aesthetic point

2012-02-05T12:51:00.009-07:00

Film Review

The Artist, Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Reviewed by NC Weil

This is a faithful film: faithful to the silents, faithful to the transitional era into talkies, faithful to the starry-eyed plots of those movies, faithful to the conceits of Hollywood. And it's faithful to older stars who could use some publicity. Malcolm McDowell, for example, gets high mention in the billing. His part consists of sitting on a bench awaiting his casting call, so the ingenue can show someone her Variety front-page photograph cheek-to-cheek with George Valentin, a matinee idol played by Jean Dujardin. That's it for Mr. McDowell. A more substantial role is given to James Cromwell as Valentin's faithful chauffeur, though he gets lower billing. Yes, it's faithful to Hollywood's conceits, all right.

Likewise, Valentin, a cross between Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., is enamored principally of himself – his favorite possession is an enormous painting of himself flashing his famous smile. And he does have a charming smile. The success of this picture is in large part thanks to its cast – these vivacious people win us over with their beautiful smiles. Berenice Bejo is a fresh, energetic, delightful sylph, and her screen name Peppy Miller fits perfectly – it fits the era, and it suits her. She's a face in the crowd when she drops her pocketbook, then bumping into Valentin, she trades on this momentary encounter and plenty of chutzpah to put herself in the studio and in front of John Goodman, who's perfect in his part as director.

The system moves only forward, and by staying in silents, Valentin consigns himself to obscurity. The technology change is heartless, but the people using it are anything but: we see smiles as Peppy works her way up, we see Goodman trying to convince Valentin to take speaking roles, we see cheer and bustle – this is not a tale of a Louis B. Mayer of whom it was said that people came to his funeral to make sure he was dead.

There are some incongruities: after Valentin has witnessed the auction at which all his furnishings are sold off and the manager cheerfully informs him he has nothing left, the fallen star goes home to his apartment and screens a movie – he has a projector and many cans of film-reels. What? In a previous scene he's pawned even his beloved tux so he can buy more booze and cigarettes. Then once he's watched the movie, he rages, flinging film-cans off the shelf, unspooling film then setting fire to the whole mess. It takes forever for his smart little dog to race blocks and get the attention of a cop, who then runs to save Valentin. That was already a big smoky fire by the time the dog left the apartment – it strained my credulity that Valentin was still alive when his rescuer arrived, and also that the cop could make it through all that smoke. And later in the movie Valentin returns to live in that smoked-out apartment. Really? A man who set a fire in his room is allowed back there? It's still habitable?

But hey, that's part and parcel of silents – cliffhangers were standard procedure, and melodrama trumped plausibility. We can forgive this silliness. Now, what about the film's title? Is The Artist an archetype, so that we can include both Valentin and Peppy? Or does it refer strictly to him? Or does Peppy, whose rise we witness, become The Artist? Not clear.

Seeing the preview twice, I had the impression Valentin's character evolves. Nope. He remains a narcissist, happy at last because the cameras are on him again. Peppy goes from a nobody to a star, but nothing essential in her changes – she's the same good-hearted razzle-dazzle beauty at the end, that we first saw.

Hazanavicius trowels on the symbolism: when Peppy is well on her way to becoming a star, she encounters Valentin on an open stairwell at the studio. She's on a step above him, so she talks and looks down as they converse. When they part, she goes up, he goes down. (I get it! She's moving up in the world and he's sinking!) The titles of films set the mood of the scenes they're embedded in, cleverly but without much subtlety. Mirrors are used frequently. Peppy writes "thank you" on Valentin's dressing-room mirror; he tells her a great actress must have a beauty spot, and, seen in his mirror, applies her first one; when he's drunk and self-pitying he pours the rest of his drink on a tabletop mirror, and the pool of booze becomes yet another mirror. Mirrors are Valentin's only friend – he loves to look at himself. Peppy vamps in hers too. For all that, the movie itself is curiously lacking reflection. We see the impact of the stock market crash on Valentin, but nothing about its larger effects, not even how that changed the movie fare studios put out. You would never know from The Artist that large numbers of people were thrown out of work.

I'd like to take this opportunity to speak out against film trailers (why are previews called trailers anyway? They don't trail the movie, they lead) – several sweet moments are given away, which robs them of their charm when they occur in the story: Peppy finds Valentin's dressing room, empty, and snuggles up to his jacket on a coat-rack, puts one arm into a sleeve and pretends it's his arm, feeling her up then giving her a warm hug. Very sweet moment, and witty if you haven't seen it done before (I saw it in a Cirque du Soleil routine years ago) – but it's in the preview. When the moment arrives, you sit there thinking "I've seen this." Likewise, Valentin in poverty stands in front of a shop window display of a tuxedo. His reflection and the tuxedo's are superimposed, in a very nice touch - except it's in the preview so it's no surprise. Indeed, their meet-cute moment, when she bumps him as she picks up her pocketbook off the sidewalk in front of a theater where he's just premiered a new movie, is also spoiled by the preview. If studios can't live without trailers, confine them instead to pictures of the stars in their film costumes, while a voice-over offers a brief synopsis. That way the movie can surprise and delight us.

So, as to awards. Should The Artist win Oscars? The movie is a love letter to an era, sweetly done but a trifle: NO. The costumes are wonderful! YES. Bernice Bejo has a face that's pretty in an enchanting way, and when she dances we admire her quickness and form, but how much of that was acting and how much just her? NO. Jean Dujardin doesn't act much – mostly he smokes, drinks and smiles. We like him because those Errol-Flynn-quality smiles charm us to our marrow, but: NO. Supporting character James Cromwell looks after Valentin like a dutiful mother (NO), and John Goodman does a fine job as the cigar-chomping Director (he's had stronger roles):NO. I say give the gold statuette to Malcolm McDowell for his coup, getting second-star billing for his tiny part.

2012-01-28T16:51:00.019-07:00

War and Peace Wrap-up

I finished reading War & Peace a couple of weeks ago, but I've been stymied by the challenge of distilling this 1200 page tour-de-force into a manageable review. The work consists of a fictional story, with characters immersed in the challenges of war and love; views of battle bowing to both historical record and these characters; and philosophical ruminations on a range of subjects: history; war; power; genius; human searches for meaning; life and death; and Russia as a nation and its people.

Tolstoy places his characters at critical events to provide us eyewitness experience, and while these events are as historically accurate as any account can be, they are also beautifully written. The night before he is killed in battle, 16-year-old Petya Rostov, who has run off to immerse himself in the thrill of war as part of the Russian force pursuing the retreating French, has a reverie while listening to a man sharpen his saber: the youth directs a many-voiced hymn which becomes a march, and at his command it takes glorious form: "Ah, how lovely that is! As much as I like and however I like," Petya said to himself... "Softer, softer now, fade away." And the sounds obeyed him[...] and drops dripped, and bzhik, zhik, zhik... whistled the saber, and again the horses scuffled and neighed, not disrupting the chorus, but entering into it. (Vol IV, Part 3, Ch. X). A mere two pages later, "Running into the campfire smoldering in the morning light, the horse balked, and Petya fell heavily onto the wet ground. The Cossacks saw how his arms and legs jerked rapidly, though his head did not move. His head had been pierced by a bullet." (ibid, Ch. XI).

Tolstoy intersperses these vivid scenes with treatises on how wars come to be. He regards Napoleon as the inevitable consequence of myriad actions and movements - though the man is hailed by historians as a military genius, Tolstoy goes to considerable lengths to explain the chaos of battle, the involvement of myriad individuals in actions which create the whole, and generally discredits the "great man" theory of history. He finds it all, to some degree, preordained: this soldier will utter a valiant full-throated cry which inspires his regiment to unwonted bravery, while other regiments in the same battle retreat in confusion because the captains leading them are uncertain, disorganized or afraid. None of this occurs in response to orders from generals, who in an age of limited communication are not aware until afterwards what has actually happened, including even victory or defeat.

About the "rules of war" he has this to say, "Let us imagine two men who came with swords to fight a duel by all the rules of the art of fencing; the fighting went on for quite a long time; suddenly one of the adversaries, feeling himself wounded, realizing that it was not a joking matter, but something that concerned his life, threw down his sword and, picking up the first club he found, started brandishing it...
"The French were the fencer who demanded a fight by the rules of the art; the Russians were the adversary who dropped his sword and picked up a club; those who attempt to explain everything by the rules of fencing are the historians who have written about this event.
"From the time of the burning of Smolensk, a war began that did not fit any of the former traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the retreats after battles, the blow struck at Borodino and then another retreat, the abandoning and burning of Moscow, the hunt for marauders, the cutting off of transport, the partisan war - these were all deviations from the rules.
"Napoleon sensed that, and from the moment when he stopped in Moscow, in the correct position of a fencer, and instead of his adversary's sword, saw a club raised over him, he never ceased complaining to Kutuzov and the emperor Alexander that the war was being conducted against all the rules (as if there existed some sort of rules for killing people)." (Vol IV, Part 3, Ch. II). Here is Tolstoy, heaping his scorn upon the pretensions to civilization of the brutish business of war.

Meanwhile, even as he repudiates the historians and tacticians for their orderly views of battle, he takes us into the mind and soul of a fatally injured man. Andrei Bolkonsky, severely wounded at Borodino, has been transported to and beyond Moscow with the Russian retreat. "But Prince Andrei's soul was not in a normal state in this respect. The forces of his soul were all clearer and more active than ever, but they acted outside his will. The most diverse thoughts and notions took hold of him simultaneously. Sometimes his thought suddenly began to work, and with such strength, clarity and depth as it had never been able to do in healthy conditions; but suddenly, in the middle of its work, it broke off and was replaced by some unexpected notion, and he was unable to return to it....
"And each time the fly touched his face, it made a burning sensation, and at the same time he was surprised that, hitting against the very area of his face where the edifice was being raised, the fly did not destroy it. But besides that, there was something else important. It was the white thing in the doorway, it was the statue of a sphinx, which also weighed on him." (Vol III, Part 3, Ch. XXXII). This "white thing in the doorway" is Natasha, lodging in the same inn, compelled to look at this wounded man to whom she had been in love and betrothed, but through the interference of others, had rejected. In the days that follow, the pair grow close, then Andrei puts aside all human affection as he faces his death:

"Prince Andrei not only knew that he would die, but felt that he was dying, that he was already half dead. He experienced an awareness of estrangement from everything earthly and a joyful and strange lightness of being. Without haste or worry, he waited for what lay ahead of him... Formerly he had been afraid of the end... The more he pondered the new principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more, though without feeling it himself, he renounced earthly life. To love everything, everybody, always to sacrifice oneself for love, meant to love no one, meant not to live this earthly life....
"Love? What is love?" he thought. "Love hinders death. Love is life. Everything, everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is connected only by that... Love is God, and to die - means that I, a part of love, return to the common and eternal source." These thoughts seemed comforting to him. But they were only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, there was something one-sidedly personal, cerebral - there was no evidence."...
"But in the same instant that he died, Prince Andrei remembered that he was asleep, and in the same instant that he died, he made an effort with himself and woke up.
"Yes that was death. I died - I woke up. Yes, death is an awakening." Clarity suddenly came to his soul, and the curtain that until then had concealed the unknown was raised before his inner gaze. He felt the release of a force that previously had been as if bound in him and that strange lightness which from then on did not leave him." (Vol IV, Part 1, Ch. XVI)

I could not help feeling that Tolstoy himself must have experienced a moment close to death, to write about it with such convincing beauty. Even as he applies his intellect to it, he tells us that's what he's doing, and that it's false, failing to grasp the completeness of death.

Pierre, in a group of prisoners of war, witnesses the firing-squad execution of a number of his fellows. He expects to be shot next. "Another two were led up. In the same way, with the same eyes, these two also looked at everyone, in vain, with their eyes only, silently, begging for protection, and clearly not understanding and not believing what was going to happen. They could not believe it, because they alone knew what their life was for them, and therefore did not understand or believe that it could be taken from them....
"Pierre ... saw smoke, someone's blood, and the pale, frightened faces of the Frenchmen, who again were doing something by the post, pushing each other with trembling hands. Pierre, breathing hard, looked around as if asking, "What does it mean?" The same question was in all the gazes that met Pierre's gaze.
"On all the Russian faces, on the faces of the French soldiers and officers, on all without exception, he read the same fear, horror and struggle that were in his heart. "But who, finally, is doing this? They're all suffering just as I am. Who is it? Who?" flashed for a second in Pierre's soul." (Vol IV, Part 1, Ch. XI). Pierre is spared execution, but this confrontation with death has demolished the life he once prized. He becomes fully the earthy simple Russian who has lived unacknowledged beneath his wealth, idleness and comfort - being a prisoner has liberated him.

Do not be intimidated by the length of this book. Chapters are short, often only two or three pages, and once you settle in with the principal characters you enter a world so fully realized that it has the force of truth in all its particulars. Whether it's Tsar Alexander afraid to make his horse jump a ditch; or generals at a party ignoring the news that the French forces have crossed into Russia; or the burning of Moscow because a wooden city will inevitably have fires, and once the residents have fled, no one has the responsibility to quench them - we see simultaneously the broad sweep of war and the details of struggle. Tolstoy exposes the mundane actions that underlie events, and convinces us theory is a vain attempt to force order onto the chaos of life.

This writer has written not only a history that will stand alongside any other account of the Napoleonic wars, he has given us individuals in all their complexity: weak and brilliant, foolish and courageous, petty and joyful, brash and impressionable. He spares none of them the heights of glory and depths of human suffering, and we scramble to keep up, fascinated at this mirror held up to our own souls.

2012-01-24T22:11:00.010-07:00

Tonight I read a short story at the Mercury Cafe in downtown Denver. It's short - I'll share it with you here:

Seek Your Fortune

by NC Weil

"Out! You can't sit around this house any more! Leave!" She shoved the protesting books onto the porch. When she was done, nearly two hundred copies huddled together, shivering in the frosty morning air and sniveling.

