Rollin' Thunder: The One-Stop Poetry Shop

It seems that I am not the only one to have noticed the turn blogs have taken toward literature. I figured there had to be some poetry blogs out there, and just as I was getting around to trying to find them, along comes an email from one 'cafe rg' who operates a blog called 'Rollin' Thunder' that's essentially a clearinghouse for poetry and discussion about same.

The entries are a mix of notices ('Hire a Free Poet!'), poetry challenges, quotes (many of them about poetry: 'You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick... You're back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps... so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in. ~Dylan Thomas'), and discussions about poetry ('Does Technology "make us" more creative?').

There are also links to other cafe rg sites like 'SplashHall Poetry", a BBS specifically for poets, and the 'Poet's Cafe', which features live poetry readings as well as chat boards, workshops, even an electronic chapbook. If I were a poet--which I'm not, I admit--this is obviously the place I'd hang out. It's like an online version of City Lights--the only thing missing is the coffee. And Ferlinghetti, of course. Otherwise, it looks lively and fun.

Writing for Blogs

A reader named 'Tammi' posed a comment to the cross-post of 'Sgt Missick's Rebuttal' that nicely phrases some real concern about the whole idea of 'reviewing' blogs and asks what criteria I use. Because I think her questions probably reflect a fairly general attitude toward writing blogs, specifically, I thought this was the appropriate place to answer them. I'm not going to reprint her whole comment, but I'd like to suggest you click the link above and read it for yourself before you read the rest of my reply. It's thought-provoking, and well worth reading for its own sake.

Here's my issue - and please, if I'm off base I will apologize up front. This has nothing to do with politics, religion or anything. It's actually just a question.

You're not off-base at all. They're perfectly legitimate questions and you have a right to know the answers. In fact, I figured when I started LitBlogs that at some point I needed to lay out what the criteria were so people knew where I was coming from and could judge whether or not my opinions had any relevancy for them. Your comment gives me the opportunity to do that.

And I want to state again for the record that my reviews have nothing whatever to do with politics or religion, either, except in so far as the blogs themselves deal with it, and then my concern is how well they express themselves, not how 'correct' their positions are. The purpose of the reviews is to give people some idea where to go and what they'll find when they get there. Finally, what I pick is what I like. Fortunately, I like a lot of different things for a lot of different reasons, so my choices tend to range along a fairly wide spectrum.

When reviewing a blog what are your criterias?

It depends on where I'm reviewing them. For Omnium: How well do they communicate what they're trying to say? Are they informative or just re-hashing the same old stuff? How original are they? What's the quality of the thought they express? How well-written are they, if writing is an issue? (It isn't always; a lot of blogs are information-spreaders, and mostly what they publish are links and quotes with very little writing by the blogger.) Who is the intended audience? A blog written for friends and/or family is a very different matter from a blog intended for public reading and response. I don't review the former unless it's so good it would be of interest to outsiders as well.

For LitBlogs: How well written is it?

That's pretty much it. I began LitBlogs because I realized there was some marvelous writing going on in blogs that was going largely unnoticed and I wanted a site dedicated to finding them and turning readers onto the ones they didn't already know about. So my criterium boils down to that: if it's written well, that accomplishment should be acknowledged. That's all LitBlogs is intended to do.

The next logical question is: 'Well, what's your criteria for good writing?' I'll let Tammi define it because she said it better than I could.

I don't have to state my thesis clearly and then show footnotes or a bibliography. It's what's in MY mind, in My heart said My way.

Exactly. Tammi seems concerned that I'm coming at this like a strict grammarian or a professorial technician. I'm not. Tammi, read my review of My War. My criteria for good writing is laid out right in the first paragraph.

His grammar isn't great, his spelling is OK, his punctuation is horrible. All of that is beside the point. Like Emmett, he can communicate a sense of time and place so clearly that it's almost physical--you can hear it, you can see it, you can almost reach out and touch it.

That's half of my criteria in a nutshell. The other half has to do with what you're saying: Is the blogger being honest with us? Do they write with passion and heart? Or are they hiding behind cliches and institutional language? Are they telling us what they feel and/or think directly ? Or are they putting up walls of words that don't mean very much?

William Faulkner, as I was reminded recently, said in his Nobel Prize speech that the only subject worth the sweat and pain of writing about it was the human heart. That's my criteria, too.

Have you looked at the situations in the which the blogger is creating?

As I said in the advice post:

I know you have other and better things to do, and for all I know you're blogging on your laptop for the few moments a day that you're not being shot at. This advice is only for those who would like to and/or are able to blog to a larger purpose...

I acknowledge it but ultimately it's irrelevant. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are that produced the result, only the result. If it works, it works, if not, not. As I've already said, the reviews aren't generally intended to trash anybody, and they're certainly not meant to set up some stone wall of grammatical or format 'acceptibility'. I said quite clearly I don't give a damn about the first and I will add now that I revel in the diversity of the second--I love originality and difference; I love people who risk doing things their own way. Whether it works or not is a separate question.

Is there a list of dos and don'ts out there they we need to be aware of?

A lot of what I said in the advice post--more than I originally thought--is good general advice for other bloggers as well, especially the bits about writing what's in front of you and daring to be honest. Carrying a notebook is a good idea for all writers, so are writing as much as you can, and deciding who it is you're writing for. But the answer to your real question--which is to say, the one I think you meant to ask--is 'not really'. The rule of good writing is simple: if it makes the reader feel something, if it's honest about what it's trying to convey, if it calls more attention to the people or events or story it's telling than it does to itself, then it's good writing whether it follows 'rules' or not.

Sloganeering is a cop-out; it's dishonest; it's hiding behind cliches to avoid having to say what you really mean, or do the work to discover what that is. My point with Chris was that it weakens his voice and his case, and that he's good enough that he doesn't need it. I hope he understands that.

