The Last Chicken

Classmates

2008-01-12T07:34:00.000-08:00

Can it be that Russia has just discovered peer-to-peer networking? How else to explain the sudden emergence and the overwhelming popularity of the Russian Classmates site (Odnoklassniki.ru)? Why only now?

I mean, here we’ve been enjoying things like Friendster and Myspace for years. Add to that, Linked In (for professional connections), Good Reads (for book lovers), and of course, the Facebook (which, so far, I’ve been able to avoid).

But Russian Classmates is different. It’s really a craze. There’s a joke going around that involves a lonesome Putin walking Kremlin corridors while his underlings are lost in front of their computers, getting sentimental, lusting after former neighbors and lovers, discovering the children they didn’t think they had. (The punch line? The site is an FSB project designed to get Russian citizens to reveal their information and connections.) (It's a cute joke. If you know Russian, you can read the whole thing here. Thank you, Marik!)

In reality, though, the site doesn’t have all that much information. No short statements about self. No lists of favorite bands. Not even marital statuses. What it does have is pictures, which people post liberally and are encouraged to rate (more on that later). Actually you can get quite a bit from the pictures: children, spouses, and of course, the exotic vacation destinations.

I discovered the site about a month ago, and I’ll be the first one to admit it’s incredibly addictive. Especially the first couple of days, when you're digging through profiles and graduation years. And once you are found by your class, it's glorious, like you're a long-lost member of a tribe. By now, my list of friends includes classmates from the 2 schools I attended, several friends I’d lost track of, people I haven’t seen since 3rd grade. Childhood friends. Family friends. Relatives. My sister. My parents. I’ve received messages from my former teachers as well as from people I don’t really know. And many messages from my mother’s former students! So many, in fact, that I’ve made her join the site as well.

The site has its challenges. For example, it doesn’t work too well on my browser; the interface is a bit clunky; I often have to retype my messages; and it took me a while to figure out how to accept invitations. The biggest challenge, though, is finding time to answer. And typing in translit. (I need to find keyboard stickers that have both Russian and English alphabet.)

In Russia, the popularity of the site has led to a wave of class reunions. For immigrants like myself – and it’s really interesting to see how many people are living abroad these days – it’s a chance to dip into some latent nostalgia and reconnect (if only virtually) with the people we might otherwise never see again. It’s not like we can bump into them at a bus stop. (Though who takes buses these days?)

The only feature I don’t really understand is the rating of the pictures. I mean, why? It’s not a fucking beauty contest. The point is to connect with old friends, and are your friends really going to lowball you? I don’t think so. I’ve been pretty much ignoring the rating feature. Come on, everybody’s looking gorgeous and happy, and they wouldn’t be posting the pictures otherwise.

Still, the other day, some unknown to me entity (residing in San Francisco, apparently, and possessing no pictures or friends of her own), found my profile and gave me low ratings. Umm, okay. Fortunately the site has another feature that allows you to blacklist the undesirables and ban them from contacting you again. Good thing, too. The site is for friends, not assholes.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over and it’s a good thing.

New Year’s Eve used to be my favorite holiday. It still is, except these days I can’t be bothered to do anything about it. It’s hard to believe I used to stay up until at least 4 in the morning (a matter of pride!), make holiday food, dress up… There were cozy holiday parties at friends’ houses, one big drunken New Year bash that required buying tickets in advance (one glass of champagne included), a couple of Pittsburgh fiascos, the time my sister and I stayed home and got drunk, and another time she traveled to celebrate with me in Boston and we fought over a CD (which one was it?). There was the night spent playing “Wise and Otherwise,” and there was one badly planned New Year when a few of us (you know who you are) ended up in a hotel bar on Memorial Drive drinking “chocolate” martinis -- chocolate being a singe Hershey Kiss dropped in a glass. Even last year was eventful, as Movie Dictator and I ventured out to celebrate First Night.

I must be getting seriously old, because this year it was a challenge to just stay up until midnight. Initially, I’d made some plans to go out, but you know how it is: it was cold outside, and dark. I was playing a computer game. Movie Dictator was making a pizza. By the time I made up my mind not to go, it was too late to start a major movie, so we just puttered around through the rest of the night and watched an episode of “The Weakest Link” (British version). By the time that was over, the ball had just dropped in Times Square. So we said “Happy New Year” to each other, and then a few minutes later my parents called to laugh at us for being such wimps. Then we went to sleep. Whatever.

But maybe the best celebration are the ones done at home anyway? Like when I was a kid, and we had our tree and presents and holiday food and a new circus calendar in the hallway (my great aunt had connections), and there was always something good on TV (or was there? we always complained), and the phone started ringing right after midnight and kept ringing for the next couple of hours -- because in Moscow no one seemed to sleep on New Year’s Eve.

Back Home, November in Review

2007-12-22T14:26:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while. Naturally, I blame my prolonged absence on the book tour, which come to think of it, doesn’t explain the month of December, which got consumed by the end-of-the-semester business, rest, sleep shoveling snow, doing dishes, paying bills… You get the idea.

But now I’m back and I fully intend to post regularly, about twice a week. Let’s call it my new New Year’s resolution.

My last post was about Pittsburgh and Syracuse. What came next? you might wonder. Or maybe not, but I’ll tell you anyway.

Next came Chicago and a reading at the lovely Myopic Books in Wicker Park. Then Milwaukee, not as happening as Wicker Park, but then again, I was staying in a very stylish hotel in the downtown area (thank you, Norton!), and all downtowns tend to get desolate at night. Then 2.5 days in Houston – the enormous spread-out Houston with its famous traffic jams that can happen at any time, its gorgeous (if not very sturdy) houses, its endless shopping plazas. (A friend was telling me about his family’s experience during a post-Katrina hurricane, and I was starting to see how easy it would be to get trapped in that place.) Finally back to Midwest. Hello and good bye, St. Paul/Minneapolis. I would’ve loved to see more, but by the time I got there, it was already getting dark, and the next morning I flew back to Connecticut.

The following week, Movie Dictator and I flew to LA to do the final – West Coast – leg of the tour. I’ll try to summarize the trip into easily digestible bullet points:

- Flying with a smoker (i.e. Movie Dictator) has its challenges, and we came close to missing our flight from Hartford.

- US Airways sucks. And the food they sell sucks even more.

- Driving in LA, at first, wasn’t as bad as we’ve been told. Armed with our mighty GPS device and secure in our rental car, we did just fine on the first night.

- Then it got worse. I kept missing exits and turns because they would pop up so abruptly. And changing lanes during rush hour… forget it!

- Did you know that LA was terribly polluted? Oh, you did…
(See if you can spot the HOLLYWOOD sign in the distance.)

- LA was one of the places Movie Dictator was ready to fall in love with -- the home of movie geeks and weirdos like himself. What we saw instead was a desperate place, spread out, congested, and compared to New York, kind of empty.

- On the other hand, Santa Monica was rather nice.

- Malibu was endless and ultimately not very interesting.

- Once it gets dark, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re driving on Rt. 1 or 101. You won’t see much either way.

- Avoid Motel 6 at all costs. Even if… no, especially if the lobby looks like a Starbucks with a flat-screen TV.

- Driving on the Golden Gate Bridge is great – unless there’s a fog, in which case you won’t see a thing.

- After San Francisco, switch to Rt. 1 and you’ll eventually arrive at the setting of Hitchcock’s The Birds.

- The coast is very pretty. But you might eventually get motion sick from the very steep serpentine turns. Also, you can’t go very fast.

- Vineyards. So many vineyards.

- And then…redwood forests! Fantastic, surreal, enormous, not to be missed. They make it all worthwhile.

- Redwood forests in the dark. In the mist. On a two-lane road. Fun for the passenger, terrifying for the driver.

- Welcome to Oregon. The coast is even more amazing than in California, harsher, more untamed. People, too, look more ragged. Also, it’s gotten colder.

- More Oregon. Oregon. Oregon. Then Washington. It takes a long time to get to Seattle.

- Even longer if where you’re going not to Seattle proper, but toward Redmond area.

- Even longer if your GPS gets confused.

- Even longer if it starts raining.

- When you finally arrive you might temporarily become hysterical.

- You’d like to sleep for 2 days straight. But you can’t, because next morning you have 2 interviews and then in the evening, a reading. You will briefly fall asleep at the café in Barnes & Noble.

There’s a lot more, of course: Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco. But to tell the truth, just writing about the 3-day drive from LA to Seattle made me tired. Would I do it again? I don’t know. Am I glad that we did? You bet. I now understand people who take over two weeks to do this trip – so many possible detours, so many cool places to stop at. I especially wish we had more time for those wonderful redwood forests.

All right, back in a few days with something more up-to-date and relevant.

It’s good to be back.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse

2007-10-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

This blog has been much neglected, due to all the travel lately. The account of my recent trip to Pittsburgh, though, has just been posted on Debutante Ball. (Plus, some thoughts on truth, fiction, and cell phones.)

I’m getting more and more acquainted with our local Hartford airport. But the latest trip was to Syracuse and thankfully, didn’t require flying. The drive took 4.5 hours – I was hoping for less, but nope, it’s almost as long as it was from Boston to Syracuse. I’ve found a long time ago that the best way to deal with long car trips is by listening to books on tapes. This time, I started with The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, read by John Cleese, which was fabulous, but a bit hard to follow while driving. So I switched to The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, gruesome but thoroughly captivating, and that got me to Syracuse.

As I was crossing Erie Boulevard, grey and desolate and full of garish car-dealership signs, I suddenly felt as if I’d never left. It was all too familiar. I mean, it was good to be back, but also a little sad. My teachers were still there and also a couple of my friends, but the overall MFA community was different now, full of new people, and I wondered what it was like to be them. I had these moments of nostalgia all through the evening, though I also remembered the peculiar Syracuse loneliness: living within the structure of classes, readings, receptions, parties, everything nearby, always somewhere to go – and yet, and yet…

On the other hand, Syracuse now has a small independent bookstore on Westcott Street. With a coffee shop and an extra “study” room. Very cozy. I only wish it was there back when I was at Syracuse. I’m also happy to report that the Empire Brewery is back in business – it closed sometime during my 3rd year – and it looks exactly the same and probably has the same menu as before. We went there after the reading. The following morning I drove home, and the book-on-tape this time was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Thank you to Movie Dictator for the stellar books-on-tape selection!

Wisconsin

2007-10-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

Madison airport doesn’t have free wireless. Nor does Detroit airport, which is huge and full of restaurants and shops, a high-speed train that takes you from gate to gate, and at lest one concourse with the walls that change colors – moody violets to flashy reds to ocean greens -- all of it set to music.

Wireless at Hartford airport is free. Also free is Staten Island Ferry in New York. Free, free, free… You can see the Statue of Liberty and everything. You can buy some excellent books on the streets of Fort Green, $1 for a paperback. But that was a whole different trip.

This trip was to Madison, and Madison airport charges $6.99 a day for its wireless, which is surprising – because everything else about Madison is inexpensive and easy. Hotels dispatch free shuttles to pick you up from the airport, serve free (hot) breakfasts in the morning, and free wine at night. The airport parking – should you ever need it – is 50 cents an hour. The drinks are generous. And the streets are full of people.

It was lovely and strange to walk the streets of Madison again. Lovely because it was just as I remembered it. Strange because I wasn’t a part of its life anymore. I went to the Farmers’ Market – the biggest in the country! It was late and many vendors have already left (or were about to), but the selection was still amazing. I found my favorite cheese stand – the one under the big red tent – and splurged on my favorite cheddars (horseradish and kalamata olive) . (Which reminds me, I must unpack my suitcase and see how well the cheddars have survived.)

Another indulgence involved stopping at one of my favorite coffee shops (Espresso Royal, the one closest to the Capitol), and spending a few minutes there with a cup of hot apple cider and a copy of Isthmus.