"You can't do this," one whined.

"We're your children," said another.

"Yours, all yours," chorused a third.

Marigold closed the door on their complaints. She'd stumbled over their boxes long enough. No one was going to read them in her dining room – time to make their way in the wide world, like younger sons in fairy tales.

Through the keyhole and the crack under the heavy door she could hear their collective plaint. Hardening her heart, she went back to the kitchen and put on the teakettle.

"You did what?!" Fred was shocked, if not alarmed. He'd actually read the book, claimed to like it.

"I gave up," she said. "Maybe they'll do some of the PR heavy lifting themselves, now that I'm finished."

"How are they supposed to do that? They're helpless."

She gave him a skeptical look. "Yeah, they had me convinced, for a while there. No more. This morning I heard them giggling, horsing around in my office. They sounded like teenagers – older teenagers. They're just lazy."

He opened the front door and looked at the bare porch. "You put them out here?"

"Sure did."

"They're gone."

"All of them?"

"I don't see any books. Are you sure –"

"Let me see," she elbowed past him. "Well I'll be durned." She laughed, flinging her arms around Fred. "It worked," she crowed.

"Pure fantasy," he muttered, sure she'd made up the whole story.

"That's what writers do," Marigold explained at dinner. "We make up stories." She speared a floret of fractal broccoli.

"You sure had me fooled." He shook his head.

"You misunderstand. I made up the story in the book. Kicking them out today? That's true."

"True stories are the best, if anyone believes them," he said.

She flattened a chunk of yam with her fork. "True stories are true whether anyone believes them or not."

He studied her a moment before he resumed eating. "The trash-man must've taken them."

She snorted. "Yeah, you know how diligent he is about looking for stuff to throw in his truck." She leveled her fork at him. "He doesn't even empty the can, if it's not in exactly the right place."

Fred nodded thoughtfully. "Well, a neighbor took them."

"Two hundred books. In a pile. Because –" she couldn't keep the sneer from her voice – "they're so popular. So desirable."

"All right, where did they go, miss smarty?"

"To seek their fortunes. They didn't leave a note so I don't know where they're headed."

Within a week rumors were circulating. A local art website posted a photo of three copies hitchhiking at a northbound Interstate on-ramp. They looked a little roughed-up but their covers were still glossy. She could swear the title, Karmafornia, was grinning.

Their friend Joe two blocks away reported seeing a gang of ten or a dozen, facing down a large stray dog. After winning the standoff they clustered in a front yard to celebrate, then went up to the porch. The big brick house was subdivided into half a dozen apartments, and they split up, ringing doorbells. As Joe watched, the broad front door opened and they all trooped inside. With the door closed and nothing more to see, he went on his way, but thought Marigold would want to know.

"Thanks," she laughed. It was working! They'd got the message. Those books had seemed so pitiful, lying around in cartons. What an act!

The local video store soon had a row of them in the window, below the movie posters. Fred mentioned them to the clerk, who didn't believe him. When he dragged him out to the sidewalk to see the new display, the clerk just shrugged.

"The owner musta put 'em there. Wanna buy one?"

"I have one already, but maybe you should."

"Aw, I don't really read."

"They want to be looked into, can't you tell?"

And as they watched, one of the books pulled open its cover to the title page.

"Hey, cool graphic," the clerk said.

"The story's good too." Fred gave the guy a friendly slap on the shoulder and walked away.

The clerk went in and pulled the enticing copy off the windowsill. He put it in his backpack, but didn't put money in the till: there were so many, who'd miss just one? He wanted to read it.

A bold foursome showed up at a sports bar, demanding coasters and napkins so they could watch the game without getting wet. Pretty soon the guys sitting next to them were asking them questions. One copy showed off its Part 2 title page: "Angels can fly 'cause they take themselves lightly," the elegant font superimposed on a ghost imprint of an unusual curlicue. The guy plucked up the book.

"Check this out," he showed his buddy the page.

The guy laughed. "Good joke. Never heard that one."

"Take it," the first guy said, handing over the copy. "There's more."

"Who do we pay?"

"We're free," the book in his hand said. "Everybody should be free, don't you think?"

"Hell yeah."

The books fared better in groups. One going it alone tumbled into a greasy puddle. Even after its pages had more or less dried out, its cover was curled and dirty. It took shelter in an alley, then was run over when the trash truck came by to empty the adjacent dumpster. Torn and aching, the book crawled into the weeds. But when a homeless woman came by with a big bag, scavenging aluminum cans, the copy came out. She picked it up, curious. She read a few sentences, then sitting with her back against the sun-warmed wall of a garage, settled in to read.

A month after Marigold had kicked them out, one of the books slipped through her mail slot.

"Just thought you'd like a progress report," it said.

"And –?"

"You were right. We were cozy here, and safe, but we might as well have been blank. Some of us are beat-up and dog-eared now, but your words are out there."

Marigold extended a hand to pick it up, but the book scurried out of range.

"I'm not staying," it said. "I just wanted to let you know we're doing all right." And before she could think of a response, it was wriggling back out the mail slot. She pulled the door open to look: it was already toddling down the street, erect and proud. Free.

2011-12-29T12:59:00.008-07:00

Crestmas

Up in a pocket in the mountains
A place where no one's "just passing by"
The town of Crested Butte lies waiting
For ski-bums and villagers getting high.

Fred and I came here to spend a week,
Shedding the pressures of daily lives
Flying on skis under cobalt sky,
Cheered when the youthful pair arrives.

Up the pass then, Heinz and I,
Exploring a nearby trek, we trailed
And found the powder, soft and deep
Up Gunsight Pass - till sense prevailed.

Cooking up feasts in another's kitchen,
Game hens and steak, cookies and pie,
Champagne breakfast and gorp for the trail,
Yes, you could say we're getting by.

Laughter and Scrabble and movies we like,
A record collection to explore
Canoe on the ceiling in this rental home,
Myriad joys - we'll be back for more!

2011-12-17T22:14:00.007-07:00

Midnight in Paris

I've found Owen Wilson to be more a pretender than an actor. But in Midnight in Paris he channels Woody Allen, down to the vocal inflections, neuroses and challenges to intellectual pomposity. And he's wonderful because the story is so good. A young man Gil (Wilson) and his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) are visiting Paris with her parents. She drags him along to tourist sites with her friends Paul and Carol, but Gil would rather wander the city and dream. A successful hack screenwriter, he aspires to be a Real Writer, and one midnight an old Peugeot full of partygoers picks him up. They transport him to the 1920s where he is delighted to meet all the luminaries you know about if you love the era: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Josephine Baker, Picasso, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and Alice B. Toklas, Dali (Adrien Brody), Bunuel and Man Ray, "Tom Eliot", and an enchanting young artists' model, Adriana (Marion Cotillard), who helps him to see that his fiancee is not the right match for him.

The music, the lights, the costumes and laughter wonderfully evoke the Jazz Age atmosphere in which Gil immerses himself by night. During the day he dodges Inez and the pedantic Paul, using his midnight experiences to toss in some unknowable mots about the artists they admire from a safe and stuffy distance. While Inez and her mother furnish a house the young couple do not yet own in Malibu, Gil is eagerly rewriting his novel, which Stein is critiquing for him.

Woody Allen has been playing with history (and time itself) for much of his career, from parodies of historical figures in Bananas, Love & Death, Zelig and Broadway Danny Rose, to time travel in Sleeper and Stardust Memories. By elevating comedy to this level of enchantment, he has struck the truest note yet in his exploration of time, nostalgia and memory. We're with him all the way, bumbling along with 21st Century rube Gil in wide-eyed awe of a milieu just out of reach of our recollection, but legendary.

If you know nothing about the Twenties in Paris, you will miss many of the references, but maybe this charming film will entice you to find out more.

2011-12-09T00:29:00.008-07:00

War & Peace and Russian Soul

Up to now the book has been, with the exception of recounting scenes of war, somewhat dry: we linger in the salons of Petersburg and Moscow society, where snobbery and currying favor dominate, with jockeying for advantageous marriages and alliances that will lead to better positions. Tolstoy shows us how stultifying it all is - Pierre, now a Mason, walks through this phony maneuvering with the social clumsiness of a man who cannot conceal who he is.

But in Book II Part Four, Russia herself comes to life: Andrei Bolkonsky, whose wife died in childbirth, falls unexpectedly in love with the 16-year-old guileless Natasha Rostov, who in her enthusiasm, spirit and heartfelt honesty represents true Russia. The reader wants to stop the future for these two because their love is so painfully strong and direct - surely tragedy is drawn to such fortunates. Having secured her promise to marry, he goes abroad for a year in deference to his disapproving acerbic father.

Young as she is, she cannot stay gloomy waiting. And so we have the hunt: her brother Nikolai's passion for wolf-hunting galvanizes the household, and though it is not proper, no one can keep Natasha from joining in. She rides well, she doesn't impede the serious hunters, and afterwards they end up at the humble country place of their uncle. She eats the plain peasant fare with gusto, she dances a Russian peasant dance no one has ever taught her, she sings and plays guitar -
"She did [the dance] exactly right, and so precisely, so perfectly precisely, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who at once handed Natasha the kerchief she needed for it, wept through her laughter, looking at this slender graceful countess, brought up in silk and velvet, so foreign to her, who was able to understand everything that was in Anisya and in Anisya's father, and in her aunt, and in her mother, and in every Russian."

As though Tolstoy himself is enchanted by the vibrant young women of the Rostov household, he then gives us Christmas, when the young people join the mummers who come calling. With everyone in disguise, Nikolai Rostov, on leave from his regiment, sees his cousin Sonya distinctly as if for the first time, in her disguise as a Circassian man with a moustache drawn on her face in burnt cork. He is dressed as an old woman, and this pair who have grown up together fall completely in love. Though it is a disaster for his parents, who counted on him to rescue them from penury by marrying a wealthy woman, he must have penniless Sonya.

The joy we see in Natasha's vivacity and Nikolai's unabashed passions are tempered by their sense that never again will life be so wonderful. As readers, we have a similar dread: that not quite halfway through the novel, we have seen its most joyous moments. From here, surely tragedy and grief await us.

2011-12-03T21:22:00.013-07:00

Movie Review - The Swell Season

I wouldn't have seen this film if I'd realized it was a documentary – to me the charm of the 2007 indie hit Once was the story: An Irish busker – Glen Hansard – meets a shy Czech single mother – Marketa Irglova – who lives with her toddler daughter and an assortment of cheap-apartment-block denizens. He notices her playing piano at a music store, and convinces her to accompany him on some songs. Their chemistry pulls them into a hopeful relationship. Rarely does life make as good a story as a well-crafted fiction does. I already knew as much about Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova as I wanted to. But I stayed. This film is about the success of the musical couple in the wake of their Oscar win for the song "Falling Slowly" from Once.

Popularity isn't for everyone, as soon becomes apparent. Intercut with performance bits and a lot of lounging around the random concert halls, hotels and bars familiar to any musical tour, were interview scenes. Those with Hansard's mother were particularly pointless. Overwhelmed by his Oscar, she opens the floodgates of her satisfaction and sense of immortality conferred by the award. But since Hansard, in solo interviews prior to her gushing, gives away her punch-lines, watching her teaches us nothing. Likewise, he explains his father was an undefeated boxer who turned down an invitation to compete in America – he used the excuse of his young wife being pregnant, but admits on camera that the only part of him primed for success was his boxing ability, and everything else was lacking. So he repressed his ambitions and became such a dedicated drunk that when he realized he was dying, he told his son he planned to spend the rest of his life drunk. And did. So when we see the former boxer, we have already been coached on what to think.

Marketa and Glen have some of the conversations any young couple does, who are serious about each other. In that sense their observations are both profound, because as each of us arrives at these revelations they have genuine power, and banal, because everyone has or should have exactly these thoughts: How much should I sublimate my own wishes to this other person's, so we can get along? Am I postponing expression of my true feelings because I believe this situation is temporary, when in fact our situation is what it will always be, precisely because it is an extension of who we are?

Her sweet and ringing conviction is that through all this discomfort of dealing with well-wishers and adulation, and the sense that she and Glen are growing apart because of these stresses and their individual maturing – despite all this she recognizes the breadth of their love, which she believes transcends this existence. Maybe they won't stay together in this life, but the next time around this love will draw together the different people they will be, and perhaps then they will be able to live in that love all their lives. So she hopes, and makes no apology for the way she and Glen are diverging.

He performs one song in a solo practice session, noting that it has a prophetic ring to it. "That happens," he says. "You write a song about an imaginary breakup – which is the furthest thing from what's happening with you in your life, and then it comes true." These two don't really fight, though the accumulated anger between them galvanizes their concert performances. Both seem too matter-of-fact and grounded to just explode at each other – he needs her to smile so she does. She's in love with him so she sublimates herself. And we can tell it won't last.

I have one catty remark, which is to say that Irglova's singing rides the edge of notes, which I found agonizing in her solos. One number in particular, with an out-of-key drum in the background, was really hard to listen to. Hansard shouts and plays his guitar furiously (though the camera does not show us his rapidly strumming hand, instead giving us a view of his elbow and shoulder), and his out-of-tune singing occurs deliberately. We know he can hit those notes when he wants to. But her voice has the uncertainty of someone unschooled in vocals, who sings as an adjunct to her piano and guitar playing. She sings somewhat better than I do, which I'm sorry to say is not a compliment.

If you are interested in the achievement and fallout of success, and if you don't mind yet another musician-road movie, you may enjoy this sweet-natured film. But if you want a story, there isn't one really. Consider yourself warned.

2011-11-29T20:10:00.007-07:00

Time to do some holiday shopping for the readers on your list!

Buy physical copies of Karmafornia at http://FoolCourtPress.Net
on sale through December 31.

