There’s a short piece in the July issue of Paste, which subscribers will receive any day, on One Million Monkeys Typing, a “collaborative writing project” on the web. I wrote the piece for the magazine, and then Tom - who is an avid “monkey” on the site - wrote the first piece of the story which was “planted” by Paste on the Million Monkeys site. You can
go there to check it out, join the site, and add to his story: Missing Marcus Mystery.
Keith Gessen, who wrote a novel that came out recently that I really rather liked, All The Sad Young Literary Men, and edits the literary journal n+1, talks about the perils of being a working writer and still making your bills, especially in NYC. Definitely worth a read.
Hats, Coat, and Thick Skin Only - an excellent article on being a writer and developing a healthy attitude toward criticism from editors.
Iron Man: the review, in far too few words. As Tom summarized over dinner last night and I briefly mention in the review, the genius of the film is that Stark has no real superpowers except privilege and wealth. Tom pointed out that he’s a prototype for what we all want, for those with power and privilege (that’s us, folks) to stop pointing fingers and take responsibility for righting wrongs.
I left work early on Friday to have lunch with the lovely Liz, who I’ve known through a couple different mutual friends for a while but hadn’t met. She was on her way from DC to visit her brother and had a stopover between bus and train in town, so we ate dutiful salads at a random Europa Cafe (oh, NYC lunch chains) and shared a kahlua brownie and talked for a couple hours. It was splendid.
I then went to see Made of Honor for a review which should be in WORLD (print!) soon. It was not very good, but it wasn’t painful. That’s about all I can say. Afterwards I headed downtown and jotted down the substance of my review before heading to a ukelele extravaganza at the Bowery Poetry Club, then the Half Pint with a horde. Definitely one of the better Fridays I’ve had lately.
On Saturday our dear Colleen came over; she was in town for a few days after moving home to Anchorage last year, and she’s headed Dublin-ward to Trinity this fall, and I am very excited for her. We had burgers at 67 Burger and then picked up some groceries. Alisa came by later on, and we ate copious waffles and drank rosé and discussed good books before everyone went home.
After church on Sunday, we had a lovely relaxing brunch in the garden behind Palma, and dinner at the Stone Home Wine Bar around the corner from us, all with friends. I also finished Brideshead Revisited and started Saturday, which is amazing.
Today I had one triumph - I convinced the university that I am properly immunized and managed to register for the Moby-Dick class. I’ve already bought the books, so I’m glad there were no snags. I am very excited for this class to start. I’m playing at being a grad student in the English department this summer, what with Moby-Dick and the British novel class, and I have to say, I think it’s a good way to spend the summer.
A relatively open week for me, besides work. I don’t even have class. On Friday I’m going to An Evening with Michel Gondry at the Museum of the Moving Image, and perhaps a tiny féte afterwards, and Saturday brings an Albany-bound train for Mother’s Day. I haven’t been home or seen my mom since January, and I’m very much looking forward to it. She tells me the Tulip Festival is brightening the pretty part of downtown Albany, and maybe we’ll get to see it this year.
Lastly, my review of Harmony Korine’s newest, Mister Lonely, is in this issue of Paste, but it’s also online. I tried, but I wasn’t a huge fan.
You can join ConversantLife’s new profile system and be my fan! Or even my friend, if you’re feeling ambitious.
I took today off to work on homework; I spent most of the afternoon in the park reading and marking books, then came home and typed up notes wildly till I couldn’t carry on. I’m going to have my hands full this weekend. But I’m finding that research is intoxicating, especially synthesizing ideas into new ones. Am I a nerd?
One of the good things about writing journalistically (if what I do can be called that) is that I’m generally working on some kind of pitch-and-assign basis, rather than writing on spec. Fiction/poetry/other creative types, however, generally have to submit their work, finished, to a journal. So for them, Relief Journal has a blog entry on “Why Writers Need A Database”. And they’re even releasing some specially designed writer’s database software for the PC at Calvin this weekend, then making it available on their website.
By the way, have I mentioned lately how incredibly bummed out I am to not be going to the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing? Yes, I know I’m swamped, but as it turns out, we moved early, and the magazine is likely to be out by Friday, so I could have actually squeezed it in. Alas.
