I've been having a lot of hope for the human race lately.
Right after the Boston Marathon bombings, an online newspaper posted an old article about the United States bombing a wedding party in Afghanistan. It was almost ten years old, which people noted, and I suspect it was some kind of prank. But the intention of the prank was clear. We did murder those people in cold blood. Why didn't their deaths get mainstream coverage?
The bombings started a flurry of interesting articles about how the US reports its news. How the deaths of a bunch of white people in Boston is a tragedy, but the children murdered in Obama's drone strikes don't get reported. How there's no news coverage when the police kill another black child. The bombing, which ten years ago would be a rallying cry or a troop surge, instead caused a conversation about how white bodies are valued more than brown ones. And how, just because you're American, it doesn't make your life worth more. Condolences were coming in from countries that have been the victim of US oppression. Not for the government of course, but for the people who have no choice when the war is brought home.
That's exactly the kind of conversation we need to be having when this happens. I'm sure there were all sorts of folks, with their varying reasons, saying we should retaliate against somebody. But that wasn't the overwhelming discourse. The discourse I saw was about how we need to stop acting like we're special flowers whenever our country gets attacked. That white kid's life is not worth more than the hundreds of kids Obama has killed. If these Chechnyan fellows were inspired by their Muslim beliefs, then the Boston bombing is just one more tally in the neverending Christians vs. Muslims land dispute that's been going on since the Dark Ages. It's ancient, tedious, and entirely destructive. While it enables people like the Bush family to make money and name giant buildings after themselves, all it yields for the smallfolk is marathon bombings and drone attacks.
I haven't heard any great outcry for Obama to bomb anybody. Part of that is politics. The drive for the Iraq War in 2003 was always terribly partisan, and those who supported Bush's wars saw it primarily as a victory for white Republicans, a way to stick their tongue out at liberals and liberal allies, such as al Qaeda. No Republican wants to give Obama the chance to strut around in a flight suit, so that's why he does the same backdoor bombings that Clinton specialized in. In addition, and this is just a theory, I'm starting to think Americans are finally getting tired of war. We've been at it for twelve years now, and we've started to learn that there is no benefit. Nothing's gotten better. I spend much of my time around young people, and there seems to be a weariness with this state of endless fear and death. I can only call it a cultural maturation, after 9/11 turned us into a nation of adolescents throwing temper tantrums. What matters is that no politician has gained political traction off this tragedy, and that's a good thing, because they sure as hell want to.
The other recent score for the human race: dancing on Margaret Thatcher's grave.
Her death was the opportunity to learn more about her. God, what a vile person. Between invading the Falklands so she could win an election, supporting apartheid, supporting the Gulf War, cracking down on the miners, and privatizing everything in sight, the woman had a level of ambitiousness to her oppression that is unmatched outside of Bond villains. And the news of her death spurred England to engage in an honest and refreshing condemnation of the woman and everything she stood for.
This could have gone the other way. I remember when Reagan died, the Republicans had a week-day long state funeral on the country's dime. While I appreciated the assurance that he was dead, it was pretty disgraceful. This started the lionizing of Reagan's memory that they still use as political currency whenever they deny people healthcare or take away a woman's right to choice. Reagan was, at best, a senile old man who let his underlings do whatever they wanted and, at worst, the typical shady gangster that's been running the GOP for the last fifty years. And English conservatives were out in full force trying to spin the story like their American counterparts did.
The difference is, they weren't dominating the podium, turning Thatcher into a saint. They were too busy engaging in arguments. They were arguing on the comment section of The Guardian with the miners who Thatcher victimized. Instead of blithely naming her a feminist icon and savior of England, conservative politicians spent their time decrying those who were in the streets partying. Is it tactful to party when somebody dies? Not really, but it's about as honest a display of emotion as can be seen. It was also preemptive protest. The conservatives would use Thatcher's name to justify their policies, but the English people won't let them. "Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead" went soaring up the charts, and that's her legacy.
Those who control the means of communication control what is considered normal. They can say that Saddam Hussein was golf buddies with bin Laden and that becomes "truth." But nowadays the means of communication are not so concentrated and what we have here are common people getting into the conversation before the powers that be define what is truth. That's what needs to be done in order to make sure we have an honest conversation about our world today. The first step to having, say, a world in which the lives of brown-skinned children are ascribed value, is to have wide groups of people question the injustice.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
Chapter 100: In Which I Blog About the AWP Conference
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Saturday, February 16, 2013
Chapter 99: In Which I Discuss an Atlanta Non-reading
I am just noticing how many typos are in this blog. That last post? Embarrassing. But I will not edit them. Those words are the raw, unfiltered thoughts of an award-nominated, semi-coherent author. When my biographers quote these posts they can add [sic]s on their own time.
Random anti-capitalist thought of the day: people call the Black Bloc cowardly because they wear masks, ignoring the fact that the Boston Tea Party was some dudes dressed as Indians. Because only an idiot does illegal acts in public while showing their face. The Tea Party (ugh, that term has been so sullied) was a Black Bloc, plain and simple.
Happy news! I have to extend my congrats to my friend Maddy Barnes, who is publishing her first chapbook this year. I can't wait to read it. I believe she is currently in Europe, busy being young, talented, successful, and other obnoxious things. It's always great to see friends of mine get their work out there, which is becoming a common occurrence.
December tour. Memories. I dragged my sick body out of bed to see The Hobbit and do our Atlanta reading, which was booked at the last minute. Our friend's wife was kind enough to drive us in the torrential rain. The drive felt a lot more leisurely than the drive to Athens, where we were late, and lost, and Dzig's smartphone GPS got a temporary case of dumb. There's something intrinsically uncomfortable about being stuck in the car, in the rain, with a bunch of people. Cause it's a whole crowd being bummed and sullen...ALL TOGETHER!
We got to the spot in Atlanta, where nobody was there, so we went to get pizza. We found a pretty fun hipster bar up the road, where the waiters had tattoos and stuff. We discussed The Hobbit, and how the kazillion trailers before it were so uniform. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS! JACK THE GIANT KILLER! THAT TOM CRUISE MOVIE! The only one I felt interested in was the Guillermo del Toro Evangelion rip-off, but all they had to say to get me excited was "Guillermo del Toro." They could have skipped the scenes of Idris Elba yelling entirely.
BEN: There was a part in The Hobbit where the rock giants were fighting, and there were doing anatomically correct boxing. If they're so sentient, how do they feel when they get their heads knocked off? How come nobody looks at their perspective?
ME: Wasn't that in The Neverending Story?
