Chin Wag At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Callan

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Callan writes raw prose that is existentialist in its outlook and wide ranging in its themes.

There is honesty and surrealism in her stories as well as humour. She is adept at using detail and displacing it to create a sense of the uncanny that forces you into the heart of her stories. She is dark and transgressive. If you look at a story like 'Visiting Dad' on 6S you see clearly her ability to portray a world quickly and deliver a great ending. She is also a lover of Franz Kafka with whom she shares a profound rapport.

She met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about Kafka and cults.

Why do you love Franz Kafka?

I love him because his writing proved that anything, anything, is possible when you write some one can say that to you but you have to read something that proves to you. Once I began to investigate him more it was and is love I feel for him. Writing isn't easy and being a writer isn't easy I am not at all taking about fame I mean the act of writing itself of pushing yourself for reasons you don't understand his commitment to his work and his struggle to express himself was profound and he had no real interest in the fame of it, even of being published, but he was consumed by the compulsion to write it affected his life in almost every facet, the kind of work he did, his inter-personal relationships it was his identity. I would read about the lives of other writers and could never relate to them, but Kafka I could he was always seeking to achieve a satisfaction that was impossible to define and the fulfilment of it lay only within himself, he never thought he reached it, indeed, his novels were published posthumously. But what he did accomplish turned the literary world on its ear, his personal struggles and the pain and self sacrifice I think is the most important part writing contributed something so much greater than the total collection of his works. He is like the patron saint of weirdness his life's obsession made him immortal.

It's not about how much you write but how intense the experience of writing is.

Do you think drugs enhance our perception of life?

Sometimes, but I think it has a tendency to backfire. You start out wanting to enhance your perception of life next they become your life. For good reason sobriety can't really compare, its mundane and often disappointing, there are so many pills to help you if you can get your hands on them. Doctors are always the portal to the best sort of highs, in my opinion.

But everyone is different. I wish it was as easy to score great pills as crappy dirt weed and boring coke. I think the kind of drugs I like the most enhance nodding off watching movies from the 1930′s and forties and ignoring people living like a recluse, it's difficult for me to argue that that kind of behavior is enhancing life. It helps if you want to avoid life, avoid living, it helps you to numb out and not feel, but can you really call that living? It most certainly is not enhancing life. One time I watched fireworks on acid and it was definitely enhanced by the acid so yes and no it depends on the kind of drugs you are taking and what your goal is before you get high, I have written fucked up before and it doesn't pan out for me, this is a really difficult question, weed makes going to the movie theater pretty great so its enhancing the experience but I love movies sober, and if I wasn't sober I could not edit my stories, I really think it depends on what life stage you are in and like I said before what your goal is in getting high. If you snort oxy you are not going to really feel anything at all and that is a great thing but it is dulling life's perceptions not enhancing them, drinking enhances things a lot of things or sometimes it just gets you through things, like family dinners.

I think drugs are an unavoidable part of who we are as a species, people get high, and we always have. There is so much hypocrisy about drugs in America, there is a pill for everything, they sell the sickness and the cure, and I don't really think that anyone living in America even has the distance to gauge our current relationship to drugs. Rehab is a racket, a lot of people would stop making money if sobriety suddenly shot up, if people stopped becoming dependent on drugs, but these days its prescriptions pills were all hooked on. There is a song by a band called atmosphere called "panic attack" it's a really great song and I think they sum it up when they say " whether you call yourself a patient or a junky the only thing that separates is who takes your money." I think that is probably the most accurate assessment of the situation, I mean I was having psych doctors write me prescriptions for anti-depressants when I was just a teen-ager. Have you ever taken Ritalin? Its speed, better than speed better than coke and even as an adult I was able to get a script for that, I didn't try for it they just wrote me the script and I filled it. I think it's a sickness an exploitive dark horrible relationship because we want it, we want those pills and it's cheaper than therapy. I really feel I am too close to the problem, am too much a product of the problem to give a pure answer any answer I give will be rotten from the inside out, I can't know how other people live. Do I think drugs have enhanced my perception of life, no I don't, I know that drugs have destroyed my life, that's the best place to leave this question. Next question then.

Why do you love black and white films?

I am not exactly sure when I first became aware of the fact I loved older films, I have a dim and confusing memory of watching an old black and white movie I think it was Gilda probably with my mother and asking when thing were going to look like that, I really thought there was a place where people still dressed like that and that when I got older I would live like that.

