Inspire Bohemia: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Haunted By My Failure - Fiction Month

The Story I Heard - Blind Pilot (mp3)
Dial - School of Seven Bells (mp3)

The title of the first story I remember writing was called "100 Leprechauns." I think it was first grade. This group of 100 leprechauns took count of their group before they left the house in the morning, and they took count again before they went home at night. One day, they only counted 99. The group searched and searched only to find out they had counted incorrectly.

I stole from church. The story of the lost sheep. I mixed in a little bit of my love of Lucky Charms, and for my dramatic climax, I took a lesson I'd learned from my dad about checking your work, something I'd continue to struggle with for at least the next 35 years.

Pretty much every bit of the story was cribbed in one way or another, but it was mildly amusing, and for my age it was quite a snappy piece of writing. So it got an A+ and was posted on the wall outside the classroom door, all by itself, for a whole entire week.

That's all it took, really, for me to keep writing the rest of my life. Who knows how our lives might diverge with the slightest of changes? If she had given me an F on that paper, would I have kept writing? Maybe. Probably. Who knows?

I'm a decent writer. Sometimes I'm quite good. Once in a while, I'm downright awesome. Essays, letters, poems, newspaper columns, bulletin board debates.

My whole life, the only genre of creative writing where I feel I have failed, consistently and repeatedly, is in writing fiction. Short fiction ends up lacking bite or confidence. Long fiction never quite gets finished and rarely even gets remotely close to even a halfway point. Part of me panics, as if every day I wake up means one more day of potential kick-ass fiction writing gone.

But y'know what? Raymond Chandler was over 50 when he published The Big Sleep. Richard Adams gave birth to Watership Down when he was 52. Annie Proulx was 57 when Postcards hit the stage. Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't even start her damn Little House series until she was over 60. I find just enough comfort in this not to panic.

This blog was, for me, in many ways, borne to maintain and hopefully improve my writing chops while building up my consistency, an ability to write and keep writing week after week, even when the ideas dipped or faded.

We're 42 months in, and the Bottom of the Glass still hasn't quite hit the bottom. You are reading BOTG Entry #886. Not bad.

But lately we haven't had many comments. Some of our once-loyal readers have become too busy and burdened with life to stop by and read as often, and I totally understand. Feelings aren't hurt, but it's always a little sad to go week after week with a mere handful of comments.

So, I'm taking advantage of this commentary dip to flex my emaciated fiction muscles. I'm going to work on the I Don't Know If This Is A Short Story Or A Novella Or Something Even Bigger project I started last year. I'm going to go all Dickens on it and post a chunk of it at a time. I can't promise it will end with any kind of finality at all. It probably won't. But something about this particular project continues to swim around my head and haunt me, so it's time I give it a little of my attention.

Feel free to offer advice, suggestions or even harsh critiques if you feel so moved. Otherwise, I'll return with something goofy or opinionated to say in October.

Peace.

Beautiful Bedrooms Part IV

Hi there!

Between part-time work, college classes and lots of reading and writing due each Monday, Wednesday and Friday for my Gender and Race class I seem to be dragging a bit on the blogging as I make the transition - sorry folks! I need to churn out a bunch of in-the-works posts, like a garden update - and it'll mostly be full of plant deaths and tragedies! Yeah, all the rain and humidity here in Miami during the last month or two has done a number on a lot of my beloved succulents and cacti... So yes, I've gotta get working on that post, as well as several others. In the meantime I hope you're all doing well and that you enjoy this post!

Beautiful Bedrooms Part I
Beautiful Bedrooms Part II
Beautiful Bedrooms Part III a.k.a. Turquoise Heaven!

(All images sourced via Pinterest)

Monday, August 29, 2011

Billy Versus Studface

Needle Hits E - Sugar (mp3)
Ordinary Average Guy - Joe Walsh (mp3)

I was going to write about Japan. I was going to write about three separate events from this past weekend that reminded me of the best and most positive features of Japanese culture.

I was going to write about my daughter’s new friend who stayed the night on Saturday, and about how her mother is Japanese, and how she went to church with us on Sunday and never once mentioned to my wife or I that she was Buddhist, and never once looked anything but comfortable and normal in the middle of an hour-long church service.

