers. He knew loyalty. Brother Ron nodded his head. He had a hint of that your full of shit look, but wouldn’t belt it out. The Statesman admitted he only had three solid friends. And the jock, the Roy Hobbs wannabe, said he had three good buddies and he and his cuz were so tight that he’d have to stick him into his batch.

When it came down to me, I kept quiet. I fussed with a string of lint on the sofa. I stared at the beautiful, circumference of rust within the popped spring. If I could sneak through it I was sure to find eternal salvation. But, I didn’t morph into a Lilliputian, I remained in my mawkish frame. The Burnout let me slide, so did the Jock, the Statesmen, the Pianopuss, and even the Dweeb. But, not Brother Ron, he pushed my button to the point where I had to say something.

“I don’t know if I’ve found my one true friend.”

There I said it. It felt like I gave birth to a geeky Godzilla. The fellows spared me any further pain. And Brother Ron flipped “Paradise by a Dashboard Light” back on the stereo. I had no idea what the connection with friends was to that song, but I felt like an open wound with lots of Hydrogen Peroxide. The puss finally dribbling out of me and I was blowing on it, hoping for it to scab.

Ode to the Beautiful, Wandering Mind

2009-09-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve always considered myself a lazy person, prone to daydream. If I’m pushed to do too many things I’m likely to do nothing, but if I’m given a little space to breath I go at my pace. One of my greatest worries is that whatever talent I have will wither and fall to ashes. But, after I read a recent study in the Journal of Cognitive Studies that actually purported the critical need for insight to have its breathing space— this excited me. It explains a lot. It gave me an aha moment.

I’m not a musician, but I love music. One of my teachers once said that I am more of a jazz improviser than a play by the sheet kind of cat. I have a natural disdain for linearity. I’ve always colored out of the lines. Partly out of sloppiness, but also because I have an alternate view of the universe cached in my brain.

I’m making a roundabout point, but that’s consistent with my improv kind of mind. You see, I sometimes need to let my head roam about aimlessly. My neurons seem to fire better when I’m playing a sport or doing something mechanical. I’ve always found great fun wiping down windows, rubbing Brasso into buttons, polishing silverware. Yes, I have my mom to thank for the polishing. As a kid, I saw her wiping down knives and forks. She didn’t freak out, thinking I’d spork out my eye, when I sidled over to join. No. She let me help her. Smart cookie my mom, using reverse psychology delegation. Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. She did see the benefit though because I built coordination and critical sensory motor skills.

More than that, I fostered a penchant for beauty. I wanted to make things shine. Joyce Carol Oates says there's nothing better, nothing more therapeutic than cleaning the apartment, a dazzling revelation from one of the most prolific writers of our time. I couldn't agree more. Believe it or not I've found an epiphany or two sniffing the lemony zest of dish soap when washing the pots and pans. I'm also drawn to writers and their characters that relish these seemingly mundane chores. Murakami's protagonist in "A Wild Sheep Chase" derives great pleasure from ironing shirts. This kind of plebeian delight rings true for me.

Ode to the beautiful, wandering mind.

Brooklyn Book Festival

2009-09-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

The Fourth Annual Brooklyn Book Festival was kind of a madhouse, but I mean that in the best way possible. I've been going since '06 and this year lines snaked around corners. No joke. Whether you wanted to check out readings or panel discussions in St. Francis College auditorium, the Courthouse, even the Community Room was jam packed. Okay I'll admit it, I didn't stick around long enough to hear Jonathan Lethem. He went on at 5 o'clock and I'd already skedaddled. I had to catch Del Potro and Nadal.

The big highlights for me were snagging free copies of Poets and Writers back issues (don't worry I'm waiting for my new subscription) and watching a fierce contest of name that author hosted by the National Book Critic Circle. Martha Southgate blew away the comp with 30 points. She took home a cool medallion.

I did have the chance to attend a panel discussion covering Literature in a Digital Age held in the Community Room. John Freeman editor-in-chief at Granta was one of the panelists and Maud Newton moderated. Basically, the Web 2.0 has fractured and yet at the same time connected us in a more profound way. Yup. During the Q and A an audience member asked how long it will take for the U.S to have Cellphone text novels like in Japan. Nobody wanted to touch the question with an Analog nor a Digital signal, but my feeling is this, even if it does get to that point, which it will- seeing as many people totally gaga over printed books and the writers and editors who love them too made me breath with a sigh of relief.

Wedgewood Made of Cotton

2009-09-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

My grandma won a set of Wedgewood plates at the movies back in the mid ‘40s. She went with Great Aunt Jen and two other friends to a double feature matinee. It’s not altogether clear what picture they saw. None of them are alive now to corroborate so I have to fill in the blanks. What I do know is that they saw a Joseph Cotton picture, but not one of his standouts. Something more of a B picture so obviously it couldn’t have been “Citizen Kane”, although Electra Theater showed that film every year from its inception in ’41 till the day it closed its doors in 1950. So the story goes Grandma, Aunt Jen, and the girls had been wearing out their welcome at the RKO Dyker on 86th Street. To put it mildly, they wanted a change of venue. Also, Electra sometimes played foreign stuff, Shakespeare, and artsy things. Plus, it was a few blocks closer to their homes. Except Aunt Jen of course, who trekked it in all the way from Jackson Heights.

Aunt Jen, the boss of the bunch, bought the tickets and doled them out. Grandma let her two friends take their stubs first. She took the last one and brought up the rear till the usher let them pass. After the first picture ended, some hokey Western, there was a brief intermission. A gentleman from the theater gathered the audience’s attention. He asked everybody to look over their stubs because there was a special giveaway. This was more or less par for the course, and how the houses packed them in. An old lady in a mint green sweater took home a train set. A middle-aged man in a scruffy corduroy blazer won two sets of shower curtains and a brass rod. There was one last giveaway, a set of eight Wedgewood plates.

