I did this a while ago, and it seems right that I should do this again.
Maybe I’m trying to get published in these places, maybe I’m not. Either way, I’m enjoying the work they are putting out, and if you haven’t, you should check them out.
In No Particular Order:
So, I got rejected twice over the weekend. Two small lit magazines took the time to let me know that my efforts were not required. The interesting thing was that both publications normally, according to their own sites, take three to six months to respond to inquiries. One mag let me know after a month, and the other, after five days. So… either I’m really awful at this whole writing thing (always possible…) or the more likely answer, I did not format my submissions correctly.
Turns out, I didn’t format my submissions correctly. One set of guidelines required that I put my name and page number in the top righthand corner of each page, while the other mag’s guidelines required that I not put my name anywhere on the submission.
Oops…
It is slightly frustrating that just about every magazine has a different set of guidelines, and though I follow them and get it right 99% of the time, there is always one that slips through the cracks. And the inevitable “salty” rejection letter arrives with some statement about how I should do a better job of following the “guidelines” if I want to be considered.
You know… there are thousands of lit magazines out there, each with their own guidelines. Why can’t there be a standardized system? I mean, there is an MLA standard format that everyone has to use when they write a paper in high school and college. So why not a standard format system for magazine submissions?
I propose that there should be a “Universal Standard Submission Guideline.” Something that is uniformed across the industry. Such as; 12pt, double spaced, Times New Roman, Author’s Name in the top left corner, page number in the top right corner. That’s it, nothing else.
Let’s do away with all of these finicky guidelines that seem to be in place to trip people up, and make rejecting easier, rather than giving each work an even playing field. This way rejection is based on someone actually reading and thinking about the work, rather than a gatekeeper looking for reasons to keep people out.
Look, I know it’s a tough business, and there are more people out there submitting work than there are places that can accept them. And rejection is a big part of the arts, regardless of what field you are in. You have to have a tough skin, take your licks, and keep on going. Completely agree with that, and I’m not looking for a shortcut from the hard work that is required to achieve, well, anything in life. I’m just saying that a Universal Standard Submission Guideline would create an objective starting point for everyone, and begin to remove the shadow of subjective rejections.
(Don’t flood it…)
So, Sam Bankman-Fried is going to jail for a very long time. I’m sure you know this, but crypto is a scam. Or, if I’m being polite, it’s just a new form of gambling. And SBF gambled and got caught. From everything that I read about this guy, he was too smart for his own good. He struck me as the type of person who was, and knew he was, smarter than everyone else, and somehow thought he could use his intelligence to get himself out of this situation. In the end, he was a con-artist, and he coned a lot of people. Including some other very smart people. Also, I am aware that as soon as I post this, I will get inundated with a bunch of crypto bots trying to get me to buy crypto.
And the kid is sick. We watched “Let’s Make a Deal” this morning together. That was sweet. She’s running a fever, and feels awful, but she gets the iPad all day, so it’s not all bad.
And as of this minute, I have yet to be rejected by Taco Bell Quarterly. They are one of my favorite online lit journals, and I’m not saying that because I submitted a story to them. TBQ has an attitude not unlike a favorite underground punk band that is parts hilarious, offensive, and friendly all at the same time. Anyway, the other day TBQ announced that they were sending out rejection letters and… I’m waiting for my rejection letter. They did say it would take some time, as they have to send out 2,800+ rejections. Over on TBQ’s X/Twitter feed, writers who have received their rejections are editing and marking out their letters to create new messages of varying degrees of positive/negative statements. It’s been fun to watch. But still… Where’s my rejection letter?
Now that Halloween is over, time to start prepping for Thanksgiving. For me, that means making chicken, turkey and mushroom stock ahead of time. As well as stock piling non-perishable food. I’m getting ahead this year, and watch how this will play out. I’m sure I’ll be writing about it often.
I am biased toward everything The Beatles do; we should just get that out of the way right now. If you are looking for an objective opinion or review of their new song, “Now and Then,” this isn’t the place. In fact, I won’t review this song because even if it was the worst Beatle song ever, I would still like it. No, what I want to talk about is legacy and The Beatles place in music history.
Here’s a little background on where this song came from. Back in the early 90’s, Yoko Ono gave Paul McCartney some cassette tapes that John Lennon had recorded songs on back between 1975 to 1980. The three remaining Beatles (Paul, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) got together to “finish” recording three songs from the tapes, for use on the upcoming release of the Anthology Albums and documentary series. Two of the songs were completed, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” but a third song, “Now and Then” was not completed. The story goes that though they had recorded a version of “Now and Then,” George objected to the sound quality of the cassette tape – specifically the quality of John’s vocal and how it could not be separated from the piano, as John had originally recorded them at the same time back in 1975-80. Jump ahead to Peter Jackson working on the Get Back documentary, where his team used computers and A.I. technology to clean up some of the audio and visuals from the original film and recordings in 1969. Paul and Ringo then had the “Now and Then” song worked on using this technology, thus separating John’s vocal from the piano, rectifying George’s objection to the song. Sadly, George did passed away back in 2001, but with the blessing from George’s family, his recoded parts of the song from the 90’s were reused, and Paul and Ringo rerecorded their parts, and there you have it, “Now and Then.” The Last Beatles song.
