Thierry Sagnier's Blog, page 34

Gun, Again

And so it turns out the National Rifle Association was right—guns don’t kill people. It’s flags that kill people.
If a half-wit South Carolinian who under no circumstances should get near a firearm is able to purchase a gun because there’s a glitch in the control system; if said racist half-wit murders nine churchgoers; and if a Confederate flag is found on the half-wit’s web page, then let’s ban the flag!  Makes perfect sense.  
The “Guns don’t kill people” rationale used by the NRA was ridiculous from the start and that it endures and continues to be quoted proves a sad fact: That people will believe something—anything—if it is repeated over and over again. This is called advertising, and it is what persuades you to buy corn flakes rather than sugar pops. In the case of guns and the concomitant violence, this is also commonly referred to as the elephant in the room: An extremely large beast that takes up a lot of space, poops on the floor, bellows, trumpets, destroys the furniture and the home entertainment system but, we all like to pretend, doesn’t really exist.
Let’s belabor the obvious. In 2010, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and crime, 67 percent of all homicides in the U.S. were conducted using a firearm. According to the FBI, in 2012, there were 8,855 total firearm-related homicides in the US, with 6,371 of those attributed to handguns. The weapon used by Dylan Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, was a Glock 41 .45 caliber handgun that he purchased in spite of being convicted of a narcotic offense. The latter should have prevented him from buying anything more powerful than a Daisy air rifle. But there was an administrative error in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and so, to misquote Dalton Trumbo, Dylan got his gun.
The NRA, in one of those truly amazing turn-arounds, blamed the shooting on one of Roof’s victims. According to the International Business Times, Charles Cotton, an NRA board member, said that Clementa Pinckney, the pastor killed during the shooting, caused his own death because of his stance on state gun laws.  Pinckney was a state senator who pushed for tougher gun regulations in South Carolina.  
The outrage caused by the shooting led the usual great diversion. Much to the NRA’s relief the Confederate flag took a hit for the team. The gun lobby dodged a bullet—pardon the expression—as across the nation, the flag was lowered. I wonder though, with the flag gone, what will be blamed next?
Personally, I’m vastly relieved. Ridding ourselves of the Confederate flag is sure to solve the problems engendered by racism, white supremacy, gun violence, crazy people buying firearms, druggies buying firearms, drug dealers buying firearms, and avowed racists buying firearms.
 
Really, I feel so much better now!
 
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Collectives

Collectives are wonderfully named and never fail to bring a smile.
My friend Alex Tolstoy (yes, that is her name; yes, she is a distant relative of Tolstoy, and she’s a wondrous painter whose works have been shown nationally and can be seen at http://www.atolstoyart.com/ ) sent me this. I couldn’t help but add a few.


These are aptly named:

a shrewdness of apes
a sounder of boars
a pounce of cats
a peep of chickens
a paddling of ducks
a memory of elephants
a bloat of hippopotamuses
a cackle of hyenas
a scold of jays
a leap of leopards
a mischief of mice
an ostentation of peacocks
an unkindness of ravens
a scurry of squirrels
a wisdom of wombats
a murder of crows
a crash or rhinoceroses

Here are some that SHOULD be real:

a muddle of confused people
a harrumph of malcontents
a galoot of idiots
a babble of acousticians
a coot of codgers
an appeal of onions
a cloud of depressives
a pocket of kleptomaniacs
a confusion of bipolars
a clutch of purse snatchers
a giggle of girls
a sack of quarterbacks
an ascent of stairs
a cloud of smokers
a howl of hounds
a riot of comedians
a stripe of tigers
an amity of friends
a taste of honeys
a roundness of pears
a delusion of addicts
a shiver of ice-cream
a dump of bad tastes
a whine of complainers
a moan of sufferers
a croak of frogs
a troop of trees
a huddle of bananas
a bloom of roses
a flight of 12-steppers
a crunch of apples
a nestle of cherries
a palette of painters
a trip of dopers
a chord of guitarists
a hoot of Annies
an orbit of eccentrics
a sniffle of allergies

Do you have a favorite that’s not listed?

