November 2005 Archives

One faces some interesting point of view shifts when relocating from Texas to New York. For one thing, weather.com says it "feels like 33 degrees" outside right now. And when the coldest you've been in the last seven years is 50 degrees, 33 degrees feels COLD. But, aside from atmospheric contrast, there are other, social differences.

In Texas I always felt like a liberal. Austin is a liberal-leaning city, but Texas itself, obviously, is a very conservative, very Republican state. Though I chose to refer to myself as a moderate, deep down I felt this might be an insincere appellation, because obviously my political opinions fell left-of-center.

But now I am in New York City, attending an MFA program in creative writing. Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska, is the president of my school. Suddenly, strangely, I feel like a conservative.

A story: Once in Texas I was sitting in a restaurant having a conversation about John Kerry. A man at another table leaned towards us and said, "John Kerry was once involved in a plan to assassinate the president, and if you vote for him you're committing treason." Well, golly. Thanks for sharing, mister. You see how in such a state a guy could feel a little bit liberal for even considering voting Democratic?

In NYC things have reversed. I find myself holding my tongue for fear of being lynched by liberals. It's not like I would go so far as to say something as evil as recommending we cut taxes or privatize social security. I mean I'm afraid to say that all Republicans aren't evil.

Now I know what it means to be a "crazy liberal." In Austin I thought it meant you were Sidey.com. But now I realize that comparatively Sidey.com is a goddamned Bush-lover.

The good news is this: I AM A MODERATE!

It's nice to know I haven't been lying all these years.

And if you think I'm stupid/ill-informed/evil/irrational, I don't care.

For my literature seminar I read "Molloy," the first book in what is Beckett's strange and mostly unconnected trilogy. I've read and seen a lot of his plays, but this was my first venture into Beckett fiction. "Molloy" is a difficult but incredibly rewarding novel. The first 100 pages consists of one very long paragraph written by a partially-crazy, mostly-crippled old man which asks the big question: will Molloy get to his mother's house? While the second 100 pages at least contains paragraph breaks and has slightly more of a plot, but doesn't make too much more sense.

The novel is, surprisingly, hilarious. The ridiculous ramblings of Molloy are so absurd that I constantly laughed out loud. At one point he spends seven pages wondering how he can arrange his 16 "sucking stones" (pebbles he keeps in his pocket for those times he wants to suck on something) in such a manner that he can suck them in order. Finally he realizes he doesn't care about sucking them in order, doesn't really need more than one stone, and doesn't even really care about sucking on stones anyway. The whole novel is like this.

I felt like I really "got" a lot of the novel. It's partially a commentary on the futility of writing (at least the futility of traditional writing) and it contains a lot of similar concepts as "Waiting for Godot." Including what I think is some interesting images of circles vs. lines, which, in the theater world means comedy vs. tragedy.

Unfortunately I'm going to miss next week's class when we will be discussing "Malone Dies," the next work in the trilogy, but I will probably read it anyway.

Important pre-post note: In this entry title the word "Smells" is not intended as the intransitive verb but, rather, a noun. That is to say this post is about smells one encounters in New York, not a statement that New York is smelly. Though it is.

As anyone who lives in New York knows, the city is host to many different smells. Most of these smells are bad: garbage on the side of the road on trash day, the weird urine smell that whooshes out of sidewalk grates when a subway goes by, the greasy scent wafting from the vents of each of the eight million restaurants. Yes, these bad smells do plague the city, but they are not the problem. When you see one of these smells coming (yes, you can see smells in NYC, that's the way it works) you just stop breathing for a few minutes until the danger has passed. What concerns me are the GOOD smells. By good smells I don't mean the smell of hot nuts from the hot nut vendor. I mean the scariest smells of all: the UNIDENTIFIABLE good smells.

