Things I want lately:
1. New clothes. I have not purchased new clothes since May, and those were purely for my India trip. The goals of those clothes were comfort and coolness (as in temperature).
2. Not to have to grade essays.
3. To be able to finish this story about the boys so I can move on already.
4. Two new pairs of boots. I can see them in my head, but I can't find them in any stores. And I couldn't afford them if I could find them; I'm certain.
5. More time to write and time to start a garden (I always want to do this at precisely the wrong time of year, but technically, I think fall is the right time).
6. More money.
7. To own my own house again. Boy do I miss that.
8. A weekend getaway to NYC to visit with girlfriends and just be somewhere else.
Things I am considering lately:
1. Training for the Mardi Gras half marathon that takes place in NOLA in February. Is this something I can do? Is it something I WANT to do? I don't think I have it in me to enjoy running more than 5 miles at a time.
2. This is making me consider the possibility of training for a 10 K instead. But I love the idea of going to New Orleans to compete. And the NOLA one takes place on my friend's 35th birthday (and she'll be there running).
3. Right now, as I write, I am leaning toward option 2. 10K doesn't set a bunch of alarms off in my head.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
more letters to famous people.
Dear Spike Jonze and Dave Eggars,
You disappoint.
Spike Jonze, I had all the faith in the world in your artistic integrity and vision. I believed that you would create a film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are that would be fiercely magical. I believed that you would not compromise with studio executives pressuring you to "make accessible" what should have been a work of, perhaps not brilliance, but at least, focused, intentional inventiveness.
The movie's compromises vibrate on screen like neon day-glow. Who is this film for, adults or children?
James Gandolfini as Carol takes the viewer so far out of the movie that one cannot begin to appreciate the cinematography and costume design- two of the movie's stronger elements. Other overly-recognizable voiceovers, in combination with the odd human-naming of the creatures, are equally intrusive. Viewers should not be distracted by trying to identify famous voices or trying to make more "real" the beasts of dreams and imagination. Viewers should be swept up in and completely believe in the magic of the wild things and their kingdom.
Setting the first part of the film in 2009, though this classic book was written in and illustrated in the 1960s, also fails to match some of the movie's latter vision. (I'm still convinced that you had a clear vision at some point.) The last two-thirds of the film stay visually true to the book while also bringing it to life in new ways - that is part of the task of mastering this adaptation. The 1st third, in terms of tonal quality/lighting and set design, disorients those of us who sat several times through a trailer that promised warm, muted browns, yellows, greens and grays, and promised the director's full attention to interpreting and constructing the book's time and place. The white scenes are beautiful: the chaos of snow flying, the shrieking of kids at play-war. But, among other scenes, there is the misplaced pop of a Hannah-Montana-esque bedroom set design that jolts viewers out of the understanding with which we entered the theater.
The 1st third of the movie should have taken cues from your ex-wife Sophia Coppola's film adaptation of The Virgin Suicides and Ang Lee's adaptation of Rick Moody's novel The Ice Storm. Even Sam Mendes's American Beauty would have served as a more fitting reference. Saturday morning Disney corporation sit-coms are an ill-fitting point of reference if one is to masterfully adapt this classic, well-executed and well-loved picture book.
Max Records, the little boy who played Max, gave a strong performance considering the script he had to deliver. This brings me to my final qualm.
Dave Eggars, what is going on with your screenplays? I first became skeptical after I saw Away We Go. The director and editor should have cut the over-written scenes.
In Where the Wild Things Are, the tacked in 2009 teen-speak, the one-liners and rudimentary slap stick jokes make it seem that a sitcom with a laugh track has landed inside of the movie the way Dorothy's house landed in Oz. Your script offers Max's back story: he is a child dealing with his parents' divorce, his sister's adolescent angst and a few bullying teenagers. The revelation of Max's history should have, and could have, been more gracefully and lovingly executed. Yet, one feels no love behind this script; one feels only the distinct pull of the dollar.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield calls his writer-brother who has gone off to California a prostitute. What is your hourly rate, Dave Eggars? Please, get back to writing for the page and from the heart. I beg of you.
