Memories

Alive

I've been on a bit of a Stephen Sondheim kick lately, maybe because of his longtime connection with Anthony Perkins, one of my perennial preoccupations/happy obsessions. These two were similar in that they were both intricate, impossible, brilliant, and (in spite of their vast creative contribution) essentially unknowable.

Though Perkins was prematurely snatched at 60, Sondheim is still with us at 80-some. One of his many legendary shows was Company (1970), in which T. P. almost played Bobby, the still point at the centre of a comedy of couples. When it comes to relationships and love, Bobby won't commit, but committed people (or people who should be committed) swirl all around him.

Somehow Tony Perkins wasn't available. Another commitment, you see. Or he didn't really need to "play" Bobby; he was too busy being him.

I tried to find a really good version of an incredible song, Being Alive, Bobby's final soliloquy/aria/heartsong. I went through Bernadette Peters, whom I've always loved; Patty LuPone; Barbra Streisand; even Julie Andrews. Nada, naynay, nonenonenone, can't get into it and am almost at the point of giving up.

Then I stumbled on. . . this.

It's Dean Jones, yes, that Dean Jones from the Love Bug series and innumerable other Disney flicks. I didn't even know he could sing. It's a recording session, probably the original cast recording judging by the fact that Sondheim looks like a middle-aged juvenile delinquent. But what Jones does here is beyond singing. He opens his mouth, his eyes soft with a frightened vulnerability, and releases this hymn, this almost unbearable paean to the aching neccessity of love.

Jesus! He can't just sing: he can fly. Where has he been all my life? I don't know if I've ever heard a song turned inside-out like this. Along with flat-out artistry, he possesses a soaring technical brilliance, the ability to sustain a phrase in a clean, steady arc for an impossibly long time. He builds and builds the drama as the orchestra crescendos and begins to thunder at the end. . .and when it's over and he stands there with a tense, "was that any good?" look clearly visible on his face, there's an eerie silence in the studio. Sondheim mumbles something about it being adequate. Then, almost like at the end of Laugh-in, sparse applause, the sound of a few hands clapping.

When I hear something this good, which is never, I want to do something really extreme, like throw all my manuscripts on a bonfire, committ suttee or whatever it is (but my husband would have to do it first, damn it). When I hear something this exalted, I want to just chuck my ambitions and go take a long walk in the park (ten years ought to do it). But at the same time, it goads me to be better than I know how to be.

This song is about someone who can't fully live until he learns to open himself wide to the splendors and catastrophes of love. I wonder why I have such a visceral response to it. Love is at the centre of my life, and in fact, I know it is my central purpose. Of this I have no doubt. But what does it mean, what does it really mean to love? Do we ever get it right?

Grog Grows Own Tail

Can't say just what started this, but maybe it was my daughter-in-law saying, "By the way, I sent away for the Sea Monkeys."

"The. . . the. . . (gulp)". . . (I was already being dragged into the past, and all those summers at the cottage with the Jimmy Olsen Annual).

"Oh yeah, but there's only one problem with them. They only come with a year's supply of food. So what are you supposed to feed them after that? Rubber boots?"

So you could still get them. It was hard to believe, in this age of cynicism and truth in advertising, but there it was. And kids still wanted them. My own grandkids wanted them. It was all a little hard to absorb.

The sea monkeys, along with so many things we yearned for in those old comic book ads, were the stuff of legend. We never actually sent away for them or for anything else, though I considered the 100 Dolls for $1 (not having any idea what they meant by "Lilliputian cuteness": would 9-year-old girls be likely to read Jonathan Swift?). It all had to do with American-ness, the American dollar looking nothing like the Canadian dollar. We just knew it was Different. You had to send actual dollars, because no one had heard of a money order in those days, plus all these things only cost about a buck.

Anyway, back to the sea monkeys: it was a very long time before I actually saw any, and I don't recall whose house I was in. There was a small plastic tank full of cloudy, smelly, slimy water, with little multi-legged things squirming around in it. Doing tricks, I suppose. No sign of a castle or royal sceptres.

The rest of the story wasn't filled in until about 10 years ago, when my husband and I made a trip to Utah and saw millions of brine shrimp, the only creatures who can withstand the thick saline waters of the Great Salt Lake.

Oh, OK then (choke), but there was still the Onion Gum ("Tastes like. . . like. . . ONIONS! It's too funny!" This was one of our favorites. I devoted a whole post to this tiny ad, riffing on it with all sorts of different photographic/photoshop effects.) And there were the hundreds of strong man ads with pictures of nearly-nude, wildly overdeveloped men flexing every muscle at once. These seemed to interest my brother Arthur, though I have come to wonder about it since.

