But they’re burning up on the VQR blog.
Another thing I’m up against today
Birds are pretty cool, but in the springtime they are always instigating fights with clean windows and mirrors. If I think about it too much, I might start losing respect for the cardinal that keeps hurling himself into my boss’s car, asking that punk rearview mirror, “You think you’re better than me? You think you’re a hotshot because you got into the MFA program and I didn’t? Oh, so you’re going to cry now, you whiny baby?”
My weekend was a country song
I have bookmarked a hundred things that I want to blog about, but all the links are on my home computer and I’m currently at work. And I refuse to write about what I did over the weekend, because that’s no one’s business. Even though what I did was REALLY cool. I could win the gold medal in the Drivin’ & Cryin’ event at the Olympics. I can simultaneously cry, steer, change gears, make note of the speed limit, and find the most tearjerking song on the radio. But I’ve been training ever since I got my license. I keep tissues in the glove compartment. Maybe I just own the world’s saddest Honda.
Someone just got a new non-paying job!
I’m the new male genitalia correspondent for the Virginia Quarterly Review! Best literary blog in the world! On its way downhill starting today! Unless they fire me!
Life lessons learned on April Fool’s Day
1. If you’re applying to an MFA program at a prestigious university affiliated with Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the fiction you submit shouldn’t be about the following:
a) oral sex
b) dildos made out of balloons
c) shit smell
In case there’s anyone else out there who didn’t know that intuitively, consider this cautionary tale my gift to you.
2. If a big-name New York literary agent tells you that MFA programs are a waste of time, and then two days later you are rejected from an MFA program, guess who is your new hero.
3. Don’t waste your time being hateful, just find out how to be employed during the 08-09 academic year.
4. The best revenge is blogging for the VQR, my spectacular new gig.
5. The second best revenge is curling up on the couch for two hours. That’ll show ’em! Yesterday I babysat Tula, my sister’s puppy, and she was so happy eating my slipper and peeing in the grass and sniffing dead worms while I miserably buried my head in the couch cushions, and I thought, “There’s probably a life lesson in here somewhere.” But no, in fact there wasn’t. I took Tula home so I could grieve in peace.
Antiquated version of YouTube
YouTube 1.0 = Blogging about tonight’s episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos in real time.
Haha – That kid stuffed toy trucks down his pajama pants before he went to bed.
Haha – That dumbass fell off the roof.
Haha – That trick-or-treater dressed like Gumby tripped on his green legs and couldn’t get up.
The last ones to leave the party
I was just getting comfortable at last night’s Authors’ Reception when the caterers corked the wine and disappeared the casseroles and the party volunteers began nudging us toward the exits. Disappointed that the hobnobbing had come to an end, I gathered my things and stuck some silver into my purse (just kidding, Casteen), prepared to take my leave in as much unpublished, un-agented glory as I had arrived. Just then, from the heated tent on Carr’s Hill, came twin 12-year-old girls dressed in matching outfits of pristine white. They accessorized with pearl tiaras, silver slippers, and hair that hadn’t been cut since they were babies. “What have we here?” I thought, moving to block their path to the exit.
“Are you elves or fairies?” asked the man beside me.
“We’re humans,” said one of the twins, smiling like her life depended on it. She was evidently used to answering patronizing questions from grown-ups.
“Please tell me you’ve written a book,” I said.
“We’ve written three,” said the girl.
The identical twins make up two-thirds of the author J.B.B. Winner, a fictional composite of the sisters and their father. Together they have written the Strand Prophecy sci-fi series. To promote the books and to inspire their fellow middle-schoolers, the girls tour the nation dancing, lip-syncing, and speaking about literacy. Brittany/Brianna told me the edifying story of how they became authors, a story I later heard her recite word for word on the internet.
“Wow,” I said. “Let me tell you what I was doing in sixth grade. Worrying about tongue-kissing. Wondering if I could avoid it my whole life.”
Because Brittany/Brianna nodded her head with such maturity and understanding, I kept going. “That’s right. I was afraid of tongue-kissing. And then I started getting suspended from school.” B/B’s father hovered just out of earshot, but he was starting to look at me suspiciously. I knew I had precious little time to corrupt these girls and to break down their preternaturally sweet and sophisticated personas.
“So,” B/B said, “Tell me what you do. Are you an author? What is your novel about?” I looked into the kind, interested face that B/B had probably practiced in the mirror before the party, and I forgot my cruel agenda. Someone asking about my novel! I no longer cared that she was 12, or that she dressed like the princess in A Neverending Story, or that her parents had probably read her Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People every night before bed, or had made her watch Hannah Montana interviews and concert videos on loop until she got her act down. I no longer cared because she had asked me about my novel, and we were going to be new best friends, and I was going to tell her about myself until her parents dragged her away from the party to the secret empire-building, underground training lair she shares with her sister and a thousand white stage costumes.
Coffee – have you guys heard of this stuff?
I guess it’s a testament to my recent clean-livin’ lifestyle that I’ve been tripping for 12 hours from a single cup of Starbucks coffee. Coffee – this stuff makes you want to stay up all night and blog about your grandmother. Coffee – why didn’t I think of joining the NBA before? Coffee – is that a neighbor’s pet barking at 5 in the morning or is an angry dog waking up in my head? Coffee – is that a bird hurling itself into my window pane at 7 in the morning or is a flock of seagulls colliding with my skull? Also, I should install a pull-up bar in my office doorway and do somersaults around it forever.
Book Festival book reading controversy about books!
Today The Biological Imperative devotes an entire blog post to a stupid question asked by a bald man at a book reading. And I am glad. It was a silly question and it deserves to be ridiculed on the blogs.
The set-up:
Last night the blind professor, Selvi, and I threw back a few drinks and then attended a Virginia Festival of the Book reading at UVA’s Culbreth Theater. The program – Wayward Sons – featured Colm Toibin and Nathan Englander, both terrific writers. [Englander is not Israeli, as Selvi states on her blog. He’s from New York. But strangely enough, he used to work out in the same Jerusalem gym as Benjamin Netanyahu.] In person, Toibin is eloquent and charming. Englander is spasmodic (a nicer word than “spastic”) and equally charming. After reading from their respective books, they reclined in the velvety green armchairs onstage and fielded questions from the audience.
The stupid question:
Selvi paraphrases the question in question like this: “We Americans come from nothing, we inherit nothing. What influence do your cultures have on your writing?” I would paraphrase it more like this: “Toibin, you’re Irish. Englander, you’re Jewish. Hence you automatically have more culture in your little fingers than all Americans put together. How does that make you feel?”
A Mashup of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz
A Mashup of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz
The apocalypse comes to a small Kansas farm. Marauding witches terrorize survivors. Because women usually give up when faced with adversity, Auntie Em kills herself, leaving behind her young niece Dorothy and her little dog Toto. They are scared and starving and “each the other’s world entire.” Dorothy harbors hope that other survivors exist to the south. She and Toto begin following a yellow brick road through unknown lands. The Wicked Witch roasts a Munchkin on a spit for dinner. A flying monkey cuts off the Scarecrow’s arm and eats it. When Dorothy reaches the fragrant ocean, she succumbs to tuberculosis and dies on the beach. But at last Toto nears the end of the road. There he catches up to the Wizard of Oz, who pushes a shopping cart full of canned meats toward paradise.