Yes I Voted. Big Stupid Deal.

Today I voted in the partisan primary election for Wisconsin's District 1. Woopity doo. I keep telling myself that voting is the responsible thing to do. If it doesn't matter, then why are Republicans busting their balls to push voter ID laws through? They're trying to get somebody not to vote, so it must matter to them. But does it really matter to us? I don't know anymore. Why aren't Democrats speaking up more about how voter fraud pretty much doesn't exist? I suspect they don't care, because they get their campaign contributions either way.

Here's the thing. I don't know the difference between Democrats and Republicans at this point. I'm told there is a difference, but I don't see it. I know they are in this enduring pissing contest. I know they both like winning, and they like the campaign money that comes with it. I know they both make loads in contributions and they are rich country club cunts even before that. Neither of them really represents me. I am convinced they don't care about me or my community.

Traditionally, Democrats have more closely represented my interests. But lately, I see them slacking off on the job in such a way that I suspect their hearts aren't in it. I see them caving to every policy the other side wants to implement, and why? Probably because they are the very people that Republicans are working for. As wealthy, ivy-league, golf club-swinging, highball-drinking, aristocratic douchebags, they cannot possibly care about the needs of poor hippie losers like me.

Both parties work for corporations, period. This is the conclusion I've come to, which I'm frightened to think is similar to that of Russell Brand in his BBC interview. Does he deserve the riot act he was surely read afterwards? If I quit voting, am I a turd, shirking my responsibilities as a citizen?

I posit that voting may be the irresponsible move...hear me out. It sends the message to these political candidates that they should keep dropping millions of dollars on idiot TV spots that will inevitably be cancelled out by the claims of the opponent, that use ideologies to gain votes when in fact the candidate in no way espouses these, and are totally annoying and grating. Ugh...get off my TV!!!! Voting also sends the message that we're all on board with the idea of a democracy that might not exist. I hope it does. But it looks more and more like it doesn't.

What message will not voting send? Maybe none. Maybe I'm being too cynical. But until campaign finance reform occurs which prevents the laws that govern our lives from being determined by companies, I don't feel my vote means a whole lot. If corporations are considered as human as I am, with religious convictions and everything, I can't compete with that. Millions of dollars may be a drop in the bucket to them, but that's a great investment I can't afford.

I WILL vote against Scott Walker for Governor. His policies have directly hurt me. If only I could JUST vote against someone and not for anyone else.

Anyway, Steven Colbert has delved into this issue more than any candidate has. It takes a comedian on cable I guess.

Vote Mary Burke for Wisconsin Governor. She's not Scott Walker!

Excerpt from "Et Tu Brutal"

Just finished a draft of a new short-short, part of a collection I'm toying with making, titled "Et Tu Brutal." I asked my FB friends for a good nonexistent band name, which could be the title of a new story. This is a version of an exercise from the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, in which you think of the title first and make it into a piece of flash. Much can be done with titles in flash writing. Such as the below, which is thanks to Katherine Quinn (which was in fact the first of about 25 decent suggestions.) This title inspired me to think about the Latin roots of words, and how a story might be built around the etymology (which is like the story of a word, yes?) I ended up structuring it around the Latin roots for the words punish, desire, fragile, contusion, and of course brutal. I was also inspired by the somewhat corny film, Thirteen, directed by Catherine Hardwicke. If you've seen it, you might recognize this opening.

Et Tu Brutal

pūnīre akin to poena: penalty, pain

Sammie and I were studying vocab, but I kept thinking about how the Latin roots, which the teacher said would help us remember, can be so misleading. Like paradox comes from Latin for “beyond belief” but you can believe a paradox easy. And profane just means “outside the temple,” and discord means “the heart asunder.” Sammie was being a grouch, more than usual even, throwing my lighter at me after I was nice and gave her one of my squares. She finally told me that Brittney Phillips spread a rumor that Sammie was fingering herself in the bathroom stall at school, when really she was just putting in a tampon. I smiled in a dirty way, and that made her even saltier. So she slapped me hard across the cheek, and The Game was on.

