He Took My What?

Certain cultures have special psychological disorders. I don't know why, and worse, I don't know why I am writing about this, but, let's looks at a few of my favorites:

In Inuit culture there is something called pibloqtoq, a hysterical reaction that causes seizures and irrational behavior. According to one report, it is characterized by people tearing off their clothing and running outside. Several accounts have people tearing off their clothes and dashing naked into the nearest snowbank. Not good if that means dashing out in the midst of Alaskan winter.

In Nigeria, there is something referred to as Missing Penis Syndrome. No, I'm not making any of this up.This is an irrational fear that one's genitals have gone missing (missing as opposed to the Australian concept of going on a Walkabout). In 1997, there is a report of a lynch mob in Senegal hunting sorcerers with the power to shrink men's penises. According to a recent article in the Times of Nigeria , taxi drivers gathered to protest against a client they accused of using pigeons to steal penises (I researched this, people...look it up).

Another cultural disorder, not quite as strange as having one's penis magically taken, is Paris Syndrome. Apparently this is a condition exclusive to Japanese tourists. While in Paris they will sometimes just suffer total collapse due to culture shock. It is so bad that the Japanese embassy provides a 24 hour hotline for emergency care.

Finally there's Capgras delusion, a disorder in which you believe that someone you know has been replaced by a doppelganger, an identical looking impostor. I know. I know, it certainly would explain why the divorce rate is so high.

Working The Snake Oil

Why do you write about writing?

The question stopped me. I looked over and gave it consideration before speaking. "Usually when I write about writing it's a form of metacognition, it's a way I have of looking at the process and trying to get my head around what the hell I'm doing. Sometimes I write about certain aspects of it because it's on my mind; I'm either teaching some concept in school, or worse taking a class and it comes up. Sometimes it's based on something in a writer's group and I just need to get it out of my head."

Actually writing about writing is an entire industry. There's Lessons From A Lifetime of Writing (David Morrell), Sometimes The Magic Works(Terry Brooks), How To Write Best Selling Fiction (Dean Koontz) , Writer's Tale (Richard Laymon) Writing Mysteries (Sue Grafton), How To Write Fantasy And Science Fiction (Orson Scott Card), Creating Short Fiction-The Classic Guide To Writing Short Fiction (Damon Knight), Worlds of Wonder, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (David Gerrold) and on, and on, and on...and those are just about writing for a genre market! There are entire websites dedicated to books about writing. And let's not forget those staples of the professional writer: Writer's Market and Writer's Digest.

Yes, there are books on writing for the poets, for the do-it-yourself guru, and for the naturalist. There are writing books for the writers who take themselves too seriously and think about writing as a form of art and themselves as the consummate artists. There are books for writers who are terrified of writing. There are books for writers who have never written a word. There are books for the writers who follow other writers around at parties, whispering in their ears about a great novel yet to be written.

So, maybe that's the answer.

Maybe the key to writing and getting published, the most important aspect of writing is just....finding the right book. There's enough of them out there, from the literary hauter (James Wood) to the literary hack (fill in the blank...or point a finger at me). So forget about the basics, don't worry about spending hours reading, writing, editing, revising, editing, revising, and writing...just go buy a book and the secret will pour forth from its pages. Why struggle when success is at your fingertips???

Did you know Billy Mays is dead?

Hypocrite? You say that like it's a bad thing

I think hypocrites have gotten a bad rep. What's the deal? If we all tried to behave as we expect others to, we'd hemorrhage. It's good to have high standards, but let's be realistic. Me? I'm a born again hypocrite. I embrace it. When people point accusing fingers and utter that word, I beam and embrace it. Hypocrite. Yes.

If you explore the etymology of the word you'll find it to be Middle English derived from Old French. According to the online dictionary, it means someone pretending to be something he is not. Another source added that it came from the Greek hypokrites, meaning "actor on the stage, pretending".

So ultimately, the greatest hypocrite is the greatest actor, and quite frankly, the best hypocrite is he who goes undiscovered. Perhaps the vile reception given to hypocrisy is that people don't like to be deceived. Really? I mean, Really? I think people adore deception, it frees them from responsibility and allows them to continue along a path without confronting behaviors and issues they might otherwise deal with. So perhaps they should embrace the hypocrite. Or perhaps they should embrace their inner hypocrite.

As Groucho Marx once said: "These are my principles...if you don't like them, I have others."

Summer's Drought

Have you been enjoying your summer film fare? I would wager that if you compare this summer to summer's past, you're probably finding it coming up short. Want proof? Look at this last weekend's fare, the weekend before Independence Day. What smash hits were released? A Sarah Bullock chick flick called "The Proposal" and a lame comedy "YearOne." Really? Really? Last year this time contenders for box office receipts were more promising: "Wanted", "The Incredible Hulk", "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull","Get Smart" and "Kung Fu Panda" and "Wall-E". Not great films, but perfect summer fare. And waiting in the wings? "The Dark Knight", "Hellboy" and "Hancock".

So why is this summer so different? Why are there so few films out there vying for your popcorn money? Because of last year's writer's strike. Consider the decision to move "Star Trek" from winter 2008 to this summer, or the decision to do the same to "Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince". Without these two blockbuster titles, your summer would have been dominated by Michael Bey's new Transformer movie and that thing which is an adaptation of G. I. Joe.

