July 14, 2014
Many thanks to John Gosslee for recommending Adult World. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, satirizing the MFA world—and really, any program grounded in the kind of liberal education that urges us to explore ourselves through land, sea, and especially air (read: wasted breath). However, the story retains a pathos and poignancy which is absent in several films that aspire to do the same thing, movies like Liberal Arts, which recycles tired formulas, or Art School Confidential, which takes itself too seriously, and at times, not seriously enough. Emma Roberts portrays the self-loathing, publication-less poet of the twenty-first century to a tee, and Armando Riesco, whose cross-dressing character, Rubia, recites his “favorite haiku” (“Writing shit/About the new snow for the rich/Is not cool”) in just one of the film’s many tender moments, steals almost every scene he’s in. Adult World falls prey, in the end, to an unsurprising Hollywood finale, but prior to that, it’s shocking how spot-on this satire is. Writers and readers beware: It’s funny because it’s true.
Who am I listening to now? Cut Copy
What am I reading? Heartbreak Tango, by Manuel Puig
What did I just watch? Enemy
May 21, 2014
It’s kind of twisted to think just last month I wrote this. And how shitty I’ve felt the last week, and how it’s still beautiful. To know all of it is beautiful—even and especially the shit—and to know that it’s days like this that I feel the most human, because to endeavor and strive seems to me the quality that comprises a life more than any other.
Who am I listening to now? PICTUREPLANE
What am I reading? Shot, by Christine Hume
What did I just watch? The East
April 24, 2014
I’ve never loved life as much as I love life now. I don’t know why; there’s not a single explanation or even a simple one. I’ve learned to hold on to things; I’ve learned to let things go.
I used to get bothered by the smallest details. I was born with water in my heart and lungs that were not fully formed; I breathe better now.
Every day I wake up and I think about my death.
A start. After that, nothing seems impossible. After that, nothing seems unbearable, either.
I think about my death and then I try to make the most of each moment, every day … I try to do something I’ve never done before. I try to be the best person I can be. In that moment. Outside of that moment. And soak it up, and learn from it. From it and everybody. Looking while listening.
Critics say my writing is too caustic in places, too euphoric in places, too much in too many places. But too much is never enough with language and thought, let alone feeling. There will never be enough words when the page is turned and the book shuts. So you’ve got to make the most of it, and more than that, you’ve got to make it sing. That’s the difference between just thoughts and feelings. You can count a thing like thoughts but feelings exist in another place, somewhere underneath or behind …
Nothing will ever be enough.
Who am I listening to now? TRUST
What am I reading? Querelle, by Jean Genet
What did I just watch? Laurence Anyways
March 26, 2014
When I am not writing at my desk, I am writing in my mind. If you’ve met me in person only to encounter a thin film of vacancy glazed across each eye, do not feel so alarmed, but do hit me over the head (gently). It is the ageless issue of dealing with any writer: we are only ever halfway there.
I listen to a lot of music; you can probably guess what’s on my playlist just by reading me. Sometimes I even let the lyrics bleed across the page.
I have endeavored to raise several social and cultural issues through my writing, and one of the reasons why I masqueraded Going Down as a coming-of-age novel is so I could allow readers of various interests to come to the book. My hope is that readers begin to identify and question some of these concerns in their own lives, regardless of the level at which they read the story.
Several people talk about the idea that change is coming, without taking into account that change is already here, because the possibility exists in each of us.
Who am I listening to now? Young Galaxy
What am I reading? 62: A Model Kit, by Julio Cortázar
What did I just watch? Rumblefish