Sometimes I'll be walking along the city street and my nose will be hit with the refreshing scent of the ocean breeze. Ahhh, I'll think, inhaling the salty tang of the sea deeply into my nostrils. Or I'll be in the subway and notice the lilac tang of fresh linen, and I'll close my eyes for a moment and breath it in, mentally escaping for a moment from the crowded underground passage. Then my eyes will pop open, I'll clasp my hand over my nose. Because I'll realize there is no ocean breeze anywhere in smelling distance. There is definitely no fresh linen in the subway. What I am actually smelling is an unknown combination of BAD smells, grease and urine and garbage and lord knows what else. Somehow these bad smells have combined together to masquerade as a good smell, these evil offals have TRICKED me into smelling them.

Oh, beware the unidentifiable good smell in New York City. Because if you can’t immediately identify it, you don’t want to be smelling it.

I'm not used to having a roommate; it's been five years since I've lived with anyone other than myself. But more importantly, my roommate does not appear to be used to having a roommate either - my very presence scares him. If he doesn't notice me come home and than sees me walking around the apartment: he yells in fear. If he comes home and I shout "hi" from my bedroom: he yells in fear. If he comes home and I don't shout "hi" from my bedroom and then he sees me: he yells in fear. If he comes home and I am sitting on the couch in the living room: he yells in fear. If I walk in the front door and he's sitting on the couch in the living room: he yells in fear.

There is pretty much no way for him to see me in the apartment and not yell in fear. I'm afraid I'm going to give him a heart attack. We discussed how to prevent these shocking confrontations and he suggested I call him every time I am about to come home, though, of course, this wouldn't account for the times when he leaves and comes back and I am still there. I'm not about to register my comings and goings with my roommate, so he may just have to get used to being scared by my existence and I will have to get used to a lot of yelling.

I was thinking about random topics, as I often do, and I started to wonder about the notion that a piece of paper can't be folded in half more than 8 times. It's something I learned at some point in my life and have never been able to disprove. Right now I tried it on a Post-It Note and could only get to six folds. Hence it must be impossible, right? Wrong!

A quick web search revealed that in 2001 a Pomona Valley high school junior, Britney, derived the formula for the maximum number of times paper could be folded and then proceed to fold a piece of paper in half 12 times. Way to go, small town math whiz Britney! She later used this mathematical talent to become a champion figure skater!

Seriously though: Go Britney! Way to put the long-established "paper can't be folded more than eight times" facists to shame.

Last night at school I had what could be considered a "bad workshop." By bad workshop I mean a) I got a lot of negative feedback on my story, b) this feedback was mostly contradictory, and c) there was not much constructive I could take away from the class aside from the fact that the story obviously was not working. I really have no problem with negative feedback, in fact, I want negative feedback - as long as I can walk away and have some idea how to improve things. However much my ego wants to walk into a room and have everyone tell me my story is the best story ever written and needs no changes, my brain recognizes I wouldn't be getting much for my education if that's all I ever heard. I'm also fairly sure I'm not being over-sensitive... the instructor pretty much told me I should throw away 18 pages of a 19 page story.

Fortunately for me, I have a HUGE ego. There is little anyone can do to convince me I'm not at least a decent writer. Even for this particular story, I'm still fairly confident it is at least as good as other stories recieved by the class with far more positive feedback. So while this is not good news for my story, it's good news in other ways; a passing of a test of sorts. I think in order to have any chance as a writer it's important not just to have some writing talent, but also to have the ability to handle repeated and intense discouragement. This can only be done if a) you have a masochistic obsession to continue forward at all costs or b) a big fat ego. I am pretty sure I qualify for both.

Normally I don't take posting requests, but since this directly impacts me and since I have nothing better to say, I'm going to pass on a message from my roommate:

* * * * * * * *

Can you post on your blog that your roomate smells because he hasn't dry cleaned his clothes in over 3 months?

Seriously. I haven't found a single place in NYC that uses a system other than the carcinogenic and respritory problem causing PERC. I want to avoid the chemical and so I haven't dry cleaned my stuff since early August. I've done hours of searching each week and it's something... it's pissing me off and i smell.

For the sake of my roommate, my roommate's coworkers, and my roommates roommate (me), let me know if you can recommend a PERC-free dry cleaner in Manhattan.