April 12, 2006
Punk Rock Librarian
This article from the NYT is brimming with my favorites: lesbians, archives, librarians, low-brow ephemera. Barnard librarian Jenna Freedman, who is quite clearly the most awesome person on earth, has spearheaded the college's scholarly collection and new digital catalogue of zines. You can check out what Barnard has online here.
Posted by hissycat at 12:01 AM | Comments (27)
March 20, 2006
Selling Out: A Rambly Late Post
No, really, it's just my new haircut that makes the page look different to you. No? Ok, look. I'm not crazy about the new look either, and yes, I know, advertising's the devil's trade. It's just that I'm just kind of, well-- comment vous dites? ah, oui!-- poor. I'm not as indigent as I was a couple of months ago when I was out of work, but I'm still just barely scraping by, and things are about to get even tighter.
No, I'm not about to get fired again. Well, at least I hope not. God, I hope not. That would blow. I actually like the work I'm doing-- it's researchy work that I can do from home on my own schedule. Its not in a field I have intention of hoeing-- or whatever it is one does, metaphorically, in one's metaphoric field-- but that's ok. I dig up general-interest interesting info, which is pleasing enough in itself, and besides, I'm not interested in a jobby job job, if you know what I mean. Like, a career-track job. I just want work that will fund my writing time-- something that isn't so draining and time-consuming that I just want to smoke drugs and die when the I clock out. If I can use the time to learn about a world I don't spend a whole lot of time engaged with, all the better. Lately I have been under pressure from my employers to get the project done faster, which means working more hours. It's been cutting into my sleeping time (I'm too stupid/ stubborn to give up my writing time) and stressing me out. I'm going to have to step up and ask to cut back my hours. I hate to do this because I 1) feel like a shmoo and 2) need the money. But on the other hand, this was just the kind of job one takes to support things like writing and if it's stressing me out and cutting into my work time, then the situation probably needs to be reevaluated.
Oh, and writing. This is the best part of my life right now. I mean it always is-- I think this is how I know I'm going to always have to be writing. I just feel so useless when I'm not doing it. I'm so anxious all the time, worrying that I ought to be somewhere else, spending the time differently, living my life in a better way. When I'm writing well it's like I'm just doing what I'm supposed to be doing. It's just what I'm supposed to be doing (even when it's not. . . like, for instance, now. I should be working. Or sleeping. Or washing dishes.). I can't think of another activity I feel that way about.
Anyway, I've sort of gearing up to do more freelance writing over-- well, a long time-- but in the last month or so, I'd say steam has been gathering. That's another reason I want to cut back on my work hours. I know I was all about grad school last month. I still am, kind of. But I'm not going to be ready to apply until 2007 at the earliest. And I took my GREs in 2003 (don't ask)-- ha ha I am so going to have to take those again. It's not that I'm having any, like, material success as a writer. God, no. Nothing like that. Don't get the wrong idea. This is more just about how much time I'm doing to get my work out and how much I am putting out there and just being serious and committed and grown-up in the way I approach my work.
So in the meantime, I have bills to pay. If you happen to be planning on signing up for DSL with Speakeasy as your ISP (I actually do recommend them, esp. if you live in San Francisco and your alternative is crappy SBC), you can do me a kindness by clicking the Speakeasy button at the bottom of the page or telling them the refferal code. I'll get a credit towards my DSL. And if you happen to be signing up, or thinking about signing up for Backpack, it'd be neat if you'd use me as your referral. I spend $9 a month to keep my shit organized on that site, so a credit towards future bills would be cool, if it's no trouble to you and you happen to be signing up anyway. If I suddenly become filthy-- or even scuzzily-- rich I'll take down the ads.
I tried to make the ads as unobnoxious as possible, but if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them. Also, tell me if you have any issues in browsers other than Safari, since I'm lazy as hell and don't bother to check. Or, if you just feel like calling me a money-grubbing Jew, greedy whore, etc., feel free.
Posted by hissycat at 03:09 AM | Comments (6)
March 07, 2006
Another Month, A Brand New Slut
Issue 46 of Bookslut is now up, including the reason I was a cranky bitch last week. Well, one of the reasons.