Comic book ads were all tied in with summers at Bondi, a resort in Muskoka that qualifies as a little bit of heaven on earth. (The fact that Bondi is still there, preserved by my friend Nancy and her brother Brian, is even more of a marvel, and somehow gives me hope). For two weeks we were absolutely free. And of course we didn't fully appreciate it: we rampaged through that time like wild horses, and before we knew it we came to that miserable moment when we began to count the days we had left.

I wonder to this day how many live chihuahuas were delivered to kids willing to sell photo-finishing door to door, or unload tubes of salve. Or that poor monkey: how would it survive, and wouldn't it be so full of fear that it would bite everyone? Attitudes towards animals were different then (and the word chihuahua wasn't even used: but for God's sake, if we were supposed to understand lilliputian, what was so hard about chihuahua??). They were freight to be shipped. I wonder how many kids just didn't tell their parents.

I used to wonder about Grog, until I saw a Hawaiian ti plant at some sort of horticultural display. You just stuck it in the ground, and, voila! a shade tree in minutes. Whether Grog kept producing another tail, and another and another and another, was anyone's guess. But what can you expect for a buck?

Seeing these again gives me that queer feeling of deeply-buried deja vu. Many of the ads have been so enhanced that they look a thousand times more vibrant than the original grainy, 2" square things, usually plastered together on a great exuberant wall of ads. (These make great wallpaper, by the way.) And I even solved a few mysteries. For example, I found out exactly what you got if you sent away for the 100 dolls.

These looked like very chintzy Monopoly tokens, all of them made of pink plastic. There were maybe 30 different designs, but the thing is, they were 2" high and about a billionth of an inch thick, standing up on bases like those farm animals I used to have. I saw a collection of them on eBay, where they are now worth a lot of money as collectibles (though only if the 100-piece set is intact: people do count them).

I don't know, I get the strangest feeling seeing these. Paradise Lost, then found again. Not having, of course, and not just looking, but coveting. We wanted these things, we ached for them as only a child can ache, a child with no money and no power and no parental approval. I know a buck meant a lot more then, but why go to so much effort for such a lousy return? And wouldn't most people want their money back?

I don't look at comics now, they're all different, though I guess you can snoop around and find vintage ones if you're willing to pay top dollar (and I'm not). We don't put 15 cents into an envelope to get Onion Gum, not when there's PayPal and the like. I don't save Kellogg's box tops and send away for little plastic submarines that you fill with baking soda. It's a whole different game.

Tastes like. . . like. . .

Why Archie and Jimmy Olsen are the same person

Are you gay or bipolar?

Actual conversation, recently overheard at a party.

(Her) So they're saying, you know, he's (blblblb)

(Him) He's bi-whut?

You know. Bipolar. That's where -

Yeah, I know what it is, baby.

So he says he's like, on this stuff that's like, um I guess it's like lithium, and I'm like

What sort of shit is that?

You know, it's like when you have mood swings?

Shit.

And you take this and it like, levels them out?

Bipolar. That's all I ever hear about. All of a sudden everybody's bipolar.

Like, I don't think so? Like, he's never been what you'd call normal.

If I thought my son was bipolar, you know what I'd do?

(seductively) Whuu-uut?

I'd take him out back and shoot him.

You would?

Put him out of his misery. Hell, I'd do it for my goddamn dogs.

So, you'd like. . . I mean, kill him if he was like. . .

Like I said, put him out of his misery. I'd rather he be dead than fucking crazy.

What if he was, you know?

(mockingly, but she doesn't get it) Whuuu-uuut?

You know, gay.

Jesus.

What would you do?

Well. (Thinks, with difficulty). I don't know, I guess if he has a job -

And a haircut? (giggles)

If he was, you know, holding it together. If he kept on going to church.

Does your son go to church?

What the hell are you talking about?

I mean, do you know anybody like that.

Of course not. But I mean a person can change.

They can change if they're bipolar?

Shit no. I just told you I'd shoot him in the head and it would be the best thing for him.

But they can change if they're you know. . .(coyly) gay?

I saw this thing on TV. Gospel camp, a bunch of ex-gays. Sure, a person can if they want to.

Can they?

Hey, listen. If you were in love with your boss, would you just come up to him and say. . .

Doubt it (giggles).