The reason I ask this is simple. I blog. I love to read them I love to write them. But one of the things I love best is that there are NO RULES.

Blogs may not have set formats and grammatical rules everybody is expected to follow like in your graduate thesis, and thank god for that (some of the worst writing I have ever seen in my entire life outside the works of Jackie Collins has been in graduate theses; horrible horrible!) but writing still has rules, and they are the ones I gave above and the one Faulkner gave 50 years ago: It has to tell some truth about the human heart or it's just literary masturbation.

Sgt Missick's Rebuttal

On Sunday, I reviewed three blogs by soldiers from Iraq, including one written by a Sgt Chris Missick called A Line in the Sand which I suspected wasn't legitimate because of the way it read. It would seem I have done Sgt Missick a gross injustice.

Much of the following was written tongue in cheek.

1. To address Mr. Arren’s fist fallacious statement, that I am “a PR flack for the military,” I have this to say: I am a 31 Romeo, a multi-channel systems transmission operator/maintainer. I am currently working with Army phone and internet networks, administrating them to ensure they run properly. Unfortunately I can not go too much further into my daily job descriptions because of something the military refers to OPSEC, Operational Security, and I can not breach that trust. I have never admitted to being on the frontlines on a daily basis and have always made quite clear that I am simply proud to be a cog in the wheel that is the machine of the US Army. Mr. Arren, you may just be receiving a confirmation from my lieutenant after he reads this, he’s a good man and can verify that my word is good. I do have PR experience in my civilian career, but when I am in uniform, I simply a soldier with a blogging hobby.

That isn't necessary, Sgt Missick. I believe you. That was Charge No 1. Charge dismissed. To the charge that the required disclaimer is missing:

I beckon you all to now examine my pages, each one of them, and look at the very bottom. On each page I state, “© 2004 Missick.com, please request permission to use any images from this site: chris@missick.com This site reflects the opinion of the author and is in no way connected to the US Army, DOD, or any Federal agency.”

He's right--it's there and I missed it. It's in very small letters at the very bottom of the screen, but it's there. Charge No 2. Dismissed. To the charge that it's a complicated site that must have required a lot of time:

The essays are the same thing as the blog, the two are actually the same page. In terms of the pictures, check the last time I had a chance to post any: May 4, 2004. That’s nearly three months ago! The letters page is long, but again, I have not had any time to post new one’s since sometime in May. The video section is complete with a list of recuitment videos’, (er, wait) I have actually never posted anything up there. And the guest book, where I even request e-mail addresses… I am sorry Mr. Arren, but this is not a dark recruitment scheme. Rather, I have tried in the past to thank those who take the time to sign it by sending them a thank you e-mail for supporting the troops. Hhmm, I’ve never been told I look like Oliver North, that’s a first. And finally, the Signal Battalion reference: I do help build and monitor the phone networks, sounds a lot like the Signal Corps to me. Take a look at the pictures, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

For this, there is no excuse. I made a snap judgment without actually checking and jumped to a conclusion I shouldn't have made. My abject apologies, Sgt Missick and I assure you I will not make that mistake again. It was bonehead, bush-league, and arrogant. Truly, I'm not usually any of those things--well, at least I'm not usually amateurish; one out of three is better than nothing, isn't it?

In any case, I grovel at your feet. I fucked up, Big Time, and I'm sorry. I should have checked the tabs and I should have looked more closely at the bottom of the page. I owe you an apology and you may consider that you have it. Now let's get to what's really important.

In this entry [Desperate Enough to Serve--MA], I made the case that people all too frequently make the assumption that military personnel are the most desperate of our society, the intellectual dregs and simpleton’s who have no other opportunity than to work for Uncle Sam until s/he can receive their pension and finish out their mediocre American dream. Within this typecast soldier that some media personalities have fostered as indicative of the American soldier, many honestly begin to doubt the ability of our fighting men and women to do anything but kill. My blog has been my own attempt to help break that stereotype and allow people to open their minds and see a soldier who has undying love for his country, his Army and the people whom we have attempted to liberate in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sgt, what I just quoted above is much clearer, more passionate and more readable than what's in that post. I think I need to make this point clear: My critique has nothing whatever to do with what you wrote and everything to do with how you wrote it. If what you wrote above was the point of that post, you buried it in so much institutional language that it was all but invisible, and that's a goddam shame because your point is well-taken and deserves real discussion and thought. And my question is: if you can write as well as you do in the above paragraph, which is clear, direct and provocative, why in god's name are you putting such an important human issue under layers of bureaucratic PR-speak like this:

I am however typical of many of the people I know in the Army, who were driven to service in recent years by a determination to serve this country, to make a contribution, and to earn our freedom.

It isn't that I disbelieve the emotion, necessarily, but that it's so general, so remote from personal language that it could have been ripped whole off a recruiting poster, which means, to me, maybe it's true and maybe it's something he thinks he's supposed to say.

Blogs aren't recruiting posters or campaign speeches, they're personal journals. What you wrote above (in the bold) are nothing but slogans; as a reader I want more than that. I need more than that. Tell me why you believe them so passionately; tell me about some of the people you're talking about, in their own words if possible--what did you and they sacrifice to be answer this call? why did you decide to do it? why did they? If you have seen things or heard things since you've been there that confirmed your belief--or didn't--what were they? what happened? who was involved? how did it go down? what did they say to you? You, Chris, not the Army or the politicians or the Great Geo-Political Imperative.

Come out from behind the bureaucratese and write as you did in the passage from your rebuttal: directly. There isn't one slogan in that passage. Instead, that passage contains this:

...the intellectual dregs and simpleton’s who have no other opportunity than to work for Uncle Sam until s/he can receive their pension and finish out their mediocre American dream.

And this:

Within this typecast soldier that some media personalities have fostered as indicative of the American soldier, many honestly begin to doubt the ability of our fighting men and women to do anything but kill.