Posted by hissycat at 09:20 AM | Comments (4)
March 01, 2006
"Entertaining and Honest and Funny and Tragic"
Since there's a deadline approaching, I'm busy wasting time skimming things like Everyone Who's Anyone In Adult Trade Publishing, Propagandaville and Tinsletown, Too, a listing of literary agents interspersed with the editor's personal correspondances with the agents listed and including his own letters of rejection from those who have rejected his manuscript. The exchange at the bottom of the page I find especially engaging:
Dear Mr. Jones: I very much enjoyed the freshness of your work, however, I find that there are two kinds of writers, those that want to write and those that need to write. If your story is as thinly disguised as I suspect, Mr. Jones, then you are one of the latter, and I count you in good company. Those who want to write, generally, want to be published and rewarded for their efforts. Those who need to write are primarily concerned with the product of their labors, recognition being an afterthought. In light of the current hard cover fiction market, I see no way in which your work will be published in its current state. Whether or not you wish to subscribe to the parameters of popular fiction in order to alter the fate of your work is up to you. In the end, you may be happier with the job at McDonald's. Warm regards, Hillery Borton
Dear Ms. Borton: You apparently want popular fiction to continue to be fatuous, formulaic and stupid. Why? Why not give people a chance to read something fresh and true? Something entertaining and honest and funny and tragic? You sound like someone with some integrity. Why, then, wouldn't you rather work at McDonald's than continue to promote the fatuous, formulaic claptrap and crap that passes itself off as popular fiction? Thanks for your warm regards. Gerard Jones
Dear Hillery: I got a letter from Seva Gunitskiy dated 7/31/01 which said: "Gerard, Go ahead and send the rest of the GINNY GOOD manuscript, but address it either to myself or to Hillery Borton, Putnam Editor. Best, Seva." I sent the manuscript in, addressed to both you and Seva, and haven't heard anything from either of you. It's been over a year. What's up with it? Thanks. Gerard Jones
Out of office auto reply: Hillery Borton no longer works at Penguin-Putnam.
Posted by hissycat at 12:37 AM | Comments (2)
February 22, 2006
Excerpt From Letter Recently Sent To Thesis Advisor In Which I Seek His Advice On A Number Of Topics, Including Grad School
. . . Since 'leaving' my job, I had a streak of astoundingly awful luck: my boyfriend broke up with me and then I crashed my car. It was really a pretty awful time. I expressed my feelings by not showering or washing dishes, which probably did not help me feel any better, either, but then, I suppose that was part of the point. However, I'm doing so much better now, although I still very much miss my car. I'm even seeing this new guy who likes Scrabble and Gravity's Rainbow! Just like I do! Brett, my old boyfriend, is my friend again, which is excellent, and we mean to start up a Finnegan's Wake reading group with our friends like we had been planning before we split, and also I can borrow his car to go driving since the insurance wouldn't pay to fix mine!
I really miss being a student. I have fantasies about grad school, but I feel like I'm just getting my bearings in SF, and I don't want to leave yet. I wouldn't know where to call for Chinese, and I'd have to make all new friends-- that's very stressful, you know, just the thought of it is making me tense. And where would I go? It's true I'm not really writing piles of fiction so much these days, but I still like to think that I could, if I wanted to, even though I really probably can't, but either way, the idea of attending an MFA program is entirely unappealing, and attending an MFA program seems like the one reasonable thing I can do to be serious about fiction writing. And its probably a bad thing that I'm so put off by MFA-y situations anyway. It probably means I hate myself or want to sabotage myself because I can't stand other people who do what I am or want to be doing, which is writing, but to be fair, I was unfairly encouraged to believe that half the appeal of writing was that it could be done totally away from other people.
I also had the thought: Master's of Library Science! I'd be such an awesome librarian! I love libraries! That was when I was working at my job that I hated and I was trying to think of some kind of job that would give me health insurance that wouldn't make me want to kill myself. I came up with librarian. Useful, interesting and I could totally make it work with my fantasy life as a writer by working part-time at a library, getting benefits, and writing my books on the side. Maybe I'd even have to shelve my own book, who knows? Crazier things have happened!
But now I'm back to my original grad school fantasy, which is a reg'lar old PhD program in lit. That's what I miss. That's what I see myself enjoying the most. It's also the hardest to justify, since I don't feel strongly committed to going into academia once it's over. I feel strongly committed to living in San Francisco or New York, which I don't see changing unless I undergo a radical transformation brought on by trauma to the skull, or something of that nature. So I'd be putting in this enormous investment and then end up, six years later, in pretty much the same position I'm in now: underemployed, sending out (or not, as the case may be) resumes for jobs that, if I think about them, make me want to mash out my eyes with some kind of eye-sized mashing implement.
But then, if I'm just going to end up in the same place, is grad school such a terrible place to spend six or seven years of my life? A lot of people say, Yes! But I wonder-- are those people really as nerdy as me? Really? Maybe. I just don't know. I feel like I shouldn't want to go back to school so soon: I felt really ready for college to be over by the time it ended. Of course, it really wasn't that I was sick of academics as much as I was sick of being on a suburban campus as an undergraduate in a group living situation, no pets allowed, when the only kind of life I've ever wanted involves being left to myself in a studio apartment with books and a cat in a big city with good delivery.
