Dianne Pearce's Blog, page 9

PiGhEtTi

It’s corn season! And I feel duty-bound to report to my fellow pigness owners that not only do piggies LOVE corn husks, they go crazy for corn silk, which, in our family, we call pighetti.

Yes, you read it here first. When it gets into the dictionary… it’s mine: pighetti: corn silk for pignessess.

Just trim off the yucky brown bits, and there you go! Happy pignessess! Pighetti season!

ASTEROID CITY: WES ANDERSON’S FIRST POEM

The first thing I felt myself noticing about the film Asteroid City was how orange everything was.

The orange was gorgeous, and a device of course, and part of what makes it a poem.

The movie is a poem.

The movie is a poem because it is not a full and complete story as much as it is a full and complete poem about grief.

The mother who has died in the color part of the movie is just an actress, and the story of her surviving family is just part of the script of the play, and in the black and white part of the movie, she is still alive and well, and it is actually the playwright who has died. Which, in the narrative, makes sense as the color part of the movie, the play, remains unfinished.

Some people. might mildly enjoy the film’s “story” and leave feeling unsatisfied, because they do not understand poetry, and they do not understand that it is a poem.

If there is a central theme to the black and white section of the film, it is creative people doubting their creativity, and struggling to manage their “art” while they live, or not, their lives.

If there is a central theme to the color part of the movie I would say it is people trying to manage the relationships in their lives, and struggling to be open about their struggles and emotions, because they are too concerned about the affect they will have on those around them, who they love.

But the overall theme of the film is just the feeling, the feeling of wanting something special to happen, the feeling of wanting lives that end to go on indefinitely, the feelings of wanting to be accepted in the full splendor of our own weirdness, the feelings of how hot and uncomfortable and trapped life can feel, and then, in a whiff, all the circumstances and all the people you were worrying about are gone when you wake up. And maybe you weren’t ready. And the world is so orange, and the world is so grey, and can we connect more than superficially, and do we know what to do when everyone has gotten up and gone, and we’re still working things out?

If you need a thread… if you need a frame around your story… if you need a linear: “…and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened…,” sort of story that you can successfully sum-up for another human, this might not be your movie. But that is no reason to slam it. It is a lush, and sparse, and warm, and disconnected, and full-of-feeling poem. And like life, the end moves into the current space and time, and you probably were not ready for it. But that doesn’t mean we slam it based on our own short-comings, and our own reluctance to let go of the handrail, and float in a poem masquerading as a film. One very interesting thing about my daughter, which may be, in part, a reflection of her coming up as a consumer of reels, she is not so bound to the linear in story-telling, and she went with it. She liked it; she got it enough to be entertained, and she didn’t ask too much more of it.

And it seems like many people didn’t get it, and were none too pleased that it looked and felt like

Moonrise Kingdom, but didn’t wrap up in a nice bow.

The family in Moonrise Kingdom has four children, one female teen in crisis, and three small hellions for sons. Asteroid City has the same: one male teen in crisis, and three small hellions for daughters. But no neat ending. Grief is not neat.

Asteroid City is a poem. If you like poetry, you might like seeing a movie that is only masquerading as a film, and is, in truth, a poem. I loved it.

INSTANT NOODLES UPDATE

DID YOU KNOW….

Instant Noodles is an online literary magazine that I created and run?

DID YOU KNOW….

Instant Noodles has its own website now? https://instantnoodleslitmag.com

DID YOU KNOW…

Old Scratch Press is curating the December 2023 issue?

“Please take note, we’re shortening our word count. Can you take the challenge and keep it brief by making every word count? For our Winter issue we’re asking our writers to limit their poetry submissions to 2 poems (up to a combined total of 500 words). Prose writers, we’ll be only publishing work that is 500 words or less. (If you need to finish a sentence, we’ll cut you a little slack).  Guest Editors for the Winter issue include: GABBY GILLIAM: Poetry, R.DAVID FULCHER: Fiction, ALAN BERN and DIANNE PEARCE: Art, and NADJA MARIL: Memoir/Creative Nonfiction.”

The issue opens for submissions August 15, 2023!

You can submit here!

WHEN DO I GET MY OWN WEEKEND AWAY?

And, for that matter, and for fairness, when does Dave get his?