Ben went to check on the space. Two ladies showed up for the reading, but they seemed pretty disgusted when he said he did comics, so bollocks to that. We went home. Those two people did keep Atlanta from being the least-attended reading I've done, so that's cool. We concluded that, for the future, we should embrace it when we get a rest day, and actually rest. There were ultimately three cancelled shows on the tour: Atlanta (no crowd), Boone (flaky booking), and Memphis (straight up fatigue).
On the way from Athens we stopped to get gas. Dzig took a picture of me standing on the car in a manner he described as "badass merkat." You know, something like this.
That's how I was standing. In my time, I have born resemblance to many African savannah creatures. Ben stipulated that we were NOT stopping in South Carolina. We drove straight through. And obeyed the speed limit.
Present day. I'm chillin' in New Orleans. Tomorrow I'm going to the WWE Elimination Chamber PPV. I'm excited. This is the first WWE show I've been to since King of the Ring 1998 (the one where Undertaker threw Mankind off the cage). The WWE's product is...not as great as it used to be. But the good thing about going to a PPV is that there is guaranteed to be wrestling. Unlike Monday Night Raw, which is three hours of talking and bad comedy skits. Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, I'm hyped to see CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, the Shield, the Rock, Chris MF'in Jericho, Cesaro, the list goes on. I pretty much like everyone on the card except Cena, who's boring, and Randy Orton, who is apocalyptically boring. Should be a good show. As I said, it'll be nice to see them wrestle, and not cut 20-minute rambling promos or get beat up by dwarves.
Random anti-capitalist thought of the day: people call the Black Bloc cowardly because they wear masks, ignoring the fact that the Boston Tea Party was some dudes dressed as Indians. Because only an idiot does illegal acts in public while showing their face. The Tea Party (ugh, that term has been so sullied) was a Black Bloc, plain and simple.
Happy news! I have to extend my congrats to my friend Maddy Barnes, who is publishing her first chapbook this year. I can't wait to read it. I believe she is currently in Europe, busy being young, talented, successful, and other obnoxious things. It's always great to see friends of mine get their work out there, which is becoming a common occurrence.
December tour. Memories. I dragged my sick body out of bed to see The Hobbit and do our Atlanta reading, which was booked at the last minute. Our friend's wife was kind enough to drive us in the torrential rain. The drive felt a lot more leisurely than the drive to Athens, where we were late, and lost, and Dzig's smartphone GPS got a temporary case of dumb. There's something intrinsically uncomfortable about being stuck in the car, in the rain, with a bunch of people. Cause it's a whole crowd being bummed and sullen...ALL TOGETHER!
We got to the spot in Atlanta, where nobody was there, so we went to get pizza. We found a pretty fun hipster bar up the road, where the waiters had tattoos and stuff. We discussed The Hobbit, and how the kazillion trailers before it were so uniform. STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS! JACK THE GIANT KILLER! THAT TOM CRUISE MOVIE! The only one I felt interested in was the Guillermo del Toro Evangelion rip-off, but all they had to say to get me excited was "Guillermo del Toro." They could have skipped the scenes of Idris Elba yelling entirely.
BEN: There was a part in The Hobbit where the rock giants were fighting, and there were doing anatomically correct boxing. If they're so sentient, how do they feel when they get their heads knocked off? How come nobody looks at their perspective?
ME: Wasn't that in The Neverending Story?
Ben went to check on the space. Two ladies showed up for the reading, but they seemed pretty disgusted when he said he did comics, so bollocks to that. We went home. Those two people did keep Atlanta from being the least-attended reading I've done, so that's cool. We concluded that, for the future, we should embrace it when we get a rest day, and actually rest. There were ultimately three cancelled shows on the tour: Atlanta (no crowd), Boone (flaky booking), and Memphis (straight up fatigue).
On the way from Athens we stopped to get gas. Dzig took a picture of me standing on the car in a manner he described as "badass merkat." You know, something like this.
That's how I was standing. In my time, I have born resemblance to many African savannah creatures. Ben stipulated that we were NOT stopping in South Carolina. We drove straight through. And obeyed the speed limit.
Present day. I'm chillin' in New Orleans. Tomorrow I'm going to the WWE Elimination Chamber PPV. I'm excited. This is the first WWE show I've been to since King of the Ring 1998 (the one where Undertaker threw Mankind off the cage). The WWE's product is...not as great as it used to be. But the good thing about going to a PPV is that there is guaranteed to be wrestling. Unlike Monday Night Raw, which is three hours of talking and bad comedy skits. Thanks, but no thanks. Anyway, I'm hyped to see CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, the Shield, the Rock, Chris MF'in Jericho, Cesaro, the list goes on. I pretty much like everyone on the card except Cena, who's boring, and Randy Orton, who is apocalyptically boring. Should be a good show. As I said, it'll be nice to see them wrestle, and not cut 20-minute rambling promos or get beat up by dwarves.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Chapter 98: In Which I Discuss Too Much Time on my Hands
Chickens Coming Home to Roost
America is built on violence, and now it's coming back to bite the perpetrators. Dorner, who the LAPD just burned alive, has already become a martyr and folk hero. While I would not personalize aggrandize him, as he was obviously disturbed and not a radical, I cannot help but note this irony. The LAPD is so corrupt that their evils caused a full scale insurrection in the 1990s, and it finally results in one of their own going First Blood on them. Like the ex-military he was, he practiced shock and awe by targeting civilians. The police responded with predictable brutality, bringing terror everywhere they went in order to get their payback, but you know none of those cops are gong to be able to sleep easy. It is not negligible that he was black. Dorner was the proverbial negro overseer raising his status by keeping his own kind in line, and now the LAPD's whole racist notion of meritocracy has shown it's cracks. They're going to be seeing a possible Dorner in every brown face to come through their academy.
Our police are getting increasingly militarized, to the pont they are using drones on American citizens. They're always willing to use the latest technology against unarmed protestors or drug dealers. This fetishization of war and oppression has backfired on them, within their own ranks. Contrast this to another recent event, where a guy who got rich bragging about killing Iraqis was shot dead by a Gulf War veteran with PTSD. Most Iraq veterans are not celebrities like that sniper. More of them are his friend, turned into a killer and then forgotten about. Lonely, tormented, doped up on VA pills. It's such a sad, disturbing state of affairs, and speaks directly to our militarized culture. The system creates monsters and now the monsters are turning on their own. And it was absolutely, positively inevitable.