So you'd keep it to yourself.

So it's OK to be gay if you keep it to yourself.

That's what I'm sayin'. It's a decision, you just don't act on it.

So if you're like, heterosexual, you can just decide not to act on it.

I guess maybe. . . I don't know, that's different. But I guess so.

So being gay is OK so long as you don't act on it.

If you don't make a big deal out of it. Just keep it to yourself.

But if you're bipolar -

I told you, I'd blow his brains out.

What if he like learned to, like, keep it together? Kept on going to church.

I see where you're going. No thanks, dear, it's a whole 'nother issue.

I don't believe you.

I told you already. I'd do it out of love. I'd do it for one of my dogs, and I'd do it for my son.

But is it OK if you, like, keep it to yourself?

Forget it, darlin'. Mental illness is the end of the line.

One more time. . . one more time

Johnny Adams - There Is Always One More Time

Bukowski!

So You Want To Be A Writer

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Outrunning the black dogs

Right. This is one of those mornings that I wish I could make disappear. The weather around here has been putrid, unrelentingly cold and wet and grey, dank, with dampness seeping in everywhere. My beautiful new Mother's Day hanging baskets of flowers are wilting and turning slimy and brown. I don't want to go out.

I had something happen to me today, and I guess I shouldn't even been surprised, but it has lit the fuse of memory of every other time I have been stepped on as a writer. I know I shouldn't feel that way, and somehow that just makes it worse. I should be cool and detached and never take offense. But I've never been any good at that.

Sometimes I think that writers (like me, I mean, not successful ones) have to roll around showing their pink bellies to people who then slash at them with a razor blade. Or something like that. And I'm supposed to be fine with it.

I'm not fine with it. I hurt so bad it might just ruin this whole week, so I want to throw my mind into a topic I've been turning over for quite a long time. (It seems the only anodyne to the agony of being a writer is more writing.)

Several years ago, before I was run out of town by some people with very sharp teeth, I wrote a blog for Open Salon. I had been trying to read Gone with the Wind for about the third time, and was once more getting stuck on black stereotypes that sometimes made me feel literally nauseated.

I started doing an exploration of such things, and what popped out of the Google images was a riot of pulsating energy and saturated color: the works of dozens and maybe even hundreds of African- American artists, many of them taking the phenomenon of the black stereotype and turning it on its ear.

Drawing on ceramic salt-and-pepper sets of Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima, old ads with grinning black children eating watermelon, and (in a much darker exploration) the old slave posters that equated selling a human being with "needles, pins, ribbons &c. &c.", these artists recombined the images into a potent mixture of parody and protest, shoving it under our noses in the most provocative way possible.

Betye Saar created Aunt Jemima's Revenge, seen above, in which the comfy and familiar Mammy-figure on the pancake-mix box wields a shotgun. There were so many others I had not heard of: Robert Colescott, Kara Walker, Mark Steven Greenfield. There was a unique creative energy here, subversive, riotous and "in your face".

One of the purposes of art, of course, is to disturb and unsettle. Back a few years ago when I did my GWTW exploration, I encountered paintings that were probably the most extreme of any of them: deeply saturated colors so vibrant they could trigger a migraine, with figures that were both fierce and embarrassing.

Embarrassing only because of their Mammy-ness, their Little Black Sambo-ness, their resemblance to those Golliwog dolls that people like to buy at craft fairs and collect. They were salt-and-pepper shakers come to life.

The artist was a man, and there was a web site, and I didn't save the link because I was sure I could find it again. Art this potent had to have a following.Well, guess what.
I can't find it. Can't even find his name.

I've been looking for days now, beating the bushes. I've found sites that list literally hundreds of African-American artists in every genre. My artist might be in there, but I just don't have time to go through all of them.

In some cases, I found long, stuffy, scholarly articles that filled the entire screen with flyspeck print, and no illustrations. Fooey. Even if he's in there, he's buried.

So all the little girls in neon gingham, the little boys with spikily nappy hair, and all those other down-on-the-old-plantation characters that he has transformed into a strange kind of protest, is lost to me, seemingly forever.

What happened? How can you suck back something that's been on the 'net for years? You can't. So I don't know what's going on. If I just had a name. I'd have something to go on.

So I could forget this punch in the stomach. Maybe.

Woof, woof, cha-cha-cha

Yeah, but the bike has training wheels!

Kirstie Alley: in it to win it

Get one thing straight, people. I never watch Dancing with the Stars. It's just too cheesy and spangly and phony. OK, I did watch Kate Gosselin until she was eliminated, but that was that.

