Good speech tonight! I was intending to switch over at some point and play Wii tennis, but instead I made it all the way through your speech and a minute of Gov. Jindal’s until he made that “pre-existing condition” joke (very bad).
I even noticed Sen. McCain stand up and applaud when you talked about getting the troops out of Iraq, but then he growled some snide remark out of the corner of his mouth to Sen. Collins. If you have lip readers in the White House, maybe they can figure out what he said.
I do have one suggestion: have you noticed how most football games have stopped showing those long offense/defense intros, and instead just briefly show a graphic listing the players’ names, and sometimes not even the entire offense or defense? I was thinking that for your future State of the Union addresses, you could do something like that with the cabinet and Supreme Court, perhaps sending them in before network coverage begins and then employing a crawl at the bottom of the screen noting the “key players.” The thing is, I dragged my boys in to watch the first part of the speech, but they grew so bored and rowdy watching the likes of Stephen Breyer and Ray Lahood kibitz that we sent them off to bed just moments after you entered the chamber.
And while we’re on the subject of football, I suppose my one disappointment was that you made no mention of your support for a college football playoff. I applaud your stated support for such a change, and I can’t help but think that your opinion was solidified as you and the nation watched the gross injustice in 2004 when my Auburn Tigers were cruelly denied an opportunity to play USC in the national title game, a game that any fair observer would say Auburn would have won. Instead, we were treated to one of many recent Bob Stoops and Oklahoma choke-fests, rather than a gutsy victory by that great Auburn team led by Jason Campbell, Cadillac Williams, and Ronnie Brown. In fact, if Congress is forced to go the legislation route to right this wrong, I think nothing would be more fitting than to call the bill the Auburn Tigers 2004 Rightful National Champions Act.
On another subject, I wondered if you read about William Shatner’s intention to become Prime Minister of Canada. How cool would that be—hanging out with Captain Kirk at the G20 and things like that! I was shocked to learn that he is 77, but he seems a lot less aged than the aforementioned Sen. McCain. It’s perhaps fortunate that he’s Canadian rather than a native of some super-militarized state like Russia or the U.S., because the good Captain was always rather trigger-happy. It must be obvious to you now, though, that it is all the more imperative that you commence building the Enterprise before he gains power. The Canucks do not have the resources to draw upon as we do for such a project, but this is Shatner we’re talking about.
Your ardent supporter,
Lein Shory
P.S. I’ll lay off the autographed photo requests for a while, so as not to be rude.
February 24, 2009
February 22, 2009
And The Oscar Goes To, or, There's a Sucker Born Every Minute: Thoughts on Slumdog Millionaire
For me the Academy Awards are forever entwined with memories of playing with action figures in the family room as my mother sat and watched the movie stars roll in on television.
“There’s Cary Grant. There’s John Wayne. There’s Jimmy Stewart,” she would say. “How old they all look.”
There were no VCRs or DVDs or DVRs in those days, and not even an AMC or TCM, so not only did you not see Old Hollywood every day, but you rarely got to see the old movies; though you could often catch one of the old warhorses yucking it up on Johnny Carson, the Oscars were the one chance a year to see them all in their best digs and toupees. Back then, at my young age, I had no real awareness of any of those people, but their names possessed some totemic magic. The Oscars were something Important to watch on TV, like the State of the Union address or Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve. And at the end of the evening, a council of wise elders would bestow immortality upon a movie that surely deserved it.
Now not only are the last vestiges of Old Hollywood vanished, but most of the “stars” who show up for award nights are barely distinguishable from the celebrities on The Surreal Life. And of course most of us have recording devices, the Internet, and a multitude of channels, so these lesser lights are ever-present—and thus, lesser.
My childhood notions of the Oscars as sacred secular event began to crumble as I grew older and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark lose to Chariots of Fire, and then The Right Stuff lose to Terms of Endearment. Later still, as I delved into the great movies of old, I learned that Peter O’Toole had not won for Lawrence of Arabia (or anything else), nor Al Pacino for The Godfather Part II. Alfred Hitchcock never won. Oh, but Oliver! did, and Around the World in 80 Days, and then, much to my dismay, execrable crap like Forrest Gump. The Academy managed to award Paul Newman and Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese for lesser efforts, clearly to “make up” for past mistakes (though obviously O’Toole, one of the very best actors of his generation or any other, will most assuredly never win even if with his dying breaths he delivers a King Lear that endures until our sun goes nova). The Oscars are a simulacrum of meritorious honors, honoring simulacra. But hey, that’s show business.
Which brings me to this year’s winner. I saw Slumdog Millionaire at Ragtag Cinema, a nice indy/foreign theater here in downtown Columbia. Comfortable seats, good-sized screen, clear sound. Before or after or during the show, you can enjoy a glass of pinot along with sandwiches and desserts, no doubt made from organic ingredients. Catering to the type of people who consider themselves lovers of “film” rather than lovers of movies. Though it activates my reverse-snobbery sense, all in all it’s a very nice place, and I’m certainly in favor of its existence.
So my wife and I bought our tickets, and we sat down to watch what was all the rage with the indie set, and lo and behold, I discovered that but for its trappings, Slumdog is a perfectly enjoyable, perfectly conventional movie, and nothing else.
The character of Latika is completely two-dimensional; she’s a dream, a goal, nothing more. Freida Pinto, who plays the adult Latika, has little to do other than stand around looking drop-dead gorgeous, a task she performs admirably. At times she’s as breathtaking to look at as Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, or Catherine Zeta Jones in The Mask of Zorro, but profoundly less interesting than either. There’s no there there. Latika’s no more developed than Megan Fox’s Mikaela in Transformers, and that may be a bit unkind to Mikaela. The brother is just as flat; usually cruel and unfeeling, he manifests kindness and something like brotherly affection only at the right plot points; the first time is understandable, the second, inexplicable—other than, of course, that it’s the movies.
When protagonist Jamal finds his long-lost love, he conveniently—and almost instantly—manages to get close to her so that we can be treated to the following exchange:
“Come away with me,” Jamal says.
But what have you got? Latika asks.
“Love.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Rocky is more poignant. This is French Kiss territory, but more uneven; there’s a horrific scene early on, so terrible that it’s hard for anything else that happens in the movie to match it, and nothing does. After that point we’re hurled along a plot as preposterous as anything ever dreamed up by MGM, implicitly acknowledged by the dance number at the end. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; the point is, this is romantic fantasy, with the Mumbai train station as stand-in for the Empire State Building.
As I sat and watched, I couldn’t help wondering if many of the viewers around me would ever deign to watch a movie that revolved around Who Wants to be a Millionaire? but set in Los Angeles and starring Steve Carrell and Elizabeth Banks. Perhaps they’d catch it on HBO, or when it showed up on TNT, but they’d never see it on a Friday night with the Great Unwashed, what with the cell phones lighting up like fireflies across the theater and the floors sticky from old spilled soda. And yet if Slumdog were a software app, its “India”--would be a “skin,” easily switched out for “China,” “Brazil,” or “Egypt.” Or “New York.” Or “Tattooine.” But oh, how that “skin” does the trick. As Christian Lander might say, ordinary white people like Sleepless in Seattle, but really advanced white people like Slumdog Millionaire.
As I said, I enjoyed it. I didn’t feel I’d wasted my money, and that’s rare these days. Escapism has its place, and if I were to write off Slumdog for being escapist, I’d have to write off Raiders and The Guns of Navarone and Midnight Run, which I don’t want to do. I’m just amused—though not surprised—by how the latest rags-to-riches tale has earned its spot in the grand spectacle, and I’m rather confident that, once the sheen has worn off, Slumdog Millionaire will take its place alongside the likes of Titanic and Rain Man and the other curiosities that pressed all the right buttons at the time but for the life of us, we can’t remember why. It’s a fun little movie; we’ve seen it all before, and we’ll see it all again, but if we’re distracted for a few moments, perhaps that’s enough. Hey, that’s show business.
“There’s Cary Grant. There’s John Wayne. There’s Jimmy Stewart,” she would say. “How old they all look.”
There were no VCRs or DVDs or DVRs in those days, and not even an AMC or TCM, so not only did you not see Old Hollywood every day, but you rarely got to see the old movies; though you could often catch one of the old warhorses yucking it up on Johnny Carson, the Oscars were the one chance a year to see them all in their best digs and toupees. Back then, at my young age, I had no real awareness of any of those people, but their names possessed some totemic magic. The Oscars were something Important to watch on TV, like the State of the Union address or Dick Clark on New Year’s Eve. And at the end of the evening, a council of wise elders would bestow immortality upon a movie that surely deserved it.
Now not only are the last vestiges of Old Hollywood vanished, but most of the “stars” who show up for award nights are barely distinguishable from the celebrities on The Surreal Life. And of course most of us have recording devices, the Internet, and a multitude of channels, so these lesser lights are ever-present—and thus, lesser.
