My Victory at March 12th StorySlam 2012

This is a bit overdue, but I participated in the First Person Arts StorySlam in Philadelphia back on March 12. The topic was "Around the World," so I couldn't help but describe the time my first real job required that I go overseas to help train Filipino graphic designers in order to save my company money without affecting productivity. Ah, the global economy. Despite my reservations -- not just due to the fact that the trip occurred a few months after 9/11 -- I agreed to go. The experience changed my life, but also confirmed that my ethics were not well defined or, even, strong enough to guide my decisions.

Enjoy this slightly NSFW video of my performance, which earned FIRST PLACE and got me a spot at the GRAND SLAM, which occurs on May 19th at the Annenberg Center.

NOTE: longtime, observant fans will note that a heavily fictionalized version of this experienced appeared in part of my short story "When You Know You're From Somewhere Else" in StoryQuarterly back in 2009

Springsteen, Women, and why artists are always looking in from outside

Here's a blog post responding to a blog post about a blog post. I love the internet!

Monica D'Antonio over at X Rated has an excellent essay about Bruce Springsteen's song presentations of men and women. Read it as well as the original article by Rebecca Bohanan ("The Only Three Women in Bruce Springsteen's Music"), which sparked Monica's analytical fury.

Then, because you have an hour of your life reading 3 articles about Bruce Springsteen, consider my additional thoughts here (with very inadequate summaries of Bohanan and D'Antonio):

Rebecca Bohanan acknowledges that Springsteen's a man and is thus entitled to write about men; but she accuses him of stereotyping females as saviors, objects, and/or goals. She cites lyrics (many of which are from 70s/early80s). She says she's a huge fan of his music, but that he's writing about a male type that's 50-60 outdated; and his women are barely present.

Monica's analysis (why didn't you read it, fool?) does an excellent job of citing lyrics to contend that Springsteen has plenty of male-female relationships that are about friendship; she also points out that the damaged men are often unhappy regardless of what the women do, which I'd like to expand upon a bit.

With music and poetry, people often fall into the trap of equating narrators with the authors. Some singers/poets invite that merging; others exploit that mistake.

I contend that Springsteen is not even writing from HIS perspective in most of his songs (especially once he achieves commercial success -- you think he's really knocking girls up, robbing banks, working at factories, etc after BORN IN THE USA?)

I reiterate, first, that the artist always views the world from the outside. Thus, they are from the world but disconnected. That disconnection comes before the artwork can flourish. The art is as much an escape as getting into a car and driving to a new town (and then writing songs about the old town). But there is a difference between the man who yearns of a chance to drive away from his burdens and sadness and the artist, who truly escapes but still suffers -- as the Marxists of the Harlem Renaissance learned, the working class doesn't have time to write stories and poems and songs about their own plight if they are working 12 hours a day. The artist is privileged in that they have opportunity to create, power to create, or the will to sacrifice time to create. This does not make the artist a better human being than a man or woman who works, raises kids, etc; this simply makes the artist an artist. The artist chooses the nontraditional path -- the chance to communicate something, but still suffer.

Remember: the artist is always outside looking in.

Springsteen, an artist writing from the outside of a world he knew first hand, is writing about a perspective that still exists, despite what Bohanan wants to admit. The alienated male stuck in ideas/communities does seem socially and politically 50-60 years out of date, but one cannot wish it away. It still exists. Nor can you fault the artist for shining light on it, unless they seem to be celebrating the suffering or championing the old ideas. Springsteen is not championing the class struggles of the men he sings about; at worst he's not writing songs about the class struggles of women. But is that really worth criticizing him for? (Consider: would he be able to satisfyingly represent the female perspective? maybe. Or, more interestingly, would Bohanan critique a singer who sings about the pain of racial divides? Even better, why isn't she critiquing Bruce for focusing on white men?)

According to Bohanan, these songs miss the opportunity to champion her ideology that men and women can achieve both happiness and equal power in relationships. I happen to agree with that ideology. But -- and this is what irritates me about her article -- not all men and women think that way! Springsteen is singing about the men that don't think that way; or, more accurately, he's singing about the men who are discovering that they don't think that way, but don't know how else to act!

