I haven’t disappeared off the Interweb…I’ve just gone underground to work and do some reading. I need to immerse myself in reading from time to time just to feed my brain and get a dose of enthusiasm for my own writing. I can’t seem to do it all: work, have a blog life, read, and write. But when I start to feel myself getting stupider, I stay away from the computer and open a book. Or five.
I’m one of those people who read two and three (or more) books at the same time. I’m currently reading five books and re-reading one (Naked, by David Sedaris). I’m also savoring the current issue of Vanity Fair; today I read an excellent article on James Frey.
The time of day and the mood I’m in dictates what I read. I like to start the day with something upbeat and funny, so lately I’ve started the day with Chris Zell’s If Life’s An Experiment, I’m A Lab Rat. You know Chris as blogger Bound and Gags. I’m enjoying Lab Rat (he’s written several books) with my coffee each morning. He tells stories that make me laugh and that’s how I like to start the day, laughing.
I read the others throughout the day, but I like to end up on Archimedes to Hawking by Cliff Pickover just before bed. Cliff writes about science and mathematics in a way that makes it actually interesting. Reading about the celestial bodies and the quirky lives of geniuses is great stuff to fill your mind with just before you drift off to sleep … so much healthier than the evening news.
This weekend I’m looking forward to focusing on The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing. It’s a novella that would probably take a normal person two hours to read, but I’m a slow reader; I consider each sentence and turn it over in my head, thinking about the words. This is why it will probably take me all weekend to read it. It was recommended to me a couple of weeks ago and, ever since then, in one of those weird coincidence-type things, I’ve run into references to it three or four times and have heard nothing but good things about it.
So that’s what I’ve been doing.
Peace out,
W
Hi Wendy! I’ve been wondering abt you and quite respect your need to read and think away from the PC at times. All of those books sound great (especially sort of kinda knowing Zell… that is one I probably should BUY, right?) But I’m in no mood for The Fifth Child though I like Lessing. I’m reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers at the moment.
Peace to you, too. – C
Been wondering where you disappeared to, but glad to see you are safe and feeding your mind. I love to read a bunch of books at once too. I’m reading Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou, a book on WordPress, and doing some crossword puzzle book too. Archimedes to Hawking sounds really good. Anything that could make math sound interesting has to be good. 😉 Maybe I’ll put that on my list of To Reads.
@ Curious C – I keep forgetting that I want to read Staggering Genius! Thanks for reminding me. I need to add these books to my GoodReads.com profile, and Staggering Genius too.
@ Teeni – Can you believe I’ve never read a single thing by Maya Angelou? And I had no idea WordPress has books to read online! Wow. I’m going to have to look into that. Are you reading them on the screen or printing them out?
Between blogging and cooking and grocery shopping, I don’t seem to get a chance to read anymore. My concentration powers are also not what they used to be. I hardly even watch TV and I used to be a couch potato.I can’t seem to do anything for more than 15 minutes then I have to go on to something else. But I am glad you are enjoying your reading. Sometimes the blogging can take over.
Well, well, well. It seems I have a bone to pick with you, Lil’ Ms. Wendy! I’ll let you say my stuff ia funny, might even be a good way to start the day but upbeat? Who do you think I am? Maya Angezell?
I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the book. I’ve had people tell me weird things about it. One guys wife wouldn’t let him read it in bed. Another fell off a chair and dinged his head. A doctor told me she had to leave the train because she laughed so uncontrollably people were. Someone told me they read it to a friend in the hospital while they died (yeah, I’m Kevorkian’s new weapon). Just the other day I ran into someone, they said they almost died so while they were recovering they’d read my crap and it made them feel better. It’s very weird considering that, at the end of the day, it’s just comedy. Even worse, comedy from a dork like me. But it just goes to show you, you never know how your actions will effect another.
Thanks for the support.
Thanks for the heads up on the Vanity Fair Frey article. I found it and will read it later. I didn’t read the book but am interested in the subject. I did see him on Oprah and thought it was nothing more than her putting him in the stocks to soothe her bruised ego.
I ended up in an argument with people after it. I said the appearance would boost sales in the short term. Everyone said I was wrong but right there the next day it topped Amazon. The whole event was just an illness.
Speaking of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter bought some of my shirts. Weird.
I noticed you didn’t say anything about Fraud or The Memory Of Running. Are they up next?
. . .uncontrollably people were staring.
I’m so glad you’re blogging again. And so is Emily–she telephoned me yesterday asking where on earth you were.
The new Vanity Fair isn’t on the stands here yet, but I can’t wait to read about Frey. I saw him on the Oprah show, and I’ve gotta tell you, he made my skin crawl. There is something so off about him. He’s one of those rare people I instantly disliked.
