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!"

Humour me here: I love him!

Water for Horses

It was one of those days when I had to get away from my desk. I was growing into it, or out of it, and my butt hurt. It being an afternoon during the week, there was no one to go with, but a matinee by myself seemed like a welcome distraction.

Didn't know what to see, as the options seemed limited. I had already seen Rio, a vastly entertaining animated movie about parrots (and remember, I'm a bird person) with Caitlin and Ryan, whose saucer-eyed, "awesome"-exclaiming reactions were worth the price of admission.

So I saw this thing, this ad for something called Water for Elephants. It was based on a novel, the kind of novel Oprah would've picked if she were still picking anything (besides KFC). So it looked like it had a certain art house cachet, even though the stars (Robert Pattinson, that sooty-eyed matinee idol from dem-dar vampire things) and Reese Witherspoon (Oscar-winner, isn't she?) were definitely A-list.

Turned out it was a circus picture. Circus pictures generally turn me off. I've seen The Greatest Show on Earth umpteen times, though mostly for the train wreck. At least this cinematic juggernaut was spot-on accurate in depicting circus life, mainly because they drafted an entire circus to perform in it. And the performances were uniformly impressive.

Then came this thing.

Robert Pattinson plays the son of German immigrants, struggling to attain a degree to become a veterinarian during the 1930s. Suddenly his parents blow up or something, and he runs away to join the circus, pretending to be a vet (which he sort of half-is). Soon he is dazed by the beauty of the Horse Girl, Reese Witherspoon, all cute and thin in a spangly outfit.

But her "trick-riding" really offended me. She was on the horse, yes, for a bit, and her face was hidden while someone else did some mild exercises, but when they showed Reese on the horse, bareback of course, she went bouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebounce. It was obvious she had never sat a horse before and hadn't mastered the art of staying more or less

level while the horse goes up and down.

But it got worse. This was s'posed to be a tawdry little small-town circus, and Reese was married to the Head Guy, the Really Evil Ringmaster, who was about as evil as Liberace. Thus was formed a love triangle that was so pallid and weak, I wondered at the sexual orientation of these guys.

It wasn't just that everyone was phoning it in. The chemistry was nil. Nothing. Pattinson is cute in a purple-eyelidded way (more like a girl than a guy), but seems to be standing there waiting for everyone to fall down in admiration. Witherspoon was just lost, trying her best with a corny script that had somehow lost all its magic in translation.

But this is what knocked me over.

The star horse, who didn't seem to do anything very special, had something wrong with his hoof. There was a lot of debate about what it was. Oh, it's only this, it's only that, a mere abscess (!), a few days' rest and he'll be fine. Finally, the would-be vet decides to take a look.

But he faces the wrong way! He stands at the horse's shoulder, facing front, and awkwardly lifts the hoof. He was lucky he didn't get his head kicked in.

Listen, I am no equestrian expert, but I did look after a horse (my horse) for three or four years, and sometimes he picked up a stone. I'd have to get in there with a hoof pick and dislodge it. Then there was the routine clearing-out of mud or poop or other debris, part of everyday grooming. It's not that hard to do.

I'm not sure when and how I learned this, maybe at the same time I learned you mount and dismount on the left (and I've seen many a movie where stars get on the wrong side). But it always seemed to me that to get a good view and to avoid mishap, you should face the rear. That is, you and the horse are facing in opposite directions. You stand beside him at his shoulder and sort of lean against him, putting him a little off-balance so he almost welcomes it when you lift his foot. If he's well-trained, he'll do it automatically.

So here was this absurd "vet" (OK, he didn't have his degree yet, but still) looking at this upside-down hoof and deciding in about 2 seconds that the horse needed to be shot. (It wasn't even limping.) And of course, there was that dramatic scene where Reese whimpered, "No. . . no. . ." and the horse made groaning noises and Robert Pattinson raised the convenient gun he happened to have with him, and. . .

Pow! Poor Dobbin's dead.

I just don't get how someone can direct a circus movie and know so little about horses. When I went to Cavalia, the calibre of horsemanship was overwhelming: I wept in a few places, nearly had a nosebleed, and more than once joined the audience in crying, "No, no. . . "before they attempted (and nailed) a seemingly-impossible stunt.

At least there was an elephant in the movie who knew how to act, but it was one of those old-time circus elephants that stood on one foot and stuff, kind of disturbing. It's no longer fun.

This picture badly needed a technical adviser or at least someone on-board who had had anything at all to do with circuses, or at least with horses. After all, if you can afford Robert and Reese, you can afford someone who knows one end of a horse from the other.

Addicted to Oprah

Oh Lor': what'll they thank of next? A whole TV channel with Oprah's name on it? Well, her initials at least, which in essence spell out, "I Own You".

