Apollo 11 Anniversary (July 20, 1969)

Iconic

The First Man must be humble
yet self-possessed in times of crisis
confident, as one who's been sorely tried.

Drop him, spin him, shake him
race his heart,
see if he dies.

Undaunted by fame,
puzzled by all the fuss,
natural in the glare.

Stick him in a close compartment,
sling it into the girding dark;
crown him with hero's laurels
should he return.

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Real space nuts know that July 20th, 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

As that date draws near, I’m filled with equal parts nostalgia and melancholy.  In July, 1969 I was five and 2/3 years old and still believed anything was possible.  I recall being absolutely entranced by the thought of a man, a human being just like me, walking around up there on the moon.

Not sure why I’ve been so hung up on the moon this year–there’s the radio play I wrote, “Innocent Moon”, for the BBC contest…and later on in July we’ll be posting a special treat Sherron helped me put together, a short but sweet homage to Neil and the lads, using some of the fancy gear that came with this iMac.  I’ll say no more.  Watch for it in a couple of weeks.

And I came across this fantastic site real Apollo aficionados will love:  you sign in and you can relive every moment of that four-day mission in real time.  Take a trip to the moon with Neil, Buzz and Mike Collins.  Only recommended for those with strong bladders and 96 hours to kill.

If anyone knows of other interesting sites celebrating the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, use the Comments form below and give us a head’s up (be sure to include a link).

Personal reminiscences are also welcome:  where we you forty years ago and how did that one small step affect you, your life and your outlook on the universe?

Do tell…

My Life as a Catastrophist

You don’t know what it’s like.

Or…maybe you do.

Living in abject fear, a state of near unbearable suspense, day after day.  How wearing that can be.  Because that’s what we’re talking about here.  A mindset centred around dread, a soul-sucking sense that things are about to fall to pieces and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.

How can someone exist like that?  How can they face getting up in the morning?  What keeps them going?

Questions only the uninitiated, the smugly secure would dare ask.

Y’see, what the preceding sentences have failed to convey is the intoxication someone like me feels when a potential crisis peters out into insignificance.  The surge of relief that provokes can’t be matched or simulated by any mind-altering drug I’m aware of.

And on those rare occasions when my worst fears turn out to be justified, the sense of relief and vindication I experience is…sublime.  I actually tremble with the sick pleasure a junkie must feel just as the needle hits its mark.  I’m like Chicken Little, running around, clucking with excitement and joy as big chunks of the firmament crash to earth around me.

“Rawwwwk! Told you so!  Told you so!”

I’ve always been a worrier, possessed by the certainty that happiness is transitory and danger lurks around every corner.  My childhood was like that, perhaps even my infancy; the baby who always makes strange, no matter how many funny faces you pull.  Filled with such foreboding when faced with each new encounter or experience that I was literally sick to my stomach.  Vaccinations, the first day of school, a trip to the dentist; preparing for these minor inconveniences as if they were a very public and brutal form of execution.

I can recall nearly wetting myself whenever I was called down to the principal’s office.  It invariably turned out to be something mundane, a message from my parents, a form that needed to be picked up.  I’d exit the office and immediately make a beeline for the nearest washroom.

My high school years were no better.  So fraught with painful anticipation, consumed by a nervous energy that burned off every ounce of my frame; I weighed about 125 pounds the day I graduated.   A long, thin stick insect, whittled down to the quick by neuroses.  Not an attractive figure.

There’s been some improvement since then but I still get thrown into a tizzy over relatively commonplace occurrences:

* A stopped up drain means ripping up the basement floor and paying an astronomical fee to some greedhead plumber (it turns out ten minutes of roto-rooting and a $150 touch does the trick)

* A stalling car means replacing the engine, maybe even being forced to buy a new(er) vehicle (no, actually the spark plugs need changing)

* One of my sons having a grumpy day is an early manifestation of a depressive personality (nope, he just got out of bed on the wrong side that morning)

And did I mention that I’m a borderline hypochondriac?  Now there’s a lovely combination.  So every ache, every twinge is magnified in importance, exaggerated, fretted over.  A belly ache could mark the onset of pancreatic cancer.  A rare headache could mean a malignant brain tumour.  See what I mean?  And what about this latest development, waking up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning with low-grade nausea.  Not out and out sick-making, just a weird, unpleasant feeling in my lower gut.  Does this mean anything?  Is it significant in any way?

That nervous energy sometimes manifests itself as a racing heart.  Occasionally I get little jolts and twinges.  And with a family history of heart disease that could be an indication of a problem.  Or not.  But, let’s be candid here, one day–it might be tomorrow, it might not happen for decades–my fears will be realized, my body at last betraying me and those small aches and pains will coalesce into something genuinely life-threatening, something that keeps on growing until it blocks some vital pathway or invades and compromises a critical organ.  Punishment (or reward) for all those years of waiting for something serious to crop up, a final confirmation of the bad news I’ve been expecting all along.

Each day I pray for release from the irrational fears that afflict and bedevil me.  I place myself in my Creator’s hands and repeat my personal mantra of “health, happiness and wisdom” over and over again.  Not only for myself, but also for family, friends and loved ones.

I know sooner or later it all comes to an end.  Each one of us, at last, runs down, ceases to function, the machinery wearing out with a grinding of gears, sparks, smoke pouring from our ears.  No one here gets out alive.

Funny, I don’t  really fear growing old.  That doesn’t factor into my thinking.  As a catastrophist, of course, I have serious doubts I’ll live that long.

