What's Bootsy Doin?

Oh, Trusted First Reader, how I love thee.

I've finished the third draft of MINDKILLER, which means it's in good enough shape to give to Trusted Reader for a critique. This makes me nervous, and I have to restrain myself from hovering over him and repeatedly asking: What's going on in the book now? How do you like it? Are you buying it?

The good news: He claims to be so caught up in the story at times that he forgets to critique.

The bad news: He has some solid suggestions. But that isn't bad news. Not really. It's what I want to make it better.

While he works on that, I've begun reading for my next book, a take on the exorcist/demon possession narrative. I can't say any more than that without jinxing it, but I have a confession to make: I'm afraid of the devil.

The first book I (re)read was The Exorcist. It wasn't nearly as scary as it was when I was a teenager what with all the adverbs Blatty overuses. What's freaking me out is the non-fiction.

Even though I don't believe in the supernatural, I can't help worrying that the more I find out about demons, the more demons will vex me! So far, though, I seem to be un-afflicted. No moving furniture, no vomiting, no writhing. Everything carries on as usual. But man, if you believe some of those books, America is crawling with demons! We're all at risk.

In other completely unrelated news, I've started a fish blog over at tumblr. If you love fish and fishing, come visit. And if you have any fish stories or photos, please submit to me. NOW! (Sorry, that's the devil talking.)

Monroeville Mall, Heck Yes

Monroeville Mall, PA, the historic location of Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Not the 2004 remake with fast zombies, but the 1978 original in all its incredibly gory, non-CGI splatter.

I finally got there. I was in Monroeville last weekend for a wedding and there was no question: I had to visit the mall.

And you know what? It looks like every other mall. At first I was disappointed but then I realized that was precisely the film's brilliance. It should look like any mall! Because when the apocalypse happens, it's gonna be everywhere--in our back yards, schools, houses--and in our malls. There are already a lot of zombies at Hot Topic anyway--why not add a few flesh-eating ones?

I had heard there's a special store with zombie memorabilia at the Monroeville Mall. Unfortunately it wasn't clear from the directory where it was--there was no Zombie Nook listed--and we didn't have time to walk the whole mall in search of it. I believe I will regret that decision more than my decision not to have children.

I did find one zombie though, riding the escalator which, in my imagination, is the same exact escalator as in the film.


Oh wait, that's not a zombie. That's me!


PS If you want way more pics than these and actual comparisons with the film, check out this guy's blog post.

Potato Chips: Crispy Windows to the Soul

Yes, this post is about potato chips, but also so much more. Let's say it's about potato chips as metaphor. How potato chips reveal who you are--economically, spiritually, politically.

Sounds ridiculous when I type it, but I went to college in the early 90s. Semiotics and deconstruction were all the rage. I wasn't taught to enjoy a good book. I was taught to rip it apart for underlying sexism, racism, and imperialism!

But I had a personal revelation at Krogers. Yesterday I bought potato chips. I feel compelled to assert here that I don't usually buy potato chips. We have guests coming, a family with a kid, and I thought they would enjoy potato chips. The fact that I felt compelled to clarify that I'm not the kind of person who regularly buys chips reveals something itself.

So anyway, I put the fancy Cape Cod cracked black pepper and sea salt chips in my basket. Because that's what hipster-foodies-"smart folks" who are against the corporate system eat, right? I mean, if they must eat chips.

And then I realized--I don't like them. They're too thick. Darn it, I like Lays' Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips! They are an undemanding chip. Their dust is delicious. They are thin and crispy. And I will not feel guilty for my tastes any longer.

Bring on the corporate chips! Embrace who you are! Next thing you know, I'll be eating Kraft Mac-N-Cheese.

Who's with me?

Freedom is like a book without many metaphors.

In the past few weeks, I've read Swamplandia!, The Illumination, and a new Joyce Carol Oates short story collection whose name I've forgotten and I've already returned it to the library so I can't check. Currently I'm halfway through Freedom, which I won't even link to.

I've enjoyed all of them, but the one that has been freeing (ha! no pun intended) to me, as a writer, is Freedom.