Or for that e-book reader on your list, the Smashwords edition
is now priced for the holidays: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61157

Here's what Publishers Weekly said:

Karmafornia

NC Weil. Fool Court Press, $16.95 trade paper (278p) ISBN 978-0-9834893-0-6

In 1978, two young lovers leave Boulder, Colo., and head to Berkeley, Calif., where they struggle with life's messy problems and intrusions in this capable, well-developed look back at an edgy, bygone time. Arriving at the University of California, Berkeley, Laura--with free-spirited boyfriend Walt in tow--begins graduate studies in biology. It isn't long before she meets fellow student Cob, an irresistible fruitarian from Nebraska with whom Laura eventually has a passionate affair replete with unbelievable orgasms. But the relationship with Cob--and the sex--lacks love, and Walt is summoned to the rescue. This love triangle plays out against the background of the political and social upheaval of the time, with Weil referencing everything from the controversial Proposition 13--which rolled back property taxes--to the mass suicide by cult members of Jim Jones's People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Weil ably captures the period, while convincingly delineating her characters.

2011-11-21T20:50:00.006-07:00

War and Peace

I'm at the 200 page mark, and had my first taste of battle.
For Tolstoy, leadership has to do with morale more than strategy -
The Russian general Bagration rides among his few thousand Russian soldiers as they prepare to face the main body of the French army. He agrees with what they say they're going to do (while his aide Andrei Bolkonsky, who has spent time and effort prior to this review taking the grand view of battle, envisioning troop movements, feints and counter-attacks, worries about his commander's casual and apparently thoughtless acquiescence to the fusiliers, the infantry and the cavalry). "Owing to the tact shown by ... [General] Bagration, Prince Andrei [Bolkonsky] noticed that, in spite of the chance character of events and their independence of the commander's will, his presence accomplished a very great deal. Commanders... became calm, soldiers and officers greeted him merrily and became more animated in his presence, and obviously showed off their courage before him."
At the far end of the deployment, two officers, one Russian and the other Austrian, engage in a personal squabble, ignoring the battle; their soldiers are disorganized and fearful, their training forgotten. "The troops... both infantry and hussars, sensed that their superiors themselves did not know what to do, and the indecisiveness of the superiors communicated itself to the troops."

Meanwhile, Nikolai Rostov is struck by an artillery shell, his horse killed out from under him. He wanders in a daze, unaware of his own wounds except that one arm is useless. In many ways he is still the child of his soft upbringing. "Something must be wrong, " he thought, "it's impossible that they should want to kill me... Me, whom everybody loves so?"
But the soldiers the general has encouraged in his uncommanding way, meet battle with cooperation and fortitude. The artillery gunners fight valiantly while their fellows die around them, creating diversions they have thought of themselves (setting the town behind the French lines on fire, which draws off French soldiers to battle the blazes) and displaying that unhesitating courage a general can only dream of.

This small detachment holds off the French, enabling the main body of the Russian army to escape being cut off from its allies and annihilated by Napoleon's troops.

Tolstoy uses such phrases as "Pleasant buzzing and whistling noises were heard rather often" (they're being fired upon); "his face expressed that concentrated and happy resolve"; "Prince Andrei felt that some invincible force was drawing him forward, and he experienced great happiness"; "there was established in [the artilleryman's] head a fantastic world of his own, which made up his pleasure at that moment. In his imagination, the enemy's cannon were not cannon but pipes, from which an invisible smoker released an occasional puff of smoke."

Tolstoy's soldiers love being in battle.

2011-11-16T21:27:00.010-07:00

War & Peace

Since it now feels like winter (temp never got out of the 30s today) I have undertaken War & Peace, in the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
My 4th year Russian class was supposed to read it, but the Soviet (showing my age here!) powers-that-be sent copies of Resurrection instead. So we read that, but it wasn't the same. Who knows if we would have made it through this tome? Guess I missed my chance - by now my Russian vocabulary is so buried I have to read it in English.

This pair of translators promise a more accurate rendition than their predecessors. Where Tolstoy liked to repeat words and phrases, translators took it upon themselves to "clean up" his sentences by minimizing the repetitions. But surely we can admire Tolstoy the writer enough to believe that his technique was deliberate. Pevear and Volokhonsky have decided he knew what he was up to, and respect him enough to leave his phrasing intact. Thus, I detect the flavor of the Russian through their English text.

I came late to Tolstoy - my first love among Russian writers is Dostoyevsky, followed by Solzhenitsyn (particularly The First Circle and Cancer Ward). But when I named a character Anna Karenina Brubaker, I had to find out who she was. Soon after, I read Hadji Murad, a beautiful novella about a warrior chieftain in the Caucasus - and if War & Peace is too daunting, I highly recommend you read this fine book.

Some years ago the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, screened the 7 hour Soviet War & Peace (released 1967-69) in its entirety, on successive evenings. When it was made, it was said to be the most expensive film in cinematic history, employing tens of thousands of extras in nineteenth century battle garb, arrayed for vast panoramic shots. Now a film studio would use CGI for those armies (which, yes, would make them look like video game images). It's a breath-taking epic, though the ending was politicized in heavy-handed Soviet fashion - "oh, the heroically suffering Russian people, oh the vain and stupid French invaders" - but even at 7 hours I knew I was getting just a taste of the book. When I heard about this translation, I decided "it's time."

Time is what it takes - so tag along as I post my progress.

2011-10-26T20:45:00.005-06:00

Publishers Weekly Select Review

Tonight the postman made his way through snow and dark of night, to deliver my Publishers Weekly - and I'm glad he did!
On page 41 is a review of Karmafornia. This is what it says:

"In 1978, two young lovers leave Boulder, Colo., and head to Berkeley, Calif., where they struggle with life's messy problems and intrusions in this capable, well-developed look back at an edgy, bygone time. Arriving at the University of California, Berkeley, Laura - with free-spirited boyfriend Walt in tow - begins graduate studies in biology. It isn't long before she meets fellow student Cob, an irresistible fruitarian from Nebraska with whom Laura eventually has a passionate affair replete with unbelievable orgasms. But the relationship with Cob - and the sex - lacks love, and Walt is summoned to the rescue. This love triangle plays out against the background of the political and social upheaval of the time, with Weil referencing everything from the controversial Proposition 13 - which rolled back property taxes - to the mass suicide by cult members of Jim Jones's People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Weil ably captures the period, while convincingly delineating her characters."

So if you know anyone who's a buyer, who reads PW, tell them to turn to page 41.
Or you could refer them here.
And thanks!
NC

2011-10-13T01:02:00.005-06:00

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
Reviewed by NC Weil

This is a greater work than de Bernieres' previous novels, the best known being Captain Corelli's Mandolin which was made into a movie. Birds Without Wings is an epic – historical, tragic, stirring. Graphic.

The nineteenth century is a time of relative peace for the Anatolian village of Eskibahe, but all joy is undone by the horrors inflicted by the wider world. One of the characters through whom the author weaves the story of the creation of Turkey is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern state. We see his rise, his philosophy developed in different places and his liberal outlook: the education of women, adoption of Western dress and customs, the separation of religion from statehood. And we watch as the machinations of politics and accidents of history overtake his noble mission, perverting his dream into a blood-stained facsimile he could never have wished for and yet must carry forward, having no alternative.

Wonder what the war in Gallipoli was like?

"I will tell you about the dead. There had been fighting for one month, and the dead had never been collected. The bodies were of different ages, and so they were all in different stages of decomposition. Some bodies were swollen up, and some were black, and they were seething with maggots, and others were turning to green slime, and others were fully rotted and shrivelling up so that the bones stuck out through the skin. A lot of them were built into the parapets and fortifications, so that you might say they were being employed as sandbags. Most of the dead at that time were ours."

"One day there was a tempest of rain so violent... The air was solid with water, the rain fell in huge lumps, and it would have been possible for fish to swim in it... and I saw the drowned bodies of my comrades floating past below me, and a dead mule, and old corpses that had floated up out of the floor of the trench, and old bones, and packages of supplies, and knapsacks... and we were as miserable as the damned, and the winds picked up ground sheets and blankets and whirled them about in the air like giant birds afflicted by madness."

The novel opens in Eskibahe, inhabited by a mix of religions and ethnicities peacefully unaware of the greater allegiance the world will come to expect of them. The villagers speak Turkish but write it using the Greek alphabet. The Muslim men are drafted to fight the Franks, and the Christian men who would join them are rebuffed because "this is jihad," even though Arab Muslims are deserters and Indian Muslims fight with the Frankish enemy. After the war the Greeks (meaning Christians) are expelled to Greece, even though they can speak no Greek and have never ventured beyond Anatolia.

Everywhere gendarmes and soldiers follow orders in the performance of atrocities, while their personal humanity is assaulted by their obedience to ghastly demands. But we also see a man with nobility of heart, the aga of the town. He travels to Istanbul to find a Circassian concubine, who is really a Greek, and they come to love one another despite the contempt of the townspeople for "the whore". During and after the war he looks after his villagers, hunting to provide meat, buying anything they can sell so they will have money, protecting the town from roving brigands.

Early in the story a mother addresses a group of children convinced they can fly. "I can fly," insisted Karatavuk, "I can." "Arms aren't wings," said Polyxeni, trying to quieten and cajole him with the softness of her voice. "If we had wings, do you think we would suffer so much in one place? Don't you think we would fly away to paradise?" And in the Epilogue, this same Karatavuk, now an old man addressing his thoughts to a childhood friend he will never see again, writes, "You and I once fancied ourselves as birds, and we were very happy even when we flapped our wings and fell down and bruised ourselves, but the truth is that we were birds without wings.... For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders, and their quarrels are very small. But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb up to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into abominations that we did not seek."

Absurdity, beauty, atrocity and community inhabit the pages of this fine novel. Read it and weep.

2011-09-28T23:12:00.009-06:00

Shana Tova

The rabbi (Adam Morris, aka Rabbi Mo) at the temple Fred and I are about to join (Temple Micah in Denver) had a couple of stories tonight. The second, which resonated particularly with me, was one of the Baal Shem Tov's -

A man goes from town to town in search of justice, and is continually disappointed in the people he encounters - "Does no one care?" he asks himself. "Is no one righteous?" He enters a very dark forest, and when he is far within, sees a strange light. He approaches - it's coming through the windows of a tiny hut. The door is ajar so he steps in. The hut is filled with an unimaginable number of wicks in oil, each wick alight. The flames flicker and dance, and he stands transfixed, utterly amazed. An old man appears who explains these lights are souls - each represents a living person.

Naturally the man wants to see his own, so the old man leads him to another room where he points out one of the scores of lights. But as the man looks at his own wick, he realizes it is dwindling, and its oil nearly gone. The old man has disappeared, leaving him alone with this soul of his. The man is grieved and disturbed to see how soon he will die. A wick near his has much more oil. He reaches out his hand to give himself just a little more, when a hand clamps upon his outstretched arm.

"Is this the justice you seek?!" the old man thunders.

The man awakes in the forest, alone, in darkness.

I thought that was a fine story, but in the garden of forking paths* which is the creative mind, I had a different version. In mine, the man comes to the hut, and seeing the door ajar, steps inside. There he sees countless wicks, their flames dancing, and every wick draws its life from a single great bowl of oil. Some wicks are small and others long, but they have one source from which to burn.An old man appears who explains each flame is a living soul.

And when the man sees this, he understands he draws his life from the same pool of spirit that sustains all souls. Some give greater light, some lesser, but each is alive with the flicker of its own fire even as it feeds from a common origin. In appreciating the wholeness that is the basis of these individual lights, he sees that the notion of separateness is mere illusion.

When he can recognize in others what he is proud to believe about himself, he will find the justice he seeks.

* a concept for which we thank Jorge Luis Borges.

2011-09-25T21:32:00.011-06:00

Karmafornia Road Trip, California Edition

From Chico, where I'm standing in
front of the now-gentrified house
Fred and I lived in 25 years ago, with
my friend Nancy who still lives in this
small Sacramento Valley town,

To San Francisco, where there's art
pretty much everywhere you look,
such as the Tractor Book
in a bank window,

To the early morning thrill of
Big Sur in the fog,

I've enjoyed my travels
through this great state.

And here in Venice,
the sights are always a wonder -

check out these bikes!

2011-09-21T13:36:00.014-06:00

Karmafornia Road Trip, Second Leg

I thought I'd be blogging more but I've been enjoying my travels & encounters too much!

Visit with a long-time friend in Eugene - hadn't seen her for decades, but we just picked up where we left off.
Then over to the Pacific and down the coast into the redwoods - camped in the forest then drove through Avenue of the Giants where I had to hug & kiss one of those ancient wonders.

Among the giant trees are horsetails, one of the most primitive of plants (dinosaurs ate them). They make a fine contrast to their immense neighbors.

Across the Trinity Alps into Redding, then to Mt. Lassen Nat Park for a hike into Bumpass Hell.
This completed our volcanic vista trifecta - Craters of the Moon in Idaho (giant lava flows and weird formations), then Crater Lake formed in the collapse of a massive volcano 7700 years ago (in the historical memory of the Klamath tribe), and now the youngest of them all, seething, spewing and sulfurous, Mt. Lassen.

Arriving in the evening in Chico we took up residence with friends I haven't seen in 25 years. Shared stories, rode bicycles and devoured the most marvelous tomatoes in the world (so ripe they remind one tomatoes are fruit - sweet!).

Friday evening attended a potluck at another friend's house where I gave a reading and sold the most copies of Karmafornia yet on this journey.
So far the calling card that gets the most attention is that the chapter on New Wave (punk rock) music was vetted by my friend Jello Biafra.

Sunday I came along to a woman's 65th birthday party, attended by a group of adventurous creative older women (and some younger ones).

Tomorrow I'm selling books at San Francisco Arts Market down by the Civic Center - hope to see you there!

2011-09-14T10:36:00.010-06:00

Karmafornia Book Tour, Part 1

Marigold & Ernesto set out from Denver heading north. Spectacular cloud formations in North Park, CO then found a campsite on Rabbit Ears Pass. Break from rain for dinner, then while we slept in our cozy tent it rained through the night. From Steamboat Springs we went into Wyoming; north of Baggs we held tent and rainfly into the stiff breeze, drying gear in a matter of minutes.

