http://www.catherinelacey.com/
Catherine Lacey is a Mississippian living in Brooklyn. She runs a bed and breakfast called 3B to support her writing habit. She's working on too many books but has a novel finished. Her work has been in The Believer, The Atlantic.com, elimae, 52 Stories, Lamination Colony, Cousine Corrine's Reminder, Trnsfr Magazine and other places.
“The most important and enjoyable thing in life is doing something that’s a complicated, tricky problem for you that you don’t know how to solve.” -William Vollmann
Rejoice! It’s January but I left the house! You know what got me to do this? Only the best reading you could find in New York City: Gary Lutz opening for Robert Lopez. Hot damn. It’s true.
Winter does this to people, especially in any grey city; I mean it makes them suspicious of outside. I know I am. I ran into Sasha Fletcher and we confirmed it; both of us are suffering through the season. It’s almost as bad as Christmas.
But if ever there was a reading during which it was easy to hold good posture, it was this one. When was the last time it was not only easy, but enjoyable to sit up so straight? I am not even sitting up straight right now, though I try. Gary Lutz read from a work-in-progress called Divorcer, which was full of the kinds of things I enjoy: Confused people failing to get away from each other; the phrase “duffel bag”; the following sentence: “All you can ever do with people is back out of them.” We had a great time listening to Gary.
Robert Lopez read all of my favorite stories from his new collection, Asunder. I thought that was true until I got home and looked at my copy again and realized I can not pick favorites in that book. The narrators of Lopez’s are hypnotically unwell. Getting in their little worlds made me feel like maybe January isn’t so terrible after all: For one thing, we’re all laughing, and for another, I am not as unwell as some.
The audience (one that was packed in close and featured glasses) listened well and laughed frequently. Way to go, you all. Good work paying attention. See you in the springtime or at the next thing that warrants stomping through ice.
James Ward
The other day I found myself waiting, and beside my waiting self was a newspaper. I looked at it. Of course, it was full of important stories about important people doing important things, and it would have been good of me to read about something of worth, but the only article I read the whole way through was one about a group of ‘Boredom Enthusiasts’ in London who had a conference last month. I have no idea why I was compelled to read about Boredom 2010 organizer James Ward‘s tie collection, which, as of June 2010 consisted of 55 ties, nearly half of which were solid-colored. “By December, his tie collection had jumped by 36%, although the share of single-color ties fell by 1.5%.” I must be channeling my inner Brit.
Only a day or two later a friend emailed me to ask if I had any favorite novels in which absolutely nothing, or almost nothing, happens. Oddly enough, none came to mind. I think this may be because I am often compelled by what may bore others and my definition of ‘nothing’ can be quite fluid depending on attention span or mood.
Of course there are the books about which people complain about nothing happens (High schoolers, I am looking at you.) The Old Man And The Sea is one but I am sure others (htmlgiant readers) might not categorize it in quite the same way. In David Markson’s Reader’s Block a different kind of nothing is happening, one in which an old man’s brain is sifting thoughts… Is it just me or do old men feature prominently in books about nothing and boredom? Makes it all the stranger that James Ward, mastermind behind Boredom 2010, is only twenty-nine. Someone cue the hand-wringing about the current generation.
Make no mistake: this man is doing nothing.
“I have often asked myself whether those days on which we are forced to be indolent are not just the ones we pass in profoundest activity? Whether all our doing, when it comes later, is not only the last reverberation of a great movement which takes place in us on those days of inaction…”
Ah! So my idle time wasn’t wasted, but necessary to allow eventual brilliance to percolate. Thanks, Rilke!
“Nobody knows how I dread Christmas. Nobody knows. I am not one of those women who can stand things.”
- The Sound and the Fury
They’ve put up all kinds of lights and wreathes in my neighborhood and the girl who made me a coffee this morning sulked under a Santa hat. ‘They made me wear it,’ she said. She is not one of those women who can stand things either.
I don't know. Here's this guy covered in bees. What is happening?
1. A little while ago I put up a note about ghost-writing, wondering if anyone had done it or would. Since then I found out that Ben Greenman ghost-wrote Gene Simmons’s tell-all memoir, which sounds like fun in a weird way. In the interview they don’t ask any follow up questions which is ridiculous considering the title of the piece is “Ben Greenman Ghost-Wrote the Celebrity Tell-All for Gene Simmons.” All I can think of is a boy-faced Greenman trying to have a normal conversation with Simmons as he’s decked out in full KISS attire, or Greenman calling ex-lovers with cigarette-punctured voices to fact check which drugs they were taking when.
2. If you’re in the mood to get upset, have a look at this article about James Frey’s book-factory scheme. A friend who’s working on a book for them suggested I pitch one, too. It seems like basically a terrible idea. I feel greasy just thinking about it. Why are the MFA programs letting this crazy man into their classrooms? I do not know. I am currently abandoning hope. In general, I mean. All hope.
Will some of the trolls please have a look at the article and spew some much-deserved anger in the thread? Thanks. This one is ripe for a shouting match. (If only it were still Mean Week!)