Now that's writing. You don't need slogans. Your writing is far better--more forceful, more persuasive, clearer--without them. Those are marvelous sentences: pissed off at a wrong-headed and unfair judgment by people who are making assumptions and generalizing about other people they don't know but who are individuals and have more reasons than poverty for what they chose to do. All of that comes through those sentences (and the rest of the passage); none of it--NONE OF IT--comes through in the original.

Write more like that and A Line in the Dust will be not just a better blog, but potentially a must-read. You've obviously got things to say, and if they're like your concern over the 'desperation' stereotype, I want to hear them. So will a lot of other people.

I write in a civilized tone and live my life in the very same manner because I am here not just for one demographic of our country, I am here for all Americans.

That's the problem, Chris--no, not the civilized tone. You may be there for all Americans but you are NOT all Americans. You're Sgt Chris Missick, one American, one soldier, as far as we and your blog are concerned, and you can only speak for yourself; you may represent the feelings and beliefs of others to some degree, but you can only speak for them effectively through your voice, the voice in that passage.

Your blog--and the others I read--prompted me to offer some advice on writing to military bloggers. One section was specifically the result of reading your blog. Here it is:

4. Write what's in front of you

Writing is about people, not things. Somebody once said that if you set out to write the Great American Novel about The Immigration Experience, you're going to end up with nothing but social-scientist cliches and platitudes. You can only write about the people who immigrated--who they were, the experiences they had, what happened to them. The 'Immigrant Experience' comes through them. Blogs are no different. They're about you, the people you work with, the people you hang out with, the people you meet, not about The Great Geo-Political Issues. Those things will come--can only come--from writing about the people who live with the consequences. A story about how a family's life changes when its electricity gets turned on is worth a thousand stories repeating again and again like ad copy, 'We turned on their electricty!' Maybe it shouldn't be but it is; that's the way people are.

In the case of the 'Desperation' post, one story about somebody you know and why--in personal terms--they gave up so much to be there, or even you explaining your own decision writing as directly and honestly and passionately and convincingly as you do in your rebuttal, is worth more than 10,000 pages filled with slogans.

My criticism stands. In fact, having seen how you can actually write free of the stultifying cliches, it's stronger than ever. You have an interesting and unique voice and I urge you to let it loose. You'll be doing a disservice to those you would like to use your blog to explain and/or defend if you don't. Sloganeering isn't going to help them; explaining them to us as the people they are, will. My praise stands as well: what's good about your writing is your passion and your conviction, as well as your civility--even more so when it's not covered up.

I don't say it will be easy; I say you have the ability if you choose to develop it.

I really would love to hear your comments on this one!

Well, now you have. Feel free to respond.

PS: Sgt? It's 'Arran', not 'Arren'. But don't worry about it. Everybody makes mistakes.

(Cross-posted at Omnium)

Iraq Journals--A Little Writing Advice for Bloggers

In a comment to the previous post, reader Kayz alerted me to a page she keeps that's devoted to promoting blogs by soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a number of civilian blogs by Iraqis (and one Saudi, which looks interesting). I spent yesterday afternoon reading through most of the soldier-blogs and reviewed three of them at Omnium. I'll be getting to the others over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully.

I didn't include them here not because they're without interest but because they're not, for the most part, very well-written. Certainly nothing I've seen so far comes up to the standard set by MY WAR, and the problem with almost all of them is a simple one often made by new writers: they're trying to Write with a capital W. They seem to think that writing is about adjectives. One of them (not yet reviewed) was so full of ponderous layers of pseudo-profound adverb/adjective combinations piled on top of each other like compost that it was almost impossible to wade through.

So, for what it's worth, a few words of advice to aspiring bloggers on how to make your writing more interesting.

1. Define your audience

Who are you writing for? If it's friends and family, then write the way you normally talk to them. Skip the hoary, cliched metaphors and tell them what's going on with you as plainly and as honestly as you can. Let them hear your voice, the voice they know and love, coming at them through the page. Don't try to dress it up with profundities; it's profound enough for them that you're there, risking your life. Try to write as if you were on the phone with them; they want to hear you, not The Voice of the People.

If you're writing for the general public as well as your family and friends, that's harder. The best advice I can give you is: Don't try to write, try to tell what you see, hear, and feel as honestly as you can. Good writing is about telling the truth--as you see it--with as little spin as possible. Good writers don't include adjectives they don't need.

Try to include some news, either personal or general. We get very little back here but generic Happy Talk and scanty reports of bombings. Anything you can tell us about the real situation in which you live every day is like feeding someone who's starving.

2. Carry a notebook at all times

Don't trust your memory--it plays tricks and it's unreliable. If something or someone catches your interest, then take the first moment you have to spare to write down everything about it that you can remember: what happened and in what order? what did s/he look like (hair color, facial expression, clothes)? how did it start? how did it end? who were you with? how did they respond? The immediacy of what you write in the notebook close to the event will translate into the post you write later, giving it life and us a feeling that we're right there with you. And I'm not just talking about combat or patrols or 'events'; I'm talking about the everyday details of your everyday life that you may not think are important. What's the chow like? do you live in a tent? what does it look like? smell like? what do you do when you're not on duty? That stuff is fascinating to read because it's so totally NOT a part of our world. And it's important stuff for us to know if we're to understand what you're going through.

When the guys finished their tours in Viet Nam, they came back to a country that had no clue--zero--what it had been like for them and consequently no idea how to talk to them. They found themselves isolated as civilians, unable to connect with their families or their friends. The same is uncomfortably true with vets from the First Gulf War. One of the great strengths of blogging is its potential for communicating stuff like that and making connections possible between you and us both now and once you're home. (See Iraq calling for a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.)

3. Write as often as you can

The truth about writing is that the only way to learn how to do it is to...do it--a lot of it. The more you write, the better your writing will get. That's the way it works. And the more you write, the more you'll realize that writing is only a tool, a means to an end--it's what you use to tell a story with, not the end in itself. All those pointless adjectives just take up space you could be using to tell us your story; that's what we want to hear.

