Deucerman at Random

Aestheticism v. Daniel Woodrell

2011-12-27T10:40:00.000-08:00

James Wood, in How Fiction Works, talks about “aestheticism,” using as one of his examples a passage from John Updike’s Terrorist. In the passage, Updike’s young protagonist, the high-school–aged Muslim American Ahmad, walks down a street. We are in his thoughts as he ponders a recent growth spurt, then Updike suddenly takes over and launches into his own authorial exploration of Islamic theology, his exquisite lyrical prose replacing the direct rhythms of the young man’s thoughts.

One of the wonderful things about Wood’s little book is that it beautifully articulates thoughts we have already had, and in this case, he is articulating what has been my recent tendency to acknowledge and disparage aestheticism in many of the books and stories I’ve been reading. This will sometimes lead to my reading passages to my wife, absurdly embellishing them in the reading, laughing, and rolling my eyes.

It was my intention at the start of this post to find just such a flowery passage in Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel, Winter’s Bone, and to reprint it here for comical contrasting against the hillfolk dialog sprinkled elsewhere in the novel. But what I found instead were passages of description that, while certainly stretching the distance between themselves and the drawling Ozark Mountain dialog, do not break that distance. The tether is taut, but sill intact.

Here, the protagonist, Ree Dolly, is walking back from squirrel-hunting on family land with her brothers, two young boys she cares for as a mother:

The sun was taller though light had not yet broken through to the ground. The path was narrow and iced on the north slope. These rough acres were Bromont acres and they’d never been razed for timber, so the biggest old trees in the area stood on this ground. Magically fat and towering oak trees with limbs grown into pleasingly akimbo swirls were common. Hickory, sycamore, and all the rest prospered as well. (pg. 105)

While this is remarkable writing (phrases like “pleasingly akimbo swirls” could even be called magical), what is most amazing is how it stands in harmony with the very real speech of Ozark Mountain youths found in dialog like this, on the very next page:

Harold said, “Ree, are these for fryin’ or for stewin’?”

“Which way do you like best?”

Both boys said, “Fried!”

“Okey-doke. Fried, then. With biscuits, maybe, if we got the makin’s, and spang dripped on top, too. But, first thing is, we got to clean ‘em. Sonny, you fetch the skinnin’ board. I think it’s still leanin’ on the side of the shed back there. Harold, you go for the knife—you know which one I want.”

The one I ain’t s’posed to never touch.”

“Bring it to me.” (pg. 106)

I’m sure those comical passages are in there and just not presenting themselves at the moment, but I think it’s safe to say that by and large, Woodrell has succeeded wildly in writing as his Ozark Mountain family and neighbors spoke, and in either recapturing or inventing the words and rhythms of the most eloquent of those family and neighbors for use in his exposition. The result—despite the sniggering of a sometimes pretentious Californian—is not only stylish writing, but easy reading.

Movember - Shameless Plug for Donations

2011-11-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

Okay gang, October is behind us, which means it's time to get the pink off the football fields, shift the focus to the men, and start growing some facial hair! (Word: We strongly encourage ongoing support for breast cancer and women's health causes throughout the year, so always do what you can.)

This MOvember, I've joined a team of colleagues from Cisco to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Livestrong by growing moustaches for men's health. Go to the Deucerman's MoBro Page and do the following: 1. Watch the day-to-day progress of my pathetic liphair struggling to the surface, and 2. Kick in some scratch! We have a set a stretch goal for our Movember Team, the MoMigos, of $250 Million, so we obviously need every penny you can spare. So ask yourself: Does that kid really need those braces? Does Grandpa really need that knee replacement? Does Grandma really need that hip replacement? I mean, God gave us chairs and couches, right?!

Okay, enough goofing. Let's get serious for a minute:

The Problem

Based on rates from 2005-2007, 1 in 6 men born today will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetimes.
Based data from the same period, nearly 3% of men will die from prostate cancer.

The Solution

The Prostate Cancer Foundation has funded more than 1,500 programs at nearly 200 research centers in 12 countries.
Movember and Livestrong are teaming up to offer free, confidential navigation resources to any man affected by any cancer at any age.
In 2010, over 64,500 US Mo Bros and Mo Sistas got on board with Movember, raising $7.5 million USD.

So give us a hand. Go to the Deucerman's MoBro Page and make whatever donation you can.

In the Market for a New Lawnmower

2011-11-01T05:59:00.000-07:00

My response to the person who showered the Occupy Wall Street protesters with copies of this little missive.

Dear Person,

Thank you for your missive. It was very revealing. A minor edit and a message to you: To the list of things you would sell, you forgot a few: your mother, your children’s future, your country…down the river…just to name a few. And that doesn’t make you vicious. It makes you a greedy coward and a traitor. And yes, occupiers didn’t take to the streets when the markets rose. Congratulations. You pulled the wool over our eyes. There were those, people smarter than you, who tried to warn us, but we didn’t listen. And the occupiers’ message to you now is, that isn’t going to happen again.

Now let’s clear a few more things up: The markets you manipulate are not “just like gambling.” What you guys don’t get is that Wall Street is not a casino, it is a system designed to capitalize good ideas, not make a pack of punk-ass bitches like you rich. (And no, capitalized debt obligations, derivatives, and mortgage-backed securities do not qualify as “good ideas.”) The other thing you don’t get—well, actually, you do (see below)—is that in a democracy, that system is dependent on the people. If it does things the people don’t like, the people will either change it or shut its ass down. Welcome to your nightmare.

And no, you’re not going to take employment away from any occupiers, for two reasons. First, most of them aren't employed, thanks to you. And second, those who are employed are doing things that will find no value whatsoever in your snakelike acumen for “positions” and “gambling.” In case you need a primer, that’s how the market works: you ain’t a software engineer, you ain’t a physics lecturer, you ain’t a social worker or an occupational therapist or an electrician or a structural engineer, so ain’t nobody going to hire you to do those things. I don’t know what cloud of self-delusion led you to believe that the occupiers were mowing lawns, because I can tell you, any occupiers who are mowing lawns or making sandwiches are only doing so because their college degrees aren’t dong them any good in a system where punk-ass bitches like you suck up all the capital that is meant to fuel ideas, innovation, and the American future. So no, you won’t be taking anyone’s jobs, because clearly, you are incapable of teaching third-graders.

(And by the way, your time is near. I’d suggest you start looking for lawns to mow.)

And that car of yours? It never should have cost $85K in the first place. And the occupiers aren’t going to “create jobs” that depend on your 35% tip. They’re going to rebuild the system, and then they're going to create vocations, and those vocations are going to drive stronger, steadier, and more stable economic growth than any of your ingenious collateralized debt obligations ever could have.

But of course, you know all this, because you took the time to craft this little missive, give it to your admin to copy, and climb onto the roof to throw it down. And why would you do that? Why on earth would a snake like you do that, an asp, a cobra, a python like you, who could have spent that time “making” what, $50K, $100K, screw it, a million dollars, let’s say? The message of your missive is clear, my friend: you are afraid. You are quaking and pissing yourself like a crackhead right now, which is why you think you need an 85,000-dollar tank to protect you from all those baaaad people out there.

Word, dude: You don’t. They’re just people trying to make a better world.

Josh Rolnick and Treasured Elements

2011-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Josh Rolnick is certainly an accomplished young writer: Winner of the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Choice Prize, nominated for a Pushcart, Iowa grad, and an impressive list of publication credits. He has also “lived around:” Raised in the East and educated in the Midwest, he spent two years here in the Bay Area and has had stints in places as far-flung as Jerusalem and London. Hearing him read and talk about writing, and reading his penetrating new collection Pulp and Paper, one learns quickly that in all those places, Josh Rolnick was listening. Watching and listening, the two primary skills a writer must possess.

Take this tidbit, from the story "Funnyboy." Here, a grieving father is in the midst of recollecting the memory of his young son Richie, who has been tragically killed:

Quick quiz: What is the name of the light stripe that separates an earthworm’s head from its tail? Time’s up. It’s called the clitellum. Do you know how I know that? Of course you don’t. My son taught me that. He also taught me that, when nightcrawlers are cut in half, they don’t die. They regenerate.

Imagine that. Losing half of yourself and becoming whole again.

There is a thing that crawls in the dirt and eats shit that can do that.

This searing, ironic first-person portrayal of an angry grieving father captivated me from the first lines of this piece, and so I asked Josh about it. Did this voice appear organically, did it just emerge from among the loaves and fishes of his psyche, or did he have a lengthy, painstaking struggle to conjure it? His response was that he is certainly a writer who writes a lot of drafts, and “Funnyboy” was no exception. A piece that had its genesis in a story he’d heard in New York of a man who had been found laying dead on a sidewalk, “Funnyboy” had gone through many transformations in its journey to publication. But as it turns out, the one thing about the piece that was there from the start was indeed that voice. It was one of the key elements, in fact, that had given the story life and kept it alive through its many incarnations.

I personally found this to be a wonderful lesson, particularly for writers who have podmates and/or writing-group colleagues bleeding all over their pages: Even as we hold fast to treasured elements in a piece—a voice, a setting, a particular character’s particular flaw—we must also consider virtually everything else to be negotiable, if not expendable. The well-meaning commentary of our readers often intensifies our struggle, I find, to recognize those elements that hold special meaning for us, those germs of thought and emotion outside the “murder your darlings” rubric that impelled us to put pen to paper in the first place.

Some other observations on Pulp and Paper:

The treatment of time in the very short piece “Carousel” is subtle and sublime and would serve as an excellent example for teaching this critical element of story. Finishing the piece, we’re left with a resonant mystery: have we just witnessed the death of a character, or a hallucination portending his death, or something else entirely? Really lovely.
Rolnick achieves a superb balance between vivid description of the physical world and extended expositions of the emotional. He tells us this is, again, the result of doing lots of drafts, of reworking and reworking until the balance is right for the story. The key to that, of course, is patience, so it’s not surprising that early on, when he was at Iowa, Josh had gotten a stone imprinted with the Chinese character for patience, and that this stone adorns his writing table to this day.

Finale – Death Ride 2011

2011-07-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

The big day, Death Ride 2011 on Saturday July 9th, was a struggle, but ultimately a success. Our starting peloton was me, my wife Caroline (Carol), Bill Wilson, Ann Togasaki (the Annimal), Robert Bley (Bob), and Ryan Moore, Bill’s cousin. We all rose at 3:30 a.m. in our rented house in Meyers and fueled up with a breakfast of huevadillas, cereal, coffee, and juice, as well as lots of sunscreen and chamois butter. We then loaded up the machines and headed out at just before 4:30. Arriving at Turtle Rock Park in plenty of time for our planned 5:30 start, we actually mounted the machines closer to 5:15 and headed up to the park for a quick natural break. Ablutions completed, we had a surprise as Carol managed to snap the left temple off her Oakley sunglasses. Unfazed, the Annimal took command of the situation and within a minute had the temple snapped back into place, and we were off.

Monitor Pass

After riding pretty much together from Turtle Rock through Markleeville and to the start of the West Monitor Pass climb, we quickly splintered as Bob, Ryan, and the Annimal went up the road. As Bill, Carol and I settled into a comfortable pace for the climb, surrounded all along by the thousands of other riders on the pass, we were surprised to see a neighboring rider break his chain—a huge coincidence because it happened at just about the same place on the climb where the Annimal broke her chain back in 2008. She, however, was fortunate enough to have been chatting up a fellow rider who happened to have both a chain tool and the skill to use it. As a result, her chain was fixed within 20 minutes and she was back on the road. This young guy, on the other hand, seemed quite at a loss, and we had no facilities to be of assistance.

Continuing on in breaking daylight, we saw the sun emerge and then reached the top of the climb, where we reconnoitered at the summit monument and celebrated the first of the five passes complete. We then settled in for the 10-mile descent into the high desert below. At the bottom, we rode past the rest stop and availed ourselves of some of Bill’s “local knowledge:” the clean rest rooms at the fire station just past the rest stop, which allowed us to avoid the long lines that had accumulated at the rest stop porta-potties. Our water bottles refilled at the rest stop, the climb back up the East Monitor was long as always, but in the nice cool weather (a marked contrast to the 100+ degree temps Carol and I had faced there just 6 days before), it was entirely tolerable. Once again, we reconnoitered at the monument at the top for a celebration, this time of the second of our five passes.

Ebbet’s Pass

At this point, Bob and Ryan had pretty much separated themselves from the rest of us, and Bill and Ann were riding up the road from Carol and me, but not far enough that we didn’t reunite at each rest stop. After the fast descent to the bottom of West Monitor, Ann, Bill, Carol, and I got back together, took a quick natural break at the rest stop there, then took advantage of the next bit of local knowledge, the Silver Creek Campground. Here, we took a break to remove shoes, fuel up, fill water bottles, reapply the “butter baby,” and avail ourselves of the clean campground rest rooms. Back on the road, we settled into our usual pattern – Bill and the Annimal up the road, Carol and me pounding out a steady rhythm further back – until we reached the beautiful, wooded top of East Ebbet’s Pass, waterfalls crashing all around us. At this point, all were feeling strong, so we made just a short stop at the top of Ebbet’s before descending down the back side to the west.

Starting in Hermit Valley, at the bottom of West Ebbet’s Pass, the 60+ miles of tough riding was beginning to take its toll. There, we found Bob with his feet in the snow, but seemingly fresh as a daisy nonetheless. Carol and I were desperately feeling the need for real food at this point, but no juicy steaks in sight, so we settled for bananas, potato chips, and small cans of V-8. Bob headed up the road first, followed by Ann and Bill, who couldn’t wait any longer, and then Carol and me a few minutes later. Up the West Ebbet’s climb, Carol was making noises about being unable to make it, but with one simple admonition of “Just be sure (before you stop on the hill),” she hung in there and made the top. There, we found Bill suffering from hot foot and making noises about stopping at the truck at Turtle Rock park (he didn’t mean it). With a plan to meet up at the Centerville Flat rest stop at Wolf Creek, near the bottom, we launched into the very technical East Ebbet’s descent. Along the way, we encountered a med-evac helicopter at Kinney Reservoir, pulling a crashed rider out. I then went up the road from Carol and encountered Ryan, who had been having severe cramping problems and had had to walk much of the way up West Ebbet’s. After a quick chat, he rocketed ahead again down the descent and was part of our rendezvous group at Wolf Creek.

