There's something about a Damien Rice song that makes one, upon listening to it, feel all raw and achy inside. Achy like a mid-December flu or cold. This is the power of music--this is the power of feeling an emotion so tough and wrong that you (meaning Damien) can't do anything but lose control on the track. With gut-wrenching screams, yells and wails this odd little white fellow sings to me. He sings in a way that I become lost in his world of heartaches, snot-slinging sobs and fast or slow heart palpitations that ensures the end is near. For this kind of pain is only fitting for lovers. This kind of hurt is what makes the world of good music go 'round. The art of communicating this kind of sadness is amazing to me. I absolutely love Damien's music and have to admit I'm quite surprised he's still alive. What manner of man can live his days singing in pain to a lover that could care less? What kind of person could sustain such misery?
Damien's songs, his hurt, pain--this train of thought, is leading me to think of an episode of Super Nanny where this couple, who were separate, was having problems with the kiddies when the father decided to leave the home. Even though the Dad would come by the family's home every night to tuck the children in they continued to misbehave because they could see how their Mom was falling apart. (Sometimes adults fail to realize how smart children are. Just when we think they aren't listening or couldn't possible understand what it looks like when Daddy doesn't love Mommy anymore they surprise us every time). Anyway, the heartbreaking part of the story is this, Super Nanny Joe, comes right out and asks Dad (who had been keeping his wife on the fence for months without any answer to whether their marriage was over or not) if he wanted to work things out, and just like a maverick without a care in the world he said, "No, no I don't." Cue the Damien Rice song--"I Remember" perhaps. Needless to say, the wife was devastated. How do you cover up that kind of hurt? Here's a woman loving a man like living water, and here's the living water refusing to quench her thirst. On television with thirty million people tuned in--again, how do you cover up that kind of hurt? The look of the wife's face made me shiver. I wanted to quickly play her a song from the O album and let her cry it out. One good cry is what she needed, this I knew.
What is anyone to do when the one he or she is loving turns that love off like a faucet? No lingering drips to offer some since of hope of maybe they'll come back. Damien knows the answer to questions like these. He screams the remedy with pain on track after track, but who can hear when heartache thumps in their ears so loud like water?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Short, But Meaningful
In 2007, I decided to send Toure', the author of "Never Drank The Kool-Aid and "Soul City", an email of the craft analysis I wrote for (my Darling) Diana's F&T class. Recently, I was going through some old emails and found what Toure' wrote back to me. Even though his response only consists of a few shabby sentences I think it's cool he actually wrote back.
Nov. 3rd
What I wrote:
Greetings,
A couple of semesters ago I read your collection of essays, "Never Drank The Kool-Aid" for a Form & Technique class in prose. The book was "dope" as the cool kids say. The essay about you fearing for yr life with Suge Knight was hilarious.
Anyway, I wanted to show you my craft analysis for the book with an emphasis on the essay "What's Inside Us Brotha." I love this one. I think it's important for you to see what an actual student thought of your work, yo. Enjoy--I hope.
A. K. Cole
Form & Technique
Diana Joseph 102606
Toure' – "What’s Inside Us, Brotha?" In his collection of essays, Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Toure—our modern day griot of Hip-Hop, our oral historian of an infectious culture that literally set both east and west coasts on fire in the early 80’s, when some dope rhymes over fly beats not only rocked the house, but banks accounts alike. The beginning years of this culture has always been a bit shady for me because I was an 80s baby, so at age five I didn’t know what Run-DMC meant when they said “It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time—It's Tricky...it's Tricky (Tricky) Tricky (Tricky),” but I knew I liked it, and when my cousins would bust cardboard boxes down in the funeral home parking lot, and break-dance to “Crush groovin-body-movin,” I didn’t know how to do those moves, but I felt some sort of delicious-attraction. At that tender age, I knew 80s Hiphop had that energy that kept my ear to the speaker, and my eyes glued to the breakers contorting limbs.