Out of curiosity I sometimes dip into this channel, which suddenly came along and usurped a rather shallow "women's channel" called Viva. Viva disappeared; Oprah was "in". I think it's only a preview however, and soon you'll have to pay extra.

The first thing I tried was a behind-the-scenes "reality" show about Oprah's final season. And, oh Lor', was it hard to watch. It consists of Oprah throwing her formidable weight around while her myriad producers scurry this way and that trying to placate and please the Queen like termites in a rotten foundation. 

She has her little hissy fits, along with bouts of raucous laughter, almost like something out of Gone with the Wind. (She does frequently affect a Southern drawl, a y'all thaang that's supposed to make her look like Jest Folks, which she isn't, unless Jest Folks is worth a few billion bucks). If this sounds racist, I apologize, but it has always struck me as weird that she has fought so hard to beat black stereotypes, then feigns one of the worst ones possible at regular intervals.

OK then, due to a sort of vertigo combined with queasiness I had to go on to the next program. I noticed that there were shows hosted by Suze Orman, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Dr. Feelgood and many, many other Oprah-anointed experts. I skipped those, having become perfect already from watching her show for umpteen years.

Lisa Ling hosts Our America, which really showed some promise until I saw how soft and squishy it was. She puts her arm around dope fiends and sex offenders and people trying to "pray the gay away", and speaks softly into the camera, her eyes glistening with empathy. This show might work if it were tougher, or at least more objective. Tackling issues like this requires real journalism, not hand-holding. It was a real disappointment.

But soft! What's this? I confess I am addicted to recovery shows, especially what my son calls "fat shows". I saw one called Heavy which was either on TLC or A&E (and is there a difference?), in which 500-lb. people were mercilessly whipped into shape, risking a heart attack or stroke doing strenuous exercise that even a very fit person couldn't stand. And nearly starving to death on 800 calories, when they were used to 8000. They all lost weight, of course, but nearly lost their minds in the process.

But this new show, Addicted to Food, takes place in one of those hidey-hole luxury resorts designed to make y'all better and set y'all free from whatever demons ail you ("Out, Satan!"). It's run by a hardass Southern woman who claims she used to eat herself practically to dya-a-a-th, sugar, but now knows the secret and can impart it to you for only $5,000.00 (and in just 42 days!).

I don't know why 42 days. Isn't that six weeks? Why not say six weeks? Anyway, these people, eight of them I think (but only one man) have a ragbag of eating disorders ranging from bulimia to anorexia to just plain eating too much. All these conditions are considered the same because they are all connected to food, and all of them are treated as addictions.

The contrast with Heavy is startling. Instead of doing any exercise, they sit around a lot yakking. The heaviest thing they lift are books about eating disorders. In "group", they dig out all their deepest traumas from childhood and give them a good airing. The previews show them bending over the toilet and crouching on the floor and screaming (hey, we can't wait!), but so far it has been pretty slow.

There's a painfully-thin, pinched-looking woman who cheats, not on the first day but at the first meal. She upchucks the whole thing, then lies about it. Someone always follows you into the bathroom on this show, but somehow she slipped past the Nazi guards.

The therapists all look underweight, and are obviously under the thumb of this Southern lady, don't ask me her name because I don't feel like lookin' it u-up, y'all. She ducks behind a doorway and sheds a decorous tear at one point, from identi-fahh-in' with the pain of one of the large ladies in her care. (Sorry about the accent parody. I don't want to be mean. Let's say I'm doing it in the spirit of O, the goddess behind all this arcane transformation mythology.)

There are squabbles and blowups, like on Heavy where the fattest guy of all jumps up and down and yells, "LEAVE! ME! ALONE!" But nobody is left alone here, ever. They even sleep in dorms with four beds to a room (and all sharps are confiscated). I was aghast to see the "assignments" they were required to accept without question: one woman had to wear a blindfold for several days, so she would have no idea where she was going(thus surrendering her "control issues"); the token male had to wear thick, heavy gloves all the time, giving him a preview of the self-inflicted neuropathy that would be his fate if he didn't shape up; one woman, deemed too talkative by the staff, had to wear a big sign that said she was not allowed to speak at all.

These are adults, and we are adults, and not dummies, so why then must these people wear big 12"-wide cardboard signs with string on them? Is telling them what they must do not enough? Another bizarre ritual involved stripping naked in front of a full-length mirror with a paper bag over your head. This is supposed to bring out the full extent of your self-loathing. No, I'm not making this up.

It's like healing a sore by scraping on it and jabbing at it and rubbing sand in it. The 12-step orientation is never spelled out, but at one point, beaten down at the end of another humiliating day, they all join hands and say the Serenity Prayer.

