The Hive
The official blog of science fiction / horror author Terence West.
William Gibson Blog
Famed author of Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic: The Screenplay.
The Word Foundry
Joe Clifford Faust's "blog of a working writer: tracking writing projects, musings on the
creative process, occasional side trips into music, media, politics, religion, etc."
A Writer's Diary
By Cynthia Harrison, who has the good sense to quote Virginia Woolf: "The truth is that writing
is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial."
The American Sentimentalist
"Never has any people endured its own tragedy with so little sense of the tragic." Essays by Mark W. Anderson.
Screenwriting By Blog
David C. Daniel writes a screenplay online. "I've decided to publish the process as a way to push myself through it.
From concept to completion, it'll be here."
SeanAlonzo.com
Official site of occult fiction author Sean-Alonzo, exploring symbolism, alternative
history, philosophy, secret societies and other areas of the esoteric tradition.
Crafty Screenwriting
Maunderings of Alex Epstein, tv scribe, about life, politics, and the tv show I'm co-creating.
Stealing Heaven From The Lips Of God
Writer & Artist, Dee Rimbaud reflects upon politics, religion, art, poetry, the meaning of life,
the nature of God and why toast always lands butter side down on carpets.
The Writing Life...
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's." J.D. Salinger
"All my best friends are writers and are dead." A friend over beer, Berkeley, winter, 1959
"And it came to pass that all the stars in the firmament had ceased to shine. But how was anyone to know?" The Half-Life Conspiracy
Saturday, September 30, 2006 Low energy My energy level really crashed this afternoon. Watched some football half asleep. Don't need this tomorrow.
9/30/2006 07:23:00 PM |
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Literary contests Finalists for this year’s Oregon Book Awards are announced Monday. One of the nice things about being a finalist, which I’ve been three times, is that it’s almost as good as winning. Finalists get to go on the same reading tour and the cash award to the winner is only $500, which is not that big a deal unless you are a starving writer. Most states, in fact, give more than this, some much more. Every other year Illinois gives seven grand to seven playwrights! Oregon gives one playwright $500 every other year. What a difference!
In fact, Oregon supports writers poorly in monetary terms compared to other states – and let’s not forget that the first thing Yeats said when learning he’d won the Nobel was “How much?” An Oregon corporation like Nike, of course, could change this local situation dramatically if the Boss Man cared more for books and less for jocks. Ain’t gonna happen.
But I digress. To make my point here, we need to do some time travel and go back to 2001 when the OBA finalists are announced. We need to do this so what I have to say doesn’t sound like sour grapes. I want to speak as a finalist, from a position of success.
Among the finalists in the Drama category is my collection SEVEN PLAYS. This is cool. But it also means something very different from what almost all inexperienced writers think it means. What it means, in essence, is this: a judge has revealed his or her tastes.
Think about that. I didn’t say a thing about my work or about writers or writing. I said a judge has revealed his tastes. Because that’s what contests do, they give a judge the opportunity to express taste or a panel of judges the opportunity to reach compromises about their tastes. It's very satisfying to believe my collection is a finalist because I'm hot shit but this is not what happened. My work happened to find a judge who responded to it. Luck of the draw. Repeat, luck of the draw. I can't take credit for being a finalist any more than I can take credit for having a winning lottery ticket. This is mostly the judge's doing, not mine.
A living example. Not too long ago I was one of three judges to give out the same seven checks to Illinois scriptwriters mentioned above. We had 70+ scripts to consider. We ranked them individually. And we agreed on almost nothing. Put another way, if any one of us had been the sole judge, then three different groups of seven would have received the checks. Does this say anything about the writers? Of course not. What is says is something about the judge making the choices. This is the way all contests work.
Usually the sponsors of contests plug into the myth that the affairs are mostly about writers. The OBA, for example, calls its finalists “the best writers in Oregon.” Well, according to the particular judges (in Oregon, a single judge but different judges for different categories), perhaps – but different judges would have different opinions about this. Instead of bragging about the best writers in Oregon, why not tell it like it is, and celebrate the selections of this year’s judges? Writers care about the health of the language. There’s a world of difference between saying “the best writers in Oregon” and “the selections of this year’s judges.” Why does an organization that cares about literature put a spin on the truth? We're not celebrating the best writers but the particular judges!
Young writers usually take contests too seriously. If they aren’t a finalist, they assume the fault is with themselves. Now it might be. Maybe they aren’t writing at a professional level yet. But it may be something else entirely! It may be that what they write does not connect to the particular judge. Period. Nothing more. Another judge may think their work is extraordinary. To get out of this quagmire, the young writer must learn how to be his/her own toughest critic and write to high personal standards. Then forget what everyone else says, judges or otherwise. Be your own toughest audience.
Contests are a mess -- and I haven’t even mentioned the influence of politics in the major awards. But doing well in contests is an important stepping stone in building a literary career. Winning a national playwriting contest as a graduate student changed my focus from fiction to drama. I’ve smiled all three times I’ve been an OBA finalist (before frowning when I didn’t win) – but actually, until I myself became a judge, until I met with two other judges who had fine credentials but very different tastes from my own, I didn’t realize that these affairs were mostly about the tastes of judges. Change the judges and you change the results.
So what’s a writer to do? Enter the contests the same way, the exact same way, you buy a lottery ticket. Because that’s what it amounts to. Contests are a crapshoot. In the beginning of a career, the credits from doing well in them are important even if the monetary reward isn’t much. Later, when you’ve outlived the need for a resume, winning or losing has no practical, only personal, consequences.
You’re going to win a few and lose a few in any writing career. Enjoy winning and don’t fret losing. Don’t take either – especially winning! – too seriously.
For every judge who thinks you’re hot shit, there’s another judge who thinks you stink.
(For a more elevated discussion of these matters, see Hamlet and the Philosophy of Criticism by Morris Weitz.)
9/30/2006 01:13:00 PM |
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Birthdays Well, I have a birthday coming up in October, so once again I can shake my head in wonder and think, I'm still here. Far out. I hope I'm here for as long as I feel useful -- but not a day longer. I'll probably go before then of natural or unnatural causes. Both my parents dropped down dead on the spot, which has advantages and disadvantages as an exit protocol. The last two things I've written -- the novel Kerouac's Scroll and the screenplay The Brazen Wing -- feature old men with terminal illnesses, and their decisions facing this make sense to me. I confess a bias against traditional treatment for cancer since I've seen two dear friends and half a dozen acquaintances sadly experience a terrible possibility, that the treatment can be worse than the disease. No thanks. I'm already living in "gravy" so it's not a big deal if I go sooner or later. We'll let the gods decide and not lose any sleep over it.
I'd love to make some money to get reckless with before I go. I'd love to have another moment in the sun. But these go in the folder with all those wishes for world peace. I wouldn't call myself "happy" but I definitely am content, which is no small pleasure in this world. It's hard to be happy when you outlive all your closest friends.
Our birthday tradition is to dine at a Japanese buffet downtown where the birthday meal is free -- so we get twofers twice a year. I expect we'll do the same this year, even though my birthday falls on a teaching night.
I don't really believe in astrology -- at the same time, I can't figure out why a description of a Scorpio sounds exactly like me.
9/30/2006 08:13:00 AM |
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Too early Up too early this morning. Couldn't get back to sleep, so did some grunt work. But I'd better get a few more zzzzs before I rise for the day.
9/30/2006 04:37:00 AM |
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Friday, September 29, 2006 From the mailbag Always nice to get an unsolicited email that begins ...
Prof. Deemer,
Just a quick note to extend my compliments. I teach screenwriting for short films at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and I've been struggling to find a text that discusses format in the way Chapter 4 in Practical Screenwriting does so concisely.
He may use my book as his textbook. Great!
Just did something I've never done before: sent off five "galleys" to well-known NW writers to see if I can get a blurb from any of them. It's standard marketing behavior but I've always felt awkward about the personal, networking side of marketing, even though that's where the real punch is. Maybe it's the recluse in me -- personal privacy is damn important! This is a sneak preview of a 2007 project. We'll see what happens. I've done quite enough marketing for the day, however! Not going to think about it till next Friday.
9/29/2006 01:56:00 PM |
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Grunt work The secret to doing grunt work, like marketing, is to do it in small chunks so you don't burn out -- and just get it done. I listen to music while mindlessly licking stamps, printing addresses, etc. The thoughtful part of the process is the planning and creating of the pieces for whatever marketing package you're putting together. It's very easy to burn out on large marketing projects, which is why I do only small bits at a time. I plan to contact over 200 agents (if it takes that many) about this property I'm pushing, for example, but I'm only contacting ten a week.
Another glorious day before we cool off into more typical fall weather. Fall is still a great season. Raking leaves while listening to football etc.
Don't expect to do more today than read, now that I'm back from the post office. A relaxing day. I deserve it.
9/29/2006 11:59:00 AM |
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Fridays For the next several months, my Fridays will include marketing grunt work in a last gasp effort to sell a project of which I'm particularly fond, despite realizing it's a very difficult sell indeed. I'm contacting ten agents a week with a marketing package, and we'll see what happens. This actually is the most ambitious marketing plan I've put together. I'm too old for this sort of thing but this particular project, despite being a hard sell, is one I really believe in. I'd rather try and fail than get older wondering if I should have done more.