4. Write what's in front of you

Writing is about people, not things. Somebody once said that if you set out to write the Great American Novel about The Immigration Experience, you're going to end up with nothing but social-scientist cliches and platitudes. You can only write about the people who immigrated--who they were, the experiences they had, what happened to them. The 'Immigrant Experience' comes through them. Blogs are no different. They're about you, the people you work with, the people you hang out with, the people you meet, not about The Great Geo-Political Issues. Those things will come--can only come--from writing about the people who live with the consequences. A story about how a family's life changes when its electricity gets turned on is worth a thousand stories repeating again and again like ad copy, 'We turned on their electricty!' Maybe it shouldn't be but it is; that's the way people are.

5. Don't use semi-colons

Kurt Vonnegut hates them.

I know you have other and better things to do, and for all I know you're blogging on your laptop for the few moments a day that you're not being shot at. This advice is only for those who would like to and/or are able to blog to a larger purpose: telling us back home about you over there--what you're doing, how it makes a difference. I must have read 'I can see that we're making a difference here' a dozen times, usually in the same post, but not once did any of these writers tell me what they saw or how it made a difference. If you want us to understand what's happening, you have to tell us--we're not there. You are. And you need to tell us in small, human terms we can understand, not in grand geopolitical designs that mean nothing in the abstract.

MY WAR - Fear And Loathing In Iraq

This is, as far as I know, one of a kind. Not only is it a blog written by a soldier now serving in Iraq, it's written by a soldier who can write. His grammar isn't great, his spelling is OK, his punctuation is horrible. All of that is beside the point. Like Emmett, he can communicate a sense of time and place so clearly that it's almost physical--you can hear it, you can see it, you can almost reach out and touch it. In a post called 'Cleaning Up the Streets of Mosul', he describes going on an IED Sweep.

We had an IED Sweep for a mission this after noon. An IED (Improvised Exploding Device) Sweep is when we drive around town for hours until we hit an IED speed bump, or until one of us visually finds an IED along the road. No lie, that's how we find IEDs on IED Sweeps out here, we drive around until one literally blows up on us or if one of us visually finds one. Today was a successful sweep, we found 3 rocket launchers, two of them with rockets in them. We found them right there next to the road, not even hidden, in front of a playground. We stopped our vehicles and pulled 360 security around the area and had our demo guys blow em up with some explosives. You have to be careful in situations like this, whenever UXO is placed blatantly in plain view like that, it could be a possible ambush. Example, one time we found a bunch of artillary rounds by the traffic circle in the middle of Mosul, just sitting there, and we went to secure the area for the Demo guys to show up and blow it up, and we got hit with an RPG, or like this one time in Sammara, I had a demo guy tell me that the terrorists placed some UXO (Un-Exploded Ordinance) along the side of the road (Artillery Rounds) that was totally visible for them to see, and they booby trapped it with a solar powered calculator. They placed the solar powered calculator under the ground, and when the demo guys came and picked up the UXO, it shifted the dirt off the solar panels on the calculator, which turned the calculator ON, and thus set off the UXO, which was actually an IED. Lost some guys from that.

His voice, like most combat infantrymen's, is flat. He doesn't embellish, he doesn't try to make it pretty or boost the horror or milk the pathos; he's just telling it like it is. When he's funny, I'm pretty sure it's unintentional, as in 'Things To Pack In Your Rucksack If Your Going To Iraq'.

SLINGSHOT: These are great when non-lethal force is needed. Like when they start throwing rocks and bricks at you. Tons of stray dogs out here with all kinds of crazy diseases, and they all love to chase and bark at American soldiers and give away your position. Slingshots are a good way to get them to move out and shut the fuck up.

---

HAND SANITIZER: All sorts of Koodies out here. Lots of soldiers come down with dysentery (chronic diarrhea) You get dysentery from not washing your hands after you take a shit. Its good to always use hand sanitizer before you eat, that way you don't get the shits.
CAFFINE/SLEEPING PILLS: Caffeine Pills are good to take if you're pulling an all night OP and you have to stay awake. When you need something stronger then caffeine pills, try a couple Ripped Fuels (You can get Ripped Fuel at GNC) Ripped Fuels will make your heart explode though. Not recommended. Sleeping Pills are good to take when you need to get some sleep, but you cant. Your sleep pattern gets all fucked up out here because you're always doing something at all hours of the day, so you sleep when you can. I myself have developed a slight case of insomnia out here.

And the only time I caught him trying to be funny, it was chilling--for a civie, anyway: 'A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK: Because youre going to need it here.'

He (he's anonymous; goes by the handle 'CBFTW') seems to write at least one post a day, sometimes two, and they all slice directly into the heart of what the troops are up against and, to a degree, how they're coping. He doesn't make judgments and he doesn't talk poilitics; if he has opinions he mostly keeps them to himself. What you will read is raw, frontline reporting, practically in real-time. In other words, everything we don't get--or only rarely--from our Bush-addled media.

This is one of the best combat soldier's diaries I've ever read. It has the immediacy and authenticity of an eye-witness account under extreme stress, and the power of a Hemingway novel to punch you in the gut when you're not expecting it. Consider it a Must-Read and check it every day. If he can live it, we can read it.
 
Note: Wondering what you can do to make our soldiers' lives a little easier? Here's one way: He says at one point that he spends a lot of money at amazon buying books. Apparently that led to some emails from people offering to send some to him, which he thinks would be great (he wants a little note included telling him why you picked the book you sent). If you would like to do likewise, write to his email address ( westcoast11b@hotmail.com) and tell him, and he'll mail back his Army surface address.  It seems like a small enough thing to do, and--count on it--whatever you send will get spread around. I'm sending a paperback copy of James Bamford's The Puzzle Palace about the origins and operations of the NSA--the National Security Agency. If he ever decides he wants to be a spy, he should know what he's getting into. What are you sending?