I don't quite know how I got hooked in this time, but I am ashamed to admit that, like a lot of people, I began to follow Kirstie Alley because I was surprised that she'd even try a thing like this. I think a lot of people tuned in to see her fail.

The thing about Kirstie is that she rampages through life with a lusty recklessness that kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor. She's up, she's down; she's a Vulcan in Wrath of Khan, she's a wisecracking comedienne on Cheers; she's fat, she's thin, she's on Oprah showing off her body in a bikini, then, shit, she's fat again!

Because of her yo-yoing weight, women view her with a mixture of compassion and scorn. For God's sake, an attractive woman like that - a woman who used to look downright sultry, with smoky eyes and a husky, almost Kathleen Turner-esque voice - how could she ruin it all with nachos and beer? On top of that, she made a desperate grab at restoring her career by starring in a "reality" show called Fat Actress. It was a case of "look at me, I'm pathetic," and I had to look away.

But this is a different Kirstie, feisty, energetic, and determined to win. In a marriage of opposites, she has been paired with Maksim Chmerkovskiy, a man who has that arrogant indifference (combined with a prowling panther's body) that attracts women like kamakaze flies. The two of them either hit it off, or hit each other, I'm not sure which.

Her first dance was dynamite and wowed the judges, who were probably feeling sorry for her right out of the gate. I think it was a cha-cha, the kind of dance where your feet can't be half an inch out of place. She was rather heavy but looking sultry again, and her joy in performing was evident.

There followed a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs which somehow reflected the course of Kirstie's life: Max's leg collapsed under him and both of them tumbled to the floor. This was a fault in choreography, as far as I am concerned - a 200-lb. woman should not throw her whole weight on a 150-pound man's knee. But it was painful to see the "fat girl" fall, and I am sure many people sneered.

And just when you thought she had (literally) picked herself up again, there she was sitting on the floor frantically fiddling with her shoe. It had partly come off and she was trying to get the strap back on. It was an awkward moment, but somehow they graced through it.

After fast-forwarding innumerable boring routines by I-don't-care-who (including that guy who used to be the Karate Kid, who seems to be cleaning the floor with his feet), my admiration for the Big K just grows. We're coming up to the finals next week, and Kirstie's still in! It's obviously gruelling work for a 60-year-old of substantial build. The rehearsal scenes look painful: she always seems to be falling down. She looks blowsy and dishevelled, and you wonder how in the world she'll ever make it.

But every week it's the same: she somehow pulls herself together and, tossing back that caramel mane, struts out onto the dance floor with her Ukrainian (or whatever-he-is) paramour. She sells the dance through sheer acting talent and a kind of voluptuous joie de vivre. When she and Maks or Max or whatever-he's-called did their Argentine tango, he showed off her considerable weight loss by lifting her gracefully and effortlessly off the floor.

Kirstie Alley is more than twice the age of most of the other dancers and at least 50 pounds heavier, though every week more of it seems to melt away. In reality, she's rehearsing and rehearsing (and cursing) it off. She's in it to win it. It's not likely, but she'll give the others (and who cares what their names are anyway? That guy with the Chiclet teeth, that blonde, or those blondes - hey, are they really the same person?) a good run for their money.

Kirstie Alley is back, and we're glad to see her center-stage where she belongs. Cheers.

MR. ED - intro en español

Ola, Wil-burrrrr!

I Remember

There's a story behind this song. I posted the lyrics yesterday because I think they're stunning: Stephen Sondheim mixes cliches with simple yet startlingly original images ("and ice like vinyl on the streets, cold as silver, white as sheets/Rain like strings, and changing things/Like leaves.")

This wasn't written for one of his legendary musicals, but for a quirky little TV special from the mid-'60s called Evening Primrose. A disillusioned poet (played by that disillusioned poet of Hollywood, Anthony Perkins) breaks into a department store at night, hoping to find shelter from a cruel and uncaring world, and encounters a whole subculture living there (kind of a prequel to that cheesy '80s fantasy/drama Beauty and the Beast, which I used to slavishly watch every Friday night while putting away copious quantities of fizzy peach cider).

Anyway, since no one taped things in those days (it was deemed too expensive, which is why the networks erased most of Ernie Kovacs' programs and taped quiz shows over them), this 50-minute musical was long lost except to memory. But sometimes a kinescope (a crude sort of tape taken from the TV monitor) remained, and not long ago someone unearthed a "pristine" copy from a vault somewhere and reissued it on DVD. It's on its way to me from Amazon, and I'll be reviewing it in agonizing detail when it comes.