Frankly, knowing the end is nigh will undoubtedly come as something of a relief.  It takes so much fucking energy and strength constantly fretting about money, not being able to properly provide for my sons’ education, what if something happens to the house.  Etc. etc.

The sense of panic that almost unmans me when I can’t shake the thought that I might not be up to the task and that, inevitably, life is going to present me with an intractable problem, something I can’t solve, hide or ignore.  I am hounded by the knowledge that I’m really not that smart or strong or brave.  And that the time will come when my weaknesses and vulnerabilities will be exposed (Christ, better anything than that).  The worst feeling, the greatest terror I have is that I won’t be able to save the people I love or prevent some terrible personal apocalypse that will consume them while I watch, helpless to intercede.  My resolve failing me at a crucial juncture, my faith evaporating away as I face on-rushing danger.  Something I glimpsed a long time ago.

Remember?  I tried to warn you of its impending approach, tried to make you understand the severity of the situation…but you told me it was all in my mind.

A New Beginning (Post #87)

It’s time.

Time to take that next step and address some of the stagnation that I believe has crept into my writing, seek out new modes of expression.  

First of all, that means upgrading the technology I’ve been working with.  My old Mac no longer made the nut; it was slow and lacked sufficient memory.  Obsolete.  It had to go.  It was an emotional parting.  For months Sherron has been pestering me to look into purchasing another computer but the price tag always made me balk.  I’m a Mac guy but, let’s face it, there are PCs out there that could perform adequately for, literally, half the price of a new Mac.  But…they weren’t Macs and I had a very bad experience with an IBM computer when I first made the leap to the digital age 20 years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.  

We pondered on “settling” for a Mac mini but after consulting folks like our pal Rob (who knows more about computers than I ever will), we went for the pricier iMac.  More room to grow and expand, better suited for some of the projects and tasks I had in mind.

A couple of Sundays ago, I bowed to the inevitable and we made the purchase on-line.  

Then came the hard part:  saving the files from my old computer and starting the shutdown process.  

That ancient Mac served me well and I don’t know how many millions of words I tapped into it.  Never any big glitches and nothing mechanically went wrong in the twelve years I used it to foist my weird visions on the world.  Replaced a couple of keyboards that I battered to death, that’s about it.  

My mourning period ended abruptly, however, when my new iMac arrived.  

Wow.

Within fifteen minutes of accepting the box from the delivery dude I was up and runnng.  That’s hookup, internet, everything.  And I am, as previously mentioned, a complete mechanical moron.  That’s why I love Macs.  Steve Jobs, I could kiss you!

I’ve spent the last couple of days getting acquainted.  This machine has everything I could ask for, including the capability to make and edit movies, compose music, record readings and podcasts, desktop publish…cripes, I could put a man on Mars with it if I had the know-how and a trillion bucks.  

I’ve promised myself I will be patient, recognizing that there’s a learning curve for a technophobe like me when dealing with a machine of this complexity. Fortunately, Sherron and both my sons are very adept using iMovie and Garageband and many of the other features this Mac offers so I’m hardly on my own, learning by trial and terror.  Although that will be part of it too:  doing something stupid and learning from my mistakes.  So be it.  

I.  Am.  In.  Love.   Utterly smitten with the promise this machine represents.  A fresh start and an opportunity to explore other disciplines that have long held a fascination to me.  And you’re invited along for the ride.  My first efforts will be crude, unsophisticated, amateurish but I’ll get better, I promise.  And I will share the results of my experiments with you, show you my successes and not shy away from relating my disasters.  Bear with me, tell me about your own experiences, offer advice…I’m a slow learner but a stubborn one too.  I won’t give up until I discover for myself the limits of this machine (if there are any), fusing it with my fertile, perverse imagination to create some original and daring work.  That’s my second promise.

And as long as we’re on the subject of new beginnings, here’s my third vow:  to interact more directly with people who find and comment on this site.  Previously, I’ve maintained the policy of letting my essays speak for themselves and not responding publicly to those who have left comments, positive or negative, on Beautiful Desolation.  I felt I’d said my piece in my essays and commentaries and to rebut a reply from a reader would be, to some extent, unfair.  If I thought a certain question had to be addressed or a troll warned off, I did so through private communications with those individuals.  Not any more.  You wanna talk to me, offer praise or brickbats, I’m here. 

I hereby declare from this post (#87) onward, I’ll do my best to answer your questions and debate and engage with readers directly and honestly.  These discussions will be as well-mannered, fruitful and polite as I can make them…but I will continue to leave the “moderation” function on to weed out the nutbars and those who believe they can hide behind the anonymity of the internet to say scurrilous, despicable things with absolute impunity.  The kind of slime Trent Reznor refers to in a recent post on some of the bizarro on-line communities that exist out there.  My thanks to Mike Cane for sending me a link.  Have a look, it’ll make your skin crawl.

The vast majority of people who pop by here are nothing like the douchebags Reznor describes–they’re curious, seeking alternative sources of fiction, perhaps drawn by my reputation for being, ah, outspoken, something of a maverick, an outsider who seems perfectly content with that status.  My work, my life has nothing to do with perpetuating the status quo or offering warm, fuzzy words of reassurance.  I’m here to upset your equilibrium, destroy carefully held preconceptions, rip you out of that comfort zone you’re happily immersed in. 

I won’t dummy down my writing, compromise my talent or thrust my fists into soft, velvet gloves.  That wouldn’t be doing me, you or anybody else any favours.  I’ll present what I know, what I’ve experienced, what I’m thinking “with the bark on”, as FDR liked to say.  The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

So help me God.

Today, a new page has been turned.  Welcome to Beautiful Desolation, Phase II. 

