August 2005 Archives

An interesting question has been asked, to me by me, about why MixedMetaphors.net sucks lately. In its glory days there were hysterical postings about superheroes and zombies and insurance. Lately it's been nothing more than a place for me to mumble about my current location within the North American continent and mention what books I've been reading. But why? WHY? Well, I've been busy. Busy? Yes, busy? But how could I be busy when I've been living in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania doing nothing all summer? Here's how: I haven't been living in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania doing nothing all summer. That story was merely serving as my cover. I've been living in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania doing SOMETHING all summer. And now that my cover has been blown I'm going to go ahead and speak the truth.

Four months ago in Austin I received a phone call at three in the morning. It was a call I'd been expecting for some years, a reminder of a debt unpaid to Z.E.D.S., the Zombie Eradication and Defenestration Society, a group to whom I owed my life many times over. When holed up in a weakly defended 7-11 during the untelevised and now all-but-completely covered-up 1992 zombie uprising of Piscataway, NJ, the fearless heroes of Z.E.D.S. pulled me out from under a burning slurpie machine and air-lifted me to safety. And now they needed me. It was a call I was honored to take, though I did pause to ask them how come they always called people at three in the morning, to which they replied something about the rates being cheaper. I told them I would do anything to help the Society: assist them in the anti-zombie research laboratory, infiltrate the new zombie-spreading anarchist group that was popping up in small towns up and down the eastern seaboard, even hunt down lurking zombies in the rural areas of Pennsylvania where recent sitings were making the local news. Instead they wanted me to manage a web development team building an online insurance portal for non-captive commercial-lines agents. Apparently Z.E.D.S. had created a small regional insurance operation and heard I had some expertise. Well, a debt is a debt, and I was on the next plane.

Unfortunately a few months later someone at A.M.Best realized that Z.E.D.S. did not, in fact, stand for Zurich Employee Benefits Services (we're not quite sure how they got that idea in the first place) and decided that any zombie-based operation was to be considered inherently unstable both financially and otherwise. Our risk rating plummeted from A++ to C-/D, which pretty much screws you in the insurance business since C-/D translates directly to "if you try to file a claim against an insurance policy not only will it be ignored, someone will come to your house and steal your pillows." So we lost all our clients and had to sell off our book of business to a property management company in the D.C. area looking to branch out and provide coverage to owners. This put me out of a job and on the street, the kind of street you don't want to be on at 2 AM when the nearby anti-zombie research laboratory has been raided and contaminated by a zombie-spreading anarchist group.

Anyway, now that the whole Z.E.D.S. fiasco is over, I'm getting the hell out of here and moving to New York.

I've been living in this extended-stay corporate hotel in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania since May 1st. It's a nice enough place, it's clean and... well, it's clean, but the pillows leave a little to be desired - they are a tad lumpy for my taste. I finally got around to bringing my own pillows with me for increased comfort. This week the normal cleaning guy (and owner of the building) was on vacation and therefore a temporary maid cleaned the rooms. I guess she didn't realize I had brought my own pillows and they have been replaced with the ones I don't like. This is the first time I have been to a hotel and they have stolen MY pillows.

What is there to say? David Sedaris is really, really funny.

Okay, actually I do have something to say about it. Sometimes the short essays in the book are good for a chuckle, sometimes tremendous laughter. Sometimes they are poignant and funny, moving stories about a family that after reading four of his books I feel like I know and care about a great deal. And sometimes I finish reading a piece and I realize that if I were to take away all the background information I've collected over the course of his books and just consider it a story about a gay man and his father (or something like that) then it would simply be an excellent short story. Just because Sedaris is writing personal humorous essays doesn't mean he isn't also an excellent crafter of fiction. I think I'm going to try to study some of his essays and use them as a guide to writing a fiction piece. He consistently balances on the edge of letting us care about him and his families without actually giving away too much of the emotional. It's good writing. I want to give an example, but that would be too much effort. You'll just have to trust me.

Delillo is one of my favorite authors, or, at least "White Noise" is one of my favorite books. Since "Mao II" is (a) on the potential reading list for one of MFA classes this term, and (b) I claim that I love Don Delillo is one of my favorite authors, and (c) I needed something to read, I decided to read it. Well, as it turns out: (a) it's a great book and (b) I've read it before. I suppose you might think the book isn't memorable if I'd already read it and forgotten about it, and you'd kind of have a point, but it still is really good. And, frankly, I pretty much remembered the whole thing as soon as I read the first page. I kept thinking to myself, "Oh, is this the book where such-and-such happens" and then I'd be right.

