Joan Didion, Part Two

So I have finished the two books I purchased or, rather, described purchasing, in an earlier episode of this blog. I did not realize, at that time, that it was appropriate to follow up Madame Bovary with Play It As It Lays. They are along the same continuum. Maria and Emma reflect upon each other as characters. I would say that Joan Didion made me like Emma Bovary more than I did when I read her. I would say that Flaubert made me like Maria less. Is it the difference between Flaubert's time and Didion's? Between their genders? Or is it the fact that in the concluding pages of the book, the action is Emma's, while the inaction is Maria's?

It's good to know that the human heart continues to hurt in the same way no matter when or where. I'm not sure why I think so, but it makes me feel better. There is no such thing as progress, just change. And there is company, lots and lots of company, for all of us. And some of that company is really crazy and a little stupid and a lot reckless and this is why I try to live my life as a rational person and not a character in a novel. Sometimes it's fun (and even useful) to be the character in the novel, but most of the time I prefer not to drive to Vegas after doing too many drugs and having too much empty sex.

Anyway. I will interrupt this train of thought to say that I really liked the following few lines, in which Didion manages to reference both Plato and The Godfather:

"BZ shrugged. 'I think of him more as a philosopher king. He told me once he understood the whole meaning of life, it came to him in a blinding flash one time when he almost died on the table at Cedars.'

"Larry Kulik's not going to die at Cedars. Larry Kulik's going to die in a barber chair.'"

And there's a line of dialog I plan to steal and use as needed in my daily life: "I hear you had a rather baroque morning after."

Just in case you were wondering, Bridget, my toes ached specifically on page 171, in the description of Hoover Dam: "All day she was faint with vertigo, sunk in a world where great power grids converged, throbbing lines plunged finally into the shallow canyon below the dam's face, elevators like coffins dropped into the bowels of the earth itself. With a guide and a handful of children Maria walked through the chambers, stared at the turbines in the vast glittering gallery, at the deep still water with the hidden intakes sucking all the while, even as she watched; clung to the railings, leaned out, stood finally on a platform over the pipe that carried the river beneath the dam. The platform quivered." I can understand why you're a fan, Bridget, and why you write the way you do about all of the different Californias and the Californians who live in them.

Okay, so I've read his bookshelf now and I wasn't with him that long and he didn't die, but loss is loss is loss and so, to conclude, a few final lines from The Year of Magical Thinking:

"I have never written pieces fluently but this one seemed to be taking even longer than usual: I realized at some point that I was unwilling to finish it, because there was no one to read it."

and

"In fact the apprehension that our life together will decreasingly be the center of my every day seemed today on Lexington Avenue so distinct a betrayal that I lost all sense of oncoming traffic."

Thanks to those of you who held my hand while I crossed the street.

Into The Wild

I've never read the book. Never read any Jon Krakauer. As a rule I don't like books about people fighting the primal forces of nature. I'm doing that everyday in Los Angeles and I'll stick with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. But I did go see the film of INTO THE WILD. And y'all should too as it's one of the best movies of the year. Great performances, especially Hal Halbrook in a heart tweaking role. Sean Penn doesn't completely romanticize the story, altho it's infused with the love of travel and adventure until things get out of hand. I think the film is overdirected in places, and a little Eddie Vedder goes a long way, but it's well worth the three hour running time.

Now quick, tell me if Penn's credit is grammatically correct:

"Screenplay and Directed by Sean Penn"

straight outta brooklyn

Here's "Wonder Bread" a little literary sideswipe that's sure to generate writerly controversy from here to there...

"To achieve this miracle, certain writers produce Brooklyn Books of Wonder. Take mawkish self-indulgence, add a heavy dollop of creamy nostalgia, season with magic realism, stir in a complacency of faith, and you’ve got wondrousness. The only thing that’s more wondrous than the BBoW narratives themselves is the vanity of the authors who deliver their epistles from Fort Greene with mock-naïve astonishment, as if saying: “I can’t really believe I’m writing this. And it’s such an honor that you’re reading it.” Actually, they’re as vain and mercenary as anyone else, but they mask these less endearing traits under the smiley façade of an illusory Eden they’ve recreated in the low-rise borough across the water from corrupt Manhattan."