9/29/2006 10:06:00 AM |
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Thursday, September 28, 2006 Chris Smither This morning I listened to two Smither CDs, his most recent and a 1994 "It Ain't Easy." I much prefer the older one -- not because he was better then but because he was solo then. The new one, while full of great songs, also includes a cast of backup singers and musicians. It's the raw solo power of Smither I most respond to, particularly to his intricate clean finger-picking. I don't like other folks getting in the way of that. On the '94 album, his versions of early rock-n-roll standards like Glory of Love and Mabeline are worth the price of admission. The closing song Goodbye Harry Truman is a gem. His great blues finger-picking, a fine tribute to Mississippi John Hurt. First rate musician and singer -- especially solo.
9/28/2006 02:29:00 PM |
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Whole cloth Recently I was interviewing a writer who works in a variety of forms and asked her if she had a sense of her work coming from whole cloth. She replied that she didn't understand the question.
I was surprised by the answer. I have a very strong feeling of my own work -- plays, screenplays, stories, novels, libretti, essays, lyrics, poems -- coming from whole cloth. I forever am repeating and reshaping themes, recycling characters from one place or time to another, using personal experiences in different ways, in different contexts ... I have a strong sense of my individual pieces of writing being chapters in a larger, grander design, my life's body of work; I have a sense of everything I write being related, each work to each work.
This comes to mind because this morning I find myself working on a poem that comes straight out of the material in the Sally novel.
9/28/2006 09:02:00 AM |
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John Dos Passos Today In Literature features John Dos Passos, a forgotten writer I greatly admire. The USA trilogy perhaps is our Great American Novel, and its sweep and experimental writing influenced Joyce and many others. I still read Dos Passos with pleasure but he's disappeared from literary focus, a giant in the 1930s now ignored for the most part. Literary reputations are this unstable. He was still taught when I began my literary studies but as a fringe author, already on his downward path.
9/28/2006 08:09:00 AM |
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Literary egos
Literary Feuds Anthony Arthur
In less skilled authorial hands, this book would descend to tabloid journalism or TV gossip but Arthur treats the lives of feuding writers seriously, interested in how creative but egotistical minds work. The stories of eight feuds are told here, including Mark Twain v. Bret Harte, Hemingway v. Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman v. Mary McCarthy and Capote v. Gore Vidal. It's fascinating reading.
9/28/2006 06:25:00 AM |
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Wednesday, September 27, 2006 Good news! I was able to track down Charles Gordon (who writes under the name Oyamo) to the University of Michigan, where he is writer-in-residence and teaches, sent him an email -- and received some plays to consider for the review. I greatly admire this playwright, so this is fantastic news. I met him 20 years ago when he was in town for a production of his play about Billie Holiday and Lester Young, The Resurrection of Lady Lester. I showed him around our theater scene, and he told me, he being from NYC, to thank my stars to have a theater company without rats. (I didn't tell him that once, sitting in the old Storefront Theatre space on Russell Street, a rat dropped from the ceiling during a show. On another occasion a drunk stumbled in off the street and puked in the aisle. Ah theater in the good old days!) I look forward to reading his material and deciding what to use. I'll also interview him. Onward.
9/27/2006 05:57:00 PM |
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Poetry I drafted a poem today, which is worth noting because it's something that happens only once every few years. 4 or 5 years have passed since Advice to an Artist on Choosing a Wife appeared almost whole in my head one morning. I finished it in an hour, mailed it to the poetry page of The Oregonian the same day, and saw it in print several months later. Don't often go one-for-one like that.
This morning I began with an opening line that was bugging me for hours: "Sometimes I regret not raising children."
The morning began early. Harriet had a doctor's appointment at eight, so I went with her so we could go to breakfast afterwards, something we almost never have time to do together during the week. After that, I started various writerly chores -- do they ever end? -- before finally sitting down to get rid of the damn line in my head. I drafted something in ten or fifteen minutes and now I'll play with it and see what I have.
The sixties "Free love, drugs, silly clothes, and a war...3/4 of the way there now. Arguably 4/4." So reads a comment about the 60s. This confuses the media images of the era with the substance of the era.
What is more important is that powerless people -- blacks, women, gays, students -- were making their voices heard, and the result was a climate of intellectual energy and a challenge to status quo beliefs like no era since then. The intellectual vibrancy of the times was incredible, especially compared to today. Of course, in an anti-intellectual culture like ours, the fringe media images are more lasting. But all of that was and is trivial.
9/27/2006 10:08:00 AM |
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Campus Students, students everywhere! Portland State is now the largest university in the state system, having passed the University of Oregon a couple years ago.
I ran into and had a great long chat with Primus St. John, first about the poetry section in the next review, but then about how we miss the intellectual excitement that was such a part of the sixties, what with teach-ins, students discussing ideas as if they really mattered. There was more intellectual life and energy in that era, we agreed. Classes had other ends, it seemed, than providing documentation for future employment. I know of no near-campus equivalent of Maxie's in Eugene, the tavern where in the sixties so many grad students gathered to argue ideas much of the night. Where did all that intellectual energy go? How does one rekindle it?
9/26/2006 02:28:00 PM |
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Classes begin Well, we're finally here. I'll go in early today, as I always do the first day of classes, to make myself available for students. My class isn't until 4:30. But I may go in around noon, taking editorial work with me. Maybe I can catch up on the review. John sent some more music files for me to download (I usually do that at my office with the faster connection).
Today it's pass out the syllabus, get intros from everyone, go over our immediate reading assignment, and then I give an overview of screenwriting, comparing it to all the other forms of writing with regard both to the world of art and the world of commerce -- and screenwriting, say I, is the only form that has yet to find a niche in the world of art. In other words, presently screenwriting exists only in the world of commerce -- and this is too bad and should be changed (say I). Then Thursday I show Casablanca, which takes care of the week. One down, nine to go. Next week I'll talk about the basic screenwriting skills, primarily structure, format, economy, suspense (a part of structure), and characterization.
The success of the term, by my lights, depends a lot on whether or not I have some skilled screenwriters in class. A few good ones help me get through the script pages that need major work. But this isn't rocket science, though there're always a few who try to make it so. At the very least, I hope to get everyone writing pages that at least look like they belong in a screenplay. This is no trivial accomplishment. Whenever I judge a contest, most do not! Most of the pages look like they belong in a novel. There's a huge difference. I have no idea why so few people learn the difference when it is so easy to understand.
Romeo & Juliet In 1957, on this day (as I was getting ready to start my freshman year at Cal Tech, a budding mathematician/astronomer who in 14 months would be lost and confused about my future), West Side Story opened, perhaps the most successful of the many spin-offs of the Romeo & Juliet story. Today In Literature gives the origins of the project, initially conceived as a Jewish-Catholic conflict, and also traces the story's roots beyond Shakespeare.
New Orleans How incredible to see so much happiness and excitement on the faces of the sold-out crowd who came to the refurbished Super Dome last night to see the Saints play their first home game since Katrina. The same building that 14 months ago provided shocking images of suffering because of political incompetency hosted a spirited, loud rebirth of enthusiasm and hope. New Orleans came alive last night.
9/26/2006 05:17:00 AM |
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Monday, September 25, 2006 Operation Paperback Got paperbacks just taking up space? Donate them to Operation Paperback, a nonprofit group that sends them overseas to our troops. At various times, companies and institutions have bins for the books, PSU this week, for example.
9/25/2006 01:30:00 PM |
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A writer's journey Print-on-demand technology has changed, and continues to change, the publishing industry. For someone like myself, it's a godsend. That is, I already established myself as a writer, I already have a track record, so I don't have to prove anything to anybody in this final act of my journey: print-on-demand lets me do what I want to do the way I want to do it.
However, I am hesitant to recommend print-on-demand for young writers. But this may be changing. The problem is, the traditional literary power structure views POD as "vanity press," or at least most do. Young writers need validation, and POD isn't the ticket yet. But this may be changing. POD books are beginning to win literary awards, which is one way to get respect and validation. The other issue is, POD is too easy. Anyone can do anything. A young writer needs a realistic experience in the real literary world, needs to know where the work fits in. It's like building up callouses on your finger tips when you learn guitar. You need your pile of rejection slips. Going to POD avoids this and much gets lost.
However, I just read a fascinating confessional by a young writer who went to POD. I like his attitude, his distinction between achievement and success. Note that success still happens in the traditional marketplace. But this may change. This writer is a writer, he cannot not write, and that's what writing is really about. I write, therefore I am. Writing is existential.
I still tell my students to face the traditional marketplace, pay the dues, get the rejection slips, and see if there's wiggle room for your work in there somewhere. You can always turn to POD when you're an old fart like me. I love it. I love designing my own book covers. I love not having to wait years from finishing a book to seeing it in print. POD is great for old writers. I had my time in the sun, and I now I can write for me and, I confess, posterity. My ambition may be dead but my ego isn't ha ha.
A new term Fall term is always exciting. After the summer off, I'm ready to put on the teacher's persona again and hang out on campus and help my students as best I can. I like the change of pace, and I like being in the classroom. My first day actually is tomorrow. Then Thursday I show them Casablanca, so we hit the ground running. Onward.
9/25/2006 07:45:00 AM |
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My, what you find on the Internet! Here is a list of 376 executed offenders by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, including their last statements. For example, Douglas Roberts wrote:
Yes sir, Warden Okay I've been hanging around this popsicle stand way too long. Before I leave, I want to tell you all. When I die, bury me deep, lay two speakers at my feet, put some headphones on my head and rock and roll me when I'm dead. I'll see you in Heaven someday. That's all Warden.
