January 11th, 2009
Credit
In the entry YouTube Revolution, I neglected to give credit to my brother, Ben, who introduced me to all the wonders that YouTube has to offer. He’s the one on the right:
Just live your life
RR
January 10th, 2009
On Diction
A tip: When something has gone catastrophically wrong in the life of a writer, do not offer the comfort that this turn of events will be “excellent material.” While the disaster in question may in fact someday be a topic for writing, that is a pretty tarnished silver lining when one has just lost their job, heart or luggage. I guess I can’t speak for everybody, but certainly, these things matter to me far more in and of themselves then for their potential as stories. If the adage “tragedy + time = comedy,” it’s a lot of time, even if the story won’t wind up being all that funny.
I find events and anecdotes to be the easiest part of writing, anyway. If you buy the “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration” theory of writing, the inspiration is for me is the idea, the thing the stories supposed to be about. And ideas are pretty thick on the ground, catastrophe or not, reality-based or not. Everything else, that 99% of sweat and struggle, is finding the words and structure and voice to show that idea on the page in some way ressembling how I see it and feel it in my head.
When I find something in real life that that seems like material, it’s usually not a thing that happened, but words: a way of saying things that’s new to me, or a new thing to say entirely. Vibrant writing, I think, comes from language in tune with who the characters are, their vocabulary and emotions, articulateness, vernacular: diction.
I like to go places where language is used differently from how I use it . No one at my doctor’s office would use the word “diction” but they might use the words “incidence,” “ameliorate,” “aggressive therapy,” “monitoring” or “gown” in a very different sense than I would normally encounter them, if I encountered them at all. This is why I can’t leave anyone alone who works in medical profession–sorry, guys!
Lately, I’m in love with yoga-diction, even though I’ve never been the biggest fan of yoga, nor very good, either, since flexible+clumsy+poor equilibrium=floppy. And I do not enjoy all the pressure to relax–tension is one of the core components of my personality, thank you.
Anyway!
In an intro yoga class, they mention the Sanskrit words for the postures, but genially and loosely translate them for the neophytes. I love this stuff–it’s direct quotes, near as I can reconstitute it: “Ok, now for Cow Face, first we’re going to form the lips of the cow with our crossed legs, like so…ok, great! And now, for the ears, let’s reach our right hands up into the sky…” There’s something you don’t hear elsewhere.
Yoga or any sort of organized physical training give me a chance to look at bodies and body parts with scrutiny that I don’t usually give them. “Make sure your ankle isn’t sickling,” “Look up at your biceps,” “Let’s tighten up those lower abdominal muscles,” “How close together can you get your shoulder blades?”
This stuff is strange and not very relevant to most action, but it’s useful to be able to see things from such a radically new angle (from the floor, with your legs in the air above you and your knees resting on your forehead). As a writer, words are all I have to work with, and I’m always in search of more, and more ways to use them.
Which is why I’m telling myself it’s gonna be fun to go to the passport office this week. Really! Who knows what they’ll *say*?
And now you’ve turned the other cheek
RR
January 9th, 2009
The YouTube Revolution…
is something that I’ve by and large missed. Mainly, I work on two computers: one on which I can’t stream video, and one on which I’ve gotten accidentally locked into a restrictive bandwidth contract (ah, me and the phone company: good times). So even if I actually remember to forward the cool link someone sent me to the computer that will allow me to watch it, I often forgo it if I’m close to my limit for the month and living in fear of incurring massive evil fines.
Such is my life.
*Anyway*, there a few things I do rely on YouTube for (isn’t it funny, by the way, that the name is based on the old picture tube, which is nearly archaic now in televisions, and certainly is in the computer-world). So I do know watching videos on the internet is great, although I only remember ever six months or so. It is great for the following things especially:
1) That thing everyone’s talking about! I can’t believe you missed it. No conversation will make any sense until you see this.
2) Overanalyzing music videos I saw incompletely at the gym and thought might have some hidden meaning. Also, occasionally, just videos I really like.
