Month: May 2023

  • Endless/Nameless

    I should be writing. A focused writing, where I have a clear idea that I am fleshing out. I should at least be writing a draft – a draft of this blog.

    But I am not.

    This is a fluff piece, as I cannot get my mind to focus.

    See, I did the family grocery shopping this morning, which took more out of me than I expected, and as I sit on the couch, computer in my lap… I just can’t get the act of writing to happen.

    (This is a forced act. An illusion. It appears that I am writing something, but I am just running out the clock to get to 250 to 500 words in the next twenty-one minutes.)

    I thought I could write about the politics of the current moment, or the never-ending gun violence that’s slowing making this nation callous to its horror. I thought about writing on health insurance, or public schools, or STEM programs for my kid. But none of the gripped me.

    I started looking up what a new MacBook Air would cost me, as my current machine is ten years old and staring to show it wear. But that’s a thousand dollars I don’t have right now.

    I thought about writing on the state of the job/gig market, as I still am looking for a side hustle to bring in some extra cash. But the more I think about that subject, the more depressed I feel.

    And if we are going to talk about depressing, then I could talk about being a middle-aged guy who is out of work and is attempting a writing career. But that topic makes me feel really, really depressed.

    I could talk about my lack of vocabulary as I get older.

    Ear hair is a subject that I feel doesn’t get covered enough for men.

    I could give this blog the name of a Nirvana song, but I think that would give me away as a 90’s kid.

    I could write about how I have nine stories floating out in submission land, waiting for a response. I could speak about my system of sending a story out to five magazines at a time, and if it gets rejected from all five, I start the process all over again. But speaking about rejection isn’t that much fun.

    I’m always impressed with people who can write about depressing things, but you end up feeling better about life. When I write about depressing topics, I just feel worse.

    I know what I don’t want to write about. That’s a start.

    I got a flash story I need to work on so I’ll go do that.

    Thanks for killing time with me.

  • Personal Review: Let Me Think by J. Robert Lennon

    I am embarrassed to say that I have no idea how Let Me Think by J Robert Lennon made it on my reading list. And my reading list is actually a wish list on my Amazon account. This was the book that was next up. I knew it was a collection of short stories, but other than that, I knew nothing about the author or any previous works. I was going in blind, but sometimes it’s good to be surprised.

    The collection is made up of flash pieces and short stories, broken up into five sections. There are two reoccurring stories; one about a marriage, and another about a cottage in the woods. The other thing that reoccurs in the collection is the theme of unhappy marriages. And I can’t prove it, but with the book being broken into five parts, I had the weird feeling that each section was to represent one of the five stages of grief. Again, no proof of that, but I couldn’t shake that idea.

    I liked Lennon’s writing right from the beginning of the collection. The first two pieces, “Girls” followed by “Boys” showed that Lennon has a sense of humor, and likes to play with the form of a short story. Witty, this guy’s witty, and the sense of playfulness and fun comes right through. That’s not to say that the none of the stories take on a serious tone, as some do, but experimentation is happening here as well. The “cottage” stories do take on an adult tone, but they also lean into a slight thread of absurdism, or maybe fanciful is the better word to use. Yet, the best example of this tone is the story “Subject Verb” which is told in that very simple sentence structure; just a subject and a verb. It is a format that is brutal in its simplicity, but Lennon makes it an effective tool for storytelling.

    In the end, the collection was enjoyable and entertaining, but what I was left with, and made me the happiest, was that this was a book by a writer who is trying to find new ways to tell a story. The pieces don’t follow the hero cycle, or have a hook in the first line, or even try to tie up the narrative with a button. Now, some of the stories do the afore mentioned things, but the ones that don’t, the stories that try, and poke and prod at what a narrative can be – how short can a story be – how many words are needed to create an emotional pay off? THAT was the excitement of reading this collection – it was different, and it was refreshing without feeling labored to be different.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Robot Overlords, Who Are These People, and Working on My 100

    (I just want what’s coming to me, I just want my fair share…)

    I had a thought this morning; how long until all online customer service chats with retailors are run by AI? I know to a degree the start of most chats are a prompt system – you answer some basic questions, and then you start talking to a human. But if I understand how things are going, then it’s just a matter of time before AI will take over this aspect. And if that did happen, would retailors tell us it’s AI that is assisting us, or would they try to hide it by telling us we are talking to “Kevin”? If they try to hide the AI, then I had another thought; could one do a type of Turning Test on customer service AI? Now thinking of it, is it more like Blade Runner, because the Turning Test requires two people and a machine. Either way, it sounds like a challenge. You know, make the AI question its existence, you get free shipping.

    I know of no one who is excited about the Coronation of King Charles. That might be due to the fact that I’m an American, and we don’t like kings, which is kind of our thing, you know. (I also live in a city that famously tore down a statue of a king at the start of The Revolution.) But from what I keep seeing on tv, the Coronation is a big deal that people want to see. I have to believe that the major networks must have some demographic research backing up this decision. That they know this coverage will bring in viewers and they can sell ads. It’s the only reason they do anything. So, who are these people that want to see this? Who?