Grandma’s eyes lit up when she saw the man holding the pink and white plate, a majestic scene of a castle perched beneath a brooding sky and tall fir trees, a lone moose in the foreground. She had eagle eyes and they were sitting up close. When she tuned into the winning number she cursed her losing stub. Her friend Lilia tossed hers on the floor. Nobody had claimed the plates and the blustery buzz of voices seemed to make the theater grow. When the man read off another number and it didn’t match Grandma’s she slapped the armrest, let out a sigh. Then she dipped down to retrieve her friend’s stub and to her amazement she had the winning number. Grandma leapt out of her seat. Lilia was stunned and Grandma held hands with her friend. But, Lilia didn’t budge. She scrunched to the back of the seat and the man on the stage repeated the number. Some people in front turned to see the commotion Grandma and Lilia were making. Aunt Jen glared at her cousin. “Get a move on,” she said.

Grandma insisted her friend take the prize, but Lilia insisted my Grandma go. Finally, they got up together and each took half. When Grandma stepped up on stage to accept the plates she said she felt like Carole Lombard. She’d never held anything so precious before a crowd of strangers. And for the whole rest of the movie her palms sweat. She worried she’d dump the plates off her lap and break them into a thousand shards.

She stayed though because Aunt Jen was in love with Joseph Cotton and if she had ever seen him walking down the street she would have stopped him right in his tracks and kissed him square on the mouth. When the credits rolled up Aunt Jen touched her finger to her lips, shushing her seatmates and Grandma’s thoughts took a leisurely drift onto an English countryside.

The Noble Ground Before it Shifts

2009-09-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

I didn’t make it into the city on 9/11. I was trapped in Queens. I’d had an unfortunate injury and was recovering— I also had very bad sunburn. I made it in the next day to see a dear friend. Ribbons of smoke were still visible from her apartment on West 10th Street. I gimped along with my cane, my left leg fastened in its protective boot. N couldn’t do anything, but laugh in her beautiful way when she saw me. She used to call me quasimoto, a little bit of everything, but I felt like that more infamous Quasimoto, the hunchback.

We strolled the old neighborhood: Tea & Sympathy where we relived London, Cowgirl on Hudson where washed down monster-thick steak sandwiches with Texas-sized Cokes, Bleecker Street Books, Magnolia Bakery, the brownstones on Jane and Charles Streets. We didn’t hold hands, but mulled over each other’s comments. If there was anybody in the world I could be perfectly still with and not have to say a word it was her, but I’m not sure how she felt nor did I want to ask.

People kept staring at me, at my beet red face peeling into something worse than a Halloween mask. I loped on cane-able, but was still woozy from seeing N.

“Why are they staring at us?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t. A guy passed by in a Kill Osama t-shirt. N and I both shook our heads. How the hell did somebody whip up a shirt like that— presto — in less than a day? It took 3 weeks to open up most of my mail.

When we stopped for a bite, I was helped to the table by the waiter. The manager came over, put his hand on my shoulder and asked if I wanted a pillow to prop my leg.

“Don’t go to the trouble,” I said.

“No trouble,” he said and snapped his finger. The waiter came back with a pillow and a bowl of M&Ms. N and I scooped a handful each and gobbled up before perusing the menus.

“Okay, what the hell,” N said, leaning forward. “This is so weird.”

“Nuts.”

She pinched her nose without her hands and breathed. She put her paper napkin on her lap as if it were fine linen then gingerly pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. And I munched on my M&Ms with my leg propped, feeling like an astronaut in basic training, my heart light as a balloon.

She raised her brows, giving me a clear view of her dark brown, polished eyes. I rustled in my seat. My knees locking at the joints and I had a terrible itch inside all that sweaty plastic covering my ankle. I wanted to leap up and shout it’s a miracle for no good reason. N saw my anxiousness uncoiling and tapped the table top with her lithe finger.

“Ohmygosh it’s you.”

“What about me?”

“They think you were there.”

“There.”

“Yes, there.”

“They think you slinked away.”

With that I crawled back in my seat. I would’ve ducked under the table, but the circumstances, the comportment of my body, and café’s roving curious eyes kept me in check. But, what I dreaded most I couldn’t avoid, what was on her mind. Even if we got up and left I’d know she would be thinking of it and sooner or later I’d have to come clean. She sipped her glass of water and put it down with a twist. She pressed her cherubic lips together and waited.

I didn’t have the answer why we’d split apart and wasn’t ready to go into it. I was barely able to share with her how I’d ended up fracturing my fibula, but I started mulling it over. She sat in delicate, unpretentious repose.

I flashed back a few weeks earlier to the day of pathetic accident. The circumstances surrounding it were terribly embarrassing. For years I’d been teaching tennis on and off, mainly on. I gave many private lessons, but I preferred group lessons. It gave me a small crowd with which to play for. I was still somewhat active in tournaments, but had pretty much resided myself to the fact that I’d never make it onto the tour. N was going to watch me play in Luxembourg the previous summer. I had to pull out, last minute, because of a stomach virus. We ended up going to Paris. Maybe it was a sign then. Who knows for sure? In any event, tennis clubs and the occasional member/guest round robin seemed the great stretch of my career. Still, I managed to be a popular pro with a big serve and a lively lesson plan. I raced my students around the court as if they were being groomed for Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Juniors respected my game, but I think I made a bigger connection with the adults. Although I was one of them, twenty-something at the time, I was at that nebulous crossroad where I looked both younger or older and spoke as a sage or a sophomore. I had that kind of split personality. I called it being limber. I played doubles games with my students. Rushed the net and dropped back together with them for lobs. Move your feet fix your eyes I’d tell them.

Balls were strewn all over my court. They sat by the net and trailed out to the sidelines and lay scattered inside and outside the service box. Each time I bumped one I gave it a good soccer kick out of play.