Mardi Gras
So my semester has been pretty leisurely this year. The exact opposite of last semester. Taking two classes, teaching twice a week. I've had lots of down time, which I admit I haven't spent writing. I need to get back on the wagon, I know. And speaking of falling off wagons, I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I was aware it was one of the world's biggest carnivales, but that wasn't surprising to me. People from all over the world were there, getting straight sloppy. I spent some time on Bourbon Street, where at a few points I was walking several feet on beads. Listened to some kickass jazz and partied with old and new friends until I turned around on the barstool and saw it was daylight outside. Definitely worth the trip. I going down to Nola again for my birthday this weekend. Don't know what I'll do, or if I'll do anything besides hang out. Flogging Molly is playing House of Blues, then there's the Valentine's Day New Jack Swing Reunion.
In case you don't know what a New Jack Swing Reunion is, five acts will come onstage. Toni Tony Tone, SVW, Guy, Dru Hill, and Al B. Sure. Al B. Sure! The crowd will be nothing but 30-something year-old black people. Sisqo is going to break out "Thong Song" and we'll all be like "Ohhhhh" and act like that shit was ever cool to begin with and start grinding like we think we're still at Freaknik. Partying like it's 1992. I don't know if I'll go cause the tickets are super expensive. I'm a big NewJack Swing fan, but I'm thinking I might want to go to the WWE Elimination Chamber instead. That's on Sunday, and it's cheaper, and I haven't been to a live WWE show since King of the Ring 1998. So I might go to one of those, or none of them, and just enjoy a Nola vacation.
J.J. Abrams
J.J. Abrams created one of my favorite shows. It's called Felicity, and is seriously one of the greatest works of art I have seen. A college show that actually focuses on education, a flawed yet likeable heroine, a love triangle where the characters are dynamic and not stereotypes, characers who I actually enjoy spending time with. I first watched Felicity as it aired, starting with the pilot, and stuck with it through some questionable directions, including poorly thought out time travel plots. I related to Felicity as a young adult finding her way in the world. She graduated college the year I graduated high school, and they capped the show at the right time. Four good seasons.
Here's the kicker. J.J. Abrams, the man who gave me Felicity, went on to do esclusively genre work. Cloverfield, Alias, Lost. Now he's battling Joss Whedon for geek supremacy, taking both Star Wars and Star Trek under his umbrella. Yet I have watched none of this genre work, despite the fact that it's right up my alley. I genuinely don't know why, when i heard e was doing a spy show all those years ago, I shrugged. Now he has so many series to catch up on. At some point I'll sit down and watch Lost. Or maybe I'll rewatch Felicity again and be just as happy.
I was talking about the Star Wars thing a little while ago with my editor. We could totally envision Abrams sitting at a table with Whedon and being like, "I'll see your Avengers and raise you a Star Wars." Abrams vs. Whedon is the Cold War of our time, and won't stop until these men have divided up every geek property. And, while it would take a lot to get me ever interested in Star Wars or Star Trek, it is kind of sad that they are literally the same thing now. It used to be, you saw one for adventure and the other for characer and social commmentary. Now they're the same property overseen by the same man, filling them with explosions and Joker/Bane/Silva style domestic terrorists. Eh.
Books
The other day I finished some edits on the "Brother Roy" end of the audiobook. The voices are indeed inconsistent, which is why I did alternate recordings of that particular story. It's going to be irritating to do that editing. I'm not dwelling on it now, moving onto "Assistant." Before, when parceling time in the stories, I made it an even 5/10ths of a second between each line. I was inspired by audiobooks I lisened to that moved at a fast clip. But I started listening to slower ones, like the new recording of George R.R. Martin's Dying of the Light, and decided I liked tht pace better. With "Brother Roy," instead of counting tenths of a second, I listened for when it felt natural to put the next line, slowing down the pace. It worked well. Which means I'll have to go back and slow the pace for the first three stories.
In the next week or so Six Gallery is printing the first ten ARCs for Hard Times Blues. Yay! I'm a happy clam.
And finally, I read this interesting post on author self-promotion at Helen Marshall's blog. I like it, especially the part about being clear on what you want to achieve. Words to live by. Makes me think about my own upcoming marketing campaign.
http://movable-type.me/
America is built on violence, and now it's coming back to bite the perpetrators. Dorner, who the LAPD just burned alive, has already become a martyr and folk hero. While I would not personalize aggrandize him, as he was obviously disturbed and not a radical, I cannot help but note this irony. The LAPD is so corrupt that their evils caused a full scale insurrection in the 1990s, and it finally results in one of their own going First Blood on them. Like the ex-military he was, he practiced shock and awe by targeting civilians. The police responded with predictable brutality, bringing terror everywhere they went in order to get their payback, but you know none of those cops are gong to be able to sleep easy. It is not negligible that he was black. Dorner was the proverbial negro overseer raising his status by keeping his own kind in line, and now the LAPD's whole racist notion of meritocracy has shown it's cracks. They're going to be seeing a possible Dorner in every brown face to come through their academy.
Our police are getting increasingly militarized, to the pont they are using drones on American citizens. They're always willing to use the latest technology against unarmed protestors or drug dealers. This fetishization of war and oppression has backfired on them, within their own ranks. Contrast this to another recent event, where a guy who got rich bragging about killing Iraqis was shot dead by a Gulf War veteran with PTSD. Most Iraq veterans are not celebrities like that sniper. More of them are his friend, turned into a killer and then forgotten about. Lonely, tormented, doped up on VA pills. It's such a sad, disturbing state of affairs, and speaks directly to our militarized culture. The system creates monsters and now the monsters are turning on their own. And it was absolutely, positively inevitable.
Mardi Gras
So my semester has been pretty leisurely this year. The exact opposite of last semester. Taking two classes, teaching twice a week. I've had lots of down time, which I admit I haven't spent writing. I need to get back on the wagon, I know. And speaking of falling off wagons, I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I was aware it was one of the world's biggest carnivales, but that wasn't surprising to me. People from all over the world were there, getting straight sloppy. I spent some time on Bourbon Street, where at a few points I was walking several feet on beads. Listened to some kickass jazz and partied with old and new friends until I turned around on the barstool and saw it was daylight outside. Definitely worth the trip. I going down to Nola again for my birthday this weekend. Don't know what I'll do, or if I'll do anything besides hang out. Flogging Molly is playing House of Blues, then there's the Valentine's Day New Jack Swing Reunion.
