It's Hard Out There for a Gimp

Poor baby! Angus, the feral cat we brought inside way back when, doesn't act like he's in pain, but his right hip is completely messed up inside. We had no idea how bad it was until we got this Xray taken. Who knows what happened to him out there--or when. It's a good thing my dear hubby noticed his slightly lopsided gait and tendency to bunny-hop up the stairs. He'll be getting orthopedic surgery on Thursday, at the vet clinic where said hubby works. We're all pulling for you, Angus! Pretty soon you'll REALLY be able to attack your sister.

Will Wilbur Get a Sister?

News flash, we may be adopting this dog:

And while we're doing mug shots, a side view:

What do you think? I like her black nailpolish. She's about 2 years old and can jump really high. Will Willie like her as much as we humans do? What about the cats? And what the heck breed is she? A Corgiweiler? I'll keep you posted.

Audio Joys

You may already know I'm a podcast junkie. Here are a few of my recent faves:

Tobias Wolff reads the Denis Johnson classic short story "Emergency" on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Time to buy milk for the preemie rabbits and save some lives. Some of my favorite dialogue ever written, the kind that makes me laugh aloud on the subway. (And news to me--I learned that Johnson himself played the patient with the knife in his eye in the movie version of Jesus' Son!)

Zadie Smith talks about language, social class, and inclusion/exclusion in her NYPL lecture "Speaking in Tongues." From Pygmalion to Obama (both president and memoirist). What exactly is "keeping it real," and does education make that impossible? And if so, is that a tragedy, as it has been painted in the past, the so-called "tragedy of the mulatto?" Or, are people like Obama (and Zadie Smith too) teaching us a new way to think about "real?"

Luis Alberto Urrea lectures at Bread Loaf 2008: "The Road Out of Tijuana is Paved with Ink." Talk about keeping it real. Dude has wild stories to tell about his aunt, La Flaca, and her terrifying fireside tales, along with other early experiences that formed who he is as a writer. Instructive and entertaining. Sorry I could not figure out how to deep link to this episode. Click on the "lectures" tab in iTunes. Also recommended from Bread Loaf: Robert Boswell's lecture on omniscient narration, a pared-down version of his essay from The Half-Known World: On Writing Fiction, my new favorite craft book ever.

Alan Davis Drake's podcast of Anton Chekhov's unabridged short stories is fun and well-produced. It's a good way to get up to speed on the classics. There are two things I love about Chekhov (so far)... One: he makes characters' motives transparent--often selfish ones--without completely sacrificing their likeability. Is this the essence of comedy? Or at least the kind of comedy I love, which laughs at the self and the other at the same time? And two: he doesn't appear to be following strict rules of beginning-middle-end. You know how I feel about that crap. Character motive pulls you right on through. That, and the feeling you're sitting around a campfire or card table hearing the story. The structural surprises are welcome and satisfying.

Two Gigs in Same Week? What Are the Odds?

After a long period of silence, I have two gigs in the same week! I'm feeling lucky.

Both in NYC, one poetry, one prose. Both are lineups I'm stoked to be in.

POETRY:

NYQuarterly series
Monday, May 18 2009, 6PM
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street, NYC 10014
Cover $7 (includes one house drink)

Host: Ted Jonathan
Featuring: R.D. Coleman, Anne Elliott, Jason Tandon

Friends of and contributors to NYQuarterly celebrate one of America's finest poetry journals by reading from its pages.



PROSE:

Drunken! Careening! Writers!
Thursday May 21, 7PM
KGB Bar
85 E. 4th St. NYC
Free

Hostess: Kathleen Warnock
Featuring: Anne Elliott, Jessie Male, Felicia Sullivan


READER BIOS:

In 2005, Jessie Male's advanced knowledge of the frozen foods section earned her the title of assistant editor at the number two grocery trade magazine in the country. She has since been published in numerous food and dance publications and is currently working on two nonfiction collections. Jessie recently emigrated from Brooklyn to Manhattan to serve as a program coordinator at Columbia University. Her family is a constant source of support and material.

