Craig Davidson

Wednesday, March 29th

HEAT VISION AND JACK

Hi All,

Had to post this link. It's the long-lost Jack Black/Owen Wilson/Ron Silver/Ben Stiller/Christine Taylor FOX pilot, HEAT VISION AND JACK. Now, it's fairly obvious why it was never picked up for TV---as much as I like all these actors, and as much as I enjoyed this 1/2 hour pilot episode, by the end I did have a weird, creepy-crawly feeling for some reason; maybe it was the cheesy special effects, or the purposely affected acting, or something, but it was like bugs scuttling up my spine by the end. This is probably only my reaction, though. There are some really funny bits---the opening credits, for one---and it's always interesting to see these guys in "before they were famous" mode.

So check it out. HEAT VISION AND JACK.

The link won't work. Just cut and paste it into your browser window.

http://www.panandscan.com/news/show/Web_Video/Viral_Video:_Legendary_Jack_Black_TV_Pilot_Hits_Web/502

Happy viewing, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.29.06 @ 11:11 AM EST [link]

HEAT VISION AND JACK

Sunday, March 26th

OLD MEN AT THE GYM...

Hi All,

As many of you know, I am an astute social observer. I observe many social phemonenas, and I would like to think, highly astutely. For example, just the other day my eyes were opened to the habits, preoccupations, and peccadilloes of old men at the gym. I had made some intitial findings in this area, but a rare confluence of events gave me insight into their world recently; I tried to shoehorn this information into the novel I am endlessly editing, but since it will not fit, I will detail it here.

I will focus on three main points:

1. DRESS
2. EXERCISES
3. POST-WORKOUT ROUTINE

First of all, I think it's dandy to see old fellows at the gym. Most of them, the really old ones, are rangy whippets with tinker-toy bodies, long skinny arms and legs. They strike me as spry and sprightly. I know, myself, I don't have the sort of body that will age well; if you see me in a gym when I'm 80, it will be because I've gone senile and wandered there in the belief it was the duck pond.

DRESS:

Old men at the gym have a diverse and wonderfully-eclectic wardrobe. Some wear shorts, but if so they are often made of the sort of thin, flyaway fabric that K-Way jackets and kites are made from, and are cut in such a way as to ascend from their outer thighs (longer) to inner thighs (much shorter), which may make other gym members feel they are on the verge of glimpsing something they shouldn't, or in any case would rather not. If they are wearing shorts, then they will also be wearing tubesocks pulled to their knees, if not lower thighs. I'm not sure where, exactly one purchases tubesocks anymore; truthfully, I haven't bought a pair of socks in a long time, because my father always gives me socks, or sends them to me in the mail. One of my father's sayings is, "You can't beat a good pair of socks." Other things that, according to my father, you can't beat, are:

1. A nice, cold soda pop
2. Any movie with Danny Glover in it

Anyway, the socks I receive are not tubesocks; maybe you can't get them anymore, or perhaps there is an age requirement (UNAVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE FOR THOSE UNDER 70). If these old men are not wearing shorts, they wear track pants, or whole track suits, in colors that don't quite seem to fit anywhere in the color spectrum---tracksuits the hue of sun-bleached parking tickets; track pants the color of mulberry wine mixed with kerosene, etc. As for shoes: occassionally you will see an older gent in sneakers, but in my experience you can expect boater shoes, old loafers with paint spatters upon them, slippers: basically, whatever they wore to the gymnasium that day. I've seen many wearing toques---toques with big puffy pom-poms!---to retain warmth. I fully look forward to becoming an old man myself, so I can wear a toque to the gym, or a movie, or anywhere at all. It gets cold out there, sometimes.

EXERCISES:

Many of these older fellows, like many old men period, are not happy with the way things are, and think they can do better. You will often see them stare around at the nautilus machines and treadmills with a disdainful air, as if to say such things drain all the "hard work" out of "work out". At some point they pull a length of surgical tube out of their track pants, tie a barbell to one end, and begin to swing it about their heads to "loosen their spines". Or they might sit against a wall for five minutes, or somersault across the floor, or do burpees. They will say, "Jack LaLanne showed me this!" and suck their bellies in and direct you to paddle it with a rattan cane. They will show up with medicine balls---gyms generally don't have them anymore---and lie flat on the floor and press the balls over their heads. Then they will say they've "worked up a healthy sweat" and resolve to "take a steam."

POST WORKOUT ROUTINE:

This, I must admit, is not something I've seen much before, and is perhaps localized to the gym I attend now. But almost every time I go, after my workout, I see the same three old men doing this, and it strikes me as strange and funny and perhaps a sign of things to come. If nothing else, it is proof that, the older men get, the more comfortable---or "don't-give-a-damn"---we become with our bodies.

In the change room, there is a sauna. The sauna, for whatever reason, is enclosed by glass, like an aquarium almost---an open view. Maybe this is a safety thing, so people can see if someone's passed out in there and go rescue them. Anyway, almost every time when I'm changing (the fact that my schedule is so regimented and inflexible that it consistently dovetails with a bunch of old men says something about me), I see these three guys, buck naked, stretching and limbering in the sauna, all in a row. They're right in front of the windows, twisting and bending and shaking it all out; it's mesmerizing, in a way...haunting. I feel like they can't see me, like we're in a police station and I'm behind the two-way glass, listening to them confess; but of course they can see me, they don't care. I don't know what age you hit before you feel comfortable exercising in a sauna before a full-length window overlooking a bustling change room, your bits flapping and flopping willy-nilly and pell-mell...I look forward to that day, though. Maybe I'll even wear a toque.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.26.06 @ 04:38 PM EST [link]

Wednesday, March 22nd

Review

This review is from the UK's Independent. I think it's not bad. There was a nice one in the London Times, too, but I never did track that down online and I don't want to retype the whole review I was sent by hand. Anyway, a few nice bon mots can be culled from this one to put on the paperback version. Then again, with some fanciful editing, I could do that with the NY Times slam, as well. How about:

"Davidson's...stories recall Raymond Carver...coughed up by an orca...an elegant economy."
---Lizzie Skurnick, NY Times.

