_On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft_

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Stephen King writes books that a lot of people like. I mean, A LOT of people like his books.

I am not one of them. Can’t stand horror. Not it a snide “that’s so low-brow” kind of way. More in a “Oh my god, I will never close my eyes again” kind of way. So, I’ve avoided Stephen King books the way some people avoid battery acid. I know what they will do to me.

This book, however, I sought out and enjoyed. King was writing about how to write. That subject can be scary too, but in a totally different way.

He has some good things to say, starting with what started him off and moving on to more technical issues.

I think I might have gotten more out of the story if I were familiar with his works, but even so, I got plenty enough out. He was fairly personal, talking about his young life and influences, and even exposing his drug and alcohol addiction.

He gave out some good advice: Don’t use adverbs, especially ‘zestfully.’ Interesting. And he even gave some real nuts and bolts, like specific magazines and books to check out if you want to be a writer.

I will say one thing, though. I listened to a recording of this book, and that was great. I got to hear King’s memories and thoughts in his own voice with his own rhythm and cadence.
BUT!
The man has the strangest way of pronouncing the sound “L” that I have ever heard in my life. He closes his throat around it. And as much as I was interested in the last bit of the book, when he got into some very practical advice, I STILL wanted to strangle him for that weird gutteral “L.”

Go get the book. READ it, and you will be glad you did.

_Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships_

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Shanower took the Illiad and made it, or at least the first part of it, into a graphic novel. I love the heroic epic, and comic book format is a perfect medium to use for its re-interpretation.

I confess, I’ve started the Illiad, but not finished it. I know the story, but I’m shaky on some of the details. Really, the poetic language of the original can obscure some of the more prosaic details.

Also, the different Gods require interpretation. Maybe the Greek listeners knew who everyone was and what their ‘powers’ were, but had a little trouble keeping the dieties sorted out.

This novel was great in showing the action of the story. Naturally, the incredible beauty of the poetry can’t be shown to the same advantage in a comic book. But Shanower wasn’t trying to go there. He has a huge Bibliography in the back, which impressed me. I feel pretty confident that he stayed true to the facts.

I could already tell the he had kept to the characters of the people. Oddyseus had the arrogant and sales-pitch kind of conversational skills i remember from the original. Achilles and his mother interacted on their comic cell the same way they did in the stanzas.

Also, Shanower pointed out some of the political implications I had missed. Somehow, I hadn’t realized that Troy was such an important trade route. It made more sense that the battle be fought from political and monetary reasons than just that Helen was such a hottie.

The drawings were wonderful, too. The decorations and clothing of the people were interesting to see. Also, Shanower employed a range of graphical devices for his storytelling that kept things very interesting. He uses his drawing in ‘shots’ like a movie camera, sometimes. It gives a greater perspective.

This is a worthwhile book.

_All About My Mother_

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Foriegn language films have always had that mystique of being particularly sophisticated. The subtitles mean that you must READ, and if you READ you must be smart.

And sophisticated.

All About My Mother has subtitles in English-the language spoken is Spanish. Spain-ish Spanish, that is, which sounds different to my ears accustomed to the rythms of Mexican accents. They lisp: “Grathias” and “Barthelona.” It sounds very gay to me.

But gay works in the story, even though the lisping was an unintetional addition to the gayness of the story. There are a number of transvetites who are important to the story.

The director, Pedro Almodovar, came highly recommended. He has another movie out right now, Talk to Her.

All About My Mother makes it sound like there is a main character whose mother we are learning about. But, the one who might be such a character died very early in the film.

It’s kind of a creepy thought, that the heroine’s son would be hanging around watching. The movie doesn’t really worry about his afterlife.

It seems to be more the director’s, Almodovar’s story about his mother. Or more broadly, it is a treatment of what femininity is. The story focusses on women, or men who feel like they are women. Transvestites always cast a bright light on conceptions of femininity, because they challenge what it means to be a woman.

This movie is really lovely, with amazing camera shots and situations that bring out real feelings in the viewer.

And it was fascinating to see Streetcar Named Desire played in Spanish.

Civilization is one missed lunch away from bedlam

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Rank and file workers in America are not doing so well lately. Apparently, the UN cafeteria workers were striking for promised wages.

Those folks over at the UN are supposed to be the world’s best diplomats, right? The ones chosen from all over the world to reasonably work things out fairly and equitably. Force is for savages; we are all civilized here.

Hmm…That works until they have to give up their after-school snacks. With the workers on strike, the cafeterias were closed.

