The Longbox Project is a site that asks folks to share memories tied to specific issues in their comic book collections. This technically means "Amazing Spider-Man #258 makes me think of...", but it's just as likely to mean "For 25 years I've carried some low-level guilt around about the time I stole something from my big brother, and I finally have an excuse to confess it."
You don't have to be a writer or a writer-about-comics to take part. It's not a comics criticism site so much as a memory project, and the posts tend to be conversational and honest. I wrote a new one that's up today called I Own This about the fairly traumatic period of my life when I moved from Los Angeles to Vermont to Baltimore in the span of 7 months.
What I said about it on Facebook, and what I wrote down on a legal pad as soon as I'd written the first draft of this piece, is "Sometimes you write something and say it's embarrassing because of how cool it makes you look and you want to seem humble. Sometimes you say it's embarrassing because it reveals the kind of asshole you can be. This is the second kind."
So, it feels very revealing to share this story with my friends and the internet-at-large. Kate and I sat on the couch last night before I officially submitted it so she could read and we could talk about it before I showed it to the world. I'd told Kate parts of the story before, but not the version that's presented there. And there are other parts that aren't in the Longbox version (sorry gang, I was already over the word count, but I'm happy to go on about it in person), and I told Kate those parts too.
I was nervous she'd think less of me. But what she said was, "I don't think learning more could make me think less."
So if you like comics, gossip, cross-country moves, Vermont, or confessionals, go read I Own This on the Longbox Project. I wrote it!
Showing posts with label Baltimore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baltimore. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Thursday, March 01, 2012
SpringSpringSpring
Every other day in Baltimore has been a spring. Then the cold returns, and me and Kate sing Christmas songs to each other. Today it's spring again, and it makes me think of Chicago. I can't remember if that's always been true.
It makes me think of recommitment and starting new projects. I like it when I'm not the only one. I got an email from Adrian last week saying we should make a new movie before we're old men in rocking chairs. Just a few days before that I'd been thinking about the kung-fu movie we made in high school, and how if I wanted to watch it again I'd need to buy a VCR. Do they make VCRs that connect to computers? I would put that kung-fu movie onto the youtubes in a heartbeat.
Starting new projects makes me think of finishing old ones. I'd wanted to finish the next draft of my book by Thanksgiving, then by Christmas, and then I started to wonder (again) if I'd ever finish it. Adam finished his and had it Lulued and everything. Our writing group is meeting to talk about it next Friday, so I started to plan on finishing my book by then, too. I only have 8 chapters left to revise, so that's pretty doable. In theory, right?
Comic books I've read recently and liked:
Prophet, being a continuation/bold new direction of a 90s Image comic that I never read.
Conan the Barbarian, being a continuation/bold new direction of the Dark Horse Conan comics that I've barely read.
Daredevil, being a continuation/bold new direction of the Marvel superhero that I never really liked.
Book-books I've read recently and liked:
The Lost City of Z, being an examination of 20th Century Amazonian explorations, and the missing bones resulting thereof.
Movies I've seen recently and liked:
Gosh, I dunno. The Descendents was pretty good. I bought The New World on blu-ray this weekend, and I want to watch it real bad like. I watched part one of the American Experience Clinton two-parter this morning while I was working, and it seemed pretty good. The dream of the 90s is alive in my living room, y'all.
It makes me think of recommitment and starting new projects. I like it when I'm not the only one. I got an email from Adrian last week saying we should make a new movie before we're old men in rocking chairs. Just a few days before that I'd been thinking about the kung-fu movie we made in high school, and how if I wanted to watch it again I'd need to buy a VCR. Do they make VCRs that connect to computers? I would put that kung-fu movie onto the youtubes in a heartbeat.
Starting new projects makes me think of finishing old ones. I'd wanted to finish the next draft of my book by Thanksgiving, then by Christmas, and then I started to wonder (again) if I'd ever finish it. Adam finished his and had it Lulued and everything. Our writing group is meeting to talk about it next Friday, so I started to plan on finishing my book by then, too. I only have 8 chapters left to revise, so that's pretty doable. In theory, right?
Comic books I've read recently and liked:
Prophet, being a continuation/bold new direction of a 90s Image comic that I never read.
Conan the Barbarian, being a continuation/bold new direction of the Dark Horse Conan comics that I've barely read.
Daredevil, being a continuation/bold new direction of the Marvel superhero that I never really liked.
Book-books I've read recently and liked:
The Lost City of Z, being an examination of 20th Century Amazonian explorations, and the missing bones resulting thereof.
Movies I've seen recently and liked:
Gosh, I dunno. The Descendents was pretty good. I bought The New World on blu-ray this weekend, and I want to watch it real bad like. I watched part one of the American Experience Clinton two-parter this morning while I was working, and it seemed pretty good. The dream of the 90s is alive in my living room, y'all.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
I went running today.