State Street, which connects the Capitol and the UW campus, was crowded, lively, and full of very good street musicians, and I couldn’t remember whether it was like that every weekend, or whether a football game or the book festival was to blame. Which, by the way, brings me to the reason for my trip to Madison – the Wisconsin Book Festival.

My first event was a panel on fiction writing, organized by the UW Creative Writing program. It was held at the building known as Red Gym. (I don’t think there’s a gym in there now.) The panel before ours was on atrocities, so we had to keep our voices low. Are you here for atrocities? No, fiction. Ah, okay.

I can’t vouch for the atrocities, but our panel was a lot of fun, moderated by the incomparable Judy Mitchell, who asked the best questions.

It was nice to be among my fellow UW people – old friends and new. After the panel, some of us walked to Crave, a stylish – if somewhat overpriced -- local restaurant, decorated in lovely greens. We used to go there a lot during my year in Madison.

Later I did a reading with Meena Alexander, a fabulous poet, originally from India. We were supposed to read and then have a conversation about writing in our second language – or something like that. But the festival organizers allocated only 50 minutes for the whole thing, so of course we ran out of time and ended up conversing and signing books out in the hallway.

Part of the fun of these readings is the chance to reconnect with old friends. But it’s equally thrilling (and kind of unbelievable) to speak to people whom I hadn’t previously met, people who came to hear me read, people who responded to something in my writing.

The other day, in an e-mail interview a fellow Russian asked me if I thought Americans liked to see immigrants portrayed as “helpless, confused, but trying to find themselves in American reality,” or as she put it the “right” sort of immigrants. “Is this the type of newcomer they want to see?” she asked me.

Perhaps I’m not jaded enough, but I haven’t experienced that degree of condescension, at least not from the people I know or those who’ve read the book so far. On the contrary, most American readers I’ve met identify with immigrants, see immigrant stories as part of their own history. In Madison, a couple of people told me that they too were Jewish of Russian descent – though it was their parents/grandparents who immigrated – and that connection was important to them.

But wait, I didn't mean to get all serious here! After the reading, some of us relocated to the bar across the street. Paul’s, I think, it was called, the one with a tree in the middle. Apparently there had been a game earlier that day and it hadn’t gone well for UW. So the bar was full of these anguished UW guys who wanted to know what we had thought of the game. One of them was especially persistent (and seriously drunk). I told him I was Russian and knew nothing of sports. Well, he said, that was great, ‘cause he had some problems with Russia, particularly with President Putin who just hadn’t been behaving well lately, and what did I have to say about that? Not much, as it turned out. I assured him I would convey his concerns to President Putin the next time I see him, and on that note, we parted.

So that was Wisconsin. My only regret is that due to my travel schedule I didn’t get a chance to attend some of the Book Festival events. Michael Cunningham was reading on Sunday (that’s today!) So was Patricia Hampl, who will be visiting us here at UConn in the spring. I was hoping to catch her reading in Madison, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I was on the flight home at 7 in the morning. And let me tell you, it's good to be home.

Pub. Date/Anniversary

2007-09-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Today is the official pub. date for the Chicken. Not sure if it means anything in practical terms -- since the book has been already selling for a couple of weeks on Amazon and some bookstores. But still, the pub date!

By sheer coincidence, today also happens to be the 15th anniversary since my family and I came to the US. (Cue in “Memories” from Cats.)

By way of celebration, I got interviewed by a local paper (Chronicle) this morning. It was fun, and I got to see what their office looked like.

And now I must run to school: today is the first installment of the student reading series. I really like the graduate students at the English department here. (Which is not to say anything bad about undergraduate ones – I just haven’t met many of them yet.) But the graduate students seem to have a really strong and supportive community, which reminds me of the way it was in Syracuse among MFA students.

P.S.

2007-09-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

I’m still figuring out the way blogspot works in terms of moderating comments. I don’t want to have to “approve” (or “reject”) each message. I will however delete the abusive ones.

So to the “fluffy” in question, who’s been trying to post more flaming comments here, I have this to say: Please get a life. Yes, you’re entitled to your opinions, but I’m not obligated to provide a forum for them. Start your own blog, or write your own book if you wish. There are plenty of ways for you to express yourself. This blog, however, is not one of them.

They hate me! They really hate me!

2007-09-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, not “they.” Just one of them. A young Russian lady, formerly of Squirrel Hill, has posted a hateful and very personal review on Amazon. How do I know that this lady, who identified herself on Amazon only as “fluffy,” is from Squirrel Hill? Easy. She first posted an equally mean comment on this blog, signed it, but then removed it (smart girl!). I’m not sure what the point of her outburst (I mean, review) was. She seems to be under the impression that writers earn loads of money. Oh, and she called me self-hating, which is kind of cool. That’s what critics called Philip Roth, and look where it got him!

Aside from this, though, the reviews have been good – see the new ones from the Moscow Times and LA Times -- and what makes me most happy is how positively the reviewers see the characters in the book. They see them as sympathetic, struggling, and human. They identify with them. So no matter how conflicted I might feel about real or fictional Squirrel Hill, I think I’ve done my characters justice.

What I’ve been wondering lately is how this online culture of ours, with its forums and blogs, seems to encourage meanness, pettiness, and outright abuse. Take, for example, Steve Almond’s tender, beautiful Babble.com blog on parenting. And who is this stalker-like troll who week after week posts the most obnoxious comments, in which he insults Steve, his books, and his family? What personal agenda is at play here? What sort of sick satisfaction does he (or she?) derive from this exercise?

Others get attacked as well. Parents get criticized for their parenting. Immigrants get flamed on immigrant forums – just because someone is having a bad day. A months or so ago, a well-known writer got torn apart on Gawker.com when a personal e-mail about his family situation got “leaked” into the cyber world. Now, I’ve met this author on a couple of occasions, and each time he was gracious and generous. But the Gawker crowd doesn’t care. To them, he was fresh meat, and though they’d never met him – and some had never heard of him -- they nevertheless attacked him in the most vicious and personal way.

The scary thing is, in regular life, these might be normal, maybe slightly gossipy, but basically well-meaning people. But in the privacy of the Internet they turn into monsters. I wonder what makes them lash out like that. The media? The boredom? The repression of their day-to-day lives? I don’t know.

When the mean-spirited comment appeared on this blog, Movie Dictator said, Delete it! And though I hesitated for a moment – free speech and all – he convinced me. “It’s your blog,” he said. “It’s your space. And you don’t want anyone to poison it.” Which is true. It’s not a public forum. And while I love getting questions and responses – whether from friends or people I don’t know -- I don’t need abuse. Fortunately, before I could get to it, the poster was gracious enough to remove her own comment.

The Life of Fame and Glory

2007-09-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

I got recognized yesterday. At the post office. By a fellow Russian. I was standing in line, waiting to pick up a small parcel. It was noon, only one service window was open, and the woman behind the counter was helping a man with a large box. They were having a discussion. She kept suggesting ways to ship the box, and he kept rejecting them.

I don’t like standing in lines. That’s an understatement. Lines turn me into a mean, angry person. You’d think that after years of lines in Russia, I would develop some level of acceptance, or maybe tranquility, or grace. But no. I stand there with an expression of total disgust, and sometimes make snide comments under my breath.

So when a man in line behind me asked me if I was Russian, my first thought was: Is it that obvious? Or is it my clothes? Or my face? Then he said he’d glimpsed my name on the slip of paper I was holding. Wasn’t I the one with a book? Doing a reading next week? He said he already ordered the book.

After I picked up my parcel, the man asked me to wait for him. On the one hand, I was grateful for his interest; on the other hand, I was late for work. He was mailing a whole bunch of little packages, each of which had to be individually weighted.

I felt like a jerk at this point. There I was – an author! — acting impatient and peeved at the world in general and postal services in particular. Not at all the way I’d like people to think of me. And another thing: I love doing readings and meeting people, and I think I’m quite sociable at work. But at times, I like to step back and be invisible. I rarely get into conversations with strangers, and I tend to avoid eye-contact while shopping, walking, or using public transportation – which, of course, makes my meeting Movie Dictator on the T even more unbelievable.

He and I occasionally debate whether we’re extroverts or introverts. He seems to think that extroverts are people who do all-night parties and dance on tables, naked. I think he’s confusing extroverts with exhibitionists. Years ago, a friend characterized me as an introvert with occasional spikes of extroversion. That sounds about right. I mean, I can be outgoing, but I can also run out of steam, like last afternoon at the English-department party. By the end of the second hour, I found myself incapable of carrying a conversation.

And then there are whole days when I feel (and act) like a total misanthrope. Go figure.

As for getting recognized, today I arrived at the office only to be greeted by a poster (complete with my photo) of my upcoming reading at the university bookstore next week. This damned poster seems to be everywhere in the department, on every door or wall. It's a nice poster, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful. But it’s also a little unnerving, especially when you suddenly see your face in the bathroom, right next to your reflection in the mirror.

Out or Not?

2007-09-06T18:08:00.000-07:00

The big news is, Chicken is available on Amazon. Really available. Not for pre-order, but actually in stock, “will ship the same day,” and so on. That’s almost two weeks before the official pub date. A good problem to have, right? Except I’m not quite sure what to do about it. Should I alert the whole world that my books is out? Beg for good ratings and Amazon reviews? Or should I wait until the official date – September 17th – at which point, the book will be in actual stores? I think I might break down and send a mass e-mail this weekend – because it’s just too sad to see it listed on Amazon, unnoticed by everyone.

In another news, I did my first radio interview yesterday. And let me tell you, I wasn’t prepared at all. I’m participating in a reading next Tuesday (9/11) at Real Art Ways in Hartford. The event is called The Evening of Literary and Patriotic Dissent, and I’m reading with Steve Almond and Alistair Highet. So the interview was to promote the event (and, to some degree, myself), and it was kind of a last-minute thing. I got the e-mail from Real Art Ways in the morning and did the interview at 4:40 pm. And we’re talking live radio, people! To say that I was stressed is to put it mildly. It’s one thing to screw up an interview that’s just about my book, but it’s a whole other thing when it’s to promote the venue, event, and two other readers. On the one hand, I knew it was an awesome opportunity. On the other hand, I’d never done anything radio, and I had serious doubts I could manage to be coherent let alone eloquent.

To do the interview, I would need a land line. No problem. While I don’t have one at home, I have a normal phone in my office at UConn. I figured I’d get there and do some prep and research for the interview. What happened next is referred to as Murphy’s Law in America and The Law of Bread-and-Butter in Russia. Earlier yesterday morning, the university had a power outage. By the time I got to campus, the power was restored, but the internet was out. (And it stayed out for the rest of the day.) There I was, in my beautiful (if somewhat Spartan) office, with no access to e-mail, no way to read the Press Release for the event, or the bio for one of the fellow participants. Nothing! I was reduced to using telephone!

In the end, I did my best. How it came out, I’m not sure, and I really don’t want to know. Like many people, I hate the sound of my voice and my accent. In my imagination I sound a lot better than in real life, and that's one illusion I think I can live with.

The Clock Starts Ticking

2007-08-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

That is, the tenure clock. The holidays are officially over now, and I’ve started my first tenure-track teaching job. The way it works is, I have six years to impress the university with my teaching, publications, and service. Actually, it’s five years – the sixth is spent on having me evaluated. At the end of the sixth year, they (the university) decide whether or not to keep me (i.e., give me tenure).

So far, it’s going well. Last Thursday there was an all-day orientation for new faculty, during which we (the faculty) were fed salads and sandwiches, and told all sorts of useful things about teaching, tenure, diversity, and local art and theater events. A union representative made a brief appearance during lunch. Benefits department was missing – I hear they have their own orientation – so it’s a good thing I’d made a separate trip and got all the paperwork done. I’ve met lots of fabulous new faculty members – including several (gulp!) Russians. Some of them were bemused to learn that I’d been hired by the English department. A Russian? Teaching English? Come On! But what do they know, right? They teach math! Overall, though, all the people were lovely, and I fully intend to keep in touch with several of them – I just need to catch my breath first.