In case you don't know what a New Jack Swing Reunion is, five acts will come onstage. Toni Tony Tone, SVW, Guy, Dru Hill, and Al B. Sure. Al B. Sure! The crowd will be nothing but 30-something year-old black people. Sisqo is going to break out "Thong Song" and we'll all be like "Ohhhhh" and act like that shit was ever cool to begin with and start grinding like we think we're still at Freaknik. Partying like it's 1992. I don't know if I'll go cause the tickets are super expensive. I'm a big NewJack Swing fan, but I'm thinking I might want to go to the WWE Elimination Chamber instead. That's on Sunday, and it's cheaper, and I haven't been to a live WWE show since King of the Ring 1998. So I might go to one of those, or none of them, and just enjoy a Nola vacation.
J.J. Abrams
J.J. Abrams created one of my favorite shows. It's called Felicity, and is seriously one of the greatest works of art I have seen. A college show that actually focuses on education, a flawed yet likeable heroine, a love triangle where the characters are dynamic and not stereotypes, characers who I actually enjoy spending time with. I first watched Felicity as it aired, starting with the pilot, and stuck with it through some questionable directions, including poorly thought out time travel plots. I related to Felicity as a young adult finding her way in the world. She graduated college the year I graduated high school, and they capped the show at the right time. Four good seasons.
Here's the kicker. J.J. Abrams, the man who gave me Felicity, went on to do esclusively genre work. Cloverfield, Alias, Lost. Now he's battling Joss Whedon for geek supremacy, taking both Star Wars and Star Trek under his umbrella. Yet I have watched none of this genre work, despite the fact that it's right up my alley. I genuinely don't know why, when i heard e was doing a spy show all those years ago, I shrugged. Now he has so many series to catch up on. At some point I'll sit down and watch Lost. Or maybe I'll rewatch Felicity again and be just as happy.
I was talking about the Star Wars thing a little while ago with my editor. We could totally envision Abrams sitting at a table with Whedon and being like, "I'll see your Avengers and raise you a Star Wars." Abrams vs. Whedon is the Cold War of our time, and won't stop until these men have divided up every geek property. And, while it would take a lot to get me ever interested in Star Wars or Star Trek, it is kind of sad that they are literally the same thing now. It used to be, you saw one for adventure and the other for characer and social commmentary. Now they're the same property overseen by the same man, filling them with explosions and Joker/Bane/Silva style domestic terrorists. Eh.
Books
The other day I finished some edits on the "Brother Roy" end of the audiobook. The voices are indeed inconsistent, which is why I did alternate recordings of that particular story. It's going to be irritating to do that editing. I'm not dwelling on it now, moving onto "Assistant." Before, when parceling time in the stories, I made it an even 5/10ths of a second between each line. I was inspired by audiobooks I lisened to that moved at a fast clip. But I started listening to slower ones, like the new recording of George R.R. Martin's Dying of the Light, and decided I liked tht pace better. With "Brother Roy," instead of counting tenths of a second, I listened for when it felt natural to put the next line, slowing down the pace. It worked well. Which means I'll have to go back and slow the pace for the first three stories.
In the next week or so Six Gallery is printing the first ten ARCs for Hard Times Blues. Yay! I'm a happy clam.
And finally, I read this interesting post on author self-promotion at Helen Marshall's blog. I like it, especially the part about being clear on what you want to achieve. Words to live by. Makes me think about my own upcoming marketing campaign.
http://movable-type.me/
Monday, January 28, 2013
Chaoter 97: In Which I Discuss A Nalo Hopkinson Reading, Among Other Things
Thank Pan and all his nymphs for the second amendment. All I hear about on the news is that crazy people are taking to the streets wielding assault rifles because of a paranoid fantasy that Obama wants to take their guns. I hear they've got so much ammo they're actually shooting themselves at gun shows. I know what all these guns are for, of course. The additional paranoid fantasy that black people are going to invade their homes. They're afraid of the mongrel hordes, which is why they have weapons made specifically for killing humans. Every last one of them is a Zimmerman in the making, a Minuteman in the making, and I'm glad the second amendment enables me to arm against them. Maybe then I can safely walk around wearing a hoodie.
I opened for Nalo Hopkinson at UL on Saturday. It was a good reading, and an honor to be her opener. I read from a Hard Times Blues story titled "A Song For the Yellow Prince," a Gothic story that has, surprisingly, proven a good read-aloud piece. It's more poetic than my usual stuff, with less dialogue and more mood-setting. This audience and the audience in Chapel Hill dug it. As I get older, I find myself drifting back to my first love, which is poetry. Three of the five stories in HTB are pretty lyrical, and I just got a poem accepted to The Southwestern Review.
Nalo read from her last book, and her upcoming book, and of course it was great. I'm going to have to read her book The Chaos, which, from the excerpt she read, sounds like just that. In a good way. Volcanoes in Toronto and Baba Yaga's house fighting off cops. Very anime. She also read from her new book, which sounded interesting, about twine girls who are raised by their uncle, who is some sort of angel of death.
The audience asked intelligent questions, specific questions, and you could tell they'd read the books. Many of them were teaching these books to college and high school students. Makes me wonder when I'll get to teach a fantasy class.
One person asked the old chestnut, "What is your advice for beginning writers?" Nalo's response (paraphrased): "The fun is in the revision. If you are afraid to write it, it is worth writing. And if you feel a piece is too personal, establish off the bat that you don't have to show it to anybody."
There was also a good question about how she incorporates patois into her work, something I've dealt with myself as a writer. Yes, patois can be alientating to certain readers. She said she never writes it as dialect. Sometimes she'll give an explanation for a term after using it, but rarely, as it breaks the flow. And she will never do footnotes, as people have Google and can look up things. I agree with this. No footnotes. You hear that, Mills College Advanced Writing Workshop? I will not footnote that story! Also, she refuses to itlaicize "foreign" words. It was interesting to see her rationale, as I do write in dialect, and I sometimes italicize in some stories to mark that shift for the reader (though I'm trying to wean myself off of that). Anyway, good reading. +5 points for fantasy.
Afterward, we went to dinner, where everybody was talknig in-depth about Xena and Buffy. I never watched Buffy, but I'm a big Xena fan. I didn't really contribute to the conversation, because I generally don't contribute to conversations. I've always had crippling social anxiety, and being unable to talk to others makes me feel very lonely sometimes, but I find myself content to listen. I really enjoy listening. I enjoy it more than interrupting people when they're in the flow of conversation. I genuinely love hearing the way people talk, how they reinterpret the things they see and experience. On the other hand, I obviously have things to say, so being unable to say them feels confining sometimes. But I digress. Last year I got to introduce Nuruddin Farrah, and this year I opened for Nalo. Spending time around amazing artists is simply my life now, and I would have it no other way.
