the curse of Lono
2/21/2005 @ 1:20 am Comments (19)“…writing is a lot like fucking- it’s only fun for amatuers.”
I don’t remember exactly when or where Hunter Thompson wrote those words or how badly I’ve butchered them, and it sure as Christ doesn’t matter. No one knew better than Thompson the sorry likeness between old whores and old writers, and no one documented more graphically nor understood more plainly the fear and loathing of facing the empty page every day, the death by a thousand cuts that is the life of a writer gone pro. And for going on four decades, Thompson was the hardest working whore in the business. He bled into every word and even when writing on autopilot he skated on the edge of brilliance. Thompson exiled himself in shitty motel rooms and crack houses and hung his ass in the wind of green rooms with criminals and rock stars, fallen presidents and hell’s angels, and his was the rogue voice of two maybe three generations. I haven’t read him religiously since I was twenty or so, but along with Camus and Salinger and Philip Dick, Hunter Thompson took me to church on Sunday and kicked my ass up and down the page when I was a kid. The man was a bad motherfucker and the rest of us should pray we have but half the career he did.
Hunter S. Thompson was laid low tonight by his own hand. May he rest in peace.
-wcb
what’s the frequency, Phineas?
2/16/2005 @ 1:14 am Comments (25)The assault of a certain news anchor in the mid 80’s has nothing to do with any of the following, other than it’s one of the creepiest phrases ever uttered and I’ve wanted to weave its allusion into an entry for some time.
Baer asked if I would write a guest entry in his blog regarding one of our shared literary passions and I said yes, and that I’d do so that night. I did, then sat on it for a couple of days just to piss him off. As for his irregular absence and my presence in his ’stead, consider both good omens for coming change. A new Velvet looms- a bigger, darker and plushier Velvet bearing fruits forbidden to those sinners and angels not familiar with the bloodstained bathtubs and hallways herein.
Onward…
While scores of books, writers and events contributed to my cursed urge to write, only one nearly stopped me. Eighteen years ago, I finished Steve Erickson’s second novel, Rubicon Beach, and sat breathless after reading the last page. The glove had been thrown down and the challenge spoken: If you’re not this good as a writer, then spend your life reaching for it and fuck everything else. If you’re not willing to do that, then hang it up, now.
I accepted the challenge, held hands with the curse and exchanged ’til-death-do-us-part vows. The ensuing years waged a war of attrition on the curse until I personally shoveled the earth over its remains. We parted. Five years later, the curse pushed through the dirt, punched through the drywall and dragged me from my corporate slumber and into the Pit. Unless I’m poking my head out to shoot rubber bands at Chris, I seldom leave. Nothing stops the curse.
Except for the work of Steve Erickson. With frightening regularity, Erickson gives my ruthless bastard muse a humbling whiff of mortality.
His third novel, Tours of the Black Clock, has one short chapter in particular- a scant page and a half- which leaves me fearing for my own abilities as a writer every time I read it. And since I first met Baer in the flesh- and discovered we had most everything in common but our DNA- Erickson has remained our strongest literary connection. As Chris put it once, over a pint: “Erickson owns my ass, on the page. He opened his first book with the line: When Lauren was a small girl, she would stand in the Kansan fields and call the cats.”
And then careened beautifully into the apocalypse.
Steve Erickson’s output remained slow but steady through most of the mid ’80s and ’90s, producing a book roughly every three years… Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, Tours of the Black Clock, Leap Year, Arc d’X, Amnesiascope, American Nomad, and The Sea Came in at Midnight. At one point, he wrote of a pause in his output: “…for a while, I had nothing to say.”
Erickson’s proclamation that he stopped writing when he had nothing to say was both blasphemous and liberating for me. It defied a lifetime of instruction which said to work every day at being a writer. Erickson heeded his own advice with a vengeance and, after his last book in 1999, he vanished.
Two years ago, I met him at a book festival and asked if he had another novel on the horizon. He said he’d just finished one, but was looking for a publisher. Before I could stop myself, I said, “I can put you in touch with mine, if you’d like.”
Yeah, real smooth. Here, Miles, I’ve got a spare trumpet. Help yourself.
Predictably, Erickson found a publisher on his own and, after six years, released a new novel last week titled Our Ecstatic Days. What’s more, his publisher has seen fit to reissue both Days Between Stations and Tours of the Black Clock in paperback. I won’t presume to be up to the task of reviewing Days, nor will I try to summarize it- or any of Erickson’s books. Lately, my hands are full… talking my muse off the ledge after each page I read. I’m a long way from being able to equal that single chapter of Tours.
And if you’re wondering which chapter I’m referring to, I’ll divulge that some other time.
Tonight, I’m feeling mischievous, so I’ll keep quiet. Read Erickson’s work for yourself and you’ll see what I mean. You know where to go.
Stay warm and bound.
-Clevenger
does Phineas dream of electric sheep?
