"It's the Writing, Stupid"

That was my response to a question from an aspiring writer at my "From Manuscript to Cash Register" panel on Saturday at the VaBook Festival. As I explained to her, I in no way meant to demean her intelligence. However, like far too many wannabes, she was focusing on extraneous details rather than on what matters most: her writing. In her case, she was obsessing over cover art, illustrations and a marketing plan. Others--and you can see them in droves at Miss Snark's and Kristin Nelson's blogs, and elsewhere--waste countless bytes fretting over whether query letters should be in Times Roman or Courier, or if an agent will be put off by extra stamps on an envelope because postage rates went up. (I wish I was making this up!)

As I said to the 200-odd people in the audience--many of them studiously taking notes--whether you're a reviewer (as I am); or an agent, editor, publisher or bookseller, as were the panelists*, every time you crack open a galley or manuscript you want to be entranced by the writing; the rest is just gravy. Make us cry, make us laugh, thrill us, scare us--but make us fall in love with your writing.


*Simon Lipskar, Writers House agent; Starling Lawrence, editor-in-chief, WW Norton; Catharine Lynch, assoc. publisher, Putnam/Riverhead; and Robert Gray, Fresh Eyes Now.

I'm Ready for My Closeup--Just Don't Get Too Close

Fortunately my nose-to-the-windowsill incident last Sunday didn't result in a black eye (or two)--though the doctor did say to Darling Husband, "When are you going to stop beating your wife?" The doctor told me to use Liquid Bandage on the cut--another of the great inventions of the 20th century, along with penicillin, oil-filled electric radiators and rope caulk. But I do have this prominent (to me, anyway) scab on the bridge of my nose and I discovered yesterday that Liquid Bandage is not very compatible with cover stick. The Show Must Go On, though; I'm just hoping that the Book TV cameraman won't be zooming in for any super-tight shots at today's "Journalism Then & Now" panel at the VaBook Fesival. I just checked the Book TV schedule and, unlike in previous years, they're not running any events live. Hmmpf!

Don't hold the phone!

Date: Wed., March 22 -- though it could be any day in the current century.

Location: Airport ladies' room, Charlotte, NC -- though it could be any city in the U.S.

Heard from the next stall: Tinkle tinkle, Ring ring, tinkle tinkle, ring..."Hello?...Oh hi, Linda! How are you?...I'm fine, I'm in the ladies' room at the airport. I'm peeing [tittering laughter]. As soon as I'm done, I'm going to get my baggage and go home...Yeah, I'll call you when I get there...OK, bye."

Please, could we all agree (the sooner the better) that:
1) Just because you can use the phone everywhere doesn't mean you should use it in the can.
2) Some activities should remain private.

Hey, Kids: Let's Play Spot the Allusion!

Coming soon to the small screen, a new animated series being produced by National Geographic:

Aimed at kids ages 6-11, "Iggy Arbuckle" follows the misadventures of a hiking, climbing, singing, thrill-seeking "nature-freak" pig and his faithful sidekick Jiggers, a high-spirited, fast-talking, industrious beaver. Together, the pair enjoy (and sometimes barely survive) incredible escapades in the Kookamunga wilderness as they brave hot, sticky swamps, tropical rain forests, off-kilter critters, eccentric wildlife and other natural phenomena that are anything but natural. (2005 press release)

Now, let's see...Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (photo above) was a silent-screen comedian whose thrill-seeking misadventures included a drunken party over Labor Day 1921 that culminated in the death of starlet Virginia Rappe. Arbuckle was arrested and tried--3 times!--for her death. He was ultimately exonerated, but his career tanked and he died in 1933, just after filming a comeback role in the Vitaphone short, "In the Dough."

As my anonymous correspondent noted: "No jiggers there; Fatty likely drank straight from the bottle." Therefore, in light of this history, I suggest that Jiggers the beaver be renamed.

How about Ginny? No...wait...

Ooh, I've got it! Here's one that today's groovy kids will really dig: Rapper!

