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Saturday, November 26th
A Review...
...from the Globe and Mail on The Journey Prize Stories, written by my erstwhile ex-professor, a very salient* and utile* fellow, Dr. Darryl Whetter. Ole Craig doesn't come off too well in this one, I'm afraid. Whetter, you bastard! I kid, I kid; it's a well-done review. It's nice to see stories not mentioned in the Toronto Star piece getting their due here, and it goes to show that what one critic likes, another doesn't. I think only Pasha Malla's story gets props in both reviews.
My favorite part of the review was reading how my story relies on "booze glorification." Well, it's true that I like to glorify booze whenever I can; in fact just today I slipped an open beer into a baby's pram while his mother wasn't looking. Glorify early, glorify often is what I always say. No, seriously, it's a fair review, and I can see how some might have that sense of the story. The strangest thing is I had 3 stories nominated for the antho this year: "28 Bones" from the Fiddlehead, "Rocket Ride" from Event, and the one they chose, from SubTerrain. While I'm happy I got a story chosen at all, I was somewhat surprised this was the one they went with.
You can find the review is posted on the next page. Anything you may find in [square brackets] are editorial additions made by yours truly.
In other news, I sent my novel off to my editor tonight. She won't get it until she gets to work Monday morning, but I figured it was time to get it out there into the wide wide world. Cross your fingers for me, folks.
All best, Craig.
*: Darryl used these words all the time in class. Surprisingly, I didn't see them used in the review. So I added some myself, certain that Darryl would want it that way.
Craig Davidson on 11.26.05 @ 10:01 PM EST [more..]
Friday, November 25th
Onward Christian Soldiers
Hi All,
I hope this doesn't offend anyone, because I don't mean it to. I mean, I'm all for offending people in my fiction, but rarely do I feel compelled to step out of that framework and offend anyone in real life. Perhaps that's the Canadian in me. But now that I'm down here in America I feel more free to express myself along these lines---or maybe I'm just turning into a bit of a rat bastard, who knows?
Anyway. I've been doing a lot of driving lately, 5, 6 hour trips, and have been listening to the radio a lot. I find it helps pass the time. It doesn't pass the time as well, say, those times I tied a bandanna around my eyes and drove strange roads "psychically" or "by feel," but still, it passes the time well enough.
Now these trips aren't near the longest I've done in a single shot. Those would be the times I drove from Toronto to Fredericton in one go---probably 14 hours. I never did this alone, always with other people to handle the driving load. Once me and my buddy Tony (or Ton-Ton, as he is known) drove through the night to get there, for reasons that will remain unspoken. I'd worked the whole day in the shipping department at a hospital, my last day on the job, and I remember driving the next morning at dawn, totally spaced out of my head, seeing golden butterflies and plus-sized pink elephants flitting about the foggy peripheries of my vision and I had this elastic band on I kept pulling it out from my wrist and snapping it trying to keep myself awake.
But nevermind that. I bring it up only to say that, in that trip in particular, it was important to bring lots of CDs along---that was back in the stone ages, before IPODS. You brought lots of CDs because, apart from spots near Toronto, Cornwall, and Montreal, the radio was a dead zone. Up in northern Quebec and New Brunswick you'd be lucky to catch some drunken, grizzled old Francophone with a ham radio singing "Frere Jacques" over and over again. Yeah, it was bad.
So anyway, on these recent trips I didn't bring any CDs. I'm a forgetful sort and I counted myself prepared to have brought a spare change of gitch. But this meant a lot of radio surfing trying to get good tunes. There's nothing worse than catching a good tune you really dig---on my last trip I caught "Closing Time," that one-hit wonder by Semisonic---then passing under a web of power lines and losing the signal. I liked that Semisonic tune. I sang along to it, even. Bobbed my head and tapped my toe--the one not on the gas pedal. Strummed a little air guitar. But then the signal was gone and I lost my groove. Kaput. I felt cheated. Damn you Semisonic! I know, it's not their fault. I just got a little overheated for a minute, there.
So it's this constant scanning to find a station you like. And this is where my point is: there are a LOT of Christian music stations nowadays.
And Christian music is not like how I remember it. To me, Christian music is someone strumming an acoustic guitar, or a pipe organ and a boy's choir. Not anymore. Now it's got some pretty good beats and you can rock out to it---rock out to the LORD!
But I guess I just don't like my music and my religion mixed. And I know it's my choice not to listen to it, and since I feel slightly manipulated for some reason when I do hear it, I make a point to change the channel as soon as I recognize it's that style of music. But it's so well hidden, the message in the lyrics, that sometimes I've listened to nearly the whole song before I know conclusively it's Christian music. It's like:
SONG [final stanza] "...and baby, baby, baby, I need you, you make my whole world right, your love and beauty light up the night..." [final chord] ....and by "baby" I mean Jesus Christ our Lord." THE END.
