Guesses At Nothing

Is there an aitch or isn't there I can never remember.  In any case, I am off to Pittsburg(h)?  this weekend to meet Meghann's family.  I hope everybody has a great labor day weekend, and safe travels if you will be on the highways or in the airways.

P.S. Spellcheck tells me that there is an aitch, cue the music, The more you know.......

P.P.S. I'll resume my author bit next week, taking a turn towards science fiction. Astute readers will know who's next.

The next author on my list was a personal inspiration for me to pursue writing. As soon as I took a short fiction class with her, my fate to become a creative writing major was sealed. Originally from Tennessee, Wilson made her way north in a twisted version of manifest destiny (a metaphor she used in one of her stories) and became a professor at Oswego State. She has written two collections of short stories, From the Bottom Up; which was the winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction, and Wind; which was nominated for a Pulitzer prize. Leigh is a great woman with a killer smile and if it wasn't for her I would probably be teaching art at some high school or another, or who knows. I really have no idea where I would be.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck. -- Joyce Carol Oates

Keeping with writers from Upstate New York, (and my first female writer) Joyce Carol Oates is a master of prose whose breadth of work is so great that she will undoubtedly be considered one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century. She has written novels (under various pseudonyms), novellas, short stories, drama, essays, and poetry. Genres that she has covered include horror, children's fiction, young adult, Gothic and mainstream. She is also editor of the literary magazine, the Ontario Review. Not enough for you? There is the fact that she was valedictorian at Syracuse University, and she is now a professor at Princeton. With a rap sheet like that, I had to include her in my list of Thirty Authors in Thirty Days.

I cannot be a friend to you, future fellow. You scare the shit out of me. -- Ronald Throop

Ronald Throop is an obscure choice that I have a personal bias towards. I came across his book On Rainy Days the Monk Ryokan Feels Sorry For Himself in a book store in Oswego, NY. I think that it was a self-published book, or anyway was published by Freeflow Books; which returns zero results on Google for publishers, and one for a xerox print application. Regardless, the book is a vicious, angry "scream-out-loud account of the struggle for piece of mind amidst the 21st century, American cultural inertia," at least according to his wife anyway. The book is set in Oswego which was neat, because it is always fun to read a book that takes place somewhere familiar, and the author lived on W. Seventh Street, down by the lake. I know this because while I was reading the book I looked him up in the phone book and walked down from Tallman Street to see what his house looked like. I never knocked, mostly because I was nervous, and I wish I had because who knows, maybe we would have become friends. Or maybe he would have slammed the door in my face, but I guess I'll never know.

I mentioned that it took place in Oswego which was really cool. There were the familiar town sights; the river, the lake, the nuclear power plant, the park with the bell that we used to go climb and ring in the middle of the night (whatever its name was), and of course the college. The book was also cool because it talked about the familiar town celebrities, who were only celebrities insomuch that they were prominent people of dubious character. There was the slum lord scumbag who held a seat on the city council and also held illicit affairs with the young college girls who he rented too. There was the old drugged-out hippie bar owner (which we will only refer to as "Old Grain Elevator") who also had affairs with young college girls who worked at his bar. This was a personal matter for me because while I was living in the upstairs of the Women's Club (a whole other story) he was dating my roommate. She lived in the back of the building and I had the only room in the front.  I recall waking up to the sound of a car horn and hearing him yell her name. When I looked out the window, he was parked in the driveway yelling through the sunroof of his Landrover. In another scene in the book, the narrator was working in a restaurant in Minetto that was across the street from a house where I used to stay. Everything seemed to tie together and the author had a voice that really spoke to me.

The one review on Amazon is negative, but it is written by another old Oswego crank. Take it for what you will. I liked the book, even with its inherit negativity.

The book on Amazon

"The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer-- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer." -- Ken Kesey

I have a guilty confession. I have never read anything by Ken Kesey. But I am including him in my list anyway. I have seen One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and it is a great movie. So great that it won a boatload of Oscars. Mainly, I am including him because of the joy he found in living life.

Kesey is a bridge between the Beats and the Hippie movement. Too young to be a beatnik, too old to be a hippie, Kesey was never content to write stories; he had to live them. He became friends with Neal Cassady (a beatnik) and through him met Ginsberg and Kerouac, who introduced him to Timothy Leary. Leary turned Kesey on to LSD and Kesey became a willing guinea pig for the drug; which was legal at the time. Kesey began to throw parties known as the Acid Tests which were a big part of the burgeoning Love Culture of San Fransisco. A little band named The Warlocks provided the entertainment, who later became known as The Grateful Dead. The Acid Tests were chronicled in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Hunter S. Thompson's book about the Hell's Angels.