Back on the road into Grand Teton Nat Park. Ernesto's a Virginian - he's never seen much of the West, and finds it amazing. We camped along the Gros Ventre River - treated to a rainbow - and in the morning toured the park.

West thru Idaho:

Atomic City, Arco (1st nuke-powered town in US)

then Craters of the Moon Nat Mon, an otherworldly jumble

of lava beds, tubes and other crazy formations.

Campgrounds on the map near Boise didn't exist

so we ended up at Stinker's Fuel Stop that night.

On to Sisters OR for the Folk Fest - camped on the frigid Metolius River 3 nights and listened to music and hocked books 2 1/2 days- these Karmafornia t-shirts are great! Sold & traded a few books & handed out my book cover card.

Nice people and fine music - headliner Dave Alvin, new to our ears Cow Bop and Sweet Talk Radio. Excellent program Sept 11 morning - a dozen pieces, story and song, by diff artists, united us in sorrow and community. Rest of the day anything but gloomy - Hoots & Hellmouth, a Philly band playing at breakneck speed, and JT and the Clouds to finish off the festival with well-written songs.

Sunday a staffer gave my tray table "kiosk" the evil eye - "You know there's a really big fine if you don't have a vendor permit" so we packed that up & just gave out cards.

Monday drove to Crater Lake - gorgeous place. Hiked up Mt. Scott to highest point in the Park, then outran storms back down the trail. Tuesday boat ride to Wizard Island and around this stunning lake, then on to Eugene.

Sights along the way:

bear warnings in the campgrounds;

smoke from forest fires - east of the Tetons, west of Sisters, east of Crater Lake;

Adopt-a-Highway signs - businesses, families, schools, apartment buildings all doing their bit to keep the roads clean (which they are) - gives me hope for America.

2011-08-31T01:02:00.004-06:00

Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place

This movie has both sufficient narrative coherence and trippy footage to give the viewer balanced doses of history and immediacy – which makes it a rousing success. From forty hours of footage shot on the Bus, interlaced with clips from the era, editors Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood take a shot at making sense of what cameras and tape recorders preserved, knowing that what was in the heads of the participants is well beyond what pictures and sounds are able to convey. And they hit the mark, more often than not.

Starting with Kesey, they dissect 1963, 64, 65. We meet the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion, then we see him participating in Stanford's LSD experiments. With visuals culled from Kesey's journals, we get the flavor of that "supervised" trip, even as we shake our heads at the stark conditions under which a person is assumed to behave "normally" before he slips the bonds of external control. Even as he's reveling in a universe unsuspected, the clinicians are asking dull meaningless questions and diligently noting his replies on their clipboards.

The Merry Band of Pranksters opened the way for hippies without being members of that tribe. They were a pretty straight bunch, except they had these drug experiences that blew the lid off the world they were accustomed to, and that lid never fit back on again. What they were, fundamentally, was Americans. Try to imagine Furthur (or Further if you prefer - the bus including its name was repainted many times) anywhere else on this planet, and you know the bus would be confiscated and its crew in jail before they got a mile down the road.

One of the more effective devices the editors employ is to contrast TV clips in black and white, with footage from the Trip in wild vivid color – as good a metaphor as one could hope to find, for the difference between the status quo and these pioneers. Even Timothy Leary's International Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) in New York is a black-and-white spot, until the invasion of the Merry Pranksters. And no, he doesn't appreciate his retreat being colorized in anarchic fashion. Richard Alpert (soon to become Ram Dass) hangs out with the Day-Glo visitation while Leary makes himself unavailable.

The voice-overs, culled from the recordings on the bus and ten years later, work with visuals of that unimaginable Trip to immerse us. Gretchen and Jane are matter-of-fact in their recollections of how the world appeared to them – "I was so happy in the pond slime – and it was happy with me," "I was in a dark place and just wanted to be alone with my thoughts" – the effect is both comical and grounding: these people are not insane, they are tripping. They know the difference. But their behavior reinforces the truth: that watching and listening to someone trip, is to know nothing.

The star is Neal Cassady. To see his restless antics and hear his mile-a-minute patter is to recognize the creative catalyst for Kerouac and Kesey both. Cassady is unchained – he does whatever he wants to. The son of a Denver bum mesmerizes all comers: Beats, women, Pranksters, even the cops who just wave him on his way. One can't help noticing that he's up while everyone else slumbers. That isn't just the speed – he's more awake anyway, a man with his fingers jammed in the great socket of life, continuously buzzed.

My only quibble is the editors' detour into the media scare tactics that demonize LSD and its psychedelic cousins. To be sure, some people cracked up – when all the closet doors in the mind fly open, not everyone is happy to see what they've stuffed in there. But in the context of this film, the scolding seems both petty and tangential.

Go see the movie – it's quite a trip. As the Pranksters painted on Further in Phoenix in 1964, "A Vote for Barry is a Vote for Fun!"

2011-08-23T14:40:00.006-06:00

A Little Art & Rhyme

Sometimes we have to stretch and do things we're not so good at - just for the fun of them, and to see what we're capable of.

At the urging of a friend, I took part in Art House Co-op's Sketchbook Project.
I chose a theme from their list, and they mailed me a chapbook in which to do my art.

I never claimed to be skilled at drawing but I certainly had a good time!
The whole book is here -
Fishing in the Cosmic Dance
So enjoy! I sure did!

2011-08-14T21:43:00.007-06:00

Karmafornia Review

Review of Karmafornia, a novel by NC Weil

by Lorine Kritzer Pergament

From the image of an Indian bedspread print on the cover through the trials and tribulations of the twenty-something main characters, Weil gives us descriptive details of a culturally and politically volatile Berkeley during the late seventies interspersed with national and local current events to weave a colorful and compelling story.

When Laura and her boyfriend Walt are trapped in a snowstorm on their way to Berkeley where Laura is to begin graduate school, they take LSD and “fly together,” becoming mentally and spiritually one. But when they arrive, Laura becomes attracted to Cob, a student in her program, and he convinces her to become a fruitarian and get off the pill to make herself more physically appealing. Outlandish as this may sound in light of the fact that Laura is an independent woman, Cob is convincing, and Laura complies. So begins the love and sex triangle that sets the theme for this rip-roaring book that culminates in a surprise ending.

If you want to reminisce about Berkeley during the period of the Jonestown massacres, the shooting of Harvey Milk, the Dead Kennedys and “Box of Rain” with a hefty dose of drugs and sex, or if you just want a good read about that period, the tightly written and thought-provoking Karmafornia will engross you.

Lorine Kritzer Pergament's stories have appeared in "Bridges" and "Penn-Union," and she was a winner in the 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Contest. Her story "Smell the Roses on Your Own Time," will be included in "Amazing Graces," Richard Peabody's anthology of Washington area women writers in December, 2011. Lorine also writes book reviews and is a member of the Women's National Book Association's Great Group Reads panel.

2011-07-24T14:45:00.028-06:00

Long's Peak

30 years ago Fred and I hiked Long's Peak in Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park. You can't do that any more.
These days, you have to CLIMB.

So Saturday, with son Heinz, I did. At 3:30 am we got the last parking space in the lot at the trail head. Headlamps on, we hiked up the trail.

The sign says it's 7.5 miles - which would apply if it was a hike. But the last 2 miles are rock scrambling:

Boulderfield (just what it sounds like);
(From Boulderfield on it is not a hike. Rocks tip and slide, thousands of boots have polished footholds, and from the Keyhole, it's mostly hands-and-feet climbing.)

through the Keyhole (pictured here on the approach from Boulderfield - a climb up tippy slabs of rock. Up there, the wind is fierce - but past the Keyhole you can put away your windbreaker.)

then The Ledges (from here you look up at Keyboard of the Winds, a craggy distraction from groping along the route from one "fried egg" mark on the rock to the next);

followed by the Trough which still has some snow/ice in it from heavy late storms (Just 2 days ago RMNP took down the sign requiring ice gear to summit); (Fred and I remembered the Trough as a high-altitude-gain plod, one foot in front of the other up a steep trail. Now it's clogged with rock-fall and gravel which make it slippery and dangerous both to step on and for anyone below.

There's a lot of below.
At the top of the Trough were some tricky rock climbing moves - I wished I were roped in. But Heinz, an experienced climber, gave me a hand negotiating the scary part, so I made it.
This is the view from up there.

Then one negotiates The Narrows, a series of moves on a steep exposed massif.

Now we're looking up at the Homestretch - a climb of another 150 feet will get us on top.

Heinz and I have arrived!

Long's is the tallest point for miles, 14,255 according to the USGS benchmark.
It's also a fearsome peak - you would not want to be there in rain, wind or a thunderstorm. In fact, you wouldn't want to be anywhere above timberline on this rocky mountain in bad weather.

But we saw plenty of wildlife: a herd of elk, marmots everywhere, pikas (an alpine rodent resembling a chinchilla), ravens, swifts, other small birds and even a ptarmigan. The marmots were plentiful and we wondered what they eat on the rocky summit of Long's - but there they were.

2011-06-30T19:56:00.010-06:00

Scrabble Time!

OK, now it's summer and the Fun & Games promised have not made an appearance.
But July, at least for me, has been the month when I turn to the fresh calendar page and see not a deluge of busyness but inviting pools - visits from friends, a picnic, a long weekend fishing.
So, on with today's game:

The letters were coming my way, and I put down JESTINGS (good for 92) to get things going with a bang.

Two turns later I put down FUNKIER, for 97.
Fred made ZAP, ZA, AG and PE for 49.
I made COX, OF and XU for 47 plus an aesthetic point for landing the X on the double word square.
At some point my letter luck was annoying Fred, so in the corner he ODd multiple times, his way of asking for an end to it. I gave him a sad point for that.
At the end I had tray-dump potential but could never pull out the word.
Letters: AINUSD & blank. The only place to put it was across the N on the right edge.
Even with the blank I couldn't get a word out of it, which would have propelled me beyond 500, in the rarefied air where I have not yet climbed.
Had to settle for 465, and Fred was happy to have 313.
So if you see the word I couldn't find for that final flourish, add your comment!

2011-06-18T22:39:00.013-06:00

Gong Bath Review

Sounds like the newest literary mag, doesn't it? But a gong bath is actually a sonic/ vibrational experience. When I read an article about it in the Denver Post a couple of weeks ago I knew Fred and I had to go. It was held in a large high-ceiling yoga studio with hardwood floors, and the pair of gongs (38" in diameter apiece) were set up in the center. Blankets and mats set edge to edge filled the room, and when people settled under their covers it looked like a giant slumber party.
Preparations took awhile but finally Richard Rudis spoke briefly about what we could expect, and what we should not busy our minds thinking about during the gong bath: Expect vibrations, a connection between physical and transcendental selves, calming, healing, clarity. Don't worry about the mechanics: how sounds and vibrations are being produced, the characteristics of the bells, bowls and gongs. Make sure not to place your feet where they will be in line with the head of anyone in the next row (in order to prevent purged energy from passing into someone else).
Then Rudis struck a small bell three times to signal the beginning, played a bowl to deepen the vibration, then proceeded to play the pair of gongs. Since I didn't watch him I can't tell you how he produced the tides, clouds, blizzards of sound - but I felt the results.
At first, the air in my lungs vibrated, then my muscles and bones. These waves increased and diminished with the intensity of sound for a while, then quite abruptly I felt them cease, and my spirit, clear and clean, captured my awareness.
The gonging is not melodic or musical, it is cascading sound, rising and fading in power. Sometimes I could hear hissing (as if he was using a brush against the gong surface) or a patting sound, but most of the time I heard not muffled hammers striking the metal but only the vibrations resulting from that contact. Sound traveling to walls and back, through people, between gongs, added to the wave complexity. A deaf person would have essentially the same experience as a hearing person, because it's physical not aural.
To conclude (after 90 minutes), he played the bowl again, then the small bell three times. Speaking quietly in the dimly-lit room while we settled back into our accustomed selves, he suggested taking a hot epsom salts bath followed by a cool pore-closing rinse, and drinking plenty of water. He talked about sacred sound, differentiating it from music and from dogma.

The next morning son Heinz and I took a high-altitude hike up Twin Sisters (we'll be climbing Long's Peak later this summer so we're getting in shape for the distance and altitude), and were surprised by my looseness, ease of motion, lightness and energy. We hiked about 4 miles from 8700 ft to 11,400 in 2 hours, then after a snack and rest at the summit, hiked back to the car in another hour and a half. Arriving at the bottom, I wasn't even tired. My shoulders, which have been tight as guitar strings for weeks if not months, are quite relaxed.

So if you have the opportunity to be in a room where a gong bath is taking place, do it!

2011-06-14T21:59:00.014-06:00

Mavis Staples and Dr. John & The Lower 911 at Denver Botanic Gardens

Mavis Staples wows the crowd. She got us dancing, and when she did her final number, "I'll Take You There" she had us all singing back.

And since I was down in front boogeying, she shook my hand!
Her tight band: Guitar Rick Holmstrom, Bass Jeff Tweedy, Drums Stephen Hodges, and backup singers Vicki Randle and Mavis' sister Yvonne Staples.

During intermission there was time to wander the Botanic Gardens - pools, flowers and sculptures.

But no show is complete without the parking ticket - in the Highly Specialized No Parking Zone!
Ever see a sign quite this specific?
And somehow I overlooked it.

At least the car wasn't towed away...

2011-06-05T20:04:00.006-06:00

The Swimsuit Issue

Everybody does one, right? It's a way to increase sales & attention as the season turns.
Today's featured model is a 1/5 page ad in the New York Times Book Review, putting publishers on notice that they're in danger of missing out on the next Faulkner, Joyce, Angelou or Tolstoy, if they don't publish his books.
If I read the advertising charts for NYT correctly, he spent upwards of $10,000 to beg for publication. Perhaps it will pay off. One wonders why he didn't just self-publish.
But whichever side he approaches from - client or DIY-er - it's the same uphill struggle, climbing Mt. Recognition.

