What I Believe

Odd, that it's hard to say exactly what one (what I) believe? In the semi-anonymity of the Web (I assume SOMEONE other than god is watching)... it might be easier.
Let's see.
I believe the gap between people is immense. No amount of "love" ever truly spans the gap. The lover loves, the loved one might "feel" the love, but like the deconstructionists say, you never know.
Nevertheless, it is a great value to love, it feels good, is the essence of what is "good" (more on that later) in humans. But it is not "god", I have no idea what god is.
However, having said that, I think people who declare their atheism rather arrogant. It seems more like an angry statement, more like "I'm sick to death of all this believing crap" than a profound statement. More profound to me is looking around and acknowledging how little we know about:
1. "Why" we're here. [It's so highly improbably that we could develop this complexity "by accident" that I would side with the god believers if I had to.]
2. What is the "meaning" of one's time. [I'm inclined to be absolutist here. ALL times are essentially the same, from a human feeling point of view, because (I do "believe" in evolution) our body-minds (as some like to say) developed over millions of years and DO NOT change because we have a cellphone on one ear and an iPod in your grubby paws).
3. Technology is something, but how much? People like to use technology as proof that things REALLY change. Like the popular: "We can blow up the whole world now!" Or it's newer variation: "We can (change/destroy) the climate of the whole planet now!" I'm inclined to think this is more hubris than fact. True, an all-out nuclear war (or an apocalyptic Gorean scenario) would alter "life as we know it" but here's the tricky part. Though it might be objectively true that our high tech can do this "damage" (one wonders if the mythical Gaia cares), how much does knowledge of it change the daily human experience? Example, when the printing press, or the gun, or the crossbow, or the seagoing vessel were viewed by the local philosopher, wasn't his/her fantasy of "total change" essentially the same from an internal human feeling perspective? In other words, we are condemned to live inside who we are, and we have relatively little control over change whether we like to "blame" humanity or not. It's kind of irrelevant what is the change agent. Blame blinds us. And while I'm at it, I hate the idea of "saving the world." Well, I can imagine it motivated SOME good things in history, (saving England, saving Christianity from the Mongols, etc.) but mostly it's an illusion of power that inflates, the inflation is expelled as "blame" (ie. crime, war) legitimizing hatred and killing. We have already seen: it is not a huge step from "saving the earth" to killing those who are destroying the earth (ie. SUV drivers, etc.) It's not THAT FAR either from the same thinking we abhor about Islamofascists: if so and so is insulting Allah, then, logically, they should die and I should be a hero. What's so different?

the NEW YORK TIMES IDEA ISSUE: C.R.P and stop writing

Inflammatory molecule C-reactive protein

It's been "scientifically discovered" that never giving up on hard to attain goals increases the body's production of C-reactive protein (C.R.P.), an inflammatory molecule associated with reduced immune system functioning.

Finally, a reason to stop writing novels!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-reactive_protein

NEW YORK TIMES IDEA ISSUE: vegan sexuality

Premise: Vegans (largely women, not large women) will "help the planet" by selecting not to have sex with carnivore men. The vegan ladies counsel each other to "convert" a male, then dump him and move on to another conversion.
But what if the carnivore males stop breeding with vegan females? Will veganism die out?
It's interesting how much certain causes are becoming gender-linked.

(more later)

Bob Dylan vs Woody Allen

They're both Jews. They were born only six years apart. Woody is all East Coast. Bob (Zimmerman) Dylan was born in Minnesota, in a blue collar town of few Jews. Bob obfuscated his "Jewishness," adopting a 'travelin' man' (Woody Guthie/gyspy protester) persona. Woody has always reveled in his Jewishness, albeit an ironic secularist take on Judaism as a religion, in many was an embrace of 'ethnic New York' Jewish culture more than a religious statement. Bob has drifted around religiously, once a Jewish Jew once a Christian, but mostly a hipster. Is Woody Allen hip? Certainly his films have been, occupying a intellectual/comedic niche few others could penetrate or emulate. Still, he persistently presents himself as a prototypical nerd, the unhandsome, horny, troubled nebish always lusting after the woman who barely stoops to acknowledge his attentions. People say it's autobiographical and probably is to some degree, but that doesn't mean we "know" Woody. The real Woody has to be much more hard driving, ambitious, and difficult than this whiny screen presence.
I just watched CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS again. It is an all out masterpiece, despite Woody's presence. I am one that doesn't ENJOY watching his character do his schtick (over and over again in so many films). He's not really an actor. Why does he insist on being in his own films? They're mine, one imagines him saying, it's what I want. It's a kind of ego-ism one sees in fine art (artists who insist their personality is what it's all about). It's a kind of dis of his own audience--instead of making "the best movie he could make" he insists on his quirky auteurship that (nearly) requires him to be in 90%+ of his films. Does he think he does a good job onscreen? Sure he delivers original, funny lines, like "the last time I was in a woman was the Statue of Liberty." Funny. Quirky. And Woody. But does he have to be the one delivering it?
Dylan's take on "identity" as fluid and temporary started early. One wonders if there have been times when he regretted his chameleonism, but then, as he grew older, he became the identity that he made. Bobbie Zimmerman became Bob Dylan. There was no going back. One migh argue that some of that small town boy remains in his insistence that he not be the "genius" of his generation, his modesty, his insistence of being "just a musician." He did not, ala Al Gore (only seven years younger than Bob) become a "spokesman for his generation." I respect his modesty.
In the end, Woody remained faithful to his New York artist roots. The ultimate social rebel--who are "we" to tell him he can't marry his common law wife's (Mia Farrow) adopted daughter (Soon-Yi Previn).
As a hipster, Dylan's marriages and divorces never became scandals. Perhaps because he was a rock star and not a comedian, he could get away with it. Compared to the crazies around him, Dylan was probably all in all an acceptable husband and father with only two discrete divorces.

Stephen Colbert, Ali G, and Michael Scott

It's not that I think Colbert's so funny. Actually, I was a bit disappointed that by the time I finally got to see him (not being a TV guy myself) he wasn’t funnier. A friend of mine who considers himself a “centrist/contrarian” (not unlike myself) thinks he’s very funny, but this same friend can’t stand THE OFFICE, which I love. (I suspect it’s because my friend is a CEO.) I don’t find Michael Scott’s character in THE OFFICE very political at all. If anything, he’s a somewhat apolitical guy who is striving to be politically correct, say, on Diversity Day. He usually screws things up because, for example, he thinks he’s so far from being racist that he’s “practically black” (not unlike the Clintons) but in reality he’s always offending people, revealing (to the audience and coworkers) that he is racist, homophobic, and gender-stupid.

What about Ali G? What are Ali G’s politics? Well, as a sort of person of color, a blue collar Brit hip-hop wannabe you’d think he’s pretty safely liberal. But he’s uneducated, and that means his blue collar background (say, it’s good to beat your girlfriend once in a while for the sake of your sex life) has never been challenged. “White people” in positions of power tend to meet with him (I imagine) because THEY are trying to be politically correct—i.e. they get credit for being “open” to uneducated people of color who CLAIM to be some kind of underground journalist. Because they think they’re “safe” with him (ie. already gave at the office) Ali G can trick them into exposing prejudices that are not politically correct, for example when he gets Boutros Boutros Galli to admit “French sounds funny.” Perhaps it was easier to use French than say Arabic, but still, it’s not cool for the ex-UN chief to be making fun of any language.