Do I want to say anything about the book? Well, not really. Lately I've felt more like discussing the arcane circumstances surrounding my reading of a book rather than the actual book itself. The plot is about someone who clones thousands of Mao's to create a giant Mao army that threatens the world. Just kidding. It's about art and terror. I don't like it as much as "White Noise" but I still like it. My ranking of Delillo books so far is "White Noise" at the number one spot, "Mao II" at the number 2 spot, and then everything else.

Well, damn it, I was forced into reading the next Harry Potter book. My girlfriend pretty much shoved it into my hands and said, "Read!" She's getting her PhD in comparative literature, so normally her book suggestions are slightly less mainstream, but Harry Potter appears to be a unifying force for pleasure in the literary world. I must admit, the book was good, and about a million times better than the snoozer that was number 5.

Anyway, since I'm apparently the last person in the world to have read this book, I'm not going to discuss it. Instead I'll talk about the fact that I've linked not to the amazon.com copy, but to the amazon.co.uk "Adult Edition" of the book. By "Adult Edition" I don't mean the pornographic version, I mean that in England there is one printing with a cartoonish cover for the kids and one with a classy cover for the adults. My girlfriend prefers those nice, classy covers. I too enjoyed the adult edition cover because I was able to read the book on a plane without everyone knowing I was reading Harry Potter. But since 75% of the plane was also reading Harry Potter I guess I should just get over it and admit that I like the teenage wizard.

It's tough being homeless. I don't mean to compare my current situation to that of the actually-homeless. I'm living in a corporate apartment in small-town Pennsylvania, and though small-town Pennsylvania is lacking in some of the civilized nuances I have come to expect in Austin, one could hardly say it bears any resemblance to sleeping in the subway. In fact, I don't think I've felt so free of commitment in many years. I have no mortgage, no car loan, and all of my possessions excepting two suitcases of clothing and basic toiletries are in a truck heading across the country to my parents' house. In fact, my only recurring bill is my two year Verizon wireless plan, which, to be honest, I wouldn't feel so bad about defaulting on. If there was ever a time to cut up all my credit cards, withdraw all my money from my bank account, and disappear to an island somewhere, this is, without question, it.

BUT, assuming I don't want to flit off to Guam, there are some inconveniences, such as all my possessions being on a truck bound to my parents' house and not having a place to live. Do you know how hard it is to find a decent apartment in Manhattan? Unless you are currently trying to find one then you don't. If you ARE currently trying to find a place then you're probably the person who rented the one available unit in the entire West Village before I could get into the city to look at it. So either way I don't want to talk to you about it. At least once my stuff gets to my parents' house and is unloaded into their garage I can truly say I am living the grad student experience. What else are parents for other than free storage?

After reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany" I was excited about reading some more John Irving, so I picked up "The Fourth Hand" and managed to blow through it in a few days. (Lots of delayed plane flights helped speed along the reading.) While I consumed the book quickly and enjoyed reading it, I can't really say I think it's that good. It lacks the depth of Owen Meany and it has a few continuity problems. The book can be described as

1) 55% weird love story about a one handed man and a widow.
2) 35% exposition about how the media over report tragedies while ignoring the context.
3) 10% tangent about a doctor who does hand transplants.

My biggest problem is with item number 2. Writing a novel that really explores today's media frenzy for tragedy and oddity is a good theme. However, I just didn't feel it fit naturally into this book. The protagonist is a reporter who lost his hand to lions on television during a broadcast and later becomes the news network's reporter for all other bizarre tragedies and events. He constantly is thinking or talking about his dislike of the news coverage and how he'd like to change it, but all of this seems to sit on top of the novel rather than work as an essential part of it. The commentary doesn't drive the novel forward and has almost no interaction with the love story. And the chapter about the doctor is simply out of place, the doctor and his life is so thoroughly introduced but then pretty much dropped from the novel, though I admit it was one of my favorite chapters.

I also bought "The World According to Garp" (both books were on sale at Borders) but I think I'm going to hold off on reading it for a while.

For a moment I'm going to be non-glib. I love this place. This is the longest I've ever lived in one location since leaving my parents' house. I've never been happier with my living space before. Owning my own condo has been a great experience, it made me feel so good about coming home every day. This Tuesday night, after having been in Pennsylvania for so long, I woke up and couldn't figure out where I was. Finally I realized I was home. And it made me sad to know that it wouldn't be home much longer. Austin has been very good to me and I will miss it. I know I will be happy in NYC, perhaps happier than I was here... I know I certainly will be happier with my life now that I am going back to grad school and getting out of the insurance industry. But that doesn't change the fact that I fell in love with a place and leaving it isn't easy.