Markleeville / Turtle Rock Grade

After another quick break that included as much food as we could find (including a nice Cup o’ Noodles for me), we remounted and beat the wind with a nice paceline for several miles out of the canyon toward Markleeville. From Markleeville, the short climb to Turtle Rock Park tested the legs, but our goal now was to hit the 4:00 cut-off time at Woodfords, just a few miles up the road from the park. There, we would have 100 miles and over 12,000 vertical feet under our belts, but more than 25 miles more ahead of us, including the nasty Woodfords-to-Pickett’s Junction climb.

A hammer through the canyon got us to Woodfords well within the cut-off, and that rest stop, clearly the best on the DR route, was a sight for sore eyes. First, you ride your bike right in under a rain shower provided by a young volunteer on a ladder, then a bike valet parks your bike for you while another young volunteer tops off your water bottles and returns them to the bike. All you have to do is step off and enjoy a snack, a soda, and a stretch. Alas, however, they – like all the rest stops before them – had run out of Coca Cola before we got there: motivation to go faster if we’re ever crazy enough to do this again.

Woodfords to Pickett’s Junction

At this point, the real Death Ride begins. Bill paced us for several miles up the grade out of Woodfords, but eventually had to pick up his pace and pull away. As I led Carol up the 7-mile, 7% grade toward Pickett’s Junction, she was again making noises about not being able to finish, and who could blame her. This is a bitch of a climb, with heavy traffic, a tiny shoulder on the road, and the heat of the day weighing you down. We made it to Pickett’s Junction, however, well within the 5:15 p.m. cut-off time and took a rest and some more nourishment before mounting the final climb up Carson Pass. My dad and stepmother, coincidentally, were in the Tahoe area for the weekend, and I had made what turned out to be the precise prediction that we would arrive in Hope Valley (just beyond the Pickett’s Junction rest stop) between 5:00 and 5:30. This is a gorgeous little valley, with an idyllic stream running through, that was the point where Carol and Ann’s friend Paul waited for us to pass through back in 2008. I rode out of the rest stop ahead of the group, and voila, there Dad and Marjorie were, hanging at the corner, cameras in hand, with their friends Mike and Hilary. It was a high point for me, and very inspiring at a critical point in the ride, to visit with them for 10 minutes or so while the others rested some more, then rode out and continued right past us (no time for visiting for them!)

Carson Pass and the Run for Home

Bill and the Annimal again paced Carol up the road for a few miles, until I was able to catch up. At that point, I did not pace her up the rest of the Carson Pass climb, but rather followed behind as the little Energizer Bunny hit a rhythm and slammed up that sucker, clearly anxious to be off her damn bike. She zipped by dozens of other riders, some laboring up the climb, some surrendering by the side of the road, and I followed. Unfortunately, we passed Ryan along the way, walking his bike again as his cramping leg muscles had again abandoned him. He would eventually give up about a mile from the top to grab a SAG Wagon back to Turtle Rock. We continued on, however, and were rewarded just one turn from the top, where Bill waited for us so that all three of us could cross the line at the top of Carson together. That was another huge highlight.

At the top, we celebrated our completion of all 5 passes, fueled up again, signed the massive Death Ride 5-pass finishers poster, and waited for Ryan. Watching the large numbers of riders who would bail out of the ride at the top of Carson, friends and relatives waiting there with cars onto which they could load their bikes, Carol began to waver again, considering a SAG Wagon back to Turtle Rock. This notion was, of course, soundly rejected by the rest of us, who assured her she would regret not having finished every mile of the ride. She acquiesced, and when Ryan didn’t arrive and the weather started to get a bit cool, we donned arm warmers and jackets for the Carson descent and the run for home. Bill and the Annimal, both fearlessly fast descenders, blasted out ahead of Carol and me, as we took our time and stayed safe in our exhausted state. Laboring each time the road turned uphill even a little – as one tends to do at the end of a century ride – we nonetheless kept up our steady rhythm and rode up to the truck just before 7:30 p.m., relieved and joyous at completing DR 2011 in just under 14 hours.

Post-Ride Celebration

The Israeli Army – Amnon, Mark, Zack, Udi, Guy, and Roz – had finished well ahead of us and were waiting for us to arrive at a post-ride celebration they were hosting at their rented house just a few miles up the road in Markleeville. Despite our late arrival, at nearly 8 p.m., our gracious hosts treated us to one of the finest Châteauneuf de Papes I have ever tasted, as well as chips and salsa, grilled steak, prawns, chicken, franks, and pork, and salad. New friends were made as we shared tales of our various exploits on the roads of Alpine County, and we called it a night at around 10 p.m. Many thanks to Bill and Bob for transporting us all safely back to the rented house in Meyers, where we tamped down pumping adrenalin and managed a solid night of rewarding sleep.

The Data

My data shows what happens when you forget to turn your bike computer off when you take it off your bike. (No, I did not ride 155 miles, but we did drive about 26 miles or so after we completed the ride, all of which is figured into my data. I also did not ride my bike at 60.9 mph.) I include a link to Carol’s Garmin data to add a little sanity.

7/9/2011 - Death Ride – Bruce’s Computer

7/9/2011 - Death Ride – Carol’s Computer

Part 5 – Death Ride Tapering IV

2011-07-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

The final day before the big ride had us all, except Caroline, trooping back up to Markleeville for one last quick look at the DR 2011 start. From Markleeville, we rode out along the Carson River and up the early miles of Ebbet’s Pass. My goal was to put in 20 miles, no more, and that’s essentially what we did:

7/8/2011 – Death Ride Taper IV – Ebbet's Pass Scenic Byway

Paceline practice coming back down from Ebbet’s Pass went well until Bill and Bob decided 22 mph in a stiff headwind wasn’t good enough and kicked it up to 26 mph+. That’s when I said to the Annimal, “This is a stiff wind, and I’d rather not be in it, but I don’t need to go that fast.” Her answer: “I can’t go that fast!” (She was lying.) Anyway, the boys had their fun, and we made it back in one piece.

Ryan, Bill’s wife’s cousin’s husband (cousin-in-law??) arrived in the afternoon to round out our 6-person peloton. Great guy, the youngest in our group by a few years, but with the oldest bike: an aging but workable Giant. With the whole peloton in the house, the afternoon and evening before the big day included carbo-loading on spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread (and just a few drops of Chardonnay) and a viewing of just half of “Taladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” The idea here being, watch a slapstick movie and grab as many funny lines as you can to throw out at your fellow riders in the middle of the nastiest, most relentless bit of the steepest hills, get 'em to crack up, get yourself to crack up, see who falls off bikes (no one ever does--a commentary on the state of American humor). After all that, it was sleep—what little we could get, in some cases—before the 3:30 wake-up call for DR 2011.

Part 4 – Death Ride Tapering III

2011-07-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Thursday's run up Pioneer Trail was just what the doctor ordered: Get the legs moving, don’t hammer or overexert, make sure all the moving parts—both man and machine—are sound. The biggest pleasure of all: the weather is improving with each passing day. Temps are getting milder, the wind seems to be settling into a nice calm, and no sign of rain clouds. I felt well enough when I hit Ski Run Blvd., about 8 miles in, that I decided to take a run up the end of road toward Heavenly Valley, which features a 0.1-mile pitch at 12–14 percent grades. You’ll see that sucker popping up like a thorn on a rosebush right in the middle of the Elevation data:

7/7/2011 – Death Ride Taper III – Pioneer Trial

Afterward, I took the machine out back for a good cleaning. Got the last couple weeks worth of road grime off the chain, frame, and wheels, so we’re looking good for the big ride. Caroline and Bob returned a little later with tales of a successful run up Blue Lakes Road, and Ann and Bill decided to ride back to the house, which included a trip over Luther Pass. They rode up in surprisingly short order, and then we grabbed some huevadillas (an invention of a friend of Bill’s: fried egg on a corn tortilla, which doesn’t sound like much, but it’s really in the preparation), then loaded up to head out to Turtle Rock Park in Markleeville to register. Bike and jersey numbers in hand, we took in some of the Death Ride history on display, including posters from the final Carson Pass climb for several past editions of the ride, all signed by most all the riders who had traversed the 5 passes, including, in 2009 and 2010, Bill and friends. Shrimp and veggie skewers and rice graced the training table, and “Snatch” was the DVD of choice, after which all settled in for a good night’s rest.

Part 3 – Death Ride Tapering I-II

2011-07-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

More on this in subsequent posts, but as our friends have been arriving (Bill and the Israeli Army on Tuesday, Ann and Bob yesterday), we’ve been heading out for short, comfortable rides to keep the legs moving, but little else. On Tuesday, Bill, Caroline and I started by first catching Cadel Evans’s first Tour de France stage win on the computer, then heading off for one last trip up West Monitor Pass before DR 2011.

Then, yesterday, after we watched Mark Cavendish’s bunch sprint win in Stage 6 of the Tour, we met up with two Israeli Army members for a nice little 12-mile loop along gorgeous Diamond Valley Road. Ann and Bob arrived yesterday afternoon and headed straight out for what turned out to be a very short ride, as Ann snapped one of her shifting cables just a few miles in. We took her bike to the bike shop in Stateline, where they made a quick, competent repair while we enjoyed a lunch of salads and mimosas (bloody mary for Bill). We returned to the house for a dinner of grilled chicken and salad, then watched the animated classic The Triplets of Belleville before turning in. Today the bulk of the group are off to Blue Lakes Road for another quick tapering ride, while I plan a very quick trip up Pioneer Trail. More on all of that tomorrow, our final day before DR 2011.
7/5/2011 – Death Ride Taper I - West Side Monitor
7/6/2011 – Death Ride Taper II - Diamond Valley Road Loop

Part 2 – Death Ride Reconnaissance IV

2011-07-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

We returned to the alps on July 2nd, a week before DR 2011, with plans to get in that 4-pass run we’d missed out on the week before. Our arrival in the Tahoe area was delayed by weekender traffic, but we took it slow, enjoying a nice lunch and browse through the cavernous antiquarian bookstore in Jackson. We made a late start the next day, Sunday July 3rd, for our final DR Recon ride, which covered 4 of the 5 DR passes. As a result, faced the east side of Monitor Pass (at 10 miles, the longest and most difficult DR climb) in temperatures over 100 degrees. Click below to see the data from the bike computer, but don’t believe the 1 RPM cadence number. After a ride like that on Sunday (88 miles with over 11,000 feet of climbing), we laid low on Monday, resting and recharging for the final stretch of short tapering rides we would do during the week.
7/3/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance IV - 4 out of 5 Passes

Part 1 – Death Ride Reconnaissance I-III

2011-07-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

After slamming in rides totaling over 500 miles and 62,000 feet of climbing since the rains started to let up in May, Caroline and I made a reconnaissance trip to Markleeville a week before the Death Ride. The idea was to get a look at the passes beforehand and test our fitness at altitude. For those of you who enjoy data—things like how many miles we rode, how many vertical feet we climbed, and what kinds of temperatures we faced during the rides, the links below will show you the readouts from my bike computer. It turned out to be a bit of a surreal weekend, as our friend Bill, with whom we had planned to ride, had a strange incident at his rented house, where some vagrant apparently wandered in, started fixing him/herself a meal, then snatched Bill’s truck keys and ran out the back as Bill was riding up from his first ride of the weekend. This changed up our riding routine a little, but the bottom line was that we faced nasty winds we will not have to face this Saturday, and we fell short of our goal of riding the first 4 DR passes in one go. Not a concern, though, as we had rented a house for the full week prior to the DR, so we figured we could do that the following week. We rode all 3 days we were there, but because of Bill’s mishap, the last ride was the only one the three of us were able to do together.
6/24/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance I - Monitor Pass
6/25/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance II - Ebbet's Pass
6/26/2011 – Death Ride Reconnaissance III - West Monitor

Death Ride Journal - Introduction

2011-07-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Since this has been my major occupation in recent months, I figure it’s worth writing a little about. Caroline and I joined several friends in signing up for this Saturday’s 2011 Death Ride – Tour of the California Alps. When we signed up last fall, we had big plans to train for 4 months in advance and get ourselves ready for the grueling 129-mile trek through some of Alpine County’s most challenging mountain passes. But by the time Caroline had finished her last term at Santa Clara University (congratulations to her on her MBA!), giving us time to train in earnest, California had slipped into one of its wettest winters in memory. We therefore had lots of catching up to do in the last 6 weeks or so, which we’ve been working hard to do. So while we’re now settled into our rented house in Meyers, near South Tahoe, for the home stretch before the ride, the next several posts will give you a brief account of our recent reconnaissance and training efforts.

Dorst Delivers Deathly Surprise

2011-04-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

I went to see Doug Dorst read when Alive in Necropolis came out, got my copy in hardcover, had him autograph it, and reminded him of who I was—a former student from his days at Stanford. “Bruce,” he wrote, “Keep it up – Can’t wait to read more of your stuff!” Doug's a good chap.

But then it took me a long time—could it be 3 years??—to finally crack this thing and read it. I had tried once, as I recall, but the hook didn’t get set. This time, however, no such problem. I was drawn in from the first scene.

I guess the short version is, Alive in Necropolis surprised me. For some reason, I was expecting something like a romp, with the living dead in some form or another appearing on nearly every page. But what I got instead was a multi-layered tale of love, longing, and belonging, set squarely in the very real modern world. That last one, belonging, is one of my favorite subjects in fiction, as it is for many of us who have struggled both to be a part of something larger than ourselves, and also to derive comfort instead of anxiety from that something when we find it. In Necropolis, the protagonist, Mike Mercer, thinks he finds that something in police work. As a member of the Colma Police Department, he is able to free himself from the wagging tail of his twenties by applying himself, as many young soldiers do, to something structured and demanding. He believes he has found himself, but finds to his growing consternation that love and meaning are also important, and in these arenas, he meets one failure after another. Against such forces, the structure and consistency of police work are no match, and Mike is forced in the end to look hard at himself, to be ruthless, to find and deal with the human connections—connections he had gotten into the habit of pushing away—that will truly give his life meaning.

