tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32878484378087796502024-03-13T12:38:09.068-04:00Owl Reads<i>Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.</i>
—Sir Arthur HelpsOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-54920139284250365322015-01-21T21:03:00.000-05:002015-01-22T12:03:44.336-05:00Why Owl is Not a Writer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whenever Owl admits that she writes in her spare time,
people inevitably ask her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what </i>she
writes. This is Owl’s cue to scuttle away like a cockroach. In the event that
Owl is unable to scuttle, she shuffles her feet and mutters something about
personal essays and memoirs.<br />
<br />
Non-fiction, the listener will say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Owl will back away and explain sheepishly that she adds her
own twists, adds composite characters and reshuffles events, journalism no-nos.
Also she writes about herself. Journalists have one word for that:
narcissistic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<o:p></o:p>
Creative non-fiction, Owl will amend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Journalists inevitably get offended and tell Owl there’s no
such thing and she’s going to get sued. Owl panics because she really doesn’t
want to get sued, she just wants to write.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
So fiction, the listener will say.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br />
Owl will shake her head and then nod vigorously and then
gnaw on her fist and then completely panic and hide behind the nearest piece of
furniture. This is shorthand for Owl is a Giant Fraud, which is more or less
the truth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genius at work</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Owl is not a proper fiction writer. She’s known that ever
since she was very small because she’s never read anything similar to her work.
If you put Owl down in front of a computer she will write short pieces about
Chinese-Indian girls who have lives that are suspiciously similar to Owl’s. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl knows real novels are invented. You are not supposed to
write about your life. This means genre fiction is about dragons and elves, or
Regency England. Literary novels are usually about Sad White Men Having Lonely
Sex or Sad White Men Chasing Fish. [If you really must write about anywhere
outside of America and Europe it usually involves the 1800s/malaria/and savages
or heathens, sometimes both.] There are aberrations like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Americanah</i> but they are rare. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl can’t stand these two genres. Every two years she tries
to re-read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Old Man and the Sea </i>in
hopes that she will find something to love about Hemmingway because he’s a
Literary God.<br />
Inevitably she fails. (Owl doesn’t even try with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moby Dick </i>because she had to read it
twice in college and that’s enough for four lifetimes.) In the spirit education
Owl finally asked her friend Shep to explain Hemmingway. Shep is a manly man.
Shep would rather be constipated for six months then talk about his emotions. [Note:
Owl has not fact checked this. Sorry.] Owl demanded Shep explain <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Old Man in the Sea </i>to her.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s like life, he said and wanted to leave it at that. So
Hemmingway. So manly. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl requested clarification. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like a lot of times it feels like you are on a boat, Shep
said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trying to catch a fish. And
there’s no one there with you. But you’re still on the boat trying to catch the
fish. But why are you on this boat? Why are you trying to catch it? It doesn’t
matter, you still have to do it, and there is no one else with you.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
life is about sitting on a boat chasing some stupid-ass fish, Owl would pack
her boyfriend in her suitcase before boarding. If not her boyfriend, then a
cellphone, or at least glass bottles for sending off messages: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Help. Lonely. Someone talk to me. Are you
there God? It’s me Owl! </i>Owl does not believe in suffering in silence. Since
then Owl has taken to referring to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Old Man and the Sea </i>as Stupid Fish Book. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But she despairs even more. Owl’s incapable of producing
stories about emotional isolation because she loves gossiping about feelings.
She can’t write about Sad White Men Having Lonely Sex because she’s not one of
them and her imagination just doesn’t work that way. And while Owl has tried to
write about dragons and Regency England or both it reads like Owl is on a lot
of crack and not the good kind.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genius takes a moment to contemplate</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When she was in college, Owl signed up for fiction class to
fix this. Owl had a plan. She would pay strict attention to what the professor
said, work her hardest, and then presto, when she left she would be in the
know. She too would be able to write proper novels. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The professor struck Owl as a Real!Novelist. He was a jolly
man who wore a tweed sports coat and silver rimmed glasses. He had published a
book of short stories that Owl could not quite understand, which she made him
even more of a Real!Novelist. Good fiction, like good poetry, is inscrutable. Otherwise
how does Owl explain Hemmingway, Jonathan Frazen, Phillip Roth and all those
other Sad White Men books she’s supposed to adore but actually just wants to burn
in a woodshed? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During the first workshop the professor spent an hour
complimenting a student for being able to distill the difference between
Methodists and Southern Baptists. That kind of cultural literacy is what makes
real literature shine, he told the student. It’s rare to find that kind of
perspective in a student. Owl quaked in her chair and prayed he wouldn’t ask
her to say anything. Owl knows Methodists and Baptists are Christians and that’s
about it.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then he went off on a tangent about how people of different
cultures think of plot arcs differently. Like, Bollywood, he said. Owl sat up.
She could talk Bollywood.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Indians just have different needs for plot, the professor
explained. Bollywood plots are long and circuitous and not very logical. Owl
raised her hand and said in her experience Bollywood was viewed as
entertainment where you suspend disbelief and know the plot sucks but are okay
with it because it’s fun. Sort of like something called um, Hollywood.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The professor pointed out coldly that Owl’s experience was
just one of many. Owl didn’t want to argue because, well yes, that’s right.
Instead, Owl asked about the Ramayana, the Indian epic which you could sort of
compare to the Odyssey if you really want to go there. What did that plot say
about Indian tastes?<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The professor did not know what the Ramayana was but it was
very clear Owl needed to stop talking. Owl had a bad feeling she was in trouble
and she had no idea why. She hoped it wouldn’t impact her grade on her first
assignment.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She needn’t have worried. Her grade was crap anyway. Owl’s
first piece was about a Chinese-Indian girl whose Indian grandfather dies. The
girl administers Chinese funeral rites and feeds his spirit rice white which
pisses off her teetotaler Hindu grandfather so he comes back and haunts her. As
a cat. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genius is inspired</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Owl wanted to make the girl Chinese-Indonesian and Indian,
because she wasn’t quite sure about the funeral rites and it would be
culturally insensitive to screw up—she’d only see Chinese funeral rites
performed in Indonesia—but she figured Chinese-Indian was already a mouthful. Owl
was also proud of herself. Alright, Chinese-Indian girls don’t appear in
fiction, Owl has never met one in the pages of a book, but she worked in a
haunting which smacked of magical realism. She awarded herself a Marquez point.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The professor pulled Owl aside after class. “You’re
Chinese-Indian, huh?” he said. “That must be pretty hard. They are both
xenophobic races,” he said.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl wasn’t exactly sure what that meant since her family has
the whole Chinese-German, Chinese-Japanese, Indian-Thai thing going on, but she
was awed by the use of the word xenophobic. Ten dollar word! Proper writer
word!<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Listen,” the professor said. “You expect too much of your
audience. No one is going to be able to understand the differences between
Indian and Chinese culture. Pick one.”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The thing is Owl’s version of the world is a world where
your mother makes pork dumplings but doesn’t teach you to speak Chinese, and
your father prays at Hindu temples but never actually explains to you who the
different gods are. If she picked one group, there would be giant plot holes. Owl
understood that if she were to have any success as a novelist she better pick
one culture or study up on her Methodists and Baptists. Mostly she understood
that the things that had isolated her as a kid, being culturally different,
would doom her to failure as a writer. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl walked back home to her dorm in a daze bowled over by
this epiphany. She collapsed in front of the refrigerator and her roommates
found her there hours later.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What’s wrong?” they asked, but Owl had no words to explain
the awfulness of having your worst fears confirmed: the life that you know is
one that can never be translated to the written word and understood. She leaned
her head on her roommate’s shoulder and cried. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eventually more of Owl’s friends came along bringing snacks
and Owl ended the evening surrounded by a ring of friends and snacks sniveling
into a bag of cookies while sobbing about Methodists and Baptists and not being
a Real Writer. If she wasn’t wired for writing properly at least she had
friends and food. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Genius gets stuck</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Owl resolved to do better for the next assignment. Owl’s
Taiwanese friend told her a story about being dropped off at a monastery when
she was in elementary school and worrying that her mother would never come
back. Owl was struck by the image of a little girl standing at the top of a
tall mountain wondering if she would ever return home.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl wanted the image but had no idea how to get the girl up
the mountain. So she invented an entire backdrop where the girl accidentally tells
the village gossip her mother is having an affair. Enraged, the mother drives
the girl to top of a mountain and leaves her at a Buddhist monastery. She
speeds away in a cloud of dust, while the little girl looks on, too shocked to
run after the car. Owl was proud. She had picked one country and stuck to it:
Taiwan.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look, the professor said, when he handed it back. You missed
the real story here. Kids are weird. No one understands what’s going on in
their heads. The story is about the adultery. What made the woman cheat on her
husband? Focus on the action, Owl. Think like a story teller.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When in doubt Google</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Owl was not interested in adultery. She was interested in
the helplessness of children who are completely dependent on adults. This, she
understood, meant that she did not have proper story telling instincts. Owl
spent another afternoon sitting in front of the refrigerator sniveling and
wondering what she was going to do with her life because she is simply not
interested in writing about illicit affairs and real writers write about adultery.
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually, Owl is remiss. There is one story she did well on
in fiction class. For a character sketch assignment, Owl turned in a story
about a boy in suburban America who is doing terribly at high school because he
spends all of his time on debate team. He believes he can change the world but
is simultaneously failing three classes. When his mother is blasting him for
his report card, a strange man approaches the boy and pats his forehead. “You
have the sacred V painted on your forehead,” the man tells the boy. “You are a
visionary and you will change the world.” The boy lights up, thrilled. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl based the story on well—a real person, who really was
told by a strange man that he had a sacred V on his forehead, and really was
absolutely delighted by this.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The class shredded it. Owl’s characterization was
improbable. No self-respecting person listens to a crazy man talking about
visionaries and believes them. Owl’s professor, however, loved the story. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don’t you understand he’s just an insecure kid who wants validation
anyway he can get it?, he asked the class. Haven’t any of you ever felt that
way? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The class shrugged. The professor cleared his throat and
moved on.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After class the professor pulled Owl aside. I don’t
understand the class’s reaction, he said. You wrote about something very
relatable. Your characters are unique. You’ve got something; you’ve really got
something. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Shortly after Owl switched to poetry classes. After she
graduated, the urge to write still haunted her. She produced volumes of short
mostly autobiographical pieces that were not actually real writing. Get
serious, she told herself and wrote some really terrible genre fiction about
dissecting birds and climbing ladders that go nowhere. Okay, get more serious,
she told herself and tried to mold her writing to something that sounded like
Real Literature. Whenever she tried, she ran through the list of things her
professors told her: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no passive voice,
vary the sentence length, cut all adverbs, no seven year old girls, get
critical distance & don’t write about yourself, don’t make shit up, or make
all of it up, show don’t tell, omg you’re still doing it wrong. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Google has answers but they don't make sense</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Frequently Owl stopped writing.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>During these moments she turned to books for answers. This
includes J.M. Coetzee who won the 2003 Nobel Prize for literature and wrote
this gem:<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>Because they are creators, artists
possess the secret of love. The fire that burns in the artist is visible to <span class="fourgenhighlight">women</span>, by means of an instinctive faculty. <span class="fourgenhighlight">Women</span> themselves do not have the sacred fire (the
are exceptions: Sappho, Emily Bronte.) It is in quest of the fire they lack,
the fire of love, that <span class="fourgenhighlight">women</span> pursue artists
and give themselves to them. In their lovemaking artists and their mistresses
experience briefly, tantalizingly, the life of gods. Form such lovemaking the
artist returns to his work enriched and strengthened, the woman to her life
transfigured.</i><o:p></o:p><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He’s full of shit, Owl thought and threw the book across the
room. Then she picked it up. Coetzee won the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2003 </i>prize. As far as Owl knows, no one is calling him out on
flagrant sexism. V.S. Naipaul the 2001 winner has actually said <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/06/02/naipaul_slams_jane_austen_women_writers/">women
can’t write</a>. Owl is hardly Emily Bronte or Sappho. If she were male would
she be somewhat more successful? At least better at writing something like
Stupid Fish Book? <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the number of rejections mounted up, whenever Owl woke up
with insomnia she wondered if she was simply cut from the wrong cloth for
producing real writing. Real writing is spare, elegant, lonely and depressing. Thinking
about real writing depressed Owl. She figured when the gods were handing out
talent she’d bypassed the line for literary genius and headed straight for compulsive
dishwashing. Which, poor life choice. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New life calling please</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As Owl grew older she realized she was never going to wake
up and magically be a Real!Writer but she kept messing around with words
because she couldn’t help herself. Call it a dumb compulsion. She wrote pieces
like the essay she posted here l<a href="http://www.owlreads.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-oppression-of-owl-via-nude-band-aids.html">ast week</a>.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Still, Owl has bad moments. Last weekend she woke up and
wondered what she was doing with her life, why she insisted on writing when
ultimately all she could produce were blog posts and something on her hard
drive that resembles a regurgitated pancake. She wondered when she was going to
do something worthwhile with her life. This was the kind of day where getting out
of bed is a bad idea. She reached for her phone and checked her email instead.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She found this email—<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i>Dear Owl:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i>I just wanted to say, thank you so
much for sharing your stories…<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>Growing up as a Malaysian Chinese (technically one quarter
Thai as well, but my Identification Card says that's not important) in an
increasingly racially-charged society, race has had a ginormous influence in my
life. I hated the Chinese vernacular schools I attended, and used to lie to
taxi drivers in KL about my ethnicity, just to avoid judgment… One semester
into college here at [redacted American university]… the discourse (or
screaming) all over campus, especially in the wake of the Ferguson verdict last
Fall, has been intense, scary and overwhelming. I am confused, but more than
that, really sad that…conversations (or arguments) revolving around race are
often so angry, violent and alienating…<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>And I don't know what to think about it all ... except that
I couldn't agree more with the conclusion you wrote at the end of the piece. …So
I just wanted to say, thank you so much for articulating your thoughts and
feelings….In an unexpected way, your stories have shaped my perspective and
altered my life a little, and I am grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></i></span><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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Owl sat down in front of her refrigerator and in the time
honored tradition, cried. Then she switched on her computer and started
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Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-6128641288244594772015-01-12T20:09:00.000-05:002015-01-13T01:01:37.233-05:00The Oppression of Owl via Nude Band-Aids<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the spirit of the New Year, Owl sat down to write something deep and meaningful. Owl looked at the blank page and pulled out <i>Americanah</i> by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie instead. Days later Owl emerged bleary eyed, determined to write about the truth of her own racial experience in America. The whole truth, nothing but the truth, so raw you could see the blood and guts glisten in the sunlight.<br />
<br />
The problem was Owl wasn’t actually sure what the truth was. </div>
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<br />
When Owl was in high school, her English class was sent out to volunteer at inner-city charter schools where mostly Hmong and Hispanic students studied. Owl went to a ritzy private school where the students were mostly rich and mostly white. (Think about ten nonwhite students in Owl’s graduating class of 130). Volunteering was supposed to take Owl and her cohort out of their classrooms which featured solid oak floors and hip chairs with purple cushions and expose them to a Different Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Think about it, Owl’s English teacher said, after one session. These students are very different. Imagine those little Hmong and Hispanic children walking around Wayzata. They wouldn’t fit in. People would probably point and stare and say, what are those kids doing here. <br />
<br />
Wayzata was a well-to-do suburb where Owl went to elementary school. At the time Owl was the only non-white kid in her entire grade. (One of Owl’s grade school teachers explained to Owl’s class that they were very very lucky to have Someone Different like Owl in class. Owl was mildly flattered. She liked attention.) If Owl behaved, her mother would take Owl to the bakery for sweets. Owl had no recollection of people pointing and staring as she picked out her cakes. As far as Owl knew, she belonged. <br />
<br />
Owl loved her high school English teacher. Her English teacher put up with Owl derailing class discussions to ask meandering questions about life, and told her to come in after class if she wanted to keep talking. Owl had no idea how you tell an adult you really like, who also has wields the power of grades, that they just said something offensive. Owl wanted to scream brown kids do belong in Wayzata: I was one of them. <br />
<br />
Owl did the mature thing. She ranted to her friends. She used the r-word (racist) a lot. This was very undiplomatic of her. Owl’s school prided itself on diversity. Every month or so everyone would sit down and discuss it’s success at creating a diverse environment. In the spirit of diversity, the school paper even ran a story discussing inter-racial dating rates among students broken down by race. Owl doesn’t precisely recall, but she thinks the general conclusion was the minorities were bustin’ the hell out of interracial dating and the white kids needed to do a better job. Since there were about three Asian people in Owl’s grade, seven black people and one Hispanic person, Owl had some questions. <br />