Let me hear from you and tell me what you think.

Automatic Writings

Last week I joined Sherron out on the patio to keep her company while she made masks.  Her materials consisted of old juice jugs and papier-mache.  It was fun to watch her work and see faces and personalities emerge from simple plastic containers–the gal possesses an artfulness, visual acuity and imagination that I would swap a kidney for.

It was a lovely day, the first decent weather we’ve had in what has been a cool and unpredictable summer.  I brought along a book with me, the Atlas Press edition of The Automatic Message, a surrealist classic featuring the work of Andre Breton, Paul Eluard and Philippe Soupault (translated by David Gascoyne, Anthony Melville & Jon Graham).

Breton was a big believer in automatic writing, composing prose with no forethought or planning, allowing the pen to skitter across the page, recording whatever was on the author’s mind at that moment.  Some of the “experiments” undertaken in this manner resulted in pure gibberish (as can be expected) but on other occasions something clicked and the author was able to channel words and images directly from the subconscious portion of the mind, where myths, dreams and inspiration reside in their purest form.

I started reading The Automatic Message and all at once was overcome with a desire to put something on paper.  I rushed inside for my pad, reseated myself and while Sherron applied layer after layer of sodden tissue paper to her creations, I put pen to paper…and let everything fall away.

I’m reproducing here some of the efforts I composed that day.  These are first drafts, no touch-ups or corrections (except for the odd comma added or deleted, for the purpose of clarity).

This technique, while it might seem daunting at first, seeks to put the editorial portion of your brain on hold and permits you to tap into deeper, non-critical areas of consciousness and sometimes (not always) the results can be surprising, instructive, even unnerving.

I think you’ll understand what I mean once you’ve read the samples I’ve provided:

First Light

The guiltless robin knows no travail only the ceaseless pursuit of wind and rain and morsels, wriggling grubs devoured in sharp, yellow beaks.  Teach us the ardor of kindly wings curved in flight and remind us of the eternal beckoning sky.  Somewhere in the shouting beyond mystery waits with claws and teeth and rending.  But that is tomorrow after a long sunset and an ageless night of stars that shine but do not burn.

Amazonian

Jungle sounds, ancient bird cries overhead, the last dinosaurs roosting above me in bone-lined nests.  Gliding, relentless above a furled canopy that admits no light to skulking, near-sighted mammals whose lives are governed by weak, frail senses oblivious to higher calling.  God of the leaves, roots and berries:  furnish us with sustenance and kill us quickly with red claws, bearing us aloft to bursting light, colors unimaginable to dead, in-turned eyes.

The Tower

Some futile voice insisting words carry the weight and mass of Jupiter like failed suns they draw all light toward them letting no hope escape into harboring dictionaries lexicons of lost languages preserved against extinction by dusty academics housed in Babel towers ivory-colored rooms hardened against nuclear sized impacts the bones of the curators dissolving into polished floors mute mouths gaping wordless.

Continental Divide

Out on the frontier in long trains of sweating creatures cursing men the loneliness of vast distances existential mesas where ancient bones are pried out and held to the first light in 65 million years upon dry lakebeds parched lips upturned prayers to a Creator grown still and thoughtful God of expanses crammed into leather bound books tattooed with births and deaths parchment thin pages like elderly skin drained of life-giving blood.

Flies

I want to reassure myself on your smooth shoulders the lithe sweep of your back reminding me of insupportable days youthful fantasies wrought in carefully weeded gardens.  My head like a pecked chick.  When the trains sang it was a reminder that hope is transported across long plains plumes of smoke with dreams attached.  In hot weather the house would leak fleeing moss and sometimes sparrows would roost in the eaves and flies buzz somnolently waiting for inevitable decay.

Leisure

How the doleful hours long to be filled with spritely birdsong unencumbered by syntax!  You think too much your bold thoughts commence to devour your barely formed nascent spirit before it has a chance to fill your fluttering breast.  Be still the fears that beat against your neuroses like living dead upon unresponsive doors.  Remember thou art mortal and if the color of roses offend thee, pluck out your eyes and render yourself dumb.

Homo Erectus

Rooted in heavy houses gazing fearfully out at the universe speeding away from us spreading parsecs of empty space blank canvas dark matter coloring airless density splattered black to pouring edges racing outward in a timeless rippling current expending the energy of that first cough sneeze scream shit the candle guttering we are the smoke rising to dissipate into nothingness.

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And there you have it.  Those short bits were scrawled in less than an hour, before the spirit departed and I was left scratching my head at what I had produced.  I read some of them to Sherron and we tried to decipher what they might indicate in terms of my state of mind and current preoccupations, fears and obsessions.

I offer these pieces to you not as examples of great literature but in an effort to convince you to give this method a shot, particularly if you are suffering from some form of writer’s block or are feeling like you’re in a creative rut.

Automatic writing is a good way of addressing both those problems/mindsets and I urge you to give it a shot.

I’m always surprised at what my brain comes up with when it doesn’t sense that harsh, editorial eye watching, judging, condemning.

Try it…and see what happens.

“Who the F*** Are You?”

Recently, Milan Kundera raised a few hackles in the Czech Republic by refusing to return to his home and native land to attend a conference devoted to his work.  Mr. Kundera stated that he did not wish to contribute to a “necrophile party” made up of academics and scholars, discussing and debating his work.

He also said, even more provocatively, that he considers himself a French writer and writes exclusively in that language.

Take that ye cultural nationalists!