Collectives

Collectives are wonderfully named and never fail to bring a smile.
My friend Alex Tolstoy (yes, that is her name; yes, she is a distant relative of Tolstoy, and she’s a wondrous painter whose works have been shown nationally and can be seen at http://www.atolstoyart.com/ ) sent me this. I couldn’t help but add a few.   

These are aptly named:

a shrewdness of apes
a sounder of boars
a pounce of cats
a peep of chickens
a paddling of ducks
a memory of elephants
a bloat of hippopotamuses
a cackle of hyenas
a scold of jays
a leap of leopards
a mischief of mice
an ostentation of peacocks
an unkindness of ravens
a scurry of squirrels
a wisdom of wombats
a murder of crows
a crash or rhinoceroses
 
Here are some that SHOULD be real:
 
a muddle of confused people
a harrumph of malcontents
a galoot of idiots
a babble of acousticians
a coot of codgers
an appeal of onions
a cloud of depressives
a pocket of kleptomaniacs
a confusion of bipolars
a clutch of purse snatchers
a giggle of girls
a sack of quarterbacks
an ascent of stairs
a cloud of smokers
a howl of hounds
a riot of comedians
a stripe of tigers
an amity of friends
a taste of honeys
a roundness of pears
a delusion of addicts
a shiver of ice-cream
a dump of bad tastes
a whine of complainers
a moan of sufferers
a croak of frogs
a troop of trees
a huddle of bananas
a bloom of roses
a flight of 12-steppers
a crunch of apples
a nestle of cherries
a palette of painters
a trip of dopers
a chord of guitarists
a hoot of Annies
an orbit of eccentrics  
a sniffle of allergies
 
Do you have a favorite that’s not listed?
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Vive le 4th

July 4th, like a lot of long summer weekends, always makes me feel like everyone is out of town, or sort of like being stuck on campus during the Christmas holidays. So for the past couple of years, if the spirit moves me, I go and watch a parade.

Last year, I stayed in my bedroom community in Northern Virginia. There was small town parade there, with Latin American dance groups, Shriners in those ridiculous small cars, a few karate kids in gees doing martial arts katas, and my personal favorite, the Falun Gong ladies beating on small drums and sweltering in bright yellow Dacron pants and tunics. They follow a shiny pick-up truck with giant speakers blaring strange music and their smiles never falter, and they have really good teeth. The local bicycle shop employees ride all sort of two-wheelers, our State Congressman waves from the back of a classic convertible, and even the county trash truck gets a turn. The driver throws candy to the kids and gets a huge cheer, much greater than the local politician.

This year, a friend and I went to downtown Washington, D.C. I’d invited a couple of other people but they didn’t want to deal with the crowds, which, as it turns out, were nonexistent. A morning drizzle kept the viewers away and cleared up before the parade started..

Here’s what I saw: The Lone Ranger, mounted on his horse Silver. Tonto was not invited, apparently. I did learn something—it’s not Hi Ho Silver, Away! It’s Hi Yo Silver, which frankly sounds a little inner city, but maybe the masked man was ahead of his time. It turn out there’s quite an online debate on this subject, which only goes to show some people have too much times on their hands.

There were a bunch of red, white and blue silvery spangly floats that had no identification at all. One had four rather aged lady singing Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy and I thought they might be channeling The Andrews Sisters, and doing a bang-up job of it, too. There were large balloon characters floating overhead and held by dozens of people—I was particularly struck by what I thought was a giant chicken with an Uncle Sam hat, but I was told later it was an eagle. I don’t know what the dinosaur symbolized, or the exceedingly strange 25-foot-tall Buddy Holly, whose slowly deflating Fender Strat caused a lady next to me to hum, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, which I thought was brilliantly à propos. I particularly liked a decked out and lowered SUV driven by two guys I’m pretty sure were Mara Salvatrucha gang members, but it turned out they were representing the Silver Brook Elementary School.

When I was a little kid in France, my dad used to take me to the Champs Élysées on Bastille Day, and we’d see France’s military might displayed—thousands of soldier marched by; the scariest ones were the French Foreign Legion, whose members were bearded, unsmiling, and wore leather aprons. They carried no firearms but wielded axes.