4) Happy Slip! A Filipino girl who lives in California who makes little mini-movies about her crazy family. She makes vids about other things too, soap opera parodies that I don’t get because I don’t watch soaps, and maybe other stuff too. I am content to watch the same three or four thingies over every six months, they’re that funny. I actually think she’s quite famous now, but I don’t know much about that because…I don’t really do YouTube. Really.
Take me with you / I start to miss you
RR
January 7th, 2009
On Alert
There is nothing like the vertigo you experience when someone says, “Hey, I read that thing about you,” and not only do you not know the thing they are referring to, the information is in some tiny way incorrect.
Most people will twitch violently if they see their name misspelled on *anything*, including a *TV Guide* subscription sticker–any representation of self ought to be as accurate as possible. Of course, that way lies madness–how long, exactly, are you willing to stay on hold with the *TV Guide* people? But one likes to at least keep track of what’s being said.
Hence the incredibly self-absorbed step of setting up a Google Alert for my own name–I just like to know. Mainly, the alerts contain my Rose-coloured posts, articles and reviews I would’ve heard about in other ways, and the occasional negative thing that no one wanted to mention to me. I also see the odd gem that I actually wouldn’t have seen sans alert. Love it!
A random bonus to the whole alert thing is that I set it up wrong, for only my last name rather than first-n-last, so I get notices when *any* Rosenblum does anything. I’m not innundated, there aren’t that many of us, but actually, I didn’t know about *any* of these folks before the Alerts, so it’s kind of fascinating and impressive to see what others are up to:
—Michael Rosenblum is an innovator in TV news.
—Mort Rosenblum is a journalist who wants to save the world.
—Matthew Rosenblum is a composor and professor of music
—Walter and Naomi Rosenblum are photographers
—Mary Rosenblum writes mysteries and science fiction novels.
—a whole bunch of Rosenblums make wine (I’d actually heard of those guys before–it’s a pretty respected winery, I’m told)
I’m not related to any of these folks, or at all familiar with their work, but it is nice to know that they are out there, doing the name proud.
I wonder if this post will turn up on *their* Google Alerts, and what they’ll think about that?
Except for the drilling in the wall
RR
That Terrible Point…
Either the draft is a) done, and I am merely toppling it into overdone incomprehensibility by continuing to pick at it for a few more days, or b) not done, and I am abandoning it to underdone incomprehensibility by not continuing to work on it for a few more days.
Oh. Look. It’s after ten–I’m going to bed!
Take me with you / I start to miss you
RR
January 6th, 2009
Happy-Go-Lucky
Ok, the reason I wanted to see Mike Leigh’s film, Happy-Go-Lucky, and the reason a number of people recommended it to me, is because it’s a film about a 30-year-old goofball who likes birds, bookshops, trampolines, bright patterned tights and hanging out with her friends. And I was amply rewarded on all those counts. But as it turned out, I loved the film because it is brilliant, genuine (much of the dialogue was improved), inspiring and true. Watching *Happy-Go-Lucky* made me hopeful for the world, as does the fact that such an ingenuous ingenius little film has received such incredible and universal acclaim.
See it see it see it.
Smile!
It’s all in your head
RR
January 5th, 2009
Resolving, finally
Arigatou gozaimasu.
Ah-ree-gah-toe go-zy-ee-mass
Thank you very much (if you take out the “gozaimasu”, it means the same thing, but more informally. There is no one in Japan that I am on informal terms with, however, so I’m not dwelling on that option too much.
In 2009, I have resolved to learn one word/phrase a week in Japanese, at least until I actually go there. I have no hope of learning grammatical constructions, and less of learning how to read any of their alphabets (they have three, apparently). The best I can hope for is enough nouns and polite expressions to stay out of trouble. We’ll see how it goes.
That’s my only Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely goal. Normally I make a lot of these (what? HR training courses can be used for good as well as evil), but my helpful friends have been particularly forthright lately in pointing out that many of my SMART goals are in fact, stupid (not an acronym). Maybe I could achieve them, but they say, to no particular purpose.