Kesey's break out hit that earned him fame and fortune was a book called One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, While writing the book Kesey worked in a mental hospital. During the night shift he took hallucinogenic drugs and wrote. He thought that the patients there were not actually ill, but just behaved in a way that society couldn't accept. It became the premise of his book. The book was later turned into a movie that Kesey claimed he never saw. He was upset that Jack Nicholson was cast as the leading role, and also that the movie wasn't narrated by the "Big Indian" as the book was.

Kesey later was known for his band of "Merry Pranksters", a group that traveled cross-country in a bus named "Further." In a side note, this is how I first discovered Kesey. While in high school I traveled to a town in western New York called Darien Lake for a Phish show (my first ever). I didn't have a ticket and never made it into the show, but heard from the parking lot the introduction of Kesey during the show as "Ken Uncle Sam Bozo Easy Kesey". He and the Pranksters performed a "Bozo" dance, and the lead singer of Phish announced, "this is what happens when you do too much acid 30 years later." It was a helluva show and turned me on to Kesey and Phish.

Add Ken Kesey to the list of authors whose books I need to read.

In the header of Jimsnotes, you will now find a box that contains items of interest.  These are stories that I find interesting.  It will display three items, but if you click read more, you can see other stories that I think are noteworthy.  Take a second and check 'em out.

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? -- Jack Kerouac

Sorry I haven't been posting in the last couple of days. Life catches up with you I suppose. I have been to a birthday party, had new shocks installed in my truck and had the speedometer sensor replaced. Yup, life catches up with you.

So where were we? Ah yes, The Beats. The next author I thought of for my list of thirty is Jack Kerouac. I chose him because he is just as influential of a Beat writer as Burroughs was, but for everything Burroughs was, Kerouac was not. Burroughs represented the fringe so to speak, and even though the drug sub-culture is present in Kerouac's work, he seems to me like an all American Boy. I guess it is kind of funny that I think that as his writings are part of the counterculture, but he was an amazing high school athlete (and for a brief time collegiate) and his writing is accessible. He is even credited as being an influence on writers such as Tom Robbins, Ken Kesey and Tom Wolfe, and a laundry list of musicians including Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Jerry Garcia.

There is one passage in particular from On The Road, where Kerouac talks about looking out the window at the passing landscape and envisioning himself out there riding a white horse at the speed of the car. It reminded me of being a kid and thinking similar things while on long road trips. I think that lots of people have probably at one point or another thought of that and maybe somehow it is a part of our collective unconscious. Maybe Kerouac could tune into that; which is what made his writing so influential and popular. And I mentioned that he is accessible, but he also sought to make writing accessible. He would ramble on for hours about his technique to anyone who would listen, and in a letter to a friend included this list*:

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yrself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Words to consider.

*List taken from wikipedia

Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words. -- William Burroughs, Cities of the Red Night

William Burroughs is the first author that I am blogging of the Beat Generation. His writing is masterful (while troubled) and influential (while obscure). His writing was semi-autobiographical and was born out of personal tragedy. Burroughs was a drug user and became involved with the homosexual sub-culture of New York City which became themes in his writing. The accidental death of his common-law wife is what eventually led him to write. Burroughs was also friends with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and with them became part of the Beat Movement.

Burroughs writing emerged out of great personal tragedy. As a young man he befriended a woman named Joan Vollmer who later became his common-law wife. One night while drunk at a party in Mexico City, the two decided to play a game of "William Tell" and Burroughs accidentally shot and killed his wife. The incident was charged as a homicide and while awaiting trial Burroughs began to write.

Burroughs most famous work is Naked Lunch. It was written using a style that Burroughs developed that involved cutting out the words from other unfinished manuscripts then repasting them on the page in a seemingly random order. The book was banned in many places for its language and content which included drug use and homosexual themes. The book even resulted in a high profile obscenity trial which brought attention to the book. In the end the book was not found to be obscene. Allen Ginsberg later referenced the book in his epic poem, "Howl". The book was later made into a movie.