We went to the cast & crew screening of Cult of Sincerity last night, which was good fun. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. Speaking of Cult, AmieStreet is actually a rather fabulous website. I don’t really get too into exploring new music - I just find the array dizzying, and keeping up with movies keeps me pretty busy - but this makes it pretty easy and fun (and cheap!).
I wrote about two recent movies, La Misma Luna and The Visitor, and about making movies about illegal immigrants.
From yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the birthday of novelist Barbara Kingsolver, born in Annapolis, Maryland (1955). She grew up in rural Kentucky, where she spent her childhood exploring the alfalfa fields and wooded hills surrounding her home. She started keeping a journal when she was eight years old and has continued to do so her entire life . . .
. . . She was working on a Ph.D. thesis on the social lives of termites when she decided to abandon a career in science and try to become a writer. She took a job as a technical writer, which forced her to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day and do nothing but write. She later said, “I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.”
Via Relief Journal, which is running an excellent series on why writers need technology - veteran blogger/author J. Mark Bertrand explains why writers, especially those who like to, you know, get published, should blog:
It’s 2004. The Art & Soul Conference at Baylor University. I’m in the lobby between sessions, browsing at the Eighth Day Books table. Minding my own business, in other words, in sharp contrast to everyone else. They’re networking. All of them. Somehow they’ve managed to meet up over the course of the event, to learn each other’s names. Not me. I’ve kept to myself. I’m a social moth.
“Hey, aren’t you—”
I turn to find a smiling man at my elbow. People are always saying I remind them of someone. Usually a crazy brother-in-law. I start to say, No, I’m not.
“—Mark Bertrand?”
“No, I’m . . . Oh.” Yes, actually. I am.
“I thought so,” he says. “I read your blog.”
That explains it. At least half the people I know, I met through my blog. Only I don’t usually meet them. Not without planning it in advance. The crazy thing is, for a brief shining moment, I feel like a celebrity. Somebody knows me. Somebody’s familiar with my work.
And the thing is, he’s not the only one. I got an e-mail this week from someone who’d read my book and enjoyed it.
“I’ve been reading your blog for a year and half.”
And then you bought my book. That makes you think, doesn’t it?
I can’t count how many times this has happened to me. It’s always weird when you’re meeting someone for the first time and suddenly you realize from the way that they’re acting that they read your blog. And conversely, it’s a bit strange to meet someone and then realize you read their blog.
And I haven’t even written a whole book yet.
It appears that my Run, Fat Boy, Run review made it online. It wasn’t a great movie, but it’s not like you go see a Simon Pegg comedy for a cinematic revelation. It was fun.
We are seeing “The Little Flower of East Orange”, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman at the Public Theater tonight (which I’m realizing I must clarify is an actual theater, not a movie theater, and this is not a film, because while PSH is amazing on-screen, he’s kind of a little god in the theater world as far as I’m concerned). I’ve been looking forward to this all week. Also to dinner at Applewood, our own little heaven on earth in Park Slope, tomorrow night.
Now if Bank of America would only SERIOUSLY get their act together and mail us that account confirmation letter (I mean, come on, I know it doesn’t take two weeks for something to get from Charlotte to New York), then we could put our application in for the apartment and start the nail-biting, and everything would be perfect.
I love weekends!
At ConversantLife, I talk a little about the idea of making goodness attractive, something that’s been on my mind a lot lately.
From the NYTimes Paper Cuts blog:
Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing, and I think this goes for film reviewing as well. I plead guilty, though I do think and hope I’ve used most of these in their intended context.
muse (used as a verb): Few things in this world are mused. They are much more often simply written, thought or said. “War is hell,” he mused. Not much dreamy rumination there.
Stretching for the fanciful — writing “he crafts or pens” instead of “he writes”; writing “he muses” instead of “he says or thinks” — is a sure tip-off of weak writing.
They’re rating the movie critics (book critics, too) at MoreIntelligentLife.com, and like me, Anthony Lane is their favorite (though we all acknowledge he’s more of a humorist than a critic).
But this quote on David Edelstein caught my eye:
Back when I was an intern, I sent him a piece of fan-mail, sandbagged with reviews of my own. He responded immediately. I sent him a piece of fan-mail, sand-bagged with reviews of my own. He responded immediately and reassured me that he, too, began his career spending “48 hours writing a 400-word review”. “My advice is simple”, he wrote: “Write.” ~ EMILY BOBROW
Good to know.