Me? I don't plan on seeing many films this summer. Instead I'll smile and do a psychic fist bump with the screenwriters out there, too long taken for granted for what they provide. A bare summer? Yep. It's probably good for us. It's a chance to play in the sun and to revisit a more active vacation.

An Introduction

In the past when I've used the term 'genre', I've used it to refer to fiction targeted at a specific audience, writing with its own set of rules and conventions. However, in my current school work I am being forced to re-examine and to broaden this concept. According to several scholars in language arts, 'genre' writing refers to the use of text to reflect or express a culture or a social value. For instance, an editorial in a newspaper would be considered a subgenre which seeks to convince a readership; its structure is based on a rhetorical model. Another example of genre based on this broadened definition would be journal writing.

In a past post I referred to the works of certain authors who produce "high-brow" literature as being part of their own genre. The above definition would support this view. Like the horror writer, the "slice of life" writer has his own conventions, visible as the work attempts to mirror the sort of writing one has come to associate with something called authentic writing. Authentic writing, a term I hate, is writing which is primarily autobiographical and often gives the reader a good deal of inner conflict as opposed to externally driven action.

For those who write, I look forward to your feedback. Fellow teachers, I am interested in your own take on this. How do you teach writing? Do you spend time on syntax and grammar as part of some metalanguage approach, or do you teach genre, focusing on genre specific rules and conventions, forsaking any attempt at formally advancing understanding of grammar for the sake of grammar?

North Korea

I will refrain from making a political statement here, but I must take this opportunity attack the press. 

Within the last several days, the following has either been grieviously under-reported or floated under the sight of major headlines.

-Repeated missle firings following the underground nuclear test by N. Korea

-the suicide of S. Korea's popular president

-Statements by N. Korea that the 1953 treaty that ended the Korean conflict is null and void.

-Statements by N. Korea that they consider themselves in a state of war and that certain foreign vessels, such as those navigated by the U.S. Navy are not safe in Korean waters.

Wow. You would have thought this information would have been the lead around most of the media outlets: left, right, mainstream, etc. And yet, for the last several days we've heard insignificant and ridiculous debate about Obama's Supreme Court nominee, gossip about Bristol Palin and her X, and continuous partisan coverage about why the other party is either imploding or bringing down the nation.

Silly me. I would think that the Korean issue would be enormous. I'm not saying it hasn't gotten coverage, but one would think that it would have at least been above the fold. It would also be interesting to talk about changes in Iran, such as the upcoming election and how some of the offices used to wage the campaign of the current president have been bombed.

It's time to demand more from our news sources. It's time news agencies went back to doing what they were supposed to do: serve as watch dogs and provide impartial reporting. 24 hour news channels should stop steeping news in commentary and pretending to be fair and balanced or otherwise. 

At one time, a news department wasn't expected to make money. It was a public service. It was separate from corporate influence. It's time to retain that purity.

The goings' on in Korea is big news. If a U.S. naval vessel is fired upon, there will be serious ramifications. 

The Great One

I have been thinking a good deal about religion recently. Maybe it's my advancing age. Maybe it's the pairs of animals that seem to follow me wherever I go, freaking out the neighbors and upsetting the local officials. 

At the center of my thoughts is something I call faith-envy. I have it. Bad. Whenever I talk to someone who I believe is a true believer, and I don't mean that in the Eric Hoffer way referencing fanatics and mass movements, but rather in a tone of admiration for people who have conviction, who can make the leap.

I sat through Bill Maher's "Religulous", a documentary of sorts, slamming religion. Unfortunately Maher found the usual assortment of cranks and idiots that can be found on the fringe of any religious movement and used them to ridicule religion in general.  Probably the most fascinating part of the film was his exploration of the parallels between Christian and Egyptian mythology, specifically showing how the recounting of the life of Jesus was an echo of a mythology that came quite a good deal earlier in a recounting of the life of Horus. 

It's too bad that this information couldn't have been handled in a more reasonable and erudite manner, but it sparked my curiousity to the point that I went in search of the Horus myth. Fascinating.

Watching "Religulous" I felt sad, not for the people in the film, the maniacal believers sought out and found by Maher, but for Maher himself. I think, after all, that Maher was probably motivated by the same thing that haunts me...faith envy. 

Thankfully, even if I never find faith, and people, I probably won't, there is always a shadow at my back to offer me motivation to stay alive and at least try and get along with people. Yes, I'm referring to Cthulhu. Maybe I don't believe in God...but dammit...I think I'm starting to have second thoughts about He Who Lies Dreaming. 

GENERATION ADHD

Maybe I'm just a crotchety old man. Maybe, but I recently listened to two twenty somethings babbling at one another (I don't think they've yet developed listening skills, but I suppose it's enough that they can hear themselves). Their voices were like fingernails over nylon as they attempted to redefine superficiality. Now I had been having trouble with thirty somethings off and on (thirty somethings, own up to it---having your formative years influenced by Reagan had an ill effect on you), but that was nothing compared to the irritation of listening to the twenty somethings.

Now I know we've been quick to label generations. The Boomers. Generation X. Generation Y???? But I want to propose a tag to capture the twenty something, cooked up in a crucible flavored by videogaming, rap, MTV, and Viagra and No Child Left Behind. From now on, let us call those who are now hitting twenty "GENERATION ADHD".

Let us be patient of their shortcomings. Let us carry shiny stuff in our pockets to distract them when they are sad. Let us use polysyllabic words so that we may discuss them without offense. Instead smile and nod and they will think the world is fine.

