End of Summer Updates

A couple of quick notes for updating purposes. I just returned in the last week from a triumphant camping trip and year after the fact honeymoon in around central Ontario and the Capital Region. The part of Canada is a gorgeous as always. I've plowed through the drafts of a couple of new pieces; one set in Hamtramck and the other in Livingston, MT. I've recently found myself more interested in the writings of Jim Harrison and am just starting into a collection of three of his novellaes. If you're not familiar with his work you should check out Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Episode about Montana. He plays a pretty major part in it. The episode, I feel as does the mrs., manages to capture Montana fairly well.

With the summer almost over, it might be nice to end with a little bluegrass jam. Here's a solid one I found on you tube.

Some Freshies from the 90s

I'm not quite sure what got me thinking back to my days at the University of Windsor, but somehow my mind drifted on back to the mid-1990s when I was doing a show on CJAM. Stealing Beauty, the film, was out and was quite popular at the time, but the soundtrack found its way into the Radio Station library. I remember playing the hell out of it, mainly on the good number of graveyard overnight shifts I did. They were marathons of just trying to stay awake. Anyways, here's a cut from that soundtrack as preserved on youtube. Made props if anyone can name the main sample from the piece

Hooverphonic - 2 Wicky

A Quick Review of One Story No.121: Interrupted Serenade

I just recently subscribed to the literary publication One Story. For those of you unfamiliar with One Story, the basic premise is that the journal publishes one story every three weeks and sends it to you as sort of fiction chapbook. The pieces (that I have read thus far) range from about 14 to 30 pages and are well laid out on fine paper stock. For anyone interested in contemporary fiction, One Story is a must. The writers are stronged, varied in their form, and offer a solid window into what is being written in American short fiction today.

I'm still a little behind the publication schedule here, but I recently finished up looking at issue 121 (June 1/2009) and James Hannahan's story "Interrupted Serenade." I have to say that enjoyed this particular piece very much so in terms of subject matter. The story is essentially about Lopey, a younger kid growing up in Yonkers, and trying to make sense of his parent's recent divorce and the presence of his father's new wife(?) or girlfriend. Lopey has become a sort of problem child, slipping into the seeder side of Yonkers, but soon his parents discover his raw ability at piano and see it as an escape.

There is a lot of potential commentary in the piece about race issues in America (Lopey is black, so is his father, but his new "mom" Erika is white) that pervade the piece. These are handled well on the whole and Hannahan's balanced approach to illustrating them really help the story as a whole. There is a universal here that Hannahan manages to tap into with this story though; the powerful place of chance and choices in the growth of kids in America (while this piece is urban, I can see it pushed onto the rural). There is certain element to the piece that is reminscent of Jonathan Letham's Fortress of Solitude. An element that might offer more of a cross-over than a mimicking. Hannahan's story is strong and unique and it wouldn't be possible to consider it anything close to mimicry.

I might like to see a more controlled sense of narration in "Interrupted Serenade." This is primarily because Lopey is such a strong character and I feel that I would like to see more wholely into his head. Erika's viewpoint almost seems intrusive and at times folds the story towards something that might take away from the piece. Then again, that might be the point of her presence. Either way, I'm looking forward to finding more pieces by Hannahan after enjoying this particular piece.

If you haven't checked out One Story by all means you should. They have a great website with interviews they've conducted with the writers of a lot of their stories. Here's the link to their interview with Jonathan Pratt.

The Sweet Rollings of Summer

Bloomington is at just about its most quiet during the year as the summer rolls along. Most of the students are away and a lot of the locals have headed off vacation-ways, yet here I sit. No real complaints, its actually quite pleasant to find an easy sit at Soma or many of the other various haunts. With the heat index finally starting to reach its more or less appropriate level, I thought there might be some goodness in posting some jazz awesomeness to relax and embrace this peak of summer slumber. Here's two links to the great and powerful Sonny Rollins (don't ask me where #2 is, couldn't find it. Turn the lights down and enjoy.