Less than two weeks ago, Farley Matchett more typically wrote:
To my family and my mother and my three precious daughters, I love you all. And to my brother and sister for standing with me throughout this situation. Stay strong and know that I'm in a better place. I ask for forgiveness. And to the victim's family, find peace and cancellation with my death and move on. Our Lord Jesus Christ, I commend myself to you. I am ready.
And from Henry Porter #551:
I want to thank Father Walsh for his spiritual help. I want to thank Bob Ray (Sanders) and Steve Blow for their friendship. What I want people to know is that they call me a cold-blooded killer when I shot a man that shot me first. The only thing that convicted me was that I am a Mexican and that he was a police officer. People hollered for my life, and they are to have my life tonight. The people never hollered for the life of the policeman that killed a thirteen-year-old boy who was handcuffed in the back seat of a police car. The people never hollered for the life of a Houston police officer who beat up and drowned Jose Campo Torres and threw his body in the river. You call that equal justice. This is your equal justice. This is America’s equal justice. A Mexican’s life is worth nothing. When a policeman kills someone he gets a suspended sentence or probation. When a Mexican kills a police officer this is what you get. From there you call me a cold-blooded murderer. I didn’t tie anyone to a stretcher. I didn’t pump any poison into anybody’s veins from behind a locked door. You call this justice. I call this and your society a bunch of cold-blooded murderers. I don’t say this with any bitterness or anger. I just say this with truthfulness. I hope God forgives me for all my sins. I hope that God will be as merciful to society as he has been to me. I’m ready, Warden.
Since all writers are spies and psychological burglars by nature, what a wealth of material is here.
9/25/2006 07:25:00 AM |
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Sunday, September 24, 2006 Glory, glory What a magical morning! The wonders of Fall. Coffee, jazz, cruising -- and the radio featured Joe Turner, whom I hadn't heard for a while. In Jr High in Pasadena, if you knew Bill Halley's "Shake, Rattle & Roll" you were right in step but if you knew Joe Turner's "nasty" version, you were part of the in-crowd.
Way you wear those dresses Sun come shinin' through Can't believe my eyes All of this belongs to you
Jr High male titillation was this easy! Suggestive lyrics were all over the airwaves sending out the wicked energy of rhythm-n-blues:
I'll let you touch it tonight If you hold it real tight But oh baby, don't drop it
I rock em, roll em All night long I'm a sixty-minute man
And my absolute favorite lyric of the era:
She talks to the baby Instead of me Walks with the baby Instead of me Sings to the baby Instead of me Clings to the baby Instead of me Now it's clear and it's understood That's what happens when the gettin' gets good Annie had a baby Can't work no more
Hank Ballard, who wrote this and so many others (including the original Twist), was one of my favorites but I didn't get to see him until the 1980s. I went with a radio DJ, Jivin' Johnny Etheredge in Eugene, and so got to meet him and sit in during an interview. Like Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ballard is short. So many of my heroes end up being so short ha ha. They are always photographed to look tall. Chores today. Indoors, outdoors, in the office, a big fall cleaning to have a blank slate tomorrow when the new university term begins. Onward.
9/24/2006 08:38:00 AM |
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Saturday, September 23, 2006 Peter Watkins It's about time! NPR this morning had a feature on British director Peter Watkins, about whom I've written here before. ( Listen.) I met him in the mid-70s at Salisbury State College in Maryland when he came to show his remarkable (banned for 40 years) film Punishment Park, now out on DVD with the rest of Watkins' work. The showing almost caused a riot, which was typical for this movie.
I was delighted to learn film critic Elvis Mitchell admires Watkins as much as I do. Two terms ago I showed Punishment Park to my class. It really has little to do with screenwriting per se but I wanted them to see it. Not sure if the experience was worth it or not for them, although a few students thanked me profusely for bringing this rare film to their attention. It's as controversial as ever, actually, and depressingly timely.
9/23/2006 09:59:00 AM |
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Esther Yesterday I had a long phone chat with Esther, Dick's mom, Brad's grandmother, in her late 80s now, sharp as a tack mentally but physically fragile. Usually I drive to Idaho to see her every summer but missed this year, the LA trip taking our time instead. Maybe I can see her over Xmas break if the weather isn't bad. Or spring. Anyway, it was a good long call, which was overdue.
9/23/2006 09:51:00 AM |
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Sally I'm really pleased with the new point of view in the novel. Lots more wiggle room now. However, I do have more work than I thought to finish Part One, which is the focus now. It's a different narrative strategy for me: in part one, a mix of 1966 and 1987 action, part two all 1967 and part three all 1987, with a 1966 epilogue, which is the actual action of Sally in the blue tent (the title, the action with all the consequences, i.e. what Sally does in the tent triggers what the protagonist does later). I also think the story is going to be darker than I expected but it's too soon to know. A dark love/hate story, perhaps.
9/23/2006 08:18:00 AM |
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Films from novels A disappointment. Despite some fine performances and good scenes, the new version of All the King's Men never presents a driving coherent narrative but rather is diffuse and scattered, as so many films based on novels are. The result is a much less focused and gripping story than I demand. I was looking forward to this, mainly because of Sean Penn, but his performance does not save it.
9/23/2006 07:41:00 AM |
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Friday, September 22, 2006 Getting back in gear This morning I'm printing out everything I have on Sally in the Blue Tent. Read it over and continue. I think I have most of the first part of three, and I'm hoping the new point of view solves the earlier "voice" problems. We'll see.
9/22/2006 09:35:00 AM |
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God's country Dick's oldest son Brad called and ended with a joke:
A man on the road goes to church in Vermont and notices a golden phone on the wall. Under it is a small sign reading, "Calls, $10,000." "What's this?" he asks. "Why so spendy to make a call?" He's told because it's a direct line to heaven.
As the man continues his travels, he goes to churches in other states, in North Carolina and Tennessee and South Dakota. Each has the golden phone with the same sign, "Calls, $10,000."
But at a church in Idaho he finds a different sign: "Calls, forty cents." Yes, it's a direct line to heaven, the man is told. "But why is it so cheap?" he asks. And he's told: because it's a local call.
My first computer, a Kaypro 2x with a CP/M operating system, had a "poetry generator" program I had great fun with. In fact, I once had a "poetry off" in which a real, live poet faced me and my computer in a poetry contest before a live audience. He'd read a poem, and I'd generate a poem on the computer and read it. The audience would applaud for which they liked best. It was close but the live poet won.
On another occasion, I took my computer to a coffee house and had a generated poem reading. At the end, I invited individuals from the audience to come up and generate and read a poem. A sweet little girl about 10 came up. The poem she generated was so erotic I'm sure I blushed, and I managed to "accidentally" delete it before she had a chance to read it. Her next one was safe nonsense.
How long can a fixed form like the haiku or sonnet hold a reader's interest? This is a question I asked myself when assembling my book of sonnets, which exists in various versions, most recently as Seattle Sonnets, which has 23. I don't know the answer to this question. Could you write a novel-length narrative in haiku? Maybe if the characters and action were engaging enough it could work. I don't know.
9/22/2006 07:28:00 AM |
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Thursday, September 21, 2006 The Hollywood Trilogy I'm a great fan of Michael Hollister's fictional trilogy about Hollywood from the 1930s to the present, the novels:
Hollyworld, a chapter of which I published in the first issue of Oregon Literary Review.
A beautiful hardcover arrived in the mail today, a wonderful surprise. That no major publisher picked up on this engaging work speaks volumes about the dreary state of the traditional book industry today. I hope Hollister's work nonetheless attracts a large audience. This is great stuff.
9/21/2006 01:53:00 PM |
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A tempered arrogance In the process through which students of writing become writers, a number of bench marks are reached along the way. One of the first things a student needs is validation of one's talent from a neutral source, which can be a teacher, an editor, a reader, but cannot be a spouse or friend (usually): someone with experience who can say, You have talent, it's your job now to nurture it. It's now the individual's job to learn craft and also to learn how to survive in the world at large, which is not always easy for an artist.
A great survival tool is arrogance. At the same time, arrogance can reach the extreme of blind hallucination, the writer thinking s/he is better than is true. This is especially dangerous when one gets good reviews of a work: it's easy to believe the press clippings. For example, I was once called, in the state's largest daily newspaper, "one of Oregon's most precious natural resources." The person who wrote this won't give me the time of day presently but that's another issue. Unfortunately, for a time, I believed the compliment, which did not help my growth as a writer any. But I got over it.
Similarly, bad reviews can be devastating. A writer must rise above them. I'd had my share. A play of mine was trashed here that went on to be a finalist for a prestigious award in Ireland, which may know more about drama than Portland ha ha. The point is, it's easy to get diverted into cultural traps that will only distract you from the work at hand. You have to become your own best/worst critic -- and to hell with everyone else.
One needs a tempered arrogance, faith in one's talent in the light of negativity but also humility in a larger context, realizing how many superior talents are out there (from whom one can learn!). In this regard, it can be inspiring to read certain "books of arrogance" by established writers, words that track their own journey from fear to confidence. Three of my favorite are Norman Mailer's Advertisements for Myself, Henry Miller on Writing and Ezra Pound's The ABC of Reading. Each had an important contribution to my own development. One outgrows these books but they can be essential at the time and one should never forget the debt to them. In fact, I'm going to reread them, which I haven't done in many years. It's always helpful to revisit roots.
9/21/2006 09:18:00 AM |
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Up and at 'em! Was after midnight by the time we got home from the airport. H sleeping in but I have tons of grunt work to do, so I've been up for a few taking care of business. Many errands today, to post office, copy center, school. A hassle but necessary.