The Faster Times (July 9, 2009 – October 9, 2010) The Faster Times, an online newspaper known for attempting to find a way to make the internet pay writers, was pronounced dead on the scene of what Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz called a “perverse and often baffling” three-day riot and siege of the Cobble Hill brownstone that the The Faster Times just purchased. “Who knew that journalist-bloggers had the upper body strength, let alone the organizational capacity to riot?” Markowitz asked.
Sadly, the Faster Times was torn limb for limb by a mob of seething, red-eyed editors who chanted about revolution, wasted hours and, inexplicably, the crappy font choice. “Justice, I say, Justice!” one editor screamed. The New York Times declared the riot a “a twee, revolution in the journalists’ minor league.”
Among TFT’s greatest advancements to Internet Media during its short but thorough run, was it’s idea that Facebook ‘Likes’ could be converted into dollars, though this plan never actually came to fruition. Had the likes-to-dollars conversion occurred, The Faster Times’s editors and writers could have been the 95th highest paid collective of journalist-bloggers in the first quarter of 2010.
In lieu of flowers, the remaining two editors who didn’t wish the Faster Times a slow and painful death are asking for mourners to “Like” the Faster Times’s Corpse’s Facebook page.
I don’t know why you don’t already know and love Stephen O’Connor. He has never before been mentioned on this blog and for that I am trying to make amends. He’s published two collections of fiction and two works of nonfiction and the most recent is Here Comes Another Lesson, a collection of short stories that will just split you open in so many ways.Yesterday the 20 nominees for the National Book Award were announced. 13 of them were women and none of them were Jonathan Franzen. All bets are off!
There’s this guy I know who was raised by professional clowns in New Mexico. When we met seven years ago in New Orleans I was terrified of him but now he can be counted on to bring things to my attention that I would have otherwise missed, like this passage from the introduction to The House of Blue Leaves by John Guare.
I’m right here in the heart of the action, in the bedroom community of the heart of the action, and I live in the El Dorado Apartments and the main street of Jackson Heights has Tudor-topped buildings with pizza slices for sale beneath them and discount radios and discount drugs and discount records and the Chippendale-paneled elevator in my apartment is all carved up with Love To Fuck that no amount of polishing can ever erase. And why do my dreams, which should be the best part of me, why do my dreams, my wants, constantly humiliate me? Why don’t I get the breaks? What happened? I’m hip. I’m hep. I’m a New Yorker. The heart of the action. Just a subway ride to the heart of the action. I want to be part of that skyline. I want to blend into those lights. Hey, dreams, I dreamed you. I’m not something you curb a dog for. New York is where it all is. So why aren’t I here?
This guy. Yeah. This one.
A friend of mine sent me a link to this letter ‘To a Young Writer’ from Wallace Stegner (you know, the guy that fellowship that rejects you every year is named after.) The letter is long and dire and occasionally overwhelmed me with anxiety. I mean, it’s a great read. No, really. Uplifting.
You write better than hundreds of people with established literary reputations. You understand your characters and their implications, and you take the trouble to make sure that they have implications. Without cheating or bellowing or tearing a passion to tatters, you can bring a reader to that alert participation that is the truest proof of fiction’s effectiveness. You think ten times where a lot of writers throb once.
And there is very little demand for the cool, perfect things you can do. You have gone threadbare for ten years to discover that your talents are almost sure to go unappreciated.
Ok, great! Pass the barbiturates, Wally! If you can get past the fact that (prepare for a news flash) you shouldn’t expect ‘literary’ fiction to earn you a fabulous living on it’s own, the letter raises some interesting questions. I’m just going to point out one that caught my eye.
For one thing, you never took writing to mean self-expression, which means self-indulgence…I speak respectfully of this part of your education because every year I see students who will not submit to it—who have only themselves to say and who are bent upon saying it without concessions to the English language.
One of my least favorite phrases is ‘self-expression.’ When people say they make art or write or sing or whatever to express themselves, I immediately stop listening to them. Someday I’ll be able to forgive this turn of phrase, but for now, I can’t help it. It’s a red flag. (Like ‘Work hard, play hard.’ Yuck.)
We speak a lot about books being ‘self-indulgent’ or ‘masturbatory,’ but less is said about things being too self-expressive. Good writing goes deeper than the self; it isn’t about you, in particular. It’s a hole that you dug through yourself using words like pick-axes until you reached everyone else, or at least a lot of other people. Which reminds me of that post that Mike Young put up the other day. I loved that post. (And it’s weird to realize that sometimes it’s a random blog post that sticks with you and not that one book you read months ago Who wrote it? What was it called? It was so… expressive.)
Hey people who don’t live in New York.* Yeah, that’s right, you people. There is something happening in Brooklyn that I want you to be a part of. This week I started a business called 3B. It’s a bed and breakfast that I have been renovating with 7 others this summer and now we’re officially o p e n . . . . Amy McDaniel and Alban Fischer both booked weekends for this month and Adam Robinson is threatening to show up with his band. I am excited about all of these people because talking in real life is awesome. FYI: All rooms will be goddamncheap til November 15, when we open our lounge and kitchen. After November 15, I will be giving all Giant-readers a deal, especially if you’re a writer on tour or coming here for writing-related stuff. Even without a discount we are ridiculously cheaper than anywhere else in Brooklyn that isn’t shady and dank and inconvenient. (And our place is really nice and we bring you breakfast and coffee in the morning.)