For the second time since I've lived in Baltimore. For the first time, probably, since the summer.
I ran for: 41 minutes and 42 seconds. I traveled a distance of 2.92 miles. I burned 356 calories. My average pace was 14'15", but I'm not sure what that means. Per minute? That can't be right.
(I know these things because my robot phone told me so.)
(My robot phone also shows me a map of the route I ran, colored green where I ran the fastest and colored red where I stopped to walk.)
I never once stopped to lean against a lamp post or a tree.
(This is untrue. I stopped once to wait for a crosswalk sign, and I was kind of mad when it switched to walk before I was ready. That was my first break, and when I was stopped I had to swallow once to keep myself from throwing up. I stopped a second time to put my hand on a tree and lean over and breathe.)
I listened to a WTF podcast as I ran. It was the episode with Donald Glover. After I got home I remembered that the last time I ran it was the summer, and I'd listened to a WTF podcast with Dan Harmon. Donald Glover is Troy on Community and Dan Harmon is the creator of Community. I didn't do this on purpose, except that when I looked at the list of recent WTF guests Donald Glover was the only one who looked interesting who wasn't Russell Brand.
(I really like Russell Brand. Mostly from his talk show appearances, where he comes across as being very charming and funny. I also really liked Arthur. I went to see it by myself at the movies after one of the times Kari moved out of our house in Vermont. When (spoiler alert!) Hobson died, it made me cry. I re-watched Arthur on HBO one and a half times last week and when (spoiler alert!) Hobson died, I felt a gravity in my guts and I teared up a little bit.)
I went running once in Vermont when the snows were heavy. I ran on the bike trail and had to kick my knees up high and leap for the footprints of whoever went running before me. The footprints only went one direction, so on my way back I had to kick my knees up high and leap for my own footprints.
I bought new pants to run in that have a little zipper and pocket right over the butt where I can put a housekey. This removes a lot of stress from my run. I still have to carry my phone, because I haven't bought a new arm-strap-thing and I don't know where my old one has disappeared to. I didn't wear my glasses and once I thought there was a fashionable young lady walking my way as I was running and I thought I was going to impress her with my athleticism, but as we passed I realized it was actually a private school boy. I bet I impressed him with my casual friendliness.
I'd like to go out running for about the same period of time (or less), but cover 5 miles. I don't know the best routes to take around Hampden. Some streets in Baltimore don't make me feel nervous at all, and some do, and sometimes I feel both ways about the same streets at different times. Sometimes when I run down streets where I don't feel nervous about crime I feel nervous about people thinking I'm dumb to be running, or assuming I won't go running again after this run because my running clothes are new and my belly is not that of a regular runner's. But today I got mud on the legs of my running pants, and I'm not even going to wash them yet. So what do you think of that?
I ran for: 41 minutes and 42 seconds. I traveled a distance of 2.92 miles. I burned 356 calories. My average pace was 14'15", but I'm not sure what that means. Per minute? That can't be right.
(I know these things because my robot phone told me so.)
(My robot phone also shows me a map of the route I ran, colored green where I ran the fastest and colored red where I stopped to walk.)
I never once stopped to lean against a lamp post or a tree.
(This is untrue. I stopped once to wait for a crosswalk sign, and I was kind of mad when it switched to walk before I was ready. That was my first break, and when I was stopped I had to swallow once to keep myself from throwing up. I stopped a second time to put my hand on a tree and lean over and breathe.)
I listened to a WTF podcast as I ran. It was the episode with Donald Glover. After I got home I remembered that the last time I ran it was the summer, and I'd listened to a WTF podcast with Dan Harmon. Donald Glover is Troy on Community and Dan Harmon is the creator of Community. I didn't do this on purpose, except that when I looked at the list of recent WTF guests Donald Glover was the only one who looked interesting who wasn't Russell Brand.
(I really like Russell Brand. Mostly from his talk show appearances, where he comes across as being very charming and funny. I also really liked Arthur. I went to see it by myself at the movies after one of the times Kari moved out of our house in Vermont. When (spoiler alert!) Hobson died, it made me cry. I re-watched Arthur on HBO one and a half times last week and when (spoiler alert!) Hobson died, I felt a gravity in my guts and I teared up a little bit.)
I went running once in Vermont when the snows were heavy. I ran on the bike trail and had to kick my knees up high and leap for the footprints of whoever went running before me. The footprints only went one direction, so on my way back I had to kick my knees up high and leap for my own footprints.
I bought new pants to run in that have a little zipper and pocket right over the butt where I can put a housekey. This removes a lot of stress from my run. I still have to carry my phone, because I haven't bought a new arm-strap-thing and I don't know where my old one has disappeared to. I didn't wear my glasses and once I thought there was a fashionable young lady walking my way as I was running and I thought I was going to impress her with my athleticism, but as we passed I realized it was actually a private school boy. I bet I impressed him with my casual friendliness.
