Category: Writing

  • ODDS and ENDS: China Visitors, North London Derby, and Fantasy Football

    (Crystal Pepsi wasn’t that bad…)

    I am very thankful and grateful for the people who look at this blog; There are my friends from high school, college, and my life in New York.; And there are the other writers and bloggers on this platform. I appreciate the time you spend on the posts, and the likes you give. Then I started to notice about a month ago, I was getting a shit ton of visitors from China, who are looking mainly at two posts; Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid, and especially Short Story Review: “My Wonderful Description of Flowers” by Danielle Dutton. No one is leaving any comments or likes, so I am beginning to questions if this isn’t just a bunch of bots pinging these posts. Has anyone else encountered a situation like this? If this does happen to be real people looking at the post, then I guess I’m a little like the band Citizen Dick, cuz they were really huge in Belgium.

    The North London Derby is on Sunday! And Spurs gotta win it. Yeah, Tottenham needs to stop going into a hole in the first half, as Arsenal will not let up on them if they get a lead. This just means that my Sunday will be rather stressful. I want to be confidant about this team, but I still don’t feel that the defense has gelled together, and the Kane/Son combo has been nowhere to be seen this season. Ung… They are making me feel like I’m watching the Cubs again.

    Speaking of sports; I won my fantasy football league. I accomplished this feat with no skill, and all dumb luck. See, I let the computer draft my team, and all I did was adjust the lineup, which guaranteed me a losing season. But, there are so few people playing in my league, everyone got a spot in the playoffs. And that’s when my menagerie of players decided that they should start showing up. Hence, my amazing string of victories that lead to a Championship. My second, I would like to add. No one cares about this success, except me. And now you. You’re welcome.

  • Personal Review: A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

    I used to manage a theatrical rehearsal space, and we saw lots of people come in and out of the place every day. I will say this about the theatre community; it is well read. I say this because of the amount of books left in the Lost and Found box. Sadly, the majority of the lost books were never recovered, and after a month, if still not claimed, it was open for the staff to take them. That is how a paperback copy of A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan entered my life. It was in my possession at least for seven years before I decided to read it over the Christmas holiday.

    Goon Squad won the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award back in 2011, and I had heard good things about it for awhile. I went into it knowing nothing of the plot, characters, structure or anything. I did know who Jennifer Egan was, and I liked her writing, so I was looking forward to reading it.

    The book is structured in an “A” and “B” side, like a vinyl album, which is fitting as the novel is about people in, on the periphery of the music business, as well as the people who know the people in and on the periphery of the music business. As such, each chapter of the book is like a song on the album, so the chapters are not telling a linear story, but behave more like songs on a concept album – held together by a theme. What Goon Squad reminded me of was Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy and her novel Second Place, in that both authors are looking for new ways to approach the novel form, especially with the emphasis on theme over conventional plot to keep the narrative moving forward. That right there made me enjoy Goon Squad.

    Yet, I did find the two issues stuck in my craw with this book.

    First was the character of Bennie, who along with the other character Sasha, are the closest the novel comes to having main protagonists. For lack of a better description, Bennie is a middle aged record executive, and former puck musician, who is not handling being middle aged very well. I am still amazed at how often in contemporary/modern literature, that the middle aged, sad male character is used. It’s such a stock character, and hasn’t changed since his debut back in the late 50’s or early 60’s. I was hoping that Egan was going to challenge the cliche, such as turning this Updike/Cheever type character on its head. Unfortunately, Bennie gets mired in the stereotype of being divorced, having a distant and disgruntled child that he can’t figure out how to connect with, and his penis stopped working like it used to, and that takes up a lot of his energy. Luckily, Bennie doesn’t dominate the book.

    My second issue was the final chapter, “Pure Language.” Set a few years in the future from the rest of the stories, it is the only one that doesn’t land. I think it’s due to trying to get this final story, or song on this concept album, to wrap up the whole theme of the book. Bennie is in this story, but it revolves around a character named Alex, who was featured in the first chapter, along with the other main protagonist Sasha. There is a lot happening in this story, which feels at odds with all the other stories which are more focused and concise on what they are trying to say. And due to this, the book lands with a sloppy thump, thus denying us the ending that the theme of the book deserved. Sticking the landing is hard.

    Believe it or not, I did enjoy this book. It doesn’t sound like it, but I did. It is well written, and very funny. And I liked that Egan did play with form and structure, using the world of the record business to address how we all get older, things change, and sometimes we start to become people we no longer recognize. This was best exemplified by the character of Sasha, who I wanted to hear more from in the best way possible. Her journey was the most honest of all the characters. A conventional author would have written a book just about her, but Egan chose to just give us glimpses of Sasha’s thoughts, and then gave us a hard look on how her actions affected the lives around her.

