Heroes

Today I finished reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Maybe my expectations were too High, but I was hoping that by reading this text I would be seized with some sort of poetic, ancestral blood lust. Yes! Now, I will write epics that will survive centuries! Gold! Monsters! Mead!

No such luck.

I was glad for the change of pace, though. I had just finished reading Plato's Republic. Guilt has dictated my reading list over the past few months. You see, I managed to get a BA in English without having read any of the Seminal Texts. Sure, I've read some Shakespeare, but I never got through the whole Bible or Canterbury Tales and I've only read excerpts of The Iliad and The Odyssey. I have read the Epic of Gilgamesh, though.

I know all of these stories by reputation. Because of this I have very high expectations, tracing this lineage of Inspiration back a few thousand years.


The Repbulic was boring.

Beowulf, on the other hand, was like reading a comic book. Seriously. It's a heroic story with vengeance, drinking, fighting, dragons, terrible monsters, episodic ordeals. Who wouldn't want to read this?

Maybe I'm jaded, or perhaps I've read too many deconstructive texts, but all I could think about while reading Beowulf was Alan Moore's The Watchmen. A critic wrote about that epic something to the effect of, "The Watchmen is Alan Moore's admonishment to anyone who ever wanted a hero to save them." And isn't this a fitting parallel? Beowulf ends foreshadowing of the complete destruction of Goetaland from invaders. Because Beowulf won't be there to Save them.

Two days ago my friends and I were sitting around drinking whiskey and talking about Andy Warhol. Yes, we do that sometimes. We tried to discuss his art and his commentaries, but again and again we came back to talking about the man himself. We concluded that he was an asshole and one M pointed out that he was probably sitting up in some ostentatiously flamboyant afterlife laughing at us.

Warhol. Andy Warhol. No matter how you feel about the man, you cannot escape him. Can you? His work is Everywhere. I have no idea what he did to the discussion about Art (and Visual Art in particular), but he certainly did Something Permanent to it.

Kind of like Samuel Beckett.

A few years ago I took a digital poetics class from Dee Morris. In discussing the lineage of digital poetics, she said, "And this all comes back to the great Samuel Beckett." Dee never prefaced any other person with "the great" and it carried the same weight as the Old Man speaking of "the great DiMaggio."

I don't like Beckett. But I can't stop reading him. This goes beyond my desire to familiarize myself with the Canon (just so that I can say, "Yes, I know goddamn canon."). Samuel Beckett Haunts me. Even if his work confuses, frustrates, and bores the hell out of me, I keep coming back to it. Isn't that the best relationship to have with the Greats? To loath and to worship.

My hero, Samuel Beckett. And, in that critic's estimation, he's the best hero I could choose, because I have no wish or expectation for Samuel Beckett to come and save me (though, wouldn't that be awesome?).

If I'm ever reincarnated, I wish I could come back as Samuel Beckett's fingertips.

Genre Wars, Part I

A few days ago I read "Why Isn't Literary Fiction Getting More Attention," a guest-post on Jane Friedman's blog by writer and teacher April Line. The gist of it is self explanatory. Normally I'm irked by people trashing my aesthetic, but this one just confused me.

Line draws a pretty obvious initial line in the sand between the people who prefer "... Amy Hempel or John McNally or Joan Didion than Stephanie Meyer or Nora Roberts or John Grisham." The former three, I suppose, are "literary authors" and the latter are "genre."

Okay, fine, I'll walk with you. I take exception to her straw-manning the concept of genre by not naming authors who carry the same critical baggage as her "literary" short list (like Madeleine L'Engle; or ... I've got nothing for romance, but that's because I'm not well read there; or Jonathan Lethem), but whatever.

However, next she sites a little-known book, Ron Currie Jr.'s God is Dead, as a good example of fine literary writing. This is where she lost me. I have never read God Is Dead, but the reviews say that it is a collection of short stories begins with "the death of God, who, disguised as a Sudanese woman, dies in Darfur." Bookslut and Line herself use the phrase "post-apocalyptic" to describe it.

But, in fact, that is a genre. My friends and I all it "post-apocalyptic fiction."