Springsteen sings about these men and women and, while he champions their ability to survive, he never cheers the culture that allows their situations to exist! (As Monica points out, Springsteen doesn't seem to think their outdated/traditional perspectives will lead to any type of happiness.) It's a career-spanning critique: the struggle of men raised to accept traditional gender roles, struggling in near poverty (and worse). And maybe he's a Romantic, but Springsteen seems to think that Love (yes, with a capital L) still exists and can make the pain bearable.

It's here that I'm reminded of a quote from James Baldwin's story "Sonny's Blues," where the narrator confronts his brother Sonny about his (Sonny's) heroin addiction. They begin to talk about what's really important to them -- the nature of surviving in post-War Harlem when drugs and music offer a way out for guys like Sonny who cannot achieve middle class success/happiness.

"But there's no way NOT to suffer, is there Sonny?"
[...]
"No. There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of it, and to make it seem--well, like you. Like you did something, all right, and now you're suffering for it. [...N]obody just takes it!"

Springsteen's men use love the same way Sonny uses jazz and heroin -- they still suffer, but they feel like they're doing something if they don't suffer alone. In the climax of James Baldwin's classic story, the narrator watches his sober brother play piano with 2 of his friends and the connection amongst the musicians is foreign (to the narrator) but beautiful. It's the thing that will keep Sonny alive, even if he suffers. Springsteen is talking about the same thing, as far as I'm concerned. Love, even if it can't cure suffering, makes suffering bearable. Love makes the working class man, who's brought up with the traditional male gender role of silent suffering provider, feel less alone.

Bohanan basically comes across as an elitist citing sexism when she misses that Springsteen is a class critic.

Does Springsteen focus on the way class destroys men more than women? Yes. Are there female artists who focus on the way class destroys women? Yes. Do we need one artist to do both? No. Bohanan would have done better to find the complimentary artist that highlights the struggle of working class women, instead of blaming Springsteen for doing something he clearly hasn't been trying to do!

WHEN THE ONLY LIGHT IS FIRE by Saeed Jones

First things first: you should buy this book:

When the Only Light is Fire by Saeed Jones

If you are anti-Amazon, it's also available from Alibris or from Sibling Rivalry Press.

Second things second: you should buy this book because buying books of poetry is not difficult, helps the universal purpose of poetry (to communicate), and also keeps the economy healthy. Thus, it's patriotic.

Third things third: you should encourage other people to buy this book because then you can discuss the poems. It will give you something important to talk about aside from your pointless existences or the new ailments and sufferings of your life. 

Fourth things fourth: While you can read the rest of this post without reading Saeed Jones's book, the post will make a little more sense if you've read the poems. Plus, I can't just quote the whole damn thing here; it wouldn't be fair.

"I've heard that some men can survive / on dust mites alone for weeks at a time. // There's a magnifying glass on the night stand, / in case it comes to that." -- "Sleeping Arrangement"

Now, to the point:

I have a general issue with poetry -- I don't think it's a waste of time and ink; that's not a valid critique generally or in this case, even if I believe that the role of poetry has been marginalized in our visual- and narrative-demanding culture. But I tend to see poetry as highly personal and highly personal things like poetry and song lyrics often need to be decoded in ways that cannot always be done successfully, especially if the poet would prefer NOT to let us in. Sylvia Plath, for instance, writes poems that are highly coded. She wants us to experience the poems as poems, not as cliched windows into her soul. "Daddy" has a beautiful rhythm and sound, and it rises to a climax that can be felt when she closes with "I'm through." There's no denying the aesthetic beauty of that poem. 

But once you know that Plath didn't hate her father, that her father taught German at a university, that her father wasn't a Nazi, etc, "Daddy" takes on a new and more complex meaning outside of how beautiful it sounds. No longer is this a "poem about daddy issues." It's now a poem about grief and loss. And grief is so much more profound (in my opinion). How would we know that meaning aside from decoding things? 

Basically, I cannot see a work outside of its time and place or disconnected from its author. This doesn't mean I must know an author's biography to enjoy the beauty of language; it just means that I tend to look for these things to enhance my understanding of the poetry as whole. That jerk TS Eliot would of course scoff and call me a ninny. Fair enough, but he's dead and also willingly spent time with Ezra Pound so I don't really have to worry about him. 