Contest of Note

The Naugatuck River Review is hosting its first ever Narrative Poetry Contest. They are a well-designed publication full of very well written poetry. (Yes, this is a bit of plug given I have poem in the Summer issue). The Contest Fee is $20 and includes a copy of issue where the winners will be published. Send up to three poems in. It's an electronic submission system too.

Contest Page Here

Summer Reading Again: A little Joyce

I seem to recall that most every recent summer (minus perhaps this one) CBC radio has run a little challenge to its readers to pick up and get through all of Joyce's Ulysses. Sadly, no, I haven't read or even opened his masterpiece. But I thought it rather appropriate to read something by Joyce to make my summer reading list at least respectable. So I picked up Dubliners.

For that small percentage of readers out there who haven't heard about this brief collection of short stories, Joyce paints through his pieces in this book the day-to-day lives of the working class of Dublin in the first decade or so of the last century. It is important because Dubliners tells stories that everyday working class people experienced (or could have experienced). This is a nice change give the more modern day obsession with the cult of personality/praise of the rich that seems to float through the works of regularly praised writers such as Rushdie and yes, Dan Brown. What Joyce shines through with is his ability to illustrate the everyday in a manner that engages the reader and propells oft ignored voices and experiences.

Moreover though, Dubliners shows writers the way to write economically and successfully at the same time. I know that many MFA programs push for higher page counts (mainly for the reason of forcing the budding fiction writer to get the mechanics of composition through physical memory). As an off-shoot of this, writers sometimes forget that you can accomplish a lot with a little. Joyce shows us in this collection that shorter fiction can work and do so wonderfully.

Catching up with some Hockey Poetry and Henry Miller

I know I've been off the whole blogging thing for awhile. This Norwegian summer language immersion has been rather intense and has afforded me little time in the way of posting. It's been a good summer of reads nonetheless. I recently finished Tropic of Cancer, the class by Henry Miller. I had been pestered for sometime by a writer friend of mine in Seattle to read it. What can I say other than he was right. Miller can get a little far gone with the obscenity at times. Thing is that just have to hold on and he works you through those moments to a nice shared mental space with narrator. For those of you not aware of the entire Tropic of Cancer story, it is a first person narration on an expatriot American writer in early twentieth century France (but more specifically Paris). The book was banned for many years in the US. But such has not been the case for sometime now. Regardless of history, Miller does a great job of placing us in his narrator's head. Think of it as proto-HST picaresque. It's an interesting balance against Hemingway's Moveable Feast.

Secondly, I recently finished Randall Maggs' Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems. I've typically had issues finding solid literature about hockey or centred on the hockey world. This particular collection seems to answer that problem. Maggs teaches at Memorial University in Newfoundland. He does some very nice work here bringing poetry to the hall of fame goaltender Terry Sawchuk's life. There are some very memorable pieces in this collection, most specifically "The Back Door Open Where She's Gone to the Garden" and "Long Memories." I have to admit to a soft spot for well written poems set in and around Windsor and Detroit. It's a nice piece of work and I highly recommend it as a great summer read.

Recent Reads - Coyote's Bow Grip

I recently found myself staring at the Canadian Lit stacks on the ninth floor of the Wells' Library and came across a smallish novel set in Alberta. I do find myself quite interested in literature with a strong sense of regionalism/place. I grabbed the book, thinking that it might help me with a poetry series I was building on words and the Canadian landscape. I didn't get around to reading Ivan E. Coyote's Bow Grip (Arsenal Pulp Press 2006, ISBN 1-55152-213-6), until almost a month after the whole poetry series was completed for class.

The book won a ReLit award in 2007 and was the first novel for Coyote. Ostensibly, Bow Grip is about a Drumheller, AB car mechanic who is trying to get over a divorce and the loss of his father through developing the hobby of playing cello. Bow Grip contains a certain amount of alluring quirkiness that really helps to pull the reader in. The narrator is strong enough to pull us through his odyssey from rural Alberta town to Calgary and place into a world on the outskirts of "successful" urban life. The characters that inhabit the world of this book are notably and recognizably working class. There is a familiarity in them that is welcoming and embracing.