<br />
But she digresses. The take home point of these discussions was racists were people who existed in the past, and racism is something that white people do to black people and maybe Hispanic people. Racism does not exist between other races and it certainly didn’t happen on school property. Especially not among teachers. This sort of didn’t jive with Owl’s experience of family reunions. </div>
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Owl’s family comes from all over the world, which means they love each other but maybe not each other’s countries. Like China and India? Some serious shit happened between those two countries. Owl’s father grew up thinking the Chinese would slaughter him in his bed. Sometimes Owl’s parents still have World War III and dinner devolves into an argument about whether India or China is better. Owl personally votes for dinosaurs.<br />
<br />
At first Owl’s friends were supportive of Owl’s epic rants about Wayzata and ignorant teachers. But after the second week of non-stop ranting that could not be staunched with brownies, they began to get tired. It wasn’t that big of a deal, they said. People made mistakes. Hadn’t Owl ever said anything she regretted? Since Owl does that every day, she couldn’t argue, but she was still angry, even more angry perhaps, because she was being told her anger wasn’t nice.<br />
<br />
Finally Owl wrote a long story featuring her English teacher’s bloody death, included a reincarnation so she could add another murder, and spent extra time describing the fountains of blood and considered it a closed chapter of her life. Nothing happened because everyone said nothing happened and so if Owl was the only one who remembered, did it truly matter?<br />
<br />
As Owl got older the narrative changed from everything-is-peachy, to you-poor-thing. When Owl walked into her college counseling appointment, her college counselor congratulated her. “You’ve got racial diversity and socio-economic diversity going for you,” he said. <br />
<br />
Owl did not understand. “Socio-economic diversity?” she asked.<br />
<br />
“You’re…you know…”<br />
<br />
Now, Owl was curious.<br />
<br />
“On financial aid? A scholarship student?”<br />
<br />
The last time Owl had checked she did not have a scholarship. She rather liked the idea of being a scholarship student though. Scholarship student meant smart. Owl was down. <br />
<br />
Then she realized her college counselor didn’t mean smart, he meant poor. Owl didn’t quite know what to say because finances are not polite conversation, so she just nodded along and then had a horrible panic attack when she realized he was expecting college essays about financial hardship.<br />
<br />
It didn’t stop there. In college Owl had to write a description of her parent’s bedroom (how’s that for a creepy homework assignment?). She wasn’t sure what to make of her professor’s reaction. Her professor marveled. “You just get the sense this room is so precious to these people and they’ve never had anything nice before.” After class she asked Owl all about her family and started talking about how it must have been hard on Owl to go to a private school where everyone lived in big fancy houses while Owl lived in a one bedroom apartment. <br />
<br />
Owl was fascinated by her professor’s level of detail. All Owl had to say was her parents were immigrants and poof—her professor knew the rest of the story: fresh off of the boat, made it past Ellis Island, living in a tenement, wasting away from tuberculosis. <br />
<br />
“You’ve got an interesting perspective,” the professor said warmly. <br />
<br />
Unfortunately this left Owl in a nasty dilemma all semester. Write about her actual house, which has four bedrooms and was a pain-in-the ass to vacuum or write about the one bedroom apartment? Which house was real anyway? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If you live in a more expensive house than people imagine, but no one believes it, do you really live in that house?<br />
<br />
It was all terribly confusing, but Owl knew this was part of the plight of being a minority. She knew this because a college friend had told her so. This particular friend had devoted a lot of time to studying minorities even though she was white, because she felt like minorities didn’t have enough of a voice in America.<br />
<br />
Owl was for anything that meant she got more of a voice. “Tell me all about being a minority in America,” she told her white friend.<br />
<br />
The friend explained. “There’s a whole narrative of subtle oppression. Like nude band-aids. Imagine how it feels to walk to buy nude band-aids that don’t actually match your skin tone. It’s terrible.”<br />
<br />
Owl’s mind was blown. She’d never thought about nude band-aids before. Perhaps because she favored Snoopy band-aids. Or because band-aids don’t match anyone’s skin tone. Owl felt vaguely guilty for not being a more sensitive minority. Band-aids! How could she have failed to pick up on their subtle oppression?<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fNtod_yP8XM/VLRyx1kx-nI/AAAAAAAADQM/PTaoswb4J5w/s1600/DSC_0085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fNtod_yP8XM/VLRyx1kx-nI/AAAAAAAADQM/PTaoswb4J5w/s1600/DSC_0085.JPG" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oblivious</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
“Also, if you’re a minority in America, it really messes with your confidence. Every time you walk into a room, you know you’re the only one of your kind and feel utterly alone.”<br />
<br />
When Owl walks into a room she’s usually busy trying to calculate what she has in common with everyone else because the list of things that make her different…well, it’s long. Owl would have no friends if she was conscious of it all the time. Instead she goes for commonalities even if it’s a stretch. You’re German? My aunt is German she makes the best cakes ever. You’re French? One of my grad school besties is half-French and I spend most of my time scheming for invites. <br />
<br />
Owl’s never thought, God, I’m the only Chinese-Indian here. Please bring in more of my kind. There have been moments when Owl’s conscious of being the only Chindian in the room, but Owl grew up in the Midwest. If she went into shock every time she was the only person of color in a room she’d be dead by now. [Owl is full of compassion for anyone who does feel that way and supports their right to feel that way, she's just saying it's not her experience as a minority.]<br />
<br />
Owl realized she had been doing the whole minority thing wrong, totally, totally wrong. Maybe she wasn’t a minority. Or maybe she was a minority within a minority—the person who is being oppressed by band-aids but was too dumb to get it. Shit man, shit.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl is still sitting here trying to write about living race in America. She understands that she was never discriminated against, but also terribly oppressed. <br />
<br />
Owl’s truth is bland. People at heart are good but not always aware. Lots of good people have done much for Owl. Lots of people have also said some really racist things. Sometimes these are the same people. Owl knows she’s slipped up. Mostly she wishes it was possible to sidestep the terrible weight of history in favor of honest conversation. She wants a world where you can go out for ice cream and talk about what’s offensive and what isn’t without blame and then forgive and move on. It’s a truth seems small and unworthy of writing compared to all the other narratives Owl had been told about her life.<br />
<br />
Owl feels oppressed.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-35867926916625525712015-01-01T23:09:00.001-05:002015-01-12T23:25:31.205-05:00The Law of Bouyancy <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Owl spent New Year’s Day of 2013 at a women’s shelter in Delhi. She was interning for a paper in India. Somehow she had been charged with putting together a video about how the women of Delhi celebrate New Year’s.<br />
<br />
Had Owl ever put together a video before? No. Could Owl speak Hindi and interview these women? No. Did Owl have any idea how she was going to complete the assignment and not get turned into butchered meat? Fuck no.<br />
<br />
Owl was depressed. While she was pretending to be a functional human, inside her head there was a mini Owl hiding behind a teddy bear bawling non-stop.<br />
<br />
Owl and her boyfriend Peter were in the midst of a rough patch. By which Owl means Peter was going through a family slash life crisis and needed space. Owl is totally great at all types of emotional support except for giving people space. Owl is like a creeping vine who loves getting up into everyone’s business and talking it over while munching biscuits. Owl can give people space for like three minutes before she’s back offering donuts and a long chat.<br />
<br />
Except Owl was in Delhi and Peter was in America so Owl couldn’t exactly pop around the corner with donuts. Peter wanted space, and thanks to the Atlantic Ocean and mad expensive plane tickets, Owl had to give him space.<br />
<br />
The only thing Owl could do was pine.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-87gyPUvKxZ4/VKYYhT0mf2I/AAAAAAAADPo/zuMsm7FeCUI/s1600/DSC_0082.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-87gyPUvKxZ4/VKYYhT0mf2I/AAAAAAAADPo/zuMsm7FeCUI/s1600/DSC_0082.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pining</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Owl loves pining in movies. There’s a montage with Josh Groban crooning about a broken heart in the background. The piner goes to the gym, stays up late working, gets slender and gets promoted. All through this, the piner is very private, does not break down in public, and emerges like a blade of indomitable steel. It’s heart-wrenching and empowering and Josh Groban is mad sexy. Owl was totally pumped.<br />
<br />
Owl was going to pine like the movies. She signed up for a gym membership and begged her boss for extra assignments. At night she wrote tortured essays while listening to Josh Groban and admired her emotional stoicism.<br />
<br />
Things started to go off script after a couple of days. Owl went to the gym. The gym instructor told her she could stand to lose a kilo. (Bitch! Owl was on a starvation pining diet and was a twig. A twig!) Owl tried to stay up late working except it was the holiday season so the entire office was out and there was no work to be had.<br />
<br />
After a week, Owl was totally done with the pining thing. Except, unlike the movies, where the pining is a snappy entertaining three minutes before the plot trots along, Peter was still crisising. Ergo Owl was still pining.<br />
<br />
Owl realized she was stuck pining for the foreseeable future, and the gym instructor had taken to calling Owl before dinner to inquire about Owl’s diet. (Bitch! Owl was not fat.) Owl began to panic. And so when she got to work on New Year’s day, and her boss told her to go film a women’s shelter, Owl asked no questions, dug up a cameraman and went.<br />
<br />
Delhi in the winter is cold and dusty. The sunlight is pale, the streets shrouded with dust, the air crisp. The buildings of Delhi are made to siphon off summer heat. The floors are stone and the windows don’t quite shut, so the cold hurts. It bites into your bones, it stings, it stays.<br />
<br />
The shelter was little more than a room ringed in iron bunk beds covered in thin mattresses. Each woman had a bed for herself and her children. In each bed the women stored their lives: clothes, spare utensils, talismans from the past.<br />
<br />
The cold crept in through the open doors, settling into the floors and walls. The shelter had no heat and Owl shivered in her jacket. The women themselves were bundled into sweaters and saris. At first they clustered around the camera, convinced their moment of fame had come and that they were going to be on TV. Websites meant nothing to them.<br />
<br />
Gradually they lost interest as Owl and the cameraman circled around getting footage. The cameraman translated Owl’s questions, and in a slow grinding conversation, Owl extracted the details of their lives.<br />
<br />
One woman had been thrown out of her house by her brother-in-law. She had nowhere else to go, so she was here at the shelter, glad she was indoors rather than outside. She had grand plans for the day, she was going to buy sweets to pass out to her friends, going to pass them out to her brother-in-law even.<br />
<br />
Another had epilepsy. There was no medicine, so the women sat around her in a circle, while she shuddered and shook. They sang and beat drums, their voices bouncing off of the walls, as if their voices would ward off all illness.<br />
<br />
There’s a woman here who speaks English, a shelter worker told Owl. A pale woman with a streak of white in her black hair, and heavy hooded eyes stepped forward. She was a refugee from Afghanistan, she said. Her husband had been part of the Taliban, so she had taken her son and fled. She pointed to a boy who was running with a group of children. When she called him over, he bounced up, happy, buoyant. <br />
<br />
He was beautiful, large almond eyes, clear pale skin, pointed chin, dimples even. In another life, he’d be the sort of boy whose face was plastered in advertisements, the boy grinning around a mouthful of ice cream: isn’t life just grand?<br />
<br />
“How do you like India?” Owl asked.<br />
<br />
“In India I go to school, I eat, no one is knocking on the door trying to kill us,” he said. “There is no Taliban.” He paused. “India is better than Afghanistan,” he said and lifted his hand to sketch out better—the bare airy room, the singing women, the pale sunlight that fell like spilled water on the floor.<br />
<br />
Better: no Taliban, food, a little bit of school.<br />
<br />
Owl went home. She gave up on pining cinematically and focused on better. Owl Skyped and emailed her friends when things got rough. Sometimes they told her stories, sometimes they sent her pictures. They had no magical panacea, but they were there, and the sound of their voices took the edge off of Owl’s depression.<br />
<br />
Owl still pined. In truth, it was a long time before things were better. Sometimes better was just getting out of bed and making it through the day without crying. Some days better was getting out of bed and crying in the grocery store. But, you know, whatever, moving target. And slowly, things got better.<br />
<br />
This year Owl spent New Year’s at home, reading poetry and deep-fat-frying snacks. Peter had to fly back to lab on New Year’s eve, but he and Owl spent the tail end of December baking things, cleaning things, and making really atrocious jokes. There was no gym instructor insisting Owl was fat, and there was no pining.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year. May whatever plagues you, sort itself out, and may everything good bubble up to the top of your life, in a delicious mad froth. Gravity dictates what goes up must come down, but buoyancy dictates, whatever goes down must come up. <br />
<br /></div>
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<br />
A long time ago, someone asked Owl what she wished she’d known when started college as a creative writing major. Owl behaved very irresponsibly. She made a crack about being an economics major instead. This is the advice she heard when she majored in creative writing.<br />
<br />
Owl has decided it's bad advice. First, it’s untrue, because Owl as an econ major would have been Owl weeping into her pillow clutching a teddy bear. Second, all it does is tell people their dreams are stupid. Owl is deeply sorry and full of regrets. She’s spent weeks thinking, and this is actually what she’d tell a younger Owl.<br />
<br />
<b>Forget about grades.</b> Good writing is not about grades. You will get B’s you don’t deserve and you’ll get A’s you don’t deserve. Pay attention to the feedback instead. Figure out what should be discarded, and what you should use to get better. Praise comes and goes; the work stays.<br />
<br />
<b> Say thank you. </b>A professor will scribble “senseless emotional drivel” at the top of your first assignment. (Welcome to college.) Your classmates will cross out all the poetic twists you slaved over. (Overwrought). Your friends will circle the parts where they fell asleep. (Every other paragraph). It will hurt. Sometimes they’ll be wrong. Mostly they’ll be right. They’ll show you what you can’t see. Say thank you, so they’ll keep showing you. It’s easy to tell someone they’re great. It’s harder to tell them to grow. People who like you tell you good job. People who love you tell you how to get better. Love them back. Thank them for caring and do better.<br />
<br />
<b> Ignore the haters.</b> Freshman year of college you will walk into the cafeteria and find a group of engineering and pre-med boys clustered around a table ranking the most useless college majors. Creative writing will be at the top. They will tell you, you are going nowhere. You will believe them because that’s what everyone says: you are going nowhere.<br />
<br />
Ignore them. Seven years later you’ll run into one of them. He’ll still be in the same town. He’ll tell you he burnt out, stopped going to class, and eventually gave up all together. He’ll tell you he had dreams, but he was too scared to act on them. It’s easy to tell someone they are useless. It’s so much harder to do something. Do the hard thing: do what you love.<br />
<br />
<b> Befriend the people you admire.</b> There are people who are so talented that you get nauseous: the girl in your poetry seminar who writes in two languages, the girl in your intro seminar whose stories make your heart bleed, the girl in your fiction class who can spin a plot like nobody’s business. Make friends with them. Today they’re your roommates, your friends, your competition. Tomorrow they’ll be your lifeline.<br />
<br />
You will leave college one day. You won’t have workshop, you won’t have your professors,you won’t have anyone to edit your work. You will have your girls. The first will ask you the tough questions and sort out your crazed commas. When you are homesick halfway across the world she will write you emails telling you it’s okay to be panicked. You will travel to Myanmar together. The second will read through your drafts and mark them up for weak writing. She’ll take you out to brunch when you get burned out at grad school and remind you that writing and pancakes make life worth living. The third will stop you from publishing a god-awful essay just so you can get another byline. Somehow she'll even do it tactfully. She’ll host you at the drop of a hat whenever you come into town to say hello, and at her house you will always sleep well. <br />
<br />
Good people, people who tell you the truth, people who spill over with talent are hard to find. If you are lucky enough to meet one, keep them close. <br />
<br />
<b>Trust yourself.</b> Everyone will tell you writers don’t get paid. Because of this, you will apply for a line of sensible business jobs. You will believe that only the best and the brightest get paid to write, and that you are not, and never will be, good enough. There is no such thing as being good enough. No one is good enough and everyone is good enough. Think T.S. Elliot and think Twilight. The first step for getting what you want is being brave enough to try. You want. Now go. Go write.</div>
Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-3103506443762694872014-12-10T20:30:00.000-05:002015-01-12T23:42:59.319-05:00Owl Explains Christmas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last night Owl’s boyfriend, Peter, invited her to spend
Christmas with his family.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl’s family doesn’t really do Christmas. Owl’s father is a
Hindu who eats steak and her mother is a Buddhist who prays in Hindu temples. Excuse
Owl the explanation. She’s giving it because mostly people dash up to her and
go Merry Chr—er, Happy Holidays, er, what do you celebrate? And then, before
she can reply, they say brightly, oh! You’re Indian! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl will explain she’s not Indian, she’s half Chinese and
half Indian, and that’s the last chance she gets to speak. People will look at
her blankly and ask her if she is planning a huge Bollywood wedding like the
ones on TV. Then they will tell her all about the Asian Way, which involves
being vegetarian and spiritual and having strict parents who make you do lots
of maths. We get it, they tell her knowingly. We know all about you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After such conversations Owl usually has to have a nice
quiet lie-down. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway. Owl was terribly excited about Christmas at Peter’s.
As a child she would feel twinges of jealousy while other families celebrated
Christmas. The twinkling trees in windows! The gingerbread scent in bakeries!
Frank Sinatra singing (or well someone, Owl doesn’t know her singers so good)
about holy nights and silent nights! Owl felt left out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Erm, what does
Christmas at yours entail?” Owl asked Peter. The asking was mostly Owl being
polite and culturally sensitive. Peter’s family came over to America on the
Mayflower. Owl knows how their Christmas will go down. No questions needed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While Owl hasn’t precisely Christmased, she considers
herself something of an expert. Owl’s read an inordinate amount of Victorian’s
children’s literature and watched movies. She can say with full confidence
Christmas is about chestnuts roasting on an open fire, chasing someone around
the couch while singing seductively about the cold, and eating pink hams.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the same way of people who major in Asian Studies and can
make grand sweeping statements about Asia after reading a few books and
visiting once or twice, Owl feels totally equipped to comment on Christmas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter went off on a long dreamy description of toddling
downstairs in pajamas, opening stockings, putting on wool socks, brining
turkey, (here Owl doubted the authenticity of Peter’s Christmas experience, brining
turkey was not in any of her books, it was always ham) and…presents.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Presents,” Owl echoed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Yeah, you should probably bring a present for everyone,”
Peter said. “Don’t sweat it.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I will buy everyone chocolate,” Owl declared. Everyone
loves chocolate. Christmas is about love. Therefore, QED, Christmas is about
chocolate. The three wise men may have been handing over myrrh, but Owl knows
that’s code for chocolate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter explained chocolate were not quite the done thing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You want to get something personal,” he said.