I'd like to go out running for about the same period of time (or less), but cover 5 miles. I don't know the best routes to take around Hampden. Some streets in Baltimore don't make me feel nervous at all, and some do, and sometimes I feel both ways about the same streets at different times. Sometimes when I run down streets where I don't feel nervous about crime I feel nervous about people thinking I'm dumb to be running, or assuming I won't go running again after this run because my running clothes are new and my belly is not that of a regular runner's. But today I got mud on the legs of my running pants, and I'm not even going to wash them yet. So what do you think of that?
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Hot Concrete
The city’s got a feeling summer. Hot concrete. Horizon’s obscured, by buildings or distance or mist. It’s key to choose a city with some green. It gives you that feeling of wet that will permeate your skin -- get under your skin -- get into your clothes. So you’re never quite dry. That’s how you know it’s summer. You’re never dry. Not entirely.
The smell is sweet; sour; sickly; death and birth at once. Baby birds dead on the sidewalk, gray bodies bordered in lines of pink and blue, eyes bulbous and closed, open beaks. Grown birds too, in the same positions -- heads back, stomachs distended, flies and gnats scattering as you walk past. People on porches watch you walk past, they say the neighborhood is changing, not for the better; they say nothing at all and wish you would notice them; they don’t even notice you pass. Stone stairs up to wooden porches, vines and leaves creeping in. You have to push past them. Lines of ants along one step. Occasionally they get inside. They find pop cans. They find cat food.
Inside you hear voices even clearer than out. Kids playing in a pool you can’t see. A woman walking up one side of the street, then the other, then on a block you can’t see but can still hear -- “Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt!” After ten minutes someone yells in response -- not Britt -- and the first woman calls back, “Fuck you, she can hear me!” Hellos, laughs, drunk on booze or the lateness of the hour. It’s always a holiday weekend, especially in the middle of the week.
During the day. Dog walkers, people on cell phones speaking quietly, people who will cross the street whether you’re dangerous or look dangerous or they are. People crane their necks to see in cars or other houses. It’s suspicious, or it looks natural. Radios from cars, from back porches, from roof porches. You can see people who can’t see you back. Somewhere, someone can see you you can’t see back. Around five the bar puts out its patio tables. There is no rush for seats. That comes later, and inside. Things happen there every night. It’s not on a calendar. You just have to go.
At night, blue light from TVs. From your window the street looks orange. It’s the light from the streetlights. There are so many because of the churches and the school. It’s a price you pay. The trade off is that there are also green things, a lawn that is mowed, and lots of street parking.
You worry that no one here knows you. It doesn’t take very long to be known. That’s been a problem in the past. Be more careful this time. Be more patient. Be humble and self-aware. You don’t have to take this advice, just know that it’s good. Remember what you told yourself a long time ago, when you felt very similar: It matters what you do when no one is looking.
The smell is sweet; sour; sickly; death and birth at once. Baby birds dead on the sidewalk, gray bodies bordered in lines of pink and blue, eyes bulbous and closed, open beaks. Grown birds too, in the same positions -- heads back, stomachs distended, flies and gnats scattering as you walk past. People on porches watch you walk past, they say the neighborhood is changing, not for the better; they say nothing at all and wish you would notice them; they don’t even notice you pass. Stone stairs up to wooden porches, vines and leaves creeping in. You have to push past them. Lines of ants along one step. Occasionally they get inside. They find pop cans. They find cat food.
Inside you hear voices even clearer than out. Kids playing in a pool you can’t see. A woman walking up one side of the street, then the other, then on a block you can’t see but can still hear -- “Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt!” After ten minutes someone yells in response -- not Britt -- and the first woman calls back, “Fuck you, she can hear me!” Hellos, laughs, drunk on booze or the lateness of the hour. It’s always a holiday weekend, especially in the middle of the week.
During the day. Dog walkers, people on cell phones speaking quietly, people who will cross the street whether you’re dangerous or look dangerous or they are. People crane their necks to see in cars or other houses. It’s suspicious, or it looks natural. Radios from cars, from back porches, from roof porches. You can see people who can’t see you back. Somewhere, someone can see you you can’t see back. Around five the bar puts out its patio tables. There is no rush for seats. That comes later, and inside. Things happen there every night. It’s not on a calendar. You just have to go.
At night, blue light from TVs. From your window the street looks orange. It’s the light from the streetlights. There are so many because of the churches and the school. It’s a price you pay. The trade off is that there are also green things, a lawn that is mowed, and lots of street parking.
