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Showing posts from November, 2012

seen / scene

It's okay to be poor. I've been poor. I'll be poor again. It's okay to be stupid. I've certainly been stupid. And I still practice, whenever I have the chance. It's even okay to be obnoxious. In business, they call this Assertiveness Training ; put yourself out there, make moves, see what happens. But it is absolutely deadly to be poor, stupid and obnoxious all at once. And yet people still try it on. Like the masterminds who dumped mounds of garbage in our back alley, thinking they'd performed the perfect crime. Until the city came by for a look and found bills and receipts with a name and an address (of course, having solved the crime, and promised to prosecute, they still haven't cleaned it up -- at least three weeks running). Or the people around the corner from us, who placed a couch out on the sidewalk last month, and were ultimately defeated by the twin agencies of no one wanting to take away a dirty, ripped up piece of used furniture an

some mistakes were made but none were imagined

Can you imagine the future? I mean the real future, not the movie this weekend or what your plans are for Christmas or what kind of summer you'll have at the lake; those are just shiny things behind the glass counter. Price tags. I mean ten or twenty years. I mean middle age, old age. Death. I mean the world improved and dreams realized or darkening every day, roads in ruin. And then all places in between. Most can't do this. Or won't. It makes people anxious or angry. Or blank. We have never been busier. So surely all this work and attention and constant distraction must be pointed somewhere, must amount to something. Do we even know what we are doing, and why? Some people will say, O I just want to be secure and generally happy . Which is a bit like saying you just want it to be warm and sunny out, with no idea that the sun is made of flames.

ready player one

It's been at least three weeks since I finished this and I still don't know what to say about. I mean, I *did* finish it, and pretty quickly, so I must have enjoyed it on some level. I know I did. At the same time, the experience was rather empty. The conceit is good (future dystopia predicated on an escapist, virtual-reality culture), with an interesting twist (gaming -- and in particular one game -- is everything, and that one game is based on the 1980's), and the plot moves along very nicely, but the effect is flat. It's one of those books where everything is mentioned and a few things are explained but nothing is examined in any kind of meaningful way. Apparently it will soon be a movie.

embrace change

I never thought I'd hear you say that. Never in a million years. And yet it was predicted. Don't laugh. I'm serious. just the other day. When we went to lunch. It was in the fortune cookie. I said don't laugh. This is serious. This is about. you. And that's what I didn't realize at the time. The message said, Embrace change, don't battle it. I thought it was talking about me but it was really about you. About what you wanted to say. About how I should accept it. and accept you. I guess some fortunes have a face, and stare back at you. * * * * * In the shop .

state-of-the-art destructive capabilities

If by any chance you ever need your psyche crushed -- and by crushed I mean absolutely destroyed, faster and more completely than Custer riding down to greet the Sioux nation -- then just avail yourself of the services of any three year-old. Honestly. Soviet neurosurgeons would blush. Our own master of disaster has achieved something I like to call Full Ego Boundary Pounding: everything hurts, everything is a problem and everything can be subverted. Daddy, what is this? That's squash. I don't like squash. What's this? That's chicken. I don't like chicken. I want my mittens on the inside. I want my mittens on the outside. I don't want those shoes. I don't want that scarf. This scarf hurts me. My face is cold. I don't want to wear a hat. My head is cold. I'm tired. I don't want to go to school. I'm not tired. I don't want to have a nap. I don't have any pee in my body. I still have pee in my body. What are you talking abou

black friday

Timur was also a fun guy. * * * * * Poor Oona -- had to carry her home from the daycare yesterday, so limp she was with her little fever. Some Tylenol and water, then straight to bed. I've probably got the same thing, though of course it tends to manifest differently in my old carcass; let's just say that what you hear in the distance may not, in fact, be gunfire. * * * * * On a related note, I've been reading The Great Big Book of Horrible Things . How could I resist a title like that? All the classics are here, of course, from Genghis Khan to the Second World War, but who knew that the War of the Triple Alliance (Paraguay versus everyone) killed half a million people? Or the same for the Third Mithridatic War? Bloody Pontus. Hell, exactly how many people know that the Sino-Dzungar War ever happened? Or the Bahmani-Vijayanagara war? Still, the big lesson remains that most bad things (at least in terms of body count) happen in China.

let it shine

It's American Thanksgiving today. Crazy historical kids. And one hell of an experiment that they've been running down there, since the Plymouth landing. I listen to a lot of BBC podcasts, and it's fun/disturbing to hear the way commentators across the way divide on the subject of the USA, describing it as the best and the brightest, still the City Upon a Hill of world nations, but also something fallen and corrupted, a malevolent force in domestic policy and international relations. And I wonder how much good it does the rest of us, in the non-American, non-historical domain, to be give them so much attention, as if the news came down to what's-happening-in-America and now-the-boring-stuff. American culture/news now being nearly celebrity/culture/news. And how much good does this massive scrutiny/awareness do the United States itself, when it further feeds that somewhat problematic idea of American exceptionalism? Surely it must be tough to be the blonde, blue-eyed qu

