In my mind’s eye, I can see my son as an infant, toddler, eleven-year-old, and everything in between, a smooth continuum. I wonder if it will always be this way. I hope so. I hope, twenty, thirty years from now, that I have the opportunity to think these thoughts.
Last night, Jake asked his mom, “If you had one wish, what would it be?” And good mama that Karen is, she replied, “I would wish you would have the happiest life you can possibly have.”
Sorry. I’m still a bit freaked out over Bush’s saber-rattling tonight vis a vis Iran and Syria; and Chris Matthews just said, “A lot of people are going to go to bed tonight terrified.” My response: Oh, yeah. Terror is a good word for it. We’ve been in Iraq for four years and we’re in the shit deeper than ever. In seven years, Jake will be eighteen. Do any of you doubt that, given enough leash, Bush would want an American military presence in Iraq seven years from now? And when does reality truly set in — when will we see reinstitution of the draft? The man clearly has escalation on his mind, escalation of unconscionable proportions. At some point, he’s going to run out of bodies.
Yes, maybe everything will be hunky-dory in two years when Bush leaves office. But what about the 17- and 18-year-old kids who are in harm’s way now? Also, I don’t doubt Bush’s talent for getting us into a mess so horrific we can’t extricate ourselves in any simple fashion . . . even with a Democrat as president.
Folks keep talking about the Democratic Congress’s wondrous powers of investigation and subpoena. Will investigations prevent Bush from taking pot-shots at Iran and Syria? Will subpoenas bring the troops home?
He’s a danger to our security, to our children, and to the world. Impeachment is the only solution.
D.
In the Jan 7 New York Times Book Review, Dave Itzkoff has a hilarious, ripping review of Michael Crichton’s new novel, Next. Here’s the opening paragraph:
Though the moment may lack the inherent gravitas of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s encounter with Lincoln, or even Elvis Presley’s private audience with Richard Nixon, surely history should reserve a special place for the day in 2005 when Michael Crichton was invited to the White House to meet with George W. Bush. Imagine: the modern era’s leading purveyor of alarmist fiction, seated side by side with Michael Crichton. Oh, to be a concealed recording system in that Oval Office! Did Crichton confess to his host that he’d been inspired to write “Rising Sun” by a certain Poppy in chief with a propensity for puking on Japanese dignitaries? Did our president tell Crichton he found the dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park” every bit as frightening as our ancestors did at the dawn of time, 6,000 years ago?
The rest of the review is every bit as good.
Now, you might think I gave up on Crichton because of that fateful meeting in 2005 when he entered the echo chamber of Bush’s brain to confirm the president’s doubts about global warming, but I dismissed Crichton more than twenty years ago. Here’s the story, for what it’s worth.
And I just now thought of a new caption. To paraphrase Gerald R. Ford, a man who knew how to exercise his sphincter ani (serious flatulence problem, I’m told),
“Did you do that? Show some class!”
D.
I never described the fallout from my Hanukkah Lobster story. Humiliated in front of my first grade class, unmasked as an ignoramus, I vowed to learn more about my religion. I demanded that my parents get me some religious instruction.
In our community’s synagogues, Hebrew school provided preparatory instruction for Bar and Bas Mitzvahs. I was too young for that. For a few years, I went to Sunday School, and I have pleasant memories making challah by braiding instant biscuit dough ropes, saving quarters to plant trees in Israel (much needed for our New and Improved Israel, AKA Israel the Expanded Edition, AKA Israel post the 1967 Arab-Israeli war), and doing crazy shit with macaroni, Elmer’s glue, and gold spray paint; and somewhere along the way, I forgot my desire to learn more about Judaism. Religious instruction, such as it was, consisted of stories about David and Goliath, Samson the Crazy Motherfucker, Esther and Haman. This was fun. Pleasant. A great excuse to get out of the house on the weekend.
Then Hebrew school happened.
Seriously. If I had to choose one winner for our contest, I think I’d plotz. So you can ALL* do a little victory dance (not a work-safe link, btw) and when you’re done, email me your snail mail addie, and I’ll arrange for you to receive a copy of Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?
I’m at: azureus (at) harborside (dot) com
And I’m a winner, too. I finished a 2000-word short story this weekend. It’s still a bit rough, but if you’re curious, here it is: “The Necklace.” Fellow blogger Pat Johanneson has part of a story up, too.
Sorry, I won’t be personalizing these copies. I’m too lazy. Generous, but lazy.
D.
*All = those of you who wrote stories. I’m not that big a pushover.
UPDATE: Firedoglake runs with the story.
I spent a good, long time yesterday reading this post and its comment thread (Spocko Rocks ABC! Micky (sic) Mouse Blinks!) over at Daily Kos. Here’s the story, in a nutshell: a blogger with the handle Spocko became concerned over the hate speech excreted by KSFO DJs Melanie Morgan, Lee Rogers, Brian Sussman. He started recording some of the more egregious examples and posted them to his blog, Spockosbrain.