LitBlogs Update

# The latest entry at LumpenBlog, 'Mickey Snaketail', has Nefertiti Snorkjutt in Maui attempting to rescue Lola from the clutches of Bruce--who Lola rescued Nef from after Nef rescued Lola from... You know, this could go on forever. Cut to the chase: Bruce wins.

At last I have a chance to report on my search for the misogynist Bruce and the, well, intrepid Lola. Lola rescued me from Bruce's clutches, only to be taken by him to Maui, where I tracked them to a popular nude beach called Baby Makena.

I decided to perform what I believe the, well, gendarmes call a "stake-out." I thought that I had come rather well-prepared to look inconspicuous, but on the very first day a presumptuous woman with nipples that point straight up walked past me and said, "Can you sweat through leather?" So I decided to sacrifice my last, well, what you might call shred of modesty and remove all of my clothes, save for the plastic strap holding my binoculars.

And if you can resist reading the rest of that, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

# At The Mermaid Tavern, the philosofairy encounters creatures in the shower drain and gets a best-selling book idea out of it. Would that it were that easy for me.

Early this morning, as she stepped into the sparkling freshness of her shower, the philosofairy came up with a surefire bestseller Book Concept.

But before she tells you about this surefire bestseller Book Concept, you need to know something. The philosofairy is a lover of nature. She has immense respect for all creatures big and small, including those alligators that live in underground New York City sewers and that take their breakfast straight from the homeless person's box. She is an advocate to the animals, and does not endorse harming any living thing (note: an exception would be made for Ashton Kutcher).

I won't give it away but it includes references to hairy eight-legged things and The Da Vinci Code, not necessarily in that order.

# Emmett at Maine Line has written a rather unsettling post called 'Father's Day'. It was hard for me to read, not because it's badly written--in fact it may be the best writing he's done so far--but because it details the kind of horrific family nightmare we all dread: skeletons escaping from their closets. The day starts well and ends...badly. Here's a piece of it from just before the shit hits the fan. After a decent day when 'Nobody started a fight or picked on anybody else or went off and sulked in a corner or called anybody else vile names or gave them the finger', they go in the house to play cribbage.

As [the game] went on dad kept getting up and leaving the room for a minute and then coming back, and he was doing this every couple minutes and I was starting to get worried, thinking he was out in the kitchen nipping off his stash on the sly. Which is just what he was doing, it turns out. Howie and me were just about to slam them with double when I put down a card that let dad hit 21 for extra points. "That was a bonehead move," he says. I didn't say anything but I must have looked it because Cyn jumped in and started telling a funny story about one time when she got Ma to play poker (which she didn't know how to play) and this one hand she leaned over to Cyn and showed her her cards and whispered, "Is this any good?" and Cyn said, "Ma, you got a full house!" and Ma said, "Don't be silly. We've had twice this many people over. There's plenty of room." Even Gary laughed at that one but then dad said, out of nowhere, "She was one stupid bitch, that woman. Don't know why I put up with her all those years."

I froze.

What comes next is the recounting of a previous incident that left me a bit shaken, and a more or less predictable end to the day. I have never, thank god or whatever, been in that position but I know way too many people who have, and they didn't handle it any better than Emmett. There is no good way to handle an alcoholic parent, and Emmett is honest enough to admit his wasn't the best. If you have an alcoholic parent or are close to someone who does, read it. It won't be easy but you'll be glad you did. I think.

# Finally, there is a new story at Snake Tales, 'belinda c and fergus the leprechaun plan an uprising', the title of which pretty much says it all.

she was prepared for a rat. she was prepared for a kid swiping her tomatoes, dry, shriveled things that they were. she was even prepared for a burglar, though what he might have hoped to steal in a neighborhood like this would bear explaining. of all the things belinda c was not prepared for, at the top of the list was what she actually saw--a leprechaun perched on her chickenwire fence, munching on a lettuce leaf and talking to himself. or maybe that was singing.

"shoo", she said. "shoo. shoo."

the leprechaun--if that's what it was and what else could it have been?--looked up at her with mild amusement in his tiny hazel eyes. "i'm not a housefly," he said. "or a timid field mouse with his racing shoes on at the slightest crack of twig. i'm not that easy to get rid of, if that's what you're hoping. why don't you sit down in that old stuffed chair you threw out last year, and we'll have a talk."

Fergus has a favor to ask that involves pixies, a city construction project, and--he promises solemnly--no dragons at all. (They all moved to Cleveland.)

Enjoy.

(cross-posted at Omnium)

Maine Line--A Journal We Can Relate To

(Edited from a post at Omnium)

Maine Line (I know, bad title) is brand new--only a month or so old--and written by a guy in north-central Maine named Emmett who says it's a summer project for his creative writing class. It's a public blog, though, either because he didn't know how to make it private or because he didn't give a damn if it was or not. I'm guessing the latter because that's what kind of guy he is.

Emmett is in his 30's and just decided to go back to school (an inheritance made it possible).

See, Aunt Flo allowed for 5 years to get my degree (she knew how slow I am, she used to say, "Emmett--" that's my name-- "Emmett, you got a mouth like a rusty gate hinge, always swingin' back and forth, back and forth, despite all efforts to keep it shut, but for all the yappin' you do, you ain't got a helluva lot to say that's worth stayin' awake long enough to hear it. You got a underdeveloped mind, boy, like a green tomato, and while green tomatoes is good for cannin' piccalilli, it's useless on a growed man." She talked like that, my Aunt Flo did, and I'm not saying she was wrong. She was a smart old fart, my Aunt Flo)....

In true Maine style, since the inheritance allowed $15K/yr for school tuition, he signed up with an online university (he doesn't say which one) for $5K/yr and he's living off the rest as a sort of semi-permanent paid vacation, though it seems he has to buy books for his classes. Here he is on re-reading The Great Gatsby for his English class.