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/au07/wonder-bukiet.html

For the Record

Nick, via email:
"I forget, is there an official chronicler of Groop, or does that change everytime we meet? Ella, if you would like to pen a wrapup of last nite's shenanigans, I for one would be grateful. And if you do, could you add my favorite exchange?

"Ella, all hot and sultry: 'Ok, I have a terrific idea, I think this could really work because I love these characters so much. You have these four people locked up in a sleeper car, and it's so claustrophobic and I want more of that, and we're trying to figure out how to get more out of it, so why not try writing it from their points-of-view, or, ok, as a start, why not write the whole thing from Rosa's Point of view, because I miss her so much?'

"Ben: 'No.'"

---
Ella replies:

"uh, you are going to need to chronicle that one yourself. In fact, I think YOU should do the summary this time, Nicky. But don't forget this quote, from Jen:

"Jen, all hot and sultry: 'Weren't you attracted to the characters, you know, like when you see a hooker and you're Hugh Grant?'"

[photo by Your Girl In Milwaukee]

Joan Didion

By now Nick knows that the mysterious woman who came into the bookstore and bought two books by Joan Didion from his hunky and oh-so-young clerk is me. How old was he, Nick--like, 17? He had biceps the size of a bread loaf and he probably sells you lots of books on the night shift. You know, lonely women looking for some smut to take to bed with them. Anyway...

I could easily say that I bought two books by Joan Didion because Bridget mentioned Play it as It Lays a few entries ago. I could easily say that. I could say that it is because I studied creative writing at UC Davis. I could say it is because Joan Didion wrote about California, and I am from California. I could say it is because The Year of Magical Thinking received an ungodly number of reviews, mostly in the publications that I read on a regular basis. I could say that it is because it is about time I read Joan Didion; everyone else has.

But that's not true. Not everyone has. Just a few have. It's one thing to walk into a man's apartment and find Nick Hornby and other quality dicklit on an open bookshelf next to his wool sweaters and baseball caps. But when he opens up some secret closet and you realize that not only does he have a couple anthologies of Romantic poetry, but that there are several books by, of all people, Joan Didion, well...

You can see why a broken-hearted, lonely girl might wander into a bookstore at 9 pm at night and buy two books by Joan Didion. Not because she needs something to read--by god she has about twenty unread novels sitting on her shelf--but because she isn't quite yet ready to let go of the boy with the Joan Didion. Can't call him. Can't ring his doorbell in the middle of the night. (Well, she could, but...) All she can do is buy a book on grief and a book on loneliness, both by Joan Didion.

Nicky, I'm afraid that the hot clerk with the sourdough biceps didn't even know who Joan Didion was. "Oh, just someone who wrote on California," I said. He seemed surprised to see that this little-known writer had a National Book Award sticker on her cover. Alas. He's only, like 17. He has years to gather a devastating collection of novels.

Random Thoughts While Listening To Mama Cass

- There are giant billboards around Los Angeles for the show DEXTER with his smiling face dotted with blood next to the tag line, THE RETURN OF AMERICA'S FAVORITE SERIAL KILLER. This image towers over the corner of Hollywood and Highland and greets children from all over the world next to the Disney theater. I am offended.

- I am watching many episodes of THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW on youtube that some prince has been posting. Possibly the greatest tv show ever next to SCTV. I said possibly. THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW might beat them.

- I arrived home cranky only to find a package stuffed in my door that I knew could only be one thing: the long awaited soundtrack to PUFNSTUF - THE MOVIE from 1970, which I saw in the theater and never forgot. Especially the catchy songs and the one by Mama Cass called "Different." You can't help but feel good listening to the soundtrack to PUFNSTUF - THE MOVIE.

- There is a stunning woman in sweatshorts and heels sitting across from me. I hope she's writing about me too.

- I like the word "September" because it means the word "October" is coming. And that means Halloween.

- Rush is truly a great band.

Vitamins help

Because I took two today and felt great, really fantastic, coffee fantastic. Plus ONE egg salad sandwich from trader joe's. I felt great, good enough for kickboxing. Then I went home, and drank coffee. At seven o'clock at night I drink this coffee, because I've decided that I WILL finish the story that's been giving me thought cancer for the past two weeks. It's kind of an amazing experience, well not so amazing really, pretty drab actually, to gear up for an evening of writing. Coffee, dinner, kambucha, shower, Pink Floyd's Echoes, repeat, text two people, one of them a woman, the other who might as well be, chess, stare out window, stare out door, check email, repeat. Four hours later. Blah.

