Being Fair to Stephenie Meyer

I've spoken out against what I perceive to be the critic's tendency to treat the artistic endeavor as if it were a gladiatorial event. They seem to boo and hiss and jeer from the sidelines while the artist struggles with the lions of snark and put-down until what makes artists artists chokes on all that bile and dies.

I know, I know: the Cadaverous Jaded Critic stereotype is not always true and standards have to be met and kept if we want to make good art. 

So. 

What I know of Stephenie Meyer and Twilight--accusations of Mary Sue-ism, shoddy research, purple prose, hollow plot--has basically been pre-processed by the Cadaverous Jaded critics and by the Critics Whose Fairness I Respect.  While these criticisms foreshadow my future disappointment with Meyer's literary product, I can't quite fault her so much for her process. 

The story of how Edward Cullen's and Bella Swan's romance (can I call them Bedward now?) came to be was as legitimate a creative jumping point as any: it came to Meyer in a dream. It niggled, unsatisfied with staying in the back of her head until the story had to be written, however badly or well. It's as valid as Stephen King's birthing of Roland in The Dark Tower series.

Regarding the possible travesty that is Twilight, I've decided that it's time for me to put my money where my mouth is and see it for myself. I can't get all snarky and contemptuous about something I haven't seen unless it is patently horse turd, or produced by people who consistently produce horse turd (A-kon, Gunther, Soulja Boy: I'm looking at you.) 

So, if you've bought the Twilight novel, may I look at it? If you've bought the DVD, may I borrow it?    

Story Zero

Writing is a necessary evil. When people are simply too lazy or ineffectual to do something to improve their lives, they whine about it. Sometimes they whine about it in writing. Writing serves the dual purpose of--

1. bleeding off their restlessness and resentment so they don't kill themselves, rape people or otherwise become inconvenient to the rest of us;
2. contributing to art and culture (useless pursuits that keep the rich in their belief that they are intrinsically better people) when the writer hits occasional literary gold.
   

This pretty much keeps the masses pacified and intellectuals entertained so no one gets any funny ideas about upsetting the status quo, which frankly, needs a little tipping over.

Speaking as a cynic, that's the first story. Speaking as a writer, I'm sick to my stomach. Time for my medication.

The Ninth (Or Zeroth) Original Story

Click here to get to the other eight. The gist of that article being, that every Hollywood movie on God's green earth is based off of at least one of them. I submit there is a ninth story, or story meme, that informs the rest of them. I'm loosely calling it the Fall.

In every story is a status quo and then something happens to upset it. Sometimes that something is a villain, like Brainiac trying yet again to put Metropolis in a bottle: Superman must fight him to prevent Metropolitans from being very inconvenienced by the villain's shrink ray. Sometimes it's a natural disaster-- think Titanic. Regardless of what that something is, the characters have to fight it to get their status quo-- or a semblance of it-- back. They've fallen out of safety, contentment, out of Paradise and they have to struggle to return to it.

This is story zero. This is everyone's story.

Sand

Don’t shake me off your sandals;
Build castles with me
Put out the stubs of your anger,
All your wasted working days, in me.

Build your bonfires, hold your parties
But lay your head and your blanket of troubles
On the grains of my broad back
Hide in me; cry in me; confide in me

Love washes over me,
Causes me to cling to you,
To those parts of you
That leave their mark on me so—
The back of your neck, your soft arms
Your gentle hands, your toes,
the arches and soles of your feet

-----------

This was originally meant for Project Formalin, (I just love appending weird names to my little endeavors, don't I?) a series of videos and related work that I did for the Clavier School of Music. As a matter of course, I have multiple agendas when I make my projects. And a nasty habit of making those agendas obvious to people who know what to look for.

I found the draft in an old sketchbook. I tweaked it just tonight.    

A New Take on an Old Tale

written around 22 December 2005

Love made the World on a Wednesday and found it was good.
In the World, Love planted a garden, bidding all to eat of its fruit.
The Man and the Woman (Love brought them there)
saw that the fruit was lovely and inviting to touch.
The Woman took the fruit and bit into it, giving some to the Man to taste.
He did.

Immediately their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked.
They sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness,
and hid in the trees.