OMG, Barbara, You watched Oprah? I’m speechless.
Barbara, how did you figure out how to work the TV.? My sister never, ever watches TV. She has a brain blockage about working the remote, yet she is so intelligent.
Uh, Joan? Craig had to turn the damn television on for me and then he had to find the right channel.
Which reminds me that years ago when Wendy and I worked at paper and people would be sitting around talking about some television show, Wendy would have to explain to me what they were talking about, sort of like a translator.
@ Joan – I give you a lot of credit — props, if you will — for doing all you do and blogging on top of it. I can’t multi-task at all, and I usually have to pick just one task per day to accomplish. Sometimes it’s making dinner, sometimes it’s blogging, sometimes working on my book. I wish I could do more but I can’t.
It IS amazing that Barbara saw Oprah and I’m as shocked as you are.
@ Bound and Gags – Oh. My. Jeebus. Graydon Carter bought shirts from you? What the hell did that feel like? Was it like looking into the face of God? Regardless of what he’s become, he is the father of SPY Magazine and so, for me, he will always be pure wonderfulness. He and I are friends on MySpace.
Yes, your book is funny and I love it. But let’s talk about James Frey. I always felt that he was getting fucked over and after reading the VF article I’m sure of it. I read A Million Pieces when it first came out and was shocked when, like two years later, people started going berserk over it. It’s terrifying to think that what happened to him to could happen to anybody. Let me know what you think of the VF story. By the way, “Fraud” is good, you’d probably like it a lot. “Memory of Running” is a book I carry from room to room with the idea that I’m reading it, but actually haven’t started it yet.
@ Barbara – OPRAH? How did you even know about this woman Oprah Winfrey? I’m so impressed. Not that I watch her show, because personally I can’t stomach her, but I am impressed that you found it. I wish I’d seen that particular show. I did catch clips of it, though, and I felt really bad for Frey. She totally raked him over the coals, lied to him, etc. And she opened the door for people to start questioning the validity of humorists like David Sedaris of all people.
I’ve never seen Frey interviewed in person so I can’t comment on his creepiness factor, but I do believe that he wrote the book as fiction and told his agent it was fiction. I believe he was a pawn, albeit a willing one. But really, who wouldn’t sell out and lie if your big name publisher was encouraging you to do so? I know I would. I’ve been waiting my whole life to sell out, though now I’m scared to call my memoir a memoir. Maybe I’ll call it a “fictional memoir.” Let me know what you think of the VF story. We must discuss this.
> Graydon Carter bought shirts from you?
> What the hell did that feel like?
I wasn’t unhappy, let me say that. I thought it was pretty cool.
> James Frey
When the story came out that he tried to sell it as a novel but was passed on so they said it was a memoir, I thought he was stupid (greedy, angry, didn’t feel his genius was getting it’s due – use your own description for writers here) for letting it go that way. That’s why I said it was an illness. They needed a hook and, even though he helped set it, he bit.
So as far as that goes, he’s culpable. He allowed deception with his face on it then feigned indignation when caught. He can’t be a stupid guy but to get pissed because everyone jumped ship, please. It’s an industry of rats. The only difference is the level of rabies and who swims first.
I know why he fell into it. It’s so fucking alluring. They ride you like you’re the great write hope. But, from what I heard, it’s a hell of a read. And that just goes to prove the axiom I use when working with people on ‘real life’ stories.
Real life is boring.
I’ve had people get pissed at me when I’ve suggested changing details to tighten it up; combining two characters who are doing the same thing; make the dialog ‘less real’ because, although that may be ‘how we did it on the street’ it’s doesn’t translate to the page or screen. And there’s a big ass reason for that:
Real life is boring.
I was working on a script with a cop and, after spending time fighting (I’m all about the story), I edited his story like it really happened. When I was done I and made sure he was happy (he does, after all, have a gun). He was happy and sent it out. Not too many months later it came back and he was sad. He got stomped because, as written, it was not salable. It had elements but because it had to be real life it had no shot at being good. He gave it back and the first thing I did was rip out 40 pages. And, once again, he was sad. As always, it was his favorite part. I don’t know why that is but it always seems to work out that way. But he did it and do you know why? To increase the chance of him becoming famous, rich, laid, I don’t know what his gold ring it but he has one.
So when Frey was given the chance to have experts tighten him up, bring the stories to a higher level, place the cash bug in his ear, what’s he going to do? He needs this validation. And he proved, saying no to that is more difficult than saying no to drugs and booze. Then what happened?
> Oprah
His anagram for heroin.
He was, to quote Warren Zevon, strung out, painted in the corner of a limousine. As it was pointed out in the article, she was livid at his deception but, and this is how I saw the interview, it was the deception to her. It was about her image of her image of herself. So she spanked the fuck out of this grown man on national TV. He was shell-shocked. He did, to me, look blindsided (even thought I think he should have been prepared for it).
