Blog

  • Reading and Writing in the Woods

    I follow Yaddo and MacDowell on Instagram. They are both artist residency programs (Check them out here: Yaddo, and MacDowell) and, for me, there is something very aspirational about following them. I think I would like to have a two-week residency with either one. Hell, I would take two days if it was offered to me.

    Have I applied to them? No, but maybe one day.

    I’m not sure if the reason I want to be out there is to be alone in the woods to work in solitude, or it might be that I would like to believe that I would rub elbows with David Sedaris, maybe help him make a communal meal for the colony. (I would have to fight the urge to tell David that I still give Holidays on Ice as a Christmas gift to people.) It’s as if it would be a working, smart person vacation.

    I think I might have told this story before, if so, then just act like its new…

    The last three major job interviews I have had in the past two years, all three have posed the same “personality” question to me; “If you could do anything, what would you do?” We all know the gimmick of this question, and the expected answer is that you are supposed to say, this job that I’m interviewing for. I preferred to answer the question honestly, but in a non-offensive way, by saying, “I would be in a cabin in the woods, reading and writing all day.” (Out of those three interviews, I only landed the job once.) As time has gone on, I see that my answer was more honest than I wanted to be. If I keep saying it, then there is some truth there, maybe on an id level.

    So, I guess I’m setting up a second goal here. The first being earn enough money from writing to buy a computer for my family. The second is to be in the woods reading and writing all day. If Yaddo and MacDowell want to help out with that, it would be greatly appreciated.

  • Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Literary Passing

    I always agreed with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, that Ferlinghetti was not a Beat Poet. He was like a Beat Older Brother; A Beat Renaissance Man. Bookstore owner, poet, publisher, painter, advocate, champion, and everything else.

    I did feel the loss of his passing the other day. Another tangible connection to the last major literary movement in America is gone. Sure, there have been great writers since the Beats, and styles like Modernism, Post-Modernism, and Absurdism, but all of that was created and existed in an intellectual definition sort of a way; Disparate blips on a literary map that had data points in common. But the Beats did meet up, discuss, drank, and traded anti-establishment ideas in person. Overly romanticized? Clearly, but it still was a flesh and bone movement with connections between artists. And again, another of those figures is gone.

    I made it to City Lights Bookstore once, but I wasn’t able to go inside. I had a job interview at a theatre, which ran long, so I only was able to do a pass by on the street, before I had to run and go catch my ferry ride back to Larkspur. I thought I would be back, and have a chance to spend time in the store, but I didn’t get the job, and well… life got in the way. I stood in front of City Lights for just a moment, looking at it. A place I had read about forever, or at least high school, and it was more a confirmation that it did exist, it was real. That these people did the things I read about.

    Ferlinghetti ensured that we heard voices, and ideas, and thoughts that went counter to prevailing winds. It took courage to publish Howl, and to follow it all the way through the court case that established the redeeming social importance of the poetry.

    Thanks, Lawrence. We needed you.

  • Reimaging Retelling Stories

    Some of you may know that I like the writings of Donald Barthelme. I have read many of his short stories, but never any of his novels, especially his novel, Snow White. Though I have never read it, I know that Barthelme takes that story and deconstructs it, and tells the story from different points of view. Thus, he takes an old story, and repurposes it, churns it through his style and perspective, thereby making a “new” story that challenges how we thought of the old story.

    Which makes me think about back in college, as a theatre major, we spent a good amount of time studying the ancient Greek playwrights. For the annual Festival of Dionysus, the Greek playwrights were only retelling the old myths of the gods, as no one was creating new myths, but each playwright put his own spin on the old stories. So, audiences knew going into a play what it would be about, but details would be changed by each writer to give new perspective.

    I know Barthelme wasn’t the first modern author to retell a classic story, and not too long ago, Hadestown was on Broadway which was the retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice, but this retelling of old stories is something that does happen often. I could be wrong, but it seems that respected, approved creativity has an onus to be purely original content, and not an homage, unless it’s comedy. And if a story is reimagined, it usually takes a story and tries to darken, and grim it up, making it more brutal.

    In this vein, I have been trying to channel my inner Barthelme, and wonder what he would have done with today’s world, and retold the Trojan War?

  • Stay at Home Parent; Gotta Have Goals

    I have been doing the stay at home parent thing since June, which means that I have logged nearly nine months of this. Last night, the wife and I had a conversation about the next six months, and what that means for the kid’s schooling, home life, and our roles in it. The decision we made, even if the kid gets back into school full time, is that I will continue to be a stay at home parent, and not look for a job. Things may change in September, but for now, this will be my role for the family.

    I also know very well that planning in this pandemic is foolish, as there is a very high probability that what we are setting ourselves up for is disappointment. Hoping that the future will be better was the philosophical status quo a year ago, but now that thought seems fraught with disaster. I’m not ready to give up hope just yet, and I really don’t want to set that example for my daughter.

    My grandmother used to always say to us, “You gotta have goals.” I used to think that was something that people in retirement would say, to give their day purpose. Now I see that it is a mantra for mental survival. If you don’t have something to work towards, then it’s hard to get up in the morning.

    The wife will be the one who works, brings in our income, and provides our insurance. I will manage the home, the kid’s schooling, and all the other tasks in our daily life. That’s the deal. We will reexamine this situation when we hit June to make sure it still works for us.

    And there is one other thing; I need to stop calling this the “new normal” and just call it normal.

  • Personal Review: Bluets by Maggie Nelson

    First of all, I am having trouble with getting motivated to work on my projects this week. Taking time to examine art that has influenced me has been helpful.

    And as such…

    Back at the start of 2016, I was in a world of professional turmoil. I had been promoted to a senior leadership position in a theatre company/school that was in the process of a slow painful death, that most people in the company were in denial about. I was ambitious and thought I could save the company, but by April of that year, it was clear to me that nothing could be done to save it. I was captain of a sinking ship. And at this time, I started to realize that what I was doing to pay the bills, had come to dominate my life, and pull me a million miles away from all the reasons I had moved to New York City in the first place; I didn’t come to run a company, I had to come to artistically create.

    In this state of feeling lost, I read a profile on the author Maggie Nelson. The article was in support of The Argonauts which had just won a National Book Award. When I read the profile, I identified with Maggie Nelson’s love of reading, and a curiosity for artistic expression as well as self-examination, and well, examination of everything. There was also a deep honesty from Nelson that was at once shocking, and revealing of how easily I could be shocked by honesty. Half way through the article, I knew that I need to read that book.

    I went over to the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, and when I got to where her books were, they only carried one of her’s; Bluets. Better to have something by Nelson, rather than nothing. I bought the very slim, blue book that was supposed to be poetry, but on the back of the book was listed as essay.

    What I got from Bluets was what I had been looking for but could never put my finger on. The book read like someone sharing the thoughts that come in and out of their head. Not early 20th century stream of conscious, but more like thoughts from in my head, like a monologue for the audience of me. Thoughts come, develop, repeat with revision, and are funny, and also melancholy. I keep going back to Bluets often. I love the structure, and the idea of meditation by using words on a theme that has no answer or conclusion. Nelson’s writing for me is more than honest, but feels like a living thing. Insight that welcomes me to sit and ponder along with her.

    It’s funny how the right thing shows up when things are going wrong.