And with this ominous “The Last Beatles Song” which is their words not mine, we are officially entering into the “legacy” period for The Beatles. The Anthology Albums and documentary series were not objective undertakings. That was defiantly the three of them getting to have a say on who and what The Beatles were As such, it felt more like a celebration, not really a history. Peter Jackson’s work on Get Back was breathtaking, if you are a Beatles fan, in how it showed the way the band created songs. But, it was also a push back against the idea that the Get Back sessions were the canary in the coal mine, predicting the impending Beatles break up in early 1970. Maybe “Now and Then” is a bit like cleaning out the closet; wrapping up that last project, before others get their hands on it once Paul and Ringo have passed on. I won’t be surprised if there aren’t a few more nuggets of Beatles lore and music that come out in the following years.
And I think it’s a good idea that they do this. I’m a huge Beatles fan, but I wasn’t alive when any of their original albums were released. My daughter was born when only two Beatles were still alive. Her kids are going to be born into a world of no living Beatles, and very few people who were alive when these songs first came out. I say all of this because that’s when the real objective study of The Beatles will begin. The first-hand accounts will be gone, and documentation will have to be studied. If Paul and Ringo want to set the record straight, they better get it in while they can.
(The short story “The Ghosts of Gloria Lara” by Junot Diaz appeared in the November 6th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)
Photograph by Paul Thulin-Jimenez for The New Yorker
I had a professor in college who taught a playwrighting class, who likened writers to jazz musicians. This professor believed, and taught, that both types of artists have to be comfortable with “noodling” around on their instrument or medium – trying out ideas to see how they play and work together. Only through this form of experimenting is how stories, or songs, begin to come together, take shape to reveal their themes and tone. (This professor was a huge Miles Davis fan, if that’s any help.) Not sure I agree with this theory, but it is an idea that has stuck in the back of my head; a writer “noodling” out ideas. Sure, you could call that rewriting, but that sounds so functional, while “noodling” has an air of playfulness to it.
“The Ghosts of Gloria Lara” by Junot Diaz struck me as a “noodling” experimentation of a story. I found it to be an enjoyable read, but the story never felt complete to me. The more that I thought about this “incomplete” feeling, the more I came to believe that it was done on purpose. I could be very disrespectful of the piece and describe it as the story of a Dominican immigrant mother as told by her youngest son. I don’t want to be disrespectful of this story. There is a lot going on in this thing; background information, asides, tangents, etc.… It’s all needed, and impossible to condense into a quick description. You should just read the story, and you’ll understand.
“The Ghosts of Gloria Lara” also reminded me of the movie “Adaptation,” in the sense that “Adaptation” was about many things, but one of the themes of the movie was breaking all the “rules” to movie storytelling, to, in a sense, prove that you could tell a story that way. I felt that Diaz was also trying to do that with this story. The piece begins with a great deal of backstory for the main character of the mother. In another part, the narrator tells us, by making a Chekhov joke, that a gun mentioned will come into play later. And a few times, the narrator also tells that a brief aside in the story will be explained later. All of this done as if the narrator knows that we are also aware of what “rules” of short story telling are. Sure, it has a “wink-wink” “sorry/not sorry” attitude, but the narrator isn’t being disrespectful or condescending to us. It’s played light.
But the one moment that I found most puzzling, and I had to believe it was purposefully done, was at the very end of the story. As the piece is concluding, the narrator and the mother are asking each other about their former neighbor, Mr. Wilson. The mother asks the narrator if he remembers what Mr. Wilson looked like, which the narrator says he does. Then immediately, the narrator confesses that actually doesn’t remember, and that there are no photographs of him, nor is there anyone left in the neighborhood who would remember him. But, earlier in the story, the narrator spends a whole paragraph describing what Mr. Wilson looked like. So… What’s going on here? Is the narrator an unreliable source? Is everything we just read a lie, or did the narrator embellish for dramatic effect? Is it possible that Diaz made a huge gaff in his own story?
I’m going to land on the side of the writer, and believe this was done on purpose. After all, the story is called, “The Ghosts of Gloria Lara.” What we are being told is a memory, and those feeling, thoughts, and ideas don’t fall and form in a clear narrative sense. Maybe the narrator did remember what Mr. Wilson looked like as he tells us this story, but when he spoke to his mother, he didn’t at that time. These memories, like apparitions, come and go, sometimes in detail, but other times vague and transparent. In this way, the story is like trying to grasp fog – you can feel it but you can’t hold it. What I was left feeling was a story that was coming in and going out, seeing what will fit together.