Hard Times Blues
The ARC for Hard Times Blues is done. Six Gallery is printing out twenty review copies, at a price of $120. The printing company is giving us a deal of 10 for $60. As funds are limited, we have to be pretty selective in the people/places we query. I query for blurbs personally, contacting writers I've read who I feel would appreciate the slipstream nature of my work (not just fantasy writers). Though time-consuming, it's one of the more fun parts of working without an agent, because sometimes they write back! And sometimes they can't take a look at the book, as they are busy, but they're always very gracious about it, and I have to step back and think about how I'm dialoguing with an author I respect, about writing, and that in itself is amazing.
Hard Times Blues is looking nice, by the way. It's shorter than Jack Daniels Sessions, clocking in at 137 pages, with a pretty wide range in length between stories. The longest is a novella, and the shortest is three pages.
Speaking of writing, I'm going to AWP this year. Yay! UL is leading a team there, and I feel up for a vacation to Boston. The workshops look amazing, and there's a good rate for students.
Current projects: The Piper's Christmas Gift, a Christmas card story I've turned into a novella. I think of it as my "pagan Christmas" story. Also editing the audiobook. I'm currently on "How Brother Roy Lost His Dog, Twice."
Next project: Sometimes you have to wonder at serendipity. I have a radio project idea I've been kicking around for almost ten years. It's about a group of anarchists in the year 2003. I anticipate having to do a lot of research to capture the time period.
I was at my dad's place over the holiday, and he asked me to go through a bag o' stuff he had lying around, to see if I wanted to keep any of it. So I go through this bag, and among the Warped Tour photos, anime programs, and various other bits of nostalgia, is a PILE OF NEWSPAPERS from 2003. Pittsburgh local papers I must have gathered in college. I didn't even know I kept papers from back then. It's an archival treasure trove, and I plan on going through every article from The New People, the Post-Gazette, even that college paper The Pitt News in order to prepare.
Also, I signed up pretty late for classes this semester (though on time, thank you very much). A professor got back to me saying he would not have me in his class becasue I'd already missed two meeting and assignments. "What do I do?" I ask the department. You need at least nine credits to keep your assistantship. They tell me I can do dissertation hours, i.e. work on my dissertation for credit. After the initial shock that I'd actually be doing creative writing as part of the UL creative writing program, I felt pretty jazzed to work on my dissertation.
What is my dissertation? You guessed it.
These are what we call "signs." It's safe to say this is a project I have trepidation about starting, as it's so expansive and will involve so much time. I've been putting it off for ten years. In the meantime, I moved between three cities, taught creative writing, graduated two colleges, published two books, and traveled pretty extensively. And this project was always at the back of my mind. The universe is tellnig me it's time to climb this mountain. Here goes.
Summer Tour
Two years ago Christine Stoddard and I ran a kickstarter to raise promo money for our book. We got some cash out of it, and when I met up with her we discussed how best to spend the money. We settled on putting it towards a summer tour through the northeast. Pittsburgh is a definite, of course. DC. Baltimore. Philly. NYC. Boston. Touring is a wonderful time, and exhausting, and something I think I might back away from over the next few years. I've been touring once a year for the last three years. Organizing them takes up so much time and I want to focus more on writing. But if this is my last tour for a while, I want it to be the best, most performative, most ambitious storytelling I've done. Stay tuned, in other words.
I opened for Nalo Hopkinson at UL on Saturday. It was a good reading, and an honor to be her opener. I read from a Hard Times Blues story titled "A Song For the Yellow Prince," a Gothic story that has, surprisingly, proven a good read-aloud piece. It's more poetic than my usual stuff, with less dialogue and more mood-setting. This audience and the audience in Chapel Hill dug it. As I get older, I find myself drifting back to my first love, which is poetry. Three of the five stories in HTB are pretty lyrical, and I just got a poem accepted to The Southwestern Review.
Nalo read from her last book, and her upcoming book, and of course it was great. I'm going to have to read her book The Chaos, which, from the excerpt she read, sounds like just that. In a good way. Volcanoes in Toronto and Baba Yaga's house fighting off cops. Very anime. She also read from her new book, which sounded interesting, about twine girls who are raised by their uncle, who is some sort of angel of death.
The audience asked intelligent questions, specific questions, and you could tell they'd read the books. Many of them were teaching these books to college and high school students. Makes me wonder when I'll get to teach a fantasy class.
One person asked the old chestnut, "What is your advice for beginning writers?" Nalo's response (paraphrased): "The fun is in the revision. If you are afraid to write it, it is worth writing. And if you feel a piece is too personal, establish off the bat that you don't have to show it to anybody."
There was also a good question about how she incorporates patois into her work, something I've dealt with myself as a writer. Yes, patois can be alientating to certain readers. She said she never writes it as dialect. Sometimes she'll give an explanation for a term after using it, but rarely, as it breaks the flow. And she will never do footnotes, as people have Google and can look up things. I agree with this. No footnotes. You hear that, Mills College Advanced Writing Workshop? I will not footnote that story! Also, she refuses to itlaicize "foreign" words. It was interesting to see her rationale, as I do write in dialect, and I sometimes italicize in some stories to mark that shift for the reader (though I'm trying to wean myself off of that). Anyway, good reading. +5 points for fantasy.
Afterward, we went to dinner, where everybody was talknig in-depth about Xena and Buffy. I never watched Buffy, but I'm a big Xena fan. I didn't really contribute to the conversation, because I generally don't contribute to conversations. I've always had crippling social anxiety, and being unable to talk to others makes me feel very lonely sometimes, but I find myself content to listen. I really enjoy listening. I enjoy it more than interrupting people when they're in the flow of conversation. I genuinely love hearing the way people talk, how they reinterpret the things they see and experience. On the other hand, I obviously have things to say, so being unable to say them feels confining sometimes. But I digress. Last year I got to introduce Nuruddin Farrah, and this year I opened for Nalo. Spending time around amazing artists is simply my life now, and I would have it no other way.
Hard Times Blues
The ARC for Hard Times Blues is done. Six Gallery is printing out twenty review copies, at a price of $120. The printing company is giving us a deal of 10 for $60. As funds are limited, we have to be pretty selective in the people/places we query. I query for blurbs personally, contacting writers I've read who I feel would appreciate the slipstream nature of my work (not just fantasy writers). Though time-consuming, it's one of the more fun parts of working without an agent, because sometimes they write back! And sometimes they can't take a look at the book, as they are busy, but they're always very gracious about it, and I have to step back and think about how I'm dialoguing with an author I respect, about writing, and that in itself is amazing.