My childhood notions of the Oscars as sacred secular event began to crumble as I grew older and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark lose to Chariots of Fire, and then The Right Stuff lose to Terms of Endearment. Later still, as I delved into the great movies of old, I learned that Peter O’Toole had not won for Lawrence of Arabia (or anything else), nor Al Pacino for The Godfather Part II. Alfred Hitchcock never won. Oh, but Oliver! did, and Around the World in 80 Days, and then, much to my dismay, execrable crap like Forrest Gump. The Academy managed to award Paul Newman and Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese for lesser efforts, clearly to “make up” for past mistakes (though obviously O’Toole, one of the very best actors of his generation or any other, will most assuredly never win even if with his dying breaths he delivers a King Lear that endures until our sun goes nova). The Oscars are a simulacrum of meritorious honors, honoring simulacra. But hey, that’s show business.
Which brings me to this year’s winner. I saw Slumdog Millionaire at Ragtag Cinema, a nice indy/foreign theater here in downtown Columbia. Comfortable seats, good-sized screen, clear sound. Before or after or during the show, you can enjoy a glass of pinot along with sandwiches and desserts, no doubt made from organic ingredients. Catering to the type of people who consider themselves lovers of “film” rather than lovers of movies. Though it activates my reverse-snobbery sense, all in all it’s a very nice place, and I’m certainly in favor of its existence.
So my wife and I bought our tickets, and we sat down to watch what was all the rage with the indie set, and lo and behold, I discovered that but for its trappings, Slumdog is a perfectly enjoyable, perfectly conventional movie, and nothing else.
The character of Latika is completely two-dimensional; she’s a dream, a goal, nothing more. Freida Pinto, who plays the adult Latika, has little to do other than stand around looking drop-dead gorgeous, a task she performs admirably. At times she’s as breathtaking to look at as Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, or Catherine Zeta Jones in The Mask of Zorro, but profoundly less interesting than either. There’s no there there. Latika’s no more developed than Megan Fox’s Mikaela in Transformers, and that may be a bit unkind to Mikaela. The brother is just as flat; usually cruel and unfeeling, he manifests kindness and something like brotherly affection only at the right plot points; the first time is understandable, the second, inexplicable—other than, of course, that it’s the movies.
When protagonist Jamal finds his long-lost love, he conveniently—and almost instantly—manages to get close to her so that we can be treated to the following exchange:
“Come away with me,” Jamal says.
But what have you got? Latika asks.
“Love.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Rocky is more poignant. This is French Kiss territory, but more uneven; there’s a horrific scene early on, so terrible that it’s hard for anything else that happens in the movie to match it, and nothing does. After that point we’re hurled along a plot as preposterous as anything ever dreamed up by MGM, implicitly acknowledged by the dance number at the end. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; the point is, this is romantic fantasy, with the Mumbai train station as stand-in for the Empire State Building.
As I sat and watched, I couldn’t help wondering if many of the viewers around me would ever deign to watch a movie that revolved around Who Wants to be a Millionaire? but set in Los Angeles and starring Steve Carrell and Elizabeth Banks. Perhaps they’d catch it on HBO, or when it showed up on TNT, but they’d never see it on a Friday night with the Great Unwashed, what with the cell phones lighting up like fireflies across the theater and the floors sticky from old spilled soda. And yet if Slumdog were a software app, its “India”--would be a “skin,” easily switched out for “China,” “Brazil,” or “Egypt.” Or “New York.” Or “Tattooine.” But oh, how that “skin” does the trick. As Christian Lander might say, ordinary white people like Sleepless in Seattle, but really advanced white people like Slumdog Millionaire.
As I said, I enjoyed it. I didn’t feel I’d wasted my money, and that’s rare these days. Escapism has its place, and if I were to write off Slumdog for being escapist, I’d have to write off Raiders and The Guns of Navarone and Midnight Run, which I don’t want to do. I’m just amused—though not surprised—by how the latest rags-to-riches tale has earned its spot in the grand spectacle, and I’m rather confident that, once the sheen has worn off, Slumdog Millionaire will take its place alongside the likes of Titanic and Rain Man and the other curiosities that pressed all the right buttons at the time but for the life of us, we can’t remember why. It’s a fun little movie; we’ve seen it all before, and we’ll see it all again, but if we’re distracted for a few moments, perhaps that’s enough. Hey, that’s show business.
February 19, 2009
Dear President Obama:
I neglected to mention in my previous letter that I am reading your book, Dreams from My Father. Actually, right now I am fully absorbed in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (which is fantastic, by the way), and I'm also trying to read Don Quixote (which, because I'm a slow, easily distracted reader, will likely take me years), but Dreams is definitely in the mix. I'm right at the beginning of Part Two, Chicago. I want to discuss it more with you when I finish.
I am most impressed by your writing ability, and I say that not to ingratiate myself in order to receive that autographed photo I requested last week. Dreams is a far cry indeed from the vile, largely ghostwritten pablum generated by most politicians. It's nice to have a literate president again. I know President Clinton is well-read; I seem to recall reading about some drunken shindig during which he and Gabriel Garcia Marquez babbled all night about Cervantes and Faulkner. Or perhaps I just made that up. In any case, I much prefer a president who has actually read books, real books, rather than just Level One Readers and comic books (though I am fond of comics--Spider-Man and Conan too!).
So I am therefore certain that you will understand me when I suggest that, in regard to fixing our cancerous banking institutions, your position at the moment is rather like this:
To nationalize, or not nationalize, that is . . . well, you get the idea.
To extend the analogy further, I see the banks as Claudius, and the citizenry of the U.S. as both the murdered King Hamlet and Getrude--that is to say, the banks poured poison in our ears, and now they're screwing us.
Then we have rather obvious choices for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
In other words, Mr. President, despite their crocodile tears about a supposed lack of bipartisanship, these people are not your friends. They would be most happy to deliver you unto the English king along with a letter from the usurper requesting that you be dispatched posthaste.
I haven't worked out all of the other characters. Ophelia might represent your re-election (yikes!). As for Polonius, Horatio, etc., I have no idea. All analogies are imperfect. Perhaps this one doesn't work at all. Perhaps it's all much more like an episode of Gilligan's Island.
But the point is, do not delay. Nationalize those fuckers, clean them up, and sell them to new owners before we're all subsisting on ketchup soup.
Your ardent supporter,
Lein Shory
P.S. I know you're very busy, but do keep in mind the autographed photo.
P.P.S. My good friend Randall Hamm lent a hand with the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern picture.
I am most impressed by your writing ability, and I say that not to ingratiate myself in order to receive that autographed photo I requested last week. Dreams is a far cry indeed from the vile, largely ghostwritten pablum generated by most politicians. It's nice to have a literate president again. I know President Clinton is well-read; I seem to recall reading about some drunken shindig during which he and Gabriel Garcia Marquez babbled all night about Cervantes and Faulkner. Or perhaps I just made that up. In any case, I much prefer a president who has actually read books, real books, rather than just Level One Readers and comic books (though I am fond of comics--Spider-Man and Conan too!).
So I am therefore certain that you will understand me when I suggest that, in regard to fixing our cancerous banking institutions, your position at the moment is rather like this:
To nationalize, or not nationalize, that is . . . well, you get the idea.
To extend the analogy further, I see the banks as Claudius, and the citizenry of the U.S. as both the murdered King Hamlet and Getrude--that is to say, the banks poured poison in our ears, and now they're screwing us.
Then we have rather obvious choices for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
In other words, Mr. President, despite their crocodile tears about a supposed lack of bipartisanship, these people are not your friends. They would be most happy to deliver you unto the English king along with a letter from the usurper requesting that you be dispatched posthaste.
I haven't worked out all of the other characters. Ophelia might represent your re-election (yikes!). As for Polonius, Horatio, etc., I have no idea. All analogies are imperfect. Perhaps this one doesn't work at all. Perhaps it's all much more like an episode of Gilligan's Island.
But the point is, do not delay. Nationalize those fuckers, clean them up, and sell them to new owners before we're all subsisting on ketchup soup.
Your ardent supporter,
Lein Shory
P.S. I know you're very busy, but do keep in mind the autographed photo.
P.P.S. My good friend Randall Hamm lent a hand with the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern picture.
February 18, 2009
I need a costly handheld electronic device. Won’t you help?
In bygone days of yore, our primitive forebears endured the most excruciating inconveniences. Perhaps they possessed a rudimentary cellular phone, but they could not access their email just anywhere--they would have to return home or to work, or locate what was known as a "wifi hotspot." Just imagine! No video bowling games while at a red light, no searching for restaurant recommendations while in the airport terminal, no updating your Facebook status in the doctor's waiting room. If those simple folk of yesteryear heard a catchy song on the radio and wanted to purchase it on a “compact disc,” they were forced to listen until the “disc jockey” announced the title and performer—otherwise, the song might be lost to them forever! Amazing, but true!
But now:
I ask you: how did humanity ever survive without these remarkable inventions?
Now, as human beings jaunt toward evolutionary perfection, more and more hardships are fading into distant memory--that is, unless you're one of the unlucky ones, the evolutionary dead-enders, the Neanderthals of the Information Age.
I don't want to be an evolutionary dead-ender.