Felicia C. Sullivan is the author of The Sky Isn't Visible from Here, which has been featured in Vanity Fair, Elle, USA Today, Redbook, Newsday, and The Washington Post. In 2008, her memoir was optioned for film by Gigi Productions. Sullivan lives in New York where she is presently writing the screenplay adaptation of her memoir and working on her novel, Women and Children First. Visit her online at: http://www.feliciasullivan.com/.

Jason Tandon is the author of two collections of poetry, Give over the Heckler and Everyone Gets Hurt, winner of the St. Lawrence Book Award for a first book (Black Lawrence Press, 2008), and Wee Hour Martyrdom (Sunnyoutside Press, 2008). His poetry and reviews have appeared in many journals including Columbia Poetry Review, DIAGRAM, Fugue, Laurel Review, Madison Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry International, Red Cedar Review, Poet Lore, and Quarterly West. He is currently a Lecturer in Writing at Boston University.

(I'll add info as it becomes available.)

How to Watch TV

Check out my pals Bill and Janice and their new show, Bilge. It's like Mystery Science Theater 3000 only funny. So far they opine on American Idol, Lost, and Mad Men, and have a brand new catch phrase.

(Audio may not be safe for work)





(and here is their youtube channel)

Three More for the To-Read List

I'm proud and happy to see my talented netfriends getting their work out there in print. This month, we celebrate three new titles hitting the public:

PRECIOUS, by Sandra Novack, via Random House. Publisher's Weekly says, "The graceful prose and bleak atmosphere underscore the loneliness of each character. Novack takes the massive distance between friends, husbands and wives, and makes it her home." Me, I love bleak, and I love family drama, so I'm definitely gonna read this. You can read an excerpt here at Powell's to decide for yourself.


WOMEN UP ON BLOCKS, a short story collection by Mary Akers, coauthor of RADICAL GRATITUDE. This fiction collection, published by Press 53, "explores the price women pay when they allow the roles of wife, mother, daughter, or lover to define them." Also right up my alley. Akers has a clean, no-nonsense voice that is a joy to read.



NOTHING LIKE AN OCEAN, another short story collection by Jim Tomlinson, author of THINGS KEPT, THINGS LEFT BEHIND, which I gushed over here back when I still had time to write full reviews. The stories in the new collection "reflect Tomlinson’s awareness of place, revisiting the fictional town of Spivey, a community in rural Appalachia where the characters confront difficult circumstances and, with quiet dignity, try to do what is right." This collection comes via University Press of Kentucky's Kentucky Voices series.

Time to get off the net and start reading! So here I go.

2008 Reading Roundup

Last year I had fun writing mini book reviews from memory, so I'll make it an annual tradition. Here's what stuck with me in my 2008 reading:

Every centimeter of Lynda Barry's WHAT IT IS is covered with full color collage, drawing, and writing, including the endpapers. Monkeys, birds, cats, monsters, found postcards with old person handwriting, yellow legal paper, and pattern. I took it all in. I read it in bed and it fed my dreams. This book instructs on Barry's creative method, passing the art baton to us all.

Believe the hype about David Wroblewski's THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE. The prose has a courageously slow pace, yet the action is riveting. The dogs are real characters, echoing Shakespeare, but never stop being dogs, a rarity in fiction. The conflict is biblical. And Wroblewski used to be a computer programmer who wrote by night, so he's automatically cool to me. Did he quit his day job? I don't know, but the Oprah sticker indicates he probably should.

Ed Park's PERSONAL DAYS is the workplace novel I wish I'd written. Told in titled fragments, sometimes in first person plural, it has the rhythm of a real office on the verge of shutting down. Characters make their own language and amusement even as they panic about their imminent firings. Corporatespeak starts off funny, then becomes eerily poignant. The book is compact; its ideas are huge. And it made me laugh aloud on the subway more than once.




