October 15, 2007
Great way not to make a living
Sean O’Brien, one of Britain’s most celebrated poets, said last night that he regarded his work more as an “affliction” than a career and would not recommend it to anyone, as he won the prestigious £10,000 Forward Poetry Prize for the third time.
Ra, ra, ra to Mr O’B for disclosing the realities of the moronic times we are living in and how impossible it has become for artists to make a basic living. The extraordinary thing is how any book ever is written if you consider that it’s so damn difficult a thing to do, even on a technical level, and that’s before you address the matter of your stomach welding to your back like a set of bellows if you don’t feed it.
It’s really a savage process. Being an artist is akin to being devout you need to maintain a certain degree of delusion or suspended disbelief to keep going.
Emerging voices are the ones most at risk; there’s so little mentorship and possibility for them to become better writers. Mr O’B has some advice:
He also urged younger poets to resist the modern- day urge to publish before their work had matured. “I don’t think people necessarily need to rush into print. It might be a good idea to really learn the craft than think about publishing. Because of the way we live, people want instant results but poetry doesn’t perform in that way,” he said.
It’s not just poetry, sometimes people will tell you a story doesn’t quite “work”, but they’ll rarely tell you how you might fix it. The only route to acquire such knowledge these days would appear to be staring at the thing til some kind of divine intervention intercedes with a refusal to budge from it and the damn thing improves.
My next question is has it always been this bad?
Rest of the newspaper piece on Mr Poet here
October 11, 2007
Bouger Maria
A story in William Trevor’s new collection Cheating at Canasta bought me back to the summer of the moving statues. I can remember the discussions “There’s too many has seen it now for it be anything other than truth”. Anyway, I, 14 at the time, believed in them, but I was fairly misguided on most fronts, including it would now seem basic facts about the shape of the planet and the possibility of marrying Boy George.
For those who want to relive it here’s a radio documentary 20 years on.
Here’s a link to the review I wrote of William Trevor’s new short story collection in The Globe and Mail
October 7, 2007
c’est vous qui decide
An average Ridgways Organic Earl Grey retrieved from the compost on an average windy afternoon, not unfortunately at 4pm when such things should be reflected upon.
Looks a bit bulky to be mere dust.
Generally N America could use a little help on her average grade teabags. Hence the lean for Ridgways. My french could use an equal rescue.
October 1, 2007
4pm
Things a man could consider doing at 4pm.
Making a cup of tea
Putting more milk into the tea.
Opening a window
Milking a goat
Listening to a language he doesn’t understand. (http://www.rte.ie/rnag/ for starters)
Nothing.
Read a book ideally Guernica and Total War by Ian Patterson
Open a book and pretend to read it.
Close the book and rest his elbows on it.
Break open the old teabag and count the leaves in it.
September 8, 2007
Great readers
Here’s a piece I wrote concerning the best ambition of all. That of being a good reader.
Let the greats explain the novel to you
Apply the insights of Milan Kundera and Francine Prose to your reading and writing.
August 25, 2007
Low econ-impact; agility round the dustbins
Loved this article from last weekend’s Observer, most esp. the bin diving neighbour who arrives at lunch with the piece of mouldy cheese.
Alex Renton rides shotgun with a band of eco-minded ‘freegans’ who plunder the bins behind the local M&S for gourmet foods. But how ethical is it? And can you get enough for a dinner party?
Asked Puffin to convert to freeganism, we’ve agreed to wait ’til the current garbage strike is over due to stench. Judging by the measly two malteser-sized tomatoes our huge tomato plant produced, sustainable living remains at a bit of a distance.
August 5, 2007
Brillopads
Could this be why it’s so damn hard for writers to make a living:
Living Modestly Despite a Nice Nest Egg
He seems to derive a kind of Zen pleasure through living modestly. He takes books out of his local public library rather than buying them at a store. He rents a one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto, Calif., although he can afford a larger place.
The, he, in question is: “By Silicon Valley standards, Brian Wilson is not rich. But despite a nest egg of roughly $1.5 million…”
Article on rich folk in Silicon Valley in today’s NY Times who have financial anxiety.
With respect to the folks of Silicon Valley, who are sitting on a million and a half, but proudly wandering with brillopads on their feet instead of shoes because of “wealth anxiety” I say that by the time you come to retire and take your wads out of the bank and lie on your arses on distant beaches on misshapen spines, you’ll have nowt to read because the poor writers your miserly ways are depriving of a living will be forced to procure a life of software piracy instead to feed their chickens.
For God’s sake would they ever buy a sodding book, painting, if they want to really live dangerously they could shell out for a poetry collection, or the much maligned no one wants to publish them anymore short story collection … share the damn wealth and stop being such stingy gits.
To all those who do buy books un grand merci beaucoup. The simple fact is if people don’t buy books writers cannot make even the paltry living most of them actually make.
July 30, 2007
Two right feet, odd sizes
The Puffin, it has been declared by a shoe sales male, has worn his shoes too much! How one wears shoes too much is a bit beyond me, but there you go. The controversial pair were acquired at Xmas and officially o’tattered beyond belief when I eyed them the other day.
The Puffin informs me that when the disintegrating footwear were returned the shoe sales male announced in his opinion Puffin wore them too much, but will return to shoe intelligence central for the official verdict. If Puffin were true to his namesake he would take flight and go easier on his soles.
In meantime, rain concerned madre decides we better seek another pair. Puffin intensely displeased at trying on shoes, puts one of a pair on, declares them fine, refuses to stand up and prance about. Rain concerned mama takes dictator stance and insists Puffin put feet in both shoes whereupon we discover that the box has two right shoes. Inquire of arm waving sales male, why would this box be on a shelf with two right shoes? Sales male replies it’s mix and match. Rain concerned moi says, but seriously are there people in the world with two right feet? (Not the smartest at medical science I thought perhaps he knew something I do not). I don’t know, he says, maybe. So I look inside shoes and say I am fairly certain there is no small person in the world with two right feet, one sized 2 and one sized 3, as have now noted they are indeed different sizes. Increasingly angry sales male says I don’t know, it’s mix and match, there probably are people and has wavy arms that look like they’d like to bat me out of the shop like a cricket ball. Wavy sales male is v determined there is no problem with trying to sell this pair of shoes and appears to find my expectations too high.
Puffin and I agree that he and shoes are having some kind of compatibility crisis and we’ll divert to eating bean burritos instead.
July 30, 2007
No preview
An anthology I had two pieces published in years ago, but could never afford to actually purchase because it cost 40 dollars has arrived on google books. Finally thinks I … can get a gander at it because it’s so long since I wrote it, can imagine how dreadful piece will seem now. Takes a while to locate in the table of contents due to usual unpredicatable, streaky, mouse action … I’m clicking page 6 but it’s showing 192 .. on hunting the 6 pages me bit is supposed to correlate to, I discover they’ve been omitted those precise 6 pages from this online version of the book.
What’s the saying …if you go fishing you catch a boot.
June 25, 2007
Tufty
Who remembers Tufty? The following explains why those of us who grew up in the 1970’s have advanced icecream van phobia. Those, who grew up in the sixties had the threat of the Cold War, while Tufty the squirrel took over the nuclear threat by frightening the bejesus out of us every time we heard the distant dingle of the Mr Whippy van.