You know I can’t pass up a good opportunity to share in the wonders of interesting new takes on art. And this one combines not only my love of innovative artistic expression, but how awesome and yummy tortillas art. Enjoy more of his floury wrap based artwork here

Looks like Cormac McCarthy is getting a lot of attention these days. Just a couple of short weeks after winning the “honor” of Oprah’s next book club selection, McCarthy’s The Road picked up the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and his previous book, No Country For Old Men, will soon be released as the next big Coen Brothers pic.

I just thought it would be interesting to share a list that Janice Harayda posted over at One Minute Book Reviews about the major names that have been snubbed in literary history in favor of lesser known novels (Oliver La Farge anyone?) Just some food for thought.

1962
Loser: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Winner: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor

1957
Loser: Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
Winner: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud

1952
Loser: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Winner: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk

1941
Loser: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Winner: Nobody. No award given.

1937
Loser: Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
Winner: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

1930
Losers: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway and The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Winner: Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge

1928
Loser: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Winner: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

1926
Loser: The Great Gatsby
Winner: Arrowsmith by Sindlair Lewis

1921
Loser: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Winner: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Because it’s Sunday night and no one is reading this at the moment anyway, I’m just going to share one of the more painful things I learned today. The Wachowski Brothers (yes, the psycho-analytic, philosophical mind f%$# duo of Matrix fame and Matrix trilogy infamy) are making a film version of Speed Racer. And yes, that’s the 1960s, Japanese animation with lots of still frames, horrible dubs, and a capuchin monkey in the cockpit of a race car.

If you’ve paid attention, you’ll notice that I’ve been giving it in the ribs of late to the hoards of idiotic remakes and sequels saturating the market, especially the decades old nostalgia trips that seem to be showing up every so often (as in weekly). That said, what the hell is this? Oh and here’s the cast: Emile Hirsch as Speed, John Goodman as Pop Racer, Susan Sarandon as Mom Racer, and Christina Ricci as Trixie. My mind is quite possibly in the midst of an aneurism right now.

Anyone up for a little Sartre and Schopenhauer meet Petty and Yoshida. This is gonna be interesting.

I’m on yet another break at the moment, though you may have noticed the surge in my posts of late. That would be due to the lack of work I have on my plate at the moment, and hopefully to the slightly more relaxed nature of writing about writing and film instead of asbestos and hockey (please…don’t ask about either). As yet another project, I’ve decided to partake in the photo scavenger hunt over at 26 Things. It will be fun, especially with the weather at the moment (one hint: it sucks).  I wanted to do this before, but was burdened with the weight of a cruddy camera. That has been remedied; unfortunately, the hunt is only posted for odd numbered months, and it’s currently April, so let’s roll with the March list and see what I come up with….I promise I won’t cheat.

1. camera
2. fancy
3. smile
4. spots
5. curl
6. belly
7. take off
8. row
9. library
10. clutter
11. love
12. surprise
13. candid
14. button
15. apple
16. morning
17. favourite beverage
18. square
19. plastic
20. home
21. sleep
22. the great outdoors
23. fizz
24. family
25. glow
26. train

You can’t honestly believe that getting your writing advice here is any kind of boon when you finally sit down and write the inevitable masterpiece that you have locked away somewhere, deep within your brain - back behind those years and years of Law and Order plots and caloric indexes. You just like to compare notes. I do the same thing. It’s fun to sit down and take a stab at the hundreds of other writers peddling their wares, checking up on the competition. It’s okay. We’re on even ground really. If we added up all the books published between the lot of us, it’d be a solid and very sexy looking 0.

A flip or two through my vast and sickeningly yellowing collection of half finished novels, unpublished short stories, and love-lorn poetics will show you that I’m no different from any other aspiring artist…I start a million and one projects and might, someday, if I (and everyone I’ve promised to dedicate a novel to) am able to whip one out, I’ll be the happiest person on the planet.

For now though, returning to the track that is novel writing and that unfinished masterpiece you occasionally glance upon with the same withered stares that your neighbor’s emaciated, yowling cat gets when he pounces on your garbage cans, here’s what’s next. Don’t let it die. Forget the million other projects you never finished. This is your masterpiece. It’s the million and first project and deserves better from you.

Every year, I participate in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The rules are simple and the project simpler - write a 50,000 word novel in one month, November to be exact. In the weekly emails sent out to help bolster self esteem and motivation for participants, all sorts of fun, smarmy advice is present, but the one thing I found most interesting (and ultimately helpful) was this: Week 2 is the hardest. After the first 12k words or so, the novelty has worn off and the weariness kicks in. The second half of the uphill climb is painful and long, but once you hit the summit, it’s all clear sky, you’re over half way done.