Next week the term begins! We'll see how my new syllabus works out. Great, I hope. I'd love to use the same syllabus twice in a row for once ha ha.
9/21/2006 08:12:00 AM |
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Wednesday, September 20, 2006 True colors I hate the advertising industry. Why? Here's an example why in the press today:
Jon Hollett, a Fox International spokesman, said the company was experimenting with ways to get its messages to DVR users who routinely breeze through ads without antagonizing real-time viewers by broadcasting a flat, silent image for thirty seconds.
"This is something that is going to have to be addressed one way or the other," he said. "Making sure that you can get to your viewers when they're fast forwarding ... is of crucial importance."
Television executives fear the new technology could make ad-supported free programming obsolete. In the United States, DVR users could dodge as much as $8 billion of the $74 billion in television ads shown this year, according to Jupiter Research, a technology consulting company.
In other words, if you have a tool that lets you skip ads, the industry wants to counterpunch and force you to see the ads anyway. The consumer, in other words, is a kind of enemy to be controlled. The advertising industry is like a police state.
Bachelorhood I'm surprised to realize how infrequently I ate out in the past two weeks of living the bachelor's life: twice for breakfast, once for lunch, and dinner tonight (I didn't want to get my clean kitchen dirty). In my real bachelor days, I'd eat out 2/3 of the time. Tonight I went to a 50s-era family restaurant, with its long counter and parallel booths, with the pie display case near the cash register filled mostly with flavors of cream pie. Not very crowded and half of those eating early dinner were solitary old men. It's too easy to suppose they were lonely. I wasn't and maybe they weren't either.
It will be so nice to get into the fall rhythm of teaching and writing. And I can't wait to start my piano lessons. Every fall looks good to me, and this one is no exception. Onward.
9/20/2006 06:49:00 PM |
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Whew It's been one of those days when I never stop, one chore after another. Now I learn that H's flight will be late. She was coming in past my bedtime anyway ha ha. Ah, well.
Tomorrow I'm going to spend some time at school, go to a workshop, get my materials copied, etc. I'm eager to begin.
Last hurrah This fall, perhaps for longer, I’m making one last major effort to accomplish some things in the traditional literary universe before I retire, some might say, or (perhaps more accurately) crawl deeper into my shell of marginality. Well, that sounds depressing! Call it reality. At any rate, I'll be doing some things I’ve done before but definitely am tired of doing, shaking the bushes so to speak, to see if I can make a few things happen. And if I don't, I don't. Very Zen.
Homecoming! Need to clean up the house and all that. Been busy all morning doing grunt work related to the paragraph above. Always looking for another angle ha ha. The writer as con man.
9/20/2006 12:17:00 PM |
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006 United 93 This film is as emotionally draining the second time around as the first. I especially like the directing: I think the pacing and weaving narrative are what makes this work so well.
I'm also left in shock at the total lack of practical response once we understand we're under attack. I had no idea we are so inept. I'm not sure we'd do better today.
9/19/2006 06:07:00 PM |
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Adventures in detox Quite a few years ago (fortunately), I found myself spending the night in detox. The next morning we "residents" were marched to a large room for acupuncture. Yep. Picture a long table at which various derelicts, middle managers, artists, and other inebriates are seated. Picture pretty young nurses making the rounds, sticking needles in your eyebrows and nose and forehead (this gives a new meaning to "nurse fusion" -- private joke). What fun.
I remember looking up and seeing across the table the inimitable stare of Portland's great Indian poet, Ed Edmo. He also was grinning at me, as if to say, Hey, bro, how come I haven't seen you around here before? Being in detox with Edmo was a great adventure because he, being more experienced at this sort of thing than I was, knew all the ropes. He knew which closets to duck into and when in order to avoid being put to work. He knew how to get extra desserts. He knew which chores were the best to volunteer for. He was a pro at navigating detox.
This came to mind because I ran into Edmo on campus today. I haven't seen him in years, and he was looking healthy. He gave me his new card, with his website address.
May I never, never forget what a wonderful adventure it was to be in detox with Ed Edmo! I need to put this scene in a story.
9/19/2006 03:32:00 PM |
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NW sports Sports teams in the NW, particularly in the big sports like college football and basketball, crave respectability from the east coast establishment -- but seldom get it. Accepted wisdom has it that the time difference contributes to this, with many west coast games, night games, played too late for east coast viewers. We therefore get less national exposure here. So a game like last Saturday's afternoon Oregon-Oklahoma game offers an opportunity to show the east coast what west coast football is about.
Well, we sure did that. It's about incompetent officiating. It's about inexcusable, biased, wrong calls by Pac-10 refs that determine the outcome of the game. It's embarrassing.
Now, after the fact, everyone admits that horrendous, wrong, game-deciding errors were made. The entire officiating crew was banned for one game, an unprecedented move (Why not ban them for the entire season? Well, there seem to be some systemic issues here, too, with the replay officials not getting all the video feeds. Great stuff for conspriacy buffs.). The Pac-10 apologized to Oklahoma. Sorry. Yeah, right.
Oklahoma wants the game thrown out, and I don't blame them. What if coaches could reach the ranks of statesmen? What if Bellotti, the Oregon coach, agreed and pleaded for the game to be thrown out. "If we can't win fairly, we don't want the win." Ha! What idealistic naive crap that is.
Oregon fans, for the most part, are delighted to win, how ever they can get it. Too bad. On the east coast, NW football is a greater laughing stock than ever. We have a rule that only Pac-10 officials can run the inter-league games out here -- apparently so we can fix things when we're going to lose. It's embarrassing.
Oregon played a great game and might have won legitimately with a legal break or two. Too bad what the east coast power boys will remember now is that we only won because the refs fixed the game. We have less respectability than ever.
9/19/2006 10:36:00 AM |
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New music John Nugent, the review's music editor, continues to find absolutely first rate work. For the next issue (winter), he has some Bukowski poems adapted for soprano and orchestra by Jesus Contreras that is wonderful. The music section is one of the best things we do. And this issue we're expanding the horizons a bit, including some folk and maybe more. Go, John!
9/19/2006 09:23:00 AM |
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The mysterious John W. Some time ago I wrote about meeting a new friend, John from Michigan. He lived near campus, which made it convenient to meet for coffee. We had similar tastes. We got along well. He was younger but had retired early after working at GM. He and his wife had discovered Portland while travelling around the country. She loved it more than he apparently -- or at any rate, he still spent a lot of time at their home in Michigan. But I enjoyed his company while he was in town.
We also did things as couples, including spending one New Year's eve together, seeing in 2005 (I believe it was) at Pioneer Square.
Then Harriet and John's wife had some kind of falling out. H isn't sure what happened. Right after that, John "disappeared." That is, he stopped responding to email and messages. Moreover, neither appeared at church social functions any more, where we'd sometimes see them. They both disappeared.
With my background in the Army Security Agency, folks who suddenly disappear are candidates for spies or defectors.
What happened? Where is he? Why doesn't he respond to email? I have no idea. Not a clue. Maybe he's dead. Maybe he ran off with a younger woman. Who the hell knows? Another example of a complete misjudging of character, however. I thought he had better manners than this.
Monday, September 18, 2006 Catching up Had a long leisurely lunch with a friend, catching up on mutual acquaintances. One had died. Another has cancer. And so it goes at this time of life, the "personal" news always having death in the mix in one degree or another. No wonder a future project is called Nails In My Coffin. The concept of which I get increasingly excited about. I think my protagonists from here on out are dying old farts.
9/18/2006 03:37:00 PM |
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Sunday, September 17, 2006 Sunday cruise It's one of those days when I feel blessed, intensely aware of what a precious gift we have in living, living consciously. Maybe I'm feeling this way because Wylie has surgery soon, or because I miss Harriet (who returns soon), or because fall is in the air, with its falling leaves to rake (not blow!), with a new cycle of classes beginning, the room full of eager young minds, wanna-be screenwriters among them. Maybe it's a continuing manifestation of getting old. I just feel damn lucky to be sitting here with my faculties intact.
I reread my recent mystery and liked it, despite a slow moment in the middle I'd tighten if I were to rewrite it again, which I don't expect to do. At the same time, I'm relieved I'm not committed to write a series. I have too many important non-commercial projects to do in the time left to me to waste time on commercial things. That's just the way it is. I've reached the age where I don't have to satisfy anyone but myself.
Had occasion to think about Norman O. Brown, whose book LOVE'S BODY was such an influence on me in the 60s. I was introduced to Brown before this book was published in an American Intellectual History class. The professor was hot on Brown and I caught his enthusiasm. What's interesting about Brown is that near the end of his life he became infatuated with Islam. It would be fascinating if he were around today to learn what he had to say. Of course, he would not buy into the extremist ideology since Brown's major thrust comes from Blake and is against literalism, that the real war is the mental war, "the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought," to use the phrase out of Blake. My first one-act play, ABOVE THE FIRE, which won a national contest and turned my focus from fiction to playwriting, literally changing my career, comes directly out of this notion, "fire" as the mental struggle. What Brown was against above all else was literalism, which indeed is the disease of our culture (and why "based on a true story" is so important to story marketers, this total abandon of appreciation of metaphor and imagination). It's been a while since I've reread Brown. Since I'm on this rereading the major books of my life kick, Brown clearly is in line.
Sunday Morning had a fascinating if depressing story on advertising this morning. The perfection of Homo Consumerus and all that. A company is putting ads on eggs! And in sports, electronic ads are superimposed over the actual ads on fences and such. Astounding. Depressing.