TS Eliot: poet, jerk.

And yet, even if I look at WHEN THE ONLY LIGHT AS FIRE as simply a text, in the way that total dick T.S. Eliot would suggest, I don't miss out on the emotional power of a line like: "And if I ever strangled sparrows / it was only because I dreamed / of better songs." 

Sure I can celebrate that line metrically, but there's a human voice there, a human mind. A mind that is not mine, does not have my background, and yet has succeeded in communicating across the differences of race and class and age to punch me in the gut. I don't need to be Jones or to know him intimately to know that he is a specific, profound human being and that the speaker of this poem (Saeed? Someone else?) has felt something concentrated, unique, and real. TS Eliot wasn't denying that emotions needed to be at the center of poems; it's just the natural outcome of trying to experience art through only an aesthetic lens. Eliot would suggest that there are no barriers between a reader and a piece of art as long as the reader is looking at things aesthetically. I can't know the artist and even if I did, I might not know the artwork any better if armed with knowledge. So, I get what Eliot is saying. I just don't like to think that art lacks blood and fiery synapses.

There are, of course, specific barriers between me and Saeed Jones. I'm a white guy from New Jersey. Jones is an African American born in Tennessee, raised in Texas, who lives in New York City. I'm straight, he's gay. I'm this, he's that. We both wear shoes, we both have eyes, we both write. To paraphrase Tim O'Brien: everything is true if you generalize enough.

Saeed Jones: poet, not a jerk.

But, really, none of this is a true barrier unless I make it one. It would be easy for me as a straight white guy to only read poetry by straight white poets. From New Jersey. Easy, and perhaps not nearly as dull as one might expect. (Seriously, BJ Ward is an excellent poet. So is William Carlos Williams.) But  those labels on bookstore shelves or on Amazon ("Gay/Lesbian Literature" or "Gay/Lesbian Poetry") signal things that can act as barriers even though they do not have to.

Put simply, I don't need to be a gay black man to like Saeed Jones poetry. Just like I don't need to be a British actor to like Shakespeare or a baseball player to root for the Phillies. And yet, the labels can make it easy for me to dismiss a text. 

Think of it outside of poetry for a second. If my wife tells my she wants to see a film that's called a Romantic Comedy I might balk at seeing the film with her. I don't think I need to belabor the point or even suggest certain movies that are "romantic comedies" and yet don't feel like romantic comedies, right? 

Right. So as a straight guy I can read these poems. And as a great poet, Saeed can write about anything he wants without losing the power that he has as a great poet -- the power to wrestle/shape/control/unleash words. He does not have to (and does not) write only about the topics determined by labels. 

Because the labels are guides but they are not the writer. Sure, some writers might be happy to hang onto a label and give their readers exactly what they expect -- that is essentially how genre fiction works, how erotica, thrillers, action movies work. But if we assume that all labeled things are only what their label says, then wouldn't we be seeing the entire world as genre'd? And then we'd see less and less of the world.

Consider: 

"I don't read young adult books."

"I don't read memoirs."

"I don't read books with male/female narrators."

"I don't read gay or lesbian poetry."

"I don't read literary fiction."

"I don't read fantasy novels."

"I don't read."

I can read this:

"After his gasp and god damn / grunt, after his zipper closes its teeth, his tongue leaves / its shadows, leaves me / alone"

and feel a certain kind of loneliness. I don't need to be Jones or the speaker to know that feeling. I don't need to have ever had that loneliness to know that loneliness.

Isn't that what self-professed book nerds love? To feel things we've never felt? May never feel? Isn't that how stories and poems get all wrapped up in the concepts of compassion and empathy? 

True, the labels we are given or adopt (or both) can help draw in people who may understand us before we even speak, who already have expectations about us. Labels help filter the world so if we want to read something by a blonde Latino writer of High Fantasy Novels narrated by dragons, we can find such a thing. But those labels can be trouble -- they can give people excuses not to spend time with our words when our words might be exactly what they need. 

How lonely is that feeling? 

See the world in genres then start cutting out entire genres. See what you're left with: flavorless mush. Worse, the inability to connect to others about stories. 

Worse worse: you write blog posts condemning the very thing you've been guilty of a thousand times; but hopefully you (I) will change.

