From the diary: “June 9, 1982
“My shoulder aches. I get too tense when I play video games. [I was mildly addicted to Ms Pac-Man.] Dad arrived today. …
“We went to Cattleman’s tonight as per tradition – we’ve gone every time Dad (almost every time) comes down [from Alaska to California] for a visit. He’s [here] for David’s graduation.
“Mum and Dad danced to the music of the same organ player who’s been here ever’ time.”
The title for today’s post is something Dad said to me while I was scribbling away in the diary. I agreed, “So true.” Then reconsidered, “Who asked you anyway?”
The man who played the organ at Cattleman’s, a restaurant just north of Petaluma, cut a couple records and Dad bought them. Honky tonk, ragtime. Jolly enough. Today I was in Sebastopol again cleaning out the basement of my mother’s house. Yes, there were the records by the Cattleman’s organ player. Maybe if they were on CD I’d have brought them home. But they weren’t. So I added them to the trash can that was filling with old jigsaw puzzles, a broken chair, and video game magazines.
The next day (June 10) I wrote, “Dad bought me a book, got a book for himself and we got some ice cream. … Dad’s talkin’ about philosophy.”
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Friday, May 13, 2005
The California Poets-in-the-Schools Statewide Anthology
from the diary: “June 6, 1982
“I went to read poetry at Copperfield’s Trading Post mezzanine [in Sebastopol]. Four other students from Analy [High School] signed up to read but only Christina [Kalvin] appeared. [Poet-teacher] Zara [Altair] was inspired to arrange the reading when she met Christina at Coddingtown [a mall in Santa Rosa] and Christina said, ‘I’ve written that much since poetry class!’
“The reading was fun. Christina and I read a few of our poems and some girls from Bodega Bay and Harmony [school] and some other school which I don’t remember. At first the girls were very shy about reading and would speak softly or quickly, but once they got warmed up they started reading other students’ poetry from their anthologies. … [Poet-teacher] Maureen [Hurley] got up and read some miscellaneous poems from our anthologies, which just happened to be Diana [Hennessy]’s and mine. Coincidence. Maureen started out by reading my poem, ‘Dear Aunt Jane,’ and said, rather off-hand, ‘This poem was chosen for the statewide anthology.’”
First I’d heard about it.
And, uh yeah, I drew big ecstatic faces and yippees and stuff in the diary.
“I went to read poetry at Copperfield’s Trading Post mezzanine [in Sebastopol]. Four other students from Analy [High School] signed up to read but only Christina [Kalvin] appeared. [Poet-teacher] Zara [Altair] was inspired to arrange the reading when she met Christina at Coddingtown [a mall in Santa Rosa] and Christina said, ‘I’ve written that much since poetry class!’
“The reading was fun. Christina and I read a few of our poems and some girls from Bodega Bay and Harmony [school] and some other school which I don’t remember. At first the girls were very shy about reading and would speak softly or quickly, but once they got warmed up they started reading other students’ poetry from their anthologies. … [Poet-teacher] Maureen [Hurley] got up and read some miscellaneous poems from our anthologies, which just happened to be Diana [Hennessy]’s and mine. Coincidence. Maureen started out by reading my poem, ‘Dear Aunt Jane,’ and said, rather off-hand, ‘This poem was chosen for the statewide anthology.’”
First I’d heard about it.
And, uh yeah, I drew big ecstatic faces and yippees and stuff in the diary.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Yearbook
I bought the high school year book every year. It seemed like an important document. I decided I needed to have it. For the future!
Last weekend I brought the yearbooks home from my mother’s house. God, they’re heavy. I guess I could flip through and google a few names. Otherwise, what the hell am I doing with these ugly things?
Last weekend I brought the yearbooks home from my mother’s house. God, they’re heavy. I guess I could flip through and google a few names. Otherwise, what the hell am I doing with these ugly things?
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
From the diary: “May 31, 1982
“I’ve been reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken.”
I’ve read Wolves at least twice. It’s set in an alternative England of the 19th Century. Aiken went on to publish several books set in this imaginary England, though not always involving the same characters. I tried to keep up. But I haven’t read an Aiken since The Stolen Lake or maybe Dido and Pa. I wonder if I remember enough of the setting to try the new one out this year?
“I’ve been reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken.”
I’ve read Wolves at least twice. It’s set in an alternative England of the 19th Century. Aiken went on to publish several books set in this imaginary England, though not always involving the same characters. I tried to keep up. But I haven’t read an Aiken since The Stolen Lake or maybe Dido and Pa. I wonder if I remember enough of the setting to try the new one out this year?
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
The story so far
We’re almost through my extant high school diary. I didn’t write in it during my senior year. I was doing other writing. Besides, when I would reread the diary I’d not find it interesting. It began to seem merely a chore.
I’ve been awfully thorough in my review of the reading life, recording blog entries for every book mentioned in the diary, even for books I barely remember or books that didn’t interest me. Does this make for good reading, dear reader?
Alongside reading I’ve started to talk about my writing life – my lobbying for a Creative Writing class, my agonies over English class essays, stories and poems I attempted, and the afterschool Poetry class that opened the gates of poetry, allowing me to step outside. Although I feel like the same person, it’s sometimes been hard to reinhabit an earlier version of Glenn. What did I not know then that I take for granted now? My writing isn’t the same. Not radically different. But different. And I’m the other side of lots of life experience that I could only imagine (poorly) back then. Some travelling, some loving, a different perspective on the parents.
As far as reading itself is concerned, despite doing it a lot, I wasn’t so adventurous in my choices. I read a lot of comic books – though I also bought many comics I didn’t actually sit and read, often just flipping through watching the action. I read the Oz books and had a definite preference for other children’s fantasies over stories set in the mundane world. I didn’t like the world I lived in much. If I had a choice between staying in it for the space of a book or going somewhere far away and full of transformations … it was an easy choice. I did read an occasional nonfantasy novel, and even more occasionally a book of nonfiction.
