SUPER BOWL,ZEUS . . . →Read More:Super Bowl Sunday Posting
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My message to myself is simple:“Think positive,Bookfraud,think positive. Be superpowerful. Stop making fun of Wayne Newton.” . . . →Read More:Resolved:A Better 2010…or 2011…or Whatever the Hell Year It Is The thing about Twitter is that I can’t truly express how I feel about Twitter in 140 characters,though this item clocks in at a mere 139. . . . →Read More:More Matter With Less Art In the spirit of the free flow of ideas,my high school occasionally would convene assemblies to hear speakers debate the issues of the day. That was the occasion for an event that still rankles me to this day,and,in part,explains the appeal of Glen Beck,Rush Limbaugh and all of our friends in the T-Par-T. It also explains why,to a trifling but measurable degree,many of us write. . . . →Read More:The Silence and the Fury As Mr. James takes his act from the cold warrens of Cleveland to South Beach,and Cavaliers fans are burning his jersey in effigy,the literary world takes little notice. Perhaps we should,as this episode reminded me of nothing save for Saul Bellow. You must obviously see the connection. . . . →Read More:LeBron James,Saul Bellow,and the Siren Call What is it about addiction memoirs that the publishing industry finds so addictive? . . . →Read More:Memoirs of Addiction,Addiction to Memoirs This blog entry is about me,or the lack of me,or the unfathomable reasons that I have not existed the past six months–Bookfraud,the blogger,not Me,the Man Behind Bookfraud Who Wants to Believe He Looks Like and Gets as Much Action as George Clooney But Looks and Acts Closer to Richard Dawson After a 72-Hour Bender. It starts like this:When I think of something being "perfect,"in the Platonic sense of the word,in that representation is the enemy of the real,in that nothing that can be written,sung,painted,or performed on stage can ever match the Form in which it imperfectly represents,I think of Bach and Glenn Gould. (Stick with me here.) I am of limited intellectual capacity and lesser patience,but if a recording of Glenn Gould playing "The Goldberg Variations"was playing in a car,and that car was speeding at 100 miles per hour about to run off a cliff,and if you were to drop me in the driver’s seat,the car would surely dive over the cliff unimpeded because I was thus transfixed. My favorite composer is Beethoven,my favorite pianist is probably Vladimir Horowitz,my favorite rock singer probably Joey Ramone,but if I had to pick one recording that puts me into a state of hypnosis,it’s Glenn Gould playing Bach. Now,the last time I wrote regularly in this space,I had a different job,lived in a different city,did not suffer from pestilence or pain. And when I actually wrote in this space at all–that being in August–Tiger Woods was still known as a golfer,when Jay and Conan were still friendly,the Supreme Court had not officially put plutocrats in charge of the United States,and we associated Haiti with a simply terrible history,overwhelming poverty,and helplessness. For this golfer,perfection no longer entails making a hole in one I consider those (relatively) stress-free days of 2008 in which I would check four or five blogs each day,usually at the office,without fear of prying eyes or corporate overlords,the latter of which was spending most of its time trying to figure out how avoid government indictments which I can happy testify was not on account of my actions. No,looking back,I can see when the decent into non-blogging began:when I got laid off last year. I didn’t succumb to depression,nor did I lack subject material or desire,but it was time,that evil crook,which took everything away from me. That,and perennial,pathetic exhaustion. After our fun-filled trek across this great nation of ours to relocate for a new job,I find myself somewhat settled in. My job keeps me busy,not that I’m complaining,and I am dutifully going to the pool to stave off the knee implants at least until age 60. Totster is entering daycare,Wife is complaining about my fill-in-the-blank fuckup but just every other day,and I have grown bored with surfing the Web for scantily clad ladies. Or naked ones,for that matter. You talkin’to me? What has been hampering me–nay,crippling me–has been this nagging sense of imperfection in all of my deeds. I sit down,intending to write or blog or tap out a sentence of . . . →Read More:The Blog That Ate Me I’ve gotten in three car accidents,but only two were my fault,and one was when I was 18,so it doesn’t count. . . . →Read More:25 Random Things About Me (All True!) You Would Just as Rather Not Know In the deepest grottoes of my troubled soul,I realize that I would do anything to relive that heady,three-day buzz of 22 years ago. . . . →Read More:Why I Really Write,Part 8:The New York Mets The country re-elected Bush,and there’s enough moronic,unemployed white fucks in Ohio,Michigan and Pennsylvania looking for any excuse not to vote for a black person to put McCain into office. . . . →Read More:Why I Really Write,Part 7:I Am Seriously Pissed Off Below is the second of the much-anticipated,highly debated 13-part series of why I decided to write. Picking up where I left off,I continue on the music theme. Though Three Dog Night is nowhere to be found. There is probably as much Beethoven apocrypha as there are famous compositions by him:his meeting with Goethe when he dissed the local royalty,giving a 12-year-old Franz Liszt a kiss of approval,famously ripping out the dedication page of the "Eroica"symphony after Napoleon crowned himself emperor,proclaiming,"So he is no more than a common mortal!" My favorite Beethoven story is a true anecdote that has nothing to do with the man at all. One Saturday afternoon when I was in my early 20s,I was riding in a car with some friends,when the driver,tooling around with the radio,landed upon a piano and violin piece of almost painful beauty. We wondered who wrote it:one ignoramus,trying to sound cultured,quickly said,"Well,I know it’s not Beethoven."It was an opinion the other passengers quickly validated;for,if we knew anything at all about classical music,Beethoven was all thunder and bombast. He didn’t have a exuberant or joyous note in him. The piece ended on a note that was filled with such happiness you could have sworn it was written by an eight-year-old,and the announcer said,"That Beethoven’s sonata for violin and piano number 