The book has a refreshing lack of similes and metaphors, an obsessive attention to characters' interior lives, and it occasionally tells not shows. What? Tells not shows? Yes, yes indeed. And it works, too.

Both Swamplandia! and The Illumination are beautiful books with careful writing. Subject-wise, they're closer to what I typically read and what I aspire to write--stories that are magical, lyrical, and not rooted in psychological realism. In The Illumination, pain becomes manifest as an ethereal white light; Swamplandia! follows a family of alligator wrestlers who are too eccentric to be real, plus there are ghosts (who turn out to not be real, I think).

Freedom is none of these things. It is old school Russian-style soap opera. And I love it.

While Swamplandia! was a wonderfully imagined tale, at times the story was weighted down with its metaphorical language. I was too often aware that I was reading something that the author labored over. Karen Russell sure spent a lot of time thinking about words.

And here's a confession: sometimes as I write, I am guilty of the same thing, spending way too much time thinking of the apt, poetic simile and not chugging forward with the story. And the story is king.

But with Freedom, the writing style disappears, as if the novel just sprung forth (like in the beginning was the word and the word was...Franzen?), so that what the reader focuses on is the action (which is sometimes inaction). We become invested in the jealousy and struggles and desires of the extremely human characters.

Now, I like words. Love them. I read my share of poetry. Heck, I even read and teach L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets. I understand and support the idea of playing with and manipulating language.

Freedom is teaching me that sometimes language gets in the way. Sometimes a word is just a word, and a character can just cry, not cry tears that sparkle like sweaty diamonds left strewn across a table which is draped in a black tablecloth like a shroud thrown over the casket of someone you once loved.

What's important is that the character cried, darn it. (Jesus wept.)

New Age, New Mexico

I'm not much of a believer, especially in the supernatural. Healing crystals, auras, astrology, vibrations of the universe, positive energy, bah humbug, I say.

Which is why it was strange to find myself at a Cycle of Fifths Crystal Bowl healing session. Or not so strange when you consider I'm in New Mexico visiting relatives--one of whom conducts Cycle of Fifths Crystal Bowl healing sessions--and I'm open to new experiences.

We get to her studio, which is decked out in incense, scarves, pillows, books by Rumi, and some hammock thing that's supposedly for yoga but looks more like a marital aid. It smells good in there. There are three patients besides me.

We lie on giant mattresses with little lavender pillows on our eyes. The bowls are on the floor, surrounding us, six or seven of them. The healer places pillows under our necks and knees and I am very comfortable. Then the crystal bowl music begins! The notes reverberate in my ears, echoing on each other, sometimes as loud as a guitar amp. The bowls are in perfect harmony, wonderfully tuned. I lie there and enjoy the concert, which lasts half an hour and is unusual, like nothing I've ever heard. It ends with chimes, a rainstick, and a Chinese gong.

After is where the experience goes outside of my realm. One guy saw visions but of what he didn't say. A woman's third eye opened and it was red. Someone else saw their late mom as pure white light!

Me? My lavender eye pillow made me sneeze, so I had to remove it. I think my third eye was crusted over with dried mucus. Or maybe I don't have one. The music was lovely though.

Super-Cooled Quantam-Blog Poems

I came across this poem while perusing the inaugural issue of the Toad Suck Review (website in progress, otherwise I'd link). It's by Perrin Carrell. I love it and I'm hoping that whoever this poem is addressing will find it here on my blog. And that he'll love it too

Blogosphere

Someone I hate has a blog.
I used to love him so I follow
it. Sometimes I read it
and I hate him more. Sometimes
I read it and wish he were in
that chair again, skinny boy
drinking and smoking like a man
wallowing in one thing
or another. Sometimes I read it
and see how we are not so
different. We still love
the same things. We still love
the same people. The great tragedy
is that one of us will die
before the other, and the one
left alive will regret it. The greater
tragedy is that he would have loved
to have read this and never will because I
don't have a blog.

Of Pots and Men

Warren Mackenzie is my father-in-law. To most people, that means nothing. Just some dude. To those into crafts and pottery, however, Warren's the man.