 

The writing style that was defined in Naked Lunch developed in Burroughs subsequent works. His final "Red Night Trilogy" created a complete mythology that revolved around the drug use and homosexual themes present in his work. I've read the first book, Cities of the Red Night and it was taxing to read. It was extemporaneous and jumped around from time-period to time-period sometimes in the same sentence. There were long passages of seemingly random words that required a lot of focus. In spite of this, the book was cohesive. It had an arc of beginning, middle and end, and the seemingly random words also seemed somehow related. The final passages felt peaceful in comparison to the rest of the book but at the same time hinted at more to come. I can't say that I'll ever read the rest of the trilogy, but I don't regret reading the first book.

Burroughs led a troubled life. His writing reflects that. But his writing is also masterful, and has been greatly influential. He, together with, Ginsberg, Kerouac and others, helped develop what would become known as the Beat Movement, a counter-culture literary movement that would later lead to the hippie movement and beyond.

There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? -- H.S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson is next on my list for the sole reason that he is a counter-culture icon.  His work was iconoclastic in nature and in many ways the character of Hunter was bigger than the man himself.  He ran for sheriff of Aspen CO on the freak power ticket (and nearly won).  He was the father of his own brand of "Gonzo" journalism, and became a character in the cartoon Doonesbury.  Among his friends were many actors as well as an English illustrator named Ralph Steadman.  Hunter was more than just a man and in the end the legend overpowered the man.  Hunter committed suicide in 2005.  His funeral (which he had envisioned many years earlier) was a tribute to an extraordinary life.

The legend of Hunter S. Thompson probably solidified when he ran for sheriff of Pitkin county.   He had worked as a journalist before then but his antics during the run for sheriff in many ways propelled Hunter to the status of a counter-culture icon.  He ran on the "freak power" ticket whose agenda included decriminalizing drugs (for personal use only), ripping up the streets of Aspen and replacing them with grass, and banning the construction of buildings that would obscure the view of the surrounding mountains.  He even shaved his head bald and refered to his opponent (who supported a crew cut) as "my long haired friend."  Thompson led in the polls for a time but was eventually beaten by a slim margin.  His antics led to his first article in RollingStone and firmly cemented Hunter as an icon of the counter-culture.

Hunter S. Thompson also defined a new brand of journalism known as "Gonzo Journalism".  Gonzo journalism is a melding of fact and fiction wherein the reporter becomes a large part of the story.  It is characterized by gross exaggeration of actual events that are meant to convey the true meaning behind the story.  Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. 1972, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,; are probably the two most famous examples of Gonzo Journalism.  There is also a book that he wrote when he was young called, The Rum Diary, which I would highly recommend.  It wasn't published until long after he was famous, but it shows the writing style that would eventually lead to Gonzo Journalism. 

In spite of the apparent loner/recluse persona that Hunter cultivated, his compound at Woody Creek (known as Owl Farm) became a refuge for many actors and literary types.  Hunter was a consummate entertainer.  Actors such as Bill Murray and Johnny Depp became close with Hunter while researching roles for the movies, Where the Buffalo Roam, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  Other actors associated with the films also found a home at Owl Farm.  Hunter enjoyed the company.  His parties often included playing with firearms and explosives, something for which he had a great affinity.  His stature as a counter-culture icon made him good company and his compound became an oasis where actors could escape the Hollywood atmosphere . 

Eventually, Hunter S. Thompson's persona got the better of him.  The years of hard living and voracious consumption of drugs had left Hunter frail with many medical conditions.  In February 2005, Hunter killed himself by a gunshot to the head.  He had always said that he would have felt trapped in this life if he didn't know that at any moment he could kill himself.  He lived up to his word.  His suicide note read like a poem; "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt."   His funeral was just as he had imagined it.  A 153-foot tower of a double-thumbed fist (of his own design) was erected at Owl Farm and his ashes were shot out of a cannon from the top.  Johny Depp, his Hollywood actor friend, financed the whole thing and notables such as John Kerry, George McGovern, and Bill Murray were in attendance at the private ceremony.  It was a fitting tribute. 

Hunter S. Thompson became very much a character beyond his own control.  The legend was bigger than the man and it got the better of him.  But his influence in the literary world, the creation of Gonzo Journalism, will live on.  As long as there is a counter-culture,  as long as there is iconoclasm, people will read Hunter S. Thompson. 