And now Stephen Colbert.
He is brilliant, to be sure. I first encountered him on the radio, in an interview on NPR (which I admit I rarely listen to). The pompous (liberal) host was chortling along with Stephen’s rather crass jokes (“reading the New York Times shrinks your testicles”) and I thought why is the host laughing rather than attacking this idiot? Then I got it. He’s laughing (wink wink) because Stephen is a liberal making fun of conservatives! Fair enough. But is he funny?
We’ll come back to that.
Is he accurate? The pomposity of his ego—that’s kind of funny, and kind of true. Rush Limbaugh makes a big thing of how smart he is, how great he is, and you figure he half believes it and is half already parodying himself: “Talent on loan from God” as he says. I’m ok with pomposity as a target. One thing I found odd was Colbert’s distrust of books and learning in general. Is this “conservative”? Certainly not among the readers of the Wall Street Journal and The Economist (though I don’t consider The Economist that conservative). So who thinks conservatives are anti-book? Oh, right. They do! The people who insist who DUMB Bush (and Cheney et al) are. Dumb, dumb, dumb. True most conservatives (rightfully so) are suspicious of “higher education” especially as the faculty in the non sciences is pretty much 99% liberal-left in colleges today. So that might be evidence of “dumbness” or anti-bookishness? Perhaps. The other “funny thing” about Colbert that I don’t quite get is how he’s a liar (Oh right, “Bush lied, people died”) who has no respect for facts of any kind. He makes stuff up and he’s not very good at it. This I not unlike Michael Scott (of THE OFFICE) when he tries to inform people about prison life so they would be more sympathetic to ex-cons but obviously he’s pulling stuff out of Harry Potter. Now that’s dumb. So, despite the suit and the “educated class” appearance (glasses and pencil in hand), when we look at Colbert we are (not unlike Ali G) once again looking at an uneducated, or undereducated or pretending to be education person. In other words at best a community college man pretending to be an Ivy Leaguer. He obviously doesn’t make the grade. So “we” chortle at him, the idiot. Who does he think he’s kidding?

So, my question(s) are:
Is he funny?
Why? Why not?
What part of him is an accurate parody of “conservatives” and what part is a “liberal fantasy ABOUT conservatives.”

Let me know.

I should never have read Summerhill or seen A Thousand Clowns

Bad Parent Entry #2027

I should never have read Summerhill. Or seen A THOUSAND CLOWNS. Summerhill, in case you're not familiar, was (is?) a school in England where basically kids did whatever they wanted. It was based on the belief (unlike Steiner's Waldorf that is positively controlling by comparison) that humans are naturally good, curious and motivated. That really appealed to me in high school (a Catholic boy's school -- not the epitome of trust in nature). I vowed (and for some dumb reasons the vows of the 18 yr old do access our deep DNA) to be into "freedom" especially if I ever had kids.
And then the movie A THOUSAND CLOWNS where Jason Robards plays the loveable, eccentric single dad of an eccentric kid. The subtext was: as the "1950s" die also (good riddance) dies the idea of control vis a vis kids. Eccentrics are usually right (even if their methods are a bit wierd). They stand for humanity at its best! Control freaks (Republicans, adults, "teachers", etc.) are all manifestations of our closest approximation to evil.
You see where this went? Drugs, sex and rock-and-roll and later, um, permissive parenting. Worse than permissive parenting is the guilty permissive. The non-guilty permissive is adamant that they are right. Don't know many of those. Know plenty of controlling parents, from the "wood toy" Waldofians to the Sunday school megachurchers, plenty of those around, all worried, all worried. Permissives tend to be downbeat, depressed, feel like parental failures. Not tough enough. Shoulda done this or that. (Even Tony Soprano is in this category).

letter from the Bad Dad

Dear Kids,

Bad news. Not the worst. No divorce. No terminal illness, but bad for you nonetheless. You might be too young (13 and 16) to appreciate the "badness" of this news, but here it is. I have decided to no longer attempt to IMPROVE my parenting. In the short run this might feel good to you, as I will continue to dote upon you (feeding you, washing your clothes, and being "media permissive") but there may be a time (in therapy?) when you may want to confront me about this decision. For you "N" (16 yr old) it means I won't try to force you to eat vitamins (you could end up in the hospital with scurvy, but hey...), I won't keep saying "when are you going to learn to put away your own clothes and wash them?" You may be in for a shock (probably yes) when you first live on your own. Then again, maybe you'll rise to the task and bring forth that natural organizing skill I've seen you muster. The food thing? You're on your own there. My answer to "What can I eat, dad?" will no longer be "Let's make a list of (the few) foods you eat." It'll be: more tuna? Again, there's a looming issue of mercury poisoning, but I'm crossing my fingers on that one. I'm not going to worry either about your exercise vis-a-vis your eating. If you get "out of shape" and find that unpleasant--just look at how bad a job I did with your younger brother and hopefully you'll conclude you "don't wanna go there." Hopefully. Otherwise, more confrontations in future therapy.
You think I'm being sarcastic? Actually, I'm not. This is really me watching out for myself, for my own sanity, it just SOUNDS sarcastic. Perhaps because I'm calmly delivering it? Can't help that--and--we don't wanna go there--that is, where my parents failed.
Son "L"? I'm going to stop worrying about your anger and thinking you're going to have an unhappy life because of your short temper and generally selfish attitudes. That's not positive thinking anyway! I see you get over moods faster than me, and maybe that'll be your saving grace. Who knows? And your weight? Dude, you're on your own. You might end up being "a big guy" for the rest of your life or not. I can't really do much more about it. Sorry. Very, very sorry. It could be worse, remember that. I could be suddenly killed or disappear, or we could lose all our money or (fill in disaster here)... I'm going to stay here and be me, the bad dad. (And in the history of bad dads? I'm probably only a "5" if a "10" is the kind that kept a Child Called It in a cage!) So, enjoy what you have!
Sincerely,
Dad

I would stop writing if... (Why Write?)

I would stop writing if... my inner monologue would quiet down.
I would stop writing if... I thought there were a lot of good writers out there.

I would stop writing if... I thought the next generation of writers had managed to wriggle out from under the (inevitably) politically correct pedagogy of MFA programs.

I would stop writing if... I thought Hollywood "got it"--that is, that young 'hip' writers, working in highly paid vaguely cooperative batches can produce solid fiction.

I would stop writing if... I didn't think "the media" was invading that part of the brain that needs a bit of quietude in order to make (better) decisions

I would stop writing if... I didn't have anything to say

I would stop writing if... I had so many "good books" piled up to read instead of digging for things that have been bypassed by the "National Public Radio" consciousness**

I would stop writing if...

Cormac McCarthy: Why Write? (Why Read?)