Should've Stayed in Bed

I woke up at 6:30 this morning (not on purpose; I was exhausted from cleaning house for the first time in 6 weeks and had gone to bed early). My slippers were across the room, and as I shuffled around in the gloom trying to get them on, I lost my balance. I grabbed hold of Darling Husband's little wooden desk chair, and for a split second thought I was OK. But no, the chair toppled over and I pitched forward, smacking the bridge of my nose on the windowsill. ("What nice big windows," I exclaimed when I first viewed the house. "And look how low the sills are!") Next I heard breaking glass: the top of my head had smashed into the window pane.

"Wha-wha-what's going on," Darling Husband asked groggily. (He'd gone to a concert and hadn't gotten to bed till 1 a.m.) I told him and he bounded over to inspect the damage--with slippers on, as he always has his by the bed.

Fortunately, we have long, thick curtains, so I didn't hit bare wood; or worse, glass. Still, I had an almost half-inch gash on the bony peak of my nose. (Good thing I wasn't wearing my glasses; also that they're wire-rimmed, so the bridge sits above the cut instead of on it.) Ten minutes later, instead of sipping tea and reading the Sunday paper, I was back in bed with a Band-aid on my nose and an ice pack on my face, while Darling Husband picked up glass inside and out.

So now I have a sore nose and a roaring headache. I'm fervently praying that I don't end up with black eyes, as I'm moderating four panels at the Virginia Festival of the Book next weekend, one of which is going to be taped by Book TV. In the meantime, I might be investing in some pancake makeup--or a veil.

Moral: Keep your slippers by your bedside and never get up any earlier than you have to.

In the Mood for Chinese?

I laughed so hard I nearly cried when I read the menu and commentary at Rahoi.com, by an American living in China. Here's a taste:

black bowel and cowboy leg? Add candlelight and you have yourself a date.

Thanks to Susan Ito at ReadingWritingLiving!

And the prize for misleading headline goes to...

OK, how would you interpret the banner hed below? It topped a half-page ad for Volvo in today's Denver Post (just below a review of "V for Vendetta").

Swedish Automaker Linked

to Nation's Overpopulation

If your mind runs along the same elevated track as mine, you immediately start thinking of passionate couples taking advantage of the Volvo wagon's roomy interior. (Darling Husband's response when I showed him the ad: "People really like to fuck in their cars.") And then you think, "Hey, wait a minute! Sweden isn't overpopulated!"

And then you read this inane and ungrammatical pseudo-reportage:

IRVINE, Ca. -- With people living longer than ever and the US population continuing to climb at alarming rates [I agree; there are way too many mountaineers], some experts are pointing to Swedish automaker, Volvo, and their obsession with safety as a root cause of this trend.

Translation: Too many people is a bad thing, and Volvo is responsible for the badness. Therefore...you should drive an unsafe car in order to trim the surplus population. Call it "vehicular eugenics."

WHAT??!!!

That's what I shrieked when I got to the paragraph below, in a WWD story headlined “Borrowed Memories.” Seems that former London fashion writer Emily Davies signed a $900K (!) deal with Simon & Schuster for her memoir, How to Wear Black: Adventures on Fashion’s Front Line, pitched as “a cross between The Devil Wears Prada and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.” Problem is, WWD discovered that none of the several fashionistas cited in Davies' proposal have any recollection of meeting her. Further, her quotes from those encounters appear to have been lifted from “The Glamour Girl’s Guide to Life,” a 1998 New York Times article by Monique P. Yazigi.

Davies, who reportedly departed The Times of London last year amid an inquiry into her expenses, responded to WWD’s questions with a statement defending her actions in the proposal. Saying it was “not intended for public consumption,” Davies claimed, in effect, that it was easier for her to give prospective publishers the flavor of her memoir by appropriating other writers’ words than by relying on her own memories. “The first thing I did when I began putting together my proposal…was to dig out a mass of notes, cuttings and stories I had assembled over the years.…Although I used these notes in the proposal, there would be no question of my using any unoriginal material in my finished book.”

As the Brits would say: Pull the other leg; it's got bells on it.

Sunday Philosophy Club*, U.S. chapter

Plato & Aristotle, "The School of Athens" by Raphael [see edit at bottom]

From an LA Times story headlined "Murderer Tells Jury of Gang's Strength," about the trial of prison gang leader Clifford Smith:

Wearing prison scrubs and an eye patch that he slipped on and off during questioning, Smith described how the Aryan Brotherhood empowered a three-man commission to oversee drug running and killings in prisons nationwide and developed a reading list for prospective members, including writings of Plato, Nietzsche and Machiavelli.