There will be some from that generation who will comment here. They will begin with intense personalization and abruptly lapse into text-messaging phraseology that will wring the deepest compassion from you for their profound limitations. As they reach the high point of their rejoinder, however, they will suddenly stop typing and head off to the CW Television Network website so that they may bask in all things "Gossip Girl".

It's A Living

My mother was a patient woman. At one party she brought me in to meet friends and acquaintances. I remember leaning forward and confiding to one group of people: "After college? I'm planning on joining the Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion."

My father rolled his eyes. I considered it an improvement from my previous declaration of my intent of becoming a diplomat for the United Federation of Planets. I felt someone needed to help reinforce the Prime Directive.

These days my declarations of identity have taken a slightly different tilt.

"What do you do for a hobby, Mr. Sternberg?"

"I'm a re-enactor."

"You mean like a Civil War or Revolutionary War re-enactor? What is it you re-enact?"

"The 1997 Superbowl. Greenbay v. New England. I usually take on the role of a pennant vendor. We make all our own uniforms."

I live for whimsy.

The High Def Frontier

I have just purchased the first three Star Trek films for blu- ray, and to be honest, I'm not sure why. It's not that I don't love them, I do. Instead, it's that I'm not convinced I need them in blu-ray. I already own them on dvd.

"Is it really that much of a difference? Blu-ray?" The answer is ..."yes" and "no". Blu- ray and high definition broadcasts are clear and colorful. They are a delight to watch. But are they enough of a jump in technology to forsake DVD's and leap into a new technology? I'm not talking about the technophile, I'm referring to average person who isn't sure what the difference is between 1080i and 1080p, or who doesn't really understand what black contrast is or how DTS makes a difference in sound.

This is actually the worst time for Blu-ray to be sprung upon the public. First, most decent blu-ray players are fairly costly and let's face it, if you don't have a HD TV, you don't need one. Second, the discs themselves are pretty steep. A new DVD is about twenty dollars and often much cheaper, a new blue-ray is often close to thirty bucks.

With the economy the way it is, with number of people who have yet to buy HD TV's (not a small investment) and with the leap from DVD to Blu-Ray not being enough of a leap for many people to justify the cash----I almost feel sorry for Sony. Almost.

As for me? I'm waiting for my delivery from Amazon so I can watch a cleaned up and enhanced version of the first three films.

Trends In Education

Sometimes when we look at a profession, we need to examine trends in that profession's workforce and ask the reasons for those trends. We are quick to talk about test scores and how teachers avoid accountability, but we don't speak often enough about these figures.

9.3% of public school teachers leave before they complete their first year in the classroom. More than a fifth leave their positions within the first three years of teaching. 30% leave the profession within five years of entry and that number jumps in more disadvantaged schools. At the end of the 2003–04 school year, 17 percent of the elementary and secondary teacher workforce (or 621,000 teachers) left the public and private schools where they had been teaching.

I think it's important to address these statistics when we talk about reshaping education. While we talk about accountability, it is also important to talk about the effect of environment and morale in a workplace and how such elements affect the production and efficiency of the worker.

Daydreaming

Did you ever feel that perhaps you were born at the wrong time? Have you stood on your front doorstep and inserted a key into the door, but before you could push it open, your action was arrested by the sound of the wind in the trees? And suddenly, you're transported, imagining yourself listening to a similar wind, in a bygone era, blowing across open fields and rushing through dense forests. You glance to the left, but instead of that mundane neighborhood that one expects, there's the slope that goes down to the harbor where the tall ships come in and go out.

Or did you ever go to work, listening to the drumming of a drone in the next cubicle and suddenly find yourself moved instead to hear a distant, and easily ignored, drumming and chanting of the Hare Krishna as they move through the park. The folk near you are grooving on the newest by Jefferson Airplane, coming in tinnily on a small transistor radio off that AM station that comes in when the atmosphere is right over San Francisco. Woodstock is two years away and you hate President Johnson and glance at a friend sitting crosslegged in the grass as he reads that book about the Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson.

Or were you ever at a party, perhaps where the presence of family members remind you how ordinary you are, and suddenly think you hear the sound of a police siren, something not that common, and wonder if they're chasing someone freshly from Canada transporting boxes of bootleg whiskey. The mayor has been promising to do something about the Purple Gang for some time now, but you driving down Plum St. it's hard to imagine any of those folk you see being criminals. Not like those folks you've heard about out of Chicago or New York.

Or perhaps you've sat in a waiting room at a doctor's office, wondering about the blood test, smelling anticeptics and trying to be comfortable on the high table as your feet dangle, and you hear the sound of another batch of colonists coming down the hall, the folks gathering for an indoctrination before really commiting to the trip to Alpha Centauri.

A Nightmare On Elm Street? Indeed.

Okay, lemme return to horror...

I was sitting watching Ben Cross embarass himself as Barnabas Collins, in reruns of the resurrected Dark Shadows (oh, and here is a link in case you aren't familiar with this daytime drama). [another aside: you might want to check out Stephen M. Rainey's Dark Shadow writings on Amazon. ] As I cringed at his scene chewing and the inability of his supporting staff to say something without making their eyes BIG, I started thinking about the current trend to revisit horror films from the 1970's and 1980's.  

