tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17014650380627862532024-03-13T03:03:59.271-07:00The FictatorWelcome to the fictatorship.Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.comBlogger583125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-28291862797116808872024-01-06T13:05:00.000-08:002024-01-06T13:05:10.162-08:00My Peculiar Monstrosities<p>Something I learned in 2023, like really seriously learned it, was to slow down. My father said to me so many times when he was teaching me to drive, "Don't get in a hurry." This phrasing stuck in my head and repeated itself to me again and again when I was in Norway and Sweden in September. Writer/editor me would revise him to "don't hurry" or "don't rush it", but "don't get in a hurry" expresses the heart of the advice in a way the revisions don't. <i>Get in</i> a hurry. <i>In a hurry </i>as a state of being, rather than <i>hurry</i> as a verb. Don't get there. Stay out of <i>a hurry</i>. </p><p>I kept trying to rush to and from places, rush experiences, in Sweden and Norway, and the experiences kept going wrong. When I slowed down it was fine. Where I live, I sometimes try to take driving shortcuts when I'm behind, and I wind up being later than I would've been if I'd just gone the normal way. The more I get in a hurry, the worse things go. </p><p>I don't know what this has to do with the rest of the post, but it came up as I was writing about Twitter, and doesn't feel like it belongs somewhere else, so in it goes. </p><p><br /></p><p>Lately the films I've been watching are often extreme. I know why - it's self-flagellation, and it doesn't speak well of my mental health, even if it's a better coping strategy than others I'm aware of - but that's not keeping it from happening. </p><p>One direction I considered for this post was writing about <i>Night and Fog</i>, Alain Resnais's half-hour exploration of the concentration camps, blending footage from the 1950s with archival footage that you know exactly what it looks like. (That fucking bulldozer shot.) Having researched WWII on and off for the past...two years? something like that? I knew that some of what was said in voiceover was embellished, if not flat-out untrue. I don't know why, because who the hell needs to embellish what happened at Auschwitz, but I'm sure of it. And I realized as I was listening to the VO and comparing it to what I knew to be true that Resnais had made a propaganda film. In this case the propaganda is for the right side, so it's not objectionable per se, but that's still what it is. </p><p>Another direction is to write about <i>All Quiet on the Western Front</i>, the 2022 version, which I adored even if it was challenging to watch. (If that's a propaganda film, it pushes for full historical contextualizing and to stop shoving children in front of cannons, which are political messages I can get behind.) The main thing I thought about while watching was how world cinema of the 21st century keeps proving that Hollywood has totally lost its way. Not only do we actively discourage the avant-garde in American filmmaking - as we always have - we keep making worse, longer films and elevating filmmakers who focus on narrative/characterization and totally drop the ball on visuals. </p><p>A third direction is to talk about how my book is going. I'm in a strange place. I've written over half of it, and have gotten stuck in a spot where I have to 1) romanticize a character I don't like 2) retcon and fit events into an existing narrative framework, which I thought would be fun, but currently isn't 3) figure out my main character's reactions after she does bad or iffy things 4) write the setting of Paris, which I've only visited once, twenty years ago. A few scenes have been emerging from my pen, but it's a little like gaining ground in a car stuck in the snow - a few inches here, rock back, a few inches there, rock forward. So I went back to the beginning and reread the first 80 pages to start working on the major changes I'm going to have to make (redoing a bunch of conversations, changing the writing style altogether in some parts, altering the main character's age from high school to college). That process was demoralizing enough that after taking notes, I got stuck again on the point of actually doing the revisions. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrT3jqNRXdEeYipHSv7Z_rMIK5XER34lOGSufwUgMVdZLYXRA9cmw3L9me2gVR7cXiiD2uC_4vYB5WlXlrFPrlXZNlRafN-ErRQvQ-7j0ADSN7_hyphenhyphenOPVXfLOHXfS2-FlTul7WMkpMx7erXl-0pQ7__2GJbyx0aplrCP3ODHqqP2uy3rXXbkfFSZXSHxOfR/s828/t6p70u1tnrj71.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="828" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrT3jqNRXdEeYipHSv7Z_rMIK5XER34lOGSufwUgMVdZLYXRA9cmw3L9me2gVR7cXiiD2uC_4vYB5WlXlrFPrlXZNlRafN-ErRQvQ-7j0ADSN7_hyphenhyphenOPVXfLOHXfS2-FlTul7WMkpMx7erXl-0pQ7__2GJbyx0aplrCP3ODHqqP2uy3rXXbkfFSZXSHxOfR/s320/t6p70u1tnrj71.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I wrote a paragraph on each of these directions rather than going on at greater length on any one of them because I'm considering trying to write something like my peers are writing, a Substackish thing. I think the field is much too crowded for me to enter it the same way my peers are, and I'd have to force myself to write on a regular basis rather than here and there when something comes up. But not being on Twitter means I'm not recording my thoughts on film and the writing process as often as I used to. (Which is good? Fewer opinions on Twitter = a better world?) I was not a wholly unpopular tweeter, so maybe I could grow the audience for my books if I expanded in another place on what I might have tweeted. I'd likely choose Medium if I was doing this. And I opened up a window there this morning with the intention of writing a full post about <i>Night and Fog</i> and propaganda. But again, the field is crowded, and the truth about me as a writer is that I don't want to sharpen my elbows. I just want to do my thing. </p><p>I gained a lot of confidence from staying off Twitter for the past six weeks. I gained a lot of peace. I missed my online friends - I missed their wit, and I missed the reinforcement that I am not alone in my peculiar monstrosities. I missed all the opportunity that grows in that place. It's - this word truly is not an exaggeration - wrenching having to decide between on and off Twitter, and the middle ground of "sometimes" has always been a hard space for me. (And "sometimes" does nothing for literary promotion.) </p><p>I don't know where I'm going. I know I'm not going there <i>in a hurry</i>, or that if I am, I shouldn't be. Twitter is nothing if not fast, so perhaps it's better out of my life, promo be damned. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-44187307485817883192023-12-18T13:37:00.000-08:002023-12-18T13:37:35.794-08:00Is There a Chance the Track Could Bend? <p>Migraine is bad today, and I'm feeling vulnerable and foggy but also have the desire to create. </p><p>--</p><p>I've been thinking a lot about how my "<a href="https://quotefancy.com/quote/2465443/Cheryl-Strayed-Don-t-lament-so-much-about-how-your-career-is-going-to-turn-out-You-don-t" target="_blank">career</a>" as a writer has developed in the last three years, since <i>Ceremonials</i> was published. Part of this thought was inspired by the Cait Corrain fiasco, which I feel really sad about but have no useful opinions on. Well, no, my sole opinion is that Goodreads has too much influence on major publishing and editors need to stop using it to make decisions, but that leads me back to the main thing I've been thinking for the past eight months: I'm really glad I haven't landed a deal with a major publisher. </p><p>It was all I wanted for a dozen years, all I was writing toward. I perceived a book deal with a real advance and lawyers and a publicity team and all that as a bunch of things at once: a stamp of approval from people who know what they're doing; access to a whole solar system of opportunities that I could never get on my own; and an invitation onto a specific monorail car. That car would take me up the same track as a jillion other writers and all I'd have to do would be to ride, rather than - as indie authors must - be the train conductor, the architect, the security officer, the repairman, the ticket-taker, and the rider, all at once. I wanted to be at ease on the journey rather than be Vishnu. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1mN7H0h6TkLfwS1Do-2Rc0Jr88cjed6gf3n7GmNEyfkldmpx19ru0eCQy25aj0S_OJnHQYKD9xhRan4DUI0ZxMHkJuI7XM36PD35Zjb7mqTSXMy4zOMXujIOFF-VAAYsa3KeJ2MDEUmJiRnYV6nOihcgnQFpu-dFiXcD4WUOpYDfxwDFvOWJ989vSEoN/s779/main-qimg-0c9d81b9afbc22043aa74f3503924591-lq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="779" data-original-width="602" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib1mN7H0h6TkLfwS1Do-2Rc0Jr88cjed6gf3n7GmNEyfkldmpx19ru0eCQy25aj0S_OJnHQYKD9xhRan4DUI0ZxMHkJuI7XM36PD35Zjb7mqTSXMy4zOMXujIOFF-VAAYsa3KeJ2MDEUmJiRnYV6nOihcgnQFpu-dFiXcD4WUOpYDfxwDFvOWJ989vSEoN/w309-h400/main-qimg-0c9d81b9afbc22043aa74f3503924591-lq.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Yes, Vishnu on a monorail, just work with me here</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I want to emphasize that I wanted this, a Big Five book deal, <i>very badly</i>. I cried about it. I screamed about it. I felt jealousy so hot it left ash in my mouth. Then I hung around the edges of the book world for a few years, with the intent of learning more about how to get what I wanted, and what I observed changed my mind almost completely. </p><p>Watching (from distances ranging from very close up to very far away) dozens of other people take this ride, I am so glad I'm on a different train. By riding passively, they have learned a lot less about where they're going and how the monorail works. They are locked into one experience; changing trains is almost impossible. Whoever is conducting the train takes riders into whatever neighborhoods the conductor needs to go, rather than what the rider wants to see. Sometimes you're riding in comfort and you get booted off the monorail for no discernable reason, and you have to walk all the way home. </p><p>I didn't know any of this when I was yearning for that agent-contract-advance cha-cha. I learned a lot about the publishing industry and how it grinds up debut authors while I was a freelance critic, but I also watched a number of colleagues from my debut year go from hopeful and lucky to stuck and lost. Or just disappear. Because the rewards of publishing are great, but the disappointments can be greater, especially if you aren't emotionally prepared. </p><p>Putting something into the world that you have created, but not healthily disconnected from, can be wrenching rather than joyful. (Ask any parent.) It can make you never want to do it again. If you can't maintain reasonable expectations, if you don't have someone telling you to calm down it's just a book there are hundreds every year, the process can turn you into a monster. I watched it happen in slow motion over Facebook with an acquaintance a couple of years ago. She forgot that it was about the writing. It's gotta always be about the writing. She hasn't published anything since. </p><p>All that said, I wouldn't mind getting a big advance and a splashy marketing campaign for which I only have to show up, rather than create my own graphics, print my own postcards, arrange my own interviews, etc. One of my books that's out on submission, I'd like a large deal, please and thanks. But the cost of such money and idyll is significant, and I can never lose sight of that. </p><p>--</p><p>On the book I've been researching and working on for about two years (not counting when I actually started it, which was 6+ years ago), I've now written 60,000 words, most of them in the past six weeks. I think I'm about 2/3 through the draft, but it might be closer to 5/8. The book uses <i>Casablanca</i> as a jumping-off point (forgive me if you're hearing this for the 80th time). That movie takes place in December 1941 and I started the story in 1935. Now it's 1939, and although I've seeded in many aspects of the movie, I've finally gotten to a place where I need to weave the movie's story more directly into the book's story. That's exciting, but it's also briefly stalled me out with <i>how</i>. </p><p>I keep thinking about <i>Wide Sargasso Sea</i> and how angled and obscure it is, and how little I liked that quality when I read the book. (One of my secrets is how confusing I find Jean Rhys, because she's a writer's writer that a lot of folks speak of in reverent tones. I read two of her books and floundered through both.) I keep thinking about Alexandra Ripley's <i>Scarlett</i> and how much I enjoyed it despite it being critically trounced. I keep thinking about all the Pride & Prejudice Universe books (<i>Mr. Darcy's Daughters</i> et al) and how yes I like them, but stylistically they stick to the script. </p><p>Among these choices, I'm not sure what kind of book I'm writing. I had a big dramatic conversation with Matt about this a few weeks ago, because I'm afraid I'm writing a commercial novel with transparent prose (<i>Scarlett</i>) rather than a literary novel with lyrical sentences (<i>Sargasso</i>). The former wouldn't be bad (and I've written work like it that I'm proud of), but it doesn't last beyond a few years. Then I get to thinking about whether I care if I have a legacy as a writer, whether it matters to me to be read after I'm gone or whether I want to be a perfectly fine contemporary writer who's suitably forgotten, and I don't know the answer to that. Not that I can really control it, who can control their legacy?, but I can decide what kind of book I want to write now, and that choice will ripple into the future. </p><p>Ultimately the answer to this dramatic conversation was predictable: write the book the way the book comes out of your head and don't worry about your future. That's the advice I give to everybody and I'm usually able to give it to myself. This book has been so immersive and so challenging, and I've been so full of anxiety about whether I'm writing a book that belongs to me or not, that I forgot it temporarily. </p><p>Anyway, now that Ilsa has moved to Paris and she's about to meet Rick, after I established so much about who she is and how she acts and what she wants, do I go impressionistic on the parts that were already laid down by Warner Bros in 1942? Or do I tell it from her POV as meticulously as I've told the story up to now? I started with the latter, but I'm pretty sure that day's work is bad for other reasons so I want to throw it out and start over anyway. </p><p>--</p><p>We announced officially that I'm leaving XRAY in February. I learned a lot there, but it's time for me to go. Among a bunch of reasons, it was too much to promote <i>Junk Film</i>, write steadily, and also keep up with XRAY responsibilities. In fact it's still too much, right now, to do everything on my plate as a writer and still do XRAY, and I'm behind on stuff for it and Barrelhouse and my regular fucking life. Next year I've got at least one book coming out and possibly two (the <i>Poltergeist </i>anthology is the other) and I had to give myself more room. </p><p>I know it's the migraine talking, but I really hope 2024 is better than 2023. I had a good year in a number of visible ways, blessings I do definitely count, but emotionally, internally, it was an extraordinarily difficult period. I'd like to spend less money and be in less pain, all around. And I didn't do a lot to uplift other writers this year compared to previous years, so I'd like to do better at that. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXhrs-oBbWErXo70u-XvTt3s95CM00cMXncAKkx8c97MzfAFxdvQwIi92i3b_qR03c8L7tlJZnWQgifbyuQP4ulTMWgpuOuhjz1cEyaYIN9wW8Wp7v6kCn9TnAy4AwfpS8YuHijPEmsGkOgv8R3B8rV84hKjZwuvByfXgCItW2rpZqIX_LSa3yZVIM2LA/s286/derkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="222" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqXhrs-oBbWErXo70u-XvTt3s95CM00cMXncAKkx8c97MzfAFxdvQwIi92i3b_qR03c8L7tlJZnWQgifbyuQP4ulTMWgpuOuhjz1cEyaYIN9wW8Wp7v6kCn9TnAy4AwfpS8YuHijPEmsGkOgv8R3B8rV84hKjZwuvByfXgCItW2rpZqIX_LSa3yZVIM2LA/s1600/derkins.jpg" width="222" /></a></div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-68111367992746695672023-09-06T13:16:00.001-07:002023-09-06T13:16:19.628-07:00Spite Is a Shallow Well<p>I write this from Portland, Oregon, where the majority of my writing community lives. I was here for a trio of excellent events: a concert, a film screening, and a conversation at Powell's. Luck that the first two were 24 hours apart; guided luck that the third occurred soon after. </p><p>The conversation was between me and <a href="https://shawnlevy.com/" target="_blank">Shawn Levy</a>, a fairly eminent biographer of famous actors who happens to be in my Portland friend group. (Not the Canadian director of the same name.) He was fresh from the clusterfuck of Burning Man 2023, but we had a good conversation nonetheless. I sold and signed a bunch of books and gave away a bunch of handmade chapbooks. Folks asked engaged questions and I had fun. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAQiQBqM3N2JCTEF6sVKP2DPmlHL0g0nbRAVh-3cMoy3pcWNol_Qs-ZeXnAMPx6Vy2pSBDmUQA_3x1RzX4l-kVXqludPrhmu3TW3zqr-5s7iHymcIv5oexHB67GLTRUsaGXPWNCI0rbsjjX1ZYnnCShwalTI1Gak6bgu9UyYe7_tTaHMmKf99qPxux2gvl/s3453/IMG_6701.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3453" data-original-width="2867" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAQiQBqM3N2JCTEF6sVKP2DPmlHL0g0nbRAVh-3cMoy3pcWNol_Qs-ZeXnAMPx6Vy2pSBDmUQA_3x1RzX4l-kVXqludPrhmu3TW3zqr-5s7iHymcIv5oexHB67GLTRUsaGXPWNCI0rbsjjX1ZYnnCShwalTI1Gak6bgu9UyYe7_tTaHMmKf99qPxux2gvl/s320/IMG_6701.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p>To promote this event, a local TV station in Portland interviewed me. That clip is <a href="https://katu.com/amnw/am-northwest-books-authors/junk-film-why-bad-movies-matter-author-katharine-coldiron#" target="_blank">here</a>. I thought the segment was happening because of Shawn, so the fact that they never mentioned him surprised me and stroked my ego quite tenderly. I don't know if it brought anyone in to Powell's for the event, but it did notch up the markers of eminence I can claim as a writer: sold books to strangers, was recognized by reputation during group reading event, appeared on TV to promote book. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjanPVZz6GamuR06kZ_SHKUEdqyC0cuyDmZwRRM456vtLx25COQb-BdljJndKCJvEihelYcYCNbnpSDsFSESd3QFCzdzx49X_FMw6l_SiPMaJPYsjeBo4FFuyntG55VDG_grhPpZz6rGBJ8JHU3tN1B0GmOxU3C3bV_cFAop9zdo5TWGjphlrQCvN7oKNgW/s726/chyron.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="726" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjanPVZz6GamuR06kZ_SHKUEdqyC0cuyDmZwRRM456vtLx25COQb-BdljJndKCJvEihelYcYCNbnpSDsFSESd3QFCzdzx49X_FMw6l_SiPMaJPYsjeBo4FFuyntG55VDG_grhPpZz6rGBJ8JHU3tN1B0GmOxU3C3bV_cFAop9zdo5TWGjphlrQCvN7oKNgW/w400-h225/chyron.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>And it was part of the general cascade of good news that has drenched me since the release of <i>Junk Film</i>. It's continuing to discover new readers and (important distinction) new corners of readership. I feel happiness about this, but I also feel a particular emotion that surely has a German word attached to it: the fulfillment of spite. </p><p>I <a href="https://fictator.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-end-of-line.html">wrote previously</a> about reaching the end of the line on a book of essays (although I haven't, in fact; it's out again to two more presses), and mentioned that I did reach that point on <i>JF</i>. The rejections I got for it weren't as numerous as for <i>Ceremonials</i> and the essay collection - not even in the same neighborhood - but they were painful anyway because I homed in on suitable presses so carefully. And yes, I'm still obsessing over the agent rejection I got in 2021, the person who told me a big press wouldn't take the book. Perhaps they wouldn't've, but this book has proven it has an audience, and the money being made by Castle Bridge and by me - she could've had a piece of that. </p><p>Agents always gamble, in rejecting as well as accepting; it's the nature of the job. She was always going to be the wrong agent for the book if she couldn't see its potential. These are the <i>reasonable</i> reactions to how events have unfolded. The unreasonable reaction is</p><p></p><div class="tenor-gif-embed" data-aspect-ratio="1" data-postid="17946524" data-share-method="host" data-width="50%" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://tenor.com/view/emoji-middle-finger-funny-as-hell-laughing-hysterically-laughing-gif-17946524">Emoji Middle Finger GIF</a>from <a href="https://tenor.com/search/emoji-gifs">Emoji GIFs</a></div> <script async="" src="https://tenor.com/embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br /><p></p><p>(couldn't get Blogger to center this!) and that is increasingly how I'm feeling about it, as I get incredible, unexpected emails from people who want to work with me or the book goes through cycles of selling copies on Amazon every time I appear on a podcast. <i>You coulda had a bad bitch.</i> Maybe at some point I'll grow up enough to stop feeling that way, but I'll be 42 in just over a month, so...probably not. </p><p>This is the part where I turn my personal lesson into an overarching writing lesson. I think it's not a bad thing to be motivated partially by spite, and to feel an ugly, satisfied thrill when that spite works out for you. But it's a bad way to live your entire artistic life. You've got to find a deeper well than that. The shallow well works when you're writing a CV or a book proposal and you have to let your ego out on the page, but the deeper well has to remain accessible for when you write the next book. </p><p>The other thing is, life happens the way it happens. Wishing it would've or could've happened another way is not as fruitful as working with the way it did. In my case, that means analysis of what "the way it did" has to teach me as well as simply counting the blessings of it. </p><p>Appropriately, I have a bounty of other good news. I can't share any of it; nothing is finished enough to be an announcement. I can tell you that I'll be on the Dana Gould Hour again, soonish, to talk about my book. And about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Ormond" target="_blank">the inimitable Ormonds</a>, filmmakers of, consecutively, exploitation films and religious films in the two epochs of their lives. I recorded something like six or seven podcasts in August and they're trickling out over time. </p><p>Oh, but there is news that I want to share as far and wide as possible: I'm co-editing an anthology of Millennial writing and art on the 1982 film <i>Poltergeist</i>. General submissions open in October. More info about that project is <a href="http://poltergeistanthology.com" target="_blank">here</a>, including a link to sign up for our newsletter so you'll know the moment we open subs. </p><p>Lots of changes coming in the spring. I hope you'll stick around until then. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-14366395108047417522023-06-02T12:49:00.004-07:002023-06-02T12:49:59.401-07:00The End of the Line<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRF9F7rc6pPjDhZtYe9RP5ayp8huas8CrhjSrHBz_XKdyeLOE5p757d2eQSIlrHW3CKvTMCCeEZPfCg_d9XJ2S3DNGqmv-XAYUbn8d3MJc7yUhhox_vR7MCKnfmHbAIsWZB8Q9C4WpudAdNcuileiTdn3w81J_mg6bzkEFGnOq0j6CvtL_3Em2w5V-Q/s900/end-of-the-line-grant-groberg.