I also feel a little guilty because I am not so successful at the non-school world. Even aside from the first job incident. Maybe this sounds silly seeing as how it's only been eight months since graduation, but I imagine myself, not going back to grad school, trudging through kind of mediocre jobs, just being kind of loserish for the rest of my life and dashing the promise my high school teachers said I was full of. Just kidding. No, but the mediocre jobs bit is true. The work that is available to me is not interesting. Most work, it seems, isn't interesting. Or at least, I don't find it interesting. I have zero interest in getting a job in publishing or advertising or whatever other industry English majors end up working in. I don't see myself having that kind of job ever, frankly. Not for me. I love writing the book reviews. I mean, I love writing fiction, but I'm also reasonable enough to recognize that I'll never be writing fiction for money. But I'm not too shabby at the book reviews. I plan on submitting reviews to more publications. I think I might have a fighting chance of eventually eking out some of the moneys with the writing the nonfiction and the book reviews. And that would be swell.
But I don't know, maybe grad school isn't incompatible with that kind of writing career. In fact, I was wondering actually if it might not help-- or at least provide me with several years of funding with more spare time than I'd otherwise have. I'm just rattling this stuff off out of my ass now-- I have no idea how the world works-- but I'm thinking maybe there's some kind of para-academic life I could make for myself more easily with a PhD than without. Like, you know what I want to do? Read little essays I wrote on NPR. And, like, write the kind of book reviews they print in the NYRB where you read a bunch of books and then think about them. Thinkedy think think. And then write an essay about some topic that the books deal with but that doesn't even begin to review the books until, like, the penultimate column. And maybe there are teachy things I could do that aren't as limiting lifestyle/ location-wise as being, you know, a serious University professor. I don't know I'm just making this stuff up I could be totally wrong! I know about how insanely difficult it is for English PhDs to get jobs, etc. But what if what I want to get into is magazine writing with maybe a somewhat academicky background? And if I had to work work in addition to writing, would a PhD be helpful? Could I teach, like, community college classes or adult education, part time? I imagine you still need a degree to teach those classes. Are those jobs still so difficult to get?
I suspect that if I could get into grad school, that's that kind of thing that I could, potentially, maybe, if squeeze my brain really really hard, and re-read everything twice, actually be pretty good at. I don't know that that's really the best reason to pursue literary studies, but last week my biggest accomplishment, which made my mother "so proud" that I've "come so far" was that I learned how to clean the bathroom . . .
Posted by hissycat at 06:37 PM | Comments (7947)
February 08, 2006
Something To Get Excited About [sic]
I'm such a jaded, cynical bitch, especially when it comes to all things writerly, or more specifically, publishly, that I can't remember the last time I was this unexpectedly excited about anything. I don't think most lit mags are evil or wrong or anything; I just think most of them aren't that great or worth getting worked up about. Most writing isn't that special, or what's being published isn't that special, and even the teeny publications are circle-jerks for like-minded fellows whose minds are not like mine.
So I'm delighted to have accidentally stumbled-- via Craigslist, of all places-- across the website for [sic], a very promising-looking new literary journal out of New York. Here's what I like: this here editor's essay on fiction, which is more like a little statement of purpose for the journal. Just the type of thing, you know, that can't help but be overbearing and aggressive and pretentious and really just stupid in the end. I thought this one was actually quite charming and even moving.
You know, I'm as frightened as you are by this new effusiveness and I don't mean to sound like a commercial, but it's so rare that I feel this way, that I thought I'd share. If it turns out to suck, I'll be the first to complain, but I'm just going to purr over this for a while for now.
Posted by hissycat at 10:20 AM | Comments (5)
February 07, 2006
I'm Such A Bookslut
(Psst. The second paragraph should be blocked. I don't know why it isn't, but I'm a little embarassed about it.)
Posted by hissycat at 03:56 PM | Comments (2)
January 08, 2006
Dave and David
1. David Foster Wallace would like you to Consider The Lobster. Well, actually, he'd like to consider it. A lot. Every aspect of it. On and on. It's fascinating, really. And he'd be much obliged if you'd sit there and listen.
Trevor Corson, on the other hand, wants to show you How To Kill A Lobster (With Pictures!) Mr. Corson, you can come to my next party!
2. Mc Sweeney's has a new DVD quarterly. Yip-dee-fucking-doo.
Posted by hissycat at 02:40 PM | Comments (18)
December 18, 2005
Photoshop + CSS + JoJo = BFF's 4-Eva
Now all it needs is some content and its golden! What, you don't want to read a 100+ undergrad English thesis in its entirety? It'll be a gas, I swear it! Some fun you are.