In case you haven't been paying attention, and I certainly don't blame you if you haven't, such fare as Black Christmas, Prom Night, Last House On The Left, The Hills Have Eyes, The Fog, Friday the 13th, and Halloween have all been redone. We're not talking about sequels, we're talking about virtual reboots. 

Why? It's not as though people were sitting around virtual campfires tossing out: "I wonder when we're going to see a new Last House on the Left?" Some of these films were'nt that wonderful when they were released, and updating them haven't made them much better. Trust me. Oddly enough, Rob Zombie, the force behind the pitiful remake of Halloween has been quoted as saying: 

 "I feel it's the worst thing any filmmaker can do. I actually got a call from my agent and they asked me if I wanted to be involved with the remake of Chain Saw. I said no f***ing way! Those movies are perfect - you're only going to make yourself look like an a**hole by remaking them. Go remake something that's a piece of s**t and make it good."

I agree with Rob, and still wonder why he didn't hold to his own philosophy and avoid the remake of Halloween, Carpenter's classic 'stalk and slash', which, along with Friday The 13th, jump started this genre. I don't mind people reinterpreting films, I do mind when it keeps the studios from being creative and giving new stories and ideas a start. 

I remember sitting through Turista and Hostel, and wishing for something that had story and character (sadly, Hostel actually had a germ of an interesting plot with a theme of class exploitation....which they never really developed). Horror should be more than gore. Horror has a chance to allow us a catharsis in this troubled time. It is a chance to see things about ourselves, some unattractive, that need reflection, even in a warped and twisted mirror.

So what do we have to look forward to? A reboot of a Wes Craven classic: Nightmare on Elm St.  It was such a perfect little film. Creative. Scary. Surprising. With Robert Englund and Johnn Depp for Chrissakes!!! And now? According to EW, they are remaking it, with Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy and Rooney Mara as Nancy. Why???
And also coming...The Wolfman. 

I know this is a trend and it will spend itself in time. Still, when one thinks of all the opportunities being missed.

Genre No More

The time has come for horror writers, fantasy writers, science fiction writers, romance writers, and other writers of so-called niche writing to stop calling what we do genre writing. What does that word mean anyway? Genre. It's an apology. It's a sign we let the popular kids put on our back. It's the red-faced shame we feel when our parents whip open the door to the bedroom and find us writing genre into an old sweat sock while we desperately try to hide the open glossy pages of our favorite horror or fantasy magazine.

You know, I think the stuff that passingfor high literature these days constitutes its own genre. Let's call a neurosis a neurosis, or in my case, let's not.

I'm currently fighting my way through a novel by Richard Ford, one of those literary guys whose books are read by a niche, and maybe gets taught in college classes, but will probably be forgotten when the next literary love child comes along, and I'm amazed at his lack of economy and these meaningless details and passages that go blah, blah, blah.

Pulitizer Award Winning Ford, of course, was the literary type trying to redefine the novel. He looked for a level of reality that would have made Warhol shave his head and join a monastery. Reminds me of the guy who made a six hour film about a fly crawling over a woman's naked body.

Let me quote one of Ford's characters, probably speaking for Ford hmself: "If it's literature's job to tell the truth about these moments (significant or at least meaningful life episodes) , it usually fails, in my opinion, and it's the writer's fault for falling into such conventions. I tried to explain all this to my students at Berkshire College, using Joyce's ephiphanies as a good example of the falsehood."

So what do we call this high fallutin' genre that seems to have captured the hearts and minds, and corrupted the souls of so many MFA candidates and professorial staffs? 

Let's call it the novel that isn't a novel, the story that doesn't follow convention and seeks to express itself regardless of the entertainment value. It's enlightenment spread across the testicles like Ben-Gay (or Icy-Hot)..take your pick. Let's call it AvanteGardeInABox

Me? I'm gonna go play with the other nerds. I want stories that have beginnings, middles, and ends...I want epiphanies. I want to eat popcorn as I read and feel like when I close a book cover that I haven't just read something being forced upon me by Dick Cheney at a literary Gitmo.

So from now on, when one of those literary types tries to shove you into a niche and comment on your crass commercialism by identifying you as a genre writer.....turn a ferocious eye on them and say: "Oh yeah???!!!  You, too!"

Then run like hell and go read a comic book.

Hero Worship

Flash fiction for Good Friday.


HERO WORSHIP

"When I was little I used to fantasize about being Jesus."

Steven smiled at Carrie's words. He leaned back in the booth and made himself more comfortable. Outside rain continued to wash along the curbs of the city, flushing debris and dirt into the sewers. When he was younger he used to sail popsicle rafts along those tiny rivers.

"It's probably a pretty common thing for young kids to do."

Carrie nodded and stirred her coffee. "I used to imagine what it would be like to be crucified. I used to think how cool it would be to hire someone to crucify me in the night. Top secret. In the morning, people would come around and find me up there, hanging. At first I thought that it would be okay to be tied to the cross; but as I got older, it occurred to me that ropes would be a pale substitute for iron nails."

Steven pushed his tongue against his cheek and glanced toward the door of the cafe. It opened and a fat kid came in, his hair flat against his head. He was a punching bag of kid.

"God, I wish I were Jesus," she said.

Writing Darkly

According to a posting for the topic of the next writers' group meeting...we are going to explore the darkness. 