The reason I'll bother is that the song I Remember, now a classic, was written for this show. Unfortunately, Charmion Carr, fresh from her triumph as the eldest Von Trapp daughter in The Sound of Music, played the inevitable romantic interest, just so Tony Perkins could have his usual awkward, ambivalent love scenes with her.

Unfortunately, and in spite of TSOM, Carr couldn't sing. So she basically massacred this lovely, haunting song, this song which makes me cry every time even though I always swear I won't. When I hear it, it makes me wish Anthony Perkins had sung it: with his sweet lyric tenor and great care with lyrics, he would have given it its due. (And I think he knew what it was all about.)

Since recording artist were quick to issue covers for this gem (kind of like that hymn to dysfunctional relationships, Send in the Clowns), I encountered a few different versions on YouTube, but I remembered one from a CD called Cleo Sings Sondheim that never failed to stir me.

This video has its limitations. Every Cleo Laine video I've seen has silly special effects, and this one is no exception. Losing my Mind has the following choreography:

"The sun comes up, I think about you." (Cue the sun streaming in the window.)
"The coffee cup, I think about you." (Cleo sips from a Starbuck's cup.)
And so on, and so on (giving little "gee, what shall I do" headshakes that almost destroy the song's indescribable yearning). All that's missing is the Swiffer duster to illustrate "all afternoon, doing every little chore".

I Remember is almost as inane. When the lyrics mention snow, little bits of styrofoam begin to sift down on her. When it's "leaves", pieces of paper blow into a doorway. It's just too sad.

But the performance: no one else captures the delicacy and pathos of this song, especially those last lines, "I remember days, or at least I try. But as years go by, they're a sort of haze/And the bluest ink isn't really sky. And at times I think/I would gladly die/for a day of sky."

Close your eyes, and sink into it.

By Sondheim

I remember sky --
It was blue as ink.
Or at least I think
I remember sky
I remember snow --
Soft as feathers
Sharp as thumbtacks
Coming down like lint
And it made you squint
When the wind would blow
And ice, like vinyl on the streets,
Cold as silver, white as sheets,
Rain like strings
And changing things
Like leaves.
I remember leaves --
Green as spearmint, crisp as paper
I remember trees --
Bare as coat racks
Spread like broken umbrellas.
And parks and bridges, ponds and zoos,
Ruddy faces, muddy shoes.
Light and noise
And bees and boys
And days.
I remember days --
Or at least, I try.
But as years go by
They're a sort of haze.
And the bluest ink
Isn't really sky.
And at times, I think
I would gladly die
For a day
Of sky.

The man in the arena

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

I've long admired these words, even though they come from Teddy Roosevelt, not exactly an admirable figure in my books. But he's on to something here.

I don't know how many times I've met people who have told me, "I'd like to be a writer," or at least "I'd like to write". I've even met with people a few times, usually steered to me by someone else (we'll never know why) who want to know how to get started.

Usually I ask them, "What sort of writing are you interested in?" Nine times out of ten, they give me a blank look. They haven't stopped to think. Either that, or they push a mass of paper toward me, fully expecting that I will hand it directly to an editor at Random House and say, "Publish this. It's brilliant."

It doesn't occur to them we're all competing for the same few glittering prizes. Competitors should respect one another, but not score goals on their own net.

Attitudes toward my craft are funny. People are uncomfortable with it. One guy stood at a booth I was person-ing for a writer's group at Word on the Street in Vancouver and talked for fifteen minutes about how his "sister" was interested in writing, and his "sister" wanted some pamphlets, and his "sister" was. . .Finally I eyeballed him and said, "Your sister?" "Well. Uh. Yes, no, I mean. It's really me." I guess this is worse than admitting you have a bladder control problem.

Maybe after talking to me they walk away dejected, I don't know. But I want to try to warn them for their own protection. In general, the attitude towards writers/writing is very strange. It's something only a bloody fool would try to do for money.

It's all conjured out of the page in some sort of arcane way. It's magic, opaque, obscure. This is why it is so damned uncomfortable for me to answer the simple, common question "what do you do?" I have had a wide variety of responses to saying "I'm a writer" (and thus breaking some sort of mysterious taboo that no one ever told me about). These are actual quotes:

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" (with the inflection rising, then falling.

"You're brave."

"Yeah, right."

(doubtfully) "Oh?"