On exoskeletism

So, here's a blog post about postmodernism. As such, you should know what makes something postmodern:

1. distracting self-awareness
2. the potential for resolution cancelled out by a gerbil wheel of perpetual-ness*
3. constant wordplay that calls attention to language and the author's wit**
4. the understanding that truth doesn't exist but a yearning that makes one look for it constantly
5. a fervent belief that language cannot truly capture reality***
6. a layered feeling whereby the reader seeks out answers to questions but only finds new questions (call this this "Lot 49" aspect.)
7. Footnotes****

The Crying of Lot 49 is a very very very fine book.

 *(See: Finnegan's Wake which begins in mid-sentence and ends with the beginning of that opening sentence)
**Note that this behavior is not new for postmodernists, but is simply dredged back up from prior movements, such as the metaphysical poets who loved to flaunt their wit, much like monkey's who fling their shit while laughing. 
*** Example: how do the words -- or even the sounds made by the words "My dog is a fat, lazy animal" really capture the truth of her fatness and laziness?
****See?

Sable in all her fat, lazy glory.

Now, there are other postmodern traits I could mention, but suffice it to say that the movement as it regards literature is very focused on language and truth. It's the literature of distrust. The stories abound in conspiracy, fueled by the erosion of faith in politics, religion, the family unit, and the human mind as a knowable, reliable, and delightful thing. Basically, when the bombs dropped on Japan in WWII, life and humanity became a joke. Why not laugh at absurdity, there's clearly no god here to keep us in line, right? I see a bumper sticker that says No God, No Peace; Know God, Know Peace and have to laugh. 

But, more to the point, there's the issue of form and how it can overwhelm story when put in the hands of the postmodernist. The postmodernist champions form based on the foundation setup by the modernists. To quote that cat-loving anti-semite T.S. Eliot "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

More precisely, he ends the landmark essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" with:

"To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good and bad. There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is a smaller number of people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done."


Emphasis mine, of course. This essay places form over the poet/writer. But the postmodernists end up, in some high-profile cases, placing form over story or character. Think about it this way: if traditional storytelling emphasizes the emotional components of characters and choices (and those choices are plot) then form is the skeleton. In literature prior to postmodernism, the stories are flesh covering bone. 


But in postmodernism, the stories are flesh covered by exoskeleton. Take away the exoskeleton and you're left with a puddle of mush. But who cares about the mush when the exoskeleton is so alien, so wonderful, so not human. ah, and that's the crux of my little analogy -- postmodern stories can feel cold and inhuman.

~~~

The postmodernist delights in how stories are told, how narrators may "smile and smile and still be a villain," how details are less meaningful than the delivery. Consider the work of Thomas Pynchon -- an author that writes tangled, conspiracy-laden novels (many of them massive). It's hard to hold on to a particular character in, say, Vineland, but not in The Crying of Lot 49. Oedipa Maas has an unusual name and gets herself lost in conspiracy upon conspiracy, but she's still there, at the center of it all, as the novel ends. While I would have no problem accepting that Oedipa is not an emotionally engaging character, she's at least memorable. Buuuut, her story does not necessarily hinge upon an emotionally engaging quest.

But now consider the great postmodern short story collection The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, who is not just the author but also the main character. (how meta!) Basic summary: O'Brien gets drafted to serve in Vietnam, debates running away to Canada, sees some terrible things, kills someone, hits rock bottom, and then discusses why he's a writer. Throughout, he interrupts his story arc to discuss the process of storytelling and how soldiers cope with the idea of death.

At a few particularly postmodern points, O'Brien declares that a true war story may not be factually true. It may be 100% fiction and yet truer than a story that is 100% factually accurate. He says that story-truth is more true than happening-truth. Put simply, there is some kernel of meaning at the heart of a story -- don't call it a moral, call it a close replication of the feelings the storyteller desperately wants to transfer from him or herself to the audience. "I want you to feel what I felt," O'Brien says throughout the book. It's the only truth left -- the truth of what someone felt in a particular moment. we tell the story to share that feeling (and to bring the dead back to life). It's impossible for language to make a reader/listener feel exactly the same feeling, but with story-truth one can get close.

Now, there's no joking around here. O'Brien believes storytelling saves his life (Vietnam mucked him up, to understate it). Storytelling is a game, but it's not play without consequences. There's delight in storytelling but that delight is part of the medicine. and it's part of the entire story collection. Most importantly, the collection completes the emotional arc of Tim O'Brien the character. It is human postmodernism.

Maybe we can just call it a good book instead of having to label it.