“It’s about the thought.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl was miffed. Chocolate is all about thought. Chocolate
screams thought. Peter was just wrong.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I’ll get fancy chocolate,” Owl said. “Chocolate wrapped up
in golden bows.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peter informed Owl there would be no buying of chocolate,
which Owl thought was silly. Clearly Peter needs to be better educated in the
ways of Christmas. Then he added, “We also label our gifts with puns and
compete to see who has the best.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nowhere in any of the Christmas books Owl read does it state
that you have to come up with clever puns to impress your boyfriend’s family
with your wit and linguistic cunning. Owl was outraged.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a long pause as Peter tried to figure out how to
explain the difference between what is Christmas culture, what gets changed and
adapted for family culture and the precise nuance of gift Owl would have to get
to fit in. He ended up saying something like: Mwfrraglgeooole.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl is staring at the black abyss of Amazon. So far she’s
looked at massage gift certificates, water coolers, inspirational jewelry, hand
carved cedar boxes, and custom designed phone cases. She’s thinking about who
everyone is in Peter’s family and how they think about the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s frighteningly strenuous. Having now experienced her
first taste of Christmas (almost), Owl now understands why people get nutty
during the holidays. Thinking about what people really want means being compassionate
(blargh), open minded (ewww), and listening to other points of view (Jesus,
really?). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, Owl is fully confident she can do this. Having
faced many stupid-assed cultural assumptions in her own life, she’s knows she would never make the same mistake. This
confidence does not strike her as dangerous. She knows in her heart of hearts
real Christmas is about ham and chocolate no matter what Peter says. Owl is a
Christmas expert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s got this.</div>
</div>
Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-38562121848526045172014-11-24T20:21:00.001-05:002014-12-19T19:39:03.743-05:00Owl Attends the National Book Awards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">In general
Owl is not fond of ritzy parties. They make her break out into a nervous sweat.
She’s usually kitted out in a dress that makes her look pot-bellied, from
another century, like a depraved poodle or all of the above. Usually she
ends up hiding somewhere within easy reach of the desert buffet or lurking near
the coat check. She’s never really understood why people like parties.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">That is,
until <a href="http://www.owlreads.blogspot.com/2014/11/disliking-gravy-friendship.html">Shep invited her to the National Book Awards</a>. Owl asked Shep if a onesie
covered in poetry counted as black tie. He informed her it did not and he was
wearing a tux. Deflated, Owl took herself dress shopping with a seriousness she
usually devotes to procuring desert. This involved poking her head out of the
changing room and begging a Russian woman who was also trying on dresses to
make the final decision.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Woman: You
are going to a wedding? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl: An
award ceremony.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Woman: Huh?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl: The
National Book Awards! The National Book Awards! The---</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The woman
told Owl to get a navy dress before Owl could burst into song. Owl paid up and
wrote the cost off as the price of worshiping at the altar of books. If you’re
going to meet your heroes, the last thing you want to worry about is looking
like a poodle. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The National
Book Awards were held at Hotel Cipriani, which has the kind of
high-ceiling-marble-hallway grandeur found in banks from the Gilded Age. Shep
commented his high school prom had been held here. Owl told Shep he was bougey
and then stopped talking. The high ceilings had soft blue lights glowing from
them, the dinner tables were all covered in books, and off to the side of the
room was a red carpet. Owl was awed into silence.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“I just saw
Neil Gaiman,” someone commented. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl’s heart
stopped. She read all of Gaiman’s books growing up and then reread them and
reread them until her parents demanded she read something else. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“Do you want
his autograph?” Shep asked.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl managed
to nod and squeak.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Shep pushed
her in Neil Gaiman’s general direction. Owl tiptoed up to Gaiman, tapped him on
the shoulder (that’s right, Owl touched Neil Gaiman and is never washing again)
and vomited out a flood of words about being-such-a-fan-loved-your-books. She
added that one of her friends lives in his neighborhood, but ya know, neglected
to say which friend or mention the neighborhood. In addition to being a killer
writer, and super attractive, Neil Gaiman is also very very nice about talking
to incoherent fans. He whipped out a fountain pen and signed Owl’s program, and
said he was absolutely charmed. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Owl
was reduced to a speechless pile of mush with huge pulsing gooey hearts in her
eyes. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Shep wanted
to know who Gaiman was. Heathen. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">When Owl
recovered, she and Shep made their way over to the tables and were seated. Owl
must have looked dimwitted with delight because the waiter kept stopping by to
ask if she was alright, and if he could replace her food with salmon or
something vegetarian. Owl thanked him profusely and managed not to sob with
happiness on his sleeve. She restrained herself from staking a claim on the
books in the center of the table, but later set one—and only one—aside for a
keepsake. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Lemony
Snicket—Lemony Snicket!!—got up to MC. Owl spent hours reading his books,
puzzling out his numerous mysteries, and wondering who the man behind the name
was. Snicket in real life, it turns out, is hilarious. He speaks in a deep ponderous
voice—and says things that are slightly uncomfortable, and then while you’re
wondering what he’s going to do with all the tension in the room, he tosses in
a joke, and everyone dissolves into laughter.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Lemony
Snicket: When I decided to MC the National Book Awards, people said I was only
doing it to promote my new novel. But I ask, how could I promote my new novel, <i>We
are Pirates</i>, when I’m about to introduce the presenter of the prize for
non-fiction?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Neil Gaiman
got up and talked about what Ursula Le Guin meant to him. (One of Owl’s
favorite writers talking about one of Owl’s favorite writers. Owl had to fan
herself.) Ursula Le Guin gave a killer speech on how important it is to
remember writing is an art form, not a commodity. And Owl who used to write for
the pure love of it, but spends far too much time obsessing over traffic and
clicks, wanted to stand up and cheer.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Louise Gluck
got up on stage in a killer vah-vah-vah-voom dress that was all black, with
sheer gauze, and said brokenly, “I’m not going to cry because that’s such a
waste of time,” and then so clearly was crying. “Losing is hard,” she said,
“but winning is harder, because there is no script.” Owl wanted to pat her on
the back, because it must be hard—to work and work, to lose (Gluck has been a
finalist before), and then to suddenly, when you are least expecting it, to
win. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl sort of
blanked on non-fiction, but cheered for Evan Osnos and let Shep explain Osnos's
writing and career at the <i>New Yorker</i>. “Non-fiction is the only important
category,” Shep said.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Phil Klay
accepted the award for fiction for his book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redeployment </i>which
was based on his experiences in Iraq. Klay smiled, cracked jokes, and then
looked straight into the heart of the audience, speaking slowly, as if the
words were lost and a long time coming. “I came back not knowing what to
think,” he said. “What do you do when you’re trying to explain in words, to the
father of a fallen Marine, exactly what that Marine meant to you?” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The room
went silent, as Klay asked impossible questions. What do you tell middle
schoolers who want to know if you have killed anyone and are disappointed when
you haven’t? What do you say when the unspeakable has happened to you and the
people you care about? What do you say when it’s still happening? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Klay didn't
have an answer. Klay's answer was to write.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The book
awards were over. Owl got up and went to the bathroom. This, it turns out, was
a tactical error. By the time she came back all of the books decorating the tables
were gone, including the one she had set aside. Owl swallowed her
disappointment and dragged Shep out to the red carpet where the winners were
getting their photographs taken.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">They spotted
Klay holding his award, talking to his wife. Neither Owl nor Shep had read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Redeployment, </i>but
Owl wanted badly to speak to Klay, to let him know his words meant something
and that she was going to read his book as soon as she could.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl and Shep
gathered their courage and congratulated Klay. Klay was lovely. He asked Owl
and Shep if they wanted to hold his award—they did—and laughed when then
staggered under its weight.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Thank you,
Owl told him. Thank you for writing. Thank you for writing about things we need
to hear about. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“Good luck
with your own writing,” Klay told them. When Owl ran into him later, he had a
smile and a nod for her.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Then they
spotted Evan Osnos, the non-fiction winner, and it was Shep’s turn to wibble
and Owl’s turn to push Shep to ask for an autograph.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Osnos told
Shep and Owl to write about far-away places. “The world wants to hear about
places they haven’t been to,” he said, and Owl and Shep took heart. Shep writes
about China, and Owl about India and Indonesia. Both of them have been told
that American audiences don’t care.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And finally,
Owl spotted Jacqueline Woodson, the young adult winner. “Thank you for writing
young adult books,” Owl told her.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">“You don’t
have a book,” Woodson said. “Nevermind, take mine.” She handed over her copy of
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brown Girl
Dreaming </i>and signed it. Owl’s night was complete.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl looked
hard for other writers, but the trouble with writers is that their words are
famous, not their photographs. She couldn’t recognize anyone even though she
knew Michael Cunningham, Art Spiegelman, and Marilynne Robinson were in the
crowd. Even though she’d spent hours in English class staring at Michael
Cunningham’s photograph on the back of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hours, </i>she
was afraid to make inquiries on the off chance that someone who looked like
Cunningham was actually just a doppelganger. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl
retreated to the edge of the dance floor. On the dance floor men and women
dressed in their black tie best spun around and around in dizzying circles with
books tucked under their arms. This was a gathering of people who worship the
written word, and everyone was decked out in their best for the sheer love of
books. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">And Owl was
incandescently, indescribably happy. True, she had not read---honestly, any of
the books on the short list or the long list. But she was delighted to have a
chance to congratulate the winners. To dress up and attend a fancy party thrown
in honor of books.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Owl was, in
many ways, a strange misfit of a child. She was asthmatic and she was lonely,
so she spent much of her time reading. Books saved her when she was too sick to
go outside, they saved her during family reunions in foreign countries, and
during awkward social events. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">When Owl
read, it didn’t matter where she was, the world and all of its troubles fell
away. All that mattered was Owl read, and having read, knew something more of
the world. For that, she wanted to thank everyone who sets pen to paper and
goes about the horribly difficult task of writing in a world that pays most
writers in pennies and skepticism. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Thank you,
and thank you, she wanted to tell everyone. Thank you for being here, thank you
for letting me be here. And in that moment of gratitude, Owl understood why
people throw ritzy parties. Sometimes there’s no better way to say thank you
than to throw a huge fancy party to show people that they are important, worthy
of pomp, ceremony and splendor.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
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Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-62899552805149046982014-11-16T22:38:00.000-05:002014-12-13T01:39:50.734-05:00Disliking Gravy: A Friendship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<![endif]--><i>"Madam, I've been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship."</i><br />
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<i>-Sydney Smith</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This is the story of a friendship.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl spent last year at journalism
school. She was absolute pants at it. Columbia has some mysterious definition
of an ideal journalism school student. Owl never managed to figure out what
exactly it was, except that she wasn’t it. She read too much fiction; she’s all
about emotional truths; and talking to strangers upsets her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She was also pants at making friends
with her fellow classmates. They were well-informed, well-dressed, and well-spoken.
In contrast Owl was two-steps behind on the gossip mill, never combed her hair,
and was, you know, awkward. Owl felt like a beached whale attempting to frolic
with seagulls. Often she wondered what she was doing at journalism school. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the spring Owl scored a place in
book writing class. Book writing class, Owl had heard, was THE class. You apply
by proposing a book topic (memoir not allowed) and if you get in, you spend a
semester pegging away at a book proposal. The professor puts the living fear of
God into his students. Book writing class is like going through the forges of
hell. You get burned, you come out stronger, and afterwards nothing can destroy
you. The gift you leave with is the conviction that you will write a book, so
help you God. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl stumbled across Shep in the
dining hall of her dorm after the first bone shaking class. Owl recognized him
from class: he’d seemed unusually serene while Owl wanted to be sick all over
the table. But, they were both half-Chinese and both living in the same dorm.
Owl figured this was enough grounds for a friendship and plunked herself down
next to Shep. Then she started wailing. Her book was a memoir masquerading as a
social history of Asian immigration and she had a nasty feeling she was going
to get booted out of class if she admitted she wanted to nix the Asian
immigration part and just write a memoir.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By contrast Shep had everything
under control. His book proposal was about an imprisoned Chinese Democracy
activist. He’d stumbled upon the family at a rally during his first semester of
school. He’d already gotten the story on a radio show and had interviewed most
of the immediate family. Shep was wearing a button down shirt, had his hair slicked
back, and had accessorized with a newspaper or four. (Owl would soon learn this
was a typical Shep uniform.) Shep was doing the two year journalism school
track instead of the one year so he could pick up a side degree in computer
science. In other words, Shep was everything Owl should have been. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shep had very little sympathy with
memoir writing and Owl's wailing. He wanted to know why Owl couldn’t suck it up and write a
history of Asian immigration. Owl managed not to thump him. She’s noble like that.
(Very noble. Shep requested the nickname Shep because he thinks his spirit
animal is a majestic German Shepard. Owl is privately of the opinion a grumpy
beagle would be more accurate.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Somehow they agreed to edit each
other’s essays before class on Monday. When she handed Shep her essay, Owl
wanted to disappear. She’d written a piece about her father. It was a small,
quiet essay that skated horribly close to being memoir instead of some glorious
reporting odyssey. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When Shep finished reading, he put it down and choked. “I can’t believe I got into the class when you can write like that,” he
said. Owl sat a little straighter. She was still terrified of class, but she
walked in the next day, comforted in the knowledge that someone thought she had value. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Editing became a Sunday night
tradition. Shep would lecture Owl on being a better journalist and clean up her
erratic punctuation. Owl would rip apart Shep’s structure and attempt to
psychoanalyze him which met with varying results. They never stabbed each other
with pens which is a victory. A lot of times editing turned into meandering
conversations featuring serious gossip, the strange loneliness of growing up a
little bit different, and country music. (Shep spent time in Kentucky which warped his musical taste.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And somehow this became a
friendship. Most of Owl’s friendships are built on the easy outpouring of
emotions. Listen, share, validate, rinse, repeat. Not this one. If it’s after
2:00am Shep will occasionally share about his emotions. He shuts up rapidly if
Owl is too validating and gets cranky when Owl tries to couch criticism in
compliments. “Stop sugar coating everything,” he told her. He means it. Shep has
told Owl off for being un-American, reading fiction instead of the news, and
having no journalistic instincts. They squabble. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But they have each other’s backs in
a way that Owl’s never quite seen before. Every Sunday night before book
writing class Owl edited and re-edited Shep’s drafts on-call. The night before
the Columbia career fair, when Owl was hyperventilating about being useless and
unemployable, Shep sat down and tutored Owl on spinning her resume. Then he
handed her a stack of his old newspapers and subscribed her to his weekly media
round up. Owl walked out of the career fair with two internship offers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Later, when Owl got stuck on a story
during her internship, Shep was there with angle suggestions and sources. And
still later, Shep passed on freelance opportunities and job tips. When Shep
gives Owl a compliment she believes it. Shep doesn’t deal in fluff.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And then Owl got hired and moved to
San Francisco. And she wondered what happens to the strange alchemy of friendship
when you up and away. Can you still be friends when the structure the
friendship rests on fades away? Owl has friendships that are based entirely on conversation,
she’s capable of spending six hours on the phone with her friends, and once
pulled an eight hour conversation with her boyfriend, but she and Shep are more
about sticking up for each other when life gets hairy than serious soul
spilling ad infinitum. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl moved. Owl messaged Shep about
having no friends. Shep arranged for her to hang out with a friend of his and
called to ask how it went. Owl gave Shep the down low on his lineup of
professors and told him he absolutely would get a job when he was having a bad
day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last week Owl was attending a tech
conference and peacefully scribbling down notes during her lunch break when she
got a text from Shep. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My life is so hard, it said.
Attached was an invite to the National Book Awards. Shep had been invited by
the president of the dorm, because that’s typical Shep. The text message exchange went
something like this:</span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl: …I’m sorry, excuse me, WHAT?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shep: I have class at the same
time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl: Ursula Le Guin. Louise Gluck.
Mark Strand. Marilynne Robinson. URSULA LE GUIN. FORGET CLASS. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shep: Who? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl: If you don’t go, I will gut you
and eat your entrails. I’ll go. I’ll pretend to be you.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shep: Okay, okay.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Owl: Can I come as your plus one?
I’ll carry your tux tails and everything. Seriously, I’d fly from San
Francisco.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shep: Okay, if it means that much to
you. Let me ask. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ten minutes later Owl’s invite was
confirmed. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Friendship: when you move across the
country but the essentials stay the same. </span>
</div>
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</div>
</div>
Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-26368359471278301002014-11-09T16:22:00.000-05:002014-12-10T13:37:42.519-05:00The Motorbike That Didn't<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Owl was offered a Fulbright to teach in Malaysia for a
year, she came up with a list of lofty personal goals and one very concrete
one. Learn to drive a motorbike. She lusted after a motorbike. As a child, when
Owl visited her cousins in India, they plopped her on the back of a motorbike
and drove her up and down dark green hills. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During orientation Fulbright officials explained the lay of
the land. Everyone would be sent off to their towns and there local teachers would
help them get settled and buy motorbikes, which were the cheapest way to get
around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the best of days Owl is an unsteady driver and has shit
coordination on a bike, but no matter. Owl was going to learn to drive a
motorbike. She pictured herself zooming across Malaysia on weekends, and
becoming a road warrior. She was going to be such a badass.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then Owl arrived at town and realized that it wasn’t going
to be all that easy to materialize dreams of badassery. Owl’s mentor winced
when Owl brought up a motorbike.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Motorbikes are dangerous,” Owl’s mentor said. “I understand
you need transportation…how about a car?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl could not precisely afford a car. Also she had her heart
set on a motorbike. She asked other teachers for help, each fobbed her off on
someone else. Most said they drove cars, others redirected Owl back to her
mentor. Everyone ended with a story about how dangerous the roads were. Finally,
Owl’s mentor pointed her to a teacher who had a scooter for loan. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every week Owl went over to the teacher and asked about the
scooter. Every week the teacher smiled at her and said something about waiting.