I'm honestly not sure if April Line would place God Is Dead in the same genus as The Day of the Triffids or The Road or The Stand, but I would. I have no idea if I would place God Is Dead in the same category as Amy Hempel, since I have not read the former. But I tend to think of Joan Didion as an apocalyptic writer. That's just my opinion.

That's where we all get stuck: personal opinion. Personally, I think the only place the word "genre" belongs is in academia - where, if we didn't have such fine words to argue about we'd have nothing to do - and secret, underground, publishers' marketing rooms where the purpose is to figure out how to get the most people to actually buy their books (or, in a less cynical view, get the books to the people who like them).

Basically, I don't think that Line is angry that "genre books" are selling better than "literature." She's upset that not enough people are reading her favorite books.

There's no reason to fault anyone for that, though. We don't choose what we love. I just don't take kindly to the attitude, It's not that what I like is bad, it's that you aren't sophisticated enough appreciate it. The real difference between genre and literature is the speaker's ego. And, yes, I realize the irony in my making a fuss about it.

The Lonely Art

A few months ago I wrote a post, "Thoughts on the Iowa City Book Festival" and spent a while talking about a panel discussion about teaching writing. The panelists were Camille T. Dungy and Ibtisam Barakat. There was a tangential point that Barakat made that I didn't write about because I wasn't entirely sure what to Do with it.

Writing is a lonely art, she said, but it's essentially a means to an end. She elaborated that sharing ones writing and participating in a community of writers is one way to do what we're essentially all trying to do, the Human Endeavor: to not be Lonely.

I have been finding it difficult to write, lately. Working in AmeriCorps in a city far from home, living and working with people who are far from home, I am a captive participant in an ad hoc community. It's not a bad thing. The real problem is that saying "No" is treason and you begin to think of everything in absolutes. If I don't go out this evening, this opportunity may never come again.

A former writing teacher, Sean Christopher Lewis, said that one of the greatest challenges for a writer is to say to your friends, "Sorry, guys, I can't go out tonight. I'm going to hang out with these people I made up."

I agree with Barakat, though. Everything we do is to somehow weave our lives in and around Others and some of us find that the act of locking ourselves up with a computer or a notebook is the most expedient way of doing so. One of the most honest answer's I've ever heard to the question, "Why do you write?" was from Eric "Pogi" Sumangil who said, "I write for the same reason I do everything -- to impress women."

This observation doesn't really boil down to writing advice. Or, if it does, I suppose it helps put this habit in the context of Human Endeavors. I stay in and write because, in the end, writing will help me bridge a gap, which is the whole point of communication: to commune with other people.

Anyway, enough of this. How about a prompt?

Prompt: Write an Ad

Introducing: Nothing.

The average American is exposed to Want over 5,000 times a month.  We literally spend our lives bombarded with Inadequacy and pulled down by the desire for Things and Stuff. Don't you think you deserve better? We do.


We think you're perfect the way you are. That's why we're giving you Nothing.


With the scientifically proven power of Nothing, you'll lead a happier, more successful life. You'll earn more money, get that job you always wanted, have a great sex life, see the number of friends you have quintuple, never have a dull night, and find that Everything is just that easy.


We guarantee that Nothing is your solution.


Go to your local Big Box, give the manger the balance in your savings account, and get Nothing today!

No! I Refuse! I… I… I’m Going to Grad School!

Honestly, I never quite understood the Urgency of the desire to go to grad school is until I got an eight-to-five Job.

Maybe I just haven’t learned the knack of living with such intractable constraints. But, I honestly can’t figure out how other people balance work and family and hobbies all in 24 hours.

That is the greatest obstacle to Resolutions.

Usually, resolving to do things is easy. I could promise to do anything. But suddenly I have limitations. And my job has brought out the cynic and pessimist in me. Suddenly, I rarely think about aspirations and dreams so much as processes and the clearly attainable.

Since becoming a grant writer, I have become obsessed with budgets and strategic plans.

But, I will not let that stop me now. I shall make promises and keep them this year because, really, it’s the End of the World, and so I need to make this one count.

Anyway, the aspirations are divided up into writing goals and life goals, because that’s the only distinction I make on a day-to-day basis.

Writing Goals:

1.  Keep writing at least once a week in Scribbler’s Doorless Room. Make at least one post every month about writing. Do a book review every two months. That sounds manageable.