So I'm not sure how all that connects to my question, which is: is there a best time to write? I mean, for each individual, do we have a peak time? For instance, doing kickboxing at six AM is a really bad thing. My kickboxing will be bad at six AM. I get these anxieties that I'm not *supposed* to be writing sometimes, as though I'll make better choices in my stories if I write at this time, as opposed to that time.

Please note that I'm not complaining. Having the ability to set aside an entire evening to write is a big deal these days. They don't happen too often. And as school and life gear up, I see them happening less and less.

Cheers.

Nick, sweetie, Wednesday?

Adventure Journey

I'm very excited today because the online publication that had been putting up with my serialized, non-chronological thought experiment, "Episodes," is back online. Adventure Journey had stopped publishing in January and I was worried it was gone forever. In the interim the editors have completely re-imagined it from an online magazine format to an online community (like MySpace). And it actually looks very cool. Check out my episodes of Episodes at http://www.adventurejourney.net/depscols/episodes/.

I'm also excited because I just found out they're making my favorite Stephen King story, "The Mist," into a movie. All I can say is finally. Speaking as someone who taught a DeCal class on Stephen King ("as horror author and pop-culture phenomenon"), this story sums up what is best about King, i.e. his nihilistic/apocalyptic yet homespun sense of American culture in the age of malls and the military industrial complex. Check out the preview.

i'm reading engleby and not writing, you?

Ouch - I can't do Wednesday, I have an author dinner (anyone read anything by Sebastian Faulks?) But of course, if everyone else can only do the 19th, go right ahead.

As far as start times go - I think y'all should start when you're there and ready, and I will try hard to get there as early as I can, but I'll just pick-up mid-critique. And no, I don't want to answer your question, Jen, about potty training, and how it's impacted by Elizabeth starting school, and how we had to yank her from the early-age preschool and put her into the older-age preschool with 12 hours notice - all because of autistic kids and ornery, short-sighted parents. And how the evening hours are alas still precious and how it's really hard to write and have a job, like all of you, and how it's really hard to write and have kids, and how it's really hard to put food on the table if you're a single mom with no job prospects, and how it's really hard if you're a prostitute to accuse a man of rape, because hey - you asked for it, right? And how it's really hard to run a country when most people think you're an idiot, and jesus, what if you're not? And how it's really hard if you lived life as a gay-liberal-new-yorker but had an epiphany that the life you were leading was bad - very bad - and so now, 10 years later, you're straight, more conservative than Dick Cheney, and just spent the morning of September 11th, 2007, waving a flag for three hours from an overpass above Interstate 880. Or how it's really hard to be part of a wedding when the bride, your friend, fired everyone just before the nuptials - the food guys, the flower guys, the cake guys - hell, she even fired you, and when she's pathetically bemoaning the fact that forevermore the only penis she's going to know is her husband's, and that's just wrong, isn't it? you're left thinking, um, no. And how it's really hard that you didn't get yesterday off, because it was, after all, Admissions Day, and both your daughters got the day off because they work for the State of California and so of course they received Admissions Day off, and by the way they can both retire in 8 years, when they're in their 40's, and receive a pension of about 80% of their pay - a pension that will be given to them until they die, 40 years down the road, and that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Well doesn't it? And how it's really hard when your Bookstore Boss scheduled you to work on a Friday night, and doesn't he know that it's your girlfriend's birthday, shouldn't he have intuited that? And how, okay, it might not be hard to take the preteen to the Met, because you are being paid $50/hour to do it, because you tutor, and this is kind of a tutoring gig, just different, just that the dad wants the preteen to get culture, even if he has to pay for it, because of course he doesn't have time to take the kid to the Met, so yeah - that part of tutoring might not be hard, but how about your latest kid, the dwarf, who's in excrutiating pain because of the surgery he's undergone to lengthen his legs, that part is hard, ok? And oh, how it's really hard because you know the bus driver cares about you - all your friends tell you it's true - but how he won't give you the time of day, and how now he's not on his usual route, and you'd know cause you're kind of stalking him, and I realize that I don't know you, that you're just a guy who sells books, but can't you look past the fact for just a second that yes, I smell, and yes, my dress is dirty, and yes, I'm sill friends with my ex, is that such a big deal? Can't you see past any of that? Can't you give me some advice, even if I don't know you? Because even though the dress is dirty, the flower in my hair is fresh, cut from the garden this morning, and that should count for something. Shouldn't it?