Also, you know what really sucks big time? You know how sometimes you piss away two months in bed, chewing your hair and procrasturbating through an entirely thoughtless, reptilian existance, and then you're not depressed, and all of a sudden, there are a katrillion things you realize you want to do-- write a book! make stop-motion animation with k-biz! create a small replica of the Tower of London rendered in Shrinky-Dink!-- but now the world's all, oh, hey Joanna, you're feeling a little bit not morbidly depressed, are you? Well, fuck you, sister-- now you've got to change the cat's litter, and pay your psychaitrist's bills, and visit your angry parents, and get another awful job to go to and work and eat any time you might want for writing or reading novels or maki the cat fall off furniture or Shrinky-Dinking paperbacks until, once again, suicide seems a really, really attractive alternative? You know what I mean, don't you? That kind of really sucks, right, am I so right? You with me?
Oh dude, my freshman RCC (freshman Residential Computer Consulstant-- Counselor? Consultant? Counselor? Consultant?) just walked in and is sitting not enough feet away. This, too, makes suicide an attractive option. I totally just flipped up my collar like I'm a cartoon.
I have to go home now and put my cat in her new Pet Voyage carrier. I can't win. I might as well sling her around my hip while I wash dishes. She can practice being in her bag.
A funny moment is when someone gives you a breathalizer test and you blow a zero (it's also funny to type out "blow a zero"-- you try!) and the person who breathalized you is all, "this thing's broken"-- because, presumably, your behavior indicates obvious inebriation-- and you're all, "yeah, ha, ha, it must be broken," but secretly, in your brain, you're all, "right, no, you just can't breathilize for cocaine." That is a pretty funny secret thought. I would imagine.
Posted by hissycat at 07:50 PM | Comments (2)
December 08, 2005
Self-Promotion
Because I know you're just itching to read a book review today.
Posted by hissycat at 11:57 AM | Comments (3)
November 23, 2005
New Yorker, New Yorker
Charming the way 79% of New Yorker articles are written by men, isn't it?
Posted by hissycat at 03:05 AM | Comments (2)
November 07, 2005
Why I Love Susie Bright
Susie Bright's respone to Scooter Libby's dirty novel is, in a word, fabulous:
To start with, Scooter could use a good spanking with a hardcover edition of Strunk & White's Elements of Style. His most grievous challenge lies in composition and command of the English language.
She then takes him to task for his abyssmally unerotic erotica, line by line, like the sassy editrix she is.
I'm piss poor at the moment, but if anyone would like to buy me a copy of Susie Bright's book How To Write a Dirty Story I will promise to put it to good use and take all Ms. Bright's advice to heart.
Oh, Susie Bright! She rox my sox!
Posted by hissycat at 05:21 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 02, 2005
No More Excuses
It's officially National Novel Writing Month
Posted by hissycat at 06:13 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
October 20, 2005
Yes, I Know. And I'm Sorry
My posts of late have lackluster and infrequent. In part, this has to do with my lack of a jobby job. Now that I'm unemployed, I am just so busy pacing my yard, smoking cigarettes, staring at my wall, coloring in my "Coloring Book For The Heartbroken" and drinking heavily that I have hardly a spare moment left for blogging. I also have no internet connection in my apartment, which can be a drag.
But the other reason for my reticence is that the thing I'm most inclined to write about right now is something of a private matter. I don't have any illusions about my "dignity" or "decency" or "politeness." In fact, it's not just the illusions I lack but, for the most part, the qualities altogether. Now, in real life, people sometimes mistake my general shyness and uninterestingness and insecurity for some kind of principled reserve. And it is true, I don't generally discuss a great deal of matters generally thought of as personal ones. The reason I don't volunteer stories news information isn't due to ethical considerations, though. The reason is much more dumb and basic than that: it doesn't occur to me to tell anyone, or it doesn't occur to me that anyone would care for me to tell them. I don't know what to say, I'm embaressed by the what I anticipate their response might be. Maybe this aversion to confessions is a reaction against growing up in a house with two psychairtrists as parents. Maybe it has something to do with being a writer, though it would probably be more accurate to say that writing has something to do with it. The need to write, I think, has to do with the profund inarticulateness I feel in life.
Writing for me is an extremely insulated process that locks me further into my skull and keeps me shut off from the world. That is why, after I have been writing for hours or days, I find it difficult to interact normally with people. I stumble away from computer dazed and stunned by the world, my perception as foggy as though I'd just had ECT, my responses dulled and out of synch. But it is also why, when I write, I have no sense of what is or is not appropriate for sharing. I can't really imagine a reader other than myself. This can be trouble. The letters I write tend to be overly forthcoming and embaressing, really. I have trouble remembering that someone else will read what I am writing. This has been a source of trouble and conflict in the past and, indeed, continues to be. This is true for writings other than letters, too. I tend to overlook the boundaries that, in real life, shame and shyness and inarticulateness create. Of course, if I read back what I've written some time after I've written it, I become deeply ashamed. Fortunately (or not) I have developed a very strong case of writer's amnesia. As soon as I've committed something to paper, a letter, especially, I immedeately forget what I wrote. It is a useful mechanism, I find.
