Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Reading next Wednesday in the East Village

NEW Reading Series!!

Friends of Tuesday Shorts now showing monthly at the Boxcar Lounge (http://boxcarlounge.com): Our FIRST phenomenal reading is November 28, 2007, 168 Avenue B, East Village NYC. 8 - 10 pm.

Please join us and forward to anyone you know. We wanna see your shorts there too!

Hosted by Shelly Rae Rich, writer (see http://blog.shellyraerich.com) and co-editor of Tuesday Shorts (http://myspace.com/tuesdayshorts), the series kicks off with an eclectic group of talent.


And here they are…..(in ABC order)

Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in journals like Pindeldyboz, Post Road, and Red Rock Review. After editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) and Zoetrope All-Story Extra, he co-founded Night Train, a recently reinvented literary journal, which has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. Sunnyoutside Press published a collection of his flash fiction, Breaking it Down in November 2007.

Linda DiGusta is a freelance writer and artist. Active in the NYC theatre for more than a decade as a director, designer and performer, the inventiveness of acting and collaboration on a screenplay re-kindled her early interest in fiction, and she has had several short stories published in print and online. In the fine art world, she currently has 2 still-life drawings in the exhibition "Lineal Investigations" at the Housatonic Museum of Art, and her assemblages and drawings have been seen in group exhibitions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, including at Art Gotham in Chelsea this month. Integrating art and writing, Linda also writes for and serves as Executive Editor of Resolve40.com, an online publication created by artists in 2005 to present the art world from a fresh point of view. She lives in midtown Manhattan with artist Mark Wiener and their multi-species family. More at: http://www.lindadi.com and http://www.resolve40.com.

Anne Elliott has performed her poetry, with and without ukulele, at the Whitney Museum (with the Beats show), PS122, Lincoln Center, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's, Woodstock '94, and other venues in and out of NYC. Her poems have appeared in Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Verses that Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets, and other anthologies. Her fiction has appeared in Hobart, Pindeldyboz, FRiGG, Ars Medica, and others, and she blogs on the writing life and feral cat management at http://assbackwords.blogspot.com.

Carol Novack, a former criminal defense lawyer and Australian government grant recipient, is the author of a chapbook of poetry, play, collaborative CD and two collaborative films. Writings may or will be found in many publications, including American Letters & Commentary, Action Yes, Del Sol Review, Diagram, 5_trope, Gargoyle, Journal of Experimental Fiction, La Petite Zine, LIT, Notre Dame Review, and the Star*Vigate anthology of best online writings. Carol publishes the multi-media e-journal Mad Hatters' Review (http://madhattersreview.com), curates a reading series at the KGB Bar, and runs lyrical fiction writing workshops. She'll be a resident at The Vermont Studio Center next year. For additional details, see her blog (http://carolnovack.blogspot.com).

personal news of a delightful nature

ok, this won't solve the planet's problems, but my application for a 4-week first choice August fiction writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center met with success. i'll be on partial fellowship and working hard on something or other, maybe a second play or something multi-medial. woopee! i LOVE that part of the country!

What I'm writing

I've been working on a prose poemy series called "Gated Communities," and collaborating with the wondrous poet Sheila Murphy on a piece called "Room."


Here are bits of "Gated Communities." I've submitted Part I to a journal of prose poetics.

GATED COMMUNITIES
(a series in progress)


Part I: Outside Looking In side



Mapquest

Where leaves of the sequoias fall and winds lift them beyond the edges of roads.

No, not edges not roads. A circle of time.



Mapquest

Where there are no sequoias, no winds to move the minutes.

Where horses lose their gait and disintegrate.

Where no one remembers the ways, means, or mothers.

He says: a rhombus. She says: a trapazoid.



Opera

I bought a vintage velvet dream and hemmed it to rub against my ankles like cats. Dead mother's emerald earrings clung to my ears like leaves.

On a road with no moon I shivered under shadows of trees I could not see. He said he'd be waiting by the gate. There would be no other opening.

There was no gate.