It has long been my belief that a writer is a stateless citizen, an individual who inhabits no country and is beholden to no particular culture, gender, creed or race.  To identify oneself as an “American author”, “Czech author” or what have you, is to fly in the face of the kind of universality true authors seek to achieve through the power and originality of their work.

When I make my rare public appearances I often have to provide a short bio so I can be introduced to an audience or gathering and I struggle mightily to compose something that isn’t embarrassing or misleading.  Earlier this year my wife adapted a couple of my short stories into theater pieces that were performed at a function here in the small city where we live.  I think the M.C. at one point called me a “local author” and I shrank down in my seat.  Is that all I am?  A local author?  A Saskatchewan author?  Even a Canadian author?

Christ, I hope not.  After twenty-five years of beating my brains out and destroying my fingers and shoulders and lower back, I’d like to think  I have higher aspirations for myself than that.

Nossir, I want to be read not only locally, not only nationally but around the entire fucking world.  I want my books and stories and essays to be devoured and enjoyed by future inhabitants of the Martian colony.  I want my collected works taken on the first flight to Alpha Centauri.  I want my prose to survive long after places like “Saskatchewan” and “Canada” cease to exist.

Isn’t that what all artists of worth strive for?  Immortality, an appeal that persists centuries after their bones have turned to dust.  And that is also why I struggle so hard to preserve the integrity of my work, not allowing some bowdlerized or aesthetically gutted version to supersede and supplant the real thing.

I honestly wouldn’t change places with the likes of James Patterson or Stephanie Meyer for all the filthy lucre in the vaults of Fort Knox.  Their work won’t survive the next twenty years, let alone the uncounted eons that lie ahead.  No, let them choke on their money and watch as their books go out of print in their own lifetime.

It’s funny:  this past week I commented on the on-line site for CBC (our national broadcaster), responding to a short feature devoted to Robert Charles Wilson.  Mr. Wilson has managed to secure something of a reputation for himself as a SF writer, even snagged a Hugo Award for one of his novels.  Frankly, I find his prose merely workmanlike; he is yet another SF scribbler (like Jack McDevitt and Robert Sawyer) who has cashed in on a modest talent for stretching neat ideas into over-long novels and, in the process, made a tidy living for himself.   He’s not as bad as Sawyer–very few are–but he’s hardly the SF equivalent of Jimmy Joyce.

The folks who responded to my initial post comported themselves like typical, moronic SF fans.  They made all sorts of assumptions about me and indulged in numerous pointed, personal, ad hominem attacks, opining that I was merely jealous of Mr. Wilson’s commercial success.

Welcome to the Western world, where we equate achievement with how much money we make and how often our picture appears in the news (and our names show up on the ballot of worthless genre awards).

Jesus Christ.

I made the mistake of trying to debate with these “minions of fan-dumb” and earned more vitriolic attacks for those efforts.  Fuck it, I thought, and signed off without posting the really nasty parting shot I had composed.  It would have been a waste of time.  These are the same vacuous shitheads who are lining up in droves to see “Star Trek XXIV: The Quest For Profit” and the latest comic book adaptation, wearing out their thumbs on their game consoles.  The only heads they have on their shoulders are blackheads from all the junk food they cram into their maws so they can stay up all night watching the “Lord of the Rings” movies back to back and wrapping “Fallout 3″.  Fuck them.  No way I’ll lie down with those pigs.

No, I’m bound for the stars.  I write for posterity and to preserve a literary legacy that I hope will last as long as there’s a single, discerning reader out there who longs for something off the beaten track, a work that reminds them what it means to be human, the attendant hopes and accompanying foibles.  A man or woman lonely, isolated, seeking the companionship of a long-dead author whose devotion to the printed word transcends time and vast distances and alien, hostile farscapes.

Keep your trophies, baubles and bullion.

I serve a higher calling…and make no allowances for those whose lack of courage and faith causes them to choose low roads and demean the gifts they have been so generously granted.

Permission to Read

I’m a writer. But the printed word isn’t merely my vocation, my bread and butter; it has been, from an early age, a constant companion, confidante… and refuge. It gives my life purpose and direction, helps define me and makes me who I am.

I’ve always been a reader. For diversion and escape, yes, certainly, but I also possess an insatiable desire to know, learn everything I can about other people and places, give in to possibility, open myself up to astonishment. As a child I discovered that the ability to suspend disbelief for prolonged periods of time was a valuable coping mechanism, a life skill they didn’t teach in school.

I read anything I could lay my hands on. Remember the Companion Library series? Two classic kids’ books printed back to back: Heidi and Black Beauty. Hans Brinker and Tom Sawyer. We had the entire set and once I finished them, I scanned the rest of our modest collection, plucking out anything that looked halfway promising. I can recall spending many a rainy afternoon with the likes of Zane Grey, John Buchan and Daphne DuMaurier.

Remained a bookworm through my teens, acquainting myself with the work of Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Philip K. Dick. They were the guys who inspired me to scratch out my first short stories. Crass imitations of far better authors; calling those early efforts “juvenilia” is being excessively kind.

But I caught the writing bug and what followed was a long apprenticeship that continues to this day. My first sales came in my early 20’s, to CBC Radio and a now-defunct literary magazine called Rubicon. Writing was no longer a hobby, it was an obsession. “The pain I can’t live without,” as my colleague Robert Penn Warren puts it.

Even after twenty-five years the process of creation, committing words to paper, is still a source of profound mystery to me…perhaps even magic. At the end of the day, when I look at what I’ve written, I get goosebumps. I have no firm recollection of composing those pages. In truth, I’m no closer to understanding how and why I write than I was when I first started out, all those years ago.