I had to read The Great Gatsby in school and I thought that had to be just about one of the dumbest books I ever read in my life, and what was the big deal with the damn lamp on the dock? Hell, every dock has some kinda light because otherwise you'll smack your boat right into the damn thing at night because you can't see what you're doing. I was kinda literal when I was in high school, I guess, like them people in church who think Jonah actually got swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it. I've seen whales, brother, up close, and if that ain't the grandaddy of all fish stories, I don't know what is. You go down a whale's gullet, you're gonna last about long enough to think, "Damn, I'm in a whale's gullet," and that'll be it for you, pal. But this time, I don't know, it made more sense to me. Like the light meant more than it was just a light. Something. I wasn't sure what but it seemed like that light stood in for everything he ever wanted, everything he ever dreamed about when he was hustling the streets for the mooch to buy his way into "society". I know about that dream, we all have it when we're young, and the poorer you are the bigger that dream gets.

The whole blog is like that, a mix of intentional--and unintentional--jokes and the first stirrings of legitimate thought. He explains why he took up his aunt's offer this way:

[A] few years ago when we had the funeral for Mike Bonin when that oak shivereed right up the middle and fell on him before he knew what hit him, I said to myself then, "Emmett, you're not going out that way. Better crushed like a bug by a semi on the state highway or drowned in a river like a bagful of cats than to have some damn tree land on top of you and smash your skull like a watermelon or have some damn saw go apeshit and whack both of your legs off at the knee." I said that to myself and I meant it. You would too if you seen what that damn tree did to Mike. Brains look like a sort of sick gray jelly when they get spread all over a hillside, gray jelly splattered with red sauce. Did you know that? No sir, don't wanna go that way. I got plans, and living past my 40th birthday (which ain't that far off, now I come to think of it) is a big part of them.

So he's struggling, like a lot of us, to escape the life he was born into by taking a chance on something better. In the meantime, under instructions from his writing teacher, he writes discursively about his life and the people around him and the town he lives in.

# On a newcomer's disastrous encolunter with a bear:

Peter went to dancing around and waving his arms and yelling, "Shoo! Shoo!" in this really high voice like a girl (which for some reason he thought would be more terrifying to the bear than his usual voice which is kind of squeaky and cracks like a thunderbolt every once in a while; I told him, "No, Pete, you should have stuck with your regular voice," but he didn't think that was funny), that bear just sort of cocked its head at him and narrowed its eyes and if I'd been there I would have known what it was thinking, it was thinking, "It's true I just had breakfast but at some point I'm gonna be wanting lunch."

---

Sometimes I think they oughta make people like Pete take a test before they let them live someplace like Wilbur. Seems like the least they could do.

# On the time the Postmistress lost the mail:

[I]t was three weeks before them circulars got delivered, by which time the sales they advertised was over and Amy had to listen to a lot of bellyaching from people who were sore that they missed getting their permanent waves at 12% off. Mrs. Pinkerman wanted Amy to pay her the difference right out of her own pocket but Amy says it was a "act of god" that she lost that key and she didn't consider herself financially responsible for god's goofing around. Of course the other thing Andy [Amy's husband--M] says about her is she's as tight with a dime as she is with a dollar and she's as tight with a dollar as a virgin clutching her panties on Prom Night. That's tight.

# On school:

What school was, school was like this jail where you had to go even when you hadn't done nothing wrong, that's what I never got about it. "Well", the grown-ups would say, "it's for your own good." Which is exactly the same damn thing they said when they whipped you for forgetting to take the trash down to the road or skipping school. And that's another thing--skipping school. I used to skip, and what'd they do? They'd suspend me--give me three days off from school. That never made no sense to me at all and still don't. One time I said that to the Principal, Mr. Leduc (The Duck, we used to call him behind his back), I said, "Mr. Leduc, I don't get this. I skipped school so as punishment you're gonna order me to skip more school?" That got him mad....

I have to admit, I love this thing. It has a charming retro quality about it that reminds me of all the people I grew up with in New Hampshire, and there's something about the way he keeps forgetting what he was saying and goes off on these long, pointless tangents that's as familiar as the smell of my mother's home-made bread in the oven. I grew up with these guys, and that's just what they sound like, and that's just how they think. It's like being home again, in all its comfortable isolation from the rest of the world and its in-bred attitudes, not all of which are either funny or positive (his father was a drunk, and from the sound of it, a mean drunk).

There's no telling how long this thing will last, maybe for the summer, maybe until he gets bored with it, so I'd get over there before it disappears. If you've ever lived in rural NE, you'll recognize it immediately; if you haven't, you'll get a real taste of what it used to be like--and still is, I guess, if you go far enough north. But whether you have or haven't, this is a fun read.

The Mermaid Tavern--Benchley Re-Born?

(Edited and expanded from a post at Omnium)

'indiejade' of The Mermaid Tavern (Born Feb '04) is helping to redefine the blog by exploring its creative possibilities. Forsaking the standard socio-politico-cultural-personal rant/analysis format in favor of humorous or satiric monologues and set-pieces on the vagaries and anomalies of everyday existence, she uses her own life as a launching pad for exploring all the stuff we only notice when it drives us nuts. In the process, she dedicates herself to providing potential solutions to problems or answers to complex and difficult questions like 'What's the deal with shampoo?' Asked by a supposed reader, 'Do you believe the "repeat" part of the directions is a ploy by the shampoo companies to sell more shampoo?', she answers:

Congratulations on bursting the bubble. You have inadvertently destroyed $1.4 trillion dollars worth of potential profit for the shampoo companies with your discovery. And now it is time for the truth to come out.

The first part of the truth is that the shampoo companies are actually fronts for the National Committee of Librarians against Harry Potter.