dark all day

A couple of things I wanted to talk about today, but since there's no damn time (again with the complaining) I'll post about Dark All Day , the title of a story I published awhile ago in Branch Magazine , and also the title of my second book of short stories, which recently won a manuscript contest. I can't do better than the official statement, so here it is: Darryl Joel Berger’s Dark All Day wins the 2012 Fjords Review No-Fee Annual Contest. Picked by John Gosslee, Dark All Day will hit the bookshelves in September 2013. The illustration above is an example of the interior artwork -- every story has a picture. All forty one of them. Because I like to make my life difficult. Also difficult is talking about your own writing. So I'll quote from Fjords again, this time from their newsletter: FJORDS NO-FEE ANNUAL CONTEST WINNER We received many excellent entries and our favorites are noted on our shortlist. First Place Darryl Joel Berger's Dark All Da

toodio

Having a *lot* of Oona-Daddy time lately, with C hitting the bars and such, and one thing we did lately was walk to get take-out and then have a picnic in the studio. Afterwards she read a book about traitors and turncoats. Who wouldn't want to read about the life and times of Alcibiades? Fun!

dust bowl

Last night -- watched a Ken Burns documentary about the dust bowl. God that Peter Coyote gets a lot of voice-over work. A second career, with that open but serious timbre of his. All I can remember from his acting life is this forgettable movie called Heartbreakers -- which had something to do with art and threesomes. I wonder why I remember it. The documentary about the dust bowl was sort of awful. Not in the way it was done, not the film, but a lot of the content. Wholesale rural poverty has a kind of God-stricken quality to it. Like a nuclear poverty bomb, unleashing infernos of dirt. One scene described a jack-rabbit slaughter (the jack-rabbits were overrunning the place, apparently), all these men and kids making a party of it, clubbing away with wheel spokes, throwing the rabbits in quivering piles.

don't ever tell her

don't ever tell her what i said mixed media on masonite board (original ink drawing with acrylic and collage elements) 5 x 7 inches in the shop * * * * * Currently killing myself trying to get things done. Can anyone really talk about this now, when everyone makes the same claim, of being crazy busy, all the time? I try to stop myself from saying it. Even so, this week is truer than others, not only because of deadlines, but because some things will just not go away unless I deal with them, and I'm weary from being stalked.

who, boo, miss talseth

Anyone who draws bears is okay in my book. Miss Talseth , from way up there, in her rimy Norway corner, draws that and a lot more . There's a radiant wintriness in her work; you can't help but be cheered. Plus she has very good taste in transparent window calendars.

are you a ghost?

Of all the discussions that Oona and I have had on our walks home from "school" (daycare), probably the most animated revolve around the physical properties of ghosts. In her mind, a ghost is almost completely defined by the absence of arms and legs. So when I suggest that her cousins are ghosts, or her mommy is a ghost, or perhaps even she is a ghost, she will instantly refute this by pointing out the presence of appendages. No , she'll say, No, I'm not a ghost. I have arms. Look, daddy. LOOK. I HAVE ARMS. I HAVE ARMS AND LEGS!  At which point I remind her that it is not polite to yell in the street. And then we turn the conversation to whether or not ghosts can eat. They *do* have mouths , I point out, and watch her brain explode.

it will all work out i'm sure

Well, apparently the right guy won the American presidential election last night, mostly because everyone was more scared of the other guy (who wanted to represent everything, or at least anything that people would vote for), and were alternately suspicious or horrified of the party he represented. So chalk one up for democracy, I guess. Still, the whole thing had a Y2K stink about it, all this drama that just evaporated around midnight. * * * * * Now the real trouble begins. When exactly did the one indispensable nation turn into such a basket case? It's like Publishers Clearing House meets Kids Day in Russia down there, all oversized novelty cheques and people taking pictures of their food. * * * * * Actually, there was guy on the radio this morning going after the foodies and the inane kind of consumer elitism they represent. Sometimes I think I'm the only one having these kind of piss-on-the-parade thoughts, but then hey, along comes this British

who, boo, elizabeth

The drawings of Elizabeth Blue are always a little too dark, a little unsettled, a little askew. Her characters seem hopeless and complacent at the same time, slightly bent by a kind of gothic emptiness. All of which makes me a fan.

how poor are you ... really?

Downtown was *thick* with rough people, insane people and people emanating cautionary smells yesterday. Halloween excitement, I guess. It got me thinking about poor people, and specifically about how one measures their own poverty. * * * * * Sure, everyone *claims* to be poor, pretty much all the time. They say things like We need to cut back. We have no money left this month. There's no way we can afford a vacation this year. There's no way we can afford a vacation anywhere nice this year. O my God, all my clothes are rags. O my God, all my shoes are disgusting. O my God, I can't wear these shoes on vacation. This place is a crack house. This place is a crack house unless we get a new couch and love seat. and so on. But how do you know if you really *are* poor? * * * * * HOW TO KNOW IF YOU'RE POOR You ride everywhere on your bike but you hate bike riding and you don't give a shit about the environment. Also, the bike was give