We’re only Carbon Neutral

Posted on October 13, 2013 by McPhedran

The Marquis de Sade writes in his controversial novel Justine that we, as a species, tend to exaggerate our relevance:The power of destruction is not in the gift of Man. He may, at the most, change the form of things but he does not have the power to annihilate.Oh, what does it matter to Nature’s eternal creation that the mass of flesh which today makes up a biped creature should be tomorrow reproduced as a thousand different insects? I say this: all men, all animals, all plants that grow, feed and are destroyed, reproducing themselves by the same means, never truly die but merely undergo variation and modification.

Modest Mouse offers a similar sentiment in their 2004 song Parting of the Sensory. I’d start at the dawn/Until the sun and fully stopped/Never walking away from/Just a way to pull apart/Dehydrate back into minerals/A lifelong walk to the same exact spot/Carbon’s anniversary/The parting of the sensory.

In other words, we’re just not that big a deal.

Why I Write…and Teach

Posted on May 20, 2013 by McPhedran

I was never the best student; I abhorred being told what to do. And what made matters worse was going to a boys school where I was condemned to wearing a blazer and tie. Most teachers said that I had an attitude, and I suppose I did. And so when I finally graduated, it was like being released from prison. I was free at last.

The one thing I really liked about school was writing. I wrote my first story in Grade 4. I liked the idea of telling a story. And I liked getting it right. My writing was problematic, to say the least, when I was a teenager, but I finally began to get a sense of the narrative in university and then when I started to travel and see the world. My first real moment of literary certitude happened about halfway through writing my first novel – in Paris no less – when Chantal, a character I thought I had expunged from the story, insisted on coming back. She insisted on it, not me. That’s when I knew I might be on to something. After that, I wrote all the time and to pay the bills, took on various jobs – closed caption editor and newspaper columnist. This went on for years. I completed five novels and two screenplays and an assortment of short stories and articles, but nothing was getting published. I thought about getting a real job and decided to try to teach. I liked the idea of working with teenagers. They saw life with wide open eyes. They made me laugh. I wasn’t sure of the profession at first. As much as I enjoyed working with students and leading class discussions, I never felt comfortable in the role of task-master. As well, I didn’t have much of a hankering for the marking – never saw the point in it – and always struggled with the politics of the industry. However the students were the thing. No matter how I felt each morning – whether inspired or completely dull-witted – the first student of the day, that first person to walk into the room, would manage to engage me and the day would just go from there. It was always fun. With teenagers, the cachinnation and merriment were never-ending.

I am still writing. My prose is always improving. I expect to have a novel published soon. But I teach now too, and I like it. I’m starting to think that I should write a book about that.

Virginia Adamantine: Prometheus Stripped

Posted on February 17, 2013 by McPhedran

My screenplay Sister Prometheus is a reworking of the Promethean myth, utilizing elements of the Oresteia. I realize that this is a dangerous and foolhardy pursuit, as any modern work is likely to pale in comparison with the work of Aeschylus, exemplified in the passage below, describing Iphigenia’s death at the hands of the priests of her father Agamemnon:

Rough hands tear at her girdle, cast/ Her saffron silks to earth. Her eyes/

Search for her slaughterers; and each/ Seeing her beauty, that surpassed/

A painter’s vision, yet denies/ The pity her dumb looks beseech/

Struggling for voice; for often in old days,/When brave men feasted in her father’s hall/

With simple skill and pious praise/Linked to the flutes pure tone/

Her virgin voice would melt the hearts of all/

Honoring the third libation near her father’s throne/

The rest I did not see/ Nor do I speak of it.

This sacrifice is said to have appeased the gods and given the Greeks fair winds to Troy and eventual triumph in their bloody quest for Helen. My Prometheus is female. Her name is Virginia Adamantine, and she’s furious with the Agamemnons of the world, ready to fight anyone in her way. And she’s a stripper. That’s the part I doubt Aeschylus would have appreciated.