At the same orientation event, I got my parking permit. Parking here is torturous. I somehow got lucky on Friday and Monday. But today! Today was a nightmare. It took me around 40 minutes to find it. Not that I was being picky. I tried one lot after another – not matter how far from my building – and all of them were full. And it didn’t help that these lots – of various sizes, some very tiny – are spread all over the campus. By the time I got to my office, I had ten minutes to get to a lunch meeting that was at the opposite end of the campus, and as luck would have it, I was wearing heels. In short, a world of pain and blisters.

But aside from parking and the blisters, I’m perfectly happy. I love my new coworkers. I love my new office. (I’ve never had an office of my own before, and this one is spacious and light, with lots of shelves and cabinets, and a new PC and laser printer.) And I love my students! This afternoon I taught my first class – a graduate fiction workshop. It’s got six people so far, and all of them are delightful. I can’t wait to start reading their stories and novels.

And then, once I returned after this day of arduous walking (I mean, work), Movie Dictator emerged from his air-conditioned office and we watched The War On Democracy, a fantastic documentary about how America had worked over the years to overthrow various democratic governments in Latin American countries. Depressing as hell. It made me so angry I could almost understand anarchists. I’m thinking we might need to watch something light and silly tomorrow, like Harry Potter #4, or Live Free or Die Hard -- except, um, never mind, we'd already watched it.

My Bookshelves

2007-08-21T16:12:00.000-07:00

Since my last whiny post, things, as if by magic, have picked up. Publicity things. Interviews are being scheduled. Print, radio, and even one (or two?) on local Boston TV. And because I’m the kind of person who can’t wing it, or at least sit back and enjoy the good news for as least a couple of days, I must prepare.

What questions might I get asked at these interviews?

One question that routinely makes my mind go blank is, Who are your favorite authors? (The last time was on Friday, during a reception for graduate students.) I usually begin with “Oh, there are so many…” and then trail off, lamely, wishing I was standing in front of my bookshelves.

Determined not to let this tricky question stump me again, I will try to answer it now. In advance.

I must start with the Russians. Because, let’s face it, that’s what everyone expects. But also, jokes aside, because it’s true: that’s where literature started for me.

And that’s where it gets tricky, too. For example: how can I possibly exclude Pushkin? I read him, with pleasure, every fall; memorized his poems for school; wrote papers on The Captain’s Daughter and Dubrovsky; and as for Eugene Onegin, I always preferred Tatiana’s second letter to Eugene (in which she effectively tells him to get lost) to her first one (in which she, the innocent soul, breaks the cardinal rule of dating and confesses her love). Pushkin must have been a huge influence on me. But was he my favorite?

Next comes Lermontov, another classic. Funny how he always seems to come on the heels of Pushkin. (My high-school friend, Sveta, would disown me for saying this. Not only did she love Lermontov, she knew everything – and I mean everything – about him, every bit of his biography, every place in Moscow somehow associated with his short life.) As for me, I memorized portions of his marvelous long poems – some for school, some for fun -- and I used to adore The Hero of Our Time. Still, at the risk of incurring my friend’s wrath – if she were ever to find this blog -- I must confess that Lermontov is not as close to my heart as Pushkin.

And what about good old Turgenev? I distinctly remember claiming him as one of my favorites. I was taken with his prose poems, his novellas, and his long unrequited love for the singer Polina Viardo. I loved Fathers and Sons, too, the first time I read it. But by the time we got done with it at school – with that endless talk of its revolutionary significance – all the magic was gone from it.

The question that comes up a lot is, Tolstoy vs. Dostoevsky? (See also: Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald, and Paul McCartney vs. John Lennon. It’s the kind of question that assumes that all people can be divided into two types.) The first time I read War and Peace, I was twelve, and it was a very traumatic moment in my life. I was supposed to be in a school play about Pushkin (see above). But then I got chicken pox, and, my role being negligible, the play went on without me. I was inconsolable. Then I got my hands on War and Peace. In a manner of most Russian girls, I scanned through War and devoured Peace. But strangely, what soothed my heart the most was not the antics of Natasha Rostova, but the plight of Pier Bezukhov, his involvement with masons, and much later, his war imprisonment. It was with him, and not with the young Natasha, that I identified.

As for Dostoevskiy, he’s someone I appreciate more than love. Besides, as my father always reminds me, he was an anti-Semite.

Chekhov, on the other hand, is someone I include on my list of great influences without reservations. I especially love his plays -- all these mismatched souls, unable to connect to the ones they love. They will never get to Moscow. They will never see the sky full of diamonds, no matter how hard they try.

So who do I have on my list so far? Pushkin, Chekhov, War and Peace. Add to that some poetry by Nikolai Gumilev and Marina Tsvetaeva (plus her sister’s memoirs). Then, moving into the years of Socialism, add some Babel, and Kharms, and of course, Bulgakov, with his Master and Margarita and White Guard.

As for contemporary Russian writers, I’ve read my share of Pelevin and Sorokin, but it’s Lyudmila Petrushevskaya and her gruesome, dark, pitch-perfect satires I must go with. And lately it’s been also another Lyudmila – Ulitskaya – whose wonderful novel, Kukoskiy’s Case, has not been translated into English yet, and whose new novel I’m just about to start.

This, I believe, concludes my Russian list. Which, now that I look at it, seems woefully inadequate. Maybe it’s time to re-read much of what I have just written about here.

In any case, stay tuned for the review of my “English” bookshelves...

But Is It Enough?

2007-08-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

Up until, say, yesterday, I wasn’t too worried. I was mostly thinking about the novel-in- progress, and not so much about the Last Chicken, which is coming out in just over a month.

Then last evening, as I was sorting through old Poets & Writers articles, I felt a twinge of panic. Each publicity-themed article had its own horror story: a hapless writer, who’s thrilled to be published; an editor who’s also thrilled, at first, but then loses interest; the book that goes unnoticed by reviewers and public. I’ve read about this predicament so many times, but does it mean I know how to avoid it?

I’ve done my homework, which is to say I’ve read several books and articles on publicity, took notes, made lists, forwarded tons of useful info and contacts to my editor and publicist. I’ve set up a bunch of readings, to which I recently added Hartford, CT (9/11), New York (10/01), Seattle (11/20), LA (11/16), and San Francisco (11/27, 11/28). My publicist says that reviews/newspaper coverage is a lot more effective than readings. I’m sure she’s right. So far, I know of two scheduled reviews: LA Times and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (Still no readings in Pittsburgh.) I’ve compiled a huge e-mail list of friends and acquaintances – for when the book is finally out. I even have postcards!

But is it enough? Am I forgetting something important, something essential that can make a huge difference? Should I be writing letters to libraries? contacting book clubs? approaching people randomly? If so, how? And when is the best time to do all of these things?

This morning, I saw something called AuthorBuzz, a system that promises to notify “375,000 readers, 3000 library systems (reaching over 10,000 librarians) and over 2500 booksellers.” Price? $985. Another feature, called Book Clubbing, promises to put you in touch with 7000 registered book clubs. Price? Another $985. I don’t think I can afford either.

But I might try another online thing, BookTour.com, which claims to connect authors and potential audiences. The good thing, it’s free. The not so good thing? I have no idea if it works.

Does anyone know what else I can do?
With one month to go until the pub date, I’m hoping for your advice!

Before School

2007-08-09T05:54:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, the summer is all but gone, and it’s making me anxious. On the 23rd, I have an all-day New Employee orientation at UConn, and the following Tuesday, I teach my first class -- i.e., the holiday is over. Suddenly, the syllabus needs to be tweaked. Suddenly, I have no decent clothes to wear to work. Suddenly, where did the summer go?

I have this idiotic idea – I realize – that everything needs to be finished before school starts. The car needs to washed and vacuumed, and the break light needs to be fixed. The first draft of the novel needs to be completed (no chance!). Various papers filed. Old magazines sorted through and recycled. Etc. Etc. I love arbitrary deadlines. Actually, no, I don’t love them, but I torture myself with them. Deep inside, I know that the deadline means nothing and that I’ll probably be more efficient once work starts. I’m not that good with a lot of unstructured time.

Still, I’m trying to do as much as I can. For example, last week I finally went to pick blueberries. And peaches. There are tons of farms around here that grow fruit and vegetables and let you pick your own.

Also, last week we finally met up with the person who knows how to set up a voice-recording studio (for Movie Dictator), and as a result, I’ve ordered lots of various equipment that he will then help us set up.

Then, of course, there’s writing… which is hard. I mean, novels are hard. I’m knee-deep in my novel, and it feels like I’m knee-deep in a swamp. I hope it’s normal. I hope it’s not that different from writing a short story – when I’m slogging through a first draft and it’s awful. It’s an ugly, unreadable mess, spiraling out of control. Then, one day, as if by magic it all comes together in my head, and there’s suddenly clarity, and I know that this will be a story. So I’m hoping it’s like that with novels, except it takes much longer to get to that point of clarity.

In the meantime, I’m reading lots of Russian books. (I ordered a whole stack of them recently, and since my novel is set in Russia, reading and thinking in Russian is helpful.) And I’m still hoping to go hiking one of these days – maybe even tomorrow! This area is full of forests and hiking trails. And we probably need to take a trip to New Hampshire sometime this weekend – as Movie Dictator is almost out of Marlboros. And finally, sometime next week I need to gather up my courage and go clothes shopping – which is somehow more scary than getting lost in a forest.

British Fetish

2007-07-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

Lately we’ve been watching a lot of British TV. It’s a bit of an addiction. In addition to some excellent crime dramas (Cracker and Prime Suspect w/ Helen Mirren), we’ve sampled some sitcoms (Chef!), a multi-part documentary about a family trying to go green (aptly titled “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, though an even better title would be “Don’t try this at home unless your husband is an engineer, your children are in college, neither of you has to work, and you can afford to buy a farmhouse in Cornwall with three acres of land. P.S. Make sure you know lots of people you can rope into working for you.”), some nasty reality TV (“How Clean is Your House?”), and even a game show (like Jeopardy, but for college students and much more intense).

But the biggest discovery for me has been Oliver’s Twist – a cooking show with Jamie Oliver.

To truly understand the significance of this, you need to know that a) I don’t really cook; b) I never watch cooking shows; and c) until recently the only cookbook I used was Help, My Apartment Has a Kitchen.

So why Jamie Oliver?

The answer is, it’s simple! He makes everything look easy, he does a lot of basic dishes like a roast chicken, mashed potatoes, or grilled vegetables, and he’s very casual about the whole thing -- more picnic than a formal dinner party. And of course it doesn't hurt that he's cute, charismatic, funny, and very much down to earth. Also he cooks foods I never knew how to approach. I mean, what do you do with squash, for example? Or parsnips?

Having watched a handful of episodes of Season 2, I’ve become a convert – drizzling my salads with olive oil, adding “a good pinch of salt,” and pronouncing “herbs” the British way – to the dismay of the sales clerks at the Willimantic Co-op.

I also went ahead and ordered a couple of Oliver’s cookbook. And that’s when I made my biggest discovery. There are people (see: Movie Dictator) who can’t read instruction manuals. Well, I’m that way with cookbooks. My mind goes blank at the sight of a recipe. All the steps get confused almost immediately, and I can never remember the ingredients. Nor can I picture any of it. Like when a book says “Preheat your oven and an appropriately sized roasting pan to 450 degrees,” what do they mean by “appropriately sized”? Do I even have a roasting pan?

