Author / DrMabuse

by DrMabuse

The Reader’s Last Sigh

The Associated Press reports that Rushdie’s new novel will “have a lot more India in it” than Midnight’s Children. That’s great. But it still doesn’t change the fact that Rushdie hasn’t written a single compelling novel since Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

Who says they aren’t crazy about libraries in the sticks? In Modesto, 100 volunteers are trying to maintain a small sales tax to ensure that their libraries stay open.

Geologists are trying to stop a creationist book from being sold at the Grand Canyon. The book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, suggests that the Canyon came into being not by the erosion of the Colorado River over millions of years, but because of a wager between Jesus and Peter. Peter lost the bet. And instead of turning water into wine, as Peter hoped, Jesus created the Grand Canyon. But not without starting a few side projects like lime jello and double-entry bookkeeping.

And Pete Rose has the best marketing gimmick around: “Read my book before judging me.”

[1/24/06 UPDATE: As of November 2004, the controversy died down. I am not in a position to confirm this, although I will try and make a phone call to determine what the National Park Service’s position is, but it appears that Tom Vail’s apocryphal book is still being sold at the Grand Canyon store. Of course, all this came well before any of the Intelligent Design bullshit. But the decidedly unscientific Tom Vail has remained quite smug about his victory.]

by DrMabuse

A New Kind of Pragmatism

The New Yorker on Howard Dean: “Last summer, Joe Trippi told U.S. News & World Report that he had given Dean a curious piece of advice: ‘I tell him the only way he can win is to believe in his heart he cannot win. We?ve got to act like we have nothing to lose.’ That, as they say, was then. When I asked Dean, in mid-October, whether he still subscribed to the Trippi wisdom, he replied, ‘In part. I think the problem with the Democratic Party in general is that they?ve been so afraid to lose they?re willing to say whatever it takes it to win. And once you?re willing to say whatever it takes to win, you lose?because the American people are much smarter than folks in Washington think they are. Do I still believe it? I think you have to be ready to move forward and not just try to hold on to what you?ve got. I truly believe that if you?re not moving forward you?re moving backwards in life. There?s no such thing as neutral.'”

by DrMabuse

The Kookysolo Manifesto

Sasha Cagen’s book, Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics, is now ranked 436 at Amazon. But I must take umbrage with Ms. Cagen’s success. I fear that Ms. Cagen has plagiarized me. Back in April 1997, I wrote a piece for Motherfuckin’ Angry Motherfucker, a zine assembled by a staff of one at Kinko’s with a modest circulation of 42. I’ve contacted my attorney about this and he’s informed me that a little bit of public exposure may help my case. I’ve also obtained permission from the editors of Motherfuckin’ Angry Motherfucker to reprint my piece, “The Kookysolo Manifesto,” in full on this website. There are, of course, certain similarities between the two catchphrases “quirkyalone” and “kookysolo.” However, I wish to assure my readers that this was simply an essay whipped up in the course of a drunken evening. If I had known that “kookysolo” had appeal, I would have cashed in the same way that Ms. Cagen has. Of course, there are also subtle differences between our respective philosophies. But I leave the readers to judge the results (and Ms. Cagen’s possible theft) for themselves.

People Like Us: The Kookysolos
by Edward Champion

I am, perhaps, what you may call a man who masturbates frequently. Relationships are like nectar from the gods. They happen, but perhaps only once in a blue moon. For years, I’ve wondered if I should check into a clinic or get a liposuction. But, of course, that would be a betrayal. Why would I desire to be one of those ironies that grace the magazine covers? The Meg Ryan type cast in repeated roles that involve a concept as believable as a government that never lies: the absolutely gorgeous young woman who can’t seem to find Mr. Right or so much as a date with a fine young stallion.

The morning after New Year’s Eve (another hangover in bed alone, another year minus a good afterglow) I was standing in the San Francisco air when I realized that I needed one of two things: a good lay or a cup of coffee. I settled for the coffee, since getting the good lay involved an endeavor more intricate and demanding than getting a Ph.D. At least if I wanted something immediate. I drank three double lattes, just to be sure that I was awake, and began rambling incohrently to the guy behind the counter, who was also suffering from a hangover. “I’ve got it!” I exclaimed. “Kookysolo.” Needless to say, I was 86ed from the cafe. My picture hangs on the wall.

But I knew that I had something with this kookysolo thing. It was clear to me that not only was this a term that could stick with the socially inert, but that it could be used as an excuse for those people who are afraid to introduce themselves or to give their fellow humans the benefit of the doubt. Gravitating towards the kookysolo label would allow people a justification for their own self-pity, those people who watch Love Connection or Blind Date in the dark.