Interestingly, while the dead are there in Necropolis, acting throughout the story as Mike’s antagonists and allies, their presence and the story within the story that they convey do little more than reinforce and complicate the real struggle, a struggle that could have and would have ensued with or without them. In the end, in fact, just as one is beginning to wonder whether they were ever there at all or just a figment of Mike’s imagination, the dead appear in a closing scene that seems designed to assert their presence and their role in the story—and, perhaps, their role in many other stories happening in and around Colma. A minor, minor character—one who has appeared only twice in the entire novel to that point—holds his girlfriend in his arms and waits for them. “He hopes they’re not bound for Boston,” Dorst writes, “because he likes having them here, and he can’t wait to share his discovery—his secret—with Mindy.”

Alive in Necropolis is a story of discovery, of love, of longing and belonging, but don’t shy away, because it’s also one hell of a lot of fun to read.

Interesting links:

Doug’s website

Penguin Books Reading Guide for Alive in Necropolis

Mark Costello’s review of Necropolis in the New York Times

Doug’s latest book, The Surf Guru – Stories, on Amazon

Robin Romm’s review of The Surf Guru in the New York Times

This Morning’s Reading

2010-11-13T10:28:00.000-08:00

A clear winner in P&W’s litmag Q&A, and some thoughts on R. T. Smith…

Looks Like We Should All Look Into n+1

The current issue of Poets & Writers has a one-pager titled “The Journals Agents Are Reading” (pg. 82)—an enticing bit of headline-writing for writers with better submission habits than my own. (Definitely something I need to work on.) Predictably, the agents interviewed, for the most part, demurred at choosing actual “favorites,” but exceptions to that rule produced a clear winner: Three of ten agents actually did choose a favorite, and it was the relatively new journal n+1.

Said Chris Parris-Lamb of the Gernet Company: “That would be n+1. There are other places I turn to first for short fiction, but n+1 is the only magazine I read from cover to cover.”

And Jim Rutman of Sterling Lord Literistic: “I think I will risk minor ridicule for pretension and go with the still young upstart n+1.

And finally, Anna Stein of Aitken Alexander: “I have to say, for now, n+1. They came on the scene only a few years ago, but they’ve introduced the kinds of writers that no one else would go near, and I’m talking about important literary writers who push the envelope (and whom we see six months later in the New Yorker…)

Of course, there are a lot of other great recommendations and insights in the article, but I think it’s safe to say that if you’re as out of it as I am and haven’t yet had a gander at n+1, now might be the time to do so.

R. T. Smith Serves Up “Straight Shots”

One of my favorite litmags—one of the few I subscribe to and read cover to cover on a regular basis—is The Missouri Review. The current issue features a short piece from a writer I’d never read before, though I expect many of you will know him well: R. T. Smith has been published in Best American and the Pushcart Anthology, and has a number of story collections in print. But it appears his recent works—including this wonderful story, “First Meeting,” in The Missouri Review—have been short monologues from sometimes hateful, sometimes lovable, but always troubled characters. In “First Meeting,” we hear a despicable alcoholic’s lengthy monologue at his first AA meeting:

“Only a fool tries to get between a man and his story. Listen up, I am in constant search for His will on the questions of my future behavior and all other matters. I go down to the Maury’s snake turn, where the old dam left a spillway, and there I stare at the pure white water tumbling and parley with the Man Himself, as I understand Him, and He listens and gives me signs. It was not for nothing He let me be hauled back from the flames of Hell on three occasions, and I can tell by your scoffing looks and righteous sounds that you believe yourselves better than me, more in tune with rescue and the Higher Power, maybe based on some quota of meetings or agreement to forgive each other, though not a one of you has ever put a heel on the other’s neck.”

Smith compares these short pieces to traditional “stories” (even questioning whether they are “stories” at all), and concludes that, if a story is “a full pitcher of plantation punch meant to be savored gradually,” these short pieces are “more akin to straight shots, undiluted, brooking little restraint, down the hatch with full burn.” I would agree with that assessment, and would add that Smith has, with this one at least, achieved the story writer’s ultimate goal of packing a boxcar full of tense intimacy and emotion into an easy flow of words that can easily be consumed in 20 minutes time.

I can be reasonable, but...

2010-11-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

My trip to Washington for the Jon Stewart / Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

At the Rally to Restore Sanity on Saturday, Jon Stewart led the charge for what he called “reasonableness.” He gave out “Medal of Reasonableness” awards, and the official rally T-Shirt was a take-off on the classic “I’m with Stupid” design, only with the “Stupid” crossed out and replaced with “Reasonable.” I know all this because I flew to Washington to be at that rally, but I’m here to say to Jon Stewart and his erstwhile partner in sanity Stephen Colbert,…

Guys, I can be reasonable, but…

Flying into Washington and having the screen on my flip phone go white?? Come on!

You realize how useless a phone is without a screen, right? Even a lame flip phone like the one I’m carrying even though pretty much everyone on the planet, including my sister who just moved back to the U.S. from Argentina and her five kids, all have smart phones. Send a text? Nah. Dial any of the dozens of numbers stored in my contacts list? Nah. Use it as a watch? Nah. (And no, I don’t wear a wristwatch.) Handicapped as I was, though, I pressed on, and…

I can be reasonable, but…

Sitting on a Washington Flyer Shuttle for two-and-half hours to get into the city from Dulles? Come on!

Seven other people on that shuttle, and I probably don’t even have to ask you how many got dropped off before I did. Foggy Bottom? Check. Downtown? Check. Georgetown? Check and check. Dupont Circle? Check. My father-in-law’s cousin’s place in Petworth? Oh yeah, that sounds like last place to me! Good thing the restaurant was only a block away, or I never would have gotten my pasta bucket inside the 10:00 closing time. That was all Thursday, so I had a full day to sightsee before rally day, and…

I can be reasonable, but…

Falling deathly ill in the International Spy Museum?? Come on!

When I got on the plane at SFO, it was seasonal allergies: runny nose, burning sinuses, a Victorian lady cough every now and again. When my friends Mary and Susan and I rode the Metro over and went into the Operation Spy experience, a little more nose-blowing, but still nothing serious. But then, a half-hour through the Spy Museum exhibits, it started to hit me, and a half-hour after that, it was chills, fever, shaking, weakness, a thrashing sore throat and a pounding headache.

I made a command decision to relocate myself from Petworth to Mary’s and Susan’s hotel, lay in provisions, and quarantine myself for the rest of the day and night in hopes of beating the dreaded thing into submission in time to make the rally the next morning, but then…

I can be reasonable, but…

Spending the whole damn day and night coughing and blowing, unable to breathe or sleep, swilling Nyquil to no avail, and then waking the next day no better off?? Come on!

I was in a hotel 2.6 miles away, about a 9-minute cab ride. I had my Rally cap and my Keep Fear Alive t-shirt. I had my Rally posse and the posse had a plan, and I had to tell the posse to go on without me because I just couldn’t move.

I can be reasonable, but…

Watching the Rally to Restore Sanity on a 15-inch laptop computer screen from only 2.6 miles away?? Come on!

It was 1:30 p.m. before I was ambulatory and conscious enough to get the computer out and open up ComedyCentral.com. And truth be told, I wasn’t sad, really, until I saw the crowd shot from the boom camera, until I saw the National Mall covered with the mass of people that I came to be a part of, people sick and tired of the culture of fear, people desperate for someone—some leader, some media outlet, some person or persons of influence somewhere—with the courage to just be reasonable.

I did see, on my 15-inch screen, as Jon Stewart took the microphone at the end and said, “We live in hard times, not end times,” and, repeatedly, “You go first, then I’ll go.” And those words and the message embodied in them kept resonating with me for the entirety of my trip home.

…Sitting in the bistro of the One Washington Circle hotel completely surrounded by Muslims, hearing the music of their language and seeing the joy and compassion in their eyes and their movements.

...Finding the bartender at the airport willing to learn as I taught her how to make hot toddies, and then enjoying the fruits of her quick education.

…Waiting on standby for two flights at Dulles and seeing the respectful gratitude of those who made the flights and the dignified resignation of those who didn’t.

…Smiling, all of them smiling, all of us smiling with each other. “You go first, then I’ll go.”

And those words still resonate with me now.

Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to be reasonable, but the fact is, for the vast majority of us lowly humans, it’s actually much harder not to be.

My deepest, sincerest thanks to Mary Rich for not only hosting me on my one reasonably healthy night, but also braving that same DC traffic to transfer my stuff to my quarantine hole for me. Thank you, Mary!

And also, thanks to Mary Dateo and Susan Hill for raiding the local CVS Pharmacy in a heroic effort to get me well in time for the rally. Didn't work out, guys, but I got a lot better a lot faster for all your efforts and the various drugs and provisions you delivered.

Thanks to you all again for taking such good care of me!

How to Meet a Woman (Or at least a 500-pixel image of one)

2010-02-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing uses fantasy to sell the promise of a college degree

A gorgeous blonde in a tight blue sweater, peaking out from behind a tree in the quad. The same blonde, leaning against the Humanities building. Another blonde, this one slender, in the midst of a golden field of mustard flowers. A lovely dark-skinned woman, Latina perhaps, perhaps East Asian, leaning back in her tailored suit against the Business building. Take you back, college boys? Or, if you’re not a college boy, take you anywhere? Like, to what your imagination has told you college must be like?

Well, forget the fact that, for most of us anyway, college wasn’t anything like that, and just feast your eyes on these images, images from ads on the Internet, ads for colleges, yeah, online colleges. It’s like they’re saying, “Check it out, click this ad and get an online degree, and look at all these girls you’ll never, ever, ever get a chance to meet!”

The ads from Argosy University, one of three institutions marketed by the Education Management Corporation of Pittsburgh, feature women who will attract the eyes of prospective male students, but are more likely intended to represent prospective female students: one exhibiting the attire and posture of a newly minted professional, the other embodying the freedom and happiness a college education can bring. Of course, whether intended for male prospects or not, the fact that these women are extremely attractive ensures that the males will certainly not be shooed away.

The University of Phoenix, one of five institutions marketed by the Apollo Group , Inc., of Phoenix, takes a somewhat similar approach, though here you have just a tinge of titillation. In the last ad shown, you have a lovely dark-haired girl in a business suit gazing with something between good cheer and adoration into the eyes of a young cohort. The prospective male applicant, the guy sitting in front of this ad with his hand poised on the mouse, is of course meant to see himself as the cohort, sitting happily across from this engaging beauty. All he needs to do now is somehow put out of his mind the pesky fact that it’s an online degree! (You can do it, man! Just click the damn ad! Click it! Click it!)

But EarnMyDegree.com, a web property of EducationDynamics of Hoboken, NJ, has to be, of all those represented, the least burdened by scruples. Here we have the absolutely scintillating blonde, peaking out, leaning back, blue eyes aglow, light blue sweater taught around her. She’s definitely the star of these ads, but occasionally you’ll see another, like this smiling—some might say, rockin’—headphone-wearing youth, who can be meant to represent nothing other than a prospective fellow student at the college of your choice. Once again, bust out the hammer, ‘cause someone's gonna need a knock over the head: It’s an online degree, man!

Anyway, good fun as it is wagging my finger, I’m also quick to give a tip o’ the hat, and this one is earned by Kaplan University, the educational institution of Kaplan Inc. of New York. This ad features a character this despicable, middle-aged blogger can relate to. Fair warning, though: Some people just might be too cool for school.

Of Fathers and Sons, Part 3

2010-01-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

Posted 1/23/2010

Thoughts on our children, and what they bring.
Part 3: “Children of Men”

In the last installment, I talked about the tumultuous years that led up to Matthew’s birth in 1978. The years since then have been everything years can be for a large family like ours: painful, trying, routine, joyous, triumphant. But the bottom line is, all is well today—so much so that, when it came my time to speak at the Man Shower, my first words were, “Matthew, you’re going to be a good father because you had a good father.” Our parents have 19 grandchildren now, and three great-grandchildren. Our father has been remarried to a stepmother who is a much-loved and appreciated member of our family, and our mother’s strength through difficult times continues to serve as a shining example as eight of the nine of us (Matthew being the exception) move into middle age.

As the Man Shower closed down in the wee hours, and Matthew and I prepared to leave Kai’s house, Kai thanked me for the story I had told of Matthew’s arrival in the world, pointing out that it was a perspective that only I, of all those present, could have given. He then handed me his copy of the 2006 movie “Children of Men,” Alfonso Cuarón’s gripping apocalyptic tale, which stars Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Clare-Hope Ashitey. In the film, which is based on the novel by P.D. James, a world gone infertile has descended into chaos after 18 years with no new children. Kai gave me the DVD and asked that all I do in return is “watch it and write something about it.” So here we are.

In the doom-laden world of “Children of Men,” it is a cynical and disillusioned office worker named Theo (played by Clive Owen) who must give the planet hope by carrying out the simple, yet unbelievably challenging tasks that all the sons and fathers at the Man Shower spoke so poignantly about: caring for the mother, and caring for the child. In the film, Cuarón holds a magnifying glass to these challenges by creating a post-apocalyptic wasteland where Theo and a young mother (played by Clare-Hope Ashitey) must run from angry mobs and dodge bullets and bombs. But more importantly, he magnifies the effect of the new child, the import of the baby’s arrival, and the humanity that arises out of the most unexpected places when a baby’s cries are heard.

Twelve days ago, Matthew and Nanette brought their new son, Mateo, into the world. The boy whose arrival was such a blessing now has a baby of his own. Mateo, gladly, will not be called upon to rescue, by his very presence, a family reeling from a jarring transition. He will, however, have an effect on his little family no less profound and no less important. He’ll change them, he’ll challenge them, and he’ll fill them with joy. In fact, I’m sure he already has. We hear constantly about the momentous times we are living in, but all momentous times are made up of smaller, equally momentous events like these. So welcome, Mateo. Thanks, Kai. And once again, in case I haven’t said it in a while, thanks, Matthew.