I do possess an iPod. Second-generation, with a crude, monochrome display. Scratched and chipped from a do-it-yourself battery replacement. Once, long ago, it was an able companion, but now it's a veritable Pinto of handheld devices. I grow increasingly ashamed each time someone sees it. I also possess a low-end flip phone, and a digital camera. Yes: I am forced to employ a different device for each of these functions, and even then I am unable to access many functions on the iPhone that are clearly essential to life.
I can endure this no longer.
But which device do I need? An Amazon Kindle would certainly be nice. How lovely it would be to not have to carry dusty old books and risk back injury, when I could have an entire library in a thin handsome plastic package? And yet the Kindle is rather limited. No camera, no song identification, no accessible GPS tracking. Then there's the Blackberry Storm--a quality item, and one our very own president employs. I could survive with either a Storm or an iPhone, but I cannot do without.
And I need your help.
If I have such a device, I will be a happier person. Apple tells me that "Your iPhone can be very productive. Use it to turn to-dos into already-dones." I definitely want a device that does this. I have often wished to be more productive person, one who has more "already-dones" than "to-dos." Run three miles, do 100 push ups and sit ups--already done! Replace wax ring on master bathroom toilet--already done! Take giant bag of used batteries, empty paint cans, and burned-out, mercury-laden fluorescent bulbs to city recycling center--already done! What a wonderful world it would be.
I'm also told that I will "have a world of information at [my] fingertips." This is also something that I want. Suppose I were out clubbing with some fellow ultra-hip owners of costly handheld electronic devices, and one of them referenced the movie Jawbreaker, to hearty guffaws all around the table--except for me, as I haven't seen the movie. If I were lacking my device, I would be hopelessly lost. But with such a device, I could excuse myself to go to the restroom, whereupon I could look up the movie on Wikipedia, quickly learn the major characters and plotpoints, and return to the table armed with a clever reference of my own!
And when I go out on the town, I can take pictures of any extraordinary events I experience, and with but a few taps on the touchscreen, transfer those snapshots to this blog. I don't often go out on the town right now, but if I had such a device, I definitely would go out more, because 1)I would be special, and 2)I'd have fewer "to-dos" to keep me at home.
Plus, whenever I send a message from my device, those lucky recipients will see “Sent from my Blackberry” or “Sent from my iPhone” at the end of the message, and know that I wasn’t just emailing from any old desktop or laptop. They'll know that I'm special--that I own a costly handheld electronic device.
But enough about me. Let's talk about how my owning such a device would benefit you. For one thing, if you're already here reading, then you're obviously enjoying this delightful blog, and no doubt wishing there were more posts to read. More content, you say--"More content, goddamn it!" Sadly, though, I can only spend so much time in front of the computer each day. If I have inspiration whilst in my car, or walking to and from my car to work, or in the can, or just enjoying the out-of-doors, I must somehow commit to memory my ideas lest they be lost forever to you and the world.
Now imagine if I were driving somewhere, perhaps to the dentist, and I lost my way. With a costly handheld electronic device, I could immediately identify my location and plot a route to my destination. But without it, there's no telling where I might end up, and I could be set upon by urban hoodlums or malevolent rustics, resulting in burdensome taxpayer expenses for law enforcement and a criminal investigation.
And what if I were to stumble upon the fabled Bigfoot? Rather than fumble with multiple, dated devices (or heavens to Betsy, be lacking one or more!) I could take out my single costly handheld electronic device, take photos of the legendary creature, then transmit my exact GPS location, and wait for the authorities to arrive and gun down the animal so that its carcass can be used to bring me fame and fortune. It seems a certainty that widespread ownership of such devices dramatically increases the chances of my solving the riddles of Bigfoot, UFOs, and the Mokele-mbembe. And the more mysteries we solve, the better off we all are, no?
All I'm asking is that you donate a dollar. Or two. Or ten.
Really, how much is a dollar, especially when that dollar would make someone (me) so happy?
I know what you're thinking. Times are tough. But I would never ask if you couldn't afford it. And isn't humor and insightful writing needed most when times are tough? By helping me blog, you'll be helping yourself.
Yes, if you going to give a dollar to someone, you might prefer to give it to another type of charitable cause. I respect that, I really do. But have you heard of freerice.com? / It's a site that donates rice for every vocabulary word you get correct. Or how about all of these other sites? If I have a costly handheld electronic device, I'll be able to click on these sites much more often, anywhere, not just when I'm at a computer. So your dollar is actually going much farther than if you sent it to a single charity. And did you know of these sites already? Isn't that information worth something to you?
With just a single dollar from 700 visitors, I would be able to purchase the device plus service for . . . Jesus . . . just five months?
Okay, 2120 visitors, then. 2120. That would be enough for two years of service.
Christ, these things are expensive.
But now:
I ask you: how did humanity ever survive without these remarkable inventions?
Now, as human beings jaunt toward evolutionary perfection, more and more hardships are fading into distant memory--that is, unless you're one of the unlucky ones, the evolutionary dead-enders, the Neanderthals of the Information Age.
I don't want to be an evolutionary dead-ender.
I do possess an iPod. Second-generation, with a crude, monochrome display. Scratched and chipped from a do-it-yourself battery replacement. Once, long ago, it was an able companion, but now it's a veritable Pinto of handheld devices. I grow increasingly ashamed each time someone sees it. I also possess a low-end flip phone, and a digital camera. Yes: I am forced to employ a different device for each of these functions, and even then I am unable to access many functions on the iPhone that are clearly essential to life.
I can endure this no longer.
But which device do I need? An Amazon Kindle would certainly be nice. How lovely it would be to not have to carry dusty old books and risk back injury, when I could have an entire library in a thin handsome plastic package? And yet the Kindle is rather limited. No camera, no song identification, no accessible GPS tracking. Then there's the Blackberry Storm--a quality item, and one our very own president employs. I could survive with either a Storm or an iPhone, but I cannot do without.
And I need your help.
If I have such a device, I will be a happier person. Apple tells me that "Your iPhone can be very productive. Use it to turn to-dos into already-dones." I definitely want a device that does this. I have often wished to be more productive person, one who has more "already-dones" than "to-dos." Run three miles, do 100 push ups and sit ups--already done! Replace wax ring on master bathroom toilet--already done! Take giant bag of used batteries, empty paint cans, and burned-out, mercury-laden fluorescent bulbs to city recycling center--already done! What a wonderful world it would be.
I'm also told that I will "have a world of information at [my] fingertips." This is also something that I want. Suppose I were out clubbing with some fellow ultra-hip owners of costly handheld electronic devices, and one of them referenced the movie Jawbreaker, to hearty guffaws all around the table--except for me, as I haven't seen the movie. If I were lacking my device, I would be hopelessly lost. But with such a device, I could excuse myself to go to the restroom, whereupon I could look up the movie on Wikipedia, quickly learn the major characters and plotpoints, and return to the table armed with a clever reference of my own!
And when I go out on the town, I can take pictures of any extraordinary events I experience, and with but a few taps on the touchscreen, transfer those snapshots to this blog. I don't often go out on the town right now, but if I had such a device, I definitely would go out more, because 1)I would be special, and 2)I'd have fewer "to-dos" to keep me at home.
Plus, whenever I send a message from my device, those lucky recipients will see “Sent from my Blackberry” or “Sent from my iPhone” at the end of the message, and know that I wasn’t just emailing from any old desktop or laptop. They'll know that I'm special--that I own a costly handheld electronic device.
But enough about me. Let's talk about how my owning such a device would benefit you. For one thing, if you're already here reading, then you're obviously enjoying this delightful blog, and no doubt wishing there were more posts to read. More content, you say--"More content, goddamn it!" Sadly, though, I can only spend so much time in front of the computer each day. If I have inspiration whilst in my car, or walking to and from my car to work, or in the can, or just enjoying the out-of-doors, I must somehow commit to memory my ideas lest they be lost forever to you and the world.
Now imagine if I were driving somewhere, perhaps to the dentist, and I lost my way. With a costly handheld electronic device, I could immediately identify my location and plot a route to my destination. But without it, there's no telling where I might end up, and I could be set upon by urban hoodlums or malevolent rustics, resulting in burdensome taxpayer expenses for law enforcement and a criminal investigation.
And what if I were to stumble upon the fabled Bigfoot? Rather than fumble with multiple, dated devices (or heavens to Betsy, be lacking one or more!) I could take out my single costly handheld electronic device, take photos of the legendary creature, then transmit my exact GPS location, and wait for the authorities to arrive and gun down the animal so that its carcass can be used to bring me fame and fortune. It seems a certainty that widespread ownership of such devices dramatically increases the chances of my solving the riddles of Bigfoot, UFOs, and the Mokele-mbembe. And the more mysteries we solve, the better off we all are, no?
All I'm asking is that you donate a dollar. Or two. Or ten.
Really, how much is a dollar, especially when that dollar would make someone (me) so happy?
I know what you're thinking. Times are tough. But I would never ask if you couldn't afford it. And isn't humor and insightful writing needed most when times are tough? By helping me blog, you'll be helping yourself.