This goes a long way toward explaining the preponderance of reviewed books by or about famous people. Today's NYT Book Review features books about Bob Dylan, Metallica, Queen, Robert Redford, Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Eden, Cary Grant, Derek Jeter, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial... You get the picture. And fiction captures a diminishing share - out of dozens of books in the Summer Reading issue, only 6 are full-length reviews of novels. Really, don't people read fiction to escape the grind?

The competition for readers' eyes is fierce - while more books are being published every year, people are spending less time with them. But diving into a full-length novel, whether your pleasure is a P.D. James mystery, a John Le Carre spy tale, a re-read of Lord of the Rings or a comic novel by P.G. Wodehouse, is the best celebration of summer.

If you're headed for the beach, a pool or a mountain cabin, don't forget the books!

2011-05-26T20:47:00.005-06:00

Inspiration

Today I saw a query to writers: "How do you overcome writer's block?"
Not an original question - stalling is probably only an hour younger than creating, in the history of human development.

Solutions included doing chores, taking a walk, flipping through books.

For me, the surest source of inspiration is to employ some other medium than long narrative. Folding origami, for example, is a release for me - uses a different part of the brain, a different type of concentration, than applying words to images.

Left to right we have an eagle, a pheasant, a scorpion, a heron.

After I've done some folding, my mind's in a different frame.

2011-05-17T14:38:00.007-06:00

DIY Publishing Continued...

Amid the headaches of creating a publishing entity, there are good moments.
Right now, excitement is building - I'm waiting for the hard-copy proof from the printer.
After working with my designer NZ Graphics to get the images, blurbs, ISBN & barcode, spine etc. set up to look their best and do their job, we have a book cover!

We considered font choices. Concerned with the limited options on my computer, I was thrilled when I visited myfonts.com to see the amazing variety of ways to create a look with mere lettering.
Then we hashed over what was to appear on the cover. Tried a box of rain and it didn't convey anything (a box of rain has significance in the novel). But the Indian-print bedspread was evocative of an era without intruding or causing bafflement.
The waves in the lettering help communicate the characters' ups and downs as well as the ultimate message of the book: not to take things too seriously.

So, we have a winner!

2011-05-11T22:03:00.000-06:00

Style Guide

I've lived a long time without needing to have a style guide or even to know what one is (hint: it has nothing to do with wardrobe or hair), but now I have one.
The occasion? Working with my wonderful book designer Nita Congress on the interior layout of Karmafornia, my soon-to-be-released novel.
Which words are hyphenated, which are compound words, which are separated? Do you italicize words from other languages, or does that depend on whether they show up in your favorite dictionary as accepted American lingo?
How do you treat numbers, time, percent, degrees and costs?
What's the best way to represent a character's thoughts?
How about notes and letters?
What about words like mohawk, swiss army knife, kleenex, superball and frisbee?

Why does it matter? Given that language is an imperfect tool of communication, the closer we get to the feeling not just the meaning of words, the better we express what we're trying to. Since writing style is a key element in conveying not just information but flavor, texture and nuance, the way words appear has impact beyond the specifics of meaning.
"No place" is just "place" with a negative. "He had no place in that company" or "Oh, Auntie Em, there's no place like home."
"Noplace" is a negative place. "You're going noplace with that attitude."
How about "OK"? My characters use this word frequently, and it's always OK, never O.K. or okay. Why? Well, for me it's important that such a concise agreement be represented as briefly as possible.

Style can torture - I gave up reading Don Quixote after about 250 pages (out of 1000 or so) because he rarely indents for a new paragraph. Open the book to any page, and you'll see solid print, top to bottom and edge to edge. That's discouraging.
Then there's James Jones. After seeing the 1964 movie starring Jack Warden and Keir Dullea, then Terence Malick's 1998 version which was so different it hardly seemed based on the same story, I decided to read The Thin Red Line. That was agony - it has almost no chapter or section breaks, and the soldiers' names are nearly all words of one syllable, similar in sound: Doll, Bell, Call etc.

Style can woo - At the other extreme is Richard Brautigan's The Hawkline Monster, with such short sentences and brief chapters it's hard to put down: "I'll just read one more, then go to bed," I'd think, and before I knew it, I'd finished the book.

Punctuation is part of style. As a teenager I read Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and Tom Wolfe's uninhibited use of colons, italics, exclamation points etc., instilled a freedom I've enjoyed ever since.
Oh, I've been scolded for it. My use of dashes unnerves people. Knowing my writing habits have developed through reading, I revisited one of my favorites - John Crowley - and was gratified to see all his dashes.
How did Ward Just get away with using no quotation marks in The Weather in Berlin?
The undisputed master of the comma is Henry James, who in myriad phrases set off by commas, circles the meaning of an object, or statement, or action, such that when you arrive at the pith of the sentence, you know exactly what he means.

Breaking the rules. In nonfiction other than memoir, standard language is expected: subject is everything.
In fiction however, style is part of the package. Hemingway's short pithy sentences are essential to depicting his blunt masculine characters. The colloquial voices in Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule convey as much as her narrative.
The greatest rule-breaker of all is Herman Melville. In Moby Dick he changes voice, tense, point of view, uses straight narrative, stage directions, and language ranging from the argot of sailors to the biblical and Shakespearean phrasing of Ahab - and it's OK!

2011-05-01T15:15:00.015-06:00

Snowshoeing at the end of April

Yes, winter in the Rockies goes on & on. While down on the flats we enjoy the fragrance of fruit trees in bloom, and contemplate our gardens, a short drive into the foothills finds us in deep snow.

Heinz and I went snowshoeing. We imagined we'd be on the flank of South Arapahoe Peak, but we had to park miles short of the trailhead due to the impassable road. So we hiked as far as seemed reasonable.

When your gear protects you from the wind
and cold, getting out in the winter is a delight -
no crowds, tremendous silence, and beauty.
We passed this wind-carved cornice on our trek.
When the trail is under the snow, you just find your way.

In avalanche country, we admired a small slide on Woodland Mountain from a safe distance: across the valley. (It's in the center of the photo, left of the rock)

Constantly changing conditions - wind then calm, steep climbs in the trees vs. exposed flats - often required gear changes: put on the wind-proof shell and mittens and face-mask, then take them off and find the gloves and wool shirt, then batten down again...

By the time we returned to the car 6 hours later, the icy road was wet mud and gravel - once the sun came out, things melted fast!

2011-04-27T15:11:00.011-06:00

Moby Dick

Fred and I are taking an adult ed class on Moby Dick at Denver University - so many signed up that they raised the cap from 30 to 40 then started a wait-list - the adult ed dept was baffled - usually these "revisit the classics" courses attract 6-10 students. They didn't even want to offer Moby Dick - "Oh, nobody reads that." English Department Chair Dr. Clark Davis is our guide.

Herman Melville tells us everything known in the 1850's about whales, from myths and misinformation to descriptions part by part (The Tail, The Fossil Whale, the Fountain), along with everything we need to know about whaling ships and crews. In often complex sentences which reach to the heavens and into the soul for metaphors, he weaves all we need to know, into a sparse narrative about a particular ship in quest of a particular whale.

We experience the watery world - the "sleek" glassy water above a calm whale; a patch of ocean so dense with krill (which he calls brit) that it resembles a sun-drenched meadow in which the baleen whales swim like great harvesters with open mouths; a magical chapter in which the crew of a whaling boat find themselves in the midst of a huge pod of whales - below in clear water they can see newborn calves with their mothers, and young whales nuzzle the boat whose occupants scratch their skins like visiting dogs - while on the periphery the bulls swim so close together that the boat cannot leave the calm enchanted circle; and a typhoon that tatters the sails, its electrical energy causing the masts to glow like unearthly candles, then flings lightning that reverses the ship's compasses.

Starting with explaining the terms "fast" (a fish in someone's possession) and "loose" (nobody can justly claim it), he goes on to classify human society into the "fast" and "loose" - "What are the sinews and the souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish... What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish? What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish?... And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?"

When we finally meet their quarry, we discover we are entirely prepared for the encounter - every action has been made familiar through Melville's hundreds of pages of apparent digressions, so that at the critical moment, we know the score, the risk, the whalers' bravery and their ultimate powerlessness, against that prey bent on their destruction.

A modern novel and a novel for the ages, Moby Dick is both a potent story and a series of profound meditations on history, will, the natural world, humanity, courage, resourcefulness, camaraderie and the struggle to live. The author says, "To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." He has done so - thank you for that, Mr. Melville!

2011-04-13T23:26:00.011-06:00

Words misused, meanings forgotten.

So is snuck a word? In my favorite dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary of the American Language (c 1975), it's described as "nonstandard", which sort of means No.
Your English teacher would probably agree.

A popular mistake these days is using shimmy when shinny is appropriate.
To clarify, shimmy is a hip-and-shoulder-shaking dance move.
Shinny is how you climb a rope or pole, gripping between your shins.
I think it's pretty well impossible to shimmy up a rope.

People often use disinterested when they mean uninterested.
Disinterested means impartial - we value a disinterested justice system.
Uninterested means "don't bother me with that boring stuff."

Then there are horde (a group of ruffians) and hoard (guard that treasure).

How about marshal and martial?
Marshal: to gather (forces), or the person enforcing the law
Martial - pertaining to war (derived from Mars, the Roman war god)
A US Marshal could marshal a posse who use martial arts to enforce martial law.

Capital/ capitol, anyone?
Capital is the top of a column, or the city that's the seat of government,
or "excellent!" if you're a Brit, or upper-case letters.
Capitol is that specific building where legislative action takes place.

Enormity means evil monstrousness not just hugeness.
One could refer to the enormity of torture,
but not of the recent Japanese tsunami, horrible as it was - unless you believe the ocean and sea-bed did that on purpose.

Share your misuse bugaboos!

2011-03-31T23:01:00.013-06:00

FOOLISHNESS!

Thirty years ago Fred and I did something quite foolish - we ran off to Huerfano County and got hitched.

And we're still pulling!
This year we have come fool circle - started out in
Front Range Colorado, and we're back, having gone west then east.

We're still laughing, so it must be
a good joke.

The Cat in the Hat was known to say,
"It's fun to have fun but you have to know how."

2011-03-28T22:55:00.011-06:00

DIY Publishing Lessons

Well, we either learn "in time" or "for next time" - in this case, the latter.
Ready to copyright your book? Have a name for your publishing company?
Before you do those things,
Buy the domain names!
Plenty of folks out there are ready to profit from obtaining your name then selling it to you.
Maybe you want to pay them, maybe you'd rather not.
So start by reserving those names. Once your entity name and book title are public records, you're too late - the sharks swim fast!

OK, so you have your domain name(s) - publishing company name, or book, or both. (I call mine Fool Court Press, home to all the titles I publish)

Copyright your book quickly and easily at http://www.copyright.gov/ where the site walks you through the steps in uploading your manuscript and registering your work electronically.

Buy an ISBN for your book if no one else is providing it. Smashwords for example, will provide one for my ebook edition, but I need a separate one for the print version. If you even remotely imagine you'll publish more than one title, buy a lot of ten: one costs $125, ten cost $250. Go to Bowker.com to do this. Do you need to buy a barcode too? Check with your cover designer, who may have the software to set this up.

It's a good idea to create an entity to track your expenses & income for publishing your book.
You can use your own name, but you should consider setting up a separate entity. I chose an LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) because I can be the sole owner, and it's cheaper and less complicated than a full-blown or Chapter S corporation.
Start your registration at the state level, because the IRS needs to know where you're established. If you choose a state other than where you reside, you'll need an agent with an address there - an intermediary you'll have to pay.
So I set up my LLC in Colorado, where I reside. That cost me $50.

OK, ready to obtain an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS?
First I made the mistake of googling "IRS LLC". I got the usual gazillion results, the first multiple pages of which were NOT the IRS but private companies which will happily take your money to do for you what you can do yourself free of charge.
So just type IRS.gov in your browser window, or click here which will take you to the proper page. Less than 15 minutes later, your entity legally exists.

Now keep good records. Establish a bank account for your entity, so you can easily identify your expenses & income - this is not only cleaner than running everything through your personal account, it's also more professional. Be prepared to show the bank your IRS & state registration numbers. Once the account is set up, any expenses related to publishing and selling your work should go in here - registration costs, printing, website expenses, book tour, marketing... Until you start selling books, the money's just going out, but if you keep at it, you may break even!

2011-03-20T16:38:00.008-06:00

Spring escape!

Yes, Fred and I, with Heinz and his girlfriend, went off to Steamboat Springs to ski and relax.
The first day we had fresh snow to ski on, and since I don't downhill ski, once I'd dropped them off at the mountain, I went to the middle of town where Howelson Hill boasts both a small but challenging downhill area (used in Olympic training) and Nordic trails.

I expected to pay a modest trail fee but the only person around was a guy running the trail grooming machine - he wasn't collecting. A flawlessly sunny day, fresh powder, the place to myself - what could be more rejuvenating? I watched a hawk in winter plumage (white underside, dark above) hunting over the snow.

Later I read that the day before I skied there, a young man had taken a fall headfirst into deep snow and suffocated. That's why we don't ski alone, the mommy in me remarks - except I did too. But I stayed on the trails - I may be a good skier but I'm no hot dog.

The next day Fred joined me at a different Nordic area - such a warm day, the snow was slush in the tracks by the time we stopped. The hot springs afterwards was the perfect antidote to stiffness - ah, hot water!

2011-03-16T12:37:00.008-06:00

The Trek to Publication
Fred and I like to say that we live in a Self-Service economy these days -
you pay someone else, for the privilege of doing the work yourself.
Whether you're pumping gas or publishing your book, it's a DIY world now.