On this particular Sunday, during an MTL (Metropolitan Tennis League) Clinic we had a larger than expected following. Usually 5 or 6 enthusiasts were assigned to a court which wasn’t such a bad ratio of students to pros, but with 8 on a court things had to move swiftly. A lesson had to have verve, blood, sweet, tears. That was the bare minimum. I threw in charm, chutzpah, a pretty smile, and maybe too many wisecracks. I also couldn’t help blasting a few shots for demonstration. The curse of showmanship courses through my veins. Sometimes I had the screwy feeling that it was more important for me to dazzle than coach.

I made my suicide dashes to tap back drop shots, my knuckles scraping the dirt. I parked myself dead in my tracks then let a ball glide over my head and raced it down. This was the cat and mouse game I played with my students, letting them believe they’d win, but when I needed to I revved up, charged forward, and eventually eked out the point.

My overheads rocked. Quick racquet drop behind the ear, a few backpeddle steps them wham— winner. Okay, I didn’t smoke it past them. Not all the time. But, I took bigger swings or made scurrilous grunts. The ball’s pace seemed faster than it was, a whirr of fuzz.

The eight ladies on my court copied my mechanics. Liz got it. She’d been coming to classes on a regularly basis and had her pivot and weight-shift down pat. Her knee-bend was so-so, but her timing was impeccable. Truth be told, I think she was taking privates on the side. We locked into a mini rally. Some of the new women were getting the hang of my workout. I was jumping higher, exaggerating my arm extension. One lob drifted over my left shoulder before I could get in position for it. My partner, who had the better angle, should have made the return. Not to mention it was her lesson. Nonetheless I called her off, made a leap and connected with the ball. Then I took a spill. An errant ball caused my flub and I sat on the clay for a few seconds. When I tried to get up I couldn’t. The court spun before me and a sharp bolt of pain knifed through my leg. I smelled sawdust and cheap glue. I almost, but didn’t quite hurl.

One of my fellow pros came to my rescue, crutched me over to the bench and I slapped back paper cones of water. My head felt flushed, my leg cold, and a swarm of players gathered by me. It was humiliating. Mehdi, one of the newest pros, said he’d heard the snap from over on his court. A blown ligament, he assured. A lot of rehab went with it. Somebody else told me it was a fracture. Who the hell cared for the semantics? At the moment, I was done. I’d never broken a bone in my life. I’d never had the measles. I had this odd, unsettling feeling that my luck was changing.

N and I walked off our meal. We didn’t care if we caught the traffic lights. We let almost everybody drive on by. We let couples pass us too. We watched people skeet by to the concrete island, as the taxis and SUVs blazed by, our grins widening as their shoes caught onto the curb.

“Just you wait,” I told her. “The witching moment will come.”

She knew I wasn’t fomenting ill will, mine is more of a cautionary message, a foreboding.

We never got to the breakup that day. There was so much other turf we needed to catch up on. We shared a Mr. Goodbar. She handed me the smaller crack. We didn’t mention the drinks we had at Windows on World, six months earlier. I made soft deliberate steps missing the cracks in the pavement. Until we said goodbye. Then my heart skipped as if it were about to race through traffic.

Sign On

2009-09-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

Premonitions are not my bag. But, today after a meeting with some fellow writers I’m having second thoughts. We meet every so often in a public atrium to give constructive feedback, talk books and that sort of thing. The acoustics range from lousy to nil. And it’s hard for us to bunch closely together since there are usually ten or so of us. We take turns giving a little spiel, trying earnestly to perfect the art of voice projection. It seems futile, but we are game.

As a passing remark to my fellow scribe Janet I said, “We ought to learn sign language?” She nodded her head probably to be nice. I’m often filled with random musings. Today’s session was a bit more challenging because we were forced out of our usual haunt to the madhouse, Sony Atrium which is like being trapped in an Olympic swimming pool sans water.

We took our turns, parroted dittos of things we liked or disliked, shared insights, and sometimes blanked out. Twenty minutes into the thick of things, Janet nudged me. I figured it was my turn to go, but she shook her head and pointed out a group cattycorner to us— they were signing. I’ve heard about orgs that are sign language fluent and gather amongst themselves and finger-gab till their hearts content. I’d never seen it. It was amazing. I watched and saw an exchange between two women. They flashed what I perceived to be the same sequence for about a minute. Were they having a communication gap? The sucky acoustics didn’t matter to them. Maybe it was just a hard night to focus.

Things couldn’t get worse until they did. A flood of red shirts poured in. They shouted and ran about. They tossed a football. It was like summer camp. Bedlam. By 8:30 it was damn near impossible to pay attention and I really felt like a cup of joe. The signers still eagerly flashed their signs. They sat even closer to the shenanigans than us. I wouldn’t swear by it, but I think they drifted from whatever their original conversation had been and blabbed about the disorderlies.

We’re not meeting for another two weeks and I’m already hoping we’ll get back the better, less nutso place. Here’s a thought. We’re writers. If we can’t hear so well next time— it’s inevitable— we don’t have to feel compelled to have signing down pat. There’s time. But, in the meantime we could jot our thoughts. Sit in silence, write out our thoughts and impressions and pass them around.

Summer Ends

2009-09-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

The end of the summer makes me a bit melancholy. Listless, balmy days gone by and tucked into the crook of fall. When I was a kid, I went with my folks to the beach a lot. Sometimes just for a dip and other times we’d barge in on friends who had a spot on the bay, out past the Rockaways. There were always kids my age for me to toss a ball with, fish off the pier, or ride the boogie boards Oceanside.

The thing I remember most about our visits to the Smiths was that we’d stay with them till dusk. Eggplant waves of sky shaded above the wispy trees. Crickets chirping a mile past the walkway and the air redolent with creosote. I kept picking at the charred burger on my paper plate and nursing sips of Yoo-hoo. I could have easily slipped off to whizz firecrackers through Coke bottles over by the dugout, where all the other pre-teens dwelled, but I liked it better with the adults. I felt like I was budding into a grownup.