I gave up on the books. My new approach now is to watch a show, pick a dish, take notes, and then try to do it. Everything is done right in front of me, I can see what "roughly chopped" means and what a roasting pan should look like. So far, I’ve discovered that I don’t like the taste of watercress and that I like mashed potatoes better without spring onions. I now own a small pestle and mortar. The other day I bought some summer squash and a small rosemary plant. I still get confused, of course. I still don’t know how to keep the smock alarm from screaming whenever I fry a pork chop. Also, dealing with the hot olive oil jumping off a frying pan is still a challenge. And speaking of the frying pan, can it go into the oven or not? Movie Dictator seems to think I’ll end up with a pile of melted plastic. I tell him, Jamie Oliver did it and his frying pan didn’t melt. Anyway, you get the idea. Not throwing a dinner party yet, but give me a year and who knows, I might even master something like Baked Cod with French beans.

On MFA Programs…

2007-07-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I bought a fiction issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Not for fiction – though of course I intend to read it too – but for an article on MFA Programs by Edward J. Delaney (I swear I know this name from somewhere!). The article itself is available online, but only to subscribers. However, Jessica Murphy’s interview with Delaney can be accessed without a subscription.

The article sort of outraged me. Much of what Delaney says is common sense and I don’t have any issues with that. What I have issues with are his lists. He ranks Top 10 programs overall, as well as Top 5 with notable alumni, top five with distinguished faculty, top five highly selective programs, top five well-funded, etc etc…

Part of my outrage has to do with his omission of Syracuse from any of these lists. When it comes to Syracuse, he's positive, but brief. When listing distinguished faculty, he acknowledges George Saunders and Mary Karr, but doesn’t mention Mary Gaitskill. Is it because he doesn’t consider her distinguished enough? Or because his “research” is outdated.

Personal gripes aside, I’d love to know how he figured out his top 10 list. Some of the programs, such as Irvine, Michigan, FSU, UVA, clearly deserve to be there. They are well funded, selective, and from what I’ve heard, fairly nurturing. Others, like BU, of which he talks endlessly, seem like a questionable choice. He quotes several former students who are critical of BU/Lesley Epstein's methods – and I can think of a few more – but that doesn’t stop him from including it in the top 10 list. Is that because BU is his own alma-mater? The last time I checked – and please correct me if I’m wrong – BU was still a one-year program with less than spectacular funding.

Speaking of funding, apparently these days it’s not enough to fund everyone. The funding has to be competitive, as in 20,000 a year (see Michigan).

The discussion of faculty is important, but I feel Delaney puts way too much emphasis on fame and not enough on quality of teaching, accessibility, and supportiveness. Take NYU, for example, another one of Delaney’s questionable picks – do they offer any funding? NYU might have E.L. Doctorow – but how closely can one expect to work with him? Or with Derek Walcott at BU? Ethan Canin of Iowa is quoted as saying, “he aims to be blunt when he must, without getting nasty.” Oh really? That’s not what I’ve heard. (To his credit, though, he admits that about one-third of his students hates him.)

To be fair, Delaney does mention a lot of interesting programs and teachers – Robert Olen Butler at FSU, Michael Cunningham at Brooklyn College, Barry Hannah at Mississippi, Brian Evenson at Brown. And yes, I understand how it must be impossible to write on this subject without mentioning Iowa. But still, enough of BU. Enough of Iowa. Enough of lists. Why not go to places where students are happy and treated with support and respect? Why not ask them?

Reading Recommendations

2007-07-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it’s shameful. For a fiction writer I post way too much about movies and nearly not enough about books. But that’s all about to change. Starting now.

I just did a guest blog for the Grub Street Blog, Penny Dreadful, in which I talk about Syracuse and the books I’ve been reading lately.

Check it out.

Chicken News

2007-07-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

Let’s see. I’ve got my first review, from Publishers Weekly. It’s one of the few places that review books pre-publication. The regular reviews happen once the book is actually released, which in my case means after September 17th.

Also, more book-touring. I got invited to the following Jewish Book Festivals:

November 7th – Houston, TX
November 9th – St. Paul, MN
November 27th – San Francisco, CA

And I’ve just scheduled a reading at Skylight Books in Los Angeles, CA on November 16th!

November is going to be a busy month.

I’m still waiting to hear about Pittsburgh and Seattle – the two places, incidentally, where I’ve got family. Hopefully something will come through.

The Last Chicken In…Canada

2007-07-14T14:07:00.001-07:00

Remember what I said about the beauty and calm of Willimantic? How I didn’t miss tall buildings and hectic city-pace? Well, we decided we needed a holiday from all that peacefulness and nature, and went to Toronto.

We chose Toronto for many reasons, but mainly because neither of us had seen it and because we knew it was a big busy city.

Reader, we loved it.

We left on Tuesday, stayed in Toronto for three nights, and returned late last night, after a brief detour to check out Niagara Falls.

I must explain right away that our approach wasn’t particularly touristy. We didn’t go up the CN tower, we completely ignored the Hockey Hall of Fame, and we avoided all the museums. Our approach consisted of two parts: 1) explore various neighborhoods 2) find as many South African food shops as possible. (Unlike Boston or even New York, Toronto has tons of South Africans!)

Here’s what we’ve noticed about Toronto:

1) It’s huge. It’s got a downtown with its share of landmarks and interesting neighborhoods: Kensington Market, University Area, Chinatown, garment district, etc. But the fun doesn’t end there. Other parts of the city – somewhat removed from the downtown – are equally lively. The Greektown – immortalized by My Big Fat Greek Wedding – was endless. The Beaches area, where we stayed, was full of funky stores and coffee shops. Then there were suburbs -- also well developed (even if less distinct), often walkable, and full of their own attractions.

2) The architecture is hard to define. Overall, it’s very modern, with a lot of high-rise apartment buildings. It reminded me of Moscow. Movie Dictator loves the idea of living in a tall apartment building. (Or so he says.) Me? Not so much. There might be some things I miss about Moscow, but smelly/broken elevators are not one of them.

3) Toronto seems truly diverse and cosmopolitan. Not in a perfunctory “one-Black-one-Asian-person-on-a-college-brochure-cover” kind of way, but for real. It’s got a huge Chinatown, Koreatown, Greektown, Little Italy, Portuguese area, Indian Bazaar… There’s probably more that we’ve missed. And the residents aren't trying to please anyone. This is clearly their home. And not just in those central neighborhoods either. The kinds of “ethnic” shops we’d have to hunt for in Boston or Hartford areas are everywhere in Toronto, even in the suburbs. Apparently, there are actually five or six Chinatowns, in addition to the one we saw in the downtown area.

4) People seem more relaxed.

5) Very few of them are overweight. Whether it’s because everyone walks/takes public transportation, or because they eat better food than us, we don’t know. But the fact remains: they are slim.

If sightseeing is the primary touristy activity, shopping must be the secondary one. And shop we did – though perhaps not in a way you’d expect. We bought PG Tips tea in a tin can. We bought six rolls of flypaper. But mostly, we bought sauces and spices and headache pills from South African shops – we visited 3 or 4 of them. It was incredibly sad to realize how huge the South African community must be to warrant all these shops, and how far it was from where we live.

On the last day, as we were leaving for Niagara Falls, we decided to look for Nando’s. It’s a Portuguese restaurant chain that makes very spicy chicken. I've seen them in London, and apparently, they are all over South Africa. There were several in the Toronto area, mostly in the suburbs. We showed up at one of them, bright and early, only to discover that it didn't open until 11:30 am. To be honest, we'd kind of suspected that. It was around 9:00 o’clock, and we figured the most sensible thing was to give up on the chicken and start driving to Niagara. But then, at the last minute, we thought we might try one more location. It was kind of on the way. Okay, it was 10 miles out of the way, but what’s 10 miles when you have over 500 miles to go?

It took us a while to find it. By the time we did, it was 10 am and the place was at 11. But what’s 1 hour when you have more than 8 to go? Movie Dictator said we should just go to Niagara. I asked how important Nando’s was to him. On the scale of 1 to 10? He said, 10-ish. He took a picture of Nando’s closed doors.

Naturally, I insisted we should wait. We had tea and coffee at a place called Second Cup, which is a chain like Starbucks. Then we went back to Nando's. Movie Dictator got some extra-extra-hot chicken and a load of freebee sauces. He got me a Lemon Herb Chicken sandwich, which wasn’t supposed to be spicy at all. But it was. It burned so bad, I gave up after one bite. But it still was worth it.

And then we drove to Niagara Falls. From a distance, they looked underwhelming, but once we got close (on a boat) the power of all that falling water took my breath away. I mean it literally. I had a hard time breathing.

And then we rested on a bench, soaked and overwhelmed, while a kind British couple took this picture:

Happy Fourth!

2007-07-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, I know. I’m hopelessly late. But this whole past week -- with the holiday in the middle – was so hopelessly out of balance that I’m seeing it as a “holiday week.”

Before I forget, Howard Zinn offers some suggestions on celebrating July 4th – Put Away the Flags. (Thank you, Andy, for the link!)

Here in Willimantic, we celebrated the 4th by attending the annual “boombox” parade (me), watching a hotdog-eating competition on TV (Movie Dictator), taking a quick trip to West Hartford (both of us), and then settling to watch some quality British tv drama – only to be interrupted by a… power outage. That’s right, for several hours, Willimantic was in the dark. Also, it was raining.

The following afternoon I drove to Boston (for a writers’ group meeting and a party the next day). Being in Boston felt strange – as if I weren’t really supposed to be there. I half-expected to run into an acquaintance who’d say “What are you doing here? Haven’t you just moved away?” What’s more, Boston felt crowded and hectic, which is something I normally like. But this time, I thought it had an edge of desperation to it.

I’m sure it’s all in my head. During the visit, I was asked many times whether I liked Connecticut. And I said yes and I meant it. Movie Dictator asks me this too: Am I not longing to see some tall buildings? Wouldn’t it be great to have a million of little shops on every street? Normally, yes. Normally, I’m a city girl, pining for bigger and better cities. But for now, I’m kind of loving Connecticut with its rural roads and farms everywhere. I love how green and peaceful it is. I love the lakes. I love the tiny town centers. Somehow that’s what I’m craving now. The quietness. The space. Maybe that’s what I need to quell my never-ending anxiety. And to write.

After my last post, a couple of friends asked whether it was a good idea to admit that I hadn’t written much later. What if I my editor and/or agent read this? Would this get me in trouble? Would they think less of me?

After some thinking, I decided it was probably okay. First of all, I’m sure both my editor and agent have better things to do than read this blog. Second of all, I haven’t missed any deadlines. Even better: having made the admission, I promptly started writing! First thing in the morning, while still in bed. (By the way, there’s an article in the latest Poets and Writers about writing in bed.) I try not to worry about quality and just move forward with the novel. I have this crazy and possibly unrealistic plan to finish the first draft by September 1st. I'm not anywhere near the end at this point. Can I do it? I don’t know. But I’m going to try.

Being Honest

2007-06-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

It happened the other night. I was miserable. My flu symptoms came back – aches, thudding head, fever. Plus it was hot, so hot that a heat warning was issued for our area. Plus only one of our ACs was working – the other decided to leak into our landlady’s apartment and we had to turn it off and take it out. Plus Movie Dictator and I had an idiotic fight.

Did I mention I was miserable? I hid in the bedroom – the only vaguely cool room in the apartment – and Movie Dictator insisted on stewing in his office, and all of this made me think about blogs and how we often try to present the best and cutest versions of our lives in our posts. At this point, I rely on blogs to keep in touch with many of my friends. And I swear, judging from the blogs, they all seem to have perfect lives, perfect relationships, perfect children, perfect houses...

And I’m guilty of the same.

Part of it, of course, is the issue of privacy. Blog is not a diary, and no one wants the deeply intimate and possibly troubling details of their lives to be available to strangers. Or acquaintance. Or even friends sometimes.

And yet, and yet…as I read all the impossibly cute posts adorned with the impossibly cute pictures, I start getting a sense that all my friends are leading idyllic lives. They never fight with their partners. They never cry. They never consider therapy or worry about their health. And then, I go and add my own impossibly cute stories and pictures, and my friends are probably thinking I’m leading the perfect life as well – never fight, never cry, never consider therapy… Am I living a lie?

