Author / DrMabuse

by DrMabuse

Ten Things I’ve Done That I Probably Shouldn’t Have Done

Well, since everyone seems to be following Terry’s lead, here are ten things I probably shouldn’t have done. This is by no means the list.

1. Talked my way out of being mugged while at gupoint on a bus in the Mission. Even managed to keep my wallet.

2. Wrote a feature length script in 24 hours, declared the script “experimental” to avoid heavy criticism, turned this piece of offal in for academic credit and was told by adviser that it was “one of the best scripts I’ve ever read from a student.”

3. Confused the dates of a major exam, went into the test cold without having read any of the material, relying upon hazy memories of reading the books in my teenage years, and was able to pass with flying colors, even recalling specific passages to back up arguments.

4. While in kindergarten, I was given a mathematical workbook. The book was intended to enrich me. It was suggested that I do the exercises, but I somehow construed this to involve the completion of entire workbook over weekend. Shocked parents, friends of parents, teachers.

5. Had sex in a museum while it was open.

6. On a dare, I once snorted about ten packets of Sweet & Low in a row at a 24 hour diner, to demonstrate that sugar substitute was a convicing cinematic substitute for cocaine.

7. As a teenager, to see how fast my mother’s shitty Ford Tempo could get, I slammed the gas down, cranking the speedometer hard to the right, and drove past a sitting fuzzmobile at 3 AM. Paranoid that I would be caught, that my license plate had been jottted down and that my underage drinking (one beer) would be discovered, I parked in an alley for an hour.

8. To see how long I could last without sleep, I once stayed awake for four days straight. Believe it or not, this was done without drugs.

9. Carried on an affair with a married woman. She was about twenty years older than me.

10. Was once escorted out of a building, according to “office procedure.” There was no explanation for my termination, nor any opportunity to explain my side of the story.

by DrMabuse

Sleepless Roundup

  • A.L. Kennedy weighs in on how we should adjust our attitudes to lost keys.
  • Apparently, quelling indecency over the airwaves wasn’t enough. Now the bastards are going after pay TV. If there’s any positive spin on this, perhaps this will stop Anna Nicole Smith.
  • A principal has banned a lesbian student from appearing in a yearbook. Her crime? Wearing a tux. No word yet on whether neckties are the next to go.
  • Forget the fact that Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep is a coming-of-age tale. Eileen McNamara walked away from the novel convinced that that it contributes to the deviant sexualization of minors. Yup. We all know how Lolita led to an unprecedented spate of professors sleeping with twelve year old girls in 1958. America is still reeling from that dark chapter in the history books. Stop these novels from being published before it’s too late! Dammit!
  • D.H. Lawrence’s legacy is being re-evaluated. Lawrence was not, in fact, a water skier, but a writer of several stories and novels.
  • Zora Neale Hurston’s lost plays have been located and published.
  • Pulp fiction isn’t enough for Stephen King. An anthology series based on Nightmares & Dreamscapes is in the works.
  • Tim Dolin lists the top 10 books on George Eliot.
by DrMabuse

Shaggy Dog Stories + Literary Magazines = Profit?

There’s some fascinating food-for-thought from the ever-dependable Gwenda. She quotes F&SF editor Gordon Van Gelder on the state of current story-centric magazines:

As I’ve been reading through this thread, the comments of one veteran editor keep ringing in my head—he said to me, “Of course Analog is selling better than any other magazine: it’s the least risky.”

I bring up that comment, I guess, to defend against the charge of a conservative attitude in F&SF. I don’t particularly like that word, “conservative,” but I’ll be the first to say that I’ve got to balance the artistic side of things with the commercial side. For every reader who appreciates the challenge that a story like John McDaid’s “Keyboard Variations” offers, there are two or three readers who favor less challenging work like Ron Goulart’s lighter fare.

Which is one reason why I’m happy to second Sean’s sentiment when he says “I’m all for it!” to the writers blazing their own trails. I think the zine explosion of the last couple of years is very good for the field and I do my best to keep up with all the various magazines and anthologies, but I feel like someone needs to inject a note of commerciality into the discussion. Considering there are two threads running on the board now about declining circulation in the digests, it might be worth remembering that experimental fiction (“experimental” is another word like “conservative” that I don’t particularly like, but I can’t think of a better term right now; “riskier”? “less traditional”?) isn’t necessarily commercial.

There’s much more, of course, at Gwenda’s stomping grounds. But, at the risk of sounding like that assclown Wenclas, it begs the question: When “experimental” is a four-letter word and magazines are inveterately associated with sturdy sales, is it any wonder why today’s fiction remains sadly safe and predictable?