I was surprised last year to find that someone I knew took weekends away by herself to “be with my book.” Wow.

And she’s not talking about writing a book folks. She’s talking about reading one.

Of course, she’s childless by choice, and not trying to be an entrepreneur, and has a partner who takes turns with her being the one home with the dogs.

But, the thing that is amazing to me, is that it occurred to her to take some time away, when she can fit it around her job, more than once a year, to read a book. It occurred to her that she needed time by herself, and she takes it.

I’m a mega introvert, so I know I need time to myself, but I keep giving it to everyone else.

I took about three hours yesterday to go see Asteroid City, and to have dinner out, and I felt these things when it was over:

I should have done more work, and sooner, before I left.I love Asteroid City, and I wish I had more time for my own writing.It might be better to be better at fitting in funWhy does getting where you want to go take so long?Is 9:30 too early to go to bed?

We’re still, to some extent, in the same position we were in Delaware: our child made friends at school with an immigrant (literal immigrant… visa and all) from a very different culture (the child is completely Tik Tok up to date with my daughter; her parents are not) and another child who is either a 1.75 generation immigrant, or a 2.0 generation immigrant, depending on how you look at it, but, basically, a citizen whose parents do not think of English as their language. The salient point for my post being that they don’t let their kids go hang out with anyone not in their family, either of them.

And so, for me, going off out of the house and not coming home for a few days and doing something, even something not considered fun by my child, like working on my book all weekend (writing it not reading one), feels impossibly cruel to me in the face of a bored and lonely child. So, like many parents, I am trying to enjoy my summertime child, and also waiting for school to start back.

And then there is the job of making all the pieces fit:

Dave’s full-time job takes a large piece, and of course, fits before everything else, and the rest must bend around it. In life, we all accept that compromise once we become working adults.

Then will be school, school work, and the commute.

Then editing…. my work, which is not tied to a specific time or place.

Of course pets who need care and feeding, but also fun and affection and attention.

One thing that is interesting about going to a place like Idyllwild, where pretty much all of the people eating in the restaurants are wealthy people taking a break, is how much attention they give their pets. Usually it’s dogs, but sometimes you see cats on leashes or in baby carriers, and sometimes something more exotic. But, these folks spend a lot of time and money on their pets. The pets are frequently dressed, and dragged along everywhere. I love Oliver, and he is adorable, but, as much as he doesn’t want to be more than two feet away from me, he also doesn’t want to lay on the floor of a restaurant deck while waiters and other patron step over him, and other miserable dogs eye him glumly form under other tables, and they all drink from the same disgusting spit-bowl. Dogs in restaurants…. WHY IS THAT A THING? The dogs universally look anxious, and physically unable to get comfy, while the owners sit above unaware and unconcerned, sipping mimosas. If you’re dragging your pet to brunch, I’m not coming.

To be monied and have all the free time in the world and do nothing with it…. seems a waste in my mind. But, I guess more un-monied people are creative than monied. Though you’d never know it from the celebrities writing children’s books, right?

It’s not enough, though it has to be, to have an hour or two a week that you steal from the rest of your life to try to squeeze in a little writing. It takes a full and empty day, in my opinion, just to slough off all the responsibilities, and then, as long as the coffee is good, and the company is non-existent, you can get down to it.

May we all get a few days to ourselves each year, in a row, with no one in them, for writing.

AUTHORS ELECTRIC

Don’t miss my newest post!

And check out Debbie’s post, which I really liked!

HOARDER HOUSE…. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED

PART 2 is up on MEDIUM.

MOM/DAUGHTER GET-AWAY WEEKEND

Thanks to Aunt Lee& Nathan, Sophie and Mouse, and I are spending the weekend in Idyllwild.

This means we eat what we want!

Brunch at The Red Kettle.
Mom: chili, peach pie, coffee. A real Agent Cooper kinda-lunch, and they make a damn fine cup of coffee.
Sophie & Mouse: Chicken strips with fries, and beaucoup gravy, and apple juice.