We are the puzzle pieces who never actually throw themselves into the box. We inhabit singledom as our natural capitulating state. In a world where most people have no problem living up to John Donne’s idea that no man is an island, we are, by force of our convictions, our abrasive personalities, and our failure to remember first names, hopelessly antisocial.

Yet make no mistake: We are no less concerned with making an effort to ask someone out on a date, whether we be male or female. We do not have the courage to voice our interests in someone. Secretly, we are romantics, but romantics who are terrified of putting ourselves out there or giving a stranger a chance. We want a miracle. We want someone to somehow perceive our terrifying inability to interact and do the work for us. And in this quest, which is no different from plopping onto the couch with the remote control rather than getting out into the world, we are our own worst enemies.

For the kookysolo, the world is a terrifying place of axe-murderers and rapists behind every corner. We cannot conceive of the possibility of failure and when it does happen, as it does all too frequently, we remain convinced that the world is out to get us. Thus, we go home and watch television and drown ourselves in a bottle of wine rather than pick ourselves up and accept that, yes, one day, a nifty soulmate will be there, so long as we keep plugging away. We kookysolos have become so hopelessly placated by our 57 channels of cable and the number of beverages in a convenience store that we’re surprised that the same principles cannot be applied to relationships.

By the same token, being alone is understood as a way to reinforce these terrible impulses, to be considerably more hindered by our fears. Our weekends are full of intricate rituals. Lots of potato chips and television and vodka. Even if we do find the fortitude to go on a date, we’re terrified by the prospect of wrapping our arms around our date just to see how it feels. Because we go into the thing assuming the worst.

And so, a community of kookysolos is essential.

Since people like us eventually hit a point where we’re willing to throw in the towel, it becomes essential to get together with other kookysolos and have pity parties. Support groups are just the tip of the iceberg. We need manifestos. We need self-help books that are modeled exclusively on half-baked theories rather than science. We are a demographic that will always buy these books. Because, dammit, it’s something we can reach for in the hermetically sealed comfort of our own home. It’s something that confirms what’s destructive to us.

But if this is what it means to live, then you can count me out. Because probably the worst thing that can happen is when one kookysolo hooks up with another kookysolo, and the two of them kvetch endlessly about their own fears and limitations. Bonding based on crippling negativity is a recipe for chaos. If the relationship survives, it will be quilted in emotionally clingy fabric, which is healthy for neither party. But chances are more likely that it will end badly, and it will further terrify both kookysolos into avoiding relationships.

The earth will quake if anyone, en masse, actually believes that being kookysolo is a good idea.

by DrMabuse

Quick Quickies

Since it is book-related, Paul O’Neill fesses up that the Iraq plan was in place well before 9/11. The first major blow from an insider.

Updike’s first short story: “The moment his car touched the boulevard heading home, Ace flicked on the radio.”

Anybody have any clues on the Key West Literary Seminar fracas? Moorish Girl (and all of us) wants to know.

Six Bay Area ladies talk mystery writing.

A big Blair-like blowup at USA Today. Jack Kelley has resigned.

The Times gives a lot of space to the image.

And an engineer attempts to deconstruct postmodern literary criticism.

by DrMabuse

A Special Column by Laura Miller

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Miguel Cohen is unwell this week. He reports that he Super-Sized his McDonalds meal by mistake. He believes he’s suffering from mad cow disease. I asked Miguel what increasing the size of his fries and drink had to do with beef. He replied, “You just don’t know, man.” While the doctors investigate Miguel’s condition, Laura Miller has agreed to fill Miguel’s shoes with a special exclusive.]

Columnist’s block, like a bad heroin habit, is a subject of lackluster interest to those who are capable of filing a column that actually includes a few nifty ideas and a great annoyance to me personally. It differs somewhat from writer’s block in that the columnist is faced with the prospect of sounding important, because the columnist must keep her job, even when she really doesn’t know the audience she’s writing for. “To hell with filing the article,” once said Jayson Blair to a friend, “let’s go get sushi and not pay. I’ll make the shit up as it comes along.” Well, we all know what happened to him. At least the writer has talent, whereas the lofty book columnist is often a windbag who cannot grasp so much as a whit of the typical book enthusiast’s mind. The columnist does not understand that most people do not give a damn when she writes in a smug, highfalutin tone and that, if they do, they’re generally reading the New York Times Book Review with their pants draped around their ankles while on the john and have every intention of using the back page as a clever substitute for something I cannot mention in a family newspaper. Either that or they’re a unique form of starfucker, pining for a Salon gig, or they’re wise enough to keep their trap shut. If you complain of not being able to write a column, you might be openly mocked in the book community (though never to the columnist’s face) or even satirized on a blog.