Mapquest

If you proceed from A to B on your horse, you may not notice a slight deviation, a size of time as imperceptible as the beginning of an embryo.

You must have circular vision like the sequoia know where beginnings never end and endings begin.

You must recognize the invisible point of conception -- open your self to conceive it. Then let it go – (that's the point. (beside the point.



Ball

One must have a mask to enter, said the keeper of the gate. His head was swathed in black sackcloth with holes for his eyes, too dark to see under a half-hearted winter moon.

Are you a hangman or a gatekeeper? I asked, I in my red cloak, with my head in the winds and rain, my feet in red rubber slippers.

He said nothing as the road became a river and he a ferryman steering a boat of cloaked shadows cascading over the gate into a promised land of violins, ice wine, and chandeliers.




Part II: Inside Looking Out side or



Vacancy

There I was, finally or so assumed by me, presumed I. Evidence: A: There was no keeper. B. The gate looked different, cast in a light I didn’t recognize. There was graffiti on the gate: an outline of a heart intersected by an arrow at the precise midpoint of nine circles, apparently. The graffiti was a scrawl in Latin, translated: DANTE LOVES BEATRICE.

Someone poked me, but not yet the man with the umbrella. Someone questioned my assumptions. Was this my dead mother? Is that what she’d said, in the manner of the crow, opening and shutting its beak, did she ever squawk at me, utter: caw caw? Are you sure that’s what you saw . . . dear . . . you with your extravagant imagination, your solitary perspective? Have you located yourself in correct time and season? Are you walking tall and straight forward? Beware of walls!

One must be vigilant. I had learned that much, perhaps not that much. The gate keeper gone, I could only keep watch for and on my self. Was there truly graffiti on the gate? Was there love or at least a story of love? I could not respond, to anyone’s satisfaction, as I imagined, without any fore or hindsight. Where had I left my sight? How could I find it? Where were the chandeliers?

I raised the volume of my voice to an atonal # A, a vulgar arrow to pierce the bland white noise of the context, nothing but fog and a sense of walls. Then, abruptly, the man with the umbrella but without it, all in white: jacket, shirt, pants, and hat. He looked fatigued, red eyed and back bowed, as though in wait for the arrival of an arrow, consulted a watch with a large face he wasn’t wearing on his wrist. It’s time, the man said repeatedly, nostrils quivering.

The man cleared his throat to achieve a tone of certainty: there is not . . . is not any, any longer . . . no longer is time but not vacant. There it is, VOICI and VOILA: the vacancy! For you, if you wish. Then he scurried past, disappearing at the end of the roads, it seemed, though I could see no roads.

The planet on this side of the gate felt flat and far like an outdoor concert hall without speakers. The man must have fallen off its ledge, either the planet or fog, I couldn’t tell. I only knew that he was not to be beloved; the distances were much too obvious. There was nothing to do but seek the plot allotted to me, my space to design. I started to walk short and crooked in a random direction.


Mapquest

If you walk swiftly to meet deadlines, you may miss the turn.

If you walk slowly to arrive at specific places, you may miss the turn.

Walk without point past the playgrounds and cemeteries, the wedding rotundas and taverns. Walk only toward possibility without thought and reflection without light.

MAD HATTERS' REVIEW is BLOGGING!

They thought it would never happen, but guess what? The Mad Hatters arose from their stupor and created a BLOG: HERE

Drop by and comment!

Lyrical Fiction Writing Workshop Offering

Fiction Writing Workshop - for Intermediate & Advanced Writers (Greenwich Village)
Reply to: comm-426648641@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-09-19, 2:25PM EDT


I am a widely published fiction writer and poet, the publisher/editor-in-chief of an increasingly popular and respected literary/multi-media e-journal, and an instructor/workshop leader of fiction writing and performance reading at an arts center in Queens, where I've received glowing reviews. I've also been an adjunct instructor of English in two area colleges, a copy-editor/writer for a well-known glossy magazine, and a featured reader in many prose and poetry series in the vicinity and elsewhere. I run my own series at the KGB Bar. Finally, I have a Master's Degree in Social Work, with a concentration in community organizing and social group work. The skills I learned during my pursuit of the degree come in very handy in a workshop setting. Ok. Enough about me already!