Then we go shopping and buy dumb stuff:
shaved ice
candy necklaces
salt water taffy
small felted rabbit
crazy expensive bath bombs
and earrings (for Sophie) and adding to Mom’s huge, and Sophie’s non-existent button collection:

While we were shopping we went into one store that had all these beautiful blown glass items, quite large, in a case under the counter. “Those are so pretty!” said Sophie. “What are they?”
“Those are bongs,” I said, “you use them to smoke weed and get high.”
“Oh my gosh,” said the woman behind the counter (about my age, store owner I surmise), “I love that. So matter-of-fact, and no judgement.”
I also bought a pro-choice button (which is already affixed to the hoodie I wore to the 2016/17 Women’s march on Washington (the hoodie that is signed by all the people who were on the bus with me…. always have a Sharpie about your person, okay?), so the shopkeep and I had a good long talk about legislators legislating weed, and trans folks, and women’s bodies, when there’s MAGA and mass shootings, and anti-semitism, and all the things that are sooooooo wrong with USA right now, so we got along really well. And I bought Sophie her first bong. (Nope, just kidding on that last part…. Have you ever used a bong? I never have, though I have seen a few in action.

Then stop at the little grocery in town (there are two) and rustle up the perfect dinner. Sophie declared it was better than Thanksgiving!

Sophie… by request: Pillsbury crescent rolls, Spam, peas, mashed and gobs of gravy. For Mom, fruit, olive bread smeared with labne, grilled halloumi, Q ginger beer.

Then we played Trash Pandas, and M.A.S.H. Sophie won Trash Pandas, but lost at MASH as she is going to live in a shack with her friend from school, drive a murder van, and make $0.003/year as an origami instructor. I am going to marry Eddy from Two-Set Violin (I like Eddy, but I was hoping to get 1970 Paul McCartney), have one child, and make a million dollars a year as a singer (funny that “successful novelist” is not in my future.). Oh! And I get to drive Vera’s Land Rover (see the British TV show VERA).

Interrupting the weekend for a little bit tomorrow to have a Devil’s Party Press author marketing meeting. Trying to build a community among the authors and Dave and me so that we can all foster each other’s success. Men work from sun to sun, but a publisher’s work is never done.

If you get a chance to visit Idyllwild, it’s fun. I even like the round and round drive up the mountain (Sophie takes motion sickness pills and puts a blanket over her head…. so experiences may vary. You do you.)

Thanks Aunt Lee and Nathan for the weekend~

MEET A GREAT SPECULATIVE FICTION AUTHOR

I met Chris Fitzgerald at the Atlanta Writers’ Conference. Chris is, IMHO, a brilliant speculative sci fi author. He’s also a stay-at-home dad who finally had the last bambino join school, so Chris is able to focus on writing his really engaging and unique stories. I am very excited to see he’s giving some away free, on his website, so I want to suggest, if you enjoy speculative writing like I do, that you subscribe right now! I am hinting that we’re going to see a book from Chris in the very near future.

THANK YOU PRESIDENT OBAMA, FOR SO MANY THINGS, AND THIS ESSAY

The fish does not know the water it swims in.

Or something like that is how the expression goes.

What it means is that we don’t really recognize or appreciate the things that make our lives possible that are so ubiquitous in our lives that we don’t “see” them.

And so, sometimes, I try to tell myself that I fully see my white privilege, but I don’t.

I could start making a list that runs a mile down this page, and I would not hit it all.

And there are white people in the United States who are homeless, and there are white people in the United States who own yachts, and everything in between. And at the low end of the economic scale there may be a lot of white people, more than those who own yachts, right? It is the same for every race: more are impoverished than fabulously wealthy. The problem that Affirmative Actions seeks to fix is not that some people are poor and some own yachts. The problem it seeks to fix is that, in the past, when opportunities have been available, they have not been given while taking into account hardships the applicants may have had beyond the hardship of income-level.

Now, at this point, I am attempting to explain the same thing that President Obama explained, which is farcical of me, as he does it much better. The guy’s a natural essayist, right?

So let me stop, and suggest that you please read President Obama’s article, and understand what we lost in this decision, which is a lot, all so that people who, in the most part, already had more, could have even more, and not feel like they were being discriminated against, which, newsflash, they weren’t.

Happy United States Independence Day, but I am sorry we keep trying to curtail the independence of those we want to keep under our giant male, white, Republican thumb.

HOARDERS

For what it’s worth, fellow hustling writers, I have a new post up on MEDIUM.