The parade here was largely military-free, though there was a color guard and a truck full of Civil War Buffalo Soldiers. There were a lot of bagpipes. There were also a number of high school marching bands with high-stepping drum majors and flag twirling cuties in flesh-colored leotards. I am absolutely certain that the three front rows of a band from Kansas was playing Oh Susana while the last four rows were playing Sweet Caroline. No one noticed except me and a woman who winced and told me she taught music in Albuquerque.

There was a contingents of turbaned Sikhs; a float of sweating Chinese (I know because they had a banner that read something-something-something Chinese-American) pounding giant drums; Irish cloggers; big wheel bikes; lots of men in kilts; a couple of women in kilts, too, handing out bottles of water to the men in kilts; and some totally charming Vietnamese women doing a dance with their conical hats.

Three out of five spectators were not looking at the parade, being too busy texting.

Lots of people were taking selfies.

I sort of missed the Shriners and their little cars and wished for an appearance by the French Foreign Legion, but no such luck.

Vive le 4th

July 4th, like a lot of long summer weekends, always makes me feel like everyone is out of town, or sort of like being stuck on campus during the Christmas holidays. So for the past couple of years, if the spirit moves me, I go and watch a parade.
Last year, I stayed  in my bedroom community in Northern Virginia. There was small town parade there, with Latin American dance groups, Shriners in those ridiculous small cars, a few karate kids in gees doing martial arts katas, and my personal favorite, the Falun Gong ladies beating on small drums and sweltering in bright yellow Dacron pants and tunics. They follow a shiny pick-up truck with giant speakers blaring strange music and their smiles never falter, and they have really good teeth. The local bicycle shop employees ride all sort of two-wheelers, our  State Congressman waves from the back of a classic convertible, and even the county trash truck gets a turn. The driver throws candy to the kids and gets a huge cheer, much greater than the local politician.
This year, a friend and I went to downtown Washington, D.C. I’d invited a couple of other people but they didn’t want to deal with the crowds, which, as it turns out, were nonexistent. A morning drizzle kept the viewers away and cleared up before the parade started.
Here’s what I saw: The Lone Ranger, mounted on his horse Silver. Tonto was not invited, apparently. I did learn something—it’s not Hi Ho Silver, Away!  It’s Hi YoSilver, which frankly sounds a little inner city, but maybe the masked man was ahead of his time. It turn out there’s quite an online debate on this subject, which only goes to show some people have too much times on their hands.
There were a bunch of red, white and blue silvery spangly floats that had no identification at all. One had four rather aged lady singing Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy and I thought they might be channeling The Andrews Sisters, and doing a bang-up job of it, too.  There were large balloon characters floating overhead and held by dozens of people—I was particularly struck by what I thought was a giant chicken with an Uncle Sam hat, but I was told later it was an eagle.  I don’t know what the dinosaur symbolized, or the exceedingly strange 25-foot-tall Buddy Holly, whose slowly deflating Fender Strat caused a lady next to me to hum, While My Guitar Gently Weeps,which I thought was brilliantly à propos. I particularly liked a decked out and lowered SUV driven by two guys I’m pretty sure were Mara Salvatrucha gang members, but it turned out they were representing the Silver Brook Elementary School.
When I was a little kid in France, my dad used to take me to the Champs Élysées on Bastille Day, and we’d see France’s military might displayed—thousands of soldier marched by; the scariest ones were the French Foreign Legion, whose members were bearded, unsmiling, and wore leather aprons. They carried no firearms but wielded axes.
The parade here was largely military-free, though there was a color guard and a truck full of Civil War Buffalo Soldiers. There were a lot of bagpipes. There were also a number of high school marching bands with high-stepping drum majors and flag twirling cuties in flesh-colored leotards. I am absolutely certain that the three front rows of a band from Kansas was playing Oh Susana  while the last four rows were playing Sweet Caroline.No one noticed except me and a woman who winced and told me she taught music in Albuquerque.
There was a contingents of turbaned Sikhs; a float of sweating Chinese (I know because they had a banner that read something-something-something Chinese-American) pounding giant drums; Irish cloggers; big wheel bikes; lots of men in kilts; a couple of women in kilts, too, handing out bottles of water to the men in kilts; and some totally charming Vietnamese women doing a dance with their conical hats.
Three out of five spectators were not looking at the parade, being too busy texting.
Lots of people were taking selfies.
I sort of missed the Shriners and their little cars and wished for an appearance by the French Foreign Legion, but no such luck.
 