Mainly, we talked about old times I’d never lived through, but was eager to hear more about. Hot dogs for a nickel, pony rides, parachuting in Coney Island, it all sounded like a brave new world to me. To them, it was a touch of nostalgia. Another topic near and dear to our hearts was “The Honeymooners”, a show I’d grown addicted too. The reruns ran past midnight, but they were all new to me and wanted to catch as many as I could. Channel 11 referred to some as the Lost Episodes. Whenever we visited I played the ham— belted out both Ralph’s and Norton’s parts. “Official space helmet on Captain Video.” “Can it core a apple, oh, it can core a apple.”

If my dad tried to get a word in edgewise I’d push my eleven-year-old weight as far as it budged. Kenny, my dad’s buddy, let me play Ralph to his Norton or vice versa, whatever I wanted. And Lonnie, Mrs. Smith, would bring me another Yoo-hoo, as if I needed another sugar rush. My folks would say it’s time to go (Chop, chop) but I’d hang on for dear life. My back pressed into the stretchy fabric of my director’s chair, refusing to slip into my topsiders.

The Smiths were fun, but I had this odd feeling, even as a snot-nosed kid, that they didn’t have much company. When it was time for the final goodbye they wouldn’t let us go. One more laugh, brownie square, there was always a long lost picture to share. Lonnie would pack a goodie bag for me, complete with Crackerjacks, saltwater taffy, Pringles, Swedish fish, and baseball cards. My mother would reprimand her for being too generous, but Lonnie quipped she didn’t have anybody else to spoil.

I never thought much of this until I got to about fourteen, awkward of awkward ages. I guess I was spoiled, but I was even more spooked by Lonnie’s need to treat me in her auntie way. We really didn’t get to see the Smiths that much, only once in a while. I know they wanted to make the most of it. But, in my mind it was getting to be too much.

Nothing tragic happened to keep us from getting together. Things change. I was glad to get my break from them. It wasn’t till I was college age that I’d missed seeing them. I even mentioned it in passing what the Smiths were doing for Labor Day. Since I was home for the holiday, I figured it would be nice if we crashed in on them. That’s how we usually did it. Sometimes we brought over cold cuts, coleslaw, and potato salad, sometimes just a pie or two. And so we did, one last time drove to the Rockaways. The place looked exactly the same weeping willow greeted us by the porch and I pulled open the rusty hinged wooden front gate. The smell of beach, burnt corn on the cob, and the last embers of summer filled the air. I scratched the few prickly hairs growing on my chin. For a moment, it looked like nobody was home. Then we walked to the back deck and there, in the back, tending to a barbecue pit was a tall middle-aged man, one eye on his basting fork the other eye on his scampering kid.

“Pardon the intrusion,” my dad said.

And my mom and I followed cue. We didn’t really need to know anything else. My dad would’ve said something if he wanted to, but he didn’t. I had my first craving for Yoo-hoo, I hadn’t had in years and I licked my lips. I tasted seawater.

We spent that Labor Day at the public beach. Sand in my sandwich and a warm can of soda in my hand. I watched a skywriter streak a dusty white message across the cloudless blue. I looked for traces of the past with my bright blue future pushing forever into the sun-flecked sea.

Men in Black

2009-09-08T18:09:00.001-07:00

Somebody did a study of all competitive sports and found that the red jersey was the most menacing. Teams that wore red had better records too. That’s all well and good, but it means zilch for tennis pros. Have you noticed the trend toward black garb? Living Legend Roger Federer has made it his signature outfit and has socked away quite a few commercials in his tennis tux attire. The ATP tour plays the “Imperial Attack” from Star Wars when Roger enters the stadium. It pumps up the fans.

Now, it seems like his comp is dressing in his style. More macho head games? Maybe. I’ve noticed that this US Open, more than any before, has more black-jerseyed baseliners. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Fernando Gonzalez both wore it for their fourth-round match today. Gonzalez edged the Frenchman, but is moving toward the Brobdingnagian black-shirted Argentine, Juan Martin Del Potro. Rising in their respective quadrants they might get a chance to put their punishing forehands to the test in a semifinal shootout. Gonzalez will first have to dump Nadal.

Roger still rides high in the top spot, naturally, he’s the originator. He needs to dispel the French Open Finalist Soderling. After that he’d dispose of Djokovic or Verdasco before tangling with any proshop copycatters. Not that Roger is worrying much. He’s already got his coveted 15 Slams. But, now he’s ignited a fashion fury. The workhorse has gone clotheshorse. He has to settle this last score as a matter of pride.

I’m feeling like that classic ACDC tune, which will remain nameless, would set the right mood booming throughout the Arthur Ashe sound system. Or if the match is more of a slugfest then maybe Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” would add better pomp.

Prediction: black-shirt in four sets.

Monkey See Monkey Do

2009-09-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

Does it bother you if somebody refers to a chimpanzee as a monkey? It irks me. And it’s done all the time. I’m not always sure if it’s intentionally, but I take it personally. Primatologically speaking, they are close relatives. The Old World monkeys are closer related to chimps. Baboons and the Barbary ape, for example which are both monkeys, do not have tails and neither does the chimp. They are from different families, genus, species, and so on. It gets a bit confusing, but what is simple? New World monkeys have prehensile tails that are used for hanging and swinging around.

One reason I suspect people call chimps monkeys is because the word monkey is apparently funny. This might ring a bell from the television programs, movies, and even magazines. I once wrote a letter to the editor at Details magazine to make a stink about their referring to a baboon as an ape which they are not, but they didn’t bother to print my quibble.

When we poke our heads in at the zoo I’d like to think our hairier cousins are having a bit of a laugh at us, especially at parents who tell their kids “Look, there’s a monkey” – when in fact its Pan troglodytes, the common chimp they are looking at. Maybe this is what prompts a chimp to spit out at the gawkers or let out lengthy, but syncopated pant hoot.