Though there wasn’t much of a library in our house, we spent hours at the public library. There were worthwhile books on our shelves I never got around to reading, preferring the armload I’d bring home bearing due dates. (This is still too often true.)
I’ve been awfully thorough in my review of the reading life, recording blog entries for every book mentioned in the diary, even for books I barely remember or books that didn’t interest me. Does this make for good reading, dear reader?
Alongside reading I’ve started to talk about my writing life – my lobbying for a Creative Writing class, my agonies over English class essays, stories and poems I attempted, and the afterschool Poetry class that opened the gates of poetry, allowing me to step outside. Although I feel like the same person, it’s sometimes been hard to reinhabit an earlier version of Glenn. What did I not know then that I take for granted now? My writing isn’t the same. Not radically different. But different. And I’m the other side of lots of life experience that I could only imagine (poorly) back then. Some travelling, some loving, a different perspective on the parents.
As far as reading itself is concerned, despite doing it a lot, I wasn’t so adventurous in my choices. I read a lot of comic books – though I also bought many comics I didn’t actually sit and read, often just flipping through watching the action. I read the Oz books and had a definite preference for other children’s fantasies over stories set in the mundane world. I didn’t like the world I lived in much. If I had a choice between staying in it for the space of a book or going somewhere far away and full of transformations … it was an easy choice. I did read an occasional nonfantasy novel, and even more occasionally a book of nonfiction.
Though there wasn’t much of a library in our house, we spent hours at the public library. There were worthwhile books on our shelves I never got around to reading, preferring the armload I’d bring home bearing due dates. (This is still too often true.)
Monday, May 09, 2005
The Phantom Tollbooth
From the diary: “May 26, 1982"
Of one of my classes I said, “I had absolutely nothing to do. BORING, DULL, TEDIOUS, MONOTONOUS, HUMDRUM, YAWN-INSPIRING, STUPIFYING, UNINTERESTING, DREARY, TIRESOME. Reminds me a bit of dear Milo’s experience in The Phantom Tollbooth.”
Of one of my classes I said, “I had absolutely nothing to do. BORING, DULL, TEDIOUS, MONOTONOUS, HUMDRUM, YAWN-INSPIRING, STUPIFYING, UNINTERESTING, DREARY, TIRESOME. Reminds me a bit of dear Milo’s experience in The Phantom Tollbooth.”
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Trilogies and other series
I like series. If I’ve enjoyed a book (or movie or comic) I’m happy to know there’s a sequel and look to get my paws on it. I’ve made the investment in the characters and a sequel feels like a return on the investment.
Bad sequels are bad returns. And if I’ve read the first book of a series and I don’t like it I do feel some relief at not having to go any further. All those pages, all that commitment of time and concentration, that I don’t have to feel pressure to get with.
When the book is part of a yet-to-be-completed story, I’ve learned (big surprise) that, if there is a long interval between what I last read and the new installment, I forget. Who are these people? What are they doing?
L. Frank Baum, when writing his Oz books, seemed himself to forget what he’d said in earlier Oz books. In one book the Magic Belt can easily be commanded to do all sorts of amazing things. In another you can only use the Magic Belt on alternate Thursdays while standing on your head and whispering a goofy rhyme (or something). In one book Oz has no money. In another kids are buying lemonade with green pennies.
I didn’t start the Harry Potter books until the third had been published. Now when I read a new one I have to work my little brain to remember whether a particular character is one who’s appeared before or not. How many Weasleys are there again?
It’s easier on my creaky memory to read a series all at once (or with brief breaks) than to wait a year or more between episodes.
Bad sequels are bad returns. And if I’ve read the first book of a series and I don’t like it I do feel some relief at not having to go any further. All those pages, all that commitment of time and concentration, that I don’t have to feel pressure to get with.
When the book is part of a yet-to-be-completed story, I’ve learned (big surprise) that, if there is a long interval between what I last read and the new installment, I forget. Who are these people? What are they doing?
L. Frank Baum, when writing his Oz books, seemed himself to forget what he’d said in earlier Oz books. In one book the Magic Belt can easily be commanded to do all sorts of amazing things. In another you can only use the Magic Belt on alternate Thursdays while standing on your head and whispering a goofy rhyme (or something). In one book Oz has no money. In another kids are buying lemonade with green pennies.
I didn’t start the Harry Potter books until the third had been published. Now when I read a new one I have to work my little brain to remember whether a particular character is one who’s appeared before or not. How many Weasleys are there again?
It’s easier on my creaky memory to read a series all at once (or with brief breaks) than to wait a year or more between episodes.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
The Many Colored Land
From the diary: “May 25, 1982
“Merit Book Center is closing forever. I probably made my last purchase at Merit, The Many Colored Land, a science fiction book. 20% off. I’m really sort of sad about it. There goes the best selection of magazines and paperbacks in Sebastopol. The economy and their absentee landlord raising the rent … combined to close the shop which has been open for nine years. We’ve been going to Merit almost every week ever since we moved to Sebastopol. I wish they could stay open.”
I bought a sympathy card and gave it to the woman behind the counter. I’d always been a bit afraid of her, especially since a few years earlier I’d special-ordered an Oz book from Merit and before it arrived found the same book in the other local bookstore (and for 45 cents less, the newest printing having seen a price increase – when the book cost $1.50, an additional 45 cents was a hefty increase). Naturally the woman at Merit was miffed. I remember crying while my mother talked to her.
When the woman behind the counter opened the sympathy card she laughed. She called over the man who worked there, too. And he got a good chuckle. I was, of course, all embarassed and everything.
The Many Colored Land is a science fiction novel by Julian May. It’s the first of a trilogy. I later bought the second book, The Nonborn King, but I don’t think I ever got the third. The book columnist for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine was ga-ga over Julian May. That guy read a lot of books. He oughta know what’s good. I wasn’t so thrilled with Land. What sticks with me most vividly was a herd animal that migrated great distances across the planet’s single continent, plagued the entire way by a vexing parasitic fly.
These days I won’t start a trilogy until all three books have been published, just in case I like the first one and want to finish the darn story.