The National Committee of Librarians against Harry Potter believes that there is a direct linkage between the number of bottles of shampoo sold and the amount of sorcery that occurs at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This linkage has actually been prove[n] in a complex algorithm that nearly shut down the Internet and mysteriously caused the pine tree needles of the world to stand on end. The algorithm has since disappeared.

The second part of the truth is that the shampoo companies have been deceiving consumers for years. Most people do not know that shampoo is simply a by-product of a chemical called "air" that has the amazing ability to purge itself of toxicity.

Or trying to explain one of THOSE days:

*the sky turns dark and thunder crashes*

Do you know what I mean? THOSE days are days that you wish you hadn't gotten out of bed. THOSE days are days when absolutely nothing goes your way. In the morning, you burn your bagel, pour orange juice into your coffee (instead of milk), and accidentially lose your keys. Later you realize, halfway through the day, that you are wearing your shirt inside out. Your shoes keep coming untied. You cannot remember where you parked your car. The deli has run out of smoked turkey breast, when, that's all you really feel like eating. Rush hour traffic is at a standstill (ironic that they call it "rush hour" while everyone is stuck going nowhere, eh?). Your dog has had a heyday while you were away -- taking every single pair of underpants you own and decorating the living room.

So yeah, it's been one of THOSE days.

Or commenting on a recent scorpion outbreak in Seattle:

Recently in Seattle (motto: "You smell like a two-day fish"), residents reported an outbreak of scorpions. Perhaps you think there are no scorpions in Seattle. Perhaps you are an idiot.

As the French say, au contraire (literally: "Yo momma's so fat that when she stands on the scale, it says: TO BE CONTINUED!"). I have here on my desk a copy of an Associated Press article sent in by alert reader Ziggy, whose name can be rearranged to spell "ZYIGG", although that is not my main point. "Ziggy", by the way, only has the letters "iy" in in common with "Monica Lewinsky," so there is no other reason to mention Monica Lewinsky in this article.

But her glory is showcased in a 2-part piece titled 'The Hangover Monster'. It's a hilarious send-up not just of hangovers and what they feel like, but of why we tell ourselves we do them: 'Somebody made me.' The evening starts out reasonably enough--

It was to be a simple gathering with friends . . . well, okay, I lie. It was to be a simple gathering of burned-out college students who may or may not know each other, all gathered in the name of social drinking. The simple gathering of college students milled about, chatting "small talk" while the water cooler bubbled moodily in the background #. The vibrant notes of Erasure pulsed out of the speakers.

The philosofairy was proud of herself, for a moment, as she surveyed the scene. She'd actually dragged herself away from the house and attended . . . dum da dum . . . a Social Gathering!

(Please hold the applause)

--but with the arival of 'Beatrice' ('names have been changed to protect identities, affiliates and potential lawsuits'), things start to slide downhill. Mud-slide, actually.

"Yeah," says Beatrice*, finishing her drink. (Imagine ravenous gulps of alcoholic beverage consumption followed by insane laughter and punctuated by the slam of an empty glass on the counter) "I’ve just been workin'. Goin' to school. . . .. Girl, you look great! Hey, you need a drink? You look like you need a drink."

"I don’t really –"

But by then it's too late. The philosofairy has a coconut mudslide in her hand.

---

Fast forward one hour, and the philosofairy is suddenly taking generous shots of tequila, sipping (something) and drinking some more of (something) which is 49.2 percent alcohol, but, for legal purposes, has been spiked with (something) that contains 110 percent alcohol.

In Part II, the predictable results of this behaviour are described with ruthless precision:

Sunday: 10:20 a.m.

When she finally has the courage to open her eyes, the philosofairy realizes that the scientists have been right all along. There really are things called "molecules" and "sound waves" swimming in the air around people. Trillions and trillions of molecules and sound waves. The philosofairy knows this because she can feel every individual molecule and sound wave assaulting her poor, bedraggled body. If she closes her eyes and concentrates very carefully, she can feel every molecule and sound wave bounce off her body at speeds of perhaps three hundred thousand miles per hour. She is especially aware of the sensation on her left foot because her left foot has somehow become sockless in the course of the night. She is also aware of the sensation acutely in temples.

It's a molecular homicide, of sorts, wherein the molecules of the earth have, sometime during the night, conspired with the sound wave of the earth to create a cacophonous symphony of discord. The philosofairy winces when the symphony reaches its crescendo. All she can do is utter a groan which, when she thinks about it, sounds something like a water buffalo giving birth.

And which of us hasn't been there?

The Mermaid Tavern is Robert Benchley translated for a modern audience, and the good news is: when she's on her game, indiejade writes every bit as well as Benchley, sometimes better. But even when she's off, she's still one of the funniest and most human reads on the net. If she's not as flat-out funny as Fafblog!, that's because it's a deeper kind of funny, the kind of rueful, 'O jeez, I did that?' funny that comes with recognition and self-awareness of your own foibles, flaws and weaknesses. You know the ones: those little ones you think nobody notices. indiejade knows all about them and is exposing them for all of us, god bless her.

So read and enjoy. Pretend she's not talking about you if you have to, but understand this: we know who she's talking about....

Literary Blogs & LumpenBlog Review

(Edited and expanded from a post at Omnium)

A new wave of bloggers is starting to turn the blog into an art form of its own. What was once reserved for political and social commentary, personal diaries, and self-indulgent rants has begun to attract people with real talent who are using the blog as a creative device.

The first of these I noticed (and still, to my mind, the best of them) was indiejade'sThe Mermaid Tavern. What attracted me about it, besides the fact that it was hysterically funny, was that indiejade had taken the personal blog to a different level by inventing a character of sorts--'the philosofairy'--and translating the small observations and events of--presumably--her life into Benchley-esque stories that reached out to connect indiejade's everyday reality to everybody's everyday reality. I'd never read anything quite like it and it opened my mind to new possibilities for the way blogs could be used.