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Writer's Block

Once or twice a year, some of my writing friends and I gather at a pretentious café, order whatever is cheapest on the menu, and talk about what we’re working on. Invariably, someone brings up writer’s block.
The discussion gets deep and personal. I generally look on with what I have been told is supercilious arrogance because, you see, I don’t believe in writer’s block. As a matter of fact, I think it’s nonsense.
There. I’ve said it. Bring on the literary firing squad.
Many decades ago when I was still in school, Professor C, whose pipe-smoking demeanor I thought to emulate by purchasing an expensive Peterson’s Irish Sea Fishtail briar, gave me an F on what I thought was one of my more excellent efforts. The piece of writing was an unfinished short story. I told Professor C that a deep and dark episode of writer’s block had prevented me from concluding the tale. He flunked me.
I resented this. Not only was I struggling with learning how to look good with a pipe sticking out of my mouth—which is close to impossible—but the good prof’s belittling of my literary struggles was insulting and unsettling.
It’s been a long time since Prof. C gave me a piece of advice I still use from time to time when I’m at a writing impasse. Here it is: Type the letter “I” and stare at it. Let your indomitable ego takeover, and you’ll find that the “I” will take you places. I have. I will. I won’t. I might. It never fails.
Regarding writer’s block, here’s what I think. Writer’s block is you not wanting to write. That can occur for a variety of reasons. One might be that what you’re working on is simply not good, and your subconscious is telling you to let it go—or start over—before you waste more of your time. Or your stuff may be good, but it doesn’t have the necessary legs to take you anywhere meaningful. In other words, what you’re struggling with might be a viable short story but it’s going to be a lousy novel.
Writer’s block may also mean you’ve written yourself into a corner. That’s tough, and you’re likely to waste a lot more time searching for the way out than you are recasting the situation or plot to make it work smoothly.
I remember once working on a novel where it was imperative that one of my characters commit a violent crime. This was a well-written personage; I’d carefully built him over 200 pages of plot, and his refusal—because that’s what it was—to do what I wanted him to do had me stymied. Writer’s block! I moaned and whined about it to a non-writing friend who said, “So change the plot.”
Aaaahh…
I think a lot of us, when we’re writing, haven’t fully worked out where we’re going. Personally, I think this is fine. For me, half the joy really is the journey. I may have a basic story in mind, but the details of my people’s actions and workings are revealed as I write them, and this is where the fun starts. I may have to pause, but that’s not writer’s block—that’s taking a deep breath and assessing the situation. Having gotten to here, how do I get to there?
Someone said that writer’s block is when your imaginary friends stop talking to you. Okay, that’s cute and eminently quotable. I prefer to think that it’s my shortcoming. I’m lazy today, or tired, or have something I’d rather be doing than writing. I have options. I can stop writing, or keep writing. I can write something I know is bad, a few pages that will not survive the first edit. If I do that, there is the very slim chance I may end up with a salvageable sentence or two. If I decide to not write, I’ll have nothing. Come to think of it, not a very difficult choice at all.