You worry that no one here knows you. It doesn’t take very long to be known. That’s been a problem in the past. Be more careful this time. Be more patient. Be humble and self-aware. You don’t have to take this advice, just know that it’s good. Remember what you told yourself a long time ago, when you felt very similar: It matters what you do when no one is looking.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Baltimorelandia
I just packed up two boxes of books, and in the second box I included volumes 1&2 of American Elf, the daily comic strip diary of James Kochalka. American Elf was where -- long ago, in the distant early-aughts -- I first heard of a town called Burlington, Vermont. Flash forward several suns, and I've been living on the outskirts of Burlington since last October. You can tell you're in my part of town when you see the spooky boat in the woods.
I came here most recently from LA, which is where I moved after grad school in San Francisco (with a stopover with family in Ohio for a few months in between). When I arrived in LA, I thought I'd be there for a few years at least (and at most), I thought I'd finish my book there, look into some freelance writing gigs, maybe even start teaching. And it's certainly not Los Angeles's fault that it didn't work out that way -- it's a big town with lots of opportunity if you can grab it, and I had a hell of a writing group during my year there. This is a sizeable chunk of said writing group on top of/inside of a giant ball made of sticks at Disneyland.
My reasons for leaving LA are becoming mistier the longer ago it was, but I do think it was the right decision to go. Most of the folks I knew were writers or stand-ups, and they were working their asses off to find/keep/create jobs that I would have entertained as day jobs, but that I would never want to fight for. And there are a LOT of people there who are willing to fight for those jobs, so what was I gonna do? My girl and I grabbed our cat and headed east to Burlington, "the West Coast of the East Coast."
Well, Vermont -- I hardly knew ye. Last week I took a job that will take me down to Baltimore as soon as I can find a place to lay my head down there. I have a cautious excitement about the move. I'm excited to be going back to a larger city -- they have zipcars there! -- but I went for a run yesterday along the Lake Champlain bike trail, and I'll definitely miss the water and the trees and the outdoors here. All the same, for reasons personal, creative, and emotional it's been a struggle to find my people here. Going through a break-up recently has made me feel especially island-like up here on North Cove Road, and a train trip last weekend to Baltimore to visit writerly friends was just what I needed and wanted to clear my head and reassess the next few years. And there just doesn't seem to be a downside to working a job that keeps me creatively engaged, living near people I love who are really good writers (hi Adam and Kate Lynn!), and, frankly, having a new town to explore. I've been moving around a lot for the past few years, and I thought with all my heart that Vermont was going to be home for the foreseeable future. But this weekend a friend said -- "You get used to that life after awhile, of moving to place after place." So maybe I just embrace that for now. I'm finishing a new draft of my book by early summer, and I'm looking forward to a break in the cold. In the billboard of life, Baltimore is the dude with one eye, and I am the girl with the bulbous head.
I came here most recently from LA, which is where I moved after grad school in San Francisco (with a stopover with family in Ohio for a few months in between). When I arrived in LA, I thought I'd be there for a few years at least (and at most), I thought I'd finish my book there, look into some freelance writing gigs, maybe even start teaching. And it's certainly not Los Angeles's fault that it didn't work out that way -- it's a big town with lots of opportunity if you can grab it, and I had a hell of a writing group during my year there. This is a sizeable chunk of said writing group on top of/inside of a giant ball made of sticks at Disneyland.
My reasons for leaving LA are becoming mistier the longer ago it was, but I do think it was the right decision to go. Most of the folks I knew were writers or stand-ups, and they were working their asses off to find/keep/create jobs that I would have entertained as day jobs, but that I would never want to fight for. And there are a LOT of people there who are willing to fight for those jobs, so what was I gonna do? My girl and I grabbed our cat and headed east to Burlington, "the West Coast of the East Coast."
Well, Vermont -- I hardly knew ye. Last week I took a job that will take me down to Baltimore as soon as I can find a place to lay my head down there. I have a cautious excitement about the move. I'm excited to be going back to a larger city -- they have zipcars there! -- but I went for a run yesterday along the Lake Champlain bike trail, and I'll definitely miss the water and the trees and the outdoors here. All the same, for reasons personal, creative, and emotional it's been a struggle to find my people here. Going through a break-up recently has made me feel especially island-like up here on North Cove Road, and a train trip last weekend to Baltimore to visit writerly friends was just what I needed and wanted to clear my head and reassess the next few years. And there just doesn't seem to be a downside to working a job that keeps me creatively engaged, living near people I love who are really good writers (hi Adam and Kate Lynn!), and, frankly, having a new town to explore. I've been moving around a lot for the past few years, and I thought with all my heart that Vermont was going to be home for the foreseeable future. But this weekend a friend said -- "You get used to that life after awhile, of moving to place after place." So maybe I just embrace that for now. I'm finishing a new draft of my book by early summer, and I'm looking forward to a break in the cold. In the billboard of life, Baltimore is the dude with one eye, and I am the girl with the bulbous head.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Poe Toaster stays home, drinks entire bottle of cognac
Edgar Allen Poe -- American author, poet, drunkard and creep. Little known fact? He is dead.