If enough writers are interested, I will offer the following workshop, including a session or two on performance reading, at participants' request. I envision leading 6 - 8 intensive, weekly, or bi-monthly meetings in my apartment or elsewhere in the Greenwich/West Village vicinity. Dates and times will be scheduled according to participants' needs and preferences. Cost will be reasonable and dependent on several factors.

This is not a typical write by rules "how to" workshop; it's for serious writers of literary fictions, fusions, and/or poems.


LYRICAL FICTION WRITING

The discovery and development of one's authentic voice/s through surrender to process is a liberating experience, sometimes exhausting, but always energizing in the deepest sense. This workshop will sharpen writing skills, with a focus on process and language, language as music and visual art, via discussions, writing exercises, prompts, and readings of other authors' prose, as well as prose by participants. How can we tap into our unique thinking, feeling and knowing processes to discover and develop our own special voices, create prose that sings, and images that startle, delight, and disturb? This workshop is for intermediate and advanced writers interested in exploring what they can do with language. It is also a stimulating and inspiring course for those who suffer from so-called writers' block.

ANNOUNCING THE UNOFFICIAL MHR ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS CLICHES CONTEST

The Unofficial MHR Absolutely Atrocious Cliches Contest

Submit one micro flash (under 500 words) or poem (under 500 words) to madhattersreivew@gmail.com, subject line: Absolutely Atrocious Cliches Contest.

We gotta raise some money in order to continue publishing our out of this cyberworld mag, so I'm asking for $3.00 per piece to enter (via paypal to madhattersreview@gmail.com) if you want your entries to be considered for publication. Send no money if you simply want me to post your stuff on my blog here, at my whim and wish.

One absolutely atrocious poem and one absolutely atrocious fiction/whatnot will be chosen by an undisclosed judging committee of one, two, or three (whomever we can get). There may or may not be Honorable Mentions. MHR reserves the right to decline from publishing any entries if none of them meets the abyssmal standard set by the undisclosed judging committee. Editors of MHR (past, future, and present) may not enter the contest. Barking dogs, spitting, forni*at**g, and sm*king are not allowed.

Deadline: January 1, 2008

Here's a sample of an AAC fiction.

Satisfaction

By Carol Novack (original version published in Skive a long time ago)

We walked along the beach, holding hands. The sun was descending into the sea, offering a rosy fingered, late summer sunset that promised an autumn of shiny red apples and colorful, dappled, falling leaves. Nicole and I had met only hours before and already we knew that we were destined to be together forever. Her long golden hair gleamed in the rays of the sighing sun; her hand was feverish in mine. She stooped to pick up a clam shell and smiled as she brushed off the tiny dots of ancient mountains.

“Oh, Maurice,” she exclaimed. “This will be our first shell. We shall keep it on the mantelpiece and guard it as a legacy to our grandchildren.”

I smiled as I gazed into her blue eyes, the color of the western sky back in Arizona, where I was raised. I thought of those days of hardship, my poor, skeleton of a mother, cook, laundress and tender of pigs. And my salesman father, with his callous hands and birch canes. I remembered his sour whisky breath, how he’d return from his trips, cursing. Me and my six brothers and sisters would attempt to flee the minute he entered the house, bellowing for his dinner and his whiskey. Mom would stand by the door, meek as a mouse, her tongue caught by Tom, the housecat.

“Oh mamma, oh mamma,” I would plead, “don’t let the dog in, please, oh mamma.”

I would crawl on the ground and clasp her spindly legs in my arms. But she wouldn’t listen. She’d brush me off like a fly. Like she was in a trance, she let the dog of my father in and gave him whatever he wanted, which never satisfied the old man. Nothing satisfied him. So he killed my mother one day. But they could never find him.