The single biggest downsize to the book is that it just doesn't seem to linger on scenes or characters enough. It's short, only 217 pages, and seems to need another 100 pages or so just to fulfill the promises afforded by the strong set up of characters. There does seem to be some loose ends that need to be tied up, or closed off. As a writer and a reader, I feel that everything that appears in a work should be there for a reason. I don't always feel that Coyote pulls some of these threads into any sucessful meaning. The most notable of these in the novel is the presence of a french waitress whom Joey's (narrator) friend Hector is trying to set him up with. She appears for a scene and then simply disappears, never thought of or seen again.

All in all though, this is an interesting book and quick read. If anything, Coyote's Bow Grip is a solid way to start off your summer reading.

Happiness is a Good Short Story

Such being the case, May is National Short Story Month. Now get out there and read some short fiction. I'd recommend the journal Short Story. Not just for the title, they honestly do put out some nice work.

Things here in Bloomington are lovely moving along towards summer. The campus has emptied out and now we have plenty of elbow room on the streets of this fine town. The chill air of college town America is one of those rewards year round residents get in the summer. I'm milking it now, reading up on Snyder and Hayden while tending to our garden. The realness of life away from academia is a wonderful breath of air after a semester of literary criticism and over blowing ivory tower issues.

One important note to pass along. READ THIS (out of Montana State University) has lost its last founding editor with the graduation of Cheryl Knoble. Cheryl served as Editor in Chief since the start and really was instrumental in turning the vision of poet john d powers it a reality. It was a great run. One that I'm sure the next generation of editors at READ THIS will carry on nicely. There should be a new issue out in and around Bozeman as I post this. The website has yet to update its electronic version. Congrads Cheryl on the great run and welcome to post-graduate blues. I doubt it will be the last the Literary world hears from her.

May Dispatches

Time has been at a premium over the past few weeks with the Spring semester here at IU wrapping up. One the upside, I've managed to wrap up a small poetry collection concerned with lexicography and the Canadian landscape. All totaled, its about twelve pieces that explore the ways in which language (Canadiamisms), history, culture, and the landscape of Canada are meet. There is a more to do in this vein, and perhaps I'll spend the summer looking into either converting it into a cohesive chapbook or larger enterprise. It was fruitful exploration. A couple of the pieces are out for consideration at a couple of literary publications. I'll be sure to keep any updates as to future publication here. These lit journals are our life blood, so we have to support them.

I've also been diligently working away at the academic-side of life here at IU. My present interests are pulling me into the studies of Christopher Marlowe and his use of "the other" as distraction in the Jew of Malta. I'm still using the Marxist goodness I learned at Trent under Kulcheski and the Native Studies program. Greenblatt has been rather central to the topic thus far. Either way, I'll try and post an excerpt from the piece later this week as it gets closer to completion.

Other than that the garden is coming in nicely despite the fact that sun has been a rare vision in the past couple of weeks here in Bloomington. No swine flu in sight and the front porch has become a welcome addition to our writing/reading space.

Snyder, Stein, and the hints of Summer

I've been AWOL for the last week or so, just trying to figure out some final project material for this semester. Fiction workshop has been a no-brainer in terms of finding a project, but the other two have been slipping in and out of consciousness for sometime now. I feel as though that academic stream of me has fallen hopelessly behind me. This is not something I really I'm at all upset about. Yes, it is true I have a not so faint disgust for Ivory Towerism. That's the problem with these academic pieces. Who is really meant to read them? Well, some might say the same for poetry, right? Probably those that write academic pieces. Is this all starting to seem circular?

Back onto course, I've started a series of poems about words, meanings, and the power of the Canadian land. I'm only about five poems into the series, but things seem to be taking a nice shape thus far. I would never have figured a cento created from site passages of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles would be so much fun to construct. You might say it was like the composition of dictionary itself. I hope to have a nice solid series poems that could be converted into a chapbook.