Writer's Block

Once or twice a year, some of my writing friends and I gather at a pretentious café, order whatever is cheapest on the menu, and talk about what we’re working on. Invariably, someone brings up writer’s block.
The discussion gets deep and personal. I generally look on with what I have been told is supercilious arrogance because, you see, I don’t believe in writer’s block. As a matter of fact, I think it’s nonsense.
There. I’ve said it. Bring on the literary firing squad.
Many decades ago when I was still in school, Professor C, whose pipe-smoking demeanor I thought to emulate by purchasing an expensive Peterson’s Irish Sea Fishtail briar, gave me an F on what I thought was one of my more excellent efforts. The piece of writing was an unfinished short story. I told Professor C that a deep and dark episode of writer’s block had prevented me from concluding the tale. He flunked me.
I resented this.  Not only was I struggling with learning how to look good with a pipe sticking out of my mouth—which is close to impossible—but the good prof’s belittling of my literary struggles was insulting and unsettling.
It’s been a long time since Prof. C gave me a piece of advice I still use from time to time when I’m at a writing impasse. Here it is: Type the letter “I” and stare at it. Let your indomitable ego takeover, and you’ll find that the “I” will take you places. I have. I will. I won’t. I might. It never fails.
Regarding writer’s block, here’s what I think. Writer’s block is you not wanting to write.  That can occur for a variety of reasons. One might be that what you’re working on is simply not good, and your subconscious is telling you to let it go—or start over—before you waste more of your time. Or your stuff may be good, but it doesn’t have the necessary legs to take you anywhere meaningful. In other words, what you’re struggling with might be a viable short story but it’s going to be a lousy novel.
Writer’s block may also mean you’ve written yourself into a corner. That’s tough, and you’re likely to waste a lot more time searching for the way out than you are recasting the situation or plot to make it work smoothly.
I remember once working on a novel where it was imperative that one of my characters commit a violent crime. This was a well-written personage; I’d carefully built him over 200 pages of plot, and his refusal—because that’s what it was—to do what I wanted him to do had me stymied.  Writer’s block! I moaned and whined about it to a non-writing friend who said, “So change the plot.”
Aaaahh…
I think a lot of us, when we’re writing, haven’t fully worked out where we’re going. Personally, I think this is fine. For me, half the joy really is the journey. I may have a basic story in mind, but the details of my people’s actions and workings are revealed as I write them, and this is where the fun starts. I may have to pause, but that’s not writer’s block—that’s taking a deep breath and assessing the situation. Having gotten to here, how do I get to there?
Someone said that writer’s block is when your imaginary friends stop talking to you.  Okay, that’s cute and eminently quotable. I prefer to think that it’s my shortcoming. I’m lazy today, or tired, or have something I’d rather be doing than writing. I have options. I can stop writing, or keep writing. I can write something I know is bad, a few pages that will not survive the first edit. If I do that, there is the very slim chance I may end up with a salvageable sentence or two.  If I decide to not write, I’ll have nothing. Come to think of it, not a very difficult choice at all.
 I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

The End o’ Life™ Clinic

“Hello, is this Thierry? Am I pronouncing it right??”

“Yes, it is, and no, you’re not, but that’s okay.”

“Well I‘m sorry. Foreign names are so difficult. Anyway, Thierry, this is the Everlasting Peace Clinic, and it appears you missed your appointment yesterday…”

“Ah. Yes. Well, I changed my mind.”

“You changed your mind? What do you mean you changed your mind?”

“I’ve decided I want to live.”

“You want to live? Whatever for? You’re a mess, you told us so yourself!”

“I know. But I may have been exaggerating. Things aren’t that bad. I was depressed when I made the appointment, is all. But I’m just no ready to be euthanized.”

“I don’t understand. You came in a month ago and told us you were ready to end it all. You spoke to Doctor Bob, and you put down the non-refundable $500 deposit. You do realize that was non-refundable, right?”

“Yes, I do. And that’s okay; you’re welcome to keep the depo--”

“Thierry. Please tell me how to pronounce your name. It doesn’t seem right to mispronounce it…”

“It’s like Pierre, but with a T.”

“Well, Thierry, is that better, yes? Well, Thierry, it’s not all about the non-refundable deposit. We went to a lot of trouble here at Everlasting Peace Clinic. We printed up your End o’ Life Greeting Cards™, twenty of them. I guess you don’t have many friends. But we sent them out day before yesterday. And the death notice is going to appear in the Post tomorrow. We’re going to have to charge you for that, you know.”

“I understand. Charge what you have to.”

“And there’s a $600 charge for the End o’ Life™ Miracle Heart-Stopper package, plus the bed rental and cleaning…

“The what?”