Yes, if you going to give a dollar to someone, you might prefer to give it to another type of charitable cause. I respect that, I really do. But have you heard of freerice.com? / It's a site that donates rice for every vocabulary word you get correct. Or how about all of these other sites? If I have a costly handheld electronic device, I'll be able to click on these sites much more often, anywhere, not just when I'm at a computer. So your dollar is actually going much farther than if you sent it to a single charity. And did you know of these sites already? Isn't that information worth something to you?
With just a single dollar from 700 visitors, I would be able to purchase the device plus service for . . . Jesus . . . just five months?
Okay, 2120 visitors, then. 2120. That would be enough for two years of service.
Christ, these things are expensive.
February 16, 2009
Interview: Elva Maxine Beach, author of Neurotica
One reviewer had this to say about Elva Maxine Beach's story cycle, Neurotica:
SHORY: So how did Neurotica come about?
BEACH: After getting a pointless M.F.A. in Creative Writing, I farted around with a couple of short stories and got nowhere. I was blocked and frustrated and kept telling myself, "I made a big mistake. I wasted a lot of time and money on my stupid degree." MFA programs kill the creative spirit, plus it's not like I had a whole lot of time to write; I was working full-time during the day and was an adjunct professor at night, and was exhausted by day's end. That changed when my full-time job turned into a nightmare. I quit the job, was broke, had nothing left to do but teach a class here and there and write my stories. Nobody was reading my work and nobody cared, so I was free to write what I wanted to write about.
I write about sex, because sex has always been my primary interest. I kid you not. Always. Since I was a kid. I used to order books on sex through the mail, hide them from my parents (who would not have approved), and read them in secret. I had books on how women achieve orgasm, Shere Hite's report on male sexuality, and a book on sensual massage. Yep. I was reading this stuff before I was even 16 years old. Anyway, my interest is really in how women deal with the mixed signals we're fed about our sexuality. The signals make most of us crazy, insecure, prudes or sluts. We get stuck in a Madonna-whore paradigm, and this conflict interests me, so I wrote all these stories and put them together and made a book. Neurotica.
SHORY: Yeah, some people claim to be interested in comics, or fancy coffee, or politics, or NASCAR, but that's just to have something to do when they're not having sex, right? Or is that just men? But that's one of the points of your book, isn't it? Hey, I'm occasionally perceptive.
BEACH: Men are so full of themselves, aren't they? Wow! You think you're being perceptive because you had a little itty bitty epiphany that perhaps women like sex, too. Awww...if I were in the same room as you, I'd pat your little head. But wait. You don't like to be touched. Sorry.
SHORY: I'm glad you remember that. Now your publisher, New Belleville, a new press out of Austin, is very supportive and really pushing your book, whereas many other publishers both big and small just can't seem to be bothered, unless you're Stephen King or some pretty young thing who graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Wait, you didn't graduate from Sarah Lawrence, did you?
BEACH: No, unfortunately, I was born into a working-class family and thus did not benefit from an entitled life. No fancy shmancy Sarah Lawrence for me. But are you suggesting I'm pretty and young? Sweet!
SHORY: So, your publisher . . .
BEACH: Yeah, my publisher. He's a very cool guy. He's French actually. And, sometimes he lets his beard get really long. And he has a dog named Brutus. Until last year, I had a cat named Bluto. Brutus and Bluto are basically the same character from the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoons, right. So, maybe that's why my publisher supports me as much as he does. We're simpatico.
SHORY: I've never known you to have problem saying what you think. But was it hard to write a book like this? I can't bear to write a non-ironic sex scene.
BEACH: I love saying the words "sucking and fucking" because those words make me giggle, and you know me, I love to laugh. So, no, it wasn't hard to write non-ironic sex scenes because sex makes me laugh, and in its very nature is ironic, don't you think? We meet someone we’re attracted to, want to jump his or her bones, expect fireworks and violins, and what we get is big bellies, hairy backs, stretch marks and awkwardness. That’s funny. So is the word kinky.
Did I ever tell you about this time two years ago when I sprained my ankle while having sex for this first time with this dude I met online? That's right. It's not like we were doing anything out of the ordinary, just your standard suck and fuck, and boom, just like that, I sprained my ankle. We had to stop what we were doing, and the dude was sweet (we’re still friends) and put ice on my ankle and nursed me through the night. But after that he was scared to have sex with me. It was humiliating. The only way it could have been worse is if I had sprained my ankle while masturbating.
SHORY: Tell me about your recent performance. Once again I have to apologize for not attending, but I'm a boring, miserable old bastard who doesn't go out during the week.
BEACH: I think you're referring to the performance I did at The Way Out Club on December 18. The Way Out Club is this groovy, "in the hood," club tailor made for freaks and punks and outsiders. I'm friends with the owners, Bob and Sherri (super cool people), and so when I moved back to The Lou I started reconnecting with old friends (I lived here in the 80's), and the next thing you know we're putting on this crazy performance piece with burlesque dancers and musicians.
SHORY: And a gimp?
BEACH: I wanted a gimp for the show. So I went to this sex shop and I asked the owner if he knew of a gimp who is into public humiliation because I'm putting on a show in December. And the owner gave me a name and number of a man who would probably be willing to “model,” but after initially agreeing to perform, the pathetic little son of a bitch backed out. Finding a gimp is not as easy as I’d originally thought it would be. Where oh where have the sissy men gone?
So this dude I dated went ahead and let me whip him on stage since I was whining about not being able to find a gimp.
The show was a surprising success considering there was an ice storm that night. The DT's played with special guest Suzie Gilbert. We had three burlesque girls dance, too. I was the only reader.
I read three poems "Sissy," "Bend Over Boyfriend," and "Cold Bedsheets." None of which are in Neurotica. Then I read the short stories "He's Just One More" and "Can I Get a Hallelujah?"
I whipped my pet on stage and made him kneel while I read "Sissy," an abusive hateful love poem about falling for a mommy's boy. After releasing my pet, I read "Bend Over Boyfriend" which was dedicated to one of the bar owners, Bob.
It was raucous and after the intermission was a bit out of control. The audience was wound up. Men jumped on stage to be whipped, one audience member humped the burlesque girls' teddy bear. Shear insanity. I quieted the crowd down with threats and teases and finished off with a short story.
The DT's and Susie Gilbert backed up the mayhem with loveliness and beauty.
Here's some video.
SHORY: Clearly I missed out. How about your students? What do they think about your writing, or are they as oblivious to their professors' work as you and I were?
BEACH: I try to keep my perversity out of the classroom. I guess you could say I have two conflicting personas. The good citizen professor and the debauched erotica writer (although my work is more literary than erotic). But, once my students stumble upon my work, they're usually intrigued. While teaching at Austin Community College I discovered, through the grapevine, that students referred to me as the sex writer teacher. Ah ha! No wonder my classes filled each semester and my students insisted on interpreting everything we read in sexual terms. Most of my students are oblivious, though. To most I'm just the English teacher who tortures them with homework and reading and who insists they think their own thoughts. How dare I?
SHORY: Not only were you frank about sexuality but you also laid bare your protagonist's psyche. How hard was it to get both the mental and physical onto the page?
BEACH: Tough. Really tough. While I was working on the book, I had a creative writing student who was gay, but who preferred to keep this secret from his classmates. Well, his stories were suffering as a result. His work fell just short of good and I suspected this had to do with his unwillingness to deal with truth, both in himself and on the page. I kept at this student, lecturing, advising, prompting, until I had a small epiphany. How could I teach my students the importance of emotional truth unless I, too, struggled with it? So, I changed my approach to my own work. It took courage, but I splayed myself open and then bled on the page -- it was a fictional bleeding, but emotional truth is emotional truth.
You call it the mental (the neurosis) and the physical (the erotic), but what is happening in the work is an emotional glue between the two. You know, mind, body AND spirit (in this case emotion).
Yep.
Or maybe I'm just bullshitting and had no awareness of what I was doing. Maybe everything just came together as it should without thinking.
Hmmmm....
SHORY: So where did you turn for inspiration during the writing?
BEACH: Basically, I was writing to keep my sanity. I was broke, underemployed, alone, and very very insecure, and making art out of my life was my savior. Otherwise, I think I may have ended up in a mental institution. Seriously. I'm not kidding.
As far as looking to other writers for inspiration, well, actually, I looked to a painter -- Frida Kahlo. Her life journey and her strength and her incredible personal art gives me courage to examine myself, my life, and mold it into art. Kahlo was courageous. I want to be courageous, too. But it's scary putting one's self out there. And thrilling. And funny. Sometimes, I feel like a trickster.
I found other writers helpful. Anaïs Nin, Charles Bukowski, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence all write about the erotic and/or the visceral. They definitely influenced me. Frida Kahlo inspired me and her story gave me the courage to write deeply personal stuff. The writers, well, they teach me how to write.
My favorite writers are Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. I just finished reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which I've read about ten times now. And, I also just finished Cormac McCarthy's latest novel The Road.
You know, I read too much. Buddha suggested we read less and spend more time contemplating what we have read.
SHORY: You already had some choice words to say about M.F.A. programs, but did your LSU experience help you at all? Did you find yourself using techniques you learned there, and/or fighting against some of the training? Personally, I have a lot of voices in my head from both LSU and Auburn, some of them helpful, some very unhelpful, and it's a constant struggle to deal with them.