I have had to fuel this poetic explorations. I've found myself searching the canyons of the Wells' Library for material in recent weeks, and ended up with a considerable collection of works by Gertrude Stein and Gary Snyder. The Snyder thing shouldn't be such a huge surprise, given my recent attempt at short fiction piece guided by his work (The Light Upon the Bridgers). The fiction piece is resting (as all work must before revision or deletion). But I've found some of Snyder's collections quite helpful to get the ball rolling. I just finished Axe Handles in one sitting. In totality it wasn't off his best works, but there are always strong points to any given work. This one does have many. The best I could say is read it. It has much to do with Snyder's back-to-the-land homesteading in Northern California. If any thing its a great way to look at the world after the collapse of our very recent hyper-capitalist world. Yes, it is possilbe, even for a poet and Zen master, to live without diversified stocks and bonds and a brand new H3 in the manicured driveway.

I'm using some of Gertrude Stein's surrealist poetic sequences to look at new ways of talking about a world, I might only have a surface level connection with at best. I'm still working to decode and then recode some of her words. They can get a little disjointed. With summer so close and baseball season all ready on hand, they might also provide an interesting may to look at the divine game.

The Thunderstorms of Spring

Yes, it is true. We've been having a good number of them in recent days. Most of the town has gone to flowers and the long hard days of February seem to be nicely behind us. I've been rather behind updating this page. This has as much to do the effects of teaching, grad school, and general outside reading load that might be a tad bit too heavy for my own sanity. The best way to learn to write better is to read those you admire most. I might be taking my advice too liberally.

I forgot to report that Zaum 13 is out. It really is a nicely designed journal (I'm quite taken by the cover)and has some pretty cool things going on inside. My poem "Misplaced Nashville Skyline" appears in it. There are lot of solid poems in the journal, along with art work, that make it worth picking up for a read.

Work continues in earnest on a new poetry series looking into the lexicographical connection between Canadians and their landscape. Being from Ontario might make this just a biased as most of the critics out there would assume it to be. There is a long list of unique Canadianisms that could make for some interesting explorations of the power of the performative and words in our relationships to the world around us. I've been looking pretty hardcore in the history of OED this semester and this series will undoubtedly bear much of its success (or failure) to that study. My most recent short story is actually my longest to date. "The Landscapes of Hubert Pineau" is in its early draft stages and details the son of an artist and his search for a fatherly legacy on Pelee Island. There will be more to report later.

A Quick Catch-Up: Publications and Return to the Grind.

I have returned to the great southern hill country of Indiana's Monroe county after a trip up to the rust belt centre of Windsor/Detroit for a late week get away. Good news is that both cities are physically intact and fire brimstone haven't actually welled up and out of the river, yet. We managed to catch our first game at WFCU Centre and eat a little Pho. All in all, a very successful trip. I just love the feel of rust in the air. What can I say.

There are a couple of publications of note that just came out. Only of note because I have some work appearing in them. The first is a big shout out to READ THIS, who have published their spring issue. You will note that I manage to grace the pages of the issue with a few fellow IU MFAers. It's good to see that they are still cranking out some solid issues, keeping the dream alive in Bozeman, MT. My piece is an excerpt of a longer short story I wrote while working at the Ambassador Bridge almost a decade ago. "Glimpses of Honolulu Blue" finally sees the light of day. You can read the whole issue at Read This Website.

The San Pedro River Review has released their inaugural issue. They are based out of Tucson, AZ and are affiliated with a local press there. I just received my contributor's copy and I really enjoy many of poems in it. My poem "The Lilies of Riverie Canard" appears in it. It's a publication of quality that I am ecstatic to have my name associated with. If anyone is looking for copies you will have to contact them directly. I believe they have a special for institutional copies.

I'm returning to work on a couple of poetry pieces and the longer bits of novella compilation. My first pantoum is in the middle drafting stages and "To Come Upon the River Narrows" (once Bastion of Industrial Decline) is about to get fired back up again. There is a potential mythology ala Duluoz I can see emerging. Be Bold. Writing is only for those with the wherewithall to withstand the punishment.

