Read more »

A Brave New Book

I can understand why some Germans would like it if the rest of the world’s fascination with Hitler, the Holocaust, and the rise of the Nazis would dissipate. One German woman told me the Germans find talk of all of this “boring.” I was supposed to be helping her with her English so I probably should have helped her determine if boring was the word she really meant. Another German woman told me that what happened in WWII wasn’t the fault of her generation and she wishes people could stop talking about it.

At the same time, some people are engaging with and adding to our knowledge of this particular part of history impressively. One such project is a book written by a German historian called, Mein Großvater im Krieg 1939-1945: Erinnerung und Fakten im Vergleich (My Grandfather in the War: 1939-1945: Memory and Facts Compared). In the book, Moritz Pfeiffer, who is a historian, interviews his grandfather who was in the Wehrmacht infantry. Read more »

Oh, hey.

And wherein, instead of writing an intelligent and/or introspective review of the film, I answer the vital question: “What book would I buy each of them for their birthday?”

Steve Rogers (aka Captain America)

After a long day of leading an underprivileged troupe of boy scouts through the Catskill Mountains, which included him fighting off a cougar with his bare hands and quoting FDR, the Captain and I would enjoy a romantic birthday dinner at Mel’s Diner. We would then attend a drive-in movie. Always a perfect gentlemen, the Captain would only be comfortable going to first base (and maybe a little over-the-sweater action). Regardless, I would still end the evening thinking “God bless America.”

The book would need to be classic American. It should reflect boyish adventure.
The book I’d give Captain America for his birthday: “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain. Read more »

After astutely pointing out for the fourth straight week that my story or essay neglected to include much physical description of my characters, a member of my writing group asked why exactly I had trouble doing that. I mumbled a joking response about needing to work on it, but not until the drive home did I really start to consider why I shied away from physical description.

It’s not like I’m unaware that description is important. I’m sure every workshop leader has mentioned this fact, along with the apocryphal axiom: use all five sense by the end of the first page.

Over Saturday brunch with my mom, she suggested (in a nice way) it’s because my head is a bit in the clouds. “Like me, you don’t really pay attention to what kind of clothing people wear.”  True enough.

And, if I may play a small violin for myself, I was also classified with a minor learning disability as a teenager: poor visual memory.  So that could be part of it.

But I think the main reason is that when I read, I tend to skim over physical descriptions of characters and instead, form my mental image of each character based on his or her actions, thoughts, speech-patterns, etc, as found in the text.

Then I read this disturbing Jezebel article about kids being upset that the characters in the Hunger Games were correctly cast as dark-skinned. Read more »

Being Flynn is a newly released movie, based upon the best-selling memoir by Nick Flynn, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.   At some point over the next few weeks, I plan to see this film.  But before I do, I wanted to write a review so as not to be over-influenced by the subjective experience of it.

First of all, Nick Flynn is a poet and prone to madness.  That is to say, he’s genetically predisposed to delusions of grandeur, which is the non-technical name of the condition suffered by Nick’s father, Jonathan Flynn.  Plus, and this truly sucks, the mother of the writer committed suicide when he was 22 years old.

Second, Robert DiNero plays the part of Jonathan Flynn, which is reason enough to fork over the funds for a $9 matinee viewing.  Spoiler alert:  it’s his best role since playing that scary father-in-law in Meet The Fockers.

And third, I’m now officially wondering (and worried about) what my children, presently ages 17 and 20, may write about their dear ol’ M.F.A. student Dad.   I mean… don’t misunderstand:  I would be proud to have the same thespian who honed his craft on “taxi driver” interpret my curiously complex personality in his dotage.  There are things far worse than having your own chromosome-kin write something like  Cartoon Physics, Part 1, only to then revisit and rehash your own life’s closing chapters:
Read more »

“I think the guy in the hat did something awful.”   –William Hurt as Nick Carlton, character in The Big Chill [1983]

Are the categories of good guys and bad guys always clear?   Any literary aficionado would know the answer to that question automatically.

For characters to be interesting they must be complicated and nuanced in their motivations.   And to be complicated and nuanced in their motivations, they require a backstory.   And to have a backstory, they must have an opportunity to be understood — either as protagonists or as antagonists, or as heroes or as villains, or as some convoluted amalgamation of virtue and vice.

I am no fiction writer, and perhaps no writer to speak of, or to be spoken of at parties, where publishers glad-hand and editors wash their hands like Pilate, but I am aware of myself as someone who has not been imagined within the confines of an author’s repertoire of intriguing personages.   I am not written.   And the downside of that should be obvious.

Unlike Captain Ahab the villainous things I manage to accomplish will never be understood.  Not everyone will care to read very far where there is no threat of a breaching white whale.

And likewise, if Owen Meany (at the Christmas pageant of A Prayer…) has embarrassed his parents, never fear:  John Irving has promised his fans a moment of lucid and forthright altruism.  We’ll get Owen.  We’ll get Owen by unraveling the sordid religiosity that has been wrapped around his backstory like swaddling clothes around his erection.