The crux of the problem with the entire film, including its script, lies, not in the fact that filmmakers adapted a 10-page picture book, but rather, in the original question of audience.
Is this movie intended for children? Or is the intended audience adults who hold in our hearts a special place for the book Where the Wild Things Are? Is the film an opportunity to sell future video games and other commercial merchandise? (I suspect that this is what studio executives imagined.) Or is the film an opportunity for adults to revisit children's stories and to newly examine darkness that often lies beneath and within picture books? (I suspect that this is what Jonze originally envisioned.) As it is now, the movie-version of Where the Wild Things Are neither succeeds in provoking adults who handle adult problems to exit theaters deeply empathizing with their children and the muted complexity that creates and saturates children's worlds, nor leaves adults to admire and desire the vibrant coping mechanisms with which children deal. If it is successful at all, it succeeds at artfully riffing on Mrs. Doubtfire - creating a feel good film for the entire, comically dysfunctional American family.
The screen version of Where the Wild Things Are leaves me pondering how disappointing the film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz would have been had it been made in today's cinematic climate. What would it be had studio executives asked filmmakers to make The Wizard of Oz less scary and more commercially viable?
While I am let down by this film that I had anticipated so enthusiastically, at least I am reminded of the relevance of the book form. There is relevance in possessing tangible pages to turn, reading words and images that speak to one's own mind's eye, spark one's own inventiveness, and allow a human being to delight in and believe in far off kingdoms that hold magical healing powers and ultimately, remind us of the loving safety-even through instability-that is home.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
i prayed for a touchdown, and the lord scored one.
In addition to their personalities, my students' essays are teaching me a great deal about their belief systems.
Their papers reiterate that football is king in Texas, and the Friday night lights hold a special place in many of their hearts and memories.
Jesus also has quite a presence in my classroom. There are Baptists. There are Methodists. There are Catholics. There are the Young LIfe kids. There are the ones who have gone on missions to Africa and Mexico. Does this mean that there's good karma in my classes? Do karma and Jesus mix? I hope that all of these kids will pray for me to keep moving toward my goals in life. Maybe I should ask them.
In all seriousness, my next story will be called, "Jesus was a Football Player from Texas." He was, you know.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
I am testing out this phrase. Is a timeless classic that provokes interest, or is it simply a cliche? What do you think? Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. What comes to mind when you hear these words? Nostalgia? Cliches? Expectant delight?
After a Saturday of toughing it out in the rain and mud at ACL this weekend, moving from stage to stage listening to this band and then that, getting drenched in the process, my husband declared, "'I'm over this Woodstock shit." I laughed. But only when we were back at the festival the next day walking barefoot in pudding-like mud. That's when I remembered his old-man pronouncement.
Phoenix and Heartless Bastards were worth all the water and mud.
Bah. Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
After a Saturday of toughing it out in the rain and mud at ACL this weekend, moving from stage to stage listening to this band and then that, getting drenched in the process, my husband declared, "'I'm over this Woodstock shit." I laughed. But only when we were back at the festival the next day walking barefoot in pudding-like mud. That's when I remembered his old-man pronouncement.
Phoenix and Heartless Bastards were worth all the water and mud.
Bah. Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
brainstorm list.
The boys have names: Drew, Neil, Jude
Neil has a sledgehammer. It is his mother’s, and she keeps it under her bed “in case.”
Ambulances have pulled up to his driveway late in the night.
When it started happening too often, his father left.
Neil’s violence looks like bullying. It looks like menacing that he laughs loud about.
Neil seems like the leader, but he is mostly following Jude’s quiet lead.
Jude has the liquor and weed, both stolen from his dad’s stash.
Jude has forearm muscles that blue veins bulge from.