Hard Times Blues is looking nice, by the way. It's shorter than Jack Daniels Sessions, clocking in at 137 pages, with a pretty wide range in length between stories. The longest is a novella, and the shortest is three pages.
Speaking of writing, I'm going to AWP this year. Yay! UL is leading a team there, and I feel up for a vacation to Boston. The workshops look amazing, and there's a good rate for students.
Current projects: The Piper's Christmas Gift, a Christmas card story I've turned into a novella. I think of it as my "pagan Christmas" story. Also editing the audiobook. I'm currently on "How Brother Roy Lost His Dog, Twice."
Next project: Sometimes you have to wonder at serendipity. I have a radio project idea I've been kicking around for almost ten years. It's about a group of anarchists in the year 2003. I anticipate having to do a lot of research to capture the time period.
I was at my dad's place over the holiday, and he asked me to go through a bag o' stuff he had lying around, to see if I wanted to keep any of it. So I go through this bag, and among the Warped Tour photos, anime programs, and various other bits of nostalgia, is a PILE OF NEWSPAPERS from 2003. Pittsburgh local papers I must have gathered in college. I didn't even know I kept papers from back then. It's an archival treasure trove, and I plan on going through every article from The New People, the Post-Gazette, even that college paper The Pitt News in order to prepare.
Also, I signed up pretty late for classes this semester (though on time, thank you very much). A professor got back to me saying he would not have me in his class becasue I'd already missed two meeting and assignments. "What do I do?" I ask the department. You need at least nine credits to keep your assistantship. They tell me I can do dissertation hours, i.e. work on my dissertation for credit. After the initial shock that I'd actually be doing creative writing as part of the UL creative writing program, I felt pretty jazzed to work on my dissertation.
What is my dissertation? You guessed it.
These are what we call "signs." It's safe to say this is a project I have trepidation about starting, as it's so expansive and will involve so much time. I've been putting it off for ten years. In the meantime, I moved between three cities, taught creative writing, graduated two colleges, published two books, and traveled pretty extensively. And this project was always at the back of my mind. The universe is tellnig me it's time to climb this mountain. Here goes.
Summer Tour
Two years ago Christine Stoddard and I ran a kickstarter to raise promo money for our book. We got some cash out of it, and when I met up with her we discussed how best to spend the money. We settled on putting it towards a summer tour through the northeast. Pittsburgh is a definite, of course. DC. Baltimore. Philly. NYC. Boston. Touring is a wonderful time, and exhausting, and something I think I might back away from over the next few years. I've been touring once a year for the last three years. Organizing them takes up so much time and I want to focus more on writing. But if this is my last tour for a while, I want it to be the best, most performative, most ambitious storytelling I've done. Stay tuned, in other words.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Chapter 96: In Which I Expound A Little Bit More on Tour
A lot of people bought merch in Pensacola. Pretty cool. At one point, a fellow was having a conversation with Dziga about Pensacola, a town he described as similar to some other southern city, only "without the blacks."
DZIGA: That's what they say?
DUDE: Yeah.
DZIGA: That's really racist.
I didn't know if it was racist under the circumstance, as I barely caught it, and his perspective towards "without the blacks" can be construed two ways. Either positive, as in the town has less crime and drugs, and other vices stereotyped on blacks. Or negative, as in it physically resembles this other town, but is unwelcoming toward minorities. Dzig pretty much killed that conversation, and lamented the fact that gay white men feel it's okay to say such things to him, imagining he'll agree for some reason.
There was a similarly awkward situation in Savannah, which was as a whole maybe the weirdest night of the tour. First of all, Ben was weirded out by how much it had changed since he went to college there, and how it was gentrified and so many cool people had left. Second, the downtown area itself is strange, as everything is packed together. It feels like the soundstage for some old MGM musical. All the college kids were gone, nobody was out other than some locals, and the place felt sleepy. Third, the crowd was pretty unresponsive. It was a good turnout, and there's certainly no problem with people simply listening, but it was odd to not have the usual back-and-forth of energy. They were so quiet. Also, the room was dimly lit, and the tables were far from the stage. It felt like doing dinner theater or something. My solution to the set-up was to read part of "Assistant" in the audience, walking among the tables. At one point we asked how the audience was doing.
GUY IN THE BACK: Uptight.
RANDOM LADY: Speak for yourself.
Dude. Crazy. But, yeah, good show. The folks at the venue were super cool. Gave us a free meal and a drink. I met this older lady who, when I told her I wrote fantasy, proceeded to talk my ear off about how she loved those old 80s films. Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Ladyhawke, all the classics. The fellows met these two young ladies who seemed nice enough, and we met up with them at a bar. The kind of spot with a neon-lit counter and a DJ spinning soul records, yet, inexplicably, a death metal show going on upstairs. I'm not nearly as social as Ben and Dzig, and spent my time nursing a hot totty to help with this nasty cold I'd acquired. My energy was flagging, which was unfortunate, as Savannah ended up being the 24-hour party people, never go to sleep, rock star night of the tour. We talked about anarchy and our future plans and the mrits/demerits of putting mellow music on the same bill as death metal, which was what they were doing upstairs. Conversation eventually went to one of these girls asking Dzig if he had a "weakness for Latin flavor," partner-wise.
Oh my god, I'm thinking.
It was interesting to watch, as he very patiently told them that he doesn't consider attraction a "weakness," and tries not to tokenize his partners, and he can't speak to anybody's "flavor" as they're human beings and not ice cream. And both of these girls--both!--instead of admitting she said something problematic, proceed to just dig the hole deeper, talking about how Hispanics are "spicier," and I'm pretty sure at one point one of them screamed, "Gooooooooool!"
Fuck, I thought.
I never thought about how often Latinos get described with food metaphors. Hot. Spicy. Flavor. That's some weird vore shit to me. As these girls weren't my recently-acquired friends, I stayed out of it. Dzig saw it as a "teachable moment," I guess. We went with them to some bar, walking down a succession of Savannah streets that were horror movie empty, and one of them managed to fit in some dumb statement about how easy it is to convert to Judaism, and how she might do that, and no, she did not sound sincere, or cognizant of the fact that she was speaking about a whole ethnicity. That killed the mood.