BEACH: I don't regret pursuing my M.F.A., because I did learn more about craft and form, I met some very cool people (like you!), and with my degree I can teach college-level writing, but the M.F.A. program did mess with my head.
For about three years after I finished graduate school I couldn't write. Not a lick. The workshops had strengthened my inner critic to the point I felt like a hack and failure every single time I attempted to write a poem or a story. And, no matter how hard I tried to shut her out, the inner critic refused to shut the fuck up.
It took about three years after finishing the program before I realized that I didn't give a shit about writing "literature" or pleasing the academics. I also had to accept that I may never ever make a living writing stories and poems, that no one really cares, that there are too many of us hacks out there to begin with, and if I want to write, so be it. I would write. Without expectations. Without trying to be brilliant. I like to write, I was losing my mind because my life was falling apart, and writing was my refuge. So I wrote. All that crap we learned in graduate school was finally digested and purged. The good stuff nourished, the bad stuff was flushed.
Graduate school is like eating meat: meat takes forever to digest and so it basically rots inside your bowels for a long long time before you get the usable stuff. Then you take a nice long shit. And you're good to go.
SHORY: Though you have a lot to say about female (and male) sexuality, I didn't see the book as an angry screed; your protagonist is hardly an all-innocent victim, and her boyfriends/sexual partners, while often not the best people in the world, don't come across as two-dimensional. Who do you see as the primary audience for Neurotica? What would you want men and women to take away from it?
BEACH: Yeah, if my narrator had come off as a whiny victim gal, I would have considered my work a failure. And, I didn't want the dudes in the stories to come off as bad guys -- just real, regular dudes, all with their own hang ups and obstacles. Really, the stories are all about the search for love in all of its insanity and insecurity and fear. Contemporary dating, hanging, playing is convoluted and honestly, people do their best with what they have, while trying to protect their intrigrity, and I wanted to convey this messy aspect of human nature. My original audience was women, but men seem to be digging the book, too, and not just because there's lots of unabashed sex. I think men are appreciative that this book is a woman's perspective that doesn't practice good ole fashioned ball busting.
You know, in my real life, I love my lovers. I love the men who come in and out of my life and often feel blessed to have both amazing male friends and lovers. A friend of mine told me recently that she thinks it's my overflowing capacity for love that makes me so cool. I try to hide the fact that I'm a huge softie, but I am. And, because I genuinely love the men in my life, I want to respect that, not bash them.
SHORY: Where do you go next with your writing?
BEACH: I have a couple of ideas -- but basically, I want to keep writing poems and stories. My goal is to do more performance. I've always loved theater and since I'm a terrible actor but a damn good reader, I like combining readings with performance. Sort of like Spalding Gray or Laurie Anderson or Sarah Silverman (well, she's a comedian, but you get the idea and I needed a more contemporary reference since the young un's have no idea who Gray or Anderson are).
SHORY: What advice would you give aspiring writers? Run screaming to the nearest MBA program?
BEACH: It's the same old advice: read and write. I'm dumbfounded by my writing students who don't read and who actually don't spend much time writing. They think their ideas should carry them. Ummmm...nope. Doesn't work that way. As you know, writing takes practice, struggle, discipline, and passion -- the good idea is helpful, but doesn't mean squat if it can't be executed. I use the playing guitar metaphor a lot in class: You own a guitar, but you never practice. Nor do you listen to a variety of music. But you harbor rock star dreams. Okay. It's fine to dream, but what are you thinking? Do you think one day you're just going to pick up the guitar and miraculously play like Jimi Hendrix?
My other advice is to NOT pursue writing as a profession. Find a more lucrative profession. Be a lawyer. Or an accountant. Or a nurse. At least those occupations will give you something to write about.
SHORY: You recently moved from Austin, which I'm told has a thriving literary and music and every other type of scene, to St. Louis, which, well, I don't know. Are there scenes in St. Louis?
BEACH: A scene…hmmm…Okay, so Austin has this slogan: Keep Austin Weird. But the true freaks, I mean the freaky freakazoid freaks, are in St. Louis. It's a dark city. The other night I was at this bar flirting with this dude who looked like your standard ex-frat, jock, country music listening type dude, and he grabbed my wrists and studied my fingers real bizarre like, and I said, “What the hell?” and he answered, “I’m a freelance phlebotomist.” I looked at his hands and noticed long fingernails filed into points and manicured with clear polish. After talking to him for a few more minutes I realized: He thinks he is a fucking VAMPIRE (well, there are no such things, but you know what I mean). Yeah. Folks are pretty darn strange here in the Lou. What kind of nickname is that anyway? The Lou?
SHORY: Do you like the provel cheese? I'm very fond of it.
BEACH: My favorite cheese is feta.
Elva Maxine Beach's Neurotica is available from New Belleville Press.
Beach has written a book that will have readers wanting to take their clothes off one minute, squirming with discomfort the next, then being struck by the sadness of humanity. Then wanting to strip again. She covers the many shades of sex, not just the obvious.I can't say it any better than that. Recently I caught up with my good friend and former LSU MFA cohort Maxine and asked her a few questions about the book, writing, and other things.
SHORY: So how did Neurotica come about?
BEACH: After getting a pointless M.F.A. in Creative Writing, I farted around with a couple of short stories and got nowhere. I was blocked and frustrated and kept telling myself, "I made a big mistake. I wasted a lot of time and money on my stupid degree." MFA programs kill the creative spirit, plus it's not like I had a whole lot of time to write; I was working full-time during the day and was an adjunct professor at night, and was exhausted by day's end. That changed when my full-time job turned into a nightmare. I quit the job, was broke, had nothing left to do but teach a class here and there and write my stories. Nobody was reading my work and nobody cared, so I was free to write what I wanted to write about.
I write about sex, because sex has always been my primary interest. I kid you not. Always. Since I was a kid. I used to order books on sex through the mail, hide them from my parents (who would not have approved), and read them in secret. I had books on how women achieve orgasm, Shere Hite's report on male sexuality, and a book on sensual massage. Yep. I was reading this stuff before I was even 16 years old. Anyway, my interest is really in how women deal with the mixed signals we're fed about our sexuality. The signals make most of us crazy, insecure, prudes or sluts. We get stuck in a Madonna-whore paradigm, and this conflict interests me, so I wrote all these stories and put them together and made a book. Neurotica.
SHORY: Yeah, some people claim to be interested in comics, or fancy coffee, or politics, or NASCAR, but that's just to have something to do when they're not having sex, right? Or is that just men? But that's one of the points of your book, isn't it? Hey, I'm occasionally perceptive.
BEACH: Men are so full of themselves, aren't they? Wow! You think you're being perceptive because you had a little itty bitty epiphany that perhaps women like sex, too. Awww...if I were in the same room as you, I'd pat your little head. But wait. You don't like to be touched. Sorry.
SHORY: I'm glad you remember that. Now your publisher, New Belleville, a new press out of Austin, is very supportive and really pushing your book, whereas many other publishers both big and small just can't seem to be bothered, unless you're Stephen King or some pretty young thing who graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Wait, you didn't graduate from Sarah Lawrence, did you?
BEACH: No, unfortunately, I was born into a working-class family and thus did not benefit from an entitled life. No fancy shmancy Sarah Lawrence for me. But are you suggesting I'm pretty and young? Sweet!
SHORY: So, your publisher . . .
BEACH: Yeah, my publisher. He's a very cool guy. He's French actually. And, sometimes he lets his beard get really long. And he has a dog named Brutus. Until last year, I had a cat named Bluto. Brutus and Bluto are basically the same character from the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoons, right. So, maybe that's why my publisher supports me as much as he does. We're simpatico.
SHORY: I've never known you to have problem saying what you think. But was it hard to write a book like this? I can't bear to write a non-ironic sex scene.
BEACH: I love saying the words "sucking and fucking" because those words make me giggle, and you know me, I love to laugh. So, no, it wasn't hard to write non-ironic sex scenes because sex makes me laugh, and in its very nature is ironic, don't you think? We meet someone we’re attracted to, want to jump his or her bones, expect fireworks and violins, and what we get is big bellies, hairy backs, stretch marks and awkwardness. That’s funny. So is the word kinky.
Did I ever tell you about this time two years ago when I sprained my ankle while having sex for this first time with this dude I met online? That's right. It's not like we were doing anything out of the ordinary, just your standard suck and fuck, and boom, just like that, I sprained my ankle. We had to stop what we were doing, and the dude was sweet (we’re still friends) and put ice on my ankle and nursed me through the night. But after that he was scared to have sex with me. It was humiliating. The only way it could have been worse is if I had sprained my ankle while masturbating.
SHORY: Tell me about your recent performance. Once again I have to apologize for not attending, but I'm a boring, miserable old bastard who doesn't go out during the week.
BEACH: I think you're referring to the performance I did at The Way Out Club on December 18. The Way Out Club is this groovy, "in the hood," club tailor made for freaks and punks and outsiders. I'm friends with the owners, Bob and Sherri (super cool people), and so when I moved back to The Lou I started reconnecting with old friends (I lived here in the 80's), and the next thing you know we're putting on this crazy performance piece with burlesque dancers and musicians.