They know sign language, at least have the ability to learn the skill, they are very emotional, and if you looked up documented studies on them you would see they have had incidents of kidnapping, warfare, and rape. Bonobo chimps, Pan paniscus, the more gracile, more evolved version of the common chimp tends to walk around bipedally for shorts stretches. They are experts in foreplay and have quite a sexual repertoire. With all these distinguishing characteristics you’d think these dumbbells who gape at them all the time would want to pay their respects by calling them what they are— remarkable.

I’m not saying I want to be a chimp in the afterlife. I think maybe a rock star. I haven’t given it too much thought lately, but I have taken it upon myself to stand in as the good-natured informer.

Termite-eater doesn’t roll off your tongue, but it does underscore a favorite snack choice of the African ape. In fact, they make a tool to acquire their tasty treats removing all the leaves from a branch and dig their awl into the rotted bark of the tree and pull out the goodies. Yum. They suck’m down like Gummy Bears.
I propose Primate Awareness Day. This way all the apes, monkeys, prosimians, and so-called educated apes (Homo sapiens), can have a meeting of the minds. Long drawn-out conversations on world peace, global poverty, poaching, and primate trafficking would be optional. Mainly, everybody’s voice should be heard to prevent future misunderstanding.

Order in the court I say— that category sandwiched between class and family. Who knows how long we are going to be on this planet? Forever how long that might be we owe it to ourselves to get along. We wouldn’t want things to digress to the point of a Planet of the Apes situation, no matter how much we may have enjoyed seeing Charlton Heston tortured by the gorillas.

Multi-tasking at the Open

2009-09-04T23:11:00.000-07:00

My buddy Tomas had a special request. He asked me to do another tennis blog. So here it is.

I don’t know what your method for watching matches at the US Open is or if you’ve ever been to the event, but I have a particular modus operandi. It varies based on first week or second week matches. I take in consideration all the players I’d like to see, but also the ones I haven’t seen before. I’m also a big fan of unsung hero matches, the ones that don’t get top billing and are usually spurned to a distant court— far away from the concession stands and the restrooms.

In the first week, I tend to look out for newcomers— the fresh crop who might soon become household names. I prefer not to commit myself to a court. Court 11, for example, has a neat set of bleachers right behind the service line. There’s always crowd lined up to get their view from that vantage point. If you sit there you won’t have to twist your head from left to right to follow the path of the ball because you’ll have both players in focus, right in front of you. There’s also that slight problem of haven’t acquired the plum seat you won’t want to get rid of. Not on a single changeover.

I wouldn’t say what I have is ADD, but when I first at the matches I sometimes wander, get a feel for the tennis I want to see. I might stay for a changeover then check out another court. I might return. I caught a bit of a young American, Jesse Levine, playing Marin Cilic. Most of the crowd was behind Levine, the local. He had raw energy and raced down balls. His shots weren’t as pretty as Cilic and his serve wasn’t as solid, but I enjoyed watching him for a bit. I wasn’t ready to commit to the match just yet.

I trailed off past 13. I knew Juan Carlos Ferrero was there, and both bleacher sides were packed. I’ve never been a fan of his, but appreciate his spirited game. I’d get to him when I was ready. First, I trailed off to Julien Benneteau and Victor Troicki. I’d never seen either of them play, but knew of both. Benneteau had plowed through the first set and Troicki was throwing a tantrum when I got there. He smashed two racquets and got a warning from the chair umpire. I’d stayed for a bit and Troicki picked up his game for the 2nd set, but was still testy.

When I made it to Ferrero’s match he was already down two sets to love. I’m always impressed at the resourcefulness of fans who want to be where the action is. Some folks stand on the bleachers of the adjacent court. No shame turning their backs on the lesser match. Somebody had procured line’s judges chair, it sat unattended between the space of the next door court’s bleachers, it was practically whispering to me. I couldn’t disappoint. I got up on the seat and watched from a vertically-enhanced POV. Petzchner, the German, was giving the Spaniard a run for his money. Ferrero, from what I could see, was playing well, pounding his shots. Petzchner was cranking them with more authority and nabbing the lines. Ferrero managed to change the momentum and took the third set. Indeed, it was a good match, but I had other fish to fry.

I was in a bit of a pickle because I wanted to catch both Juan Martin Del Potro and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga which were going on simultaneously. Now the grandstand and the Louie Armstrong stadium are right next to each other, but the event’s organizers have made it more of a challenge to get from one to the other. Also, there are more fans to contend with, some who have a similar strategy as mine of catching many matches— that’s why so many of those grounds passes get gobbled up.

You can a little from both matches if you sit all the way at the top of Louie Armstrong and look over the top rail down onto the grandstand court, but then you see neither match too well. My solution was simple. I really wanted to see Del Potro and I was content to catch a glimpse of Tsonga’s play. Is this necessarily a good use of my time waiting on line to catch two seconds of a match? Well, I saw more than two seconds— only a few games, but Tsonga has electricity. He blasted a few forehands so I think that was worth it. Plus, I was already technically in the stadium.

The problem was all the reserve gates in Louie Armstrong were full. The ushers weren’t letting anybody else through without tickets. Oh, yeah, tickets. I’d forgotten that Armstrong had its own tickets. So an Arthur Ashe holder like myself couldn’t get a reserved seat there, but I supposedly had the coveted— more expensive ticket. I wasn’t even using it. Hantuchova had already blown through her opponent in Ashe Stadium. In the early rounds many of the seeded women had lopsided matches.

I opted to take the back stairs up to the nosebleeds. Del Potro’s match was underway. He and Meltzer were evenly matched. For the first set anyway which went to a tiebreaker. The first chance I had I snuck down as far as I could go. Then when I spotted another, better seat, I moved down farther. I was close enough to the grip changes between strokes. A bunch of Argentines chanted “Ole, ole, ole, ole— River” which is the cheer for the red-jerseyed soccer team from Buenos Aires. The Americanos abbreviated the baseline-slugger’s name to “Del Po”. Wasn’t crazy about it, but I was more focused on the lightning fast rallies. I also noticed that Del Potro had a little difficulty with a jerky ball boy. I think the kid was flustered too and kicked the player’s towel to the back fence instead of placing it on the platform that was reserved for it.