Read more »

Over the first weekend of March, Jonathan Johnson, the earthy poet of E.W.U.’s Creative Writing Center, led us on a journey.

We didn’t pack mules.   We packed a mini-van.

We didn’t trap beaver, possum or mink.  But a brave undergraduate with a beautiful soul knit me a wool cap without leaving the passenger seat.

We didn’t track any hostile natives.   We ate and drank with them at bars and coffee shops.

As part of our Literature of the Northwest course, a group of five set out from The Elk, a pub in Spokane’s Brown’s Addition.    Then, it was onto the inspiration for Marilynne Robinson’s book, Housekeeping, which is situated in the fictitious town of Fingerbone, a pseudonym for Sandpointe, Idaho.   After an over-night stay at the K-2 Inn (the smell of rose petals combining with Marlboro to great effect) we rose one by one and made our way through slushy streets to the Monarch Cafe.  There I overheard a dude with a walking cane talk about his missing journal with the barista/cashier.  After receiving my IV of caffeine and reading through some Richard Hugo (a prelude for later) I listened to smatterings of monologue:  “I’m all in favor of retiring early!  I told my mother-in-law that I’d be done at 45… I’ve got things to do, personal things.”  With those ditties of wisdom mixing with the I-pod play-list of Nickel Creek and Death Cab, we hit the trail around the legendary Lake Pond Oreille.  The snow-capped Cabinet mountains turned on a hinge in the windshield.   Acres of larch, oak and ponderosa pine reflected upon the glassy surface of the water, and Highway 200 careened us through Kootenai, Hope and Clark Fork…   Somewhere in the meringue that is Montana mist, a bald eagle flew between two clear-cut hills and disappeared.  And all the while, the author of In The Land We Imagined offered his stunning commentary on all things awesome!

Read more »

These people don't wish they were in Chicago.

• Learn the art of macrame.

• Make a Diet Coke and Mentos fountain.

• Troll for men at the Apple Store.

• Troll for women in an improv class.

• Try the sport of wife carrying.

• Write a poem with Oprah.

• Turn your hair into a sunset.

• Knit yourself some Pokemon.

• Make sardine mini muffins.

• Paint by numbers.

For the last four to five years of my kids high school education, I’ve participated in something utterly unique in terms of fund-raising.   It is an old fashioned (Norman Rockwellish “Let’s Put On A Show”) production, known as Ham On Regal.   And for the past 49, going on 50 years, this hodge-podge of skits and musical numbers has involved a huge commitment of time, effort and resources.  The committed consist of your ordinary middle-aged parents, parents of teenagers who attend the Joel E. Ferris High School on Spokane’s South Hill.   Next week, for example, roughly 300 of them will  perform dance moves (from the 1970‘s) that you thought were extinct.   In full costume, they will flail around in some semblance of rhythm and uniformity to the tunes of the Black Eyed Peas, Devo, Abba and more.   There will be scenes of three minutes in duration — fifteen to be exact — in which characters like Paris Hilton mingle with Rambo and Red from That 70‘s Show.   Yes, it’s all very entertaining.

But here’s my dilemma:   as a co-chair on the script committee for this year’s rowdy rumpus, I tried to do that double entendre thing.   That is, overseeing 18 other writers like myself, I tried to corral those who wanted to introduce a plethora of fart jokes and other assorted potty humor.   For the most part, we were successful and the dialogue for Ham Times At Ferris High is not half bad.   (You might want to check out a show.)  Unfortunately, what wound up on the cutting room floor were seemingly innocuous lines like “Shut up” (changed to “Be quiet”).   When Dick Vitale, an ESPN mainstay, says something about going “number one in the pool, but having Duke at #2 going all the way…,” instead of smiles, we recently got frowns of disapproval.   Moreover, when another hilarious personage complains that the Bible is boring, one individual asks us not to disrespect the Old and New Testaments.   I guess my point is this:   the suburban superego has gone into hyperdrive!

Or, to put it more succinctly, censorship in America shows no signs of abating.   And for a liminal poet like me there’s nothing to do but sigh…   Sigh and write my ass off!

Read more »

Since today is a holiday, I’m guessing that many of you won’t be spending extensive time on the interwebs, and I’m not going to test your patience with a lengthy post. Instead, here’s a few tidbits for your enjoyment:

1. New Wes Anderson movie trailer, if you haven’t already seen it. I believe my actual reaction to someone sharing this was, “I just peed a little.”

2. Portland’s version of community libraries.

3. A roundup of religion-approved sex toys. Not just for Christians, either– Jews & Muslims can get some, too.

4. If you thought Bark was a Tebow-free zone, think again, my friends. (And yes, the religious sex toys provided a natural lead-in for this.) To mark his exit from the playoffs and in the hopes that we won’t hear about him for a while– at least until he pays for more obnoxious ads during the Super Bowl– I give you…Tebowie.

5. For all you Apple diehards: NPR wants you to know where and how all those great products are made.

If you’re lucky enough to have the day off, enjoy the hell out of it, all right?