Love walked into the garden and asked of the Man and the Woman: "Where are you?"
The Man stepped out of his hiding place and proclaimed
"I am here, Lady. We were hiding in the garden from the World because we were naked."

Love asked, "Were you hiding from me?" The Man replied "No, Lady.
You who brought us to live here, know already we are naked."

At this, the Woman went out of her hiding place,
drew forth from her heart, a flaming sword.
With it she cut off the arms of the Man as she cursed him.
"You have shamed me. From this day forward, never shall your arms enfold me.
On your belly shall you crawl, and dust shall you eat for as long as you live.
I set enmity between us. When you kiss my feet I will strike at your head."

At this, Love shed her bitter tears.

In the World, the garden, the Man and the Woman stay to this day, until
one moves the other or the world itself is changed.

Soma 3

the telephone is lying silently
my heart is a clock ticking slowly tonight
and this ticking and my open secret
are ringing in my ears

you’re never alone
when alone together is what i
desperately need us to be

--------------------------
Inspired by song by Anne and Nancy Wilson.

The Worship of Mammon: Misogyny

She's not a nice friend. But she says that every word out of her mouth is truth I would do well to heed. And grudgingly, I must admit that that is the case regarding much of what she's told me before. She knows me inside and out, knows what makes me tick. She's one of a handful of people on the planet who's seen me truly deeply twisted angry. Others have seen me break but she was there each time I did. Waiting.

She says she loves me, and on some level it's likely true. Even if I've seen the stable of broken men she says she's rescued from their exes. Yes, she keeps a stable. And that's partly why I haven't told her "yes." Her arguments are, of course, powerful enough to merit consideration. She has been with me for every heartbreak, every bad day. She has been an understanding, patient, if silent friend to me. She knows what makes me tick. Knows how tired I am of failing every character test thrown my way by Woman. How utterly sick I am of puzzling them out, of not fitting their mental pictures of Prince Charming. She offers me freedom, the room to be utterly preoccupied with only my projects and plans as long as I nee to do them. Her connections are extensive and while they are not equally available to every man in her stable, there is always a portion of her largesse that is reserved solely for me.

She claims she can match my intensity with her own, that I need not hold myself back from displays of affection. In matters of sex she is open to everything, even the practices that would make me blush. She is willing to go as slow or as fast as or as bizarre as I want. She says she is everything to every one of the men she consorts with. She tells me she will be everything I want for me. And she says this with such deadpan confidence that I find it hard to doubt her.

She is a comely woman, and though she can be as charming and winsome as the rest of them, there is often little warmth in her. She's as beautiful as a well-kept marble crypt is beautiful. Sharp, cold smooth, precise. She makes a great goth girl. Given my preoccupation with things dead and necrotising, that does give some life to my interest in Ginny.

All she asks of me is that I become part of her stable. And that is partly what galls.

She has a stable.

I mislike being part of a communal love nest.

I have told her this. I have told her I'm waiting for someone too. She had chuckled softly at that, eyes flashing with a certainty that frightened and angered me. She understands my reticence, or so she says. "I have time, Dex." she says. She will wait for that last bad day that will finally drive me into her arms.

So how do you write?

Take something everyone else takes for granted and stand it on its head. Imagine their faces as what these peole expect blows up in them. Find your inner imp and follow where she leads. If she goes too far--off a cliff and into the sea, for example-- you don't have to jump after her.

I will admit, though, that sometimes following her to her watery end is quite rewarding.

Tobie's Challenge

2059: The population of the Earth is 4 Billion people worldwide.

Today (2008), the population of the earth is about 6.5 Billion. In 2020, you are the leading scientist in (whatever feild you choose) and the UN has asked you to make a plan that would make sure population growth would be stiffled and earth will only support 4 B people in the next 100 years. You have 1.5 to 2 generations to implement.

What's you plan? How will you control population growth?

Be creative! I asked people in Mangaholix but most answers were: I wouldn't live by them, the world would end by then, natural disaster that would kill everyone. We're Talecrafters. We should be creative!

-----------------------------------

And in the tradition of people with nothing better to do than play with story cards when we sure as heck should be working for a living, (sorry, bad joke) this is my answer--


The New Deal

Well, it turns out the Evangelicals were right after all.