Or confused silence, a look of misunderstanding or even slight aversion, as if you've just said, "I have psoriasis on my buttocks".

If I talk about my work at a gathering where other people are talking about nursing or teaching or tending bar, after a while people get that glazed-over look you see when someone is being extremely rude. Unless you're Stephen King or the 4 other writers who've really made it, writing isn't work, not proper work at all. It's not quite a hobby either, in fact we're not sure just what it is, but one thing it isn't is something you discuss in public.

I can't blame sane people for shying away from this field. Most aspiring writers aren't willing to go through what I have for the extremely modest level of success I've attained (and even that is debatable, if measured solely in book sales).

Oh, I guess my attitude might be a little skewed. Someone said to me recently, "Why is it, Margaret, that every time you accomplish anything you immediately raise the bar?" Because I can? Or because I think I must?

Perhaps it's because I aspire to be that "man in the arena", the one who actually does the work, whether anyone else really understands it or not. Will they ever "get it"? Will I ever chuck this thankless game forever?

The answer to both questions is the same.

The Glass Character: in person!

Perhaps I should explain.

Almost every author wants their novel made into a movie. It stands to reason. That way, you might earn more than the $1200.00 the average writer makes for their first book.

My current book, The Glass Character, this magnificent horse I'm trotting out (ahem!), this-here project or product or whatever-it-is, is all about the life and times of silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd.

Harold Lloyd was a looker. If he hadn't been a legendary comedian, he might have been a leading man. He had that wonderful jaw, the nicely-shaped (and big) head, the fine eyes that telegraphed emotion, not to mention intelligence. And a direct line to your heart.

So, I've been looking around for actors to play him in "the movie". The movie that will inevitably be made once this thing hits the stands! The fact that this thing is nowhere near hitting anything like a stand does not deter me. (Well, actually, it does, but I've learned to proceed anyway: I'll have to re-run the e.e. cummings quote about that.)

First it was Zachary Quinto, who did a fine job playing Spock in a remake of Star Trek. He too has the handsome jaw, and beautiful eyes and a heart-melting smile.

But he's a little too - I don't know. Ethnic? He'd sure need an eyebrow-pluck. Then I got onto Jake Gyllenhaal.

He was a bit of a hard sell at first - to me, I mean. I saw him in Brokeback Mountain and thought, what a brat, he knows exactly how gorgeous he is. He also had a renegade quality about him, a wild card feeling, almost as if he's an undiagnosed bipolar (as is half of Hollywood, these days). And just a touch of androgyny: not as much as that wretched sooty-eyed Robert Pattinson, whom I don't like at all, but a touch - and a seductive way of eyeballing the camera.

So. . .

Then I started seeking out photos to see if I could get a match. It was fairly easy, and in some cases (those astonishing tux photos!) eerily close. They could be brothers. They both have that three-cornered vulpine smile, and eyes that you're never quite sure of - there's something behind them, but whatever it is, he ain't talking.

So could Jake play Harold? Call his agent, right now! The movie hasn't been cast yet -well, the screenplay, y'see there's a little problem there, too, in that it hasn't been written yet. And the novel, well. . .

It at least exists on paper. And it's burning a hole in my heart. I have huge dreams for this thing. It's called The Glass Character. Directed by Martin Scorsese. (Just because he's my favorite.) And starring. . . Jake Gyllenhaal, Harold Lloyd's mysterious twin.

Val, Maester, it ban op to yu

(Let's call this Edgar Guest in quasi-Norwegian. This is a sample of dialect poetry from The Norsk Nightingale by William F. Kirk. Wildly popular in its day, which was 100 years ago - no doubt read aloud from the podium - and now, merely weird).

"IT'S UP TO YOU"

Ay s'pose yu tenk life ban hard game.
Ay guess yu lak to qvit, perhaps.
Ay hear yu say, "It ban a shame
To see so many lucky chaps."
Yu say, "Dese guys ban mostly yaps:
Ay vish ay had some money, tu,
And not get all dese gude hard raps."
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.
Sometimes ay s'pose yu vork long hours,
And ant get wery fancy pay;
Den yu can't buying stacks of flowers
And feed yure girl in gude café,
And drenk yin rickies and frappé.
Oh, yes! dis mak yu purty blue.
Yu lak to have more fun, yu say?
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.
Dis vorld ant got much room to spare
For men vich make dis hard-luck cry,—
'Bout von square foot vile dey ban har,
And six feet after dey skol die.
Time "fugit,"—high-school vord for "fly";
And purty sune yure chance ban tru.
So, ef yu lak to stack chips high,
Val, Maester, it ban op to yu.