You may already know I'm fascinated with stories of the formerly-religious. I heard Shalom Auslander in an interview suggest bookstores should create a table: "Literature of the Fallen." Ha! We have a genre! I immediately grabbed FORESKIN'S LAMENT, his hilarious memoir. I was surprised to learn that he didn't stop believing in God, but rather, stopped liking him. His God is the vengeful Old Testament version, who hurts his loved ones out of spite. Like if Auslander carries money on the Sabbath, the New York Rangers lose. He's known for his humor, but it's rooted in real trauma, and I surprised myself by crying as I read the heartbreaking end.

And speaking of the Literature of the Fallen, James Wood's THE BOOK AGAINST GOD stayed with me too. This is a PK (preacher's kid) novel rooted in the Anglican tradition of questioning faith. The protag is not likeable--a bad husband, he doesn't finish things, and he speaks embarrasingly in public. Yet this one moved me to tears also, when I realized in a rush that everyone around the protag was playing a role in his noneffectiveness, shushing him and pooh-pooing his atheism. Woods speaks in his critical work of the "unreliably unreliable" narrator, and this book has a prime example, when the untrustworthy protag acknowledges the truth (and conflict) that everyone else refuses to face. It disarmed me completely.

If You Can't Afford Bread Loaf

If you can't afford Bread Loaf Writer's Conference (or like me, you simply can't get in), here's the good news--they are now podcasting. It's free. Who will you listen to first? I'm thinking James Longenbach, who taught me in a half hour lecture at last year's AWP how to love John Ashbery's line breaks. I'm off to begin downloading.

Turning into a Crazy Old Lady? Here's Proof.

I made apple-blackberry (right) and apple-cranberry (left) sauce today. I never tried canning before, but it was fun! Can you believe this projaholic never went there? I followed directions as best I could from a Sunset book I had laying around from the 1970s.

Now, to do the dishes....

Giving in to My Tendency to Wander

Can a Brooklynite be a flaneur? Am I one already? I've embarked on a new project, because I'm a projaholic--I'm attempting to walk every single street in my beloved borough. Started about a week ago. I'm tracking progress in Google Maps. This is going to take me years.


View Larger Map

So far I've noticed a few things I never saw before. Community gardens in Coney Island (on Mermaid and Neptune) are like small farms, with the beach nearby. Swans collect in Sheepshead bay, must be the time of year, and they are very friendly. I think I disappointed them, talking without feeding. Also discovered that a rain poncho is dorky but effective.

Bob & Papa's Big Griot Adventure

Po-man Bob Holman is blogging from Africa, where Papa Susso is taking him around to record the griot oral tradition. Video included. Enjoy vicariously with me!

Congrats and Miscellany

Mea culpa, I haven't been blogging. Thanks everyone for your kind words about Boo Boo. We are getting used to his absence.

What I'm not used to is this economic state of affairs. Since I work in finance, I have been busy. In case you're worried, I believe my job is one of the safer ones. I work at a private firm, so no one is shorting our stock. I also don't get paid in stock. And I'm in risk management, which is one of the safer areas these days--unless you make a big mistake. So I've been focusing on not doing that.

Meanwhile, some folks on my blogroll are getting stuff done. I just read on Publisher's Lunch that Xujun Eberlein sold Hong Kong rights to her story collection APOLOGIES FORTHCOMING. Go Xujun! I also read on Publisher's Lunch that Summer Pierre just signed a 2-book deal for an illustrated volume (THE ARTIST IN THE OFFICE) and a calendar (GREAT GALS). Congrats! I love Summer's drawings.

What else? Jim Tomlinson's second story collection, NOTHING LIKE AN OCEAN, will be with us soon, as will Sandra Novack's first novel, PRECIOUS. Mary Akers completed a beautiful book trailer for her book collaboration, RADICAL GRATITUDE (or THE GREATEST GIFT, depending on where you live). I'm adding Stage Voices to my blogroll too, it's a cool resource for playwrights and actors. (I am neither, but I like the blog.)

I am addicted to the following: Crooks and Liars for my liberal elite news, Intrade for market-based odds on the election(Obama is at about 85% right now), and Television Without Pity, for analysis of Generation Kill, True Blood, and Lost. Who needs drugs when we have the internet.