They have to surrender, see? Surrender to a power greater than themselves (that Southern lady, or, hey, perhaps it's O herself!). Oprah has always refused to see a therapist (while at the same time practically demanding that everyone else see one), and her "own" weight has fluctuated madly for the past 30 years. Her current size could easily lead to significant health problems at her age, yet she continues her obsession with "transforming" everybody around her.

Addicted to Food isn't really about diet and exercise, like Heavy, but about "feelings". Getting in touch with those feelings. Crying: that's good! But it means being essentially out of control. In reality, how is this going to help you?

You can't go to the office and blubber at your desk every time you think about your Dad. It looks bad and won't get you out of your dead-end job. You can't talk on and on to everyone you know about your trauma: it's boring and embarrassing and it doesn't change anything. The chances of your overcoming a serious eating disorder with hokey "treatment" by some self-styled "medical" expert with no degree and no real training at all apart from her own experience is, shall we say, slim.

Not long ago Oprah brought back Ivanyla Vanzant from the dead, or at least from the recycle bin. In the '90s this lady was hot: her self-help books and smart-ass patter really dragged them in, and even Oprah was entertained, laughing uproariously at all the messes she'd made. But it turned out the mess was worse than anyone thought.

This expert, a diva in her own right, turned down an offer from Oprah to host her own show, going instead with "an offer from someone big. I mean BIG." Turned out it was Barbara Walters. But Vanzant's show was such a mess, it lasted barely a year. Meanwhile she burned through an advance for a book that never materialized, and found herself in a spot of trouble.

On her recent Oprah appearance, she showed footage of herself living in a shack and dressed like a bag lady. The disbelieving audience tittered, but she was serious. She was obviously looking for sympathy, if not pity, and a substantial handout. She'd written a new book about it, of course. Her reason for failing: deep down she didn't think she deserved success, due to generations of "DNA" that programmed her to fail.

Whoa. DNA?

DNA is responsible for bad cheques and bad decisions and bad books (I ordered a copy of the book and immediately sent it back to Amazon, it was so appallingly awful)? Isn't that, just a little bit, abdicating responsibility for your own choices?

OK, so what am I getting at here? This OWN franchise seems to be celebrating personal transformation, but not through your own strength or courage or integrity. No, you have to "surrender" to one of these sagn-hanging' experts who, without question, know better than you do.

Breaking someone down to build them up again is something cults do. If you resist, it's ego (Edging God Out, or something like that). It all has a Stepford quality to it, pre-programmed along with all the sobbing for the cameras (and surely these people are exhibitionists if they want to do all their agonizing "work" on national TV).

I think people can get better, in fact I know they can get better, but not on TV with "kick me" signs around their necks. Even group therapy (especially group therapy) needs to be private, led by a professional, with each individual carefully protected. Over and over again we hear that people with addictions have very poorly-defined boundaries. The solution to this isn't trampling them, but encouraging individuals to rebuild themselves. It's slow and there are many backsteps. But it can happen.

Just not in a three-ring public coliseum with a kick-me sign around your neck.

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

Order The Glass Character from:

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Barnes & Noble

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Thistledown Press

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Chapters/Indigo
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Mad About You

(Note the placement of Don's hands. Just a concidence? I don't think so!)

Withdrawal

'Mad Men' Season 5 set for 2012, negotiations with Matthew Weiner ongoing - From Inside the Box - Zap2it

I haven't even really written about Mad Men yet, and here I've already got the t shirt (from eBay, no kidding, it's great). I don't think I've ever been as involved with a show, any show, in my life. Maybe I hesitated to write about it because I'd have to give a lowdown on all the characters and all the situations, a messy tangle which approximates real life more accurately than anything else I've seen.

But I do have concerns. It seems Matthew Weiner, the genius behind the show, is stamping his foot at proposed budget cuts and time constraints. The network (AMC) and the production company (Lionsgate) want to cut 2 minutes out of each episode to allow for a few extra commercials (I'd say, maybe 5 or 6). Doesn't sound like much, does it? Until you realize that in 2 minutes, a character can die, another character can be born, the business can crash or be reformed (which it already has a few times) . . or even, with a sudden quirk of the eyebrow, Don Draper can make the whole Mad Men universe disappear.

Meantime, horror of horrors, AMC has delayed the debut of Season 5 (slated for summer) until March 2012. Gulp. Almost a year. Does Weiner approve of his masterwork being clawed back like that? Whose nose is being twisted here?