And when I say the man, I mean it. Warren's a living legend. He has pots in the Smithsonian and the Met. He's big guns. Big pots.

The first time I visited him and Nancy, my husband's mother, back in 1998, I was so nervous I had crying fits in the upstairs bedroom. Then I drank too much at the dinner party--the Mondales were there, fer chrissakes, Walter and Joan Mondale!--and spent the next morning sick in bed. Okay, more than the next morning. It was an embarrassing episode I'd just as soon forget.

Point being, the whole scene was a little too heady for this working class gal from Jersey. Here were real-life artists, internationally recognized artists, whose home was filled with art. And I grew up thinking Hummels were the shit--and I'm not dissing on those adorable figurines. Just a point of contrast.

Over the years, I've stopped crying and over-drinking. Because it's not about me (gasp!). It's about them. Also Warren and Nancy are such warm and open humans, it's hard to be nervous around them. And I've learned a lot from them--about being an artist, absolutely, but also a good human being.

1. Work every day. Warren is a star at this. He's in his pottery every day because he's a potter. That's what he does. About five years ago he was diagnosed with silicosis, which is a lung disease caused by inhaling clay. It slowed him down at first. Not anymore. The dude is 86 and you can't even tell he has it.

2. But it's okay to take time off if family's in town. Work is important--no doubt. But people are too.

3. A drink or two in the evening never hurt anyone. My husband Mark and I visited over Christmas, so there were lots of parties. Did I mention Warren is 86? Did I mention he can drink me under the table? He even drank the curd-like, old and skanky Baileys. It was so thick it wasn't cream anymore. It was cheese. He and Mark also sat around one night and drank absinthe. One time I had a shot of that stuff and immediately got a headache.

4. Dessert never hurt anyone either. Especially chocolate ice cream.

5. Sit down and eat your meals together. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, if possible. Don't watch television or stand up at the sink. Put flowers on the table. Listen to your jaws pop.

6. When you're having a dinner party, get everything ready hours in advance. I learned this from Nancy. Do as much as you can--even set the table! It saves heartache. Also, no one really cares about the food. It's not a contest. They're there to be with you.

7. Trust that you have greatness inside of you. This is the big one. Warren is a utilitarian potter, meaning he makes a lot of pots, mostly for everyday use. Mark and I eat off his work daily. But with each firing Warren sets a few pieces aside for museums. The pots that sing. When asked how he creates those pots, he said he doesn't worry about it, because he doesn't set out to make a great pot, just one that's useful. He said to trust that there's something inside you, something simultaneously human and divine, that will come out in the work. When you find a pot that exhibits the ineffable, then you've made art. It's easy to pick the functional pots from the brilliant pots. The brilliant ones glow from within. And yes, I'll say it: Just like him.

Why Writers Are Neurotic

I'm working on a novel and lately the writing's been going good. Not even good, great. I know where the book's headed and the characters feel real. Every day when I sit down to write, the words come pretty quickly and easily too.

And that worries me.

I'm typically a slow writer, and when I first started this book over the summer, it was torture. Words barely came, plot shifted, characters were unformed. I was sure I was the worst writer ever and the book sucked.

Now I'm paranoid that because I'm enjoying the book, because it's easy this week, then it can't be good! I'm not being critical enough and am just accepting what I'm doing without thought like a proud parent. I should be filled with self-doubt. I should be questioning and critiquing. I should be twisting my hair with my fingers in agony. This should be harder.

Or should it? Does anyone else feel this way when the writing's easy? Please tell me I'm not alone.

It's the small kindnesses you remember

I have a memory that keeps coming back to me. It's a small memory. No big drama or tears were involved. Even though it was 24 years ago, it persists. I thought of it just now while doing dishes and decided to set it down in writing.

It was 1986 and I was 19, living in an apartment in West Philly, although I spent a lot of time hanging out in a squat occupied by a bunch of punks. One evening, a cute boy from the squat invited me to his friend's apartment. I don't remember the boy's name, only that he had a dark brown mohawk and was wearing a thin pink t-shirt over his bony torso.