What I like about Cormac McCarthy is that he's an "old fashioned" storyteller. And he shows how important that is, and how much we still "need" a good story. Postmodernism hasn't really brought much to the table to improve on a good story. And that's good news.
It's also good news that "artistes" like the Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men) can be faithful (more or less, given the constraints of a two hour movie) to a good solid story. That said, I think for all their carefulness, they weren't able to deliver the real "message" (core? what's the word, it sure ain't message) of his book. The book is essentially about a man who finds his match in the way the world has become crazy ("green hair and bones through a nose" on the streets of El Paso). The understory--of a policeman's failure to be a true hero in Vietnam--aren't even brought up by the Coens. Also lost is the way the policeman (Tommy Lee Jones) and Llewelyn (the "main" character) are both Vietnam vets and both unable to fight against the craziness of the new evils afoot. I understand why the filmmakers thought they had to avoid this. In McCarthy's text many of these are narrated stories, long blocks of prose, sometimes interior monologues, sometimes delivered in a coffee shop. Unless the filmmakers used flashbacks (a sin of a different kind) they chose not to "bore" the viewers with "talking heads." Probably, all in all, it was a good decision, but sadly makes the movie a ghost of the text. It leaves many of the peculiarities of the original story somewhat intact (shifting points of view, "main character" disappearing about three quarters through, odd conversations in "tex-mex" metaphor language) but a two hour visual experience does not re-create a book.

Let's throw in the problem of people aren't reading anymore. People (kids mostly? or all of us?) have stopped reading because the writing they read has not kept up with good storytelling.

Example: I'm reading Stephen King's BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES (2007) and after a whalloping introduction where he does exactly what I'm doing now: berating the "writing world" for failing to deliver good product, the stories (at least the first couple) didn't excite me at all. I suspect that Mr. King has a side (like many popular and successful writers) that craves (will always crave) "acceptance" from academia. It seems to me he betrays himself in his choices. Perhaps I was thinking of Michael Chabon's effort: "Thrilling Tales."

(more later)

The Wire vs. The Sopranos

I can see from a quick Google that this is not an original topic. Duh.
I haven't read them (yet) as I wanted to "get in touch" with my own thoughts first.

I finished THE WIRE Season III. I could have cried at the beauty of the shakespearean ending of Striker and Avon betraying each other. (I even tried to tell my boys about it which is weird as they don't know any of the characters.)

Then I started to finish the part II, Season Six of The SOPRANOS (if you're not a Sopranos fan and at this point that's good).... and I was struck immediately how involved I was in THE WIRE's characters, how noble so many of them were on both sides of the law. The Sopranos, by contrast, is like watching a bunch of drunken bullies spiral downhill. I mean it has plenty of charm, and good writing ,and juicy characters, but essentially Tony is a big, fat, bully--mean, etc.
I would have liked it if they had concentrated on something "noble" in him:
trying to leave the gang?
trying to save his family? kids?
something?
His loyalty to the gang isn't even noble, as it comes down to who are good "earners" for him. Even the Italian-Catholic thing isn't too played up for it's exoticness.
Of course, I have to watch it to the end,
but it reminds me too much of my dad ("calling Dr Freud" as one of my many therapists used to say). My dad was fat and alcholic and mean (especially a mean drunk) and that look that Tony has .... it's a bit too close to home. Even my Russian Jewish father-in-law who was "higher functioning" than my Irish dad, had that ruthlessness and meanness that I see in Tony.

Yikes.
(more later)


SOME OTHER REVIEWS COMPARING THE TWO:
ref1: http://www.flakmag.com/tv/wire.html
ref2: http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/2007/09/15/best_show/index_np.html
ref3: http://myownworstcritic.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/notes-on-the-wire/

re: IN PRAISE OF THOUGHT COMPETITION (wall street letter -- draft)

Dear Editor,

re: IN PRAISE OF THOUGHT COMPETITION

While I appreciate the efforts of Ms Segall-Wallace to intervene on the "no competition" culture specifically as it relates to creative writing, I was disappointed she didn't go further with her analysis of the problem. At least a generation of boys (the Harry Potter phenomenon notwithstanding) have been aliented from creative writing by a protectivist agenda that eschews action stories as part of a grand strategy to reduce bullying, potential gun violence, and generally the dangers of being male. My son went to an extracurricular creative writing class at a local flagship writers association and came back discouraged. He said it was all "Rivers and Trees"--the teacher wanting the otherwise all female class to produce stories with environmental, quirky relatives, or other "warm and fuzzy" themes. He quietly put away his story about a heroic warrior and went back to video games.

Regards,

Dear M: Why Write II

Dear M,
Not sure why I chose "the hook" here, I think because it was handy. Abstract in a way. OK, I'm having a crisis here. Yeah, yeah, I know you've heard this before but...
What I want to know is:
1. Should I adjust myself to NOT writing for the "publishing" (read: New York Times Book Review) world?
2. If I say yes to that, how does that change my writing?
3. If I treat it like I treat my painting, then I would be fine with self publishing. Wouldn't I?
4. If I self publish will I eventually regret it? Is it impatient? Is it "bailing out"? Is it "pretending" to be a writer (i.e. you can show a "book" to you kids).
5. Do we live in a corrupt time, when corporate (i.e. big publishing houses) greed, corporate "fear" (not really that good at taking risks), combines with political correctness of the staff (I include all the players-- agents and publishers alike) to eliminate opportunities for those that don't fit the combination of these two worlds. Would they vote for Cormac McCarthy today?
I don't think so.
6. My old writing teacher talked about "the honor" of being involved in the world of writing. That sustained me for some time. But now, I see the differences between writing and painting.
In painting, I essentially enjoy the process of creating, I care very little for the world of commerce (i.e. acceptance) and have almost zero expectations for it. But in writing, I'm hoping to attract a whole industry of people who are at odds with me.

(to be continued)

WHY DO PEOPLE CRAVE NARRATIVE?

I just got bigtime distracted when I searched Google Images for the word narrative... there's my old 'pal' (not really, just a fan) Laurie Anderson on why we crave narrative. Yeah, what did she say? And why the old pic of her? I wonder what life with Lou Reed (and, duh, the years) have done to her? Nevertheless, why DO we crave narrative? Um, anyone? Anyone at all? Bueller? OK. Old joke.
Here's my shot:
We crave narrative because (apologies to my good friends who doubt evolution) it's part of our monkey/caveman heritage. It's something that HELPS OUR BRAINS cope with the immensity of what they've stumbled upon (or been graced with), i.e. consciousness. Consciousness is darn scary. That thing died and we're eating it. Gramma died and we buried her. Why didn't we eat her? When is that (is it?) going to happen to me? And will they eat me? All that kind of thinking. It's tough.
Narrative, i.e. storytelling, says sit down, let go of some small but significant part of your SELF CONSCIOUSNESS and project it (it's easy, automatic) onto the Characters in the Story. It doesn't so much matter what happens in the story, though clearly some are better (i.e. help more) than others and thus become myths, verbal poetry, eventually novels and films. But it's essentially a pretty primitive thing. It sort of 'hurts' to be conscious and we do a lot of things (drugs, narrative, gods, God) to give ourselves distraction, etc. so it won't hurt so much. Negative?
I don't think so.
Realistic.
(More later)

Why Bother (or) Living Well is the Best Revenge.

