Category: Art

  • 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.  

  • The South Bank Show – Discussing Art

    I am not as disciplined as I would like to be. I say this because last night I was going to be a good boy – watch a little tv, and then finish reading Rachel Cusk’s new short story in The New Yorker.

    But then my brain says to me; It says, “You remember the theme song to The South Bank Show?”

    “I do,” I says. “I think it was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, of all people.”

    “You should look that up.”

    “I will, and, switching subjects here, a good night’s sleep is for losers.”

    “Tell me about it.”

    So, YouTube has a shit ton of South Bank Show videos. And I hope you know what I am talking about. See, back in the early 90’s when BRAVO was the greatest cable channel for the arts and people who couldn’t sleep, they would show the documentary series The Show Bank Show which was originally broadcast on ITV in Great Britain. The show covered all subjects that had to do with art and pop culture. You could get an episode on Gore Vidal, and then one about The Talking Heads. For a very impressionable junior high kid, these shows were mind altering because they exposed me to different viewpoints, and arts, and lifestyles, things that I would never run into living in the suburbs outside of Dallas.

    I found the intro music of The South Bank Show (It was in fact written by Andrew Lloyd Webber for his brother, a cellist, Julian Lloyd Webber. Here’s a full version of the song) and here is a compilation of all the intro versions. (The 1989-1990 is my favorite.) Just hearing the music again, and seeing the animation, I was reminded how I would get a genuine deep curiosity thrill of what was about to be shown on that program. For that thirteen-year-old me, I was being shown a world of creativity that I knew must exist, but was just beyond my fingertips. It was a world that I wanted to be in, and that show made me feel like it was completely accessible.

    I decided that I couldn’t just stop at the theme song, and I should watch an episode. I went with the one on Steve Martin, which I remember seeing way back when. It’s when Martin was transitioning out of his “Wild and Crazy Guy” persona, and was beginning to make smarter comedies, such as Roxanne and LA Story. The documentary gave him a good platform to explain how his “crazy” persona was more like a comedy experiment where he was trying to write jokes that were just funny, and didn’t have traditional punchlines or set ups. I read his memoir, Born Standing Up, which covered his start in comedy, to when he quit doing standup, and he goes into more detail on his reasoning and thought process of what makes a joke work. What I took away then, as I did now, was how smart Steve Martin is, and how he knows the balance of thinking about, but not over thinking, comedy.

    See. Stuff like that is what makes The South Bank Show still interesting to watch. How the art and the artist are entangled, and what they go through, and how they view the world around them.

    I got about five hours of sleep last night.

  • Banning Books Never Works

    Was there ever a time in history when the group that was banning books ended up being the good guys? It’s like calling your country an “empire” because you might as well just say that “we have come to kill you and take your land.” There is no “good” empire, just like there isn’t a “good” book banning.

    I say all of this because on Sunday, CBS’ SUNDAY MORNING show did a story on the movement to ban books in schools and public libraries. In the story, they include the group, Moms for Liberty, who are spearheading the book banning. (I would tell them that their group name is rather Orwellian, but I fear they haven’t read any books by Orwell.) The mom’s claim that they are out to protect children from pornography, and LGBTQ+ influence by giving parents more authority over schools and libraries.

    These women are idiots, and should be reminded of it often and always. Clearly they have never read any history because banning books never works. It never has and never will. In fact, when someone tries to ban a book, the sales of said banned book explode. Just check the numbers. Also, when you start trying to ban books, you join the likes of other book banners like Nazis, Brown Shirts, Segregationists, Francoists, and the Spanish Inquisition (which no one suspects…) It’s a Murderer’s Row of suppression and, ultimately, failure. And yet these groups, Moms and Moral Majorities, keep thinking that they are different from the past, when they are only repeating it.

    So, yet again, books need to be protected, as well as our public libraries. Here is PEN AMERICA’s Books Ban page, with their report book banning in the USA. Also, here is Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned initiative, as well as American Library Association’s Banned and Challenged Books program.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Say ‘Zines, Creative Project, and Hiking

    (Closest to the price without going over…)

    One of the few writing credits to my name is a band review from like 1997 in a local DFW music ‘zine. Now, I know just about everybody pronounces it [zeen] which rhymes with “seen,” and that relates back to the word’s origin from “magazine.” I, on the other hand, can’t stop myself from pronouncing it [z’ine] which rhymes with “line.” I get shunned by people when I say this word incorrectly, though deep in my soul, I feel like I am saying it the correct way. Seriously, if you were against corporate magazines, wouldn’t you want your anti-corporate term to sound different? Think about it, man!

    I bring all of this up because a friend of mine from college who is a bottomless well of creativity and inspiration posted on their IG about a group by the name of Reciprocal Works which hosts a zine exchange. That means you send them copies of your zine, and in return, they send you copies of other people’s zines. (Please check out their site for more information, as they describe it way better than I.) This is the type of creative idea that really gets my mind churning, and it also made me feel like a kid playing “newspaper” where I would write a fake newspaper and beg my dad to make copies of it on the Xerox at his office. So, there is some childhood giddiness here, but also a healthy portion of inspiration to do something creative, just to be creative. For the past day, I have been thinking about images, words, drawings, comix and gags that I have laying around, yet I’m not sure what to do with. Why not make a limited run zine? Yeah, why not?

    This might be a good weekend to start the Hiking Campaign 2023! Dust off those boots and hope the water-wicking pants still fit, because this weekend is a good weekend to fjord a creek!