But here’s the strange thing: while I continue to revere fine writing and apply myself, day by day, year after year, to the service of literature, the amount of reading I do has declined precipitously in the last couple of years.

Now, as I’m sure you’ll understand, that’s a hard admission for a man in my line of work to make.

In partial defense, I add that I do read a fair amount for research purposes, books and magazine articles, not to mention the endless hours spent on-line, Googling like crazy. I like to read non-fiction to get my mind warmed up in the morning. Something historical, twenty or thirty pages over breakfast before heading upstairs to my office and commencing work.

But reading for pleasure, picking up a book for the sake of killing a few hours, immersed in a fictional universe? For a considerable length of time that notion hasn’t held much appeal. I’ve found other activities, diversions to occupy me.

It’s no coincidence: since 2007, I have enjoyed a period of remarkable productivity in terms of my writing–two novels completed, a couple of radio plays, short stories, essays. That productivity comes at a steep price, i.e. many long hours sequestered away in that little room at the top of the stairs.

When I finally lurch out of my office in the late afternoon or early evening I’m bleary-eyed, soft-headed with fatigue, barely sentient. Words. I’ve spent the last eight or ten hours staring at words, wrestling with and endlessly rearranging words, so many bloody words–

And so settling into our big arm chair with the latest Ian McEwan or Irvine Welsh doesn’t interest me. Sorry, lads. At that point I want to hang out with my family, catch up on their lives. As well as being an author guy, I’m also a husband and father. Those responsibilities are important to me.

Then, as it gets on into the evening, I’ll chill out with a glass or two of scotch, pop in a “South Park” DVD or an old “Black Adder” episode. Later, in bed, I might get through another ten pages of that non-fic book before my eyes refuse to stay open a moment longer and I reach over and turn out the light…

How did a lifelong reader descend to this, treating books like a luxury, an indulgence, rather than a necessity? Holding off starting a new novel by a favorite author because I don’t want to “waste” an afternoon reading it.

Shame on me.

And I feel worse when I check out on-line forums and see how much the real bibliophiles are reading. The sheer amount of books these people claim to go through is ridiculous, unbelievable, impossible. They have to be lying. When do they have time to, oh, y’know, work, sleep, interact with their families?

Their devotion to books is inspiring—to the extent that I had decided to amend my ways. I’ve got shelves and shelves of wonder-filled books and I’m giving myself permission, here and now, to spend every free moment I can rediscovering my all-consuming passion for reading. No movie or other media can move me like a good book can. Nothing else gives me that sensawunda.

And I’m going to do my best to ignore that niggling, insistent voice bemoaning the valuable time reading takes away from my own writing. Pay no attention…or, better yet, counter with the argument that it was through reading that I learned everything I know (what little that amounts to) about writing. Reading a well-crafted book is a form of professional development, damnit! How can I grow and improve as an author unless I acquaint myself, firsthand, with the work of gifted colleagues who are breaking new ground in character, structure and narrative? Closely studying their sentences, the way they frame their thoughts.

As a child, I recognized the power and majesty contained in words. Reading untethered my imagination and charged my creative energies. I dearly wanted to do what my literary heroes did, tell a tall tale that would hold readers in its thrall. Make them forget who they were, all their problems, the fears bedevilling them. That was the initial impetus.

I aspired to be the next L. Frank Baum or Arthur Conan Doyle. Creator of something that would live forever.

A story for the ages…and the ageless child inside us all.

Copyright, 2009  Cliff Burns  (All Rights Reserved)

Culling the Herd, Improving the Breed

I’ve been accused of lacking a certain amount of, well, esprit de corps when it comes to the plight of my colleagues in publishing. These are not the best of times for people in the biz: staffs are being cut, longtime employees dismissed, whole divisions lopped off in response to plunging book sales and evaporating profit margins.

But rather than commiserating with the editors and book folk who have been handed their walking papers, my reactions have been cold-blooded, remorseless and decidedly ungenerous. Why?

Try to see it from my point of view: these people have failed. They have failed to excite the reading public, they have failed to choose and promote books that appeal to the tastes of their purported readership. Their gross ineptitude has led to their bosses absorbing big financial losses and, quite understandably, looking to clean house. Honestly, why should we care if they’re called to account for their incompetence, summoned into an office and given ten minutes to collect their name plates and personalized coffee mugs and get the hell out of Dodge?

Is jetissoning them any great loss? Are they irreplaceable? Tireless advocates of excellence in literature and the power and glory of the printed word? Not in my experience.

Don’t forget, I’ve dealt with publishing types for nearly twenty-five years and I have all too frequently found myself on the receiving end of their stupidity and outright dishonesty. When I think of editors and those who serve with them as cogs in the corporate publishing mega-monster, I’m not exactly overwhelmed by warm, fuzzy feelings.

Occasionally, as I read the latest casualty rolls in some industry mouthpiece like MediaBistro’s “Galleycat” site, certain names make me perk up. ____________ and _____________ (names removed for legal reasons) were both editors at major New York publishing houses who were given the boot within a few months of each other.

And in each case I cheered. Schadenfreude. It’s a bitch.

The two editors treated me abominably, hanging onto my manuscripts for ungodly periods of time, refusing to respond to my communications. In desperation, I finally called one and at first the editor in question seemed genuinely contrite. “Oh, God, yes, I remember liking that one. I’ll get to you next week”. But a week passed and then a month…and when I called a second time, I was given a rude brush-off.

“I’ll get to it when I get to it, all right?”

Never heard from her again.

I’ve detailed my many odd and surreal experiences in the world of publishing in my essay “Solace of Fortitude”. Not a word of it is manufactured or exaggerated, I assure you. I only wish that were the case. (Warning: This essay not to be read on a full stomach.)