As I was trying to save my money, I wasn't really drinking. That and I'm wary of getting drunk in strange towns where I'm not sure of my sleeping arrangements. I found it best to stay sober. We hung out at the bar where Jimmy Carter announced his candidacy for president, and were there mad long, and I wanted to go sleep, or kill myself, whichever was easiest at the time. I just wasn't up for a pub crawl. We left at, like, 12:30, and the girls hung out with some other guys, and we met up with Ben's friend who worked at the pizza parlor. This pizza parlor was also, of course, where we ate dinner earlier. He offered us a place to crash. I called it a night and slept a few hours in his loft apartment, while the other two cats continued their bar crawl. I woke up in the middle of the night with extreme acid reflux, despite the fact I barely drank anything. In the morning we went to the Waffle House. It turned out that Ben and Dzig had stayed up another two or three hours, during which they injured Dziga's hand play-fighting in the street. We big goodbye to Savannah. The lesson: you can't go home again. Or something like that.
DZIGA: That's what they say?
DUDE: Yeah.
DZIGA: That's really racist.
I didn't know if it was racist under the circumstance, as I barely caught it, and his perspective towards "without the blacks" can be construed two ways. Either positive, as in the town has less crime and drugs, and other vices stereotyped on blacks. Or negative, as in it physically resembles this other town, but is unwelcoming toward minorities. Dzig pretty much killed that conversation, and lamented the fact that gay white men feel it's okay to say such things to him, imagining he'll agree for some reason.
There was a similarly awkward situation in Savannah, which was as a whole maybe the weirdest night of the tour. First of all, Ben was weirded out by how much it had changed since he went to college there, and how it was gentrified and so many cool people had left. Second, the downtown area itself is strange, as everything is packed together. It feels like the soundstage for some old MGM musical. All the college kids were gone, nobody was out other than some locals, and the place felt sleepy. Third, the crowd was pretty unresponsive. It was a good turnout, and there's certainly no problem with people simply listening, but it was odd to not have the usual back-and-forth of energy. They were so quiet. Also, the room was dimly lit, and the tables were far from the stage. It felt like doing dinner theater or something. My solution to the set-up was to read part of "Assistant" in the audience, walking among the tables. At one point we asked how the audience was doing.
GUY IN THE BACK: Uptight.
RANDOM LADY: Speak for yourself.
Dude. Crazy. But, yeah, good show. The folks at the venue were super cool. Gave us a free meal and a drink. I met this older lady who, when I told her I wrote fantasy, proceeded to talk my ear off about how she loved those old 80s films. Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Ladyhawke, all the classics. The fellows met these two young ladies who seemed nice enough, and we met up with them at a bar. The kind of spot with a neon-lit counter and a DJ spinning soul records, yet, inexplicably, a death metal show going on upstairs. I'm not nearly as social as Ben and Dzig, and spent my time nursing a hot totty to help with this nasty cold I'd acquired. My energy was flagging, which was unfortunate, as Savannah ended up being the 24-hour party people, never go to sleep, rock star night of the tour. We talked about anarchy and our future plans and the mrits/demerits of putting mellow music on the same bill as death metal, which was what they were doing upstairs. Conversation eventually went to one of these girls asking Dzig if he had a "weakness for Latin flavor," partner-wise.
Oh my god, I'm thinking.
It was interesting to watch, as he very patiently told them that he doesn't consider attraction a "weakness," and tries not to tokenize his partners, and he can't speak to anybody's "flavor" as they're human beings and not ice cream. And both of these girls--both!--instead of admitting she said something problematic, proceed to just dig the hole deeper, talking about how Hispanics are "spicier," and I'm pretty sure at one point one of them screamed, "Gooooooooool!"
Fuck, I thought.
I never thought about how often Latinos get described with food metaphors. Hot. Spicy. Flavor. That's some weird vore shit to me. As these girls weren't my recently-acquired friends, I stayed out of it. Dzig saw it as a "teachable moment," I guess. We went with them to some bar, walking down a succession of Savannah streets that were horror movie empty, and one of them managed to fit in some dumb statement about how easy it is to convert to Judaism, and how she might do that, and no, she did not sound sincere, or cognizant of the fact that she was speaking about a whole ethnicity. That killed the mood.
As I was trying to save my money, I wasn't really drinking. That and I'm wary of getting drunk in strange towns where I'm not sure of my sleeping arrangements. I found it best to stay sober. We hung out at the bar where Jimmy Carter announced his candidacy for president, and were there mad long, and I wanted to go sleep, or kill myself, whichever was easiest at the time. I just wasn't up for a pub crawl. We left at, like, 12:30, and the girls hung out with some other guys, and we met up with Ben's friend who worked at the pizza parlor. This pizza parlor was also, of course, where we ate dinner earlier. He offered us a place to crash. I called it a night and slept a few hours in his loft apartment, while the other two cats continued their bar crawl. I woke up in the middle of the night with extreme acid reflux, despite the fact I barely drank anything. In the morning we went to the Waffle House. It turned out that Ben and Dzig had stayed up another two or three hours, during which they injured Dziga's hand play-fighting in the street. We big goodbye to Savannah. The lesson: you can't go home again. Or something like that.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Chapter 95: In Which I Expound a Little More on Tour
I realize the tour updates stopped around my exciting trip to see The Hobbit. That's because I got sick in Pensacola, and by the time we finally chilled in Athens, I was bedridden. Tour colds certainly happen, though I got my butt out of bed for every reading, thank you very much. Our Pensacola reading was better-attended than I could have hoped for, especially for such a muggy day, and much love to the organizers for getting the word out. The space was also just a cool radical spot, with all their sales going to the local Books to Prisons. Ben and Dziga were on point, as usual. I did a cold reading of "Dead Teenagers," which is an intense story to just start reading the middle of in front of strangers. I don't know if it went over too well, honestly, but it was worth a short. Super receptive audience, overall.
Afterward, we hung out with some established Pensacola punks. The kind with jobs and kids. We caught pizza at this restaurant that was in the basement of an old insane asylum. The upper floors were supposedly like a horror movie set, with gurneys and wheelchairs and cells. The middle floors were also pretty scary; rooms rented out to artists, filled with surreal paintings of puppy dogs. Or so I'm told, as a description of the place was enough to keep me downstairs, drinking my beer. A trip to the bathroom was enpugh to creep me out. WHY IS THERE A CELL WITH BARS IN THE BATHROOM?!? Needless to say, this old spot was a popular hangout for the Pensacola punks we were rolling with, back in their youth. One of the guys had this super-cute kid named Ignacius, who showed Dziga his karate moves. The walls of the pizza joint were covered in pictures of pizza slices that little kids could color with decorations. About a third of them were from kids, but most were done by adults. I liked the Kimbo Slice (decorated to look like the famed backyard brawler) and the Vanilla Slice (decorated to look like the reviled rapper). But the absolute best was the two slices put together and made into a Spy vs. Spy drawing. It looked just like something out of Mad Magazine. I wish I took a picture. Ben made his slice into a mutant monster pizza slice threatening New York or some such city. The waitress loved it, and put it up, and told us how she was constantly having to take down stuff like Slutty Slice and Crackhead Slice.