ME: DAMMIT!
I mean, sometimes it's right out there in the open, like the one I heard that went something like:
And he walked until his feet were covered in blisters,
And they flogged him until his back was bloody,
And they put him up there on the Cross and pelted him with stones...repent...sinners...
Etc, etc, etc. So there I know right away I can turn the channel. But so many of them, I'm halfway into the song before I know I'm listening to this type of music. I mean, the first "Lord" or "Christ in his Heavenly seat" I hear, the first definitive declaration like that, I'm outta there. But it's almost like the bands want to drag you into the deep waters before they spring it on you:
Song [start]: "We ran through the meadow, we ran through the hay..."
ME: Well, okay, it's got a good beat, it hasn't hit any of my buzzwords. I'll give it some time...
Song: [middle]: "...and I look way up into your eyes, they dazzle me with their love..."
ME: Well, maybe she's, y'know, in love with a really tall dude...
Song: [ending]: "...and I feel your love and it's HEAVEN-SENT!"
ME: No! Noooo!
Song: "JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS BAAAAAABY YEAH! Hosanna in the HI-HI-HI-HIGHEST!"
ME: Damn! Double damn!
Or else it's this new "hard rock" Christian music, where it's like any other rocking hard song, the type where you can't really make out what the hell the guy's singing but you're along for the ride because of the grinding metal guitars and drum beats and whatever. But I can't even enjoy those as much anymore because now I've got my ear practically pressed to the car speaker to catch a "Jesus" or "Heavenly Father" or whatnot.
Anyway, obviously I don't have a problem with the stations existing, people can listen to whatever they choose and if they dig it, great, but I just don't recall ever having this issue before in all my long years as a long-distance-driving radio jockey. Maybe there's just a proliferation of these channels down here in the midwest. That would seem to make sense, seeing as on my basic cable pack of 22 channels, on certain nights 8 of them are broadcasting televangelists.
All Hail Our Dark Lord Satan!
All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 11.25.05 @ 05:07 PM EST [link]
Wednesday, November 23rd
House of Leaves + MPR Interview
Hi All,
Just finished reading Mark Z. Danielewski's HOUSE OF LEAVES. Mind blowing, is about all I can say. Well, no, I can say plenty more, and will.
Perhaps some of you have read, or at least heard of, this book. It came out in 2000, and while it did very well it was sort of overshadowed by A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENUIS, which came out around the same time. I admit I was sucked into reading Eggers' book by the hype, whereas Danielewski's was more my speed---what can I say? I'm swayed by hype. Eggers' book was fine, but I wasn't, and still am not, sure what all the fooferaw was about. But good for Eggers, as he does a lot of good work with the money and acclaim that book brought him, getting new edgy writers out there through his McSweeney's mag (unlike me, who, if I ever hit it big, plan to build a giant gold castle with all my royalties and toss water balloons at the shambling plebs from high atop my golden parapet). But anyway, I think HOUSE OF LEAVES will end up having an overall greater impact, because it's the type of book that accomplishes what it sets out to do so perfectly that people will be reading it decades from now. I first heard about if from my buddy Neil when we were on a rafting trip years ago, and I kept hearing about it, authors I love kept saying it rocked hard and consitently, until basically the acclaim built up to a point where I had to buy the damn thing.
The main idea of the novel is simple: this family moves into a house that is bigger on the inside than on the outside. I don't know if that strikes you as silly, but for me, before even reading the book I thought, "That's some creepy shit, there." Some scary ideas, like for THE RING and its killer video tape, seem silly but end up being pretty freaky (at least it freaked ME out, and the three other people I saw that movie with; haven't been that freaked by a flick since THE EXCORCIST, or maybe JAWS); the idea for HOUSE OF LEAVES seemed freaky right off the bat. I don't know what it is that struck me as so terrifying: probably just the idea that all the laws governing our world---spatial laws, concrete laws---are being screwed with somehow. But anyway, that's the idea: the house is bigger inside than out.
I don't figure it's fair to give away the plot any further than to say that this family investigates the house and certain things are revealed about its physical makeup that are...well, pretty goddamn scary. I mean, I haven't been freaked by a book since maybe Pet Semetary or IT (Stephen King's best book, for my money). And I read those when I was in my early teens, when I was scared by just about anything: I wandered around in a terrified daze for weeks after seeing those giant dogs chase Rick Moranis through downtown Manhattan in GHOSTBUSTERS. Even SLIMER scared me a bit. Hell, I got freaked out when Lance Guest got attacked by that inter-stellar assassin with tentacle crawling out of its face in THE LAST STARFIGHTER. That's not to hack King: I could've read Pet Semetary last month and it may've still scared me. But I'm so cynical now, such a critical bastard, that it's tough to scare me. Well, HOUSE OF LEAVES did.