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="900" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRF9F7rc6pPjDhZtYe9RP5ayp8huas8CrhjSrHBz_XKdyeLOE5p757d2eQSIlrHW3CKvTMCCeEZPfCg_d9XJ2S3DNGqmv-XAYUbn8d3MJc7yUhhox_vR7MCKnfmHbAIsWZB8Q9C4WpudAdNcuileiTdn3w81J_mg6bzkEFGnOq0j6CvtL_3Em2w5V-Q/w400-h279/end-of-the-line-grant-groberg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Almost three years ago, in late 2020, I finished the final essay in a collection of them that I'd been working on since around 2015. I started shopping the full manuscript in early 2021. The essays, nine of them, are hybrid: they contain creative nonfiction, film criticism, fiction, and various textual strategies (collage, list, diagrams). I know that my work in this book is rare and I know it's good. </p><p>I've sent the manuscript to sixteen presses, not counting the half-dozen presses and scattering of agents I pitched with a proposal. All have rejected it (except the two who are currently In Progress on Submittable, along with the ones who never got back to me). </p><p>I chose these outlets carefully. I wanted:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>presses that routinely submitted to book awards, because I think this is an awards-type book. </li><li>presses with a history of publishing bold hybrid work, because I knew I'd encounter fewer editorial obstacles when working with folks who knew what my manuscript was doing. </li><li>presses that had had at least one hit book (covered by major critical outlets or sold well, one or the other), because just in case my book was a hit, I wanted a press that had experience with that. </li><li>presses that didn't publish mostly white men. </li><li>should be obvious, but presses that hadn't been determined to be fraudulent or run by shitty people, per Writer Beware and my own whisper network. </li><li>presses that accepted unsolicited/unagented manuscripts, whether through open reading periods, contests, or an open-door policy. Because I don't have an agent and I think I've exhausted the relevant favors my network owes me. </li></ul><p></p><p>When I sifted the gigantic list of presses I'm aware of through the mesh screen of these priorities, it narrowed out my choices to a couple dozen presses. And I've submitted to nearly all of them over the last two and a half years. So I've almost reached that dreaded place: <b>the end of the line.</b> </p><p>Both of my previous books also reached this place. For <i>Ceremonials</i>, the criteria included a press that'd publish a very short prose manuscript as a book, which is harder to find than you'd think, and with <i>Junk Film</i>, the list of presses that wants such a particular kind of nonfiction is shorter than I'd ever imagined. For <i>Ceremonials</i>, only complaining about the manuscript on Twitter led me (miraculously!) to the right press, and for <i>Junk Film</i>, I decided to work with someone I knew and liked, even though his press had different priorities than I had envisioned, rather than keep trying to sell the book to a dwindling list of possibles for another year or two. </p><p>These were harder decisions than they sound like in that practical little paragraph. The despair I felt at the end of the line on <i>Ceremonials</i> was mammoth. It took me months, and a wholescale rethinking of my trajectory as a writer, to mentally accept the conclusion I came to with <i>JF</i>. In both cases, these were the right choices, and my reservations proved totally unimportant in the end. But it could've gone the other way. With two other projects I won't specify, it did, and I suffered heartbreak and hard lessons. </p><p>I'm writing this post because the end of the line is a hard, lonely place to be as a writer with a worthy manuscript. I want to offer sympathy, but also options, based on what I did with the prior books and what I'm doing next with my hybrid essay manuscript. </p><p>One option that's always available is to give up, either temporarily or permanently. As Gus tells Tina, </p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuzBFWGiv5-pcFzZf0WEWsNxhatO_RpLy8GBlutYDWqkMeo_DfONs2G4x9vRgYYwIc9W-7YnbAJMPkd79uORLDTgOaKeJLLkVY5IrTuYzpsTaUxDnijJ5qG3hJHmgr5HL-qpkFaJabAsCfMiE8ezATCYb3rMI4MJFGVXfG9NcaOUHT3hkUEUDpuggYig/s996/quitting.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt=""Quitting is liberating, and could be the way to go."" border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="886" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuzBFWGiv5-pcFzZf0WEWsNxhatO_RpLy8GBlutYDWqkMeo_DfONs2G4x9vRgYYwIc9W-7YnbAJMPkd79uORLDTgOaKeJLLkVY5IrTuYzpsTaUxDnijJ5qG3hJHmgr5HL-qpkFaJabAsCfMiE8ezATCYb3rMI4MJFGVXfG9NcaOUHT3hkUEUDpuggYig/w356-h400/quitting.jpg" width="356" /></a></div><br /><p>Maybe you don't quit being a writer, or give up on the manuscript entirely; maybe you set the manuscript aside for a while and try to find a home for it later. Maybe you write another book, an easier one to publish. I firmly believe that opportunities come up at the time they're supposed to, especially in writing. So if you haven't had success at chasing down those opportunities, sit for a minute and see if they arrive on their own schedule. Success at publishing a project doesn't always have a lot to do with how worthy the project is, and giving up temporarily or permanently can be about time, place, and available opportunity rather than writing quality. </p><p>Another option is to ask around. Go to AWP and visit press booths. Go to readings. Join writers' groups on Facebook. Look at the spines of books that resemble yours to see if you've missed any presses in your research. This might be very frustrating advice to some of you - it would be for me, as I'm very tuned in to the small press world and do not need help finding presses - but for others it might be the window to a new round of submissions. </p><p>The third option is to change your standards/priorities/criteria for presses. Right now, I'm leaning toward removing the "submits to awards" and "hit book" criteria from my list. This means I'd start from the top again: first I'd pitch the manuscript to friends who run presses, then to presses that know me from my time as a reviewer, and then cold-submitting. I already did that process for this book to presses that met all the above criteria, so I'd have to do it again once some of the criteria have been eliminated. </p><p>A strategy related to this option is to shift your goals for the eventual book. My initial goal with a manuscript is always to sell half a million copies and win a MacArthur Genius Grant. As I gather up rejections, that goal shortens and narrows. The end of the line is the place where the goal shrinks to <i>bring this book into the world</i>. For some books I've written, that goal is not sufficient for how far I think the manuscript can go. The urban fantasy book, for instance, would find a great home on the Barnes & Noble SFF shelf, and I'm sure that goal is reachable, so I'm not going to submit to presses that won't suit that goal. I won't lower the goal for that manuscript to <i>bring it into the world</i>, because I don't think that's enough. </p><p>For this hybrid essay manuscript, I'm almost, but not quite, at the point where I need to decide if my goal is going to shrink any further. It started out enormous, and now it's reasonable, and I really don't know if I want to make it smaller. I have to decide within the next couple of months, after the final two presses respond. </p><p>I'm not quite at the end of the line for this book just yet; these last two presses have it, and after that I still have some options, even if they aren't ideal. But I remember the sensation I'm feeling right now from both of the prior books - the mentally looking around at an emptied room that was once bustling with possibilities. It's almost time to close the door on that room and open a different one. </p><p>I will weather it, because it's my job to do so, but it would be a mistake to minimize how difficult this process is. You feel helpless, and angry, and sad, and indignant, and maudlin. You feel the train coming to a gradual stop, the stuff that was whizzing by now moving so slowly that you could put your head out the window without any danger at all. It's frustrating to be moving like that, not able to accelerate or hit the brakes yourself. </p><p>Toot toot. </p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsDmtOxm2hJYfm78pxSggEgLruEHFpupRXu3y_qaJeAsvcGWMIppKGLbdZ9mkQru7T47A044JHrS7CtM-9qfjTS9YEdq3wJChfIoiBp0ms7yE2gR0fFMZl8TGC8ceoab7cJUfPdOvZLpKoCuRBa7pUNCbqCgGV6wG3rYbpuEon3DNR_Wm8ItvH7dlMSQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgsDmtOxm2hJYfm78pxSggEgLruEHFpupRXu3y_qaJeAsvcGWMIppKGLbdZ9mkQru7T47A044JHrS7CtM-9qfjTS9YEdq3wJChfIoiBp0ms7yE2gR0fFMZl8TGC8ceoab7cJUfPdOvZLpKoCuRBa7pUNCbqCgGV6wG3rYbpuEon3DNR_Wm8ItvH7dlMSQ=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-82790770028026915792023-05-02T11:02:00.001-07:002023-05-02T11:02:44.038-07:00JUNK FILM DROPS TODAY! <p>Today, my third book releases: <i>Junk Film</i>, the product of about five years of research and writing about bad movies. Aside from this obvious fantastic news, I've had a streak of bad days and annoying problems lately, so I'm a little distracted. Trying to focus on the positive and be happy about the book being out. So far I've heard nothing but joy from friends who've received it and/or read it, and I'd like to think those trends will continue. </p><p>Consider this a placeholder for a post later in the week where I share the related stuff that's going up this week (a piece in the <i>Economist</i>, unbelievably, which is previewed below; a podcast episode; an interview in a Kansas City paper; something in LARB related to another topic but which I suspect will sell books anyway). In the meantime, if you haven't bought the book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Junk-Film-Why-Movies-Matter/dp/B0BXWGNNQ9/" target="_blank">go here to do so</a>. Amazon is bad for indie presses, but can be good for indie <i>authors</i>, who don't necessarily have other distribution channels. For this book, Amazon is the place to buy. </p><p><br /></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0Z4NfPtI3k5Jfu8FZd9rFu9Iz8gqw4e3H-vCfFCsGTK8zgQREXavS8q2Di4T8q0H08BEoGEyOT4NfRFqd-fPy8A3It7Jjo-XLcUHFqfpJXihVHx5PtzPircdKD6QYIzWxEQjYlzGLiYoeGYTSZ0Q0Y3lxrCpJsXrCpyDIKP4hOSJj6CTeco9B_dxD3A" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="960" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj0Z4NfPtI3k5Jfu8FZd9rFu9Iz8gqw4e3H-vCfFCsGTK8zgQREXavS8q2Di4T8q0H08BEoGEyOT4NfRFqd-fPy8A3It7Jjo-XLcUHFqfpJXihVHx5PtzPircdKD6QYIzWxEQjYlzGLiYoeGYTSZ0Q0Y3lxrCpJsXrCpyDIKP4hOSJj6CTeco9B_dxD3A=w400-h212" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to embiggen</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></p><p>I'm going to be doing watch-alongs to promote the book, probably one per month for the rest of the year, and the first one will be <i>After Last Season</i> on May 18. Stay tuned! </p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg02dw_xrPQ4aSVmg7KCTQWBBUTJ4Sp17LHOE502g3ZuP0oM1GD01Ui9O6stBhpCfjyp2tzw5Zox3FH6XF8a5GL_hZGQY1Rn-r863PqiQA1tkiypiFu716Tc26r-HPKxnXk-cwau06JWjkasFc6vyRNro-NZTIetSCyf_3gMPYFx7_izhX-a7GceecFCQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1938" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg02dw_xrPQ4aSVmg7KCTQWBBUTJ4Sp17LHOE502g3ZuP0oM1GD01Ui9O6stBhpCfjyp2tzw5Zox3FH6XF8a5GL_hZGQY1Rn-r863PqiQA1tkiypiFu716Tc26r-HPKxnXk-cwau06JWjkasFc6vyRNro-NZTIetSCyf_3gMPYFx7_izhX-a7GceecFCQ=w378-h400" width="378" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">stitched by me, designed by someone else</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-31742224234995171582023-02-27T13:39:00.003-08:002023-02-27T13:39:46.101-08:00Bounce Back Strong <p>Half-jokingly, I've been calling 2022 my year of rest and relaxation. I spent a lot of days last year unable to get out of bed until after 9, even when I woke hours earlier. I spent a lot of afternoons dozing on the couch to reruns of a show I know by heart. My inbox had somewhat fallen asleep, too; I submitted things now and then, got solicited for things occasionally, but for most days of most weeks, nothing came in or went out.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPMhOkQ_tvzupvMUzFxm6K7iF_MkkXpSuhDKbq3MWK8zJIQnd0MZDQpeJYj0R-gVzWA2VXzhn4TLFubc3H_6S8oWyJlMfvvmhEmdkGHTIHUARG6WyMy437VRfddknmrWQCzc3wetNRTqanxurDNMZb04z8P9xc6LEmHnnuIKizxC5NU1pwpHvncQuJ5Q/s1935/My_Year_of_Rest_and_Relaxation_-_Ottessa_Moshfegh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1935" data-original-width="1280" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPMhOkQ_tvzupvMUzFxm6K7iF_MkkXpSuhDKbq3MWK8zJIQnd0MZDQpeJYj0R-gVzWA2VXzhn4TLFubc3H_6S8oWyJlMfvvmhEmdkGHTIHUARG6WyMy437VRfddknmrWQCzc3wetNRTqanxurDNMZb04z8P9xc6LEmHnnuIKizxC5NU1pwpHvncQuJ5Q/w265-h400/My_Year_of_Rest_and_Relaxation_-_Ottessa_Moshfegh.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">this blog post is not to be construed as an endorsement of this book or its author</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>Most of the big stuff I do as a writer is early in the year. A book prize I read for is mostly active in January; AWP is in March; and the time-consuming work I do for a residency committee is largely in April. Everyone will tell you that publishing is least active during the summer, and fall is so frantic that I have no interest in <i>ever</i> publishing a book then, or really in doing anything else notable as a writer. </p><p>Last year, once AWP and the mini-tour I did for the <i>Plan 9</i> book were over, I found myself idle, and I couldn't rustle up any motivation to break the inertia. In late summer <a href="https://fictator.blogspot.com/2022/07/a-research-report.html">I researched</a> for the novel I'm trying to write. That occupied me for a little while, but it wasn't a reason to get out of bed. Nor did I/do I yet have a significant schedule or deadline for anything related to that book, so there was no rush. </p><p>In all, I'd say that I did very little of significance for about seven months of 2022, nonconsecutively. </p><p>I can't complain about this, per se. What most Americans wouldn't give for that kind of leisure - to have nothing pressing to do for half the year. My therapist wasn't worried. But I was. It seemed unnatural not to produce anything for such a long period of time, to find myself with no logical argument for spending the day upright instead of horizontal. And I felt vaguely, minimally unhappy. Not much, not to a clinical point, but like a narrow vein of obsidian in an otherwise buff-colored stone. Something was wrong. </p><p>There's more for me to think and say about all this looking back than there was as it happened. I kept checking and couldn't find mental illness at the root of all this, but I'm still a bit suspicious, because the behavior ticks a few boxes for depression. A thing that occurred in late 2021 harmed and affected me a lot more than I realized at the time, and those effects reverberated in my disposition for most of the next year. (Curious, in fact, how it took exactly a year for the effects to start to fall away, one by one, in succession.) Some of how I justified my inactivity was rebellion against the capitalistic work structure, and some was that I was intensely resting after a period of intense physical activity (while I worked at the barn). Still more was that I watched movies almost every day, which counted as work for a film critic, even if the movies weren't attached to a particular project. </p><p>My year of rest and relaxation was probably sustained by all these reasons in different quantities. It didn't feel good while it was going on, but like any not-so-good experience, now I know what that feels like, and can recognize it if it ever shows up again. Plus, the rest fueled me to bounce back strong. </p><p>Which I think I can safely say is what's happening now. February has been <i>bonkers</i>, full of opportunities and heartbreak and frustration and celebration, but particularly the past week has given me the feeling that I've come back to life. My inbox is hopping. My list of responsibilities is extensive enough to be written out instead of remaining in my head. The interactions I'm having with fellow writers sparkle and hum. I have ideas for books again. The feeling of dark dormancy, the heavy nadir of motivation, has lifted. </p><p>Not gonna lie, I'm pretty sure my work with X-R-A-Y is the biggest part of the change. My book publicity machine having to start churning has helped, too, because it's forced me to take some action instead of staring at the wall, but X-R-A-Y has given me a purpose, a set of daily activities, I simply didn't have for most of last year. In joining the team there, it feels like I reached up very slowly and weakly for a handhold, and what I seized conveyed me out into the sun from a room I didn't even realize was dark. </p><p>Which brings me to the carnival-barking portion of this post. I'm teaching the very first class X-R-A-Y is offering, ever, and you can <a href="https://xraylitmag.com/shop/class-get-unstuck-coldiron/">sign up for it right now</a>, if you'd like. It's on a Sunday afternoon next month. Payment slides from $75 down to $25, and if you as a writer are stuck in the mud (kinda the way I was last year, in fact), this is a great way to get unstuck. Hence the name of the workshop. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXes22XUfkFxK6KYkOVoB5pV-84eCrTyD8gNpP3vKlA31jUXvnMXSJZPfFt67_SF105jG6Q9_FZss4u2fNwajLQGRK5Kywdo0y71LT7oP995N16OrWe1Y88JnM5ll5oFLrX9V8kjmuw0b1GwIQwJE7HTb_bIzqrYLYC0IDwaC6YDlqNx-is0Y-D6tlQ/s2048/how-to-get-unstuck-with-katharine-coldiron-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1347" data-original-width="2048" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvXes22XUfkFxK6KYkOVoB5pV-84eCrTyD8gNpP3vKlA31jUXvnMXSJZPfFt67_SF105jG6Q9_FZss4u2fNwajLQGRK5Kywdo0y71LT7oP995N16OrWe1Y88JnM5ll5oFLrX9V8kjmuw0b1GwIQwJE7HTb_bIzqrYLYC0IDwaC6YDlqNx-is0Y-D6tlQ/w400-h263/how-to-get-unstuck-with-katharine-coldiron-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Also, if you are headed to AWP, I hope to see you kind of generally, but I also hope to see you at one of the two readings I'll be attending. The first one, on Wednesday, I'll be a reader; the second one, I'll be handing out promo stuff for X-R-A-Y and probably myself too. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UZ1GC8Xcx1ezEjehU4oWNnNILft7Ru3hw5P3H4lahmef-9zyZX4RW4PcHYYWSrTsPJUWrHP_1TI9Ks2SzZwiV-NDcOfzmgsxqyAvrYyidU35J5gwCKDAdO5mcYzUhNPLibuENieOYHxsWex0rEEZROTNF99apDeXK5utZ3FOzA7NoB-aY-oZxbwKyg/s2164/Heavy%20Alt%20Punkt%20Flier-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2164" data-original-width="2164" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2UZ1GC8Xcx1ezEjehU4oWNnNILft7Ru3hw5P3H4lahmef-9zyZX4RW4PcHYYWSrTsPJUWrHP_1TI9Ks2SzZwiV-NDcOfzmgsxqyAvrYyidU35J5gwCKDAdO5mcYzUhNPLibuENieOYHxsWex0rEEZROTNF99apDeXK5utZ3FOzA7NoB-aY-oZxbwKyg/w400-h400/Heavy%20Alt%20Punkt%20Flier-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">reading at this one</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia05tARk0cCkhlc1UolGPKKuWuVMsgJzHHZdPIu7zH_YfTfHdDib4aiMbC2_gj15JmknSXrM8hSld5sWfSxN6Jc_xOen4vTSgGZgW3u6y9dlNkFNQw1jlurf80OOd2xs95VsmB9uTtMr2uvATYNLPWM-T3olT6aZN2POgkp_ii4cxv7P_656UK7PF_qQ/s1200/offsitecircus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="676" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia05tARk0cCkhlc1UolGPKKuWuVMsgJzHHZdPIu7zH_YfTfHdDib4aiMbC2_gj15JmknSXrM8hSld5sWfSxN6Jc_xOen4vTSgGZgW3u6y9dlNkFNQw1jlurf80OOd2xs95VsmB9uTtMr2uvATYNLPWM-T3olT6aZN2POgkp_ii4cxv7P_656UK7PF_qQ/w361-h640/offsitecircus.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="361" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">attending this one<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia05tARk0cCkhlc1UolGPKKuWuVMsgJzHHZdPIu7zH_YfTfHdDib4aiMbC2_gj15JmknSXrM8hSld5sWfSxN6Jc_xOen4vTSgGZgW3u6y9dlNkFNQw1jlurf80OOd2xs95VsmB9uTtMr2uvATYNLPWM-T3olT6aZN2POgkp_ii4cxv7P_656UK7PF_qQ/s1200/offsitecircus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>See you there. XOXOKatharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-2533931349811626942022-12-20T14:32:00.000-08:002022-12-20T14:32:01.181-08:00On Lars von Trier and Leviathan <p>In grad school, I elected to write a literature paper about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Auster_novel)" target="_blank">Paul Auster's <i>Leviathan</i></a>. I came to class ready to discuss the novel, certain I'd understood what Auster was getting at, only to learn of the existence of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)" target="_blank">Thomas Hobbes's <i>Leviathan</i></a> and to hear how Auster was reflecting that pivotal work. I sat there for a while, listening, and then raised my hand and explained that I'd believed the leviathan of the title was a sea monster, i.e. the whale that swallowed Jonah, and that allegorically that monster was a national fear and despair lurking under the scrim of American life in the late 20th century. No matter how wrong the class lecture told me I was, I still thought this was a valid theory of the novel. The professor, bless her heart, encouraged me to write my final paper on this theory. And I did. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">In my reading, the leviathan is a societal force. It resembles a beast of the deep, in that it is invisible, massive, and dangerous. It is large enough to gulp its victims without even stretching its jaws. The leviathan, this societal force, is the loss of identity suffered by the Baby Boomers when they discovered their failure to make lasting change, and it’s their dawning realization of mortality.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">(me, 2014) </p></blockquote><p>I was embarrassed that I'd missed the point Auster had built into the book, but as I researched and wrote the paper, I came to believe that my point of view - although informed by contemporary ideas and influences rather than those of a classical Western education - was valid, too. I wrote about Vietnam, the atomic bomb, and President Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech. I got an A, as I recall. </p><p style="text-align: center;">*</p><p>Lars von Trier first caught my eye in the early aughts with <i>Dancer in the Dark</i>. Good God did I hate that movie. I was young, and obsessed with Björk, and utterly infuriated that the bad guy won and the good girl lost. And while I understood what von Trier was getting at by shooting lush, stationary musical numbers vs. stark, wobbly handheld real life, it didn't keep me from being annoyed by the handheld sections. </p><p>Some years later, everyone went on and on about <i>Melancholia</i>, so I saw it. My favorite part was the tableaux that open the film: slomo textures and painterly colors, in weird scenarios, flawlessly composed. The whole wedding section, shot in handheld not-great DV, I could not make head or tail of; why would he shoot something so ugly and annoying and dragged-out when he could provably make such beautiful pictures? The third section was more comprehensible, but still puzzlingly long and odd. </p><p>More years passed. In 2021, I noticed while browsing Kanopy that both volumes of <i>Nymphomaniac</i> were available, and I had a strong guess that they wouldn't be for long, so I watched them. <i>Snap</i>. Everything fell into place. I don't know if it's because I'd watched <i>Funny Games </i>(2007) and absolutely loved it, reframing my sense of what extremity in film does and how it works, or because I'd simply gotten older, but I found <i>Nymphomaniac</i> a profound work, and a necessary one. One of those films that stretches cinema beyond entertainment, that makes itself a text to pore over. And that it was an extreme film, a blasphemous film, was part of its intellectual intentions! Oh, this trolling Dane, how I suddenly admired him. </p><p>Deciding to start fresh, I watched <i>Breaking the Waves</i>, von Trier's breakthrough and still probably his most well-regarded film. It opened up my understanding of his reputation, and confirmed what I thought he was up to, but I didn't connect to it as much. </p><p>Yesterday I watched <i>The House that Jack Built</i>. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-lars-von-triers-empty-repugnant-provocations-in-the-house-that-jack-built" target="_blank">This review</a> warned me away from it, but that review is wrong, I believe, and falls exactly into the trap that von Trier has set for the viewer. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span>VERGE: <br /></span><span>No. No, no, no! You're constantly trying to manipulate me. <br /></span><span>And with children, the most sensitive subject of all.</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Don't let him manipulate you!</i> I want to shout at Richard Brody. <i>See past your emotional reflex and turn on your brain.