Correction: people in Baltimore know that Poe is dead, because because when they're not busy dealing drugs, wiretapping people who are dealing drugs, being murdered in prison by associates of their crime-lord uncle, or bemoaning the state of the police department they work for while getting drunk down by the railroad tracks, the citizenry of Baltimore, Maryland are gathering en masse around both of Edgar Allen Poe's graves*.
And once a year for the past 60 years, on January 19th, a mysterious stranger has placed three roses and half a bottle of cognac on Poe's grave to commemorate the author's birthday. He's never been caught in the act, despite dozens (literally! dozens!) of Poe-Toaster-Watchers who gather there every year to catch a glimpse of the anonymous Poe Toaster.
Only this year, the Poe Toaster Didn't Toast. Thirty-six devotees (literally! dozens!) gathered outside of the church cemetery in downtown Baltimore to catch a glimpse of the never-before-seen Toaster, but at 5:30am Jeff Jerome, the Poe House and Museum curator, broke the news that the Toaster, who had always arrived and departed in the dead of night for the previous sixty years, had not arrived. Perhaps, like Santa Claus, Zeus, and Jesus, if you do not believe in him, he ceases to exist?
In previous years the Toaster left notes along with the roses and cognac, including one in 1993 that read "the torch will be passed." In 1999 a note implied that the original Toaster had died, and the tradition had been passed on to a son.
The Baltimore Sun quoted Jerome as saying "I was very annoyed" that the Toaster didn't show up as tradition dictated. The Sun failed to quote Edgar Allen Poe's ghost as saying, "There is really no need for such a classy and touching annual tradition, as I am a dude who married my thirteen year old cousin, and then died choking on my own vomit in the street."
*That's right, Edgar Allen Poe has two graves in one graveyard. The next time you complain about having only one grave, ask yourself: "when's the last time *I* concocted a hoax about the first air balloon to fly across Atlantic Ocean, called it 'Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine!!!' and had it published as news in a major New York City newspaper?" The answer is, unless you are Edgar Allen, you have never done this.
And once a year for the past 60 years, on January 19th, a mysterious stranger has placed three roses and half a bottle of cognac on Poe's grave to commemorate the author's birthday. He's never been caught in the act, despite dozens (literally! dozens!) of Poe-Toaster-Watchers who gather there every year to catch a glimpse of the anonymous Poe Toaster.
Only this year, the Poe Toaster Didn't Toast. Thirty-six devotees (literally! dozens!) gathered outside of the church cemetery in downtown Baltimore to catch a glimpse of the never-before-seen Toaster, but at 5:30am Jeff Jerome, the Poe House and Museum curator, broke the news that the Toaster, who had always arrived and departed in the dead of night for the previous sixty years, had not arrived. Perhaps, like Santa Claus, Zeus, and Jesus, if you do not believe in him, he ceases to exist?
In previous years the Toaster left notes along with the roses and cognac, including one in 1993 that read "the torch will be passed." In 1999 a note implied that the original Toaster had died, and the tradition had been passed on to a son.
The Baltimore Sun quoted Jerome as saying "I was very annoyed" that the Toaster didn't show up as tradition dictated. The Sun failed to quote Edgar Allen Poe's ghost as saying, "There is really no need for such a classy and touching annual tradition, as I am a dude who married my thirteen year old cousin, and then died choking on my own vomit in the street."
*That's right, Edgar Allen Poe has two graves in one graveyard. The next time you complain about having only one grave, ask yourself: "when's the last time *I* concocted a hoax about the first air balloon to fly across Atlantic Ocean, called it 'Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine!!!' and had it published as news in a major New York City newspaper?" The answer is, unless you are Edgar Allen, you have never done this.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Dear, part two
Back to the car for a minute...
One of the things BSG left me with was this idea of species memory. SPOILER ALERT if you're thinking of watching the show, but the ending basically tells us that we have neckties and democracy and a legal system because, 150,000 years ago the human race as WE know it was born from a human/cylon hybrid baby.
(Look: it's a good show.)
And I'm not so much talking about "specie memory" as a scientific true fact -- I'm more interested in its neatosity factor, its narrative potential, and the way it makes my brain tingle. Lord knows I think enough about spaceships and dinosaurs as I walk around the world, but I haven't really thought about -- you know -- cavemen very much. As individuals with day to to day dramas and epic troubles. And surely there were wars, there were loves, there dramas among people who were literally the first humans (or human-like) on Earth. They had art, and the ability to perceive the real world through art. And that's enough for me to believe that they qualify souls worthy of consideration from those of us left today. We've had language for something like 40,000 years, but we've had history for, what, 5,000 years? There have been tools for about two and a half million years, and those are just the ones that we've found.