Update: In comments D says, "Funny, that bit about the parasitic fly - I thought that was in the Helliconia Trilogy." If this is true (and I do remember working my way through the Helliconia books) then I remember nothing about The Many Colored Land. This would be why I later started the booklog. A few notes really do help one's recall. A mere title isn't enough mnemonic.
“Merit Book Center is closing forever. I probably made my last purchase at Merit, The Many Colored Land, a science fiction book. 20% off. I’m really sort of sad about it. There goes the best selection of magazines and paperbacks in Sebastopol. The economy and their absentee landlord raising the rent … combined to close the shop which has been open for nine years. We’ve been going to Merit almost every week ever since we moved to Sebastopol. I wish they could stay open.”
I bought a sympathy card and gave it to the woman behind the counter. I’d always been a bit afraid of her, especially since a few years earlier I’d special-ordered an Oz book from Merit and before it arrived found the same book in the other local bookstore (and for 45 cents less, the newest printing having seen a price increase – when the book cost $1.50, an additional 45 cents was a hefty increase). Naturally the woman at Merit was miffed. I remember crying while my mother talked to her.
When the woman behind the counter opened the sympathy card she laughed. She called over the man who worked there, too. And he got a good chuckle. I was, of course, all embarassed and everything.
The Many Colored Land is a science fiction novel by Julian May. It’s the first of a trilogy. I later bought the second book, The Nonborn King, but I don’t think I ever got the third. The book columnist for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine was ga-ga over Julian May. That guy read a lot of books. He oughta know what’s good. I wasn’t so thrilled with Land. What sticks with me most vividly was a herd animal that migrated great distances across the planet’s single continent, plagued the entire way by a vexing parasitic fly.
These days I won’t start a trilogy until all three books have been published, just in case I like the first one and want to finish the darn story.
Update: In comments D says, "Funny, that bit about the parasitic fly - I thought that was in the Helliconia Trilogy." If this is true (and I do remember working my way through the Helliconia books) then I remember nothing about The Many Colored Land. This would be why I later started the booklog. A few notes really do help one's recall. A mere title isn't enough mnemonic.
Friday, May 06, 2005
The Night I Got in Trouble for Writing in Creative Writing Class
In the night Creative Writing Class we did do some in-class writing, something I much prefer to three hours (that’s how long a night class was) of critiquing. However, there is one night that lives in infamy. The night I got in trouble for writing in Creative Writing! Here’s my irked entry from May 23, 1982: “Gerry Payne scolded me in class while everyone was very quiet mulling over a poem that had just been read. I was writing away with my little pencil a poem inspired by what [had] been read, and Gerrye saw fit to batter me over the ego. … She should change the name to Creative Criticism.”
How rude of me to write! When I could have been sitting on my hands. I had no idea what to say about the poem. So I was working out on paper things the poem suggested to me. I was writing a poem “inspired by” the poem the class was supposed to be focusing its collective intelligence upon. Even in the workshops I took at Cal there were long dead zones in workshop classes. Such deadness drives me batty. When I’m bored and tired I squirm and fidget. Frankly, Payne was lucky I wasn’t banging my head on my desk. Over the years I’ve gotten better at dredging up something to say, even when it’s nonsense, even when it’s just to keep myself from going batshit crazy and running around the room whacking everybody with a rolled up poem. But I also learned that whatever you say, it really doesn’t matter much to the writer.
How rude of me to write! When I could have been sitting on my hands. I had no idea what to say about the poem. So I was working out on paper things the poem suggested to me. I was writing a poem “inspired by” the poem the class was supposed to be focusing its collective intelligence upon. Even in the workshops I took at Cal there were long dead zones in workshop classes. Such deadness drives me batty. When I’m bored and tired I squirm and fidget. Frankly, Payne was lucky I wasn’t banging my head on my desk. Over the years I’ve gotten better at dredging up something to say, even when it’s nonsense, even when it’s just to keep myself from going batshit crazy and running around the room whacking everybody with a rolled up poem. But I also learned that whatever you say, it really doesn’t matter much to the writer.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
The Grapes of Wrath
From the diary: “May 12, 1982
“I’m reading The Grapes of Wrath for which I have to not only finish (I’m 1/5 thru) by tomorrow, but I have to write a summary of it, and do the 1st draft of my Steinbeck term paper.”
I was not a fast reader. I’m still not a fast reader. I’ve discovered I can skim academic prose when I have to. And, yes, you do seem to get more out of dry jargon-thick academic prose when you’re skimming than when you’re reading word by word. I like the sound of the storyteller in my head so reading is a sort of listening for me. When school deadlines loom the storyteller voice can’t chatter away fast enough. Steinbeck wrote lots of way shorter books than The Grapes of Wrath. I wonder if I could have gotten away with Of Mice and Men or Cannery Row? I nicknamed the book, The Rapes of Grath. I remember the book fondly, if not the term paper.
“I’m reading The Grapes of Wrath for which I have to not only finish (I’m 1/5 thru) by tomorrow, but I have to write a summary of it, and do the 1st draft of my Steinbeck term paper.”
I was not a fast reader. I’m still not a fast reader. I’ve discovered I can skim academic prose when I have to. And, yes, you do seem to get more out of dry jargon-thick academic prose when you’re skimming than when you’re reading word by word. I like the sound of the storyteller in my head so reading is a sort of listening for me. When school deadlines loom the storyteller voice can’t chatter away fast enough. Steinbeck wrote lots of way shorter books than The Grapes of Wrath. I wonder if I could have gotten away with Of Mice and Men or Cannery Row? I nicknamed the book, The Rapes of Grath. I remember the book fondly, if not the term paper.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
The Short Reign of Pippin IV
From the diary: “April 20, 1982
“[Mrs Lennox] came up to me today just before [American Lit] class started and asked me if I had had any help in writing my summary of The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck. I didn’t know why anybody would ask me something like that. At first I thought maybe she meant I was supposed to. Apparently she thought the summary was too good for me to have done it by myself without help. I was about to tell her I had written it after I returned the book to the library but I stopped myself after I realized that would sound bad. I did say that I wrote it in a hurry. (It was one of those knock-it-off-the-night-before type summaries.) She didn’t believe me. Something that good must’ve had quite a bit of work put into it. I stopped arguing with her.”
