Category: Writing

  • Why I Still Blog, And Thanks Everyone

    I do feel that from time to time, I have to remind myself what it is that I am doing here. Yelling into the void, used to be what came to mind when I would post a blog. Back in July 2020, when I made a choice to focus and work harder on my writing, this blog was a great place to test out those muscles. The dark void faded away, and I started to see that creative endeavors, no matter how large or small, do serve a purpose, sometimes to an affect that doesn’t seem relevant for some time. After having kept this up for nine months, the one thing I can so for certain is that I can now keep my personal deadlines and goals when it comes to writing.

    The other thing I can say is that I now have over 200 followers! Back in July 2020, I had around 60, so gaining 140 followers in nine months, I take as a compliment. I am also sure the majority of these new followers are not Russian bots. Being that this is a blog which, subject wise, is all over the place, and doesn’t seem to be much more than I guy sharing opinions and trying to learn how to write better, I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read.

    Spasiba!

  • Thoughts on the Philip Roth Biography

    I don’t know if you have heard, but there is a new biography on Philip Roth called, “Philip Roth: The Biography” by Blake Bailey. It’s not the most original title, but not unlike a well worn club, it gets the job done. That having been said, I will read Bailey’s Roth biography, and I will also read his biography on John Cheever as well.

    Over the past couple of weeks, as this biography was about to be released to the public, the W. W. Norton & Company marketing department went into overdrive promoting this book, as they should. There was an article in The New York Times, one in The New Yorker by David Remnick no less, and even one on CBS Saturday Morning. I am sure there were more out there, but I stopped with three. They all did their job; made me want to get the biography, and to reread Roth’s work.

    I did notice that all three of these stories on the Roth biography had the same through-line; Roth didn’t want a biography written about him. In one form or another, each piece detailed Roth’s troubled relationship with past biographers, and his tendency to lash out, through unpublished books, defending his reputation after he felt attacked. And, that somehow, either through Roth reaching the end of his life, or by Blake Bailey’s ability to mine the information out of Roth, this biography came to be. And all of that might be completely true. Or a narrative created by the marketing department to increase sales.

    But, then I had this wacky thought that, what if this was Roth’s plan all along? Such as, he denied that most of his work was auto-biographical, but it turns out it was auto-biographical. Roth sure didn’t like the book his ex-wife wrote about him, which painted him as a misogynist. This led Roth to write one of the unpublished manuscripts where he attacked and attacked her, which in the end, sort of confirmed his ex-wife’s book. So, what if Roth created a narrative of “not wanting” a biography, while at the same time leading the biographer to “water?” Wouldn’t that give Roth the final say?

    I will add this; Philip Roth did write a memoir (Patrimony: A True Story) so if he wanted to tell his own story, he could have. In fact, he tried twice, but was persuaded, and it sounds correctly, not to publish. Also, choosing a biographer for your life while you are still alive, does come off as sounding subjective, especially after you had already fired one biographer. Finally, Roth was the best storyteller in the room, so why would he let someone else tell his most important story?

    Just a thought. I mean, I will still buy the book.

  • 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?