Nicole sensed that I wasn’t altogether there, by the sea. She squeezed my hand so hard I had to laugh. And then suddenly, without warning, she stripped off her nifty Ralph Lauren jeans and diaphanous, gossamer Calvin Klein top. I gazed at the bursting brown bud nipples of her opulent breasts as she pulled me down onto the warm sand. A gull screeched happily as we kissed deep and long as eternity. I knew then that I was nothing like my old man. I was satisfied as the sun disappeared beneath the pounding waves.

some excerpts from my novel/la in progress

"Beautiful Hair"

The protagonist of this novel/la is Anna, a troubled young woman suspected of murdering Theresa, a young hair stylist (she'd stalked a few hair stylists before the murder). The following excerpts depict events ostensibly occurring after Anna's fled home (queens, ny) -- before the cops burst into her apartment in order to arrest her.

The Mothers

The mothers of Theresa, Lydia, Cherrie, Suzanne, Deb, Dolores, Fifi, and Tanya sit on plastic covered floral sofas and chairs in Mrs. Rodriguez’s living room in Sunnyside, Queens. The mothers have been re-arranging themselves on furniture in various living rooms in Queens and Brooklyn once a month, since the fatal day. Together, they plot and pray for revenge: Dear God, lend us light and insight to find the unholy, the unspeakably horrible she-beast in her lair. Together, the women discover an intoxicating surge of power and strength each alone would never feel. They wear black on this day, the first anniversary of Theresa’s murder, resemble widows who huddle on the doorsteps of white stone houses on Mediterranean islands. The topic of husbands has never arisen. Occasionally, one can hear a key opening the front door and assume.

Cherrie’s mother Doris, with three daughters, an MBA, and a penthouse apartment in Bayside, has emerged as the unchallenged leader. She knows the weather of the mothers. It’s hot and muggy today, scalding from the memory of scissors in a daughter’s heart. The weather turns dangerous during the viewing of Theresa’s childhood bedroom, a study in pink, now a shrine laid out with vases of polyester flowers, stuffed animals in various degrees of decomposition, a large golden crucifix, and photographs in gaudy faux gold frames. The mothers emit an inaudible moan as they enter the room. Some cross themselves, some cry. Theresa’s mother Carmen breaks down completely, sobbing and raging in equal measure. Then abruptly there is silence. Doris’s voice reigns, gathers the collective, herds them back to the living room. Carmen serves rum, tea, and cupcakes with sprinkles.

Doris reports: “As usual ladies, there is no news from the District Attorney … well, it’s even worse than that. When I called last week and managed to get by his secretary, he fed me the same line he’s been feeding us since the getgo. We all agree it’s a lost cause. He doesn’t care. Since the murder of the young stylist in Long Island City, he’s been focusing on other suspects, particularly one now. He makes short shrift of the evidence against the woman and has called off the hunt. We, of course, are wiser. And we are clever. Let’s proceed at full throttle, relying only on ourselves.”

Tanya’s mother Alla responds: “Yes, it’s time we set our plans in operation. Already, we have mothers in Bolivia, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.”

Dolores’s mother Maria adds: “We also have mothers in Trinidad, Martinique, Equador and Peru.”

Carmen says she’s making contacts in Guadeloupe, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic.

Lydia’s mother Adelaide pipes in: “.Cuba is difficult, but who knows with the woman? They say she went on protests.”

The Mother’s Network, as the women call their organization, is growing, gathering members like a chain letter that threatens violent death if it’s not forwarded for additional signatures. The mothers in cities will contact their relatives and friends in villages. They have photographs of the freak, with and without that violent red hair. It’s only a matter of time, assuming she’s somewhere south of the border.”

The Ugly Man

In the town of V, Ramon sits on his verandah, watching and waiting. She will soon pass by, the young American woman with hair like flames. He knows the hours she works, is intimate with her ways. She has never looked at him. Indeed, she appears to hasten her step when she nears his house, proceeding down the road to her modest, dilapidated apartment. The man is mustering courage to invite her to join him; perhaps she would care for a cool rum cocktail on this sweltering summer’s day. Instead, he does nothing when she passes by. Not today, possibly never. What was he thinking? He is too ugly for such fantasies. He has always been hideous, too short for a male, born with a hair-lip, deformed feet, respected for his brains, but shunned for his body. Even his ostensibly adoring students avoid looking at “el profesor horroroso.”