Shortly after that I ran into Dan Roentsch's Lumpen Blog, a much more straightforward, almost old style fictive invention shoe-horned into a blog format. Dan took the concept of the group blog and created a cast of characters for his bloggers: there are three of them and they all work as professors at the entirely (one hopes) imaginary Belverton University as well as being the editorial staff of the university publishing house, the BelvU Press.

LumpenBlog may be the earliest example of this fictive use of the blog format--he started his in January '03 and I haven't been able to find one older--and thus Roentsch its inventor--but he's no longer the only one. LumpenBlog seems to have spawned a few spin-offs. Or maybe there was something in the air and everybody got similar ideas at the same time.

However it happened, something brand new has been added to blogging--a whole genre devoted to what I must call ("I must! I must!" [Cleavon Little, Blazing Saddles]) blog-fiction, or, more pretentiously, the literary blog. This site will be devoted to finding, reviewing, and spreading the word on this new literary field. We're going to start gathering a collection of these lit-blogs in one convenient place especially for fans of fiction and good wrting. If we find good journal sites which are non-fiction but well-written and we think would be interesting to a wider audience than the blogger's immediate friends and family, we'll include those, too. We may even re-print a particularly well-written essay from a political or cultural blog from time-to-time.

In other words, the emphasis here is on good writing. Not all the writing in the Blogosphere is turgid, academic prose or mindless egocentric babbling. There is real talent here, and for the most part it is going unsung. LitBlog intends to sing it. And what better place to start than with the pioneer who may have started it all: Dan Roentsch's LumpenBlog.

LumpenBlog--The Cast
Barry Fest is a your classic clueless ivory-tower academic: surrounded by beauty, he pigeonholes it; faced with complexity, he writes a memo about it. As vain as he is, he is capable of discussing in a calm level voice his seduction by a much younger woman without realizing that's what it is.

Yesterday I was seated behind my desk, but facing away from it, so that I could work at the computer behind me. Moliere came in, unannounced and uninvited, and approached me from behind.

I was annoyed at the interruption, but I do not want to discourage the attempts of younger men and women to make a connection, as it were, with the elders they recognize as possessing the wisdom and experience they so eagerly, anxiously, nay desperately seek. Before I could turn to face her and say hello, she climbed up on my desk behind me and placed her feet on each of the two arm-rests of my chair. She had pulled her dress back so that it would not cover my head, and her knees were forward of my ears. If I turned my head left or right I would have struck a thigh with my nose.

I could not help but notice a green tattoo in the shape of a dagger on the inside of her right ankle. I also noticed a certain musky odor — an odor which I have never quite been able to place, but which I have always admired on women.

As blatant as this is, Barry doesn't get it.

Desmond Cork is the Rock Prof, an example of what happens to failed rockers who go into academia. He calls people 'cats' (he calls his wife 'the babe-cat'), writes dense prose laden with 'hep-talk' about rock bands nobody has ever heard of (or ever will), and has a sort of war on against the Power of Estrogen, to which he seems to ascribe all the evils of the world. So it's not really a suprise that's he's always breaking up with the Babe-Cat or that his understanding of even the most superficial music is, well, superficial. Explaining how the word 'gig' was born, he tells the story of an unknown rocker named Gig Spackle of the punk band 'Caulk'.

Okay, like, you also should know that, in those days, department stores used to rent out empty racks to musicians real cheap so they could have a place to sleep without doing the hotel thing. Well, when Caulk was through for the night about 50 estrogen-crazed chicks screaming for friction followed the band back to their racks at the Bowery Woolworth's.

The other members of Caulk were able to hide inside one of those lawn-weasel displays, but Gig was pinned to his rack by three of these chicks, and the rest just lined up to take turns having their vicious, female way with him. The next morning they found him stretched out in a bin of flip-flops, and he had nothing left to ... contribute, if you know what I mean. (I think he manages summer tours now. There are some pictures of him standing behind the B-52's and looking real tired still.)

Nefertiti Snorkjutt is Demond's worst nightmare--a proto-crypto-feminist. Snorkjutt is very concerned about weak women being dragged into the cluches of the brutal male and belongs to (if she didn't create--I came in late) Misogyny Watch whose purpose is to rescue such unlucky women.

A few weeks ago we started getting reports on a fellow I, well, only feel justified in calling Bruce, even though his real name is rather more exotic. Here were the reports we got:

* March 4 - Asked on a date by a strong woman, refuses, asserting: "I need a chick with tattoos."
* March 12 - Approaches colleague on a Friday night, asks her if she's busy that weekend. On ascertaining her availability, asks: "Can I try out my Cialis refill on ya?"
* March 19 - A week later, arrives at a young woman's house for what was supposed to be a night of shimmering romance, and asks: "So, ya really wanna do the dinner thing, or ya just wanna start slammin'?"

That, well, was all we needed to know to pay Bruce a call. It was my turn, so I made the visit. When he opened his apartment door he was wearing a day's worth of stubble, a t-shirt that looked like it came right out of the plastic pack, and a pair of tight jeans with a silhouette in the crotch that looked more like Florida than Cape Cod.

Prof Snorjutt has an...eye for the one thing that interests her.

The LumpenBlog is by turns snide, even vicious, sneaky and rude but it's almost always amusing, though as with most soap operas, you have to stay with the characters for a while before you get hooked on both them and the SO-like twists and turns in the plot(s). Next to Fafblog! or Mermaid, LumpenBlog may seem a little old-fashioned; it is anything but. What it is is an entirely new type of fiction morphed out of all recognition from the serial-fiction of a hundred+ years ago (think Dickens and Thackeray) and slammed up against contemporary culture--reality shows, soap operas, film, politics, sketch comedy, even radio--to destroy its shape even further. It's a (very loooong) novel, of sorts, in blog-form that has connections to the tale-singers of Greece and the minstrel-bards of the Rennaissance who used to tell different episodes--'further adventures of'--about characters loved by their audiences on each return visit to a town.