Having thrown in the towel on the agent-publisher-bookstore rigmarole, I've had a fast education on how one produces a professional-looking book.
Doing my own formatting for an e-book was too easy - I was lulled into thinking I could publish on the cheap.
Nope.
Maybe I could've, without a print version. But I love books - not only the words, but the physical objects - and I don't want to limit my audience to people with e-readers.

The woman who'll be doing my (interior) book design, and my cover designer, will help me set Karmafornia apart in the sea of new titles.

The argument goes like this: you worked X years to polish this story - are you now going to slap a homemade cover on a cramped layout and call it a day? Why bother? Doesn't your book deserve an outcome worthy of your effort?

I'm on my way now, and I have to admit it's exciting. (Now all I need is a personality transplant, to market this book effectively.)

2011-03-12T21:50:00.009-07:00

Stunning Canyon

Took a hike today with Heinz and one of his friends, into a canyon I had never visited. It's not that far from my home base, but I didn't even know it was there - thank you Heinz!

Perhaps you can see the trees sprouting from the massive granite slabs that edge the river.

Every pool free of ice fairly cried out to me - this is fine fishing water -
have to come back in the summer with my flyrod!

Despite snow, ice and mud, it was actually a lovely day, and though the mountains are fairly overrun with hikers and mountain bikers, we were alone after the first mile.

2011-03-03T21:59:00.008-07:00

March Forth!

We all have favorite times of year.
At our house, April Fools Day is a touchstone.
But other days appeal too - I'm partial to March 4th, an exhortation.
Get up, Stand up, Do Something! Go Somewhere! March Forth!
Even the geese in City Park march around (flying must be a bother - mostly our feathered friends walk), parading in formation, the leader blatting time.

It's a day to March in 3/4 time
If you like that sort of thing.
Cadence and sentences might even blend
If you're up for composing a string -

Step out your front door, facing the street,
Make your presence known.
Look left and right, and whoever's there, greet -
It's better than being alone.

Take my advice - you could do worse than geese
With a stroll in the open air -
Across the grass, beneath the trees,
March on forth: end up somewhere.

2011-02-21T19:52:00.006-07:00

Guilt

My FaceBook account was hacked recently. A phishing message was posted to all my friends.
Ernesto alerted me within hours of the occurrence, and I changed my password and went to my wall and deleted every instance I could see of the posting.
I also posted a message cautioning people not to click the link.

But days later, I was still getting messages from friends, wondering about the post.
Evidently, it wasn't deleted from everyone's wall. So I just spent upwards of an hour clicking through my friends list, going to their walls one by one and deleting the post. I was surprised by how many places it wasn't deleted - I guess the FB algorithm is not to be trusted.

I didn't have to do all that clicking, but my twentieth century sense of etiquette demanded that I clean up the mess made in my name, even though I had nothing to do with it.
One friend told me I shouldn't apologize, but admitted she too feels responsible when anything with her name attached to it, goes out into the world.

So I wonder - do younger people feel this sense of having violated others' privacy and personal space with a come-on in their name, even if they didn't create the problem? Am I really from a Calvinist time, in which everything is going to turn out to be my fault eventually, so I might as well own up right away?

I thought I exorcized guilt years ago - I've put my energy into treating people fairly so I have nothing to apologize for. But when this happened, Wham! Immediate and total Guilt!

2011-02-13T23:42:00.006-07:00

Taking the Plunge!

For some time I've been weighing the pros & cons of self-publishing.
On the pro side:
Authorial autonomy
Potentially higher return per book sold
Immediate release

On the con side:
"Vanity publishing" - for some this remains a stigma.
No newspaper book reviews (at a panel I attended, the reviewers said they never review self-published books).

But let's look at the industry:
As publishing houses buy one another and limit their risk-taking with unknown authors, opportunities for a book contract are diminishing.
The agent - publishing house - bookstore model is fast becoming obsolete.
Unless sales are strong immediately, a book is only in a bookstore a matter of weeks before that shelf space is given to other titles.
In this climate, if the agent or publisher doesn't like some aspect of the book, what can a little-known author do but capitulate? I omit mention of editors suggesting changes, because editors have become an endangered species.
The percentage paid to the author is small.
And authors (unless named Nora Roberts, J.K. Rowling or Tom Clancy) have to do the heavy lifting of publicizing their work. (I'd always thought the whole point of having a publisher was for introvert writers to be freed from the extrovert task of selling their work - silly me!)

My work is offbeat - not in a recognized genre, nor quite "literary fiction".
I've spent years writing and revising my work with rewrites small and major, then sent queries to every agent and small press who seemed even remotely likely to have an interest in my work.
The result is a rejection letter file.
I've pitched to agents at book conferences. Nada.

I am weary of the rejection cycle, and my work is too! Karmafornia wants to be read!

So I've decided to e-publish through Smashwords.com, supplemented by a Print-On-Demand edition, and do a book tour in late summer for publicity purposes.

If you've had experience with Smashwords, I'd love to hear about it. Their website presents them as a very straightforward author-friendly business, and they charge nothing to receive a properly-formatted manuscript (they provide a free detailed formatting guide), assign it an ISBN, and distribute it in e-book catalogs, available at a price the author determines, in virtually every e-book format. They retain a modest percentage of sales income (15 - 18.5 %), with the author receiving most (up to 85%). The author retains copyright and all ancillary rights. Smashwords provides a book marketing manual but the PR burden lies with the author - which it does anyway, regardless of how the book is emerging into the world.
And at the worst, authors have the option to "unpublish" from their site.

I know authors who have self-published. Once they've had decent sales, publishers have (surprise!) shown an interest, and picked them up as clients.
What can I lose, besides my frustration?

2011-02-05T23:14:00.018-07:00

Defining "Commercial" vs. "Literary" Fiction

One trope suggests that commercial fiction is plot-driven and literary fiction character-driven. But I see their difference at a structural level:
In commercial fiction, story is all-important; the structure, from sentences to chapters, is designed to keep you turning pages quickly. J.K. Rowling does this so well that in the last Harry Potter book I failed to register a much-noted revelation about Dumbledore - I was reading so avidly that the details evaporated.

The words and phrasing of literary fiction call attention to themselves. Writers such as Thomas Pynchon and T. C. Boyle use words you're unlikely to know. Either you pause to look them up, or miss the point. This sort of thing can be a gimmick - a chapter seemingly constructed around the use of an obscure word - but I appreciate their efforts to expand my knowledge.

Writing in the vernacular, though frowned on by writing instructors, is a marker of literary fiction. I wonder if Jaimy Gordon's novel Lord of Misrule would have won the 2010 National Book Award without the phonetic spelling mirroring each narrator's vocal style. You almost have to read it aloud, which slows you down, which makes you savor a story and remember it longer.
Unusual use of punctuation is another way of establishing Voice - an example is Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I find his playful use of colons helps re-create the wildness of those early heady days of psychedelics.
I've been chided for my use of dashes - and finally noticed where I picked up the habit: I gave Ernesto a copy of one of my all-time favorite books, Little, Big, and for the accompanying card, I leafed through to find a quote. And there were the dashes, a whole population of them - I can't tell you how delighted I was, or how vindicated! Knowing John Crowley uses them, I feel less alone, less out-on-a-limb with my writing style.

Sentence length is another show-stopper. Ernest Hemingway's short declarative sentences and straightforward strings of phrases linked with ands, are far more accessible than Henry James' comma-laced concoctions. The latter is probably only read by English majors any more, which is a pity - I find that his sentences begin on the edge of a subject then circle around, phrase by phrase, gradually reaching a focal point - by the time he gets to the nut of his sentence, I know exactly where I am.
Very long sentences compel careful reading, for example Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden Baden, a retelling of Dostoyevsky's The Gambler. A single sentence can run a page or more, but this is no stylistic gimmick - Tsypkin evokes in the reader a visceral empathy with the obsessed young man hopelessly in thrall to his gambling addiction, whose notions of luck and sensitivity to the humiliations of his daily struggle, are made more vivid by the particularity of each sentence.
The cadence of commercial page-turners eases your way forward, flowing smoothly, while the interruptions (what's that word mean? what did she say? etc.) of literary fiction slow you down, inviting you to savor the unfamiliar.
Your reading pleasure needn't be either-or - sometimes, the perfect book is a romance or mystery. At other times, the play of language is just the thing.

2011-01-28T22:26:00.006-07:00

Friday Night

The strings of beads of Friday nights
- for you maybe a rosary -
for us the count by sevens
through the years.

We hear the clink as each
falls into place
Nesting with its kin
to link a chain
to cross time's canyon.

Friday, Shabbat
the evening arrives and
wherever we are
in the warm Friday sea
we can taste the salt
welcome you
welcome me.

2011-01-20T21:56:00.014-07:00

Album-Cover-O-Matic

Every once in a while a creative activity really sinks its hooks into me, to the
extent that it worms into my thoughts and manifests in twinges of thrill.
Such is Album-Cover-O-Matic - this random combining of words and images
results in some truly arresting combinations.
Musicians, take note - you could do worse!

Here are a few examples:

The instructions are simple:
Go to Wikipedia and click on Random Article. The title is your band name.
Now go to quotationspage.com and click on Random Quotes.
From the quote at the bottom of the page, take the last few words.
This is your album title.
Now go to flickr.com and choose Explore last 7 days.
The third image is your album cover picture. Copy this picture,
add the text for the band name & title, et voila!
Now go have some fun!

2011-01-15T22:52:00.016-07:00

Design Flaws

Buying a house is like buying a car, only more so -
you don't just get the parts you want, you get the whole thing.
For example, the refrigerator in our new home:
It's a side-by-side, and in the crisper drawer, the vegetables are icing up.

This isn't my first fridge that does that. Makes me wonder: why is the crisper section in the bottom, where it will be coldest? I'd prefer to store dairy products down there rather than temp-sensitive foods like lettuce. But that's not how these
appliances are "designed".
In our last house, I insulated the drawers which still wasn't adequate - ended up storing the lettuce on the top shelf. Looks like I'll have to do that here too.
The milk isn't even particularly cold - I'd rather it was 5 - 8 degrees cooler. But the carton won't fit in the crisper drawer which has ice on one side and frozen veggies on the other.
Some fridges have all the units interchangeable so you can shift around the storage bins - not this baby.
Plus, a significant amount of the freezer space is devoted to an ice & water dispenser which doesn't work -

but it can't be removed to use
that storage for anything else.
Still, this is our new home.
We have to live with it,even
the parts that annoy the designer in me.

2011-01-10T23:25:00.004-07:00

Stealth Scrabble

Now Scrabble is on Facebook, so Ernesto challenged me to play.
But unlike our previous online games, this time he only makes a play when he's online, then logs out.
So when I check in, he's made a play - but he's not there.
The result is Scrabble in slow motion - After I make my play, it may be 12 hours before he's made his - or it may take me 12 hours to find out.

This reminds me of the early years of Fred & Marigold, when Fred played postal chess.
A game could take several YEARS as postcards traveled back & forth. The message would be a repeat of the previous moves of both players, as a reference point, then the opponent's most recent move, followed by Fred's new move, then his sign-off.
He had a small binder with a set of chess-boards in it with half-pockets to sit the pieces in to maintain each game's board position, opposite a large pocket he could store its postcards in. He had six matches going "simultaneously", if one can use that term about something so extended in time.

Having a long time to weigh your next move is not necessarily an advantage - there's a dynamic missing, along with the question of whether one can fully trust the "randomness" of app-generated letter draws to match one's personal randomness of hand in the bag (in which the vowels school like fish).

This new game setup is characteristic of Ernesto, who has always had the capacity to vanish. When he was little he was nerve-wracking - he'd be sitting quietly doing something, and I'd look over and there he was, again & again. Then I'd glance over, and he wasn't there. No sound of departure, no trace of where he went - just gone. He's still like that - which I daresay he enjoys. In our stealth games, I'll log in only to find that he logged out 7 minutes ago - what will happen if I actually catch him? This adds an element of suspense to the game...

2011-01-04T21:45:00.005-07:00

Inventing Words

This month's word is where'd-it-go (rhymes with vertigo) -
it's the fear of not being able to find something.
Fred and I have been experiencing a lot of this lately -
in addition to the boxes of stuff still unopened,
there's also the challenge of keeping track of things
unpacked but not yet well-situated.
These are actually more annoying, because
I just saw it! Where'd it go?

Whether it's the Phillips screwdriver,
the new box of light-bulbs,
or the bottle of Goo-Gone,
anything can be a source of where'd-it-go.

And this week, we have the word re-lease,
which means that someone else has rented our apartment,
thus re-leasing us from the obligation of 3 more months' rent -
an excellent turn of events!

2010-12-29T23:08:00.009-07:00

Ladder-style Bookshelves.

Fred wanted different bookshelves for this new house. Ever up to a challenge, I chose ladder shelves. I'd concluded the plans I found online were more equipment-intensive than I could muster. I have a circular saw, a jigsaw, a power drill, a router and hand sanders, files, saw-horses and a variety of clamps. Unafraid of imperfection, I figured I could design and build something that would stand up.

So I drew my plans then went to the local specialty-lumber yard where I bought many board-feet of red oak, different sizes. Came home and marked, measured, cut, drilled etc.

Tapered the 1 x 4's for the back legs, so the 1 x 2 front legs could be continuous to the top.
Lowest shelf 1 x 12, then 1 x 10, 1 x 9, 1 x 8, 1 x 7, 1 x 6, 1 x 4.

Broke several drill bits on the (hard) oak - I've mostly worked in knotty pine before.
Got heavier screws for the second shelf - much better.

I finished the wood with tung oil before assembly - used that on the headboard unit I built two dozen years ago, and the finish still looks good with zero maintenance (my kind of finish!).

Not going to win any prizes, but these shelves look interesting and they hold a lot.
Two down, two to go with my current supply of wood. At this point my biggest challenge is working in the cold - the last few days have been pleasant but we have snow & sub-zero weather coming - in an unheated garage that's a show-stopper.