And when I think about human history (or human pre-history) in that vastness of time, my first impulse is to feel sad for all the names we don't know anymore, the sagas -- real or imagined or metaphorical -- that are lost. But that's a selfish way to think of it, yeah? They are still things that happened, whether I know about them or not. There's plenty of history that happened, and was written down, that I don't know simply because I haven't read the right books. And I don't get sad about that. So...
I dunno, a lot of this feels like college-age navel gazing. But I can imagine you nodding and smiling as I talk this out, happy to read what's going on in my head, happy to watch me work it out and articulate it. And that's not embarrassing at all.
My second impulse is to be so very pleased that it happened at all, to remember that there's so much happening right now that's being experience by those there to experience it. Something Dr. Baltar says near the middle of season four jumps out at me: "I love living. I really do. I really, really love living." I like it too.
While I was driving I also saw something that caused another piece of my novel to click into place, which is a much appreciated gift, and really the whole reason I wanted to be alone in a car for ten hours in the first place. It was grafitti on an overpass, the kind you have to hang upside down from the top to write (or at least, that's how I imagine it has to be written), and it was simple, with no embellishing flourishes and no punctuation, and it said I LOVE YOU AMY and I thought, well damn right you do.
Ethan is a junior whose girlfriend Amy has dumped him. She's reconnected with a middle school love she mostly talks to on the phone and sits in food courts with, and Ethan's been trying to sort out how to win her back. It's a relationship between supporting characters, and it's something I've known was going to happen all along, but I was never quite sure how much of it was going to go on the page. There are plenty of things I'm secretly proud of myself for with regard to the book, and one of them is the rather involved and evolving lives the supporting characters have that Berto never even finds out about, since he's so stuck in his own head. But Ethan and Amy's relationship troubles are something I wanted him to encounter, but I didn't really have a sense for how they would wrap up, or what role Berto might have in their conclusion. But seeing that simple spraypainted line, I thought of my ol' pal Adrian, who went on a spraypainting spree after his high school girlfriend broke up with him. He sprayed "KLF" over a Pepsi sign on 131 going toward Day Heights, and I remember -- we were just out of high school at the time, so I was 18 or 19 -- driving back to Clifton from visiting my folks and feeling so Tall whenever I saw those three letters over that rusty old Pepsi sign. Someone I knew had changed the landscape of familiar ground, even in a very small way, and I liked that.
So, "I Love You Amy." I immediately thought of our man Berto being driven in a car (he's a lad of fifteen), or maybe out riding his bike (he hasn't yet, but I imagine he's the sort who would like to range far on two wheels), and discovering a message written to someone he knows (Amy is his cousin, remember?), by someone else he knows, and I imagine it opening up entire rooms in his brain he'd never even known were there. I imagine Berto buying his own can of spray paint and spraying I Love You Amy on the linoleum floors of his high school, not directly to help Ethan, but because he has the power to do it. He can alter his world very easily and change the way people walk on the floor beneath their feet.
They probably won't think to write it down, and somehow that floor will be torn up or the school will fall down around it, and maybe by then no one will remember or no one will care that a boy once loved a girl named Amy and wanted her to know it, but then -- it wasn't written for posterity, was it? That's not really what we think about when we write. We have a message we want to impart to another person in the world, so we write them a letter or a statement or a blog.
I don't know what Amy will make of it yet, but that's okay. I also imagine the feeling Ethan's gut having written it down in the first place (I know that feeling well, and can feel a little bit of it now). Sometimes it's about killing the bull, but sometimes it's just about drawing the bull on the wall.
One of the things BSG left me with was this idea of species memory. SPOILER ALERT if you're thinking of watching the show, but the ending basically tells us that we have neckties and democracy and a legal system because, 150,000 years ago the human race as WE know it was born from a human/cylon hybrid baby.
(Look: it's a good show.)
And I'm not so much talking about "specie memory" as a scientific true fact -- I'm more interested in its neatosity factor, its narrative potential, and the way it makes my brain tingle. Lord knows I think enough about spaceships and dinosaurs as I walk around the world, but I haven't really thought about -- you know -- cavemen very much. As individuals with day to to day dramas and epic troubles. And surely there were wars, there were loves, there dramas among people who were literally the first humans (or human-like) on Earth. They had art, and the ability to perceive the real world through art. And that's enough for me to believe that they qualify souls worthy of consideration from those of us left today. We've had language for something like 40,000 years, but we've had history for, what, 5,000 years? There have been tools for about two and a half million years, and those are just the ones that we've found.
And when I think about human history (or human pre-history) in that vastness of time, my first impulse is to feel sad for all the names we don't know anymore, the sagas -- real or imagined or metaphorical -- that are lost. But that's a selfish way to think of it, yeah? They are still things that happened, whether I know about them or not. There's plenty of history that happened, and was written down, that I don't know simply because I haven't read the right books. And I don't get sad about that. So...
I dunno, a lot of this feels like college-age navel gazing. But I can imagine you nodding and smiling as I talk this out, happy to read what's going on in my head, happy to watch me work it out and articulate it. And that's not embarrassing at all.