Not that these posts aren’t true. They are. It’s more about what I omit.

But of course, I have to omit things. This blog is a public thing. It’s not even anonymous. By now, it’s linked to my “official” website and anyone can read it and figure out who I am. Editors, booksellers, book-festival organizers, other writers, potential readers. Which is to say, I can’t be self-indulgent, or gossipy, or snarky. Nor can I complain about my old Somerville landlord -- oh, if only you knew how much I want to complain about him! – and how much he contributed to the misery of this past week. Nor would I want to bitch about Movie Dictator – who, apart from that one idiotic fight we had, has been an angel.

Maybe there’s no solution. Maybe everyone has to reach his or her own balance, decide how much private information he/she is willing to divulge. I’d be curious to hear how others who have “public” blogs are dealing with this. Or those who went from private to public ones. Do you miss the anonymity?

But it’s not just about blogs. I’ve been in America for almost 15 years now, but I still feel it – people here are kind of reserved. Too reserved. And I’ve learned to be reserved as well. The way I understand it, it’s either a matter of politeness – people are afraid to burden their friends with their problems – or it’s a matter of appearances – people wanting to pretend their lives are better than they are. For me, it’s both. That’s not to say that heart-to-heart conversations never happen. They do. But sometimes it takes a while to establish that degree of trust. And even then there are limits and boundaries. Sometimes, we are more likely to talk about a health condition – a UTI or an IBS – than about couples’ counseling. And as for sex, no one ever has problems in that department.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my best and oldest friend in Russia. We’d known each other since we were twelve. She told me she would never need therapy. If something was wrong with her life, she’d go to her girlfriends and they’d comfort her. That’s right. Comfort. Having left Moscow in 1992, I’m hardly an expert on its current culture. But what she said felt true. There was always a culture of lament in Russia. People would lament their personal lives, their work situation, their living conditions, the country in general, and it wasn’t considered shameful or anything. It was normal. We used to say that a real friend is someone you can call in the middle of the night if you’re having a hard time. I have some wonderful close friends here, but the only person I would dare to call in the middle of the night is my sister. (Because she’s family and won’t disown me : )

And now, in the spirit of honesty, I should reveal some things I’m not terribly proud of or happy about:

1) I’m currently reading a book called The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook. With a pencil in hand.

2) My health is freaking me out, and it’s not just the flu symptoms. I don’t know what it is. Maybe anxiety. Maybe a combination of things. I can’t go to my regular doctor, because she’s all the way in Boston and because I don’t like her and because she’ll prescribe antibiotics, which I don’t want, or send me in for tests – i.e., more trips to Boston. Instead, I have an acupuncture/Chinese medicine appointment on Monday, which is something that’s expensive and that I use as a last resort.

3) It’s been a month since we moved to Connecticut, and I’ve done almost no writing. I’m scattered, distracted, poorly organized, and I’m hating myself for it. In fact, I’ve done almost nothing since last summer – apart from some more or less serious Chicken edits. My novel’s been languishing. Not because I’ve been avoiding it, but because I can’t quiet my mind enough. There’s always something that’s taking priority: teaching, job search, paying bills, buying groceries, having a long conversation with Movie Dictator. I feel like I’ve wasted a year somehow (I still measure time in school years) – especially when I think of my amazing writer friends who've managed to finish drafts of their novels while adjuncting at multiple schools or giving birth to multiple babies.

Anyway... I think this should be enough for the first dose of truthfulness. What do you think? And now that I’ve confessed some of these things, I can go back to writing cute posts about my idyllic life in Connecticut.

Being Healthy

2007-06-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

I desperately want to go swimming. I got a membership at a community center next town over, a comfortable swim suite, and the rest of the swim accessories. But I can’t go. Because I think I have a bit of a flu.

Flu in the summer? It just doesn’t make sense. But I think that’s what I have. I’m usually okay in the morning, but in the afternoon/evening I start getting achy all over. I also get a bit of a fever. I spent most of yesterday in bed, reading and sleeping. Movie Dictator seems to have something similar – though not as bad. We’re pathetic. We’ve been taking Lemsip, which is this amazing UK lemon drink with paracetamol, perfect for aches and pains and fever.

This flu—or whatever it is we have—is really messing with my plans. I just started exercising. Last week I went to two yoga classes, and this week I was going to get into swimming and maybe even running (or at least using one of those low-impact elliptical trainer things). Also, I’ve been trying to eat well. On Saturday I went to one of the nearby Farmers’ Markets and bought strawberries, new potatoes, scallions, and something called chard (a substitute for spinach, but, as I discovered, way more bitter). I try to eat fresh salads every day, drink plenty of water, take multi-vitamins. I am still hoping to go hiking this summer, learn to ride a bicycle, and try indoor rock-climbing Manchester.

To motivate myself, I watch Amazing Race (recently finished Season 5). Somehow it makes me want to be athletic -- fast, strong, adventurous. Though actually, Season 5 was kind of disappointing, especially the three finalist couples, one married, two dating. All three women were pathetic and refused to do any “road-blocks” (a task that must be performed by only one member of the team). Honey, you’re doing it – was their standard response. No matter what the task required -- running or climbing or just getting dirty – Honey, you’re doing it. They would snicker at the camera and admit that they are basically doing nothing. But it didn’t seem to upset them. Nor did it bother their partners.

If I ever do anything like Amazing Race – which I’m not really planning to, but it’s a fun fantasy to have – I’d want to be able to do any of the tasks, from eating a kilogram of black caviar to hand-gliding to going down some crazy rapids.

Fantasies aside, though, I do need to get healthy. This fall will be crazy: a lot of book-related travel + new teaching job + writing + everything else. So I better train for this marathon. And shake off whatever bug I've got. And go swimming.

Tea and Sympathy

2007-06-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

Here we continue to explore the gems of Willimantic and the nearby towns.

A few days ago, we went to the Third Thursday festival – which takes place on…you guessed it…third Thursday of the month, 6-9 pm, from May to October. The Main Street in Willimantic gets closed for traffic, vendors set up their shops, and people pour in. There’s food. There’s live music. There’s some political activism and a couple of palm readers. I got cornered into a 30-second survey about dreams. Ukrainian food proved to be disappointing. But falafels were quite good. The festival wasn’t huge – and in fact, Movie Dictator thought it was kind of pathetic – but I liked it. It was good to see so many people out on the streets and enjoying themselves. Besides, for a town as small as Willimantic, I thought it was rather impressive. It might not have been as politically adventurous as, say, a similar festival in Somerville (which had not one but two pro-Palestinian tables), but it’s better than nothing.

(Speaking of political activism, Willimantic has something called, Wrench in the Works, which for some reason, I keep calling Monkey Wrench. It’s a “member-run coffeehouse and social justice center.” Movie Dictator has gone a couple of times -- they have a movie night on Thursday -- and I keep encouraging him to keep going. But we’ll see. I can't tell yet how active or organized they are. Though I see that on Wednesday Green Party is having a meeting there. Hmm...)

Another gem we discovered is this little brewing place that offers beer-brewing and wine-making classes. We wandered in there in search of malt (for bread) and discovered that the person running the place is currently making cheese! We watched him for a bit and had a long conversation about cheese-making. The guy was a fountain of useful information. We also ended up buying some malt and a book on cheese-making.

But what about tea, I'm sure you're wondering by now. Well, we found a place, about 30 miles from Willimantic, called Mrs. Bridges Pantry, which doesn’t sound all that British, but it is. It’s got a lovely tearoom and a shop. I had tea with a cucumber-and-cheese sandwich, all the while feeling like a character in an Oscar Wilde's play. Movie Dictator had tea, steak-and-kidney pie, and mushy peas. Afterwards, we stocked up on pies and sausages and marmite and Bisto sauce, and drove away feeling slightly broke but quite happy.

New Website

2007-06-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

The “Chicken” finally has an official website: www.ellenlitman.com

Check it out. It’s mostly finished, except for reviews (which I don’t have yet) and a few other things. Also, the list of readings will be updated. I'm currently working on scheduling something in Seattle and Pittsburgh.

Food Matters

2007-06-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

Movie Dictator has been baking bread. Corn Bread. Wheat Bread. He’s also been making pizza, hummus, yogurt, and biltong (a South African version of jerky).

Ever since he arrived in the US -- a little over a year ago -- food has been an issue. He said everything was too sugary, like candy. Even plain bread. Even vegetables. I didn’t understand what he meant at first. We bought some green peas at a Stop and Shop, and yeah, I thought they were sort of sugary. But it wasn’t until we got some other peas at a farm-store on Rt. 2 that I really tasted the difference. It was unmistakable.

Back when my family first arrived in America – almost 15 years ago – I didn't know all that much about food. Which is to say I’d eat just about anything. I was that hungry. We were unspoiled and unused to the ideas of healthy eating. (In Russia, you ate anything you could find in mostly-empty stores.) We were equally unused to the large quantities of pre-processed, pre-packaged, pre-cooked foods. We did notice that strawberries were huge and mostly void of any taste. (“Pink cucumbers,” my father called them.) But overall, we were just thrilled at the abundance of everything. No long lines. No shortages.

I know better now, of course. Thanks to Movie Dictator, I actually know quite a bit. We’ve watched all sorts of documentaries about food industry and supermarkets (in the US and UK), and I’ve read What To Eat by Marion Nestle. I also started paying attention to the ingredients lists on the packaging.

(A side note: The most disturbing bit of information, I guess, was a documentary we watched just a few days ago, The Future of Food, about genetically modified foods. It’s the same old story: big companies (e.g., Monsanto) trying to take over the world, and politicians, either on the board of those companies or otherwise generously supported, doing everything they can to help. Here’s how these companies operate: when the fields of small farmers get accidentally (or allegedly!) contaminated by Monsanto seeds, Monsanto takes them to court and they are ordered to destroy all of their seeds, go into bankruptcy, give up their farms, etc. The scary thing is, it virtually guarantees that in a little while there won’t be any non-genetically modified seeds left. Even scarier is that these same companies are trying to do this abroad, by intentionally cross-pollinating fields, leaving the people to either starve or to pay to the likes of Monsanto.)

Back to our story: Movie Dictator’s theory is that food is the reason there’s so much cancer in America. (Plus, it’s overpriced.) So in an effort to stay healthy and not broke, we’ve been focusing on homemade and un-American foods. Back in Boston, we had a whole list of ethnic stores we frequented: Super 88 (Asian Supermarket) in Brighton, Russian shops in Brookline, a series of Lebanese/Middle Eastern shops in Watertown, a little shop in Methuen that made British-style meat and vegetable pies.

Now we’re in this new location, and the search begins all over. We spent this past weekend hunting for good Farmers' Markets. Given how rural this area is, we figured there would be a lot. Every town, in fact, seems to have its own, and there are quite of few of these little towns around. Unfortunately, even the bigger markets were disappointing small. Yes, I understand, it’s still too early in the season. (But I’m spoiled. I lived in Madison, WI, for a year, the home of the biggest farmers’ market in the country.) Anyway, we did buy a few things: strawberries and farm-made sausages.

We also went to West Hartford, where we found a huge Asian supermarket (better than Super 88!) that sells inexpensive vegetables; a Vietnamese restaurant next door, full of wonderfully healthy food; a Russian store (and a bookstore across the street) – small but well-stocked; an Indian shop, a Middle-Eastern shop, a true-blue Irish pub that does fish-and-chips and bangers-and-mash. It’s a bit of a drive to get to West Harvard, but not too bad.

And of course, when everything else fails, right here in Willimantic, we have a food Co-op, a Polish deli, and a bunch of Hispanic-food groceries we haven’t even explored yet.

You Are Your First and Last Publicist

2007-06-12T05:22:00.008-07:00

The line comes from the panel on publicity I attended back in May (at the Muse and Marketplace), and though I said quite a few disparaging things about the panel itself, the line is sort of true. No one cares about your book as much you do.