2010-12-25T22:59:00.023-07:00

City Park Christmas - a photo-essay

Denver Skyline

Long's Peak

Frogs

Oh look!

And did I mention, there are geese...

Well, a few...

Grazing away.

What's that yammering? Here they come --

Cloud of the day.

2010-12-15T21:29:00.010-07:00

Street Art, Denver Style

Recently a series of images appeared
on posts at intersections, above the
Walk button.

Someone has a sense of humor...

Yes, if everyone is doing it, you should too!

It's fun, it's a creative moment on East Colfax, not Denver's most beautiful street.

The drunks of Larimer Street (back in the day when Neal Cassidy and his father subsisted there) have been displaced by gentrification - but East Colfax has no gentry, so anyone can hang out.

And, in good populist fashion, low-rent artists find canvases for their creative notions.

2010-12-12T23:16:00.006-07:00

Cloud watching...

Front-range Colorado has the best clouds I've ever seen - not only the big dramatic thunderheads in summer, but piles of heavy dense snow-clouds against the peaks when it's snowing up there, and the long-distance spectacle of fast-moving storms. Last month I watched a snowstorm sweep down from the foothills across Denver - driving north up Broadway I could see miles to the tall buildings of downtown, in the yellowish light of intervening sun and cloud and a whirl of flakes vanishing on contact.

But my favorites are the lenticular (lens-shaped) formations, which look like UFO's - some are small, others (like today's) span the sky, with clean sharp edges and sculpted sides, like great wings or water-carved rocks.

In a place with such sights on display, it's a loss not to look up - what's in the sky today?

2010-12-08T22:26:00.005-07:00

One of the standout moments in life is reaching an educational milestone.
It doesn't even have to be your own -

Today Ernesto completed his undergrad college work, and in February will receive the piece of paper (as long as he doesn't have any library fines!). As a parent, I look forward to the ceremony as I didn't when it was my own diploma being awarded. Back then, having to buy a one-use gown then sit in the swelter, without ever having my name actually called, wasn't very enticing - I think I went hiking that day.

However, when my sons are being honored, you better believe I'm attending! Temple University's mid-year commencement exercises are much smaller than their May event, so his name might be announced. Even if it's not, Fred and I will be there, proud and happy.

We don't know where his Anthropology degree will take him, but the process of earning it has already carried him far: to Philadelphia, where he's figured out the housing and work challenges many students face; to Rome for a semester; to rural western India for a month.

The world awaits -- Bon Voyage, Ernesto!

2010-12-01T22:08:00.009-07:00

Furniture Serendipity

Now that we have acquired a house, Fred and I face the prospect of unpacking all those boxes we've paid to store. Since we got rid of most of our furniture when we moved, the search is on: time to shop.

I find new-furniture stores mostly depressing - shoddy stuff sure to fall apart in a short time, in styles that are minor variations on a dull theme. Want a couch that doesn't fill your whole room, but is still long enough to sleep on? Forget it. How about one that a mid-sized person can sit on without having feet dangle above the floor while your back rests against the cushions? Nope.

There seem to be two schools of furniture design these days: oversized squishy pieces that dwarf fat people, and therapeutic units without a handsome line in them anywhere. A back-saver couch we saw was nothing but three back-saver chairs mounted side by side - not a piece you'd want to nap on! Suitable for a chiropractor's office, but in our living room? Please!

So we ordered Amish furniture. Not cheap, but well-made in this country (imagine!). In February we'll have our dining room table and chairs, and the sofa and armchair we finally bought after rejecting hundreds across the city as ugly or uncomfortable or both.

Building bookshelves is one thing, but I'm not trained or equipped for cabinetry. Fortunately, there's Craigslist. Some pieces are pretty sad - the hutch with the bullet-hole decals, the chipped pressed-sawdust entertainment center - and some are funny - the Grateful Dead bear end table (really!), Bean Bag that turns into a Bed! and Little Tykes Race Car Bed. Then there are spelling attempts - an Automan, an Armiour and an Armwar. I found oxymorons: Danish Modern Vintage Furniture, Lifetime Plastic Table, modern contemporary art deco chair; and redundancies: one-of-a-kind unique wing-back chair, awesome vintage tall retro blue lamps...
Some things are mysteries: Large Wood Slabs (which is just what they are). Rustic Vintage 7 foot Door is considerably the worse for wear - for the $35 this seller is asking, you could buy an oak credenza or "three almost new chairs" or a handmade Kiva Ladder.

Sellers enthuse about their things: beautiful, gorgeous, very nice, very fine, wow, cool, excellent, beatifull, and Guaranteed Bed Bug Free!
Some people think their stuff is really valuable, and others just want it gone.

I could've bought a huge buffet/hutch for $100 - it would cost more than that to transport it to my house, but no amount of money would remove the soaked-in cigarette stench of decades. Had to pass. And the buffet/hutch in OK shape I could've fit in my car? No drawers. Another pass.

This is what makes the corner china cabinet I bought tonight so special: it was hand-made by the seller's father - beautiful solid oak piece with glass-fronted top half, in excellent condition, with adjustable shelves and locking doors. At any furniture store you would pay 3 or 4 times what this couple was asking, but you wouldn't get a piece as well made. I've never been happier to part with $125.

2010-11-22T21:41:00.003-07:00

Recycling Orphan No More!

In the morning we take possession of our new (to us - built in 1927) home - and its big purple recycling bin!
Since April we've been recycling orphans, lugging along our bags of newspapers, junk mail, bottles & cans to such diverse locations as Boulder's Eco-Cycle (the pinnacle of recycling), Allenspark's drop-off, the bins of Heinz and other friends, and Denver's waste & recycling facility.
I've been told "Just throw it in the dumpster!" - but I can't. It's wrong.
Yes, Denver offers curbside recycling. However, for buildings with more than 2 units, such as ours, different rules apply. The property management company rep said they're forbidden to offer recycling. I doubt that, but they certainly aren't giving us the option. After being caught red-handed dropping my stuff next door (and yelled at, and threatened with a $500 fine) I ranged further afield. Denver's recycling referral website has many obsolete drop-off places listed. The only one nearby still operating is the neighborhood Whole Foods - but clearly those bins are for a newspaper here, a soda can there - not my weekly accumulation.
So one of the aesthetic points of our new abode is that big purple bin - tomorrow I'm taking my overflowing bags and buckets over there - an orphan no more!

2010-11-18T21:10:00.004-07:00

Thoughts on Five Tons of Stuff

When I go see my sewing machine
Languishing in dust and grit
I don't dare ask it "How've you been?"
I'd never hear the end of it.
But pretty soon I'll bring my crew
and go down to the Storage Zone
and rescue books and dishes too
to join us in our Cherry home.

When we unpack five tons of things
What will we find worth hauling here?
We're hoping that the effort brings
A fine finale to this year -
We'll lug stuff home and put it away
And celebrate - it's home to stay!

2010-11-09T21:16:00.007-07:00

The Russians invented editing because they lacked film stock - they had to splice pieces together after they'd been shot, and a new way of storytelling was born. Eisenstein's famous scene of the killing of a bull intercut with the slaughter of peasants, revolutionized film-making.
But there was more to the Russian sensibility - an improvised survival and dignity versus murderous odds. Imaginative directors found symbols useful when straightforward dissatisfaction could end their careers. Andrei Tarkovski's great films - Andrei Rublev, The Mirror, Stalker - told stories that both dodged the censors and celebrated the Russian feat of survival. Sergei Bondarchuk's magnificent four-part War and Peace, released in 1969 after 8 years of filming, was the most costly film ever made (over $100 million then, around $700 million today), with a running time just over 8 hours. The first two parts are as beautiful as Tolstoy's language. The third and fourth parts bow to Soviet triumphalism - but make a magnificent work nonetheless.
And along the way there are humble films - The Ascent by Larisa Shepiko follows a group of WWII partisans hiding in the forest. When two are captured (one robust and cheery, the other weak and moody), we think we know which will betray his fellows under torture. But the story plays past the ending we expect, searing our spirits.
This year's How I Ended This Summer by Alexei Popogrebski is another gem in the rough-cut Russian style. A seasoned man (Sergei) tends a coastal Arctic weather station, assisted in the summer by a bored youth (Pavel/Pasha). While Sergei meticulously records and transmits weather data, Pavel amuses himself in childish fashion: stalking a rabbit, leaping from one empty fuel barrel to the next, playing video games on the station's computer, listening to rock on his headphones. He seems like any happy-go-lucky youth making the best of a dull situation. But when the moment arises to give Sergei some bad news, he lets every circumstance deflect him. As the secret looms larger between them, Pavel fearing the older man's wrath cannot bring himself to reveal it. The burden unbalances Pavel's restless mind, tilting the pair toward violence. Dwarfing their human troubles are the vast tundra, icy sea and immense sky. While our sympathies start with the young man enduring desolation, as the story progresses we realize the true hero is Sergei, who tends this weather station as his life's purpose. Even his contempt for Pavel's sloppy work is subsumed in his love of the place - he cannot hold a grudge.

2010-10-24T13:40:00.006-06:00

A Modest Proposal (with apologies to Jonathan Swift) -

In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof laments the precarious situation of women in Afghanistan, and worries what will happen to them when US forces leave. And suddenly the solution hit me:

Take the women and children when we leave!

Let's see how long the Taliban (any government) will last with NO FEMALES to do the grunt work and be the whipping-post. A century from now there would be no Taliban to worry about - they will find out the hard way how thoroughly they need women.

Women trapped in domestic abuse are advised to leave their abusers, but usually outside assistance is needed. Let us provide that assistance to a whole society suffering from domestic abuse.

Let the men do what they will - shoot each other till no one is left? Pillory anyone less devout than the one in charge? Whatever they want to do - it's a system with a limit: a time limit. Since not every man is disrespectful of women, let any man petition individually to reunite with his family, but before he can rejoin them, he must make a solemn oath to respect all persons - and having experienced the absence of women, he will have a better understanding of how important they are.

And imagine how much we'll save - we won't need to send young Americans over there to be damaged physically and psychically, we won't need to spend money we don't have on weapons - the Afghan women won't be the only ones better off!

2010-10-21T21:52:00.003-06:00

New pair of Jeans

In which Marigold rhapsodizes about her new pair of Levi's Shrink-to-fit jeans - yes, they still make them! What's so great about them? They're snug without being tight.

The trick is to buy a pair the size that would fit you, of regular (preshrunk) jeans. Try them on, they'll feel almost a size too big. Perfect! Take them home, remove the tags, and before wearing them (who wants to wear oversized stiff jeans anyway?), wash them in HOT water, then throw them in a dryer on the hottest setting, and pull them out when they're ALMOST dry.

Put them on and marvel at how they FIT.

They're button-fly jeans, per the originals - but not just any button-fly jeans will work. You can buy them online or at a store, but make sure the label says Shrink-to-fit. Otherwise, you'll just have a pair of jeans you wish you'd bought a size smaller.

2010-10-14T23:23:00.005-06:00

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien
reviewed by NC Weil

This book has won many accolades, as short pieces and as a whole. It deserves them all. But I'm afraid to recommend it to my sons, who are in their twenties. Its juxtapositions of life and death, of ghoul humor and matter-of-fact insanity, are so raw, I fear my young men will fall in love with war.

In today's paper in 2010 there's a story about the 5th Stryker Brigade in Afghanistan - five soldiers are being tried for murder-for-sport and corpse desecration. In their cruelty I see the young men of this story - nineteen years old, just been drafted and dropped into Hell. They do callous things to survive, to differentiate themselves from the slaughter they must daily encounter. They do them to push back the fear that stalks every waking second and hunts them in their fitful sleep. They distance themselves from the meat they want not to be. By pushing each other to shows of indifference, and joking about what would otherwise make them incapable of what they are required to do, they survive - or die.

What is the worst death: to be flung in shreds into the treetops so your mates have to climb up and gather your fragments? To be sucked down in a flooded field of mud and shit in the driving rain, so your buddies have to foul themselves finding you, digging you out to send your corpse home? To be shot taking a piss on a lovely morning?

Or is it the death of your own self, your civilian carelessness and ease? Is it the pretty girl smuggled in by her boyfriend, who takes to war with an addict's intensity, joining the Green Berets so she can melt into the jungle and come back with human-body-part trophies, dead to ordinary life? Every story in this book could be made up. Every story is too real to be disbelieved.

It's about how we look at the world, how we draw the lines between ourselves and the emptiness surrounding our little sparks. By layering fact and experience, it's about how we can force death to a draw, play the game out longer, relish another morning of not being dead yet. Heartbeats and friends are all we have.

2010-10-10T23:44:00.004-06:00

House Hunting Blues

Will you hear traffic, or noise from a park?
Will you be safe walking home after daark?
They say it's location - you know that's true,
But other things are also going to matter to you:

To escape the stuff-trap, it's got to be small
Which means: be selective of what's on the wall.
But which will it be: forced air or steam heat?
Windows painted shut or a fresh air treat?

Is there garage space for a project or two,
Is that a working fireplace or only a flue?
Is there a patio? Garden space? Lawn?
How will it look when the flowers are gone?
Why is the landscaping concrete and rocks?
This house has character; that one's a box!

2010-09-27T22:48:00.005-06:00

Trumpet-blowing Time!

A high point for every writer is getting published. Maybe nobody's buying the novel, and the short stories languish between magazine submissions - but if you read periodicals, you have perpetual opportunities to see your name in print.

Previously I've scored with the Washington Post:
A letter (co-written with Fred) about the renaming of National Airport to honor Ronald Reagan.

One about the real value of a machine that chews up tumbleweeds - the article's tone was derisive, compelling me to observe that a flaming tumbleweed is the fastest way for a prairie fire to spread.

Another in response to DC Police incarcerating a woman whose blood alcohol level was well below the legal threshold. Arresting her, they cited "zero tolerance" for alcohol. Apply this principle to other situations: should we arrest drivers for going 20 in a 25 mph zone?