And then there are the things that are too important to make into resolutions, things that would frighten me to try to push into 2009 if in fact they turn out to feel like more 2010 type things. So I’m not resolving those either.
So far, the only goal other than the Japanese resolution that has received universal approval is one that meets none of the SMART criteria, which is to be braver. Obviously, this is something I need to work on (or I wouldn’t be so fretful about something as trivial as new year’s resolutions), but I have no idea how I’ll know when/if I get there.
Learn Japanese and be brave. Sure. No problem.
2009, you are a very daunting-looking year.
Say goodbye to grace and virtue
RR
Reading in the Bathroom
My short story, “The Words,” has a scene set about writing in a bathroom, and Kerry Clare has done the scene the honour of reading it aloud in a bathroom. Julie Wilson instigated and recorded the reading, and made it available for your listening pleasure. It’s pretty pitch-perfect, if you ask me!
And the public don’t mind
RR
January 4th, 2009
Team notes
I love it when everything I want to post about connects to a theme, and today’s theme is publishing as a team sport. You’ve heard about this from me before, but here’s some stuff from other people:
–at the Joyland Blog, Emily Schultz on “How I was Housebroken”. The piece is about learning to work with an editor. The article is so very wise and useful in urging writers towards the best-case scenario:
“Change can be scary, but presumably if you respect the publication you’ve sent your work to, it means you also respect the editor or editors.”
Any writer can learn and improve so much if they respect editors (good ones) as insightful professionals who know something about the writer’s work the writer herself doesn’t know: how it reads to someone who hasn’t spent several years living inside it. Emily shows beautifully how to make the most of that insightful person, without any sacrifice of art or ego. Really, it’s possible.
–Or then the worst-case scenario, in David Sipress’s cartoon. Everyone keeps pointing out that I’m so lucky this didn’t happen to me, and I know I am, but hell, if it’s typical even of the New Yorker set, it’s worth emphasizing.
–Which is why Michael Bryson’s review of *Once* at Underground Bookclub is so gratifying, because it not only mentions my work but the work of the team that helped make this book be what it is–
“It is extremely well-written (and edited and published). Cudos to all who had a hand in it. Many are waiting to see what you will come up with next.”
Go, team!
Bless your body / bless your soul / pray for peace / and self-control
RR
January 2nd, 2009
I win!
Yes! I have read The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories in its entirety: all the introductory materials, biographical and copyright notes, and every word of every story. Ask me anything; I’m full to bursting with Canadian short stories!
My relationship with this book is *intense*–I read it pretty steadily, if not quickly, for over a month, sprawling by a day into a second calendar year. The relationship is pretty physical, too; since my reading is done in myriad locales and often in transit, I’ve been carrying this book on my person quite a bit. Once it’s on you, you don’t forget about the PBCSS, for though the kitchen scale says it weights only two pounds, I suspect strongly that my kitchen scale is broken and it weighs six or seven.
Oh, it’s been epic, the affair of PBCSS and I: I ordered the first copy from the library, got curry on the pages, took it on a Via train, a Greyhound bus, several Go trains and busses, and more TTC subways, streetcards and busses than you can imagine. Then the library recalled the book, I ordered a new copy, got chocolate on the pages, got back on the trains and busses. To impress a writer I admire, I carried the anthology (and many other things) down 22 flights of stairs and across town. I read it in a bar, in bed and at my desk; I told everyone I was reading it (and no one cared). I used it to flatten wrinkles when I was to lazy to iron, to start a conversation and to end one.
And now I win, because I’ve read it all and I can STOP CARRYING IT AROUND.
Actually, I won by reading. I have no regrets–the PBCSS is not pure pleasure, but the vast majority of the stories contained therein *are* pleasures, and I really enjoyed reading them, even when my wrists were throbbing from holding the damn thing upright.