These are some of the silly things I pay attention to. When I caught Fernando Gonzalez’s match later in the day the chair umpire reprimanded Gonzalez’s opponent for taking too much time to retie his shoelaces. It actually was ridiculous. It lasted seven minutes. Gonzo twirled his racquet between his thumb and forefinger. He was about to do some juggling before Ouanna got up to play. There were a lot of stragglers who kept pushing their way to see the match on court lucky number 13.

Before the day was marked in the books I’d also seen Lapentti, Gilles Simon, Gael Monfils, two seconds of Tomas Berdych, and that other guy, the number two seed, Andy Murray. My first visit to Arthur Ashe so far this year. Like I said I tend to prefer the outside courts, but I never turn down a good ticket.

My Chess Grand Poobah

2009-09-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I wanted to play chess like Garry Kasparov. His mastery of pins, forks, and skewers excited the nascent pawn-pusher in me. I studied his annotated games, printed in the newspaper and stayed abreast of his doings in my Chess Life subscription. What impressed me most about Kasparov was that he treated chess as a sport— he cross-trained for it. I latched onto him before he was champ.

In 1984, Kasparov was a top contender vying for the crown. Anatoly Karpov was then the Champ. The rules of title matches were much different than they are now. Some head-to-heads turned into marathons and could last a month. The Karpov/Kasparov matchup of ’84 seemed like it was going to be a washout. Karpov was already up 4 – 0. The combination of 2 draws equals a win didn’t count for their title defenses so the wins had to be outright. Karpov only needed 2 more wins, but Kasparov hung in there and kept drawing. Seventeen in a row. The Champ could taste victory but it eluded him. Finally, in the 27th game Karpov won his 5th point. He only needed one more; the contender stuck to his guns. Five more draws followed and then Kasparov took a game. The dynamics had shifted. Frustration ensued. It was like Jake Lamada taunting Sugar Ray Robinson. “You can’t knock me down Ray.” Lamada was losing, but wouldn’t kiss the mat.

Kasparov hung on, the federation called the contest a draw, and the next year Garry would rise to the top of the chess world.

He paid homage to the Ancient Greek maxim, “Keep a healthy mind and body. In addition to sparring with fellow players and his computer-based program, he put together an intensive workout regimen that included running miles and weightlifting. He wasn’t planning to run the Boston Marathon or bulk up into Nikolai Volkov, but he was steadfast in his belief in keeping fit.

Kasparov was innovative. Whereas other players stuck to book openings that accepted classical chess wisdom, Kasparov shattered tradition. He was notorious for what is called theoretical novelties— strong moves that run against the grain of established chess theory.

I’d copy some of his lines up to a point then made my own variations. Sometimes to test the waters on moves I found intriguing, but other times, frankly, because I’d forgotten what to do in certain positions. Before I moved my own piece, I loved to snatch my opponent’s knight off the board and watch his look of incredulity. I’d make a slight pause to mess with his head then slide my bishop to the captured square. Was this a Kasparovian thing to do? Not really. His captures were handled with kid’s gloves, but the way he launched his attacks was genius.

When my chess club skittled we’d each play the part of a different Grand Master kind of the way jocks pretended they were different ball players. But, instead of choosing to see who would be Don Mattingly, Pedro Guerrero, Cal Ripkin Jr., Kirby Puckett, or Mike Schmidt we’d take turns being Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Nigel Short, Lev Alburt, Mikhail Tal.

Hak-bin, a third-grade wunderkind, would pick Bobby Fischer. He carried a paperback that had pictures of the great American Phantom King of castling. Hak-bin was good enough to be on the varsity team. He suckered many kids in my class with scholar’s mate— kind of a thumb-wrestler’s sneak attack, but for chess. He’d bag his opponent’s king in four moves. No remorse. His crushing tactics elicited a myriad of curses from glass-jaw opponents.

Mr. Kushing, our coach, collected quarters for bastard and shits and fifty cents for fuck and one dollar for the uncensored motherflower. The proceeds went for equipment: new vinyl boards, felt-bottomed pieces, game clocks, and sometimes for soda and chips.

Hak-bin and I had many draws like Karpov and Kasparov. This would’ve been fine if I was eight like he was, but I was thirteen, a foot taller and I had matured into a young man who carried a plain green Trapper Keeper instead of a bunch of Thundercats and Voltron folders. I had also moved onto paper bag lunches instead of the lunchbox and thermos combo.

Hak-bin’s mom picked him up after practice. I could see her pressed up to the classroom window, peeking in to see her four-foot-tall pride and joy. I could almost feel her boundless glee fogging the glass pane. Sometimes I was a coward and hoped she’d snag her boy when I was wallowing over a losing scenario. There I’d sit slumped forward, hands folded in prayer to nobody and jiggering thoughts whirring in my mind. Sweat dotted my forehead and I had this nervous bounce in my right leg. I crossed them, but that never seemed to do the trick. Hak-bin would wipe his palms on his trousers then bring his hands to his nose and smell them.

We’d sit like that for hours. The good thing about our practices was that we didn’t have clocks so we could take our time. The bad thing about it was that we could take our time. Without clocks we really didn’t prep ourselves for the true time-fleeting conditions.

During my college years, I phased out of chess. I played a few games here and there with friends or I logged onto a Yahoo Game Room. I allotted myself thirty minutes max. And I preferred two-minute blitzes.

Coincidentally, Garry Kasparov stopped playing. A bit later then I did, but still— he decided to tackle politics. Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, and Veselin Topalov would go on to rise to the top of the chess world.