My second impulse is to be so very pleased that it happened at all, to remember that there's so much happening right now that's being experience by those there to experience it. Something Dr. Baltar says near the middle of season four jumps out at me: "I love living. I really do. I really, really love living." I like it too.
While I was driving I also saw something that caused another piece of my novel to click into place, which is a much appreciated gift, and really the whole reason I wanted to be alone in a car for ten hours in the first place. It was grafitti on an overpass, the kind you have to hang upside down from the top to write (or at least, that's how I imagine it has to be written), and it was simple, with no embellishing flourishes and no punctuation, and it said I LOVE YOU AMY and I thought, well damn right you do.
Ethan is a junior whose girlfriend Amy has dumped him. She's reconnected with a middle school love she mostly talks to on the phone and sits in food courts with, and Ethan's been trying to sort out how to win her back. It's a relationship between supporting characters, and it's something I've known was going to happen all along, but I was never quite sure how much of it was going to go on the page. There are plenty of things I'm secretly proud of myself for with regard to the book, and one of them is the rather involved and evolving lives the supporting characters have that Berto never even finds out about, since he's so stuck in his own head. But Ethan and Amy's relationship troubles are something I wanted him to encounter, but I didn't really have a sense for how they would wrap up, or what role Berto might have in their conclusion. But seeing that simple spraypainted line, I thought of my ol' pal Adrian, who went on a spraypainting spree after his high school girlfriend broke up with him. He sprayed "KLF" over a Pepsi sign on 131 going toward Day Heights, and I remember -- we were just out of high school at the time, so I was 18 or 19 -- driving back to Clifton from visiting my folks and feeling so Tall whenever I saw those three letters over that rusty old Pepsi sign. Someone I knew had changed the landscape of familiar ground, even in a very small way, and I liked that.
So, "I Love You Amy." I immediately thought of our man Berto being driven in a car (he's a lad of fifteen), or maybe out riding his bike (he hasn't yet, but I imagine he's the sort who would like to range far on two wheels), and discovering a message written to someone he knows (Amy is his cousin, remember?), by someone else he knows, and I imagine it opening up entire rooms in his brain he'd never even known were there. I imagine Berto buying his own can of spray paint and spraying I Love You Amy on the linoleum floors of his high school, not directly to help Ethan, but because he has the power to do it. He can alter his world very easily and change the way people walk on the floor beneath their feet.
They probably won't think to write it down, and somehow that floor will be torn up or the school will fall down around it, and maybe by then no one will remember or no one will care that a boy once loved a girl named Amy and wanted her to know it, but then -- it wasn't written for posterity, was it? That's not really what we think about when we write. We have a message we want to impart to another person in the world, so we write them a letter or a statement or a blog.
I don't know what Amy will make of it yet, but that's okay. I also imagine the feeling Ethan's gut having written it down in the first place (I know that feeling well, and can feel a little bit of it now). Sometimes it's about killing the bull, but sometimes it's just about drawing the bull on the wall.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Dear __________
Nerd Alert: over the course of the ten hour drive to Baltimore, I spent most of my time thinking about Battlestar Galactica. I won't bore you with why you should have been watching BSG if you weren't, because this isn't really a story about a TV show. But I watched the last episode of the show, went to bed, woke up early and got in a car headed east. I had a little Cylon on the dashboard of my rental car, and I was taking special pains to be nice to him. I'm trying to break the old cycle, right?
I've never driven east before. The mountains (the hills?) were sloping and broad. I like them in retrospect, but I remember wanting to get out of West Virginia. It felt good to arrive in Baltimore, though the directions from Google Maps dropped me off the highway farther west than I might have liked. I made promises to myself not to think (or at least not to talk) about the Wire in the lead up to my trip, but it was hard not to when I got off of 70. I've been in rough neighborhoods before -- I've lived in rough neighborhoods before -- but this was honest to goodness block after block of buildings that were boarded up, but not abandoned. One two separate occasions I wondered why dudes were trying to hail my car like it was a cab, before realizing they were simply offering me a unique business opportunity, much like D'Angelo or Poot. I looked straight ahead at stop lights and turned down my Morrissey cd, lest the rental car stereo be more powerful than I might realize.
Adam called while I was following the internet's labyrinthine directions to their apartment, and I tried to be clever as I a) told him I was nearly there, and b) realized his call had instantly distracted me from an important split in the road I was traveling. So I tried to follow my spider-sense out of the Wire's establishing shots and the apartment of my friends, and as you may have already guessed, I eventually made it there safely. I picked up Adam and Kate Lynn, changed my shirt, ate a veggie burger, and we went to see a Talking Heads cover band.