Now I think what I love about them is the escapist factor there so far removed from me in time and so much is revealed about people's attitudes towards things, what I mean is that there is a type of accidental history so much more revealing than anything anybody could contrive. The other night I was watching something I can't even recall what it was an extremely silly movie plot wise and a young man says to an attractive girl as he puts his arm around her as long as you pass your math classes and don't spread, I will marry you. It's too obvious to point out how sexist that is, what's more interesting is that it wasn't meant to be humorous, that gem of dialog was considered acceptable to filler against the backdrop of a an already flimsy plot, and it accidentally reveals a great deal about the people who went to the movies the audience and in the deeper sense about the culture of the time. The 1930′s are the most fascinating, coming right out of the silent era the entire approach to storytelling was much nearer to the stage both innocent in some respects but also a heartless commentary on uncomfortable commonly held stereo-types. There is an unimportant film so old that there is almost no information about it if you look it up called Child of Manhattan. The story centers around a dance hall girl, and a millionaire who owns the property that the dance hall she works in is on his mother doesn't like the establishment and for some ill defined reason that leads him to go into the dance hall and pretend to be poor, of course they fall in love but I don't really care about all that, I loved it for its accident history factor. The dance hall girl is Irish and throughout the film her lack of education and ignorance is portrayed as charming, however there is one scene that has always stuck with me where the young woman goes home her mother a huge woman slaps her around when she doesn't have her earnings from the previous evening, its plays as a funny scene. But think about what this unconsciously reveals about society's changing attitudes towards slapping your children around, that would be considered an awful act of child abuse, it gets even better than she goes into the next room and begins to argue with her brother about what else but money it is implied that he spends his days getting drunk and not looking for work, everything about the scene is a reflection of negative stereo-types of the Irish in New York in the 1920′s, it's so great and sad and wonderful, and unintentional, I guess that's a big part of why I love them so much they bare unflinching testimony to what was considered acceptable behavior.

Who are you influences?

Franz Kafka obviously, my earliest influence was Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. he is so great just recently I reread slaughter house five and it was even better than I remembered, I wanted to be just like him as a adolescent he is so funny and sad at exactly the same moment and he jumps around so much when he died I wanted the sun to fall out of the sky, I wanted clocks to stop, I was devastated. I really love Margret Atwood, Alias Grace is one of my favorite books. I think as writer anything you read that moves you in even the smallest way is an influence anything that gets you thinking analyzing the way words are used to express ideas, feelings, moods, driving instructions. Once I read the back of a bottle of body wash from bath and body works, these are the scents of night, and proceeded to list the scents of night, what a bold project for a sentence and a list of ingredients. Something about the rhythm of the language just blew me away! THESE ARE THE SCENTS OF NIGHT!!! I wanted to get a job writing the description of lotions, but knew I could never live up to that sentence for a few days as far as I was concerned that sentence rivaled Kafka, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy all the greats had nothing on it. I still think I would really enjoy naming lipsticks and perfumes and such, Sensual fire light, or, Autumn Remembrance, frigid desire, that's a really good one. I digress, other influences of mine include Phillip K. Dick he is a real inspiration to me because if you get real nitpicky his writing isn't always the best, but who the fuck cares, through sheer creativity he tells amazing stories though provoking and fun, so absorbing you forget yourself or how you are defining yourself in the moment, isn't that the single best thing, the single most wonderful thing a writer can do.? To allow someone to escape this lousy ride for a moment or two, especially when it's crazy sci-fi like dick wrote ,escape, to escape into something that has never been cause someone to forget themselves for a moment an hour whatever. I always loved We Can Build you, I know other fans of his won't agree with me but it's such an offbeat weird story, why would you build Lincolns secretary before you build Abe Lincoln himself? Than when they build an Abe Lincoln the other robot gets depressed, it's wonderful fantastic stuff. I see him as a really edgy writer and I admire that a great deal, when the guy has sex with Pris the robot and she is telling him not to think about the fact she is a machine, I'm paraphrasing here, in Do Androids Dream of electric sheep, I mean I love that scene, I love it and love it even more when the guy wants to kill her and she tells him about the others and the fact that none of them could kill her either after they fucked her, yet they all wanted to because they felt weird about themselves, I mean bravo, there is so many layers of bizarre there each more neurotic than the next. I love Dostoevsky a bunch a whole bunch, I reread crime and punishment once a year and it is one of the best stories ever told, it's amazing how easy it is to relate to Rasknolnikov, a kid in Russia roughly a hundred years ago. It it's an extreme coming of age story, the murder after all this time still packs a punch, its brutal. The kid could not keep it together, not at all- he was no Napoleon. The characters are so real Sonya's step-mom forcing the kids to dance around on the street while she coughs and coughs, so sad it moves me so deeply the way the poverty is portrayed in that novel the indignity and pettiness of poverty. It gets better and better every time I read it, and some how much sadder. It breaks my heart again and again and I can't get enough.