5…" This was shocking to me,since I was the one who so confidently proclaimed that a Beethoven work was far too radiant to have actually been composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. After that embarrassment,I set upon learning about him. And the more I learned about Beethoven,the more amazing he became,as both a person and composer —which has made me want to write. My admiration for his work has few equals. There was no classical form that Beethoven could not master:sonatas,quartets,contertos,and the symphony,which he basically invented as we know it. The comparison is unfair at any level,but it’s as if Shakespeare,in addition to being the greatest playwright and poet of the English language,wrote groundbreaking novels and short stories. Though I’m no musicologist,and somebody is bound to disagree with my opinion (especially one of the snotrag,self-styled aesthetes who review classical CDs on Amazon),it’s hard to disagree that Beethoven was one of the giants. And,as discovered in my wrong initial opinion,he wrote music that is in equal measure joyous and beautiful as it is loud and bombastic. That Beethoven wrote all this while being famously depressive and cranky to a fault is part of his attraction. He’s probably the quintessential tortured artist;he never married,his only love being his never-identified Immortal Beloved. He was also unwavering in his beliefs,politically and morally,and was a true believer in freedom when such an idea was still forming on the Continent. OK,there’s a point to all this hero worship. It’s not only that such a person as Beethoven existed —that one person could master so many forms is mind-boggling to begin with —but that he was able to create despite his disdain for himself and the world. Everybody knows Beethoven went deaf,and that he went into an . . . →Read More:Why I Really Write,Part 2:Ludwig van Beethoven Wife and I are considering a move to the suburbs,as we have decided that our carbon footprint is not large enough. . . . →Read More:You Schnook Me All Night Long Facebook gratifies older folk who enjoy sharing news of every urinary tract infection or enlarged prostate with relative strangers and strange relatives. . . . →Read More:The Face Land That this particular notion is pathetic doesn’t obscure the fact that it is persistent and occupies a portion of my brain far greater than the likelihood it would have happened. . . . →Read More:Day Three of Three Days,Three Posts,300 Words Each Imagine Candace Bushnell writing a novel about the mating habits of the Vancouver Island marmot —no talent,no subject,no sale. . . . →Read More:I Put the Loser in Schmoozer I just did something really,really stupid. (And it’s not even publishing this stupid post.) . . . →Read More:Feelin’the Hate I had avoided being tagged for lo these many years,probably because most bloggers find me an irritating,ingratiating,and generally masturbating presence on their sites . . . →Read More:The Memeing of Life I’m more likely to volunteer for experimental ass-transplant surgery than tout my virtues as ascribe,but one thing I am excel at is plotting,be it a piece of “sudden fiction”or an 800-page doorstop. . . . →Read More:Plots Are Killing Me Yes,observant reader,I’ve changed the header and layout,and if I can decipher the HTML code for my template,I might actually make the page look half decent,in about six years. But enjoy the all-new photo of myself at rest,and take the poll! In the era before the Internet,PDAs,cell phones,and iPods,I bought a Filofax in one of my many futile attempts to “get organized.” The chunk of plastic and paper collected dust following my few attempts to actually use it. It was then that I’ve had my life’s major epiphany:in order to be organized,you have to be organized. I had hoped that the Filofax would magically transform the mess then known as my life. The Filofax would help me with appointments,phone numbers,birthdays,and the other assorted minutiae that make up the grist of living. It did not do much good,since I never entered my appointments and friends’ birthdays,while I barely consulted it for telephone numbers and addresses. In order for the Filofax to transform my life into a streamlined,efficient machine,I would have to do the things that would make my life into a streamlined,efficient machine – whether I owned a stupid $30 phonebook-calendar or not. Party time Several electronic devices and computer calendars later,I still struggle to keep appointments,remember birthdays,and generally keep organized. My desk is a testament to mounds of paper needing to be filed. Unfinished and un-started projects litter the roadway of my literary endeavors. Things are so bad that when everything is “organized,” I grow suspicious,for it means that I have spent my time in cleaning up rather than actually doing the tasks for which being organized would make such a snap. Now,comes my worst nightmare. I have about eight writing projects somewhere between larval and butterfly. They range from the “novel” to short stories to a non-fiction book to a magazine piece on outsourcing. Some of these projects are smashingly good ideas,if I say so myself,while others are limper than month-old lettuce. But deciding which ones I should pursue has proven more difficult than a chick-lit heroine deciding between a pair of Jimmy Choos and Malono Blahniks (or the uber-dick-lit hero choosing between Honey Ryder and Pussy Galore). In the past,this would not have been an issue — I would have simply done all of them with various degrees of enthusiasm (and success). Things would have panned themselves out:I would drop one or two things completely,aggressively pursue one or two others,and hold the rest in limbo. Then,once I finished a story,I would try to get it published,contemplate suicide as the rejection notes piled up,then brush the dirt off my jacket and start anew. You know what I’m going to say next:since Baby arrived,I have no time to engage in such narcissistic dallying,though dally I do. This is an organizational crisis for me,as I can’t decide what I should pursue in the limited minutes allotted to me when I’m not changing Baby,burping Baby,bathing Baby,taking Baby off Wife’s hands,wiping Baby’s spit off my face,etc. Now,I know of Super Moms and Dads who manage to take care of their children’s (plural) . . . →Read More:Organization Man |  Subscribe to this site's RSS feed. | ||||
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