But it's more than just a freak-out book. So much more. I'm not going to get into its post-modern aspects other than to say they abound: footnotes and pictures and photos and pages with only one word printed on them, or words in boxes, or words printed upside-down or backwards so you have to find a mirror to read them. In fact, if there was one element I could've done without, it was that: mostly all those structural acrobatics just gave me a headache.
The one thing I've found is integral to a horror novel...well, there are two things. One, you need to find a subject that reaches out to some primal fear in all of us. HOUSE OF LEAVES does that. Two, you need to populate the book with characters you care for, who are strong and empathetic (or hateful) enough that you will follow them through their trials, and will care what happens to them good or bad---in a horror novel, usually bad. That's where a lot of horror novelists come up short: cardboard characters suffer aggregiously, but you don't really care because no time or effort has been taken to shape them. So they get their heads bitten off or their entrails strewn about and you're like, "That's a pity." That's what King is so good at: he crafts characters you care about. I know some people hack King, but man, if you know of a book more strongly evocative of childhood, of the passions and fears and beauty of that age, than IT, well, I'd like to hear about it. Anyway, I wasn't sure if HOUSE OF LEAVES would deliver on that, but over the course of the novel it did. Will Navidson, his wife Karen, brother Tom, intrepid adventurer Holloway---they're all drawn poignantly, you care for them, and most importantly you understand why they act the way they do. That's also important in a horror novel, where often characters need to act the opposite of any rational person---they need to climb that dark staircase and open that door---to move the plot forward. That's where some writers just go, "Ah, well, this needs to happen so it's going to happen and be damned with it." I've done it myself, more times than I care to admit. But in HOUSE OF LEAVES the characters act according to how they've been drawn: Will is motivated by the guilt he feels over past events and is pictured as a man who can't help but force himself into perilous situations; his wife, Karen, spends the whole novel avoiding what she fears yet at the end confronts it. And the ending was a happy one---at least for me---because it was, cliched as it may be to say, a "triumph of the human spirit" sort of thing. And I'm a sucker for happy endings. (there is a parallel story line dealing with Johhny Truant, a sort of narrator, but I won't get into it except to say it is also very well done).
Anyway, I'll end by giving the book the highest praise I am able, and praise I've only heaped upon a very few of the hundreds or thousands of books I've ever read: every time I had to set it aside (this wasn't very often; a 700 page book, I finished it in 2 days once I really got into it), I did so with regret. I couldn't WAIT to get back to it, and was somewhat enraged when I had to leave it to do day-to-day shit: work out, grocery shopping, etc. There are those books that you are excited to read, in that whenever you have a free minute you'll dive in...then there are those that you MAKE time for: you call in sick, skip class, stay up until 3 in the morning, etc. This is one of those books. I can count on one finger the books that have had the effect: FILTH by Irvine Welsh, AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis, WHITE JAZZ by James Ellroy, recently CUTTER AND BONE by Newton Thornburg, a few more. It's a very, very short list.
I've read some reviews that said this book will change the way you look at the world around you. Well, I don't feel that way, in that I've never really felt that way about any book, but it is a blazingly original, truly scary, and completely compassionate book, the sort of book I wish other people of my acquaintance have read so we can sit around chatting about it.
Craig Davidson on 11.23.05 @ 02:19 PM EST [more..]
Monday, November 21st
New Review + Nerve.com Excerpt
This review was sent to me by a friend in Vancouver. It's from the Vancouver Sun. Gotta love the "knuckle-duster fist full of cheap death’s-head biker rings" line.
Also anyone who is interested can check out an excerpt of my short story "Friction" at Nerve.com. They've published fiction from some great writers lately, including Chuck Palahniuk and Jonathan Lethem. So needless to say I am grateful to be included in such fine company. Addy is www.nerve.com.
The review can be found in the "more" section.
All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 11.21.05 @ 01:14 PM EST [more..]
Saturday, November 19th
Iowa City & Minneapolis Readings!
Hello All,
First off, a note on that last post. It caused quite a tide of sentiment: good, bad, interesting. I think I got about 25 emails, some from total strangers, relating to it. My buddy Ryan left a wonderful post on this blog, many thanks to him for that, and many more came in over email. Here’s a sampling of a few, stripped of identity:
“I really am concerned with this despondency...I sincerely hope you realize that you’re not letting anyone down, if that is even how you still feel.”
“I read on your blog that no one showed at your Milwaukee reading. That
sucks, but I wouldn't take it personally. I grew up in rural Massachusetts
and went to a few readings at Borders where it was just me and the author,
and those were great books, too.”