I love to read so much, it's the only thing that ever set me apart, and it was the first addiction. I have such complicated needs when I read, I can't understand myself, I never know what will hold my attention, what wont, when something doesn't I find it very difficult to force myself to continue reading it, I just never know where I will find it, like I mentioned sometimes it's in the shower on the label of body wash. I wish it was something I could rely on, that feeling of escape a book can give me I would most likely be more balanced, than again if I was more balanced I doubt I would read the way I do.

Do you think addiction is a pre-requisite for an author?

Yes, I do, but in saying that I cannot overstate that, that is my opinion I recognize that it is not a constant. It was my pre-requisite for writing, writing is very much like a drug habit or a painful love affair, sometimes there is a moment when you can see yourself without the drug, but you know it controls you not the other way around. Severe addiction makes you feel worthless, you're so low, a drudge on society you don't expect people to take you seriously and you don't expect much relief from your condition other than more drugs, and that is writing, I am miserable after I have written. But that's nothing to the misery I experience when I have writers block, when I am not writing everything is pointless, after I have written something new I feel ashamed, like a "who the fuck do you think you are ." feeling, or that was just awful. The only relief is getting lost in the act of writing, somewhere in there when you have just lost yourself in your work even if it never sees the light of day, which is for me pretty much everything I have ever written that I am able to find peace, peace between the two extremes of the not being able to write and the ugly feeling when you wake up the next day and look what you have written and can only see its faults.

Are you an existentialist?

No I really don't think so, mainly because I don't understand what it means, I suppose if it possible to be one without knowing it I could be one, but my limited understanding of that is that man is if nothing else a plan waiting to be planned or something, I read existentialism and human emotions, a really long time ago but I don't think I ever really understood it, and the little I do understand I am not so sure I agree with, it seems to be connected to human beings having free will, I don't believe that we do have free will. I think people would be really terrified if they saw how pointless and chaotic things are I mean can you say we have free will when you deconstruct how we got here in the first place? It's so disturbing, in my case I know who he was but that really doesn't make it much better, so anyway this guy ejaculated in my mom and now this, now I am sitting at a computer typing with a sprained pinky and a jaded sole, no one controls how we get here, but let's face it it's all existentially the same, you just as easily been ill-conceived jerk off fluid, but no your mom's womb was the right temperature she was in a certain phase of her menstrual cycle and someone shot sperm into her at the exact right moment and now your here. WELCOME TO EARTH! This question is like the essay question you don't study for on essay exam.

Philip K Dick thought 70′s California was a hologram of a Roman Empire created by a malevolent being. You come from Catalina Island, what is your take on that?

I think it is the only reasonable explanation for what goes on there, especially the malevolent part, it's not all bad though the weather is remarkably pleasant it really balances out the evil Its a great place to swim, I wonder how much Dick swam, something tells me it wasn't enough. It's a place where things are definitely not what they seem I will agree with that, there is always the illusion there, maintaining the illusion is far far far more important that the truth, so maybe that's what he was commenting on when he said that. It's strange but I get homesick for the surface answers and the superficiality of home, charming evasiveness is a secret art form, when an entire culture is dedicated to distracting itself by its own reflection, I love it, did I mention the weather, if a malevolent being is controlling Orange County than he really knows how to distract people ask anyone about that corner of the world and they will almost always lead off with how great the weather is. The weather is fine and the brain washing is magnificent!!!! There is a lot of great sushi and Thai food restaurants, so it's easy to ignore evil. When I think back on my time there I think of it as an incredibly great deal with the devil, there are so many good Thai food restaurants, there is little I won't look past or ignore if I am getting great Asian cuisine on the regular. I think the devil lives in Mission Viejo, he has a great plastic surgeon.

Tell us about 'Purgatory Sex Twins'.

Purgatory sex twins is a strange story, a lot of times when I write I get a clear picture of something in my mind's eye and I don't know what's going to happen. I just have this repetitive image I can't shake. I start to write and I try to clear that image away. The time I sat down to write that story I had the idea of a staircase as a metaphor for indecision, and I sat down to write, it was late very late and I was living in this spooky little house in the middle of nowhere, I don't think I had seen another person in at least week, the first part of the story I was thinking the twins would be two girls lesbian twins, I thought that would fun., But it didn't pan out that way and I kept writing and writing and the next thing I knew I was all done, and it felt done. In fact I have tried to work on it several times after I wrote it and I can't its exhausting for me to even think about.