~~~

Personally, I have no inherent issue with either "type" of postmodern fiction. I delight in the formal games sometimes and also delight in stories. I have no problem enjoying Pynchon or Don DeLillo (two classic "idea" novelists often accused of writing non-characters). I have no problem enjoying Tim O'Brien or Toni Morrison (two authors credited with emotionally driven novels).

But I understand the objection to the exoskeletonism of certain postmodern texts. And this is where I stop typing even though there seems to be more I could say.

~~~

Shout out to Andrew Panebianco for discussing what he calls the "preciousness of postmodernism" and being a co-thinker on the idea of exoskeletism.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space....

I spend too much time thinking about my music collection. I have over 13000 songs, some belonging to my wife (but not statistically significant enough to parse out the numbers here). It's 1100+ albums. It's 40 days of music. Not too bad, though I've certainly had more than that total -- some albums haven't made the long journey into my 30s. (Metal Church, I loved your screechy vocals and silly, Satanic lyrics, but I don't need you on my hard drive anymore. Though, I will look you up on Spotify and deal with the embarrassment of it posting to my Facebook wall later.)

One thing I've been thinking about recently is the way certain albums open. Not the opening songs per se (though I have a Spotify list of great opening songs that you're free to enjoy). I'm also not really talking about the opening chords or riffs.

No -- I've been thinking about great opening moments. The stuff that happens on some albums before the opening song itself starts. For instance, the gloomy-sounding woman's voice that declares "Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space" at the start of Spiritualized's nearly perfect album from -- eek! -- 1997. The hypnotic, pulsing, overlapping vocals and music of the title track that follows this quote bursts forth with the same monotony that colors the woman's voice. It's masterful and I think of that quote almost as often as I think of my favorite moments on the rest of the album. It's a fun thing to say, but would it be as fun lost in the middle of a song or between songs? Strange, that question, but compelling.

It seems like an out-of-touch, old-man type complaint that iPods ruined the album (something I think is only partially true), but the fact that I listened to most music on cassette tapes for the first few, key years of my music-loving life may have a lot to do with my interest in albums as cohesive experiences that sometimes kick off with standout, nearly non-music moments. CDs made skipping things easier, but it seems like I had already been programmed to start albums at their beginnings by the time I was financially capable of buying CDs and a portable CD player. In fact, portable CD listening emphasized the opening moments and tracks even more because the memory function on players didn't come along until later. (at least not at my price point.) Thus, I often heard the opening tracks of CDs more than other songs. On tapes that wasn't the case, but something else required me to start most of my tapes at the first sone on side 1 no matter what. (I did a bunch of rewinding and fast-forwarding in those days, a skill that translated to nothing else in my life, sadly.)

I guess this post could become one of two things, then: a minor rant about how music that isn't in a physical format lacks a sense of cohesion or just a call to appreciate and share those opening moments of albums that are not simply about the opening song, but of the first sounds one hears when embarking on a musical journey.

Dean Venture learning about the links between science geniuses and Prog-rock before he unwittingly falls into a Floyd-hole. 

Here are some great album-opening things (Are they moments? pulses? sounds? None of those seem right. Let's go with moments just cuz.) In no order:

Sepultura's classic album Chaos A.D. starts with a recording of the in-utero heartbeat of the drummer's son; the volume rises on the heartbeat like a little, fetal coronary is happening -- and then it is replaced (and almost matched) by the rapid, frantic drumming of the opening track, "Refuse/Resist." Not a bad way to exploit your kid.

Alice in Chains classic album Dirt -- about the fun of being a heroin addict (note the sarcasm there, kids) --  doesn't even have a lead-in pulse. The deceased Layne Staley shouts at us with his raspy, Texan "Ah!" -- there's no time to sink into this album, and yet as it progresses the songs excrete the kind of rusty, muddy, grimy feeling that you'd expect a junky to sing about. Those opening shouts can easily be of joy or the shock of being pricked with a needle. It works in terms of theme and energy.