Two articles at WORLD today: Be Kind Rewind and The Year of the Hollywood Outsiders.
A bad rule for life, perhaps, but not for freelance writing.
This morning we were discussing various projects at IAM, and Christy asked me if I sometimes went on work overload because I was so excited when someone asks me to write for them that I have a hard time saying no, because as she said, it’s a common dilemma for relatively new writers.
And as I told her, yes, it’s a huge problem. Mostly because I never, on principle, say no to an editor.
Okay, so occasionally I do. But it’s always when I legitimately can’t write the piece (i.e., I have class that night and can’t go to the screening). I haven’t said no to an editor for anything I could do for two and a half years.
I do have the luxury these days of almost always writing for money, or of choosing to write for free because the opportunity is worth it (notably at ConversantLife). But I started out writing entirely for free, at Relevant. I spent two years editing the Career & Finance column there for free because I knew it was worth the opportunity to work with those editors.
And I’ve been very blessed; I’ve rarely had a pitch turned down (fairly astonishing, and I don’t expect it to keep up), and I fell into most of my regular gigs by accident, or providence, depending on how you look at it. Three years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed that I’d be writing for a living, but there you have it. Even here in my bill-paying day job at the University, my title is “writer/editor”.
I have had the grateful luxury of specializing, as well, which isn’t a given. I now write about culture, film, and books, instead of my old career & finance work or general interest pieces. If I were making a living as a freelancer, you can bet I’d be writing about everything, but I’m glad that’s not the case.
Back to our discussion this morning - I explained that the reason for my unequivocal acquiescence is that if you don’t say yes to an editor, they probably won’t call you back. Editors are phenomenally busy people who rely on a small set of reliable writers with a style they like. You say no, or you start turning things in late, and you end up getting knocked off the list. At a lot of publications - and, I suspect, several of the ones I regularly work for - there’s a million writers out there, some much better and more trained than me, who would be very happy to take my spot. And I’m just a freelancer.
The long and short of the matter is that until I hit my sweet spot, my inflection point, I can’t turn down an editor. When will I know I’ve hit that point? I’m not sure. I’m thinking it will be when someone calls me and gives me at least a part-time staff writer or contributing editor position, hopefully in culture or the arts. (Hello, New York Magazine? Are you listening?) And that probably won’t happen until I finish my master’s degree, which provides credibility, and have the option to leave the day job and work for myself.
I spend a lot of time dreaming of that day.
I reviewed In Bruges, which was the opening film at Sundance and opens in theaters this weekend.
I chatter a little about books at Conversant Life.
It took about five hours of work, but our apartment is now clean, relatively brick-dust-free, and has half a brick wall on one end (which was intended - it’s the chimney). Our landlord stopped by and we got to talking about the building. Apparently it was built in 1890, and at one point in the past there was a family with seven children living in the building, both apartments. Even with both apartments, though, you’d have to be impressed. That totals about 800 square feet. For nine people.
The brick is very old and all different colors, probably because bits have been replaced in the last hundred-and-twenty years, but I love it. It has so much character and it looks great against the blue walls and adds a lot to the room. Maybe I can get a picture up at some point.
Tonight I have class. I’m looking forward to it. The readings this week were long and arduous but interesting, and I’m one of the few who doesn’t have a background in art history, so I think this seminar format really helps me learn and explore what I’ve read. Also, having class around a table is so much more fun than a lecture hall or one of those hideous industrial classrooms at RPI (which gratefully did NOT include the IT building, but unfortunately did include pretty much everywhere else I had class).
As part of next week’s work for class, I have to make it either to MoMA or the Met. I really need to go early in the week so I have time to write about it, but unfortunately they both close at 5:30 pm until Friday, after which they are opened in the evenings and more crowded to boot. I’ll probably end up at the Met on Friday night or Saturday morning. It’s just bigger, and therefore less annoying when it’s crowded.
I’m reading Slow Food: The Case for Taste (by Carlo Petrini) in my spare moments, and I’m really enjoying it.
Which, of course, I say as I’m about to finish up at work and wolf down a Clif bar on the way to class. But though I long for a really yummy meal, prepared with love and served around a table with friends, I’m okay with the Clif bar for now. It’s just a phase of life.