The good news: Prisoners are reading the classics!

*apologies to Alexander McCall Smith

Edit: Hey, wait a minute! After having studied "The School of Athens" in art history a gazillion years ago and seeing it any number of times since, I just noticed that Raphael made a howling error: There were no bound books in Plato & Aristotle's day. They had scrolls.

Famous Last Words

Max Yasgur's farm, Bethel, NY

We replaced our ancient, buzzing stereo speakers this past weekend. To celebrate, Darling Husband went digging deep into his massive vinyl collection, and at my behest unearthed the Sha Na Na album, "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay!"

In addition to endearingly naive profiles of the band members (Rich Joffe "will major in both English and Goverment"; Alan Cooper "has conducted Jewish high holiday services in a Miami old age home"), the album sports a double-page collage of New York Times articles about rock 'n' roll and the Woodstock festival.

One clip, headlined "Farmer with Soul: Max Yasgur," features the following passage, which resonates eerily:

His red barn, fronting on Route 17B, with its long line of parked cars, displays a big sign reading "Free Water." He put up this sign when he heard that some residents were selling water to the youngsters at the festival.

He slammed a work-hardened fist down on the table and demanded of some friends:

"How can anyone ask for money for water?"

Call Me Alceste

Courtyard in Pézenas, France, one-time home of playwright Molière; taken by yours truly last summer (sigh...)

Here's why I don't critique unpublished work, especially by fledgling writers.

From Molière's "Le Misanthrope":

Oronte: ...as you are a man of brilliant parts, and to inaugurate our charming amity, I come to read you a sonnet which I made a little while ago, and to find out whether it be good enough for publicity.

Alceste: I am not fit, sir, to decide such a matter. You will therefore excuse me.

Oronte: Why so?

Alceste: I have the failing of being a little more sincere in those things than is necessary.

Lifted from a comment on "Will You Read My Novel?" at Miss Snark, the Literary Agent. In a related vein, see If I Let My Fire Go Out, How Can I Warm My Neighbor? at MJ Rose's blog, Buzz, Balls & Hype.

Evelyn Waugh Would Be So Happy!

Once again, life has spectacularly imitated art. The Loved One has come true to life...er, death...thanks to the enterpreneurship of a company that is launching cremains into space. First customer: James Doohan, better known as Scottie on "Star Trek." Read more on Slate: Cremate Me Up, Scottie!



And yeah, I know that Waugh hated the movie (one of my favorites--and not just because it's the one that broke the blacklist for my father), but Liberace as a coffin salesman is just too delicious to resist. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any images of Paul Williams as the rocket-loving kid who (ahem) launches the idea for space "burial."

Coming Soon: What Color Is Your Kaffiyeh?

Here in Denver, we get national opinion columns--and sometimes news--a day late. So in today's Denver Post, there was Thomas Friedman's piece about Hamas from yesterday's New York Times, changed (I wonder why?) from "The Weapon of Democracy" to "A Weapon Called Democracy."

The last paragraph really got me thinking...once I'd stopped laughing:

...the West Bank AFP reporter told me that when he went into the main bookstore in Ramallah the other day and asked what was selling, the owner said he'd noticed Hamas people buying Dale Carnegie books on management.

I would have thought Hamas operatives would be reading Sun Tzu or Macchiavelli if they wanted to branch out. (Darling Child thought they'd be reading "How to Succeed in Terrorism Without Really Trying.") But...Dale Carnegie?

Maybe there's hope for peace yet. I don't think How to Win Friends & Influence People recommends blowing yourself up, or annihilating your next-door neighbors, or both. And once Hamas's doors are open to Dale Carnegie, who knows what will follow? The possibilities are endless (and hilarious): Og Mandino...The Purpose-Driven Life (oh wait, they've got that one down)...First, Break All the Rules (oops; did that too). Ooh, ooh! This one's perfect, though it does center on a--gasp!--woman: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

To Hell with Susan Sontag

Illness isn't metaphor; it's a literal time suck and annoyance. It's Day 8 of pneumonia, and I'm at that obnoxious stage where I'm well enough to be bored with everything (myself most especially), but not well enough to actually do anything, other than spend an inordinate amount of time online.