Other news: I just went to LA to try to squeeze in a couple vacation days. Saw my brother in a fantastic play in Pasadena, The Sequence, about the human genome project. Also walked a lot, fretted about the office while not there, and ate as much sushi as possible. It was great to see my brother and sister in law.

And in cat news, this hat-wearing kitty is charming Japan and me. She really doesn't seem to mind the stationmaster's hat. Check her out!

Introducing a Fiber Artist from Japan

Fiber artist Angus Barr (and Cute Overload) introduced me to the work of this creative feline from Japan. We are jealous!

Here she makes her own "chou chou." She's really good with scissors and an iron.



Here she makes her own grocery bag out of regular bandanas.



Angus tells me rule #1 of fiber art is to document the process. Process is as important as result! Glad we are not alone in this feeling.

Farewell, Porkchop

Boo finally got too sick to bear, quit eating, no joy left. We had him put to sleep last Monday evening, September 8. He was more ready than we were. We are sure going to miss this guy.

Cat Hospice, and Other Developments

About time I filled you in on the pets, indoor and out.



Boo is terminally ill. We don't have a definitive diagnosis. After tons of blood tests, a sonogram, and an experimental treatment with steroids, we have decided to let him just live out his life without further intervention. We're continuing the steroids to help him keep what appetite he has left. The vet thinks it is probably some kind of cancer, but we can't know more without putting him under the knife, and we've decided to go with palliative care instead. This guy used to be a big fat pig, 18-pounder. Now he's barely 11 pounds, skin and bones. He walks around in a fog, takes a long time to decide to jump into the chair or take a bit of food. We're going to miss him, but have decided not to torture him any more with procedures he doesn't understand, procedures that would probably only lead to a dire diagnosis anyway.



Willie is turning into an old man hypochondriac. We just got his teeth cleaned. They are in great shape, no extractions, not bad for a 10-year old! So what if he has gray hair! I think it looks handsome on him. Quit, moping, Silver Fox!



He got a little razor burn from the day of dental(blood pressure cuff on his tail) and he decided to make a mountain out of a molehill, spent a day licking himself sore, unsupervised. So he had to wear his punitive e-collar for a week. Doesn't it look cute on him?

Meanwhile, we are feeding Boo whenever he indicates he might eat, which means the other cats are stealing and getting downright beefy. Angus is wearing the weight well, like a wrestler. But look at Ava! She's a marshmallow!



Our outdoor colony is down to 5 cats again. We are not sure what happened to the favored Pablo. Probably he got driven away by the diehards here. We heard some fighting one night and the next day he was gone. Meanwhile, Juno (and I WISH I had photos of this) moved around the corner and became the doorman at an apartment building. She went from shy to I-love-everybody. She just hung out under the awning and waited for people to come out and give her the love and food she deserves. I have no doubts that she has a new name now and a new indoor home. Go Juno!

Vince, Marcel, Rrose, Elvis, and Elvis are all doing the usual, the morning food choir, the afternoon lolling in the sun, the offerings of dead mice and birds all over our yard.

Self-Consciousness vs. Art--It's Rigged

Very inspiring interview with Andre Dubus III on Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's radio show, Writers on Writing.

Do your writer self a favor and listen in. He talks about self-consciousness and the damage it does to art--a message this insecure, inexperienced writer needs to hear over and over and over. Also covers how it feels to be one of two Andre Dubuses in the literary world, and how he arrives at honesty in his fiction. He talks about his method of research (interview people about their jobs, etc., but not about how they feel--thats the writer's job), and how he gets unstuck (patience, waiting). And of course, my favorite topic: trusting intuition. In his words: "The horse knows the way."

As usual, Barbara coaxes the good stuff out of her guest. Brava!

Another Case of Not Paranoid Enough

Folks, for a person who writes computer code all day, I'm an idiot. You know how they tell you to change your passwords often? Well, I always thought the insecurity of my forgetting my new password superceded the insecurity of having a stale, hackable one.