Of Fathers and Sons, Part 2

2010-01-20T22:13:00.000-08:00

Posted 1/21/2010

Thoughts on our children, and what they bring.
Part 2: Welcome, Matthew

In the last installment, I mentioned Matthew’s arrival into our family. Here’s the condensed version of how it happened and what it meant to us:

In 1974, our father left the house for good, and our family was shattered. Within just a few years, an older brother had turned to drugs, another had decided to forego college, as had an older sister, and two younger sisters had dropped out of high school. What had been a bright future for all of us was now looking very bleak indeed. Certainly, our parents’ split cannot be blamed for all of that, but there is no doubt that it contributed, just as there is no doubt that there were a very many less visible and less dramatic ill effects, from uncertain and awkward moments, hours, and afternoons to divisions within the family, particularly along gender lines. Then, as often happens in troubled times, it was tragedy that pulled us together: In the spring of 1977, a beloved uncle, our mother’s only brother and one of our father’s best friends, was tragically killed by a drunk driver. There were many, many tears; there was an Irish wake; there was a huge hole in our extended family that could never be refilled. As one would expect, our parents reached out to each other for consolation and support. I can only imagine how desperately they must have needed it, and I can’t imagine that there could be anyone else, for either of them, who could truly understand the depth of their loss. From my teen-age viewpoint, the main thing I saw was that my father was present again.

A few months passed and there was a family meeting, which turned out to be a bit of a shock: instead of a reconciliation, which some of us had expected, our parents announced that our mother, 44 years old, was 3 months pregnant. That baby, of course, was Matthew, who came to us in the summer of 1978, four years after my father had left the house, and within months, as I understand it, from when our parents finalized their divorce.

At the Man Shower, I tried to describe all this, but was emotionally overcome and only able to say, “It was broken, and he fixed it,” pointing to my now 31-year-old baby brother. What I would have said if I could have was that our family was, as I’ve said, shattered. Our common purpose was beleaguered, and our common love was in disarray, and this beautiful, feather-light, completely vulnerable little baby forced us all to remember who we were, that we were a family, that we had not only a shared existence, but shared aspirations as well. Despite the fact that I didn’t say all this, Kai—who knows Matthew as well as anyone—seemed to divine it somehow, which led him to bestow on me a small gift.

Next: “Children of Men”

Of Fathers and Sons, Part 1

2010-01-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

Posted 1/20/2010

Thoughts on our children, and what they bring.
Part 1: The Man Shower

It is just a month now since I joined in a gathering in Downey, California, for what was fittingly dubbed a “Man Shower” (think, “baby shower, but with whiskey”). The guest of honor was my baby brother, Matthew, and I’m not kidding when I say “baby brother,” not because he’s a baby—he’s not—but because he is a full 18 years my junior, so to me, he will always be a baby of sorts.

The Man Shower was the brainchild of Matthew’s friend Kai-Ping Liu, and if you don’t know Kai, I strongly suggest you check out his blog, the website and music of his band, Centrevol, and the music of his former band, Concept6, in which Matthew was the drummer, and for which Kai was the creative force. He is a truly inspired soul. At a Man Shower, one eats continuously, drinks finely aged Scotch, smokes cigars—from the superb to the suspect—and plays croquet. And, once all the eating, drinking, smack-talking, and wicket abuse has subsided, the festivities turn toward the thoughtful and conversational, because Kai is as much a contemplative soul as he is a creative one.

So, most of us being older, wiser, and more experienced than Matthew, we all offered our advice and observations about the impending change that he and his wife, Nanette, were facing. When the time came for me to speak, I had no personal experience of fatherhood to share, because unlike Matthew, I have chosen not to be a father. I did, however, have a couple of things to say about children coming into a family, and what they can mean to us, because Matthew’s own arrival was pretty unique. He is the ninth child in our family, and 11 years younger than his closest sibling. To put that in perspective, in the first 8 years of their marriage, our parents brought 7 children into the world. But that’s just scratching the surface.

Next: Welcome, Matthew

Writers: Here’s What You Need to Know

2009-11-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

Some of publishing’s best and brightest offer up stuff you can put into your brain.

Last weekend was Alumni Weekend for the Queens University of Charlotte MFA in Writing program, and if the term “alumni weekend” conjures images of idle and pointless days of golf rounds and cocktails, I can assure you, these were anything but. Sixty graduates and near-graduates gathered with 12 of the industry’s top editors and agents for spirited and vivifying discourse: in the workshop, in the seminar, around the meal table, and in the barroom.
On Saturday, a Publishing Panel featured agents and editors talking about what it takes to publish a book. During the Q&A, inspiration and desperation joined forces for fellow Bay Area writer and Queens grad Christin Rice, who had the presence to ask the following:

What is the one piece of information you have in your brains that you think we should have in our brains?

The following are some of the answers, paraphrased and bastardized in tyrannical fashion by yours truly:

Chris Parris-Lamb, agent with The Gernert Company:

“Our industry does not exist so writers can publish books. Our industry exists so readers will have something to read.”

In other words, the fact that your manuscript doesn’t make it into print doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t a great manuscript. All the connections must be made, the agent must fall in love with the work and persuade an editor to do the same, and both must be ready to put their hearts and souls behind it. And while it may seem harsh, the only thing the writer can do to influence all this is to faithfully and passionately write his or her story, and nothing else.

Megan Lynch, editor at Riverhead Books:

“Focus on something small and get that right before taking on something substantial.”

I translated this as, get the short form first—the short story for fiction writers, the personal essay for non-fiction writers—then move on to the novel or full memoir. I may have translated it that way because that’s the path I’ve followed, but I think the wisdom is clear: a book-length project is a huge investment, and the chances of that investment paying off are improved if it has been preceded by a series of successful smaller investments.

Tina Wexler, agent with International Creative Management:

“Take. Your. Time.”

This was a consistent message from all the editors and agents present: If, by chance, they get a chance to read your work, are impressed by it, provide feedback, and ask for a revision, they are happy to wait many months, even years, to see that revision, because it is a sign the writer is serious and is making sure the work is at its best before sending it back. This (obviously) applies to that first submission as well: make sure it’s ready.

Amy Williams, agent with McCormick/Williams:

“There’s nothing more frustrating than spending a good part of the weekend giving a close reading to a manuscript, then getting back to the writer and hearing, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been doing some rework on that section.’”

Again, take your time and ensure that, before you submit, you have brought the work to its absolute final, most complete, and best conclusion. One of my fellow graduates reminded me that our favorite, Fred Leebron, gave very similar advice during our days at Queens: You know a piece is ready to submit when you can read each and every page and not feel the impulse to make a single, solitary, miniscule change.

If this is all wisdom you writers have heard before, take this as a refresher; if it’s new, well, this calls for a quote from Spicoli: “Read it. Know it. Live it.”

In Case You Missed it… The State of American Journalism

2009-10-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

The Atlantic Monthly delivers a clear, readable assessement of news media failures in the 21st Century.

Inexplicably, an insightful, intelligent, and supremely readable 3-part Special Report on the state of American journalism that appears in this month’s Atlantic Monthly was not chosen as the cover story. Instead, the editors chose to highlight an open letter to George W. Bush about his administration’s torture policy. It was a decision that had the unfortunate effect of placing W’s face on the cover of a national magazine again, which, for me anyway, has two things in common with torture itself: No. 1, viewing W’s smug, folksy, down-home (in other words, dumb-ass) countenance is, in itself, a form of torture; and No. 2, it is something I had hoped would never, ever, ever happen again. But the editors’ decision aside, the Special Report on the Media is one you should not miss.

Dissecting the media coverage in the weeks following President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Mark Bowden explains how virtually all the major news organizations in America have abdicated their news gathering responsibilities to the partisan propagandists of the blogosphere—and in so doing, are threatening to redefine (not in a good way) what journalism means to both the society at large and the individuals who still work as, or aspire to become, real journalists.
In an enthusiastic recap of his experience watching Al Jazeera, Robert D. Kaplan explains how the Qatar-based international news network has established itself as a useful, energetic, broad-based, and far-reaching alternative to the news networks of the West.
In an excerpt from a new book, The Curse of the Mogul, two academics and a media consultant strip the veneer off media moguls’ claims that the web and citizen journalists are killing their businesses. They instead indict the moguls themselves for the questionable decision-making and business practices that have in fact led to the tenuous fates of their media empires.

And perhaps my favorite part of the series is the John Cuneo cartoon (below) that accompanies that last article, which—rightly, in my opinion—neglects to endow the unapologetic conservative media emperor Rupert Murdoch with a rather crucial bit of anatomy. (Look closely.)

Professional Tennis, Cheapened Again

2009-02-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

Just one small example of the pollution of professional tennis…

If you’ve ever watched a professional tennis match from the cheap seats, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve experienced something bizarre bordering on surreal. Whether at one of North America’s largest tennis venues, the Tennis Garden at Indian Wells or Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, or just at a local tournament like San Jose’s SAP Open, which I attended last night, your cheap seat, in the early rounds of a tournament, will be separated from the tennis court itself by rows and rows of empty seats. You’ll sit trying to track, with your woefully inadequate human eyes, a fuzzy yellow ball less than 2-5/8 inches in diameter that is often traveling 100 or more miles per hour. In the many lengthy pauses between the action, when players towel nonexistent sweat off limbs and facial skin and pretend to examine each and every one of those 2-5/8-inch golden orbs, you’ll scan those rows of empty seats, some of them in the very first row, and you’ll scan the dotted speckle of fans sprinkled over the rest of the seats in the venue, and eventually your eyes will land on the people sitting dutifully in their assigned seats 10, 15, even 20 rows further away than you are and you’ll think to yourself, “What the hell are those people doing up there? There’s no way they can see shit from up there,” and then your next thought will be, “Wait a minute, what the hell am I doing here? I can’t see shit either!”

Welcome to professional tennis. For years, tennis luminaries like John McEnroe have implored tournament organizers to loosen assigned-seat restrictions for the betterment of the sport. They have wisely suggested that, if someone buys a seat but does not occupy it, it should be made available to those fans who actually took the time to drive to the venue to see the action live. If Fatso Bloatard, who seems to have so much money he can shoot $200 for a tennis ticket and then blow off the matches, actually decides to raise his bulbous ass off his Strata-lounger and have his driver take him to the stadium, then all he’s got to do is show his ticket and the cheap-seat loser like me who has been occupying his seat can dutifully return to the skies of the upper deck. And of course, everyone knows that by the time the action stretches late into the evening, as it often does, when the celebrity singles players wrap up their match and take their custom apparel, their Gucci tennis bags, their towel-worn skin, and their magazine-cover contorted screaming faces back to their five-star hotels, ain’t no chance Fatso is getting out of that chair. So when the late-evening match—typically a doubles match—starts, instead of a sprinkling of disconnected, distant spectators spread across the entire mass the stadium, you would have a cluster of devoted fans leaning in on the action, charging the players’ energies, and generating an infectious energy of its own. And, perhaps even more importantly, TV audiences would not be looking in on a sport that, judging by all the empty seats, generates about as much enthusiasm as a rerun of “Hondo,” but would instead look in on something akin to a college basketball game, albeit with long breaks in the action for players to towel themselves off and “examine” the balls.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I’ve had several of these surreal early-round cheap-seat experiences myself, including multiple visits to both Indian Wells and Arthur Ashe Stadium. But my experience last night in San Jose—and it’s very difficult for me to write this, because I am both a San Jose native and a tennis fan—absolutely took the cake. With my wife and several friends, I went to see the evening session semifinal matches of both the singles and doubles. First off and unfortunately, the overall turnout was pretty lame, so there were plenty of those $200 seats sitting empty in the front sections of HP Pavilion. We had secured excellent baseline seats for $67 each, and from there we looked out on a venue about 1/3 occupied. During the first match, the singles semi that Andy Roddick managed to fritter away by playing the coddled, spoiled tennis brat role to a tee, we learned that the doubles semi that was supposed to follow had been cancelled because of an injury to James Blake. The tournament organizers managed to pull together an exhibition match to fill the bill—a repeat of the semifinal that had been played earlier in the day: Jarkko Neimenen and Rohan Bopanna vs. Stephen Huss and Ross Hutchins. Now, one would think, given that this was an exhibition match, an 8-game pro set between players who had already played and were planning to do little more than have fun out there, and since half of that 1/3 occupancy was already on its way out of the building, this would be an ideal opportunity for the tournament organizers to garner a little goodwill and jack up the enthusiasm and the energy by announcing open seating for the remainder of the evening. An ideal opportunity that would also have given the volunteer ushers the rest of the night off. Instead, the ushers remained in place, dutifully checking the ticket stubs of everyone re-entering any section of seating and ensuring that the dispersed, disjointed, disengaged audience remained just that—even the poor bastards up in Row 18 of the upper deck. I mean, it was 10 p.m., and it was an exhibition for heaven’s sake!

The crime here is that tennis is a glorious game. It is art and drama and dance and all the trappings of sport—speed, strength, power, and finesse—all rolled into one. But in so many ways, whether it be the cheating, obnoxious “win-uber-alles” participants one encounters at the club level or the misguided, elitist ignorance one encounters at the pro level, it is a clear, flowing mountain stream that is forever being shamefully polluted. So often, those of us bending to drink from its waters end up instead turning our noses up in disgust.

“We should reach out to people to try to go after the fans the way other sports do. Because we can't just depend on the fact that it is a great game.”—John McEnroe

Jonathan Ames: Addiction for the Recovery Era

2009-02-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames...

We all know that some authors go before readers, whether in tiny bookshops or grand auditoriums, out of necessity, while others do it with relish. I’m reminded of the very first reading I attended, when Margaret Atwood appeared visibly exhausted, with heavy eyelids and a constrained voice that said promoting books was not one of her favorite aspects of the job. In that case, weariness actually accentuated Atwood’s dry wit, but there have been other readings—we’ve all seen them—when the author clearly wished to be somewhere else.