Understanding The Bachelor: Tierra LiCausi’s Sparkle and Brow

Posted on February 15, 2013 by McPhedran

There is something remarkably terrifying about the ABC network reality TV show, The Bachelor. A man searches amongst 26 pre-selected women for the one who is on the show for the “right reasons” and wants to “take it to the next level”. Adding to the difficulty of this quest, all of the candidates proclaim their love for this man and their desire to be with him for the rest of their lives.The process itself is laborious, involving group dates, cocktail parties, hand-holding, heart-to-heart talks and awkward sequences of kissing. Although the show is predictably structured – with pathetic story arcs, villains and insidious repetition – there are some moments which amuse and surprise. Tierra LiCausi, the villain of this season, blurted out a ground-breaking deconstruction of the self near the end of last week’s show. In defending her position on how she might have been seen by others when she raised an eyebrow in an insulting manner, she explained: “Raised eyebrow? That’s my face! I can’t help that…I can’t control my eyebrow. I cannot control my eyebrow. I can’t control what’s on my face 24/7.” There was no sense of irony, no sarcasm in her position; this was in fact a bold statement attempting to establish a startling new possibility that the face is an independent entity. Dissatisfied with the simplistic notion of the duality of mind and body, Ms. LiCausi sought to shatter the self into billionths, every cell and corpuscle independent of each other, only of itself, self-governed, self-determined, rarely, if ever, attuned to the body and mind as part of a whole. Ms. LiCausi continued, “I know in my own skin that I am not rude…If I could walk around with a smile on 24/7, I would. But my face would get freaking tired.” In other words, it is a virtual impossibility for another to understand the consciousness of Ms. LiCausi, or as she refers to it, her “sparkle”. Other selves, or “sparkles”, can only assume and thus interpret; they are incapable of capturing the essence of another sparkle simply because of the face’s independent notion of self and potentially abrasive manner. Predictably, Ms. LiCausi’s revelations left the other faces and bodies on the show dumb-founded, including that of the Bachelor himself, who decided to reject Ms. LiCausi, eyebrow, face, sparkle and all.

Coping with another Storm: Make a Fire

Posted on December 26, 2012 by McPhedran

The miserable weather is back in New York.

Another storm, more rain and wind, and more flood warnings. Good God, enough already! Okay, well, at least we can make a fire, right? Not the crazy pyro-kind, kids, but the sensible lovely kind, the kind that soothes and makes all things right…for a little while anyway. First, you need your paper. Ball it up tight, page by page, and place those into the fireplace as your first layer. Then put in a layer of junk paper packaging things, whatever would be normally mounting toward more landfill. Next it’s the branches, the small and the big. And then a couple of small logs. The trick to a good fire is the oxygen. Make sure there’s gaps between everything. And then set it ablaze! Light as many places as you can without burning your fingers and make sure that the flue is open. Let it burn for a few minutes and then, once it has burned down, pile on another log or two cross-ways. Keep pushing the logs around. Make sure the oxygen gets inside. Once it’s going, it’s time to listen to the winds howl, the cold rain and snow batter against the windows or some favorite music. And, yeah, have a drink…ginger ale, tea, whatever. You deserve it. My goodness, we just made fire! Keep an eye on it. Stoke it. And get ready to do it all again soon. Another storm is forecast for Sunday.

Survival Guide: The Last Day

Posted on December 20, 2012 by McPhedran

Today is your time for measured reflection. During this, the last of the seven stages before this apocalypse, you must learn to accept the reality of your situation. Acceptance doesn’t mean happiness, but rather a way forward…even though the world is going to end. There is no better guide than Martin Luther King Jr. His final speech in Memphis, Tennessee (April 3, 1968) is an incredible collection of ideas and moments, all of it delivered without notes. Another reason that I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we’re going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demand didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or nonexistence. He was assassinated the following morning.

Watch My Dinner with Andre, written by Wallace Shawn and directed by Louis Malle. Two men talk over dinner, just that, but remarkable so, reminding us that a good story just needs to be told. I wouldn’t put on an electric blanket for any reason. First, I’d be worried if I get electrocuted. No, I don’t trust technology. But I mean, the main thing, Wally, is that I think that kind of comfort just separates you from reality in a very direct way. Read the poetry of William Carlos Williams. Yes, poetry! He was a doctor by trade, which provides great insight into the good old human condition. It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time. It’s time. Take stock of your life. Are you good? Until tomorrow then.

