Three Pairs of Glasses
I have three pairs of glasses: My house glasses which are my oldest pair and the ones that I wear exclusively when I’m at home. Then I have real thick-rimmed glasses for when I want to really look like I’m wearing glasses. The Mr. Magoo Effect. Finally I have a pair that is purely functional — wire-rimmed and light, perfect for writing or programming. Minimal adjustment is required.
I’ve been writing at home lately but sometimes I get cabin fever and have to go out. Ideally what I need is a large, flat surface (no study dividers), a power source, and WiFi in case I need to use google to validate a fact. Also the space should be open late (preferably up to midnight) and there should be easy access to a restroom and a Diet Coke dispensing device. (YRL, formerly the University Research Library, is one of my favorite places to take a crap on campus. I’m not sure why. Maybe the ultra-modern 1950s interior with its flourescent lighting and Kubrick-esque humming noises massages my GI tract.)
When I’m writing my ideal outfit is a soft t-shirt, a baseball cap, and the purely-functional glasses. All function, no form.
This Part of My Life I Call Dancing
The Pursuit of Happyness — I liked it. I knew I would like it before I started watching it — Will Smith is such a charismatic guy. But it’s also because I really like crowd-pleasers. I like populist stuff more than “art” — stories that get people through the rough tracts in their own lives. Things in which people see themselves. That’s what I like.
I like the interiors of cars more than the exteriors. I like designing interfaces for things. I am most interested in the parts of things and systems that human beings actually touch and manipulate — the things you make contact with. I think that a story needs to be immediately recognizable to the reader. It’s got to teach you how to read it like a video game teaches you how to play through its introductory levels.
As beings floating through the world we have to understand every new thing that we encounter before we can use it. When you open up a book for the first time or the lights go down in a movie theater, a good story will present you with a rosetta stone that teaches you how to interface with it. It could be the first line: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It could be the first image.
I like stuff that makes contact with the reader/viewer. That’s the stuff I like the most.
Sympathy for the Devil
Regarding the Virginia Tech shootings — I grieve for the victims. It’s immensely sad and unfair. I read that of the three professors that died, one was a Holocaust survivor: Professor Liviu Librescu. He died trying to save his students.
It’s interesting that various factions are trying to ride this one out to further their own agendas. Gun control or less gun control, etc., etc.. One thing that really bugs me is the attempt to humanize the shooter by calling him a confused kid, a loner, what have you like he’s Holden Caulfield.
I do see that it is natural to try to understand him and pick apart his motives. But I think that the moment a person kills an innocent he trades in his humanity. It is selfish in a way that is exponentially greater than a suicide — to deprive another person of their choices and their future, and their family of a loved one. This guy wasn’t a confused kid — he was an adult making an ugly, senseless choice. In that split second he transmogrified into a monster. And unless there were voices in his head telling him to kill, he deserves all the blame he gets. Fuck this guy.
And another thing — I read his plays and he was a shitty writer.
TEN
More information available at: www.2g.org
That is That and This is This
Tectonic Shifts: Vonnegut’s death last night hit me with a thud; not as much as Uncle Duke’s death or Douglas Adams’, but enough to make me pretty sad trudging in this morning. Who’s next? Ray Bradbury? J.D. Salinger? The guy who invented Pong?
The Green Zone gets bombed. Don Imus joins the racist triumvirate. Cool author-hero dies. The Sopranos is coming to an end. Sometimes I wish I had a giant bin of Legos to hide in. Disappear inside a little plastic fortress and escape by building.
Infinite Jest
Plan your work, work your plan… I am switching soon from research/outline crafting mode to writing mode. I will be working this one in the library until it’s done.
Speaking of libraries, here’s a really good article on how libraries are often daytime homeless shelters. This article’s a long one but definitely worth reading.
Someone mentioned recently that they believe that writing should be artistically spontaneous like a lightning strike. That planning nullifies the spontaneity, and if you aren’t in the “mood” to write, you shouldn’t attempt it.
I think that this is dumb. We all have spontaneous thoughts and ideas, but you can’t always act upon them immediately. That’s why you carry around a notepad to jot them down. You bottle that lightning and save it up.
Spontaneity isn’t enough to carry you through writing 80 to 100 pages. You have to plan that process out and open up your bottles of lightning as you need them to power you through the marathon. Discipline, consistency. Long-form writing requires a very well structured cryptogram, not a single blown wad.
Recommended: The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
Horrific, funny, creepy, full of pain and laughter. Actually seeing a production of this play would be a pretty scary thing to sit through — kind of like an intelligent haunted house.
It has finally occured to me that there are all sorts of scary. There’s cheap “BOO!”-type movie scary and then there’s twisted, “I shall remind you of your impending death/doom” scary. Heart beating under the floorboards scary. The terror of permanent, indisputable truth.
You Stole My Kidney
Yes, I did not shave my head. That was an april fool’s joke. However, attached is a computer simulation of what it would look like if I had:
I often wear lab coats with Chinese collars. My hair also hides the giant pulsating vein on the side of my head. This is the source of my telekinesis.
This morning I turned the prism slightly and it made everything work.
Currently feeling: Cryptically elated
My Work in Print
Year Zero
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.com
Cowboy Versus Samurai
Available from Samuel French and Amazon.comFor a complete list of books containing my work, please click here.