I remember telling my girlfriend I would have walked. No adult deserves to me spanked by anyone, even a cult of personality, on national TV (unless they are consenting adults). Her side was that maybe she’s soften at the end. I couldn’t see a way for her to do that without making the spanking look like a time out. No way. She was done with him and wanted to make sure he was a pariah. And, as pointed out in the article, they, in this quote by Maureen Dowd, quickly and deeply drank from Oprah’s kool-aid,
“I would say that Oprah should kick James Frey’s bony, lying, nonfiction butt out of the kingdom of Oprah.”
“. . .the kingdom of Oprah.”
What does that say? It says everyone in the industry knew he was the sacrificial cow so the cash cow that is Oprah would keep dripping into their gaping maws.
But, hey, it’ll pass, won’t it? There will be other newsworthy fuck ups, right? The article mentioned Augusten Burroughs and J. T. LeRoy. That should take some of the heat off but no. Okay, Cheney filling a friends face with buckshot that’s gotta give the guy a breather! What? Didn’t? Why the fuck not.
As Judith Clain said in the article, “It’s probably true that no one wants to alienate Oprah.”
Ahhhhhhh, that’s it. He hadn’t paid his penance. Not even a sitting VP popping shots into a guys face is as grievous as a writer writing! He fucking lied! You know what? I don’t know a writer who doesn’t. What if you’re writing an exact document of an event and you leave out something. You could have put it in, it happened, but you, as the writer, chose not to. In the Catholic religion there is a little thing called a lie of omission which, by leaving out that part, makes what you wrote a lie.
Okay, I’ll give that that’s a stretch but, you know what? So was the penance Frey paid. I don’t care if you like him, hate him, got your money back, felt betrayed, will never read another word by him, never read a word from him, you’ve got to ask yourself one question,
Did the punishment fit the crime?
Sorry to be so long, Wendy, but, after all, you asked.
I am so impressed. My brain would not be able to keep several books straight in my mind at the same time. It is good to see you back on the net.
@ Bound and Gags – You’re right, that’s the whole thing, writers lie to make the story interesting and I don’t have a problem with that. As a reader I just want to be entertained. “Catcher in the Rye” isn’t any less a masterpiece for being fiction; it’s a story and I loved it. The fact that it didn’t actually happen makes no difference to me. I’m not comparing Frey to Salinger, but “A Million Little Pieces” was a compelling reading, and at the time I didn’t really care if it was true, it never entered my mind. Look at Hunter Thompson’s overrated body of work…he claimed it was all true, and in his mind it probably is. Should he have been hung out to dry for the obvious embellishing of “Fear and Loathing”?
Frey’s agent couldn’t sell the book until she called it a memoir, and he’s defintely guilty of perpetuating the lie. I probably would have stuck to my guns AFTER it was published, I would have gone on all the talk shows and said it was fiction. He didn’t, and that’s where I guess he made his mistake. But Oprah, in my opinion, is more the bad guy than Frey…she’s a media monster and in this case she used her power to try and ruin someone. She liked the book, didn’t she? Would she have liked it less had she known it was fiction? Thousands of people said the book helped them in their own recovery, does that invalidate whatever wisdom they took from the book? I don’t think so. His message, even on a fictional level, was a broad stroke of his own true experience with addiction in general, and that has value in itself. The verifiable fact is that he did clean himself up, and that’s worth everything. The Bible is fiction, for crying out loud, a collection of stories re-written about a million times, yet people still gather wisdom from it.
In Frey’s case I don’t think the punishment fit the crime, I think his being used as a whipping boy is disgraceful. When Normal Mailer told him to take advantage of being a “bad boy” I think Mailer was right on, Frey should take the horror of what happened to him and play it up to his advantage. He’s a good writer and storyteller, and I hope he takes Mailer’s advice.
I could talk about this forever, so I should probably get off my soapbox now. 🙂 Don’t you hate these smiley things? I hate them, they’re embarrassing, yet I use them constantly.
On another note, I’d also like to discuss Lab Rat endlessly because your experience at the storage unit is so similar to mine when I was a manicurist in a beauty salon (except that I actually had to TOUCH these people). 🙂
@ betme – Thank you, betme. I need to get over to your blog and get caught up.
> Look at Hunter Thompson’s overrated body of work…
> he claimed it was all true, and in his mind it probably is.
The writers perception of truth. I’m sure if you and I sat next to each other and wrote 500 words on a sunset we’d come up with totally different angles due to our perception of the truth that’s right in front of us.