The truth is that in my quarter century as a professional author I can count the number of intelligent and thoughtful editors I’ve encountered on the fingers of one hand (sans thumb). Ditto for agents.

So why in the name of eternal, infinite God should I give a tinker’s damn if, as a species, editors cease to exist? Should I wear a black armband because the same people who have mistreated me, lied to me and denigrated my work are dangling from every lamp post in lower Manhattan? Fat chance.

To me, all this downsizing is a golden opportunity to pare away some of the dead wood that the industry has been carrying far too long. Editors and execs who have grown old, fat, stale and comfortable in their corner offices, as secure as tenured professors (and just as paranoid and senile). Insular, self-serving, fickle. Highly resistant to change. Time for some new blood, I say, new ideas and approaches.

Traditional publishing seems to be dead, so to me the obvious question that arises is: WHAT NEXT?

Clearly the corporate approach ain’t the answer. Publishing by committee, collating and analyzing spreadsheets, projected sales figures, flow charts and pie graphs. Slitting open a sheep for good measure and rooting about in its entrails for any insights that might be gleaned there. Always on the look-out for the next blockbuster, something sort of different but mainly the same. But while the big ticket scribblers like Rowling and Dan Brown may plump up the sales numbers for a few quarters, what are editors/publishers doing to grow and sustain a stable, longterm readership? Maintaining a lifetime consumer base that’s literate (something less and less important in these days of text messaging, emoticons and three line e-mails) and devoted to the printed word, unwilling to see books relegated to the status of artifacts and curios.

The way ahead lies with smaller, tightly run publishing concerns, staffed by informed, dedicated, reader-savvy men and women. Independent in spirit, offering a more diverse, iconoclastic selection of titles thanks to the wonders of print-on-demand (POD) publishing and e-book hard/software. Works which are then promoted through podcasts, blog reviews and on-line interviews, “virtual” book tours. Live “web chats”; YouTube readings and short films.

Computer technology also enables readers to connect directly with their favorite authors through personal sites, Facebook, etc., as well as allowing them to join forums devoted to writers or genres of interest. Forming a vast, far-reaching community of book-lovers and devotees, unimpeded by geographic boundaries and undeterred by small details like race, politics, gender.

Readers without borders.

The end of corporate publishing is nigh. The signs are all there. The multi-nationals are fed up with the red ink their book divisions keep hemorrhaging. First they went at the fat with scalpels, now they’re using machetes. Desperate tactics enacted by desperate people…and I suspect it won’t make one bit of difference. The die has been cast and nothing the suits do will have the slightest effect on the massive changes technology is bringing about and a paradigm shift that is part cultural, part economic and wholly beyond the control of Wall Street, Fleet Street…or anywhere else.

These are actually great times to be a writer, or, really, anyone who works and creates in the arts. Never before have we, as artists, had access to (potentially) such a vast audience, drawn from every corner of the world. And the good news is that we can acquire this access for a relatively modest investment. No longer do writers (for example) need to kowtow to the traditional gate-keepers of publishing, the editors and agents who are largely to blame for the present moribund state of the industry. Those self-appointed arbiters of taste have been rendered superfluous, shown to be incapable of identifying or developing authors gifted with originality, power and grace—the very qualities that get people excited about reading again.

It’s my personal belief that a good deal more publishing poobahs need to have their tickets punched before authors and the general reading public have any hope of being better-served. And if the end result of these lay-offs and staff reductions is better books, a wider selection and variety of formats for readers to choose from, more authors having their voices heard, I say:

HASTA LA VISTA, YOU WHITE COLLAR, SELF-REGARDING, MARTINI-GUZZLING, TOFU-EATING, FAKE-MEMOIR-SOPHIE KINSELLA-PIMPING IDJITS! AND GOOD RIDDANCE, TOO…

Star Trek XI: The Search for Relevance

By handing the Star Trek franchise over to J.J. Abrams, lock, stock and pointed ears, the folks at Paramount Pictures made it manifestly clear: we want to see a new, fresh look at the Enterprise and its namebrand, trademarked crew, a re-invention, if need be.

Mr. Abrams, let’s be candid, is no auteur, more like a cross between Michael Bay and M. Night Shmayalan. His films and projects are slick, gimmicky and well-attuned to the tastes of the moment. How long his vision and body of work will survive is another matter: action movie directors are a dime a dozen these days, their films virtually indistinguishable. Mr. Abrams has shown us little so far (“Lost”, “Mission Impossible III; Exec. Producer, “Cloverfield”) except that, like any half decent utility man, he knows how to handle a good bounce…and how to make an easy play look spectacular.

Mr. Abrams has an undeniable gift for concocting middlebrow eye candy and so many within and without the Trek universe reacted favorably when it was announced he was producing and directing the next film. The first trailer was released and that really got the grapevine humming. Leonard Nimoy started popping up, speaking cryptically about the plot of “Star Trek XI” but professing himself thrilled with the script. Wow, cool, an endorsement from Mr. Spock himself! Trekkies everywhere held their breath, waiting for May, 2009 to roll around.

Well, it’s clear from the forums and fan message boards that the latest film has met with overwhelming approval–and why not? It’s filled with action and special effects and there is that much-touted return to the early days. And you get to see Uhuru in her underwear! Fan-dumb seems to like the three young leads and don’t appear unduly concerned by the liberties taken with the premise and backstory. Like the screenwriters, most film-goers grew up on comic books/graphic novels and are used to things like alternate universes, mirror realities, lapses in logic, plot discontinuities and (yawn) “red matter”.