Badly Drawn Boy's Mercury Prize-winning debut, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, begins with a lovely violin and horn piece that sets the mood for the album. It's about a minute and twenty seconds and then gets taken over by a slightly peppier guitar before the lead singer's semi-husky voice comes in. "The Shining" might be the greatest song Badly Drawn Boy will ever write. Which is both a compliment and a sad-but-true comment about how I feel about the rest of his output.

The Beastie Boys know the power of starting with something odd -- while Check Your Head has the mocking quote: "This next one... is the first song on our new album" to kick off the song "Jimmy James" it's the dog bark/howl that kicks off  Ill Communication that I tend to remember more often. Something about that canine noise shifting right into "Sure Shot" works too well to be something created by humans.

On When Your Heartstrings Break, the now-defunct Beulah start things with a coin dropping into a machine. I assume it's a jukebox because "Score from Augusta" has a beach-inspiried, pop-rock feel to it, though they probably deserved to earn a few more coins during their brief career.

Björk's excellent Post has that strange machanical-comet-descending-from-the-heavens to kick off "Army of Me." It leads right into a fuzzy-bass sounding riff that shouldn't go with her voice at all. And yet, Björk!

Pink Floyd's haunting, wind-howling "One of These Days" on Meddle cannot be described except to say that if you sync the song with the opening of Kubrick's horror classic The Shining, it's nearly better than the already awesome music Kubrick has in the movie. (Also, "Echoes" syncs with the last 25 minutes of the movie. Trippy Pink Floyd + hedge maze + snow + ax-wielding Jack Nicholson yelling "Dannnnnnyyyy!" = holy crap.)

System of a Down (to get back on the heavy metal tip) starts their album Toxicity off with a hard shot to the drums and then lets the anticipation boil over before kicking into the song proper. It's almost like the drummer accidentally started playing and then everyone else had to get ready; but that's the point.

Vision Thing by Sisters of Mercy has a weird metallic cough at the start, which I think matches the very treble-friendly mix of this otherwise awesome goth-after-dark rock album. "It's a small world and it smells bad." Yes it is and yes it does, Andrew Eldritch.


Anyone that knows me is simply waiting for a Radiohead comment, so here it is: The Bends. That opening was both awesome and maddening to me. As a metal-head transitioning into a wider scene of music (i.e., not heavy metal), I always found myself interested in 1 of 2 types of songs in the mornings before school. Either really fast, loud music or very slow ballads with awesome guitar solos (see: Pantera's "Mouth for War" for the former or Testament's "Return to Serenity" for the latter). But "Planet Telex" has this mysterious, etherial, computer-y sound that starts the album and, of course, hints at the greater sonic but still commercially friendly playing around the band would release on Ok Computer. When I think of opening moments on Radiohead albums, this one comes up first because I used to skip the song to get to the title track or "Just" because they were more immediately appealing. Eventually I would grow to love those opening noises and the song where Thom Yorke wails: "Everything is....broken. Everyone is....broken." Delicious melancholy replaces the rage of the metal head.

One of the other reasons I thought about this strange, seemingly pointless topic, is Pearl Jam's debut album, which opens (and closes) with a slow, squeeze-box fade-in of drums and ghost-guitar noises and Eddie Vedder moan-mumbling. Who doesn't love the jarring juxtaposing of the out-of-the-ether intro with the scratchy kick-off of Stone Gossard attacking guitar chords to kick the song off. Just as the band's singer seemingly came out of nowhere, the album comes out of the misty sounds of nowhere. Perfect.

Is this just weird to pay attention to this stuff? Probably. Let me know if you notice these things too!

Why I don't publish negative reviews online....

I have a guest post over at Alice Ozma's blog that you should check out! Alice is a former literature student of mine whose book The Reading Promise can be found, amongst other places, here.

Why Writers Act Rudely (or: The Interruptor)

Last week I was in my local writing hangout/coffeeshop, enjoying my day. The friendly barista*, whom I hadn't seen in a week or two, asked for an update about my writing. I happily gave her a brief update, mainly because I was (am!) still buzzed about getting a literary agent. I felt this was a reasonable victory worth bragging about. Note, though, that I did not just walk up to her and say "Hey, I got a literary agent! Make me a drink, coffee-wench!" While that may have been hilarious, it is not exactly the most polite way to announce good news.**