Berry and Caple's The Notebooks: A Great Read For Writers

A couple of weeks back, while exploring the upper reaches of the Herman B. Wells Library here at IU, I came came across this rather thick book entitled The Notebooks: Interviews and New Fiction from Contemporary Writers. It was in the Canadian Lit section and being just one of those sidenotes to my searches for fiction set in urban Canada, I grabbed it. This book, edited by Michelle Berry and Natalee Caple, has ended being one of the those absolutely invaluable reads for me.

The title gives away most of what this book does. Each section starts with a reproduction of the notebook of one of these Canadian writers and then drops us into a draft of a work in progress by the given writer. What then follows are interviews with the artists about craft and typically the state of the art in Canada. Taken as a whole, each artist section are fantastic individual explorations of the creative process. While each writer is unique and their take on both the craft and the industry are informative and entertaining.

What writers are in this particular collection? Yann Martel (Life of Pi) is clearly the one name that many would recognize. But you also have Hal Niedzviecki of Broken Pencil fame (If you haven't head about it, check it out. They have really cool Writer's Deathmatch. They're based out of Toronto), and Andrew Pyper (Lost Girls). I wouldn't just recommend the book for those that are familiar with the names listed above. It's just worth it to find some new writers and see what they are doing right. It is simply nice to see the state of the craft is alive and well in the Great White North. And while this book is a little on the older side (2002), it really does hold something quite useful for the writer.

The edition I've been looking at was put out by Anchor Canada (Random House Affliate I believe), and it should be available on Amazon.com or Chapters.ca.

Mondays need Happy Songs

The sun is back here in Bloomington and after a long day of editting and revising it feels very welcome. Sometimes this whole writing thing seems to be too damned competitive and we all just need to take a step back and maybe breath. I'm not referring to anything particular event, but just that general malaise of received at least six times the rejection letters than acceptance letters. Well, at least most the rejection letters are at least nice ones. I'm starting to hate the whininess of this post already, so lets turn the ship here.

Music cures the soul, right? As I said before that I spent yesterday working and listening to tunes and this song somehow came up. It reminded me of trips of Amherstburg and driving I-75 south in my childhood. We had an old beast of brown station wagon and my father would be slurping the majestic red cans of Bud during or travels (I'm pretty sure he wasn't driving at those moments). Here's to mustaches, tight clothes, and 1970s pop. There must be a story or a poem in there somewhere.

Grunge, Subversive Poetic Activities, and Greyness

I got an email from a fellow writer declaring that would should actively pursue the return of Grunge to forefront of the American Art scene. I must admit to a certain desire to pursue this plot to successful end. I more or less started to come of age in this grunge era (yep, long johns, shorts, wool socks, I had it all), and a large part of me really would enjoy this coming back. Oh, Oulette Street, the Second Cup, and the power of being in a half-illusionary band. It might help the bleakness of spring/late winter in the mid west a little better. For some reason this song came to me (Dollar Bill - Screaming Trees) and really felt the need to post it. I might even try to build this into a short story set in Windsor. Sorry it's not the original music video.

Notes Concering the Mid-February Blues

'Tis true, those blues just keep a rolling. For such a short month, the greyness of days certainly seems to really stretch out those 28 days into an immeasurable chasm of general blahness. The whole body seems lathargic, just waiting for glorious thing to happen at some later date. Perhaps the one motioned to by the arrival of sun. All minor complaints given the current status of countless other people in the country.

I've been slaving away inside over these past few weeks trying to finish up the first workshop story for the semester. What's come is a monster, my longest complete piece to date, a 6100 word monster set in Bozeman, MT. The funny thing is that after I fashion the final, and rather short scene earlier today, I clearly felt a weight lift. I was starting to have dreams about my characters. I was becoming concerned for my sanity and perception of reality. Hopefully, with the completion of the manuscript for "Light Upon the Bridgers" will put myself back in the midst of the insanity of my own dreams.

I have been reading way too many form of poetry books recently. I tore through Robert Hayden's Collected Prose book last week. I'll post an in depth review once things slow up around here. I just started Nims Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry. I can and must tell that is a must have book even thus far into it. Again, I will post more on it in the next weeks. It really seems as though it is a brilliant catch all for poetics and questions around composition.