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The Lumberyack (as recited by the Shmenge Brothers)

THE "LUMBERYACK"

"Roll out!" yell cookee
"It ban morning," say he,
"It ban daylight in svamps, all yu guys!"
So out of varm bunk
Ve skol falling kerplunk,
And rubbing lak blazes our eyes.
Breakfast, den hustle; dinner, den yump!
Lumberyack faller ban yolly big chump.
"Eat qvick!" say the cook.
"Oder fallers skol look
For chance to get grub yust lak yu!"
So under our yeans
Ve pack planty beans,
And Yim dandy buckvheat cakes, tu.
Den out on the skidvay, vorking lak mule.
Lumberyack faller ban yolly big fule.
"Vatch out!" foreman say.
Den tree fall yure vay,
And missing yure head 'bout an inch.
Ef timber ban green,
Ve skol rub kerosene
On places var coss cut skol pinch.
Sawing and chopping, freeze and den sveat.
Lumberyack faller ban yackass, yu bet.
Ven long com the spring,
Ve drenk and we sing;
And calling town faller gude frend,
He help us to blow
Our whole venter's dough,
But ant got no panga to lend.
Drenk and headache, headache and drenk.
Lumberyack faller ban sucker, ay tenk.

Sprinkle my head

The other day a line from a poem came into my head, something about "peanut shells". It rattled around in there until I realized it came from some sort of sonnet. Something about - prunes?

I was sure I must have imagined it, but finally thought of an old (old) book of mine called An Almanac of Words at Play by Willard R. Espy. And there it was, the Sonnet on Stewed Prunes, (14 November), written in some sort of Scandinavian dialect.

The chances of finding it on the 'net were nil, so I was astonished when I found not only the sonnet, but about a thousand other dialect verses in a collection called The Norsk Nightingale by William F. Kirk. (This was one of those books from the Gutenberg Project, a great site which offers thousands of downloadable/public-domain books for free. Take one, please.)

I promise I'll get to the prune sonnet! I know you are in an agony of waiting (prunes will do that to you). But one other entry (The Russian-English Phrasebook, 10 December) caught my memory. You won't find this on the net anywhere, but it's classic and reminds me of the twisted phrasebook, English as She is Spoke.

This is one thing I can't cut 'n' paste, so I'll just have to get busy and transcribe it the old-fashioned way. By hand.

"Time has described The Russian-English Phrasebook as a vade mecum for Soviet visitors to the United States. Time adds that the respect in which it is held does not say much for the level of communication between one country and the other.

At a restaurant, the Russian tourist is instructed to say, 'Please give me curds, sower cream, fried chicks, pulled bread and one jellyfish.' At the doctor's, he complains of 'a poisoning, a noseache, an eyepain or quinsy'. He asks, one assumes with trepidation, 'Must I undress?'

At Saks Fifth Avenue he looks for a 'ladies' worsted-nylon swimming pants'. If he is a she, she asks the stylist at a beauty salon to 'make me a hair-dress', 'sprinkle my head,' or 'frizzle my hair'. If he is a businessman, he demands sternly, 'Whose invention is this? When was this invention patented? This is a Soviet invention.'

The lost chord

SONNET ON STEWED PRUNES

Ay ant lak pie-plant pie so wery vell;
Ven ay skol eat ice-cream my yaws du ache;
Ay ant much stuck on dis har yohnnie-cake
Or crackers yust so dry sum peanut shell.
And ven ay eat dried apples ay skol svell
Until ay tenk my belt skol nearly break;
And dis har breakfast food ay tenk ban fake:
Yim Dumps ban boosting it so it skol sell.
But ay tal yu ef yu vant someteng fine
Someteng so sveet lak wery sveetest honey
Vith yuice dat taste about lak nice port vine
Only it ant cost hardly any money--
Ef yu vant someteng yust lak anyel fude
Yu try stewed prunes. By yiminy! dey ban gude.


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Just sayin'

For some reason I'm thinking about an old rock'n'roll song: I first heard Herman's Hermits do it (not that I remember them). "Don't know much about history/Don't know much about (whatever it was, biology?)". . . I fall under the category of "don't know much, just enough to feel extremely intimidated".

I'm kind of getting it from all sides that I should e-publish. I sort of know what they mean. I should produce a novel that can be published in non-paper form, seen only on a glowing screen and paid for, presumably, by some magic machinations of a credit card.