I do have a publicist now at Norton. Her name is Samantha and she’s wonderful. We’ve been e-mailing back and forth, exchanging ideas, and she’s been in touch with several booksellers. Things are starting to happen, it seems. She and I are in agreement that independent bookstores are the way to go – especially after Barnes & Noble declined to set up a reading for me at their Squirrel Hill location in Pittsburgh. I mean, are you kidding me? Squirrel Hill is where the book is set, where all the Russians are, and where my family has lived for the last 15 years. Hello?! But no, someone decided it wouldn’t be cost effective, I guess. So I’m exploring alternative routes. For example, booksellers who don’t have bookstores but sell books at the author events they organize. For example, fabulous Stephanie Gayle, whose book, My Summer of Southern Discomfort, is coming out in just a few weeks, will have her book release party/reading at Red Bones, a Southern Barbecue restaurant in Somerville, Mass. The people who organize the event are Haley Booksellers. I just got in touch with them, and maybe they’ll help me with Pittsburgh.

Other things that are in the works: readings around Boston; a reading/party here in Connecticut; a reading in Chicago on Nov. 4th (at Myopic Books), where my Syracuse buddy, Adam Levin, is running a fiction series. I’m also hoping/planning to be at the Wisconsin Book Festival in October. It’s going to be a busy fall.

Truth is, I’m really enjoying this -- coming up with ideas, getting to know booksellers, contacting acquaintances and friends. My web site is almost done, and I also need to create a myspace account. I like being my own publicist. Though of course, it helps to have a real one, too, who knows the ropes, can send copies of the book to the appropriate people, contact booksellers, order promotional postcards. So thank you, Samantha!

And now a little bit of bragging: I’ve developed this unfortunate habit (shared by many) of self-googling. Or rather, googling the title of my book. And last night, I came upon this article from Publishers Weekly. It’s nice to know that some booksellers (completely unrelated to me) liked the book. And it’s nice to be listed as one of the Indie Darlings, especially next to Junot Diaz and Peter Hoeg.

The Frogs Are For Real!

2007-06-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

The other day somebody asked me, “Have you heard the frogs yet?” I thought it was a joke, frogs being the symbol, the legend, the fun part of Willimantic (see one of the earlier posts with the pictures of the Frog Bridge).

And then, last night, I heard them. Loud and clear. Really loud and clear. They seem to live in an abandoned swimming pool next door, and they go quiet when they detect any motion around them. Fun neighbors to have, don’t you think?

Frogs aside, I’m heading to Boston this afternoon for a major Wisconsin reunion. It will be good to see some familiar and some new faces.

Slow Sunday and Movie Reviews

2007-06-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend Willimantic celebrated its Victorian Days. From Afternoon Tea Sandwiches to the guided tour of Willimantic Cemetery to the 10 Victorian Gems (one of which is where our neighbors live). For two days we listened to the clomp-clomping of horse-drawn wagons. (Predictably, the streets of Willimantic are now covered with horseshit.) We watched much of the commotion from our windows – the horses and some big celebration over at the neighbors’ house. But we took no part in any of it. Maybe next year.

I’ve been trying to take it easy this weekend. Some e-mailing. Some slow unpacking. Some minor shopping. Some movie-watching. Speaking of which, here’s my new list of “recently watched.” Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Planet of the Apes
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
I know, it’s almost shameful that I hadn’t seen any of these before. I fell in love with the ending of the first one. (Just like everybody else, I guess.) The second one wasn’t as good, but I liked the sequence in what used to be a subway station. The third one was just plain silly. I have to admit though, Kim Hunter was strangely likable as Zira.

Player
Robert Altman’s movie about movie business. It’s famous for its incredibly long opening shot. If that’s what movie business is really like…then I don’t understand why Movie Dictator wants to be a part of it. I loved the moment when Peter Gallagher suggested that writers could be eliminated from the movie business altogether. (Somehow it made me think of publishing business.)

The Incredible Shrinking Man
A man is exposed to radiation and begins to shrink. Watch him struggle with a cat and a spider. Very Gulliver’s Travels. It got a little boring somewhere in the middle. But the ending was really good. Made in 1957, it could use some of the modern special effect. And what do you know? The remake is scheduled to come out in 2008.

Paper Moon
I couldn’t believe this was made in 1973. It had a total feel of a depression-era movie, which was, of course, the whole idea. Ryan O’Neal and Tatum O’Neal are a pair of crooks who are made for each other. She’s eight (or nine?) and she’s a natural. He might be her father. Of course in real life, he is.

Go West
My first introduction to Buster Keaton. What a face! He’s a cowboy on a ranch. There’s a girl. There’s a cow. There’s a train chase. There’s love. I hope there's more to come.

The Last Man on Earth
The man in question is played by Vincent Price, and the reason he’s the last is because of a vampire infestation. They are sluggish vampires though, sort of like zombies but slower, and the movie itself is, well, sluggish.

Lifeboat
Hitchcock at his best. World War II. A ship is sunk by Germans, and a few survivors are stranded in a lifeboat, along with one accidentally captured German. Is he to be killed? Is he to be trusted? Tallulah Bankhead plays a hard-as-nails reporter. (She reminded me of Bette Davis.) Now, you know how Hitchcock always made cameo appearance in his movies? Guess how he managed it in this one!

Soylent Green
Near-future circa 1973. Extreme poverty, pollution, and over-population. The rich get apartments equipped with live-in concubines, who are referred to as “furniture.” Food as we know it has all but disappeared (unless you’re one of the privileged few). Instead, the masses are fed by something artificial. And one police detective (Charlton Heston) is about to find out exactly what it is. Fun, but a bit dated.

Breach
A spy movie – based on a true story. I thought it was okay. (Plus it had Laura Linney.) Movie Dictator thought it was predictable as hell.

Venus
An ailing old man (Peter O’Toole), who was once a famous actor. A grumpy young girl, his best friend’s niece’s daughter, who appears one day at his best friend’s flat. An unlikely connection. Either he’s being taken advantage or she is being changed and seduced by him. Or both. A quiet gem of a movie. Peter O’Toole is glorious, and the casual banter among the characters is so much better than any Hollywood dialogue. The movie’s got the look, feel, and pace of a European movie. It felt almost Russian.

Mommie Dearest
Faye Dunaway plays an aging Joan Crawford, who adopts two little children and proceeds to make their life a living hell. The most famous line: “No... wire... hangers.” It’s based on a memoir of her adopted daughter, Kristina, and while I feel the woman’s pain, it doesn’t make for a very interesting movie. Once you realize that the "Mommie" in question is genuinely psychotic and needs medical help, there’s very little left to say. Instead of the daughter’s sob story, I would much rather see a story of Joan Crawford herself, from her early days (see Grand Hotel!) to her disintegration.

An Evening With Kevin Smith (1 and 2)
Kevin Smith, aka Silent Bob, aka the director of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, etc., etc., goes on tour. The first installment is a compilation of the talks he did at various universities. In the second one, he goes to Canada, and then to England. The talks are not really talks but q&a sessions, except he doesn’t really answer questions, but tells stories. He does it very informally, and he goes on tangents a lot, so a typical answer can easily take 20 minutes. He’s very funny. Everything he says feels improvised. Movie Dictator totally loves him – because the man can talk! a lot! (He also loves his movies and general attitude towards life.) I love him too -- watched the whole thing while packing and scanning papers in preparation for the move – but I’m also more critical. I though in part 1, he was a bit evasive in his answers/stories. I mean, when a young college kid asks you how to finance a movie, and you tell him, charge it on your credit card… I don’t know. Even if that’s what you did, it’s still not cool. Funny, yes, but not very generous. But that’s just some minor criticism. He got better in part 2. There were so many highlights I could write about here, but it would take forever. So just find the DVDs.

Lord of the Rings
Extended version! I’d seen the first and the third one when they came out, but missed the second one. Now I got to see them all – on three consecutive evening. There are plenty of fans out there, both of the book and the movie, so I don’t feel like I need to say much. (There are detractors, too. Just ask Kevin Smith!) I myself read the book back in Russia – in Russian! -- and “Baggins” was translated as “Sumkins” (“bag” in Russian is “sumka”). What I love the most about the book and the movie is that incredible sadness that comes at the end. The journey changes and darkens you somehow. You should be celebrating, but you can’t.

Fired!
A documentary by a young actress (Annabelle Gurwitch), who gets fired by Woody Allen. (Apparently, he tells her she’s so bad it’s like she’s retarded.) But the young actress won’t be deterred. She gets her revenge by gathering up some actor friends and other individuals and doing a film about the experience of getting fired. Turns out, almost everyone has a story to tell, and much of them are hilarious. But it gets serious, too, when she interviews the workers at a GM plant or talks to the woman who is fired for being a smoker (turns out, in some states companies are allowed to do that and more). Overall, the movie is really well made. It’s entertaining and tongue-in-cheek (imitating the style of Woody Allen’s movies themselves); it’s informative; and Annabelle Gurwitch is charismatic enough to make the whole thing work. Good for her!

The Night of the Hunter
A stylish black-and-white movie about good and evil. A murderous preacher, two little kids on the run, and the old woman with the heart of gold who rescues them. Movie Dictator is convinced that this is something that must have inspired David Lynch. I sort of agree, especially given the movie’s eerie opening scenes.

Paprika
A gorgeous anime from Japan about dreams being invaded, modified, corrupted, stolen, etc. The logistics of the plot can be a little tough to follow, but the morphing images and the surreal, dreamy quality of the whole thing make up for any glitches in the plot. It’s so vivid, you just can’t look away.

Autumn in New York
Oh Hollywood! I had to keep my mouth shut, knowing how much Movie Dictator loves Winona Rider. But I had to wonder, what kind of a log line you write for a script like that? Let’s see: a handsome womanizer (played by Richard Gere) falls for a young dying girl (Winona Rider). She changes him forever. But only miracle can save her. How do you sell a script like that -- especially when the dialogue is trite and the characters lack any sort of personality? How do you get away with a scene when a girl starts collapsing at a skating rink? Haven't we seen it in The Love Story already?

Crying Out Love, in The Center of The World
More sickness. More death. A Japanese melodrama that’s way too long. A young man is supposedly searching for his fiancé (a young, beautiful, limping girl, who disappears after discovering a tape she’s long forgotten about) and in the process, he is remembering his high-school love, long-lost to leukemia. It could’ve been okay, in a good tear-jerker sort of way, but it needed some major cuts. I did wonder how they were going to tie up the guy’s memories to his limping girlfriend’s story. This kept me going for a while. But in the end, I was too tired to care, let alone feel anything.

Piter-FM
A rare treat from Movie Dictator, who found this one for me. A Russian movie with subtitles, which means we watched it together. It was just before our move, and I desperately needed a diversion, something sweet and beautiful. The movie isn't terribly orginal. A young woman is a DJ at a radio station in St. Petersburg (or Piter). A young man is an architect who's about to move to Germany for work. She loses her cell phone, he finds it, and then they try to meet and keep missing each other. Sounds familiar? Sure! But that's not the point. The whole movie is so gorgeously filmed, it's like a love letter to St. Petersburg. Plus it has a great soundtrack. I'm getting a little soppy here, but this simple movie made me feel so many things, a bit of nostalgia (even though I'm from Moscow), a tiny bit of sadness because I'm a city girl moving to rural Connecticut, all the small ways in which I identified with the characters, or perhaps recognized something of them in myself. And what I want now is the ring-tone from from the cell phone the girl has in the movie.

We Did It!

2007-06-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

We’ve moved! And it went fine! And we’re almost half-way unpacked! And it’s June already! June in Romantic Willimantic. I’m pottering around the new apartment, admiring its spaciousness and coolness and making all kinds of plans for it. Mostly, though, I’m still recovering.

All moves are tough – everybody knows that – and this one was no exception, stressful and physically demanding. But unlike all the previous moves I’ve done, it wasn’t as lonely and soul-crashing. This time I was moving with a partner, and it made all the difference. Emotionally I was fine.