Grabbed the dog, put the Seahawks game on the radio, and headed out, a Sunday cruise. Ended up in hilly spendy housing developments, got lost -- maybe not: Buck Kassel, Dick's stepdad, used to say, "How can I be lost if I don't care where I am?" At any rate, drove this way and that and finally found my way home.
9/17/2006 04:23:00 PM |
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On being a mentor Over the years as a teacher, I've encountered a few talented young writers whom, for one reason or another, I've taken under my wing as "a mentor." This relationship usually begins with them; that is, first it becomes apparent that I admire their talent, and for a few this is enough to lead them to ask me the kind of writerly and practical questions that beginners ask of those with relevant experience. I answer as best I can, honestly, realistically, and from this, sometimes, a continuing relationship develops.
This experience is one of the solid rewards of teaching. I especially pride myself on making sure they understand the realities of the writing profession, in particular how important endurance and luck are in establishing a career. This means you have to be writing for reasons other than "success" or you may go nuts. Writing, for writers, becomes an existential act: I write, therefore I am. You can't teach anyone to do this. Either they are writers in the root of their being or they are not. Yes, there are "professional" writers who approach the craft as a job, and that's fine. Some are quite good at it. But the writers who interest me are the writers who cannot not be writers: they write because writing is breathing, without writing their hearts would stop. These are the ones who need encouragement because the world often does not welcome them. Writers need to survive: very, very few writers support themselves by writing what they want. For the writer, there are two worlds of existence, the world of commerce and the world of art, and the cross-over project becomes more rare all the time: indeed, most of the ones we see today, literary novels that are commercially successful, come from writers who established their reputations before the corporate makeover of the publishing industry (i.e. Philip Roth, E.L. Doctorow, etc.). When I supported myself as "a writer," I found precious little time to exist as a playwright. That's why I abandoned magazine journalism, which had been my bread and butter. In the 1980s, I learned how to survive on grants for a while, "the good old days." At any rate, the marketplace always changes and is always tough, and young writers need to find their niche in which they can exist, live with themselves, and have time to write what they really want to write, whether it's commercial or not. In the world of commerce, writers write "outside in" -- you write to sell. In the world of art, writers write "inside out" -- you write to learn something about yourself. In today's marketplace, it's more difficult to do both at the same time than it used to be. (Maybe the confessional memoir has become the vehicle that most closely permits this marriage.)
I feel for young writers today. I recall the Doris Lessing experiment in which she submitted a new novel anonymously and saw it soundly rejected -- before she resubmitted it under her own name to great acclaim and success.
We are creating a new form of being, Homo Consumerus, and artists everywhere are being marginalized. The hype does not tell you this. The hype tells you that there are artistic geniuses everywhere. The hype does not tell you that one hundred years from now, readers will not know most of what goes for "great writing" today. It's always been this way but technology has given the movers better tools with which to shape popular culture.
How long will it be before the corporate makeover of the Internet, which has been a great leveling force? It would be easy to do. It already has begun. The promise of radio, the promise of television, all succumbed to the tsunami of commercialization. Why should the Internet be any different?
Saturday, September 16, 2006 Chris Smither I do a poor job of keeping up on artists (of any kind), tending to reread old favs rather than search for new heroes. Consequently, I've missed a hell of a lot of stuff I end up loving when I belatedly discover it. Recently, for example, I discovered the novels of Josephine Hart (Damage, Sin, etc.) and was totally blown away. She is now on my short list of contemporary novelists. The same thing happened today, listening to NPR. They interviewed, prior to a new CD release, a musician who's been around since the late 60s, but someone I missed for some reason or another: Chris Smither. I love this guy, bluesy finger-picking in the John Hurt tradition, and I quickly ordered 2 of his CDs. There are probably 100s of others I've missed.
Well, there's only so many hours in the day. I have my own work to do first. Then I tend to the needs of my students. After that, I still am likely to reread an old fav or listen to music I've been listening to for 50 years, like Gerry Mulligan, Little Walter, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Chris Connor. But it's great to have a surprise drop into your lap now and again, Hart or Smither, so I can run out and see what I've missed. I'm just too busy to keep up by habit.
9/16/2006 11:50:00 AM |
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Friday, September 15, 2006 Fame Having received a considerable amount of fame and good press through the 1970s and 1980s, and precious little press of any kind since, I'm hip to the vagaries of the public and critics. Thus it is both sad and amusing to watch young writers and artists as they bask in their early attention. Good reviews, it turns out, are in many ways as unfortunate as bad reviews -- maybe worse, since they feel so good at the time. I remember having coffee with Robert Sheckley a few years ago (Sheckley, for those who don't know, is a giant sci-fi writer and humorist, who was hugely popular during the 50s Golden Age of sci-fi lit. Sheckley home page.). He wanted to pick my brain about something, he said.
I was shocked to learn what it was: did I know of any inexpensive boarding houses or studio apartments? He was barely getting by! This is a Hall of Fame sci-fi writer! He no longer found homes for his work among U.S. publishers. He was looking into publishing on the web. He was more famous in Europe than here and was thinking of becoming an expatriate.
I went away from the visit very depressed. How can a culture cast off a giant like Sheckley so easily?
This is not an unusual story. Edward Albee experienced the same thing -- but made a spectacular comeback, twice. Writers known and unknown who have longevity have experienced the vagaries of fame. This is a consequence of living in a star-driven, hype-driven culture.
I suppose it's cool for young writers to enjoy their moment while they can. It's just sad to see some of them behave as if it's going to last forever.
9/15/2006 07:10:00 PM |
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Piano In two weeks I start weekly piano lessons at a senior center. Even though I've self-taught myself a few things, I'm starting at the beginning to make sure I didn't miss anything. I really hope this works out because: it's ridiculously affordable; I can continue on at my own rate of progress; I can use the discipline since this sort of activity never gets done otherwise in my busy writing and teaching schedule. I have some specific skills I want to use in order to incorporate them into my future writing projects. My class is on Fridays at noon, perfect.
9/15/2006 01:15:00 PM |
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The artist, the man Woody Allen: A Life in Film has Allen candidly talking about a wide spectrum of his work. It's revealing about his attitude toward his art, his high standards which are rarely met, the same self-humor and self-parody we see in his movies. The Woody Allen depicted here stands in sharp contrast to the Allen we see in Wild Man Blues, where he comes off as a spoiled, egotistical jerk. Fascinating to compare the portraits.
9/15/2006 01:10:00 PM |
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When advice works... Now here's the kind of email I love to get!
Love your "Vertical Writing" article.
It's entirely accurate. Once I started writing much leaner, I started getting movement in my career. Now I have an agent at Preferred Artists, a Manager at Nightingale Entertainment and a screenplay optioned by Avatar Entertainment. Plus two other low-budget projects in development prior to obtaining representation.
Off that one "Vertically Written" script, my agent was able to get me meetings with Ridley Scott's company, Scott Free, Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and several other's. Tell your students this form does indeed work. It's not only a more visual writing style, but it also makes you a "good read".
This is not rocket science -- but it's the easiest technique a beginning screenwriter can use to make his/her scripts more "reader friendly" in the crowded marketplace. Trust me. Trust the writer above. This is great advice.
9/15/2006 11:01:00 AM |
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At the office Came in to do some editorial chores with the faster connection.
Earlier this morning, I picked up my mystery Dead Body in a Small Room -- and got hooked! I think I'll have to finish it now. Interesting.
Thursday, September 14, 2006 3-day novel contest Last evening I went with another writer to a reading by the 2005 winner of the 3-day novel writing contest. My companion, a young writer of considerable talent whom I've somewhat taken under my wing (by which I mean I'm encouraging her to bring her talent out of the closet), entered this year, writing a complete novel over the Labor Day weekend. The book at the reading, called Day Shift Werewolf, was witty, funny, a real crowd pleaser, but not really my cup of tea -- too much head and not enough heart. But it did get me very curious about the contest. Check out the FAQ.
Looking through the winners over the past 20-plus years, there really are only two or three that I might want to read, but this contest is really about writing, and it's got to be a great experience for any writer. Apparently it takes place every Labor Day weekend. (There may be another similar contest because a former student of mine was doing this while school was going on. Or maybe this one has varying dates.)
Speaking of reading (and head v. heart), I'm spending a lot of time today with The Quiet American, which I'm rereading slowly, taking notes, in order to include it in my new memoir.
9/14/2006 04:48:00 AM |
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006 School prep This morning I finished a study guide for Aristotle's "Poetics" for Screenwriters, which concludes most of the prep work I have to do before stepping into the classroom on Sept. 26th. We're hitting the ground running, watching "Casablanca" the first week of school, analyzing its structure the next.
Somehow I looked at my calendar and found myself with both lunch and dinner commitments on the same day! This is too much for a recluse, so I cancelled lunch. I have another lunch commitment tomorrow. I'd better be careful before I turn into a social butterfly ha ha.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 Art <--> Life This unusual and remarkable biopic of Cole Porter is structured as the old Porter watching an imagined musical based on his life, led through this by a director who won't let him linger at happiness or avoid pain. (Echoes of Scrooge being shown his past.) The focus is on Porter's remarkable and sometimes tortured marriage, made complex by his bisexuality and increasing obsession with young male lovers. But the real focus is the music, the songs: and there are many of them, each linked to a vignette to put it in context of the life. Indeed, I know of no biopic of an artist that has a stronger focus on the relationship between the art and the life. This is good stuff with great music.