It is taking an incredeable force of will this week to rein myself in. The problem is that it takes so much energy to restrain myself from writing on one topic that it becomes difficult to cough up the energy to write on another. Not to worry, though. I'm sure I'll slip and write something very inappropriate and ill-thought-out eventually.
And then I'll be sorry.
Posted by hissycat at 03:44 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
My Bookjacket Photo
After leaving La Onda last evening, I went home and pondered the wisdom of Agent 007's advice.
I have come to the conclusion that, as a young, unknown with neither book deal nor agent, the only reasonable thing for me to do was to take a sample head-shot. That way, anyone who is interested can know, right off the bat, whether my face is pretty enough to be published.
I took this photo first. As you can see, I have my glasses on in this photo. My glasses not only enable me to see but also, I like to think, lend me a certain air of intellectual gravitas, bestow upon my visage a certain boyish, bookish charm a la Ira Glass, Jonathon Lethem or any of the number of other admired, bookish and bespectacled men.
Then I remembered the Agent's warning that "the standard is higher if you're a woman," and that no one likes a "bespectacled" and "tweedy" girl scribe. I decided to take another photograph, this time removing my glasses first. Here, you can see how I Iook without my glasses on.
As the great Ms. Parker once noted, literary agents don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. Or something like that.
Posted by hissycat at 01:30 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
October 13, 2005
Joan Didion On Fresh Air
If you are in the Bay Area, KQED broadcasts Fresh Air at one and again at seven. Or, you can listen to it here.
The Year Of Magical Thinking, by the way, is-- well, I can't think of an adequate word. It is exquisite. It, like other books of her, has the quality to render me dumbly mute. I've been meaning to write about it, but have had trouble starting. I will write about it, I don't know when, because I'll want and have to. But I'd like to sit with it in silence for a little bit longer.
Posted by hissycat at 01:22 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
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 07:56 PM | Comments (94) | TrackBack
October 04, 2005
The Mark Of A Great Writer Is. . . Lots Of Pussy
The Times of London ran this charming article by British writer David Baddiel.
THE LAST TIME I WENT TO Cheltenham, I was interviewed by Professor Lisa Jardine about my third novel, which led to a finely balanced discussion about history, truth, Jewish identity and personal responsibility. . . The time before that, I did an hour and a half of stand-up, which led to a woman coming back to my room, who then sold her story to The Sun. Say what you like about being a comedian and a novelist, it leads to a wide spectrum of experiences. However, I have to admit that, as far as Cheltenham goes, the last is the more defining.
What a drag to have to be interviewed by a woman who is a professor and interested in having a discussion on a book tour when, really, what being a novelist is all about is getting blown by groupies!
Now, whenever I go to the festival, however much I might be looking forward to a searching hour of literary deliberation, once I see those Neo-Classical pillars framing the entrance to the town hall, all I can think about is Rachel W-- for that was her name-- and how she ran away after little more than a dry kiss, pleading boyfriend-inspired guilt; only to reappear photographed looking hurt and bewildered in a hotel dressing-gown, on a piece of fax paper handed to me by a man who came into my dressing-room in Preston three days later from the super, soaraway Sun.
Only a dry kriss? Cock-tease!
I had apparently spent the night with Rachel: I had apparently stripped down to my football socks; I had apparently left without a word, or even a chorus of Three Lions.
You are apparently an asshole.
I sometimes wonder what, if I was a single man without children once again, I would do for groupies. Because the sad truth is that, whilst obviously rock star will always be the top job for bedpost notching, comedian isn't far behind: author, sadly, is a long way down the list, well past footballer, celebrity chef, politician and possibly even local dignitary.
What's the point of being a writer if even the local diginitaries are going to rack up more lays than you?
Maybe in America, the ones with rock star names, Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Eggers, are rock'n' roll enough to attract them: but most of the time at literary events in Britain the front rows are a sea of blue rinses.
See, I knew I was lucky I lived in America. Sure, I may have less of a chance of being published than a man, and if I am published, my books may be shoved over in the Chick Lit session where they will be dismissed out of hand as unserious, but at least I can take comfort in the fact that the man-authors get their dicks sucked at every stop on the book tour.