Prior to going to live in that spooky little house in the woods I had been in a series of destructive situations, I think that story is a reflection of how exhausting I found other people. I would not even say I was depressed just profoundly exhausted. I felt like as far as love and sex went I was through, there was no such thing as love only co-dependency and sex was booby-trapped there was a lot of personal psychological stuff going on in a subconscious way when I wrote that I didn't set out to write something that was a perverted exaggerated interpretation of human relationships but in hindsight when I think about it that is without a doubt what it was an extreme cold verdict on the nature of all inter-personal relationships everything was unhealthy if it concerned you and someone else, I mean I was living alone in the woods by myself watching adult swim at night and sleeping all day, and as far as I was concerned that was as just great, I don't think I will ever be able to re-write that story I just don't think I can recreate that mind set.

Do you think identity is ephemeral?

Yes I do, I think it is it's hard to define yourself for yourself and even harder to define what identify is, I think of myself as a writer but what about when I am not writing than what am I? Nothing. I play a game with myself quit frequently that I think demonstrates just how fluid definitions of the self are, what I mean is the labels the words we use, it seems impossible that we can be so many things at once, a student, a lover, a pedestrian, a consumer, a motorist, a neighbor, a cousin, a sister, a writer, a reader, take being a pedestrian for example when you are walking that's what you are and the second you start the engine of your car you're a motorist that's it no bones about it walking to your car you were one thing now you are almost the opposite thing in such a brief amount of time according to the words we use you have transformed! So yes absolutely how we define ourselves is not a constant, this troubles me I think about it quite a bit if I were to suffer severe head trauma and could not recall who I was, had amnesia, would I know what I liked? Would I respond to stimuli, one swift quick to the head and everything about me could change! That is a mind blowing concept, they say you are only what you can remember, you are only your memories but it's been proved that memory is faulty so that means everything is perception its enough to make you want amnesia maybe if I develop amnesia I won't be trouble with the slippery concept of self.

Do you think cults use mind control effectively?

I think if it's a persuasive cult is really good at brain washing. Mind control is fastening, it relates to the identity question, anybody can be brainwashed and most people already are, and brainwashing isn't always a bad thing. When I drive I stop auto manically (most of the time) at a red light, or a stop sign. I know that if I do not do this I could get a ticket or cause an accident, I know that but I don't think about it when I stop. Every time I stop at a sign or a light I don't have a complicated introspective internal crisis, I just do it, because I was conditioned to do so. There was a broken street light in my old neighborhood, at night there wasn't much traffic early one morning I was returning from a night shift and I stopped at the light, and sat there for roughly five minutes maybe more before I realized that there was no one around. It would not have mattered if I had blown right through it, but I stopped and it took a while for me to realize that the light was broken and that there was no traffic that early in the morning; I have been so thoroughly socialized to stop when I see red. So that's a form of brain washing isn't it? So I guess with cults they have to recondition you and it's obvious that people can be brain washed what's the difference between mind control and socialization how can we fully understand ourselves? There is no way to know what ideas are a product of our environment or our which ideas are organic, maybe there is no such thing as an organic idea, where is the line how can a person differentiate? Anybody who goes to any church is brainwashed, thoroughly brainwashed, I mean you would have to be to buy into that crap. Christianity is a socially acceptable cult, where I am currently living I am surrounded by really extreme Christians and there view on things seems really out there to me, I mean it's not as if I didn't know Christians before but there is nothing like a rural, republican, Christian to give all three of those things a bad name. .I had to take a class on the reformation for my degree and I was really surprised at how little people know about their own religion, one evening I was standing in line at the grocery store and I happened to be carrying my text for the class and someone asked me what the reformation was, and I said it's when there was a split from Rome, I didn't want to get into it, I wasn't a very good student. The person said, "Split from Rome" in an angry and super intense way, and I said "yeah, the split from the Catholic Church." The person said to me, yelled "I am a Christian!" Even now when I think of that conversation I cannot make sense out of it. why a total stranger in line at Albetrsons(grocery store) yelled " I am a Christian!" it was funny actually, I just sort of looked the other direction, I didn't know what to do , we had to stand in line together I did my best to avoid eye contact.

Whatever, I am getting off track, short answer is ,yes, I think a good cult uses knows how to use mind control techniques, I think all religion uses mind control techniques, some are just more extreme than others.

What is most intriguing to me is that the mind can be controlled, that mind control can change a person, alter their personality, change their values, like when people develop Stockholm syndrome that is a mental state that really fascinates me falling in love, or thinking you are in love, with your capture. Really sexy. Who is to say what the difference between love and mind control? At the time Stockholm victims feel love for their capturer how can you tell if it's for real, if you were holding some one hostage is that a question you would ask yourself? Do they really love me or is it just Stockholm syndrome….I wrote part of a story called Stockholm syndrome, it's up on my blog, I think under the right circumstances Stockholm syndrome could be beautiful, but the circumstances have to be right….I should work on that story some more I forgot how enchanted I was with the idea.

Callan thank you for giving an honest and passionate interview.

Callan blogs here.