9/12/2006 04:33:00 PM |
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Monday, September 11, 2006 Give this an Emmy This is first rate. Very high production values, outstanding direction by David Cunningham, powerfully written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, many fine performances -- I like this from top to bottom.
ON THE FIFTH OF JULY 2001, Dick Clarke assembled representatives of various domestic agencies -- the Federal Aviation Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard, the FBI, and the Secret Service among them -- to issue a warning. "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon,” he told them. ... The bureau was a timid bureaucracy that abhorred powerful individuals. It was known for its brutal treatment of employees who were ambitious or who fought conventional wisdom. O'Neill was right about the threat of al-Qaeda when few cared to believe it. Perhaps, in the end, his capacity for making enemies sabotaged his career, but those enemies also helped al-Qaeda by destroying the man who might have made a difference. Already the New York office was losing focus and without O'Neill, terrible mistakes were made.
O'Neill and Clarke are major players here, and in large part this is the story of their frustration in being ahead of the curve about bin Laden and terrorism. Numerous opportunities to capture bin Laden were missed because of indecisive authority, a failure to take terrorism seriously, political correctness, giving more priority to conflicting issues. Tragically, O'Neill died in the very WTC his foresight might have protected.
The feel of this TV drama is very consistent with the facts rigorously researched and documented by Wright. Some of the trees may be wrong but the forest is intact.
9/11/2006 10:14:00 PM |
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Aaron Brown Listening to the 9/11/01 CNN rebroadcast, I remembered that Aaron Brown was anchor much of the time (his first day on the job!) -- who later got replaced and let go, a policy reflecting glitz over substance (the usual trend today). I discovered Brown in Seattle and considered him one of the better TV reporters. I was upset that he was let go. He seemed to disappear but a search just revealed that he'll be teaching at Arizona State.
Reliving history Remarkable! I am watching CNN's pipeline rebroadcast of 9/11/01, unedited, just as it happened. This is a remarkable experience and a remarkable service (offered free; usually the pipeline charges a fee). This again demonstrates what remarkable technical tools are at our disposal today, and when used this way, offered freely, the service is extraordinary, especially for students and historians. As I watch, the first plane has hit but not the second yet. I think I'm going to be hooked on this for a few hours.
What stands out is the reluctance to assume we are being attacked. "Did some kind of navigational equipment go awry?" is the question first asked, even after two planes have crashed into the towers. In other words, it's unimaginable that we are being attacked. But slowly the realization can't be avoided: this had to be deliberate.
Also standing out: all the false eyewitness reports. The 2nd plane was a small passenger plane. It was a missile. The eyes are not reliable.
9/11/2006 10:51:00 AM |
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History, drama and documentaries I watched the first installment of The Path to 9/11 but will wait till I see the rest before commenting on it. What concerns me here is the controversy it's generated, especially by Clinton folks, who even wanted it pulled from the air.
Surrounding this controversy are two important issues: a misunderstanding about the nature of historical drama; and a cultural propensity to mistrust imaginative works over "factual" ones. Let me begin with the first.
Historical drama has never accurately presented the "facts" of history. No one goes to Shakespeare to learn English history. One goes to Shakespeare to learn how humans with and without power behave in moments of historical crisis. The dramatist presents human stories, not historical "facts."
For example, there is a scene in the TV special that apparently did not happen, Sandy Berger's pulling the rug out from under a plan to capture bin Laden. But the scene, which played last night, does not focus on this but on a bigger issue, as stated on the ground where a plan is in place to capture bin Laden if given the green light, which no one in Washington D.C. will do: "Are there no men in Washington? Is everyone a coward?" The human truth of this historical moment is that everyone in power was covering their ass and not realizing the importance of the threat at hand. An important moment to capture bin Laden was missed. But not just Berger is to blame: everyone with authority is to blame. That is the clear dramatic point made. Now if you're Sandy Berger, you'd be understandably pissed but it's not as if one person is being hung out to dry.
All this is complicated because the players are still alive. Dramatists with good sense change names in such cases, as Arthur Miller did when writing a play about his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. This brings us to the second issue, our culture's propensity to believe narratives "based on a true story" more than creative narratives. This is a great cultural failure. We prefer "facts" to "truth." In seems to me -- and I'll say more after I've seen it all -- that the TV special tells the truth. This truth is heavily documented in the recent book of investigative journalism The Looming Tower, which I highly praised recently but which was published too late to be a source for The Path to 9/11. But the fictional TV drama (which is repeatedly identified as such) captures the spirit of what actually happened as documented in the book. Sure, some facts are wrong. But if the truth is everyone in authority is to blame, it hardly matters which individual is singled out in a small moment to serve the economy of drama.
I've written a lot of historical drama, most of it commissioned. When I was playwright-in-residence at the New Rose Theatre in the 80s, I was commissioned to write a play based on the life of Moliere. Moreover, I was to write the play for four, and only four, particular actors. What an extraordinary gig! I spent a year doing research, and what interested me most was the small possibility that Moliere had married his daughter by a previous lover. Only about ten percent of the historical material considered this a viable possibility. (Later, long after I had written the play, a Russian biographer also thought so.) Yet I considered this the most potent dramatic material in Moliere's history. I wasn't so much interested in whether it was true or not as in the effect the possibility had on Moliere's mental state, particularly in the religious climate in which he lived. And he was accused of this in his life time.
The artistic director who commissioned the play was not interested in this emphasis, so I had to bury it in the play I wrote for him. Later, however, I returned to the material and rewrote it my way, which became Sad Laughter. In the original, it is left ambiguous whether Moliere married his daughter or not. In the new version, it's still not certain but we do know that his ex-love is the mother of his young wife -- but there are several candidates for being the father. The emphasis, I repeat, is how this affects Moliere's mind, and my hypothesis is that his mental state from this affects his obsession in writing and finishing Tartuffe. I wrote a psychological study of Moliere, not an historical one, from the facts and possibilities at hand.
The process goes like this: the dramatist does his homework. S/he drafts the script with all the historical notes at hand. S/he throws away the notes and looks at the script as a play and rewrites to improve it as drama. Peter Schaeffer, author of Amadeus, has written eloquently on this process, focusing on the three different versions of his play, in order: the London stage play, the New York stage play, the movie. Each new version became "less historical."
Drama is messy from an historical point of view. Usually my commissioned historical work was funded by the Oregon Council for the Humanities, which required that an historian of the period at hand be present as an advisor. I was forever arguing with them. They wanted the facts; I wanted the dramatic truth. In my best experience in this context, a drama about the relationship between Abigail Scott Duniway and her brother Harvey Scott, we had two historians, the biographer of each. They couldn't agree on anything! I loved it! I was able to wiggle between them and more or less do what I wanted.
Historical drama is messy. The documentary traditionally is less messy, relying more on facts and less on creative moments. But this has changed, too, with filmmakers like Michael Moore turning the form into fiction, full of moments manufactured to make political points, which I call the sockumentary. Other recent filmmakers satirize the form, the mockumentary. But there still is a place for straight documentaries attempting to present the facts. However, this has never been the job of the dramatist.
It is unfortunate that we live in a culture that values literal facts at the expense of a more spiritual kind of truth, so that a few small trees get in the way of seeing the forest. Shakespeare was a terrible historian. But thank the gods that he was because what he gave us is far more important and lasting than the accuracy of dates. He gave us ourselves.
Sunday, September 10, 2006 Reading One of the great frustrations in my life is that I have so little time for reading. Soon this will get worse since I'll have student work to read. Submissions to the review to read. Hardly any time for "pleasure" reading. And now I have this new memoir in mind, which will require a lot of re-reading. I think I'll begin this immediately, which means chucking the possibility of reading much else. Now and again I feel guilty about being so ignorant of "pop lit" but this passes as soon as I pick up something like The DaVinci Code and try to read it. "There's no accounting for taste," because I seldom last even a chapter in the company of such prose. On the other hand, having picked up The Quiet American to read again, I am astounded at every page how goddamn good the writing is.
I think my order of reading for the memoir will be the Greene book mentioned above and then Connell's Mrs. Bridge. After that, maybe Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I'll write each essay after I finish the book. This would be a good start.
9/10/2006 09:20:00 AM |
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Saturday, September 09, 2006 Fashion is the first refuge of a scoundrel How rare, to watch two teams neither of which is wearing a designer uniform! Notre Dame and Penn State are too traditional for that. No names on the back of their jerseys. Just plain school colors. Univ. of Oregon, in contrast, spent tens of thousands of dollars on the look of its recent designer uniforms. Who cares?
Alas, there's the swoosh on the traditional uniforms, part of Nike's monopoly of sports. I have never bought and will never wear anything with a swoosh on it. But Nike is an Oregon company, you say? The very point. They don't support the arts. They pay many millions for a pro football hunk who never graduated from college and won't write a five-digit check that can save a local theater company from going under. Screw Nike.
9/09/2006 03:25:00 PM |
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Salsa How many different brands of salsa have I tried in my lifetime? Too many to count. And I also make my own from time to time. However, I recently bought the best salsa I've ever tasted. I picked it up at New Seasons market. It's called "Zuniga's Handcrafted Salsa." I got the mild variety, which is packaged with a raw jalapeno so you can heat it up to taste. This stuff is incredible! Off to buy two more today since I've been eating it with everything. I never heard of this stuff but now I'll never forget it.
