Since I am officially the last to speak at the morning story meetings, you'd think I'd learn from the more experienced reporters. Particularly, you'd think I'd learn when to STFU.
We go around the table. Mike, what is your story pitch today? Mike pitches a story. A. Story.Cheryl, what is yours? Cheryl pitches a story. A. Story. Well, actually Cheryl is ambitious or something, and Cheryl pitches two. And Lorraine, what is your story pitch today? And at that point the caffeine hits my mouth if not my brain and I throw out three or four ideas and only really stop because the EIC is enthusiastically jumping on one of my ideas and explaining how it fits in perfectly with something he wants for the paper. So now, not only do I have the story that was supposed to be done yesterday to finish up, but I also have to write up the one I interviewed the fellow for yesterday, in between the office and the Shebeen Club; both of those were approved on Monday morning, but now, because of said bigmouthitis, I also now have three more perfectly good story ideas I'm expected to write up in the next, say, 18 hours.
And, of course, here I am blogging about it rather than writing them up.
Barbara Ehrenreich is right; it is possible to brainwash one's self into optimism so far as to constitute a kind of socially-approved insanity. Indeed, the way workaholism was the defining pathology of the Eighties, irrational exhuberance is the nuttitude du jour in the Aughties.
Viz:
Yesterday I was striding past the jail on my way from A to B (I live so close to the jail and courthouse that the jail is virtually always on the way from my A to my B, regardless of which A's and B's we're talking about) and I saw a – let us be honest here – a crack whore, on her knees, scrabbling with fingernails on concrete looking for one last sparkling shard of rock fallen to the filthy sidewalk…and the thought that crossed my mind, preempting all others was, "God, her hair looks fabulous!"
re: Go Fug Yourself on Lindsay Lohan and Sharon Stone at the Oscars
re: Edgar Allan Poe’s Wedding and sorry-ass life (note that when you google “Edgar Allan Poe’s Wedding” our announcement is #1! My hit-whoredom is momentarily satisfied)
I Shudder Again more of that old gothic horror erotica. Same old same old.
Black Thorn, White Rose erotic retellings of fairy tales, although if you’d read the original French ones you wouldn’t need retellings, baby!
As references:
The Castle of Otranto, by Hugh Walpole. the first Gothic Novella (at least the first one not in German). Gets so caught up in the atmospheric effects of the flapping of raven’s wings in the graveyard and the eerie forboding of shadows in the candlelight that nothing actually ever happens. Like a great-looking date that can’t talk, a restaurant where the vibe is perfect and the food awful. Its chief virtue is that it’s just barely over 100 pages.
The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson, essentially the first supernatural horror novel in English, The Castle of Otranto being religious rather than supernatural in overtone and this divorcing the horror of the beings from their evil…ie they’re creepy, they’re deadly, but they’re not neccessarily from hell. Far better than TCOO anyway, and a quicker read.
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Great books, I’m sure, if I could ever get through them. Like chewing through a glacier made of Turkish Delight. Historically important, great works of art, exquisitely overwraught, and virtually indigestible. A beach read…if you’re headed to Gitmo.
The Loved Dead and Other Revisions (and other works) by HP Lovecraft. Cthulhu mythos stuff was discussed, EAP envy (which Lovecraft had in spades)…and the fact that this book contains the single most vivid and compelling tale of necrophilia I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something. No, I didn’t read it out over dinner.
Damn, forgot to tell my tale of the old boyfriend of mine who heard about how I was such a fan of “Lovecraft books” and asked to borrow them. A week later he returned them, with a puzzled expression. I asked if he hadn’t liked them and he replied: I thought they were gonna be how-to’s.
A Warning to the Curious by MR James. I put forth my theory that ghost stories are definitively English, while Gothic supernatural horror is particularly American…it was not well-received. Fools! again I say Fools! Ia! Shub Ni-ohfugedaboudit.
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. I state unequivocally that this, combined with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, are the two novels which define my generation; this is not good news to anyone who’s read both books. I test my theory that I can recite the first line…The snow was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. I get about 70% right.
The New Gothic which includes such authors as Jeannette Winterston, whom we all agree is a genius. I quote her: Why have we submitted to a society which makes imagination a privilege when to each of us it comes as a birthright? Unfortunately, the book also includes Joyce Carol Oates, who is obviously paid by the word…and we descend into the crude, embittered remarks of literati who are not paid by the word at JCO’s rates.
