links for 2008-05-07
- College of St. Catherine to change its name(tags: college, sisters)
- Beyond Rape: A Survivor’s Journey from The Plain Dealer (tags: rape, women,)
Literature Map — your favorite waste of time for the next 10 minutes
Largehearted Boy linked to the Literature Map a few days ago. I’ve been playing with it for the last 10 minutes. It’s a lot of fun. And because I am kind and considerate I did a lot of the work for you:
- George Saunders (looks like I need to read some Coover and Barthleme)
- Denis Johnson (I love that Lester Bangs shows up on his map)
- Mary Gaitskill (I am surprised by the number of people I’ve never heard of who turn up on this map)
- Aimee Bender (it tickles me that Amy Bloom is so close)
- Charles D’Ambrosio (this map is surprisingly sparse and includes a two authors I really don’t care for)
- Douglas Coupland (who is too close to Nick Hornby for my comfort)
- Lorrie Moore (who might have the best map)
I love you, Denis Cooverman
When I read today that Larry Doyle’s book I Love You, Beth Cooper was being made into a movie I felt like the world had finally started to make some sense. Because if ever there was a book destined to moviedom, it’s this one. In fact, the whole thing reads more like a screenplay than it does a novel. Of course it was written by Larry Doyle a former Simpson’s writer and after reading Things I Learned While I Was Skipping English 101, I am starting to develop a Crackpot Theory about tv writers cum novelists. But it’s still in the brewing stages.
Anyway, the book is about Denis Cooverman, the nerdy, short, valedictorian of his high school class who is in love with Beth Cooper the popular, pretty head cheerleader (soon to be portrayed on the silver screen by Hayden Panettiere). On the night of their graduation, during his commencement speech Denis tells Beth and the school and all their family that he loves her, hilarity ensues.
Yeah. I know you are stunned by the originality and brilliance of these characters and situation already. It doesn’t get much better. Cooper and her coterie of friends end up at Denis’ house for his graduation party and then her meathead soldier boyfriend comes and, well, more slapstick hilarity ensues. The book follows Denis, his nerdy best friend, Rich, and the three pretty popular girls throughout the night as the hide from Beth’s sociopath boyfriend and his two army buddies.
I had a bit of trouble with the utter clichedness of the story. Really, it’s like “Breakfast Club” meets “Weird Science” meets “Porky’s” meets well, just about every other 80s teen flick you’ve ever seen. But, just like all those 80s teen flicks, the book is really a lot of mindless fun. I even found myself barking outloud with laughter at a few at Denis’ observations and conversations. Even though I am being a little bitchy about the triteness of the situation and characters, I gotta say I read the book in two days. Why? Because it was just plain fun. Plus, I really liked that the start of each chapter includes a drawing of how Denis looks at the moment, and includes a quote from many of the movies I listed about. At least Doyle is full aware of the fact that he’s not blazing a literary trail here.
And, now that I think about it, for as cliche as Denis might seem, he feels like a real, sincere person complete with inner-conflicts, wants, and desires. Denis is a great, great character and the force of his nerdy yet charming personality is what will get you through the rough spots when you want to roll your eyes so hard they pop out of your head because yeah, yeah you’ve seen this before.
Cranky goes to the polls
Still pretty cranky, I’m hoping coffee with the posse will alleviate a lot of the crank. If not, I’m jumping off a bridge on the way home. I’ve gotten to the point where I am annoying myself with the woe-is-me crap.
Anyway, even in the midst of a hormonal storms there are moments of sheer fun. Over at the Paul Westerberg blog, the Westernerds are determining which is the best ‘Mats album. It’s down to “Let it Be” and “Tim” which should come as a surprise to nobody. Of course trying to choose which album is better is like choosing between The Beatles and The Stones — in other words a decision that cannot be made and that just thinking about causes your brain to melt and run out your nose.
I am firmly in the “Let it Be” camp for reasons that include “I Will Dare,” “Answering Machine,” and the delightful absence of any bullshit like “Dose of Thunder.” So far, my record is winning.
The Dead Fish Museum
One night at Grumpy’s Hispter Mom, Jags, Vodo, and I were talking about writing. This should come as no surprise because that’s all we ever talk about. Hipster Mom talked about how her stories are always about California and dark things. Jags writes about drugs or alcohol, I write about lonely women with bickering families who work at bowling alleys, and Vodo writes about Bob Stinson. If Charles D’Ambrosio had been sitting at the table eating tator tots, he’d have said he writes about fishing, the Pacific northwest, and psychological problems.
I’m having a hard time writing about D’Ambrosio’s collection The Dead Fish Museum. I don’t know what my problem is. I read the book a few weeks ago based on a recommendation, and while I am pretty sure I enjoyed it. I can hardly remember the stories in it. That’s kind of sad, because I always remember stories. My friends often joke about my rainman-like ability to randomly remember the stories written by our classmates. And here I am trying to write about a book I read two weeks ago and I can’t come up with anything.
I do remember that my favorite story in the collection is “The Screenwriter.” I love this story because the voice of the narrator is so different than anything else I’ve ever read from D’Ambrosio. It’s really fast, glib, and fun. The story is about this millionaire movie screenwriter who ends up in a mental hospital and while he’s there he has this really weird relationship with a ballerina who likes to burn herself. It’s so awesome. There is a scene about her dancing and lighting herself on fire that will kick your ass in all the good ways that literature can kick your ass.