“Jesus Christ, that last blog entry made me want to slit my wrists and
pour myself a steam bath. Sheeeesh. What a downer. Tell us some more
happy stories about candy.”
“It was frickin' MILWAUKEE! Dude.” (For the record, I like Milwaukee just fine!)
“Your last post, about "zero attendance in Milwaukee", was especially poignant. You seem to be a bit down.”
“SO...quit being so hard on yourself when you encounter situations such as Milwaukee.”
Quite frankly I had, and still don’t really have, any objective understanding of who reads this. I thought about whether I should be a bit less candid, but then figured, no, that wouldn’t do. The purpose of this blog, when Penguin handed it over, was to have me detail the ups and downs, the highs and lows of my experience. And I hope people understand there have been plenty of highs: my readings in Calgary and Toronto were awesome and most every review has been, if not a rave, then at the very least well-measured and sensitive to the work. And of course, as I said, everyone involved with the book—my agent and editors and publicists and the publishing houses themselves—have been wonderful and I couldn’t ask for anything more. But life, such as it is, does not always present itself in rosy shades. There are low spots for everyone, and I don’t expect to exist above them. I guess I just figured EVERYONE goes through times like those. In a way, I’ve been dealing with Milwaukee scenarios all along the way with this writing gig. Every rejection slip was a Milwaukee. Every time my work got hammered as being “too graphic/gory/silly” was a Milwaukee. Every time I got set back on my heels—which happened often, as I imagine it would to most every fledgling writer—was a Milwaukee. And I dealt with this Milwaukee like I’ve dealt with every other one: pick myself up, dust myself off, go on with life. I never dwell on things like that for long; if I did, I’d’ve run screaming into the hills years ago. The day after I wrote that post I was fine, Milwaukee was in the rearview mirror, and I was looking forward to writing and touring the book again.
And I think people need to know how lucky I am. Obscenely lucky—not just in publishing. Good family, good friends, the weird ability to fall ass-backwards into good situations. Everywhere I’ve been, everywhere I’ve lived, I seem to be preternaturally adept at finding myself surrounded with good people, kind people. It was that way since I can recall: when I lived in Ottawa, Calgary, St. Catharines, Peterborough, Japan, New Brunswick, now here in Iowa. And I’ve been insensibly lucky with this book, falling in with an agent and publishers and editors who are all brilliant and supportive. So under the occasional (very rare, though surprisingly more pronounced during the months the book has come out) despondency, I know the truth of the situation: I have nothing to complain about. I am a very lucky person.
So I apologize if I freaked anyone out, or pissed anyone off, and you shouldn’t expect to read this blog and be treated to such maudlin ruminations very often. Most times it will be wacky, zany, crazy ole Craig. But I think disappointment is something we all go through. Hopefully people understand that I might occasionally treat this blog as my own personal wailing wall, where I cast my laments out into the cyber-ether. You can skip those posts if it suits you.
But there will be many more candy-type posts, posts about beatings and other wacky shenanigans. And there will also be posts about the thrill of a good review or of meeting appreciative readers and whatnot. But there will also be posts like the last one, if I am going to make this blog an honest account of my feelings throughout this book process.
Okay, on with the readings.
Craig Davidson on 11.19.05 @ 06:22 PM EST [more..]
Wednesday, November 16th
Attendance Records Shattered in Milwalkee!
Last night's reading at Schwartz's bookstore in Milwalkee, WI, drew a record attendance.
Zero.
That's right, it's not a misprint: zero attendance. I mean, yes, there were a few people in the store, but they were, like, y'know, everyday customers. Browsers. None of them actually came to see yours truly read. Just my Milwalkee liason Mary, and booksellers Dan and Taylor sitting amidst a lonely sea of empty purple chairs that had evidently been set out in anticipation of a modest crowd.
The day started well enough. I got up at 7:00, gassed up the car, grabbed a coffee and struedel and hit the open road. Good ole Mapquest got me to Milwalkee at 1:00 in the afternoon, where I found my digs were the swank downtown Pfister hotel. I had a beer in the lobby---Sprecker Amber; kick ASS beer, served in pint bottles, like they used to with Labatt 50---and waited for my liason, Mary. We drove around to 4 or 5 bookstores and signed whatever copies they had in stock. Then I was dropped off back at the hotel where I changed and, 2 Spreckers later, Mary came and grabbed me for the 7:00 reading.
I knew something was amiss the moment I walked into Schwartz's. Dan and Taylor---2 cool guys, by the way---met us at the front door. The place was empty. I may've spotted a tumbleweed drifting lazily across the floor. There was a funereal air about the place. I signed the copies they put in front of me, and we all chatted about this and that. It was maybe 7:10 and we hadn't moved past the cash registers. I'm no Inspector Clouseau, but I figured I was in for some grim tidings.