The move itself went swimmingly. We had the best movers, and if you’re moving any time soon and if you’re living anywhere around Boston, talk to me! I’ll put you in touch with these guys. They were amazing in every way!

Our first night in Romantic Willimantic, we visited a great fresh-sea-food place (store and takeout), where we bough two orders of excellent fish and chips (to be put in the refrigerator and eaten the next day). Then we went to a charming little Mexican restaurant “Cinco de Mayo,” where I quickly got drunk on one glass of sangria.

Have I mentioned how much I love our new apartment? (One of these days I’ll take some pictures and post them here.) I also love our quiet street and the overall neighborhood. It’s very green here. You can sit on the deck and watch the trees, the birds, the squirrels. There’s more space between houses, but the neighbors are very friendly and talkative. On our first night, some neighbors invited us over for some wine (as if I needed any more alcohol at that point : ) We sat in their lovely garden with tikki lights and talked for a while.

The next day (Sunday) was spent on shopping, which seems to come with every move: Home Depot! Wallmart! Linens-n-Thing! We spent way too much money, but that too is inevitable. We even became grownups and bought curtains!

Then on Monday, I went to New York. For Jewish Book Network Festival.

How does one get from Willimantic to New York? Easy. Especially if one has Mia the GPS device. I drove to New Haven, which took 1 hour and 10 minutes. Then I took a train to New York, which took 1.5 hours. I made one mistake though. Instead of taking Amtrak (expensive), I should have taken one of Metro-North (sp?) trains, which run every hour, cost a lot less, take a tiny bit longer, and end up at Grand Central Station (instead of Penn).

Going to New York right after the move wasn’t the easiest thing. It felt like I’d been running a marathon, and I really had to hold myself together to make it through the trip. (All I really wanted at the time was to sleep for a week.) My wonderful generous friend Andy, who allows me to stay at his place on 14th Street, met me a the Penn Station and we made our way home. Then he left, because he dojo was moving that day and he had to go help. He’s a huge judo enthusiast and has a new blog about it, Judo Notes.

At that point, I should have collapsed from all the tiredness or at least taken a nap. But strangely, I was still full of adrenalin or something, and I ended up playing a New Yorker instead: walking about 50 blocks, doing some shopping, soaking up the New York energy, buying sushi at a nearby deli and washing it down with some beer I found in Andy's refrigerator. It was great! Later, Andy, his judo friend Jeff, and I had an amazing Vietnamese/French/Fusion meal at a place call Safran. I think it might be my new New York favorite.

The following day, I slept until 10. Or maybe 11. I can’t remember. Then I had to get ready for my speech at the Jewish Book Festival. It was supposed to be a 2-minute speech, so I had to time myself.

This was the first day of the festival, the Meet the Author portion of it. I arrived at the Hebrew Union College, met up with my editor and publicist, and we went in. The speeches were held at a synagogue inside. Each author had an assigned sitting – in alphabetical order, which put me somewhere in the middle. There was a podium and a microphone, and a woman sat in the first row flashing time cards: 1 minute left, 30 seconds left, 10 seconds. At five o’clock, various representatives of Jewish Community Centers and Synagogues from all over the country filed in, and the speeches began. The idea of the speech was to introduced the book in the best possible and intriguing way. The majority of the books were nonfiction -- parenthood, memoirs, life issues, spirituality and religion, politics – with maybe 10% of fiction in the mix.

The speeches took 2 hours (5 to 7), and the same thing was to be repeated the next 2 or 3 evenings. Afterwards we went downstairs for dinner (aka speed dating). At each round table, 2-3 authors were to be seated. After a while we (the authors) would be told to pick up our plates and move to another table. And then another one. It seemed a little ridiculous, and yet, it was fun. There were people from all across America, and I loved chatting with them. There were two lovely women from Houston. There was a French teacher from San Diego (originally from Montreal). There was a woman from New Jersey (originally from Cuba), whose husband, like mine, was from South Africa. Lots of great conversations!

And what’s the purpose behind these? you might ask. Well, for the next month or so, the conference attendees will be perusing our books (the hundreds of them!). Then, they’ll decide who they want to invite for their local book festivals etc. Then they’ll issue invitations through the Jewish Book Council.

I hope something comes out of it. Now that the book is almost out (the pub date is September 7th, according to Amazon and Barnes & Noble), I want to travel and do readings. I want to really bring it to life. Wednesday morning, before going home to Connecticut, I met with my amazing agent, David, and we brainstormed various strategies for the book publicity, which made me really excited. On the way home, I was buzzing with ideas. Then I got to New Haven and discovered that my car battery was dead : ) Thank god for AAA.

Musing About the Muse

2007-05-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

I spent this past weekend participating in the 6th annual The Muse and the Marketplace conference, organized by Grub Street. The conference is dedicated to both the craft and the business of writing, and in addition to the seminars led by various writers, it includes panels and presentations by agents, editors, and publicists.

I’ve participated in the Muse before, as a panelist and moderator. This year, though, I was one of the authors. I taught a seminar on Sunday afternoon, but the rest of the weekend I spent actually attending classes. This was the best part about the conference. (This and the free lunches.) Since my own writing has become almost non-existent lately – I blame it on the job search, apartment hunting, upcoming move, and many other silly excuses – I needed to feel like a student again.

So that was what I became for much of the weekend. A student. Darting in and out of conference rooms, taking notes, collecting handouts, and sipping water.

Here are some highlights.

The first event was actually on Thursday. A seminar taught by Sheri Joseph, a fiction writer, whom I first met several years ago at Bread Loaf. Sheri’s newest novel, Stray, won the first annual Grub Street Book Prize, and the seminar she taught on Thursday (and then on Saturday) was titled, “Have You Got a Novel or Not?” A million-dollar question. And as is often the case with writing (or any sort of art), there's no clear answer to that. There were, however, some interesting ideas and guidelines that seemed to apply to my situation. (1) If you think of the beginning of your novel as a set up before the good stuff begins, then it’s probably a mistake. (2) Another common mistake: a novel that’s not a novel, but a novel-sized portion of someone’s life. It’s got to be about something. It’s got to have a purpose. (3) Yet another mistake, which applies to short stories as well – starting with an establishing shot, i.e., we are shown a scene, but we are not told the story. The story hasn’t started yet. (4) Question: How is a novel different from a movie script? Answer: The novel is usually driven by a narrative voice. (5) The idea of “profluence” (John Gardner’s term) – that as we read a novel (or a story), we are getting somewhere, we are being told things for a reason, that there’s a purpose, and that things are adding up.

On Saturday, the conference itself started. The first event I attended was a lecture by Margot Livesey, “Mrs. Turpin Reads the Stars.” It was about creating characters. Margot Livesey is a wonderful speaker, funny, charming, and self-effacing. She began the lecture by admitting that when she starts creating characters they always seem flat and you would think they were written by a hairdresser or an optometrist – since the descriptions always focus on eyes and hair. These early characters also seem to be capable of few physical gestures, mainly they turn and they shrug. Now, that pretty much describes how I feel about my own characters, the early versions of them at least. We looked at a number of good examples of character development, and even attempted a list of useful strategies – although in the end, the list was replace with one word, ATTITUDE. (Also, a side note made in the course of this talk: When a character in a story draft appears too solitary, it’s likely done out of laziness or convenience.)

Michael Lowenthal’s seminar on Sunday (“Astonish Me!”) was another highlight. It involved a lot of close reading and much focus on sentences (which I love!). As a result, I think I finally understood why so much of Call it Sleep had to be written in that excruciating dialect. I also discovered some authors that I intend to look up: Daniel Woodrell and Claire Keegan.

Charles Baxter, another fabulous speaker, delivered the keynote address. It was called "Losers". He made a good point that our society is way to focused on losing and winning – just look at all the reality TV. Such thinking, though, doesn’t really apply to writers. After all, F. Scott Fitzgerald died thinking himself a loser (his last royalty check was something like $13). Charles Baxter also mentioned Jaroslav Hasek and his hilarious book The Good Soldier Svejk, which I read as a teenager in Russia. (Aparently, Hasek was an incredible scam artist.)

Only one event I attended proved to be disappointing, a panel on Promotion and Publicity. Without getting personal, I will just say that the publicists on the panel seemed to share a strangely contemptuous attitude toward writers. It wasn’t even what they said, but how they said it. The endless smirking and raising of eye-brows as they exchanged exasperated looks. I mean, people, this isn’t a support group for beleaguered publicists. You were invited to talk to writers. I understand that you suffer greatly, which must explain your facial ticks, but please, restrain yourself.

Almost by accident, I stumbled on a seminar called “Blogs into Books,” led by Leslie Talbot. You guessed it, her blog, Singular Existence, has become a book. Of course, to have this happen, as we soon discovered, one needs a blog with a purpose and a voice. My blog, I feel, is much too accidental (or incidental) for that. Still, the seminar was interesting and it made me really think about the meaning and purpose of blogging. Plus, I think it’s something Movie Dictator should do. God knows, he’s got things to say. And he’s funny. Interestingly, Leslie Talbot mentioned that traditionally blog entries are supposed to be short (i.e., not essay-length), which is why she switched from a Salon blog to her own web site. I’m not sure, but I think I might be breaking the shortness rule here.

More recently watched: the good, the bad, and the silly...

2007-04-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

Grindhouse
This was fun. Not my favorite genre exactly, so I was a little weary of this 3-hour experiment, allegedly filled with much violence and gore. But no worries. Grindhouse is a glorious send-up of bad B-movie thrillers. A double-feature embellished with fake trailers. But you already knew all that. The first part, Planet Terror, directed by Robert Rodriguez, was a parody of zombie flicks, so colorful that the red of wounds and lipstick was practically bleeding off the screen. The second part, Death Proof, was by Tarantino: a crazy stuntman, chatty girls, and car chases. I particularly liked the second part of Tarantino’s film, which featured Zoe Bell, a very cool stuntwoman from New Zealand, who apparently did all the stunts for Uma Thurman in both Kill Bills.

Kill Bill (I and II)
And so my introduction to Tarantino continues. I had avoided Kill Bill, but after watching Grindhouse and Zoe Bell, and I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. The gore -- of which I’d read so much – didn’t really seem like gore. There was more choreography in it than violence. The scene that made me genuinely uncomfortable, though, was the one with Uma Thurman being buried alive.

Plane Dead
Zombies strike again. This time on a plane bound for Paris. Nice, lighthearted flick, where you know pretty much right away which characters are dispensable and which will survive in the end.

Ginger Snaps
High-school girls and werewolves. High-school girls turning into werewolves. Need I say more?

Long Way Round
Travel-around-the-world genre is quickly becoming my favorite. (Have I mentioned I'd watched yet another season of the Amazing Race?) This documentary involves Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman (his daddy directed Deliverance) traveling around the world on motorcycles. More specifically, the trip begins in London and takes the two through Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Siberia. Then they fly to Alaska (along with their motorcycles) and the journey resumes. They get to New York – their unofficial finish line – where their families greet them -- and then fly back to England. Lessons learned: Mongolia has the worst roads. Ewan McGregor is alergic to bugs. There was some amazing footage along the way: friendly Russian drunks, a Ukrainian policeman with a guitar and a gun, Alaskan bears catching fish. But after a while, the whole thing got a tiny bit tedious. I am afraid they spent more time showing the preparations for the journey and the logistics of the filming and the support crew than the trip itself. And there were way too many recaps and repeats.