</i> </p><p>The central juxtaposition of <i>House</i> is violent death as an art form. Jack says this himself, repeatedly, trying to convince Verge that his project is to make art from murder. Verge insists that art springs from love. (Verge is Virgil, the greatest poet of antiquity, and Jack is a serial killer. Who would seriously believe von Trier positions Jack to win the argument?) </p><p>I recognized that the sacred (art) is the profane (violent death) in this film. I had previously hypothesized that <i>Nymphomaniac</i> intended to make a saint out of the title character: a saint of sex, someone for whom sex is an all-encompassing, glorified pursuit. (She even has a wound that refuses to heal!) The conversation between Joe and Seligman is a religious debate, about fishing and sex and God and love and life itself; it's a debate between extremes - the debauched and the pure - but what's pure and what's debauched shifts over the course of the film. In <i>Dancer in the Dark</i>, an absolute innocent commits a brutal murder (and the most luscious <i>visuals</i> exist in the mind of the <i>blind</i> woman). In <i>Melancholia</i>, Justine's depression debilitates her, but she is also voluntarily in thrall to it - in love with her own sorrow. In <i>Breaking the Waves</i>, God gives Bess a mandate to commit sin. </p><p>I started to see von Trier's project as crashing together two abstract ideas that it would be blasphemous (literally or culturally) to consider in the same breath. Sex and death is an old, easy collision for film, but sex and saintliness? Innocence and violence? He's doing extreme cinema, but the characters' behavior - the sex and violence, in graphic detail - is a ruse. The extremity is in putting together ideas that have traditionally remained far apart, in considering them as reflections of each other. It's sort of Hegelian, and sort of deconstructionist, but (impishly and) productively so, in a way that doesn't leave the deconstructor with a vacant lot. </p><p>Yet. </p><p>As ever when I have ideas like this, where I think I've figured out what makes challenging art hang together, I remember <i>Leviathan</i>. Someone else has probably figured out the metronome of this art, and it's probably a more classical rhythm than I could recognize. Not knowing Hobbes, that day, will haunt me forever. </p><p>Then again, I found support in the text and in other scholarly articles for my theory of Auster's novel. I argued that theory successfully, in my own small context. </p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkniRy8vy7Yaff94O3CnkiPqs-6vYyLT-PM3CD6OTzFAPlv-SwwKFi10Ms7eWfi3xNf0ocgTkPbmtZfXRp4u1lcpfAOJ5q9QJRVMnTvj9-ytH_eFAsfrKaOLCIgNzUAP_JuKFqBUymKH6jxSZ5vVe8bbWxV7V_FLSBwNFNo2n5qnLoNJv1QGCC_QFUWA/s698/lvt.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Photoshopped pic of Lars von Trier in a contorted position, his F U C K knuckle tattoo clearly visible" border="0" data-original-height="698" data-original-width="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkniRy8vy7Yaff94O3CnkiPqs-6vYyLT-PM3CD6OTzFAPlv-SwwKFi10Ms7eWfi3xNf0ocgTkPbmtZfXRp4u1lcpfAOJ5q9QJRVMnTvj9-ytH_eFAsfrKaOLCIgNzUAP_JuKFqBUymKH6jxSZ5vVe8bbWxV7V_FLSBwNFNo2n5qnLoNJv1QGCC_QFUWA/s16000/lvt.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lars von Trier in a promo photo for <i>The House that Jack Built</i>. Knuckle tattoo is not pshopped</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p>At the end of all this thinking and developing, I don't want to look up the prevailing theory of von Trier's cinema. I don't want to learn that I'm either parroting an established idea or that I'm dead wrong. I'd rather hang out here, where I semi-privately think I have a good idea that helps me understand a challenging group of artworks. I don't want to be Pauline Kael, so idiosyncratic that she can't really be trusted. As a critic I try never to lead with my ego or my unique reactions - otherwise I'd gush about Gothic literature and melodramas, insist that <i>Shutter Island</i> is better than <i>Goodfellas</i>. I know better than to confuse those preferences with informed criticism. </p><p>On whose authority am I right or wrong about Lars von Trier, anyway? Yours? His? Richard Brody's? Please. A consensus about art is fragile and temporary. I'd like to know about that consensus, and perhaps be informed by it, but being part of it doesn't sound appealing. </p><p>So I shall declare that I loved <i>The House that Jack Built</i>, and that I think von Trier is much less of a troll than he is creating art via unusual variants on thesis/antithesis. There's some trolling, sure, but not the malignant kind. Around 2005, he said a film should be like a stone in your shoe, and no matter how hard I squint, I can't find a way to disagree with that sentiment. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-55288323785589771292022-09-09T13:27:00.000-07:002022-09-09T13:27:07.654-07:00Desire Paths<p>Recently, I spent about a week writing a short story set in the imagined West. It integrated Lovecraft mythos (or, so as not to invoke the name of a hilariously antisemitic and inadequate prose stylist, cosmic horror). This mix of genres is known as "weird West." </p><p>I've been wanting to write a Western for some years now. I'm (increasingly) in love with the genre, particularly with how its environment is quite precise but its manifestations are nigh infinite. That is, the imagined West is a desert place, usually but not always in America in the late 19th century, with saloons and fast guns and horses and leather. Within that, you have certain character types: villain, antihero, innocent, Othered enemy. You have big, vague forces: the Law, modernity, temptation, Mother Nature, money, grief, the shadowy past. But you can mix and match any number of other elements. Gender and race can be whatever. Technology can be anachronistic, if you want. (Neo-Westerns have an even more flexible set of characteristics!) Because no one really believes the imagined West is factual, it can be molded to the story you want to tell. That's why the weird West is such a fertile blend: Cthulhu slides into the setting with ease. </p><p>While trying to overcome anxiety about the <i>Casablanca</i> novel (I have added a decent number of words to it over the past month, but I might have bitten off more than I'd like to chew with <a href="https://fictator.blogspot.com/2022/07/a-research-report.html">the historicity</a>), I wrote this story, based on an idea of Matt's about two opposing characters who both accept supernatural favors on one particular night in a silver mining town. I had so much fun writing it, and I broke a bunch of my own rules of revision, including reading today's words today (you gotta let 'em sit!) and submitting the day after I finished a draft (YOU GOTTA LET IT SIT!). </p><p>The submission was rejected almost immediately. This was part of the feedback, edited to keep from spoiling the story: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">"...the opening scenes lacked a bit of tension. I think if I had more insight earlier on into the narrative stakes (such as what [x] in first scene could mean, or what [y] could signal), there would have been a bit more of the urgency I needed." </p></blockquote><p>Let's be clear. I'm quoting and unpacking this NOT<span> </span>because I'm wounded about a rejection. It was such fun to write this story that I felt rewarded as soon as I finished the draft, and I submitted it with a higher proportion than usual of I-want-someone-else-to-love-reading-this and less than usual of I-want-to-be-published. And, by now, I virtually never care about story rejections, because <a href="http://fictator.blogspot.com/2014/10/from-me-to-you-everything-means-nothing.html">that's a numbers/persistence game</a>, not personal or meaningful. </p><p>I'm unpacking this feedback because I find it remarkably self-contradictory. In writing this story, I surrounded x and y with enigma so as to keep the reader reading, which, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/632971/the-fire-in-fiction-by-donald-maass/" target="_blank">as Donald Maass taught me</a>, is what tension is. How can a scene lack tension when it has enigma? If I'd explained what x and y meant on the first two pages, why on earth would you keep reading? </p><p>It's possible that the first few pages didn't move quickly enough. It's possible that the rejecter misspoke, and meant "lacked a bit of <i>clarity</i>," not tension. But, based on my experience of rejections over the past five years, I think it's more likely that the rejecter didn't know what they meant. I think it's likely that the rejecter didn't like or even notice the sentences (which is part of what I enjoyed most about the first two pages: polishing the sentences until they rambled and rolled like a bowlegged sheriff), and wanted the story to move faster, to jam plot in immediately. </p><p>Sentences matter more than plot to me, but that's exactly why I haven't done very well with my genre fiction. It might not be the root of this rejection - I am not stupid enough to think this story is perfect, nor single-minded enough to think it's perfect for this market - but I suspect it is. </p><p>This rejection is the latest in a whole catalog of occurrences that are making me rethink, altogether, what I want out of a writing career. It bookends the first item in the catalog: an agent rejection for my bad-film book, which I got sometime in 2021. The agent didn't think the book had major-press possibilities. The way she explained this to me, I got the message: she is an agent who makes big deals, not little deals, and she didn't think she could sell the book as a big enough package to make it worth her time. I respected this, but it also surprised me, because I know how many copies make a bestseller and I know the size of the bad film/cult film audience. But I'm not a major critic, I'm not cruel, and the book doesn't have little bite-sized essays, so you'd have to market it pretty carefully. </p><p>Hmm. Okay. So, I used this feedback to rejigger my expectations and I queried smaller or specialty presses for the book. A year & many rejections later, I've finally contracted the book to a terrific indie press, <a href="https://www.castlebridgemedia.com/" target="_blank">Castle Bridge Media</a>, and I'm thrilled to be working with them. But I really did think this book was going to go to a big press. The result isn't a disappointment, but it's a <i>different path</i>, an alteration in the trajectory I thought I was creating with my first two books. </p><p>I thought the idea was to step up and step up until I had an agent and a comfortable contract/series of contracts. I thought I'd edit and write reviews until I had a book or film column. I never thought I'd make a living wage by writing alone, but I did think I'd be able to stop hustling, stop hanging my own slate and instead have people or objects (publicists, agents, my own recognizable name) to do that work for me. </p><p>These are the ideas I'm rethinking altogether: the ladder, the progression, the comfort, the reliance on others. None of them have come to pass, even though I've jumped through many of the necessary hoops. </p><p>My friend <a href="https://housleydave.com/" target="_blank">Dave Housley</a> has been running <a href="https://barrelhousemag.com/" target="_blank">Barrelhouse</a> for many years, and he has published seven books. I don't think he has an agent at the moment, and he's never brought a book out with a major press (although he has with big indies). Writers of many types and sizes know and respect him as a community-builder and a good dude. He's held a day job unrelated to writing all this time, and I doubt anything about his life or work is going to change. I don't even know if he wants it to. He keeps writing and making what he wants, and plunging himself up to his elbows into writerly community and <i>working</i>, and he doesn't have to be a hotshot to do those things. </p><p>I'm wondering if this is a preferable model for my writing. Should I stop thinking about remuneration more completely than I already have? Should I make things and trust that readers will show up somewhere along the line? Should I stop trying to build this thing like a city planner, and instead let my interests make <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path" target="_blank">desire paths</a> wherever they want to go? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3zPv2dd9xnWKqyyPsdfyHkzF7LWJyIFpb4r4gYTcpRbVhPzpYPzJU6AfsdeAC5LVTwY1qTFiAMsYLvPrn8fA8tqKfIxT6H16238l1wDSxJHNqVrmetfVvRDMwgXmLysZvyMwFq_yMamUpgSmUt4wTcGCGeJTRHDjt_Ae-pna1oF2pzMh7PFyBtiORg/s1024/desirepaths.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3zPv2dd9xnWKqyyPsdfyHkzF7LWJyIFpb4r4gYTcpRbVhPzpYPzJU6AfsdeAC5LVTwY1qTFiAMsYLvPrn8fA8tqKfIxT6H16238l1wDSxJHNqVrmetfVvRDMwgXmLysZvyMwFq_yMamUpgSmUt4wTcGCGeJTRHDjt_Ae-pna1oF2pzMh7PFyBtiORg/w456-h256/desirepaths.jpg" width="456" /></a></div><br /><p>I'm considering making my weird West story into a Kindle single type thing for 99 cents. That's where I'm at. I tried self-publishing in my 20s, with a (deliberate) ripoff of VC Andrews that I couldn't figure out how else to sell, and I failed at it and swore never to do it again. Now that I've got 15 years of experience on that writer, I'm thinking about breaking her oath. I don't want to submit this story for two years only to hear feedback that doesn't make sense, I don't want to trunk it until I finally have enough genre stories for a collection (...it'll be a while), I don't want to rely on others who don't understand my work to promote a story I can damn well promote myself. </p><p>I want to put stuff into the world that I love, and help people discover it who will love it too. Doing that has been the goal all along, but it's always been complicated and ritualized and tediously reliant on gatekeepers. Now, it seems possible that I'm at a stage where for some parts of my work, I don't need or want to trade gatekeeping for greater prominence. I've watched a handful of acquaintances go through this and never thought it would be me. And, let's be clear, I could not have published <i>Ceremonials</i> or <i>Plan 9</i> on my own, nor can I publish <i>Junk Film </i>or most of the manuscripts I'm shopping on my own. But this little weird West story? I think I can. And I think I might. </p><p>I just need to let it sit a little longer. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-29075050480060918712022-07-24T16:12:00.001-07:002022-07-24T16:26:47.633-07:00A Research Report <p>For the last six or seven weeks, I've been researching my next novel. I have not been quiet about the paths I've taken; on Twitter and Facebook I've been complaining, screenshotting paragraphs from books, and posting brief reviews of movies. I've also written about a few things I've learned. The actual book I'm writing isn't much of a secret among my writer friends, but I will be unspecific in this post. </p><p>What I can be specific about is the time and place: Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Sweden, North Africa, London, and a bit of Lisbon and the former Czechoslovakia. This means I needed to learn a basic outline of events in World War II - more than I learned in high school, anyway - and, in much more detail, what daily life was like. What people wore, ate, read, listened to, talked about, did in those regions during those years. Were there refrigerators? Cars? Deodorant? Fashion magazines? The war impacts all this, of course, but even establishing a baseline for daily life, before any crisis began, was a challenge. </p><p>(In this post, I am going to use not-the-obvious terms for the German government during the mid-twentieth century, for search engine reasons. I'm not denying or soft-pedaling anything; I am not a supporter of that government or its ideals!!!; I just don't want certain audiences who Google horrible shit for the wrong reasons to find this post.) </p><div>I'm a poor researcher, I'll be the first to admit, but I did not want to commit anachronisms or be caught flat-footed, partway through a draft, without an activity for my characters to do or the right kind of food for them to eat. So I started finding books to read. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYNnIbzcIef-dZl5SNPTE8_81oNlWg8rw2Iv-xQNFzSWIXcwyWeG5q_0odvitGI79Kd49ej8HA-R3sZNwMqchxIzdZJOOGAZ-_IwsB5JtGqpOftkl7WjmW6N6FtNe-yveCsyvIMYbhAi09lbs9dJxh8WBvN8x8e92Onz1Vzr8Cm1EjfL6xCTCSta0spA/s750/swedenswast.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sweden, the Swastika, and Stalin by John Gilmour" border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYNnIbzcIef-dZl5SNPTE8_81oNlWg8rw2Iv-xQNFzSWIXcwyWeG5q_0odvitGI79Kd49ej8HA-R3sZNwMqchxIzdZJOOGAZ-_IwsB5JtGqpOftkl7WjmW6N6FtNe-yveCsyvIMYbhAi09lbs9dJxh8WBvN8x8e92Onz1Vzr8Cm1EjfL6xCTCSta0spA/w266-h400/swedenswast.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p>This was the toughest one (soooooo drrryyyyyy), and possibly the most useful. It taught me the broad outlines of the war's progression and to expect huge differences between the nations in attitudes toward the war. That has served me well. For Sweden, the safety of the people was absolutely paramount, way above worry about how history would judge the leaders' actions, shows of strength, or sticking to a particular moral certainty. That priority was hard for me to get my head around. It was good I started there, though, because this book </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRexevOVuLgIJK58Qu7xfBi3_jxPCQRmURpkW-7xQSBMgkP11Ty-LkxdWF-dYRnnaWu2nKGabU6_ydCqjxpOJPtTinVhTuSnOgBwsXfSUjY7nJ9p5-dYTvS0zxWTxg6f3q7GFiLRHTUvzYeDexOL2CjbjkifVVeg735fPg6TZMW0jfp5OepnXcLrgkQ/s2400/showenton.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="And the Show Went On by Alan Riding" border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1551" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRexevOVuLgIJK58Qu7xfBi3_jxPCQRmURpkW-7xQSBMgkP11Ty-LkxdWF-dYRnnaWu2nKGabU6_ydCqjxpOJPtTinVhTuSnOgBwsXfSUjY7nJ9p5-dYTvS0zxWTxg6f3q7GFiLRHTUvzYeDexOL2CjbjkifVVeg735fPg6TZMW0jfp5OepnXcLrgkQ/w259-h400/showenton.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><p>was even more challenging (although in its particulars, a very good read). For France, national <i>culture </i>was paramount, above concern about how its populace would cope, and far, far above historical judgment. America's culture is so exportable and reproducible that it took a lot of squinting to figure this out as a priority. Also notable in France was how easily the elderly leaders capitulated, how their concessions and waiting-and-seeing contradicted what younger people wanted and believed (whether they were resistance-minded or not). I think these men, many of whom served in the prior war, believed this would pass, that the German threat simply was not worth digging trenches and making shells, <i>again</i>. Their nearness to sunset likely had a lot to do with this perspective. Food for thought in 2022 America. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMig4JsH0318NkWeFqwop9pBO7e4uLRr2vdWtCGhZQbNV2liPR6R9YYW4UmQ-3S7kR5hFrXhQKnGAFqYzgDEcrmpDf835l38YxeQEcJnaCdXTmZEMehXRU-oIuUXAP7sBSBGkeH5sGhbxfgmzNoRtMaAjUq2UXk7sAQWicJ0MKPFLbRG3FPzLl6aC3A/s475/usualsuspects.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Round Up the Usual Suspects by Aljean Harmetz" border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvMig4JsH0318NkWeFqwop9pBO7e4uLRr2vdWtCGhZQbNV2liPR6R9YYW4UmQ-3S7kR5hFrXhQKnGAFqYzgDEcrmpDf835l38YxeQEcJnaCdXTmZEMehXRU-oIuUXAP7sBSBGkeH5sGhbxfgmzNoRtMaAjUq2UXk7sAQWicJ0MKPFLbRG3FPzLl6aC3A/w261-h400/usualsuspects.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>This book was helpful for a bunch of reasons, but it was also fun to read because it was full of Jack Warner stories. For those who don't know, Jack Warner, who held absolute power at Warner Bros. for nearly half a century, is legendary for his monstrousness. He was a greedy, single-minded tyrant - but an unbiased one, treating everyone on earth equally terribly. Plus, he was almost always right, which makes him a prime-cut Hollywood monster. I also learned a handful of surprising (and sad) facts about refugees in Hollywood in the 1940s. The author kept returning to the differences in American film production between the 1940s and the 1990s (when the book was written), which I found bitter and needless. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjq0zAq_WCxygPkeTBe2E0L3qPLB335y7g_NVlh53DlU2T6r0kpURJvJpux_8pXU-DAj5dscKIP6jXg59faFPj4Y4lbHTvkYdi4KRm4BJucPvPkS2xGXczg21313DSAjyW_5a81gSwPWVDinzXnvJu1Otc5lsSh_GgUU10b1JhHtTGZJu-7zuWJPRdTQ/s1360/liblady.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Liberty Lady by Pat DiGeorge" border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="907" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjq0zAq_WCxygPkeTBe2E0L3qPLB335y7g_NVlh53DlU2T6r0kpURJvJpux_8pXU-DAj5dscKIP6jXg59faFPj4Y4lbHTvkYdi4KRm4BJucPvPkS2xGXczg21313DSAjyW_5a81gSwPWVDinzXnvJu1Otc5lsSh_GgUU10b1JhHtTGZJu-7zuWJPRdTQ/w266-h400/liblady.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p>I was surprised at this book, which is self-published history, but was smoothly and tensely written, carefully researched, and fascinating in its own right even though it's about the author's parents. It gave me good information about Stockholm during the war. Self-published history is like Vogon poetry in reputation, but this is a strong book that I'd acquire if I were the editor of a history imprint. Which I never, ever will be. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxzmBeB_JidGURwPzrd1Gym3IqdBYBzPRQ5VBsv4xaQKEsdRtsd8pFTgPHGFLzWYXQg8Q1hcYfOKgrhs4XjWJucIOIrP1ic4HCPuq-5E-C4ptchG5yBhXFkxDHlrtlI4EGMPXMBPicowwLcfT87IhZCiZlgFrK4-W3T4Yrh6cA9bQsOx6A9Yk4nznhg/s2560/moon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck" border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1673" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVxzmBeB_JidGURwPzrd1Gym3IqdBYBzPRQ5VBsv4xaQKEsdRtsd8pFTgPHGFLzWYXQg8Q1hcYfOKgrhs4XjWJucIOIrP1ic4HCPuq-5E-C4ptchG5yBhXFkxDHlrtlI4EGMPXMBPicowwLcfT87IhZCiZlgFrK4-W3T4Yrh6cA9bQsOx6A9Yk4nznhg/w261-h400/moon.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><br /><p>In my late teens and early 20s I was a Steinbeck fiend, and I'm pretty sure I read this book during that time and retained none of it. The reread was a pleasure. It's a beautiful piece of work, if a little sketchy (in the literary sense). Fun fact: even though it was written deliberately as propaganda, the Allies didn't like it for that purpose, because it "humanized" the enemy. Citizens of occupied nations, however, loved it, and took guerilla publishing measures to get it into as many hands as possible. They knew, because they lived under occupation, that a cartoon enemy is neither accurate nor helpful. </p><p>(To be clear: what Steinbeck does in this book is <i>one hundred percent different </i>than what the New York Times has done with its humanizing bullshit. Steinbeck won a Nobel, and the NYT is bothsidesing itself directly into sympathy with the devil.) </p><p>I'm nearly out of books I should read and it's almost time to write, so while I wait for a couple of interlibrary loans, I've switched to movies, in the hope that some of them will have reasonably accurate period details. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5TBiIs7v3nh0ZYcsaBCM5PPgiclKQXM6nIwAVL-BQgkk6gZ2BpafL4gQOSzk-gSl9_qpeFjNg5pg0GcrDgpxOVGd-YSblR5UPo8jWHdQsp66OfIBvRxJKjHlE5Mejhn23oP_kcisMkFdIVNeQVw4-ZC-M9pKFV-KXMefjnUXIq5Ia8u_aVf16Haq9Qg/s500/takingsides.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Poster for Taking Sides (2001)" border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="362" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5TBiIs7v3nh0ZYcsaBCM5PPgiclKQXM6nIwAVL-BQgkk6gZ2BpafL4gQOSzk-gSl9_qpeFjNg5pg0GcrDgpxOVGd-YSblR5UPo8jWHdQsp66OfIBvRxJKjHlE5Mejhn23oP_kcisMkFdIVNeQVw4-ZC-M9pKFV-KXMefjnUXIq5Ia8u_aVf16Haq9Qg/w290-h400/takingsides.jpg" width="290" /></a></div><br /><p>This one is off to the side a bit in some ways, but the moral philosophy underlying it is right within my concerns. It's got some memorable scenes and situations, but it's a little tedious; Skarsgård is at full power, but Keitel is flashing a LOW BATT light. It also tugs at a thread I noticed across my reading: the punishment meted out to anyone affiliated with the former German government after 1945 was extremely inconsistent, from country to country and from person to person. Frenchmen who wrote occasional pandering articles were shot right away; Germans who did cruel, racist things to fellow human beings walked free. So it went in all nations touched by the war. It's an impossible task, of course, trying to figure out who deserves what. None of us is God. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwcO8aweJVwd0LKTE4jyOYLoVufph7aXgX283HoPXGgHKlpRzPEvBJzwA8vF_MjXcmj6k11khfOhRzP6ehQm4A8L26WcfZuCO7k71juvt46Qrut1-T0v5mIsnNas-xlNRd1R8gMIGxoXaNdTYfchkF0hMXMjAHqCIWQt8n3ZX0Bs_c4bDohKO2pcD3eg/s2048/kingschoice.