Closed on Account of Rabies, articulating a theory that Poe died not of alcoholism but of rabies. The album is produced by the Genius Hal Willner and featuring Christopher Walken, Gabriel Byrne, Marianne Faithfull, Iggy Pop, Deborah Harry, and Diamanda Galas reading Poe’s works
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Murder Ballads, which is a collection of songs about murder, either from the point of view of the victim or the point of view of the perpetrator. This plays while we are eating. Bon appetit!
Diamanda Galas: Defixiones/Will and Testament; you either love her or you don’t even recognize it’s music. I, personally, loved the part where she synched up the throbs in her screams with the flashing of the strobes, but that’s just me.
And the menu was: a glass of wine (amontillado was unfortunately not Irish enough for the Shebeen) and The Tell-Tale Artichoke Heart Pasta. Now aren’t you sorry you missed it?
A friend of mine is a crime reporter. One day he covered the story of a woman giving birth in a stairwell, ran into another woman giving birth, then later that same day saw two boys drown in the river. As he walked into the newsroom to write it up, somebody said, “Hey Jeremy, how’s your day going?”
He said, “So far, I broke even.”
I’m having that kind of day. My story for the paper got bounced back as too markety (which I worried about) but I’m in the top 30 WordPress blogs today. Since I’m on an internship I’m getting paid exactly the same for blogging as for reporting, so I have mixed smug/anxious feelings about this.
Siwash Rock, according to the agency of the Canadian Government that puts up bronze plaques in parks, and as copied down in my Handspring today on a skate:
Siwash Rock
Indian legend tells us that this 50-foot high pinnacle of rock stands as an imperishable monument to 'Siwash the Unselfish,' who was turned into stone by 'Q'uas the Transformer' as a reward for his unselfishness.
Well isn't that special? That's also NOT how I heard the story. This "Siwash the Unselfish" must have one helluva PR, that's all I can say.
The way I heard it was this:
So there's this guy, Siwash. He's a lazy ass. A good-for-nothing. Everybody else is out busting their butts collecting salmon, collecting oolichans, collecting cedar bark, weaving and knitting and pounding and carving and jerkifying sorry, dunno what else to call it as if their lives depended on it, which they do, and Siwash, the lazy ass, just lays around asking them to keep the noise down.
So the other people in the village go to the Chief and they say Look pal, this here Siwash is a drain on our resources. I mean, we're not gonna let him starve, but sheesh Chief, can't you do something? So the Chief goes hmmmm, lemme see and he calls on the Shaman.
And he says Shaman, buddy, we got this Siwash and as soon as he starts the Shaman is like Whoa man, I know all about this Siwash guy, you don't need to tell me. So the Chief's like what do we do with him? and the Shaman goes well I guess you gotta call on the spirits (like a Shaman is gonna tell you to do anything else, right?). So they do.
They call on the spirits. The Spirits are like Yeah, what? and the people go we got this Siwash and as soon as they start the spirits are all likeOh yeah, we know all about him, waddaya want from us? and the people are like, well, we want you to make it so he doesn't bug us with his laziness but we don't gotta feed him and shit. So the Spirits are like okay, let's talk to Siwash and see what he says.
So the Spirits call on Siwash and he's all like Man, I was just gonna call you and they're like whatever Siwash, we gotta talk to you. And he's like yeah, what? so they tell him the people of the village are tired of looking after your lazy ass. You don't help with the fishing, you don't help with the work around the longhouse, you don't do art, you aren't pretty to look at, nothin'! So they want to stop feeding you but they're all like we don't wanna kill him.
And Siwash goes um, well I guess that's good… but you can tell he's not having the best day right now, and the Spirits say Awww, Siwash, dude, what would you like most in the world? If we could grant you a wish – and he's like you're the Spirits, man, YOU CAN! -and they're all like stay on topic for a minute, okay pal? and he's got, like, no choice, so he does.
Well, he says after a long long time of thinking, for he is indeed not a dude to be rushed, and he knows damn well these are immortals who have time to burn, well he says, I suppose I'd like to skip this migration stuff and just stay in one place all the time, and not be bothered by the change of seasons or any of that, not have to work, not even have to feed or dress myself, and if the villagers would get off my case and not think of me as a burden then yeah, that would be paradise!
Lovecraft. Cthulhu mythos stuff was discussed, EAP envy (which Lovecraft had in spades)…and the fact that this book contains the single most vivid and compelling tale of necrophilia I’ve ever encountered, and that’s saying something. No, I didn’t read it out over dinner.
Siwash Rock, according to the agency of the Canadian Government that puts up bronze plaques in parks, and as copied down in my Handspring today on a skate:
raincoaster 