Hissy Cat

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October 10, 2005

The Sober Writer: A Sign Of The Times; and, An Appeal To Dave Eggers

Upon arriving at work this morning I was delighted to find in my inbox an email from my dear friend Ameeth directing me to this NYTimes article about the growing trend of members-only writing centers in New York. These exclusive cozies, apparently, are popping up faster than pustules on the member of Paris Hilton's latest conquest. Accompanying the link was a message:

Pathetic. I hate new york. stab stab stab stab

Though I love that city of mine with all my filthy heart, I admit to on more than one occaision been known to sputter with far less eloquence than he sentiments of a similair nature. I appreciate as much as the next New Yorker the chance to rag on the "cool people" and "writers" and other boroughlings whose lives and successes I wish I had. (For the record, I am allowed to say offensive things about New York, for I am of New York, much like Woody Allen may say offensive things about the Jews, for he is of the Jews. If Ameeth had not lived in Brooklyn the past two years, earning his right to resent and detest every white boy with bed-raggled hair in Williamsburg, I would have not taken his comments in such good stride. Lest you think his Brooklyn years were not enough, rest assured he also attended Brown, which, in certain crucial ways, bears a more than passing resemblance to Brooklyn.)

My reaction to the article was twofold. As I'm always keen on a chance to vituperate any writer more successful than I (in this regard, my utter lack of success is truly a blessing, as I have a virtually infinite number of targets onto whom whom to direct my groundless ire), you can imagine how I must have snorted with gleeful scorn to read statements such as this:

"The concept of writers as drunken Hemingwayesque malcontents traveling the globe is over," Ms. Cecil said. "They see it as a job now, and they see themselves not as inspired alcoholics, or depressive psychopaths alone in a tenement. It's more mainstream. It's good kids going to M.F.A. programs, then looking for a place to find the kind of writerly community they had in grad school."

Fucking rat shit good kids! Fucking bitchy bitch fuck fart M.F.A. programs! Jesus fucking mainstream! Ugly fucking whore cock grad school! Somewhere, I know, Fran Lebowitz is rolling around atop her unmade pull-out couch, horrified to read that the belles lettres have sunk so low as to fall to the hands of the sober. If these sober, ambitious, M.F.A.-weilding goody goodies are the writers of the future, than I am frightened for what the future holds. If writers can't be lovable alcholoic malcontents, I ask you, who can? Or, to put it another way-- and this is where it really hurts-- if depressive, alcoholic, deranged psychopaths who live alone in filthy tenement apartments, who have only a cat and a bottle of gin for love, can't be writers, what can I be? People, I am running out of options. An unreliable malcontent just can't catch a break these days.

Oh, and I almost threw up when the doyenne of Paragraph compared her quill club to a gym:

Ms. Parisi compares writers' rooms to gyms. In both, a large group of people share the same equipment. And, paying for membership helps writers take their commitment to writing seriously, she said, and gets them "off of the couch" and onto the literary StairMaster. . . And like exercise buffs, the writers who use these spaces need to be self-motivated and disciplined.

Egads-- "literary" and "StairMaster" are two words that do not belong together! Oh, somebody say a prayer to Jean Rhys, beg pardon from Oscar Wilde! Dorothy Parker weeps angel's tears at the thought that "writers" have become like "excercise buffs." With things such as they are one can hardly summon up the appropriate degree of horror at the lack of sexual goings-ons amongst members. It is a grim truth that when alcoholism leaves, it takes sexual debauchery with it.

And yet-- and yet-- And yet there is the other fold of my twofold reaction, which is this: I want to be let in the club. One writer quoted describes the communality of working in one these spaces as "parallel play, like toddlers in a sandbox." How delightful, I say, how appealing! That is perfect for me! I loathe human interaction and frighten myself! I need a place to go that is full of people who don't expect me to speak or smile back! "When you write at home, there's a lot of distraction. . . You want to go clean out the fridge, or tweeze your eyebrows," or, if you are me, pick your toes, "but when you go to a space to write, that's what you do." All that unholy Swedish furniture and track lighting would not only increase my productivity but impart a clean, modern birghtness and simplicity to every aspect of my life, I am sure of it.

So please, Dave Eggers, if you are listening, when you or yours decide open up one of these writers' clubs in SF-- and I know you will, because that's just the sort of thing you would do-- please, please let me in. I am sure you could find room for one alcoholic malcontent. I can be the club's kitschy, fashionably-obslete mascot. I'll sit at the door in my fashoinably-obsolete get-up of sweat-stained t-shirts, jeans I picked up off the floor, and underwear that should have been changed two days ago, I'll sit there with my fashionably-obsolete accessoriess: a copy of Ulysses and a bottle gin and let my forehead crash noisily onto a typewriter. Everyone will look up with an expression of ironic bemusement. I will be the source of much amusement! You clever young upstarts can laugh and laugh as I barf through the tears and I will oblige and drink all the more. I will blink back at you with my reddened psychotic eyes and I will not know whether your hearty laughs are ironic or sincere. And you will love me.

Posted by hissycat at October 10, 2005 07:56 PM

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