“The bed where we turn out your lights. It has to be disinfected after every use. That costs money.”

“But I’m not going to be using it!”

“Our next client doesn’t know that. They’ll want to see the End o’ Life™ Cleaning Certificate. And we can’t issue that until that bed has had the full treatment. Plus, you opted for the Wash ‘n’ Wax™ Special. Which, I might add, was very thoughtful of you.”

“I did? When did I do that?”

“You agreed during the post-signing End o’ Life Telephone Survey™.”

“No I didn’t!”

“I have it recorded right here. Would you like to hear it?”

“No, that’s all right. Just send me the bill.”

“And you also signed up for the End o’ Life™ Backup Emergency Plan.”

“I never did…”

“It’s right here on my screen.”

“I don’t even know what that is!”

“That’s in case the drugs don’t work. We send in a guy who smothers you with our End o’ Life™ Pillow.”

“That’s awful!”

“You’re unconscious. You don’t feel a thing…”

“My God… Okay, like I said, send me the bill.”

“We’d prefer if you came in and paid cash.”

“Cash? Why cash?”

“You opted for the End o’ Life™ Post Mortem New & Improved AntiTheft Plan, remember? So we cancelled all your credits cards for you. That way your relatives won’t be tempted to use your accounts to buy things when they find out you’re gone.”

“But I’m not gone!”

“That’s not our fault. You should be!”

“And I don’t have any relatives!”

“Really? Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule? Your life’s a mess and you have no relatives, what’s the point in living? How about I put you down tentatively for the 22nd?”

“That’s okay, I’ll—”

“Done. See you on the 22nd, Thierry. Did I pronounce it right this time?”

“Yes, but—“

“Have a nice day!”

The End o’ Life™ Clinic

“Hello, is this Thierry? Am I pronouncing it right??”
“Yes, it is, and no, you’re not, but that’s okay.”
“Well I‘m sorry. Foreign names are so difficult. Anyway, Thierry, this is the Everlasting Peace Clinic, and it appears you missed your appointment yesterday…”
“Ah. Yes. Well, I changed my mind.”
“You changed your mind? What do you mean you changed your mind?”
“I’ve decided I want to live.”
“You want to live? Whatever for? You’re a mess, you told us so yourself!”

“I know. But I may have been exaggerating. Things aren’t that bad. I was depressed when I made the appointment, is all. But I’m just no ready to be euthanized.”
“I don’t understand. You came in a month ago and told us you were ready to end it all. You spoke to Doctor Bob, and you put down the non-refundable $500 deposit. You do realize that was non-refundable, right?”
“Yes, I do. And that’s okay; you’re welcome to keep the depo--”
“Thierry. Please tell me how to pronounce your name. It doesn’t seem right to mispronounce it…”
“It’s like Pierre, but with a T.”
“Well, Thierry, is that better, yes? Well, Thierry, it’s not all about the non-refundable deposit. We went to a lot of trouble here at Everlasting Peace Clinic. We printed up your End o’ Life Greeting Cards™, twenty of them. I guess you don’t have many friends. But we sent them out day before yesterday. And the death notice is going to appear in the Post tomorrow. We’re going to have to charge you for that, you know.”
“I understand. Charge what you have to.”
“And there’s a $600 charge for the End o’ Life™ Miracle Heart-Stopper package, plus the bed rental and cleaning…
“The what?”
“The bed where we turn out your lights. It has to be disinfected after every use. That costs money.”
“But I’m not going to be using it!”
“Our next client doesn’t know that. They’ll want to see the End o’ Life™ Cleaning Certificate. And we can’t issue that until that bed has had the full treatment. Plus, you opted for the Wash ‘n’ Wax™Special. Which, I might add, was very thoughtful of you.”
“I did? When did I do that?”
“You agreed during the post-signing End o’ Life Telephone Survey™.”
“No I didn’t!”
“I have it recorded right here. Would you like to hear it?”
“No, that’s all right. Just send me the bill.”