Lastly, for something of just pure fun check out the New Michigan Press for there most recent chapbooks. They are all beautifully designed and are available on Amazon. For the more ridiculous to look at and maybe even purchase (I'm really thinking about it) look at the bottom of this t-shirt list at MFA t-shirts. How cool are these? http://newmichiganpress.com/nmp/tshirts.html

Western Longings - Hemingway, ALO, and the West on Paper.

Maybe it was all that Hugo that read, maybe it was the snow-laiden streets of Bloomington, or maybe it was just the passage of time, but I've been trapped in this feeling of longing for the West all week. All this industrial haze must get on the individual's nerves after awhile. I've managed to turn the longing into some positive work, but aside the novella for a couple of weeks to crank out some workshop short fiction. Oh, Bozeman how will you fare in the workshop environs of the midwest?

I always use music to drive my craft and as such I've turned to the appropriate "jam" pieces that really highlighted my western migration. My most recent piece, set along Bozeman's mainstreet, is being design with the rhythms of the Grateful Dead and Animal Liberation Orchestra. That smooth gliding funk of certain songs really help to conjure up the way light plays off the mountains of Montana. You don't work at a ski hill (I stray from the term resort of a reason) and not become at least partially inspired by the beauty you see every day. Hence the title "Light upon the Bridgers."

I've been readng Larry Philips collection "Ernest Hemingway on Writing," and it has been at least somewhat enlightening. There is a comment that Ernie wrote to someone in his family about the secret of fiction being poetry. The greatest distiller of the language of prose fiction clearly sees the merging point of the two genres. Creativity is creativity, and without the beauty of concrete metaphors and similies what is writing but threadbare newsprint? I'll leave that yo journalists.

All things being what they are, I'll leave this posting with a little Animal Liberation Orchestra. May all your western dreams burn brightly and winter recede quickly under spring's growing fingers.

Lest We Forget Hugo: Triggering Town, the must have.

I still recall my early days here at IU. Those clumsy first weeks in a graduate creative writing program, when you introduce yourself from you (in my case adoptive) home state (Montana) and try to push the virtues of that place on the others. Being education in Montana and being a writer, it pretty much went without saying that I had to push the whole Richard Hugo thing. I was surprised by the number of my fellow students who had no idea who the man was, let alone anything about his book The Triggering Town. Really, this is a cornerstone type book in any writer's collection.

Hugo's book is quiet short (just over a hundred pages). But it packs that sort of terse depth that one often associates with his poetic works. For those who don't know, Hugo was a professor at University of Montana back in the day. He shares that magical space of awe of Montana poetics with Patricia Goedicke also of the same school's fame. Be a poet from the Northwest (Seattle) you can really feel the landscape pour through in his work. In this collection of his essays, you can see the origins of it. One whole chapter/essay is pretty much just a collection of his triggers for good poems.

But this collection is worth it, just for the final two chapters. This chapters most brilliantly illustrate the way in which Hugo pieced together his work from the experiences around him. The first of the two is centered around his return to Italy in 1963 (Hugo fought in the war) and a few of the poems that came out of that experience. His last chapter focuses on his time working for Boeing and explores this great story that leads to a great poem. I'm trying to give much away, here. To hear Hugo on this level is to apprecite him beyond his verse and into his mind as a teacher.

I'm terribly fascinated by the places where poetics and prose merge. Those that pull these type of sections off best, tend to be the writer's I hold dearest. I say this only because a book such as Hugo's illustrates the ways in which life experience can translate into poetics and possibly great fiction. For those that don't know Hugo and fancy themselves writers I say it's about time you made friendly.

Rust Hills and the Lens of Fiction

I just recently finished reading Rust Hills' classic Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular and must say that I did find it quite useful in settling into the new semester of writing. While the book does focus in very large part on the short story, he does provide highly valuable tips to crafting novels. An act that I've been highly engrossed in for sometime now. The "Bastion" piece is by far larger than I had originally thought it would be, and it is with some fright that it might continue to grow. Regardless, Hills' call for a tightly controlled focus is helping me with this piece. It's actually allowed me to see the beginning in a new and more controlled fashion, one that I've been reworking over the past few days. I'm finding these craft books quite handy in breaking writer's block.