Millions of people disappeared just as most of the world was spiraling into what would have been--pardon the Husseinism-- "the Mother of all Wars." One minute they were there, sharing in the muted global panic or otherwise making the most of their time on the planet. The next minute, they were gone.

You don't have any concept of how much that bites when your girlfriend is raptured away from you in the middle some well-earned nookie.

I went crazy looking for her, churning up all sorts of explanations for my aborted communion and the feelings of fear and loneliness in the weeks that came after. It was a super-weapon. It was an experiment in some newfangled physics gone awry. Alien abduction.

(I did take some comfort in the knowledge that the people most vociferously advocating the Alien Abduction theory were ...dare I say it? Evangelicals Left Behind.)

The world pretty much did the same thing-- go crazy looking for absent friends, lost loved ones and significant others-- after the initial skirmishes, the petit panic that set in when armed units in the field found themselves without commanding officers or communications specialists. Thousands died in those weeks. Needlessly.

It was only after nations started sending representatives to the UN Building again to compare notes that people put together just what might have happened. Many of us didn't quite believe it, of course. And soon enough it didn't matter because many more people would die. Needlessly.

Well, it's 2099 now. Jesus hasn't come back yet. What's left of the world's population is shut up in Supercities-- New York, Vegas, Los Angeles, Guangzhou, Mumbai, Pasay, Sao Paulo. Pockets of humanity connected by tenuous threads of intermittent radio-communication (God bless the guy who invented sattelites-- we still have a couple up there faithfully facilitating communications). It's getting harder and harder to house, feed and clothe everybody in because absolutely no one can get out of the 'Cities and there're only so many ways you can sell Soylent Green to a restive population. I imagine the situation's pretty much the same in the other 'C ities.

The official story is that the Outside World's still hot--radioactive. Besides, the environment's crap anyway. Serves us right for actually using all the nukes.

My problem is that you can't keep humanity hermetically sealed in domed pockets the size of what used to be Israel. People in Pasay are dying to get out and claim some real estate-- never mind that it glows in the dark. There are rumors--Urban Legends of areas recovering from what we did to it. New places from which to start over. The Pasay Quorum of Twelve has been on my ass to send out exploratory expeditions, to establish trade routes with Mumbai.

Idiots. Children.

They don't know what I had to do to make sure we have the crappy real estate we're sitting in now. Why the populations in the 'Cities remain constant. Why I tax people so much. Why most of the budget goes to military R & D instead of making Soylent Green more palatable. Or why I'm still alive when I no longer have the right to be.

I made a deal back in 2024. After that horde of inhuman mosters rose up out of the earth and halved the world's population in a matter of weeks. Why do you think we had to use all the nukes? I spoke to a representative... an emmisary. It promised the horde would leave Pasay and the other 'Cities alone if the horde had the rest of the world to play with. Anyone who left our safe zones would be fair game, and in the early days of Pasay's development, we lost far too many people.

I've discouraged people from leaving for whatever reason over the years. But enough sneak out of Pasay to satisfy the terms of The Deal. Part of those terms involve keeping mum about The Deal to our charges-- the people who live in Pasay and complain about the quality of their food.

If the Quorum would only wait five goddamn years... at least that's what the 'tech boys and Pasay/Mumbai black ops people are telling me. We'll have a working prototype for a weapon that can really hurt these things.

Then we'll all be in a position to negotiate a New Deal.

God helps those who help themselves.

Eline won!

Her story, Doll Eyes, was an entry for the 2008 Romeo Forbes Children's Storywriting Competition.

Let's grab a quote from these guys:

"We ended up with a very strong set of entries in the final round, but in the end the judges (singer/actress Lea Salonga, Tin-Aw Art Gallery owner Dawn Atienza, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Head of the Graduate Studies Office of UP's College of Arts and Letters Wendell Capili) were unanimous.

"Congratulations to Ms. Eline Santos and to all the other finalists!"

Read the story, check out the other entries.

Writers Suck

Because that's all they do.

When warm bodies are needed to stop the tanks, don't count on writers to be there with you. They'll be in their hotel rooms with their laptops and their notepads, writing. When you're busy making money the tried and tested way, yon writer will be busy wasting his time writing stories and filling his blogs: you're still saddled with the rent.