Apocalypse Survival: We Must Change

Posted on December 17, 2012 by McPhedran

“We must change.” So pronounced President Obama at a memorial service on Sunday for the families of victims of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He is right. There is no doubting that. We are an extremely violent species with an unconscionable past. And we must change that. But can we? Is there really any way to do this? My money is against. The fourth stage of accepting the oncoming apocalypse is a day on which depression, reflection and loneliness dominate. This is supposed to be a long period of sad reflection, but you’ve only got the day. You realize the true magnitude of your loss, and you isolate yourself on purpose. William Basinki’s The Disintegration Loops is ideal for this state of mind. Created in Brooklyn on 9/11, these CDs document the disintegration of sound on reel-to-reel tapes. There are five CDs in all, but Disintegration Loop 5 is 52 minutes well worth trying. Michaelangelo Frammartino’s Quattro Volte evokes a similar feeling; it is a film with a disintegrating narrative of sorts, using an old shepherd, a baby goat, a tree and smoke, in that order. It’s a remarkable film for contemplation. Jose Saramago’s Blindness is far more harrowing, starting with a plague of white blindness that gets worse and worse and worse. It is next to impossible to put down. President Obama concluded his speech with the following: “We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we are powerless in the face of such carnage? That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?” What are you prepared to do? Genuinely. What? It’s something to think about and act upon. We must change.

Funk on: The over-write

Posted on October 19, 2012 by McPhedran

I’m still in limbo, still waiting to get back at the book, another week to go, maybe more, but I have to admit that I have slipped in and messed around, adding details, taking them out, putting them back in.

One scene I have spent the last few days over-writing is the night of Dee’s Grad Cruise. It’s a background moment, something I hadn’t fleshed out previously, and now in which I’ve added a classmate and dialogue to the counselor. She’s alone on the deck and then joined by a classmate who she doesn’t know. He gives her a cigarette, and the supervising counselor shows up.

“Your cigarette.”

“I thought we were allowed.”

“You thought wrong.” He looked back, almost like he was smiling; he wasn’t.

This last line is what I’m going back and forth with at the moment. I’ve tried each of the following:

He stared back, like he was smiling, but he wasn’t.

He glared back, close to smiling, although he wasn’t.

He waited, almost smiling; he wasn’t.

…and a few variations in between. I keep going back to the first because it’s neutral and still expressive. I don’t know. I know I should just leave it alone. And I will…very soon.

Funk

Posted on October 15, 2012 by McPhedran

It’s a weird place to be, awaiting permission from myself to start the next draft. There’s a calm to it, but it’s inert and purgatory-ish; more than anything, it’s a funk.

In the meantime I’ve been mulling over a couple of background characters for the book. First, there’s Derek’s great-grandfather, who farmed in upstate New York and drowned in a marsh when he wandered off from the house in the middle of the night. The family believes that he was undiagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And then there’s Teddy’s sister (Teddy is Dee’s co-worker at the Animal Rescue Agency), a fund manager in New York. She is round-faced and wide-eyed, but she is distant, especially for Teddy, and hasn’t see him in almost a year.I don’t know what they’re doing hanging around the fringes like this; maybe I’ll write a short story about the two of them.

Writing Rule #2: Stick with it.

Posted on October 12, 2012 by McPhedran

There are the good days…And there are the bad…Indeed it is often the bad that help the most. They make you question the work. You have to stop and think. Who is she? Is this worth anything? What the hell is the point?And then you think of something. Anything. Her hand is broken. She’s scared. She loves Jabberjaw. You think a little more and work on that. Just her finger is broken. She’s scared of her past. She wasn’t allowed to watch Jabberjaw. Whatever it is, that thing is a piece to the next. And you continue on, one step at a time, and maybe go back, because back can be forward too, whatever comes next.Or you don’t…and start something else.

my bad side

a writer's blog

Tag Archives: writing