Jude has tan skin and a blond bowl cut.
Jude has lines of skin that convulse over his forehead when he is concentrating.
He is substantial.
Jude’s anger looks like survival, but the boy has no self-awareness.
In any other circumstances, he would be a good person.
Jude is a natural leader.
Jude has a father, but his mother hung herself.
Drew has a camera.
Drew has his dad’s discarded Playboy’s.
Drew has a mom.
Drew has a good life. This is what it looks like.
Drew is quiet, but less quiet than Jude.
Drew is scared of his own anger. He will not touch the sledgehammer. He will not destroy a house until late in the story.
Drew doesn’t know how Jude’s mother did it, but he imagines scenarios.
Drew’s father is the construction manager for the new neighborhood coming up.
Drew’s mother cheats on his father. But everything looks normal.
Jude and Drew both keep secrets.
The boys ride skateboards at night.
There is the sound of urethane wheels grinding against black asphalt.
In Jude’s garage there is a ping pong table, a dart board, a stereo, an old couch, and old rug, an oak-like coffee table with chips that reveal particle board.
There is one window. Half of the ceiling is dry-walled, but half is not. The room is always damp.
In Drew’s dark room, there are chemicals, a thin wire from which photos hang clipped by clothespins, and his dad’s rescued Playboys buried beneath National Geographic magazines stashed at the bottom of a photo processing supply shelf.
The Vietnamese are moving into Live Oak Acres. With their fishy smells and foreign vegetable gardens.
A black family moves in next door to Drew’s house.
The pecan grove that is the edge of Live Oak Acres is leveled and now bears only the name: Pecan Grove Estates. This will be a gated community. It is the 1980s.
The news thinks that the Vietnamese teenagers are destroying the construction site.
Drew's dad thinks it is the Vietnamese teenagers.
A family photo will fall, crash down so that glass shatters.
Neil has a sledgehammer. It is his mother’s, and she keeps it under her bed “in case.”
Ambulances have pulled up to his driveway late in the night.
When it started happening too often, his father left.
Neil’s violence looks like bullying. It looks like menacing that he laughs loud about.
Neil seems like the leader, but he is mostly following Jude’s quiet lead.
Jude has the liquor and weed, both stolen from his dad’s stash.
Jude has forearm muscles that blue veins bulge from.
Jude has tan skin and a blond bowl cut.
Jude has lines of skin that convulse over his forehead when he is concentrating.
He is substantial.
Jude’s anger looks like survival, but the boy has no self-awareness.
In any other circumstances, he would be a good person.
Jude is a natural leader.
Jude has a father, but his mother hung herself.
Drew has a camera.
Drew has his dad’s discarded Playboy’s.
Drew has a mom.
Drew has a good life. This is what it looks like.
Drew is quiet, but less quiet than Jude.
Drew is scared of his own anger. He will not touch the sledgehammer. He will not destroy a house until late in the story.
Drew doesn’t know how Jude’s mother did it, but he imagines scenarios.
Drew’s father is the construction manager for the new neighborhood coming up.
Drew’s mother cheats on his father. But everything looks normal.
Jude and Drew both keep secrets.
The boys ride skateboards at night.
There is the sound of urethane wheels grinding against black asphalt.
In Jude’s garage there is a ping pong table, a dart board, a stereo, an old couch, and old rug, an oak-like coffee table with chips that reveal particle board.
There is one window. Half of the ceiling is dry-walled, but half is not. The room is always damp.
In Drew’s dark room, there are chemicals, a thin wire from which photos hang clipped by clothespins, and his dad’s rescued Playboys buried beneath National Geographic magazines stashed at the bottom of a photo processing supply shelf.
The Vietnamese are moving into Live Oak Acres. With their fishy smells and foreign vegetable gardens.
A black family moves in next door to Drew’s house.
The pecan grove that is the edge of Live Oak Acres is leveled and now bears only the name: Pecan Grove Estates. This will be a gated community. It is the 1980s.