Speaking of pizza, our breakfast dinner itinerary was literally Waffle House in the morning and pizza in the evening. At every stop. That is not an exaggeration. Ben and Dziga love diners and pizza.
The folks we crashed with were cool. They lived in a real-ass punk apartment, filled with all sorts of monster movie and serial killer and vampire ephemera. I opted out of drinking beer until dawn with everybody else, as we had to drive and all. I will be honest: I wasn't too jazzed about sleeping on a couch with no blanket, my face buried in a Chester Cheetah pillow, while some random goth dude in a Skinny Puppy shirt decides the best course of action is blare his industrial music at two in the morning. I woke up sick and not rested at all. But you don't slag people who show you hospitality, so I won't. Just, y'know, it was two in the morning.
We left at noon for Athens, but didn't factor in the time change. Ben drove pretty much the whole way. We didn't factor in the time change and ended up rolling into Athens an hour late and reeking. We needed showers badly. The Athens reading, which was in a bar, was small but good. I read part of "Assistant." We hurried through it, as we were already late, and we had to clear by 8 so a band could set up (band didn't show up until 10, by the way). Athens is a gorgeous little town, filled with all sorts of boutiques and shops, and the college kids were out in full force, serenading us with arbly renditions of "Kiss From a Rose" at the karaoke bar.
The lady hosting us was, I believe, an Anthropology PhD, the wife of one of Ben and Dzig's friends in New Orleans. We had pizza with some Anthro majors. Two of Dzig's friends--a couple who lived in Athens--came to the reading, and I overheard them telling him about how they watched wrestling, and how Vince McMahon is an amoral scumbag, and the hilarious faces he made during his wife's concession speech after she lost the Connecticut senate race, and blew $90 million of his money.
And this shit is hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BXtzC6fMI. Oh my god, look at Vince's face! The big, tragic sigh is gold. The eyeroll is gold. But I think my favorite part is Shame McMahon on the side, trying hard not to bust a gut at his dad. They literally wasted $90 million of their personal money. Hilarious.
And thank Zeus, Hera, and Demeter she lost. Can you imagine that old carny Vince having a hand in politics? Sometimes prayers are answered.
But I digress. I heard them talking about wrestling and had to jump in with: "OHMIGOD I LOVE RASSLIN! THE AMERICAN DREAM DUTH-TAY RHODES! RICK FLAIR! THE FOUR HORSEMEN! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Then me and this dude tag teamed telling Dzig the last thirty years of pro wrestling history.
Best part of the night, hands down.
More reminiscences soon.
Afterward, we hung out with some established Pensacola punks. The kind with jobs and kids. We caught pizza at this restaurant that was in the basement of an old insane asylum. The upper floors were supposedly like a horror movie set, with gurneys and wheelchairs and cells. The middle floors were also pretty scary; rooms rented out to artists, filled with surreal paintings of puppy dogs. Or so I'm told, as a description of the place was enough to keep me downstairs, drinking my beer. A trip to the bathroom was enpugh to creep me out. WHY IS THERE A CELL WITH BARS IN THE BATHROOM?!? Needless to say, this old spot was a popular hangout for the Pensacola punks we were rolling with, back in their youth. One of the guys had this super-cute kid named Ignacius, who showed Dziga his karate moves. The walls of the pizza joint were covered in pictures of pizza slices that little kids could color with decorations. About a third of them were from kids, but most were done by adults. I liked the Kimbo Slice (decorated to look like the famed backyard brawler) and the Vanilla Slice (decorated to look like the reviled rapper). But the absolute best was the two slices put together and made into a Spy vs. Spy drawing. It looked just like something out of Mad Magazine. I wish I took a picture. Ben made his slice into a mutant monster pizza slice threatening New York or some such city. The waitress loved it, and put it up, and told us how she was constantly having to take down stuff like Slutty Slice and Crackhead Slice.
Speaking of pizza, our breakfast dinner itinerary was literally Waffle House in the morning and pizza in the evening. At every stop. That is not an exaggeration. Ben and Dziga love diners and pizza.
The folks we crashed with were cool. They lived in a real-ass punk apartment, filled with all sorts of monster movie and serial killer and vampire ephemera. I opted out of drinking beer until dawn with everybody else, as we had to drive and all. I will be honest: I wasn't too jazzed about sleeping on a couch with no blanket, my face buried in a Chester Cheetah pillow, while some random goth dude in a Skinny Puppy shirt decides the best course of action is blare his industrial music at two in the morning. I woke up sick and not rested at all. But you don't slag people who show you hospitality, so I won't. Just, y'know, it was two in the morning.
We left at noon for Athens, but didn't factor in the time change. Ben drove pretty much the whole way. We didn't factor in the time change and ended up rolling into Athens an hour late and reeking. We needed showers badly. The Athens reading, which was in a bar, was small but good. I read part of "Assistant." We hurried through it, as we were already late, and we had to clear by 8 so a band could set up (band didn't show up until 10, by the way). Athens is a gorgeous little town, filled with all sorts of boutiques and shops, and the college kids were out in full force, serenading us with arbly renditions of "Kiss From a Rose" at the karaoke bar.
The lady hosting us was, I believe, an Anthropology PhD, the wife of one of Ben and Dzig's friends in New Orleans. We had pizza with some Anthro majors. Two of Dzig's friends--a couple who lived in Athens--came to the reading, and I overheard them telling him about how they watched wrestling, and how Vince McMahon is an amoral scumbag, and the hilarious faces he made during his wife's concession speech after she lost the Connecticut senate race, and blew $90 million of his money.
And this shit is hilarious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2BXtzC6fMI. Oh my god, look at Vince's face! The big, tragic sigh is gold. The eyeroll is gold. But I think my favorite part is Shame McMahon on the side, trying hard not to bust a gut at his dad. They literally wasted $90 million of their personal money. Hilarious.
And thank Zeus, Hera, and Demeter she lost. Can you imagine that old carny Vince having a hand in politics? Sometimes prayers are answered.
But I digress. I heard them talking about wrestling and had to jump in with: "OHMIGOD I LOVE RASSLIN! THE AMERICAN DREAM DUTH-TAY RHODES! RICK FLAIR! THE FOUR HORSEMEN! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Then me and this dude tag teamed telling Dzig the last thirty years of pro wrestling history.
Best part of the night, hands down.
More reminiscences soon.
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