I was going to write about my love of Ninja Warrior marathons when I’m hung over from Brewfest, about how the Japanese culture glorifies strength not as some beefcakey statement, but as one part of many valued physical qualities including endurance and balance. I was going to say I love that game show because it’s a very Eastern notion of competition where all competitors are against the obstacle course rather than one another. Only in Japan could a game show end several seasons without a winner, with the winner being the obstacle course itself, because no one could manage to conquer it.

I was going to write about how moved I was by the Japanese team in the finals of the Little League World Series. About how every time a Japanese player struck out, he bowed before leaving the batter’s box. About how the kids, after losing in the bottom of the last inning, quickly lined up and patiently waited as the American team celebrated. About how the kids bawled and were every bit as emotional as American players would be, and how their coach was so comforting and treated them as kids, not as cogs like we might have been conditioned to think their coach might act. I was going to write about how they were the absolute paragon of sportsmanship and class, and how we could learn so very much from their behavior in this game as well as in the Women’s World Cup.

But I’m not going to write about any of that.

Instead, I’m going to write about Studface.

Last night, I stopped for wings and a beer before a parent-teacher conference, because all responsible parents should buzz themselves a little before meeting his daughter’s teachers. Sitting in the outside section of this restaurant were a group of young adults in their mid-20s. The woman at the end of the table was a punk harlequin. Her hair was a mishmash of blonde and pink. At least three-quarters of her visible flesh was distastefully bathed in tattoos. But the real game changer was her face.

Her face made her look like some first-run experiment by Skynet before they figured out how to perfect the human flesh and metallic interior. Her name could have been Bride of Pinhead.

In addition to one big honkin’ nose stud and some kind of bull ring in her septum, she had no fewer than -- and I’m not exaggerating -- 20 silver studs poking out of all corners of her face. She had so much metal on her facade that, had she been walking down the street on a sunny day, the reflection from her could have caused innumerable wrecks.

Everything we do, as human beings, is about communication. I believe this to my core. You don’t have to speak Sanskrit to know precisely what this woman was communicating to her human environment: F*** Conformity and F*** Normality.

I might not be the president of the conformity club, but I’m a member, and I pay my dues. I have the 2.4 children, the salaried job at an esteemed educational institution, the loyal devoted wife, the dogs, the long driveway, and the 2.9 Bibles on bookshelves throughout my house. Any attempts I make, with blogs and the like, to seem less than conformist are feeble and middling at best.

So, as I walked past her, I sort of squinted with a mix of disbelief and bemusement at her face, the same kind of look I would give any strange statement of postmodern art, living or inanimate. She saw me gawking and immediately shot back the look of “WTF are you looking at, loser?”

I don’t generally stare at people. It’s rude. No matter if it’s a gorgeous woman or a circus freak, I try my best not to be so blatant with my observations, especially when sober. So I sheepishly shrugged my shoulders and held up the “oops! no offense!” hands of defense while quickly heading inside.

As I got inside and sat down, the insta-guilt faded and I got annoyed.

What, exactly, about my reaction surprised this freakish museum piece? Her face, a face that could be robbed and sold at high cost for parts, was for all intents and purposes flipping me off. Her face was built to offend, to disturb, to bother. My indifference would surely be far more insulting than my disgust.

And that’s the disconnect I mull. I gave her precisely the reaction she should have wanted, the kind of response that should have made her smile, her having successfully penetrated the delicate sensibilities of a lemming. But instead she was offended.

I can't figure it. But I bet a Japanese person would have handled it better.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Goodbye, Beef!

Red Robot--"My Last Home" (mp3)

I guess I needed a movie. I guess I had to see it.

For the last ten days I have gone beefless--no hamburgers, no spaghetti sauce, no roast beef sub at Ankars, no reuben sandwich, no Chicago hot dog, no steak or brisket. Last night at the Southern Brewers Festival, as my friend stopped at the "authentic" Philadelphia cheesesteak booth, I kept going and bought a piece of cheese pizza instead. When he cut off a piece of his cheesesteak and put it on my plate, I told him I'd eaten a late lunch and gave it back to him.

People don't like when you give up things that they like to eat or drink, that you have shared together, so I've kept silent. This is my coming out.