"Let me take a look around the place," I said airily.
"Let me show you around," Dan said quickly. He showed me around the corner, where indeed a very nice reading set-up was in place: twenty or so chairs, a signing table, a glass of water, a podium.
"Nobody's here...yet," said Dan.
I very much appreciated Dan's grim optimism; I very much appreciated that "...yet."
Mary and Taylor joined us like mourners at a wake. They all sat on the purple chairs and for some very odd reason I stepped behind the podium. I don't know why I didn't sit on the chairs with them; after all, we were just chatting. But no, I for some bizarre reason insisted on standing behind the podium. They let me. I drank the water someone had nicely poured. I stood there behind the podium for ten minutes before it all started to seem rather silly so I sat...in the signing chair behind the signing desk. Mary and Taylor and Dan all sat in the chairs, like they were my audience. It was kind of them to indulge me.
Some guy walked by. For a moment, my heart fluttered---had he come to hear me read, or at least buy a book? No, he was browsing for a book by someone by the name of Palliser, and the signing table was blocking the "P" section. Dan told him who I was and why I was here. The guy made the sort of face one might make watching a car careen out of control and skip the freeway divider into oncoming traffic. He said, "Eeeeeee---sorry, man."
We all helped the guy look for his book by Palliser. Unfortunately the bookstore wasn't carrying a copy.
I don't really know what to make of it all; I've been thinking about it much of the day and can come to no suitable accounting of my feelings. On one hand, I feel that I've done all I can for the book: I wrote it to the best of my abilities, I edited the hell out of it, I worked hard for the quotes, and I'll go out and do the best readings I can (when people show up). And I feel that I've been so lucky on so many levels: to be working with editors and publishers and publicists and houses who do their best for me, and want the best for me. And yet I'm not sure it's enough. In fact it seems that maybe, in the final reckoning, it just might not be enough. And I think about the luck I've had: to have had the support of family and friends and everyone who's been so great about bringing me to this point and giving so much of themselves to help...and I wonder if I've maybe run out of luck. Maybe there is only so much luck any one of us is entitled on any one endeavor, and yeah, I've wondered if my well's run dry. And I can't whine or complain if it has---there are 10,000 better writers than me who've maybe not had some of the breaks I've had---but at the same time it seems the worst time of all to run dry. To build something up only to find that, right at that point when you could use a few breaks, they just aren't to be had. Sorry old chum---your quota's been used. I mean, it's foolish, it's totally unreasonable and illogical and maybe just the byproduct of spending 6 hours driving home in the blowing snow, but I can't shake it.
And another thing is this: I've worked 5 or 6 years on this, became basically a hermit the past 2 years, and in those moments when I looked to the future, it was always this I looked forward to: going on the road, giving readings, meeting readers. Not playing the bigshot or anything. I never saw myself reading to packed houses with fireworks displays shooting off behind me and a line of dancing girls; just a regular old tour, a few readings. And then you see the reality: 20 empty purple plastic chairs, one liason and two booksellers doing their best to soften the blow. And it's strange, too, because I don't really feel bad for myself; a little embarassed, maybe, but not angry or hurt or anything. The last few months, every time I go into a bookstore and see dozens of unsold copies or see the book steadily falling on Amazon or go to a reading and nobody's there, I feel as though I've let down all the people who've put their faith and trust and hope in me: my family, my editors, all the people who've gone to bat for me. There's very little of it that's about me anymore---what I mean to say is, I've come to care less and less about how any sucess might benefit me personally. Now all I want is for the book to not hurt all the people who've been there for me, not be a fucking albatross around their necks. And I know if any of them read this they would tell me not to be an idiot, and I know it IS idiotic in a lot of ways---and yet it's how I feel, and that feeling can't be shaken either. All I want to do is try to ensure (and see, even as I write that---try to ensure---I realize it's beyond me: I can't ensure, or even try to ensure, anything; I can't make people buy or review or push the book. Either they do it or they don't, and there's not a damn thing I can do for it)...anyway, all I can do now is do everything that's asked of me, do the rest of these readings. That's it. It's a hard admission to make: that there's very little else you can do to support your work. That it's out there on its own and you just sit and watch. It exists outside of you, now.
Craig Davidson on 11.16.05 @ 10:43 PM EST [more..]
Monday, November 14th
Craig Davidson, Afternoon Boozer
Hi All,
Every so often I will have the need to leave writing, my computer, and the spider-hole I call an apartment to sally forth into the great wide world. Working out, buying groceries, and going to the university are my main reasons, but there are others, oh yes. Today I had to get my new Social Security # to university payroll, and then to a place that refills inkjet cartridges so I could print out the Mapquest page to get me to Milwaukee tomorrow.