Excerpt from "You Seem Lonely Milwaukee"

The final story in a Milwaukee triptych I wrote to round out a small collection I am sending out called 11:58. This one was inspired by this awful, awful winter. Every Midwestern winter. (The photo was taken by my student in Literary Journal Publishing, Chelsea Moskow, for an editorial exercise I assigned.)

In the Midwest, there is no spring. There is something called a thaw, in either May or June, in which mud coats the wind, and cigarette butts sprout like crocus from black-feathered mounds of melting snow piles. A false thaw consisting of a balmy thirty-five degrees had just lulled us all into a moony dream before plunging back below zero, freezing moats of briny slush on sidewalks into an armor of ice. This lay beneath a ponderous load of snow and cold like a dragon coiled relentlessly around our feet – a cold so deep even our entrails grew crystals.

             ***

            In early February, after the Super Bowl, cold paralyzed my pelvic energy along with my nasal passages. The Wisconsin winter unsexed us all. We encased ourselves in sarcophagi of cotton hoods, wool flaps and flannel wraps that added more bulk than the cheese curds and poutine and paczkis and hot chocolate with marshmallows by which we devoured and excreted the defeat of knowing we couldn’t get out. I longed to go to bed all day, and yet dreaded going to sleep knowing it would bring the next day on faster. During the week I ducked away from work under the bruised sky and fell asleep in the womb of my recliner before eight, and on the weekends I spent all day working on puzzles wherever I knew my friends and lovers wouldn’t set a cold, dry foot.

The Changeling Draft Uno

Below is a 500-word draft of a story containing the words "troll", "incandescent" and "levitate" as well as a lot of language from Puck's speech in A Midsummer Night's Dream...

The Changeling

On one wall of the ward a mermaid sings the sea to sleep, her mouth a fellatial O. They painted scales up over her breasts, or kids like me will masturbate at her. On the other, Jill watches calmly as Jack tumbles down, smiling, as if chasing his broken crown like a dream. My mind’s eye bolts his golden hair with blood. Strikes love bites of purple on his pansy-white face.

I secondly saw the ghost in the mirror, jumping over my image like a hurdle and galloping toward me with the deliberation of a race horse. Then he crept around the perimeter of my room so fast he left a girdle of flame in his wake. I woke up with the russet morning tonguing my window, hollering and thirsty but appeased, knowing he was a dream, and I am a liar.

After Reading Coreyography

I recently read Coreyography, the new autobiography written by Corey Feldman. I'm usually not big into autobiography, especially written by entertainers, but this particular actor played a big part in my preteen life. Corey Haim, who died at the age I am now, was a particular obsession of mine when I was about 14 or 15. He and Corey Feldman, known as the two Coreys, were both plastered all over my bedroom walls throughout junior high. There was a period in which I was embarrassed to admit the degree to which Corey Haim played a part in my masturbatory fantasies as a child. But now that I am approaching middle age and that he and Mr. Feldman have become something of a legend for good or ill, I look fondly on those days. No different I suppose than little girls' recent obsessions with Justin Bieber.
An important feature of this autobiography is Feldman's testimony regarding sexual abuse he suffered as a child actor, which she also attests was suffered by Haim. I've heard from various sources about the way in which child actors might be vulnerable to this kind of abuse by individuals in the entertainment business. Given the way in which child actors tend to be famous for all kinds of problems including drug addiction, it doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me after reading this memoir, is how naïve, even gullible Corey was when approached by these men. I like to think young people know that when an adult asks to have a "secret friendship" with them that this is probably a sketchy proposition. But maybe I'm the one who's naive.
Having said that, I appreciate the enlightenment that this memoir has provided me regarding situations like these with child actors, since I am currently trying to put together a collection of flash fiction with a child actor as an overlapping and recurring character (see previous post). The memoir also includes a lot of neat behind the scenes information about movies like The Goonies and The Lost Boys and License to Drive. It was fun and interesting and worthwhile to read about my childhood crushes, as well as the movies that were such an important part of what I remember growing up. Thanks Corey Feldman, for bringing those happy days back, even if those days weren't so happy for you.

In the Boy's Room: Draft Uno!