This doesn’t directly apply to your novels of unlimited length, creativity and time to finish. It’s for people trying to write 1700 words a day for a month. But, here’s the best part; it’s more or less the same thing. Once you’ve kicked in three or four dozen pages and find that your characters might be boring or that your settings are starting to crumble from your own disinterest or worse yet, you didn’t work on it for a while and can’t remember where you are. Step back, take a gander at what you have and remember how awesome your idea is, how fantabulous that masterpiece will be when it’s done, and make sure to throw in something half way interesting to keep your own attention.

If the writer’s bored, your readers will be twice as much so. I’ve actually peaked this point before, overcoming the depths of despair and boring exposition in the middle of a book. Not to say that my conclusion is as splendid as I would hope, or as exciting, but I got there….and some day I’ll get to the end. Oh sweet glorious ending, how I long for thee.

So, in a nutshell, step 9 is this: don’t get discouraged or overwhelmed after a few chapters. Keep going - there’s something there that got you started and by all means, don’t add to that ever growing pile of the painfully incomplete novels and stories of the past.

Well, as you can see, I’m still kicking on the “not writing a whole lot of anything” train. Here’s the thing though. I checked my recent traffic and it looks like I’m more or less going down the drain, traffic-wise. Honestly, traffic isn’t the goal, but it’s still not very inspiring to find that I’ve lost about 45% in a week or so. I don’t pay too much attention, but that’s lame.

Regardless, I’m going to try, even though I’d rather enjoy my off time, to post a bit more in the next few days on all that is random and glorious in the world. Today, I thought I’d comment on the rush of remakes flooding the market. I just saw today at fimoculous that there will be a Barbarella remake in the very near future. The result? My barely concealed intrigue, wrapped in a raised eyebrow and the realization that I’m not actually intrigued, merely curious. Curious in that way you get when you see a pile of broken glass next to a bent telephone pole and wonder just how big the car that hit that pole was, how drunk he was, and if the paper will have a story on it tomorrow.

I’m getting rather fatigued by the trend, honestly. I wrote up an “up and coming” list for the films hitting theaters this summer and among them were almost entirely remakes and sequels. TMNT, Transformers, Underdog, and more round out the 80s flush and then there was the news about GI Joe coming back. The last Bond movie was a remake of the first James Bond movie (though, to be fair, that first movie was a spoof) and the newest Spiderman and Fantastic Four movies are both sequels and adaptations. And what is this I hear? A third Shrek and a third Pirates of the Carribbean, followed by a fourth Die Hard.

The list doesn’t end and before the season even starts, we already know next year will bring the long awaited (and dreaded) fourth Indiana Jones film…let us hope the 65 year old Harisson Ford is not swashbuckling with a cane in hand. The problem is this - Hollywood sees solid, successful characters (of which there are a lot; they tend to oversaturate us like that) and flushes them out for second, third, and fourth outings. That’s where we get the swath of sequels.

But, it’s not even just that anymore. Somewhere along the way, someone decided that it was okay to revisit 1980s franchises with aging actors and AFI vaulted scripts for new sequels. Rocky Balboa, Indiana Jones IV, and another go by good old Bruce Willis in Die Hard are all testaments to that…somewhere it will go horribly wrong. I have my money on Governor Schwarzennegar in Junior 2.

Anyways, it’s all junk and I’m more or less tired of it. Granted, I’ll be in line for Spiderman 3; those are good movies. But, don’t count on my $9 for every other schlocky action flick and remake sliding through this year. Just not worth it anymore.

My posting has been sparce of late because of my schedule and my being out of town for long periods of time, but I felt I needed to take the time and the effort to stop off and partake of at least one note of appreciation for who I think is one of the truly great American voices of the 20th century and of literature in general. Kurt Vonnegut passed away last night at the age of 84.

As a young reader and prospective writer, I always felt a strong draw to works of fiction that didn’t constrain themselves to the norm, falling into the patterns of recycled fiction and panached landscape that so many “literary fiction” writers did and still do with their “Great American Novel”s. And while I have to admit that the only true reason I first read a Kurt Vonnegut book was the cool little pictures I saw in Breakfast of Champions, I never regretted nor stopped reading any of his books.

Lining each of my three separate bookshelves are his works, dog eared, high lighted, written in, and read thrice over with the loving attention of a youth just learning what the world has to offer. Slaughterhouse Five, whether it was the first time in high school or the fifth time in college, was a novel I’ll never forget, nor its effect on how I approached the art of reading and my own writing.

His pointed satirical voice, self referential genius, and ability to retread the same soil as so many great American novelists without the slightest hint of that thick, gooey sludge that catches so many young writers made him a gift to literature and to free thought.