Anyway, the guy at the inkjet place tells me it'll take an hour to fill my inkjet cartridge. Instead of reacting the way some might---"An HOUR to pump ink into this little plastic box? Get outta here!"---I happily left the store and skipped down the road to the nearest bar.
Now I'm not an afternoon drinker at all, not normally. I generally don't drink alone in bars. It's not that I feel this fear that other people might see me sitting alone on a barstool and go, "What a loser." I have many, many other ways to go about being a loser, if that's my wish. No, it's more a matter of not wanting to be the sort of PERSON who drinks at bars in the afternoon. I mean, really, what grown man or woman has the opportunity, the everyday luxury, of passing their weekday afternoons getting pissed? They have jobs, committments, etc. No, the people you'll find drinking at bars at 1:00 in the afternoon are not the sort of people who have many committments at all, other than to meet up with others of their kind at bars.
But every so often I get the chance to head into a bar of an afternoon for a beer or two. Usually I'm getting my car fixed, and instead of waiting around the repair shop reading old copies of American Muscle and Car and Driver I head to the nearest bar for a bit of a tipple. I always make a point of telling my server, "I'm waiting for my car to get fixed"---the same way that, were someone to question my presence in a strip club, I might say, "I'm here for research purposes...crucial boobie tassel research" (Great thing about being a writer: no matter how depraved the situation is you are discovered in, you can always cite research purposes). I say this so as to distinguish myself from the regular afternoon rabble, to let everyone know this is a one-off deal, I'm slumming, and don't expect to see my face 'round these parts until my VW needs another lube job. But the truth is, I like afternoon drinking. I don't mind the solitude of it at all---in fact, I like that part of it---a pint or two on a rainy, or sunny, or foggy or seasonal or muggy afternoon. Yes, it's quite refreshing. I mean, it's more fun drinking with your buds, but when they can't come with you while you get your oil changed or refill an inkjet cartridge, you've got to improvise.
Continued...
Craig Davidson on 11.14.05 @ 05:27 PM EST [more..]
Sunday, November 13th
Rotten Review
Hi All,
Here's a review I got from the Toronto Star. It's not about RUST AND BONE, but the JOURNEY PRIZE anthology. The JOURNEY anthology culls "the best"---it's entirely subjective---stories published in Canadian venues each year. I think of it as the Canadian equivalent of the O. Henry Awards, or maybe the Pushcart---who knows? Anyway, we're talking big money; winner gets $10,000. That could buy a LOT of candy.
But, as the title of this entry details, the review itself is not very good. I actually come off okay in it, but the first time I read it I thought I was being singled out for a spectacular ragging (this wouldn't have been the first time a reviewer set me aside for this dubious honor). The review advocates ripping out sections of the book deemed inappropriate or shoddy, and at first I got the impression my whole story ought to be ripped out---and as I read on, chagrined, I got the impression the story wasn't as good as a high schooler's. Now, perhaps it OUGHT to have been ripped out, and perhaps it WAS high school level reading...but man, what a wicked rag! Sad to say, my first instinctual feeling was, "Well, at least my name got mentioned in the review." What a press-hungry little monkey I've become! But after carefully reading the review, I came to realize my fears were unfounded, and I was one of a very few writers who made it out of the review okay.
Now I haven't read all the stories yet so I can't really comment, but I know some of the writers in there---Barbara Romanik is a wonderful writer, and I've read Edward O'Connor's contribution, which is excellent---and I can't believe it's as bleak as this reviewer contests. He seems to have an issue with the jurors, and the criteria under which they've chosen to select their stories. I myself would probably tend to agree with the jurors' opinions---if only selfishly, as my story (this dude who works at a retirement home becomes obsessively addicted to snuff films) wouldn't be in there were they looking for Alice Munro-type stories---and I've said recently I think Canadian fiction could use a little bit of a shake-up. But that's an entry for another day, so I'll leave you with the review, and you can draw your own conclusions.
Follow the "more" link to the review
All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 11.13.05 @ 10:33 AM EST [more..]
Friday, November 11th
US Tour Dates; Arrested Development Cancelled
Hi All,
Just thought I would post where I'm going to be next week, in case anyone wants to come out and see a big mop-topped redhaired Canadian do his reading thang. I'm going to be driving to all of these places---except Prairie Lights; for that I may as well walk---so it's just me and my beat-up Volkswagan and the open road. Should be a good time. Here are the dates and times:
Tuesday, November 15:
HARRY W. SCHWARTZ BOOKSHOPS
Bayview store
Milwaukee, WI
7:00 pm
Thursday, November 17:
Prairie Lights Bookstore
Iowa City, IA
7:00 pm
Friday, November 18:
MAGERS & QUINN
3038 Hennepin Ave. S
Minneapolis, MN
7:30 pm
Okay, that's it. If you're not busy washing your hair or trimming your toenails, then hey, come on out. I hear these things can be emotionally-scarring to new writers---1 person shows up to your reading, and he's pushing a shopping cart full of pop cans just looking for someplace warm to spend an hour---and while I will happily read to that shopping-cart-trundling gent, it would be nice to have a few people there who might be counted on to say something other than, "If you're done with them shoes you're wearing, I'd be happy to take 'em off your hands."