Marilyn T. Chambers, star of Behind the Green Door, wouldn’t dare to write a book column unless she had some inkling of what she was talking about. Nevertheless, you can see how important I sound because I referenced a figure whom you may or may not have heard of. The brilliance of including Chambers in this paragraph is that I can spell out her credentials (i.e., Chambers starred in a piece of smut called Behind the Green Door, in case you didn’t catch that fact the first time) and somehow get through Chip McGrath’s filter. Chambers is intrigued by the neurological dimensions of faking orgasms in general, not because she has endured columnist’s block (although, if she were a columnist, we might say that she has) but because she has gone through episodes of something not dissimilar: she sings for her supper. We might call this avocational condition “whoring.”

Just how much whoring is too much remains a tricky question. Mata Hari, who was a sharp cookie who liked to dance, and who found herself gyrating obsessively (giving the columnist redundant clauses with which to increase word count), explains, “The dance is a poem of which every movement is a word.” Scientists studying the effects of logorrhea, which is what might happen if you were to apply a certain rectal condition to words (i.e., this column), tested for it by asking columnists for columns describing their state of health. Most responded with columns that were too long: the shortest at around 6,000 words. Some scientists resigned from the project immediately. A few collapsed, reporting that they could not read a newspaper column for several years, after being exposed to such limitless verbosity. The handful of scientists left standing asked, “What the hell does any of this have to do with Mata Hari and dancing?” In fact, an early draft of this column was so bad that the folks at the copy desk pined for another David Brooks column. If you’re a prolific popular columnist (or you think you are) like me, you can delude yourself into thinking that you’re better than those groundlings making wisecracks, or those people who have a sense of humor that you lack. Writing a worthless column is an art, albeit a low one, beyond reproach, that comes out painfully. You may not realize this, but my life is in shambles. Of course, if I admitted anything human like that, then perhaps the perceptions would shift. If I suggested in any real way that I was passionate about books, then you might love me the same way you love Michiko. But allow me this small metaphor, for I am not inured to rejection notices the way that most of you may be. I have not written a novel and I don’t have Michiko’s Pulitzer, but I am a columnist. And I have an airtight gig. I want to keep my job. You like me, right?

A little snark or playful banter is easy to mistake for something serious. I’m not quite sure where I was going with the Mata Hari reference. And I don’t know what I was thinking when I mentioned Marilyn Chambers. But perhaps I can offer a scientific hypothesis that will get us back to the main.

In 2003, many of the book blogs, reading the New York Times Book Review because they liked books and they liked Chip, noticed from time to time that one columnist was full of shit. In other words, too much of a grand gig (i.e., writing for the New York Times), as well as too little (i.e., anything written for Salon), can trigger columnist’s block, and this explains why “the bigger the lack of passion, the bigger the block.” Lewis H. Lapham writes the same damn column every Harper’s, but at least he is a harmless enough crank. Lapham may be one-note. He may have a testosterone that doesn’t quit, but he has a passion and a sense of humor. So it was something of a shock to see him writing about George Plimpton this month. Apparently, someone at Harper’s finally got around to telling him that his blustery assaults on Bush were maiming small children in Ecuador.

A friend of mine (yes, I have friends) once invented a “cure” for this condition: to counteract a series of humorless columns, create something more humorless. Think up a bland, banal subject — something like columnist’s block or covering a book that you’re inclined to hate from the first page — and expend 1,000 words on it. In your mind invest it with such life-defining importance that your entire journalistic career hinges upon this one central silly thing. You must take a topic that no reasonable person would waste a paragraph on and approach it as if it were some truly important ideal, something as important as the Federalist Papers, something as pivotal to this planet as carbon.

Blocked or not, columnists have been disappointingly unimaginative in their responses to columnist’s block. One exception is the tiny literary genre of book columns on the back page of the New York Times Book Review. No, not those cutesy cartoons. Hint hint. I know of only one worthwhile columnist who I can read even when I know she is suffering from columnist’s block. In fact, you may not know this, but I have assembled a small chapbook which features this columnist’s ouevre. It reflects, I believe, the highest pinnacle of columnist’s block. Such useless credos as “you have to live” before you write are pure poppycock, because any real columnist knows that she can bluff her way through anything. Particularly when the columnist has failed to live and cannot crack so much as a smile. Whatever tortures the reader must bear, that makes it art in my book.