It was a delightfully sweet interaction, Owl clearing her throat because she
was nervous about being a pest, the teacher all apologetic froth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, Owl tried to picture herself on a motorbike and
got more and more nervous. She heard stories about students who ended up in
accidents. Owl herself tended to daydream when she was behind the steering
wheel of a car. What if Owl got into an accident? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And while Owl’s town wasn’t exactly walkable, Owl could make
do. There was a small strip of stores within walking distance. Owl could figure
out basic food and laundry. For anything else, well, it’s good to practice
living a simple life, right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On spring vacation to Laos, Owl convinced her friend Peter
to teach her to motorbike. [Peter’s motorbike story was comparatively simple.
He arrived at school. Teachers brought him shopping for a bike and gave him
some lessons.] </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl clambered onto the bike. Owl’s shit balance kicked in,
the bike wobbled, Owl revved up the bike, shot forward and nearly knocked over
a backpacker.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You almost killed me,” the woman screamed. “Stay off of
those.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I think we better end lessons,” Peter mumbled. It took
Owl’s girlfriends glaring at Peter and talking about strong independent women
to get the lessons started again. This time Peter sat on the back. Owl’s
girlfriends cheered and clapped as Owl wobbled around a street corner. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You aren’t bad,” Peter said. “With some practice you could
learn to drive this thing.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl went back to school and continued her campaign for a
bike. The teacher with the scooter was even more apologetic than usual. She was
busy, she said. Her mother had cancer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cancer! How could Owl be selfishly pestering someone about
motorbikes when there was cancer afoot? She decided to wait a few weeks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shortly afterwards, Peter swung by Owl’s town to take her to
a friend’s English camp. On the way they crashed into a pole and tumbled off,
splattering against the road. They were lucky: they were wearing helmets and
thick clothing. They walked away with no more than a few bruises. Still, Peter
still has the scars and it would be a full year before Owl was able to run or
walk without limping. Lesson learned: motorbikes are dangerous.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When Owl came back to school with a bloodied arm and knee, her
mentor looked her over.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I told you to stay away from motorbikes,” she said and
stalked off. She did not speak to Owl for the rest of the day. It was up to Owl
to figure out where the doctor’s office was, walk over, and get treatment. For
weeks Owl figured if she got into a second accident she’d rather get smashed up
and shipped home in a box than face her mentor and explain she’d been riding
motorbikes again. She promptly gave up her campaign for a motorbike.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In flat comparison, Peter
was given the day off and a teacher took him to the doctor’s office to be
patched up. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl grew during her year in Malaysia. She walked places. Every
weekend she wrote up a list of whatever she needed that couldn’t be procured on
foot. She befriended a taxi driver who took her to the bus station every week
so Owl could go out of town. They practiced speaking Malaysian together. Owl
had the bus time tables and routes memorized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl got by. During Ramadan when everything was closed during
daytime and Owl was too tired to walk to the restaurants and shops when they
opened at night, she lost some weight. C’est la vie. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
During her last night in Malaysia, Owl went to dinner with
the teachers at her school. Owl was fairly pleased with her year. She’d crossed
off her list of goals plus a few more, she was sad to say goodbye, but excited
to go home. The conversation swung towards next year’s Fulbrighter who would be
replacing Owl. All anybody knew was he was male.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Ah, we’ve got to see
about getting him a motorbike,” one of the teachers said. “He’ll need to get
around. I’ll have to take him to the shops.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl ate a disgusting amount of dinner to soothe her
feelings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To cap off the end of the year, there was a closing ceremony
where all the Fulbright grantees gathered to discuss how the year had went.
Transportation came up as a point of contention. A lot of the females in the
program said it had taken them a long time to get a motorbike, if they had
managed to get one at all. The boys mostly talked about how they’d been taken
to the shops immediately.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everyone was tired. Everyone was somewhat out of temper with
each other. It had been a long hard year full of routine failures, small
victories and homesickness. Emotions ran high.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A Fulbrighter got up. He was the pull yourself up by the
bootstraps type, and he’d bought a sick beast of a motorbike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I don’t get it,” he said. “Why couldn’t you
all just cut through the bullshit and walk into a store and buy a motorbike by
yourself?” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl was filled with a deep shame that somehow it had never
occurred to her to find the motorbike shop, walk in, spend roughly $500-$800 on
a vehicle she didn’t know how to drive in a foreign country and get it back to
her house without any help. Weak indeed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If Owl could do it over again she wishes someone had sat her
down and said: you deserve a motorbike but the cards are stacked against you. Fight.
Don’t let anyone tell you it’s too dangerous, and don’t let anyone shame you
for fighting. Fight like a motherfucker because this isn’t a fair game and
there’s no way you’re winning unless you put in everything you’ve got. Don’t
stop until you get what you want.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl lost that fight. She wonders how many other fights she’s
lost because the cards were stacked against her and she didn’t realize. </div>
</div>
Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-82717812754227712312013-10-11T12:29:00.001-04:002013-10-11T12:38:12.624-04:00Saving Time: Momo by Michael Ende<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]-->Owl is at journalism school.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J-school is hard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are days when Owl rolls out of bed at 8:00, appears at
class from 9:00 until noon conducts an interview during lunch hour, sits
through lecture until 6:00 pm, conducts another interview, types everything up
and submits before midnight. She eats breakfast on the elevator, lunch on the
train, and dinner at her desk. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually this is most days.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-70mDiWtxRiU/UlgmXJ9PUUI/AAAAAAAACKE/Q4HDUcYeOgs/s1600/DSCN3436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-70mDiWtxRiU/UlgmXJ9PUUI/AAAAAAAACKE/Q4HDUcYeOgs/s320/DSCN3436.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J-school is challenging</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The work is a delightful. It is a privilege to be out on the
street collecting stories, and writing them up, but the work rolls on and on. If
an assignment is finished, it could be done better, if it is done better, then
there are hundreds of extra gold stars to work on collecting for the resume,
because journalism, ah, me, my, it doesn’t have many jobs. But does it have a
job for Owl?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What if she works very very hard?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One of Owl’s college friends got engaged and it was a solid
week before Owl was able to call her in congratulations. Even then, Owl had to
cut the call short so she could attend lecture. Afterwards Owl wondered how she
could justify the hour spent on the phone call to her professor or her resume.
Improved communication skills? Networking? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl’s parents came to visit one weekend and were startled by
the transformation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s go eat things, her mother suggested.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl snapped that she didn’t have the time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would you like to do? her father asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Work, Owl muttered and went on a tirade about how everyone
wanted something from her and there weren’t enough hours in a day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then she burst into tears, and wondered why no one
understood why working was more important than eating things.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daily Owl struggles. She asks herself who she wants to be.
The person who calls her friends or the person who has a job? Can one ever
justify writing off work to call a friend? Can one ever justify writing off
friends to work? What is the proper balance? How do you attain it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes the struggle boils down to a different question,
one Owl has no answer for: who am I becoming?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, Owl behaved disgracefully.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She slept in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She did laundry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She ate lunch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And as she ate, she read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Momo</i>,
a children’s book by Michael Ende.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Momo</i>, Ende
winds the clock back to childhood, back to a world where the protagonist, Momo,
lives in a ruined amphitheater and spends her days listening to her friends
tell stories.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then the Men in Gray arrive. They carry suitcases and
puff cigars and convince everyone to save time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What, they ask, is the point of sitting around
doing nothing? Why waste time talking with your friends? Spend your time making
money, or don’t spend it at all. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Listen to their siren song:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The first question to consider, pursued the man in gray, “is how much
your friends really gain from the fact of your existence. Are you any practical
use to them? No. Do you help them to get on in the world, make more money, make
something of their lives? No again….You may not realize it Momo, but you harm
your friends by simply being here. …Is that what you call love?</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And like that, Momo’s world falls apart, replaced by a new
reality where people run around wearing suits, making money, talking far too
fast, and children play with expensive toys wondering if their parents have
stopped loving them because they no longer play with them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Michael Ende writes fantasy. Glorious fantasy where children
are heroes and heroes go on quests to save the world, and in the end all is
well in the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So Ende, because he can, trots in a magic tortoise with
answers written on her shell, and the tortoise's help Momo restores the world back to its proper order. She (spoilers, sorry) destroys the Men in Grey and all is well again. The world is restored to a place where time is an endless
fountain to be spent on the people you love best in the world. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Ende, very conveniently, doesn’t talk too much about what
Momo eats.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But Owl? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Owl set down the book, utterly charmed, determined to carve
out a new reality for herself, and found eight hours of homework, a stack of
internship and job application, and a pile of unanswered emails and phone calls
from her friends waiting for her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What do I do? she wailed to Ende (because talking to writers is this totally normal actvity Owl engages in).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Destroy the men in grey, he said. Destroy the system.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How? she asked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She's still waiting for an answer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or a magic tortoise. </div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>
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Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-43109670974583879222012-04-03T06:22:00.001-04:002012-04-04T10:21:10.101-04:00We Are All Naked Before Poetry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Owl wrote this last April for National Poetry Month. And then decided to put it on the back burner. And then revised it in October but had the irking feeling that poetry was not appropriate for the month of ghosts and candy so she decided to bin the entire thing. Only, well, it's National Poetry Month again and Owl has the strange yen to talk poetry.<br />
<br />
(And to post partial nudie pictures of herself. Poetry does that.)<br />
<hr /><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">It’s National Poetry month, the month where people pretend they care about poetry. They dust off the same fifty or sixty shopworn poems by the same thirty or forty poets. Then, come May they trot the poems back up to the attic where they belong. For heaven’s sake, the last time Owl went to a bookstore, she saw that the poetry shelf had been downsized to make room for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">paranormal romance. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is cranky. Poetry makes Owl cranky. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Every so often a well-intentioned soul will ask Owl if she writes poetry. Owl will inflate, insulted, and huff, <i>Absolutely not</i>. When pressed, Owl admits she may have written one or two poems but that is entirely not her fault, they were homework assignments. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When people tell her they are poets, she edges away because it might be catching. She both loves and loathes the person who can stand up and say in all seriousness, <i>I am a poet</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mario Vargas Llosa describes fiction as a reverse strip tease where the writer “<b><span style="font-weight: normal;">goes through the motions of getting dressed, hiding the nudity in which he began under heavy, multicolored articles of clothing conjured up out of his imagination.”</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Poetry is just a strip tease. It’s all about the truth, and like strip teases there are two options. Either the audience is completely enchanted and there is no need to say anything more, or the audience is…not enchanted. The less said here the better because everyone’s trying to self-oblivate. The intimacy of poetry makes it vulnerable to such failure. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-weight: normal;">Owl is not a risk taker. Owl prefers the safer middle ground of fiction, where you can write everything off as an untruth or harmless entertainment. But poetry? Poetry has to be about the truth, raw, naked, glistening. Owl does not have the guts for this.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is completely at odds with the fact that one of Owl’s all time favorite college professors is a poet. There was a time when Owl read his poem <a href="http://paulscotaugust.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/steve-scafidi-the-sublime/"><i>The Sublime</i></a> before breakfast to give her courage to plough through the day. When the daily rituals of her life seemed ridiculous, getting up, pretending to be a working adult, laughing at jokes she did not understand, she clung to the lines of his poetry. If there was no truth in her life, at least she could borrow truth, borrow it in the way that made her throat go dry, made her eyes wet and made her feel, still, that there was some point to carrying on with the brave day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But still, to admit to liking his poems, to share them with any stranger on the street, or to casually say to an acquaintance, oh yes, I've been reading poetry—Owl could not do it. It seemed to smack of some internal weakness on her part. Possibly a liver ailment. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“But what was it like growing up and loving poetry?” Owl asked her professor once, because he ran wild in the woods of West Virginia, and if Owl did not have the courage to owe up to needing poetry in a city full of yuppies and intellectuals, she could not imagine how he survived, a poet boy among woodsmen. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Oh, sometimes, well, people talked crap and you had to thump them,” he replied.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl was maybe too interested in the thumping—thump them how? with sticks? spoons?—because her professor patted her on the shoulder and told her to focus on loving language more, and finding herself, and Owl wanted to explain, no, that's precisely the problem.<br />
<br />
It is far easier to be violent, to veer off into the comfortable land of satire and half humor, than to peer at yourself in the mirror, to see how weekly your pulse throbs in your throat, how limply your smile curls across your face, and how behind it all, there is deep seated hunger for everything that is raw and living, blood, tears, twisted love—in short, everything that is poetry.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is Owl's pick for National Poetry Month. (Kind of maybe sort of stolen from Patrick at <a href="http://beyondeasy.blogspot.com/2011/04/npm-road-side-dog.html">Beyond Easy</a>.) </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><b><span style="font-family: "Courier New";">EMBARRASSING, Czeslaw Milosz</span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Poetry is an embarrassing affair; it is born too near the functions we call intimate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">Poetry cannot be separated from awareness of our own body. It soars above it, immaterial and at the same time captive, and is a reason for our uneasiness, for it pretends to belong to a separate zone, of spirit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New";">I was ashamed of my being a poet, as if, undressed, I would display in public my physical defects. I envied people who did not write poems and whom for that reason I ranged among the normal. And in this I was wrong: few of them deserve to be called that.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nGaueXJOkXk/T3rNVgVq5nI/AAAAAAAAAc8/jxcCEQ9KRfw/s1600/Picture+007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nGaueXJOkXk/T3rNVgVq5nI/AAAAAAAAAc8/jxcCEQ9KRfw/s320/Picture+007.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not gutsy enough to be fully naked</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-69030899875282683592012-01-25T00:55:00.001-05:002012-01-25T19:31:34.706-05:00The Shores of Malaysia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">For the New Year Owl washed up on the shores of Malaysia. More specifically, she arrived in a five star hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur to begin Orientation for her Fulbright grant to teach English. At first she did not know what to do with herself. She had sailed through the month of December in a delicious haze of sleep and books, and she was not prepared for the dazzle of Kuala Lumpur, the chatter of her fellow grantees.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Actually it is a wonderful thing to have the run of a five star hotel in the middle of downtown Kuala Lumpur with forty nine other like minded people. Kuala Lumpur is a city of glass buildings and towers squashed between extravagant shopping malls built of marble and light. Here, the days stretch into the nights, and the nights into day. Everyone is bright with laughter and fellowship. The party is all the more hectic because everyone knows the time is short. Orientation is three weeks long, then the party is over, everyone disperses to a remote town. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">People are easing into Malaysia, some sinking comfortably into its softness, others landing awkwardly and bruising. It is not easy. Malaysia is different, roughly 70% Malay, 20% Chinese, 10% Indian; three cultures folded into one, and so mixed that their edges blur and it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The breakfast buffet has Chinese porridge, Malaysian nasi lemak, Indian dosas and while most of Owl’s cohort marvels (or despairs) over the food, Owl is jaded. Owl has seen it before. This is exactly what Owl grew up eating, it is a combination Owl never expected to see outside of her house. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And this is where Owl struggles.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Malaysia is more home like than home. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is the product of an Indian father and a Chinese mother who was born and brought up in Indonesia. Owl grew up in the flatlands of the Midwest where non-Caucasian people were a rarity and anything like her combination was unheard of. Owl grew used to explaining her heritage constantly, almost hopelessly in an attempt to explain who she was and what she knew, because still, no matter what she said people would say, oh you are Asian! Oh you are Indian! And the combination of all three was always lost.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is too complicated, a professor told Owl once when she tried to write a story about her heritage. You must choose one culture to write about.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He did not understand, poor man, that he was saying, pick your mother or pick your father. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At some level Owl grew to accept that she would never fully be understood, and conversely that she would never fully understand a culture and for this reason alone she would always be somewhat of an observer. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Occasionally to fit in with her cohort—Owl has learned by now that it is on her to fit in, not for the world to fit around her—she feigns surprise over whatever it is that is being presented. Oh my. A dosa. Now what is that again? A paper crepe stuffed with potatoes and onions and, good lord what are those black balls? (Mustard seed.) How strange. But oddly delicious. A little bit of condescension is the hallmark of fitting in, Owl has discovered.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And sometimes Owl does this so she doesn’t come off as a complete asshole, because, because my God, Owl walks down the street and it’s an explosion of Bahasa. Owl with the proprietary ignorance that comes from growing up as a minor minority, considers Bahasa to be her private language, something to use in public. Woven into the Bahasa are bits of Chinese, lumps of Hindi, everything sprinkled over with English, and this is Owl’s language, this is the language she grew up hearing and never, never expected to hear anywhere outside the walls of her house. In her mother’s family it was always Bahasa-Chinese, in her father’s family, Hindi. Never, all three together. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl’s Bahasa, broken, inarticulate, bubbles out of her, Owl is stuffing her face with her mother’s food, her father’s food, her food, and Owl is spinning around and around looking at the streets, the stalls, trying take it all in, cram it into her soul, because this belonging, this strange strange familiarity is utterly foreign. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qpGtmhKvo-M/Tx-ZAfwR5xI/AAAAAAAAAaw/6TqPdWMDiEE/s1600/Malyasia+197.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qpGtmhKvo-M/Tx-ZAfwR5xI/AAAAAAAAAaw/6TqPdWMDiEE/s320/Malyasia+197.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