In case you haven't heard of this show (and for God's sake, where've you been for the past 4 years?), it's a slightly surreal take on Madison Avenue in the 1960s. MM takes a huge chance in covering a year per season, unlike MASH which dragged out the 2-year-long Korean War into 11 years (with 11 Christmases in a 2-year period! Those folks must've been mighty festive.) So we're already into, what, 1966? If the show is really successful, it'll spill over into the polyester-and-disco atmosphere of the '70s, which I frankly don't think will work. So they'd better squeeze this juicy material while they still have time.

Another option is making Mad Men movies, but like the Sex and the City franchise I think they'd just writhe and die, the quirky maverick spirit of the series totally bent out of shape by Fox or Warner Brothers or whoever inevitably takes over the whole thing. Sounds like Matthew Weiner will only surrender his show over his dead body: like Charlton Heston's rifle, they'll have to pry it out of his cold, dead hands.

But as I was saying before I digressed (it's Easter Monday, for God's sake, a weird sort of non-day, so don't expect me to make much sense), I'm beginning to see why Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce's art director Sal Romano (played by Broadway actor Bryan Batt) was canned so abruptly in Season 3. It's not that his character wasn't working out. Sal's dismissal was a budget cut, nothing more or less. They couldn't afford him any more.

He was gay, yes; his story line was a bit bizarre, but he had the acting chops and was up for it. In fact, he was one of Mad Men's more subtle characters, hiding his forbidden gay urges under a cloak of suave Old World charm that inspired female crushes. I noticed he was also very high up in the opening credits, which has everything to do with agents and contracts and negotiations and status and (ultimately) paycheques. The budget for MM seems to be mysteriously dwindling (not enough product placement? Can we make the Mrs. Butterworth's bottle a little more prominent on the kitchen table?), so network execs are likely pondering whose head will roll in Season 5.

None of this makes any sense to me. Why is this happening? How could such a ravenously-popular, culture-transforming series be running out of money? Why hold it hostage? Is it to build up viewer hunger (which, with the average 3 1/2 -minute attention span, will probably backfire)? It just feels like they've kicked it into the next solar system. Even waiting for it to start at the normal time has been agony, for I think Don Draper/Jon Hamm is the best-smelling man on TV. (That's another post entirely).

MM has garnered a big basket of kisses already, but I'm beginning to think Emmys are kind of like Oscars: the kiss of death, not just for a career but for a whole series. (I'll never forget one of my favorite comic actors, Tony Randall, receiving his statuette after The Odd Couple's cancellation and saying with a rueful smile, "This is wonderful. Now if I only had a job.")

I want more Don Draper, I want his anguish and ennui and occasional joy. I want to see if his engagement to That French Girl (Megan, is it? She of the Leslie Caron teeth?), a bolt from the blue, will ever come off. There are some potential discards however: I want to see if that blithering old man who was in How to Succeed in Business in One Million BC (heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh, in-joke) will drop at his desk like poor old Miss Blankenship.

Betty, well, she's about as bland as that perforated Pillsbury crescent roll dough (half-baked). Could she fall off a horse or something? How about that creepy neighbor boy Glen (who turns out to be Matthew Weiner's creepy son: so, forget that one, he'll stay until he's voting age).

But there are others I can't do without, so if the network execs get their greasy little paws on them, I swear I'll walk. In particular I want to see Don's 10-year-old daughter Sally launched into the shark-infested waters of adolescence (for she's one of the most gifted actresses in the whole series and is evolving brilliantly: hey, guys, if you send her away to school in Switzerland, I swear I will quit watching forever!).

I can't remember ever doing this before, but I always watch each episode of MM multiple times: when they're new, then the next day, and then, after a few weeks or months, again. In each and every case, I've caught things I didn't "get" the first/second times around. Though everyone claims the '60s were a simpler time when things moved much more slowly, this show is for the quick of eye and swift of mind. Things can blur past you with the speed of a silver bullet. Not to be content with three viewings, I now have the DVD set(s) so I can watch them all again whenever I want. It doesn't matter that I can anticipate what will happen next: like Casablanca or Gone With the Wind, familiarity only enhances the experience.

I've seen a curious number of conflicting articles on the subject of Mad Men's mysterious, infuriating delay. AMC is "officially" saying they can't show MM at the same time as Breaking Bad or Weird Undead Zombies from Hell or whatever the bleep it is. Just a scheduling conflict! Why, I don't know.

Probably because that's not why. This is all about Weiner, who knows damn well he has this show in his hot little pocket, and is consequently stamping his hot little foot. It's power-tripping and yo-yo-jerking and manipulation, while the cast probably holds its breath, each hoping they won't pull the short straw and be relegated to the phone booth in the gay dog park where we saw the last of Sal.

Caitlin and Ryan win gold!

Soeur Sourire: Joyeuses Paques!

Yeshua ben Yosef