Considering my angst over the Crucible paper I was stunned to get an “A” for the Pippin summary. The Pippin summary was of less weight when it came to adding up the final grade, naturally. But why the discrepancy? I partly explained it to myself, “Apparently Mrs Lennox hadn’t read the book so she couldn’t judge it from [her own] experience.”
I was reading Steinbeck for the author paper we had to write. Pippin is an amusing little book. The character Pippin is chosen to be the figurehead king of France but he’s too idealistic to sit on a throne and say nothing.
“[Mrs Lennox] came up to me today just before [American Lit] class started and asked me if I had had any help in writing my summary of The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck. I didn’t know why anybody would ask me something like that. At first I thought maybe she meant I was supposed to. Apparently she thought the summary was too good for me to have done it by myself without help. I was about to tell her I had written it after I returned the book to the library but I stopped myself after I realized that would sound bad. I did say that I wrote it in a hurry. (It was one of those knock-it-off-the-night-before type summaries.) She didn’t believe me. Something that good must’ve had quite a bit of work put into it. I stopped arguing with her.”
Considering my angst over the Crucible paper I was stunned to get an “A” for the Pippin summary. The Pippin summary was of less weight when it came to adding up the final grade, naturally. But why the discrepancy? I partly explained it to myself, “Apparently Mrs Lennox hadn’t read the book so she couldn’t judge it from [her own] experience.”
I was reading Steinbeck for the author paper we had to write. Pippin is an amusing little book. The character Pippin is chosen to be the figurehead king of France but he’s too idealistic to sit on a throne and say nothing.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
The Scarlet Letter
From the diary: “April 18, 1982
“We’re reading The Scarlet Letter in American Lit. Hard stuff to get into. We have to do a lot of analyzing too. Apparently Hawthorne loved symbolism.”
I didn’t actually dislike The Scarlet Letter. I recall enjoying some of it. But there’s something about reading a book you know you’re going to be beaten about the head with that makes the reading rather heavy and unpleasant. Literature, it seems to me, ought not to be taught as a puzzle. Figure out the puzzle and you’ve got the book! Nonsense. It’s a story. Enjoy the story.
Speaking of puzzles, I’m continuing to work my way through Emily Dickinson’s complete poems. Seems to me that girl was a puzzle-maker. I find her uncommonly frustrating. Part of it, I think, is that I don’t get much pleasure out of her language or rhythms so find myself rereading to try to figure out what she means. This is a dangerous thing. If all you get out of a poem is what it means you’ll just be disappointed. Poems aren’t great guidebooks to living. It’s not like they’re banged together by championship livers.
“We’re reading The Scarlet Letter in American Lit. Hard stuff to get into. We have to do a lot of analyzing too. Apparently Hawthorne loved symbolism.”
I didn’t actually dislike The Scarlet Letter. I recall enjoying some of it. But there’s something about reading a book you know you’re going to be beaten about the head with that makes the reading rather heavy and unpleasant. Literature, it seems to me, ought not to be taught as a puzzle. Figure out the puzzle and you’ve got the book! Nonsense. It’s a story. Enjoy the story.
Speaking of puzzles, I’m continuing to work my way through Emily Dickinson’s complete poems. Seems to me that girl was a puzzle-maker. I find her uncommonly frustrating. Part of it, I think, is that I don’t get much pleasure out of her language or rhythms so find myself rereading to try to figure out what she means. This is a dangerous thing. If all you get out of a poem is what it means you’ll just be disappointed. Poems aren’t great guidebooks to living. It’s not like they’re banged together by championship livers.
Monday, May 02, 2005
The Acrobat is Nervous; What if they want her to sing
From the diary: “April 4, 1982
“I bought a couple magazines at Merit [a bookstore] and a poetry book, (California Poets-in-the-Schools for Marin Country [anthology]) The Acrobat is Nervous; What if they want her to sing. I wrote a poem about the circus from that.”
I love the title. Once in awhile it will ring through my head even now. I don’t remember the poetry, but I think I reread the book when I started my copy-out-poems project six years later. I have notebooks filled with poems I’ve hand copied from published sources. I started doing that because I wasn’t able to answer the who-are-your-favorite-poets question. But we are looking at a time when all of poetry was new to me. It was intimidating. Already I knew I didn’t get and didn’t like a lot of stuff that was called poetry. I was hesitant to buy a book of poems for fear of finding pages and pages of the sort of thing I couldn’t stand in textbooks.
Having done the after school poetry class -- it was part of the California Poets-in-the-Schools program -- I was especially curious to see what gatherings of poems from other students looked like. The Acrobat is Nervous was nice looking, art on the cover, perfect bound paperback. Like I say, I don’t remember the poetry, but I do remember admiring the package and I don’t remember disliking the poetry. Sometimes I remember dislikes better than likes. The better to avoid future bad experiences, I suppose.
“I bought a couple magazines at Merit [a bookstore] and a poetry book, (California Poets-in-the-Schools for Marin Country [anthology]) The Acrobat is Nervous; What if they want her to sing. I wrote a poem about the circus from that.”
I love the title. Once in awhile it will ring through my head even now. I don’t remember the poetry, but I think I reread the book when I started my copy-out-poems project six years later. I have notebooks filled with poems I’ve hand copied from published sources. I started doing that because I wasn’t able to answer the who-are-your-favorite-poets question. But we are looking at a time when all of poetry was new to me. It was intimidating. Already I knew I didn’t get and didn’t like a lot of stuff that was called poetry. I was hesitant to buy a book of poems for fear of finding pages and pages of the sort of thing I couldn’t stand in textbooks.