Great places to kill time today--and learn something in the process:

• Guest blogger Ally Carter shares invaluable tips in "An Author Looks at Publicists" at Pub Rants.
• "Slushkiller" by the incomparable Teresa Nielsen Hayden at Making Light. Marvelous dissection of rejection letters and the sometimes crazy responses from their recipients.
• "Being Able to Write" by K.G. Schneider at Free Range Librarian. Great tips from writers.

My favorite Cheney shooting joke, from "Jimmy Kimmel Live":

You know what they say, if Dick Cheney comes out of his hole and shoots an old man in the face, 6 more weeks of winter.

Happy Valentine's Day! (GRRR...)

Laugh for Saturday

I'm weak from a laughing/coughing fit after reading today's post, "The Last Word on Manuscript Formatting...Ever" at Miss Snark. As she observed, it is truly a Comic SmackDown.

Less amusing, but most helpful and informative (and non-pseudonymous!), are agents Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants and Jennifer Jackson at Et in arcaedia, ego.

Per Jackson, I finally did my homework, with help from Wikipedia:

"Et in Arcadia ego" is a Latin phrase that most famously appears as the title of two paintings by Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665) They are pastoral paintings depicting idealized shepherds from classical antiquity, clustering around an austere tomb. The more famous second version of the subject, measuring 122 by 85 cm, is in the Louvre, Paris, and also goes under the name "Les bergers d'Arcadie" ("The Arcadian Shepherds"). It has been highly influential in the history of art, and more recently has been associated with the pseudohistory of the Priory of Sion popularised in the books Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code.

The phrase is a memento mori, which is usually interpreted to mean "I am also in Arcadia" or "I am even in Arcadia", as if spoken by personified Death. However, Poussin's biographer Andre Felibien interpreted it to mean that "the person buried in this tomb has lived in Arcad..(ia)"; in other words, that they too once enjoyed the pleasures of life on earth. The former interpretation is generally considered to be more likely. Either way, the sentiment was meant to set up an ironic contrast by casting the shadow of death over the usual idle merriment that the nymphs and swains of ancient Arcadia were thought to embody....The phrase is used as the title of the first act in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited. It is also the title of the second major story arc of Grant Morrison's esoteric comic book series The Invisibles, which incorporates Poussin's painting, and appears as an inscription on a gun in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.

Hmm...I must have snoozed through that lecture during Art History. I remember the shepherds but not much else. (Hey, it was an 8 a.m. class. Or maybe it was right after lunch. Anyway, it was dark in there.)

Not Tonight, Dear...I Have a Headache

Seen at our local Walgreen's:


The contraceptives are actually located on an aisle facing the baby-care products. On one side, there's Boudreaux's Butt Paste*; on the other, ribbed condoms. A woman's (or man's) Right to Choose was never more starkly illustrated.


*[edit] Louisiana diaper-rash ointment

No Blurb Woes Here!

The below is just in from NM Kelby, author of Whale Season, who's going to be on my "Plotting Your Career" panel at the VaBook Festival next month.

Just wanted to let you know that my first official contest is here...I will now NEVER win the Nobel Prize.

If you want to spread the word (or enter!!) here's what you need to know: Free books! Hawaiian shirts! A funereal BBQ!

In short...big fun and all you have to do is to provide a silly blurb.

For more details: click.

Warning: The bar is set pretty high, as there are hilarious quotes from Kelby's in-laws and fishmonger on the press release for Whale Season--which, as it says in the subtitle, is indeed a "really good story." And perfect for the sickbed, as I discovered.

A Weak Nod to Irony

One of my main reasons for moving to Denver was its dry, mold-free climate. No more swollen sinuses and nasty allergy problems for me and my Darling Child. So he's been down & out with flu and "malaise" for most of the past 3 weeks and yesterday I was diagnosed with pneumonia. Ha [cough] ha.

The Absolute End of the Sixties Counterculture

As reported in the New York Observer, Jann Wenner, head of Wenner Media, is considering opening a Rolling Stone Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Rolling Stone, for those too high or too young to remember, published Hunter S. Thompson's seminal piece of Gonzo journalism, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Good thing Thompson's remains were shot out of a cannon, or else he'd be spinning in his grave like a...roulette wheel.