In this collection of profiles and reflective essays, Toure gives readers a huge slice of Hiphop pie by examining these famed artists to uncover their true-self beyond their public persona. In the introduction, he explains the importance of listening to subjects in order to get them to tell him things he wouldn’t have thought to ask. The one thing he didn’t ask his subjects directly was the one thing they told him indirectly, by expressing the hunger, need and conviction of their life-stories—their “What’s Inside You(s), Brotha?” Toure struggled with this question and fought with himself to answer it. As a reader, this question speaks volumes because it challenges everything I thought I knew about myself.
In this essay, Toure lays himself on the chopping block for a decapitation of his three heads—you, I (me), and he. His reaction to this question, and the way he structured this essay to answer it is unique to him, but the stories of Biggie, Pac, 50, DMX, and even Caushun revealed their story, which is largely responsible for the art they create, created. The boxing metaphor in this essay reinforces Toure’s choice to write with shifting point of views. Here he’s fighting with the punching bag, Jack, past experiences that include a physical fight and mental regrets, and himself. The rotating P.O.V.’s, as a literary technique, allows Toure to see himself from the outside and inside, simultaneously during the fight. On a more global level, this question allows readers (if they really are reading) to examine themselves to find the source of what is driving them; what is making their yearning for public recognition, or familial recognition like fire in their loins. Like Toure, I hesitated to ask myself this question because I was afraid of what the answer would be, and I should have been—we all should be scared when seriously dissecting ourselves for the truth. This question is bigger than the obvious, I am Black, I am White, Woman, or Male—it’s about where you come from that made, and is constantly making you who you are.
You ache with the need to convince yourself
that you do exist in the real world
that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish,
and you strike out with your fists,
you curse and you swear
to make them recognize you.
-from Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison"
Nov. 23rd
What Toure' wrote back to me:
Thank you for sending that and for carefully reading my book! That was so nice.
Nov. 3rd
What I wrote:
Greetings,
A couple of semesters ago I read your collection of essays, "Never Drank The Kool-Aid" for a Form & Technique class in prose. The book was "dope" as the cool kids say. The essay about you fearing for yr life with Suge Knight was hilarious.
Anyway, I wanted to show you my craft analysis for the book with an emphasis on the essay "What's Inside Us Brotha." I love this one. I think it's important for you to see what an actual student thought of your work, yo. Enjoy--I hope.
A. K. Cole
Form & Technique
Diana Joseph 102606
Toure' – "What’s Inside Us, Brotha?" In his collection of essays, Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Toure—our modern day griot of Hip-Hop, our oral historian of an infectious culture that literally set both east and west coasts on fire in the early 80’s, when some dope rhymes over fly beats not only rocked the house, but banks accounts alike. The beginning years of this culture has always been a bit shady for me because I was an 80s baby, so at age five I didn’t know what Run-DMC meant when they said “It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time—It's Tricky...it's Tricky (Tricky) Tricky (Tricky),” but I knew I liked it, and when my cousins would bust cardboard boxes down in the funeral home parking lot, and break-dance to “Crush groovin-body-movin,” I didn’t know how to do those moves, but I felt some sort of delicious-attraction. At that tender age, I knew 80s Hiphop had that energy that kept my ear to the speaker, and my eyes glued to the breakers contorting limbs.
In this collection of profiles and reflective essays, Toure gives readers a huge slice of Hiphop pie by examining these famed artists to uncover their true-self beyond their public persona. In the introduction, he explains the importance of listening to subjects in order to get them to tell him things he wouldn’t have thought to ask. The one thing he didn’t ask his subjects directly was the one thing they told him indirectly, by expressing the hunger, need and conviction of their life-stories—their “What’s Inside You(s), Brotha?” Toure struggled with this question and fought with himself to answer it. As a reader, this question speaks volumes because it challenges everything I thought I knew about myself.