…count the seconds until someone storms the kitchens and the looting begins…

TIME.com: Food Fight

“The decision to make the cafeterias into “no pay zones” spread through the 40-acre complex like wildfire. Soon, the hungry patrons came running. “It was chaos, wild, something out of a war scene,” said one Aramark executive who was present. “They took everything, even the silverware,” she said. Another witness from U.N. security said the cafeteria was “stripped bare.” And another told TIME that the cafeteria raid was “unbelievable, crowds of people just taking everything in sight; they stripped the place bare.” And yet another astonished witness said that “chickens, turkeys, souffles, casseroles all went out the door (unpaid).” ”

That is the result of the world’s best experts in diplomacy being left to their own devices.

Be very afraid.

writing or writing?

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I have not been writing so much on my blog lately. I feel dully guilty about this.

But not too guilty, because I have been trying to write a lot in other places. Places like my hard drive, which are not published.

I like publishing my writing, and I like my blog. Before I had my blog, I spent a huge amount of time writing emails. Emails are at least read by ONE person, I hope. I enjoy the attention, I have to say.

My email style tends to the ponderous, however. I think what I say is generally interesting, but it can get really long.

I guess I’m an e-conversation hog.

A few years ago, I noticed myself getting embroiled in long and involved, complicated e-conversations. I found myself composing the emails in my head as i went about my life: “…and this illustrates my previous point…”

This began to worry me. How much of one (or two or three or four) people’s attention could I monopolize? I thought that my emails were no longer really working well in the medium I was using.

But I was impressed by what I had written, I felt that I had reached some new understanding through the discourse. I didn’t throw them away.

But I realized that the effort I was putting into these writings was inefficient. I should put my creative energy into something a little more universal than a RE: subject line could encompass.

I thought I should spend time writing for real, not emails.

But I missed the audience. I missed knowing that it would be read.

It seemed empty, words not read like a tree falling alone in the forest. Did they really matter?

I was very pleased with the arrival of blogs. I have tremendously enjoyed my blog. Recently, I have been pushing really hard to write and post and post. I enjoy posting. And I really like posting on Blogcritics, because the readership is even larger there.

But I am brought up once again. I have the same problem with the blog that I had in email. My blogposts are somewhat ponderous. The popular blogs, it seems to me, are not as wordy as mine. People don’t want to spend a half and hour reading something on a computer monitor.

Well, it depends what it is. Maybe if it’s REALLY GOOD, then they might.

So. Then I have to be REALLY GOOD if I want to follow my inclination to ramble on and on.

Or maybe ( and here we are at the same place again) the blog is not the proper medium for some of the things I feel like I need to write.

Blogs seem to be an Extrospective kind of writing. People are commenting on politics, on popular culture, movies, TV, music, whatever. Toss off an opinion, a fact, a perspective, this seems to be what blogs are good for.

I can do that. I throw out my take on various subjects, books and movies especially. I think I do it reasonably well, although one commentor recently gave me the distinction of writing the worst movie review ever (it was for Waiting for Guffman).

But what about introspective? This particular posting is introspective. I’m not apologetic about it, but I realize that it invites a different readership with a different mindset than the extrospective stuff.

And maybe that mindset is not engaged by the computer screen.

AND

maybe the type of writing that I am trying to do needs a little more room than a blogpost can comfortably give me.

Interesting tangent:
I wonder how large MT allows posts to be? Hmm…

Blogposts have to achieve some kind of completion at the end. But writing, the kind that you get up and do for 2 hours every morning, does not need completion before you stop. The point is, it’s bigger than you can accomplish at one sitting.

And maybe that’s the next rung.

I admit, it is very satisfying to write a blogpost and finish it. It takes more discipline and organization to work on a long story and finish it.

I’d like to write longer stories though.

And I’ve been trying to work on it. Which is why my posting has slowed a bit.

It’s a shift of focus.

_Wuthering Heights_

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I mean the movie, with Laurence Olivier and all, not the book.

I confess, I’ve tried to read the book three times, and found it emotionally exhausting. This is the first book I had not been able to conquer, and it surprised me. I had loved Jane Eyre. But Emily is not Charlotte, as I discovered.

The next book that conquered me was the Silmarillion. I don’t imagine that anyone is surprised by that.

I tried to read Wuthering Heights again later, and it had the same effect. It was just too much! I needed a break, and afterwards, I didn’t feel like hanging out with those people again.

But I knew there was a movie, and I figured that I could make it through a movie. I did want to know how the end turned out.

The movie was on TCM this weekend, and I had my chance.