When someone is patently stealing your woman, writer, don't count on yourself showing up at their door and cracking skulls. You'll be at home, writing, adding one more neurosis to the ones you already have.
Cue the sound clip from America's Sweethearts. Hank Azaria's Spanish character turns to a really barely-holding-in-his-psychotic-temper John Cusack and refers to him, derisively, as--

"You puth-thy."

You'll also have the bonus of showing your unwary reader friend that the bedrock upon which he rests his sanity doesn't really exist. And then there'll be two of you f_cking up the world by making everyone uncomfortable with life as they know it. She was right who said it best:

Keep only cheerful friends; the grouches pull you down.


The world doesn't belong to contemplatives, besides. Writers in general never see the fruits of their labor. For every Stephen King and Neil Gaiman there are thousands of frustrated writers married to their own misery and (in my Mammon stories) at least one who is dating his misogyny.

You may be the next Nietzsche, the next Kafka, the next Rizal-- but look what happened to them.

Nietzsche: nuthouse, couple of strokes, death by tuberculosis.
Kafka: nuthouse, tuberculosis, death by starvation
Rizal: exile, death by firing squad

And if you luck out and do a Thoreau ... well, okay, he didn't suck. He lived a full life, though he was felled by tuberculosis at age 44.

The point is very few writers ever live to see their legacy; fewer writers ever get to have one.

What's greatness if you never get to see nor taste it? I'm altruistic enough to care about my fellow man, but I've read all the books and seen all the movies: writers end up with the girl and the happy ending only in the stories they write. And I'm sick of watching everyone else's happy ever afters.

On Poetry

Did anybody ever tell you that I dislike poetry?

I do. I hate it with all my heart. Because people turn to words, to satire, to reams of inutile academic discourse when they cannot act. Poetry, dear friends, is yet another manifestation of this kind of impotence: the writer feels so strongly about something that he cannot act, except to commit something to verse.

Maybe he gets lucky. Maybe the poem affects people who feel the same way but cannot articulate their feelings. Maybe the song becomes a hit and the writer becomes another Morrissey. Or maybe the writing is so potent that it helps kick-start the Civil Rights Movement. More often than not, the writer cannot taste any success beyond the personal "Hey, I got something written!"

Unfortunately, "Hey I got something written!" cannot by itself get you fed, clothed, housed, and (especially) laid. Your needs still drive you, and if you're as much a poet as I am, your automatic response is to write reams upon reams of (say it with me) useless poetry. I could have spent that writing time by actually getting me fed, clothed, housed and, yes, laid (Getting a better paying day job is often a step in that direction).

The awful truth is that nobody really reads, much less appreciates, poetry. Okay, some people do, but often, they're neither numerous nor rich enough to matter. The perception is that poetry is either--

1. nothing special as any five-year-old can break a long coherent sentence into lines and call it poetry or
2. it's so specialized that most people who have "jobs" and "real social lives" cannot relate to it.

Besides, it does not make us better people. Bin Laden is a poet. So was Hitler. A sensitive thug with literary leanings is still a thug, albeit a more sophisticated one. If you ask my ex, being a poet only makes people think of you as a smooth-talking snake oil salesman. Or a smooth-talking snake oil peddling thug.

(So before you run off with someone because he is an artiste do try to remember that the insensitive clod who's forgotten how to say "I love you" probably got that way acting --and not writing poetry-- to meet the needs of your belly and those of your kids.)

The point is, poetry sucks. When it isn't trumpeting your triumph to the world after the fact, poetry's like opium. It keeps you distracted writing when you could be taking action instead. When there is a venue for action, when one is empowered to realize his desires, there is much less poetry. I fear that there are quite a few of us who are lock-stepped into being nothing more than poets, forever writing about actions we will likely never take.

Still it's a beautiful activity, and one of the reasons why I write is that I am plugged into a higher power when I write my best poems, even when these are the most useless kind-- the interminable whining about aborted romantic liaisons.

The price I pay for loving poetry is that I hate it with a passion.

I am Engrish Teacha!

Teaching Englishee velee haard
It does to dlive-us away the baard
Especiary when styoo-dunt says eet best
that "praying sportsu relieves my stless"

You cannot-- cannot-- make to laugh
As teacha, must to do not make them cry
You must leally help your styoo-dunt learn
Even dough you feel like die

(Oh so solly Teacha, "Die-ying";
"Feel like dying")

The onry thingus keep you sane
When listuning Engrish cause you pain
are fact daht styoo-dunts are your fliends
and, daht "soon" is when bad rhyming ends

ESL is a priestly vocation and
you ain't alone in thinking this--
Us ESL teachers need a long vacation.