SHORY: And a gimp?
BEACH: I wanted a gimp for the show. So I went to this sex shop and I asked the owner if he knew of a gimp who is into public humiliation because I'm putting on a show in December. And the owner gave me a name and number of a man who would probably be willing to “model,” but after initially agreeing to perform, the pathetic little son of a bitch backed out. Finding a gimp is not as easy as I’d originally thought it would be. Where oh where have the sissy men gone?
So this dude I dated went ahead and let me whip him on stage since I was whining about not being able to find a gimp.
The show was a surprising success considering there was an ice storm that night. The DT's played with special guest Suzie Gilbert. We had three burlesque girls dance, too. I was the only reader.
I read three poems "Sissy," "Bend Over Boyfriend," and "Cold Bedsheets." None of which are in Neurotica. Then I read the short stories "He's Just One More" and "Can I Get a Hallelujah?"
I whipped my pet on stage and made him kneel while I read "Sissy," an abusive hateful love poem about falling for a mommy's boy. After releasing my pet, I read "Bend Over Boyfriend" which was dedicated to one of the bar owners, Bob.
It was raucous and after the intermission was a bit out of control. The audience was wound up. Men jumped on stage to be whipped, one audience member humped the burlesque girls' teddy bear. Shear insanity. I quieted the crowd down with threats and teases and finished off with a short story.
The DT's and Susie Gilbert backed up the mayhem with loveliness and beauty.
Here's some video.
SHORY: Clearly I missed out. How about your students? What do they think about your writing, or are they as oblivious to their professors' work as you and I were?
BEACH: I try to keep my perversity out of the classroom. I guess you could say I have two conflicting personas. The good citizen professor and the debauched erotica writer (although my work is more literary than erotic). But, once my students stumble upon my work, they're usually intrigued. While teaching at Austin Community College I discovered, through the grapevine, that students referred to me as the sex writer teacher. Ah ha! No wonder my classes filled each semester and my students insisted on interpreting everything we read in sexual terms. Most of my students are oblivious, though. To most I'm just the English teacher who tortures them with homework and reading and who insists they think their own thoughts. How dare I?
SHORY: Not only were you frank about sexuality but you also laid bare your protagonist's psyche. How hard was it to get both the mental and physical onto the page?
BEACH: Tough. Really tough. While I was working on the book, I had a creative writing student who was gay, but who preferred to keep this secret from his classmates. Well, his stories were suffering as a result. His work fell just short of good and I suspected this had to do with his unwillingness to deal with truth, both in himself and on the page. I kept at this student, lecturing, advising, prompting, until I had a small epiphany. How could I teach my students the importance of emotional truth unless I, too, struggled with it? So, I changed my approach to my own work. It took courage, but I splayed myself open and then bled on the page -- it was a fictional bleeding, but emotional truth is emotional truth.
You call it the mental (the neurosis) and the physical (the erotic), but what is happening in the work is an emotional glue between the two. You know, mind, body AND spirit (in this case emotion).
Yep.
Or maybe I'm just bullshitting and had no awareness of what I was doing. Maybe everything just came together as it should without thinking.
Hmmmm....
SHORY: So where did you turn for inspiration during the writing?
BEACH: Basically, I was writing to keep my sanity. I was broke, underemployed, alone, and very very insecure, and making art out of my life was my savior. Otherwise, I think I may have ended up in a mental institution. Seriously. I'm not kidding.
As far as looking to other writers for inspiration, well, actually, I looked to a painter -- Frida Kahlo. Her life journey and her strength and her incredible personal art gives me courage to examine myself, my life, and mold it into art. Kahlo was courageous. I want to be courageous, too. But it's scary putting one's self out there. And thrilling. And funny. Sometimes, I feel like a trickster.
I found other writers helpful. Anaïs Nin, Charles Bukowski, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence all write about the erotic and/or the visceral. They definitely influenced me. Frida Kahlo inspired me and her story gave me the courage to write deeply personal stuff. The writers, well, they teach me how to write.
My favorite writers are Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin. I just finished reading Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which I've read about ten times now. And, I also just finished Cormac McCarthy's latest novel The Road.
You know, I read too much. Buddha suggested we read less and spend more time contemplating what we have read.
SHORY: You already had some choice words to say about M.F.A. programs, but did your LSU experience help you at all? Did you find yourself using techniques you learned there, and/or fighting against some of the training? Personally, I have a lot of voices in my head from both LSU and Auburn, some of them helpful, some very unhelpful, and it's a constant struggle to deal with them.
BEACH: I don't regret pursuing my M.F.A., because I did learn more about craft and form, I met some very cool people (like you!), and with my degree I can teach college-level writing, but the M.F.A. program did mess with my head.
For about three years after I finished graduate school I couldn't write. Not a lick. The workshops had strengthened my inner critic to the point I felt like a hack and failure every single time I attempted to write a poem or a story. And, no matter how hard I tried to shut her out, the inner critic refused to shut the fuck up.
It took about three years after finishing the program before I realized that I didn't give a shit about writing "literature" or pleasing the academics. I also had to accept that I may never ever make a living writing stories and poems, that no one really cares, that there are too many of us hacks out there to begin with, and if I want to write, so be it. I would write. Without expectations. Without trying to be brilliant. I like to write, I was losing my mind because my life was falling apart, and writing was my refuge. So I wrote. All that crap we learned in graduate school was finally digested and purged. The good stuff nourished, the bad stuff was flushed.
Graduate school is like eating meat: meat takes forever to digest and so it basically rots inside your bowels for a long long time before you get the usable stuff. Then you take a nice long shit. And you're good to go.
SHORY: Though you have a lot to say about female (and male) sexuality, I didn't see the book as an angry screed; your protagonist is hardly an all-innocent victim, and her boyfriends/sexual partners, while often not the best people in the world, don't come across as two-dimensional. Who do you see as the primary audience for Neurotica? What would you want men and women to take away from it?
BEACH: Yeah, if my narrator had come off as a whiny victim gal, I would have considered my work a failure. And, I didn't want the dudes in the stories to come off as bad guys -- just real, regular dudes, all with their own hang ups and obstacles. Really, the stories are all about the search for love in all of its insanity and insecurity and fear. Contemporary dating, hanging, playing is convoluted and honestly, people do their best with what they have, while trying to protect their intrigrity, and I wanted to convey this messy aspect of human nature. My original audience was women, but men seem to be digging the book, too, and not just because there's lots of unabashed sex. I think men are appreciative that this book is a woman's perspective that doesn't practice good ole fashioned ball busting.
You know, in my real life, I love my lovers. I love the men who come in and out of my life and often feel blessed to have both amazing male friends and lovers. A friend of mine told me recently that she thinks it's my overflowing capacity for love that makes me so cool. I try to hide the fact that I'm a huge softie, but I am. And, because I genuinely love the men in my life, I want to respect that, not bash them.
SHORY: Where do you go next with your writing?
BEACH: I have a couple of ideas -- but basically, I want to keep writing poems and stories. My goal is to do more performance. I've always loved theater and since I'm a terrible actor but a damn good reader, I like combining readings with performance. Sort of like Spalding Gray or Laurie Anderson or Sarah Silverman (well, she's a comedian, but you get the idea and I needed a more contemporary reference since the young un's have no idea who Gray or Anderson are).
SHORY: What advice would you give aspiring writers? Run screaming to the nearest MBA program?
BEACH: It's the same old advice: read and write. I'm dumbfounded by my writing students who don't read and who actually don't spend much time writing. They think their ideas should carry them. Ummmm...nope. Doesn't work that way. As you know, writing takes practice, struggle, discipline, and passion -- the good idea is helpful, but doesn't mean squat if it can't be executed. I use the playing guitar metaphor a lot in class: You own a guitar, but you never practice. Nor do you listen to a variety of music. But you harbor rock star dreams. Okay. It's fine to dream, but what are you thinking? Do you think one day you're just going to pick up the guitar and miraculously play like Jimi Hendrix?
My other advice is to NOT pursue writing as a profession. Find a more lucrative profession. Be a lawyer. Or an accountant. Or a nurse. At least those occupations will give you something to write about.
SHORY: You recently moved from Austin, which I'm told has a thriving literary and music and every other type of scene, to St. Louis, which, well, I don't know. Are there scenes in St. Louis?
BEACH: A scene…hmmm…Okay, so Austin has this slogan: Keep Austin Weird. But the true freaks, I mean the freaky freakazoid freaks, are in St. Louis. It's a dark city. The other night I was at this bar flirting with this dude who looked like your standard ex-frat, jock, country music listening type dude, and he grabbed my wrists and studied my fingers real bizarre like, and I said, “What the hell?” and he answered, “I’m a freelance phlebotomist.” I looked at his hands and noticed long fingernails filed into points and manicured with clear polish. After talking to him for a few more minutes I realized: He thinks he is a fucking VAMPIRE (well, there are no such things, but you know what I mean). Yeah. Folks are pretty darn strange here in the Lou. What kind of nickname is that anyway? The Lou?