That's how I feel today: why bother. Or in the words of Gerald (of Gerald and Sara) Murphy: Living well is the best revenge.
All around what Ezra Pound called Kulchur is marching along. The novel is dying, people aren't reading. The publishing industry is firmly in the grasp of the Politically Correct. That'll guarantee it's quicker demise, but who cares: if it's for a "good cause," right? What is their good cause? Some idea that the enlightened (they don't like to think of themselves this way, they are 'the best of the people', i.e. representing what The People could be if they weren't going to Walmart) could bring about a better world. Less prejudice (gays, women, 'of color'), less war (we can reason with our enemies, has anyone thought of that, hel-lo?), economic equity (if you took the cost of walling up a suburb and divided it by the number of under-employed people and transferred...), environment (hey even if global warming were a hoax which its not, anyone who went to college knows that, but even if it were a hoax all its goals would help us out--less pollution, less "progress", fewer cars, a bigger voice for the Third World). It's all good.
Yeah, it's all good.
So what's my f*ing problem?

see the next piece:
WHY DO PEOPLE CRAVE NARRATIVE?

The Ladder of Eccentric Women Walking Away

Anne Tyler is not of my favorite authors, not really. I find her too middle-aged chatty. Though she's the eccentric at the neighborhood coffee klatche, nevertheless you'd only be talking to her if you had for some reason to stay at the klatche, a condition I can't imagine in real life. It's not that I don't like eccentric women, I do. My favorite characters in SIX FEET UNDER (on the second viewing) are Brenda, the nutcase, and Claire, the angst-ridden artiste.

But in her book LADDER OF YEARS Tyler postulates a middle-aged eccentric woman named Delia Grinstead who decides whimsically one day (refreshingly ignoring the psycho-medical implications) to walk away from her family. The beauty of the story is that she is not abused, is not a drug addict or married to one, doesn't even hate her husband. She just feels that she has lost her life, lost her independent existence and one day it calls to her and she follows. She leaves the family at the beach and takes a bus to nowhere. Many times over the years of parenting (and I am still raising two teenage boys) I think about this story. It is an archetype. This morning my wife mentioned it (though if you mention it you're probably not going to do it). In my version she walks away with them, leaving me to wonder why I am alone in the house, and to quote the great line from THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA: "Oh, well."

Fear of.... pretty much EVERYTHING

It's hard to admit how afraid I am. Of so many things. Of doing things (anything). Of not doing things--"losing out." I am afraid when someone doesn't like me: what are they seeing, my fatal flaw? I am afraid when people like me: how have I fooled them, when will it end and how bad will it be? I am afraid when I make something: I am exposing how bad I am at this thing, how will this harm me? I am afraid when I don't make anything: I am normal, normal is death, death is imminent.
Today I am facing new technology. I have loaded WINDOWS (via BootCamp) on my Mac and with some help from Geek Squad, I am ready to encounter a technology I have been looking forward to for years. Dragon Naturally Speaking. Part of me is of course expecting to be DISAPPOINTED. I am so afraid of disappointment. I think a disappointment will open a yawning hole in the world and reveal (finally, like P.J. Farmer's RIVERWORLD series) that the whole of creation in manipulated (by alien, probably demonic) forces. Seeing this is what people aren't supposed to see and I'll never be the same. I may even become a meth freak after this (their skin: the horror, the horror!).
What if it works? What will I be afraid of then? I will be afraid that (1) is will be a massive distraction that will kill any hope I have of ever producing a decent piece of PUBLISHED work; (2) if it works really well I may create something totally unanticipated, something out of control, something that will change me (ala INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) and even if the thing is good (and published and a success) I will know in my heart (ala BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) that I am not who I claim to be (Random Lizard)... but someone else, someone I don't know and the person PREVIOUSLY KNOWN AS RANDOM LIZARD is in some bottled up hell where I will awaken shortly.

(Thanks to Miranda July, Borges, and Kafka)

The Writer's Next Step

Ok, let's assume you're right that we live in a corrupt age as far as the arts go. This means people are promoting works (both fiction and fine art) for reasons OTHER than they are very good. These reasons may not be clear to the promoters who may be getting gratification from areas OTHER than aesthetic. For example, they get an ego boost (moral boost?) from reading an underprivileged person of color, the same kick someone might get from volunteering or giving money. The kick is that they are doing A GOOD THING (promoting diversity, help oppressed voices be heard, abating global warming, etc.).

"Good" writing (or "good" art) are no longer definable. Good writing is easier to define: grabs you, brings you in, use of language, etc etc.

People are swamped with images and stories, in their desperation and confusion they seek out TRUE stories (ie. from People Magazine to biographies to non-fiction generally). They skip over the fact that nonfiction doesn't necessarily mean "true" (see memoir which is often made up to make the teller look better). They also miss the "old wisdom" that truth is something that helps us understand human nature, the world, the universe, ok even God, better. Wisdom is not necessarily something easy to get from nonfiction (even the Help Section).

Your next piece.
It's difficult to write from anger, to tame anger and make it work for you.
First you need to connect with your passions. I call this your territory. What are my passions? I have a passion for being against "true believers" (often comes out as conservative/contrarian politics but that's only because I'm in a very Blue State). I have a passion for creativity (often comes out as a respect for Outsider Art (as I am highly skeptical of the Art Establishment, not even sure I like the Outsider Art Establishment all that much). I have a passion for Mystery -- I have ready access to awe, and hate most things that put us to sleep (like fear, like fear of Global Warming, or Terrorism, or Republicans, or Godless Liberals...).

I feel strongly that people are interesting because at the core we are mysteries even to ourselves. I believe Paradox comes as close to Truth as we're probably going to get. Putting these two thoughts together: if you find a person's essential Paradox, you are close to understanding (ok appreciating) the mystery of who they are. I'm not saying everyone is interesting, in fact, most people are boring because they've put themselves to sleep ("Calling Professor Gurdjieff!).

Why Write #5 (Planet Terror)

What I can't understand, now that I look at my work, is how much it is about "blabbing" about "being heard"....

My philosopher-king said I'm in conflict between wanting to be "liked" and wanting to be "contrarian"... as if, there I am in the corner... being the mad/bad boy telling everyone (the fool?) what it is they might be WRONG about... and I want to be LIKED for it? I'd be better off accepting the curmudgeon role... ah, but.. there are curmudgeons like crazy uncle Al that no one wants to talk to and entertaining skeptics.... like... who?

Why do I want to be a writer anyway? Is it to "entertain" people? Why would I care about that? What if I were to start over, what I were to be SELFISH about it all, what would I get out of it?

It's embarrassing all this stuff about this and that topic, who cares? The ranter. Who cares? Do people even care about their own opinions? There must be a PAYOFF for fear and terror and anger... (fear of oil depletion, "crash of the dollar", fear of flesh eating bacteria, hatred of Bush)... it's like we're always trying to WAKE OURSELVES UP and normal life fails us in this regard so we drink TONS of caffeine and SCARE OURSELVES TO DEATH.
So what's the role of the fiction writer in all this?

Is it, like Robert Rodriguez (PLANET TERROR) says, "keep making shit."

(I take this philosophically in the sense that one must stay alive, being creative is being alive, so just f*in' do it.)

Why All Young, Attractive, Writers of Color Are Geniuses

THE DEW BREAKER by Edwidge Danticat

It's not that the writing is so bad, it's not. It's OK. But if a white male (without proper credentials via biography) wrote this, it would never have been published. Though ostensibly fiction, what seems inherent in the attraction of the book is the authenticity of the story. This is a person who's "been there" not unlike the book A LONG WAY GONE by Ishmael Beah (which my son is reading now). Here's the thing: one can't suppress the sense that it is the STORY these people (or people close to them) have lived that makes us read on. These are tragic and dramatic stories. That does not mean, however, that this is necessarily "good writing" (in the same way Graham Greene is good writing, or Patricia Highsmith, both favorites of the moment).
Has it always been so? One imagines some "True Stories from Africa" written by an upper class twit in Victorian times. Ah, but such books did not survive the ages.