2.  At some point, write a story/essay/play/poem every day for a week and post it in Scribbler’s Doorless Room. If that works, go for a month. If that works, keep going until exhaustion takes hold.

3.  Write one new story/essay/play/poem and revise one old story/essay/play/poem every month.

4.  Submit my “finished” plays to more competitions.

5.  Film “The Fear of”.

Life Goals:

1.  Be a better grant writer and copywriter. … And figure out what that means. Getting more money, I suppose. That works for me.

2.  Get into grad school. Or reapply.

3.  Or get a Fulbright. Or reapply.

4.  Or get a job teaching English abroad. Or reapply.

5.  Or get a salaried job writing copy or grants. Or reapply.

6.  Or get a job with AmeriCorps and do good work.

7.  Read at least a book a week.

8.  Laugh and smile more often, so as to confuse my enemies.

Getting Started: Part 1

This was supposed to be a literary blog.

A couple years ago my sister roped me into a gchat while I was viscously hungover. She told me that she wanted to start writing again and needed advice on how to Begin. In high school she was a prose writer and poet, but then life got in the way and when you drop a habit like that it’s difficult to pick it back up. Writing is wily.

Anyway, I gave her an answer that seemed to satisfy her. My intention was to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible and I succeeded. What do I really Know about Writing?

Well, I thought about the question a lot and realized that I do have many Opinions on Writing. The purpose of this blog was to discuss those opinions, but I got side tracked and, ultimately, lazy.

And so, like Counting Crows, I’m getting back to Basics: Getting Started.

It seems appropriate for this last day of the Year 2011, before the Beginning of the Year of the Apocalypse, 2012. Everyone I know despises New Year’s and loathes Resolutions, but every year I get suckered in to the ritual by bizarre faith in opposition to empirical evidence. I will write more often in Scribbler’s Doorless Room about Writing. I will write more often, to combat laziness and boredom. I feel compelled to make great promises and keep them since, you know, the End is nigh.

Notice that this is “Getting Started: Part 1.” I will revisit this topic at a later date.

Without further ado, an Opinion:

Shortly before I moved to New Orleans, I read Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird. If you’ve ever taken a writing class, you have probably read excerpts or the whole book. If you haven’t, you should. You’ll be happier. Even if you’re not a writer, this book will exponentially improve your Quality of Life. Reading Bird by Bird feels like a meaningful hug.

In her chapter about Getting Stared, Ann Lamott advises one do Small Things or Small Exercises – I forgot her exact words, but that’s the gist of it. In other words, do not set out to write a Book, or, God forbid, a Novel or a Tome. Instead, write something manageable, like a very short blog post about getting started writing.

Since my sister asked, several friends have asked me: How do you start? How do you actually begin writing? I really wish that I had a snappy response, one that would enlighten and advise you for years to come, but I’m not Ann Lamott. And my personal strategy is not universally applicable.

I write compulsively. The other day, I went to Iowa City for two days, forgetting my notebooks in Des Moines and was in a state of restless frustration every time I realized that I didn’t have something to write on. I carry pocket-sized notebooks with me Everywhere and make regular use of them. Whenever I don’t take notes, I write in my journal. I have a separate notebook at home for writing plays and stories. With few exceptions, I’ve written every day for the past five years.

Occasionally, my writing gets me in trouble. A few people, knowing my Bad Habit, have ordered me to never write about them or to omit certain details from my Record. I have always adhered to these wishes.  But, invariably, most things end up in my Scribblings. Most of it isn’t stories, or plays, or essays, or even blog entries, but all of it is Useful and fair game for future projects.

If I did not write, I would not know what to do with myself. Probably I would have a lot more free time. Probably I would have a better social life and I would play more video games and I would be less anxious and maybe I would be a happier person. But at least there’s a paper trail.

My secret – and the reason why my method is not universally applicable - is that I’ve driven myself crazy. I have managed to make myself obsessed with and compelled to write. Sure, sometimes sanity wins out and I take breaks, but mostly I can’t help but scribble things down and make stories out of things that happen to me.

So, manhandle that into something resembling instruction and it looks like this: carry a medium around with you everywhere and make use of it.

Luckily, most of us – particularly those of my generation – are pretty good about this already. We all have Twitter and Facebook accounts and most of us have some sort of online journal. We are all obsessed. Well done. You write every day. Now do it consciously.