This tight focus on narrative perspective is something that I've become quite fascinated by. When asked to apply some of Hills' theories to some short stories in The Habit of Fiction collection, I became fascinated by the way in which Christie Hodgen uses vignettes in her piece "Three Parting Shots and a Forecast." The story, a wonderful piece of historical fiction, revolves around the assignation of Lincoln as seen through the "eyes" of Booth, Lincoln's chair, Lincoln's Doorman, and Boston Corbett. It's worth a read just for the details she employs in exploring this single most important act through differing viewpoints. The narrative lens is tightly focused on its respective subject matter.

I've often talked to my classes about narrative lens in fiction, but this semester it has spilled over into poetry. I try to compare the speaker of the given work to the camera lens of a director. I often use Wes Anderson, if only because I'm still hooked on his Darjeeling Limited. It seems to help the students to watch the way he uses and relies upon distinctive concrete images to paint his scenes. I noticed a very strong improvement in their narrative control after telling them to watch at least one of his films. Movies still seem to have something valuable to writers. They're not all evil.

Thievery Corporation and the War of the Dictionaries

So I'm sitting around reading on this lovely Saturday night, as most graduate English/Creative Writing students are undoubtedly are, and I'm reading all about the War of the Dictionaries, when I realize that I may have gone right off the deep end. I've started to feel the strangest urge to go off and read Dictionaries by famous editors and see if I can start find their style. There is something that goes seriously sideways in your head when you start longing to read alphabetically arraigned definitions of words to try and get at the heart of a man. Dictionaries are an interesting endeavour to consider, but I'm starting to think that is might be too much reading and focus on the subject for my own sanity. Should I really consider reading all of the Webster 1828 Dictionary, just see if I could seen some new aspect of his personality, his soul, in the definition of "estuary?"

I've been listening to a lot of Thievery Corporation recently. It also happens to be that I also happened up the movie Garden State recently as well. The majority of which is good and often just straddles the line of really cool and almost there. We won't talk about the ending. Regardless, this tune appears rather prominately in the film. Something to watch/listen to and consider Worcester's emotional status around the SC portion of the definitions in Comprehensive and Explanatory Dictionary.

Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde (yeah, yeah, the French version is better)

The Trials of Zero Degrees in South Central Indiana and Notes on Workspace

Well the ass finally fell out of the thermometer here in Bloomington. Our nightly lows will be below zero degrees for the next two nights and low and behold after just one night of this stuff, we already have frozen pipes. After looking around weather underground, it seems that the weather on Turtle Island is gone awry. There are hard freeze warnings from Tampa, Fl to New Orleans. Hopefully, their pipes will be safe. I thought leaving Montana behind would leave this type of day behind. Maybe it would just be nice to an insulated crawlspace.

First day of fiction workshop and we had a fairly interesting talk about writing, inspiration, and work place. Now, the typical public stereotypical viewpoint of the writer's world is a dark grimy attic somewhere with a typewriter/word processor and an ash tray. Fact of the matter is that space does matter, and for me as a writer avoiding this type of space is key. The general consensus among the writers I know of, is that workspace matters for nothing more than comfort and inspiration. Attics don't cut it.

I can say that my workspace is as earthy as I can make it, living where we do. I have a clear view of a sugar maple and the old workshop across the street. The wood panelling is nice, even if it is fake, and the high ceilings of my office tend to bring in more light than other place's I've worked. I've added certain personal touches such as pictures from my travels, a Tibetian flag, and other nostalgia pieces that help as triggers to positive places that I can draw my work from. It'll be nice come summer to look out one of the windows and see the garden we're planning. But for now it's the light and presence of self I've crammed into a corner of the room that seem to make that space workable.

Saddly, due to company in recent weeks I've been unable to utilize that space and have found my workflow basically plugged. I've been reading sure, but have been lost in any attempt to produce new works. My fiction isn't really up for review for a couple of weeks so I have time to re-situate myself in the space. Right now though, without my workspace, I feel out of sync. So much of life depends on timing. Maybe even this cold snap has something to do with that.