That's wonderful, I think. Very mysterious. I'll have to see if the publishers will go for it.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.22.06 @ 04:53 PM EST [more..]

Sunday, March 19th

New Interviews

Hi all,

Did a few email interviews lately; one with Notes of A Defeatist, a great blog run by Tim Hennessy, and another done by Nikki Tranter at Popmatters. I'd like to thank the both of them for the great questions.

Again, I will screw up the links, but they're easy enough to get to if you're interested in hearing (reading, I guess) more of my jibber-jabber. The Popmatters one is not up yet, but will be in a bit.

Notes of A Defeatist:
www.notesofadefeatist.com

Popmatters:
www.popmatters.com

All best, Craig.

Craig Davidson on 03.19.06 @ 04:38 PM EST [link]

Tuesday, March 14th

Back from AWP

Hi All,

Returned from Austin a few days ago. A good time and a wicked city. Not that I've anything against Iowa City, but Austin is a pretty damn cool place. I had a choice of doing my MFA either here or at UT Austin and obviously I chose Iowa; I never had any second thoughts until I actually went there---that, coupled with my return to Iowa City to find a letter from the department informing me I'd been given the equivalent of a pay cut, my funding dropped a few points from last year. I guess I have little to complain about; there are plenty of good writers here, so any excuse I might make would be just that, and not particularly fair to those who got the decent appointments. Still, since I can't work here legally to drum up some extra cash, it might be a lean semester next fall. I only mention it because UT Austin had guaranteed funding; but Iowa is Iowa, or so they say, so here I am. I could always sell my body to the local citizenry; a little "north of the border" booty, eh? I don't think I'd get much.

The panel in Austin was fine as far as it went. The other panelists had obviously WORKED on their papers, whereas I wrote mine on hotel stationary the day before. Mine wasn't so much a paper as an uninformed rant against postmodernism which was mercifully brief (10 pages of hotel stationary, written in capital letters). I really only thought 4 or 5 people would be there; instead there were, like, 60! What the hell were they all doing up that early in the morning? But it was good to see "the gang" again, and I also saw a few buds from Iowa down there, which was nice. I never did get to see Joseph Boyden---or "Seph," as I like to call him---because he was in town with his wife, novelist Amanda Boyden, and our paths never did cross, which is a shame.

The Washington Post reviewed RUST AND BONE last Sunday, not especially well, which fails to surprise me much. My thanks to Tod Goldberg---his collection SIMPLIFY was reviewed in the same issue, along with Davy Rothberg's collection---for the heads-up on it. I'll post it shortly.

My agent was at the London Book fair and tells me there is apparently a decent review in the London Times that will appear shortly. Which brings me to the main point of this post.

I was searching the Times site for the review. I typed RUST AND BONE into the search engine. The review is not up, but I came across a very interesting article.

People ask me, as they ask many writers, where my ideas come from. I think more and more my ideas come from the papers. Like, the other day I was surfing the ESPN site and came across a story about a mother who attacked a bear who was menacing her children during a pickup hockey game. This was in northern Canada, so it could've conceivably been a grizzly, though it sounded more like a brown or black bear.

Now that would not end up a story in itself, but I could see that becoming part of a novel someday. As a scene itself it's fascinating, plus it would give a lot of depth to any character---a mother, if I followed the news story literally, though conceivably a father or a friend or the mailman---and I could write it with the sense that, no matter how absurd it sounds, it actually HAPPENED.

Anyway, back to the Times. I typed in RUST AND BONE and the first hit was the article I've pasted below. I can see myself working this into a story someday. This is a good example of the grisly side of life I find myself attracted to, and that finds its way into my writing. Once a horror writer, always a horror writer. And I would probably hook a lot of details, too---the PVC pipe is especially morbid to me. Poor Alistair Cooke! I remember him as the host of MASTERPIECE THEATRE. Such a dignified man---which, shamefully, makes the story all the more horrifically macabre to me.

So, if you ever see this in a future story or novel, or a bear-attack scene, well, you'll know where they came from.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.14.06 @ 05:33 PM EST [more..]

Sunday, March 5th

AWP CON; SOME INTERESTING THINGS

Hi All,

Making preparations for the trek to the AWP conference in Texas. Leaving six a.m. tomorrow morning; end up in Oklahoma City. Hopefully I won't be so exhausted that I can't enjoy some small shred of that city's ambiance. If not, a few days in Austin will be nice.

I'm currently working on edits to my novel, THE FIGHTER. My thanks to Helen Reeves, my editor at Penguin, for so many great and thoughtful ideas. I'm hammering away at it, and since there are a lot of edits to be made, it's taking some time. I always find it tougher editing older work than going forward with new work, too. But it will be a stronger novel when I'm done.

I do a lot of reseach on the Internet. I don't know what writers did before the Internet! God bless google. But, in the course of my writing day, I often start researching and find whatever I've stumbled across so interesting that it leads me all sorts of places I never had any intention of going. The Internet is a great boon and a great time waster.

So, to that end, two sites I've seen and that have fascinated me (again, the links might not work, but it's a fairly simple thing if you're interested).

Craig Davidson on 03.05.06 @ 06:35 PM EST [more..]