I saw “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and loved it. Though many people consider Tennenbaums the holy grail of Wes Anderson-dom, before seeing Fox, I was most fond of “The Life Aquatic.” (It’s still my favorite. Too many wonderful moments and quotable lines to be displaced, and Seu Jorge doing David Bowie is unparalleled in the world of adaptations. And Klaus! I want to watch it again right now.)
Early in “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I recognized some music that I hear often these days: Burl Ives singing “Fooba Wooba John.” What a funny treat!
Although the adults at our house recoil at the sound of most music intended for kids, one beloved album is from my husband’s childhood–Burl Ives Sings Little White Duck and Other Children’s Favorites. It might seem unlikely, but this morning I was actually craving that album. Ives’ rendition of “The Little Engine That Could” made me a little misty-eyed over breakfast. I don’t know why. Maybe the wonder and hope of the two year old next to me, calling it the “sink I can song” or maybe just that I still believe that positive thinking is important. (“I knew I could I knew I could I knew I could…”)
As usual, Wes Anderson chose perfect music for his latest movie. There’s an earnest, post-cynical lens in that I love. I see it in the Zissou saga, as I did in “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and so now I find myself tapping a foot, humming “Buckeye Jim” around the house, and now, in addition to the warmth of Burl Ives’ voice, that tune delivers me Anderson’s glorious sunset orange hues, and lovable, heroic foxes. And I smile a silly, true smile.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Burl Ives, Interdisciplinary Aesthetics, movies, music, post-cynicism, Wes Anderson
A couple weeks ago, I finished reading Jim Krusoe’s novel, Erased. I wanted to read the whole thing again right after finishing the last line.
Reading this book, or really any of Krusoe’s fiction, is like taking a trip to the inner layer of the mind, which has somehow been turned inside out and exposed to the sun, and then finding some unknown organ that you need to survive but never knew was there. In his novels, dreams and reality at first seem to (but then don’t quite) fit each other…like a box of mismatched lids for old canning jars.
Here’s a bit from later in the novel, which I don’t think will spoil anything.
“Time, that old fooler, expanded and compressed itself, rolled over and played dead, only to spring back to life again when I least expected it. How long I walked, I couldn’t tell. It could have been hours. It might have been minutes. I heard the high squeals of bats and the sharp cries of night birds. I heard my own breath grow heavy as I trudged up a smallish hill, then I heard it ease on the way down. The wild dogs, or a completely different set of wild dogs, were back.”
In Erased, Krusoe’s protagonist is looking for his mother, who is supposedly dead, but keeps sending him postcards. This quest takes him to Cleveland, an idealized Cleveland that is laughable to anyone who has been to the real Cleveland. In Krusoe’s vision, the city is brimming with artists, carrying their work (often classical sculpture busts) with them to cafes like real-life celebrities carry small dogs in handbags. I love how the writer boldly steals the city from “our” reality.
Speaking of theft, I stole this photo from an interview with Jim Krusoe at Bookworm on KCRW.
Jim Krusoe was my mentor in graduate school at Antioch Los Angeles. I still consider him my mentor. Jim is a wonderful teacher. By asking a seemingly a simple question, “What are you interested in writing?” and telling me to write seven pages, Jim fostered my novel The Watery Girl into being. His manner is so good-natured and encouraging that, when he tells you the first few pages of a story need to go, you cut them without pain. I have learned so much from Jim over the years, I can’t imagine where I’d be as a writer without him.
I think Erased is his strongest work yet. And I can’t wait to read more, and read again.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: books, fiction, writing
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Robert Freeman Wexler will read from his novel, The Painting and The
City, accompanied by Brady Burkett (of Starkfolk) on electric guitar on:
Saturday, January 9 at 4pm at Emporium Cafe in Yellow Springs
AND
Tuesday, March 9 at 7pm at Yellow Springs Community Library.
More information can be found at Robert’s website. Hope to see you there!
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Brady Burkett/Starkfolk, readings, Robert Freeman Wexler
Although I’ve never cut her hair, my two year old has a very trendy hairstyle, apparently. (A friend told me that all the teenage girls are wearing a sort of shag/mullet style these days, similar to Merida’s.) So as a public service to those teens, I thought I’d post a new way to do the ‘do. Try this:
1) Have a responsible adult prepare toast with butter.
2) Sit in your high chair and eat some of the toast.