I’m willing to put up with Jim Kirk’s troubled childhood, a different, sleeker Enterprise, a command bridge that looks like a cross between a high-end china boutique and a really cool video arcade, but what I find most objectionable, unforgivable, in fact, is the ridiculous romantic subplot involving Spock and Uhuru. Reinvention is one thing but this notion of a repressed, lonely Vulcan and a thoroughly professional Starfleet communications officer snogging like a couple of teenagers is nothing less than an abomination.

The plot is standard revenge stuff. The bad dude, a Romulan renegade named Nero (Eric Bana barely registering in the role), is an over-familiar Trek villain, a tattooed terrorist who hardly merits an individual episode, let alone a $150 million movie.

Star Trek’s minor characters—Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, Uhuru—are easy to ape or emulate. Simon Pegg is, frankly, a distraction as Scottie and Anton Yelchin’s (Chekov) outrageous Russian accent makes Walter Koenig’s seem pitch perfect by comparison. To be fair, most of the youngsters acquit themselves ably, within the limits of the material…but can someone please explain to me the thinking that went into casting Winona Ryder as Spock’s mother, Amanda? A favour? Act of charity?

I liked Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy, though on a few occasions he tries too hard (“Damnit, I’m a doctor, not a physicist!”). Playing up Bones’ tendency to catastrophise is a nice touch. A passing grade.

Zachary Quinto’s resemblance to a youthful Leonard Nimoy has been much discussed. He’s a ringer, all right, and at times his mimicry of Nimoy is uncanny…but is imitation, impersonating a guy impersonating an alien, really acting?

Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, future captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, gets better as the film progresses. By the latter third he has Shatner’s sidelong glance, swagger and half smile down to a “T”. The only thing missing is the keylight on his eyes. Pine is likely the one cast member who has the most opportunity to grow into his role (no swipe at Bill Shatner’s midsection intended). The other players can resort to tried and true catch phrases, retreat into caricature, but Jim Kirk must always be vital, three-dimensional, flawed, impulsive, heroic, endearingly and recognizably human, or the whole franchise founders.

Abrams and Co. have presented us with a new, unimproved Trek—glossy and diverting without being particularly likeable, engaging without involving us emotionally. “Star Trek XI” makes no stirring appeals to human destiny, mortality, cosmic evolution, democracy, tolerance or any of the other high-falutin’ ideals the show once espoused. That moral core is notably absent from “XI” and the film suffers as a result. This isn’t a “message” picture, it’s a thrill ride, an experience, with tons of explosions, rapid fire editing and starships going foosh!

Initial box office returns are promising so it looks like we’ll be subjected to a sequel or three. Perhaps the next film (an even number, gotta be a good one, right?) will feature a story worthy of being told, something that will contribute meaningfully to the mythos and grow the legend.

They’ve added some fresh faces, sunk a lot of money into a franchise some believed had run its course. They even coaxed poor old Leonard Nimoy out of retirement for a cameo appearance—he looks like a superannuated sea turtle but his last hurrah is supposed to lend authenticity to the venture, a tip of the hat from one of the Original Cast.

It isn’t enough. “Star Trek XI”, like all of Mr. Abrams’ projects, is overlong, clumsily structured, superficial, implausible, instantly forgettable. He has temporarily salvaged a series that was on the rocks, but is his “aesthetic” compatible with a concept that has remained remarkably consistent through 40+ years and various incarnations? How far are fans willing to let him go in terms of rewriting or tossing out great swathes of the accepted canon?

Star Trek, whatever its faults, didn’t used to shy away from big ideas and cosmic themes and it was never intended to be a Saturday morning children’s show. Gene Roddenberry had higher aims than that.

But the Great Bird of the Galaxy is gone now and the whizkids are in charge. They’ve studied the demographics and done their test screenings. The gamers, geeks and mall rats are their target audience, aged between 14-23 and not overly concerned with such niceties as characterization and a coherent plot. The old fogies may complain about what’s been done in the name of progress but even Star Trek must move with the times and if that means getting bigger, dumber, louder, so be it.

Warp speed, Mr. Abrams, the helm is all yours.

For now…

 

New RedRoom post

I just finished posting a short essay (”Last Days”) on my RedRoom author site.

Pop over for a look, I like how this one turned out.

Off to see the new “Star Trek” film tonight.  After skimming the Anthony Lane New Yorker review, I’m going in with pretty low expectations.

But a friend gave us free movie tickets as a family Christmas gift (thanks, Amy!) so what the heck, let’s go for it.  We’ll only be out 126 minutes of our lives (and twenty-five bucks for popcorn and drinks).

Review to follow shortly.  In the meantime, check out that RedRoom essay.

It’s a peach…

Postscript:  Special thanks to Gord Ames for providing this author with fascinating links and drawing his attention to articles and resources I would’ve otherwise missed.  Gracias, Gord.

Stardate 29.04.09

Well, I couldn’t let an opportunity go by without referencing the upcoming Star Trek movie.  The franchise is hanging on this one, boys and girls; the Next Generation sputtered out after the woeful “Nemesis” and nothing that followed appealed to anyone other than hardcore fans.  A drastic re-tooling was in order.  That’s why the guys in suits chose J.J. Abrams to carry the torch.  A guaranteed crowd-pleaser.  Hell, that Lost show made buckets of money–as a gun for hire he comes with a pretty high rep.