In this essay, Toure lays himself on the chopping block for a decapitation of his three heads—you, I (me), and he. His reaction to this question, and the way he structured this essay to answer it is unique to him, but the stories of Biggie, Pac, 50, DMX, and even Caushun revealed their story, which is largely responsible for the art they create, created. The boxing metaphor in this essay reinforces Toure’s choice to write with shifting point of views. Here he’s fighting with the punching bag, Jack, past experiences that include a physical fight and mental regrets, and himself. The rotating P.O.V.’s, as a literary technique, allows Toure to see himself from the outside and inside, simultaneously during the fight. On a more global level, this question allows readers (if they really are reading) to examine themselves to find the source of what is driving them; what is making their yearning for public recognition, or familial recognition like fire in their loins. Like Toure, I hesitated to ask myself this question because I was afraid of what the answer would be, and I should have been—we all should be scared when seriously dissecting ourselves for the truth. This question is bigger than the obvious, I am Black, I am White, Woman, or Male—it’s about where you come from that made, and is constantly making you who you are.
You ache with the need to convince yourself
that you do exist in the real world
that you’re a part of all the sound and anguish,
and you strike out with your fists,
you curse and you swear
to make them recognize you.
-from Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison"
Nov. 23rd
What Toure' wrote back to me:
Thank you for sending that and for carefully reading my book! That was so nice.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Luke, This Wag is for You
I was thinking of something clever to say to you. Something that wouldn't necessarily sting your soul, but some words that will bring your finger wagging to a complete hault. I don't accept your finger wag, sir--not one bit. I didn't submit to the send out party because I didn't feel like it. I'm really in no rush to submit anything right now. And anyway, a better idea would have been to announce this let's-all-get published event at the beginning of November rather than the middle-to-the-end of the month.
Even though you wrote you results of the challenge weeks ago, I'm responding to you today because I dance to the beat of my own drum (when I feel like it). So if you won't retract the wag, I will because I'm just that cool.
On a lighter note, will you be in Chicago for AWP?
Even though you wrote you results of the challenge weeks ago, I'm responding to you today because I dance to the beat of my own drum (when I feel like it). So if you won't retract the wag, I will because I'm just that cool.
On a lighter note, will you be in Chicago for AWP?
Monday, November 17, 2008
The Biggest Fight I Ever Had
Well actually I'm still having it--this fight between the novel and me. All this morning on the bus listening to songs that filled the space around my head, I was fighting. Fighting with the idea of putting my fingers on the keyboard to type. This story inside me is fighting to get out, but I continue to think/say/feel--I can't let 'you' out. Like a spirit child that travels from generation to generation trying to be born, this novel is trying to get out of me, but I won't let it.
Maybe it's fear of failing or succeeding or not getting past the first page. Maybe it's the idea of breaking the lazy pattern my life has grown accustomed to. Maybe it's something I haven't thought of yet.
Whatever it is I know the story inside of me won't rest until it's out (damn you spirit of storytelling--you're like a hog weighing on my back, but I love you--you're like a needle in a haystack I can't find, but I need you--you're like a cute man with a cocked-eye, but I can't stop looking at you--you're like everything in this world that I need, love, want but I misuse you so.)
Maybe it's fear of failing or succeeding or not getting past the first page. Maybe it's the idea of breaking the lazy pattern my life has grown accustomed to. Maybe it's something I haven't thought of yet.
Whatever it is I know the story inside of me won't rest until it's out (damn you spirit of storytelling--you're like a hog weighing on my back, but I love you--you're like a needle in a haystack I can't find, but I need you--you're like a cute man with a cocked-eye, but I can't stop looking at you--you're like everything in this world that I need, love, want but I misuse you so.)
Friday, November 14, 2008
I Like The Part About Finding YOur Own Way
Letters to a Young Writer
In our Letters to a Young Writer series, Narrative’s featured authors respond to comments and questions from younger authors reflecting on the nature of the writer’s work. We inaugurate this series with a correspondence between Dennis O’Reilly and T. Corghessan Boyle:
Dear T. C. Boyle,
No one can accuse you of shying away from the most onerous issues of our time. Perhaps that’s why I’m reluctant to take Ty Tierwater at his word when he says, “I’m not preaching. I’m not going to preach. It’s too late for that.”
In a culture in which the presentation of all opinions has all but eliminated rational discourse, would you encourage young writers concerned with the problems our society faces to lay it all on the line, as you have done? Or is it too late for that?
Thank you for your time—and your work.