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Next up on the list is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or Gabo as he is known to many.  He is an excellent writer from Columbia who has real gift for writing novels, short stories and non-fiction.  His works have been translated into many languages (I'm guessing) and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

I've read only a few books that he has written and they all have been good.  Love in the Time of Cholera was the first book I picked up and somehow it ended up lost in the trunk of my car.  I never read it and there it sat until I think it got wet or was damaged by the heat of the trunk.  When I finally found it again, the pages were yellowed and the book had lost its form.  But I read it anyway and I am glad that I did because it turned me on to a great author.  The book is set in Columbia in a time when cholera was the number one health threat.  It is a tale of unrequited love, and a hopeless romantic who stays in love with the same girl for many years even though she marries another.  At times the book was difficult to read.  The time line jumped around so much, flashing forward then back, and sometimes it was hard to keep up, but the payout was tremendous.  The final scenes gave me chills.  It is a book that will stay with me for a lifetime.

Another book (a novella really), Chronicle of a Death Foretold, follows a journalist around as he tries to find the real story behind the murder of a young man, also in Columbia I believe. Each person the journalist interviews fills him in with the different events that unfolded that day.  Everybody knew that the young man was going to be murdered before it happened yet each had some reason why they couldn't warn him.  The story is told with vivid imagery especially during the climax, and oddly enough, the climax is surprising even though we knew all along that it would happen.

The only non-fiction book that I have read by Marquez is News of a Kidnapping, which is the true life tale about the kidnapping of several prominent figures in Columbia by a drug cartel.  By far this was the least favorite book of the three that I have read, but that is not saying too much.  The story is full of detail and is well researched. 

Marquez also has written a lot of short fiction.  The one story that I have read, probably a precursor to having read Love in the Time of Cholera, is A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.  The story shows "magic realism", a genre that is present in many Marquez books.  The story revolves around the discovery of a fallen angel who is very weak.  The angel had come to take the life of a very young boy, but when the parents find him they keep him in a chicken coop and eventually charge money for people to see him.  The family makes good money, then the angel loses favor to another sideshow across town.  Eventually the angel regains his strength and flies away.  The story is very much like a fairy tale and shows how well Marquez uses imagery and symbolism.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.  His works are rich with metaphor and use vivid imagery.   In all of the books I have read, the climax is quite worth the investment.  I have enjoyed each one. 

Thirty Authors in Thirty Days in on hiatus for a couple of days.  Tonight we are going to Shakori for some free bluegrass (in spite of the thunderstorms)  and tomorrow we are off to the beach.  Expect an update on Sunday.

He’ll always be innocent, you can’t blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Insanity is a kind of innocence. -- Graham Greene

 

Graham Greene is a widely acclaimed British writer whose books often had political and moral themes.  He wrote many novels, plays and short stories, and there have been several films released that were based on his writing.  Greene was also an avid traveler and worked for the Foreign Office as a spy.  The characters and places that Greene encountered were fodder for his writing.  My personal exposure to Graham Greene's writing is limited.  I have only read one book, The Quiet American, but I intend to read more.  Orient Express is next on the list

The Quiet American is the tale of a love triangle that takes place in Vietnam in the 1950's, before the Vietnam War.  The story is told from the perspective of Thomas Fowler, a British journalist/expatriate who is in love with his Vietnamese mistress named Phuong. Fowler meets an American named Alden Pyle who also falls in love with Phuong.  On the surface Pyle seems like a very "aw shucks" kinda guy.  He is the stereotypical 1950's clean cut American.  He feels bad for falling in love and wants a fair fight for Phuong's affection. He even tries to become friendly with a reluctant Fowler.  Fowler resists and eventually finds out that Pyle leads a double life. Under the pretense of being an American business man, he is also working covert operations for the American government by providing explosives to a corrupt militia leader.  Disgusted, Fowler arranges for Pyle's death amidst a great internal struggle.  The punch line is:  The only quiet American is a dead one. 

By contrasting the narrator (who is rich and three dimensional) with Pyle (a stereotype of the 1950's American) Graham Greene created a story that was highly critical of American foreign policy at the time and also explored the human condition of man's internal struggle with himself.  Did Fowler arrange for Pyle's death out of his disgust for Pyle's covert operations?  Or was he motivated by his rivalry over Phuong?  Probably a bit of both. 

I should quick write a disclaimer about the entries in the Thirty Authors in Thirty Days category.  The information that I present about the books that I have read is as is with no warranty either expressed or implied.   I read a lot of these books long ago and the steel trap that is my memory sometimes seems more like a colander.   So if I mess up a fact or two I apologize. 

"The meek will inherit the earth. They are too weak to refuse." -- Matt Ruff

Keeping in a comic spirit, the next author in "Thirty Authors in Thirty Days" is Matt Ruff.  Like Tom Robbins, Matt Ruff has an intensely absurdist vein running through his books.  Also like Robbins, Ruff is from the east coast but now lives in Washington State. 