Long story short, I had a keylogger trojan on one of my computers that logged the password for my online banking account. Through that, some nice evildoers were able to change my account email to something that looked like my email but was not my email. (This is the point where I am grateful for my 20/20 eyesight--caught it in time.) I changed the email back to me. 20 minutes later (and all during lunch, I might add--had I not been eating at my desk, things would be different) I received an email confirming the addition of an outside bank account to my online banking profile. Had I not caught the first breach, I would not have received this email. I called my bank and had my online banking turned off. The evildoers had not begun transfering funds yet. I'm very glad I was not on vacation.

Then began the pain in the butt part of it: All new accounts. This right before direct deposit coming in and automated payments going out. Month end. Brilliant.

I asked tech support at work how I could have prevented it. "You can't," he said, "unless you want to unplug from the internet and email. It's the risk of being online." I asked if I got it through web browsing or email. He said it can arrive either way.

I didn't lose any money (I don't think, at least not yet) but I did lose several hours of my time and probably got some new gray hair in the process. I've learned my lesson. Change old password often. Especially before long periods away from computers. Not foolproof, but helpful. Thought I'd share.

If You're Jonesin' for a Summer Conference

I didn't schedule any summer conferences this year, and I wish I had! Luckily, some attendees are reporting back:


Cliff Garstang has been blogging from Sewanee, where he is workshopping with Tim O'Brien. A conference veteran, he opted out of several sessions and managed to get some writing done. Go Cliff!

Ryan Call also blogs from Sewanee, where he re-learned how to do the rope-swing-swimming-hole thing. The key is you have to let go. Also reports back from his workshop with Christine Schutt.

Donna Trussell, another conference veteran (and convert from fiction to poetry), compares her experience at Sewanee with her memories of Breadloaf.

Incredible faculty at Sewanee this year. I'm kicking myself for not applying.

From Tin House, the anonymous Lit Scribbler reports back from Steve Almond's workshop, with some story tips. Almond's advice is still about putting characters in danger because you love them, which still rings true to me. Great teacher.

Poet Sharon Hurlbut, also reporting from Tin House, captures well that reeling feeling you get at a writer's conference. The overstimulation is like a drug. She seems to have done what I did, attend everything. She studied with Mary Jo Bang.

And lest you think the summer conference experience is all fun and explosions of the positive, Anatomy of a Dress reports back on bad chemistry with poetry workshop leader Nick Flynn. Sounds like a workshop I would have loved to take, but I tend to prefer the touchy-feely bewilderment stuff. Some people want to be taken more seriously.

My feeling on writing workshops in general is you're paying the instructor to give you their shtick. You might connect with it. You might not. You might feel targeted in class. You might feel ignored. Regardless, you are buying an experience, one of many experiences you can use when you sit down to write and revise. You are not buying a critique for your manuscript, IMO. It's not really about you. It's about IT. Like I said, touchy feely. My favorite workshop ever was Lynda Barry who gave no feedback whatsoever (didn't even learn NAMES), but gave memorable shtick and helped me generate several fresh pieces (some of which have been published).

And if you want to just feel good, from SLC, Utah, it's fun to read the buzz around the Writers at Work Conference's fiction fellowship winner, Ben Roberts, who rocked the house with a Mormon story, selected by non-Mormon Steve Almond. Something tells me Ben loves his characters and therefore lets them behave badly. Go Ben!

Poets Aren't All 98 Pound Weaklings...

Let's all cheer on poet Todd Colby as he races in his fifth triathlon today. Go Todd! Hope it isn't so beastly hot up there today as it is here.

Mean Green Zine

I got my contributor's copy of Opium 6: Go Green! (But Save Me First), and I'm impressed. (And not just with the page that has my 500-word memoir, "A Turtle Weighs In on the Republican Nomination.") I'm honored to be sharing a cover with the likes of Aimee Bender, Jim Tomlinson, and others. Included are several entries from Opium's 100-Word Story series and Bookmark Contest, and a beautiful retro design by David Barringer. Very playful layout, with WPA-esque graphics to go with each story. Plus some lit-witty green tips on "restraint and responsibility." An issue worth looking at.

Kudos to editor Todd Zuniga for putting it all together.