SHORY: Do you like the provel cheese? I'm very fond of it.
BEACH: My favorite cheese is feta.
Elva Maxine Beach's Neurotica is available from New Belleville Press.
February 15, 2009
The Irate Savant--an excerpt
The Irate Savant Excerpt
(PDF: 279K; 28 pages)
From 2004 to 2005, I wrote a blog called Irate Savant. It was a fiction, but it made no claim to be, and it was the most fun I ever had writing. With a few links from Will Collier and Steve Green at Vodkapundit (and others), and a raucous, hilarious band of readers such as Brown Trout, PDS, Pursuit, Rob, Cap'n Nigel P. Fritters III and others, IS had some measure of success during its brief existence.
By the end of 2005, IS had played itself out. Truth is, I had started the blog on a lark and was flying by the seat of my pants the entire time--and it often showed. I briefly considered bringing the blog back, this time with more of a plan, but life interfered, and I outed myself. But I still liked the concept and the material, so over the next few years I set about converting the story to a novel. Despite earning an MFA at LSU, I had never applied myself to a work of that length, and it was a real bitch--a lonely one, too, entirely different from blogging.
Landing an agent and/or publisher through queries is hard enough when the publishing world as we've known it isn't imploding, but such is my lot. As I go through this process, I wanted to share a brief excerpt from the book, for the old crew as well as for any new readers who might be interested.
If you like it, let me know, and please pass it along. If nothing else pans out, I may go the POD route and sell the entire thing here.
Many thanks to my good friend, old classmate and talented writer and designer Rob Peneguy, who took one of my cover designs and made it ten times better. I don't think IS could have a better cover if a big press bought it. Thanks, Rob. Thanks to Paweł Kryj for the photograph.
And thanks for reading.
The Irate Savant Excerpt
(PDF: 279K; 28 pages)
(PDF: 279K; 28 pages)
From 2004 to 2005, I wrote a blog called Irate Savant. It was a fiction, but it made no claim to be, and it was the most fun I ever had writing. With a few links from Will Collier and Steve Green at Vodkapundit (and others), and a raucous, hilarious band of readers such as Brown Trout, PDS, Pursuit, Rob, Cap'n Nigel P. Fritters III and others, IS had some measure of success during its brief existence.
By the end of 2005, IS had played itself out. Truth is, I had started the blog on a lark and was flying by the seat of my pants the entire time--and it often showed. I briefly considered bringing the blog back, this time with more of a plan, but life interfered, and I outed myself. But I still liked the concept and the material, so over the next few years I set about converting the story to a novel. Despite earning an MFA at LSU, I had never applied myself to a work of that length, and it was a real bitch--a lonely one, too, entirely different from blogging.
Landing an agent and/or publisher through queries is hard enough when the publishing world as we've known it isn't imploding, but such is my lot. As I go through this process, I wanted to share a brief excerpt from the book, for the old crew as well as for any new readers who might be interested.
If you like it, let me know, and please pass it along. If nothing else pans out, I may go the POD route and sell the entire thing here.
Many thanks to my good friend, old classmate and talented writer and designer Rob Peneguy, who took one of my cover designs and made it ten times better. I don't think IS could have a better cover if a big press bought it. Thanks, Rob. Thanks to Paweł Kryj for the photograph.
And thanks for reading.
The Irate Savant Excerpt
(PDF: 279K; 28 pages)
February 12, 2009
The Greatest Product Ever
I don't often click on online ads, but yesterday while in Gmail one caught my eye, and I discovered what may be the Greatest Product Ever:
It's being sold as a burglar deterrent, but Engadget, BoingBoing and the FakeTV people themselves have got it all wrong.
The FakeTV people ought to realize what they have, because it's all right there in their website copy:
But here's the kicker:
Why waste your hard-earned dollars on a giant HDTV to watch predictable crap and reruns, when you can watch all-new content, all the time, at a fraction of the cost? At just $39.99, you can buy one for every room. I mean, hey, it's all just colorful lights and moving shapes anyway.
FakeTV people, if you'd like to buy ad space on my blog, I'll give you prime real estate. I'd like to become your spokesperson. I'll be your Billy Mays. I'll sell the shit out of these things.
It's being sold as a burglar deterrent, but Engadget, BoingBoing and the FakeTV people themselves have got it all wrong.
The FakeTV people ought to realize what they have, because it's all right there in their website copy:
Just like a real TV, FakeTV fills a room with color changes, both subtle and dramatic, in thousands of possible shades. Like real television programming, FakeTV is constantly shifting among more and less dynamic periods, more vivid and more monochromatic, and brighter and darker scenes.I don't know about you, but that sounds just like every episode of Lost I've ever seen.
But here's the kicker:
FakeTV is completely unpredictable, and it never repeats.That makes it superior to almost everything that's on real TV. And with no costly subscriptions, tangled cables, converter boxes, or DVRs--nothing more to buy, ever!
Why waste your hard-earned dollars on a giant HDTV to watch predictable crap and reruns, when you can watch all-new content, all the time, at a fraction of the cost? At just $39.99, you can buy one for every room. I mean, hey, it's all just colorful lights and moving shapes anyway.
FakeTV people, if you'd like to buy ad space on my blog, I'll give you prime real estate. I'd like to become your spokesperson. I'll be your Billy Mays. I'll sell the shit out of these things.
February 11, 2009
Dear President Obama:
I hope you are not offended by the open-letter, blog format I have chosen to correspond with you. Since you are the first president to carry a Blackberry, and probably the first to actually use the Internet for something other than viewing porn, I thought you would find this acceptable.
You seem on the verge of signing the stimulus package into law, and I congratulate you, your diminutive chief of staff, and everyone else who worked to get a bill through Congress (a most recalcitrant legislative body except when it comes to eroding our civil liberties). But let me be forthright: my chief concern at the moment is avoiding riding the hobo train and having to sell my children into indentured servitude. In that light, I fail to see how the "stabilization fund" for the states, which might have allowed my wife and me to remain employed, could be considered "waste" by the likes of Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska--who, by the way, is a dead ringer for Burgermeister Meisterburger:
Keeping people employed and working rather than jobless and on government assistance seems a better investment than tax incentives intended to restart the real estate boom, something which in hindsight looks more and more like tulipomania. I suspect you largely feel the same way, and I understand the necessity of compromising with the addle-pated. This is, after all, a democracy, despite the fervent attempts of the previous administration.
Then there's the matter of TARP and additional funding for bank stabilization. I'm afraid that in his speech earlier this week, Mr. Geithner came across rather like George Costanza in his Breakfast at Tiffany's reading club. He seems torn between actually doing something and continuing to prop up the plunderbund, who by have proven their inability and/or unwillingness to do other than steer our entire way of life off a cliff with a rapidity about which Osama bin Laden could only dream.
As a time- and effort-saving alternative, you could take all of those billions and set fire to them, like the Joker in The Dark Knight, or--let me suggest--you could invest them in a grand project, something that would employ thousands, lead to astounding technological breakthroughs, and solve a broad range of challenges facing us.
And I have just the thing.
It is time to build the Starship Enterprise.
Yes, I know what you're thinking: that could take a really long time. But have you seen From the Earth to the Moon? When President Kennedy proposed sending a man to the moon by the end of the decade, no one had the slightest clue how to do that. And yet they figured it out in just a few years.
By contrast, extensive blueprints and schematics of the Enterprise already exist:
And the phasers. My God, the phasers.
If I recall, a starship like the Enterprise is able to lay waste to an entire planet--which might be nice as a threat, but the real benefit would be surgical strikes.
Just look at what a handheld version did to a giant, one-horned albino ape:
Now just imagine this:
Or this:
Just kidding about the second one! Perish the thought!
There are many non-military benefits of Starfleet technology as well, such as transporters:
and warp drive:
Fuel crisis solved.
We just need to find some dilithium crystals.
At some point, you must surely realize, we have got to get off this godforsaken hellhole. Either some lunatic is going to unleash a weapon, a giant asteroid is going to collide with us, or the industrialists will poison us, and that's all she wrote. If we have the Enterprise, however, we have options. We can travel to all kinds of lovely worlds, such as the one where you are sprayed with a pollen that fills you with the urge to don a jumpsuit and swing merrily upside-down from a tree limb:
Remember: think big. Such a project comes with ready-made grand rhetoric, too: "not because they are easy, but because they are hard," "to boldly go where no one has gone before," etc., etc. Recall that you said that "Nasa . . . is no longer associated with inspiration" and that you "believe in the final frontier."
Finally, lest we forget:
Miniskirts.
They're not sexist, either. It's the future. Everyone's enlightened in the future, so it must be okay.
At the very least, attempting to build the Enterprise is no less promising than handing over hundreds of billions to proven swindlers.
At least consider it.
Your ardent supporter,
Lein Shory
P.S. If you happen to come across this letter and it would not be too much trouble, I would be most appreciative if you were to send me a signed photograph. I have promised my mother, the Republican, that I will hang your likeness in my dining room, and an autographed photo would be so much the better. Thanks!