3) Periodically rub your buttery fingers through your hair, concentrating first on the back and sides. (Omit the front of your hair, unless you are going for an extra greasy look.) Make sure to get the “product” evenly distributed through your locks.
4) Look up at your parent or cat, and smile.
Categories: Uncategorized
When Micro$oft released Word with the .docx format, it caused nothing but problems for so many users. Sending files back and forth that were unopenable without a converter or open source word processor (such as NeoOffice) meant that anyone using older versions of Micro$oft’s own Word (with .doc extension) could not open the new .docx files. And of course it was slightly complicated for basic users to change the default file format in the new version of Word to save in an older format.
Now, it comes out that Micro$oft stole the software from a Canadian company.
Ha ha on Micro$oft! Merry New Year, suckers! (I’m sure they will find a way to snake out of it, but still, today, this verdict makes me happy.)
Categories: Uncategorized
I read about this place in Nantes, France, where you can pay to pretend you’re a hamster. It strikes me that this is a good way to kick off my optimistically planned, weekly column, “Dented Can of the Week.”
My friend Arden, who has developed an impressive, hilarious, and exquisitely effective argot over the decades, coined the term “Dented Can” to mean a person who was highly damaged at some point in life, and is still playing out, in highly unhealthy ways, the issues that lead to the dent/s. My interpretation of the metaphor includes the fact that a non-dented can might contact botulism from interaction with the contents of said dented can.
Can a whole concept hotel be a “Dented Can?” I guess this rodent-themed auberge is more playful than some weird places might be, but it struck me that places, as well as people, might fit into this category. Discuss…
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Dented Can of the Week, Interdisciplinary Aesthetics
Atelier.
Abattoir.
I sometimes mix up these words, but then, they do share some qualities.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: words
What on earth does getting this email on December 15 mean?
“We now have delivery date(s) for the order you placed on October 22 2009 (Order# 103-4260598-6558627):
Lynda Barry “Nearsighted Monkey”
Estimated arrival date: November 08 2010 – November 15 2010″
They’re testing me!
Actually, it kind of reminds me of Jim Krusoe’s novel, Erased, of which I’ve read about 60 pages so far. But in Erased, the protagonist is receiving postcards from his mother, who he believes is dead. Jim Krusoe’s novel is engrossing. But I want my Lynda Barry book!
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Jim Krusoe, Lynda Barry
I am new to writing nonfiction. In working on my birth essay, I have really struggled about what should stay in, and what should not. As I mentioned here, it’s one of the hardest things I have ever written, maybe the hardest. I think I understand part of the reason why.
There seem to be at least three layers to the story:
1) The first layer is what happened. The truth. Or maybe The Truth. The Facts. The situation. The lived-experience.
2) The second layer is “Our story.” Like the details about the interpersonal relationships that were created and sustained on that day, during that prolonged moment.
3) The third, final, and possibly publishable layer: What I choose to construct so that it fits in the (hopeful) market and will be interesting to readers.
Readers might not care about the little inside jokes between my husband, my doula and me. They don’t necessarily care what the sky looked like as we drove to the hospital, and so many other textures and details that just don’t fit in the 2500 word limit.
It’s disorienting and difficult to construct something tidy from the messy, complicated, ineffable nine months, and then 36 bolded hours of my life.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: breech birth, natural birth, truth in nonfiction, writing
After five years of seeking publication for my novel, it’s official: Red Hen Press has accepted The Watery Girl!!!
I met Kate Gale from Red Hen last summer at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop. It was my first in-person pitch session, and I was extremely nervous, but I didn’t pass out, thanks to a little help from Buffy. Kate was really cool.
I’m so thrilled–the news is still sinking in, but I got the acceptance letter today, so it must be real.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I went to a seminar where Lee K. Abott was teaching, and he said something like, “Every writer should get one exclamation point per career, and it better be a fire.” I usually agree, and tell this to my students regularly. However, I think this is one of those times that gratuitous exclamation points are allowed.)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Antioch Writers' Workshop, books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fiction, Fountain pens, good news!, punctuation, The Watery Girl, writing
I saw “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and loved it. Though many people consider Tennenbaums the holy grail of Wes Anderson-dom, before seeing Fox, I was most fond of “The Life Aquatic.” (It’s still my favorite. Too many wonderful moments and quotable lines to be displaced, and Seu Jorge doing David Bowie is unparalleled in the world of adaptations. And Klaus! I want to watch it again right now.)