After answering a few of her questions about agent-searching and why my agent is so awesome, I asked how she had been and how her work was going (she is a film editor). But rather than discuss that work, she began to describe how a recent desire to write a hard sci-fi novel had overcome her. As a writer, but also someone who had read plenty of sci-fi as a teenager, I was intrigued. She answered my questions with the level of detail I enjoy in conversations like these -- i.e., enough to get the point and share in the enthusiasm, but not enough to make me wish I had somewhere else to be. I also liked hearing her describe the precise kind of sci-fi she enjoyed reading because she does not seem like someone who would prefer epic sci-fi novels. So, a fun discussion was being had.

Teenage-Evan's sci-fi book of choice.

As the barista spoke to me, a guy at a nearby table kept turning around and listening and then finally got up, stood next to us, and interrupted: "I'm writing a novel."

The friendly barista -- mid-sentence -- gave him a quick glance and finished her thought. I shot him a glance but did not engage him either.

People -- especially people who write or paint or take photographs -- love to talk about their work. And writers love to know that there are other writers out there. (It's probably not just those with artistic temperaments: parents love to talk about their kids; sports fans love to talk about their teams -- both could easily interrupt conversations whenever they sense room to promote their preferences).

Basically, there's always an urge to connect; but some of us project that urge too forcefully. Too desperately, even.

Consider:

"My child also has a wonderful vocabulary."
"I have always wanted to write a novel."
"I like to take pictures, too."
"I really enjoy films."
"My band is working on our first album with the bassist from Creed."

Creed bassist Brian Marshall "also co-owns a bed and breakfast called Mango Moon in Costa Rica"
where he makes this face 24/7.

There's something about that emphasis -- it's not always in the same part of the sentence -- but it carries with it a desperate need to connect to someone with similar projects/goals and, just slightly, suggests a superiority.

"I'm writing a novel."
is easily meant to be:
"You aren't the only one writing a novel."

The interruptor quickly returned to his table, where he said to his friend, intentionally loud, "I guess no one wants to hear about my book." His friend replied: "Shake it off, man. It's not a big deal."

His friend was right -- it wasn't a big deal. He wasn't actually being ignored because we had no interest in hearing about his book. We just didn't have an interest at that moment. His request to be noticed caused him to forget basic social etiquette. Seems pretty obvious, right?

The real point here, is, that I totally get it. I understand the feeling this guy had. Writers spend lots of time in their heads, speaking in random voices, exploring moral and ethical quandaries, pretending, etc. It's quite fun, but also lonely and usually results in lots of rejection. It's easy to say that writers (more than musicians, perhaps less than painters) spend a lot of time alone.

But it's not simply the loneliness that causes us to have the urge to tell everyone that we're writers -- I think it's the rejections that turns the urge into an act. As a writer I spend time writing and then I have to spend twice as much time asking people to read what I wrote. Sure, Facebook and Twitter let me reach more people, but it also lets me know how many people just ignore the request (oh the lack of comments and likes! Oh the lack of shared links!) And when I fail to get people interested, I feel like I've failed as a writer. Really, though, I've done nothing wrong as a writer; I'm just expecting too much (and, perhaps, failing as a self-promoter).

So, this interrupter just wanted someone -- particularly two strangers -- to be interested. And he figured we would be interested because we were talking about writing. And as someone who queried agents for two years and received over 160 rejections and non-responses for 2 projects -- I know that rejection can make one look for acceptance in any place at any time -- even in the middle of someone else's conversation.

I considered going over to the guy and asking him about his book. I also considered how I might best explain why he had been so easily ignored. Just a little advice from someone who knew what he was feeling but also knew that writers are a crotchety, gossipy bunch ready to turn someone's faux pas into a short story or, worse, a blog topic.

But he left with his friend before I decided whether I should be the holier-than-thou author with no interest, the guy with social advice, or the nice writer interested in another writer's work. I hope he went home to write because it's the only time and place to be somewhat happy between all the rejections big and small.