However I have also noticed that often, when writers speak, the larger the venue, the more likely the relish, and this was certainly the case when Jonathan Ames appeared in October at Litquake, San Francisco’s Fall Literary Festival. In his appearance at the opening-night event, “Suckered: Writers Confess a Profound Lack of Judgment,” which was presented in conjunction with Porchlight Storytelling, Ames showed the timing and self-assurance of a stand-up comedian on a roll as he delivered a riotous tale of adolescent penis envy to a packed house of splitting guts. I had had no exposure to Ames until then, but my wife and I both walked out of Herbst Theatre that night determined to read his written work, and a few days later I picked up Wake Up, Sir!, his 2004 homage to P.G. Wodehouse.

The back cover promo copy on the book was predictable:

“Hilarious.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Hilarious.” —Slate
“Hilarious.” —New York
“Hilarious.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Hilarious.” —Albany Times-Union
“Hilarious.” —Time Out New York
“Hilarious.” —Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

I certainly agree that the book is hysterically funny, but I think this critical drumbeat is a bit reductive: Like Ames’s anecdote at Litquake, this story dives in deep from the start to expose the haunts of human dereliction. While the 10-minute Litquake monologue succinctly addressed adolescence and our fixation on the phallus, the novel form allows much broader explorations in Wake Up, Sir! Family, love, sexuality (homo-,hetero-, and some in-between), Jewish identity, and most of all, addiction, are all examined and tested with uncommon candor. In short, the book is much more than just a farcical romp.

Ames’s protagonist, Alan Blair, a fragile, failing writer and a teetering alcoholic, comes into a windfall and decides to hire a valet. The valet service sends a British man whose name, to Alan’s amazement, is actually Jeeves, and we are taken along to spend an unusual week with the pair as Alan is granted a stay at a prominent upstate artist’s colony. Throughout, Ames remains faithful to the Wodehouse style, replacing Bertie with the hapless Alan and peppering the narrative with witty and cogent exchanges. One morning, after Alan relates a dream he has had of a beautiful woman, Jeeves lends an ear:

“Perhaps you will dream of her again, sir.”
“You know, I was in love once, Jeeves. My heart still hurts sometimes. It’s like sciatica…I think, ‘Why didn’t she love me?’ And then I get this pain…But I wish I were in love again. I’d like to have a new someone. You know that song, ‘Good Night My Someone’? It was in some musical I saw on TV. According to the song, that’s what you say at night to the person you love when you haven’t met them yet. They’re just out there somewhere. Maybe this blonde is out there.…I’d like to tell someone I love them, Jeeves.”
“A very human longing, sir.”
“Hard facing life by myself, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You, of course, cushion the blow considerably.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Sorry to start the day with such talk, Jeeves.”
“Perfectly all right, sir.”
“I’m not being very stoic,” I said, and inwardly I chastised myself—get moving, Blair! So I stored the memory of the girl from the dream in my mind, like a picture in a wallet. “My towel, Jeeves?” I said, rallying bravely.
“Yes, sir.” (pp. 32–33)

Jeeves remains just this sort of rocklike presence as Alan perpetrates one foible after another and sinks more and more deeply into his alcoholism.

Which calls up the primary theme of the book, addressed on the front cover promo copy:

“Laugh-out-loud funny…[A] Wodehouse novel for the recovery era.”
—The New York Times Book Review

Here, the term recovery era suggests—to me, anyway, and I have some experience with the topic—that we humans are coming to grips with both the effects and the sources of our addictions, and are now figuring out ways to recover. But one shouldn’t read too much into the term and its appearance in the promo copy because this story, poignant and entertaining as it is, and penetrating as it is in its humorous treatment of both causes and effects, actually says very little about recovery. Alan speaks disparagingly of his brief in-patient experience and admits his problem in a free and unabashed way that reveals how clearly he understands it:

The Steps of Alcoholism that I was following went like this:
(1) Have honest intention to stay sober.
(2) Do nothing to stay sober.
(3) Drink.

He is an alcoholic who understands his problem, has every opportunity and advantage in trying to address it—financial resources, creative outlet, supportive family, even a personal valet who is also understanding and supportive—and yet does little to nothing to begin addressing it. The particular corner of the recovery era that Alan Blair exemplifies has little to do with recovery and everything to do with addiction. By giving him to us, Ames exposes through contrast the perplexing obstacles to recovery and the awkwardness and adversity that alcoholics and other addicts face each and every day. Amazingly, as ominous and weighty as that all sounds, it can actually be quite funny in the hands of the skilled artist.

An Opportunity Missed

2008-12-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Robert Mailer Anderson's Boonville...

I picked up Robert Mailer Anderson’s debut novel Boonville at the Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, California, this past summer. The book caught my eye for two reasons: first, it is a book about place, something I am working on myself; and second, it is about a place I am familiar with, at least in passing. I first became aware of Boonville, a Northern California hamlet that lies between the Sonoma wine country and the Mendocino coast, when I was a boy and saw a news report about Boontling, the strange local language (a somewhat bizarre derivative of American English) that is still spoken by some of the locals there. I became further aware of it when my father, during the post-divorce years that doubled as his midlife crisis, traveled there often to recapture his small-town roots by drinking and partying with newfound friends from the counties to the north. (We live in the South Bay Area.) When I finally went to Boonville myself, it was as a pass-through en route to Mendocino, a coastal town that—with its ocean and its orientation transposed—became the image of the fictitious Cabot Cove of the TV series “Murder, She Wrote.” (Those spectacular helicopter shots that opened each episode, showing a charming village on a rocky coastline, were not taken in Maine, but in Northern California, the camera pointing south, not north.) Little did I know, when my wife and I stopped off in Boonville for lunch or a bit of wine or microbrew shopping, that we were a type that has since been cast. In the novel Boonville, there is a scene where the protagonist, John, begins his stay in town, having traveled from Miami under tremulous circumstances. In this scene, my wife and I are represented by two yuppies seated at the restaurant bar:

The bartender tramped three paces to take a couple’s order, waiting patiently while a bald man in a sports jacket asked about the “nose” and “acidity” of various wines on a wine list. After a litany of questions concerning “harvests,” “fermentation,” and “barrel selection,” he inquired about the house red, asking if it was “full-bodied.” The bartender answered, “Like Liz Taylor on a chocolate binge.” Uncorking a bottle labeled Edmeades, he poured two glasses with the nonchalance of someone who had spent more than their fair share of time behind a slab of mahogany. The bald man shoved his face into the glass, held it up to the light, swirled it, and then took a sip.
“Jammy,” he said, as if he had stomped the grapes himself.
His companion sampled hers, seemingly satisfied. The bartender returned the bottle to its shelf, marked a check with a pencil and set the bill in front of them in a brandy snifter. The two kissed as if the bartender’s tip was to witness their affection. (p. 15)

Now, I’ve got a full head of hair, never wear a sports jacket, and when I kiss my wife in public, it is to express affection, not display it. However, I am interested in harvests, fermentation, and barrel selection (without the quote marks), and I have, as I say, been known to stop into Boonville for a drop en route to Mendocino or back. And herein lies the problem—and conflict—I had with Boonville. To me, Anderson is, not to put too fine a point on it, full of himself. And unfortunately, this ego—or perhaps it’s just a need to come off as a huge ego—casts a dark shadow over what I find to be, in flashes, a pretty fine piece of work.

In one of those preliminary statements ostensibly meant to dispel any parity between fact and fiction, but in fact meant to emphasize such parity, Anderson writes:

As for the hippies in the county who may be upset at the depiction of hippies, I say, “Tough shit, hippie.” Anyone willing to identify themselves as a hippie here in the 21st century has their head up their ass and gets what they deserve. (p. vii – unnumbered)

What is unsettling in that statement is not the attitude of a writer who would wave a dismissive hand over a population, or assume, in advance, that “the hippies of the county” would be the least interested in reading his book, or appoint himself the critic qualified and capable enough to define the 21st century for us. What is unsettling is that those who read the book will find that three of its pivotal characters are not only hippies, but are drawn with a good bit of depth and sensitivity. One of these is the mother of John’s love interest Sarah McKay, who in her final meeting with Sarah says, “It doesn’t seem fair. I’m not that old…My life can’t be coming to a close. I’m not through with it yet.” The passage goes on:

You’re not even 50, Sarah wanted to point out, but instead crossed her arms, trying to guess what Mom had swallowed recently other than a carob-covered raisin. She could hear the fear coupled with the fatigue of being awake too long. But her voice wasn’t racing, her pupils weren’t dilated. It definitely wasn’t dope or wine, unless one or the other had been laced. Mom was riding something unknown to Sarah, something from the medicine chest cut with the stimulus of isolation, old videos, and her daughter’s imminent departure. (p. 245)

The portrayal of an aging, sorrowful hippie in a book that purports to dismiss all hippies with a macho “tough shit” is indicative of a larger dissonance: Boonville is real writing—conflict, characterization, reflection, imagery—interwoven with a coarse and at times slapstick brand of humor that provides the intermittent chuckle and even the occasional out-loud laughter, but does so at too high a cost. The humor, while funny, does not penetrate, and in fact dulls the overall impact of the story. It’s a book that could be a great romp, or a deep exploration of a quirky place and its bizarre inhabitants, but its attempt to be both at once, for me, falls flat.

In the acknowledgments, Anderson thanks such luminaries as Norman Mailer, Isabelle Allende, Carl Hiassen, and Calvin Trillin for their “support and kind words,” but this is one reader who feels that more time could have been spent drawing from such august counsel and crafting a more nuanced Boonville. To me, the book is an opportunity missed.

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After the Fact II – An Unexpected Prop. 8 Opponent

2008-12-06T12:34:00.000-08:00

Will there be enough room in that grave for his 40 wives to roll over with him?

In November, a few days before Californians narrowly approved Proposition 8, the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, a San Francisco Chronicle writer reported seeing a “No on Prop 8” sign on the lawn of Steve Young, who lives not far from my former neighborhood in Palo Alto, California. For the ESPN-weary and -agnostic among us, Young is the former San Francisco 49er quarterback and NFL Hall of Famer who also happens to be a graduate of Brigham Young University and, in fact, the great-great-great-grandson of Brigham Young himself. A bit ironic when you consider that Proposition 8 almost certainly would not have passed in California had it not been for a massive invasion of Mormons and Mormon money from Utah: as Hendrik Hertzberg reports in this week’s New Yorker, “Almost all the early canvassers for the cause were Mormons, …[and of] the forty million dollars spent on behalf of Prop. 8, some twenty million came from members or organs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Mormon invasion or no, Barb Young, Steve’s wife, declared, “We believe all families matter and we do not believe in discrimination.” Scurrilous words indeed from the wife of a (perhaps former) favorite son.

So I ask you, what is more ironic, the fact that the antecedent followers of Brigham Young, a man who had 40 wives, are now dictating to Californians who they can and cannot marry, or the fact that Young’s most famous antecedent, Steve Young, was against the measure from the start?

William Kennedy, Time Traveler

2008-11-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

Note: After a rather extensive hiatus during which I, along with the rest of you, witnessed the birth of an exciting new era for America and the world, I return with this brief review of William Kennedy's novel Ironweed.

William Kennedy’s 1983 novel Ironweed was recommended to me by a writing teacher who was discussing the treatment of time in fiction. By this he meant all dimensions of time from how the narrative present and the past and future events surrounding it are portrayed to how the pacing of the story is handled. It is the third book in Kennedy’s Albany cycle, a series of novels of early 20th century America that are centered around the character of Francis Phelan, a professional baseball player who becomes, in the end, an aging hobo on the streets of Albany during the Depression. Ironweed is the story of those hobo days. In it, Kennedy conjures the characters of the earlier stories by bringing the hallucinations of the drunken and emaciated Francis right into the scene. Kennedy introduces this device, which becomes so central to the story, in the opening scene, in which Francis is riding along in a truck through a cemetery. Fittingly, it is Francis’s parents who are conjured first:

Francis’s mother twitched nervously in her grave as the truck carried him nearer to her; and Francis’s father lit his pipe, smiled at his wife’s discomfort, and looked out from his own bit of sod to catch a glimpse of how much his son had changed since the train accident (pp. 1–2).

Using this device, gangsters, bums, and former ballplayers are brought into the room with Francis as he struggles to protect life and limb against impossible odds. The old dead are joined by new dead, and the tragic years of Francis’s life unfold and interweave with heart-wrenching clarity.

Through this device, a story that has a narrative present spanning only a couple of days is able to span a lifetime. Francis relives tender moments like his teen love affair with a neighbor woman, and he relives just as vividly all the gruesome happenings his uncontrollable temper has wrought. We see and feel the connections between the two, and in so doing, see and feel the interconnections in our own lives.

The pacing of this novel is (to use what is apparently becoming my favorite word) languid. The events surge and wallow, as events in the lives of the destitute often do. A woman is found inebriated and freezing, and time jolts forward; the same woman is found frozen to death, and time drips along at a trickle. An evening wasted in a bar becomes a stage for new losses and failures, while another evening in a friend’s apartment is loaded up with the characters and the baggage of an earlier life. The scenes are filled, one way or another, but the movement is controlled by the steady hand of the writer.

There is, of course, more to Ironweed than masterful management of the dimension of time. It is a gripping account of an era created by a man who never saw that era, a staggering indictment of the present day delivered through a faithful portrayal of a simpler, but equally devastating time. And it is a story of love made undeniably real by the almost complete absence of outward expressions of love, sentiment, or even admiration. There is also some wonderful character work here, with Francis so clearly mirrored off characters like the crafty and vulnerable Helen and the simple-minded Rudy, and character arcs so expertly interwoven to create a balance of devastating emotion that holds the reader for page after page.

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An Ambitious Work for an Ambitious Nation

2008-08-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Ethan Canin’s America America.

Ethan Canin’s latest novel, America America, is the story of a political campaign interweaved gracefully with the stories of some of the American lives touched by it. The theme of the book, America, a nation both blessed and troubled by its history, is conveyed through a narrative of expansive range, a story that juxtaposes the personal and intimate with the impersonal and sweeping, and in the process closely examines the connective tissue between the two.

