It’s a little-known fact that Ezra Pound once proposed that some of the greats of American Literature compete in a boxing tournament. OK, that’s not true, but if such a tournament had been held, here’s what would have happened.
Here’s the bracket:
Fight 1: F. Scott Fitzgerald vs. Franz Kafka
Fitzgerald shows up drunk, on a butcher’s tricycle, and has to be lifted into the ring. He saunters over to the opponent’s corner where he has a conversation with the stool. He calls it Zelda, hugs it, then falls asleep. Meanwhile, Zelda Fitzgerald, his manager, is nowhere to be found. (Suddenly hip to technology, she’s back in the locker room playing the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on a Gameboy.)
Initially, Ezra Pound had informed everyone that the charity matches would be a professional-wrestling style match and told everyone to wear a costume that representative of their work. Soon thereafter, Hemingway suggests they make it a more manly sport, and suggests boxing. Pound agrees, but never gives Kafka the news that the format has been changed. Kafka, having no idea how to represent himself, let alone his work, decides to dress in a giant beetle costume like a post-metamorphosis Gregor Samsa. For added effect, he brings along his manager, a boa constrictor named Indiana.
Result: Fitzie is disqualified.
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It’s time to feel bad about something fun (sorry guys).
I haven’t seen Avengers yet but I hear it’s pretty rockin’. Unfortunately, a lot of that rock was generated by artists and writers who are dead and died poor. It’s a familiar story; artist who die in poverty are, much like their remaining possessions, worth a dime a dozen. It’s even a romantic little dream to imagine that one’s work might shake a culture to its roots when discovered years after one’s death. That may be cold comfort for the deceased, but to us living it’s a story with a happy, if belated, ending.
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With a brief hat tip to Sam Ligon and Jeff Corey, and without any further ado:
1. “In Scenic Pigs, Arizona”
2. “The Pool Boy Sends His Regards”
3. “Here’s to You, ‘Typhoid Mary’”
4. “Forty Pounds of Tallow and Thou”
5. “Nude, Manning a Leaf-Blower” Read more »
With a spirograph, everyone's an artist!
I was playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on my kazoo yesterday when I got to thinking about what a truly democratic instrument the kazoo is. I say this not just because it’s ideal for playing our national anthem (as well as other patriotic tunes like “God Bless America” and “The Fifty Nifty States”), but because no one is ever better at playing the kazoo than anyone else.
It is impossible to be bad at the kazoo. It is also impossible to be good at the kazoo.
To test this theory, I looked online for kazooing videos. All of them sound exactly the way you expect them to sound – like someone playing a kazoo. There are no professional kazoo players. No one attends school on a kazoo scholarship. No one is writing academic articles on the cultural impact of the kazoo.
So, it’s a gratifying little instrument. The bar for success is very low. Most people can play the kazoo perfectly the very first time they pick one up. All you have to do is hum into it and it makes a somewhat musical sound. It can be played loud or soft, fast or slow. If you are playing it for your friends, and if those friends have a sense of humor, they can dance to it. But the pitch and range of the kazoo are limited. The kazoo lacks complexity. The kazoo is actually rather annoying for anyone who has to listen to it being played for more than a few minutes at a time. Read more »
There’s something about a Dean Young poem being recited in public!
Peace–
Today I’m teaching my first fiction class to the high school students at the Structured Alternative Confinement school. I’ve been doing poetry with them all year, which they seem to love, but I stupidly asked them last week if they would be interested in trying out other genres.
Rule #11: I am Kanye West
I’ll be honest: I know nothing about writing fiction. Which is why I decided to take a fiction workshop this quarter. It’s interesting (and slightly appalling) to me that I am in a graduate school creative writing program and still didn’t understand the term “objective third” until recently, simply because my focus is in poetry. I think we should all know a little bit more about each other’s crafts.
In the interest of learning everything I can about fiction, I’ve been diligently copying down rules and proclamations that my classmates and my professor, the esteemed Sam Ligon, have handed down during class, and that is what I plan to teach my SAC students. Listed below are some examples of rules I’ve learned, followed by the way I, as a newcomer to the genre, have come to understand them:
Rule #1: Never use adverbs.
What I learned from this: Fiction writers don’t like description.
Rule #2: Don’t use the word “towards.” Only British people say “towards.”
What I learned from this: Fiction writers are jealous of British people, probably because their words automatically sound pretty when they speak. Read more »
In mad excitement for my guests, I spilled coffee on my computer. Then in a series of stupid acts, I erased all the pictures of their visit except for this--saved by Facebook.
After a delightful and stressful month or so that included:
- two weeks of teaching Russian students English online
- losing that job due to my sporadic internet connection (I signed my first contract for DSL in early February and am still waiting for it to be connected)
- a two-week training that qualifies me to teach for Berlitz
- an eight-day visit from my parents (which included eating lots of cake, drinking lots of beer, seeing a couple castles, learning European history, visiting several cities, taking lots of walks, and having meaningful conversations over many a delicious meal)
I suddenly found myself alone with several days in a row of unstructured time. You know what that means. I had no excuse not to write. Read more »
Degas would have kicked me out of his painting
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For ten weeks of my life I took ballet lessons. I wore tights, a leotard, a tutu, and I was twenty-two.
I have never felt graceful so when I signed up for the course at the community college, I did so with determination to “learn grace.” Growing up with serious anxiety I always felt like a potatobug skittering around in life stuttering, sweating, and cursing way too often.
I ended up getting a C in the class.
Sample comment from my teacher:
Catherine, soften your hands! You’re dancing with monster hands!
There is a similar trend with my writing. Any time I take a stab at beauty, I mean classic-beauty, I fail. I’m talking about the kind of beauty you see in enviably breathtaking poetry. Lines that, when spoken, melt like dark chocolate on your tongue. The kind of beauty sung by a mermaid, spun out of angel wings, I mean beauty. Read more »
Last week I asked some questions about the use of autobiographical material in fiction. The Millions article that prompted those questions, which defended the use of autobiography in fiction (albeit using arguments I don’t entirely agree with), was not the only recent item that raised those questions.
Many of you may have seen the video of John Irving’s comments about Hemingway, or at least you saw the headline and probably rolled your eyes. It was part of a promotional series on You Tube in which Irving discussed various aspects of his fiction and talked about the writing life, except that two of the videos inexplicably centered on Irving talking about how much he’s always disliked the writing of Hemingway and Twain. (Sidebar: who at Simon & Schuster thought to themselves: You know what the best way to promote this bestselling author’s new novel is? Ask him to shred some literary giants. Doesn’t this just give more ammunition to the literary snobs who are bored by Irving’s work? When did publicly declaring that Hemingway was “macho crap” become a good way to promote your own novel? I don’t understand. However, they’ve now realized what terrible publicity it was and pulled it from the interwebs, but I was still able to find them. Here’s the Hemingway roast and here’s the Twain one.) Read more »
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