And in the midst of all of this, Owl discovered something else. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl has a passing knowledge with food and gestures of her heritage, enough to make polite conversation about eating and the weather, but beyond that her cultural and literal vocabulary is limited, anything more complicated than “I am fine, a little tired,” or eating bread with her hands, is utterly beyond her. Morals, values, ways of thinking? Owl is utterly American in her thoughts, and her philosophy. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s not easy to identify what it means to think like an American, it is one of those things you discover during a conversation with someone else in another culture. The conversation goes, it goes, and then it hits a wall and the two people are left staring at each other bewildered. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But why do you do things like that? It is wrong. It is unthinkable, </i>one will not say. And of course the only, also silent, reply is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What do you mean? You’re the crazy one, not me.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">People can gloss over food and handshakes, but try sex, gender roles, religion, race and politics and things start to go pear shaped. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So far, for Owl, American means a certain amount of confidence, a firm handshake, a fierce desire for equality and attention; a belief that she deserves to get whatever she wants, and that she’s going to get it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In Malaysia the handshakes are limp, and actually you aren’t supposed to shake hands with the opposite gender. Everything is divided alphabetically by gender. The boys are slathered with attention. They are served first, they get the best, and the most. There is a certain amount of racial profiling, people fall neatly into categories that define who they are, and the more Owl interacts with Malaysians the more she understands that this is just the tip of the iceberg.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
It is not that much of a task to change your handshake, but to live in a different belief system, to take a back seat to boys when you have never had to do that before, all of that is a shock. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl’s familiarity with Malaysia is surface, as surface as the earth’s crust. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl isn’t home. Not really. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Malaysians on the street go up to Owl, they see her brown skin, black hair, and if she keeps her mouth shut, and all of them, the Indian-Malaysians, Chinese-Malaysians, and Malay-Malaysians, and they speak to her in Bahasa, they say oh, you are one of us. There is nothing in Owl’s appearance to warn them otherwise.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl, Owl who has been told she looks like and Indian except there’s something terribly off about her, Owl who is never identified as Chinese, and Owl who always wants to fit in, who has never been claimed as the child of one country or another, Owl clenches her fists because a slow desperate scream is rising inside of her that grows louder each day:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am an American. An American.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BeziUCUEKnI/Tx-X--_jpyI/AAAAAAAAAao/pXMNmWMxuDI/s1600/IMG_5900.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BeziUCUEKnI/Tx-X--_jpyI/AAAAAAAAAao/pXMNmWMxuDI/s320/IMG_5900.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owl is oh-so American</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-57155233330071953982011-12-28T01:08:00.002-05:002011-12-29T00:01:04.884-05:00Memoria de mis labores tristes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">On the flight home from China Owl sat next to a man reading the newspaper in Spanish. Owl read over his shoulder for a few minutes (she has no shame) and then gave up because he was going way too fast. After the flight took off, the man popped open his laptop and pulled out a hefty dissertation in English. When his battery died, he whipped out a book in Italian. At this point Owl could no longer read over his shoulder and she fell asleep. When she woke up, he was reading poetry in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">French. </i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl nearly spontaneously combusted from jealousy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The flight attendant spent a lot of time smiling at the man and slipping him extra peanuts. Owl was convinced it was because he was a polyglot and not because he was tall and distinguished looking. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Jet-lagged out of her mind, hurtling through thin air wrapped in metal and clouds, Owl decided she too would become a polyglot. Because polyglots are made, not born, verdad?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So the thing is, Owl spent nine years in school studying Spanish. All of it is a blur except for her last year. This was the class roster:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">--girl who went to a Spanish immersion elementary school</div><div class="MsoNormal">--girl fluent in Italian</div><div class="MsoNormal">--girl fluent in French</div><div class="MsoNormal">--girl dating a Mexican student she met while teaching ESL classes</div><div class="MsoNormal">--linguistic genius #1 (aced all sorts of spelling bees)</div><div class="MsoNormal">--linguistic genius #2 (absorbed Spanish at her nanny's bosom and went on to become a beast at Chinese)</div><div class="MsoNormal">--resident school genius<br />
<br />
and...</div><div class="MsoNormal">--Owl<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl, um, kinda bribed her way into the class because she was flunking Economics and this was her only other option. It was the year of shame and stealth. By stealth, Owl means googling English translations of the assigned reading and praying to five gazillion deities before each exam.<br />
<br />
To this day Owl associates studying foreign languages with trauma and despair. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's dream of becoming a polyglot died a quick death the moment she got over her jet-lag.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But a few weeks later Owl picked up Rimbaud's poems at the library. Owl has been enchanted by Rimbaud ever since she read <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18864196">this review</a> in the Economist. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl prepared to be dazzled.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…Yeah no.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl can not believe that Rimbaud, the gorgeous golden boy known for his filthy filthy mouth filled his poems with rhymes like stream with dream and fair with air. Maybe these rhymes aren't a linguistic crime in French. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Or maybe Owl got a really shitty translation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's going with that. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But she’s not sure if that’s true. Maybe golden boys with filthy mouths really like puerile rhymes. Maybe that's irony! Or something. Owl has no idea because the frustration of being unable to parse out the translation from the writing is messing with her thinking process. In school, on the rare occasion that Owl understood a piece in Spanish, she compared it to various English translation. And the gap between the two was always disturbing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some translators focus on word-for-word translations, sacrificing elegance for accuracy. Others craft an elegant piece, and end up with well, an elegant piece, that's more like a second cousin than a twin of the original. Translators fight a good fight, but they always leave their mark.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is not going to learn French. Not unless she gets run over by a train, and gets reincarnated as a polyglot. Or a French speaker. Owl loves Japanese writers and Chinese folktales and Hindi verses, and there is no way she's going to pick up all three of the languages for her reading pleasure.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But Owl's already devoted nine (mostly fruitless) years of her life to Spanish. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Accordingly Owl went back to the library. She poked around the Spanish section of the library, got frightened off by hefty nonfiction tomes, nixed translations of famous English novels (somehow seems counterproductive) and finally found a slim volume by Gabriel Garc<span style="font-size: small;">í</span>a Márquez. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Márquez! How can you go wrong with Márquez? And short Márquez too, because slogging through the verbal diarrhea that’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love in the Time of Cholera </i>in English gave Owl feverish hallucinatory dreams.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl flipped through the summary and picked up something about an old journalist, something about Márquez's first novel in ten years and she was happy. Márquez reminiscing on his beginnings as a writer. Adorable. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Later that night Owl picked up her book and began reading. She started with the title. Because titles are good places to start:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Memoria de mis putas tristes</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Memory of my sad whores.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How the hell did Owl miss that? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First line:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“El año de mis noventa años quise regalarme una noche de amor loco con una adolescente virgen.”</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For a very happy moment, Owl thought "regalarme" meant to remember—an old man remembering his first night of 'amor loco' with an adolescent virgin. Then she checked. And found no, nope. "Regalarme" means "give myself." In other words:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"In the year of my ninetieth year, I wanted to give myself a night of crazy love with an adolescent virgin."</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl has been reading steadily, book in one hand, laptop open to google translate in her lap. So far she has learned many words for brothel and many ways to request the services of a prostitute and this is not what Owl was expecting, this is not what Owl had in mind, and…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl wonders: will any of this get extra peanuts the next time she flies?</div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-69779746873039812862011-12-14T22:49:00.002-05:002011-12-14T22:52:51.809-05:00Lost Horizon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The last of Owl's China entries. She's got another one written at the height of a bakery & Georgette Heyer addiction stashed away. Literally, think Owl doped up to the eyeballs on sugar and white flour, and flying high on regency romance with pistols. Um. Yeah. Owl's decided the internet doesn't need to read it. Anyway. Instead, Owl is offering up a slice of Tibet and Paradise--really, Paradise--with some OH, BUT, NO, thrown in for added zing.<br />
<br />
<hr /> <i>11/10/2011</i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">How do you feel about going to Shangri-La this weekend? Owl's Swiss-Tibetan friend asked her during a marathon study session. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl put down her Chinese textbooks. Owl pinched herself hard. Owl hyperventilated. But it's paradise. But it's mythical. But how do you travel to a mythical paradise—in the shadow of angel wings? And then her brain stopped working and she just went yes, oh yes, please, yes, yes, yes!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And her friend looked at her sort of funny, and explained slowly and patiently that there are these things called airplanes and Shangri-La is about twenty minutes away by plane.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl sank back into her chair and was useless for the entire evening because Shangri-La! Paradise on earth! Owl was going to paradise! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For the weekend</i>. Just. Like. That.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is what happens when you up and quit your job to study Chinese.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[Okay, another part of this reality is Owl has exactly $11.50 in her bank account after purchasing plane tickets because getting to paradise is expensive. But. Paradise! You don't need money in paradise!]</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then Owl realized she didn't actually know much about Shangri-La. She'd heard the term bandied about as a synonym for paradise, there's a super fancy hotel chain where they place fruit baskets and teapots in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tea cozies </i>in your room, and one of her high school friends fancied it as a nickname for Owl, only he shortened it to "Shangi." </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hell-bent on doing her research, Owl got a copy of James Hilton's 1933 bestseller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>prontisimo. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>is about four Westerners who survive a plane crash and find themselves in a fictional Tibetan valley of unsurpassed beauty where the citizens have unlimited wealth and live unbelievably long lives in perfect tranquility. Hilton named the valley Shangri-La. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>dominated the bestseller charts for years and spawned a legend, a city, and a five star hotel chain all dubbed Shangri-La. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>has two realities<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>The first is that it's a beautiful novel. Hilton's prose has a liquid grace, his descriptions are piercing. Read, and the snow capped mountains solidify in front of you, the green terraces and lotus ponds of Shangri-La unfold before your feet. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps, because Hilton was writing in the aftermath of WWI and in the looming shadow of WWII, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>is tinted with a wistfulness for quietude and time. Time enough to sit still, time enough to think, and these leaks off of the pages as soothing as a narcotic. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The second reality is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>is an Englishman's fantasy of the Orient. Hilton does a fairly good job with race relations considering that he was writing in 1933. There are no racial slurs, his protagonist is free from bigotry or so Hilton proclaims, but his novel has a Western-orientation. Although the valley is in Tibet, the majority of high ranking citizens in Shangri-La are Westerners and the citizens discuss Mozart and Chopin. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The single non-white female in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>is referred to as "The Little Manchu," although, she is far older than the men who love her. She does not speak. She is given no dialog. The reader has no insight into her thoughts. She is lovely and that is all the reader learns about her. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"She stood for him as a symbol of all that was delicate and fragile; her stylized courtesies and the touch of her fingers on the keyboard yielded a completely satisfying intimacy. Sometimes he would address her in a way that might, if she cared, have led to less formal conversation; but her replies never broke through the exquisite privacy of her thoughts, and in a sense he did not wish them to."</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She's a symbol, not a person, as are the rest of the Oriental characters in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon. </i>Few have speaking lines. Those who do, exist as vehicles to communicate information. They have no feelings, flaws, or identifiable personality traits besides tranquility. This, very subtly, weaves a message into the Western cultural narrative—Orientals are not real people with thoughts and feelings. More troubling, this is done so subtly, so unconsciously, it is easy to skim over as a reader. Owl would wager many people would say she's being oversensitive and should shut up and just enjoy the book. Owl herself wonders. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>is the stuff of high fantasy, and fantasy can be just as dehumanizing as racism. Hilton offers up the Orient as a panacea for all the ills of the West, rather than taking the Orient seriously as a place inhabited by people who have more in common, rather than less, with their Western counterparts—the fact of being human.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lost Horizon </i>is all the more dangerous because it's compelling fantasy. Such compelling high fantasy, that Shangri-La hotels are the byword for excellent hospitality in Southeast Asia, cities from China to Nepal have fought over the honor of calling themselves Shangri-La, and, Owl?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl emptied her bank account to visit paradise this weekend.</div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-36195802355944871622011-12-11T14:25:00.000-05:002011-12-11T14:25:42.061-05:00Moll Flanders & the Beach<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal"> Another entry written ripped from Owl's China's notebook:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">10/29/2011</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is back from the beach town of Sanya located on Hainan island, burnt brown and coated in a layer of sand and salt like a bad tempered margarita. In Sanya men walk around in straw hats and cotton shirts, and the woman wear dresses that bare their shoulders and float in the breeze. The streets are lined with vendors selling cheap hats, ice cream, and every fourth store sells fruit. In the fruit shops, the mangos are the size of coconuts, the coconuts are the size of watermelons and the watermelons are the size of God. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">These are all merely roadside accessories; people go to Sanya for its beaches: the palm trees set against blue sky, the white sand, the endless rippling ocean that goes on and on—</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Theoretically Owl adores beaches, diving in to the blessedly cool waters, bobbing along the waves, letting them roll you about as they please, getting coated in sticky salt water…getting sticky salt water up your nose, getting sand down your bathing suit, and then doing it again, and again, until you're nauseous from the salt water and sun, because still the ocean sparkles tantalizingly under the sun, like a length of silk God spilled across the earth, and for all of that, it's beauty is inaccessible. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You can plunge into the ocean's depths, swim out to the horizon, but eventually the need for land and air will reel you back to the shore. The ocean runs too deep, stretches too far to be fully understood, and because of this it exerts and inexorable pull on each and every person who chances to walk along its shores. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl finds this unbearably frustrating, and she is torn between wanting to build a cottage by the ocean side or to leave and never ever come back. She dealt in a more mundane way. She memorized seventy five Chinese characters. And then she rewarded herself with Daniel Defoe's <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moll Flanders </i>which she'd been dying to read ever since she opened the cover page and read the full title:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders Who Was Born in Newgate , and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her brother) Twelve years a thief, Eight Years a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent. </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl anticipated delicious scandals full of lurid details. You have to give Defoe mad props for having the best imagination ever. He writes about people who wash up on deserted islands, or you know, felons who marry their brothers.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She was sorely disappointed. The events of Moll Flander's life may be scandalous, but Moll Flanders herself has the personality of a farmwife who has been dealt a rough hand in life. Moll is the practical side of any person you would meet on the street. She would like to earn her daily bread. She falls in love, but earning her daily bread takes precedence over love. Most of the emotional impact of her life is divorced from the reader by lots of details about her expenses. Defoe fleshes out a scene where a pregnant Moll is contemplating bigamy, with a table listing the midwife's charges.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If anything, Moll Flanders is an argument that morality is contingent upon situation. Pressed too hard, anyone might commit bigamy/prostitution/thievery etc.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl can't argue. Still, she felt cheated. She wanted scandal and she got a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doctor's bill. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After all, what is scandal? It's the moments in life where the bare facts are known, but the emotional landscape is not. The bare facts are usually ugly, stripped of cause and effect explanation, the emotional landscape can only be guessed at, and there you have it—scandal—something known and unknown and therefore absolutely delicious to pick apart. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For example:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">They broke up because he cheated on her. With a penguin.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Scandalous. Ugly. Why? The cheating. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">penguin. </i>But not so scandalous when you learn that she had a massive crush on Cillian Murphy and she'd watch all Cillian Murphy movies back to back until he wanted to scream, so he started watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">March of the Penguins </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Happy Feet </i>and then he went to the zoo and there was a penguin, and it was sleek, it was very lonely…alright, bestiality is still scandalous but Defoe could probably make it seem like ordinary business by discussing the exact negotiations the man made with the zookeeper to get a night with the penguin. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">$50 for a night at a Motel 6, $30 for the cab from the zoo to the hotel, $400 for the zookeeper to turn a blind eye…)</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moll Flanders </i>Defoe committed the cardinal sin of fascinating writing. He stripped away the mystery from scandal and replaced it with the mundane. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Potentially on purpose, potentially to make a good point, but Owl was not appeased.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl put down Moll Flanders, somewhat disgusted and plunged back into the blinding blue ocean. There at least, mystery remains eternal.</div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-72659928001629958482011-12-04T18:04:00.004-05:002011-12-04T18:34:49.350-05:00For Love of Common Words<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">For the past month Owl has been haunted by this line about an artist from John Galsworthy's <i>To Let</i>: </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>"The quiet tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent into something really quite individual…"</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl read this and flung Galsworthy across the room. Lines about mediocre talent have a way of searing themselves into Owl's mind where they throb for weeks before fading into a dull ache that never quite disappears, in the way of things you don't want to believe but know to be irrefutably true. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl went back through all of her work and read it exhaustively. Every so often she ran into a decent paragraph buried in the detritus of her stories, and the shock of it made her come away satisfied. There's something here worth fighting for, she told herself, and for a week she was happy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then one of her friends sent Owl a story to critique. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was good.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Not good in the way of school assignments that get an A, or stories that are shown off by proud parents, but good in the way that Owl read it and felt the gaping hole in her that is always searching for beauty and wisdom wrapped up in a few elegant words, the part that is always hungry and rarely fed, that part read, and said <i>this. This is good.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl read and her heart broke open in her chest.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It's one thing to be held in the thrall of some dead genius. The space created by death still allows for self-delusion—another ten years and I'll be able to do that—but it's another thing to realize belatedly that you have rubbed shoulders with genius, cleaned kitchens together and stayed up until 2:00 in the morning discussing spoons.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All illusions are stripped away. There is yourself and there is genius, and there is the distance between you, and you know with an awful certainty what you are and what you are not. And then you look into genius's face, and it's an ordinary human face, two eyes, nose, cupid mouth, spattering of freckles, and you peer at the rooms and roads genius inhabits and wonders what it is she sees that you don't, you ask yourself a thousand questions about innate talent versus hard work and in the end the all boil down the same wretchedness: Why not me too? Why was I passed over?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because it's hard this love, this obsession with words. It demands a life, hours spent pouring over books, days spent spacing out in company, years at the table scrawling over sheets of paper, ripping them up, starting over, again and again, and yes, again. You quit your job, you give it your life, and in return there are no promises, no comfortable salary, no accolades, nothing but the casual amazement and pity of strangers. <i>You write? Oh. It's a hard life you know. Doesn't pay.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yeah. Owl knows. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But there are the things you can choose in life and the things you can't, and then in the realm of things that just are, there's love. Sometimes that isn't enough, not compared to a salary or to that firm nod from strangers, <i>You're a clever one. You made the right choices,</i> but in the end, you pick up and you carry on because it was never about choices. Not really. Just about living. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You love and you live with it. But it is hard to know, in the end, that your love, this love, exceeds your ability.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How do you deal?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