This is, if nothing else, an ambitious book. It touches an aristocratic family’s rags-to-riches beginnings in the 19th century, a chain of defining events in the politically turbulent early 1970s, and the present itself, against which these past events are reflected. Canin’s use of this well-worn technique is impeccable: the older man, given time and impetus to review and reconsider, and lacking the energy for vigorous living, recounts a story from his youth, a time imbued with dynamic change and action—and, of course, a profound string of events. This, I think—this use of time as both a frame for the events of the story and an emotional construct—is where Canin takes his biggest risk. He challenges us, here, to engage fully in the 19th century Scottish emigration and the stormy politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s, while at the same time identifying closely, in the present day, with the narrator/protagonist Corey Sifter, a modern man: a husband, father, newspaper editor, and mentor. His enticements are flowing prose and deep characterizations, both of which are compelling, but dependent in the end on the story as the final, irresistible draw.

Within each timeframe, Canin creates characters who effectively portray the many dimensions of America, what one recent presidential candidate has called “two Americas,” but what Canin shows us so clearly is actually a multi-colored tapestry, an infinite number of Americas, a unique country, in fact, for each and every one of us. The characters start with Eoghan Metarey, the first-generation immigrant who used guile and ruthlessness, rather than book learning, to amass the fortune that made later events possible. Then there is his son, Liam Metarey, the conflicted modern-day patriarch around whom the central tragedies of the story revolve. In the political middle frame of the story, the 1972 presidential campaign, there are Corey, a coming-of-age youth and protégé of Liam Metarey, the patriarch’s prescient wife June Metarey, the charismatic and fatally flawed senator and presidential candidate Henry Bonwiller, JoEllen Charney, his ill-fated mistress, the compliant yet wise columnist Glen Burrant, Corey’s loving working-class parents Grange and Anna Sifter, the next-door neighbor Eugene McGowar, and the Metarey daughters Christian and Clara. Many of these characters also play a role in the present day, but the central characters here are Corey, now a newspaper editor, his intern and mentee Trieste Millbury, and his wife, father, and Mr. McGowar. Remarkably, almost all of these characters are brought into nearly every part of the book, creating a weave of character arcs that connect with each other and with the larger arc of the story in sometimes subtle and sometimes profound ways. In two examples, Canin ties Corey’s own daughters to the unfortunate fate of JoEllen Charney, herself a daughter of loving parents (pp. 317–330), and he brings out the wisdom of the working men, Grange Sifter and Eugene McGowar, in a scene late in the book that exposes a joke on the robber baron Eoghan Metarey (pp. 434–436). In this last scene, he even uses the young Trieste Millbury as a vehicle, adding yet another strand to the weave.

The primary risk of such an ambitious timescale and range of characters, is that the story will drag, and frankly, for some people this one will. Canin’s prose style is anything but spare. I have heard him say of editing and trimming, “I just can’t do it.” He finds the writing itself so “excruciating,” he said, that he couldn’t even imagine going back through the text to revise it. (We in the audience didn’t press him on this question, so were left wondering whether his published books are all first-draft material, or if not, who it is that does the editing and trimming. A question, perhaps, for another appearance.) So if your tastes tend toward the likes of Hornby or Eggars, this book might not be for you. But if you are a person like me, who at the age of twelve sat glued to each and every hour of the televised Watergate hearings, and who regularly pores over volumes of historical nonfiction both large and small, this book will serve you as a lengthy and quiet pleasure. (And, just for the record, I also enjoy the likes of Hornby and Eggars.)

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After the Fact I – The New Yorker Cover

2008-08-21T18:51:00.001-07:00

Random thoughts on topics that have long since been flushed from the news cycles.

It’s just over one month since the flap ignited over the July 21 New Yorker magazine cover that depicted Barack Obama as a Bin Laden–worshipping Muslim and his wife Michelle as an AK-47–toting Al Quaeda insurgent. Admittedly, this is old news, but that’s what “After the Fact” is all about: I get to ruminate on something for weeks before positing an opinion. (Pssst. If you start your own blog, you can do the same thing!)

When I think about the flap over the cover, I get a little pissed off, as I’m sure a lot of living, breathing, thinking people out there do. But as I have thought about this, anger has evolved into its more rational antecedent, regret, and I have found myself distracted by two regrets in particular.

The first—and this is probably obvious—is that the flap occurred at all. I regret that because I first heard about the cover on the radio—long before I had actually received my copy of the New Yorker, seen the cover for myself, and experienced a reaction that would have been pure, unfettered, and uninfluenced by the likes of PBS reporters, talk radio hosts and callers, and above all, cable news “correspondents.” Now all I can do is claim to have found the cover hard-hitting, but in no way offensive; to have been amused by it in the same way NPR commentator Daniel Schorr was, according to his comments on the July 19th Weekend Edition program:

I saw it, my wife saw it, we looked at it and we thought, wo, that’s quite a parody on conservative views of Obama and his wife and all the rest of it…and we thought it was alright as satire, if you will, and then we began hearing things on cable television and all over and all of a sudden there were people up in arms over it…

Schorr goes on to say, “I guess what it shows is that we are in a state where you can’t afford to use satire because people will take you literally and get mad.” And, unfortunately, if that anger (or, one might say, stupidity) gets spread in the media, independent thought becomes the casualty. So I don’t know whether I’m responding to the cover or the flap over it, but in the end I couldn’t be more delighted that someone finally struck hard at the “Obama/Osama” idiocy that has all-too-easily found a toehold in the national discourse. I mean, sometimes you just have to stop coddling the stupid people—people like Ivan Stickles, a carpenter from Hopewell, PA, who was quoted in today’s national edition of the New York Times. Stickles referred to false rumors that Barack Obama did not shake hands with U.S. troops on his recent trip to Afghanistan:

“There’s this e-mail that he [Obama] didn’t shake hands with the troops,” Mr. Stickles said of the false rumor. “I don’t have time to check out if it’s true, but if it is, it’s very offensive.”

Stickles was interviewed in his driveway, where he’d been working on his motorcycle. Apparently the motorcycle and the spam e-mail he gets are more important to him than pesky little irritations like truth and accuracy.

That same Times article quoted another rank-and-file Pennsylvanian, George Timko, who illustrates my second regret about the New Yorker cover:

Mr. Timko is a burly fellow, with close-cropped white hair and a Fu Manchu mustache, and a gold necklace that rests on his bare chest. “Barack Obama makes me nervous,” said Mr. Timko, a 65-year-old retiree with a garden hose in hand. “Who is he? Where’d he come from?”

Now Timko may not be the kind of voter who would normally read the New Yorker (to say nothing of the two detailed autobiographies Obama has written), but if he had picked up the July 21 issue and looked beyond the cover, his questions would have been answered. Because while the media was burning news cycles talking every which way about the cover, another much more important Obama-related feature, Ryan Lizza’s article “Making It – How Chicago shaped Obama,” was going largely unnoticed. The article, a thoroughly researched and masterfully written account of how Obama crafted his unlikely and meteoric rise through the Chicago political machine, paints for Timko (and anyone else who isn’t too busy working on his motorcycle to read) a riveting picture of a young, ambitious community organizer who expertly and carefully created an image—in fact, some might say, a brand—that catapulted him not only into the Illinois State Senate, but also into the United States Senate, and if all goes according to plan, into the White House. It’s a top-flight piece of journalism in an era when the entire profession is in tatters. So because we were so all-fired paranoid about possibly offending people who are too stupid to see satire as satire, a real account with real information and real insight into the man Barack Obama has become, insight that can help us make informed choices about how to cast our votes, passed by with nary a whisper. (It’s still there, though, so take a hint: click here and read it.)

Searching for Deliverance from the Malaise

2008-07-31T11:55:00.000-07:00

My take on Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer (1962)…

Note: If you have not read The Moviegoer, you may want to pass on reading this post. It contains extensive excerpts and exposes some key plot points.

Because many of my friends from Queens University of Charlotte are Walker Percy acolytes, I was drawn—happily, it turns out—to The Moviegoer, Percy’s first novel and the winner of the 1962 National Book Award for Fiction. Published when Percy was 46 years old (an encouraging factoid for those of us in our late 40s who remain unpublished), this brilliant and penetrating novel is, more than anything else, a psychological and emotional journey. It is what I would call the South’s answer to Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road. Percy, like Yates, gives us commonplace characters whose uncommon thoughts, feelings, and actions, both large and small, expose an America that is tidy and prosperous on the surface, but decadent, aggrieved, and desperate underneath.

Percy’s answer to Yates’s Frank Wheeler is Jack Bolling, the first-person protagonist who serves as the mirror against which post-war America is reflected. The most prominent citizen of Jack’s world, within the space of the novel, is Kate Cutrer, his cousin and companion, and a troubled, nearly suicidal drug user. The story Percy weaves around these and the extensive cast of minor characters is subtle and languid, existing only to propel us into the depths of human frailty. As to writing the other, Percy is a master, and this is the real lesson of the book for the striving writer. In Jack, the author gives us a protagonist who is utterly unsympathetic, save for his fastidiousness. Jack first describes himself this way:

I manage a small branch office of my uncle’s brokerage firm. My house is the basement apartment of a raised bungalow belonging to Mrs. Schexnaydre, the widow of a fireman. I am a model tenant and a model citizen and take pleasure in doing all that is expected of me…I subscribe to Consumer Reports and as a consequence I own a first-class television set, an all but silent air conditioner and a very long lasting deodorant. My armpits never stink. (pp. 6–7)

All this from a man not yet thirty and in the prime of his life. But later we learn that tidiness and order, making money, and bedding his pretty young secretaries aren’t really enough for Jack: he is, it turns out, acutely aware that an anvil of superficiality is all that secures him, and a part of him wants to struggle against that. Learning this, we grieve with him at the death of his handicapped half-brother and share in his shame at the disapproval of his aunt.

Minor characters also move in and out, both to mirror Jack and to reinforce his manic view of the world. His description of Eddie Lovell, a friend he chats with on a street corner, tells not only of Jack’s extreme self-consciousness, but also of the avarice and emptiness that press in on him:

…As he talks, he slaps a folded newspaper against his pants leg and his eye watches me and at the same time sweeps the terrain behind me, taking note of the slightest movement. A green truck turns down Bourbon Street; the eye sizes it up, flags it down, demands credentials, waves it on. A businessman turns in at the Maison Blanche building; the eye knows him, even knows what he is up to. And all the while he talks very well. His lips move muscularly, molding words into pleasing shapes, marshalling arguments, and during the slight pauses are held poised, attractively everted in a Charles-Boyer pout—while a little web of saliva gathers in a corner like the clear oil of a good machine. (pp. 18–19)

Similarly, Jack’s description of his Uncle Jules tells us more about Jack’s own shallow perspective than it does about his uncle and benefactor:

Uncle Jules is as pleasant a fellow as I know anywhere. Above his long Creole horseface is a crop of thick gray cut short as a college boy’s. His shirt encases his body in a way that pleases me. It fits him so well. My shirts always have something wrong with them; they are too tight in the collar or too loose around the waist. Uncle Jules’ collar fits his dark neck like a tape; his cuffs, folded like a napkin, just peep out past his coatsleeve, and his shirt front: the impulse comes over me at times to bury my nose in that snowy expanse of soft fine-spun cotton. Uncle Jules is the only man I know whose victory in the world is total and unqualified. (pp. 30–31)

And then there are Walter Wade, who, briefly engaged to Kate, is a spotlight shining on Jack’s failures and shortcomings, and Mercer, the African American servant who unclothes Jack’s lingering racism.

And then, near the end of the book, when Jack is beginning to lose his cherished sense of control, there is the St. Louisan, a man he notices on the train during an ill-fated trip with Kate to Chicago. Jack observes this man in a physical way that suggests a feeling of arousal:

…His suit is good. He sits with his legs crossed, one well-clad haunch riding up like a ham, his top leg held out at an obtuse angle by the muscle of his calf.

His brown hair is youthful (he himself is thirty-eight or forty) and makes a cowlick in front. With the cowlick and the black eyeglasses he looks quite a bit like the actor Gary Merrill and has the same certified permission to occupy pleasant space with his pleasant self. (p. 188)

In time, as I’ll show later, this man from St. Louis casts a painful reflection that holds Jack captive, like the sight of an accident on the freeway.

By presenting the story through memories, observations, and musings like these, Percy gently draws us into two competing dimensions of Jack’s worldview: the search and the malaise. He starts with the hopeful, the idea of a search that might deliver Jack from suffocating “everydayness.” Calling up his memory of being wounded in the war, Jack introduces the search to us this way:

…This morning, for the first time in years, there occurred to me the possibility of a search. I dreamed of the war, no, not quite dreamed but woke with the taste of it in my mouth, the queasy-quince taste of 1951 and the Orient. I remembered the first time the search occurred to me. I came to myself under a chindolea bush. Everything is upside-down for me, as I shall explain later. What are generally considered to be the best times are for me the worst times, and the worst of times was one of the best. My shoulder didn’t hurt but it was pressed hard against the ground as if somebody sat on me. Six inches from my nose a dung beetle was scratching around under the leaves. As I watched, there awoke in me an immense curiosity. I was onto something. I vowed that if I ever got out of this fix, I would pursue the search. Naturally, as soon as I recovered and got home, I forgot all about it. (p. 11)

This mysterious idea of a search persists in his mind as he glides through his mundane morning preparations, until at last he addresses the reader directly and explains the search succinctly:

What is the nature of the search? you ask.

Really it is very simple, at least for a fellow like me; so simple that it is easily overlooked.

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a castaway do? Why, he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn’t miss a trick.