The news thinks that the Vietnamese teenagers are destroying the construction site.
Drew's dad thinks it is the Vietnamese teenagers.
A family photo will fall, crash down so that glass shatters.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
sick day.
My plan today is to work on a story. A story that I started writing last semester and I just cannot seem to complete, no matter how badly it is the story I wish to tell.
I am sick today, which is irritating. No, I do not have the swine flu. I do have a sinus infection, sore throat and a massive headache that makes staring at the computer screen unpleasant.
This morning, I took some medicine, fed the dogs, ate some cereal and got back in bed. I woke up because of a weird nightmare. Two strangers were at my screen door asking me if I could help them. I had a bad vibe and I held closed the screen door latch. Then I saw a man in a hat and sunglasses walk across my yard. He was holding a gun. I knew if I let go of the latch to get to my phone and call 911, the couple at my door would charge in. I woke in a panic, wondering if my front door was gaping open.
I am rambling.
I am a slow writer. I am noticing this about myself. Not that I haven’t noticed before. Experiences, ideas, words, they all need to percolate. Then they spill out onto the page and there are too many. But in my slowness, it can take months, a year, before I have enough distance to look at all of the spilled words and decide which ones to wipe up, clean away, and which ones to contain into a little, perfect cup.
On Saturday I spent about 4 hours revising a story that I first wrote about 2 years ago. It used to be close to 30 pages; now it is down to 18 pages. It felt really good to tear out chunks of writing, delete, delete, delete, until the real story was left and all of the fluff was removed. Then I got to work sprucing it up, painting walls. I’m not ready to hang curtains just yet.
I am mixing metaphors. I cannot look at the computer anymore. My eyes are begging.
I am sick today, which is irritating. No, I do not have the swine flu. I do have a sinus infection, sore throat and a massive headache that makes staring at the computer screen unpleasant.
This morning, I took some medicine, fed the dogs, ate some cereal and got back in bed. I woke up because of a weird nightmare. Two strangers were at my screen door asking me if I could help them. I had a bad vibe and I held closed the screen door latch. Then I saw a man in a hat and sunglasses walk across my yard. He was holding a gun. I knew if I let go of the latch to get to my phone and call 911, the couple at my door would charge in. I woke in a panic, wondering if my front door was gaping open.
I am rambling.
I am a slow writer. I am noticing this about myself. Not that I haven’t noticed before. Experiences, ideas, words, they all need to percolate. Then they spill out onto the page and there are too many. But in my slowness, it can take months, a year, before I have enough distance to look at all of the spilled words and decide which ones to wipe up, clean away, and which ones to contain into a little, perfect cup.
On Saturday I spent about 4 hours revising a story that I first wrote about 2 years ago. It used to be close to 30 pages; now it is down to 18 pages. It felt really good to tear out chunks of writing, delete, delete, delete, until the real story was left and all of the fluff was removed. Then I got to work sprucing it up, painting walls. I’m not ready to hang curtains just yet.
I am mixing metaphors. I cannot look at the computer anymore. My eyes are begging.
Friday, September 18, 2009
week of September 13
Sunday
In a fit of productivity that willfully did not involve teaching or writing, I made banana bread and butternut squash soup with roasted garlic and oyster mushrooms that I had sauteed in a white wine butter and shallot sauce. In the soup, they tasted like good bacon. At least, to me they did.
Monday
In one of the least productive conversations I have had in a long time, I gathered that the person speaking to me (my teaching supervisor) believes I am not old enough or experienced enough to logically prioritize my life, and she felt the need to spell out for me what my priorities should be. (Hint: her discussion class about teaching holds a higher priority than actively preparing for the 2 classes that I actually teach and than working on my own writing; my writing... probably is wasting space so high in my own ranking.)
Tuesday
I spoke to my cousin on Skype for 4 hours. It was virtually the first time we have spoken face to face since I was in 4th grade. It was the highlight of my week. I also did some dishes.