I reviewed 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days, one of the best films of the year (and sadly snubbed by the Academy).
Today’s the one holiday we have this semester (besides spring break), and I’m spending it at home hacking away at three reviews (two books, one film) and an essay. I’ve finished one review, finally blasted through my block to get a framework for the essay set down - thankfully it’s not due for a week - and I’m about to finish the second book and hopefully start each of those reviews before the day is over.
We went to Tom’s wrap party on Saturday night. It was in a two-room downtown place that looks like it’s a rather nice restaurant/bar/cafe spot in its normal hours. We were hanging out in the less crowded room for a while and talking to people, when someone mentioned that there was food in the other room. As we made our way through the crowd, I looked up, and whoops, there’s Clive Owen. Ha! I giggled fangirlishly and Tom asked me what was going on. “I don’t get to see famous people every day at the university, you know,” I said. I may be a New Yorker, but I don’t see my most favorite actors all the time (well, except Philip Seymour Hoffman, for some reason.) Other familiar faces were in the crowd as well. I felt very chic for a few hours, at least.
But this is what is exciting: Olafur Eliasson is doing four installation waterfalls into the East River this summer. Further digging revealed that he’s also got a show at MoMA this spring. We’ve been totally fascinated by Eliasson after reading a piece in the New Yorker about him last year; he does simultaneously abstract and naturalist pieces, including the Weather Project at Tate Modern in London. So excited.
I just discovered that Paste’s Art House Powerhouse issue has hit the newsstands. Go get a copy.
You can see some of the Art House Powerhouse feature here - I wrote the bits on Laura Linney, Josh Brolin, Joel & Ethan Coen, and Ken Loach. (Harder than it sounds.)
We’re in this mode of eating all the stuff in our cabinets, mostly because we’ve both been too busy to go grocery shopping during the last few days. The co-op is a wonderful place to buy groceries, but you do have to plan your trips strategically, lest you end up in line for half an hour. I try to go when they open at 8am, but haven’t been able to make it.
In any case, when I got home last night, we rooted through the cupboards and decided on minted peas (frozen peas + sauteed in a little butter + add chopped fresh mint), garlic-parsley-butter pan-fried shrimp, a couple pieces of breaded cod from Whole Foods, and half a package of orzo (rice-shaped pasta that cooks up fast). I am finding that I really enjoy cooking lots of random things at once. It’s kind of fun to do mentally.
In another life I probably spun plates on sticks balanced on both my hands, feet, nose, and forehead.
We watched La Vie en Rose - well-acted, lovely to look at, and overall well-made, but a little confusing due to a really scattered narrative structure, but then again, I’m not French and don’t know much about Edith Piaf to begin with.
Today is heart-breakingly lovely outside. I can hear someone playing saxophone on the sidewalk, and everyone’s out in just a sweater (which is really unnecessary, but it is, after all, January).
I’m heading out in a couple minutes to rush over to Film Forum and see I’m Not There at long last. This is the good thing about January - all the good films are out and there aren’t a lot of must-see new releases, so it’s time to backtrack and see everything I missed in the fall and early winter. We’re also hoping to see Atonement before it leaves theaters, which shouldn’t be hard since it’s probably going to be nominated for a bunch of Oscars.
I’m about to finish my book (Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews), which has been fascinating. This morning I read interviews with Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates. I’m a bit ashamed that the only author besides Joan Didion that I’d read in any kind of recent past was P.L. Travers, whose most famous work is the Mary Poppins series - much darker than the movie, of course, and containing many books, all of which I read somewhat uncomprehendingly as a child. But I shamefacedly admit that I have not read anything by Toni Morrison, or Dorothy Parker, or Eudora Welty (aside from a few short stories in high school), or Maya Angelou, or Elizabeth Bishop, or Susan Sontag, or Joyce Carol Oates. My list is slowly growing.
It’s also interesting in the interviews to see the three authors that everyone cites as the best or most influential: Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf. I’ve read a book or two by each, but they merit more attention. Joan Didion actually said she was “paralyzed” by all the possibilities that James’ books presented to her.
I feel so young.
If you’re interested: my review of Persepolis.
I have an article up at Radiant about goals, living intentionally, and the new year.
Happy 2008!