Having done the after school poetry class -- it was part of the California Poets-in-the-Schools program -- I was especially curious to see what gatherings of poems from other students looked like. The Acrobat is Nervous was nice looking, art on the cover, perfect bound paperback. Like I say, I don’t remember the poetry, but I do remember admiring the package and I don’t remember disliking the poetry. Sometimes I remember dislikes better than likes. The better to avoid future bad experiences, I suppose.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Garfield Weighs In
From the diary: “March 10, 1982
“I went to the Big Santa Rosa Plaza last Saturday and got the newest Garfield book, Garfield Weighs In at one of the two bookstores there.”
Santa Rosa had just built a huge mall. They had a Waldenbooks and a B. Dalton’s. Mall bookstores. The whole huge mall thing was novel. Food courts. High ceilings. Escalators. Trees that never felt a breeze.
Garfield is probably as good a representative of mall culture as any – fat, repetitive, arrogant, a little insulting, and addictive.
“I went to the Big Santa Rosa Plaza last Saturday and got the newest Garfield book, Garfield Weighs In at one of the two bookstores there.”
Santa Rosa had just built a huge mall. They had a Waldenbooks and a B. Dalton’s. Mall bookstores. The whole huge mall thing was novel. Food courts. High ceilings. Escalators. Trees that never felt a breeze.
Garfield is probably as good a representative of mall culture as any – fat, repetitive, arrogant, a little insulting, and addictive.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Journalism
From the diary: “February 23, 1982
“Mr Reade [Analy High School’s biology teacher] has gone to Nevada to manage a brothel. It was on the front page of the [SF] Chronicle and Press Democrat. Mallary [Magill] called Nevada and got an interview with him. They visited for awhile.”
I thought I might become a journalist. I tried it out on the high school paper and there really wasn’t much about it that I liked. I wanted to be a writer. But I had to figure out what that meant. There are different kinds of writers. Journalists, technical writers, novelists, poets, scriptwriters, playwrights, diarists. Because you can put words on paper doesn’t mean you can (or can stand to) be any or all kinds of writer.
A news article has a particular structure – you’re supposed to cram into the first paragraph as many of the vitals of the story as you can. The who/what/when/where stuff. The reader can stop reading after a couple paragraphs and have everything important. News editors will trim an article for space starting at the bottom.
Feature articles are a bit different. An interview is a feature article. A profile of a community leader. Columns on the opinion page. A movie review. These are essays, not news. Opinions and arguments, not facts.
In a news article you don’t tell the story in chronological order. You say, a person was shot to death, not a person got up this morning thinking he was going to have a tomorrow and walked down to the corner store and got into an argument with a man who shot him to death. You start with the bullet, then fill in the details.
I liked Mr Reade. I’ve always been fairly libertarian. Whatever one wants to do one ought to be able to do, so long as nobody gets hurt. Of course, when it comes to sex, that’s not the way society likes it. The general cast seems to be, we don’t care what you do so long as we get to make you feel shameful for doing it.
Let’s skip ahead about a month. Reade’s decision was blowing up. He’d taken a sabbatical, I learned, and he hadn’t told anyone where he was off to. He certainly hadn’t told the school administration he was going to Nevada to manage the Chicken Ranch. My diary entry for March 30, 1982 records my brush with punditry: “[Yesterday] I stayed after [school] a little while to work on the Analyan [the school newspaper]. [On my way home] I spotted a station wagon at the entrance to Analy [campus] in front of which stood a man holding a camera[. He was] pointing it at a student who was gesticulating ... I continued to approach and saw the ‘TV-50’ written on the station wagon door. The girl being interviewed was talking about Mr Reade … I stood there for a minute and when that interview was over I asked if they had talked to Mallary Magill who had interviewed [Reade for the school paper]. The lady holding the microphone ignored my query and instead asked me if I’d had Mr Reade in class. I said yes, last year. The man with the camera turned it on me and the lady started asking me questions. I had the subject clear in my mind so I launched forth on why I thought they shouldn’t dismiss Mr Reade.”
I had somewhere to go that night but my brother watched the news and told me I had the longest quote. I remember the woman interviewing me had more make-up on her face than I’d ever seen. Sparkles in a layer of white. She got me to say “whore” on TV. A piece of advice for interviews: Never repeat anything the interviewer asks unless it’s something you plan to say. She asked me something like, was your teacher training young girls to be whores? And I insisted, It’s not like Mr Reade was teaching anybody to be a whore. “Whore” is not a word that trips off my tongue. But only my voice was included in the broadcast.
Mallary is one of those people I haven’t seen or heard about since high school but I’d love to know what she’s been up to.
Reade update: Seems Russ Reade stayed on at the Chicken Ranch. According to the Pahrump Valley Times he and his co-owner decided to sell last year. “One of the world's most recognized brothels, the Chicken Ranch, goes on the market for $6.95 million. The primary owners, Ken Green and Russ Reade, said they were ready to venture into other aspects of business.”
“Mr Reade [Analy High School’s biology teacher] has gone to Nevada to manage a brothel. It was on the front page of the [SF] Chronicle and Press Democrat. Mallary [Magill] called Nevada and got an interview with him. They visited for awhile.”
I thought I might become a journalist. I tried it out on the high school paper and there really wasn’t much about it that I liked. I wanted to be a writer. But I had to figure out what that meant. There are different kinds of writers. Journalists, technical writers, novelists, poets, scriptwriters, playwrights, diarists. Because you can put words on paper doesn’t mean you can (or can stand to) be any or all kinds of writer.
A news article has a particular structure – you’re supposed to cram into the first paragraph as many of the vitals of the story as you can. The who/what/when/where stuff. The reader can stop reading after a couple paragraphs and have everything important. News editors will trim an article for space starting at the bottom.
Feature articles are a bit different. An interview is a feature article. A profile of a community leader. Columns on the opinion page. A movie review. These are essays, not news. Opinions and arguments, not facts.
In a news article you don’t tell the story in chronological order. You say, a person was shot to death, not a person got up this morning thinking he was going to have a tomorrow and walked down to the corner store and got into an argument with a man who shot him to death. You start with the bullet, then fill in the details.