    I enjoyed reading A Visit from the Goon Squad, and Jennifer Egan is a writer that keeps pushing for new ways to tell stories, which is something that I deeply respect. The novel form cannot stay stagnat, and it has to evolve as soceity and culture evolves as well. I u

  • Trouble Getting in Gear

    The third of January was the day I was going to get my life started on the right foot. Also, I thought God needed more laughter in his day. Either way, I had spent part of my Christmas vacation thinking about my daily schedule, what I wanted to get accomplished, and being healthy and shit. You know, like most people do at the end of the year. I talked to the wife about it, as some of this would affect her as well, and I have come up with a system that will work.

    First of all, I needed to set out my goals, again, no real surprise there. I want to write more, eat better, sleep better, more active role in the kid’s education, and… yeah, I think that’s it. Really, it’s like rolling goals.

    Anyway, I set out a schedule, and if you know me, again, no surprises here. I made time for chores, and the gym, and writing. Working with the kid, making dinner, and you get the point. I over scheduled myself, and I’m okay with that. As of this moment, I haven’t worked on any fiction though that will be remedied today, and I haven’t been to the gym, but that’s a Friday thing. So, all is going to plan.

    With the exception of this blog. Other than the little New Year’s post, I haven’t created anything for this platform. I have some stories I could review, and God knows I have enough silly opinions I can’t wait to share, but I found myself lacking the motivation to post. I am posting today, so it’s not like I am in a debilitating situation. Just… not feeling it.

    I might be maligned due to the ending of a vacation, or could ramming your head into a wall constantly for two years have an adverse effect on determination? Maybe more changes are needed?

    Maybe I just need to get to work.

  • Closing Out 2022

    This will be my last real time blog post for 2022. I have some posts in the can that I have scheduled for the next couple of days, but for all intents and purposes, I am done blogging for the year. Christmas is right around the corner and I am intending to spend time with my family, reading, and napping as much as my kid will allow.

    Looking back on this blog, I will clock 255 posts, with a word count well north of 101,200, which means I was writing on average close to 500 words a post. I find this stat rather amusing as when I started writing here, way back in 2017, my original goal was to only write 250 words per blog. In five years, I have doubled my word count. Quality might still be questionable, but quantity has increased.

    Looking back at this year of creative writing, I have to admit that I did not get published, nor did I earn any money from my creative endeavors, which had been two of my goals. Was I overly ambitious? Well, obviously. But what’s the point in playing the game if you don’t swing for the fences? Yet, I did write more in this year than I ever have. Not only with the blogs, but I kept up my pace of journaling daily, and working on my fiction. I think what I accomplished this year was creating the habit of writing. I gave myself weekends off, but I was at this computer every weekday, putting something down, trying to get better at expressing myself and ideas.

    Maybe I’m looking for a silver lining, and so what if I am. I’m looking back on 2022, and I’m feeling good about it, which is a feeling I haven’t felt in sometime. Since 2018, when my mother died, I feel like I have had this feeling of sadness wrapped around me. Not depression or mourning, even though those two have stopped by and hung out with me often in the past several years, but a sadness that makes it difficult to get excited about anything. I don’t feel sad about 2022.

    And I’m looking forward to 2023. And that is important, and it means something.

    So, thanks for being a part of this, all 4 to 9 of you, who regularly stop by. But, before I go, I wanted to pass on;

    Watch ANDOR!

    Peach Pit is a new favorite band of mine.

    Call your mom, she misses you.

    See you next year.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Adjunct Professor Strike, Christmas Trees, and What’s the Deal?

    (I say what I say…)

    There is a brewing movement underway being led by adjunct faculty and students. Hell Gate ran this story yesterday about students at the New School, here in New York City, joining the faculty strike, which has been going on for 23 days. If you didn’t know, University of California academic workers, have also been on strike. For far too long, adjunct professors, basically part-time teaching staff, and academic workers, who are teaching assistants, tutors, graduate student researchers and postdoctoral scholars, have been doing more and more of the actually teaching at universities. Across the country, full-time and tenured positions at universities have been shrinking, while at the same time administrative positions have been growing. I don’t think anyone will find it surprising that administrator salaries have been growing, while faculty pay has remained flat for years. A reckoning is coming. For the past forty years, American universities have become little corporations – making money and growing endowments comes first, and education is second. And to accomplish that, administrators have to keep their labor costs low. It has gone on for too long, and now faculties are pushing back. I see strikes like these growing and continuing in the coming years.

    Tomorrow, our Christmas Tree arrives. We ordered one, it’s fake, which was designed to fit specifically in small apartments. The base diameter is like 23” and it’s 6’ tall, so it’s a think pole of a tree. I can admit that that since we put up decorates after Thanksgiving, it really hasn’t felt like Christmas in the apartment, and that’s not really surprising. The Tree does tie the whole thing together.

    So, what’s the deal with all the views on my post: Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid? When I originally posted it, I received 11 views which, for my humble little blog, was rather respectable. In the last two weeks, the same post has received 42 views, which is an outlier for me. So, what’s going on? If people are enjoying what I wrote, then that’s cool, but being that this blog is, well, little, then I find it odd when people notice it. Or is this just a bunch of bots screwing with me?

    (INSERT JOKE ABOUT LIKING THIS BLOG.)