----------------------------

Poking fun at the job, okay? not my students.

Many of them are dedicated, disciplined professionals who want a better life in places where English is spoken as a language of power and commerce. And I do want to help them, with most of my heart.

Written for Poem a Day.

Poem a Day (7)

Women

They
march--
stride--
sashay--
rampmodelwalk
fresh off the dollhouse
conveyor belts:
semi-captive Stepford products
of a man's need
for lace, sweet next-door denim,
for black satin underneath the placid face
of a cotton smock
for nipple rings, leather and the lash
for sons, for sex, the photo-op for the joneses sake
so fitted to our molds,
is it a wonder that they cannot always find themselves?

it's a bigger mystery why i am so lost without them

What's a Renga?

A renga as I know it is essentially a piece of collaborative poetry. What makes it different is the fact that while each writer contributes a line or two to the piece, he doesn't get to see portions of the poem as it's being written. The result is an organic (because it grows, seemingly taking on a life of its own) piece of poetry that surprises in how it all seems to make some sort of sense at the end of the day.

Either that or it's a meandering piece of crap.

Still, it's a fun exercise and a good way to peer into Jungian things like Gestalt and Zeitgeist and Synchronicity.

Here's how ours works. Someone writes the first line. The next person writes a new line but covers the line before his. The poem is passed to the next writer and so on and so forth until it returns to the first writer. He looks over the whole poem (and bursts into fits of laughter or groans of disgust). He writes the final line that ties everything together.

Everyone reads and is assaulted by his contributions to his attempts at collaborative poetry.

Why not try it with a few friends? April is poetry month after all.

Poem a Day (4)

Stardust and Grains of Sand
(with Eline Santos & Strahd Lacanlale)

I get high
on stardust and grains of sand
gazing on shooting stars falling
like flowers, fading like roses.
Hope for your love dims--
I'd settle for a kiss
on the mango's cheek.
Dawson's creek is
a metaphor for my life.
Looking for sense and reason,
that faded river of truth,
washing the dust of memory
hanging our skeletons to dry
weeping our slow dirty tears
leaving tracks on the sand
washed away by tears of our sorrows
I'm high now.
And I miss you.

----------------

It's another entry for Poem a Day.

This is another renga. This time it was done with the able help of Strahd Lacanlale and Eline Santos. Lest you cast aspersions on the writing talents of my friends-- please know that that awful Dawson's Creek line-- and all the other lines that have to do with getting (naturally) high -- are mine.

Poem a Day (4)

Soma (1)

Biting into my I-pod
I taste the tang of
Richie Kotzen's lyrics,
the grease and honey of
his guitars help me swallow
the irony

then I look the way I feel
I'm a rock god I'm electric
writhing on the floor,
a worthy Christian speaking in
angelic gibberish

and all I say is
you are the world

Poem a Day (3)

Waiting, waiting, waiting
Wanting, hoping for you
Miracle Malunggay Loaf!

Love's labor's respite
Is chocolate mousse with secret spice
A recipe for love
Miracle Malunggay Loaf!

A fusion of wheat and kindness
Add a teaspoon of jealous yeast
To make the passion rise
And fingers flow

Miracle Malunggay Loaf!

--------------------------

Made (but not in April) with Eline at a cafe in Taguig which serves, yes, Miracle Malunggay Loaf.

Poem a Day (1)

There were no monuments
to our passionate months-dead couplet.
you did and didn't want them
and it made sense:
I, tail-end-Cold War-Montague
and you, Friends'-post-Starbucks-Capulet

Was there any other outcome due
When you looked for signs that I was true
and couldn't find them?

They were there, buried in how I burned for you--
--Darling, I still do--
And in how I was slowly burying
the other women too

All of them, dearest, finally,

for you.