You seem on the verge of signing the stimulus package into law, and I congratulate you, your diminutive chief of staff, and everyone else who worked to get a bill through Congress (a most recalcitrant legislative body except when it comes to eroding our civil liberties). But let me be forthright: my chief concern at the moment is avoiding riding the hobo train and having to sell my children into indentured servitude. In that light, I fail to see how the "stabilization fund" for the states, which might have allowed my wife and me to remain employed, could be considered "waste" by the likes of Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska--who, by the way, is a dead ringer for Burgermeister Meisterburger:
Keeping people employed and working rather than jobless and on government assistance seems a better investment than tax incentives intended to restart the real estate boom, something which in hindsight looks more and more like tulipomania. I suspect you largely feel the same way, and I understand the necessity of compromising with the addle-pated. This is, after all, a democracy, despite the fervent attempts of the previous administration.
Then there's the matter of TARP and additional funding for bank stabilization. I'm afraid that in his speech earlier this week, Mr. Geithner came across rather like George Costanza in his Breakfast at Tiffany's reading club. He seems torn between actually doing something and continuing to prop up the plunderbund, who by have proven their inability and/or unwillingness to do other than steer our entire way of life off a cliff with a rapidity about which Osama bin Laden could only dream.
As a time- and effort-saving alternative, you could take all of those billions and set fire to them, like the Joker in The Dark Knight, or--let me suggest--you could invest them in a grand project, something that would employ thousands, lead to astounding technological breakthroughs, and solve a broad range of challenges facing us.
And I have just the thing.
It is time to build the Starship Enterprise.
Yes, I know what you're thinking: that could take a really long time. But have you seen From the Earth to the Moon? When President Kennedy proposed sending a man to the moon by the end of the decade, no one had the slightest clue how to do that. And yet they figured it out in just a few years.
By contrast, extensive blueprints and schematics of the Enterprise already exist:
And the phasers. My God, the phasers.
If I recall, a starship like the Enterprise is able to lay waste to an entire planet--which might be nice as a threat, but the real benefit would be surgical strikes.
Just look at what a handheld version did to a giant, one-horned albino ape:
Now just imagine this:
Or this:
Just kidding about the second one! Perish the thought!
There are many non-military benefits of Starfleet technology as well, such as transporters:
and warp drive:
Fuel crisis solved.
We just need to find some dilithium crystals.
At some point, you must surely realize, we have got to get off this godforsaken hellhole. Either some lunatic is going to unleash a weapon, a giant asteroid is going to collide with us, or the industrialists will poison us, and that's all she wrote. If we have the Enterprise, however, we have options. We can travel to all kinds of lovely worlds, such as the one where you are sprayed with a pollen that fills you with the urge to don a jumpsuit and swing merrily upside-down from a tree limb:
Remember: think big. Such a project comes with ready-made grand rhetoric, too: "not because they are easy, but because they are hard," "to boldly go where no one has gone before," etc., etc. Recall that you said that "Nasa . . . is no longer associated with inspiration" and that you "believe in the final frontier."
Finally, lest we forget:
Miniskirts.
They're not sexist, either. It's the future. Everyone's enlightened in the future, so it must be okay.
At the very least, attempting to build the Enterprise is no less promising than handing over hundreds of billions to proven swindlers.
At least consider it.
Your ardent supporter,
Lein Shory
P.S. If you happen to come across this letter and it would not be too much trouble, I would be most appreciative if you were to send me a signed photograph. I have promised my mother, the Republican, that I will hang your likeness in my dining room, and an autographed photo would be so much the better. Thanks!
February 10, 2009
A Fool's Errand
Since when has writing ever been a good get-rich-quick scheme?
Yesterday I came across this article by Daniel Lyons, warning that you're unlikely to get rich by blogging.
Lyons wrote The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog. I looked at it a few times and thought it was well done, though I didn't read it regularly, as I'm not one of those babies who worship Apple (a cult as annoying as Scientology, and sadly more ubiquitous). The initial appeal was its anonymous, WTF nature--not terribly dissimilar, I must note, from the Irate Savant blog I began in 2004, though because of the subject matter, Lyons' blog was better suited to finding a wider audience. But the idea, as I learned, is also something of a one-trick pony, especially once your secret's out.
As a senior editor of Forbes and a published author, Lyons surely understands better than most how hard it is for most people to make money writing, much less get rich doing it. You can't expect to just press a few buttons, start posting, and watch the money flow in, any more than you can expect to just crank out a manuscript, ship it off to a few editors, and wait for your Pulitzer money to arrive in the mail.
It's still a wonder to me that anyone needs to be told that.
It's one thing to write for money. Everyone knows the Samuel Johnson quote, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," but there's a big difference between writing for money and writing to get rich. For one thing, the former is actually possible. Much better to get an MBA or go to law school. Or play the lottery. The lottery's easy. You buy a ticket, you win or you don't. With writing, you work hard for countless hours, and your odds are no better. Yes, yes, Stephen King, blah, blah, blah. But one could probably count on one's hands the number of people alive who are rich from writing, and the number of people who ever lived who got rich--really rich--from writing would probably not fill a medium-sized sports arena. And yet scores of people set out every day to be writers, of blogs or books or screenplays or whatever, and many of them do so with the goal of becoming some cross between Ernest Hemingway and the Great Gatsby (sans their unfortunate demises). Since I like to eat and be able to clothe my family, I'm not a fan of the suffering artist archetype, but frankly, if you set out to get rich by writing, you are more than likely a damn fool. Making a living writing is possible, though improbable (which is why so many writers end up teaching in university writing programs, which are at least in part state-sponsored patronage systems). There are better, quicker, easier ways to make money.
So it is on that note that I begin Shoryland, a blog virtually guaranteed to generate no revenue, for it has no real purpose other than to provide me a platform from which to bloviate about whatever comes to mind. That's one of the things I missed the most about the Irate Savant blog; I've spent the last several years turning that material into a novel, a terribly lonely enterprise, and I was itching to get back to blogging the entire time.
Yes, I've got Google Adsense on the site, and I'm going to add Amazon Marketplace widgets, and maybe even a PayPal donate button. I've been thinking about opening my own CafePress store, not because I think I can make money, but because the thought of selling Shoryland products amuses me. And if these next rounds of agent and editor queries go nowhere, I'm going the print-on-demand route with The Irate Savant, and I'll make it available for purchase here. If I pull in a buck or two, great, but I'm not planning on it.
Yesterday I came across this article by Daniel Lyons, warning that you're unlikely to get rich by blogging.
Lyons wrote The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog. I looked at it a few times and thought it was well done, though I didn't read it regularly, as I'm not one of those babies who worship Apple (a cult as annoying as Scientology, and sadly more ubiquitous). The initial appeal was its anonymous, WTF nature--not terribly dissimilar, I must note, from the Irate Savant blog I began in 2004, though because of the subject matter, Lyons' blog was better suited to finding a wider audience. But the idea, as I learned, is also something of a one-trick pony, especially once your secret's out.
As a senior editor of Forbes and a published author, Lyons surely understands better than most how hard it is for most people to make money writing, much less get rich doing it. You can't expect to just press a few buttons, start posting, and watch the money flow in, any more than you can expect to just crank out a manuscript, ship it off to a few editors, and wait for your Pulitzer money to arrive in the mail.
It's still a wonder to me that anyone needs to be told that.
It's one thing to write for money. Everyone knows the Samuel Johnson quote, "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," but there's a big difference between writing for money and writing to get rich. For one thing, the former is actually possible. Much better to get an MBA or go to law school. Or play the lottery. The lottery's easy. You buy a ticket, you win or you don't. With writing, you work hard for countless hours, and your odds are no better. Yes, yes, Stephen King, blah, blah, blah. But one could probably count on one's hands the number of people alive who are rich from writing, and the number of people who ever lived who got rich--really rich--from writing would probably not fill a medium-sized sports arena. And yet scores of people set out every day to be writers, of blogs or books or screenplays or whatever, and many of them do so with the goal of becoming some cross between Ernest Hemingway and the Great Gatsby (sans their unfortunate demises). Since I like to eat and be able to clothe my family, I'm not a fan of the suffering artist archetype, but frankly, if you set out to get rich by writing, you are more than likely a damn fool. Making a living writing is possible, though improbable (which is why so many writers end up teaching in university writing programs, which are at least in part state-sponsored patronage systems). There are better, quicker, easier ways to make money.
So it is on that note that I begin Shoryland, a blog virtually guaranteed to generate no revenue, for it has no real purpose other than to provide me a platform from which to bloviate about whatever comes to mind. That's one of the things I missed the most about the Irate Savant blog; I've spent the last several years turning that material into a novel, a terribly lonely enterprise, and I was itching to get back to blogging the entire time.
Yes, I've got Google Adsense on the site, and I'm going to add Amazon Marketplace widgets, and maybe even a PayPal donate button. I've been thinking about opening my own CafePress store, not because I think I can make money, but because the thought of selling Shoryland products amuses me. And if these next rounds of agent and editor queries go nowhere, I'm going the print-on-demand route with The Irate Savant, and I'll make it available for purchase here. If I pull in a buck or two, great, but I'm not planning on it.
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