And, yes, it took a movie. The movie is called Home. You can watch it on YouTube:

The movie is pretty basic, and both beautiful and terrifying in its simplicity. Using only aerial photography and a usually-understated Glenn Close-voiced narrative, the movie shows the world and man's impact on it. It makes a compelling case for the interconnectedness of all aspects of nature from the beginning of the Earth and then begins to document the ways that our habits and behaviors have disrupted that balance, particularly in the last 50 years or so. If you are not already disgusted by the concept of Dubai, it will make you so.

Much of the film deals with energy and how much energy is now required to accomplish certain accepted practices like raising massive amounts of grain-fed cattle to provide beef for the world. And that's where you see forests, rainforests to be specific, being cleared out so that soybeans and grains can be planted to fatten cows quickly and in ways that are counter to cows' natural diets. When I finally focused on how much energy, how much water, how much fossil fuel, how much space is consumed, I got it.

I guess you never know what will shut you down. The "killing animals for food is wrong" argument hasn't ever touched me all that much, at least not yet. Our species is carnivorous by tradition, and probably by nature. Or at least, like Lewis and Clark, we eat what is available at the time and in the place, so maybe more omnivorous. I also know that my family having four cars for four people is excessive and extravagant, but that's one I expect we will figure out soon. But participating in the overt destruction of the world in order to get a cheap, easily available hamburger, well, that shut me down. When I saw the images, I realized that I just don't need it.

NOTE: the "Out" (there's always an Out) is grass-fed beef. Rainforests are not being compromised to raise these cows.

Most days when I drive around this city, I am hyper-conscious of the dwindling resources we are consuming anyway. Maybe it's because we spent our summer of construction dumping all kinds of waste in a dumpster without really knowing or caring where it went. Maybe it's because I see my neighbors and my school watering grass when I know that water in the world is running out. Maybe it's because sometimes a grocery store feels like the silliest place in the world with its myriad of choice and the incredible amount of waste from spoiled, unpurchased goods that is factored into its existence. Maybe it's because the air conditioning doesn't work in my car, and so I sit in lines of vehicles putting out massive heat while I swelter in my own, and I realize what an incredible luxury cold air is.

We are, of course, part, the main part, of that 20% of the world's population that consumes 80% of the world's resources. And while I'm not the type to be consumed with guilt about this, I have fully begun to expect the reckoning(s) that have to come. So I suppose this small "sacrifice" of giving up beef has been coming. Is it a first step? I don't know. Where it will lead, I'm not sure.

But please understand that I'm not preaching, not yet, and I'm not judging. I'm just telling you about a baby, baby, baby step that I've taken and how it came about in a privileged, wireless access kind of way that most people in the world don't have the opportunity to experience. I'm not glorying in it; in fact, I feel kind of silly even talking about it.

But do watch the movie and see what you think.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Window Seat

Hello hello...

I meant to post yesterday but when I tell you that it's only the first week of classes and I've got tons of reading cut out for me I am NOT joking! Sociology courses entail a lot of reading (and writing), a lot of it can be bang-your-head-against-a-wall type stuff, but for the most part I really love it!

Anyway, with all this reading to be done I really wish I had a bright and sunny window seat to plop down on and focus... It's with that thought in mind that I got inspired to do this post! Whether you already have a gorgeous window seat, long for one or have a lackluster one, this post is great inspiration for you. If only we all had a home with architecture that provides a built-in window seat, but hey - we can dream... Or, we can get inspired to build our own or even create the feeling of one with any chair, bench or perhaps chaise lounge paired with some plush pillows, a throw and ceramic stool or side table to rest your books and a snack on. All it takes is a little inspiration and imagination... I really wish I had an appropriate window to work with but I don't, so I'm sending my creative vibes your way!

Have a wonderful day and good luck to those of you in the path of Hurricane Irene... Here in Miami we feel quite lucky to have dodged the bullet, so to speak, because usually we get hit head-on! Although, you never know, the path of the hurricane could dramatically shift... we'll just have to wait and see. Either way, the weather here is still nasty-o! Take care, be safe and be prepared for the worst because you never know right? Better safe than sorry.

(First image via Source: prettystuff.tumblr.com via Blueprint on Pinterest)