Best regards,
Dennis Thomas O’Reilly
Dear Dennis:
I wouldn’t want people to throw in the towel after reading A Friend of the Earth. Certainly Friend is not a book of advocacy (in fact, when I came back from that particular book tour to access my website, I was amazed to find that people there were debating whether or not I was an environmentalist), because advocacy and fiction do not comfortably coexist, though my sympathies should be clear to anyone who has read even a handful of my stories or novels. Not a single environmentalist holds out much hope for the future of our species or of the myriad other endangered species out there, given our overpopulation and destruction of the environment, the zero-sum game of capitalism that posits infinite product and infinite consumers, and our unsustainable lifestyle. The crash is coming. You’d have to be blind not to see that.
So what do we do? I am socially engaged, unlike many of my contemporaries, and I take on a whole variety of issues, yes, but increasingly I have found myself coming back to the central one of the environment, and, by extension, the meaning of our lives in the face of an indifferent universe. How and why do we master the other species? How long will our tenure be? Why have we evolved the power to contemplate our own future? Why do we exist? Why does anything exist? I write fiction in order to think deeply and to assuage my fear and my pessimism through the act of creating art. This is redemptive. And while I have no advice for any artist, young or old, other than to find his or her own way, I will say that each of us must create art in order to address the central questions of human existence—for our own sanity, and, we hope, for the sanity of our readers. (I Like this part).
Buena suerte,
T. C. Boyle
In our Letters to a Young Writer series, Narrative’s featured authors respond to comments and questions from younger authors reflecting on the nature of the writer’s work. We inaugurate this series with a correspondence between Dennis O’Reilly and T. Corghessan Boyle:
Dear T. C. Boyle,
No one can accuse you of shying away from the most onerous issues of our time. Perhaps that’s why I’m reluctant to take Ty Tierwater at his word when he says, “I’m not preaching. I’m not going to preach. It’s too late for that.”
In a culture in which the presentation of all opinions has all but eliminated rational discourse, would you encourage young writers concerned with the problems our society faces to lay it all on the line, as you have done? Or is it too late for that?
Thank you for your time—and your work.
Best regards,
Dennis Thomas O’Reilly
Dear Dennis:
I wouldn’t want people to throw in the towel after reading A Friend of the Earth. Certainly Friend is not a book of advocacy (in fact, when I came back from that particular book tour to access my website, I was amazed to find that people there were debating whether or not I was an environmentalist), because advocacy and fiction do not comfortably coexist, though my sympathies should be clear to anyone who has read even a handful of my stories or novels. Not a single environmentalist holds out much hope for the future of our species or of the myriad other endangered species out there, given our overpopulation and destruction of the environment, the zero-sum game of capitalism that posits infinite product and infinite consumers, and our unsustainable lifestyle. The crash is coming. You’d have to be blind not to see that.
So what do we do? I am socially engaged, unlike many of my contemporaries, and I take on a whole variety of issues, yes, but increasingly I have found myself coming back to the central one of the environment, and, by extension, the meaning of our lives in the face of an indifferent universe. How and why do we master the other species? How long will our tenure be? Why have we evolved the power to contemplate our own future? Why do we exist? Why does anything exist? I write fiction in order to think deeply and to assuage my fear and my pessimism through the act of creating art. This is redemptive. And while I have no advice for any artist, young or old, other than to find his or her own way, I will say that each of us must create art in order to address the central questions of human existence—for our own sanity, and, we hope, for the sanity of our readers. (I Like this part).
Buena suerte,
T. C. Boyle
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
We're Living This Moment
All I have to say is God is moving this nation towards a change that I can believe in. It's true that America can change and it is. With all this joy and fair tidings, I know that this America we're moving towards won't appear over night--it will take some and I'm willing to wait and work and make the sacrifices necessary. It brings me exceeding happiness to know that my five year-old niece will know a different America than myself, as I will know a different one than my mother.
It's a good day to be black, white, asian, hispanic, native--united in America. In 77 days I will know how it feels to be represented in the highest office in this country. In 77 days my nine year-old twins cousins will have living proof that nothing is impossible--not even becoming president of the United States. We made history.
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