As one of the most important writers in the canon of my own literary adventures, Kurt Vonnegut will be remembered warmly for as long as I can still take those pocket sized masterpieces down and read them.

So, when I get a writing job, I may or may not be faced with a deadline that isn’t desirable. Meaning, I might have a job of 30,000 words or so due within a week. That would not be much of a problem normally, maybe a couple hours a day of work, but when I’m leaving town mid way through the week and have a dozen things to do the day before and the day after than, I have maybe 2 days to work on the project. I’m exhausted. It’s 11 pm and I’ve been writing since 9:30 this morning. Granted, I took breaks for lunch and dinner and went for a walk in there, but more or less have worked all day.

I’ll keep this short and simple because I’m tired and don’t want to type anymore (plus I have more writing to do…goddamn), but the number 9 con of being unemployed is those few and far between days of extreme work so as I can enjoy my unemployment later.

The sun blew upacross the sky today, a gloriously 80 degree day on the first Friday of April, which considering the Mariner game in Cleveland was snowed out means we Seattleites are lucky bastards. With record highs, a flaky red layer of dead skin on my nose and a wonderful walk around Seward Park and furtive glances to Mt Rainier and the coming months of rain before summer finally truly arrives.

This, my friends is the number 9 Pro of being unemployed. Not only did I wake up bright and early today at nine and find my way to the golf course for a round of beautiful summer weather and golfing (regardless of how horribly I played) but I was able to head south and enjoy an afternoon on the water afterwards. A walk outside today at nine o’clock to the store was still gloriously warm and comfortable and meant that I didn’t have to bundle up (ah, winter, how I’ll miss you). The key to all of it is that I was able to just wake up today, send a couple of quick emails saying I was going to send in projects a day late and then leave.

Two or three conversations started today with “what a beautiful day. ” “yeah, I’m stuck inside working. you’re off today?” “I took the day off.” And it’s that simple. I took the day off. I woke up, saw the weather and didn’t feel like working. Simple as that. Eventually I have to do something; bills are there to be paid at least. But, the ability to just decide that the weather is too nice to work and then go out is something that I only dreamed of a few months ago.

Now that the nice days are here (or at least the prelude to them), it’s a matter of having no job and spending my time chilling in the nice weather. If there’s no other pro going into the summer months, than I’d be happy just there. Next up: tennis and swimming.

So, I started writing a post about how much I respect a guy named Ishmael Beah, a man who wrote a book about being a child soldier in Sierra Leone and the rehabilitation process from being enmeched in a war at such a young age. Then my computer crashed. It crashed hard. Monumentall hard. So, I have to copy what I could remember and start over. It loses some of the gravitas of the original post. But, I will repeat (for myself at least) that there are very few writers I have any respect for whose work I’ve never read, almost none that are alive today.

Ishamel Beah first appeared as a mention on Janice Haryada’s One Minute Book Reviews. Mentioning his book as the new Starbuck’s choice to sell in their stores (ousting the horrendous new book by Mitch Albom) and showing off an essay he wrote while attending the United Nations International SChool in New York, she brought my attention to his book being released in March.

Later in February, I saw Beah on The Daily Show in a rare display of solemn chat with Jon Stewart, free of jokes and asides, a candid conversation about an incredible story as told in Beah’s upcoming book, a long way gone. Flash forward another month or two and I still haven’t read the book, but I’ve seen it everywhere and as one of the bestselling books in every bookstore I visit, I’ve been massively tempted to pick it up, but just hadn’t gotten around to it quite yet.

Luckily for me, I waited because on Monday, Ishmael Beah made an appearance at the University Bookstore here in Seattle and read from a long way gone and signed copies for everyone. Before I tout how happy I was to have met the man and shaken his hand, let me say that this is a vastly important book, regardless of the hype or import grafted to it by the media, Beah does something very special in these pages.

He’s an incredible writer with a story very few will ever be able to tell and fewer still as fully as him. He was intelligent, humble, and visible troubled with the recount, even now after having written an entire book and talked about it for months. More than 10 years he’s been free of that lifestyle, but the pain of it still sits at the surface and his willingness to speak openly about everything he’s been through was captivating. Granted, he was also a very quiet man, and so hearing his words was a task of its own. The top floor of the bookstore was more than full, overfilling to the stair welds and adjacent departments, and such a quiet man’s voice just didn’t carry with the force needed to reach the back rows.

But, meeting the man, visibly tired and worn by the night’s activities was still quite a turn. He was kind, shook my hand and answered my questions about his stay in Seattle (a bit too cold for his tastes) and I left feeling as though I’d met someone who will be an important world leader one day, a speaker of international importance. This isn’t a review of his book or anything, nor commentary on his message. I’m just happy to have heard him speak and hope that others might find his book and read it themselves.