Isn't it hard when people can't look past themselves to the trials of others? Isn't it hard when we can't admit we've made a mistake? Isn't it hard to just say, I'm sorry. To just say, I love you. To just say, I don't know how we got here. Isn't it just hard?

Jane Austen Must Die

...or at least be shot out of the canon.

Because how is it, at 8:17 on a Sunday night I'm up trying to figure out a way around my "Oh my god I have to teach Jane Austen" panic. (And not even Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility or Emma, but Persuasion!)

The current plan is to teach Play it As It Lays and hope, that since they were both written by women and have titles that start with "P," no one will notice.

No one will notice, right?

And maybe it's not so much all the adorable warm and amiable naval families, or the Sirs and Somersetshires, but all those grad school girls, who were constantly winning fellowships due to their dissertation devotion to dress styles or dance styles or how Bridget Jones is merely an updated Emma Woodhouse from Jane Friggin' Austen. And if it had ended there, fine. A little squabble over how the Department chose to squander their research funds (sending white women to England to pour over letters in libraries!) that would be fine as well. But it never ended there. No there were the panels, sometimes lasting entire sessions, and gulp, days, at academic conferences, and the societies and the--oh no really--"merchandise": Nightshirts in lavender and hot pink and yellow that read:"Most unwilling was she to awaken from such a dream of felicity"; license plate holders: "I'd rather be reading Jane Austen." Tea towels, counted cross-stitch, Christmas cards, I heart Mr. Darcy buttons, and that damn: It is a truth universally acknowledged that an avowed Janeite must be in want of:____________ (fill in the blank with any one of a number of cute quips).

And ohmygosh, yes. I forgot to mention that they call themselves Janeites. And that, even now, writing this I'm probably inviting a fury of hate mail directed at this blog for publishing such ruddy filth about Madame Jane, but I digress...I have to teach her and I hate her and if I had tenure I'd teach Joan Didion instead.

Writers With Finks, I mean Drinks

On Saturday I went down to check out Writer's with Drinks http://www.writerswithdrinks.com hosted at the Make Out Room on 22nd near Mission. Just to watch someone read by the mottled light of a disco ball made the experience more than worth the risk 0f a parking ticket. I got there a little late, and the place was packed with at least couple hundred people. Above the heads I could see a shapely, stout blond reading from her confusing, a little bit interesting treatise on sex and politics. This was Mellisa Gira. She said the word "Cock" a lot and talked about George Bush a lot too. Oddly, her last line of the evening was a total knock out, "I'm a good mistake to make" and I wondered if I hadn't missed something in the circuitous rant that led up to it.

My friend, Trevor, ( I couldn't go alone, I just couldn't) stared hard at me. We're staying, my eyes said back. I wanted to find out if this was my crew, my people. I'd read a lot about cadres of writers who lived together or knew each other, like Virginia Woolf who had her Bloomsbury Group, but what existed today? It was comforting to think that I might be surrounded by a bunch of people parading as writers. Think of all that loneliness and unrequited artistic juice filling up such a small space. Just look at their lost, introspective, pensive expressions. And whatever wasn't showing up emotionally was definitely compensated by true-to-form writerly accessories: I've never seen so many button up t-shirts and thick, dark frames in my life. The frames were especially popular with Asians for some reason. And petite white girls in summer dresses. Well, actually, this one petite white girl in a summer dress who was hanging out with the stout, shapely blond writer and probably knew a lot about George Bush and cocks and what it took to get into bed with a woman like Miss Gira.

The host was a man parading as, (or simply being) a badly dressed woman. The coolest part about him were his flesh colored leggings, and not tattoos, sadly, covered with action packed comic book panels that I almost got close enough to read in the floor space I had carved out for myself by the stage. At one point, the host's high heel just missed my sidecar. Next time, I should probably get there early.