At first glance dark writing seems like an obvious concept. If we attempt to define it though, things get shaky. We can start off by assuming "dark" refers to a mood or theme. The word "dark" itself, besides addressing a lack of light refers to something characterized by gloom. According to another definition, dark, when used as an adjective can also refer to something threatening. Something concealed and mysterious. Or it can be something morbid or grimly satiric.

A lot of writing can crowd in under this umbrella. While many works of modern fiction have dark elements, perhaps it becomes dark when that is one of the primary intents of the author. For surely, while Harry Potter has dark elements, no one would ever consider it to be dark fiction. Nor would we consider the likes of Tom Sawyer to fall under that shadow, although Twain has some scary moments in the book.

I write a good deal of dark literature. And it is a deliberate process. I want to upset people. I want to give them something they'll remember, not because it's good writing, but because they are home alone, it's raining, and they keep trying to remember if they've locked the front door. 

I believe the key to writing dark literature is to start with the true and the mundane. The more fantastical something is, the less impressive the fright and less disturbing. That's not to say that monsters and Halloween "thingys" can't be scary, but the more they attach themselves to the "real", the more effective they are. Consider the Frankenstein monster; horrifying to people around the turn of the last century, but less terrifying now because of the advances in science. However, Shelley's themes remain intact:the idea that those who meddle in the wrong closets of nature will bring forth tremendous consequences. Frankenstein's monster now becomes a metaphor. Biological warfare, anyone?

As for the mundane...what could be more mundane than a house in the country where a family sits in front of a television set? Ask Jerome Bixby, author of "It's A Good Life", the tale of a town held captive by a twisted little boy who can alter reality with a wink. It remains one of the scariest "Twilight Zone" episodes ever seen. What can be more mundane than the shy, nervous motel manager in Robert Bloch's Psycho? What's more mundane than the soft and well-spoken Hannibal Lecter?

The most frightening monsters are those that wear the human masks; those that look back at us from the mirror.

Avast

Hi. The pace at home and work is starting to give me breathing room. 
In class we're about to start examining Peter Pan. While I'm sure so many would love to don the green leotard and soar...me?  I see myself as a little darker. Join me. It's a quick trip, really. First star on the right and straight on till the morning. Does anyone hear a ticking clock?

Boxes

In a couple weeks I will be able to return to a regular blogging schedule. For those still around, below is something that came from a prompt from a writer's group. The instructions were to writing about 'boxing' in any sense of the word. I wrote this.

My box is flesh.

When I was younger I dated cripples. I had a girlfriend who was blind. I remember sitting in front of her, making faces, and remarkably she could always tell. She would stop talking and abruptly look up, as if she could see me, and shriek. It eventually led to us breaking up. Still, she started a trend, and I was always on the look out for fallen birds. Odd then that I should have ended up with someone as plain and ordinary as my wife.

Charlene was quiet and liked order; her life was all pastels and soft edges. Her words were carefully chosen and perfectly enunciated.

“I don’t want us to go through counseling,” she said. It was a strange comment; I had no intention to of going to see a counselor.

Using the remote control, I turned down the television and turned to face her. She had attractive eyes.

“Counseling for what?”

“For our relationship. I don’t think I could take it. I don’t think it would help.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt. Aroused? I kept watching her, looking for anything unusual in her face. A twitch, perhaps. I liked twitches; they were sexy. Facial expressions, extreme or otherwise, could be an erotic explosion. Once I tried convincing a girlfriend to wear a plain white mask. I wanted to experience the emptiness.

“Okay,” I responded. “What do you want?”

“I just want to leave you.”

Hearing her words, I wasn’t surprised. Some people lean on intimacy as if it were a crutch.

She waited for me to say something. I waited for me to say something. Charlene leaned far forward in the chair, fingers closing hard on the armrests, knuckles painful white. Her mouth turned down, reminding me of a frown a child might draw on frosted glass. The silence continued.

I found myself wondering what it would be like to be deaf, imagining the silence as a protective blanket. I would draw it around myself, small within its wet, damp immensity.

“Nothing? I’m leaving? You don’t feel anything?”

No.

“This is pointless. You’re pointless.”

Charlene stood and went into the other room. I wasn’t surprised when she re-emerged with a coat and an overnight bag. She passed me, even steps perfectly balanced. Standing at the door, she threw me one last glance.

I would have said something, but instead I was thinking about one woman who would beg to be humiliated. I found it difficult to relate to that; I never felt humiliation myself.

Pointless, I turned back to the television, and kicked up the sound. I could have opened the box, but then, I would have lost everything special.The door lammed shut..

Fiddler On The Roof

I just saw Fiddler on the Roof, starring Topol. This is my third time seeing the play (I actually saw Zero Mostel in the original role), I won't tell you how many times I was forced to sit througy the film.

Being a Jew, I grew up around Jews. Makes sense. I had ample opportunity to attend weddings, bar-mitzvahs, and I even went to Hebrew School (there was something sad about pressing my face to the bus window as it pulled away from the curb---the bus came to pick us up after public school let out).  Anyway, I stumbled my way through Judaism, content, naive...and then came Fiddler on the Roof. 

Don't get me wrong. I love the movie and the story. My mother, born in Kiev around the turn of the century, was part of it. What astonishes me though, is how this film came to influence American Jews. I remember this scene where the women in the film were singing at the sabbath, wearing shawls and waving their hands over the candles in prayer. My mother never prayed. My mother used the phone a good deal and enjoyed television, but Friday night sabbath in our house was pretty much the same as every other night.