On a somewhat sadder note, my favorite TV comedy, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, has been give the axe by Fox. After 2 1/2 brilliant seasons, it's done. I can't say I blame Fox for this entirely, as some might. They stuck with the show much longer than a lot of networks would, gave it lots of promotion, hoping viewers would eventually take to it. I guess they did not...not enough, anyway. It was the only show I've ever said to people, "Are you watching this? You NEED to be watching this." My brother doesn't have cable; anytime I talked on the phone I'd be, "Have you checked out Arrested Development yet? It's friggin hilarious." Eventually he bought the first season on DVD...and was hooked. You can't help but be hooked by this show. It follows the exploits of the Bluth family, but the plot is really less important than the characters. EVERY SINGLE character in the show is wonderful. Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth holds it all together, and has never been better. The other characters---brothers Gob and Buster, his mother and father and sister, his son George Michael---are all fantastic. And the minor characters are brilliant. My favorite is Martin Mull, who plays private detective Gene Parmesan. The plots owe a lot to Seinfeld in the way they're constructed; the sort of plots where all the disparate elements somehow knit together in the end, however nonsensically.
Anyway...sigh. What can you do? The Bluth family had a great run. The sad thing was, the shows were just as great as when the show started. They could've had a good 5-6 year run, if viewers had've supported it. I should've told a few more people about it, maybe. But I thought, with the Emmys and its critical success, the show was going to be on for a long time.
Part of the problem is, all the people I thought might really like it, my "artsy/creative" friends...none of these people own a TV! You're as likely to find Anne Frank living in their attics as you are to find a TV in their dens. When you ask have they seen this program, that program, they wrinkle their noses and get all affronted and say, "Oh no, you see I don't HAVE a TV." Like I'd suggested they had Hitler's pickled brain stashed in one of their cupboards or something! I mean, I love reading, but come on, I can't read all day. I love the Internet, too, but again...variety's the spice of life. And yes, has TV sucked away more hours of my life than I might care to admit? And yes, did I almost turn into a pile of human Jell-O watching an 6-hour South Park marathon? Okay, fine. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is, great shows like Arrested Development get into trouble because they are, in a way, thinking person's shows...and a lot of the people I know who might like it don't even own a TV.
Okay, that's enough grousing for one day.
UPDATE: I've gotten emails from some people who took my $5 candy challenge. Apparently some people can't or won't talk about candy for at least 20 minutes. Well, these are not people I want to know, but still, I will honor my promise. You guys can expect to receive your packages next week.
All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 11.11.05 @ 05:12 PM EST [link]
Wednesday, November 9th
Vicious Beating, Part Deux
Hey there Sportsfans,
Sorry it's been awhile. I have this novel deadline (actually, the initial deadline—September—is long past in the rearview; this is the overtime deadline), and am working frantically to get this novel ready to go. And Penguin can be very persuasive; oh yes, they have their...ways. The contract I signed with Penguin, down there in the fine print, it reads: "If said author does not deliver his manuscript in timely fashion, publisher [Penguin Canada] reserves the right to send emissary [read: goon] to administer one [1] punch, in the area of emissary's choosing, for each day past the agreed upon deadline." My goon is a bit of a testicle guy—he likes to work the junk—so my berries are aching.
But hey—here I am! Here to regale you with a tale of another epic beating, #2 in my ongoing series I fondly refer to as, "Those Times I Got My Lunch Handed to Me." This one is maybe not quite so volatile as the first beating I described...but hey, a beating’s a beating, am I right? Certainly that’s how I look at it; I don’t prize on beating over another, no sir! To me they’ve blended into one massive beating: a seemingly never-ending, pride-eradicating, mirth-inducing spectacle. I would like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to all those fine souls who’ve punched and kicked and mopped the floor with my face, all those who’ve so given so generously—and so often!—of their fists and feet to pound and shape me into the sniveling spineless eunuch I am today.
(For the ladies: I’m not really a eunuch.)
On that note: on with the beating!
I entitle this one: “The Mammoth 6-on-1 Beating at The Skylon Tower”
Read on...
Craig Davidson on 11.09.05 @ 10:07 PM EST [more..]