Jennifer Solow read from her book, The Booster, and totally upstaged the host tranny with her bloo hair and shiny black pants. She wore tank top with the words "famous author" across her chest which she claimed she had printed up before her book on shoplifting became a national best seller. (ironic but generic references to "Steal This Book" come to mind) Even though her reading really bored me, I decided she was cool. Her delicate, deft prose did a great job of setting the scene for an idea that didn't interest me in the slightest. This is normal since I'm pretty picky. However, Jennifer Solow, you write really, really well. So kudos to you, Ms. Solow. She's the same woman who had each word from a short story tattooed on about fifteen hundred different volunteers. The host tranny tried to make a joke about how Ms. Solow had lost the hard copy to the piece and was busily lining up all the volunteers in naked repose. A few people chuckled. It was a little bit funny. I wonder though, do these tattooed people know each other? Do they talk? Are they writers? Do people like Solow and Gira actually hang out together? Or do they just communicate via email? As I looked out over the crowed, the same question kept coming back to me: who are these people, and how many of them are sleeping together? In other words, is this *the* group of writers in SF? And if so, how do I break in? Aside from Groop, and an MFA, I've always written in a vacuum.

After the intermission, Guillermo Gomez-Pena read. He also did a lot of talking about sex and politics, and managed to make the one really good joke of the evening, with apologies to Mr. Pena, (well, not really) has been dumbed down due to my questionable, drunken, memory: "The government censors everything these days, TV, Radio, poets--" at which point he stopped talking to make the point. I suppose he liked the reception he received because he then went on for no fewer than ten minutes starting and stopping in the middle of his prose, eventually reducing his language down to a few audible grunts.

At this point Trevor made eyes at the door. But I want to stay, my eyes said back. Five minutes. Okay, five minutes. Fine. Then we're going to the Elbo Room to meet some straight women. These women are straight. His eyes shot over to the large ape-like thing in the corner with her arm draped over two blonds in torn jeans. Okay, five minutes. We waited for a break in the action and left. Still, I'd go back. It's nice being around my crew, my people, even if they have no idea who the hell I am.

Off the Grid...

Hey you people - TinHouse wants us to send them our stories. For those of us (me) who've been needing a deadline, here it is. And for those of us who have insane asylum stories rotting in the recesses of our roll top desks...it's time to drag 'em back out...




Hello All,

Tin House's Spring theme issue is OFF THE GRID. We're looking for fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by or about people or institutions that function (or don't function) out of the bounds of "normal" society. For the "Lost & Found" section we are looking for brief appreciations of texts written outside of conventional publishing--prison, exile, mental institutions, in secret. The deadline is November 1, but please submit before then as the issue will get crowded early. Feel free to email me submissions or queries, or see http://www.tinhouse.com/mag/mag_submit.htm for further guidelines.

All best,
Michelle Wildgen
Senior Editor, Tin House Magazine/Editor, Tin House Books
www.tinhouse.com

Groop discusses war on drugs, drinks wine

My neighbors should have been taking notes rather than complaining about the noise, because Groop was in fine form last night. Everybody did a fantastic job breaking down my story and then giving me the directions how it might be built back up again. There were delicious roasted veggies and red wine, and I got to use my martini shaker for the first time in months. (Thanks, Ben, for being the only one brave enough to sample my home-infused ginger vodka).

Critique was superb. Even though it made me see how much more work I have, it also made me fall in love with the story all over again. And when you can see something you've been tinkering on for a decade with a fresh perspective, that's golden.

Not all of it was sunshine and flowers, of course. Some of my favorite bits were pinched on the cheek and sent off to that orphanage of the mind where are housed all good ideas that don't yet have a home. For example, Laura had this to say while reading lines: "I'm going to read this line even though I deleted the paragraph. ... It's a good line, you can use it in some other story."

Ah, the cold, double-edged steel of an honest opinion.

Take a break from writing

and discover that Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything is the best thing since CNN went to septuple split screen. Higher echelon thinkers will direct themselves to "Fall Conspiracies" parts one, two and three.

http://toeradio.org/

And here's a quick read for further proof.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2229686.html

Happy labor day?

Yes, or course.