And speaking of Thompson--whose works , as I recently discovered, are unaccountably shelved under "Sociology" at Denver's Tattered Cover--how many memoirs can we read about him? (And how the hell many "close friends" can such an ornery iconoclast have had, anyway?) In addition to the reminscences in the tribute issue of Rolling Stone, whose stellar quality underlined how far the magazine has fallen since its glory days, we have:

1. GONZO: HUNTER THOMPSON, AN ORAL HISTORY by Corey Seymour (Wenner Books, April '06). Evidently the "official" Rolling Stone biography; Seymour was one of the prime movers of the tribute issue. Per Amazon: "Legions of friends, co-conspirators, neighbors, editors, and drinking buddies tell the story -- as only now it can be told -- of the late, legendary writer’s greatest creation: his own mythic life."
2. WHO KILLED HUNTER THOMPSON by Warren Hinckle (Last Gasp, June '06). Again per Amazon: "A look at the life of Hunter through the eyes of his close friends and peers."
3. THE KITCHEN READINGS: HUNTER THOMPSON IN WOODY CREEK. Per a book deal reported by Publishers Marketplace in Dec '05, written by "Hunter Thompson's two closest friends," Sheriff Bob Braudis and Michael Cleverly, "a gathering of tales from over a 30-year period emanating from the kitchen at Thompson's Owl Farm compound," to be published by Harper Entertainment, date unspecified.
4. AMERICAN DREAMER: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HUNTER THOMPSON. Per Publishers Marketplace in March '05: "Journalism professor and author William McKeen's part tribute, part literary analysis, part oral history, part biography from someone who has been a Thompson acquaintance, watcher and 'scholar' for 35 years." To be published by Norton, date unspecified.

My money's on the Seymour book because it'll be the first one out of the gate, plus have the Wenner marketing and publicity clout behind it. But the book I'm really waiting for--and not just because I hope it has pictures--is Fear & Loathing illustrator Ralph Steadman's memoir of his 30-year working relationship with Thompson. It's coming out in the UK from Heinemann in October. Surely some US publisher will pick it up; in fact, should have already. What gives?

While Not Watching the Big Game...

My original plans for today included going to a Super Bowl party at the fabu mountain home of Darling Husband's boss. But flu (caught from Darling Child, who has since recovered) intervened, and now I'm home alone on the couch. With laptop on and the TV off, thank you very much, as I honestly couldn't care less about football. Plus I have a wicked headache, in addition to the raspy throat and runny nose. DH is recording the game, so I'll just watch the musical performances & commercials later. (The Rolling Stones at half-time?! I'm still trying to get my mind around that...)

Now is the perfect time to catch up with correspondence; better yet if it's the foreign kind. And voilá! What should be in my Inbox but an email from a cousin in England and one from Canadian author Kenneth J. Harvey, with a link to an amusing piece he wrote in reference to the Frey fracas, "The facts. Don't give me the facts," which ran in The Times (London) and Toronto Star. Harvey satirically argues that too much fact in Banville’s THE SEA raises questions about its authenticity as fiction. Then he goes on to say:

In keeping with these principles, should not an author of fiction be fictional himself? Why should a writer who spends his life claiming that what he creates is entirely invented, be allowed to use his own name or live in a real house?

Hmm...I believe this perfectly describes the fictional fictionalist JT LeRoy.

And on a related subject, why isn't there a greater fracas in the media about Nasdijj the "Navahoax," whose lies (and literary thefts) were far more egregious than Frey's? I'm guessing it's because Nasdijj wasn't on Oprah; never mind that he received a PEN award, among others. Media credo: If an author falls in the forest and nobody saw it on Oprah, then it didn't make a sound.

Edit: Darling Husband phoned me at half-time, so I watched the Rolling Stones. The sound was lousy, but as usual, they put on quite a show. Their spindly black-clad figures were quite a striking contrast to the padded, beefy (porky!) football players. Mick sure is lithe & limber for a 60-year-old (ooh, those pelvic whirls & thrusts!) and Charlie Watts is tight & buff too. Wonder how the footballers will look at their age? [SHUDDER...]