You know, it was less exhausting to see Cathy beating her brother with the riding crop than it was to read about it. Imagining it made it seem more cruel than seeing a little sister whapping at her brother.

Of course, Heathcliff as Laurence Olivier made it easy to believe that Cathy would be in love with him. Oh, Olivier is beautiful!

It was all gothic, love beyond death and stony castles and craggy rocks and a smoldering young hero. These elements have been used to good effect in many other places.

I guess what made the book so hard to read is how unlikeable Heathcliff and Cathy both are. When Cathy says “I am Heathcliff!” it is easy to believe, since they are both so mean to each other.

It really could be one of those “They deserve each other” situations. One overriding message of the story is that true love conquers all.

But equally apparent is the idea that one does not need to be virtuous to have true love. Of course, the victorian idea of virtuous was mostly keeping up appearances. And staying in your given social place.

Heathcliff wouldn’t do that. Cathy wished she didn’t have to, but still wanted all that her priviledged position could give her.

I think she wished she could run away with Heathcliff, and didn’t. In the end it killed her.

It’s convenient, how heroines are so fatally unhealthy. Makes for dramatic death scenes.

This one was nice, I have to say.

I remember believing in a love that tempestuous. I’m a little older now, and I am mostly glad that I am not afflicted with it.
Mostly.

McMansions are popping up

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In this new place I life, LA, appearances seem to be pretty important.

Homes are a part of that. Here’s an article for the LA times about the zeitgeist:

Keeping Up With the Jonesing

“Having the time and money to build your own home used to be one of the perks of wealth. McMansion buyers, by contrast, are the working wealthy. Many of them labor long hours to pay the massive mortgages on their massive houses. For them, it’s more practical to buy a previously designed place that projects an aura of wealth, prestige and personal achievement—off-the-rack opulence, if you will—rather than create a unique architectural symbol of high culture and refinement. If you want individuality, you can always sink some bucks into unique landscaping or remodel that useless formal dining room into a private pool hall.”

This makes me sad. Individuality is important. It’s one of the things that makes a neighborhood charming. Heck, it’s what makes people charming.

It seems wasteful to have a huge rattley home that doesn’t suit your family’s needs. You shouldn’t live your life for other people, and you shouldn’t buy a house just because other people will be impressed by it.

Especially the cost is so high, it takes you away from your family.

It’s important to pop your head up for air once in a while.

I remember a friend saying that people will spend a lot of time reducing discomfort, but don’t spend very much time increasing comfort.

Tantek’s being clever again…

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My friend Tantek put up this very interesting post a while back.

He came up with some categories for organizing his life:

grow
restore
maintain
prune
close

You should read the whole post to get his thoughts on it. But I found this framework to be really thought-provoking.

Sometimes, a new perspective, a different way to approach the problem, can give you a place to begin. So, I’ve been trying out this new categorization idea. Taking a look around my life, it becomes apparent to me that there are some things I want more of (to grow), some things I want less of (to prune) and some things I really want to get rid of altogether (to close).

It is one of my life-long habits, to look at the shape of my life and try to adjust it to what I really want. It is very easy for all of us to get into the cog of doing what is next on the list.

But what about evaluating the list?

So these categories give some tools to evaluate the list.

Thanks, Tantek! You have inspired me to get closure on cleaning my patio.

_Never Been Kissed_

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As far as I’m concerned, the whole point of this movie is when Drew Barrymore is standing on the pitcher’s mound and everyone in the whole packed stadium is applauding her wildly.

That ALONE is a huge-normous fantasy fulfilled.

And it’s the first scene of the movie.

The rest, except for the very end, is flashback.

The whole thing is fantasy fulfilled. For everyone that’s looked in the mirror and come up with the perfect response to yesterday’s taunt, here is your movie. Everyone would like to go back and do it right this time.

High school was so tortuous, we all have things we’d want to do over. So that’s what Josie (aka Josie Grossy) gets to do.

It’s cute, and it’s horrifying to remember all that high-school drama. And the crying in the bathroom scene! I swear, there could be a whole documentary about girls crying in the bathroom.

Naturally, it’s all cathartic, and she emerges an empowered woman, finds her true love, etc. etc.

And that’s what makes it such a good movie. I’d watch it again.

Polite requests bear fruit

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Someone wrote to me and asked if I could add a link on my site to their site.

I am quite impressed with this request. I checked out the site, and it does not seem to suck. I am happy to link to his site.

He already linked to mine.

I am pleased to see politeness on the internet. It seems rare.