“And you also signed up for the End o’ Life™ Backup Emergency Plan.”
“I never did…”
“It’s right here on my screen.”
“I don’t even know what that is!”
“That’s in case the drugs don’t work. We send in a guy who smothers you with our End o’ Life™ Pillow.”
“That’s awful!”
“You’re unconscious. You don’t feel a thing…”
“My God… Okay, like I said, send me the bill.”
“We’d prefer if you came in and paid cash.”
“Cash? Why cash?”
“You opted for the End o’ Life™ Post Mortem New & Improved AntiTheft Plan, remember? So we cancelled all your credits cards for you. That way your relatives won’t be tempted to use your accounts to buy things when they find out you’re gone.”
“But I’m not gone!”
“That's not our fault! You should be!”
“And I don’t have any relatives!”
“Really? Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule? Your life’s a mess and you have no relatives, what’s the point in living? How about I put you down tentatively for the 22nd?”
“That’s okay, I’ll—”
“Done. See you on the 22nd, Thierry. Did I pronounce it right this time?”  
“Yes, but—“  “Have a nice day!”I complained that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no hat.

Stop Writing. Now Part Deux

Stop Writing. Now, a recent blog I wrote a couple of days ago, seriously upset some folks.
Five blogger friends thought I was writing about them specifically (perhaps some small ego issue here) and one took it very personally. All six were wrong. I don’t criticize friends’ stuff online for the world to see. That’s why I’m member of a few writers’ groups, where critiquing each other’s works is the order of the day. Stop Writing. Now was meant to comment generically on the fact that some of the stuff I force myself to read online really has little redeeming value, at least to me. The blog was all about realizing we live in a very odd age that begs the question: Can we claim to be what we want to be?

For example, are you black because you say you’re black? Are you a woman because it feels right to be a woman? And are you a writer because for some reason you think being a writer is neat and will put you in the company of people you’d like to emulate? You read Hemingway or George Sand (a woman, I might add, despite her name) and thought, Hmmm, I could do that…

The first question refers of course to the issues brought up by Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who decided she wanted to be black and rose to become the director of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP. Ms. Dolezal darkened her skin, Afroed her hair and, everyone seems to agree, in spite of the racial muddle, did a bang-up job of leading the anti-racism organization. The second query addresses the recently femaled Caytlin Jenner, formerly known as Bruce, an Olympic decathlete gold medalist. And the writing question? That one, I’m unsure of. Does firing up Word on a computer, typing a few pages, and posting them online make you a writer?

I’m nowhere near objective on this subject. I’ve been a writer most of my life, and the title is important to me. I’ve earned a living at it—badly—for a while now, and. I think, paid the necessary dues. I believe writing is very hard work, often thankless, quickly forgotten and damned poorly remunerated.

In other disciplines, associations bestow membership to people who’ve studied, paid money, and follow certain rules. A doctor or lawyer or accountant has to pass state exams to be certified and cannot practice without a license. In other professions—and certainly in the arts, with the possible exception of architecture—anything goes. I recently had a literary agent whose professionalism I took for granted because he belonged to a small, boutique literary agency. He vanished, taking three of my books with him. While I’m certain having my works will not help establish him in the agent profession, I remain pretty ticked off. This man claimed to be something he wasn’t…

My thought is that writers should be working at getting published, paid and read. Someone who daily makes entries into a diary no one will read is not really a writer. He or she might be a chronicler of daily life, but unless there’s a courage and willingness to display one’s work, it’s finger-painting, and a finger-painting child is not a painter, despite what the parents might think.

The secondary issue is, are you any good? With self-publishing taking over the world, hundreds of thousands of books that should never see the light of day are being published, and by sheer weight and numbers, obscuring some of the good stuff that does deserve readership. The same is true of blogs. Is your blog worth reading? Does it move people? Does it make them think, question, re-evaluate? Does it inspire once in a while? Or are you simply taking up a chunk of cyberspace simply because everyone else is doing it, and you can too?

I’ve always liked the modern saying that wearing Spandex is a privilege; it’s not a right.

I feel much the same way about writing.
My good friend David sent me an appropriate quote this morning: “If you don't like someone's story, write your own.” That’s from the celebrated Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe.
Achebe might also have added, “But if it’s not any good, don’t expect me to read it.”