Tag: #writing

  • 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.

  • 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?

  • 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.  

  • Personal Review: “Casting Shadows” by Jhumpa Lahiri

    In a very strange twist, we had a relaxing weekend. I say this because there was a holiday, Valentine’s Day, which I completely forgot about. I thought of myself as the type of dutiful husband that never misses important dates, but I want to say that this was Covid’s fault. Either way, the wife was on top of it, made sure the kid and I had a good day. For me, that meant I got time on the couch to listen to music and read.

    I decided that I wanted to catch up on the latest issue of The New Yorker, which is the February 15th & 22nd issue. I particularly enjoyed the short story in the issue “Casting Shadows” by Jhumpa Lahiri. She might not like this comparison, but I found the narrator’s tone reminiscent of Rachel Cusk’s protagonist in The Outline Trilogy, if the protagonist talked more about herself, and wasn’t letting the other people she came in contact speak. Lahiri’s narrator in her short work observes the people and the city she lives in, through never mentioned it feels very much like Rome, which creates a melancholic optimism of the small encounters and how they slowly affect her.

    Personally, I have an issue with first person past tense narration in fiction, as it never feels realistic to me. First person past tense is clearly a reflection, and will always break in the narrator’s favor, thus it always has the potential of being untruthful. But with Lahiri’s narrator, I felt that she was a person who has come to enjoy her own honesty and truth. There was no judgement, but still an ethic she was holding too.

    It was a story that reminded me that good fiction can be very inspiring.  

  • Working for an Alcoholic

    I had a plan this morning on what I was going to blog about. I follow several “Ivy Style” people and stores on Instagram, and I wanted to write about how this has turned into a small obsession with me as I am looking forward to the day when I can put on a shirt, tie and sportscoat and go to work again, or see a play, or just be out of the house.

    As I began to write about this subject, I thought back as to when I started dressing in this “Ivy Style.” It was back when I was the number two at a rehearsal studio, and my boss was an alcoholic. He would show up hours late, hungover, would miss meetings that I would have to take over, and when he did arrive, he would look disheveled and unkempt. When his alcoholism truly got out of hand, by which he was sitting in his office and drinking all day in view of clients, I decided that I needed to demonstrate to our customers that I was the responsible one, and I decided to accomplish this I would begin wearing a shirt and tie to work.  

    And when I thought about working in that studio and with my alcoholic boss, a wave of emotions dropped over me; shame, annoyance, a sort of passive aggressive futile resignment, and anger. So much anger erupted in me. Anger at the owner for ignoring the problem because his business was booming in spite of the supervisor’s dereliction. And anger at myself for putting up with it for so long. For putting up with a situation I hated being in, but couldn’t muster the courage to leave. Eventually I did quite that job, but only after a year of unrelenting stress.

    These ancient memories and emotion have washed over me, and my day has now been sidetracked. I tried for about an hour to return to my original blog topic, which maybe I will get to another day, but every time I started on it, I kept going back to that time in my life. Over and over again. I just gave up and put this out. Maybe to let it go, maybe to say that there is still something lingering there that I haven’t dealt with. But something is there, because why would I have such a strong reaction to that period in time from so long ago?