Ramon sighs, picks up the dog-eared Maupassant short story collection he’s been reading over and over again since he was a child. Maupassant’s tales about cruel egoists are hardly conducive to the acquisition of high spirits, he thinks. So he pours himself a rum and coke. It makes him sleepy. He pours another, hoping that it will dull his mind and quiet his incomprehensible emotions. Ramon has been burning for a connection with this woman, and has no idea why. He can only feel the reason: a poetry of sorrow that emanates from her, haunting him like the pale, delicate aura of a ghost without a home in family, place, or self.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ramon’s Dream

There is a woman on my verandah, more of a shadow than a woman. She is plunging scissors into a giant pomegranate or maybe a breast; I can’t tell. The pomegranate breast bursts. Its blood and seeds flood the verandah. I lie in bed, paralyzed. I try to move as the blood rushes indoors, coursing through the veins of the house like a river fleeing from an angry moon. I remember why I can’t move. My mother amputated my horrible feet, calling the act a mercy killing. Meanwhile, the blood has arrived at the top of the mattress. It smells meaty and sour, like menstrual blood.

The woman shadow moves into the house, rides the river into my room and lies down beside me. The blood has disappeared but for a trickle emerging from her vagina. I am looking into her vagina, which I’ve parted with my hands. There is a knitting needle inside that I remove carefully. The woman shadow cries in pain as a large, malformed fetus crawls out of her vagina. The fetus leaps off the bed and onto the rug. It starts to scream, its face growing redder and redder. It continues, but the woman’s breasts are vacant of nourishment and I have no milk in the house.

That is all I remember, he tells Anna, as she lies asleep beside him. More a shadow than a woman, one would think, though miserably real; he understands intuitively what she does not want him to know. She doesn’t stir when he leans over to rest his head on her belly, hoping to hear a tiny heartbeat in her womb. He hears nothing. She sleeps on her back, always rigid, hands clenched, mouth tight.

Once Upon a Time

Anna would tell this story:

There was once a man in a country far from here. He made me trust him, knew how to manipulate me with his tender, melodic voice, his erudition and honed affectation as a “gentleman.” We’d been drinking cocktails as the dog day summer’s day melted into night. I felt relaxed, almost limp, and I’d begun to imagine I was in love with this man, though I was wary of his mother. She was out to get me. I knew she was, though he never said so.

The man coaxed me into his bedroom, confessed he’d never done it with a woman. One night, when he was 18 and drunk, he’d scrutinized a ewe’s vagina, wondering whether it resembled a woman’s. I lay stiff as a dead snake as he undressed me with his large, hairy hands, and removed his clothes. Told me I had skin, smooth and white, like a carp’s flesh. His large hands massaged my head, shoulders, breasts, stomach, and thighs, as though he were molding me into a being of his own creation. He gazed at me too intently and he was salavating, so I closed my eyes.

He was an unsightly man, with a big red, hair-lipped mouth, small, squinty eyes, and deformed feet. Terrible skin, as though his mother’s womb had burned him on his way out of it. But I’d grown accustomed to his external appearance, or so I thought. Considering my own shortcomings, how could I be so foolish and arrogant as to dwell on his?

He brushed his lips over my body, this man, turned me around, covered every inch. I didn’t understand what was overcoming me as I breathed in his meaty, sour scent, so strong I could barely exhale. Odd how his scent had seemed enticing, even delicate. He tried to push his cock inside me, but could scarcely penetrate. I was dry and kept my eyes closed like lids on coffins as he tried to fuck me, repeatedly thrusting. I wished I had a knife, but didn’t have any idea what I’d do with one. I was paralyzed, unable to do anything. Finally, he gave up. When I opened my eyes, he was crying quietly. We dressed in silence and I knew I’d never see him again. I left the town the next evening, refusing to pick up the phone. I knew they’d come after me. Well, at least she would: the vengeful mother. Always those mothers, like the dogs on the other sides of the borders.