Adam brought up seeing the Psycho Killers (natch) when we were emailing about trip specifics, and I took a moment before responding, and then decided not to be a dick about it. On the one hand: a cover band? On the other hand: Talking Heads! As I yelled to KL during their set, it's not like I'm going to get to see the Talking Heads perform in a club in Baltimore anytime soon ... but after about two and a half songs I was ready to not be listening to a cover band anymore. On the plus side: their David Byrne looks like the son of Dave Matthews and Jon Favreau, and that was kind of awesome.
One of the many TV shows I have made up and secretly journaled about is about a rock band, and it was fun to watch the band on stage and imagine the relationships at play. The singer/guitarist was obviously the most interested in what was going on ... one of the two backup singers got bored and left after the first song turned into a ten minute jam session ... the bass player never looked at anything but where the walls met the ceiling ... the drummer would continually get frustrated and try to catch the singer's eye so he could wrap up the song. The keyboardist looked 17 and overjoyed to be playing Talking Heads songs. Adam also told me the drummer had had a thing for Adam's high school girlfriend when she went off to college, leaving Adam at home for his senior year. He would continually update Adam that he was "looking out for her" at school. Secret failures and embarrassments ... and the feeling I wasn't getting the whole story. I liked that.
The night may have ended with an episode of Flight of the Conchords, and then a phone call to KM. I don't entirely remember what happened after the band though. I met a lot of Adam's high school chums but I couldn't hear anything they said to me. I was hoping they would ask what I did for a living, because my prepared response was "street juggler." And then, in case they asked me to juggle something, I would say, "Look, I don't ask you to suck my dick on YOUR day off, do I?"
(This is not something I would have actually said; rather, it was a thing I told Adam the next day after seeing an ACTUAL street juggler, and it made us laugh, and I put it here so I don't forget it.)
Next time: The Po' House, crabs, clawed tour guides.
I've never driven east before. The mountains (the hills?) were sloping and broad. I like them in retrospect, but I remember wanting to get out of West Virginia. It felt good to arrive in Baltimore, though the directions from Google Maps dropped me off the highway farther west than I might have liked. I made promises to myself not to think (or at least not to talk) about the Wire in the lead up to my trip, but it was hard not to when I got off of 70. I've been in rough neighborhoods before -- I've lived in rough neighborhoods before -- but this was honest to goodness block after block of buildings that were boarded up, but not abandoned. One two separate occasions I wondered why dudes were trying to hail my car like it was a cab, before realizing they were simply offering me a unique business opportunity, much like D'Angelo or Poot. I looked straight ahead at stop lights and turned down my Morrissey cd, lest the rental car stereo be more powerful than I might realize.
Adam called while I was following the internet's labyrinthine directions to their apartment, and I tried to be clever as I a) told him I was nearly there, and b) realized his call had instantly distracted me from an important split in the road I was traveling. So I tried to follow my spider-sense out of the Wire's establishing shots and the apartment of my friends, and as you may have already guessed, I eventually made it there safely. I picked up Adam and Kate Lynn, changed my shirt, ate a veggie burger, and we went to see a Talking Heads cover band.
Adam brought up seeing the Psycho Killers (natch) when we were emailing about trip specifics, and I took a moment before responding, and then decided not to be a dick about it. On the one hand: a cover band? On the other hand: Talking Heads! As I yelled to KL during their set, it's not like I'm going to get to see the Talking Heads perform in a club in Baltimore anytime soon ... but after about two and a half songs I was ready to not be listening to a cover band anymore. On the plus side: their David Byrne looks like the son of Dave Matthews and Jon Favreau, and that was kind of awesome.
One of the many TV shows I have made up and secretly journaled about is about a rock band, and it was fun to watch the band on stage and imagine the relationships at play. The singer/guitarist was obviously the most interested in what was going on ... one of the two backup singers got bored and left after the first song turned into a ten minute jam session ... the bass player never looked at anything but where the walls met the ceiling ... the drummer would continually get frustrated and try to catch the singer's eye so he could wrap up the song. The keyboardist looked 17 and overjoyed to be playing Talking Heads songs. Adam also told me the drummer had had a thing for Adam's high school girlfriend when she went off to college, leaving Adam at home for his senior year. He would continually update Adam that he was "looking out for her" at school. Secret failures and embarrassments ... and the feeling I wasn't getting the whole story. I liked that.
The night may have ended with an episode of Flight of the Conchords, and then a phone call to KM. I don't entirely remember what happened after the band though. I met a lot of Adam's high school chums but I couldn't hear anything they said to me. I was hoping they would ask what I did for a living, because my prepared response was "street juggler." And then, in case they asked me to juggle something, I would say, "Look, I don't ask you to suck my dick on YOUR day off, do I?"
(This is not something I would have actually said; rather, it was a thing I told Adam the next day after seeing an ACTUAL street juggler, and it made us laugh, and I put it here so I don't forget it.)
Next time: The Po' House, crabs, clawed tour guides.
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