But, even if you have the ability and the tools, how do you Start? My advice is just Write.

Whenever the opportunity presents itself, take advantage. If you don’t, you will hunt for incantations and rituals and create superstitions ad nauseum trying to find that Special Rite that makes the magic Work. Write and, sooner or later, you will discover what works for you.

Many of my friends cannot write unless they listen to music. Some need to write long hand, others on a computer. Some people can write in the morning and others couldn’t write a word to save their lives unless it’s after midnight. Some require coffee, others liquor. For a long time, I was convinced that I couldn’t write unless I had ingested some legal drug - Java House’s St. Louis Blues or Gilby’s Gin - and was writing on a Moleskine notebook – plane, 9x14cm, item number 9788883701030 – with a Zebra F-301, fine-tipped pen in the dead of night. Now I know that these are all crutches. I can write well whenever I need to under whatever circumstance. The other things just make life easier.

But, how do you Start?

Okay, let’s do that right now. It’s the last day of 2011, but it’s still a day in your life and something interesting has happened to you already, I guarantee it. Think back on the last conversation you had. Someone told a story. Maybe you did. We all tell stories. Or maybe when you woke up you thought about all of those Resolutions you haven’t made yet or all those that you didn’t keep. It can be banal or fantastic. What did you eat? When did you start eating that breakfast every day? Did your parents make it for you and you never stopped? Was that loud sound you just heard now a car crash?

Here’s something a friend told me that I just realized was a story:

No one knew who invited him. Wearing a leather, bomber jacket over neat, business casual and a dark, unreadable look, almost blank. She could smell him from across the room. Axe, like he never grew out of Middle School, which seemed at odds with his deliberate calm, spacy courtesy. Lilly hated strangers at her apartment, especially big strangers. At four eleven, the world was filled with giants to her, but this guy was at the far end of six feet tall and so was something of a monstrosity to her.

“Who is that guy?” Lilly asked Pat when she cornered him in the kitchen.

Pat shrugged, pouring water into glasses from a filter in the fridge. It was a weekday and, though Lilly had stocked up on beer just in case, no one was in the mood. After pizza, water. After film, go home. After that, work again. Where had that routine come from?

“Andrea’s cousin. He’s in town for the week. Think he’s in marketing, but he just got into that. Andrea says he sort of changes and moves on a whim. Think his name is Jason,” Pat said. She managed to carry the six glasses out to the living room by herself. A former bartender. Lilly had seen her carry five steins in each hand on multiple occasions - the requisite strength and coordination appalled her.

Andrea was talking to his cousin on the couch. Andrea was talking. The cousin looked like he was listening. Lilly wasn’t even sure if Andrea was listening to herself since she appeared to be playing a game on her smart phone. Lilly and Pat sat down and the conversation quickly turned toward what movie they should watch.

“Serenity?” Lilly asked.

“She don’t like Firefly,” Andrea joked, gesturing at Andrea.

“The Sound of Music,” said Jason in a surprisingly soft voice, almost a whisper. Everyone looked at him. “It’s my favorite film.”

“Jason’s fucking around.” Andrea rolled his eyes. “How about The Dark Knight?”

“We always watch Dark Knight,” Lilly moaned.

“It’s been months at least,” Andrea countered.

“We’ve watched everything on your shelf once,” Pat said.

“Right. Why don’t we go out. Why don’t we try doing something different?” Lilly said. “Let’s go bowling. Or skiing.”

“There’s no snow,” said Andrea. “And we all have to work tomorrow.”

“I’ve never seen The Dark Knight,” Jason said. Lilly followed his gaze. He was looking out the window at the apartment building across the street. A man and woman were silhouetted against the shade. She only caught a glimpse of one figure raising the arm to reach for the others face, or maybe throat, before the light extinguished.

“Settled,” Andrea said, triumphantly.

They watched the movie in silence, sipping water. The smell of pizza went stale and mixed with that peculiar brick and dust smell that had probably hung around the apartment for the past century. Lilly stopped paying attention after the opening credits. She thought about sitting at her desk tomorrow, writing more letters and more letters to customers and partners and when had that become her job? Tomorrow was probably going to be like yesterday and this seemed to be the trajectory of life. A disjointed, disingenuous dialogue interrupted by sleep and eating and movies that she’s watched too many times.