In the Boy’s Room

            One wall of the boy’s room is just shelves full of boy things. There’s a warped batman lunchbox with the top gone that is full of marbles. An old popcorn drum is full of dusty baseball cards. There’s a stuffed bear that won’t sit up and a snoopy doll without a nose. A cyclone must have hit and swirled together a mess of video games and CDs with most of their jewel cases cracked and broken. Horror DVDs and comics. His cross country trophy is turned on its side so the little golden man at the top just looks like he’s tripping and thinks he’s Jacob wrestling with the angel. The boy has emptied his picture frames and they sit facing each other in a lopsided circle. His G.I. Joes are tangled together inside a cookie tin. She takes two out and places them on the shelf face down on top of each other.

            If she could just flush the boy away. If she could empty the mental picture frame that contains his pimply big-eyed face. But he’s still friction in her mind: belly, tongue, fingers, teeth. Rubbing on the fly of his jeans. Rubbing his foot with hers. Doesn’t he remember steaming up the windows after stealing the cow’s car? Doesn’t he remember the playhouse his dad built for his sisters before leaving? When the bee crawled into the sleeping bag they shared? She can make him remember. She has prepared a speech full of profanity that he will not soon forget.

           

           

S. by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst: Teaching Potential Alert!

Although I haven't finished reading it, I am getting really excited about the possibilities for teaching with the new novel titled S. by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. The book itself is supposed to be a novel written by a mysterious East European author, but I believe it is Dorst who writes the text. In the margins of the book are about four sets of notes that I believe are composed by Abrams. The notes consist of a dialogue between a female undergrad and a male graduate student investigating the identity of the mysterious author and developing a relationship along the way. In the books pages the authors have inserted several other texts such as postcards, newspaper articles, and telegrams.

This book excites me because it illustrates so many possibilities for my scholarship and teaching. The notes along with the text of the novel and the footnotes of the novel comprise the kind of multi-voiced and multidirectional narrative that interests me, and that I was trying to play with in my own dissertation. The character in the novel also suffers from amnesia like my Kate. Much of the book examines the notion of a life as a story that can be erased and rewritten. I am also interested, as we move into a digital age, and what this book has to say about the hardcopy or the artifact of the book. The conversation between the two students that occurs in writing on three separate timelines can be compared to email correspondence by online lovers who have never met. But because the writing exists only in this volume that the two pass back and forth, it is private and not public. This also connects to notions of privacy and surveillance which I discussed with my English 102 students this semester.

I would ask students to question what it means that the conversation between the two students happens on top of previous conversations. In some places, for instance, they refer in writing to notes they took previously and rethink them.
What does this suggest about the notion of revision in writing? How might we examine the significance of different fonts, handwriting styles and the positioning of actual text? What can we say about text being multidirectional or even having direction? What are the differences between the types of mediums that you see here in terms of purpose and context? What role do images play?

The book also questions the place and practice of academia, the tensions between self and author, and examines corporate practices as well. Here are some lines that struck me during my last reading:
In the novel text:"To be a self rewritten from a lost first draft."
This is exactly the situation that I see my character Kate in. The grad student asks in his notes, "does the rewriting make us different people? Or just a product of ongoing revision?"
Also in the novel text: "Stenfalk chuckles and claps his hands as the others curse him. 'This,' he says, 'is precisely what campfires are for. The sharing of stories. There's a spiritual connection between flame and narrative."
S. Nods. He understands Stenfalk's proposition intuitively; we create stories to help us shape a chaotic world, to navigate inequities of power, to accept our lack of control over nature, over others, over ourselves. But what do you do when you have no stories of your own?"

Yes. I may mark further lines from this novel as I read. The relationship created here between narrative, evidence, and memory is fascinating to me and intimately connected with the scholarship that surrounds my own novel. Also pretty fun to read. I've been reading the text of the novel first along with the grad students initial notes on it, and then reading the notes between Jen and Eric after each chapter. But you can read it many ways, and there's even a decoder that you might use to crack some kind of code that exists in the footnotes. In this way, the book contains many of the advantages of a digital text. Something to think about.