2/7/2005 @ 3:42 am Comments (12)I originally posted this in the Velvet in response to a question raised by fellow traveler Chixulub, a question that made my noodle spin so furious and fast that I kept circling back to it for days after, which convinced me it warranted a long look front and center, so I’ve transplanted it here. The original question: was Phineas Poe really an ex-cop, or was he a junkie dishwasher turned police informant with delusional tendencies? My roundabout answer was the following.
back when I was teaching writing workshops I always made my classes watch Blade Runner, the original theatrical release and the superior director’s cut, in that order. for those of you who may not remember, or who have only seen one or the other, there are three essential differences between the two. the original featured voiceover by Harrison Ford’s character, Deckard. it also came equipped with an ill-conceived hopeful ending tacked on, courtesy of the studio suits, in which Deckard and Rachel escape the eternally dark claustrophobic and toxic rainswept Los Angeles and are last seen driving off into the blue skies of what appear to be the Rocky Mountains. we also learn that Rachel is the romantically convenient rare and possibly only replicant not wired with an internal kill switch.
Ridley Scott’s version meanwhile has neither voiceover nor happy ending. Deckard and Rachel step over the origami unicorn and into the elevator and the doors hiss shut and we have no idea if they live another day or another week. And we certainly don’t expect them to live happily ever after. The director’s cut contains one crucial element the studio version does not, one that has been subject to endless analysis and philosophical speculation: the false memory or dream sequence in which Deckard sees the unicorn.
The reason behind studying Blade Runner in those classes was not simply that it is a hell of a piece of filmmaking, the influence of which on the noir and cyberpunk films and novels of the past twenty years is impossible to measure- it’s the Maltese Falcon or Taxi Driver of our generation- although this would have been a damn good reason. mainly it was the existence of the two versions, with voiceover and without, that provided such an insanely valuable classroom teaching tool. I won’t go into the whole of it here, but I’ll give the bare bones. Harrison Ford has a nice speaking voice, weary and dry and easy as hell to listen to, and you instinctively trust him, right. Han Solo wouldn’t lie to us, surely.. But does that make him a reliable narrator? also, if you watch the two versions one after the other, you are fast confronted with some of the critical strengths and weaknesses of first and third person narrative but that’s another discussion unto itself. And further, when comparing specific scenes from the original to those in the director’s cut, you become painfully aware of some of the most grievous offenses a writer can commit. For instance, Rutger Hauer’s death scene on the rooftop, with the spooked doves flashing past in the rain, is easily one of the most beautiful and poetic and still somehow believable death scenes you will ever find on film. But it is very nearly fucked up in the original, because not only is Harrison Ford talking the whole time Rutger Hauer is dying, he’s telling you that what you’re witnessing is a beautiful death scene- which serves to remind us to never let our narrators tell the reader how to feel about what he or she is reading. And of course, as with all rules there are times when you can and should break this rule, but I won’t get into that here. those Blade Runner sessions after all typically occupied several three-hour classes and covered way too much ground to explore here. Not to mention that we generally resumed the discussion after class at the nearest pub, where I was known to hold my office hours.
The reason I bring it up, and the reason Chixulub’s question sent me spinning in this direction, is that we always devoted a fair portion of those classes to the holy grail of Blade Runner questions- was Deckard himself a replicant, or was he not? I generally tried to offer up the best evidence I could muster that he was, and that he was not a replicant, then stepped back to let the dust and feathers fly. And while both theories spawned pretty heated and interesting conversations, my favorite was ultimately the big question that arises if one accepts the notion that Deckard is a replicant: Does he know? meaning, is he consciously or unconsciously hunting his own kind?
Some years after the director’s cut was released, Ridley Scott alleged in a now infamous interview that yes, Deckard was a replicant- but Scott is reputed to have had a shit eating grin on his face when he said so, and hardcore Blade Runner students from both camps have since dismissed his testimony as inconclusive and unreliable, offering the interesting mindfuck argument that the film, and the Deckard character, are at this point not at the mercy of Scott’s interpretation or creative reckoning alone. meaning that Deckard no longer belongs exclusively to Ridley Scott, or to Philip Dick, for that matter, because he long ago entered the shared consciousness of thousands of fans and continues to live in their imaginations.
All of which brings us full circle to Phineas Poe, who may or may not still belong to me alone, and the question on the table: was he really an ex-cop? Was he a rat among rats with very sketchy ethics and ever more slippery hold on his faculties? or was he in fact a junkie dishwasher turned informant posing as a cop, for reasons never shared, and was Moon in on it? I’m sure I could give a powerful argument in either direction, especially if we could relocate this thread to the nearest pub. But the more fascinating question, for my money, and one that surely warrants an unraveling thread of its own: At what point does a writer surrender ownership of a character’s soul, and what are the implications in terms of literary interpretation therein?
hearfelt thanks go to Chixulub, for rattling the cage. The first round is on you.
-wcb
check out the original thread here, in the velvet. and please, give us your two cents.