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Poster for The King's Choice (2016)" border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1382" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwcO8aweJVwd0LKTE4jyOYLoVufph7aXgX283HoPXGgHKlpRzPEvBJzwA8vF_MjXcmj6k11khfOhRzP6ehQm4A8L26WcfZuCO7k71juvt46Qrut1-T0v5mIsnNas-xlNRd1R8gMIGxoXaNdTYfchkF0hMXMjAHqCIWQt8n3ZX0Bs_c4bDohKO2pcD3eg/w270-h400/kingschoice.jpg" width="270" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Xl9nf7Ay7jD66Zc7e9WK3UEgL1A2kv7GdHTTiVOZKfShqp6NZHJdtaD9-yCWNSjDuweHKM9XHp3OOtcJoMgx-DDqbBljnpA2ZB0s_0CbTFVcPbTrAZL8yBiVeeDYlPVXuaCRZCB68auYNE3g-tSubSzjqhtUwZflcK6EfCfOtCiyNw764Tm3N7kAnw/s3000/lastsentence.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Poster for The Last Sentence (2012)" border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7Xl9nf7Ay7jD66Zc7e9WK3UEgL1A2kv7GdHTTiVOZKfShqp6NZHJdtaD9-yCWNSjDuweHKM9XHp3OOtcJoMgx-DDqbBljnpA2ZB0s_0CbTFVcPbTrAZL8yBiVeeDYlPVXuaCRZCB68auYNE3g-tSubSzjqhtUwZflcK6EfCfOtCiyNw764Tm3N7kAnw/w266-h400/lastsentence.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p>These two were frustrating but helpful. (Both star Jesper Christensen, a Dane of great renown, but this is sheer coincidence.) The one is about the King of Norway's actions when Germans invaded in the spring of 1940, and the other is about a famous Swedish journalist who publicly, bitchily denounced the German regime from 1933-1945. <i>The King's Choice</i> was shot in all handheld, which annoyed me to no end, yet the acting, the personal dilemmas, and the period details were tremendous. It was clearly influenced by <i>Downfall</i>, but the story didn't propel itself as urgently as <i>Downfall</i>'s did. Not a waste of time, but not as good as it thought it was. </p><p><i>The Last Sentence</i> had Bergman intentions and Dreyer austerity, but without the brilliance or flawed human core of either. Also, the DP did not understand how to make a black and white movie vs. a color movie with a black and white filter. But the content had direct bearing on the book I'm writing, more than any other save the one below, so I'm glad I watched it. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhceCRavTlBflHsLREXvigU-cmJ3Rym_trkODv2jwwSptf90HD7EDjXRxwjC7eBDzPq8Eny6XLXb8l1JEv8YfYhSvU9p_htLvTFxXk3HUWKfsUJdHk88j7cdpmwiN7UkLEdK-ImTJT9skAFOFJvRc0-Zyfe2Aflk2-yxfuwzwfEOqABKEz-Cuxmo1PTIA/s999/samiblood.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Poster for Sami Blood (2016)" border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="666" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhceCRavTlBflHsLREXvigU-cmJ3Rym_trkODv2jwwSptf90HD7EDjXRxwjC7eBDzPq8Eny6XLXb8l1JEv8YfYhSvU9p_htLvTFxXk3HUWKfsUJdHk88j7cdpmwiN7UkLEdK-ImTJT9skAFOFJvRc0-Zyfe2Aflk2-yxfuwzwfEOqABKEz-Cuxmo1PTIA/w266-h400/samiblood.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p>So far this is the only movie for research I can recommend without an asterisk (i.e. "if you're interested in Sweden during WWII" or similar). It was stunning, and for an American audience, it's a very unusual story. It did have major elision problems, but I credit the filmmaker for attacking them with sheer will rather than logical writing. Also, the last third of it took place in the very city/decade where a large portion of my book is set, so yay for that. </p><p>Here are some other books and movies on my list: </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurQbAqWk6-ajgdDvhTMMx0aCV5laIFdXz_e21DJR3bPF_TmK-SiVLotc0hxkSodPXnaIbq1suyK3JVBvwcW6HvM8g6i9CbmkTlYjtzfB9lVkXqN9Ox196zGGtqfiQY7PfZxJYYvso4fv2BT-DR2Aw8rXMYbBMHcXnQ6LskgNjLxzdKKUxBjUoQ-O0fQ/s664/conspirators.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="French poster for The Conspirators (1944)" border="0" data-original-height="664" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiurQbAqWk6-ajgdDvhTMMx0aCV5laIFdXz_e21DJR3bPF_TmK-SiVLotc0hxkSodPXnaIbq1suyK3JVBvwcW6HvM8g6i9CbmkTlYjtzfB9lVkXqN9Ox196zGGtqfiQY7PfZxJYYvso4fv2BT-DR2Aw8rXMYbBMHcXnQ6LskgNjLxzdKKUxBjUoQ-O0fQ/w301-h400/conspirators.jpg" width="301" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">not great</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFL7x4austJI8PWFAiZKMCN8pAbmXficx9rx_uyPwWkX85adT3hUiTlEuVNcRJnPyZ1rQgtXBSc2blaxGFd8rWBUzRXWyQIkJ85vfH7jtm4vKPzGXN7j0WG_oMTyRoLxgZd7CacciUCCulIFk0yv_7DrVCYBEWoh6ix0-79Ja_uP53IHPoSjZBKtCViA/s1200/pragueinblack.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Prague in Black by Chad Bryant" border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="788" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFL7x4austJI8PWFAiZKMCN8pAbmXficx9rx_uyPwWkX85adT3hUiTlEuVNcRJnPyZ1rQgtXBSc2blaxGFd8rWBUzRXWyQIkJ85vfH7jtm4vKPzGXN7j0WG_oMTyRoLxgZd7CacciUCCulIFk0yv_7DrVCYBEWoh6ix0-79Ja_uP53IHPoSjZBKtCViA/w263-h400/pragueinblack.jpg" width="263" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">nicer to read than expected but that only goes so far</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyTuleXfAlCruM4040eJv4AS1YpuqWacfBn9leJRCYQbEazR6vp3JlSZM53NQOdoOLCtyjTLDzjmiFfZHATqlYzROehtRqaU7nNyxeWj3-OP86bacgLOtI8Uia_m5HOulgXwkll_Hx-bAcWXf3x6Mz3818ngi98APYymZ7AumasPc7Lisk2nnA5AU7RA/s2338/weareatwar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="We Are at War by Simon Garfield" border="0" data-original-height="2338" data-original-width="1488" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyTuleXfAlCruM4040eJv4AS1YpuqWacfBn9leJRCYQbEazR6vp3JlSZM53NQOdoOLCtyjTLDzjmiFfZHATqlYzROehtRqaU7nNyxeWj3-OP86bacgLOtI8Uia_m5HOulgXwkll_Hx-bAcWXf3x6Mz3818ngi98APYymZ7AumasPc7Lisk2nnA5AU7RA/w255-h400/weareatwar.jpg" width="255" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">totally awesome</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjJLBmzmsNWA45LFjuVbyTifgBbj75JO1tA0hrVW5zfv_Tv-ky5C3_yQBDXkHdYyhhZCvTpVpYzRYaYW7id5mi8SRNKu6C3KdcImqXof2wYyfWfF1QwH7SYhD8IjPZSvq5-lJ2Lbmb-z7SaXQtQ3S0qpylO18M_Sx-T75qdc3-EC5QOt9JuS5DmDigg/s900/pimpernelsmith.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Poster for Pimpernel Smith (1942)" border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="661" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjJLBmzmsNWA45LFjuVbyTifgBbj75JO1tA0hrVW5zfv_Tv-ky5C3_yQBDXkHdYyhhZCvTpVpYzRYaYW7id5mi8SRNKu6C3KdcImqXof2wYyfWfF1QwH7SYhD8IjPZSvq5-lJ2Lbmb-z7SaXQtQ3S0qpylO18M_Sx-T75qdc3-EC5QOt9JuS5DmDigg/w294-h400/pimpernelsmith.jpg" width="294" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">sentimental, propagandistic hogwash that I enjoyed a great deal</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>This six or seven weeks has been quite a journey for me. I did not know I'd find World War II so fascinating, but I really, really do, in a way that will remind you of your dad or granddad if you ever set me talking about it. It seems from a distance as if it was a simple war, with binary choices and obviously divined motives, but it's not that at all; the middle ground has been far more populous than I expected. Plus I've learned so many amazing one-off facts. Like, for instance, the reason the Blitz on London was halted? Because it didn't work. The intention was to destroy the RAF, various manufacturing hotspots, and the morale of the people. It accomplished none of these things. The RAF turned out to be more skilled, with more maneuverable planes, than expected; manufacturing merely spread out to other parts of the country instead of remaining centralized and thus easily bombable; and, apparently, <i>nothing</i> can destroy the morale of the British people. I find that completely amazing. </p><p>I've also learned that the "neutral" powers made a lot of collaborationist compromises; the dictator of Portugal was...kind of...unobjectionable? as a dictator?; Ingrid Bergman was a workaholic; Coco Chanel was a spy for the wrong side; and Czechoslovakia was horribly wronged, but it gave almost as good as it got in the end. And lots more. </p><p>I hope I won't have to make another report like this, and that I can just write the damned book instead. But there's still a book on fashion, a book on interwar Britain, a book of Swedish statistics, and a giant book of James Agee reviews (570 pp) containing only one of use to me, all of which are either in my office or headed my way. So...we'll see whether I get this thing going <i>for real</i> by September, or not. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-53559755690951628672022-03-02T12:12:00.001-08:002022-03-02T12:12:05.625-08:00Slightly Popular <p>Somehow I've become a slightly popular movie podcast guest. The biggest shock was Dana Gould inviting me back <a href="https://www.danagould.com/choco-lonely/" target="_blank">a second time</a>, and genuinely seeming to enjoy talking to me. We talked right up until we had to stop because he had another appointment. I will blame him forever for (indirectly) making me watch <i>Carny</i>, but I will also thank him forever for bumping up my <i>Plan 9</i> sales significantly. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VRiKJJkXaoE" width="320" youtube-src-id="VRiKJJkXaoE"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Start around 1:23:00 if you want to hear only me. <br /><p>I was also on <a href="http://www.monstermoviehappyhour.com/podcast" target="_blank">Monster Movie Happy Hour</a>, which was loads of fun. We meant to talk for 45 minutes and instead talked for over an hour recorded and another hour after that unrecorded. Very occasionally I wish I had a place in the Midwest to live in during the three weeks a year the weather is nice, and folks like them are the reason why. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qefXtzAK4xY" width="320" youtube-src-id="qefXtzAK4xY"></iframe></div><br /><p>If you missed it, I was also on <a href="https://blackarkradio.libsyn.com/death-bed-the-bed-that-eats" target="_blank">Movies from Hell</a> re: <i>Death Bed</i> and <i>Ruby</i> and on <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/castle-dracula-horror-movie-podcast/episode/discussing-valley-of-the-dolls-with-film-writer-katharine-coldiron-89790969" target="_blank">Castle of Horror</a> re: <i>Valley of the Dolls</i>.</p><p>This week I'm recording twice more, for a local arts podcast in central Virginia (see below) and for <a href="http://www.yourstupidminds.com/" target="_blank">Your Stupid Minds</a>, which I just had to pitch, given that the name is a quote from <i>Plan 9</i>. We're discussing perhaps my favorite bad movie of all, so I'm looking forward to it. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">If you're reading this and you have a podcast you want me to be on, let me know! I have a fancy microphone, a good voice, and a reasonably quick wit. </h3><p>In March, I'm doing a miniature East Coast tour. On Sunday, March 20, I'll be in Richmond, Virginia, at <a href="https://plan9music.com/" target="_blank">Plan 9 Records</a>. I'll be screening <i>Plan 9 from Outer Space</i>, selling the book, and talking with a local podcast host (see above). I'm not sure of the time for this event yet, but I'm hoping it'll be late afternoon, because who wants to go to a Sunday night anything? </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTStHOxofqbc-zvEByhzlwvQ6fxehMKHhWlEnOTw_tVVzsMoYBkspoXUzO_bBRMQrk7yH5rehfz5HOPg2tYyISDruCIK1cbUsSDVInJb57_q0ThiHmSmPsCHY2r-28SAEe1S0uW_87o-h8Dsu9LD20iUQsy1cpQ2r8v0VQNn1YFXoei4JejP6euvgVYQ=s187" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="187" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTStHOxofqbc-zvEByhzlwvQ6fxehMKHhWlEnOTw_tVVzsMoYBkspoXUzO_bBRMQrk7yH5rehfz5HOPg2tYyISDruCIK1cbUsSDVInJb57_q0ThiHmSmPsCHY2r-28SAEe1S0uW_87o-h8Dsu9LD20iUQsy1cpQ2r8v0VQNn1YFXoei4JejP6euvgVYQ" width="187" /></a></div><br /><p>The following week I go to AWP in Philadelphia. I don't have any events planned, but I'll have copies of my books to sell - probably at the Barrelhouse table - and I'll be happy to step in and help in any situation where it's needed. I did this at the 2020 AWP, running an event and moderating a panel to replace absentees, and it was great. I've learned from prior AWPs that holding to a planned schedule gives me a rotten experience, while walking around with no particular plan makes me happy. I decided to go this year because I wanted to, after all, not because I needed to or had something specific to flog. </p><p>After that I go on to New York City, where I'll be signing at <a href="https://www.fpnyc.com/" target="_blank">Forbidden Planet</a> on Sunday, March 27. That's in the late afternoon, and in the evening there's a TBD screening event hosted by a Forbidden Planet employee who loves <i>Plan 9</i>. </p><p>And then that's it, I go home. I haven't been to New York in some years, which is funky because I have strong memories of it being easily accessible during my college years. In my freshman year I was involved with a guy at Columbia and drove there every other weekend. Now it feels as unreachable and cosmopolitan as it probably does for most citizens of this country. </p><p>Anyway, none of this stuff is going to be livestreamed as far as I know. Sorry. I'm still trying to make plans to do a virtual watch-along of <i>Plan 9</i>, so we can all watch it together on our laptops. I haven't done this because the time hasn't seemed right, for various internal reasons that haven't borne the fruit I hoped they would. At this point I don't know what I'm waiting for. April, I think, is a good month to do it. </p><p>In other news, I'm consulting on the launch of a new film quarterly run by an awesome, scrappy film community here in LA. There's a lot about that still up in the air, but I hope it will be as good as the work we're putting into it. Stay tuned - I'll be promoting it a lot if it works out as I hope. </p><p>In other other news, I'm still trying very damn hard to sell three of my books, and/or get an agent to help me sell them, and to place finished essays about movies that I think are good. That isn't going very well, on the whole. It's a discouraging time for my submissions, even as the podcasting gains me some traction. Later in the year I'm gonna dive to writing depth, starting the next project, and I'm massively looking forward to doing that instead of promoting and pitching, which is several fathoms up, high visibility, lots of sun. Even if the current depth is less work, in an hours-per-day sense, it's not work I was cut out to do, so it wears me out pretty easily. </p><p>--</p><p>Lately I've been wondering a little more about the future of this blog. I didn't think I'd ever be the type of person who watched her words in public, but I had no idea it would be so practically difficult to write about writing while telling the whole truth. Enemies who are friends with friends, people who don't know what they don't know, deeply unpopular opinions held for an unairable reason, etc. Also, blogging is firmly out of fashion at this point. (I'm a bit tickled that writing outflow keeps finding different places to go. It's currently in Substack-ish newsletters, which I believe is unsustainable.) </p><p>My personal life is pretty happy, and my successes and failures in my writing life are either boring and continual (rejections, rejections, rejections) or not suitable for the public (non-scandalous ill treatment by folks with whom I'd like to stay congenial). I don't want to make this a writing craft blog, because, in brief, I am weary of writing craft on the internet. So what do I write about here? Maybe I announce things, maybe I pursue ideas that don't fit anywhere else, maybe I keep up with my reading and viewing habits. Maybe I stop. </p><p>I'm not fussed about this choice, because my investment in this space is low. I used to feel genuine pain over its low readership but have long since detached from that. I'm staying here on my terms, and my terms are not to worry too much about consistency or content here. Plenty of other spaces for me to worry about that. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-52760251385663134242022-02-19T13:40:00.004-08:002022-02-19T13:40:55.093-08:00This Spot in the Road<p></p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">I think I finished my book today? Scattered applause requested, because I'm not sure yet</p>— Katharine Coldiron (@ferrifrigida) <a href="https://twitter.com/ferrifrigida/status/1495113067843129345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p></p><p>The book I've been working on for two years directly, and several more years indirectly, is a collection of straightforward critical essays about bad movies. Originally I planned to write about the following media: </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Plan 9 from Outer Space</i> </li><li><i>Cop Rock</i> </li><li>The Teen Agers films (1946-48) </li><li><i>Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman</i> (1958) </li><li><i>Death Bed: The Bed that Eats</i> </li><li><i>Ruby</i> </li><li><i>Showgirls</i>/<i>Staying Alive</i> </li></ul><p></p><p>By the middle of last year, I'd written half of these and published a few. I got stuck on the <i>Showgirls</i>/<i>Staying Alive</i> essay, about which I was quite intimidated (a lot of people have written about <i>Showgirls</i>), and then I lost half a year to circumstances out of my control, during which I barely wrote. I also had a mini-brainwave about how I'd chosen to approach this project: I'd written criticism about these films without writing much on how the audience receives them. With this in mind, I decided to write about two other films: </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Girl in Gold Boots</i></li><li><i>After Last Season</i></li></ul><p></p><p>Between November and February, I wrote the remaining essays from the first list, including 4,300 words on <i>Showgirls</i> & <i>Staying Alive</i>. I also wrote a 7,700-word essay <a href="http://fictator.blogspot.com/2021/10/like-bad-thing.html">on Quentin Tarantino</a>, which required a ton of research and which I still can't believe I turned in on time. Since January I've written 2,000 words to order on <i>Switchblade Sisters</i> (which might end up in this bad-movie book), and I thought intensely about what I wanted to say in the essay on <i>Girl in Gold Boots</i>. </p><p>For two weeks I tried to write this essay, and kept failing. I got way into the weeds, trying to sort out what it means to like a film, the difference between pleasing graphic design and actual art, and how moral value attaches to aesthetic value. It was a mess. Ultimately I splurted out 1,500 words of deep confusion about what I was trying to do, which I think is itself something, but which might also be background for the <i>real </i>essay. If the real essay exists, it's either going to be so methodical it's practically philosophy, or it's going to be totally bizarre. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUWDJMnk8cB3--7wPHstJVXdP35PWnRa-v2ZqbKUF2I3CBTnx-s_7roBeSoB2nkiocAkzaRY2y_45D0qGuMneRlYSE-bYm0jxGWQzmFxBMWP7VlCdOKYg7R3aKi2P_c0g52UprtgQhPtCM-KHsbkZv5hj74kAIb3EbbiVW0S0SCw5QtpzQXBoSeR_9hw=s1333" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUWDJMnk8cB3--7wPHstJVXdP35PWnRa-v2ZqbKUF2I3CBTnx-s_7roBeSoB2nkiocAkzaRY2y_45D0qGuMneRlYSE-bYm0jxGWQzmFxBMWP7VlCdOKYg7R3aKi2P_c0g52UprtgQhPtCM-KHsbkZv5hj74kAIb3EbbiVW0S0SCw5QtpzQXBoSeR_9hw=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p>I was saving <i>Season</i> for last, because I wasn't quite sure what would happen when I saw it again, when I tried to put ideas about it together in sentences. Yesterday I watched the film in the morning, sat down to write about it in the late afternoon, and finished 3,100 words about it around 11 PM. I read these words again this morning and it's a finished essay. I'm astonished, because I really thought this essay would be impossible - the <i>film</i> is impossible - but it was one of the easiest things I've written in the past year. </p><p>That means, aside from the <i>Gold Boots </i>essay, the book is complete. </p><p>Which might mean the book is, in fact, complete. It's possible the <i>Gold Boots </i>essay won't work out. I'll give it a couple of weeks and another strong try before I really give up, but it seems ever more likely that I'm not capable of saying what I'd like to about this goddamn stupid lovable movie. </p><p>So, as I said on Twitter, I think I might have finished my latest book today. Yay for me, I think? I'll probably write some interstitials to sculpt it into a real book and Lord knows finding a publisher hasn't gone well so far, but reaching this spot in the road means I can begin to move on from this whole period of my writing life, creatively. Move on from film crit as the only thing I do and swerve back toward the other stuff I do. Up next is a novel, my first in more than five years, so I'm looking forward to that. </p><p>There's a lot more news, but not sharing it here means I'll have to write another post soon. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-36478062184325205062021-11-18T18:10:00.005-08:002021-11-18T18:12:06.143-08:00Fixes <p>Here is a true story. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_wfkRO24TcU65khQrKo2RmWD5Uc5PBIyKtVZtQfxvSlrDqXc3jY6_GI7exImnYZxc2Jh0rCgQOni5pbjmqG1om1sVhQVSTAofMJQwYprgUJ5dijgZEIw-rvRZvkGFt5RpN2-BrNnxcCgT/s1800/gf2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_wfkRO24TcU65khQrKo2RmWD5Uc5PBIyKtVZtQfxvSlrDqXc3jY6_GI7exImnYZxc2Jh0rCgQOni5pbjmqG1om1sVhQVSTAofMJQwYprgUJ5dijgZEIw-rvRZvkGFt5RpN2-BrNnxcCgT/w320-h240/gf2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Hummingbirds are fascinating to watch. Up close they're a lot more like big bugs than like birds; they're a bit louder than you expect and they hover unsettlingly, changing direction unpredictably. But through a window, there is nothing better to watch. They have weird tongues and their bodies change shape to a surprising degree when they're perching or flying and they're fast, fast, fast. </p><p>Over the summer I started taking the trouble to hang a feeder outside my office, after years of not bothering (you end up needing to refill the feeders all the time and it can be messy and irritating to do so). In late summer, a goldfinch began visiting the hummingbird feeder, every day, mid-morning. Because hummingbirds are so tiny, it looked <i>huge</i> on the perching area, and I worried that it was scaring the little guys off. </p><p>I went to the bird store and asked what I should do. The bird guy said he'd never heard of that, a goldfinch drinking sugar water. I shrugged and said well, it's happening. He sold me an inexpensive sock feeder full of nyjer (a tiny black seed), in the hope of moving the bird's interest to that instead. He asked me to follow up with him, because he was curious what would happen. </p><p>The sock feeder didn't work, at first. I hung it outside my husband's office window, a ways down from the hummingbird feeder. Still that big ol' finch would visit to sip sugar water every day, setting the feeder swinging with its giant tail and bright yellow breast. So I went back to the bird store, where I talked to a different guy, and he, too, had never heard of a goldfinch drinking from a hummingbird feeder. I bought a much more serious feeder, a part-metal contraption with a yellow top and a huge cylinder to fill with nyjer. Which I did, fill it with nyjer. I hammered in a new nail to hang the sock feeder outside my window, two feet or so from the little red hummingbird feeder, and hung the serious feeder outside Matt's office. I hoped to graduate to only having the serious feeder, far enough away from the hummingbirds so as not to scare them off, and not to have to use the sock feeder (much messier and harder to fill) at all. </p><p>A few weeks went by. Nothing happened at first, and then everything happened at once. Dozens of finches and other assorted little birds started visiting my patio, first in the morning and then all day long. Eight of them at a time would cling to the sock feeder, pecking out nyjer and chirping at each other. A pair of them sometimes sat on different sides of the feeder with their tails crossed companionably. They found the serious feeder, too. I bought bigger bags of nyjer and took video. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwwMWWqOmAjXtUV5urh0U_4gBQrNcAKuRjAZcKf1ZxZZp8xHr2hN-3p7y2WjGikSV7ckxNiQj9n2IW25eKikQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><p>Now, months in, my patio is stippled with poop and covered with expended nyjer seeds. Every time we go out there, a flurry of wings and panicked twittering greets us as we (accidentally) scare off the birds that sit and feast all day. Hummingbirds still hang around my patio, some, but the finches and sparrows are the stars of the show. </p><p>I bought some little nests in the hope of slowing the damage they're doing to my flowering bushes via occupancy. I'm in the market for a large birdhouse for the same reason. And I bought a hook to hang the sock feeder over a planter so I don't have to sweep up so much. More stuff to try and coax the patio into looking how I want it to look, to keep it from being presided over by the damn birds. </p><p>All this started with a single goldfinch who liked sugar water. In trying to solve that problem, I created a whole constellation of problems, and trying to solve <i>those</i> means repeatedly adding things to my life - buying solutions. </p><p>Weeks ago I started believing this was a metaphor. </p><p>I don't want to stop feeding the birds. That would be the simplest solution, to just stop, let the finches find another hookup for their nyjer, go back to having just the one hummingbird feeder. But I like them; they're distracting when I'm lonely and worried about my writing. Yet they trouble me: am I making them too fat? am I somehow attracting rats to the patio (I see them crawling along the wall in the evenings, and I found one dead, half-under our grill, earlier this week)? am I lowering the property value with a plethora of tiny poops? will my star jasmine ever recover? </p><p><i>The Sopranos</i> begins with Tony obsessed with the ducks in his pool. As a metaphor, it's neat; the ducks act independently of him, and he takes few actions to change his relationship with the ducks or the way he lives alongside them. No contradictory elements or uninterpretable events. I remember my husband telling me that his family would always scare off ducks that hung out in their pool, because they were messy, and there was a river literally on the other side of the house that was better for their needs. That's less a metaphor than it is a story about wildlife colliding with suburbia. Like seagulls that mistake empty parking lots for ocean: I used to see that as sad, paving paradise to put up etc., but now I think gulls just have bad eyesight and it doesn't mean much. </p><p>What's going on with me and these finches is something else altogether, something to do with cascades or fractals or sheer stubbornness. Unintended consequences. Soured generosity. Capitalism and the nesting instinct. </p><p>Coincidentally or not, at present a mental health crisis is slowly unfolding inside my head, doubling in size with every unfurled edge. With that lens I see this whole situation as a seminar in failure. At each stage, I guessed about what would help, or fix, and implemented those ideas. In helping or fixing one aspect, I opened the door to other challenges, none of which is more or less tolerable than the initial one but which require new and different fixes. Each new round, through my current lens, contains failure, and failure, and more failure. </p><p>Maybe what I've done is cause dependency in wild animals, which is <i>always</i> a mistake. Maybe I've made my patio a haven for exactly the wrong kinds of animals (today rats, tomorrow coyotes?!) Maybe, in not just giving up and leaving the feeders empty, in continually trying to "solve" this, I've given myself a distraction, both when I sit in my office and when I make a shopping list for the home & garden section at Lowe's, from what I really need to be doing, which is producing new work. It's what I've needed to be doing for five months. Instead, I'm mucking around with finches and pruning my bushes until they start to die. </p><p>That might be too harsh an analysis of what's happening here. In nimbler hands, this story would be a minor plot line in a comedy, like Bridget Jones's disastrously remodeled apartment (in the books) or the adventures of Maris Crane. Everything looks like <i>Stalag 17</i> to me right now, not like <i>The Apartment</i>. But this metaphor, if it is one, doesn't feel tidy enough to be comic. It's sloppy and strange, as wild animal encounters so often are (or should be), and I don't know what to learn from it. </p><p>Maybe nothing. Maybe we learn less often from true stories. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-70573441979250162322021-11-03T18:43:00.006-07:002021-11-04T09:22:29.117-07:00Anthropomorphosis <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5xg2tIEKBTw_m1qtZutktKW0uS1eBLHFbGlia4C9F5BaD-ZJAafXupQ7pOVRa2GpUmb-zp_AV3m2pVnp2GyDjYTFvSOZmVpJkC0uh1i2UkaIcOecKdx1vJlJK3vfL-h7Gz2YkRKpM1Jkg/s600/File_000.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="600" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5xg2tIEKBTw_m1qtZutktKW0uS1eBLHFbGlia4C9F5BaD-ZJAafXupQ7pOVRa2GpUmb-zp_AV3m2pVnp2GyDjYTFvSOZmVpJkC0uh1i2UkaIcOecKdx1vJlJK3vfL-h7Gz2YkRKpM1Jkg/w320-h299/File_000.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">today's mood</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p>Today I sent six queries for <i>Plan 9</i> publicity and a few followups to agents as well. I've done as little of this work as I possibly can over the past year, but today, suddenly, I had the energy to do it. I also slept well two nights in a row after not sleeping well for several weeks on end. </p><p>I'm not going to say that all of this was because I spent time with horses on three of the last five days, but that certainly made a difference. </p><p>It's very strange to learn something fundamental about yourself well into adulthood. In my case, it's that I like animals. I didn't spend any time with animals when I was young (other than small pets like hamsters - I do <i>not</i> like rodents, I've learned), and only in the last few years have I discovered how much I love being with horses and dogs and, when I have access to immediate hand-washing and laundry, cats too. Time with animals has the capacity to turn my mental health around, which is a genuine surprise. </p><p>The time with horses was spent at a ranch about an hour north of me. I'm going to try to go there once a week until I can't anymore. The difference in horsemanship between this (western/endurance riding, starting wild horses under saddle) and the stable I worked at for 18 months (dressage) is so profound that the only similarity is the existence of horses. The disparity, the feeling of starting over, led me into a bunch of panicky questions about what I'm even doing with myself and my time, what the years past 40 are going to look like for me, what this is all for. How do I do this? How do I continue it? </p><p>My brother-in-law is a highly strategic person (on the outside - what do I know about his insides?). He planned his life really well, from college on, and now he's living it. That sounds satisfying, and yet seems impossible for me to do. I admire it but am perplexed by it. What if life changes in a way not accounted for by his plan? What if he discovers he badly wants something unstrategic? </p><p>--</p><p>Today, my second book finally <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1786363429/">appeared on Amazon</a>, even though it's not yet available to <i>order</i> on Amazon. Baby steps. </p><p>--</p><p>Making plans for a three-city visit back east in March: central Virginia, Philadelphia, NYC. Hope I'll see you there. More details as I know them. </p><p>-- </p><p><b>EDIT TO SECTION BELOW:</b> holy crap, I already blogged about this, <a href="https://fictator.blogspot.com/2016/10/real-question-is-workshop-always-stupid.html">five years ago</a>. I said some of the same things then that I said below, but I was not as nice about it then. Shame on me for not looking more carefully at my own past words. </p><p>-</p><p>Recently I had cause to remember and link to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/07/26/et_tu_nemesis_salpart/" target="_blank">this essay</a>. In reading it again, I found that I wasn't just remembering it for the reason I linked to it, which is this passage: "And I will say, too, that he was a man obsessed. While the rest of us were screwing around with our crushes and debating whether or not to use our middle initial when published, he was writing. I mean <i>really</i> writing, all the time, sometimes a rumored fourteen hours a day." </p><p>The "he" is Joshua Ferris, who hit a grand slam with his debut novel, <i>Then We Came to the End</i>. He was lucky, but here is proof that he also worked extraordinarily hard. There is no one way to be a successful writer, especially because "success" bears such a range of meanings. But most assuredly, you are more likely to find whatever kind of success you want if you put your head down and write than if you engage with Writer Drama (which is...significant). </p><p>The passage didn't teach me this lesson, but it did crystallize it: you can talk about writing, you can have sex about writing, you can dramaturge about writing, but the only way you will publish is by actually, literally, provably writing. </p><p>But again, upon reread, this article opened up a bunch more avenues for me to think about. </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>On the way things get magnified in a small, absurd environment like an MFA program: "It would be years before I realized that almost none of it, at least what had happened in workshop, mattered at all." <br /><br /></li><li>On room at the table: "We are entirely different writers and, as such, weren’t competing at all. I would tell myself that his success had no bearing on whether or not I would have any, and dwelling on it only amounted to a shitload of wasted time." <br /><br /></li><li>On hard truths: "I’ve been forced to come to grips with what all writers must face at some point: No one — <i>and I mean no one</i> — except for you, and maybe your mother, cares if you write." <br /><br /></li><li>On what's required of a male writer vs. what's required of a female writer post-MFA: "A few years later his novel came out [...] and he was lauded as the Second Coming of Franzen. What was I doing during this time? [...] Taking care of my sister during her bout with cancer." <br /><br /></li><li>On the toxicity of the standard MFA workshop: "It was so terrible, Geoffrey so unnecessarily unkind, that if it had happened to me, I would have been in the fetal position in the corner of the room after the first fifteen minutes." <br /><br /></li><li>On why MFAs are a terrible idea for people who haven't developed enough integrity of self to compartmentalize work and relationships, as they're too young, with too little life experience: "...but then you hang out, you drink, you make out, you realize you are competing with one another for the prize of attention and praise and connections and publication, you have inappropriate crushes on people who are not available but act like they are, and yes, hello, all of that taints your views of other people’s work." </li></ul><p></p><p>I don't agree with everything Mims says in this piece. But it's an extraordinarily useful essay to dissect and consider, whether you think MFAs are good or bad, whether you think spite is a useful driver of hard work or not, whether you think it's fine to mix sex with writing workshop or not. I think this essay should be required reading for anyone applying to an MFA program. </p><p>--</p><p>I'm working my way through <i>BoJack Horseman</i> (which is <a href="https://4columns.org/black-hannah/bojack-horseman" target="_blank">extraordinary</a>). I do not think it's related that I've found a new horse place to spend time, but it sure is fun that they're happening together. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-65677077222672338122021-10-02T18:31:00.000-07:002021-10-02T18:31:11.250-07:00Like the Bad Thing<p>I'm in a bad mood today. It might be the weather (windy, hot, dry), or it might be a feeling that everything I've done recently has only been half-done (yard work, friendship, whatnot). But the last time I felt this way, it was because I hadn't written anything in a while, and once I wrote I felt better. (Like constipation.) Blogging isn't really what my muse has in mind, but it'll have to do; all the other projects on my plate require too much research. Those projects include a long essay on Tarantino, a long essay on two dance films, and two other film essays that haven't shaped up yet. </p><p>The Tarantino essay was something I accepted as a lark but it's taking on much bigger proportions. I half-joked to Matt that I felt sure no one else in the world would ever again ask me to go on at length about Tarantino, and I definitely could have written the thing without research or refresher-watches, just bullshitting for several thousand words. Alas, my tactics have changed. I've borrowed or bought a lot of books about him and am reading them, slowly. My target is <i>Kill Bill</i>, and I had a very safe, simple thesis about it before I started reading. Now I think there'll be a few prongs. </p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplikkKAzbksGMvj7VTtxXVVnSaFgHaUMYe8UG1pAPmmevUwZvZYZUndjeqaFLjpISjjoLpWC4Old4U8a8LQLJjIvItJ_ln3kMNcMPZZbI1DIrFd8KhGeT6xQS8U37NNF4b4QopGwlPWWW/s2048/qt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1992" data-original-width="2048" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiplikkKAzbksGMvj7VTtxXVVnSaFgHaUMYe8UG1pAPmmevUwZvZYZUndjeqaFLjpISjjoLpWC4Old4U8a8LQLJjIvItJ_ln3kMNcMPZZbI1DIrFd8KhGeT6xQS8U37NNF4b4QopGwlPWWW/w400-h389/qt.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">what you get when you ask me to write about something</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p></p><p>The main one is that <i>Kill Bill</i> is a hinge, an artistic midpoint, and the films themselves express Tarantino's waning interest in mixtapes and growing interest in the static Western. That's pretty easy to prove. He kinda laid it out for us. The tougher sell is writing about rape-revenge films and other exploitation genres that <i>Kill Bill</i> draws from, and critics have mostly ignored that angle. (Just incidentally, every single writer-at-length on Tarantino is male.) Obviously, his films are such rich texts that no one book or essay will explore all possible angles for his work, but I'm amazed at how many writers seem to have missed one crucial influence or another. They don't seem to be reading <i>each other</i>. One guy's writing about samurai films, the other's writing about Westerns, but they're not writing about how those two genres <i>both</i> go into the T-blender (and how they echo each other outside the T-blender anyway). Not all of us can have brains as encyclopedic as Tarantino's, but I expect people with PhDs to do better than this. All I've got is a library card and I plan to do better. </p><p>[I understand that Tarantino has, at best, a questionable personality. He's fallen in and out of favor with the public so often that I'm sick of worrying about it and am just gonna write about his films.]</p><p>I might have mentioned here that the last essay in the bad film book, the one I haven't written yet and should have written three months ago, is a dual piece about <i>Showgirls</i> and <i>Staying Alive</i>. <i>Staying Alive</i> is easy, few people have bothered with it, but a surprising number of people have written about <i>Showgirls</i>, and that has made me intimidated to start. It's a movie in which I have limited interest. I guess the kinder way to say that would be <i>focused</i> interest, but I said what I said; I don't enjoy watching it as much as I do the other movies I've written about in this book. So there's that too, that in studying it I have to watch it and think about it a bunch. I shouldn't have saved this essay for last, I should have saved an easy one for last, but I <i>love</i> the grotesque and delicious <i><a href="https://youtu.be/D6UWYylKzlc" target="_blank">Staying Alive</a></i> so I thought that enthusiasm would carry me through. </p><p>I'm kind of glad I didn't write the essay over the summer, though, because the other day I had an idea for how to rejigger the entire book that I think will make it better and more saleable. I was telling Marissa about how <i>Showgirls</i> has been "reclaimed" by writers who argue that it's a good movie, not a bad one, and how silly I think that is. (She agreed.) The same thing has happened to famed bomb <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_(film)" target="_blank">Ishtar</a></i>, which, look, I know Elaine May deserves a good reputation, but <i>Ishtar</i> is terrible. It's terrible! Don't redeem it, don't reclaim it. It's bad. That's it. </p><p>I started thinking about about why people bother to "reclaim" movies at all, why they try to prove they are good rather than just letting them be bad. Multiple reasons for this pattern exist, but the main thing I'm sure of is the cognitive dissonance. The critic knows she has good taste and yet she likes this movie that is objectively bad, so she has to turn it around and make it good to make this preference make sense, and she uses all the power of rhetoric she can summon to do so. </p><p>There is just no need for this. It's possible to like something bad without redeeming its reputation. Just go on and like the bad thing. They won't take your membership card away. </p><p>The best example for this in my own life is <i><a href="https://youtu.be/O7e8oXaZkSQ" target="_blank">Girl in Gold Boots</a></i>, an MST3K classic that is truly a shitty little movie. It's skeezy and cheap and badly made (by one of the schlockmasters of the 60s, Ted V. Mikels), about criminals, go-go dancers, and generally people with bad lives and no taste. I genuinely love this movie. Not just the MST of this movie; I love <i>the movie</i>, and I really, really don't know why. There's nothing in it that's good, nothing I can argue for as having objective quality. But I have <i>such</i> affection for it. I watch it when I'm sad. </p><p>I got to thinking I could write about the mystery of loving this movie, could try and dismantle the - to quote myself, in <a href="https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/plan-9-from-outer-space-hardcover-by-katharine-coldiron-5626-p.asp" target="_blank">the <i>Plan 9</i> book</a> - mechanism in me that loves bad movies. I don't know if I'll ever understand what makes that mechanism run, but I can try, and in the trying I might uncover some cool stuff. </p><p>Then I started thinking about where this essay would fit in with the others. So far I've written a book that intends to explore the ways that bad movies are bad: <i>how</i> they go wrong. If I add this essay, along with another, I might be writing about something else altogether: how we as audience <i>approach </i>bad movies. </p><p>The other one I'm thinking about is on <i>After Last Season</i>, which is truly the most baffling piece of cinema I've ever come across. It's the only movie I've ever seen that has completely resisted my attempts to analyze it. Even in the most opaque art films I can determine influences and the filmmaker's general concerns, and sometimes intentions, but this one...it's a piece of outsider art from a person who doesn't seem to have any creative urgency at all. And look, it's terrible, too, don't get me wrong, it's incompetent in every particular. But more interestingly, it fails to cohere around any significant ideas or intentions, creating something that's almost abstract, coupled with mundane failures of filmmaking. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C7qCOe8WG4I" width="320" youtube-src-id="C7qCOe8WG4I"></iframe></div><br /><p>How do we approach a film so poorly made that it offers us no entry points? With <a href="https://chicagoreader.com/blogs/in-praise-of-neil-breen-an-auteur-who-finds-new-and-exciting-ways-to-be-bad-with-every-movie-he-makes/" target="_blank">Neil Breen</a>, we can figure out what the films are saying about the man who created them, but <i>After Last Season</i> doesn't speak the way Breen's films do. It's anonymously bad, but outrageously so. What do we do with it? </p><p>These angles, to <i>Season</i> and <i>Boots</i>, alter the angle of the book. They make the book more thoughtful, and more about the audience than about the movies themselves. I think they make the book more useful as criticism and hopefully more interesting as essay; I have to admit to being stumped by <i>Season</i> and to loving <i>Boots</i>, and I have to work out what these reactions mean in a wider context of studying bad film. </p><p>Writing the <i>Plan 9</i> monograph was a breeze. These are much bigger challenges. But now that I've thought of these ideas, this more significant arc for the book, I'm having a hard time giving them up. </p><p>And would you look at that. The hour I spent working on this post has cleared my bad mood right up. Gotta love that Senokot. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-73105926710227913882021-07-07T16:26:00.001-07:002021-07-07T16:26:17.058-07:00Water and Waiting<p>Of late I've been trying to get rid of clutter. I am bad at this. Usually I feel the need to purchase more things in order to get rid of the things I already have: I want containers to organize stuff that should just get thrown out, for instance. In this case I bought a fancy scanner so I could scan in all my old files, stretching back before college, and I took up a lot of space in the living room setting up the scanner along with a shredder to dispose of what gets scanned. It's worked, though; I've gotten rid of a <i>lot</i> of paper, and in its place have a half-dozen bags of shredded stories, poems, notes, and articles. </p><p>For whatever reason, I didn't like the idea of tossing these shreds in the recycling bin and having the city haul them away. I wanted to personally transmute them into something new. So, naturally, I bought more stuff: the equipment needed to make handmade paper. </p><p>I took to this practice immediately. It uses the hands and the eyes and water and waiting. I have enough shredded paper to make hundreds of pages of handmade paper, and I may yet use it all; I had hoped to use this paper to create hand-bound chapbooks of my own work which I could sell or give away (literal transmutation of old creative work into new creative work), but I'm not sure that will happen. The handmade paper has a lot of alphabetic fragments on it which might make new work printed on it hard to decipher. </p><p><br /></p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">The paper I’m making today is from my old rejection slips. <a href="https://t.co/wN1HZYyLZC">pic.twitter.com/wN1HZYyLZC</a></p>— Katharine Coldiron (@ferrifrigida) <a href="https://twitter.com/ferrifrigida/status/1410342313243463682?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p></p><p><br /></p><p>The process of going through all my old documents has been freighted with emotion. My college papers show me that I write almost exactly the same way about film now as I did in 2002, and that I cannot write a decent paper about anything else. My old stories and novellas are <i>terrible</i>, far worse than I remembered, with fun [ed.: <i>not fun</i>] surprises I'd forgotten about altogether. I'm embarrassed for these stories, and for me, because I sent them out to magazines in all seriousness. Horrifying. </p><p>I only vaguely recognize the person I was in college. She wrote comments in the margins of her course readers that were sometimes insightful and sometimes painfully dim. She had relationships with people of whom I do not remember one eyelash. Her opinions were strong, but pretty poorly informed. I can see the writer in her straining to surface. </p><p><br /></p><p>In other news. </p><p>This weekend I begin teaching an online course about overcoming perfectionism. I've been flogging it everywhere possible, in as many social media groups as I can. I can't wait for it, in truth; writing and assembling the materials got me excited about sharing anti-perfectionism strategies. (If you somehow missed all my shouting about the course and are interested, you can sign up <a href="http://literarykitchen.net/the-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-the-good-a-writing-workshop-on-perfectionism-with-katharine-coldiron/" target="_blank">here</a>, until Friday or Saturday I think.) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR8Gs7DOOzTm6AzJV4BEsTW8Twr8XVaHrv-2p15-34Ma0rf5GvmLuDbAa7iIe6OOHqZp4D98AROpBUOFNV5zA4mcl6kGRgoj-KNFbOytlVbhmp_IhlW0PY7PVZreSrYDZRfPbeWRZS97IH/s1654/SolnitQuote.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1654" data-original-width="1654" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR8Gs7DOOzTm6AzJV4BEsTW8Twr8XVaHrv-2p15-34Ma0rf5GvmLuDbAa7iIe6OOHqZp4D98AROpBUOFNV5zA4mcl6kGRgoj-KNFbOytlVbhmp_IhlW0PY7PVZreSrYDZRfPbeWRZS97IH/w400-h400/SolnitQuote.