To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. (p. 13)

At this point, the search is largely forgotten for 130 pages until Jack visits his mother’s house, where he and his secretary, Sharon, after whom he has long been lusting, visit his half-brothers and sisters, and where he is confronted by two perspectives on God: his and his family’s:

My mother’s family think I have lost my faith and they pray for me to recover it. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Other people, so I have read, are pious as children and later become skeptical… Not I. My unbelief was invincible
from the beginning. I could never make head or tail of God…

…The best I can do is lie rigid as a stick under the cot, locked in a death grip of everydayness, sworn not to move a muscle until I advance another inch in my search. The swamp exhales beneath me and across the bayou a night bittern pumps away like a diesel. At last the iron grip releases and I pull my pants off the chair, fish out a notebook and scribble in the dark:

REMEMBER TOMORROW

Starting point for search:

It no longer avails to start with creatures and prove God.

Yet it is impossible to rule God out.

The only possible starting point: the strange fact of one’s own invincible apathy—that if the proofs were proved and God presented himself, nothing would be changed. Here is the strangest fact of all.

Abraham saw signs of God and believed. Now the only sign is that all the signs in the world make no difference. Is this God’s ironic revenge? But I am onto him. (pp. 145–146)

If the search is “to be onto something,” the malaise is the everydayness at constant war with it. The irony is that Jack is able to pursue the search with only the barest energy, but the malaise is something he feels deeply and viscerally. He first describes it, again directly addressing the reader, as he and Sharon drive to their initial outing at the beach:

…As luck would have it, no sooner do we cross Bay St. Louis and reach the beach drive than we are involved in an accident. Fortunately it is not serious. When I say as luck would have it, I mean good luck. Yet how, you might wonder, can even a minor accident be considered good luck?

Because it provides a means of winning out over the malaise, if one has the sense to take advantage of it.

What is the malaise? you ask. The malaise is the pain of loss. The world is lost to you, the world and the people in it, and there remains only you and the world and you no more able to be in the world than Banquo’s ghost.

You say it is a simple thing surely, all gain and no loss, to pick up a good-looking woman and head for the beach on the first fine day of the year. So say the newspaper poets. Well it is not such a simple thing and if you have ever done it, you know it isn’t—unless, of course, the woman happens to be your wife or some other everyday creature so familiar to you that she is as invisible as you yourself. Where there is a chance of gain, there is also chance of loss. Whenever one courts great happiness, one also risks malaise. (pp. 120–121)

Ultimately, even the search is fouled by experience, as Jack finds he is simply not up to it. It is the St. Louisan, the minor character more similar to Jack than any other, who brings this realization home to him on the train ride to Chicago with Kate:

…I have to admire the St. Louisan for his neat and well-ordered life, his gold pencil and his scissors-knife and his way of clipping articles on the convergence of the physical sciences and the social sciences; it comes over me that in the past few days my own life has gone to seed. I no longer eat and sleep regularly or write philosophical notes in my notebook and my fingernails are dirty. The search has spoiled the pleasure of my tidy and ingenious life in Gentilly. (p. 191)

And when Jack reaches what should be a pinnacle, his chance to consummate his relationship with Kate, it is not the gallant search and its culmination that we experience, but rather the decisive victory of the malaise. By now, he has taken to voicing his remonstrations to the imagined person of Rory Calhoun, the actor, and all the romantic characters Rory has played. And to Rory and the many heroes he represents, Jack describes his fateful night with Kate:

I’ll have to tell you the truth, Rory, painful though it is. Nothing would please me more than to say that I had done one of two things: Either that I did what you do: tuck Debbie in your bed and, with a show of virtue so victorious as to be ferocious, grab pillow and blanket and take to the living room sofa… Or—do what a hero in a novel would do:… when it happens that a maid comes to his bed full of longing for him, he puts down his book in a good and cheerful spirit and gives her as merry a time as she could possibly wish for…

No, Rory, I did neither. We did neither. We did very badly and almost did not do at all. Flesh poor flesh failed us. The burden was too great and flesh poor flesh, neither hallowed by sacrament nor despised by spirit (for despising is not the worst fate to overtake the flesh), but until this moment seen through and canceled, rendered null by the cold and fishy eye of the malaise—flesh poor flesh now at this moment summoned all at once to be all and everything, end all and be all, the last and only hope—quails and fails. (p. 199–200)

As a story of failure and loneliness in a crowd, The Moviegoer, like Revolutionary Road, is not fanciful. It does not feel the need to revise history, fly or float off the planet, or create a new language. It simply gives us ordinary people who peel back the prosperity of the post-war era to expose the emotional barrenness underneath. On its journey into the depths of human lassitude, The Moviegoer takes the direct route.

Note: Page numbers are from the First Vintage Internation Edition, April 1998, ISBN 0-375-70196-6.

Ethan Canin and Empathy

2008-07-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

How the bestselling author of America America made me once again appreciate my father…

Driving home from San Francisco last Friday night, I found myself thinking about my father’s wedding. Coincidentally, my father was married in 1992, the same year both I and my older sister were married. It was, of course, my father’s second wedding, so I flew to Minnesota to attend, as did (as I recall) 6 of my 8 siblings. The master of ceremonies at the reception, Wayne, was one of those warm, smiling, unfailingly genuine people of whom there are far too few in the world, so when he opened the floor to anyone wishing to say a few words about my dad and his new wife, I and my siblings, all of us otherwise painfully shy outside our familial bastion, paraded to the mike. I distinctly recall my older brother Blair, then a soft-spoken man of 34 who already had 8 children of his own, describing, in a deep baritone voice designed to beat back the welling tears, my father’s most consistent lesson to us, the lesson central to all the other lessons he taught: “Put yourself in their shoes.” I was not nearly as successful as Blair in beating back those tears, but my message to the people gathered was similar, as was the message of each of my siblings who went to the mike that night.

That lesson, and the myriad memories that flow from it, passed through my mind as I drove down Highway 280 because that was essentially the same lesson bestselling author Ethan Canin carried to his audience at Bookshop West Portal that night. Canin was reading from his new novel America America, which Richard Russo has called “as rich, ambitious, intelligent, emotionally satisfying, and important a work of fiction as we’re likely to get this year.” Tracing the history of a small upstate New York town and its heroic and flawed favorite sons, the book tells a riveting story of family, community, and political reality. For his reading, Canin chose a collection of passages that follow an affair between a senator, Henry Bonwiller, and a young waitress, JoEllen Charney. After several meetings, the affair takes a revelatory turn for the girl:

Then comes the day he tells her he’s thinking of something big. Later, after he’s dressed, he says he’s not just thinking it, he’s going to do it.

“What,” she says.

“Be president.”

“President of the United States?” It slips from her mouth before she can stop it, like a dog running out the door.

But he laughs! He thinks it’s charming. “No, president of the choral society,” he says, and takes her hand to swing her around in a little jig. When they sit down finally on the bed his mood changes and he tells her an extraordinary thing. She can’t decide whether it’s just a speech or something he really feels. Something he tells only her. He says, “I’m doing this for the black man and the Latino man and the American Indian. For the working people like your father and all the other fathers who send their boys to Southeast Asia for no reason anybody can explain to them. Just out of their goodness and their faith in the country. For the unwed mother in Chicago who’s raising her sister’s kids, too, who gets by on a welfare check and five swing shifts a week at the Uniroyal plant in Gary. Those are the people I’m going to help. Those are the people I’m doing this for. Those are the ones.”

He’s a hero, she decides. Takes his strength and gives it to the country. Those strong arms and that voice and that mind that turns her around on a string sometimes like the mobile in the dentist’s office. He hasn’t said this to anybody else yet. That’s what she decides. And he looked at her face right after he finished saying it. Her face. He turned to her as he sat on the bed. She remembers that so clearly—because this was really something he should have been saying standing up, that's how good it was—and something changed in his face as he knotted his tie and jerked it straight in the collar. Was it her own look? She’s tried and tried, but for the life of her she can’t remember whether she smiled.

In this and the other passages Canin chose—and, indeed, throughout America America—we see a writer skilled at inhabiting his characters—at putting himself in their shoes. Whether it’s JoEllen, neither vixen nor victim, who “decides” what she is going to believe about her powerful lover, or Bonwiller, adulterer and betrayer of the trust who nonetheless champions the cause of the little man, we see and feel the depths of the other, the struggle between the dark places and the light, both the characters’ and our own.

During Q&A, Canin pointed to this sense of empathy as the richest path to invention for a fiction writer. He said there are four things a writer needs to be successful (only three of which I was able to remember):

A facility for prose, words, sentence structure
An ability to get knocked down and pick yourself up again
[The third, forgotten one]
An interest in people and real empathy

The message he gives his students along these lines is, “Don’t write your characters, become your characters.” He elaborates in an interview with Jill Owens of Powells.com:

[It] really is almost like throwing your voice, or throwing your consciousness across the room to someone else. Writing is essentially about 85 percent misery. That moment of empathy is one of the few pleasurable things I can take from writing, to imagine life from somebody else's point of view.

For me, this conjures the memory of my father’s description, years ago, of how he would judge whether a place was a good place to live. He would “look at it from a hobo’s point of view,” he said. “A hobo’s got to carry everything he owns with him, so it can’t be too hot in the summer,” he would say, “but it can’t be too cold in the winter either, because he has to sleep outside.” And that, I’m happy to say, is how I ended up being raised in Northern California. Empathy wins again.

A few other highlights from the Canin Q&A:

On Freeing the Imagination
In response to a shamelessly pandering question about how flawless his prose is (“How do you do that???”), Canin veered toward ways to free the imagination. He said he had tried the conventional methods like traveling all over the place and doing dangerous things, and that none of those ever worked. He then mentioned long drives (“especially with a stick shift”) as a good method, noting that there’s something about the consistent attention to the gears and the road combined with long stretches of inattention that allowed his imagination to run. But he said, without fail, the best way to free the imagination is to read. He mentioned a Saul Bellow book he had read multiple times, as well as some other authors I can’t recall.

On Writing through Discovery
In response to a questioner who asked whether he mapped out his novels in advance, Canin told how John Irving famously said he would write one sentence that captured his concept for a novel, then post that one sentence over his keyboard and write the rest of the novel as sort of “sub-thoughts” to that central idea. Canin said he could never write that way, that if he knew where the story was going, he could never finish it.

Kiara Brinkman on the Voice of the Child

2008-06-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with a piece for some time--well, years actually--that features an eleven-year-old boy as its first-person protagonist. The reason the piece has been a struggle is that, while I feel it succeeds in conveying an engaging story while remaining true to the young protagonist's voice and mannerisms, it doesn't go to the level it needs to in reaching outside the definitively small world inhabited by the innocent. The best young-protagonist stories, of course, succeed wildly at this, and I've recently discovered a book that serves as an excellent example: Kiara Brinkman's gripping and heartbreaking debut novel, Up High in the Trees. The authenticity and consistency with which Brinkman inhabits the voice of eight-year-old Sebby Lane is remarkable in and of itself. But even more remarkable, this vulnerable and damaged protagonist takes us into truly profound adult realms while retaining every shred of his essential innocence. At the Booksmith on Monday night, Brinkman read a passage that included the following. The voice is Sebby's, and he is staying with his father at his family's summerhouse on the lake. He has just taken a precious picture of his mother, a spirited and playful bohemian who has tragically died young, and ridden his bike to the pier with the picture in his pocket.

I leave the bike and walk down the pier with the picture of Mother in my secret pocket. The white paint on the pier is peeling off and underneath the wood is old. I don't like how the peeling paint looks like fish scales flaking off. Too many fish scales. I want to stop and touch where the paint is peeling but I don't. I know what to do.
At the end of the pier, I take the picture of Mother out of my pocket. I kiss Mother's forehead and look at her laughing face for a long time.
Then I drop the picture into the water and watch it float. I wait for it to start sinking. It's supposed to sink down the way Mother's pink soap bird sank down when she dropped it in the water, but the picture keeps floating. I lie on my stomach and reach down. I touch the water with just one finger to test how it feels. The cold feels like burning and growing, like it's making my finger stretch out bigger and bigger. Then with my whole hand, I push the picture of Mother under. I hold the picture down and look at Mother's face underwater. Her face flickers like a light, on and off. I pull my hand out and it feels heavy, like it's not mine. Mother's picture stays underwater.
I stand up with my hand hanging down heaving and I watch the picture underwater. I'm waiting for Mother's picture to make me jump. The Mother's face flickers dark and I jump in to save her.

Through Sebby's observations (“Too many fish scales....”), we feel the world's imperfection and degradation. Through his actions (“I kiss Mother's forehead and look at her laughing face for a long time....I drop the picture into the water...”), we touch the love not just of the child, but of the mother, too. Through his sensations (“The cold feels like burning and growing,...”), we know his vulnerabilities and limitations, and also our own. The mood of the story is at once magical and mercilessly real, and through it all, the voice never wavers.

I asked Brinkman about this during the Q&A after the reading, pointing out that this inhabiting of the child’s voice is something she does amazingly well, and asking her where this comes from, if there are influences, or study or research that she does, or if it's just natural (this time, I think, actually verbalizing the threat to slit my wrists on that last one). In response, she pointed us to two influences. First, she said one of the books she read and re-read when she was young was Joyce’s The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, the early chapters in particular. Her general praise for Joyce reminded me immediately of “The Sisters” and “Araby” in Dubliners, and “The Drunkard,” all of which feature young protagonists facing new and daunting realities in a cruel world. Second, Brinkman credited the Polish writer Bruno Schulz, of whom she said she was an avid reader. She said that though she doesn't write anything like Schulz, his ability to express the larger story through his young characters was one of the things she really loved about his work. At the autograph table, Andrew Sean Greer seconded this recommendation, and I scurried off to grab a copy of the Penguin Classics edition of Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories, which has a Foreword by Jonathan Safran Foer.

All in all, an excellent set of pointers and jogs to the memory to get me back to my struggling eleven-year-old...reading group beware!

Halcyon Days in California...but Whither Obama?

2008-06-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of a pussy. In fact, it's not all that unusual to find me in tears in front of a soft drink commercial. So you can imagine what these past two days have been like, with dozens of touching and triumphant stories like this one (MP3 download) streaming out of my car radio. As same-sex couples in California enter into legal marriages by the thousands, even straight, married, almost-middle-aged white guys like me are feeling the joy.