Where are the literary groupies? A cursory glance at English literature shows us that not long ago nothing became a beautiful woman more than throwing herself at some laudanum-chomping Man of Letters. Whether it be Lizzie Siddell, Lady Caroline Lamb, or the Dark Lady himself, the list of muses reveals that, before the pop stars carved out this territory for themselves, all you had to do was throw a few couplets together and some bit of top-class totty would be falling over herself to die of consumption for you.
Yes, where are the literary groupies? Who let them get the idea that they could write books of their own instead of being fodder for mine? Bring back the good old days when all a man had to do get into the petticoats of "some bit of top-class toddy" was write some crappy poetry and just sit back and let oppression do the rest of the work!
Now it tends to be someone keen to tell you how your novel alone got the entire book group through the menopause.
Back when the top-class toddy was dead of consumption at twenty, there weren't any of these old hags hanging around and making their silly, feminine "interpretations" of literature.
I have made this worse by writing a novel with a vaguely Holocaust theme. First, this means that the audience becomes even more decrepit-- some are so old now that that number on their arm could be their age-- and second, you're starting from a point where it's much more difficult to move the subject in a bedwise direction.
See, the thing that really sucks about the Holocaust, is that it adds nothing to the bedpost talley.
When I did stand-up, women coming up after the show might say, for example, "you know that bit about anal sex . . ?" Now, it's more likely to be "you know, my grandfather was killed in Auschwitz". Try suggesting a drink back at the hotel from there.
Also, the Holocaust totally does nothing for getting some anal action.
Oh well: as a virtually married man, it makes life easier.
Man, is your wife a lucky woman.
Of course, novelists are, in general, very keen on sex, so I presume it is going on, just that the tabloids aren't interested. You can understand this. If Rachel W had dry-kissed Julian Barnes and run away, The Sun would have had to make up something about how he'd stripped down to his period Victorian socks; how he'd sent her away without even a reading from Flaubert's Parrot. If Jodie Marsh forsook footballers and boy-band members for one night and copped off with, say, Vikram Seth, she'd have to be in tabloids afterwards saying: "He was A Suitable Boy, all right. He kept going and going, longer than all three volumes."
See, the thing is, that's not a bad Vikram Seth joke. If it didn't appear in such a repellant context, I'd have laughed. I hate you David Baddiel for everything you are and stand for, and I hate you even more for ruining that joke.
Of course, Rachel W should have gone for Martin Amis, because then the headline could have been "The Rachel Papers", with pull-out quotes such as: "He offered me Money. It was an amazing Experience. We did it Yellow Doggy-Style. Turns out it's not just Einstein who's got a Monster. Now I'm just hoping that I don't have to go and get myself one of them Dead Babies."
Yeah, why don't you just give that one a minute to sink in. Have fun!
It's not that surprising that there is a prick who feels so entitled to adulation by women, who sees women as sex objects that exist for his benefit and that have no brains or reason to live after they lose their youthful charms. It's just a little upsetting that a newspaper would think it's a good idea to publish it.
Oh, Curtis Sittenfeld. Not that I ever doubted you but, dear god, how you were right.
Posted by hissycat at 12:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 01, 2005
I'm Zippy
Last night I had an idea, wrote a few paragraphs. Today I did some research. I am writing a new story. I'm still in the upbeat, optimistic beginning phase. The possibilities of a story are never as great as at the very beginning. As soon as I make a decision, they start shutting off by the dozen. The more work I do for the story, the less optimism I have for it. It inevitable grows up to mock and jeer at me, angry at me for making it such an ugly, miserable thing.
My ink pads came in the mail today. I'd wanted to make Happy Banned Book Week! bookmarks for my friends, but the week is over. My cat managed, while I wasn't looking, to get all three of her paws onto the black ink pad. Their are paw prints all over the apartment now. I can't cope with the thought of cleaning.
Posted by hissycat at 07:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2005
Yes, I Am Bragging
Did I mention thatThe Literary Dick has answered a second question of mine, this time about Mary McCarthy's The Group? Oboy. I highly endorse the Literary Dick's informative service.
It's kind of like that time Tony Kushner answered my question. I was giddy for days.
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August 30, 2005
I'll Never Cut it As a Writer. . . Or a Blogger
 | Currently Listening You Are Free By Cat Power see related |
I will never make it as a writer because I hate writers. I'vebeen sitting in Caf� La Onda all evening, taking advantage of the freeinternet and spacious desks and abundant caffeine. Two seperatewriting groups have come, met, and left since I've been here. Themost offensive member of the nearest table was a man with black framedglasses exactly like mine, a loud, overly emphatic voice, and adomineering personality. "And I care about the character, I do,but that's not the Jessica I know;" "You are less interested in thatthan in the subtle inner thoughts-- and that's great, but. . ."; "Ihear that a lot at all the writing workshops and conferences I'veattended;" "You all are going to be invited to a very civilizedcocktail party as soon as I move into my new apartment. You guyshave to come and be my friends. I don't have any otherfriends. Seriously, all my friends moved away, so you guys haveto come and say you are my friends and not just my colleagues. There will be booze-- a keg!"