Will The Dew Breaker survive? How does it even stack up against "fiction about Haiti"? There's a sense that the literary establishment is doing a subtle form of affirmative action--promoting "authors of color" especially where, given the dramatic content of their stories, there can be no denying they are rich in something. But what? Danticat knows the territory alright, knows Haiti and the Haitian diaspora, but is she a decent storyteller? The New Yorker (the old artiber of taste, now bowing to it's political agenda like most of New York) thought so apparently.

But one suspects we supposed to appreciate these stories within a context of (a) the "unheard voices" of diverse people of color; (b) damage done to the Third World probably directly caused by capitalism, especially Republicans, especially the "current administration"; (c) a debt, a literary reparations where we have to allocate a certain percentage of our publishing/reading to stories like this; (d) other pluses: a survivor, an [attractive] young woman who can write!

It's hard even to bring up these questions.

The reviews of the book are gushing positive from the Amazon and Barnes and Noble sites. I need a reality check. I need someone to read this that is not afraid to say, it's not good writing. Ah, but if it were memoir (mem-wa!) we could forgive the lack of subtlety in drawing character, we could say--it is true, how amazing this poor woman survived. This is part of the draw in books like A Long Way Gone. You continually are amazed: this really happened! To a boy! To THIS boy/author!

But what happens when dramatic stories are revealed to be "made up" - what if Mr. Beah was an adult living in Brooklyn. What outrage. (One thinks of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces controversy). His book was presented as memoir and when revealed to be (largely? what percentage?) fictional, the outrage poured on him. We were lied to, yes, but how many stopped to say: was a it a good story, with good characters, does it work as fiction?

Besides race and our debt to the underprivileged of this world, the other issue here is youth. Like Zadie Smith, Ms Danticat is a attractive young woman of color. What if she were old, ugly? One senses the book (and I assume visits with Oprah) would be less compelling. We like youth; we like beauty. We like the fantasy (in theater, films, art, literature) that a young (hopefully attractive) person can be a genius. I suspect there is something innate in us that looks for a (recently born) savior. Old saviors are merely nags or tiresome. Young "genius" doesn't NEED aging to help us appreciate their message. Their passion is more than compensation for any lack of wisdom, or lack of understanding of human relationships, or errors attributable youthful brashness. One thinks of Michel Basquiat, the young (also Haitian-American) who became overnight the darling of the New York art world (no small thanks to Andy Warhol who elevated him from street artist to 'genius'). While it's true his paintings (years after his premature death before the age of 30) are still fresh, one wonders what would it have been like to see him age, mature, ala Jasper Johns, or DeKooning? Would our fascination fade or would his skill continual to evolve and amaze? Would he be merely forgotten (his 15 minutes of fame long gone) as another "genius young street artist" took his place?

What complicates all of this is our de-valuing of wisdom and aging. There are exceptions, of course, but the world we live in tends to like to ogle the physical attributes of our geniuses, better yet if they have, ala Danticat, exotic stories. On so many levels we are entertained and titillated. But not on the level of literary achievement!

There, I said it.

R. B. Kitaj and the Tate Gallery Disaster of '94

I've seen Kitaj paintings before. I think before I was seriously painting I found them interesting. I even remember marking him down once on a sheet of paper along with Anselm Keifer--people to look up. What a great name, too.
As my own paintings have evolved, the only "modern" artist (besides Magritte, of course) I have allowed "into the family" has been Neo Rauch.

Yesterday I read in THE ECONOMIST that R. B. Kitaj died. At first, I was only mildly interested but nevertheless read the obit. Then it hit me. The story of the "1994 Tate Gallery disaster"--this was something! Without knowing much about it (so far), this is what I know:
(1) Kitaj is considered "illustrative" which means "bad" or "decorative" to many critics;
(2) Kitaj moved around stylistically, realism, surrealism, other forms, this also irritates critics who like people to be stylistically unique, evolving, in a word comprehensible. The idea that artists, perhaps whimsically, move around and try things goes against the image of "serious/obsessed" that critics like. Stylistic whimsy is considered "freshman in art school" sort of work, lost, sans personality, even immature;
(3) The critics finally got an opportunity rather late in Kitaj's successful career to savage him and they did so with a vengeance at the Tate Gallery show in London in 1994. The shock was so great to Kitaj that he claimed his second wife died (heart attack?) from the impact of all the negativity;
(4) I think it was about this time that Kitaj got more serious about identifying himself as a Jew and even casting the criticism as anti-Semitic and also moved to the United States (ostensibly to punish London).

I should also say I am reading Roger Kimball's RAPE OF THE MASTERS, and it all sort of fits together. These things:
1. Art criticism in our time does not service the artist or the appreciator. It services the academics and the museums. It has attempted to make art something that requires advanced degrees to understand ("decode texts") and the "person in the street" is now an idiot, though still pandered to occasionally by blockbuster shows (Picasso, Impressionists, even Georgia O'Keefe and Frida Kahlo) that pay the rent.
2. Art as a practical craft, enjoyable hobby, pleasurable activity (collecting and making) has been pretty much lost. Perhaps lost is not the right word (there still thousands of art centers all over the country) but completely marginalized and shunted away from "serious" art. Now, sadly the worlds are separated, probably permanently.
3. This is why the average person feels intimidated to buy original art (as opposed to poster, reproductions or even decorator art) and hang it on their walls. If they find the art for sale it's probably by an amateur (maybe at an art fair?) and the only way to like it AND still hold their head up as a half-way educated person is to be quite aggressive about liking it, knowing full well that the serious art world will not like or approve of this piece. I think the growth of "lowbrow" art is largely fueled by this combination of frustration and anger and sheer love of images. It's partly, too, why I think magazines like JUXTAPOZ have an aggressive "street" veneer as if they have to be tough (pretending not to have stepped foot in a college for example) and 'outsider' in their way.
4. I think the growth of Outsider Art, too, as a specialty has to do with this divorce of the average person's taste from the abstruse ("globally concerned") art of say the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). Though outsider art gallery owners, collector and appreciators can sound quite pedantic (see their excruciating efforts to define terms and castigate posers) the work they champion for the most part is accessible: narrative, quasi-narrative or surreal, often with an interesting technique. Rarely does a piece of outsider art need an explanation of why you should like it. Certainly some is revered more than another, and the "bio" of the artist matters (best when the artist is mentally disabled and from a marginalized race), but you would rarely be looking at a pile of crap/nonsense and have someone telling you why this crap/nonsense is sooooo important.
5. Kitaj got mugged by the art critic establishment, fierce as they were to "put him in his place." How dare he try to be important and international when he was JUST a painter, figurative besides. He didn't even have the torturous story of Francis Bacon (ah, the agonized homosexual popes imprisoned with sides of beef!) to make it all the more palatable. What would happen at the thousands of art schools if Kitaj was considered "important" -- god forbid people might even start painting still lives with rabbits again. Where would we be then?-- the critic worries.