Abrams has been around awhile, longer than I realized.  And he hasn’t always been a golden goose either.  He receives a brief mention in Richard E. Grant’s film diary With Nails.  Grant runs into him at some Hollywood gathering and  with his acute perceptiveness, describes J.J. and his cronies thus:  “Meet a twenty-four-year old screenwriter called J.J. who wrote ‘Regarding Henry’, has a three-picture deal, and talks real fast, as do his friends, all of whom seem young, ruthless and rich.”

Hmmm… “ruthless and rich”.  Not “gifted” or “witty” or “intelligent”.  Ruthless and rich. And “Regarding Henry”?  Remember that turkey?

But all will be forgiven if J.J. can revitalize the old gal, make it contemporary without abandoning the campiness and charm of the original show; I’m a retro nut and I’m worried the writers (one of them the “genius” behind “Transformers: The Movie”), will bury the story under CGI, comic book level dialogue and stock characterizations, while bending as far as possible to meet the abysmally low expectations of the fan boys/girls.

End of rant.

Now, as you’ve likely guessed, since my last post a couple of weeks back I’ve been working, plugging away on new material and prepping old stuff for revision.  Beginning to gear up…there’s something about the summer that gets my creative energies revved up to full throttle.  I can’t explain it.  While the rest of my family is off traveling or out at the beach, I’m up in my office, sweating buckets, scribbling like mad.

With the coming of warmer weather this month, something clicked into place and I’ve been at it for long stretches, working on–well, I can’t say yet.  You know me.  Like to play it close to the vest.  Might show it to Sherron later on this week but until then–shtum.

So I’ve been working hard and every so often scrambling down the stairs to watch a period of hockey–it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs, doncha know–before rushing back upstairs to work some more and then back downstairs to check the score, watch highlights, never missing Don Cherry…

I’ve been a Boston Bruins fan for nigh on forty years–oh, yes, my children, the big, bad Bruins and I go wayyy back.  Watching old footage of Bobby Orr still brings tears to my eyes.  And this year…well, the boys had a terrific regular season and then they destroyed the Habs in four straight games.  I hardly dare wish for anything else.  Must not tempt the hockey Gods to turn on the B’s like some blind Greek guy with a taste for older women…

It’s a pleasure to watch players like Marc Savard and I love that Lucic kid.  Wideman is an under-appreciated talent and Tim Thomas has been good when called upon.  But if that idjit Phil Kessel doesn’t stop with the lookit-me-dangle-all-by-myself-I’m-Jason-bleedin’-Spezza lone man dashes up the ice (which, inevitably lead to odd man rushes the other way), I’m going to end up kicking the front of my television set in.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.  It’s just that one commentator described Kessel as the Bruins’ best player during the Montreal series and I just about swallowed my beer mug.

Okay, I admit it, I picked New Jersey and San Jose to make the final this year.  Tells you what I know.  Yeah, and now watch Kessel go on to win the fucking Conn Smythe Trophy.

Okay, besides  work and the odd period of hockey, I’ve also somehow managed to squeeze in a fair amount of reading, lotsa music and even a movie or two.  Part of that whole getting-some-balance-in-my-life thing I’ve been working toward.  With mixed results (hey, but at least I’m trying!).

Read John Fante’s 1939 novel Ask the Dust and absolutely loved it.  Set in 1930’s Los Angeles, the story of Arturo Bandini, aspiring novelist, come West to seek his fame and fortune.  I described the book elsewhere as a cross between Nathanial West (Day of the Locust) and Knut Hamsun (Hunger).  I photocopied  two pages and glued them into a “Book of Commonplace” I keep of favorite quotes and excerpts.  I also hand-copied these sentences:

Over the city spread a white murkiness like fog.  But it was not the fog:  it was the desert heat, the great blasts from the Mojave and Santa Ana, the pale white fingers of the wasteland, ever reaching out to claim its captured child.

Here’s a piece from Salon.com that talks about  about Mr. Fante’s life and work.   Definitely a book–and an author–worthy of rediscovery.

In terms of movies, Sherron and I puzzled our way through David Lynch’s ultra-weird “Mulholland Drive” and I’m nearly done watching the second and final season on the 1967 TV series, “The Invaders”.  Fun to slam down one or two episodes with a stiff glass of scotch after a hard day of writing.  That’s my method for stress relief (patent pending)…

Lots of time in my office means lots of tunes playing too…and, as of yesterday, that includes Bob Dylan’s latest, Together Through Life.  Not sure what I think of the new one yet.  Maybe give it a few more listens before I decide.  It lacks a cut with the mythic, spiritual power of something like “Man in the Long Black Coat” or, from  Time out of Mind, the searing and entrancing “Highlands” (all sixteen-and-half minutes of it).  Some good songs, especially “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’”, “My Wife’s Hometown” and “It’s All Good” and I like the Tex-Mex flavor but I wouldn’t count Together Through Life in the front rank of Dylan’s body of work.  Not by a long shot.

Plenty of instrumental, ambient stuff pouring out of my speakers:  Explosions in the Sky, God is an Astronaut, the soundtrack of “Mysterious Skin” (Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie collaborating).  Old Tangerine Dream (”Atem”), Mogwai and NIN’s “Ghosts I-IV”.

The perfect accompaniment; the music transports me to a place beyond physical laws and temporal constraints.  In this undetermined location I can work without distraction, removed from obligations and duties.  That door over there opens on nothing, the backdrop outside my window cunningly executed but, upon close inspection, reveals imperfections, chips in the paint and swirls left by careless brush strokes–

The artifice holding, for now, but I keep the door closed and the blinds mostly drawn.  To maintain the necessary illusion, preserve it through a combination of higher physics, prayer, alchemy and the judicious use of duct tape, when all else fails…