This February I scored a coup: two letters in the Washington Post in the same week:
One was on the editorial page, regarding the discomfort suffered on airplanes by oversized passengers and their seatmates. I suggested that airlines replace three-seat configurations with two-seaters, and charge whatever premium they find appropriate.

In the Health section my letter described the technique that helped me stop biting my fingernails.

I moved to Denver this spring, and subscribed to the Denver Post.

My letter in that paper about Christo's "Over the River" proposed project pointed out that I'd seen fabric samples at an exhibit in Washington DC. Far from being opaque, the translucent material on display invited the eye to see beyond its shimmering surface.

Then this Sunday Sept. 26th, I scored! Twice! --

1. My letter published in the Denver Post, "Making a difference with a bicycle | eLetters" was in response to Nicholas Kristof's column on World Bicycle Relief. I mentioned several similar organizations which have been operating for years in different parts of the US. These groups collect and ship bicycles to Third World countries, turning those extra bikes gathering dust, into much-needed low-cost durable transportation.

2. My letter showed up at the top of the column of letters in the Sunday New York Times' Week in Review section: Letters: A Drug Trial, and a Wrenching Choice I suggested revamping drug trials in situations where the control group's treatment has been well established as painful and ineffective: Use data from previous trials for the control group, and give all participants the new treatment.

So when you think you can't stand another rejection letter, try another venue:
If you know something an article writer didn't, your information may be welcome.
If your perspective is original, share it.

2010-09-20T21:13:00.003-06:00

Christo's "Over the River" Project

It's been more than a decade since Christo and Jeanne-Claude (who passed this summer) first selected a stretch of the Arkansas River Canyon in central Colorado for their project. The plan?
To suspend sections of translucent silvery fabric over portions of the river within a thirty-mile section.
The obstacles? Chiefly the Bureau of Land Management, which has demanded study after study of the installation and its impacts. It was easier to get permission to wrap the Reichstag!

As we see anytime someone wants to step beyond usual expectations, there's been a lot of uninformed opposition -

Oh, the traffic will be terrible! (maybe traffic will be slowed down, so people will take a look at something they've never seen)

Oh, it will be like putting a lid on the river! (the translucent fabric invites the eye through its shimmer, to the canyon walls, clouds and sky)

Oh, it will be ugly! (the proposed material is beautiful)

Oh, it will be destructive! (Christo has placed his art in the midst of nature for decades - his creations and the natural world enhance one another)

Oh, it's a gimmick to make him rich! (all his projects are self-supporting)

These objections all add up to: Oh, it won't be like anything we've ever seen - yikes! (true, except the fear part)

There's also been support, from artists, and from people who agree that works of art open our beings in ways we cannot calculate ahead of time. In an era when much of what we do has predictable outcomes, we need these surprises.
Christo's not proposing a re-hash of something he already did, or that anyone else ever has done.

The essence of art is that it gives us a new look at something we think we know, and by seeing it in a changed way, understanding it differently.

I hope Over the River wins approval, and if/when it does, I plan to be one of the many volunteers who put the structures in place.

2010-08-26T20:58:00.012-06:00

10 Steps to a Great Critique Group

I've recently joined Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and found a critique group to work with. If you're a writer, you'll benefit from belonging to one. An avid reader is not the same as a critical reader - we enrich our thinking and experience by reading for pleasure, but critical reading can make us better writers.

So what's useful feedback, and what's "noise"?

1. Be positive. Slamming someone's style, story, characters etc is not productive.

2. Do your homework. Read the material beforehand, twice if you can (mark it up on the second reading).

3. Layer your feedback. Discuss story structure & characters, language, grammar, etc. Dig deeper than just correcting punctuation & trimming sentences.

4. Highlight what shines. Be sure to note every well-turned line/phrase/sentence - we all want to know that our writing's not a total loss.

5. Write up your comments. Then edit them. Organizing your thoughts will give you more insight into the piece's strengths & weaknesses.

6. Humor can soften the sting of "this doesn't work."

7. Participate fully. Don't just attend when your material is being critiqued - give your fellow writers the benefit of your insight. It's only fair.

8. Offer your significant observations during the group meeting. Save your sentence-by-sentence dissection for the marked-up excerpt, for the writer to review later.

9. SHARE. Know about a good resource (a book, an organization, a website)? A writer's conference you thought was good? An agent or publisher in a group member's genre? Making connections helps everyone improve.

10. You're the writer. Your critique group isn't "writing by committee", they're offering perspective on your work. Consider all suggestions, but remember: ultimately, it's your story. Do right by your characters.

2010-08-19T21:45:00.016-06:00

John Prine

Fred and I went to the Rocky
Mountain Folks Festival in
Lyons CO over the weekend.
The festival grounds are great -
the North St. Vrain River
coming along between cliffs
and the field - bring your kids,
and they can exhaust themselves
while soaking up some music,
splashing in the wide shallow river,
down among the cottonwoods.
Good food, lots of cooperation on reducing waste, a gorgeous sunny weekend
under lapis Colorado skies - some spectacular sunburns!

The headliner was John Prine, who played last - Sunday night. We went Saturday, and heard Dala, Marc Cohn, Jenny Lewis, and then left for the eve.

Sunday, wristbands in place, we walked in with chairs for the opening set: Abby and Bela - Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn. When they finished, we left, chairs holding our spot, for a brief hike. We returned during Michelle Shocked's set, followed by
Richard Thompson (think that's him onstage)
and The Waifs.

Storm Clouds danced around us but unlike our 2007 Rocky Grass experience (same venue), we never got more than a dash - while towns to the east got clobbered with heavy rain, wind, etc.

I guess the sky gods knew John Prine doesn't need that kind of stuff going on - he's paid his dues.

Mr. Prine's setlist:
Blow up the TV
Crooked Piece of Time
Common Sense
Souvenirs - Steve Goodman song
Grandpa
Far From Me
Forgive
Glory of True Love
Angel from Montgomery
The Sins of Memphisto

That last song has some Prine Gems in it - give a listen!

Lindy Sunday

2010-08-10T19:49:00.013-06:00

Neighborhood thrift stores have run through their wares

so these wild Lindy dancers can put on some airs,

Swinging in hi-tops and dance flats and sneaks,

Tight jeans and dresses that look like antiques.

A blue checkered skirt and a pair of red shoes,

Hawaiian-print birds and cool graceful moves.

Big green diagonals swirl as she flies,

Her partner's in cargo shorts - flair in disguise.

Panama hat over t-shirt and jeans,

fast-moving shoes as a couple careens,

Coiling together and stepping in time,

Flashing their hips as they turn on a dime.

Ascot in double knot sets off short sleeves,

bell-bottom jeans with dance shoes I believe -

Whatever works so their movement's carefree

While big band sounds lilt in a suave melody.

Here in the park as the evening descends,

they fill the pavilion, laughing with friends,

The floor is terrazzo, it's smooth and it's wide,

And under this roof they are dancing outside.

I hear Jimmy Rushing and Count Basie horns,

behind them the thunder from receding storms -

what we get's a rainbow, blazing up bright,

to set off this sliding high-kicking delight.

8/8/10

Writing: Good Endings

2010-08-07T00:05:00.012-06:00

Coming up with a good ending for a short story or novel is either a fluid mindless process, when the subconscious provides one, or just about impossible, if the writer has to think it through then frame it in words that don't seem labored.

A great ending elevates the story - it's worth the effort to get it right. My current favorite is Samuel Beckett's "Dante and the Lobster" (in the collections "More Pricks than Kicks" and "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On") - read it! The story provides hilarious and vivid imagery as the reader makes the rounds of his day with the protagonist. All seems in keeping with the grim view he takes of life and his techniques for prolonging it with agonized ritual, including the funniest bit about toast I've ever read.
Then, the final sentence: "It is not."
In three words Beckett demolishes the reader's comfort and amusement.
It's shocking, it's profound. It makes you wonder "How did he do that?" and "Can I ever possibly do that?"

The best endings I've written have showed up in the wee hours, when part of my brain is conscious but the rest zoned out, and my subconscious has free rein to neatly wrap things up. But if I have to do more than tweak that final image, I'm doomed. It won't cooperate. Writing ten or twenty alternate endings doesn't seem to get me any closer.

Some people write from an outline, so they know going in, more-or-less how a story will end. Do they feel an inspirational thrill when they get there? Does the ending write itself, or was it already there, and the function of the story is to reach the point where it comes next?

I enjoy being amazed by my characters - their resilience, their senses of humor, their understanding in the face of disaster that there is a Next. And when we get to the end of a story, they help me bring all the loose ends together - there's something magical about it. I type but they dictate.

Part of an effective ending is keeping the reader on the hook. In "Ladder of Years", Anne Tyler doesn't resolve her protagonist's dilemma until the final page - you can't put down the novel if you care about her at all. But when a book fizzles and you don't get there, it's frustrating. Brian Hall's "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company" about Lewis and Clark's expedition, goes on and on after the leaders return from westward exploration. I stopped reading with about fifty pages left - whether they lived happy or miserable lives afterwards didn't matter to me.

A good ending is the height of aesthetics, providing a summation of the story's conflicts and a direction the protagonist will go. When well done, this shifts the reader from the circumstances at hand to the universals beneath. When we're given a good ending we feel we've gained by reading the story - and when it's unsatisfying, we have that urge to hurl the book across the room - "I read all those pages for THAT!?"

Ernesto in the Rockies

2010-07-28T13:36:00.011-06:00

Once the offspring are out of your house, you can look forward to visits. Ernesto traveled West last week to pay a call on us in our e-partment, and to see his brother Heinz. Ernesto's girlfriend Ruby came too, her first trip to Colorado.

Ernesto, Ruby and I went hiking in the Rockies.
Above timberline it was windy but a fine day for hiking. When we stopped for lunch in the shelter of some rocks we tried to attract the curious pikas with tortilla chips - but they were too skittish.

Though our trail ran mostly through National
Forest Land, we did cross briefly into Rocky
Mountain National Park - whether by design or
chance, that short portion of our hike offered the best views of the high peaks. Here you can see the south side of Long's Peak - not Colorado's highest peak by any means, but one of the most spectacular - Long's has the large flat summit.

Its false summit Mt. Meeker stands to its right (southeast). From this vantage we're right at timberline where the vegetation changes from limber and bristlecone pines to alpine tundra and lots of rocks.

On our hike down, we paused by a stream to
admire the wildflowers, including Indian paintbrush - in this picture the eight-inch-high flowers dwarf a baby blue spruce tree.

We also saw tiny birds, a hunting hawk and a great many other wildflowers - it's been a wet late spring (snow through the end of May in the mountains) which has kept the high country green unusually late into the summer. We saw a couple of snowbanks but most have melted by now, feeding the small streams.

No Ernesto visit would be complete without Scrabble -

here's our aesthetic point for the post:

Ernesto played his final tray with DROLLER, making 3 additional words in the process and coming from behind to win.

He didn't like my triple word score bingo REARGUES so I suppose his word was revenge.

Independence

2010-07-12T23:01:00.008-06:00

Fred and I like Low Pressure Zones, so we spent Independence Day weekend unplugged and off the grid in a friend's mountain cabin. Car full of provisions and gear, we headed west on the sunny Saturday, our first stop to fill water bottles (cabin though well-appointed lacks plumbing, electricity, gas) - but our approach to the spring coincided with the Allenspark parade. We hadn't planned to attend any festivities but there it was, so we did.
Highlights for us were the pack llamas, horses with flags and stars painted on their flanks, and fire trucks spraying water on the audience. A band on a wagon played Stars and Stripes Forever, a teenager balanced his bike on its rear wheel as he pedaled slowly down the road, and a front-end loader saluted the crowd, raising and lowering its scoop as it went.

At the cabin we rigged and went fishing in the nearby creek's occasional small fishing holes where a rock or log-jam would create a backwater no more than two feet across.
My nine foot fly-rod was perfect for reaching through brush and trees, to hover a fly in an eddy.
I caught two brookies for dinner. Fresh wild trout are incomparable - we had a sundown feast, gazing west on the cabin's deck.

And there we were treated to a sunbow - a rainbow of ice crystals in a thin cloud, lighting up with a spectrum of colors: our Aesthetic Point to cap off a fine day.

The next day was misty - I caught and threw back a small pair, further refutation to the neighbor who informed us there were no fish in that creek.

Walking back to the cabin, we saw a western tanager, a spectacular mid-sized bird with yellow breast and back, orange head and black wings. He's actually the Cover Bird of Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide to Western Birds.

On Monday we drove to a nearby lake for a short hike, then into town to dine. At the bar we had front-row seats for a boiling dispute between waitri, one accusing the other of poaching tables. Fred offered a joke, the waitress countered with another, and she concluded it wasn't necessary to kill her co-worker, proving once again:
Levity is the highest form of gravity.

In which we Launch

2010-07-06T16:17:00.002-06:00

For a long time, Fred and I have awarded one another an extra point for an outstanding play in Cribbage or Scrabble.

This Aesthetic Point showcases the game's finest possibilities.

In Cribbage, a good hand which is also just plain gorgeous (a straight that's also a flush, for example), earns one more point – an "aesthetic point" – along with the count determined by the rules.

In Scrabble, a particularly fine word fitting perfectly amid the ranks and files of letters already placed, deserves an aesthetic point.

It's the opponent's decision to award one, not based on scoring but because the play reveals the game at its best.

Aesthetic points occur in daily life too – when the fish are biting, the editor likes your story, the pun just floats to the tongue...

At my nephew's recent outdoor wedding the forecast was for mid-nineties, but clouds and a breeze softened the afternoon. After guests had migrated to the open-air pavilion for the reception, sun and shade alternated until rain fell. The rainbow that followed was an aesthetic point – a finishing touch courtesy of the cosmos.

Fred and I have reached an aesthetic point in our union – after raising Heinz and Ernesto and sending them on their way, we emptied the big house and moved to Denver to a one-bedroom e-partment where life is simplified.