9/09/2006 11:33:00 AM |
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Old material, new take Repackaged 23 of my sonnets as "Seattle Sonnets," a nice slim volume for a few friends. Otherwise today I am watching a lot of college football. Penn St v. Notre Dame, Ohio State v. Texas, Oregon v. Fresno State, Idaho v. Washington State. This should keep me out of trouble. In my younger days, I watched football in sports bars, which didn't keep me out of trouble at all. But the old saw "once a wastrel..." actually doesn't hold true. A former wastrel can end up being a reclusive homebody.
9/09/2006 10:56:00 AM |
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Friday, September 08, 2006 A classic This, the 1962 film version (not the earlier TV one), is powerful and first rate but also difficult to watch, like other films (Glengary Glen Ross comes to mind) that focus on the darker regions of the human personality. But I don't know how this film, written by Rod Serling, could be any better than it is. I hadn't watched it in years and was as moved as the first time. Getting claustrophobic in the house, working too hard, so grabbed the dog and took a cruise up the gorge, stopping at a park for a while, then taking the long "residential" way back. Got some cobwebs out of the head, I think.
9/08/2006 02:02:00 PM |
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Thursday, September 07, 2006 Casablanca II Another morning at work on the study guide, which I finished at four pages. A scene-by-scene structural analysis is what it amounts to.
Now to tackle Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters, which I am using in class for the first time.
Tons of work to catch up on in my editor's hat. Not to mention my own writing, neglected these past few days, which is uncharacteristic of me.
9/07/2006 12:07:00 PM |
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006 Casablanca A productive morning, getting a lot done on my study guide for Casablanca, which I'll be showing the 2nd week of class as our first example of dramatic structure. I haven't used the film before. Not sure why. It's perfect.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006 Congestion Took my globe-trotting wife to the airport during the early wave of rush hour and was reminded how congested Pdx is. I never see this in the normal routine of my existence. Indeed, it's been twenty years since I've had to do the 9-to-5 regular job routine (since I was managing editor of a magazine) and believe me, I'm glad to miss all that. Now to start preparing for the new term.
9/05/2006 12:57:00 PM |
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Monday, September 04, 2006 Labor Day cruising Holidays are a great time for my hobby/addiction of early morning cruising. The roads are deserted. So this morning, coffee, jazz, an empty road -- and echoes of my boyhood and my father's mantra, "100 miles before breakfast." The DJ, however, was comical. She kept giving traffic reports as if it were an ordinary workday, then after saying "No problems to report", went into longer and longer praise of what good drivers we all were being today. It was all I could do not to phone her and clue her in. Duh.
Last day before Harriet flies east and Sketch and I do the bachelor thing for two weeks. If I had ambition, I might drive to Idaho to see Esther, Dick's mom, but I can't afford the time it would take. Lots of prep work to do before school starts.
9/04/2006 08:31:00 AM |
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Don't throw anything away About 15 years ago a producer at Robert Wise Productions fell in love with my story about three old women called The Victory Sisters. However, he couldn't get his boss to share his enthusiasm. When he reluctantly passed, he told me, "You won't have any trouble selling this." Right. Now, 15 years later, I chanced across a Canadian producer's search for a script for senior actors, pitched two of mine (including the above), and he asked for both scripts. Probably nothing will come of it but the lesson is, old scripts still might generate interest. Don't throw anything away.
9/04/2006 03:15:00 AM |
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A simple truth Can't remember where I found this but I like its simplicity -- and truth:
Dramatic story works very much like a pop song. When a singer sings a song with the refrain, "There goes my baby," no matter how many minutes the song drags on, we are consistently focusing on the simple plot of the song, that the singer lost his girl. Because the song's plot stays simple, we can concentrate on the emotional impact it's supposed to have on us.
This is the problem I have with "puzzle stories," like Momento. The ride can be fun but there is little or no lasting emotional impact. I still shiver when I read the first paragraph of The Quiet American.
9/04/2006 03:09:00 AM |
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An important book Lawrence Wright brings clarity and coherence to the history and events that led to 9/11. It's a story that would be a black comedy, the Keystone Cops chasing the Marx Brothers, if it weren't so tragic at the same time. Extensive excerpts follow. Background and historical context:
This experience [studying in America after WWII], among many others, confirmed Qutb's view that sexual mixing led inevitably to perversion. America itself had just been shaken by a lengthy scholarly report titled Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, by Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues at the University of Indiana. Droll commentary shattered the country's leftover Victorian prudishness like a brick through a stained-glass window. Kinsey reported that 37 percent of the American men he sampled had experienced homosexual activity to the point of orgasm; nearly half had engaged in extramarital sex; and 69 percent had paid for sex with prostitutes. The mirror that Kinsey held up to America showed a country that was frantically lustful but also confused, ashamed, incompetent, and astoundingly ignorant. Despite the evidence of the diversity and frequency of sexual activity, this was a time in America when sexual matters were practically never discussed, not even by doctors. One Kinsey researcher interviewed a thousand childless American couples who had no idea why they failed to conceive, even though the wives were virgins. ... The speed and decisiveness of the Israeli victory in the Six Day War humiliated many Muslims who had believed until then that God favored their cause. They had lost not only their armies and their territories but also faith in their leaders, in their countries, and in themselves. The profound appeal of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt and elsewhere was born in this shocking debacle. A newly strident voice was heard in the mosques; the voice said that they had been defeated by a force far larger than the tiny country of Israel. God had turned against the Muslims. The only way back to Him was to return to the pure religion. The voice answered despair with a simple formulation: Islam is the solution. ... One line of thinking proposes that America's tragedy on September 11 was born in the prisons of Egypt. Human-rights advocates in Cairo argue that torture created an appetite for revenge, first in Sayyid Qutb and later in his acolytes, including Ayman al-Zawahiri. The main target of the prisoners' wrath was the secular Egyptian government, but a powerful current of anger was also directed toward the West, which they saw as an enabling force behind the repressive regime. They held the West responsible for corrupting and humiliating Islamic society. Indeed, the theme of humiliation, which is the essence of torture, is important to understanding the radical Islamists' rage. Egypt’s prisons became a factory for producing militants whose need for retribution -- they called it justice -- was all-consuming. ... For aroused young Muslims such as Osama bin Laden, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam embodied in a modem fashion the warrior priest, a figure that was as well established in Islamic tradition as the samurai n Japan. Azzam combined piety and learning with a serene and bloody intransigence. His slogan was "Jihad and the rifle alone; no negotiations, no conferences, no dialogues." ... Martyrdom promised such young men an ideal alternative to a life that was so sparing m its rewards. A glorious death beckoned to the sinner, who would be forgiven, it is said, with the first spurt of blood, and he would behold his place in Paradise even before his death. Seventy members of his household might be spared the fires of hell because of his sacrifice. The martyr who is poor will be crowned in heaven with a jewel more valuable than the earth itself. And for those young men who came from cultures where women are shuttered away and rendered unattainable for someone without prospects, martyrdom offered the conjugal pleasures of seventy-two virgins….The pageant of martyrdom that Azzam lined before his worldwide audience created the death cult that would one day form the core of al-Qaeda.
The Soviets invade Afghanistan. Arabs join the fighting. There would be dire consequences during and after the fighting.
For the journalists covering the war, the Arab Afghans were a curious sideshow to the real fighting, set apart by their obsession with dying. When a fighter fell, his comrades would congratulate him and weep because they were not also slain in battle. These scenes struck other Muslims as bizarre. The Afghans were fighting for their country, not for Paradise or an idealized Islamic community. For them, martyrdom was not such a high priority. … Bin Laden reiterated his vision of creating an Arab force that would defend Muslim causes everywhere. That’s what he was trying to establish in this miserable mountain camp. “We came here to help the Afghans, not to form our own party!" Khalifa reminded him. "Besides, you're not a military man, so why are you here?" As they talked, their voices began to rise. In the ten years that they had known each other, they had never had an argument. "This is jihad!" bin Laden cried. "This the way we want to go to heaven!" … Al-Qaeda was conceived in the marriage of these assumptions: Faith is stronger than weapons or nations, and the ticket to enter the sacred zone where such miracles occur is the willingness to die. … Saudi intelligence guessed that between fifteen and twenty-five thousand Saudi youths trained m Afghanistan, although other estimates are far lower. Those who came back to the Kingdom were taken directly to jail for two or three days of interrogation. Some countries simply refused to let the fighters return. They became a stateless, vagrant mob of religious mercenaries. Many of them took root in Pakistan, marrying local women and learning to speak Urdu. Some went to fight in Kashmir, Kosovo, Bosnia, or Chechnya. The cinders of the Afghan conflagration were drifting across the globe, and soon much of the Muslim world would be aflame.
The rise of Osama bin Laden.