I'll never make it as blogger, though, because I'm too dumb to figure out Movable Type.
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August 05, 2005
A-OK
 | Currently Listening In the Aeroplane Over the Sea By Neutral Milk Hotel see related |
I'm feeling very bouncy today. I slept very deeply, without any bad dreams. I got a full eight hours in (of course I woke up an hour late, but it didn't matter, as Tamara was to futzing with various cars for the next half hour anyway). Last night, I wrote. Ifeel like I'll write more today and I've set a modest daily goal for myself. I'm picking up Alex at the airport after work-- he's visiting from Seattle for the weekend. I'm going out dancing with bunnies tonight. And Brett called and invited me to dine with him at Google between work and the airport, and you know, the pleasure of an invitation is hardly diminished at all by my having to ask for it and my not being able to go (car problems made me late for work, so I'm going to stay late so I get my 8 hours of pay). But best of all.. .
I got me some health insurance!!! Oh man, I am so excited. I sent my boss an email yesterday afternoon timidly pointing out thatmy student coverage would expire soon and that I can't afford to pay for my prescriptions on my own, so at the very least could I please know if and when to expect benefits so that if there is a gap I can make other arrangements (not that I have any idea about what other arrangements I could make, as someone who can't afford to buy pills,can't afford to buy insurance, and even if I could buy very expensive insurance, I would still have to pay for my meds out of pockets, as ADDand depression fall under the category of 'pre-existingconditions.' I wouldn't be surprised if private insurance refused to pay for my birth control, too, because, you know, my reproductive system is pre-existing; I can imagine being told that if I had begun menarche while I was on their plan they could have covered me, but since I've been menstruating since well before I joined, there's just nothing they can do).
Well, I was kind of nervous and frightened about getting a response. Not that I thought my boss would be mean about it, but,I don't know, I just don't like asking for things.
This morning when I got to work there was a reply waiting in my inbox for me that said oh, of course I could have benefits, and oh, we'll just give this HR and move all this right along, and oh, if things don't move fast enough, well, just let someone know and you'll be on the phone haggling over mental health premiums with an insurance rep before you can say boo.
So that was nice. And now I'm happy.
So I like my job again today. Plus, I'm working more, which means I'm not so bored and useless feeling. I'm going to try to string out this wave of benefits enthusiasm for as long as I can, and have a more positive attitude about my job.
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August 04, 2005
blah blah blog
 | Currently Reading The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read By Andre Schiffrin see related |
Last night I was wondering what I want to get out of this blog and I think it is this: I want to be more creative, more actively creative, and I want to be writing again. I'm not writing anything of value here, this isn't quality writing. What I hope though is that writing here will at least loosen me up, get me in the habit of putting my fingers to the keyboard so that when I do sit down to do some actual writing I will be less intimidated by the thought of stringing words together. Since I have relatively little time to sit down and write now that I am a working woman, when I do sit down with my computer I feel tremendous pressure to write something good. Every word I type I quickly delete-- if I can get myself to type anything at all. Usually I just sit there thinking about how stupid my thoughts are and trying to work out in my head things I'm too embarassed to work out on paper. If I could just be a little more arrogant, a bit brasher it might do me well.
On the other hand, I don't want to be a fool and I don't want to be dispicable. I do want to write, but I can't remember how.
Oh, and I also need a computer. My laptop is kapoot. I wonder if I will qualify for financing now or whether I have to have my credit card for a while before I have a credit score.
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Posted by hissycat at 12:10 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
August 03, 2005
It's Just Another Hypomanic Monday (Oh-Oh-Woah)
I'm doing some serious fantasizing about making radio stories for ThisAmerican Life. I have a couple of ideas for stories I'd like to do. I've been looking at recording equipment on Transom.org and trying to figure out what I need, but I'm having a hard time making sense of everything. All I need is something basic thatworks. Of course, I will probably need to buy a computer first, as the space bar on my laptop has been broken since spilling vodka on it last week; I mean, that's not the only reason I need a new one-- my laptop is also just old and slow and generally busted; I tried to buy a new computer this weekend. Brett and I went to the Apple store downtown and to CompUSA; I even filled out the application at Apple to purchase a laptop on a lay-a-way plan, but of course, I was rejected, because I have no credit history. It really sucks. It's amazingly hard to get a credit card without a history, but of course you don't have a history until you open a line of credit. You also can't do online BillPay, can't get a cellphone contract without leaving a deposit and so on. For the lastmonth I've been applying for credit cards and getting rejected. I know perfectly well that it's totally stupid-- I have a job; I pay my rent-- and that the only reason is that I have no credit score. Still, I feel like such a loser every time I get rejected. Like,it's this judgement on me, that I'm not resposible enough and not a good grown-up.