Wednesday
I felt like tossing books, heavy books, at some of my students. I think they sensed my aggression.
I also felt like yanking some of my own hair out. Instead, I convinced c. that we needed to go out for dinner.
Thursday
I sat through a 3-hour class in which it felt like the professor had drug a dead horse into the center of the room and we each beat it with our own stick for the duration of class. *See Monday.
Friday
Is here. I am getting my hair trimmed. For starters. I also plan to write.
Saturday
I am attending a talk where an agent/editor will tell me and my peers why the 2 or 3 pages we each submitted to her would not keep her interested enough to turn to the 3rd or 4th page.
I know. Now I am just being cynical.
In a fit of productivity that willfully did not involve teaching or writing, I made banana bread and butternut squash soup with roasted garlic and oyster mushrooms that I had sauteed in a white wine butter and shallot sauce. In the soup, they tasted like good bacon. At least, to me they did.
Monday
In one of the least productive conversations I have had in a long time, I gathered that the person speaking to me (my teaching supervisor) believes I am not old enough or experienced enough to logically prioritize my life, and she felt the need to spell out for me what my priorities should be. (Hint: her discussion class about teaching holds a higher priority than actively preparing for the 2 classes that I actually teach and than working on my own writing; my writing... probably is wasting space so high in my own ranking.)
Tuesday
I spoke to my cousin on Skype for 4 hours. It was virtually the first time we have spoken face to face since I was in 4th grade. It was the highlight of my week. I also did some dishes.
Wednesday
I felt like tossing books, heavy books, at some of my students. I think they sensed my aggression.
I also felt like yanking some of my own hair out. Instead, I convinced c. that we needed to go out for dinner.
Thursday
I sat through a 3-hour class in which it felt like the professor had drug a dead horse into the center of the room and we each beat it with our own stick for the duration of class. *See Monday.
Friday
Is here. I am getting my hair trimmed. For starters. I also plan to write.
Saturday
I am attending a talk where an agent/editor will tell me and my peers why the 2 or 3 pages we each submitted to her would not keep her interested enough to turn to the 3rd or 4th page.
I know. Now I am just being cynical.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
i'm only telling you 'no' because i love you.
Yesterday, after I recorded this rejection on my type-A excel spreadsheet, I tossed the paper version. This morning c. dumped coffee grounds on top of it. A couple of hours later, I decided to dig it out of the trash, and this is what I found. Gross maybe, but I also think there's something pretty. It's as if a live oak trunk got superimposed atop of the already superimposed live oak canopy.
Also, notice the words hand-written in red ink. I'm pretty stoked. I liken a positive rejection to: I'm only telling you 'no' because I love you. Hopefully, some other fool will tell me 'yes' about this particular story. In the meantime, I have nothing else that I feel is appropriate to send to The Southern Review. I am going to work on revisions to one story today. It could potentially fit the bill. I mean, the journal.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
september.
According to my Susan Miller Astrology Zone monthly forecast, Mercury will be in retrograde this month. This means:
"miscommunications could cause real problems, so make a concerted effort to be understood. If you are in important talks, keep summarizing what you think the other person has said to you, to be sure you have picked up the right message. No one would ever fault you for doing that."
Does this account for my fumbling, bumbling idiocy today during class? The blank stares that all of my students landed on me at one point?
Does this account for the text-speak email I received from a student? Or, from another student, the email composed of not one, not two, but three run-on sentences?
Also, do you know that college freshmen will snicker and giggle if they see the phrase, "the person who reared you," and they will also not know what this means? Okay. Maybe I would giggle too. I'm thinking about awarding (rewarding?!) 3 bonus points to every student who can adequately argue whether it is more correct to use "reared" than it is to use "raised" in reference to children.
Which is more correct in the previous paragraph: rewarding or awarding? Someone please help me remember.
Do I need to reword this entire entry? Quite possibly.
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