Imagine then my surprise when I arrived home one evening and found my mother doing the shawl and candle thing. I let it pass. Sometimes, you have to. But little by little this film started creeping into other expressions of Judaism. 

Before Fiddler on the Roof, I never saw a woman and man put on chairs and raised above the shoulders of the guests as part of the wedding celebration. Never. The canopy? Yes. The breaking of the glass? Yes. Uncle Seymore embarassing everyone as he tried to dance the hora in too tight pants? Of course. 

But before Fiddler, I had never seen the chairs raised. And now? Now the bride and groom are raised, the parents of the bride and groom, Moishe the Village idiot sometimes takes a turn, and even the guys in the bathroom with the cologne samples and towels. And it's spread to other events. I have seen bar-mitzvah boys and bas-mitzvah girls raised. I have also attended non-Jewish weddings and found some Christians taking on the tradition (of course, it usually occurs after a sweaty version of "Shout!" and before the obligatory "We Are Family!" (Notice all wedding songs have an exclamation point: "Close To You!", "Butterfly Kisses!", "We've Only Just Begun!")). 

With Fiddler being a rite of passage (I believe there is a new clause in the Torah that states that no Jew will have attained the age of sixteen without having sat through this and "Shindler's List"), I am curious about other groups and religious folk. What films are Catholics forced to watch and which of them have infiltrated Catholic popular culture? What about ethnic or racial groups? Do African Americans have to watch "Roots"? Are the girls forced to experience "The Color Purple"? Will "Milk?" becoming part of the gay experience? What about "Rent"?

I'm afraid to imagine what influences "Goodfellows" and "The Godfather" has had. 

Read Much?

I have been debating the value of classics with some other teachers. It's been an interesting dialogue.

Some of my associates express a vague notion that a classic is something lofty; that they must be all things to all children and that somehow touching them will elevate us to literary Nirvana. However, I maintain that blindly accepting the ‘classics’ and continuing to teach them without asking why or without understanding where they fit in with other things that we much teach is one of the problems in our educational society.

Some say: Let’s teach them something because it’s going to be on a test. Let’s expose them to books A, B and C because we’ve been told those books are valuable and they have been held valuable by the power structure.

I say let’s look at literature differently. Let’s understand the function of literature and not the function of classics.

Let us teach children to think critically, to identify with reading, to appreciate elements in literature that can inspire and instruct, but not to inspire and instruct blindly. Children shouldn’t be made to rotely rattle off concepts of characterization and theme, they should instead understand the connections and cause and effect and understand that literature is a door to a richer understanding of the human condition.

Let's challenge the status-quo and keep a fresh perspective on literature. While I often attack the evolution of the ‘classic’, I still respect these works for their contribution to world culture. Often the classic is the book that has helped address injustices and brought about social change, as in the case of Grapes of Wrath or Black Boy; they have represented those without a voice and have elevated dialogue and given us pride not just in our differences, but in that which we hold in common.

Still, some of you, and you know who you are, hold fast to the sanctity of the classic.

Perhaps, some of you stand as best evidence of the negative side of esteeming a book as a ‘classic’ because it has been held as such by the intellectual power brokers in the form of the church, the university, the local school board, the award committee, or the literary critic. As one fellow teacher who works in Detroit in one of the....wait for it....charter academies....stated it: “A Classic Is a Classic Is a Classic. Either it's a classic or it's not."

What depth of intellectual spirit.

While previously held merit is worth consideration, one shouldn’t view such texts as absolutes. As society changes, so does its literature. It in no way diminishes the past glory of the work, but it might call into question its effectiveness for this point in history and culture.

The Classics

College. I'm sitting in a class room listening to some guy hitting on on a girl. I feel like a whore. I've just changed from liberal arts to business, so I can avoid taking a Spanish class.  I'm in an economics class; my teacher, who isn't here yet, hates us. I can tell by the way he seems to throw up a little in his mouth each time one of us asks a question. And from the questions we ask, I don't blame him.

The guy actually leans his butt on the girl's desk. Smarmy. He picks up one of the books she has there, F. Scott Fitzgerald. He flips through the pages, nodding his head. "Reading the classics?" he asks her. It's the sort of voice that comes out of an infomercial at three A.M.; it's the sort of voice that makes parents stand outside a child's bedroom at night discussing the moral implications of going in there and trying to smothering their young. 

"Yeah," he says, handing her back the book. "I've read all the classics."

This is when it snaps. I stand, eyes wild, and confront this stranger. "You've read all the classics? You've read ALL the classics???!!!!!! How was Joyce's 'Ulysseus'? A good read? Did you like 'Farewell to Arms?' I understand he wrote a sequel called 'Hello, the Feet'.  Did you enjoy Sandburg's work on Lincoln? What about Pynchon? There's a fun fellow, eh?"

The whole class is staring at me.

"He's read all the classics."

Over my shoulder I call out. "What an ass." 

I immediately head out to drop Economics and to return to my double majors of English Literature and History (yeah, I probably should have gone into Law instead, or maybe something more marketable like...anything).

I passed Spanish, by the way. 

To My Teacher

I despise the depiction of teachers in film. "The Dead Poet Society"? I wanted to vomit and would have run from the theater had I not been in attendance with a group of friends. "Mr. Holland's Opus?" Richard Dreyfuss should have been beaten. "Dangerous Minds?" What? An alternative school with Michelle Pfeiffer? Yeah...yeah that was believable. I liked the part where a student crept into her apartment window----and she let him stay.