I also had a particularly frustrating encounter with my credit union; I applied (in person, explaining to the teller that I just wanted the simplist, most basic, beginner credit card) and was told I would hear back by the end of the day. Of course, it took a week and I had to call the credit man at the bank and leave messages on his machine. Finally, I got a phone call telling me that I had been rejected for the $10,000 platinum card. What? I thought, well, duh, you'd have to be a moron to give me a credit card with a $10,000 line of credit. You know, I'd have to be a moron to apply for a platinum card and think I could get one. But of course, I didn't. I suppose the teller punched in my request wrong. Whatever. Anyway, I was told that Visa made a counter-offfer for a Classic card with a $500 limit. Perfect. All I had to do, the guy told me, was fax him a copy of my paystub. I asked if I could email it instead and he said fine. I emailed him a copy ofmy paystub. Then I get an email back from him saying that I can't send an electronic version, it needs to be the receipt kind that gets mailed to me. I write back to inform him that I don't get a paper copy, I'm on the University Payroll and do direct deposit at theuniversity credit union. I get an email back that is five words long:
"everyone gets a paper stub."
Not only is this not true in my case, it is not true in the case of what I imagine to be a very large percentage of members of the credit union, since anyone who is on payroll and direct deposit at the University associated with the credit union is in the same situation as me: no paper stub. In fact, I looked this up and there's a big notice as soon as you get to the payroll website explaining that they no longer mail paper stubs. So I write back and calmly explain why I don't get a paper stub (by the way, if I'm on direct deposits houldn't they already have some kind of record of my earnings? is it really necessary for me to make a record of what they obviously must already have on file?) I don't hear back for maybe two weeks. Then I get a letter in the mail-- a letter informing me that I'd been denied that $10,000 platinum card I'd applied for.
So yesterday I finally got it together to go talk to someone at thecredit union. This time, I went to a different branch and had no problems. I got a call the same afternoon saying I'd been accepted and just needed to send proof of income. I told thewoman about the paper paystub issue and she said not to worry, theelectronic copy is totally fine. So now I'll have a credit card in about a week.
I've been feeling kind of funny lately. I'm going to say this is partly my own fault for letting my meds run out last week and not getting a refill of my prescriptions till Monday. But I also just feel funny. You know, I've been out of school a few months,working at my job, I feel like I should be falling into apattern. But all I think about is other things I could/ should/wish I would be doing. Like going to librarian school. Like applying to This American Life's internship program and going to Chicago for four months. Like writing in a serious way--especially, finishing the two short stories I have laying around and sending them off and transforming my thesis into a kicky article on lesbian pulps that I can pitch to some kicky magazine.
I know in theory this is a good job and I should be grateful I found it, but I want to be doing something else. I want to be putting more of my time into creative and intellectual work again. I'd like to look for something else, but it's so hard and takes so much time and energy that I can't imagine working and job-hunting at the same time. I'd probably have to quit my job to do a serious hunt, and I can't afford to do that. On the other hand, if I don't start getting benefits soon, I can't afford not to do that. My salary isn't something I'd sneeze at, but with no health insurance, it isn't worth it. I require three expensive prescription psychopharmeceuticals as well birth control and at least semi-regular therapy and med-checks with my psychaitrist. My goodness, I require extensive upkeep. In any case, at the very least I need my Rx drugs covered. I mean, I could easily be spending half my salary just to pay for my drugs. That's just not liveable. In that case, I think it would make more sense to quit and be a full-time job hunter and find a position with benefits as soon as possible.
Man, I hate that healthcare is so expensive. There are a ton of jobs I'd rather be doing but can't because I need health insurance. Like, I'd rather just have some dinky little job inthe city to make bucks and then have more energy to put into writing, but since there are no bartending/ table-waiting/ shirt-folding jobsthat have health insurance, it's just totally out of the picture. Same reason why I can't just tutor, even though I'd probably be making more dollars. It's just impossible for me to buy my own insurance, and even if I could, no insurance company in CA is going to cover my pre-existing conditions (depression, anxiety, ADD), which are of course the reasons I need coverage in the first place. I hope I get insurance soon at this job, although no one has really told me what is going on. I've been to scared to ask my boss and I don'tget the impression that anyone else has any idea. I wish this place were organized more like a normal kind of company.
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Posted by hissycat at 03:42 PM | Comments (26) | TrackBack