So you’ll know what we’re dealing with — and you won’t have to take my word for it that this is hate speech — here’s Lee Rogers talking about a black man in Lincoln, Nebraska:
“Now you start with the Sear’s Diehard the battery cables connected to his testicles and you entertain him with that for awhile and then you blow his bleeping head off. “
Melanie Morgan on Nancy Pelosi: “We’ve got a bulls-eye painted on her big laughing eyes.” She also called for New York Times editor Bill Keller (and nine editors from other newspapers) to be hanged in public.
Lee Rogers on Indonesia: “Indonesia is really just another enemy Muslim nation. … You keep screwing around with stuff like this we are going to kill a bunch of you. Millions of you. ”
And Brian Sussman, in response to a critical caller, demanded the caller to prove he wasn’t a Muslim: “Say Allah is a wh*re!”
Mind you, not all of these are on the same footing. Recommending the torture/murder of a man in Lincoln, or the assassination/lynching of editors and public officials, clearly crosses the line, while Sussman’s crap may not meet the criteria of hate speech. (Don’t know, not a lawyer.)
Anyway.
KSFO is owned by ABC/Disney. One of their lawyers got Spocko’s ISP to shut him down; Mike Stark at Daily Kos picked up the story, and now we have a blogswarm. Read that link above, though — the tale of how Spocko has gone after KSFO by informing advertisers of all this hate speech is inspirational and edifying.
Today, Mike Stark reports on the Spocko blogswarm. Follow me below the cut.
You may not realize it from reading this blog, but I’ve been blocked for well over a month now. To psych myself up for what I hope will be a more productive writing weekend, I thought I’d post a few quotes on fiction-as-consensual-dream, an idea I first encountered in John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction (a book I dearly love and recommend to all writers).
I’ve quoted Gardner before, but it’s been well over a year, and some of you are relatively new to Balls and Walnuts. Here’s the money shot:
If we carefully inspect our experience as we read, we discover that the importance of physical detail is that it creates for us a kind of dream, a rich and vivid play in the mind. We read a few words at the beginning of the book or the particular story, and suddenly we find ourselves seeing not words on a page but a train moving through Russia, an old Italian crying, or a farmhouse battered by rain. We read on — dream on — not passively but actively, worrying about the choices the characters have to make, listening in panic for some sound behind the fictional door, exulting in characters’ successes, bemoaning their failures. In great fiction, the dream engages us heart and soul; we not only respond to imaginary things — sights, sounds, smells — as though they were real, we respond to fictional problems as though they were real: We sympathize, think, and judge. We act out, vicariously, the trials of the characters and learn from the failures and successes of particular modes of action, particular attitudes, opinions, assertions, and beliefs exactly as we learn from life. Thus the value of great fiction, we begin to suspect, is not just that it entertains us or distracts us from our troubles, not just that it broadens our knowledge of people and places, but also that it helps us to know what we believe, reinforces those qualities that are nobles in us, leads us to feel uneasy about our faults and limitations.
This is one of those paragraphs, like Nathanael West’s cannonball quote, which I revisit to fire myself up. If all else fails, I’ll write a bit of short fiction — that will often break a block. I’ve posted a new challenge over at Writer’s BBS, so perhaps I’ll participate in it. Something, anything to get unblocked.
I wish the muse would tell me what’s bugging her.
Back to fiction-as-consensual-dream. I’ve been rereading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (I read it for the jokes), and came across this today:
It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream — making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams . . .
And I wonder if he wasn’t thinking about writing — or perhaps editing — as he wrote these words:
No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work — no man does — but I like what is in the work — the chance to find yourself. Your own reality — for yourself — not for others — what no other man can ever know.
I would argue that Conrad’s Marlow is wrong on both counts. He does capture the dream-sensation; that’s the beauty of Heart of Darkness. And I also think he conveys to the reader his perception of reality.
That’s the goal, then; that’s the prize. When you can immerse your readers in the dream, even to the point of sharing those inexplicable dream sensations, you’ve succeeded in your task. Entertainment is important too, of course, but the two goals go hand in hand. I think the reading experience is so much more satisfying when the author falls away, is forgotten, disappears from view. We aren’t writers so much as we are conjurers. What better magic than when the magician himself vanishes?
D.
Hmm. Let’s see.
The contest is still running. This will be a tough one. As an added incentive, it looks like Kenney does indeed want to use these stories on his website, and he’s going to post them at his show! Imagine: hordes of hoity-toity San Franciscans, champagne in hand, pinkies pointing outward, speaking in hushed tones as they read your short fiction.
I suspect my story “Heaven on Earth” got swallowed up in the holiday rush. My pal Corn Dog read it, but I suspect some of you missed that post. It’s a favorite of mine, that story, and I’d hate for y’all to miss it.
Speaking of Corn Dog, my new spam blocker, Akismet, thinks she’s spam. I think she’s far superior to spam — pâté de foie gras at the very least. Anyway, I think I’ve fixed it but only time will tell (CD, leave me a reply so we can see if everything is cool). If anyone else is being blocked, please email me at: azureus (at) harborside (dot) com. UPDATE: nope, we’re still screwed. And she can’t post to Dean’s or SxKitten’s blog, either, and they both use Akismet. I wonder what gives?
More later. Gotta go make dinner.
D.