Most films about teachers are horribly maudlin. I can imagine my kids sitting at home and watching Robin Williams reading poetry and commenting: "Yeah, that's sort of how Stew is..only more sensitive, more understanding." I can picture them watching "The Great Debaters" and whispering: "Stew's like that...only more inspirational."

Okay..so who are the best teachers on celluloid? The following is a top seven in no special order, from a teacher's perspective. Now keep in mind I teach alternative education, so....it might be a little twisted.


1. Jon Stewart as Prof. Furlong from "The Faculty", a school where the staff has been taken over by aliens and the student population truly has something to fear.

2. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Det. John Kimball from "Kindergarten Cop". Okay. Arnold was actually a cop undercover as a teacher, but hey, you have to give him points for making a bunch of kindergarden students cry. "IT IS NOT A TUMAH!!!""YOU LACK DISCIPLINE!!!"

3. Ben Stein as the un-named Economics Teacher in "Ferris Beuller's Day Off". Not a big role, but who can resist the dead stare of a veteran educator who has dealt with indulged adolescents for way too long. "Who can tell me about what GNP stands for? Anyone? Anyone?"

4. Ray Walston as Mr. Hand in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High". Here was a teacher's teacher. A rather sadistic individual who gave out failing grades with aplomb. No ego too fragile to shatter.

5. Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi. Okay...maybe more of a tutor but the guy taught both Darth Vader AND his son. Montessori? There is no try, there is only DO.

6. Tom Hanks as Capt. John H. Miller in "Saving Private Ryan". Okay, he wasn't a teacher in the film, but hey, if I'm going to be represented by someone let it be Tom Hanks. Apparently before the war, Miller was an English teacher at Thomas Alva Edison High School in Addley, Pennsylvania.

7.Alan Rickman as Severus Snapes in the Harry Potter series. Yeah, he's not a nice guy, and he's going to be doing some awful things...but come on...the man knows how to inspire youngsters.

Young Adults?

Forgive me for being lax on my postings, but things have been ridiculously busy. Still, no excuses.

I am currently exploring the world of Young Adult Literature, otherwise known as YA. I'll be doing several postings on the topic, but for now, I want some of your thoughts.

I have just completed a book by John Green called Looking For Alaska. The book recently won the ALA's Michael Printz Award for young adult literature. The story follows a group of teens in a private school in Alabama. Along with the usual angst one would expect, the story flows. Green is a fine author, he has a way with dialogue, his plotting is spot on, and his use of the language is at times utilitarian and at times poetic, and he knows when to turn on the poetry.

Ah...I see...you're waiting for the but. Okay...

But I have a problem with some aspects of the content as it regards YA literature. I do believe this book is marketed for those fifteen and up. The characters in the text smoke cigarettes, secret away alcohol, regularly exchange obscenities, and at one point the main character has oral sex performed upon him.

Now, I have thought long and hard about this and although I love the book, I am not sure it is appropriate to be taught in a school district, or that it is appropriate as a Young Adult novel. On the other hand, I think that its themes of friendship and accepting responsibility are wonderfully done. And certainly there are many fifteen-year-olds who would be fine reading this.

Some people are going to say: "Stewart, it's not like fifteen-year-olds don't smoke, drink, swear, and have sex."

I agree. And I am obviously struggling with this, or else I wouldn't be posting on it. However, let me relate this anecdote:

I once had a discussion with a young man about rap. He was listening to some rather offensive material. We went back and forth about the virtue of rap from an artistic point of view. He finally defended rap by stating: "Rap is real. It's about what's really happening."

"Defecation's real, too," I responded. "But I really don't want to hear a song about it."

Or do I? Donovan once sang a ditty called "The Intergalactic Laxative".

The point I was trying to make to him was that while we can write about life, or take a picture of something, what makes it worthwhile, in my opinion, is when we show the essence of reality, when we reduce it to an abstract, or when it makes some sort of comment.

So, where do we stand on Young Adult literature? If a book deals with content that is questionable, should it be rewarded with an award from the ALA? Or should we say: "Life is hard and kids need to know about and read about. They already live it." Or should we re-examine our approach? Are we reinforcing negative behaviors by giving it an indeliberate seal of approval ?

Lastly, I recommend Looking For Alaska. It is a finely crafted effort and John Green should be commended.

What's Your Best Book?

What was your "Best Book"? An absurd question. And yet, in an online class I am taking on children's literature, I had to consider that question.

So...what is a "best book"?

In my mind it is a book which is influential or somehow transformative.

“Best” is a book that resonates, allowing you to forge a connection that will travel with you through life. I could easily mention A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle. Or perhaps The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

But let me instead talk about a book that became my “Best Book” because I knew it wasn’t my “Best Book.”

The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key was one of those titles that the Detroit public schools sold once a year through a Scholastic Reading program. As a ten-year-old, I recall being drawn to the fantasy of it. This wasn’t a fairy tale, nor did it address its fantasy element in a condescending way. It treated its subject with respect and in turn respected its reader.

The story, the journey of a boy from another planet who somehow drops through a dimensional gate to land in our world, fired my imagination. It’s the sort of tale that makes you pause on the front porch as the summer’s evening draws around you, and stare at the stars to consider the possibilities.

But the Forgotten Door was a safe book. It was one of those titles the adult world gives children with a pat on the head. It was predictable and delivered the positive message one expected to find in a school library.