He and I had a great time walking to the apartment, laughing and flirting. At one point he gave me a piggy-back ride and I rested my head against the back of his neck, relishing the small intimacy.

Once we reached our destination, however, I shut down. Two men lived in the apartment--they were in their thirties, which seemed impossibly old and sophisticated. But more than their age intimidated me: they were successful artists and their apartment was filled with paintings and record albums and instruments. One was a photography professor at Drexel; the other a musician.

They were like no one I'd ever met. I'd only recently moved from my parents' home in New Jersey. My dad worked in a factory and my mom was a grocery store checker. No one we knew made art--why would they?

The men gave us beer and we talked. Or they talked. I said nothing. I sat there silent as a ghost. I can't remember what they discussed, but I remember how I felt. Young, stupid, uneducated, unwashed, just some lame punk with dyed blonde hair hanging in one eye (both were lined with thick black eyeliner), too-tight jeans and Converse. As if that costume could make me smart. As if that costume could make me cool. I wasn't going to college. I wasn't making art. I worked at an ice cream parlor in University City for Chrissakes. I had nothing to say.

At one point, after we'd been there an hour, mohawk guy turned to me. "You haven't said anything," he said. "You've just been sitting there and haven't said a single word."

It was clear from his tone he was embarrassed by me. He'd thought I was cool enough to bring to his friends, but he'd found me out. I wasn't cool. I was awkward and working class.

One of the men in the apartment looked at me. "She's just checking it out. Right?" he said, smiling. "Just checking out the scene."

I looked down at my hands and smiled and nodded, happy to have a reason for my silence. And that was the end of it. Shortly after, we left.

To this day, I am grateful to the man in the apartment. I never saw him again, never saw mohawk boy again either, but I remember clearly the compassion in the man's voice. He understood I was scared and confused and gave me a plausible excuse. I wasn't intimidated into muteness. I was simply getting the lay of the land. I wasn't some poseur in my band button-laden denim jacket. I was checking it out.

It's weird that I remember this small incident, weirder still that it pops up when I least expect it. But when it does, I'm flooded with gratitude. And hope for humanity, corny and grandiose as it sounds for such a trifle. So thank you, whoever you are! Know that your small kindness, your empathy, has stayed with me and bolsters me still.

Twitter and Me

Twitter has never worked for me. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, why I never gathered that many followers or even spent much time on it. Overall I just didn't get it.

Until now...maybe.

Those of you who are successful tweeters will think this revelation is as astute as saying "there is no spoon" when, duh, this reality is an illusion and everyone knows you're The One anyway, so just get busy. But what I realized is this: You have to actually talk to people for Twitter to work. Not only that but you have to talk to strangers. Strangers!

I discovered this because of Sean Ferrell. Today I logged onto Twitter and someone had tweeted something to him that was vaguely congratulatory. Don't ask me what or who it was; I don't remember. But I wanted to know if Ferrell had won a prize or sold a book, mainly so I could writhe on the floor in a fit of self-loathing and jealousy if he had. Instead of scrolling back through a bunch of tweets, however, I clicked on his name to go to his homepage and see if I missed anything.

By the way, I rarely go to Twitter homepages. I mean, why would I? Quite possibly, that is another Twitter misunderstanding on my part.

Ferrell's feed had many messages to many people. Not just his pithy and humorous observations about lunch, but all kinds of communications with @ signs to named individuals, making my small attempts at conversation pale in comparison. And then I realized this is why he has 800 followers and I don't. The clouds parted, a light bulb showed up above my head, etc. etc. The whole experience was instructive and humbling. Talk to people? So simple! So pure! What could be more human?

But honestly I can't promise I'll change my ways and suddenly become a chatty Kathy replying to all sorts of comments. Mainly because I don't always have a witty comment at hand and I'm not one to say something just to say something. But I learned, gosh darn it, and doesn't that count?

I could be wrong about this though. Maybe that's not how you make Twitter work better. Maybe talking only works at cocktail parties. Maybe we should go back to smoke signals.