For a week, Owl was a ghost on the street. The misery went deep, cut to the bone, and was impossible to voice. What do you say anyway? I love. I am not enough for this love. The pain is killing me. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl spilled it all out over lemonades to another friend, one who does not write, and the friend blinked and said:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But why does it matter? Can't you both be writers? You love writing. Nothing can change that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl said, yes, but—and she thought of the sheer perfection of that story she had read, the way it opened a door into a new world where snow spilled from a pewter sky and men and women exchange cracked valentines standing on wet pavement, and she thought of her own work, brightly painted, cardboard to the core.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Yes, but—it hurts. My God, it hurts.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A few days later Owl checked her e-mail and found another story with from the same writer friend with a note attached. This story was a glorious mess, elegant bones, mad eyes, and a crazy titling grin tripping over its own feet. It had the most goddamn perfect ending Owl has ever read. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Help, the note said.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl panicked. Owl was truly out of her depth. Owl was still heartbroken and could not, would not. Owl shut her computer and looked out the window where the sky was a hard blue eggshell. There was dinner to eat, there was Chinese homework, and China full of winding side streets and alleys that Owl still hasn’t explored, and there was that story. And what it could be. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl went for long walks, Owl sat in a café downing mugs of milk tea haunted by bones and eyes and perfect endings, and Owl roosted in a library for hours dreaming of stories, muttering over her computer, cutting and rearranging, hissing <i>grow grow grow</i> at the screen. When she finished the stars were burning holes in the sky. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the end it was pathetically little, some fat trimmed here, a few folds rearranged there, one or two observations, but it was everything Owl had to offer and it came from something deep within Owl that will not be denied, no matter how she rages and roils with the sick jealousy of being second rate. It came from the overwhelming love of written words.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You love something.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You do what you can.</div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-27763841965070132632011-12-01T13:36:00.003-05:002011-12-01T17:02:47.604-05:00The Thorn Birds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> Owl is back from China, land where blogger and facebook are blocked, land where her internet broke, and land where she was fantastically and incandescently happy. She arrived home three days ago, but she's still enveloped in a mental haze that's the side product of jet-lag + culture shock (the blondes! so many blonde people!) and answers most questions about China in a mumble. Sometimes a grunt if she's feeling particularly talkative. Otherwise she spends most of her time under the kitchen table ensconced in a fortress built of books (her mother is not pleased). She plans to make brief forays into the world of words by posting back entries she wrote in China. Here's the first:<br />
<br />
<hr />Thanks to some quirky twist of fate Owl is in China at the same time as her friend Pandabum. Owl and Pandabum go all the way back to the sixth grade. Highlights of their friendship include eating fried crickets out of a plastic baggie, constructing improbable gingerbread houses based on Jane Austen novels, and dressing up in bear suits to entertain small children. <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Naturally there was a reunion, which manifested in the form of a week long backpacking trip in Sichuan province. There was horse back riding, long conversations about the future, butchering (well almost) and eating a goat, long conversations about values, walking into the heart of the mountain, long conversations about life, and Tibetan homestays.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(There were moments when Owl was pretty sure she was hallucinating. Especially the goat part.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl packed lightly. By which she means she didn't pack books. Because books are frivolous when you are a rugged and hearty backpacker. Who needs the wood pulp page when the mountains slumbering under the blue sky have their own story?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YQUyQ-nXmRc/TtUavuigW-I/AAAAAAAAAPE/65lTlkMP-KM/s1600/huanglong.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YQUyQ-nXmRc/TtUavuigW-I/AAAAAAAAAPE/65lTlkMP-KM/s320/huanglong.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The bookless mountains of Sichuan</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Owl does, apparently. On day four Owl started getting jittery. On day five she started vibrating. By day six she was jabbing Pandabum in the side screeching "Boooooooks." Pandabum produced a Kazuo Ishiguro podcast. This made Owl think about <i>The Remains of the Day </i>which she had never finished and at that point she got slightly teary and Pandabum realized that she was stranded in the mountains with a deranged addict suffering from withdrawal symptoms. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(This is probably where Pandabum started wishing she was hallucinating.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On day seven Pandabum and Owl left the mountains for the city of Chengdu, and Pandabum dragged Owl's twitching carcass into a bookshop.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
It had English books.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Cheap </i>English books. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl feel to her knees and went Oh My God. <i>Pandabum </i>fell to her knees and went Oh My God.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a very long silence and both of them forgot about things like luggage space and packing lightly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then Owl opened her wallet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And did the maths.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And cursed the heavens.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Long story short, Owl left with Colleen McCullough's <i>The Thorn Birds </i>because it was huge and<i> </i>the other option for huge book was Bertrand Russell's <i>A History of Western Philosophy. </i>Which, like, no. Not on vacation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then Pandabum and Owl went off to explore the streets of Chengdu and eat a dinner that included munching on a rabbit head and slurping out the eyeballs. Actually, Pandabum did that. Owl chickened out after nibbling on the rabbit tongue.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ouZ632FsrvM/TtUcsRwBkLI/AAAAAAAAAPM/nmJ8kvL5H4s/s1600/rabbithead.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ouZ632FsrvM/TtUcsRwBkLI/AAAAAAAAAPM/nmJ8kvL5H4s/s320/rabbithead.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Friendship= gnawing on rabbit heads together</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal">On the morrow Owl escorted Pandabum to the airport at 6:00 a.m and bid her goodbye. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a time when Owl and Pandabum went home from school together every day, and it was a ritual they had down to a fine art. Raid the fridge. Fight about who is responsible for deciding on the snack. End up sampling a little bit of everything. Have a short gossip that sort of stretches into a long one. Spread the books and papers across the floor and settle into the homework. Occasionally take short breaks to chuck erasers and rubber chickens at each other. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It's in these small moments of every day life, the moments where it seems like nothing is happening, that friendship is built.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
But Pandabum and Owl graduated and went to different colleges. And frequently ended up in different countries during vacations. These days there are skype conversations, ridiculous e-mails, and postcards. But in the spaces between conversations there are changes, changes so miniscule that they are never mentioned. Only the small things have a way of adding up.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And so when Owl and Pandabum meet, it is not the old Owl and Pandabum, but newer versions who don't realize they are new, until they settle into the shape of the old friendship and find that it doesn't quite fit. So Owl and Pandabum meet, they say why hello you, and oh hello stranger, and adjust until the shape changes a bit, only by then life, in its relentless fashion, moves forward, and it is time to say goodbye again without the certainty of knowing when the next hello will be.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So goodbye, goodbye is always a bit difficult. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But airplanes do not care about hello and goodbyes, they come and go regardless, and so Pandabum and Owl said goodbye, and Owl was left in the airport with five hours to kill. She hadn't slept properly in days, she was still sore from the horse riding, and everything was a bewildering mash in her head—the silent unchanging beauty of the mountains, the fluidity of a good friendship, the strange pain twisted into euphoria that comes from knowing everything is ephemeral. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was no one to talk this over with, no way for Owl to clear her head and she wanted badly to travel back in time to day when things were simpler, where friendship was just about chucking rubber chickens at each other and nothing changed, and all of this was entirely was entirely too much for 6:00 a.m. in a foreign country so Owl opened up <i>The Thorn Birds.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl vaguely remembers something about a two hour flight delay, getting on the plane and getting off and getting in a taxi and then getting out of the taxi, but that's only because she finally finished <i>The Thorn Birds </i>during the taxi ride.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The Thorn Birds </i>is an Australian family epic. It starts with four year old Meggie growing up on a poor New Zealand farm and follows Meggie as she and her family move to Australia, the rise of their family fortune, Meggie's maturity into adulthood and the fate of her children. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The Thorn Birds </i>is a quasi classic. It has a rich setting and is imagined on the grand scale across generations but it relies a little too much on archetypes. Meggie is a beautiful girl surrounded by boys, ostensibly she's a strong female character, but her gorgeous red hair is more memorable than her personality. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The Thorn Birds </i>does not ever transcend its own plot to touch upon a core human truth. McCullough attempts one, life is about pain and this pain has its own beauty, but she doesn't carry it through successfully. That is the reader doesn't shut the book with new insights on their own life— the hallmark of a true classic, but then it didn't need to. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The Thorn Birds </i>lifted Owl away from her own life. When Owl finished, Sichuan's mountains were tucked away in some safe pocket of memory where they were no longer quite so real, the strange brew of thoughts on friendship and growing older had ceased to bubble and fizz leaving behind a clarity that allowed Owl to think about unpacking and doing her laundry. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In short, she was ready to face the new day. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Perhaps that is all you can ask from a book. </div></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-72328052049999309192011-08-02T22:07:00.007-04:002011-08-12T09:42:14.382-04:00Move On Up<div class="MsoNormal">The movers came today, two men dusted with tattoos. One was tall with a shaved head and a snaggle toothed smile, the other was short with sweet sleepy eyes. They spoke in slow thick accents I had to strain to understand. Until they came, I did not truly understand that I was moving, that I had deliberately chosen to break up the life I'd created over the past two years. Everything was dreamlike and distant, as if at any moment I could tell my boss I'd changed my mind after all, I'd be staying and he would take me back. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As the movers carried the artifacts of my life out the door—the meditation cushion I'd bought with the best of intentions and then never used, the long couch for out of town visitors, innumerable boxes of books—I saw that I would really be leaving, that for me this city would fade from reality to memory, and in a few months this apartment would be the setting for someone else's life story.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Where are you moving, the tall man asked me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Away, I answered, because I could not say China. He would have asked me why China and I would have no answer. No good answer. Not at that moment.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I wanted them to fill the awful hollowness of watching your life break up with words, good words about beginnings and endings, or at least small talk so I could befriend them and rest easy in my belief that all people are well-intentioned, bone friendly. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But they were movers not pastors, and they were not in the business of comforting people, they were in the business of moving, so they sweated and cussed as they walked my things out the door.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fucker needs me to wipe his ass, the taller man said to me of the smaller mover before they left. Been doing this for three years, but it's like every day is his first day.</div><br />
After they had gone, I swept out the dust that had accumulated in the hidden corners, unrolled my sleeping bag and took out a small duffle bag of belongings, exactly what I had when I arrived two years ago, before I bought cutlery and furniture and all the other things that shape a life. If you did not know me, you would not know if this was the first day or the last. I felt that helpless.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then I sat on my sleeping bag and looked around. Most of my things had been packed for weeks and I'd been surprised by how little I needed them or missed them, surprised by how irritating it was to pack away a drawer full of things I cared very little about, only to find another drawer full of other things I cared very little about. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But now that my studio was empty, I cared very much. When I poured a glass of water, the clinking of the glass echoed, the thunk of the jug on the counter echoed. I would have given a lot for my never used meditation cushion. Not to sit on even, but because it would be a soft island on the hardwood floor, a splash of crimson to focus on in an apartment full of nothing.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe it is because we come into life with nothing, and go out with nothing, maybe because truly, despite whatever else we may believe, we own nothing and are owed nothing more than our bodies, maybe that's why we spend so much time collecting junk like treasure, building ourselves thrones out of dead trees and dead animals, because we don't have the courage to face up to how little we can conquer: precisely, nothing.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If there was a worthwhile epiphany in there, I did not embrace it. Instead, I fled to yoga class, the one where the instructor has a silvery voice and focuses on patterns of movement, the shift from downward dog to upward dog, rather than on the alignment of each pose, and fittingly, reads us bits of poetry at the end of class.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here, perhaps because I was locked into a rhythm of movement, because I could not think about why I was doing warrior one or warrior two, but only execute each pose on the good faith that I was doing something necessary, it was easier to think about the last two years since college graduation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Because I did not know that I had only two years, because I worried sometimes that this would be the rest of my life, I did not realize I had been given a gift, the gift of a long meditation. Yes, I worked, and yes I worried, but for the first time in eleven years I had time to myself, time away from a system that pushed mounds of homework into each corner of my life and filled me up with grade-neurosis, time away from my friends and family for better or for worse. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mostly what I remember of the past two years is sitting in my apartment, the walk to yoga where I passed two iron leopards, the long winter nights of yoga practice where we sat in the yellow light of the studio and watched the sun slowly set, the walk back home that smelled of cold, long runs on lazy autumn evenings when orange and gold leaves drifted in dark puddles of water, Sunday afternoons at the grocery, and during all of that, I inhabited a silent space in my head.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the silence it seemed like nothing happened, but then I would wake up every now and then and find I was questioning things I had never questioned before, things I took for granted, the value of learning Calculus, the reasons why I admired workaholics, the every day actions committed without much thought…what belief system did they stem from? Were they valid? Did I want to live like this?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I had no answers. I have no answers. But the asking, the very act of asking, surely that is worth something? At any rate, it is what my two years have bought me. I'd like to imagine that the next year and a half of travel, of wandering around the earth like a nomad learning languages and teaching English will bring me answers, but even then I am not so sure—I do not know. I do not know if it is even sensible to break up my life like this, if come 2013 when I return I will be jobless and broke, only that I am going to do it, I will fly blind into the night, and I will not be stopped. Not now. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The instructor ended class by reading Rumi.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All day I think about it, then at night I say it.<br />
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?<br />
I have no idea.<br />
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,<br />
and I intend to end up there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Breathe in, she said. Now, breathe out.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-46288468944323261282011-07-19T22:43:00.006-04:002011-07-20T09:20:42.842-04:00From Sea to Shining Sea<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Last week Owl attended Fulbright Pre-Orientation which was hosted at the kind of hotel where the foyer is glass and marble, the beds are floofy like exploded marshmallows, and people walk around in power-suits. While everyone got acquainted/slept, Owl ran around the entire hotel eeeeping. She found:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 3.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: 0in;"><br />
<ul><li><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Massage chairs in the fitness room (the receptionist stared at Owl and said, "You're here to explore aren't you?")</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">A secret entrance to the metro</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">A piano floating in a fountain</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">A lot of Buddhist monks. Seriously. They were everywhere.</span></li>