Also, by staying here you’ll be directly supporting the stories, music, poems, essays, buildings, etc that my roommates and I make. Everyone wins. (And if you’re considering a move to Brooklyn (and who isn’t?) we have good monthly and weekly rates if you need a place to land before finding an apartment.)
*People who live in New York: send us those out-of-towners who keep showing up on your couch!
heroofswitzerland.blogspot.com
I’ve known a few writers who ghost write young adult novels for money which has always seemed both enticing and repulsive. On the one hand it seems like it could be really freeing and fun to work inside the constraints they give you (Nerd/vampire superhero lesbian coming of age story in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles– GO!) and under a pseudonym, but on the other hand I wonder if it would be too draining for how little money you might earn. Has anyone had any experience with it? Would you take a ghost writing job if someone offered it today? How much would you want to earn for it to be worth it?
In Cambridge, Massachusetts they’re printing yoga poses on their parking tickets to remind that double-parked undergrad what she learned at Equinox last weekend and to baffle/enrage the guy who just drove daddy’s beemer into a speed trap. I guess the police are getting sensitive about their image because someone started a yelp page reviewing the Cambridge Police Department and it only got four stars from the guy who went there this summer to register his handgun, because, you know, yoga only gets you so far. But they’re going to earn that fifth star, goddamn it.
PR is important, we know. A roommate told me last night that the Washington State Department of Tourism motto used to be “Whaaa?” and even though he thought that was ridiculous, I thought that was appropriate. It says: “Washington– Pot smoking is totally OK here.” READ MORE >
by natalie Dee
I live in Brooklyn which means I can’t even leave the house without twisting my ankle as I trip over an author, often one whose book is already on my shelf. Just yesterday this guy was asking me if I had any spare change and I said, “Wait isn’t this you?” and held up the book I was reading. He just blushed and ran away. They are a timid species.
This would be a happy problem if I had just remained a reader and writer, but I started reviewing books last year and recently I got an assignment from Time Out New York to review Tao Lin’s newest, Richard Yates. READ MORE >
Quick question: What writer would you want to see another edition of 10 sentences with?
From Flickr user samelovesherdog
I’m not happy right now. A few days ago I read this article in The Guardian that included phrases like “unapologetically female” and tried to link all contemporary writing by American Women back to Candance Bushnell, author of the Sex & The City column which spawned a book and the HBO series and the most obnoxious 25% of the female population of New York City. I know it’s probably silly and naive and suspiciously female of me, but I expect more from The Guardian than an article like this.
Full disclosure: I didn’t know that Sex & The City was based on a book or that the book came from a column written in the 90′s in the New York Observer. That still doesn’t make any of it interesting to me. The whole Sex & The City phenomenon probably did have an effect on making Americans a little less prude in the way they talk about sex, and I can appreciate that from a distance. People in their 40′s and 50′s might be ‘more comfortable talking about sex’ now, but the 20 and 30 somethings I know were teenagers before sex & the city and already talked about sex more candidly than a bunch of white chicks drunk on vodka. We didn’t need their permission, but this is really beside the point.
The point is, I am not OK with The Guardian trying to find the root of a literary shift in Sex & The City. The tail didn’t wag the dog; the culture shifted. Nonfiction and memoir have been on the rise in America for a while now and trying to connect all female essayists back to Sex & The City is just lazy and absurd. Lazy and absurd and irritating.
I’ve been thinking a little this morning about the appeal of books you could categorize as intelligent fatties: Ulysses, Infinite Jest, other books I have started but haven’t finished.
People experience joy reading these kinds of books and that makes me happy in the same way that some people like having gay sex makes me happy. I don’t have gay sex but I am happy that it’s being had and enjoyed because uniformity of desire scares me. It reminds me of that acidic feeling I had in sixth grade when a classmate told me all men wanted to have sex with Pamela Anderson.
But my question is this: Does anyone openly admit that they experience joy reading an ‘intelligent fatty’ because it makes them feel smarter than other people? Is that part of the appeal or is that the dirty little secret of the appeal or is that not even a factor?
Bored of the same old interviews, I’ve decided to start something new. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
1. A sentence using three or more words you consider ‘personal favorites.’ She was a college girl, waylaid by a bad fan belt – he had tried using the word “morass” in his pickup line, but she’d slapped him just like the townie girls always did.
2. One sentence about your grandmother: Nana rubbed my gums with ice cold gin, unless she’d already drunk it all.
3. A sentence using a really bad metaphor and too much punctuation: I realized, suddenly, that Misty and me, we were like that tetherball there on that school playground – spinning violently around that cold steel pole and that the cold steel pole was like OUR DEAD FATHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4. A sentence spoken by the thirteen-year-old you once were: “Hey fuckstick — watch this!”