However, I heard something else.

“Keep reading kid,” it said. “If you like this, you should see what’s on some of those shelves you can’t reach. Or they won’t let you reach. Nudge. Nudge.”

You see? The Forgotten Door itself wasn’t a “Best Book”, but instead a guidepost. It pointed me to Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. It guided me to the works of Heinlein, Bloch, Matheson, Tolkein, and Asimov.

I could mention numerous other titles that were more stimulating, thought-provoking and memorable, but The Forgotten Door , although I felt at the time that it wasn’t anything special, gave me that peek and welcomed me into a community. Bradbury would become my grandfather. Asimov, my uncle. Vonnegut? The next-door neighbor who partied all night long and kept the rest of us awake. Lovecraft lived in the house at the end of the block and warned everyone away with closed blinds and crabgrass lawn.

I didn’t think about sharing that community with friends. Most of them seldom read and anyway, a ten-year-old needs something to claim his own. Books were power.

In the fifth grade, reading The Forgotten Door, joining that community, enjoying the secretiveness and excitement it offered, I decided one more thing. I recall closing the book and thinking: “I can do that.”

I can write. I can tell stories, too. For some reason, The Forgotten Door helped me recognize writing as a person’s creative expression.

I knew I wanted to write, not because the book was special ( I clearly remember feeling it was okay, but not great), but because I suddenly understood what writing represented.

At ten, someone would ask: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A writer.” I would answer.

Some things don’t change. Or shouldn’t.

Cheer Up, Brian

"You know, you come from nothing, you're going back to nothing. What have you lost?" Nothing!"--Life of Brian.

The economy is in free-fall. And what does this mean for writers? 

According to PRLOG.ORG:" Net sales of books in April fell 3.5 percent to $472.7 million, based on data from 79 publishers as reported to the Association of American Publishers." This is from 2007. A more recent release directly from the AAP website cited that books sold in October alone of this year decreased by 20.1 percent at $644.5 million and were down by 3.4 percent for the year.

These sorts of statistics have shaken the publishing houses large and small. According to the New York Times:  Random House is undergoing a major reorganization.  In October of last year Doubleday laid off ten percent of its staff.

According to an article in Salon: "Just before Thanksgiving, the publisher [ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt](actually two venerable houses, Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt, which were bought and merged by an Irish company over the past two years) had announced an unprecedented buying freeze on new manuscripts. On Dec. 3, they laid off what former executive editor Ann Patty described as "a lot" of employees. Layoffs were also announced at Simon & Schuster, Thomas Nelson, and Macmillan.

Magazines? With advertising dropping ten percent and with the internet drawing away from the printed word, seems look grim. Media Life recently had an ominous article on what 2009 holds for the industry.

Meredith, publisher of thirteen magazines such as "Ladies Home Journal" and "Better Homes and Gardens", has perhaps given us a preview, reporting a 44 percent drop in net income for the quarter ending Sept. 30 from the same period a year earlier. It dismissed seven percent of its workforce and began downsizing.  

Depressed yet? What does this mean to people seeking publishing? Do we stand a chance?

I think the answer is "Yes."  Well, sort of.

With so many of the big houses having so much to lose as they invest in marketing larger titles and committing to broader distribution, I think small presses have an edge in some ways.  The returns for some of these companies may not be as large, but neither are the risks. And small presses are able to work with writers that the big houses necessarily pass on.

With so much advertising revenue moving to the web, so too have the magazines. People will argue that no one wants to sit at a computer and read. Yet look at the sales of Amazon's Kindle. Ebooks have exploded. Electronic books mean virtually no investment in maintaining an inventory and distribution is as simple as clicking a download from a server.  

A "must read" article from The Independent suggests that instead of despairing, aspiring writers should seek these times of economic darkness as an opportunity. Author Boyd Tonkin wrote: 

"Where could the silver lining lurk? Might the flight of big – or even middling – money from literary publishing prompt a quest for bolder choices and wider horizons from authors who know that their finely-finessed debut now stands no chance of reaching the Richard-and-Judy sofa or the Waterstone's front table? If slimmer cheques and smaller expectations force some novelists to give up altogether, surely they might inspire others to thumb their noses at a deep-frozen marketplace and go – as it were – for broke."

I think Tonkin is correct, at least in his view that for those who have imagination and creativity, there are rewarding avenues to follow to literary success. People should be exploring every avenue possible. For me, I'm continuing my current path of seeking publishing through small press and online magazines. Maybe I'll try something with podcasting and perhaps try to market something of my own through the net. 

Sit back and fret...and fail. This is the time to step up and be bold. This is when we writers need to change our paradigm and start seeking new avenues to finding our way into print, electronic or otherwise. Or into other medium altogether.

Let me close with a story I remember from a reading of Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"

Two battleships were at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather. The captain of the lead battleship was on watch as night fell. They were traveling through patchy fog that made visibility poor. Then, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.”

“Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain called out.

“Steady, Captain,” came the answer, confirming that they were on a dangerous collision course with the other ship.

The captain called to the signalman, “Signal that ship, tell them we are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.”

“I’m a seaman second class,” came the reply, “You had better change course 20 degrees.”

The captain was furious. He spat out, “Send this message: I’m a battleship. Change course 20 degrees.”

Back came the flashing light, “I’m a lighthouse.”

The battleship changed course.