I liked Mr Reade. I’ve always been fairly libertarian. Whatever one wants to do one ought to be able to do, so long as nobody gets hurt. Of course, when it comes to sex, that’s not the way society likes it. The general cast seems to be, we don’t care what you do so long as we get to make you feel shameful for doing it.
Let’s skip ahead about a month. Reade’s decision was blowing up. He’d taken a sabbatical, I learned, and he hadn’t told anyone where he was off to. He certainly hadn’t told the school administration he was going to Nevada to manage the Chicken Ranch. My diary entry for March 30, 1982 records my brush with punditry: “[Yesterday] I stayed after [school] a little while to work on the Analyan [the school newspaper]. [On my way home] I spotted a station wagon at the entrance to Analy [campus] in front of which stood a man holding a camera[. He was] pointing it at a student who was gesticulating ... I continued to approach and saw the ‘TV-50’ written on the station wagon door. The girl being interviewed was talking about Mr Reade … I stood there for a minute and when that interview was over I asked if they had talked to Mallary Magill who had interviewed [Reade for the school paper]. The lady holding the microphone ignored my query and instead asked me if I’d had Mr Reade in class. I said yes, last year. The man with the camera turned it on me and the lady started asking me questions. I had the subject clear in my mind so I launched forth on why I thought they shouldn’t dismiss Mr Reade.”
I had somewhere to go that night but my brother watched the news and told me I had the longest quote. I remember the woman interviewing me had more make-up on her face than I’d ever seen. Sparkles in a layer of white. She got me to say “whore” on TV. A piece of advice for interviews: Never repeat anything the interviewer asks unless it’s something you plan to say. She asked me something like, was your teacher training young girls to be whores? And I insisted, It’s not like Mr Reade was teaching anybody to be a whore. “Whore” is not a word that trips off my tongue. But only my voice was included in the broadcast.
Mallary is one of those people I haven’t seen or heard about since high school but I’d love to know what she’s been up to.
Reade update: Seems Russ Reade stayed on at the Chicken Ranch. According to the Pahrump Valley Times he and his co-owner decided to sell last year. “One of the world's most recognized brothels, the Chicken Ranch, goes on the market for $6.95 million. The primary owners, Ken Green and Russ Reade, said they were ready to venture into other aspects of business.”
Friday, April 29, 2005
Why I’m Not an English Major
From the diary: “February 23, 1982
“I feel like talking to someone, but everyone’s gone to bed so I think I’ll talk to myself. I slaved over an essay for American Lit. I worked hours on that damn thing for Mrs Lennox. I handed it in proudly. I was positive I would get at least a “B” if not a “B+” and who knows – if I was lucky I could’ve gotten an “A-“. It was that good. When I handed that paper in I handed Mrs Lennox a carefully guarded piece of myself. I had poured at least three hours of my soul into that essay. I didn’t happen to like it too much. I couldn’t care less about John and Elizabeth Proctor [of The Crucible]. I hate analyzing and dissecting stories. It ruins my enjoyment of the story. Sometimes I enjoy a good discussion of a story. What am I leading up to? Well, when I … handed in [the first version of] that essay I hadn’t spent many hours thinking about what I was writing. I wasn’t the least bit excited about what I was writing. When I got my paper back I wasn’t too surprised to see a “C+” on my paper. But I was determined to raise that grade. I took all of Mrs Lennox’s comments and incorporated them and I improved on the characters’ sketches and spent hours trying to think of how they related to each other. Maybe it didn’t show how much time I put in it – but I had.
“When she attacked my paper with her infamous red pen she gouged me and wrote in my blood. I have been feeling depressed ever since 2nd period. I wanted to cry as I sat there and looked at my second “C+”. She had written “B-“, but had crossed it out and put in the “C+”.
“What’s so tragic about a crummy “C+”? What’s so damn tragic about that? Why should I feel so down? Why do I feel sick and useless? The whole world is whirling about me and I’m just bumping around with nothing to hold onto.
“I’m going to Berkeley and the Model U.N. conference in two days. With Mrs Lennox.
“I feel so nothing … I know limbo just opened up and swallowed me and now I’m wallowing in it and it is nothing. My throat’s dry.”
C+, huh?
I resisted taking literature classes in college because in my experience you’d be asked to read a decent book then forced to batter out of it any pleasure in it you’d thought you’d gotten. There’s a Billy Collins poem that captures this pedagogy.
During my years at university nearly everyone I talked to assumed I was an English major. I suppose that was natural enough considering how focused I was on poetry or how much I would read. But if there’s anybody to blame for my fear and loathing of the essay it’d have to be my high school English teachers. I gradually came to recognize Mrs Lennox was a nice person, especially once I was no longer her student. And, curiously perhaps, I did just fine in all the literature classes I took at SRJC or Cal, including the Brazilian lit class that was taught in Portuguese. I will even allow that I enjoyed these classes and found at times that my appreciation of literature was deepened rather than destroyed.
“I feel like talking to someone, but everyone’s gone to bed so I think I’ll talk to myself. I slaved over an essay for American Lit. I worked hours on that damn thing for Mrs Lennox. I handed it in proudly. I was positive I would get at least a “B” if not a “B+” and who knows – if I was lucky I could’ve gotten an “A-“. It was that good. When I handed that paper in I handed Mrs Lennox a carefully guarded piece of myself. I had poured at least three hours of my soul into that essay. I didn’t happen to like it too much. I couldn’t care less about John and Elizabeth Proctor [of The Crucible]. I hate analyzing and dissecting stories. It ruins my enjoyment of the story. Sometimes I enjoy a good discussion of a story. What am I leading up to? Well, when I … handed in [the first version of] that essay I hadn’t spent many hours thinking about what I was writing. I wasn’t the least bit excited about what I was writing. When I got my paper back I wasn’t too surprised to see a “C+” on my paper. But I was determined to raise that grade. I took all of Mrs Lennox’s comments and incorporated them and I improved on the characters’ sketches and spent hours trying to think of how they related to each other. Maybe it didn’t show how much time I put in it – but I had.