    I sent out a big batch of submissions this week. I’m still working my way to 100 no’s. I’m closing in on the number, which is a very strange way is putting me in a good mood. It’s not great progress, but it is progress; Getting out there, trying stuff out, getting my stuff in front of people’s eyes. I don’t like hearing no, but I understand it’s part of the process.  

  • Not the Dream I Wanted

    I don’t remember my dreams. Or, it’s very rare that I remember a dream. When I do remember one, what sticks with me is an image, or a feeling. People and places will be there, but it’s like everything is frozen in a moment that I am very much aware has events that happened before this frozen moment, and sometimes, I even know what will happen after. It’s all very strange.

    The rarest dream that I have is the full-blown narrative, and interaction with people. That’s what happened to me last night. And it was awful.

    I dreamed about people I used to work with, and not the friendly and good people who became my friends. No, I dreamt about all the awful people that I didn’t get along with, or who went out of their way to make my employment as unenjoyable as possible. In this dream, I was holding open a door to a church so people could enter. And then all of my former co-workers showed up, and refused to go through the door I was holding open. They didn’t say anything to me, just made eye contact, and then went to a different door. The overwhelming feeling I was getting was that when I went to work on Monday, I was going to get fired.

    Yeah, it was a terrible dream, and what made the dream worse was when I woke up, I thought the dream was real, and I had to get up and go to that job. It took a second for me to come out of it, knowing that I didn’t have an office to report to, but that feeling of dread and anxiety has been hung all over me this morning.

    Dread and anxiety is what I felt when I went into the office most days. Some of it was caused by the people I worked with, who starred in my dream. But, most of it was caused by me. Most days, as I packed myself on a subway car, listening to music and reading The Times or New Yorker on my phone – doing my best to shut out the world on my commute – I would wonder if this would be another day wasted? That if this was a job that was slowly killing me; sucking out my ambition and drive and all the reasons why I wanted to move away from home and try something different. As I get more space and time to reflect on my office days, I can see that some of the issues I had were me not being happy with the situation I placed myself in. Don’t get me wrong – the shitty people were still shitty people, but I allowed them to get to me for far too long.

    But that’s the point of reflection, right? To learn lessons from your own life and actions. What I now know is that when I sense those feelings of dread and anxiety, I need to get the hell out of that situation. Odds are that I will return to an office one day, and if I do, I know the warning signs to watch out for.

    That’s progress.

    But I can’t figure out why I was at a church in the dream…

  • Short Story Review: “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai

    (The short story “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai appeared in the May 8th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (SPOLIERS should be expected, but not intended.)

    Sometimes I just want to read a good old-fashioned short story, like from that Post WWII/1950’s period when writers could make a living publishing stories in magazines. These are the stories that are aligned more to the entertaining fair, rather than deep expressions of artistic ambition. Don’t get me wrong, at heart I’m an arty-farty experimental writing guy. Yet, now and then, it is refreshing to read something that came from the period when America was establishing what would become Modern literature.

    When I started reading “The Plaza” by Rebecca Makkai, she took me right to that place and era, not only of literature, but of that specific New York City of old. Makkai did a particular perfect job of making The Plaza of her story matches The Plaza that only exists in the fantasy world of American literature and theatre; a playground for the well off, where any desire or request will be met by the concierge, bellhops and maids. And fantasy is correct for this story.

    “The Plaza” concerns Margie, who is a local beauty in a small town along the upper Delaware River, who at twenty-three is a waitress at a hotel for men who fish the river on vacation. It is there that she meets Alistair Baldwell, a rich young man from New York City, and his Yale friends who are there for the fishing. Soon, Alistair and Margie are together, and before he leaves, he suggests that she should come to visit him in New York. After some time, she does, and he puts her up in a room at The Plaza, and from there, their lives change, including their names. She becomes Margaret, and he becomes Ally. An unexpected pregnancy complicates the situation, but Ally’s answer is for Margaret to take a suite at The Plaza, which Ally’s company pays for, and they secretly wed. And clearly more happens.

    As I said before, this story feels like a complete throw back to what magazine American literature from the Post War period felt like. The sweep, the characters, the vast amount of time covered, and a New York City that feels peacefully wonderful and safe. And this story could exist on that simple homage level, and it would be fine. But what Makkai does expertly here is bring in a delightful undercurrent of allusion and realism. The realism of mounting lies, and the destruction of trust. I also found Margaret’s relationship with her father and brothers painfully honest, giving a clear understand of her motivations in life. But it is the allusion of the fairy tale; a princess locked away in a castle. But also, the feeling of Margaret creating her own fairy tale/fantasy in the world that she finds herself in. All of these pieces swirl together, creating a very textured and entwined story.

    In the end, I found “The Plaza” to be an entertaining story, which fooled me into thinking, at first, that it was just an old styled story. Such is the power of a good writer. What is on display is a writer who understands what made those old stories work so well, while still staying modern and fresh with the narrative, which creates something wholly new.