So, now I'll say it again like I mean it: Goodbye home.

I'm writing this from my Austin condo, my last post from this location. Everything has been shipped out and I'm heading to the title company to sign over the deed. Fortunately I was able to hack into a wireless network for this one final goodbye.

Goodbye home! I hope your new owner takes good care of you.

WARNING: SPOILERS. Don't read this if you plan on reading the novel and will be upset by vague spoilers.

Grad school starts soon so I'm running out of time to do leisure reading. Ah, college, when all your reading is assigned. Since I'm studying creative writing instead of computer science I should, in theory, be reading lots of interesting and well written books instead of, for example, computational geometry. The good news is I have $125 worth of Amazon.com gift certificates saved up to buy my books.

The point is I just finished one of the last books I'll get to choose myself, Ian Mcewan's "Atonement." I enjoyed it, and one day I hope to read more by Mcewan, though that probably won't be for a while (see above). The book's different sections are truly different, not only spanning decades but taking on very different narrative styles. The whole thing is a bit meta-fictional, and though it is meta-fictional with a point (i.e. being meta-fictional actually drives the novel's plot and theme) I always tend to get a little uncomfortable during direct meta-fiction (by direct, I mean fiction featuring characters who are writers potentially writing the fiction you are reading). Actually, I shouldn't say "always," since I used to be crazy about it. These days I'm a little down on meta-fiction, at least direct meta-fiction. Currently I prefer my meta-fiction to be inconspicuously vague.

My other concern about the book is the title: Atonement. To me this was more about the crime than the atonement for the crime. Or, rather, it was more about the crime and then wondering about how to atone for the crime than it was about the actual atonement, though I suppose approaching the topic of atoning for the unatonable is worthy of the title atonement. But so many novels are about crime, repentance, and redemption, that I think you are asking for it when you name your novel thus. A book like "The Story of Lucy Gault" seems more like an "Atonement" to me. Though I suppose the title could be said to be a description of the novel rather than the title. The novel itself is the atonement. And bearing that in mind I suppose it works.

I start classes at the New School in September and I had
to select my preference for workshop instructor. On the advice of a friend, New School alumni, and former creative writing instructor (all the same person) I read the book "The Liberty Campaign" by one of the New School teachers, Jonathan Dee. Well, it was excellent and I have signed up for his course, so hopefully I'll be taking it in a month.

It's a very introspection heavy novel, focusing on the thoughts of a soon-to-be-65 year-old marketing executive. He reconsiders his life when faced with his looming retirement, his son's waning career as a professional baseball player, and the discovery that his long time neighbor may or may not be a former Brazilian torturer in hiding. Though the last item in that list might seem a little shocking it actually gets about the same page count as the other two topics, which is highly appropriate. The very fact that in the suburbs people can sit around and inactively contemplate the fact that a neighbor might have once hung people by their toenails is one of the revelations the narrator sits around and inactively contemplates. The book asks and doesn't quite answer questions about our ability to know evil and judge others and about the things that make someone's life successful.

Reading the book I ran into the problem of "knowing too much" about the author. The funny thing is I don't know anything about the author, really (though I hope to learn from him soon) aside from the fact that he teaches from the New School and that he isn't what you'd consider a household name yet. And just knowing that I'm reading a relatively unknown author who might be teaching me puts a different spin on my reaction to the book. Though I really enjoyed, I couldn't help looking at everything with a critical eye. Somehow it seemed a little less polished or perfect than books by more famous authors (and by "more famous authors" I mean GOOD more famous authors, of the kind that I have reviewed in previous book track entries). But I'm not sure if this is simply because I know that Dee is "less accomplished" or, rather, less universally acclaimed. If Jonathan Dee were a household name who had written twenty books, all considered to be masterpieces, would I still notice any "roughness" in this novel? Well, in my defense, I did recently read Rushdie's first novel, "Grimus," and I thought it was pretty bad despite the fact that he is one of my favorite authors. I suppose since I expect to be studying with Jonathan Dee I had to look very closely at the writing itself as opposed to just reading the book, which may account for my more nit-picky feelings.

Maybe all books should be published without names so that we can be completely free to read without any potential author-based bias. Though somehow I feel that would be impractical for the reader. And since I want to be a famous author, it would also be impractical for me.