Torture, Television, Terrorism, McLuhan and the X-Files

I'm going to make an X-files/Marshall McLuhan leap here. Those that dare follow.... the truth is out there and the medium is the message. How do you put these two things together: (1) World War II veterans justified fire bombing Dresden and nuking Hiroshima as the lesser evil, something necessary to save lives; and (2) the widespread obvious disdain in our, however mild, use of torture, i.e. waterboarding et al in our "war on terror"?
My premise is that television has done, is doing, something to our brains. I'm not referring to the recent study that television has a liberal slant. That's another whole story and not relevant to what I'm saying. Let me see if I can say it simply: Television mimics the feelings one would have if one were involved in a "real" community (with real people who interact and know each other). Behind "the voice" of television (a combination of "news"--we'll get you that story about the boy in the well, we know you're following that--and advertising--take a break from the boy in the well et al and see how this friendly world of products is moving along and join us!)
I know this is clumsily expressed, but at the core of what I'm saying is that the presence of television (not the Internet at the moment) in our world is a reassuring voice affirming our own dominance. Now you could say, what about fear--doesn't the television scare us constantly (global warming, terrorism, Bush, forest fires, E coli, etc.) ? How can it scare us and reassure us at the same time?
Ah, that's where we could really use Marshall McLuhan if he wasn't SILENCED BY THE X-FILIAN CONSPIRACY.... Really? Yeah, why not? What happened to the popular voice critical of television? Disappeared completely. The "perfect viewer" of television (one "it" tries to make us all into) is a person who is (a) basically liberal-centrist, (b) an avid consumer of electronics, hair products, etc. with money to spend on these things, (c) someone very worried and scared and wanting to watch to get the next update on the Scary Thing Of The Moment, (d) someone also completely reassured that "we," however corrupt by religion and conservatism, will overcome our enemies and progress inevitably to a world of improved race relations, less war, more egalitarian income distribution, less "rich people", more diversity, etc.
The key here is the sense that no matter how scared we are, we can still shop and no matter how awfully scary our enemies are, we can still AFFORD to dribble away any advantages we might derive from our greater economic or military prowess. In fact, the "tv voice" says the moral thing to do is to level the playing field, which means, allow our enemies more success. It will prove our superiority. This is why, for example, celebrities visit Hugo Chavez. They are affirming our lack of fear in him, the dominance of our EVOLVING/IMPROVING culture (as opposed to the people we might be at the moment, so Red and so Blue). The reason this is hard to put into writing is partly my lack of skill, but also because it's so deeply true that it's hard to step away from and SEE.

thoughts on THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The biggest issue I had with the book was the author's relationship to the "literal" Catholicism of his main character, Scobie. Was Scobie a true believer or was he already so deeply wounded (by the loss of his child, I suspect) that his religion is a legalistic "shell" he lives inside of. In this sense he "believes" the Church's teachings but not so much with his HEART (title reference) but with this HEAD.
In his head Scobie is a depressed (dare I say?), fairly hopeless fellow that gets what little pleasure he can from following rules (including promises). But then his "depression" (for lack of a better word, perhaps spiritual crisis?) has eaten away at his resolve to truly abide by the rules. For example, when he meets Helen he's remarkably unconflicted (at first anyway) about moving into the affair. We were not privvy to his discussions with himself (or God) about should he have an affair, should he sin? Of course, he should or perhaps cannot stop himself from sinning. So too it is with the (sacred?) rules of his job. He breaks his own rules to help the pathetic Portugese boat captain trying to write a letter to his daughter in Germany.
It's as if Scobie is two people, the "head" part (the rule follower) inevitably loses out to the "heart" part as in the game Rock, Scissors, Paper. If Scobie really loves God the most (as implied in the end) then is it really the God of the Catholic Church or some unknowable God? When he actually talks to God (a pretty amazing scene in any "modern" book) God doesn't really want him to kill himself because that is hopeless and there is "always hope if one is alive." So in the end Scobie is playing by his own rules, not God's or man's.
What are his rules that make his suicide inevitable? One might say that he's doing it out of "love" for Helen and Louise to make their lives more comfortable by his absence. But for Helen's new lover to kill himself when she's just lost her husband--this is a gift? And what of Louise? The kindest thing he could have done for Louise is to look the other way while she plays with Wilson, a pattern they'd already somewhat established. I found that curious, too--how did this Catholic couple come to be so urbane and sophisticated about something like Louise kissing Wilson, and Wilson loving her? They were acting like post-Christian sophisticates in how little it bothered them that they each had another lover. Wouldn't the logical ending be merely to continue this pattern, though much less dramatic.
Was Scobie playing some kind of dangerous game where he "believed" (in England and the Church) and "disbelieved" (illegal activities, affair-tolerance) at the same time? Was it a form of self disgust that he couldn't sustain this two-faced-ness that led him to suicide, more as an existentialist (Camus said the only real question is suicide) than a fallen-away Catholic sure he would be going to a literal hell. I don't think Scobie really believed he was going to hell. It was more that he challenged God, let's see what you do with THIS rule-breaking: I'll kill myself and throw myself on your mercy. Let's see you (God) decide Heart or Head, see how you like the quandry you've put us in!

Ayn Rand's GUIDE TO PARENTING

Redefining Selfishness:
Don't look at the dog in her day cage when you're driving away. She's fine.
Remind yourself many times during the day who you are by saying the words, "Be Selfish." At first it may feel weird, but trust me, it'll grow on you.
Remember, Selfish isn't MEAN. Mean is neurotic, you want to hurt someone. Selfish is merely accepting the STATUS QUO OF REALITY that we're separate, rational beings in an irrational* world. The only way to navigate the paradox of all this is to remind yourself of your separateness and act accordingly. There are many "tendrils" that will reach out to prevent you from acting this way. "Society" (a bad word I know) has built-in preferences, such as a parent is UNSELFISH, a nice person is UNSELFISH, but as we know, this kind of unselfishness is usually neurotic. What it really means is that the person's agenda is hidden, they get satisfaction from CONTROLLING others (children), they like to manipulate others into thinking of WELL of them (how "unselfish" they are!) and lastly they are merely righteous and lazy and want to convince you they are right (i.e. good, i.e. unselfish) because they "care more" than you do about "others" including other things, even imaginary things like "The Earth." Can anyone really care about The Earth? How absurd. Isn't this really the same thing as a Puritan saying what he cares more about is the SALVATION OF SOULS? It's all imaginary geography, however pseudo-scientifically sounding.

Are Liberals More Insane Than Everyone Else?

It's hard to accept that for the rest of my life I will not be represented by a senator or president. It's also hard to accept that "global warming" is dividing us, and due to the difficulty of dis-proving it, will probably not go away. Already my friends (intelligent! nice!) are making life-altering decisions such as taking the bus to work to "do something for the earth." I can only think it's the decline of (a) religion ["do something for Africa"?]; (b) patriotism [save string in time of war]; and/or (c) capitalist values [I need my car to get around, to do my work, to advance my career]. Even the convenience of parenting is losing out, though I have to admit I am not the biggest fan of the car and driving. I love mass transit, where it's in place already and works (eg. New York). Even in Chicago it's of marginal value to the visitor, there's is a commuter system.
Liberals are not insane, of course, any more than one could say a fundamentalist Christian (Four Horsmen of the Apocalypse..anyone? anyone at all?) is insane. People live as Taleb ("The Black Swan") says in their own Platonicity--the mental map of the world as they see it. Some see Apocalypse, some see Global Warming, some see I want my kid to get into M.I.T. (or in my case)--how come the world can't appreciate how brilliant I am. LOL.