Two years ago I had the chance to see Garry Kasparov give a lecture on Russian politics. He gave a decent canned spiel, but was underwhelming with his glib responses during the Q & A. I had a few questions about Russian politics and International Relations in general that I wanted to share with the audience. There were maybe two hundred people tops in the auditorium.

I wondered if it was better tossing out a question about the anarchical structure of global societies. I’d reading up on Hedley Bull. The other thing I wanted to bring up was the mysterious disappearances of journalists and elected officials in Russia. Three people revisited that very question. Each time I cringed because I knew I needed to come up with something good and time was running out. I imagined my red chess flag popping up which I hadn’t seen in forever.

A short man in a crumpled olive suit asked Kasparov what was his fondest memory when he competed in the Chess Federation. Kasparov pinched his left brow and said, “Let’s stay on topic.” Then he pointed to a young Asian woman in the front row. I forgot what her question was because the MC briefly interrupted her to say there would only be one more question, but that the lively banter would continue in the private room reserved for hors d'oeuvres and drinks.

For a moment, I went blank. One point 21 Gigawatts. I had this stupid notion that by the end of the night, I’d be able to call the Grand Master by his first name, Garry. I wanted him to think that even though he could wipe the board with me in chess in matter of politics I could hold my own.

Well, I never got called on during the open forum, but Garry was kind enough to wait a while on stage. A few dorks-on-the-pond lined up to bend his ear. Some people straggled onto line with canapé, crackers, a few slabs of gouda, and a glass or two, God help us, of Pinot Grigio. At least I had the willpower to take care of the business I had come for. Personal satisfaction. Ten minutes later I shook hands with Kasparov. It wasn’t a firm shake as I’d expected, but it wasn’t a dead fish either. He tucked his arms to his chest before I said anything, perhaps to mess with my head. Shock of shocks I proffered a bit of eloquence. I was too conscious of myself and I let Garry ponder my question. Less a question and more of an observation really. I had no idea what I said, but the vein above Garry’s temple twitched.

He offered a serious response and I nodded when he spoke. I was too excited. I was ready to jump out of my skin. And then a budinsky leaned into my comfort zone. I stayed quiet and Garry held his stoic pose. He offered his hand again. I was lulled by the fact that he’d taken his time to consider my political observation. I turned to leave the stage, my stomach already grumbling. And then I stopped short. A wild rush of words rolled to the tip of my tongue, what I imagined Tourette’s syndrome to be like. Gary’s eyes narrowed and I said it louder, what I thought I’d previously said.

“What if you played again?”

“No more.”

“You could use your political currency,” I said. “Like Bono.”

“I’m done.”

And he threw his arms out as if he were a spoiled brat refusing to play the game he was about to lose. I slipped off, dumbfounded, my head eight sizes too large and nowhere to hide it. I accidentally smacked into a piece of canapé. The cool greasy guck splotched onto my hand. I don’t know what made me do it, but I licked it off and kept walking. I waited a little while in the reception area but Garry never showed. I wondered how he left and if anybody else had flustered him or if he was so miffed by my remark that he stormed off stage. Probably not though. I’m sure one of the hosts would’ve had me escorted out.

I stood around, noshed. Really, I’d lost my appetite but I needed to keep my hands, my mind busy. I wished I’d never met him.

The Hermit’s Story

2009-09-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

Rick Bass sometimes gets billed as a writer of great landscapes, and an environmentalist to boot. He’s also been pigeonholed into the dirty category short story writer. That last one might have some truth, but his prose is stunning. His characters proudly wear their battle scars. In his collection “The Hermit’s Story”, survival is at stake, but the larger theme is fighting against the twofold nature: one’s surroundings and oneself. The natural environment lays the bones for this collection, but the characters’ interior landscape seems to be made up of the earth’s basic elements.

Bass limns the animal in us in “Swans”. Billy’s sense of smell seems primal, like a bear’s; he can smell Amy’s bread for miles. The narrator has seen people exert incredible strength, deep in the woods. Billy, the rugged outdoorsman, is fighting within himself to be as strong as he once was. Slowly, however, his inner fight whittles him down. Well-intentioned, he had been chopping down trees for years, putting aside money to buy his wife a piano. His good intentions are his Achilles Heel. Amy too is fighting nature trying to put music behind her, but it isn’t possible. She plays the piano and the swans huddle together, listening to her music as if attending a concert. The swans themselves, fighting nature, swim in tight circles to keep the lake from icing up.

The title piece “The Hermit’s Story”, is set on the Canadian tundra. It is the pinnacle of man against nature. Ann, a dog-trainer, sets out with Gray Owl to teach him how to work his huskies. It is grueling work, “sweat freezes on her like frozen skin,” but she is strong and determined. She could be a sculptor. She talks about the dogs “as if they are rough blocks of stone whose form exists waiting only to be chiseled free.” For six months, she had been training them to hunt and now she was about to hand them over to their rightful owner.

There is an accident. Searching for water Gray Owl falls beneath a sheet of ice. Ann is sorry for Gray Owl, for the dogs, but what bothers her most is that Gray Owl had the tent and the emergency food rations fastened to his backpack. With the blizzard approaching, she feared having to dive into the icy water after him, probably naked. She would freeze to death if she returned without him because all of the dry clothes and food was in his backpack. Turns out, he was below the dry lake, eight feet deep. They stayed down there for almost two whole days. The air was unlike any she had ever breathed before, a different essence. “It had a different density to it, so that smaller, shallower breaths were required; there was very much the feeling that if they breathed in too much of the strange, dense air, they would drown.” All eight of them slept atop one another for warmth, ice crackling above and around them. The next day Ann traveled underground with the dogs, lighting fires from time to time to keep warm. There was no true vantage point except for the fires that they left behind. Then she saw snipes. She hadn’t the faintest idea how they found their way in such a severe landscape— a great parallel between displaced animals and humans. Ann wonders if the snipes’ freedom is vertical rather than lateral as they all seemed trapped until it warms up which mirrors their own plight. This is what makes Bass such a compelling craftsman, the subtle, but poignant philosophical issues he grapples with are so vivid, alive, what a lesser writer would make strictly an adventure, Bass textures with acrylic depth.