I first picked up his book Fool on the Hill while attending college and being near Ithaca (where the book takes place) it was fun to picture the scenes in the book in a familiar setting.  The book is about a writer at Cornell University named Stephen George, who by the end of the book figures out that he can kinda sorta write reality.  Getting there is the fun part. There are many subplots and a zany cast of characters that includes a dog/cat duo who speak in telepathy, a society of invisible sprites, and Mr. Sunshine, a retired Greek god who runs the whole show. 

Ruff's second book, Sewer, Gas, & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (from which the opening quote is taken) is similar to Fool on the Hill in that it has multiple subplots and a wide cast of characters.  The comparison ends there.  Sewer, Gas, & Electric takes places in the not-to-distant future in a kind of Ayn Randian dystopia where Objectivism rules, but the world is not better for it.   Buildings climb ever higher by the sheer will of the individual, activist pirates sail the seven seas in polka-dot submarines, slapsticking their way to a better world one whipped cream cannon assault at a time and certain individuals will prevail over all.   Everybody else (including an entire race) is left bobbing in the wake.  Rand herself is even a character in the book albeit in a disembodied computer know-it-all form.  All of this is tied into a neat little package by the end.

If Ruff's imagination isn't yet apparent, there is also this PDF [new window] that I found on his website.  Drawn in a spiral bound notebook, it is a picture narrative of what I can only describe as the war to end all acorn wars.  That's all I can say.  You'll have to click the link.  It does show, though, his creativity at a young age.  Ruff also states on his site that he knew he wanted to be a writer by the time he was five.  I really admire that. 

That's where my reading of Ruff has tapered off.  There is a third book called Set This House in Order that has something to do with multiple personalities.  It was widely acclaimed and even won an award or two.  And just released in July is Bad Monkeys (another book with a psychological angle) that sounds like it will be a good read.  I think I will pick up both.

Resources:

Matt Ruff's home page, www.bymattruff.com, is packed with information about Ruff and his books and it looks to be compiled and maintained by Ruff himself.  

Matt Ruff's books on amazon. 

"...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell." --  Tom Robbins

The author I begin with is Tom Robbins.  The guy just exudes coolness.  He's so cool that his publicist has advised him to never appear in public without sunglasses or his glare might instantly turn the room into a walk-in cooler, prompting pointy nipples of his adoring fans. I have read near about everything that the man has written.  Robbins writing is comic, yet intelligent, perverted, yet poignant.  His characters often launch into philosophic diatribes about many topics, the most prevalent of which is religion.  In what I consider to be his best book, Skinny Legs and All, the Seven Veils of Salome are dropped in each part of the book revealing the truth behind the seven "illusions" that obscure humanity's potential.  The characters in his books are often whimsical and have included,  Pan (Jitterbug Perfume), Tanuki, a badger like demigod who parachutes from heaven by his scrotum only to cause mischief amongst the mortals (Villa Incognito), and the unlikely quintet of a dirty ol' sock, a can of beans, a dessert spoon, a painted stick and a conch shell (Skinny Legs and All).  No topic is taboo with Robbins, and you often find his characters engaged in activities that would make a porn star blush.  But the real beauty of his books is the factual (and obscure) information that he weaves into his stories.  Robbins is well versed in theology, and by reading his books as a young undergraduate, I learned a lot of trivia about religion, most of which has been relegated to that dusty old box in my memory labeled "things I used to know."

But the moral is, the guy is cool.  So cool that he has now decided to write a children's book.... about beer.

Bibliography

So for whatever reason an idea popped into my head.   I call it "Thirty Authors in Thirty Days".   The idea is simple, each day, (and I cannot commit to them being consecutive) I will post a bit about some author or another who I admire, enjoy, or are otherwise inspired by.  So starting today in the following post to this, I present to you, "Thirty Authors in Thirty Days".

As you may have noticed I am back to the old look.  It was fun to play around with new designs, but this one is tried and true.  Without getting too technical the last skin caused many problems with the indexing of my site.  Search engine spiders received javascript errors left and right, and I am convinced that that affects the "friendliness" of the site.  So anyway, I am back to where I started several months later.  If you have anything to say about design, feel free to drop a line or two in the comments, or email me at jimsnotes at gmail dot com, but of course format that as a real email address.  In any event, cheers to winding up back where you started.  -- Jim