The movie finished and Andrea and Pat helped Lilly clean up. It was not until they began shuffling, one conversation at a time about the next holiday or where they hell they could go skiing if there were snow, that Andrea asked, “Where’s Jason?”

It took ten seconds to double check the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and bathroom to ascertain that Jason was not in the apartment. The front door’s deadbolt was fastened. No keys were missing. A glance at the open window and a mental leap took Lilly to the conclusion that he was on the fire escape.

“Is your cousin…” Lilly searched for an inoffensive word. “Well?”

“Well…” Andrea said, looking out the window.

“I’ll be back,” Lilly said. It was her guest and her fire escape. She’d find the wayward cousin and bring him back from the exit or the brink or whatever or wherever he may be.

He was on the roof, five stories up. She almost never went to the roof except on the 4^th of July and whenever she really needed to get away from that brick and dust smell, which was more often, lately. He was standing on the ledge, something that Lilly had never been brave enough to do. She wondered what he was looking at. The wind was cold and smelled of trash and grease from all the fast food restaurants so nearby. People were shouting below.

“Jason…?” Lilly began. She stood a few feet behind him. He was silhouetted against the sodium orange light on the building next so that, she supposed, it might not have been Jason. It could be some other behemoth standing on her ledge and Jason was somewhere below, having made a clandestine escape while she and the girls were talking. Yet he responded.

“There’s a lot crime in this town…” Jason whispered. Lilly stepped closer, despite his observation.

“Yes… there is. Why don’t you come inside? And then leave?”

“No. There’s a lot of crime in this town,” Jason insisted.

“Yes…” Lilly agreed.

“Someone’s gotta do something about it,” Jason said. He turned around and walked briskly past her to the fire escape and took them three at a time on his way down. Lilly ran over to watch his descent. She watched as he threw on his helmet, jumped on his motorcycle, and drove off into the urban night that now seemed to be filled with more crying and screaming than usual.

As she made her way back down to her second floor apartment, Lilly entertained the idea that tomorrow she would wake up and Jason would be waiting for her at her breakfast table. You can never share my identity, he would tell her. You could be in danger, he would tell her, but I’ll protect you. But then what? She would just go to work again with more confusing elements to her life that she could never tell anyone. Protected. Safe.

Andrea and Pat waited by her front door. Pat was saying, “… weirdest things. You know. You should try it. But only if you’re in a good place. Floating on salt water, your brain gets so bored that it starts making whole worlds.”

“I’m not really into – Lilly? Where’s Jason?” Andrea asked. They both turned to her, something between malaise and interest. It was a look that she saw every day, the look that greeted her in the mirror every morning.

She considered telling them. It would have taken too long, she decided. Lilly walked past them, grabbing her keys and jacket.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, closing the door, leaving Andrea and Pat at the threshold to return to their conversation and decide what to do in her absence.

Talk

One of my coworkers told me the other day, "Sam, you're very good at nonverbal communication." This is very important to her since she is a former teacher. Once she told me about one of the most important lessons she learned in Teach for America: The Look. It's the expression you give to the class when you want them to shut up and pay attention.

A few weeks ago, IB told me, "I never really realized how quiet you were. And you give this look, like you're looking at some sort of inferior human being. Like whoever you're looking at should be ashamed of themselves."


I have put this expression to good use. One of my former coworkers at the bookstore found my Silent Look incredibly disconcerting. Since it's impossible to argue with him, it was a great pleasure to reduce him to sputtering inconsistencies and obscenities with a cool, ten-second stare.

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

We're in this together, right?

After dinner, four drinks, and comparing jobs, kids, babysitters, marriages, mortgages, political affiliations, and the last two week vacations, Kimberly finally felt comfortable asking the real question: "Travis," she said, "Be honest. Do you still keep zombie contingency plans?"

Travis and his wife, Mol, both laughed. Gray, Kimberly's husband, chuckled and gave her, "Are you serious, look?" and then a pointed glance at her whiskey sour.

"How did I know you were going to ask that? How did I know?" Travis said.

"Because, you always used to go on and on about it," Kimberly said. "So, come on. Do you have one?"