My review of Youth Without Youth, Francis Ford Coppola’s latest, is up at WORLD.
I never mentioned how Monday’s program at the 92nd Street Y was. Robert Alter read from his new translation of the Psalms (quite a stunning one, too), as did Marilynne Robinson, who was there as a theologian and writer. There were a few musical settings of his translations as well as two of the Psalms in Hebrew. Between readings, Alter and Robinson commented on them, both as translations, as poetry, and as prayer. Alter sought to recapture the sound and alliteration of the Hebrew Psalms in a greater way than previous English translations such as the KJV have. To me, it sounded a lot like a combination of the raw, personal voice of Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message, but not as a paraphrase, and with a stronger emphasis on poetry. As he pointed out, this book is, in literary terms, an anthology of ancient Hebrew poetry.
Marilynne Robinson is phenomenally articulate - she speaks as she writes - and their observations on the nature of the Psalms both as sacred texts and as ancient poetry were valuable - particularly as Robinson commented on the difference between the polytheistic view of the individual and God’s/the gods’ interest in the individual and that of the Hebrews. (For instance, in most ancient religions, many natural phenomena such as wind, fire, and flood was attributed to disputes between the gods - but in the Psalms, it’s clear that this is something God himself produces, and while it’s fearsome, it’s celebrated.) I hope a recording was made of the talk. I know it was telecast to two Jewish congregations, one in New Jersey and one in Wichita, Kansas. (The 92nd Street Y, if you’re unaware, is actually a YMHA - Young Men’s Hillel Association - so though much of their programming is not overtly religious in nature, there’s a strong Jewish undercurrent.)
Tonight is my office Christmas party (all I can think about are Christmas parties from The Office), and then we’re heading to a screening of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, which I’m fabulously excited about: it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007, it’s Romanian, and it’s about illegal abortion at the end of the communist regime in Romania. Review forthcoming.
Also, we are seeing Sweeney Todd at midnight tomorrow night, because we are apparently nutty fans of slasher musicals and possibly only a little less insane than Sweeney himself. If I am awake at all on Friday, I’ll get my butt in gear and write a review as well.
Last night I carted two very heavy bags of Christmas presents that have been piling up in my office as the mail comes in, and locked myself in our tiny bathroom to wrap Tom’s presents. It was kind of acrobatic, and I very nearly had to stand on my head a few times to maneuver the paper properly, but it’s all good and now we have bags of wrapped gifts to bring to Albany.
I did make Tom open one of his presents early because it weighed about forty pounds. It was - what else? - the new Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace, which is lovely to look at. But I’m glad we don’t have to cart it up on the train.
Speaking of the train, we leave mid-morning on Saturday for Albany, to celebrate with my mom, my brother, a handful of aunts, uncles, and cousins, grandparents, and a healthy helping of Albany-based friends. We haven’t been home to visit since Sean graduated from high school in June, so this is very exciting. Also, they have snow. A white Christmas for the first time in a while.
My latest article is up at Comment!
I was asked to write about “Things I Love: Clothes”. This proved challenging, as I love great clothes, but I don’t usually buy them. But, the article took a turn that I liked.
I’m starting to get confused about what day it is. I feel like it’s just getting light when I come to work (it isn’t, the sky has just been very cloudy), and it’s already dark hours before I leave the office.
So, backing up, we saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly on Tuesday night at the Angelika. It was outstanding, a visually beautifully film, stirring, and still accessible. I wrote a review here. If it comes to your town, don’t miss it.
Which makes this as good a time as any to say that I’ll be writing a blog (not like the blog I keep here, but more of a free-form semi-weekly column) at the upcoming Conversant Life which launches in January. The blogging team they’ve assembled is a little staggering, and I’m completely honored to be included. So keep an eye out.
I seem to jinx myself every time I mention what we’re doing before we do it, but I’m going to risk it anyhow. We’ll be at the Bowery Poetry Club tonight for the CD release party of one of our favorite slam poets, Taylor Mali. Hopefully we’ll be seeing Juno tomorrow, and we have plans to be at the Sarah Lentz & (many very talented) Friends Christmas concert at 7pm, at St. Paul’s Church in Carroll Gardens on Saturday night. (Details on Facebook here.)
Also, it’s a good day when a check comes from a publisher and you stare at it for a while, trying to remember what it’s for.