Kerouac and Freezing Fog ... oh my.

Winter tends to come and go here in South Central Indiana and it looks like its fighting its way through the fog of the Hoosier Hills today. Everything is coated in a beautiful sheen of ice and the air is heavy with the smell of the nearby woodstove. All the benefits of living across from an antique woodshop. Actually, it's quite beautiful and reminds me of fall visits to the Smokey Mountains as a kid.

Being trapped inside (self-imposed of course) I've taken to listening to Billie Holiday and reading over some long neglected Kerouac that I've been meaning to. I received a copy of his City Lights publication a week or two back and finally got around to reading it. Kerouac's Scattered Poems is just that, poems collected from his scattered wanderings around the world. Everything from hymns to haiku to collabrative bits with Ginsberg and Cassidy are in the collection. It's an interesting collection only in so much that it offers a vantage point into the poetics of Kerouac. Much of the poems I can do without, but he seems to have learned at least a couple of things from Snyder when it comes to haiku. These tiny jewels might be the best part of the book. Not in the traditional poetic sense of haiku, but more out of the sense of seeing roots in his fiction and his construction of myth. Kerouac is more prose writer than poet, but certain aspects are fairly enjoyable.

I tend to like poems about craft, so here's a reproduction of his piece entitled "Poem" and dealing in large part with the craft of writing poetry.

Poem

Jazz killed itself
But dont let poetry kill itself

Dont be afraid
of the cold night air

Dont listen to institutions
when you return manuscripts to
brownstone

dont bow & scuffle
for Edith Wharton Pioneers
or ursula major nebraska peose
just hang in your own backyard
& laugh play pretty
cake trombone
& if somebody give you beads
juju, jew, or otherwise,

sleep with em around your neck

Your dreams'll maybe better

There's no rain
there's no me,
I'm telling ya man,
sure as shit.

1959

See not the most poetic but still interesting. It's more a book for huge Kerouac fans and freezing fog days in places like Indiana.

Some Notes on the Preparation of a Novella

So I'm writing away on this whole novella enterprise (begun in earnest around September) and I'm stumbling through both the editing and completion portion. I've only re-wrote the beginning three times now, replaced narrators, and added whole scenes. I'm beginning to work about stretching this past the whole novella thing. That's the problem with writing, it's far more organic than we would often like it. This is not to say that writing comes down upon us in some magically driven type force. Rather that the whole process takes a lot of time, patience, and effort.

As it stands now I'm about three fifths done the physical writing portion with the totality of it at least sketched out. "The Bastion of Industrial Decline," may not even keep its name. While I like the ring of it and can personally see the tie between story and title, but worry it might be too vague for those outside my head. It's still fun to sitdown and write, just that private time and the space to get into that mode necessary to craft words into something meaningful seems limited at best over the previous few weeks. I've crawled to only about 700 or so new words in the past 2 weeks. I'm needing a few days worth of burst to get this novella moving in the right direction before it loses all sense of speed and momentum.

I know that my novel in clearly in the midst of a holding pattern. Hopefully it won't be a perminant one. But again, those type of things are rarely close to certain. Poetry also seems to be eating time in regards to the craft. This isn't a horrid thing, just slightly problematic in that I would like to finish this one project before branching too deeply into newer stories. Just one of those things. Focus is an important thing for any artist. Just trying to pull mine back online before fiction workshop rears its head.

Slumber Party Music

Well, happy New Year all. We've all made it to 2009, which for some is a better thing than others. I managed to finally find the music videos for this Detroit indie band Slumber Party. I first came across them on the Model D Media and really dug their sound. It's rather reminscent of the early 1990s stuff like the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Breeders. It just seems so Midwestern (though mind you neither of those bands are from that general area) and tends to remind me of my youth in the metro Detroit area. Hope the hangovers and general tiredness is treating y'all with some sense of dignity. Detroit's industry might be dying but the city is far from gone. The art scene is alive and well. This particular group is just a small part of it.

Slumber Party- Late Nite


Slumber Party - Electric Boots