"For right here?"

"If a zombie horde appeared outside that window, do you have a way to get us out?" Kimberly asked.

Mol looked around the gigantic restaurant with its rustic-gaudy woodwork and tables covered in behemoth platters of food. "I don't know," she said. "It's pretty crowded in here. If there is a zombie invasion, I think we're all screwed."

"What about a terrorist attack?" Grey asked.  Kimberly watched out of the corner of her eye as Travis ran his finger along the rim of his wine glass. "Or a tornado?"

"Well?" Kimberly asked Travis, leaning forward.

Travis shrugged. "Haven't thought about it here. But we're only, what, ten miles from my cousin's farm. That was the old go-to. The guy is a redneck and so is prepared for the day when he'll be able to exercise his second amendment rights fully and overthrow the government militia-style."

"He's still alive?" Grey asked, in his I'm-humoring-you-voice that Kiberly hated. She looked at the foggy window next to her and drew and X. Buried treasure.

"Barely," Travis admitted. He turned to Mol. "At least we have Mol. She still practices archery. We'll be good for hunting."

"I can kill zombies with a bow and arrow," Mol protested. "I'm a goddamn good archer."

And Kimberly was a master in Kendo, but no one bragged about that. She could take a zombie or a dozen. If she had her swords, which she'd purchased in Japan, but they were back at the apartment with the kids.

"That still doesn't solve the immediate problem of getting out the restaurant," Grey said.

"Grey can only think in the immediate," Kimberly said and elbowed him. "He can't think about serious problems like the apocalypse of the undead."

Grey waved to the waiter.

"The kitchen," Travis said, pausing dramatically while he pointed to the door a few feet away. "Is right there. Everyone else will run for the exits. We pick up some knives on the way for protection and make for the car which is, conveniently, parked across the street, behind the building."

"Did you think of that?" Grey asked. He didn't wait for the answer and spoke quietly with the waiter. Kimberly knew this meant he was going to take the check and abruptly end the evening as soon as the tip was settled.

"I might have."

"Well, I'll probably survive, at least. I still am coherent, unlike the three of you," Mol said.

Mol was a teetotaler and used this when others were at their most vulnerable to win arguments. Kimberly never let her win, though. When they were drunk in college, Kimberly would always challenge her to races, scrimmages, Rochambeau, or board games and invariably win because she was more resourceful when drunk. She cheated more easily. After they both had kids, Kimberly had to settle for petty battles of wit for lack of time and resources.

"I can still manage obstacles," Mol said, and gave Kimberly what she thought might be a challenging look.

After the waiter walked away, Grey said, "We're in a crowded restaurant.  We're all meat."

"So, what, you'd just surrender?" Kimberly said, watching Grey stiffen almost imperceptibly. He'd been laughing earlier that evening, but his humor failed with the meandering conversation. "Try to negotiate with the zombies?"

"I've talked to worse," Grey said. "My coworkers are pretty much dead already."

"You used to have a plan."

"It's not worth the effort."

"It's fun."

"I had a friend," Mol said, "who said that his plan for the zombie apocalypse was to put on body armor, attach razor blades to his hands, and file his teeth and then go out and get bitten so that he could be a super-zombie."

"Charming," Grey said.

"Let's not go, yet," Kimberly said, grabbing Grey's arm as he reached for his coat. He shook her off. "Come on. We're having fun."

Grey turned around and threw his hands up in the air. "Can we please stop fucking each other? Can we please? I mean, Christ, or at least could we talk about it and lay out ground rules? Like that I'd like to sleep with my wife more often than you two?"

No one spoke. Kimberly placed her finger on the rim of her empty glass and pushed gradually until it fell over. Lucky it was empty. He had to ruin things again.

"We were having fun," Mol said. "You ruined the evening, Grey."

"You're such an asshole," Travis said. "And selfish. I mean-"

"Pogs? Who still has their Pogs?" Kimberly asked.

Someone screamed in the kitchen. All four stood up and stared at the white, swinging doors. Blood splashed on the circular window and a limp hand fell through between the crack. An awful, rotting stench hit them. Someone else screamed and then another and another.

"Come on," Kimberly, Travis, Grey, and Mol said together.

They picked up the table in unison and threw it through the window.