</ul></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">When morning came Owl somehow managed not to explode over her pastries but she couldn't help squealing about the monks. Owl has a soft spot for Buddhist monks. She took a Buddhism class in college that left her with a lingering desire to spend a year or two living in a Buddhist monastery.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">The young gentleman next to her mentioned that the monks were around because the Dalai Lama was staying<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>at the same hotel.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl leapt out of her chair and pocketed a few pastries. She had some idea of oh, finding the Dalai Lama and presenting him with stolen pastries/asking for his blessing. Then she remembered she had orientation and sat back down.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">To cheer her up, the young gentlemen mentioned when he studied abroad in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region> a few years ago he ran into a few Buddhist monks who invited him back to their hotel room. They all ended up cross legged on the floor eating dinner. Then the monks started criticizing the American government for the Vietnam War.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Young Gentleman: It was awkward. Obviously I had to speak up even though I don't agree with the Vietnam War. But I didn't know the protocol for arguing with monks.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl: What do you mean?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Y. Gentleman: Yeah…I get um, shall we say, aggressive when I'm angry? Loud? I start yelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl was flabbergasted. Perhaps the monks were out of line criticizing their guest's patria, but Owl can not imagine that the young gentleman improved their perception of Americans or managed to justify the Vietnam War by defending a war he didn't believe in. If he did manage to convince the monks, he ought to be sitting in Congress. They could seriously use him right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl had a lovely time at the Pre-Orientation. She met a staggering amount of people who had made it their business to live each day as if it were a wild and crazy adventure, who traveled far and wide, and read broadly. But at times she was surprised by how people spoke about how excited they were to teach their students about <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> and American culture rather than how excited they were to go to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Malaysia</st1:place></st1:country-region> and learn about Malaysian culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">From whatever Owl has heard, classes will be anywhere from twenty to forty students each and meet once a week. Unless she acquires some serious stand-up comedy skills, for most of these students English class is well going to be English class. An hour a week that will maybe be memorable because there's a crazy American teaching it, but maybe get drowned out by six other hours of school, not to mention homework, family life, religious life, extra curricular, friends and crushes (what teenagers don't have crushes?) and time to eat guavas. Never forget the guavas.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl will be happy if her students remember who she is.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">If anyone is going to be learning, it's Owl, the person dumped in the middle of a new country she couldn't locate on a map a few months ago, Owl who still doesn't know much about Malaysia except that it's conservative, most of the females wear a headscarf, and if she wants to assimilate, Owl should consider wearing the baju kurung, a tunic over a long skirt, also dubbed the potato sack.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tradenote.net/images/users/000/053/680/products_images/Baju_Kurung.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.tradenote.net/images/users/000/053/680/products_images/Baju_Kurung.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baju Kurung, courtesy of Google</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">To be honest, Owl's pretty nervous about some of the gender dynamics. There was a lot in the orientation about wearing conservative clothing and dealing with sexual harassment. She talked to some fellow teachers who mentioned how this was an excellent opportunity to empower Muslim girls in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Malaysia</st1:place></st1:country-region>, which Owl got really excited about.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">"We can tell them all about what it's like here, how we don't have to wear headscarves or super conservative clothing and what it's like to be liberated," someone added.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl thought deeply about what she'd be giving up by going to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Malaysia</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The night before Owl consumed enough salad to feed an adolescent cow. When she put on her business skirt in the morning there was an unfortunate stomach bulge. The she discovered she'd forgotten to pack a hair brush. Her hair stuck up at odd angles despite vigorous finger combing. Owl stared at herself in the mirror and wilted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl was very sad. Owl wanted to hide under her comforter but instead she had to be social. She went downstairs to mingle with a crowd of well kempt females sleek in their skirts with hair as shiny as knobs of wood. Owl was wretchedly ashamed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">It is difficult to be social when you are worrying about your flub and the tangled Medusa creature that is your hair. When deserts came around at lunch Owl miserably passed them up and vowed she really would get back to the gym, shin splints or no shin splints, so she could eat again.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Owl calculated the number of hours she's spent at the gym—not because she's vested in her health, but because she really is that vain—the number of injuries she's picked up gyming and the number of hours she's wasted doing impossible calculations about calories and pounds and clothing sizes and the endless guilt. Guilt over eating too much, not exercising enough, worrying too much about her appearance when she should focus on more intellectual thoughts…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;">Headscarf? Potato sack?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.75pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11.5pt;"><br />
Owl’s kind of excited.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lq57ip0VNnY/TiY-PYE1WQI/AAAAAAAAAOk/yH6EvYA97Hc/s1600/skirt+bustin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lq57ip0VNnY/TiY-PYE1WQI/AAAAAAAAAOk/yH6EvYA97Hc/s320/skirt+bustin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owl prepares for some skirt-bustin' </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-35938941326942212972011-07-17T22:37:00.003-04:002011-07-21T09:50:00.757-04:00Just Gonna Have to Be a Different Owl<div class="MsoNormal">Last July in a fit of madness brought on by commuting to work at 6:00 a.m. Owl started composing her mother’s biography. Owl stresses that this is a highly normal activity common in all aspiring novelists.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Problem. Owl’s mother was born and brought up in Indonesia, and Owl, despite manifold affectations of foreign mannerisms, hails from the exotic reaches of heartland Americana, formerly known as the Midwest. Owl’s knowledge of Indonesia is limited to a few summers roosting in various relatives’ houses, eating shaved ice at shopping malls, and a reasonably sized arsenal of vulgarities in bahasa.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl’s imagination went splat three paragraphs into the bio. Owl realized she needed some hands on research experience. Owl thought about the red tiled roofs of Bandung, the green palms that line the roads of Jakarta, and running up and down the sparkling beaches of Bali while sipping coconut water. From a coconut. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl looked around. The bus smelled like gasoline. The woman across from her looked like she was going to be sick. In a few hours Owl would march into work, write reports, and her unborn novel—at this point, Owl was convinced would be a candidate for the Nobel if only she got the time to write it—would get a swift abortion.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl pulled a Rilke and thought:<i> I must change my life.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then she went home and applied for a Fulbright to teach in Indonesia. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(Owl has this slight problem where she takes her fits of insanity quite seriously.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Summer faded into fall, and in turn fall froze over into winter. Owl picked up volunteer teaching jobs, enrolled in bahasa classes, expanded the language arsenal to include a few necessary pleasantries like <i>hello, how are you, </i>and <i>you are beautiful like fried shrimp, </i>dreamt of Indonesia, it's beaches, the sing-song lull of bahasa, mentally packed her bags and smiled through 50+ magazine rejections. A Fulbright, she thought, would be a sign from God that she was meant to be a novelist. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The rejection came in April.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl wept profusely. Owl grieved. Owl beat her chest. Owl realized she was better off anyway because Indonesia is hot and full of mosquitoes, and who wanted to go there anywhere? Plus, teaching. Owl is shy. Owl is self conscious. Owl is <i>shit </i>at teaching.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl promised herself she'd take a long vacation at the end of the year. Somewhere sunny. She went to work. She maybe didn't write as much as she used to. She realized she had a thoroughly excellent job and it would be pure madness to leave it. She moved on because that's the grown up thing to do. And her newly acquired adulthood comes the realization of a few sobering realities. Not all dreams are attainable, not everything is meant to be. Sometimes there's trying, and sometimes there's just madness, and when it's just madness, well, pray, pray that you aren't a mad dreamer, pray that you aren't doomed to spend your life howling for things you want very badly and will never get. Instead pray that you will never want.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl prayed. And tried very very hard to not want. And it was difficult. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In May Owl got a phone call.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was the Fulbright committee offering her a grant to teach in Malaysia.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl asked the man on the phone if he was a hallucination. He said no and told her to make a decision in two days. Owl sat down with a thump. Owl clean forgot to go to a meeting and her boss threw a marker at her and was an utter darling about forgiving her. Owl spent the rest of the day gaping at the computer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl tried to discuss this Malaysia thing with her parents in a rational and grown up manner. It went something like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: So what sane person gives up a stable job to teach for a year? </div><div class="MsoNormal">Parents: Sanity has never been your strong point.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: I'm going to think this over for a few days.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Parents: Don't kid yourself. You've already decided.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: I have?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Parents: Yeah.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: So what's my decision? Wouldn't I like, be the first to know? Who did the deciding anyway? <br />
Parents: Your gut.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Why wasn't I informed? Also, more importantly, what did it decide?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Parents: We don't have time to sort out your weird communication issues. Goodbye.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED ME?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's Gut: *whimper* I'm hungry.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Shut up and make a Malaysia related decision.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's Gut: I want laksa and chicken satay. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Shut the hell up. You know I can't cook.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's Gut: I want a new body.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[Ten minutes later]</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's Gut: Dear Fulbright, I will be happy to go to Malaysia. Please forward food samples to me and place me somewhere where the trees are thick with mangos and the mangosteens are luscious. Thank you. Love Owl.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[A day later]</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Come January, Owl is going to Malaysia.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But.</div><div class="MsoNormal">That's not all.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A few days later Owl went through her list of things to do before she dies. This is what it looks like:</div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal">Live abroad for a year</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Write a novel</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Run a marathon</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Learn Chinese (preferably in China)</li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl thought okay, Goal 1, check. Goal 2, ehhh writer's block sucks. Goal 3, on hold due to weird hip issues and shin splints, Goal 4, what on earth was I thinking? Like I'll ever have the opportunity to go to China…wait.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl wrote e-mails to her lovely friend <a href="http://www.katesyearoff.blogspot.com/">Kate</a>, and Owl googled, and Owl researched, and Owl e-mailed and e-mailed, and come September Owl will be studying Chinese in Kunming, China.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl's apartment is littered with half-packed boxes and visa applications. In four weeks she'll be moving out. In six she'll be in China. Come New Year, she'll be in Malaysia. Two months ago she was pretty sure she'd spend the next ten years at her job. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is in shock. Maybe she should be reading the Bhagavad Gita and meditating to cope, or at the very least attempting to shore up her nonexistent Chinese with a phrase book, but instead she's gulping down Korean dramas and Japanese manga trying to grasp the enormity of the changes coming her way, and now Owl is praying she doesn't end up with her throat slit in some random gutter because she mixed up "bathroom" and "brothel" in Chinese, or that her students don't throw tomatoes at her, and how on earth is she going to maintain discipline when she can't even speak up during meetings at work, and then there other questions like—to blog or not to blog? And if so, as Owl? Or…*gasp* in the first person? New layout? New address to mirror her journeyman status? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Whatever the answer is, Owl is sure of one thing:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ch-ch-anges.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They’re coming.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ivLrpDa27XQ/TiOb4k5u0FI/AAAAAAAAAOg/PT4bh-ov76E/s1600/running.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ivLrpDa27XQ/TiOb4k5u0FI/AAAAAAAAAOg/PT4bh-ov76E/s320/running.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A new and more adult Owl deals with change</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo Credit: Richard Ercolani</span></span></div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-68129491231899762172011-06-26T00:36:00.002-04:002011-06-26T00:43:16.508-04:00Memoir of a Sea MonsterOwl is suffering from writer's block. It's bad. Like, bad bad. Like, Owl can't read anymore because she's now allergic to words or something. They just slip out of her head. Like Owl's fairly sure she ain't never going to write or read again. Like, Owl's spending her weekends baking instead of writing, watching Korean dramas instead of reading, and composing spiteful messages to God. Or...wait, trying to and failing because writer's block. So most of the messages read something like this: Fooble. Snarl. Shitty poo poo pants. WOOOGLE. WAHHHHHHH! WAHHHHHH! And then Owl ends up on the kitchen floor clutching her stuffed whale and bawling. <i>Gimme my words back! Gimme! Gimme!</i><br />
<br />
Anyway, someone pointed out that a fair number of writers have said they ended up writing books they wanted to read. Owl should simply combine her writing style with the sorts of books she loves reading best and she will stumble up on a fountain of inspiration filled with glory. Not just water sparkling in the sunlight glory, but like chocolate rivers with strawberry slices and bananas bobbing along kind of glory. Serious glory.<br />
<br />
Owl realized this was better than her other idea of experimenting wildly with other writing forms in hopes of discovering hidden talents. Owl did not discover hidden talents. Owl learned painful lessons like she's not cut out to write rap lyrics, someone who can't cook shouldn't write recipes, and writing obituaries about your friends is just...wrong. E-mailing obituaries to said friends and asking for writing feedback is just...well, yeah, don't do it. Just don't.<br />
<br />
(Owl blames all of this on writer's block. Her judgment starts slipping when she loses her words.)<br />
<br />
Anyway, the results indicated that Owl: <br />
<br />
(A) writes memoir<br />
(B) reads speculative fiction (yeah, Owl reads and blogs about all this other 'literature' crap and stuff, but speculative fiction is her drug of choice)<br />
<br />
In other words, according to this analysis Owl should write an absolutely true memoir of her life as a sea monster.<br />
<br />
New life plan.<br />
<br />
1. Become sea monster.<br />
2. Write about it.<br />
<br />
At this point, Owl is pretty sure her writer's block is going to be permanent.Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-19686203147035115752011-06-07T23:54:00.000-04:002011-06-07T23:54:50.383-04:00What Happens in the Newspaper Stays in the Newspaper<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal">When Owl was very young she was terrified of the news. Every day in third grade she and her classmates would take turns bringing in articles. Most students were content to bring in stories about lost puppies or the weather—except for Robert. Robert had a penchant for serial killers. Robert would hunt up stories about serial killers who lurked in parks or murdered women in their apartments. The gorier the better. After one particularly grisly description he ended by saying, “And the killer left Texas! He got on a plane. Guess where the plane’s headed? Here!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl went home that day and refused to play in the park. Or leave the house. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After that she hid in the bathroom whenever it was Robert’s turn to present. Still, Owl could not stay in the bathroom forever, the teacher would fish her out, and once she left it was impossible to escape. In magazines there were stories about AIDS epidemics in Africa and orphaned children. Owl didn’t really know what AIDS was except that it killed parents and she could not understand what separated her from the children in Africa. If their parents could suddenly die why not hers?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even the weather report was fraught with disaster. Sudden floods. Tornados that sucked up houses and cars and spat out the fragments. Hurricanes that swept you out to sea.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o-Ei1v4u-Bk/Te7u9PfRTpI/AAAAAAAAANc/pXe4su_zqlU/s1600/economist+eyes+shut.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-o-Ei1v4u-Bk/Te7u9PfRTpI/AAAAAAAAANc/pXe4su_zqlU/s320/economist+eyes+shut.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Facing the news</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Owl did not know how people managed to get up, get out of bed, and carry on, when every five seconds someone was dying from hunger. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">During current events one morning, Owl’s third grade teacher mentioned that students with any concerns should speak to the counselor. She’d once taught a girl who’d stopped eating, and the counselor had discovered it was because America had recently invaded Iraq and the girl was afraid of war. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Oh, that’s stupid,” Robert scoffed. “Like Iraq could do anything to us.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yes, well,” the teacher said and Owl saw that the teacher was not worried that she or anyone else she knew would die. The idea that across the ocean people were going to die did not upset her either. Maybe intellectually, but not emotionally, not in the way that your stomach sours and you can’t eat anymore because you can picture dead bodies and crying children.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s how you manage to live, Owl realized. You distinguish between yourself and the world. Slowly, Owl learned that there was a separation between real life and what happens in the newspaper. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The news is about other people. Who exist somewhere else. In a place like Owl’s world but completely unrelated to it. Owl stopped worrying about disasters, Owl started worrying about reality instead. Failing tests. Not getting into a top college. Friend drama.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Possibly Owl began to believe that her suburban life, with school and homework and clubs was what normal life does and should look like. Theoretically the average person in Nigeria lives on 2.5 gallons of water a day, but not really. In Owl’s reality, everyone has showers and running water.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl started getting cynical about human rights activists. Yeah, people are suffering and dying blah blah blah, but Owl’s got places to be and to be honest the rhetoric is kind of saccharine. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In college Owl took a class on International Relations and learned that war is a tool like a hammer or a saw that governments use to accomplish their purposes. The professor drew models on the board: war between two small countries, war between two large countries. Here, war was three or four points on a test, and an essay question. It has nothing to do with human suffering.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyway, Owl had to wonder, what was so bad about death? The world is overpopulated and straining for resources. Pruning the population might end up saving us. Owl used this as an argument during a debate tournament. The judge couldn’t stop smiling. “Fascinating argument,” he told her later. “Wonderful logic.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl won that round. That’s how you win apparently. You say it doesn’t matter if people die, you say they ought to die. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl reads her news religiously these days so she can claim she is well-informed, a global citizen. It is slightly dry, but not difficult to do. She reads about murder, turmoil and hunger, death and war and then she puts away the news and plans out the rest of her day. Reading. Visiting friends. Buying groceries. Yoga. That's about it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes she wonders about her ability to do this without batting an eyelash, if there’s any point to her attempts at becoming a well-informed global citizen. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-7692738574589460322011-05-16T23:26:00.003-04:002011-05-17T09:16:44.619-04:00Hell is a Slush PileEvery week Owl receives a parcel of essays. As part of her slush reader duties she’s supposed to read them, and write a short synopsis and evaluation, as well as determine if they should be rejected or forwarded to the board. (This is actually less power than it sounds, according to the magazine rules Owl is supposed to forward everything written in coherent sentences.) <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When it comes, Owl gets a happy glowing feeling. Like, someone’s just handed her a treasure chest and keys and said—Go on now. Have a look. Like she’s going to plunge in face first and resurface with sentences that shine like ropes of brilliant gemstones, paragraphs that contain pearls of wisdom, like when she’s done reading, she’ll be looking at a richer and brighter world.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then Owl reads her slush.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most weeks the pieces are solidly constructed but a little off, the ending is a whimper instead of a bang, the essay is too interior to the writer to be understood by a stranger, attempts to describe raw emotion are well, boiled. Boiled potatoes. Without salt. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Those pieces make Owl a little sad. They are gallant attempts that well, weren’t quite good enough. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But sometimes, sometimes it’s—oh hell, see for yourself. Here are Owl’s evaluations from this week’s round of essays.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(Note: Actual evaluations were somewhat more civilized. These are the uncensored versions.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Essay 1</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Synopsis: Young girl goes to the beach.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Evaluation: This is a four paged essay. The second page is a wall of text listing all the songs she listens to at the beach. While the descriptions of the ocean are gorgeous, and supplemented by photographs the author thoughtfully included, there is nothing different or unique about this beach trip. She and her brother are at the beach. They ate ice cream and listened to a lot of music. At the very least, the essay needs to include a jellyfish attack, but preferably a nasty shark encounter, to justify its existence,</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Essay 2</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Synopsis: The narrator describes all of her teachers K-12 in a series of thirteen anecdotes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Evaluation: The anecdotes are engaging but heavy of the fart jokes. (I think fart jokes are funny and even this was too much for me.) There was no cohesive thread that connected the anecdotes to each other, and while that may not be strictly necessary, it would have given the essay a broader appeal. As it is, it's a humorous read, but narrow in scope—hardly of interest to anyone who doesn’t know the writer personally. Also the end is marred by a multiple choice quiz asking the reader what the point of the essay is. Author listed eight possibilities but forgot to include (I) there is no point.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Essay 3</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Synopsis: Woman explains her connection to her dead husband while going through her Tupperware collection.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Evaluation: The prose is here is beautiful and fluid, the images are very vivid, very clear. I will never look at Tupperware the same way again. However, there are five pages of Tupperware descriptions and one paragraph devoted to her husband’s death. Then she goes right back to describing Tupperware. Telling the truth slant is good, but there's such a thing as telling it too slant.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Essay 4</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Synopsis: Woman discusses how hearing children cry "Mama" in Spanish during her spring break trip lead to a life long love affair with Latin American culture and people. Literally. She spends the next twenty years trying to get impregnated by Latin men. Her goal in life is to have children who call her "Mama" with Spanish accents.