“When she attacked my paper with her infamous red pen she gouged me and wrote in my blood. I have been feeling depressed ever since 2nd period. I wanted to cry as I sat there and looked at my second “C+”. She had written “B-“, but had crossed it out and put in the “C+”.
“What’s so tragic about a crummy “C+”? What’s so damn tragic about that? Why should I feel so down? Why do I feel sick and useless? The whole world is whirling about me and I’m just bumping around with nothing to hold onto.
“I’m going to Berkeley and the Model U.N. conference in two days. With Mrs Lennox.
“I feel so nothing … I know limbo just opened up and swallowed me and now I’m wallowing in it and it is nothing. My throat’s dry.”
C+, huh?
I resisted taking literature classes in college because in my experience you’d be asked to read a decent book then forced to batter out of it any pleasure in it you’d thought you’d gotten. There’s a Billy Collins poem that captures this pedagogy.
During my years at university nearly everyone I talked to assumed I was an English major. I suppose that was natural enough considering how focused I was on poetry or how much I would read. But if there’s anybody to blame for my fear and loathing of the essay it’d have to be my high school English teachers. I gradually came to recognize Mrs Lennox was a nice person, especially once I was no longer her student. And, curiously perhaps, I did just fine in all the literature classes I took at SRJC or Cal, including the Brazilian lit class that was taught in Portuguese. I will even allow that I enjoyed these classes and found at times that my appreciation of literature was deepened rather than destroyed.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Creative Writing Night Class
From the diary: “February 10, 1982
“The 2nd Creative Writing Class day. Today (or should I say tonight) wasn’t very stimulating. [The teacher] got me relaxed and tranquil with her soft voice. Calm and tranquil does very little toward making me write. I have to get excited.”
Like the sign class I’d taken the previous spring this creative writing class was a Santa Rosa Junior College extension class. The writing class was taught by Gerrye Payne. Gerrye was the mother of one of my classmates and as I recall daughter Andree also took the class. As did my mother.
It was my first experience with a workshop class. Most writing was done outside class then brought in, photocopied and assembled in a pack, a copy of which was given to each class member, the pieces were then read aloud and much of the class was taken up with discussion and criticism. This is a common structure for creative writing workshops. I went on to take courses like this at Cal with Robert Hass and Lyn Hejinian. I was bored in Gerrye’s class. I was bored in Hass’s class. Why did I take them? Because I get lonely! Creative writing classes give me some community. And, since I’m doing the poetry anyway, it’s nice to get school credit.
“The 2nd Creative Writing Class day. Today (or should I say tonight) wasn’t very stimulating. [The teacher] got me relaxed and tranquil with her soft voice. Calm and tranquil does very little toward making me write. I have to get excited.”
Like the sign class I’d taken the previous spring this creative writing class was a Santa Rosa Junior College extension class. The writing class was taught by Gerrye Payne. Gerrye was the mother of one of my classmates and as I recall daughter Andree also took the class. As did my mother.
It was my first experience with a workshop class. Most writing was done outside class then brought in, photocopied and assembled in a pack, a copy of which was given to each class member, the pieces were then read aloud and much of the class was taken up with discussion and criticism. This is a common structure for creative writing workshops. I went on to take courses like this at Cal with Robert Hass and Lyn Hejinian. I was bored in Gerrye’s class. I was bored in Hass’s class. Why did I take them? Because I get lonely! Creative writing classes give me some community. And, since I’m doing the poetry anyway, it’s nice to get school credit.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
The Crucible
From the diary: “February 1, 1982
“In American Lit I forgot my copy of The Crucible. Anyone who didn’t have one today was supposed to sit quietly and listen. I didn’t. I sat quietly and wrote [a story] for Tales of the Blue & Yellow Sun."
This would be Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. We were reading it aloud. I’ve always enjoyed reading plays aloud. The Crucible is one of those stories where people do cruel things to other people thinking they are doing good. A few days ago Kent was telling me about a new book on the German Death Camps of World War II. It seems the German officials had decided the best thing for the German nation was to move the Jews somewhere else. But then those nasty Allies hemmed ‘em and there was nothing for it but to put the Jews in camps. But then the confined Jews got all diseased and unhappy and it was just more humane to kill ‘em. The Final Solution was chosen because the previously tried solutions hadn’t soluted.
The Crucible isn’t about the Holocaust. It’s about that crazy period in American history when people started accusing others of being witches. Nobody got burned at the stake in America. All convicted witches were hung. The play gave me the creeps, naturally. I was pretty clear on being a despised minority and I know that’s what the whole “marriage debate” is about. Isolating and rejecting a minority so the majority can feel better for not being isolated & rejected. Fortunately we seem to be in a lull between genocides and lynchings. In this country, at least.
“In American Lit I forgot my copy of The Crucible. Anyone who didn’t have one today was supposed to sit quietly and listen. I didn’t. I sat quietly and wrote [a story] for Tales of the Blue & Yellow Sun."
This would be Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. We were reading it aloud. I’ve always enjoyed reading plays aloud. The Crucible is one of those stories where people do cruel things to other people thinking they are doing good. A few days ago Kent was telling me about a new book on the German Death Camps of World War II. It seems the German officials had decided the best thing for the German nation was to move the Jews somewhere else. But then those nasty Allies hemmed ‘em and there was nothing for it but to put the Jews in camps. But then the confined Jews got all diseased and unhappy and it was just more humane to kill ‘em. The Final Solution was chosen because the previously tried solutions hadn’t soluted.
The Crucible isn’t about the Holocaust. It’s about that crazy period in American history when people started accusing others of being witches. Nobody got burned at the stake in America. All convicted witches were hung. The play gave me the creeps, naturally. I was pretty clear on being a despised minority and I know that’s what the whole “marriage debate” is about. Isolating and rejecting a minority so the majority can feel better for not being isolated & rejected. Fortunately we seem to be in a lull between genocides and lynchings. In this country, at least.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Tales of the blue and yellow sun
From the diary: “January 27, 1982
“I bought an anything book. Beautifully bound. I’m writing Tales of the blue and yellow sun within it.”