A*holes and Cows

I think I' ve discovered one of the secrets of the (human) universe. The essence of man and the essence of woman.

First, women. The worst insult you can give a woman is to call her a cow. A cow is much worse than a bitch. A bitch is angry, full of will and personality, defined. A bitch can create space for itself. Others fear it. A cow is unthinking, eating, destined for the agri-factory (milk or meat), has no will, desire (other than to eat), no self awareness, is a "victim/slave", powerless. Not unuseful, but controlled by others. (We're talking domestic cattle here.) A cow also implies that the greatest and most unique "skill" of women (having babies) is merely part of the eating/reproducing production line they are powerless to do anything about. Food. The mouth. Weight. Body image. Motherhood. Power and powerlessness. Also, making food the "big" issue, validates men's complaints that women don't "really" like sex. No, not when compared to eating. This is the truth.

Men. Men know they are assholes. They cover up their fear of being assholes and being called assholes but co-opting the word into the "fun curses" category. "You asshole!" is commonly heard. The essence of asshole is having eaten (having acted, having done everything) what comes out, one's Freudian "product" is a foul-smelling turd. This is what men fear: that all their grand efforts and plans amount to "nothing" ie. a steaming turd. In addition, the "secret" that heterosexual men try to avoid is that due to a fluke of body positioning, their assholes are actually erotic zones. (Moreso that women's because of the massage the prostate

The post Greene Existentialist Art Conflict

Could one pray to be relieved of the power to create? I know it's a cliche but
there's that American Indian thing, the shaman if he forsakes his power goes insane. Is is the same for the artist? Why is it so hard to produce in the face of disinterest of the world? There's the other issue--Graham Greene wasn't one to abstain from any sin (debauchery, drink) as far as I can see, yet look what amazing work he produced. Patricia Highsmith, too. These are not happy people, not good parents, not teetotallers. I want to be more sinful. But I can't be. Like a person condemned to paint kittens on velvet.
I can see why people become furious with "capitalism" and "our society." Too bad they don't read enough, but I get it. It does often feel like there is this large animal (the Matrix, the Matrix!)
that wants us to eat, consume, grow fat, transfer all we have to it. It does seem so, who wouldn't want to reach out and smack it?
Trouble is much of it is human nature, over and over we learn the lessons. We can't get away from our self and ourselves, try as we might. Even the drugs (sugar, meth, yes even my beloved coffee) are full of false promises. Coffee is meth on a tiny tiny scale. You feel smarter, more productive (maybe meth people don't feel productive) for a little while then there you are again.
Kafka, too. How did he go on?

It's Go-Go not Cry-Cry. Why the Go-Go Dancer cries! Find out here!

I'm like the go go dancer in Planet Terror. All my outward actions are embracing of the world as it is, venal, decadent, decaying, carnal, yet inside, I'm a crying poet, hopelessly original, so original all the other poets make me want to vomit, they all are at the peace rally, they know nothing of life, so their poetry is worse than the poope of the pigeon, worse than denying themselves masturbation in sympathy with the penguins of antarctica who are committing suicide for global warming. I should kill them. They cry for death like the Immortals in Zardoz, the next place I will ride to on my motorcycle of horror like that person in those bad movies that have the power to move from one film to another, what ever happened with that? that was a very good idea for a superpower. I will work on that.
The great sorrow of the world is nobody knows 'nothin'. All the so-called smarty-panties are all agreeing with each other (disgustlingly Platonic circle jerks under their cafe tables). No one is original, this is the great satan (Hel-lo Iran!?) this is the great crisis of humanity. Has it always been so? Probably the self-appointed Pharisees (?) are always verbal and clever but they are not original and they cannot see and experience what I can and they are above going to the go-go dance except for the joke on their birthdays and they giggle, the scum, at the desperate ugly men who are my armies of true humanity.
This is why I cry.

Popeye, Imperialista

This is what I don't understand...

Does anyone ever say this anymore? What happened to 'dunno? I love it that Keith Richards is famous for saying, "Why the fuck are you asking me?" when someone asked him what he thought we should do in Vietnam.

This is what I don't understand.

If "we" don't have confidence that our people are "smart" (read: Randian self-interested) enough to care about their own security, that they care more about being liked (read: multiculturalism) or fair (read: anti-war, etc.) then we may already be lost.
If our educational system (already pretty left of center to far left of center) has been indoctrinating people since the '60s, then despite a few remaining bastions of America-First (I mean this in a good way), such as Texas, the military, and possibly some Cubans, it's pretty much over for The American Empire.

Now, most people around me would be "happy" about this (read: guilt about wealth, "racism" etc), but most of them are woefully unprepared to consider that there could arise (Hello? Taliban?) an "enemy" that would make us (at some distant time in the future) rise again to protect ourselves, defend our good name, etc.

This all makes me a far right nut, I'm fully aware. Some of it, I admit, I try on just to see how it feels mentally (morally? what IS that about?). I think I would be interested in a sociology (hate that word) that would look at how countries/cultures are raising their kids. Are there any "patriotic" societies that are NOT totalitarian like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and the "new" Venezuela. Is there any country in the world where people (1) really like who they are; (2) but are not wracked with guilt for what makes them more well off than others, and; (3) are well informed and patriotic enough to support a strong defensive military? Who would be the candidates?
I think most "euro-culture" (including Canada) if pretty high on the guilt (why global warming is so popular... endless guilt!) Most third world countries wouldn't be so proud of what they have (poverty) but might be positive about wanting wealth, though they wouldn't have a terribly literate population, hence subject to craziness like Rwanda. What about Asia? India? Japan? Switzerland?
More later.

Carlos Bernardo Murphy's (fictional) Bio IV

After Carlos discovered his roots and exposed his illegitimate birth, he went to Mexico to try to find his father. All he knew about him was that he worked at a mask shop, which kind--Dia de los Muertos, luchadore, or generic tourista--he didn't know. Of course, Carlos was already a middle-aged man at this time and had only recently begun to study Spanish. To the Mexicans, he was just another tourist, but to Carlos, his first trip to Mexico opened his heart. He felt for the first time that he was home.
This was a good thing as well as not so good thing. He had a wife and family in Minnesota, so "feeling at home," alone, in Mexico, made him conflicted about what it was he wanted to do with his life. He suddenly felt for the first time sympathy for the myriad men his age to go AWOL on their wives and children. One doesn't have to go far to see examples of this. Rarely is the phenomenon seen as a logical solution to the inherent contradictions of "modern life" where a man often feels burdened by responsibility, limited in his ability to play (i.e., hang with buddies, drink, and, yes, whore around). This playless man is often a God-less man and even a community-less man as many of the traditional ways men used to get out (deer shack hunting/drinking; ice house fishing/drinking; men's clubs, Elks, Freemasons, even men's auxiliary at the church). The combination of "gentility" (Carlos began to see this more and more as "feminization") and the increasingly loud and demanding gay "lifestyle" crowd cut into what used to be an unquestioned need for men to get together. Suddenly the Old Style (hunting and drinking) was crass, and the new style defined men who wanted to be with men as gay, still anathema as a label if neutral as a behavior. So men dropped out and Carlos for the first time looked at his two teenage sons and wife as they sat down to dinner and felt like crying. He wanted to disappear.

