Alleys
“Consider the nature of a city. It is a vast repository of time, the discarded times of all the men and women who have lived, worked, dreamed and died in the streets which grow like a willfully organic thing, unfurl like petals of a mired rose and yet lack evanescence so entirely that they preserve the past in haphazard layers, so this alley is old while the avenue that runs beside it is newly built but nevertheless has been built over the deep-down, dead-in-the-ground relics of the older, perhaps the original, huddle of alleys which germinated the entire quarter.”
– Angela Carter, The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
Yesterday I Might Have Made a Joke and Other Stuff
Yesterday I was at the beach. A lovely place, it overlooks a giant steam-spewing steel mill. They light it up with neon at night. When the flames shoot out it looks just like Bladerunner. Someone I had never met before was telling a story about someone I didn’t know.
Guy: He’s like Daniel Craig if Daniel Craig was a pale fat Canadian…
Me: So like if Daniel Craig looked more like John Candy?
Guy: Yeah.
At some point later I ended up filling out Driver Safety Evaluation forms for Hyundai. (The person was supposed to have done them during a business trip but didn’t, though judging from the questions I can imagine truck drivers didn’t want to bother.) I’ve never had a driver’s license in my life and have been behind the wheel of a car on less than five occasions. The best part was making up the names to put on the forms. After that I made sure my handwriting was as illegible as possible.
Don’t blame me if/when your car bursts into flames.
Shimmer Magazine posted question two in their Five Authors/Five Questions series:
“How do you go about choosing a title for the story? Do titles present themselves before the work begins, or when it’s complete?”
Five Authors / Five Questions
Shimmer Magazine included me in their “Five Authors / Five Questions” series. Question number one was “How do you begin a story? Does it start with the idea, a character, an image, a line of dialogue, or are all stories different?” Click here to read my answer.
Thanks to E. Tobler and the rest of the Shimmer crew for including me.
My New Rule
I’m posting this here for my own benefit. You are free to take, leave, or modify this rule as you see fit, but this is how I want to live.
The proper response to a book or short story* is not a blog post about the injustice of the book or story’s existence or why it is just so WRONG WRONG WRONG, but to write another book or story addressing the very issues bothering you.
If it’s a story that makes you angry then write a story fueled by that anger. If you think the author glossed over important details, then by all means create something that widens the scope or changes the perspective. If the story reduces the argument to simplistic terms, then write a story that forces the work back to address a wider spectrum.
Don’t write an angry blog post. Don’t leave a comment. Don’t rattle a saber because you like the way it sounds. Don’t put a chip on your shoulder just to have one there.
Yes. It may be difficult to place that story. It may run counter to prevailing tastes or whatever clique happens to be dictating what’s in fashion these days. Don’t let this stop you. Write the story anyway. Write it with that passion that your words need to be said. Write it like you would that blog post.
But write the story. Articulate your position in prose. And if you decide to post the story online, then make it your blog post.
The best reaction to a thing you disagree with is not a defensive reaction but to create another, better, thing. Explore the initial position, attack it, subvert it, twist it to your own ends, but make something new.
Let the emotion fuel better work, not add to the online noise.
* I’m keeping it limited to fiction because it takes a lot of time and money to make a movie/TV show, and if it’s a comment online that’s making you angry, well, take a deep breath, take a step back, maybe see if you need to clean out the hair-trap in your shower, walk the dog, do the dishes, go to a different webpage, because it’s an online comment and all you need to shoot one of those into the ether is a lizard brain and a twitchy finger hovering near the return key.
Make something new.
Make something better.
Learn English or It’s the Sharp End of the Stick For You
I wonder what their summer English camp is like, and if it at all resembles The Lord of the Flies.
Talk about stressful. Can you imagine having one of these things staring at you during class?
Edgar Pangborn’s “The Singing Stick”
I reread Edgar Pangborn’s “The Singing Stick” this morning. It’s a caveman detective story initially published in 1952 by Ellery Queen Magazine.
What I love is the way Pangborn plays it straight. He uses the tropes of a Chandler-esque Private Investigator story without resorting to too many of the cliches.
Now if only I could find a copy of his novel Davy.
Jan Morris in Ridlerville
An interesting piece on Jan Morris and her struggles with academia over at Ridlerville.
She took a lot of heat for becoming who she really was, despite being a war veteran, amazing historian and journalist, and wonderful writer. Rumours abounded that positions of influence in universities were denied Morris because of her journey from one gender to the other, that her life as a travel writer was in part a result of these challenges.
The Best Naengmyeon in Pohang
Rotary Naengmyeon
The characters on the glass doors read “Naengmyeon Jonmun” and that means “Naengmyeon Specialty”. I like restaurants that have only two things on their menu and both of them are wonderful.
The where? Rotary is located up the street from the CGV movie theater at the 6 Street Intersection (AKA yuk-gori, the “go” is pronounced like it would be in “got”) across the street from one entrance to the pedestrian shopping street. It’s a family-run restaurant that’s been in business for 50 years. The city hall used to be a few blocks up the street in what’s now the public library.
Wiki-quote for the uninitiated: “Naengmyeon is served in a large stainless bowl with a tangy iced broth, julienned cucumbers (Korean cucumbers are like the gourmet cukes. Remove seeds if using the ubiquitous waxy cukes), slices of Korean pear, and either a boiled egg or slices of cold boiled beef or both. Spicy Mustard sauce [or Mustard oil-use sparingly] and vinegar are often added before consumption. The long noodles would be eaten without cutting, as they symbolized longevity of life and good health, but modernly, servers at restaurants usually ask if the noodles should be cut prior to eating and use food scissors to cut the noodles.”
The why? Rotary makes their own noodles, the broth is incredible, and the beef slices are better (quality and quantity-wise) than I’ve had elsewhere.
The bibim naengmyeon’s not bad either.
Yesterweird 