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>I got to talk to a major inspiration of mine on the phone and I was a big pile of scribbled anxiety in the shape of a person, but I don't think he noticed. </p><p>The <i>Plan 9 </i>book is chugging along toward publication. Still no news on a release date, but you'll hear about it, o readers of blog. The cover is great and I can't wait to share that with you, too. </p><p>My therapist recommended that I put together an actual schedule for my days, now that outside work doesn't shape them. I did: read in the morning, lunch + break for something on TV, write in the afternoon. It's amazing. I'm finally coming back to reading after a series of halting breaks, and my project is to empty out the shelves of unread books I might have mentioned. So far I'm doing a good job. It's all a part of cleaning and culling, trying to have less clutter in my life. Or at least temporary empty space, before I buy more clutter to take the place of the old. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-45778519198719887132021-05-26T12:47:00.001-07:002021-05-26T12:47:10.109-07:00Two Bookshelves <p>I'm not quite on schedule on the bad film book, because May has been a Break. I've tried to rest and sleep aggressively to get my body back to normal after stopping horse work at the end of April. Of course that means I have insomnia and weight gain, and I've almost completely lost my concentration. I'll get back on track in June, I hope, with the book and my body. I'm trying to finish a cross-stitch project that turned out to be a <i>hell</i> of a lot more work than I thought, and when that is done, a small daily residue of despair, of not-finishing, will evaporate. It should be done in the next few days. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlPwlTMJzBEcTB73qc7U8I9sUPF75OCdVCzA71gk-gkPVOwFwGCLRU37orjz1O9KF3BKV0PPJTXLvY8dBPTsacSMn8MqzZkK6ID5m3-BlYznNHWmA_YjWOxVdrpau_3HI_0AZyOiBtOEh/s2048/IMG_2954.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSlPwlTMJzBEcTB73qc7U8I9sUPF75OCdVCzA71gk-gkPVOwFwGCLRU37orjz1O9KF3BKV0PPJTXLvY8dBPTsacSMn8MqzZkK6ID5m3-BlYznNHWmA_YjWOxVdrpau_3HI_0AZyOiBtOEh/w300-h400/IMG_2954.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div><br /></div>It's a very fun piece, but larger than expected (I even misjudged how much Aida I'd need, which is why the upper and lower borders are tiny), and the purple is just...so much. I'm going to end up using two full skeins of embroidery thread on it, which I believe I've never done on a non-kit project. My larger projects have tended to represent a show I was binging while I stitched, and this one is <i>Bob's Burgers</i>. Just started season nine. <br /><p>I'm reading Zelda Fitzgerald's <i>Save Me the Waltz</i>, and it's...interesting. I don't know if I'd call it a good book, but it's absolutely worth reading: dense with beauty and steeped in a rare way of seeing the world, breathless with love, seductively artless. Few books have the persistent, seemingly haphazard, lapping movement it has. I half-wish I'd read it while I was a Fitz fangirl in my early teens, or at least known then that Zelda was a writer too. I find it interesting that my education on Fitz didn't include that information. </p><p>I'm also audiobooking <i>The Secret History</i>. Outlook hazy so far. And I'm reading shorter books at as fast a clip as I can manage while still working on Lisa. This month I reorganized my bookshelves, you see, and discovered that I have two entire bookshelves full of books I haven't read. Like, not two shelves, but two <i>bookshelves</i>, two shoulder-high pieces of furniture fully loaded with books not yet read. So I'm trying to move through them. </p><p>My bookshelves have been messily stacked instead of organized for over a year. It used to be my favorite thing to do when we moved, but the last two times, I organized them just a few months before we were asked to pack them up and move again. So this time I waited ages before organizing them again. As many books as I have now, it's tedious instead of fun to keep doing it (and I really didn't want to jinx us into moving again). But I finally got to the point where it was more annoying not to find the book I wanted than to spend a week stacking them on the living room rug and reassembling them on my shelves. </p><p>In forward-facing writing news, a bunch of stuff has appeared or been published lately. <a href="https://vaguevisages.com/2021/04/27/intentionally-disposable-art-the-teen-agers-films/" target="_blank">This essay about the Teen Agers</a>, which surprised me by doing pretty well, and <a href="https://brightlightsfilm.com/something-to-sing-about-why-cop-rock-fails/" target="_blank">this essay about <i>Cop Rock</i></a>, which surprised me by sinking like a stone. <a href="https://bombmagazine.org/articles/kate-durbin-hoarders/" target="_blank">This interview with Kate Durbin</a> was a small part of a large raft of publicity for her new book, but it meant a lot to me. <a href="https://www.spreaker.com/user/12149820/coldiron-rev?autoplay=1" target="_blank">This podcast</a> featured me, about as enthusiastic and opinionated as I ever get. <a href="https://www.lazysusan.blue/3.html" target="_blank">This issue</a> of a fascinating literary project featured a bunch of my horse cross-stitches (keep clicking on the spinning object at the bottom). And <a href="http://www.americanmicroreviews.com/ceremonials-by-katharine-coldiron" target="_blank">this very nice review</a> of <i>Ceremonials</i> appeared. </p><p>In inward-facing writing news, I started a new blog for the book project I might be doing after I finish the bad film book. That project is a catalogue of the films of 1977, and I'm not sure of the final form it will take - a general discussion of trends and significance that mentions many films, or an encyclopedic listing of the films and how they cohere to trends and significance. In any event, I'm watching as many films from that year as I can, and offering up my notes on them <a href="https://1977project.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a>. It's less a blog like this one than it is an online notebook to help me track my progress. </p><p>One thing I'm less learning than I am seeing in action is how much old years are like new years. Most of what I'm watching is mediocre, or genuine dreck. While I still think 1977 is meaningful in cinema history, I also think I've likely seen most of the gems already, because they have lasted and been talked about. There's a lot of cinematic dreck in a given year and we live through it in real time, but the stuff that's worth watching later usually sits in the thresher, glittering, while the chaff blows off and away. Watching more of the films from a given year demonstrates that films aren't getting worse; we just don't usually watch the bad ones four decades later. </p><p>What's ahead of me is a lot of hard work, no matter how you slice it. After I finish the bad film book, I've either got the 1977 book or the <i>Casablanca </i>book ahead, and I have three finished or near-finished books I'd like to get published, all of which have very different audiences. I should probably find an agent if I can, although I'm frustrated and doubtful about that, and it's too long to get into why. I'm contemplating plunging into an extremely difficult long-term project (not writing, but literary) and am genuinely scared of the work it will take to do it. </p><p>I'm feeling discouraged, is the point. Lots of things are clicking, and I'm certainly counting my blessings. But although there are five shelves of books I've read, my eye keeps jumping back to those two I haven't. </p><p>There's one other thing on my mind, to do with talent and effort. I tried writing it here but it ended up long enough to be its own post so I will post it another time. Stay tuned. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-20496943194397055092021-02-26T11:42:00.001-08:002021-02-26T11:42:05.496-08:00Reduced to Summary <p>On February 10, a book blogger wrote a post dissecting some of my reviews at Locus, mostly of books by people of color. She discerned a pattern in my reviews that indicated racial prejudice. I believe that she called me out usefully on some mistakes, and that she otherwise selectively read and quoted me in ways that misrepresent my body of work. </p><p>This was all ignited because I reviewed the second volume of an epic fantasy series without reading the first volume. That choice infuriated readers and book bloggers, whose attitude toward books differs in significant ways from that of book critics. One blogger decided to look closer at my work, and these two issues - my purported racial prejudice and my choice to start with book two of a series - got conflated, when I'm not sure even the blogger intended that. </p><p>There's a great deal to be said about all this. The question of whether it should be a requirement to read books in series from the get-go in order to assess later books is an interesting one, when I stand back from it. Up close, the philosophy dissolves. For a few days I was a useful strawman for a lot of necessary arguments on Twitter about book criticism, even though I don't believe everything that's been said about my work and my critical posture is accurate or even helpful. I'm glad that my work has stirred up conversation about diversity in publishing, even as I'm devastated about being the subject of so much wrath. </p><p>I think I became a target for everyone who is mad about authority imbalances in book criticism. I respect that, but given how little I'm paid and how little I'm known, I find this silly. Hitting me is not really punching up for almost anyone. </p><p>I drafted a very long blog post explaining what I think and feel about this whole incident, how painfully it hits me given my history with race and racism, and some of the personal and professional aftermath. Ultimately, I don't think it's useful to make public. The above is all I want to say for now. </p><p>Also, there's a lot more for me to tell you. </p><p><a href="https://www.pspublishing.co.uk/electric-dreamhouse-75-c.asp">Electric Dreamhouse Press</a>, a UK publisher headed by my friend Neil Snowdon, is going to publish my second book this year as part of their line of Midnight Movie Monographs. My monograph is about Ed Wood's <i>Plan 9 from Outer Space</i>. I wrote this short book in the space of about six weeks in mid-2020, and I haven't had such fun writing a book since <i>Highbinder</i> (which still languishes, alas). I'm really pleased about joining the small but scrappy field of Ed Wood studies. </p><p>The book contains my central arguments about why it's worthwhile to study bad film. I've been building on those arguments to write a series of essays that I hope will be a whole book about bad film, eventually. I've written about <i>Ruby</i> (1977) and about a series of 1940s films starring "the Teen-Agers," and up next is <i>Death Bed: The Bed that Eats</i>. Other essays will be on <i>Cop Rock</i>, <i>Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman</i>, and a tricky dual piece about <i>Showgirls</i> and <i>Staying Alive</i>. I'm ahead of the schedule I made for these essays, which feels good. </p><p>However, I keep getting intuitive signals to work on the <i>Casablanca</i> novel, which has been at a bare simmer in the back of my head for years. Last night I attended a reading with Lance Olsen and Lidia Yuknavitch, and something Olsen said temporarily turned up the heat on that burner. I've made a very tentative plan to write that book once I'm finished with the bad film essays - sometime in the fall, ideally - but if this keeps up, I'll have to pause the bad film essays and set to the novel. I simultaneously feel excited about the project (I haven't written a novel in years) and preemptively annoyed. It's going to be <i>so</i> much work. </p><p>Anyway: the <i>Plan 9</i> book represents pure joy for me, as it was an intellectual problem which I got to solve to my satisfaction. That the result will be a book (and a beautiful book at that, given EDP's past performance) is extra whipped cream on an already-nice sundae. I found out about the Midnight Movie Monographs series around three years ago, and idly wondered what movie I could write about for 100 pages. My mind supplied <i>Plan 9 from Outer Space</i>, and even though it was a weird choice, the more I thought about it, the more I supposed I could do it. <i>How</i> would I write 100 pages about <i>Plan 9</i>? Well, last year, I wrote until I found out. Thankfully, Neil was interested in what I produced. </p><p>Both of my first two books, as it turns out, will be about weirdnesses my mind picked up and played around with, private obsessions I never thought would go public. Of everything I've written, these two books are the most fringely me, and I'm bemused that they are the two going out to bookstores in bound form. I think this means you ought to write what you love, or at least that <i>I</i> ought to write what I love. </p><p>As for the third book, I recently made a (digital) handshake agreement with <a href="https://bluearrangements.com/">Blue Arrangements</a> to publish my conceptual novel, <i>Victorian Spam</i>. It's a tee-tiny press, just two people, and all of us are burdened by lives and jobs and other projects, so we are all taking a relaxed attitude to the timeline of this book. I estimate that it'll appear in 2022, and it, too, is super weird. Yay! </p><p>None of these three books has anything to do with any of the others. <i>Ceremonials</i> is lyric fiction, <i>Plan 9</i> is straight nonfiction, and <i>Victorian Spam</i> is...other. All of them are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekphrasis">ekphrastic</a> in some way, and I created all of them, but those are the only two elements I can think of that they have in common. </p><p>As for the <i>fourth </i>book...I finally, finally, finally finished the <i>Misfits </i>essay back in December. A couple of weeks later, I got an important blessing from one of the real-life characters in the essay. Thus, <i>Weird New Shit</i>, my book of hybrid film essays, is really truly completed. It's taken me four or five years to write and assemble these essays, which is four or five times longer than I usually work on a book, so I'm thrilled to be done. I'm shopping it to a few presses I think will like it before I try agents, and have consequently racked up a few rejections. </p><p>I don't think there'll be news on that one for some time yet. My expectations for it are so large and unrealistic that it's probably better to let it settle as a project before it goes into the world, anyway. But I do suspect it'll be the fourth book. Mostly I'm glad to be done. </p><p>Somehow I never put it on the blog that an essay of mine was published online at <i>Conjunctions </i>a few months ago. It's called "<a href="http://www.conjunctions.com/online/article/katharine-coldiron-11-25-2020">All Cities Burn</a>" and when I shared it in November, I said I thought it was the best thing I've ever written. These days, with so many different projects coming to fruition, I don't really know if that assessment has meaning. Read it and let me know what you think. Maybe the most <i>arresting</i> thing I've ever written? Either way, being in <i>Conjunctions</i> is an honor. </p><p>While I was struggling through the emotional aftermath of the February 10 incident, I started cross-stitching tiny portraits of the horses I work with. I've made about a dozen, using various patterns and editing them as needed to communicate what the horses look like (and act like), and have a couple more to go. My plan is to give these to the owners of these horses as parting gifts; I've given my notice at the barn, and will be stopping work there within the next month or so, I hope. I'm sorry to go, but the work is <a href="https://fictator.blogspot.com/2020/10/retail-feet.html">tearing up my body</a>, and I'm turning 40 this year - too old to withstand another summer like 2020's. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACRXHL4memSVgaGpXZZhruVcsy12y877hucRNSMDzdYJmsgDSGdySUEo_X4HR9saUQP8Xk5KoS7XQfRpu5Io_8uUhN4dgHdGHAeyiobFe4D8__CykBeF7kAsQ6PxdOyGDY-_on6m3YmIs/s1461/group.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1141" data-original-width="1461" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgACRXHL4memSVgaGpXZZhruVcsy12y877hucRNSMDzdYJmsgDSGdySUEo_X4HR9saUQP8Xk5KoS7XQfRpu5Io_8uUhN4dgHdGHAeyiobFe4D8__CykBeF7kAsQ6PxdOyGDY-_on6m3YmIs/w445-h348/group.jpg" width="445" /></a></div><p>The one portrait I can't seem to settle on how to make is for Quinn, a gorgeous Friesian cross who is smart and eager and generally a lovely horse once he gets out of his anxious head. But he almost never succeeds in doing that. I love him so much and will miss him so much and I don't know how to capture him in cross-stitch without doing a massive, photorealistic portrait, much bigger than 3 inches wide. I don't have time for that. But how can I sum him up in such a small space? </p><p>How can any of us, horse or human, be reduced to summary? </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-74675329216493829552021-01-02T09:09:00.000-08:002021-01-02T09:09:01.685-08:00Sameness <p>This morning I dreamed that I had to unclog a drain. I pried the top off of a side-loading washing machine and used a plastic snake on the drain, which was around the diameter of my spread hand and covered with a flat white cap. Eventually I pulled out a clean, dry, thick lock of hair, tied together with a ribbon, about five inches long, which was the same color as mine. Then I discovered that the white cap was actually black, and it had been covered by a piece of bread and peanut butter, pressed PB-side-down on the top of the cap to further clog the drain. </p><p>Once I had scraped and wiped this, I started scooping a bunch of junk out of the machine - it was white and curded, like cottage cheese, or melted Styrofoam. No smell. I noticed that the junk was yellower and more hardened toward the northeast corner of the machine, and realized I had to break up and remove that part first. I began to worry that the junk was actually part of the machine's workings (an insulator?), and that I was doing the wrong thing by removing it. Once that uncertainty had truly penetrated, I woke up. </p><p>I've long wanted to write a blog post about all the good writing news of the past two months, but this dream was so specific - the textures, the emotions - that I had to get it down somewhere. I do not know what it means. I did watch <i>The Stuff</i> yesterday, so that's probably where the white junk comes from. (Don't give me Freud, please.) </p><p>It feels weird not to do resolutions this year, but I don't know what I would resolve to do. Clean more, maybe. Stop complaining about the stuff I always complain about. Keep to my book schedule, so as to write all the things I mean to write by the end of the year. But I'll only fail myself if I fail those intentions, and I do enough of that, thanks. </p><p>The days are all the same, and I thought I knew what that was like, since life in southern California moves like that, and I've worked at home for long periods before. But this kind of sameness has a hellish edge that reminds me of one of my favorite <i>Twilight Zone</i> episodes, where the petty criminal thinks he's gone to heaven because he always wins at the casino table and bangs as many pretty women as he wants, but in fact it's hell, because there's no challenge, he always wins, there's no danger or risk, and life without risk is...not heaven. </p><p>I'm not saying that contentment and peace are bad. Just that I always had the option to get in my car and go somewhere if the sameness of my lovely life started to make me itch. I'd look for a workshop to take, sign up, and have something to look forward to, particularly if it was somewhere I could drive and I'd never been there before. (For other people, this practice is known as "vacation," but I never learned how to take vacations in my family of origin, so my version is workshops.) Minor adventures. I can't imagine how difficult this has been for people who thirst after major adventures, as giving up my minor ones is challenging enough. </p><p>The days are all the same. When I lived in danger, I thought that sounded great. It is, for a while. Until it isn't anymore. </p><p>I'm listening to two audiobooks right now: <i>We Were Witches</i> by Ariel Gore and <i>The Name of the Rose</i> by Umberto Eco. Both long overdue. The way each deals with witches and women directly contradicts the other, which is fun, because I know which side I'm on. </p><p>Maybe I'll finally write that blog post with all the good news next week, or the week after. The days are all the same, so writing another blog post can pass for a big change in my routine. In the meantime, I'm running out of documentaries on cults to watch, especially since so many of them are padded and contain less information than the corresponding Wikipedia pages. But I'm getting so much cross-stitching done. I partially designed this piece and I'm disproportionately proud of it. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitTLQHU0Xgusvx8DawbYk8gJlsXSsoc82cM7RAkVLy1y55Sa09pKPJog87XyjP89q3FH9adqZK-mi0nhe2MrgMWigY02O7VNDUnss0nPSrSx8qTG8_I7v7h01hqEghbr3sfOqwf7EkR2j/s960/tea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="602" height="756" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitTLQHU0Xgusvx8DawbYk8gJlsXSsoc82cM7RAkVLy1y55Sa09pKPJog87XyjP89q3FH9adqZK-mi0nhe2MrgMWigY02O7VNDUnss0nPSrSx8qTG8_I7v7h01hqEghbr3sfOqwf7EkR2j/w474-h756/tea.jpg" width="474" /></a></div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-59568145776683350942020-10-23T12:59:00.000-07:002020-10-23T12:59:08.266-07:00Congestion<p>Yesterday I slept most of the day, on and off, dozing and then getting up to eat or watch a movie and then dozing again. It felt really good. Not much in my life at the moment is urgent, like, with a deadline or consequences, so I'm drifting a little. Spending whole days sleeping is good once in a while, like yesterday, but today, drifting does not feel good. I want to want to do things - writing or chores or editorial. But I don't really <i>want</i> to do any of them, or at least not one more than the other. In trying to decide what to tackle and how, I'm a little frozen, so instead here I am writing a blog post. </p><p>One thing did get done today: my husband and I bought a cemetery plot. The timing may seem weird, but: plots always go up in cost, we have a little money to spare right now, and we're sure about where we want to go. I feel so good about this decision - having a big, final, expensive choice all settled and in order, getting something done as rare and useful as this - that I want to tell everyone, but it's also an odd, macabre thing to talk about or announce. I feel like we bought a house (a very small, very inexpensive, very specific kind of house), but with virtually none of the hassle and responsibility of being a homeowner, so I want to rejoice. Given what we actually did buy, that's weird, right? </p><p>The weather is changing. It's overcast in the mornings now, cool and a little humid, until the sun breaks through and it becomes SoCal again. It's giving me congestion that is definitely not COVID but of course, fear, anxiety, etc. </p><p>I've watched a pile of movies lately, from <i>In a Lonely Place</i> to <i>Repo! The Genetic Opera</i>, including a couple of docs, one about giallo (thumbs-down) and one about cult film (thumbs-up-ish). In general I am tired of the conversation about film mostly being among men. I am tired of that. Watching <i>Magic Mike </i>for the first time I thought about the male gaze, and how that film goes with its flow while kind of stumbling into the female gaze now and then, which doesn't make much sense because the premise <i>depends upon </i>the female gaze, thus the ultimate gender philosophy of <i>Magic Mike</i> is really kind of a mess, which of course has been true for Soderbergh since <i>sex, lies</i>, and I considered the wildly different attitudes of women at male strip clubs and men at female strip clubs, and how wherever you go the phallus is the point, and how deeply goddamn annoying that is, which led me to "W.A.P.", and then I just stopped thinking about it altogether because I really needed another feminist to bounce all this off of, but it didn't stop me from feeling sure that more women need to talk and more men need to shut up in film discourse. In general. Across allllllllll the genres and pockets of participation, from buffs who don't really know what they're talking about to talking heads on Hitchcock DVDs. There were guys in the cult film doc who were barely coherent. It pissed me off to have to listen to them. </p><p>For quite a lot of years now I have wanted to own a full-size replica of Tom Servo. It took six weeks, but the one I bought on Etsy finally arrived. Here is a picture of me with him, and I promise you, I really was this excited. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwlvMhyphenhyphenBPVgTgk2TdFvx3568EIdJkVR6oaUqd70yB4dEzD4-3BzJ6IO8KYoo5aHV_2BYOo9MEehL8-FfPSyqJ3aOeaf9tzciOzwq-acURzm6pe0kN44usERpaBvdCxZ5klNOX5b6PXo2Gy/s1846/metom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1846" data-original-width="1618" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwlvMhyphenhyphenBPVgTgk2TdFvx3568EIdJkVR6oaUqd70yB4dEzD4-3BzJ6IO8KYoo5aHV_2BYOo9MEehL8-FfPSyqJ3aOeaf9tzciOzwq-acURzm6pe0kN44usERpaBvdCxZ5klNOX5b6PXo2Gy/w350-h400/metom.jpg" width="350" /></a></div><br /><p>After taking the pic, I put him on a chair and just looked at him for a minute, smiling like a goober. I don't know why this puppet brings me so much joy, why I'm such a fan of this inanimate channel for comedy, really I do not know - but I am, and it does, and now he sits next to the TV so whenever what's on the screen is uninteresting I can just look at him and grin. </p><p>Are we all as deadened and drifting as I am? I think I'm okay - there is happiness in my life (clearly), I can do what I need to do in order to live without dragging through it, I don't care much about missing dinners out or parties or concerts, I still feel love and sorrow and all the emotions in between. But all my days are the same, one upon the other, and it means I have a condition that's sibling to boredom but not quite it. Foreshortened motivation, based on having nothing at all to look forward to, no consequences for failure or sloth. I like my quiet life, and even though the days stretch out, I can always find something either practically or artistically useful to do for my brain. Yet I feel like two-thirds of myself. Whatever's missing is not fatally missing, but I do notice its absence. Is this familiar to anyone out there? </p><p>Anyway, come see me read (virtually) at Vroman's on Monday. Deets <a href="https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/vromans-local-author-day-crowdcast-edition-october" target="_blank">here</a>. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-63455722149848782272020-10-11T12:40:00.001-07:002020-10-11T12:40:31.167-07:00Retail Feet<p>I haven't written anything other than book reviews, emails, and tweets in three months, and the reason is my day job working with horses. I cannot adequately communicate how hard I have pushed my body in these months. I feel as if I've used every single cell, from scalp to marrow, to work and sweat and breathe and then work some more. </p><p>The physical burden of these months has reminded me of the job I hated the most of any I ever had, selling women's clothes at the mall. I used to cry at night because my feet hurt so much. I cried when I cleaned the dressing room mirrors in the morning, feeling so trapped and aimless in the recycled mall air. I was miserable beyond belief, and part of the reason was that my body was not built for the job. I asked my coworkers what they did about their feet hurting, and they just shrugged. I asked if it drove them as crazy as it drove me that the music tape repeated every 2 1/2 hours, that we heard the same songs in the same order every single day for months, and their answer was along the lines of "what tape?" </p><p>Both these answers boggled me. Hot vines of pain wrapped around my feet by the end of an eight-hour shift; I thought I'd rip the speakers out of the ceiling and hammer them to pieces if I heard "The First Cut Is the Deepest" one more goddamn time. (To this day I shudder when I hear one of the songs from that tape.) The other people in my life at the time mostly worked retail too, and my complaints puzzled them. "Complaints" doesn't really cover it; working retail crushed my spirit, melodramatic as it might sound. Everyone else was like, well, yeah, it's retail. It was like pointing out the brimstone and the demons burning you on the ass with pokers and hearing, well, yeah, it's hell. Get over it. </p><p>My best explanation for this is that I'm not built for retail. It takes a specific constitution to withstand retail: physically, you need the feet for it, and mentally, you need a kind of psychological reef on which repetitive behavior can break without breaking you. I don't have retail feet, and I don't have a retail mind. What I find absurd (Kafka-type absurd, almost-funny-but-horrible) about this is that out there in the world, retail is considered a low bar. Anybody can get a job at the mall. But coping with that job is, for some people, a labor that will destroy them, while others can just shrug indifferently. </p><p>Mine is not the hardest job at the barn. The guys who muck and feed work a lot harder than I do. I feel ashamed that I can't do as much as they can. But I don't have retail feet. When I get home I have to rest, aggressively. It's embarrassing that I can't bounce back, have to treat myself with Epsom salts and excessive couch time, but it's how my body is built. I had to accept it back in my excruciating days at the mall, humiliating as it was when everyone around me met the demands of retail without a flinch, and I have to accept it now. </p><p>Because of owner vacations and COVID, my workload was much heavier across August and September than it was for the first seven months of the year - right at the time when the weather is the most demanding. This summer I've done nine-hour days, walking 10 miles and climbing 500 vertical feet and lifting one 20-lb saddle after another onto the backs of moving 1200-lb animals, in 95F heat. And then went back and did it again the next day. Which means that my rest periods have extended to almost all the days I don't work. Which means that I haven't written anything. </p><p>Since my job as a writer is largely about thinking, the almost-year of this job has been overall good for me. It seemed at first like working at the barn half the week, totally out of my head and into my body, and then working at my computer the other half, totally out of my body and into my head, would be a perfect life. </p><p>But I don't have retail feet. </p><p><br /></p><p>Although I haven't produced much of anything new (and I miss it, and I want to, and I'm a literal year behind on finishing just a single essay, and I really want to start a new long project, really bad), I've continued to submit old stuff. That has led to a pretty significant publication coming at the end of this month, God willing. </p><p>Also, a hybrid essay I wrote in I think the first class I took with Higgs, or maybe the second, <a href="https://www.wigwagmag.com/vol-9-singin-in-the-rain" target="_blank">got published in Wig-Wag</a>. It was rejected twenty-three times before Brad Efford accepted it and then blessed me further by wanting to make very few edits. Now that it's in the world, some of the smartest people I know are telling me it's incredible. I want to be humble about this, but the truth is I <i>know</i> it's incredible. I know that every sentence in it is deliberate, that its threaded-together layers of meaning make it hard to parse but worth the trouble, that it was rejected so often because editors didn't get what it was doing or because their publications weren't daring enough for it. I included a slew of obscure, flashing references to critical theory and a comment on Fred Astaire's hands that the reader won't get unless she already knows the story; deal with it. I don't care that the <i>Sun</i> would never publish an essay like this because it's too weird, too disjointed, too up its own ass; it found the right market, and it's finding an audience (a small but excellent one) because I wrote it exactly the way I wanted to and withstood the consequent rejections. </p><p>If you're a creator, I'm not going to urge you to do the same, because it's not any fun to write and [attempt to] publish this way. But "Bright White American Smile"* is writing only I can do, and I feel wonderfully content with that. </p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">*This is the title I chose for the essay, but Wig-Wag's format means it didn't appear that way. </span></p><p>Its publication means I need to update my website, like really bad, and assemble a newsletter to go out when the end-of-month publication happens, if it happens. I've been putting these tasks off for MONTHS. Partly, you know, retail feet; I've been really goddamn tired. But also ugh. I have to figure out what book reviews have appeared since I last updated (March?) and link them all, and then try to fix some of the buggy pages since the last Wordpress update, and then redo my Favorites page and also the home page since it's all **<i>Ceremonials</i> Is Just Now Out in the World!** which is no longer true, and blaaaaah. Website work is usually satisfying to me, but I've put it off so long that it's turned into a regular old chore. </p><p>Other stuff going on: I watched <i>Lost</i> across the last few weeks. I really liked the character work and the wide-open imagination, but I was annoyed as fuck at the dropped threads and hand-waving. I'm left thinking about how men act when they're hit by the thunderbolt, how they move the earth for the women they love, in the same way I've given long thought to male regret. Both ideas underlie a <i>lot</i> of art by men (...all of it???), but they aren't often on the surface. </p><p>I hit <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfAishaAhmad/status/1307697965260328961?s=20" target="_blank">the six-month wall</a>, and so did Matt, but it's breaking. I've been cross-stitching in a frenzy, and I made this (pen for scale): </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-xDQOrs60tT2Bg6WKaWx6POIt9Kxb4oXvPPofesGQ2HNamZw4IxLviP3gNYm1V4KXoenvSX6-Wi0osIU4sFzab1_lKArPs6ZNBAffsBmsN8xYulXWbdrzVQfCewj_RRPqxrzCC6tID4Qe/s960/foff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-xDQOrs60tT2Bg6WKaWx6POIt9Kxb4oXvPPofesGQ2HNamZw4IxLviP3gNYm1V4KXoenvSX6-Wi0osIU4sFzab1_lKArPs6ZNBAffsBmsN8xYulXWbdrzVQfCewj_RRPqxrzCC6tID4Qe/w446-h334/foff.jpg" width="446" /></a></div><br /><p>I'll be participating in <a href="https://www.vromansbookstore.com/event/vromans-local-author-day-crowdcast-edition-october" target="_blank">a virtual reading through Vroman's on October 26</a>. It's a reschedule of the triple-play ghost-girl-books reading that Gayle, Jennifer, and I originally put together for April. I hope you can come, but if you don't even want to, truly, I understand. I think I've been to one virtual reading in six months. </p>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-56259464274125158932020-07-18T11:52:00.000-07:002020-07-18T11:52:43.215-07:00The Smaller the Pond<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_KL6O0r_Z1IWum_Htx-fqLkEcD6kg9cUp5fKt4qL5DEkXBVdQqKmRGplMwrB8fBo7nIJF-UDyMNKEdZffsbyvHt6naMXoqJ0KhznAbsyENOZeAUpUnkiJZCdE8NMeNYHIJkRVO5jUtsg/s1440/lastofus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="959" data-original-width="1440" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_KL6O0r_Z1IWum_Htx-fqLkEcD6kg9cUp5fKt4qL5DEkXBVdQqKmRGplMwrB8fBo7nIJF-UDyMNKEdZffsbyvHt6naMXoqJ0KhznAbsyENOZeAUpUnkiJZCdE8NMeNYHIJkRVO5jUtsg/w500-h333/lastofus.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Matt and I have been playing <i>The Last of Us Part II</i> for a few weeks. There's a lot going on in our experience. The first game was devastating, as any scenario which purports to be about the apocalypse but is actually about the people who survive the apocalypse generally is. This one is almost unbearable. The two main groups of characters struggle against each other bloodily, murdering each other until almost no one is left. </div><div><br /></div><div>I haven't been able to get the title out of my head. </div><div><br /></div><div>The game recounts stories of <i>the last of us</i> - the remaining members of the human race after a zombie-making virus has wiped out most of us. The title chills me more the longer I meditate on it. <i>Last</i> indicates a dwindling, a winding-down. <i>Us</i> indicates the community of species we all share, no matter our values. The end of humans. The closing chapter of our long, long story. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yet in this game, the characters are driven by revenge and tribalism to murder other humans, rather than just the zombies that threaten their lives. It would make sense for the last of us to band together against the common threat, to make more people, to perpetuate our existence rather than closing down more and more lives. But the drive to be correct about the values by which we live is apparently stronger than the drive to survive at any cost. </div><div><br /></div><div>That sentence demonstrates the hardest part about playing this game at this moment in the lifespan of the human race. We are murdering each other, softly or the hard way, every damn day, out there in the real world. We're not taking the coronavirus seriously enough to do whatever's necessary to survive, and for months I've thought it was because: the virus takes a long time to curdle and kill; it's not a sure thing (in the game, one bite and you're definitely dead); and there are enough of us that it doesn't seem like a species-wide existential threat, not really. </div><div><br /></div><div>But playing <i>The Last of Us II </i>has made me think differently. It has made me believe that tribalism and cursed American individualism are stronger than our survival instincts. In observing the past month or so of national behavior, I have begun to understand just how many people think that rules do not apply to them. Even in my little universe: the rich people at the barn don't wear their masks, they leave them around their chins. Maybe they think the risk is minimal, outdoors and with only a small handful of other people around. Or maybe they just...don't think the rules apply to them. </div><div><br /></div><div>In my early 30s, I started to think that greed was the worst human quality, the drive that caused the most suffering. Whatever single word expresses the trait of "surely they don't mean <i>I</i> have to follow the rules" is causing far more chaos in our world right now, although greed surely isn't helping. And the tribalism underlying the (supposed) ideological implications of who wears a mask...ugh, it's so horrible, causing such excessive needless suffering. But that's not what's going on in <i>The Last of Us II</i>. It's something more primal, and a tiny bit less petty (although not much). </div><div><br /></div><div><div>Years ago I wrote a novel about a secret race of people, Viking descendants, living in a massive cavern under Greenland's ice sheet. (I know it sounds awesome, but it was a failed novel; one day I'll rewrite it to be better.) I imagined a struggle for the throne of this kingdom on the level of the old English monarchy: poisonings, conspiracies, betrayal. Matt asked me whether I thought it was realistic that people would struggle so hard for a throne that meant so little, in the scheme of things. The power that anyone can hold in a closed community is naturally limited. </div><div><br /></div><div>This was a rare moment in which Matt was wrong. He is never wrong about human nature, or almost never - in this instance, as the years pass, I grow surer that he was. People struggle most bitterly for the smallest fiefdoms, I have found. English departments at colleges and universities are the primary example I'm aware of, but there are many others. The smaller the pond, the more fish get eaten, so the biggest one can grow fat. I don't know why humans are so dogged about what they control, and so much more so when what they control is minor, but they are. </div><div><br /></div></div><div><i>The Last of Us II</i> is a beautiful, harrowing exhibit of this behavior. In light of the sunset of the entire species, you'd think that matters of revenge would fall by the wayside in favor of <i>survival</i>. Alas, no. The two main characters cut through dozens, hundreds of human beings in order to try and kill each other. (I think it's possible that the player kills fewer zombies than healthy people in this game.) Their strength, their will, could bolster entire communities, help them thrive; instead, they expend their resources on ending each other. </div><div><br /></div><div>They are compelling characters. Their choices are organic and agonized, and they make <i>terrible</i> mistakes, which always jump-starts a narrative. But I cannot stop thinking about what it means that they are <i>the last of us</i>. The very qualities that make them so good at surviving the apocalypse have also buried vengeance and bloodlust deep down in their natures. How does one dig those qualities out to cooperate with the others who have lasted, instead of killing them? </div><div><br /></div><div>Some version of this behavior exists within each of the two parties in our political system right now, and between them. Here I started writing some examples, but realized midway that you are likely to get mad at me for some of them, because that is how deep tribalism goes: it's impossible to read criticism of one's values without feeling personally insulted. We cannot even unite against the common enemy of the virus, a phenomenon that could swipe away a major chunk of our population, because we can't agree on the deeper meaning of wearing cloth on our faces. What the <i>fuck</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>So the revenge and murder in <i>The Last of Us II </i>is striking deeper than it might at any other moment in American history. Five years ago it might have seemed like pure fantasy - the only way revenge stories feel good to me is if they are fantasies, because revenge is always going to harm more than help - but now it seems extremely realistic, that the last of us are killing each other rather than the common enemy. And God, how that aches. How it stings. How I wish it were not so relevant, so true to life. How I wish we were not in so desperate a fix. </div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-66168141225756793772020-07-12T09:15:00.001-07:002020-07-12T09:15:13.054-07:00Some Things I Keep Thinking About <div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>AIDS and sex ed in the early 1990s<br /></li><li>the score for <i>Midsommar</i>, the score for <i>There Will Be Blood</i>, Penderecki, and Wagner <br /></li><li>what loneliness is <br /></li><li>whether I should write a novel (again) and/or look for an agent (again) after several years' break from both <br /></li><li>ritual and totem <br /></li><li>desperation for fiefdom in situations of mortal stress (<i>The Last of Us II</i>) <br /></li><li>unread books in my home <br /></li><li>mail carriers <br /></li><li>the particular feeling of not wanting to absorb new art by a favorite artist, for fear of something: maybe disillusionment, maybe using up all the possible new art by that artist so there is no more, maybe upsetting the status of my expertise <br /></li><li>the personality traits of women in horsedom <br /></li><li>the personality traits of people in teadom <br /></li><li>life choices and trades and bargains and how they play out in extremely unlikely situations, like worldwide pandemics (cf the Fukishima disaster) <br /></li><li>what to do about my work at QMT <br /></li><li>[him] <br /></li><li>reducing movies and books until they are "boring" / reducing stories until they are 1) stranger comes to town 2) someone goes on a journey 3) someone falls in love <br /></li><li>the Mouth of Sauron and the nature of horror vs. torture porn<br /></li><li>gore-bucket horror and splosh <br /></li><li><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/laurabogart/sex-celibate-dating-weight-body-image" target="_blank">this essay</a> and "giving primacy to the erotics of your own experience" <br /></li><li>whether life experiences during certain historical periods make it simply impossible for two people to see eye to eye <br /></li><li>hunger and its expiration <br /></li><li>whether I am going to be well-known <br /></li><li>whether I am as smart as I think I am <br /></li><li>whether my writing is doing what I think it's doing or I am in fact Brad Pitt in <i>Twelve Monkeys</i> <br /></li><li>[that] (just answer me) <br /></li><li>the role that the phone <i>object </i>plays in our lives, not the phone <i>function</i> <br /></li><li>what Ed Wood wanted <br /></li><li>money spent on smoothies <br /></li><li>my arms <br /></li><li>that fucking tattoo already, what the fuck <br /></li><li>how and when various famous people will die <br /></li><li>whether Twitter-famous people are always ultimately obnoxious (the honeymoon of a Twitter follow) <br /></li><li>threes <br /></li><li>whether other people think this much all the time <br /></li><li>whether people who don't are happier </li></ul><div><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUl9dtDAfaHuyPm15Nz8rA0hYxl6AWYFeVMEZZ9VOegmcQP85n34L6hzMJeSO3_yCpBRdFkt96QHyUuLPSRqaLBUgz54kDMuNn8Db7CqXV_018w0tDncZokHcsOTqGo_I6qktxKruX5qz/s960/notterrible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidUl9dtDAfaHuyPm15Nz8rA0hYxl6AWYFeVMEZZ9VOegmcQP85n34L6hzMJeSO3_yCpBRdFkt96QHyUuLPSRqaLBUgz54kDMuNn8Db7CqXV_018w0tDncZokHcsOTqGo_I6qktxKruX5qz/w400-h400/notterrible.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="2">by <a href="https://missilehouseproductions.com/" target="_blank">this person</a></font></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-39388023942954245652020-06-27T08:20:00.001-07:002020-06-27T08:20:47.856-07:00The Unbearable Yesterday I watched <i>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</i>. I'd seen it around when it was released, and had found it badly directed, and elected to use it as an example in the project I've been working on since the beginning of May. I wanted to make sure I wasn't mixing it up with <i>Civil War</i>, so I rewatched. (I wasn't. It is not a well-directed movie. I kept yelling to Matt about how Michael Bay would frame the car stunts and how <i>anyone else</i> would frame and edit the conversations.) I love Cap more than almost any other Marvel hero brought to the screen. Like me, he barely has it in him to lie, and he represents and defends everything my father raised me to believe America is. <div><br /></div><div>Last week, Matt and I watched <a href="https://youtu.be/AKPrq5dhkts">the David Suchet version</a> of <i>Murder on the Orient Express</i>, which we hadn't seen before. It was very late in Suchet's run as Poirot, post-9/11, post-<i>Sopranos</i> (i.e. after TV changed, irrevocably). I gave Matt the whole set of Suchet's Poirot as a quarantine gift, and we've been working our way through it chronologically, but we skipped ahead to <i>Orient Express</i> due to one of my moods. I remembered the solution of the mystery but didn't remember anything leading up to it. </div><div><br /></div><div>The foibles and light humor of Poirot earlier in the run have given way to a quiet, introspective Poirot. Suchet plays him, as always, as if he knows him better than anyone ever has. But Poirot is almost incidental to the ensemble at work in <i>Orient Express</i>, and Suchet knows that. He mostly leaves aside the old self-centered Poirot and acts as an immutable part of the landscape instead. </div><div><br /></div><div>Until the end. He is <i>furious </i>about the perversion of justice. It betrays everything he has always believed in. He weeps a little. You realize, looking at this man, that what he is forced to accept in this situation may break him. (We do not all break through torture or atrocity; sometimes ideas will break us.) </div><div><br /></div><div>After I finished <i>The Winter Soldier</i>, I thought about watching <i>Captain Marvel</i> again. Much as I love Captain America, his powers are a lot less showy than hers, and I kind of wanted to watch a hero do things well beyond the reach of normal humans - things that render guns and fists irrelevant. And, incidentally, I wanted to watch a woman doing them. </div><div><br /></div><div>This morning I thought maybe I'd watch the scene where Fury sings "Please, Mr. Postman," in <i>Captain Marvel</i> instead. Not sure why, just a whim. When I entered "captain marvel" into YouTube's search bar, one of the auto-fills was "vs. thanos" and I went, yeah, okay. There was a video that <a href="https://youtu.be/KoRD0FPjMK8">collected all of her scenes</a> in the Avengers movies, so I watched that. It was about four minutes long. She was awesome, of course, but I realized (somewhat stupidly, belatedly) that the nature of her power is the ability to <i>destroy</i> on an enormous scale. Maybe she's powerful enough not to need fists and guns, but what she can do <i>outstrips</i> fists and guns; it doesn't render null the violence inherent in them. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's not fun to wake up and look around at the world these days. Injustice has always been this bad, of course. But living through a pandemic is much more depleting than history has ever recorded. </div><div><br /></div><div>What occurred to me this morning is how different the world of <i>The Winter Soldier</i> is than the world I live in today. Part of the reason Cap is such a balm to audiences in a post-9/11 world is his idealism, his belief in fixing whatever is wrong and the attendant belief that he can be the man to do that fixing. Yet his solutions are the same old solutions we've been thrusting at the world's problems for centuries: fists and guns. </div><div><br /></div><div>The movie repeats that it's a different world now and Steve Rogers is not psychologically equipped for that world. This is a pretty careless interpretation of the past, which was <i>always</i> complicated, but in this limited case the point is solid. Punching Nazis is a different thing than sorting through (un)reliable intelligence from morally dubious sources. But the movie does not offer a new solution, or at least not a nuanced one. Captain Marvel, too, uses the old solution. Awesome as she is, her powers are all violence and destruction, no nuance. </div><div><br /></div><div>You cannot shoot the coronavirus. You cannot punch corrupt police departments. </div><div><br /></div><div>What Cap is asked to bear across the movies made around him seems unbearable. That's another reason I love him so much. He copes with profound burdens and still wants to carry whatever others can't lift. I don't know what he would try to do in this national moment. I think he'd be central in a public relations campaign to get people to wear masks and stay home (he of all people understands influence and inspiration), but that's incidental to what he's built for: action. Violent action. How he would cope with having to sit still, I don't know. </div><div><br /></div><div>Poirot must learn to live with, and in, a world in which arresting people is not the only solution when a murder is committed. When we watched the episode last week, I found him deeply naive, in his resistance to believing that justice is not always found in a courtroom. That's the nature of privilege: the ability to be naive about justice for decades of a life. Truly coming to terms with such naivete can break a man, particularly if that man's profession depends upon this premise. </div><div><br /></div><div>In my early thirties I had to reckon with the lie of America with which my father had raised me. This nation is built on broken backs and genocide, and all the fine ideals of its prized documents and the genuine beliefs of the good men who wrote them do not excuse what lies under its foundations. It nearly broke me. Such a process meant unstitching essential seams of my identity. But I did it, because Cormac McCarthy is right, James Baldwin is right, Angela Davis and Ta-Nehisi Coates are right. This place is a nightmare and we have done virtually nothing to wake up from it. We parade over the bones. We wave flags at the breaches. </div><div><br /></div><div>Cap is part of that lie. He is the very best of it, I think, embodying what we all <i>want</i> to feel if we could stand to be patriots. </div><div><br /></div><div>If anything, I think the two major issues of this year (so far, God help us) demonstrate that we can't throw the same solutions at new problems. 9/11 tried to teach us that: you can't get an aircraft carrier into a foxhole. You can't use guns on a deadly virus, and you can't throw tear gas at ideas. </div><div><br /></div><div>Because our heroes continue to operate on old premises, they will continue to fail us. They must learn new ways of being in the world. But they may break, if they try. </div><div><br /></div><div>What will we do? How will we survive? What will we be asked to bear for each other? </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxsZwxGPBwiIbOahGcBgMcrvnDQdmPvl8Bb5ZOeoME9q2HamX_u0iCdzXLrM62eXez5PoJR78ob4mFGrsH1EfLaSTvprw3Qm8b-I9JpX0siAE2XBMB2OyOXdkM6F-TCrHtdJyvFYChyphenhyphenB1n/s2560/shield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2560" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxsZwxGPBwiIbOahGcBgMcrvnDQdmPvl8Bb5ZOeoME9q2HamX_u0iCdzXLrM62eXez5PoJR78ob4mFGrsH1EfLaSTvprw3Qm8b-I9JpX0siAE2XBMB2OyOXdkM6F-TCrHtdJyvFYChyphenhyphenB1n/w500-h400/shield.jpg" width="500" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-64136574527490015082020-06-04T11:18:00.001-07:002020-06-04T11:18:49.019-07:00In the Scheme of Things In the scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but my cactus is dying. <div><br /></div><div>I could have written this the opposite way: "My cactus is dying. In the scheme of things, it doesn't matter." But I felt the need to write it the first way, so as to make it clear that I know it doesn't broadly matter <i>before</i> I tell you this thing that matters, to me, in a way I can't defend. </div><div><br /></div><div>I think I've written before here about how I kill plants, how I have a brown thumb. It's been a joke in my life for a long time, but there are times when it's not funny. I can do lots of other things, so I try to focus on that instead of dwelling on this thing I can't do: keep plants alive. I've kept this cactus alive for two years. I bought it as one of three matching ones, the other colors were pink and red, this one is yellow, and the other two died but this one lived. I repotted it recently and gave it new soil and some liquid food, but one of those elements has made it very sick, sagging and thin and leaking fluid out its top, and I am fixated on it, my poor cactus, to the point where I had an argument with Matt this week because we misunderstood each other about the roses I needed to prune back, and I couldn't bring myself to prune them back because I didn't want to kill them like I'm killing my cactus, and Matt didn't understand where this was coming from at all and why I didn't just prune the roses like I said I would, and he tried to do it himself and that made me even more upset and I couldn't explain why. </div><div><br /></div><div>Keeping a plant alive for two years is nothing <i>in the scheme of things</i>. It is a record-breaker for me. I can't touch my cactus, because it is full of tiny prickles; I can't do anything but look at it lovingly, not like a pet you can bring into your lap. But it is the only nonhuman living thing I am not paid to give love to. It is the only thing in my life I have nurtured that belongs to me (the roses are the landlord's). And it's really sick. And it's my fault. And I cannot stop feeling anguish about this. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's stupid. It's just a cactus. I can buy another one for $3.99 at Lowe's. It has not grown significantly in the time I've had it. But it has not died in that time, and it is dying now, and that matters to me. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjueXiNd2Pahbb2U6Mgj3C447jt9r3SUpUqE_Ad_k75HqZrqBtMScTjDBVvBxR8U2PITHNrTHJrnAu4C2lw437FUGuRAYVeiz6mbfzz64V4l8FkyMElh7ERNiUBOcdJ284pZX09FZVxvQ_b/s1975/Cactus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1975" data-original-width="1365" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjueXiNd2Pahbb2U6Mgj3C447jt9r3SUpUqE_Ad_k75HqZrqBtMScTjDBVvBxR8U2PITHNrTHJrnAu4C2lw437FUGuRAYVeiz6mbfzz64V4l8FkyMElh7ERNiUBOcdJ284pZX09FZVxvQ_b/w276-h400/Cactus.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>This week I wrote <a href="https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-a-reading-list-of-books-by-black-authors/">a roundup of books</a> by Black authors that I enjoy and recommend. Not all of them are directly applicable to the current situation, which was on purpose. Reading underrepresented voices is an end in itself, and it can be a diversion even as it's innately looped in to what's happening. I also edited a review of a book by a poet and felon, <i>Felon</i>, by Reginald Dwayne Betts, and <a href="https://www.barrelhousemag.com/onlinelit/2020/06/betts-felon">put it up at Barrelhouse</a>. These things I can do, even if I can't do much else. </div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>Jami Attenberg's yearly <a href="https://1000wordsofsummer.substack.com/">1000 Words of Summer</a> event is going on right now and I'm using it as an opportunity to start the next project. I got a little sidetracked yesterday by a frightening episode of heat exhaustion, but I've well and truly begun the work, and I feel good about how it's shaping up. For community and for accountability, I'm posting about it on Twitter once a day - and I forwent posting about it on Tuesday, for the ill-fated "blackout" - but then today I read a well-reasoned thread from people of color about it being insensitive to post about it at all. That made me feel guilty, but also a little annoyed. They suggested we move those updates to a private community/writing group, and I don't have one; my writing group is Twitter, for better or worse. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the same hour I read a comment on Facebook in a private group by a white woman feeling as if she's done enough activism (she gave examples), and doesn't deserve criticism for not speaking out in every single platform she has, even apolitical ones. </div><div><br /></div><div>I really do not know how to hold both of these views in the same hand. I'm trying to make my feeds mostly about other voices and issues and lives, and a little bit about me, but maybe that is wrong, too? Do my feeds reflect my life? Does my life always or mostly need to be about me? Does the balance I've attempted to strike look as ugly as that white woman's defensiveness, or are we all looking at each other cockeyed anyway, and no one can possibly do it right all the time? Do I reckon with myself, my past/future self, or with what others are doing/not doing? What is my example, my standard? Should it be at-least-I'm-not, or should it be I-could-never-be-but-I'll-try? </div><div><br /></div><div>This blog post is about me because this is my blog, not a shared space like a social media feed or a book club or a coffee shop. Or...is the entire internet a shared space? No, that's too far. This is my blog. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm trying to explore and question, not defend. White defensiveness has no utility at all. </div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know. </div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>There's something else happening in my life right now that has to be secret for now but is causing me heavy stress. It may come to nothing. We'll see. </div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>At the barn, there's a horse named Mia whom I didn't like at all when I first started working there. She was wary and impenetrable, hard to catch in her stall and evidently uninterested in whether I lived or died. It's exasperating to work with horses like this, because you feel bad asking them to obey you when they clearly do not enjoy even being near you. </div><div><br /></div><div>Over time, she started to be nicer to be around. I finally realized she wasn't a jerk, she was just slow to trust, and she had no reason to trust me when she met me. If she were a human she'd be "hard to know." So I hung back until she was ready to know me, and treated her like a co-worker instead of pressing her for affection and obedience. When I hand-walked her I let her walk to the left instead of the right, because she clearly preferred that, even though it isn't how you're supposed to walk horses. Now she's recovered from an injury and is being ridden, which means I tack her up and down instead of just walking her. I've found out that she loves having her face brushed. She stretches out her neck and closes her eyes, and if I stand in front of her she nuzzles my chest and rests her chin on the edge of my sports bra while I brush and brush. </div><div><br /></div><div>Since we figured this out, she trusts me more than ever; she now whinnies and trots over to me when I come to her stall, as if I'm her friend instead of her keeper. She gives me all kinds of affection I don't get from the other, more skittish horses. She obeys me readily, which means it doesn't feel so bad giving her commands. We're developing a deeper and more loving relationship because I was patient and listened to her. I judged too quickly, but when I figured out she was just slow to trust, I gave her every reason to trust me instead of insisting that she do so right off. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yesterday I had to put a yucky-smelling salve on her nose. Three months ago she would have wriggled and jerked and made it impossible to do this, but I talked to her and petted her and she stood still and let me. I took the time, and was rewarded with trust and more love than I know what to do with. She's a wonderful horse. I never would have known that if I'd stuck with my first judgment. </div><div><br /></div><div>I hope I can write about Mia someday as a metaphor, but I don't quite know what my experience with her means yet. For now I just wanted to share it as a story. Working with her is some of the nicest time I spend at the barn, when she used to be a horse I dreaded a little. </div><div><br /></div><div>--</div><div><br /></div><div>I just moved my cactus into the sun. Light will help it, right? Maybe it's leaking because it's purging something bad that came in through its roots. I hope, if that's the case, it gets better. I do not want it to die. </div>Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1701465038062786253.post-66173555065969180212020-04-28T18:42:00.002-07:002020-04-28T18:42:39.947-07:00Twitched and Stuck <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last night, while my husband and I watched a movie, a muscle twitched in my neck. I had been cross-stitching for hours that day, and had reviewed a bunch of residency submissions too, and in any case my neck is, let us say, not of the spring chicken variety. But because I couldn't easily identify whatever the phenomenon was that caused my neck to feel weird, I began to worry, and then feel certain, that I had a blood clot traveling slowly northward and it would lead to a stroke.<br />
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Soon, my neck twitched and stuck for longer than a moment, such that I could put my fingers on the area. It was definitely a muscle spasm (a weird one), not at all a blood clot. Much more like an eye twitch, although I've never had a spasm in any muscle that wasn't on my face, and I've never known a muscle spasm to stick that way, briefly, like the old wives warn us about our faces.<br />
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But I had already put in the worry about the stroke. My blood pressure had already inched that iota higher. My stability about waking up alive the next morning had been shaken. I felt relief, but things were not the same as they had been.<br />
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**<br />
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<a name='more'></a>In late March I contemplated writing a Medium essay called "Welcome to Our Paradise." I had just come home from my very first book tour - one I organized by my own wits and on my own dime, one that was shortened by two important dates (only for two additional dates in SoCal to get cancelled, too) - but I was still rapturous at the uncrowded airports and the lighter traffic of both foot and wheel. It was a state of voluntary quarantine at that point; those with good reason were staying home, but folks like me, who never had direct contact with children or the elderly and had healthy immune systems, felt okay going out.<br />
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I did not take advantage of this freedom once I got home from Portland. In general life I spend the majority of my time at home, doing one of the many things I love to do: read, write, cross-stitch, watch movies, fiddle around in the kitchen, love on my husband, and enjoy silence + solitude. At home alone is my natural state. This is partly because I'm introverted, and partly because it's how I spent a lot of time in my formative years. I don't like the grocery store, I don't like dinners out with more than one or two other people, I don't like weaving through shoals of pedestrians on the street. I like being at home. I've made my home the way I like it because I like it at home. I don't know how to explain this any better.<br />
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I wanted to explain in the essay that the current world, where people are mostly at home and nothing is going on outside and we are all just...living with ourselves, quietly, is the paradise that introverts have longed for. Further, I wanted to explain that extroverts who find themselves uncomfortable at having to stay at home, alone or not - that discomfort is how introverts feel who have to go to work or school or concerts or grocery stores or anywhere people gather. But, you say, everyone has to go to work or school or concerts or grocery stores. <i>Exactly</i>. It's a constant state of discomfort, from the moment we leave our houses until the moment we get blessedly home again. The world under quarantine is a world built for us, at last, and it's paradise.<br />
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I hoped that this explanation would inspire conversation about how we can help people of different kinds to live in the world together. Maybe extroverts could remember the extreme discomfort of this period and realize the world is built for them to enjoy more than us, and maybe we could rebuild some of the world to be kinder to all of us. More work from home; more understanding of how hard it is for us to be around people <i>all </i>the time, not just in extreme crowds; less ridicule of the homebody lifestyle. I hoped it would be worthwhile for everyone to consider how good it feels to some people to stay in a couple of rooms all day long, no one else around, and how absolutely dreadful that feels to others.<br />
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But I can't write that essay anymore. Too many people have died. It's no longer an intellectual experiment. If we build a new world after this Great Pause, it will not be to shield us from everyday discomfort; it will be to save us from slaughter.<br />
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**<br />
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Over April I've been working on a somewhat preposterous project that has come to its end in the past 24 hours. I now have a Ph.D. in Parapsychology, just like Peter Venkman. I earned it from the Institute of Metaphysical Humanistic Science (IMHS), which is 100% online. It was an extremely interesting course of study. I also picked up a short course in Tarot, so I'm now certified in that, as well as being a Certified Paranormal Investigator. It's a non-secular, non-academic degree, so I don't really think of it the same way as the doctoral degrees my friends and my mother have earned, but I'm still gonna put the certificate on my wall and change my Twitter bio.<br />
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No, I am not kidding. I really did do this program in a month, and I really did get a Ph.D., of sorts. We got a surprising windfall at the end of March and I'd been wanting to do the program for some time once we had a bit of extra money. The gods blessed me with an indulgent husband.<br />
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**<br />
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I have plans for what I'm going to do with the rest of my year, but everything that happens beyond my literal neighborhood is as yet unfixed. I hoped to go to Chautauqua this summer, but I don't think it's a good idea anymore. I wanted to visit Portland in the fall, but who knows where we'll be then? And, of course, I wanted to tour <i>Ceremonials </i>some more, on the East Coast and here in LA. But once life resumes, whenever it does, all the authors who didn't get their tours due to later release dates will want to rebook, and all the authors whose books were coming out anyway will be booked. I don't want to go up against all that.<br />
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I'm thinking seriously of just letting it go, of continuing to do online promotion and podcasts and whatever else as it comes along, but not trying to push sales of the book as intensely as I was in February and early March. Planning the tour and a bunch of affiliated publicity was about all I had in me until summer; I just don't have the resources to shift gears the way a lot of authors have. In parallel, I have less riding on my debut than other authors who launched this year, under more dire circumstances than I did.<br />
<br />
It's a painful calculation to make. I had hoped to let <i>Ceremonials</i> grow all year long, and had planned to make promoting it the main focus of my spring and summer, and possibly the fall as well, depending on how it was doing by July. But I don't want to compete with other authors in the scrambling way book promotion is being done now. It's a mess and I want no part of it. Plus, I've let other projects wither on the vine for much too long.<br />
<br />
This in no way invalidates my feelings about <i>Ceremonials</i>, of which I'm so proud and about which I'm so happy. For a variety of reasons, though, I worked hard to disconnect my heart from the finished product and its success or failure. That means it's less of a heartbreak, and more of a simple disappointment, to let it go for the moment, with the idea of picking it up again later, if possible, if it's viable. I'll always love this one, whether it got a fair chance or not. There will never be another debut, but there will be other books.<br />
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**<br />
<br />
And I need to write them. That's what I keep coming back to, whether through the IMHS degree, my idle hands at home, my frustrating email inbox, the social media I've abandoned and the social media I still work with. All of them are telling me I need to write. I haven't written anything except reviews for months - this is my first blog post since January 1 - and I feel bloated with unwritten words.<br />
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I know exactly the project I want to start with, but it's intense, and I'm reluctant to dive into it. I know what I'm like when I'm really writing: mostly in the zone even when I'm walking around, divided entirely between the notebook and mindless activity to calm the notebook's buzzing at me, telling Matt thank you in a stoned voice for the meals he brings me as I type. That version of me is inherently selfish, so absorbed in her task is she. Although I love her, too, of course, how could I not, when she turns out work that I adore (and need), I have been putting off stepping into her skin. She makes me want to apologize to everyone after the fact for the weeks it takes me to do the project. I'm sorry I didn't really see your face while you were talking to me. I'm sorry you had to hydrate me like a child. I'm sorry I woke up in the middle of the night to write for two hours and then took a nap at 11 AM.<br />
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It's worth it, in the long run, but it makes me miserably guilty to contemplate.<br />
<br />
**<br />
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Also, I bought 16 oz of tea, which is a lot more tea than I thought. This bag has <i>heft</i>.<br />
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<br />Katharine Coldironhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10710500266239699918noreply@blogger.com1