I'm s'-pozed-ta get something out of this, myself. Like, royalties. Not royal-teas like Kate Middleton or that chick with the pretzel on her head, or somesuch, but money, the kind of money writers are always surprised to get. (Hell, I'm surprised to get anything. My royalty statement from my first publisher now shows a negative balance. How can this be, when almost all the reviews were good?).

Anyhow. On to the subject: e-publishing, or epublishing, or ehhhhpbpbpbpbllt. This doesn't cost anything, or very little, and people ARE reading these books, yes they are, and it's practically a guarantee they'll be reading even more of them in the future. Hell, now that I've started a blog and have a web site and even gone on Facebook, anything is possible, and I may end up with a Kindling or whatever it is. My husband has been threatening to buy one for months but is waiting for the price to go down.

But here's the thing. The concerns I have are manifold. I've spent most of my adult life approaching publishers with queries and sample manuscripts, and after decades of beavering away, I've published two novels the old-fashioned way (one might almost say the hard way). But in order to reach that happy state, there was a process, a long and rigorous one.

To get to the point where a publisher would even request to look at my manuscript, I had to first convince them it was worth their while. This in itself takes time, energy and a sales/promotional savvy that I've never really possessed. One must boil years of work down to a single page, and that page must be snappy and engaging. This is called a synopsis. But you also have to tell these folks who you are, what you've done, what your education is, what you've already published and etc. and etc. and etc. and etc. and etc. and

In other words, these folks don't want to take a gamble on someone with no credentials and no track record.

Then comes the evaluation process. This often takes months, during which time the writer either withdraws with a bottle of Wild Turkey or goes away and eats 17 pounds of Cadbury Mini-Eggs. Then comes more waiting. Then.

Then, usually, a no.

But, even if it's a yes, another process begins: working with an assigned editor who will (once more) evaluate and weigh and measure and advise.
What I'm trying to get across here is that there are standards. I'm not sure such standards exist in e-publishing (God, that word is hard to type). Can't you just put anything up there, or out there?

OK, another related topic. If there's no formal evaluation before it goes out there, are there reviews? Reviews don't necessarily "sell" books, but they publicly acknowledge that the book has been published, and also evaluate its quality or lack of it. It puts the book (and the author) out there in the public consciousness. Of course it's subjective, but it's not true that all reviewers are drooling idiots or failed novelists with a grudge.

So now we come to the issue that is very, very, very, very (OK, stop Margaret) touchy: awards. Writers all say awards don't matter and they don't even care if they're eligible or not. Then they grind their teeth to powder when the announcement comes out about who won the Giller or the Governor-General or the Booker or the Leacock or the Nobel or, on and on and on.

Awards don't matter unless you get them. When you get them, your sales can skyrocket, if even for a little while. And it might just improve your chances of publishing again, which is what most of us want.

Is an e-book eligible? For any of this? I suppose there are Eebie awards and such, but - do I sound like a snob, a Luddite, a - ?

I'm a writer, and, hey, I want an award. It'd be cool on my mantle, and maybe I wouldn't have a negative royalty balance. I don't like to think my book could be casually deleted, and thus no longer exist at all.

I like picking books up, and smelling them. I like how they clutter up my house, get old and fall apart. I like finding a paperback that originally cost 17 cents. In short, I like books just because they're books, and I like signing them even more, in spite of my miserable, stunted, dorky signature. Can I sign an e-book?

I think this is one of dem-darr paradigm shifts that everyone blathered on about in the '90s. We're between systems. Traditional publishing often seems to be moving very slowly. I know, I sound like I'm facing backwards, but to be honest I prefer the seemingly glacial evaluation period and being strained through the fine sieve of reviews and award eligibility over a method that (to me: don't know much about his-to-ry) feels too easy and does not demand real dedication, the kind that yields a high-quality, readable result.

There are those who will say, but look at all the dreck that comes out every year. Perhaps. But when the gate is this wide open, when standards no longer exist, when (as Moxy Fruvous once sang) "everyone's a novelist, and everyone can sing" ("but no one talks when the TV's on. . . "). Excuse me. I lost my train of -. When everyone's a novelist, and libraries no longer exist, and a moth will fly out of every rare edition of Dickens -

Someone will come out on top. Look at Stephen King. He can do it! Why can't we? But next time you're in an airport, just try to buy an e-book along with your Evian natural spring water and 500-gram bag of Skittles.

"Kiss me, Kate!"