It’s not that I disagree with my comrades at the Salon des Refuses: it is deeply dismaying that so many brilliant story artists have been left out of the collection, and that they are so many of them stylistic innovators speaks of unhelpful blinkering. It was in fact only my reading of the Salon issues of *The New Quarterly* and *Canadian Notes and Queries* that made me want to read the PBCSS. Reading 20 brilliant and wildly different stories back to back, with appreciations and background notes was such a joyful education that I thought maybe I should think more about anthologies (which I hadn’t really thought about at all outside of school).
I read (I think) everything that was published about the Salon, almost always agreed with the agitators without anything interesting to add, got interviewed more than once without anything interesting to say (someday those tapes will surface), and finally I read the damn PBCSS. When I did, I was thrilled by the stories, but my feelings were truly hurt, and hurt on behalf of my heroes and mentors in the world of short stories, by some of the editorial comments. That this anthology was trying to “open up and make more interesting the definition of the short story” by calling memoir and novel fragments into the fold, rather than by paying homage to the artistry and innovation of people were actually working in the form made my hair puff up. But that’s already been discussed, many times in many places.
I did come up with some criticisms of my own that no one else mentioned, maybe because they are not interesting. Nevertheless, I’ll share them:
–who decided not to date the stories? and to put the bio notes at the end, in story order, *separate from* the copyright notes, which are then in alphabetical order? Call me crazy, but I care who the people are wrote these stories, when and where they were writing, and at what point in their careers these pieces were published! The bio notes also seemed not to have been proofread (the main text of the book was fine)–a weird oversight–there were actually a couple lines missing at the bottom of pages.
–why is there more than one piece by several authors? no explanation is offered, and while with Alice Munro none is needed, the others are…really random.
–how, I wonder, do Munro, Mavis Gallant and Merna Summers feel about being the only three of our “literary mothers and fathers” in the book’s last section who aren’t dead?
–alarming that the anthologist would suggest that short story writers are “singing in pure voice simply because they feel there is a need for music, a need for song.” You show me a writer of *anything* who doesn’t feel he or she has something to say, and I’ll show you someone who should get out of the business.
–Only *one* section of the book is introduced as containing stories that leave readers with “[o]ur view of the world altered, darkened or enlarged; certain faiths have been strengthened, others have been shaken loose…[and feeling that] something else, equally arresting and believable, is more than likely going to happen very soon.” What, one wonders, are all the other stories trying to do?
These are, I think, real issues, yet they won’t really matter to the average college English student, book-group member, auto-didact storyphile, who will look at the stories that have been recommended or assigned, read and delight, and then maybe read the next story and delight in that also.
Because, despite some questionable curation and a few duds, the vast majority of these stories are very very good!! Many I’d read before, but it’d been too long and I was thrilled to see “Gypsy Art” and “Joe in the Afterlife” and “The Lonely Goatherd” again, and so very many others. And there were so many to me *new* stories in this collection, “Vision” and “The Friend” and “Catechism.” It was such a joy to go from strength to strength like this, to find the stories lighting each other up. “And the Children Shall Rise”!! “Horses of the Night”!!
The reason, I think, that it’s so shocking that certain stories are included in the PBCSS for reasons of PCness or quirkyness and not quality is that *most* of them *were* chosen for quality, and the juxtoposition is jarring. Adrienne Poy’s “Ring Around October” is tepid, but hardly appalling, until you place it next to Caroline Adderson’s brilliant “And the Children Shall Rise.” Then you see a problem.
Despite its many flaws, despite the fact that I’m upset by some of the suppositions that the editorial notes make, I feel that most of the stories themselves succeed in what should have been the book’s goal: the glorification of innovative, intelligent, artful, heartful, tightly controlled and deeply resonant short story writing in Canada. I’m happy to be a tiny part of that project, and I look forward to the next, better, more comprehensive and respectful anthology that will come next from Canada’s wealth of talent. I hope the bruise on my hip from carrying this one in my bag will have healed by that point.
The starmaker says it’s not so bad
RR
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