Turabi envisioned the creation of an international Muslim community headquartered in Sudan, which would then spill into other countries, carrying the Islamist revolution in an ever widening circle. Sudan, until then a cultural backwater in the Muslim world, would be the intellectual center of this reformation and Turabi its spiritual guide. In order to carry out this plan, he opened the doors of his country to any Muslim, regardless of nationality, no questions asked. Naturally, the people who responded to his invitation tended to be those who were welcome nowhere else. The government of Sudan began its courtship of bin Laden by sending him a letter of invitation in 1990… … There was one galling fact that prevented bin Laden from relaxing into the life of business and of spiritual contemplation that so strongly beckoned: the continued presence of American troops m Saudi Arabia. King Falud had pledged that the nonbelievers would be gone as soon as the war was over, and yet months after the Iraqi defeat coalition forces were still entrenched in Saudi air bases, monitoring the cease-fire agreement. Bin Laden agonized over what he believed was a permanent occupation of the holy land. Something had to be done. … But Christianity -- especially the evangelizing American variety -- and Islam were obviously competitive faiths. Viewed through the eyes of men who were spiritually anchored in the seventh century, Christianity was not just a rival, it was the archenemy. To them, the Crusades were a continual historical process that would never be resolved until the final victory of Islam. … Al-Qaeda's duty was to awaken the Islamic nation to the threat posed by the secular, modernizing West. In order to do that, bin Laden told his men, al-Qaeda would drag the United States into a war with Islam, "a large-scale front which it cannot control." … A new vision of al-Qaeda was born. Abu Hajer's two fatwas, the first authorizing the attacks on American troops and the second, the murder of innocents, turned al-Qaeda into a global terrorist organization. Al-Qaeda would concentrate not on fighting armies but on killing civilians. The former conception of al-Qaeda as a mobile army of mujahideen that would defend Muslim lands wherever they were threatened was now cast aside in favor of a policy of permanent subversion of the West. The Soviet Union was dead and communism no longer menaced the margins of the Islamic world. America was the only power capable of blocking the restoration of the ancient Islamic caliphate, and it would have to be confronted and defeated.
America is blind to these developments.
Few Americans, even in the intelligence community, had any idea of the network of radical Islamists that had grown up inside the country. The blind sheikh may as well have been speaking in Martian as Arabic, since there were so few Middle East language specialists available to the FBI, much less to the local police. Even if his threats had been heard and understood, the perception of most Americans was dimmed by their general insulation from the world's problems and clouded by the comfortable feeling that no one who lived in America would turn against it. … He traveled widely in the United States and Canada, arousing thousands of young immigrant Muslims with his sermons, often directed against Americans, who he said are "descendants of apes and pigs who have been feeding from the dining tables of the Zionists, Communists, and colonialists." He called on Muslims to assail the West, “cut the transportation of their countries, tear it apart, destroy their economy, bum their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land." … Given the diversity of the trainees and their causes, bin Laden's main task was to direct them toward a common enemy. He had developed a fixed idea about America, which he explained to each new class of al-Qaeda recruits. America appeared so mighty, he told them, but it was actually weak and cowardly. Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has. For all its wealth and resources, America lacks conviction. It cannot stand against warriors of faith who do not fear death. The warships in the Gulf will retreat to the oceans, the bombers will disappear from the Arabian bases, the troops in the Horn of Africa will race back to their homeland. … History moved in long, slow waves, he believed, and this contest had been going on continuously since the founding of Islam. "This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U.S.,” bin Laden would later explain. "This is a battle of Muslims against the global Crusaders." It was a theological war, in other words, and the redemption of humanity was at stake.
The plan to confront America gains momentum.
THE MEN WHO CAME TO TRAIN in Afghanistan in the 1995 were not impoverished social failures. As a group, they mirrored the "model young Egyptians" who formed the terrorist groups that Saad Eddin Ibrahim had studied in the early eighties. Most of the prospective al-Qaeda recruits were from the middle or upper class, nearly all of them from intact families. They were largely college-educated, with a strong bias toward the natural sciences and engineering. Few of them were products of religious schools; indeed many had trained in Europe or the United States and spoke as many as five or six languages. They did not show signs of mental disorders. Many were not even very religious when they joined the jihad. … WHAT THE RECRUITS tended to have in common -- besides their urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages, and their computer skills -- was displacement. … In the three years since Khaled Sheikh Mohammed had proposed his "planes operation" to bin Laden in a cave in Tora Bora, al-Qaeda had been researching a plan to strike the American homeland. Mohammed envisioned two waves of hijacked planes, five from the East Coast and five from Asia. Nine of the planes would crash into selected targets, such as the CIA, the FBI, and nuclear plants. … in the spring of 1999 bin Laden summoned Mohammed back to Kandahar and gave him the go-ahead to put his plan into operation.
There is intelligence about what is happening, but only a few in government take it seriously. Clarke and O'Neill were among the few.
A FEW MONTHS after the inauguration of George W. Bush, Dick Clarke met with Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor for the incoming Bush administration, and asked to be reassigned. From the moment the new team had taken over, it was clear that terrorism had a lower priority. When Clarke first briefed her in January about the threat that bin Laden and his organization posed to the United States, Rice had given him the impression that she had never heard of al-Qaeda. She subsequently downgraded his position, that of the national coordinator for counterterrorism, so that he would now be reporting to deputies, not to principals. … ON THE FIFTH OF JULY 2001, Dick Clarke assembled representatives of various domestic agencies -- the Federal Aviation Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Coast Guard, the FBI, and the Secret Service among them -- to issue a warning. "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon,” he told them. ... The bureau was a timid bureaucracy that abhorred powerful individuals. It was known for its brutal treatment of employees who were ambitious or who fought conventional wisdom. O'Neill was right about the threat of al-Qaeda when few cared to believe it. Perhaps, in the end, his capacity for making enemies sabotaged his career, but those enemies also helped al-Qaeda by destroying the man who might have made a difference. Already the New York office was losing focus and without O'Neill, terrible mistakes were made.
Tasks Worked on the musical this morning, attending to things suggested by the composer. Getting close to finishing it, thank the gods.
Tuesday I put on my teaching hat. I'll begin by rereading texts, reworking syllabus.
Continuing to rework Sally to the new point of view as well. I like the way it's shaping up. First person was too restrictive, particularly when there's so much irony in the story.
Agassi behind in what may be his last match. I'll go watch the ending.
And PSU scored a big upset last night:
Vikings Open Season With Huge Win, 17-6, Over New Mexico.
Albuquerque, NM- Portland State ran off 17 straight second-half points in pulling off a big upset over a 1-A program, defeating the University of New Mexico, 17-6, at University Stadium.
Saturday, September 02, 2006 Tomato tasting We took a short country drive to the Farmington Gardens Nursery for a tomato tasting. Neither of us had been to one.
What of the delights of Portland is how quickly you can get into countryside. We found the nursery and discovered quite a few folks had the same idea. Found a parking place and following the noise to see what was going on.
Over sixty varieties of tomatoes were displayed on three long tables. We got in line and started tasting.
There was no water or wine with which to clean the palette, so it didn't take long for all the samples to begin tasting similar. In fact, about 2/3 through the sequence we both were experiencing acidic overdose and decided to drop out.
Alas, none of the tomatoes had that zinging sensation of those that come right out of your garden. I wouldn't go to another tomato tasting but now I can say I've been to one.
Game Day, or the Challenge to Hype
Came home to watch some college football. My last fanatical college football buddy was the late Tom Campbell from Oklahoma. He loved his Sooners! He couldn't wait for the season to start! This, the first weekend, was an Institution not to be missed. I enjoyed watching many a game with Tom.
The big upset today was Cal getting creamed by Tennessee. One well-known TV reporter predicted that Cal would go all the way. And Notre Dame is having its hands full as I write here, the game on my small office TV. But UCLA and Oregon both won handily.
Friday, September 01, 2006 Longevity H put my vital statistics through some kind of questionnaire and told me that I'll live to be 81, she 94. Oh? Man, if I can outlive my dad, who died at 74, I'll feel like I won the lottery. I already feel like I'm living on Raymond Carver's gravy, as stated here before. Well, let's get through the week first ha ha.
9/01/2006 05:58:00 PM |
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More fine books Titles to consider for the memoir keep popping into my head: Malamud's The Assistant, Bellow's Henderson the Rain King, Yates' Revolutionary Road. Need to reread some Faulkner, it's been a while. Look again at Melville's Pierre.
9/01/2006 05:54:00 PM |
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Progress Started reworking Sally, coming at the material from a new point of view. Early on, I'm optimistic this is going to work. I want to finish the first section, print it out, read it like a reader and see what I have.
Harriet's Art Wall The garden section of the paper is doing a feature on walls and fences, and Harriet sent them photos of her art wall. They should use it.
Back into the 90s for a few days. I love it. And college football is about to begin in earnest. I can't help it, I played it (if football at Cal Tech can be called football ha ha), I like it. I still seem to root for UCLA more than Oregon, the powers of childhood and all that (like rooting for Navy over Army, a Navy brat who joined the Army). I also root for Notre Dame, always have, not sure why ... on a trip across the country, even went a hundred miles out of my way to go to campus and see the football stadium! Later I met a retired fellow who was driving around the country, going to every football stadium in the NFL. However, I prefer college ball, where the egos haven't been inflated by so many dollars yet.
Ah, youth! Each generation has to come up with a fashion and/or behavior statement that will outrage their parents. Through time, the options become necessarily more extreme. It's hard to imagine today that the haircut of the Beatles outraged anybody, let along the Duck Tails of my own generation. In my high school, a teacher got fired for refusing to shave off his beard. Hippies took the hair option to the extreme, then later kids started shaving their heads. Body piercings and tattoos made more extreme statements (like the fellow I saw recently with his face so tattoed he seemed to be wearing a medieval mask). But what's ahead?
I have an idea. Dismemberment. This will begin with the hands. Nihilists will dismember three fingers above the knuckle so they are perpetually giving the finger. Liberated women will dismember their ring fingers to show the world they are immune to marriage. Pinkies, the less useful digit, will be dismembered and preserved and worn around the neck on a chain by high school students as a symbol of going steady ("Gee, Mary, are you going to exchange pinkies with him!?").
I can hardly wait.
I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid. -- G. K. Chesterton
_The Writing Life