I’m sure Thompson didn’t get hung out to dry because it was fashionable to like him, he was breaking new ground (whatever that means. He still used words, right?), and he was protected by what could be considered a media conglomerate of the time, Rolling Stone. He was following the ‘real life is boring’ school of writing so went about entertaining. I remember when we used to call it taking things with a grain of salt.
When you said, “. . .a compelling reading, and at the time I didn’t really care if it was true, it never entered my mind. . .” that should be the end of it. Oprah liked it, pimped it, and then pimp handed it. A simple,
“I cannot condone your actions. I am hurt that you lied to me which forced me to lie to my audience. I will request my audience not support you in the future. You will never be asked back.”
The horse is dead so stop beating it because now you’re just annoying the flies.
I’d like to know if people were helped by the book then, after the Oprahfuckation, went back to using. If they did I’d have to place that blame on Oprah. He wrote a story that touched people. Success. She took that away. Failure.
I read the Smoking Gun article when it came out and, yeah, it was a scam but it was a team scam; yeah, he lied and people got pissed but when it started, he was only writing. The lie truly only began when it was a team sport.
It’s back to a writers perception. Yes, when I write I did say that line to that person. But, many times, the person on the other side of the event doesn’t see it the same way I do. Often the situation goes in a different direction but, do you know what? In the end I’m the one writing it so I decide how the spin goes. That’s why I never consider it reality because I have an agenda. When writing reality you should have no agenda.
I have a two scene piece coming out tomorrow. Yes, both events happened. Even more surprising, they happened the same day. It reads like a two minute event when, in reality, they were an hour or so apart. It happened but it’s not reality.
I write jokes. I’ve called what I do foible fables. I’m not making any grand statement. I’m not trying to help anyone. I’m calculating the amount of jokes per words. And, you know what? People have thanked me because I made them laugh on a bad day. A bonus! I’ve always said, my job is to entertain. What the reader takes from it beyond that is their personal business.
Sure, there’s not as much touching being storage guy as with a manicurist but I’m also sure, when it happened (and it did), it wasn’t as pleasant.
Oops. Wendy, I’m a dope. That should have said I’m reading a book ABOUT WordPress, not ON WordPress. LOL. Cuz I’m the one that still has so much to learn about WordPress. 😉
If I wrote a book about my son’s heroin , oxycontin, & crack problems, it would probably be a best seller because every sentence would be true. It was the worse three years I have ever spent and I’m sure my son would agree looking back on it now. The things that happened, the things I saw- I still can’t believe it was real. It all seems like a bad dream. Now I’m on Zoloft, see a therapist and go to Al anon but my son fortunately doesn’t do those drugs anymore but he had to leave town to stay clean.
At the time the book came out I was going to a healthboard forum on drugs and addiction every day. Everyone was reading the book but it was a great disappointment to a lot of people trying to get clean and a disappointment to parents of addicts when the truth came out that is was fiction. I didn’t read it so I can’t really comment myself.
Someday I may just write the story of Damon and I because I had a big part in it as his enabler. I certainly was in denial about his drug use. But since then I have helped a lot of parents realize what they are doing when they enable their children. It probably would never get published because I am not a writer but it would be good for me to write it.
@ Bound and Gags – Yes, I agree with everything you said. Except about the touching people … touching strangers and having them sneeze on you etc., is really unpleasant, which is why I went back to writing/hiding in my house.
@ Teeni – Oh, okay, I get it. I’ve seen books about WordPress. I should probably read one too.
@ Joan – I think it’s really sad that people who were helped by Frey’s book felt so betrayed. If it helped them, why can’t they leave it at that. I think many people would have, because his addiction was very real, but like Bound and Gags said, Oprah dismissed everything Frey wrote as a lie and the lemmings just followed along.
You should write a book about your own experiences and dealing with Damon, Joan, because you’ve learned so much along the way. I hope you do write about it someday. You’ll probably end up with a career public speaking on the subject and helping lots and lots of people.
Yeah, although I’ve had to pick people up to move them (and worse) most contact with strangers is a horrible thing. Even handling their money is a hazard. I think that’s why I’m rarely sick. I’m pre-germed.
I know I wrote about the grossest but I’ll do it again (I’m good like that, you know). On a hot day a large shirtless guy wanted to buy a lock. I’m working quickly because he’s sweating on the counter. I tell him the amount and he reaches into his. . .sock.
I gave him his ten dollar change, scraped the twenty off the counter and plastered it on the desk to dry. About ten minutes later he came back because he wanted to buy another lock. I didn’t ask any questions (but he told me. In ten minutes he’d lost it) but hoped he’d give me the dry ten. He didn’t. He reached into his sock and gave me another sopping twenty. They stayed stuck to the desk until the next morning when they were dry enough to use.
Yeah, any contact is, as Stuart from Mad TV warns, is in the danger zone.