But in these halcyon days, when Californians are crashing through a historic civil rights barricade and neglected generations of Americans are finally enjoying the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of community-sanctioned marriages, the question I find myself asking is, "Where is Barack Obama?" A pivotal moment in American political history, with national and perhaps international significance, occurring in Northern California, the place that powered Obama's meteoric rise, and the nominee has yet to comment? It's a head-scratcher.

Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's defiantly progressive mayor (and, in my optimistic opinion, a future President of the United States), seems to agree. Shortly after officiating at the historic wedding of Phyllis Lyon, 83, and Del Martin, 87, Newsom commented on Obama's conspicuous absence. Noting that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has opposed a state constitutional amendment that would once again ban same-sex marriage, and that Obama has so far been mute on the subject, Newsom said, "Contrast that, a Republican governor of California coming out against it, and then a Democratic nominee for president not sure, that's not a great sign." Public radio correspondent Scott Shafer, who filed the report, said that "Newsom, who originally supported Hillary Clinton, has endorsed Obama, but he says unless Obama comes out strongly against the [constitutional amendment], he'll wonder about the Illinois senator's authenticity as a new kind of leader."

Looking more closely at Obama's long-held and consistently stated position on the issue, you can almost see why he would stay away from California right now. According to the Pew Forum on Religion in Political Life, Obama's position on same-sex marriage can be encapsulated as follows:

Obama says that he personally believes that "marriage is between a man and a woman" but also says that "equality is a moral imperative" for gay and lesbian Americans. He advocates the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because "federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does." He supports granting civil unions for gay couples, and in 2006 he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In March 2007, Obama initially avoided answering questions about a controversial statement by a U.S. general that "homosexual acts" are "immoral," but Obama later told CNN's Larry King, "I don't think that homosexuals are immoral any more than I think heterosexuals are immoral."

But if he opposes a same-sex marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution, why not the constitution of the most populous state in the union? What's more, there's a train going down the tracks here, and Obama isn't exactly sitting in the dining car. He may be trying to keep a firm grip on the handrail in the vestibule, but for me, that's just a downright dirty shame. And it's a shame not because I think it will cost him votes (in fact, regrettably, it will probably preserve him some), or because it tarnishes his standing as a true progressive, but because I think he's wrong on this one. And I think history will prove that out as the millenial generation grows into a powerful voting bloc and the battle for gay and lesbian rights becomes the latest long-deserved victory in America's ongoing human rights struggle.

Andrew Sean Greer on Transport and Grandmothers

2008-06-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

Fred Leebron, one of my favorite writing teachers at Queens University of Charlotte, talks sometimes about the idea of transport in fiction writing. Now I often don’t know what the hell Fred is talking about, but I love him anyway because his passion for the craft is infectious. As for this transport thing, you may know very well what it is, and if so, good on ya, but I’ve had to struggle with it a bit—until now.

In Andrew Sean Greer’s novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli, I have discovered an author who masterfully and relentlessly transports us through time, space, emotion, and consciousness while at the same time keeping us firmly anchored in the story, and more specifically, in the scene, the interaction, the emotion he wants us to see and feel. He keeps us right where he wants us, but takes us everywhere at the same time.

Being the incorrigible suck-up that I am, I told Greer this (well, not all of it, but the gist of it anyway) when he appeared at Booksmith in the Haight last Thursday night. The following is an excerpt from the reading he did that night, which was from his new novel, The Story of a Marriage. The setting is San Francisco, 1953, and in this scene, the first-person protagonist, Pearl Cook, is in the backyard chatting with Buzz, an old army buddy of her husband, Holland. Pearl and Holland have a son they call Sonny, who is sickly, and a dog named Lyle. Buzz is helping Pearl hang out the laundry, and he has just called her attention to his nose, which has obviously been broken before.

I nodded. “It’s a beauty.”
“Thank you.”
“How did you get it?”
“Holland.”
The sun flashed across the billowing sheets. I blinked, turned toward Buzz, and saw him raising a hand to his face just as the sunlight stained him white all along his arm.
“Holland hit you?”
Buzz just cocked his head and watched me. Holland never raised his voice except at the radio, never hit a thing except the couch pillows before he sat down, grinning, with his cigarette. But once, of course, he’d been a different man, a man trained to shoot other men during the war, who drank, who sang with soldiers and hit a friend across the nose.
At last I asked, “Was it over a woman?”
He handed me a pair of trousers. “Yes.”
I pulled out the trouser dryer and began to stretch the pants onto it. “Tell me.”
“Pearlie,” he said. “We were born at a bad time.”
“I don’t know what you mean. It’s a fine time.”
I didn’t know what he meant by “we.” I couldn’t imagine what might bind me together with a man like Buzz, as likable as he was. I couldn’t draw any kind of line around the two of us.
“You’re proud of your house. You have a nice touch.”
“It belongs to Holland’s family.”
“It can’t be cheap,” he said to me. “I mean Sonny being sick and all.”
“Holland’s aunts help out. With the bills, the braces, it is a lot. It keeps me inside a good deal, I tell you, taking care of him,” I said without thinking. “Of course it’s no trouble,” I added hastily.
“Now what would you do if you had all the money you needed?”
I had no answer to that. It was a thoughtless question to ask a poor woman with a sick son, something only a rich man would ask. Like wondering aloud to a freshly brokenhearted girl: “What if it turns out he loved you after all?” It was something I had never allowed myself to think about. What would I have done? I’d have moved my family away from a house like that, with glaring neighbors, and stains on the basement walls from the ocean creeping in, with crickets sifting in under the doorsills with the sand…to Egypt, to Mali, to some fantasy destination I only knew from books. My God, I’d have flown to Mars with Holland and Sonny and never come back. That was the only answer I could think of. A woman like me, I couldn’t afford to name my real desires. I couldn’t even afford to know them.
All I said was, “I’ve got everything I need. I’m happy.”
“I know, but just imagine…where would you live?”
“This house is better than anything my parents had.”
“But just say…an apartment high above the city? A cliff over an ocean, with a view from your bed? Five hundred acres with a fence all around?”
“What would I do with five hundred acres?” I said without thinking.
Then he looked right at me, not a shy man at all, and I think for a moment I understood.
I stood there, staring at him, with the metal dryer contraption in my hand and the damp trousers over my arm. The sun came in full and lit the world from top to bottom; you could almost hear the jasmine reaching up for it. Then we heard the sound of Holland’s car returning and Buzz turned away.
In a moment, Holland shouted “Hey there!” from the house. I heard a bicycle bell, and Sonny heading down the hall in pursuit of love.
And Buzz said nothing else, touching his nose as if touching the memory of pain. He was half to the sun, and the shadow of his ruined hand fell across his long face in the form of another, younger hand cradling his cheek. The wind burrowed into his hair like a living creature. I didn’t say a word to him as he went inside, just continued stretching the trousers in the sun to dry. And down I went—into the green deep, flecked with gold and draped with waving plants, endless, bottomless—and forgot what I had glimpsed. I was a careful woman, a good gardener, and I pruned away the doubt. But you know the heart: every night, it grows a thorn.

So after this reading, and after I mustered the cojones to raise my hand, I mentioned this idea of transport to Greer and told him his work had helped me to better understand what it meant. I pointed out that in the excerpt he had just read, we were taken to the war, where two friends had an altercation, to the couch, where Holland grins and whacks the pillows, to Mali, to Egypt, to Mars, to the hallway of the house, forward and backward in time, and through a huge range of emotions, but we were never taken out of that tense, powerful, revealing moment between Pearl and Buzz. I then asked him about the process: I asked if the story just came out of him that way (not mentioning that if he had answered “yes” to that, I would have hunted down a straight razor and slit my wrists), or if he focused on a particular dimension of the story for a time and then did multiple passes, interleaving the various dimensions into the final, complete whole…or what?

His answer, in essence, was that a story like this one, which is essentially about a housewife who rarely leaves her house, needs a broader dimension to hold the reader’s interest. He said he feels it’s his responsibility to give the reader that broader dimension, so when he revises, when he is adding metaphors to color in the lines, he looks to do it in a way that broadens the reach of the story—taking the reader, for instance, out of the backyard and all the way to Mars. In this particular case, the book is only 198 pages, so he said he felt that these wider glances and forays have added meat to the book, making it a more satisfying read in the end.

I know that I, for one, intend to find out for myself.

Greer on His Grandmothers – and Strong Women Everywhere

As mentioned above, The Story of a Marriage is a first-person tale narrated by a protagonist who is a housewife in San Francisco in 1953. In response to a question about his use of the first person, Greer explained that he used it because wanted to deeply explore the feelings of women who had strong personalities, but were constrained by the customs and social mores of the time. This idea grew out of his experiences with and memories of his own grandmothers, both of whom were strong women who must have had to live with these kinds of constraints. He told the story of one grandmother who, when she died, left behind a bottle of Vodka hidden in the flour canister, $5,000 in bills wrapped in tinfoil, a handgun hidden in the freezer, and a box of correspondence she had written—apparently without the family’s knowledge, or at least without it becoming general knowledge in the family—to every president who had sat during her adult life.

Not sure if it was the same grandmother, but he told another story that had to do with the time he came out as a gay man to his grandmother. (“Not her favorite subject,” he said.) Shortly after he had done this, the Atlanta Olympics were about to start, not far from his grandmother’s home in Greenville County, South Carolina. Learning that Greenville County had just passed a resolution declaring homosexuality "incompatible with the standards to which this community subscribes," Greer’s grandmother wrote a letter to the Olympic Committee protesting the fact that the Olympic torch was about to be run through the county. She pointed out that Olympic rules specified that the torch could not be run through any area that had laws violating basic human rights. The Olympic Committee took action, and the torch was shrouded in a van as it passed through Greenville County. (True story. Check it out: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/10/05/in_south_episcopal_schism_pondered/)

Broken Silence

2008-06-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

A reminiscence on Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio...

The headlines in Ohio’s small-town papers spoke of a democracy on the brink of chaos: “Democrats Say Effort Being Made to Steal the Election” (Portsmouth Daily Times); “Final Result of Election Still Hangs in the Balance” (Xenia Daily Gazette); “Talk of Election Being Thrown into the Hands of Congress” (Butler County Democrat). We read these headlines and remember the battle for Ohio, 2004, when George W. Bush lost in the cities but won by more than 149,000 votes in small towns, thus ensuring his victory in the national election. It was the latest microcosm of a polarized America: white against black, religious against secular, urban against rural, and a near-stalemate that (again) exposed the deep chasm between red-voting towns and blue-voting cities.

However, these headlines are not from 2004; they are from 1916, the year Woodrow Wilson edged Charles Evans Hughes by just 3% of the votes, and the year Sherwood Anderson began publishing the series of stories that eventually became his masterwork, Winesburg, Ohio.

In 1916, as in 2004, America was at war, and the party that had gotten the country into war had also won re-election. Anderson was living at the time in what he described as “a cheap room in a Chicago rooming house,” and from there, he gave the world one of its earliest truly candid views of the realities of small-town American life. A week after the 1916 election, Anderson wrote to Waldo Frank, his friend and editor, “It is my own idea that when these studies are published in book form, they will suggest the real environment out of which present-day American youth is coming.” Clearly, he knew what he was doing. But he never could have known how relevant his characters’ joys, passions, anxieties, and abasements would still be among the social and political chasms of the early 21st century.

In a 1984 Harper’s essay, John Updike astutely writes that the Winesburg stories portray characters who “…walk otherwise isolated toward some inexpressible denouement of private revelation.” He continues:

Inexpressiveness, indeed, is what is above all expressed: the characters, often, talk only to George Willard [the central protagonist], and then only once; their attempts to talk with one another tend to culminate in a comedy of tongue-tied silence.

Indeed, Anderson’s characters repeatedly come to the brink of intimacy, only to founder under their own inhibitions. In “Adventure,” Alice Hindman’s pent-up sexual desires erupt in a mad, naked dash into the rainy night that ends in silence and shame. In “The Strength of God” and “The Teacher,” the passions of another young woman, Kate Swift, are stunted as she ends up exposed, naked and kneeling on her bed in prayer. And in “Mother” and “Death,” Elizabeth Willard, George’s mother, desperate for her son to escape Winesburg, is unable to speak her heart to him and ends up dying in silence.

Men, too, both old and young, fail to find expression. Wing Biddlebaum, in “Hands,” churns under the silence of an accused (and perhaps guilty) child molester. In “The Philosopher,” Doctor Parcival, who is haunted by memories of his early years, seeks comfort in writing but fails at it, and in the end begs George Willard, “…perhaps you will be able to write the book that I may never get written.” And Seth Richmond, in “The Thinker,” has intelligence, ambition, and determination, but no facility for words. He rails against the useless talk of others, saying in the end, “I’ll do something, get into some kind of work where talk don’t count….I just want to work and keep quiet.”

From these portrayals of small-town reticence in the 1890s, fast-forward fifty years: The country wins decisively in two world wars and parlays those victories into military and economic dominance. Fast-forward twenty more years, and in the cities, a mood of self-examination takes hold, and in the South, a thirst for justice. Cultural upheaval and movement toward racial, economic, and sexual equality rise up, and yet hundreds of Winesburgs still cling to their silence. It is then that a new wave of charismatics arrives to incite them. Jerry Falwell transforms the “silent majority” into the self-dubbed Moral Majority. Christianity becomes big business as megachurches move in alongside big box stores. And the media replaces the steady and informative voices of Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and John Chancellor with the more lucrative cable news shout-fests of Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly.

And the real citizens all over the land who are portrayed so faithfully in Winesburg, Ohio are given a voice that waves its fists at TV screens and speaks loudly at the polls.

But Anderson’s lessons, we know, are broader and more essential: Life is strange, he shows us; life is brutal, life will slash at your emotions, and though the scabs will peel, the scars left behind will serve as constant reminders. And through it all, the town itself will always be a force: it is a refuge to some, a prison to others, but to most, it is both. For those like George Willard and his creator, who choose to leave, the small town nonetheless stays with them. It is indelible and precious. And whether we vote blue or red, whether we are part of a Winesburg world or just curious readers looking in, a return trip to Winesburg, Ohio in this momentous time offers us a real chance at greater understanding.