Oh! And there’s a great story about this dude who goes up north for thanksgiving with his wife, his wife’s parents, and some of their friends. Along the way we learn that the wife often cheats on the dude and that she was raped by one of her dad’s friends — a friend staying at the cabin that weekend. It’s pretty intense.
I feel a little bit like I’m damning the book with faint praise, and I don’t want to. It’s a great collection, D’Ambrosio is a master of the short story. But somehow I feel like the writing is a little restrained. Everything scene, every sentence is completely controlled. It leaves me a little cold. I want a little passion, a little sloppiness, and there is none to be found in D’Ambrosio’s stories.
Cranky gets an education, a list
Things I learned from watching most of the 832-part History of Rock and Roll on VH1 Classics:
1. The song “Carrie Ann” was written about Marianne Faithful.
2. “Do You Believe in Magic” came out in like 1965 and not in about 1985 like I had always assumed, also the band who sings it, The Lovin’ Spoonful toured with The Supremes.
3. Though written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Marianne Faithful originally sang “As Tears Go By”, and it still sounds like a Stones song.
4. David Crosby was in The Byrds
6. “At that point we weren’t writing sons, and if it weren’t for The Beatles we probably wouldn’t have,” Keith Richards.
7. I love Pete Townshend. This is news to me. I love him because when talking about the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass, and Janis Joplin he sort of flipped his wig, got all teary eyed and said, “They might be your fucking icons, but they’re my fucking friends and they’re dead.”
8. “Don’t be nice, it’s the kiss of death,” Johnny Rotten
(I mostly stopped paying attention when they got to Woodstock and all that blah blah because really it was like 983 parts and my attention span is not that long)
The Vonnegut of my dreams
There was a great flood. I think that maybe the Minnesota River had overflown its banks and flooded most of Shakopee. I had to jump from a plane with a parachute to get anywhere. When I got home, Kurt Vonnegut was sitting at the dining room table in Supergenius HQ. He was using my old typewriter (the one you can often see at the top of this page) and handed me a stack of papers asking me to read.
The story was about me parachuting with my niece Jaycie so she could get to Valleyfair. There was other stuff too, a dogfight (you know with bi-planes like in WWI). When I finished I went back to him, still sitting at the table. I told him it was fucking awesome and couldn’t wait to go to the store and buy it. Then John Irving came out the kitchen with a cup of coffee and said, “I told him the same thing.”
Then I woke up.
Wind out of my sails
I can’t write. I have a lot to say but the words come out wooden and forced. They scratch my skin and make me feel uncomfortable. Nothing seems to flow or to fit together the right way. Forcing it doesn’t seem to be working in the least.
I am pouty and angry and a little bit sad. I’m trying to blame this current emotional state on everything — an e-mail from Vodo about my bad writing habits, loneliness, boredom, fear, writer’s block, rebellion — but what it is, a monthly-induced hormonal imbalance. It sucks, because unlike all the things I want to blame, I cannot do anything about this. It’s hard to rail against biology, which makes it all the more frustrating.
Here is how it is
One day you’re leaping from bed at 11:37 on a Thursday barely-morning because you’re supposed to meet someone for lunch at noon and the next thing you know it’s Friday. And it’s May.
In between there was lunch, a call from your former boss that made you laugh so hard your throat hurt, talking about writing, drinks at Grumpy’s, stories about Moist Frank, cute boys who wave, and learning that eating bacon on veggie burgers is wrong. Oh, and writing in the annoying second person.
This means today has to be extra productive. My biggest goal is to figure out how to invoice a freelance client. My second biggest goal is to not to take nap. Third? Tell you about the best book ever. Also, I decided that I was going to keep track for one day (today) all the random songs I sing in my head. Are you so excited you can hardly keep your pants on? I am.
Things that are making me a little sad tonight, a follow up list to the last one
- That there doesn’t seem to be any sort of ready-made, easy to eat chocolate in this entire house
- This weird lip zit I can’t seem to stop touching
- That I have no idea what in the hell Tubular Bells are, nor have I ever seen “The Exorcist”
- That I am so tired that I cannot fire back an ass-kicking e-mail that needs to be fired back
- That I am using the word that so often in this list
- That Sister #2 is kicking my ass at Scrabulous*
- That I only got four hours of sleep and thus will be entirely too tired to finish reading The Monsters of Templeton which is currently my favorite thing on the planet (because there is no chocolate in the house
*random aside:
When I signed up for Facebook a few months ago I used a fake name. Basically I was doing some research for work and you have to be a member of Facebook to read anything on Facebook. So I signed up and planned to never deal with it again after I got the info I needed. But then I learned about Scrabulous and started my quest to get a #1 rank on iRead or whatever the hell it’s called. However, it bugged the shit out of me that my profile was under a fake name. So after a month of trying and being rejected a few times, I had to lie to the Facebook people (I told them that Willdare was my married name and I got divorced) to get my profile under my real name. Yes, I thought you needed to know all that.
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