I’ve been digging up old poetry notebooks and going through them for poems to challenge myself with. I post poems on my LoveSettlement blog that I see something in (I don’t post the ones I hate), but I push myself to choose a poem I really don’t see a way to fix. Then I try things to make it acceptable. The Tales of the blue and yellow sun notebook is one I’ve been mining lately. The Tales were supposed to be linked poems & stories about a fantasy land. I would write them, and if I thought they were good I would carefully recopy them into the notebook. I filled 33 pages before I crapped out on tales. When I returned to the notebook two years later I gave the book a second title, Work Journal, Part Two.
Rather than honor the notebook by only allowing into it the bestest writing I could writ I was going to honor my writing by having it happen in a nice book. Easily lost loose notebook paper or scratch paper wasn't quite the honoring it needed. And revising and crossing things out was going to happen there in the book, too. Flipping through the notebook now I don’t see much revision. Well. I guess that's my current assignment, eh?
In other possibly interesting old news: this was the month Sebastopol got cut off by a big storm. “[On] Main Street water sometimes four feet deep was flowing. Water was flowing into Zerbino’s [a restaurant] and the Dutch Boy paint store.” My brother had to move back upstairs as two or three inches of water filled the basement and the sump pump died. School was canceled for a day. “We are now living in a national disaster area,” I said.
“I bought an anything book. Beautifully bound. I’m writing Tales of the blue and yellow sun within it.”
I’ve been digging up old poetry notebooks and going through them for poems to challenge myself with. I post poems on my LoveSettlement blog that I see something in (I don’t post the ones I hate), but I push myself to choose a poem I really don’t see a way to fix. Then I try things to make it acceptable. The Tales of the blue and yellow sun notebook is one I’ve been mining lately. The Tales were supposed to be linked poems & stories about a fantasy land. I would write them, and if I thought they were good I would carefully recopy them into the notebook. I filled 33 pages before I crapped out on tales. When I returned to the notebook two years later I gave the book a second title, Work Journal, Part Two.
Rather than honor the notebook by only allowing into it the bestest writing I could writ I was going to honor my writing by having it happen in a nice book. Easily lost loose notebook paper or scratch paper wasn't quite the honoring it needed. And revising and crossing things out was going to happen there in the book, too. Flipping through the notebook now I don’t see much revision. Well. I guess that's my current assignment, eh?
In other possibly interesting old news: this was the month Sebastopol got cut off by a big storm. “[On] Main Street water sometimes four feet deep was flowing. Water was flowing into Zerbino’s [a restaurant] and the Dutch Boy paint store.” My brother had to move back upstairs as two or three inches of water filled the basement and the sump pump died. School was canceled for a day. “We are now living in a national disaster area,” I said.
Monday, April 25, 2005
“What’s a nice single girl doing with a double bed?”
From the diary: “December 31, 1981
“Christmas is over. … [In books] I got: The Book of Terns, Garfield Bigger Than Life, Cathy: “What’s a nice single girl doing with a double bed?” and Cosmos by Carl Sagan.”
We’d enjoyed Carl Sagan’s Cosmos TV series – except I remember thinking Sagan looked out of place on that molded-plastic super future set. I liked the idea of getting the book and reading a bit more in depth.
But once I got the book I couldn’t help thinking, haven’t I already covered this? I flipped through it several times looking at the pictures. I still have the book. I still haven’t read it.
I recall being disappointed in The Book of Terns. (Hey, sometimes we mean you-shouldn’t-have.) It was cute, a collection of cartoon terns representing various puns.
The two comic strip collections, the Cathy and the Garfield, were a hankering for the age of the graphic novel, I think. The term hadn’t been invented yet, had it? Wasn’t “graphic novel” coined to market Will Eisner’s Contract with God? Or not … Anyway, the book-length comic story, with the exception of Tintin, just wasn’t something you’d see. I remember wishing for a little development in the life of Cathy. Does she always have to pine after Irving? The only development in Garfield was the gradual adjustment of the way Jim Davis drew him. These days I find Garfield dull. If the writing ever was clever (and surely it was! I had some taste back in ’81!) it’s long since worked out its vein. Comic strip collections were the closest thing to a comic in book form.
Used to be the only way you’d be able to catch up on old adventures of comic book characters was to hunt up the backissues in comic stores. I’m happy to see many comics are now collected into books. Probably cuts into the market for backissues. But hunting up backissues was often expensive and there were times you just couldn’t find the one you wanted most.
“Christmas is over. … [In books] I got: The Book of Terns, Garfield Bigger Than Life, Cathy: “What’s a nice single girl doing with a double bed?” and Cosmos by Carl Sagan.”
We’d enjoyed Carl Sagan’s Cosmos TV series – except I remember thinking Sagan looked out of place on that molded-plastic super future set. I liked the idea of getting the book and reading a bit more in depth.
But once I got the book I couldn’t help thinking, haven’t I already covered this? I flipped through it several times looking at the pictures. I still have the book. I still haven’t read it.
I recall being disappointed in The Book of Terns. (Hey, sometimes we mean you-shouldn’t-have.) It was cute, a collection of cartoon terns representing various puns.
The two comic strip collections, the Cathy and the Garfield, were a hankering for the age of the graphic novel, I think. The term hadn’t been invented yet, had it? Wasn’t “graphic novel” coined to market Will Eisner’s Contract with God? Or not … Anyway, the book-length comic story, with the exception of Tintin, just wasn’t something you’d see. I remember wishing for a little development in the life of Cathy. Does she always have to pine after Irving? The only development in Garfield was the gradual adjustment of the way Jim Davis drew him. These days I find Garfield dull. If the writing ever was clever (and surely it was! I had some taste back in ’81!) it’s long since worked out its vein. Comic strip collections were the closest thing to a comic in book form.
Used to be the only way you’d be able to catch up on old adventures of comic book characters was to hunt up the backissues in comic stores. I’m happy to see many comics are now collected into books. Probably cuts into the market for backissues. But hunting up backissues was often expensive and there were times you just couldn’t find the one you wanted most.
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