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Evaluation: The style was simple which was good, because I had no sense of where the piece is going and why. The structure is as haphazard as the narrator’s approach to finding a partner. While her tangents are interesting they do not contribute to the overall development of the narrative. Five pages are spent describing a conversation with a priest, one paragraph is spent mourning her dead boyfriend, and one sentence at the end explains that yes, she eventually did marry and get herself Spanish speaking babies. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Essay 5</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Synopsis: Two, um, beings eat delicious Mexican mole stew together.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Evaluation: Commendable effort at attempting to use language creatively in order to capture sensation. Unfortunately the result was so confused, after three reads, I still don't know if the narrator is a human or a cricket. Where are the characters? What are they are doing besides eating? Why does it matter? All mysteries the author does not bother to answer. As a side note, eating a sublime mole stew should never be compared to being infected by "a delicious hairworm." This is a direct quote.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After finishing her slush Owl took her red pen and stabbed herself repeatedly in the chest in an attempt to commit hara-kiri.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She should have listened to her mother and majored in economics.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TQMh2Q7x0w0/TdHpnFt7NCI/AAAAAAAAANU/C4Itl8ezTK8/s1600/Indonesia+083.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TQMh2Q7x0w0/TdHpnFt7NCI/AAAAAAAAANU/C4Itl8ezTK8/s320/Indonesia+083.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To be or not to be?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-55207543191973833032011-05-15T22:29:00.000-04:002011-06-07T22:40:14.371-04:00The Art of Titling is Hard to MasterWriting is a brutal business. At its worst it involves staring at the computer screen for hours hitting the “k” button repeatedly as a coping mechanism for dealing with the blank idiocy of your mind. At its best it means refusing to shower for days because you’ll lose the ideas if you don’t get them out <i>now</i>.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you do manage to finish something (usually at an ungodly hour the day before an important meeting), it’s like pulling a squalling baby from the womb. The story is wet and wrinkly. It smells. It’s covered in blood. It’s perilously close to ejecting blood/urine/fecal matter all over you.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And the worst part has yet to come.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It needs a name. A title.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UrZrlAAHLgw/TctFj7df3RI/AAAAAAAAANQ/0ek75J8mj9c/s1600/nameless.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UrZrlAAHLgw/TctFj7df3RI/AAAAAAAAANQ/0ek75J8mj9c/s320/nameless.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The untitled masses</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ideally a title should wrap up the piece in an elegant package. More than elegant. Seductive. A good title sings out from deep within a bookshelf to passing stranger, who, without quite meaning to, will pick up the book, caress its stiff spine until it shudders open baring its pages. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s enough to make you want to stuff the story back in the wretched place it came from.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet, somehow titles like this do exist. Whenever Owl finds one she has to talk herself out of tattooing it on her wrists in 72 pt font. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Some of her favorites:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal">The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Haruki Murakami</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Hear the Wind Sing, Haruki Murakami</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Dance, Dance, Dance, Haruki Murakami</li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal">Murakami is hands down the grandmaster titler. His titles are commands to open up his books. What’s a wind-up bird? What does the wind sound like? And who doesn’t want to dance, dance, dance? It doesn’t matter that his books answer none of these questions. The titles are a promise of better things to come, and therefore, irresistible. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl has considered cutting out Murakami’s heart and eating it in an attempt acquire his skills.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal">The Beautiful and the Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald</li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal">Owl loves <i>The Beautiful and the Damned </i>because it’s more than an elegant phrase, it could have printed on Fitzgerald’s calling card as his M.O. All of Fitzgerald’s characters were beautiful and damned. And so was he.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br />
</div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal">The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro</li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal">Owl’s favorite title. It conjures up images of an old man cleaning up after a party, </div><div class="MsoNormal">picking up the abandoned paper hats, turning over the discarded paper in his hands as the sun sets over his fading memories. The sadness is unbearable and exquisite, and in fact, that is the book exactly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As the story goes Ishiguro didn’t actually come up with it, he was sitting on an Australian beach with literary greats such as Michael Ondaatje and tossing around potential titles. Ondaatje suggested something like <i>Sirloin: A Juicy Tale </i>and then someone (the name escapes Owl) mentioned a phrase about dreams and translated it into English as <i>The Remains of the Day.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">However, Owl is unable to attend Aussie beach parties with genius writers and has had to resort to other means. Her standard approach used to be type garbage at the top of the screen, write story, forget about title, send story to appropriately bribed relative/friend to be read and then have conversations like this:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Father: I read your story. Why did you see fit to call it Lechuga-Wooga?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Um, that’s a typo for “The Apple.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">Father: This story is about a duck who commits suicide by getting sucked into a jet engine. What apple?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Maybe I’ll change it to “The Regurgitating Apple.”</div><div class="MsoNormal">Father: …</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Regurgitate is such a great verb.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Father: But the apple?!</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl: Artistic license.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In an effort to improve, Owl has developed the following strategies. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>(1)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>The + Noun</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl reads her story, identifies the most commonly occurring noun and puts it on top of the page. This leads to lots of stories with titles like “The Jam Pot.” But sometimes leads to stories with titles like “The Person.” This is when Owl just shuts her eyes, flips open a dictionary and points, so “The Person” becomes “The Vesicle.” If Owl feels really fancy she’ll sometimes add an adjective to the mix. Like, “The Sad Vesicle.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>(2)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>Phrase</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl picks out the most interesting phrase in the piece and slaps it on top of the story. Results may vary and include:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal">Reality’s Hairy Gut</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Inviting Demons Over for Scones and Tea</li>
<li class="MsoNormal">Mushroom Porn is Exceedingly Difficult to Find</li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is a little confused about the last one, but there is indeed a file titled “Mushroom Porn is Exceedingly Difficult to Find” in her stories file, and apparently she wrote it. She’s a little scared to open it. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>(3)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>Google-fu</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When all else fails, Owl uses strategy (1) to pick a noun and then dumps it into Google with either: “quotes about…”, “poems about…” or “song lyrics about...”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl worries about being clichéd so she skips over the most familiar part of the quote/poem/song and nab the part no one remembers. For example, instead of using “The Cruelest Month” from T.S. Elliot’s “The Wasteland” she settled on “Lilacs Out of the Dead Land.” Because obviously everyone will has memorized “The Wasteland” and will immediately understand the Elliot allusion Owl was going for, but simultaneously absolve her from T.S. Elliot sized expectations. Right? …Right.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b>(4)<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>Bastardization</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If (3) is complete fail—for example, there is precious little quotable material on ankylosauruses—, Owl will steal someone else’s title and um, <s>bastardize</s> alter it so she doesn’t get slapped with plagiarism. And thus Owl has a whole host of titles like Letters from a Young Biologist, Letters by a Young Poet, Letters from a Young Owl,…Owl needs to look into stealing from different titles.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is in desperate need of help. What are your favorite titles? What are favorite titles you’ve written? How do you title your stories? Tips? Tricks? Suggestions?</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-31624289631732858892011-05-08T22:22:00.001-04:002011-05-08T22:22:28.235-04:00The History of LoveDuring yoga class Owl when twisted over into a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/49527906@N07/4565991946/">warrior two with a bind</a>—a painful and unnatural position especially if you have no thigh muscles—her instructor reached for a book.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl considered defenestrating herself. Owl adores yoga, and Owl adores being read to, but in her limited experience, yoga instructors have the most deplorable habit of picking out a poem about living simply or being a better person and reading it in a singsong poet’s voice eerily reminiscent of tape recorded ocean noises. Then they fold their hands and lecture on Morals. This can range from why you shouldn’t hit your dog to boycotting large corporations unless you approve of child labor.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is usually intended to lessen the pain of the pose, but Owl finds that it deepens it. You can’t run away and you can’t argue. You can only suffer in silence. <i>But I don’t have a dog!</i> <i>But what if you’re a poor child laborer and you don’t have the money to shop at indie stores?</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Then her yoga instructor began in a quiet voice that focused more on enunciating each word precisely than rolling out the vowels for emotional emphasis. This is what she <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/312683">read</a>:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=onre07-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0393328627&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people’s hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely…</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms – if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body – it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside, was so much less. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The book was <i>The History of Love, </i>the author, Nicole Krauss.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl nearly stole it from her instructor after class. Instead she managed to wait until it arrived at the library, and then she read it in a series of delirious gulps.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The History of Love </i>is about cranky Leo Gursky who lives alone in his New York apartment. Leo Gursky was young, was once a writer, was once head over heels in love, and once wrote a book about being in love.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Leo Gursky is still in love, still a writer at heart, but the book was destroyed in a flood before anyone could read it, he’s old, he’s retired from the business of unlocking doors for a living, and instead knocks over cups at Starbucks—that way if he dies, someone will remember him.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The History of Love </i>is also about fourteen year old Alma Singer. Alma’s father is dead, her mother buries herself in translations to keep her love alive, and her little brother thinks he’s a holy man, and tried to jump out of a window to see if he could fly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Krauss tangles up gloriously colorful narratives about people who seemingly have nothing to do with each other and then weaves them together in a story that twists and turns every few moments, and bursts into pages of brilliant and imaginative prose. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are excerpts about the Age of Glass, a time when people were convinced that parts of their body were fragile and could shatter at any moment. There’s an obituary for Isaac Babel the writer who believed in the spaces between words more than words themselves, there are tips on how to survive in the wild, and notes on being a holy man.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Krauss must have laughed as she wrote, must sipped sparkling cider and hummed lullabyes. Maybe she did none of these things. Maybe she hit the dog. It doesn’t matter. Part love letter, part mystery, <i>History of Love, </i>is more than a love story, it’s a lesson that there are no limits to the magic of the written word. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">[Observation: Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer and <i>The History of Love </i>is very similar to <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. </i>There are dead fathers, children scrambling all over New York in search of someone, experimental prose, and both were published in 2005. Which raised a lot of questions in Owl’s mind about influences and the intersection of marriage and writing. But Krauss is famous for being closemouthed about her marriage. Pooh.] </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3287848437808779650.post-83652154261079548162011-05-03T21:19:00.001-04:002011-05-04T17:23:51.176-04:00Art, Artists, Artistry<div class="MsoNormal">Every so often Owl encounters artists like the souls who post on <a href="http://www.thoughtcatalog.com/">Thought Catalog</a> and gets a serious attack of the vapors. Owl would very much like to declare herself an <i>artiste, </i>but then she reads the sculpted prose of the people who post on Thought Catalog, their descriptions of life as an artistic twenty-something, the hangovers and hangups, the breakups and breakdowns—la vie bohème. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl is a dull creature, fond of convention, even fonder of rules. She is capable of having a one hour conversation on knitting. She can be found at the library on weekends, and is utterly outraged that it’s closed on Friday nights. Her idea of Bacchanalian pleasure is a mug of hot chocolate and a slice of cardamom bread. She has no desire to experience la vie bohème. It sounds uncomfortable. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And Owl despairs. She cannot shake herself of the notion that the desire for a life without rules is the same spirit that goes into the creation of great art. In order to create anything you can’t look around and duplicate what has already been done. You have to stand on your own feet, see some crazy vision, nod and say—This is how it ought to be. And then do it. And then keep doing it even when people want to lock you up in a padded room.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This takes guts. A certain disregard for convention, and an unshakable madness. And perhaps this is why you get the mythology of the tormented artists. Maybe, in order to do these things, artists have to be slightly mad, completely mad, possessed by some wild beast that can not be contained in a single body so it manifests as alcoholism, angst, abuse, and at its highest and most purest form: art.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Lately Owl has been reading Roberto Bolaño’s much lauded <i>The Savage Detectives</i> which has added to her despair.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If anyone was possessed by this madness it is Roberto Bolaño who spent most of his life wandering through Latin America, stealing books, starving, reading and writing poetry. In Mexico he burst into poetry readings held by poets he thought were corrupt and screamed until he drowned out their words. Isabelle Allende was mediocre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez a mere socialite, and the less said about likes of Laura Esquivel and Paulo Coelho the better. He called for a literary revolution, and if he couldn’t make people get up and follow him, well then, he’d be the revolution. Ballsy, and belligerent, if that’s how a writer should live, than Bolaño the complete and utter badass, was the master of them all.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl was captivated by the first paragraph of <i>The Savage Detectives</i>:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><br />
I'm not really sure what visceral realism is. I'm seventeen years old, my name is Juan García Madero, and I'm in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my uncle insisted, and in the end I gave in. I'm an orphan, and someday I'll be a lawyer. That's what I told my aunt and uncle, and then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=onre07-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0312427484&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Owl wanted to be bff with Juan García Madero. Then he joins the visceral realist poetry movement. He stops attending class and starts going to bars to write poetry. He boozes up, gets laid, and gets high, all in proper artist form. (Here Owl sadly realized she and Juan García Madero were never meant to be. Owl is not the sort to cut classes. Or even booze it up.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A hundred fifty pages in, Madero’s voice is replaced with a series of interviews that capture the lives of two poets as they travel from country to country. There are about fifty different people who are interviewed, the interviews span two decades, several different countries, and to make matters worse (or better) Bolaño chops up the interviews, layering them against each other so every two pages the narrative jumps from person to person.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>The Savage Detectives </i>is technically brilliant. Bolaño must have papered his walls with lists of his characters in order to keep them all straight. But the overall effect is discombobulating. It is difficult, if not impossible to keep track of all the characters, so they become indistinguishable, fifty or so angry voices, getting high, getting drunk, rolling into bed, rolling out, howling for love but managing not to love anyone, not really, not in anyway that matters, and then it just fades into noise, one continuous roar. At first it’s sordid, then it’s exhausting, and finally it’s boring. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There is very little about poetry, and when it is mentioned, like everything else, it gets lost in the roar. If there’s any lasting flavor the remains once you finish, it is about the emptiness of old age once dreams have grown sour. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The critics called the book genius. Owl wonders if this is because Bolaño lives up to the mythology of the tormented artist. Actually Owl does not like to think of Bolaño, when she does, she feels totally incapable of living up to such heights of madness. His vision of artistry seems exclusive—being an artist is like belonging to a club. Either you’re in or you’re out and if you’re out, you’re out and God help you.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Instead of God, Owl turned to Natsume Sōseki’s <i>Kusamakura. </i>Sōseki came of age when Japanese writers were turning towards Western literary traditions. While Bolaño raged against the conventions of Latin American writing insisted on the importance of a revolution, Sōseki turned back to traditional Japanese literature. A revolution, perhaps, but an opposite one, a desire to go back to the old structures of the past instead of rampaging ahead into unknown lands.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=onre07-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0143105191&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Kusamakura </i>is plotless. It follows a narrator as he meanders up a mountain and around its hidden springs. There’s a lot of staring off into the distance and meditating on the nature of art. Where <i>The Savage Detectives </i>is noise, <i>Kusamakura</i> is quiet, where <i>The Savage Detectives </i>is long, <i>Kusamakura </i>is brief, and where <i>The Savage Detectives </i>ultimately has very little to say about the creation of poetry other than how it’s fifty odd characters mostly failed to create poetry, <i>Kusamakura </i>outlines an entire philosophy of art.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">According to Sōseki art is more a state of mind than a product. To be an artist is to be able to create a certain emotional distance from personal experiences and view them dispassionately.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">You must forget the pain of your own broken heart and simply visualize in objective terms the tender moments, the moments of empathy or unhappiness, even the moments most redolent with the pain of heartbreak. These will then become the stuff of literature and art.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Anyone can be an artist as long as they “cut [themselves] loose from the entangling strictures of gross self-interest.” It has less to do with creating than with perceiving. To be an artist is to experience life without getting consumed by emotional reactions. It is an attempt to transcend the immediate visceral reaction to realities of life and instead step back and passively regard the moment for what it is, untainted by personal interests. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl has no comment on which version of artistry—the wildness of Bolaño which is all about the visceral or the dispassion of Sōseki—is more true. Neither. Both mixed up and laid together side by side, after all both writers created books that are still being read today. But she knows which version she prefers. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
On her birthday Owl went to the Asian art museum. It was not a particularly easy birthday, Owl was bitter—tired of her endless desire to write and how ill suited it made her for daily life, desperately afraid of her life without writing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She stopped by a room full of ancient Chinese scrolls. In the manner of Chinese scrolls, the landscapes loomed large and the people were few and far between, a commentary on their relative importance. There were mountains surrounded by curling wisps of smoke, thick forests, riverbanks, and off in the corner a boat or a small hut where inside a scholar read a pile of books. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Owl looked at the largeness of the mountains, the smallness of the scholar reading and in that moment she broke free of all her doubts and attained a moment of clarity. She saw that her life was small, one of many, that her life was indeed good. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She came into possession of a certain serenity, a knowledge that she was one of a long chain of people who had come and gone but spent their lives reading books, that this was acceptable, unimportant even, and that regardless of what she does, the mountains will remain large, eternally beautiful.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In that moment she was absolutely sure one day she would be very happy. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This serenity lasted for days.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129478506301722194noreply@blogger.com15