Thursday, November 3rd
Candy
Hi All,
Short-ish post; have to head out to poker night soon and lose my shirt to these card shark Yanks. But I thought I would share with you all a sure-fire conversation starter. This would be readily-employable just about any scenario: dinner parties, first dates, loveless marriages leeched of all affection, etcetera. Anytime when conversation might lag, might lull, might need an ole pick-me-up. You can talk about...
...candy.
That's right, you heard me pancho: candy.
It's my experience, through many years of trial and error, that people will talk about candy for inordinately long periods of time. I'm not kidding. People who haven't eaten candy in years will go on and on about candy. It's a fun topic of conversation. But nobody would ever thinks so. Listen, I'm not suggesting you pop it out at highbrow functions---I mean, I WOULD, in a heartbeat, but that's just me---you've got to gauge the room, you need to feel out your audience. But man, if you're feeling that vibe, bust it out baby! (gratuitous aside: the most unintentionally hilarious sexual innuendo using the word "busting" can be found in Ray Parker Junior's "Ghostbusters," when he sings: "BUSTING makes me feel good!" Of course, yes, he is referring to busting GHOSTS, which I can only assume makes one feel good, but, having never busted a ghost myself and being of a latently crass disposition, I always get a laugh when I hear ole Ray bust out that line. Cred to my brother and his buddy Sam.)
Okay, on with candy...
Everyone has their favorite candy. And candy changes from generation to generation, so it's fun to see the evolution. In my great-great grandfather's day, my guess is they probably chewed on certain sweet woods, or sucked the nectar out of dandelion stalks or something. Then in my great-grandfather's day, well, maybe they went skipping down the cobbled street to buy throat pastilles as the druggists shoppe, five tins for a haypenny. Then in my gandpa's day it was licorice root and horehound candy---which to me were more like medicine than candy. I remember my grandpa gave me a piece of horehound candy once: this sharp rock-like thing, looked like a piece of amber, and it tasted like iodine and cut the inside of my cheek. I thought he was trying to kill me! Then in my folks' day it was wax bottles and pixie sticks and licorice all-sorts and Thrills gum that tasted like soap. Then in MY day it was gobstoppers (they used to make a massive bastard called a DinoSOUR Egg and I nearly choked to death on that in my closet, where I sometimes went to gorge on candy because I was plump and full of adolescent shame---what an awful death scene that would've made, huh: Tubby little Craig Davidson dead in his closet with a testicle-sized lump of candy lodged in his throat), and super-hot cinammon balls and Lik-M-Aid and Nerds and Runts and Fizz Wizz and Pop Rocks and various gummy confections. My favorite was Gold Mine gum, which used to come in a little cotton sack with a little drawstring and the gum was yellow and looked like gold nuggets. I'm sure each of you had your own favorites, just as I'm sure that everyone you may be in conversation with will have theirs. It's great fun talking about candy.
Listen: I give you my $5 guarantee (I'm a writer; that's about as much money as I can throw behind any guarantee I make): if you throw out the conversation starter, "So, how about candy?" and you don't get twenty minutes of talk out of it, I will send you five dollars...worth of candy. I'm serious. All you have to do is post here detailing your experience, how the "How about candy?" line somehow FAILED to stimulate rousing conversation (impossible!), then email me your address, and I will send you a shitload of candy. I'll send those disgusting black-and-orange molasses candies (what the hell were they called?) you always found at the bottom of your Halloween sack with the raisins and sesame snaps and maybe the toothbrush given out by the crazy killjoy of a dental hygenist in your neighborhood. I mean, god, Halloween candy: I could talk about THAT for twenty minutes. There are some sorts of candies you only get at halloween. Rockets. Those little square Kraft caramels. Sometimes someone would give out whole BIG chocolate bars in an attempt to be known as King Shit of the block. One house I remember---I will remember for all eternity---they gave out whole PACKS of Big League Chew, the shredded gum like chewing tabaccy (remember the commercial jingle for that gum: "You're in the big leagues [sound of bat hitting baseball] when you're into Big League Chew!!"). I liked Big League Chew almost as much as Tubble Gum, the gum that came in a toothpaste tube; Tubble Gum took some getting used to, though, because its consistency wasn't gum-like at first, so I swallowed a few tubes before learning to chew it (I told you, I was fat and therefore somewhat impatient).
Whew! I'm all aflutter with all this candy talk. If I wasn't a writer, I swear I would love to invent new candies. That would be great. I'd bring in retro candies: horehound sours. Licorice All Sorts with exploding centers (exploding with flavor...no, on second thought, just plain exploding). Chewing bark like my great-great-grandfather loved. Oh what fun it would be. I'd certainly keep all the sugar millers employed!
The $5 guarantee stands. Try it for yourself. You'll see I'm right.
---Craig.
Craig Davidson on 11.03.05 @ 08:23 PM EST [link]
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