Ed Kafka's Simple Guide to Classifying Science Stories

Hero toting laser pistol, blowing stuff up and rescuing the girl = science fantasy = drek

Hero toting laser pistol and blowing stuff up, the principles of which are properly explained while he rescues the girl = science fiction

Hero toting believable prototype laser pistol which doesn't work half the time because of real-world limitations which are also properly explained= "mundane" science fiction/ "speculative" sci fi

Hero toting believable prototype laser pistol which doesn't work half the time because of real-world limitations but he manages to rescue the girl anyway with regular ballistic weapons, or better yet, with his wits= good "mundane" science fiction; please buy the book

My Grandkid, She Has Doe Eyes

Extensor Familis Azuris
(I know. The Latin is as bad as it is fake)

My older sister is a piano teacher

my other sister wants to be a nurse.

I got a brother and he edits video

Me, I just wanna drive a hearse

Big sister’s boyfriend’s an inventor;

My son, he’s a freak with his guitar;

My ingenue’s gonna be a drama major

I just wanna be an aging rock star

My grandkid, she’s got doe eyes--

I've never noticed them before

I smilingly imagine all the men who fell

into those wells and hit the granite floor

My baby, she thinks I'm satan,

and it hurts like hell when I draw near

She puts herself a million miles away

wonder just who's being exorcised right here?

Sitting out detention isn't easy

when you're six buildings away

And having to stand outside

when there's no outside to stand in

really brightens up my day

One day soon I won't be satan

or else I'll be trying this elsewhere again

and being thankful for her final gifts--

my grandkid;

and our student, Jen.

Oh Dear

The ship's run aground and it's sinking
And this in the midst of your constant thinking
You're losing crew and you don't quite see it
Oh wait, the captain's oblivious,
so that makes two of you

They're jumping ship, or you're driving 'em away
And the goons and mooks you're taking in are just
Manning the bilge pumps and eating paste.

It isn't easy when we have to swab the deck
or lean the ship windward and hoist our only sheet
and at the end of the day, we still kiss your naked feet.
I didn't mind-- your feet are lovely. besides,

for the longest time, I haven't gotten to kiss any

But the ship's run aground and it's sinking
(look there's a giant squid)
You're losing crew and you don't see why
Or maybe you finally do.
The captain's oblivious,
the solution is obvious!
and it takes just one of you

Better tell the captain--
he'll know what to do--
wait--
what's left of the crew's

got problems asking that of you?

Oh dear.

The More or Less Manifesto

ZERO

In honor of love month I'll be posting stuff as I count down to the 14th. It's hokey, it's corny, but you can look at it this way: it's better than nothing when you're somewhat creatively constipated. And if in case you are the mushy type, then maybe this might be what you need.

---

After All It's Done To You, Why?

The long procession of women whose names have now become horribly interchangeable; the long nights wasted writing poetry or making art when making money would have brought more respect, more favors. The ugly sensation of having to adjust over and over again to a new set of arms, new smells, new colors, over a period of months, your nerve endings perpetually raw and screaming for contact. To be told you are in some fundamental way inadequate and inconvenient. To walk nights in not-space while the world swirled happily around you.

After all this, why indeed? Why do I still believe in it?

Why do I simply refuse to take comfort in the arms of the usual misanthropy and cynicism that is expected of nerds who should not have been given a shot at inconveniencing the rest of us (i.e. existence)?

I've tried to answer this in my long and boring ruminations.

Actually as I write my hands are shaking. I'm in no mood for long boring ruminations so I'll give you the short form.

Beyond the sexual dimension and the expectations that go with it, there is no functional difference between the love between mates and the love between friends. Most human interaction fosters love. Eros works his insidious magic whenever any two human beings come together, to share a task, to share a space, to share a life. He doesn't always succeed but regardless of the tools he uses -- a common goal, a shared schedule, the fact that you're siblings, sex-- he works constantly to bring people together.

I am more sure of this than I am of God. Eros is in fact my one direct non-Biblical (therefore acceptable) proof (I'm sorry I proceed from a position of doubt) that God exists and gives a ding dong diddley about his idiot creations.

All your questions of worth and why cease to matter when love takes root. Love empowers, love ennobles, even when it wounds. As many times as I've seen love fail because of someone's inner weakness, ill fortune, or bonehead decisions, I have also seen it flourish and sustain because people chose to make it work.

This is the reason I still believe in it so badly despite the bullshit it's put me through.

This is who I am, and I know of no other way to be.



Happy Valentine's everyone.