In “Fireman,” Kirby plods through his flavorless office job only to come alive putting out fires. He is a volunteer, but is consumed by fire. He feels his shoes, his limbs blazing when he isn’t on a call. He longs to be inside burning buildings with his fellow volunteers their tunnel vision fixes on the helmets before them swinging their pikes around to feel each other, one giant heart ablaze. They push into burning buildings the way Kirby has seen bats dive down chimneys to save their babies.

The danger of fire is Kirby’s private miracle it keeps his marriage intact. “As long as the city keeps burning, they [he and his wife Mary Ann] can avoid being weary and numb.” His failed first marriage still troubles him. Sometimes he perches atop his ex-wife’s house wondering if he could have saved his marriage, he listens for her and his daughter’s breath. There is no such thing as a real rescuer. He knows fireman who have saved so many lives. All it takes is to lose one life, a child’s, and then one is ruined.

Kirby doesn’t think of himself as a hero, he has been trying to teach the raw recruits to fight fires with intelligence— bravery means nothing, it’s all biological to him now. The only way his wife can deal with all the scars on his back is envisioning them as stars in an elaborate constellation. All she sees are fires; she is just as consumed as her husband. When she goes to church and sees a baby being baptized she pictures the fireman hosing off a fire. She isn’t sure if there is greater power in setting a fire or putting one out. Her dreams blur, unsure whether Kirby is burning to death or being born, shooting flames like an iron being.

Bass’s stories are filled with that molten core.

Accelerated Reader

2009-09-01T21:44:00.000-07:00

I’d like to comment on Susan Straight’s essay in this past Sunday’s The New York Times Book Review section. It made me realize what a reward-conscious society we are. We’re driven by metrics. And it starts in elementary school. I understand the importance of establishing percentiles for math and reading scores. Children need to acquire basic competency in order to move along in their nascent educational careers. Regent exams will gear them for advanced placement and the SATs, GREs, LSATs, MCATs will hopefully prep them for life. If only it was that easy.

I’ve heard of Accelerated Reader before, but didn’t really know its mechanics. They use a software program to rank books by complexity and page total and spit out a number. That number represents the point score kids will chase to outrank their peers. There are prizes to be won too. Kids obviously want to gobble up books with the highest points and I’m not blaming them. What troubles me is the attempt to quantify something which is supposed to be a visceral joy.

A quick peek into titles showed me that Harry Potter piled on the points. Reading “Goblet of Fire” earns 32 points, “Deathly Hallows” adds 34 points, and “Order of the Phoenix” rakes in 44 points. Now, “Prisoner of Azkaban” only garners 18 points, but s does “Huckleberry Finn”. Startling as this may seem, Stephen Meyer’s “Twilight” earns just as many points as Twain's magnum opus. Software that makes these computations needs to be revamped. If the goal is to get kids excited about literature they need to read classics. Especially, ones that are lively, voice-driven that have inspired generations of writers— and readers.

How can you quantify a book’s worth? It’s a task I wouldn’t leave to a number, a book report maybe and for the precocious young mind a thoughtful critique. Focusing solely on the number squeezes the ethereal joy from reading great works. It makes me think of Oscar Wilde’s apt quote describing cynics, “A man who knows price of everything and the value of nothing”. Is literature about quantification, page numbers, word count? How does one measure the poignancy of sentence or weigh the emotional resonance of an image? I think there might be a fear in today’s educational community that children will one day lose interest in reading with all of the distractions out there.

There’s a great Bernard Malamud short story called “A Summer’s Reading” about a teenage boy who wants to read his way through the library. His neighbor is impressed and says that one day he’d love to sit down with the boy to discuss the books. Well, the kid doesn’t read as he said he would, but feels terribly guilty every time he passes his neighbor. Late one night, while the kid is loping through the neighborhood he sees his neighbor who’s drunk. The man gives the kid some change to buy an ices. Not necessarily a transformative moment, but it is for the kid. The weight of his own worries and a grave need to take personal responsibility and better himself overcome him.

I identify with this story because I was never a big reader when I was a kid either, but when the day arrived that I was engrossed in books I couldn’t get enough. The words, the sentences, the emotions that erupted in me from reading challenged and changed me. In my mind, ratings would have made no difference for me. Maybe I'm being a cynic. I don’t know if this is the case for all kids, but I truly believe that reading for a literary experience should not be grounded in the metrics of scholastics, but should lean toward the sublime.

Highlights, Day One in Flushing

2009-08-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

Shotmaster Roger Federer easily advanced to the second round with a straight set victory over American Devin Britton. Wimbledon finalist Tommy Haas made it through to the second round as did James Blake, Robin Soderling, and Tommy Robredo. In terms of excitement Turkey’s Marsel Ilhan put on a show on court 6 squeaking past stalwart journeyman Christophe Rochus 7-5 in the fifth set. The match of the day goes to Germany’s Simon Greul who outgunned qualifier Giovanni Lapenti (brother of Nicholas). Greul showed a lot of heart, but will have to pull off a miracle in his next match. He will face the world’s number one Roger Federer.

The bottom half of the draw looks menacing in terms of firepower. There’s Andy Murray, Raphael Nadal, Marin Cilic, Fernando Gonzalez, and Juan Martin Del Potro. Look for a Murray to square off with Nadal in the semis. Federer owns the top half. His main challenge will come from Roddick in the semis, but Roger will most likely draw Robin Soderling in the quarterfinals. The Swede will look to avenge his French Open loss. The edge goes to the all-time champ.

As for sentimental picks, I’d love to see Haas go the distance. Federer has already made history so each cup he claims now is merely gravy. Haas has never fully reached his potential what with all the injuries he has been nagged by his whole career, but this season he has been fantastic. It may be his last shot at capturing a slam.