The Corruption of the World (more later)

The world is crazy now. Has the world always been crazy? Is it a function of age to see the world this way? Has there always been a "crazy" culture consuming people's thought, giving them false hope that they know the true problems and more importantly the true solutions? There have always been people with solutions, even Hitler convinced himself he was solving a problem.
What seems a different to me is witnessing the birth of a paradigm. Again, even this cannot be unique. What about when Christianity came in and threatened the old gods? What about the influence of trade on established societies? What about the sudden presence of a culture with tools centuries beyond the technological level of your people?

But let's focus. What is happening now is happening now. And what is happening is that we are witnessing the demise of the WWII paradigm and the rise of the Globalist paradigm.
(more later)

NOTES ON CARLOS M. Detroit Love Child

The story of Carlos M.
Executive Summary (third person):
His mother moved to Detroit while pregnant and married a dentist. They had the child anyway and only years later it was to explained to Carlos that he was indeed a "love child" at a time when that sort of thing wasn't very common, especially when the woman was the American.

Detail (first person):
In this case my mother was a Navy nurse and their boat (enroute to the Philipines in 1943) off Yucatan. She fell for a luchadore (off duty when she met him as the story goes) and became pregant. When the Navy discovered this, she was discharged (honorably, they hid everything) and moved back to Detroit to wait for he fiance, a Marine and dentist to return from the war so they could get married.
The story is fuzzy after this. Did my father know that I was not his child? How could he not?
He died with his secret. Only years later when my mother discovered my collection of luchadore masks and she broke into tears, did I hear the true story of my life. My features look Euro, German mainly, so it was hard to believe my father was a luchadore. He was more Spanish than Indian-looking my mother said, though I am not so sure what that means.
So here I am, years later. I am Carlos and I am for the first time learing Spanish.

i hate my life, signed Creature

i am creature the house elf. i hate my life. my kids are spoiled and ungrateful, bound to be ungrateful adults (see "Everyman" by Roth). my wife is a narcissist-spiritualist one step from suicide watch yet teaching anger management to adoring lesbians. i'm actually a closet gay, beaten into insanity so deep by catholic nuns that I can barely look inside the dark hole of me, seething I am. however, i am smart enough to avoid meth. really. really. but i'm sure i'd like it.
i wonder about going to prison and being as Michael Scott ("The Office") says: someone's be-otch. what would that be like. "Oz" I suppose. except i'd be there. in the meantime i think about Creature ("Harry Potter...") the pessimistic house elf, muttering, hating. that's me. no marriage counseling, please! i'm so far gone. what would i do if a tsunami came and took everything away? but i live in wisconsin, no tsunamis, no hurricanes, just bad snow storms. not bad enough.
what if i was on that bridge in MN and saw my life go in front 'o 'mi eyes (oise)... (piratespeak) ... would i have hated what I saw?
answer: yes!
signed
Creature

Patricia Highsmith: Why Write?

So finally I find this incredible writer. How did I find her, I'm not even sure now. Oh, I remember, I was looking into "literary thriller" lists on the net and her name came up. Since Hitchcock did her "Strangers on a Train" I thought it would be fun to read it, then see the movie. [Also did this with John Lecarré's "The Spy Who Cam in from the Cold." More on that later.] The first shock, besides how amazingly rare it was to read a book with a REAL PLOT that had fully developed characters. It made some of my recent attempts to pull stuff off the shelves at the airport bookstores (both literally and so to speak) so pathetic. Is it so hard to write like her? What I suspect happened is that the "tree" of writing broke somewhere along the line and "literary" people went one way and plot people another. The plot people were less fussy about the quality of their characters and the mysteries and thrillers (I'm making this up) drifted toward "genre" writing, with a heavy reliance on stock characters. Tremendous financial success of many of these writers (Stephen King, John Grishom, Micheal Crighton, etc.) made it seem like they had struck gold. On the other hand, the literary people, bolstered by a whole new industry of "MFAs" in writing, drifted toward a small, snobbier audience. The books more and more positioned character against plot, or made plot necessarily so "mundane" (or it's twin "diverse and exotic") that these books were not attractive cross-overs to the "genre" markets. To justify themselves, the literary industry has taken on various causes: women writers, gay writers, disabled writers, people of color writers and now "global literature" and soon to come "the green writers." It's all well intended (isn't nearly everything, though?) but it has been devastating to the success of the "literary novel." Soon, as Updike predicated, literary fiction will go the way of poetry: its readers and writers will be the same (small) population.
Back to Patricia Highsmith. It didn't have to be this way--that's what I get from reading her.
On top of it, she "should have" been (maybe she was, what do I know?) discovered by and included in the feminist/lesbian pantheon for her early lesbian themed work. But one suspects that writing under a pseudonym and writing in the 1950s might have worked against her, also the bisexuality of her biography. Clearly she had some explaining to do. But one suspects that the deeper problem is that she was an early genre crosser, with a deadly toe in mystery, the lit crowd didn't need to be bothered by her.
In a recent trip to two Barnes & Nobels, this is what I found. The first store (Maplewood, MN) had two books but her, but they were not in fiction (where I looked first) but in mystery. The second store (Highland Village, St Paul, MN) didn't have her at all! Yes, I, too, was shocked. How could it be that I finally find a writer that excites me and Barnes & Noble, who carry SO MUCH CRAP, didn't have the space, interest or market for her. And worse, what does this tell me about writing, even my writing?
A quick note on movie adaptations. I was shocked (God, I'm shocked a lot in this entry) to see how much Hitchcock (who I respect) had changed her story. Why did he change the main protagonist from an architect to a tennis pro? It made so sense. Most seriously, the entire book is built around the premise that a normal person could be lured by circumstances to commit a murder. In Hitchcock (yes, brave Hitchcock!) the good guy doesn't even commit his murder! Was this part of the censorship issue in Hollywood at the time? Perhaps. But it shifted the story completely from a fascinating character study to a good guy/bad guy story. True the fight on the merry-go-round is breathtaking cinema, but it's still just a fight and we know from the beginning who is going to win.
John Lecarré's adapted movie "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" had a similiar problem. In tone and character the movie was fairly accurate (though watching people talk is innately less interesting than being inside at least one of the talkers), but in the book, a very key scene occurs when the spy, Leamas, kills a guard. There is very little explanation about why he kills the guard in the book even though you are in "close third" and have access to his thoughts. One suspects it is frustration, it's a sort of breakdown, but the victim is only half guilty. True he's stalking Leamas (probably not to kill) but Leamas is already in a low security prison. In any case, Leamas' murder of the guard reminded me of Camus' character murdering the arab in "L'Etranger." It's an existentialist act, meaning to me, it's complex, partly random, partly insane, partly a statement that killing and not killing are the same thing (which of course they aren't). But in the movie, the merely skip that scene entirely and throw Leamas into a more serious prison without explanation. Of course, as a viewer we understand that his captors (bad communists) are capable of exacerbating his punishment by whim. We accept it. But again, at the core of the book is the mystery of who is Leamas and his impulsive murder makes distances him from our sympathy and understanding. In the movie, we see him more as a broken down and disillusioned man, not a man who could or would rise to sudden intense action. So, he is much less mysterious, hence less interesting.