Black Book (Zwartboek)
The director of this movie, Paul Verhoeven, is generally known in America for such movies as Basic Instinct, Total Recall, or Robocop. My introduction to his work, however, was Soldier of Orange, a WWII movie he made back in Europe. Black Book is his new one, and like Soldier of Orange it was made in Holland and takes place during the WWII. It’s got a structure of a good old adventure. The heroine, Rachel (or ‘Ellis’ as she is later known) is a Jewish girl, formerly a singer, and in the course of the movie she runs away from Germans, joins the Resistance, infiltrates the local branch of Gestapo, has an affair with a Nazi, etc. What amazes me here is the way American (and some English) reviewers responded to the movie. Before saying a word about the movie, they make it clear that they just don’t care for Paul Verhoeven, whether he’s making his movies in Europe or in America (and that nothing will ever change their mind) Imagine the nerve! He shows a Jewish girl undressing in front of a Nazi! Repeatedly! And she falls for him… Well, I never… What’s worse, Verhoeven dares to imply that some of the Resistance members were anti-Semitic (No way! They are the good guys!) and that some of the liberated nations (and their liberators) acted no better than Nazis (Impossible!). The reviewers call such suggestions, “loosey-goosey moral relativism” (see the New York Times). Oh really? What does it mean exactly? “Jewish survival remains a never-ending story,” tells us the New York Times reviewer. Fair enough. No argument here. But does it mean all Jewish people must be portrayed as saints? Must we accept the story-book version of history to justify the existence of Israel?

Jacob’s Ladder
Yet another war movie. Vietnam War. One of those that are listed among modern classics, and yet something I’d never seen before. Since I love all the movies that feature parallel realities, I instantly appreciated this one. Also, as someone who as a kid got sick at the mere sight of hospitals, I fully appreciated the gruesomeness of the main character’s nightmares.

Romantic Willimantic

2007-04-20T16:26:00.000-07:00

We have an apartment!

The second apartment-hunting trip took place yesterday and lasted 12 hours, and at the end we signed a lease. Our new home is in the town of Willimantic, a place famous for its former textile mills (it used to be known as “Thread City”), its Victorian houses, and its frogs. Yes, these frog things are everywhere, though the most famous ones -- sitting atop spools of thread – decorate the Frog bridge. (See the picture!) Apparently, one night in 1754, during the French and Indian War, the residents of Willimantic were woken up by strange and loud noises. They decided it was the enemy and prepared for an attack, only to discover that the sounds belonged to hundreds of bullfrogs. Or so the story goes.

Willimantic is an actual town, with some shops, restaurants, the population of about 15,000, and a bit of a heroin problem (according to some sources). It’s cute, but somewhat economically depressed; rough around the edges, but, we are told, not really dangerous. Aside from Frogs, it has a food co-op, a Polish breakfast place, a yoga studio, a brewery, and a bus that goes to the University of Connecticut, which is about 7 miles away. It’s known as a very liberal blue-collar town. Though of course it’s also full of artists, college professors, and students.

The apartment we found is in the nicest part of Willimantic, up on a hill. The whole street is beautiful and peaceful. Our place is the whole second floor of a house. It’s got four bedrooms, a 2-room eat-in kitchen, a cozy living room, and a huge attic. The wonderful lady who owns it lives downstairs. The rent is $950, which is amazing given all the space we get. The best part is probably the apartment’s layout -- Movie Dictator and I can work in our separate studies and not bother each other. What we need now is one of those apartment-size washer/dryer combos that don’t require special hookups. If you know of a good one, let me know.

We’ll be moving at the end of May, and once we’ve moved I’ll post some pictures. But for now I leave you with another photo of Frog Bridge and Willimantic.

Apartment Hunting in Connecticut – Round I.

2007-04-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

We spent much of yesterday in Connecticut, looking at houses and apartments. So far, no luck.

It’s a good thing that UConn isn’t very far from Boston. Our first appointment was at 10:30. We met with a nice real-estate lady (recommended by someone from the English department), who had a 3-bedroom house in Storrs to show us. The house was immaculate, completely renovated (though tiny), with the rent under $1000, and pretty close to campus. The problem was, it sat right in the middle of a construction site. In fact, it was owned by a construction company, whose office was right across from it, and we could see some lady checking us out from her office window. Unnerving. We said we’d think about it and rushed to our next appointment.

The next appointment was at 11:30, and it didn’t last long. At a Mobile station in Ashford we met up with a woman named Natalie, who showed us what the ad referred to as “condo” and what we immediately recognized as a grimy and smelly 2-bedroom apartment, populated by two graduate students. To Natalie’s credit, she could tell the place wasn’t for us and she didn’t waste our time.

The next house we saw was in Chaplin. The most amazing house - in the middle of some woods and completely secluded. The people it belonged to bought it as their second house, but didn’t have the time to live in it. I wish I knew more about architecture, so I could describe it properly. (I’ve attached a picture instead.) Movie Dictator, an architect’s son, fell in love with it immediately. So why didn’t we rent it? Two reasons. One: it was way more than we could afford. Two: it was too secluded. As much as Movie Dictator wanted to live in the middle the woods, he quickly realized that without a car (or even the ability to drive one), he would be completely disconnected from the civilization.

And so we left "the house in the woods" and went to see a house by the lake. I was really hopeful about this one. It sounded perfect on paper. Plus Movie Dictator had been dreaming of living by a lake. We drove into Coventry, got a little lost, but finally found the right place. Outside the house looked fine, but inside it felt kind of cramped, its three bedrooms clamped together. It resembled another one of those student apartments. Even more disconserting, the couple who owned the house were still very attached to it – e.g., they had some of their stuff stored there, and they wanted to come and use the house if we ever were away, and they wanted to come and use their boat from time to time… Also they didn’t want anyone to smoke outside on the deck (Isn’t it what decks are for?). Also they kept telling us how they wanted to stay friends with their neighbors there, and to make a good impression on them, and we were starting to get a sense we’d be watched all the time, especially since the neighbors’ houses were practically pressed against the rental house. And once again, it was just too far from sidewalks and stores, too impractical for Movie Dictator.

The final place we saw was called “a duplex.” Of course, it turned out to be another one of those dark, horrid, smelly student-apartments. We took one look at it and left.

By then we were exhausted, headachy, soaked (it rained all day), and hungry as hell. We drove to Willimantic, which is…gasp…an actual town. Like with an actual town center and shops and everything. We visited it before – during my interview trip – and liked it. Seeing it now, after all the “wilderness,” we realized that it was what we needed. A town. In theory, a house in the woods might be perfect for a couple of writers like ourselves; but in reality it would be a nightmare. The whole house-hunting trip – though a failure – was quite useful. We have our priorities straight now, and we’re going to concentrate on towns, especially Willimantic and Manchester.

On the final note: none of this would’ve been possible without our trusted GPS device, Mio. We didn’t have to look at maps or worry about directions. All day long we rushed among these little towns (Ashford, Coventry, Storrs, Mansfield) that surround the university, and not once did we get lost. (Okay, we did once. But only slightly.) Overall, Mio performed admirably, and for that we are thankful.

Recently Watched...

2007-04-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was asked what movies I'd seen lately, and guess what, I drew blank. The truth is, we watch so many that they're starting to blur together. So I decided to keep track of the movies I see, write little blurbs about them, and post some of these blurbs from time to time. Below is the first installment:

Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Clint Eastwood, Richard Burton. Written by Alistair MacLean. An intricate WWII spy/adventure story. Spies, double spies, unexpected turns of events, etc. Really well written, each step is thought through in advance. Not my favorite genre, but I liked it. It kept me on my toes, and damn, Clint Eastwood used to be cute!

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Mystery/fantasy/horror, felt a little like a Steven King knock off. Light and cheesy. But since it’s a John Carpenter’s movie, it had a nice look to it and was fun to watch.

Monster (2003)
Sad, sad, sad. They really made me sympathize with the heroine. And her little shit of a girlfriend was just that, a little shit. (Of course, I might feel differently once we watch the documentary about Aileen Wuornos, who inspired the movie.) I was blown away by Charlize Theron, whom I previously only seen in dainty light-weight roles. And it’s not just her look that are different here, it’s everything – the way she moves, her speech, her posture, her mannerisms. (That Oscar was well deserved!) Here’s a little trivia for you: she is from South Africa, her first language is Afrikaans, and yet, no trace of an accent (or as Movie Dictator points out: no flattened vowels).

In Debt We Trust
A documentary about America and credit card debt. Nothing I didn’t know already, but I liked the interviews with the “typical American folk” about their ways of dealing with money, e.g., a young woman explaining how she’s working on eliminating her debt by carefully managing a bunch of 0% credit cards, or a married wife/mother who tells us she’s from a well-off middle-class family and is used to certain standards – translation: feels entitled to spend above her means, even though she’s got two kids and her husband is the only one with a job. This could’ve been a good/basic film about debt, but its makers went overboard with “cute”/annoying songs and visual jokes. I think they were trying to make the whole thing light and funny.

First Snow
A tightly-wound little film with Guy Pearce playing a slick cock-sure salesman who has a strange encounter with a fortune teller. A simple but intense (and in the end rewarding) movie about fate.

S-Diaries
A Korean chick-flick/slapstick comedy. Odd. One of those movies that switch direction half-way through. In part one, a young woman breaks up with her boyfriend and, prompted by the breakup, reflects back on her previous relationships. In part two, she decides to take revenge on each of her old boyfriends (except for the last one): she calculates how much money she spent on each and starts sending them bills and generally harassing them. In the end, we’re told it was all about her trying to find herself. It’s all well and good, but lady, whenever you decide to spend money on someone, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it to feel loving, or virtuous, or long-suffering. You’re doing it out of altruism. Which is to say, don’t ask for refunds in the future. (I know, I know, it’s just a movie.)

April Fools

2007-04-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

I was born on April 1st. So was my sister, except seven years after me. It’s also the day our parents decided to get married. Our family has always had a thing about numbers. A series of weird coincidences. The latest one is that Movie Dictator and my sister’s husbands also share a birthday – April 18th -- which is also our mother’s birthday. Like I said, weird.

In Russia April 1st is the official day of Laughter/Humor and the unofficial day of pranks, i.e., you really can’t believe anything you hear even if it’s on the radio or in the newspaper. Yet it’s true. April 1st is my and my sister’s birthday and we’ve often been referred to as 'April 1st Joke' by family and friends.

We don’t often get to celebrate our birthday together, what with my sister living in Seattle and me living all over the place. When we do, it’s great. Otherwise, we end up calling each other several times a day to track the progress of our birthday.

Usually it’s fun. Yesterday it wasn’t.

Now, some people believe that birthdays should be ignored until they go away. Movie Dictator, for example. He claims to not even know how old he is. (I do, but I’m sworn to secrecy and not allowed to tell him.) His one idea for celebrating was to feed me sweets and tea spiked with Ambien, to ensure that the birthday passes like a pleasant blur. No expectations, no hard feelings. I must admit it didn’t seem altogether unpleasant, but in the end I had to reject this idea.

Instead we went to a Korean restaurant for lunch. Afterwards we watched movies, and Movie Dictator allowed me my choice of silly romantic comedies. (Woohoo! Chainsaws and cannibals are out. Gwyneth Paltrow is in.) And all along I tried to ignore the phone calls from my family.

You see, my sister was in Las Vegas at the time, celebrating her birthday in style. She’d known in advance she was being taken to Vegas. But there was a twist to it, a surprise involving a limo, a helicopter, a flight to Grand Canyon, and a lunch. How cool is that, I ask you.

I’m not being bitter, honestly. (Okay, maybe a little.) My point is we couldn’t afford Vegas or a helicopter right now, and I’m fine with that. My point is about expectations. Are they reasonable?

For some reason I always expect surprises and magic and fireworks. Something breathtaking. Growing up, I would tell my parents that all I wanted for my birthday was a brother or a sister. On my seventh birthday, that was what I got. A sister. I guess nothing else could ever compare to that. On my fourteenth birthday, my first one since the brace, I wandered the streets of Moscow trying to find some big celebration (I didn’t). On my eighteenth birthday I skipped all the lectures at my college and spent the morning watching Disney cartoons at a nearby movie house. The birthday after that I was in America. On my twenty-fourth birthday, I had just arrived in Boston and having returned from the first day at my new job, found myself snowed in in a motel. And on the night of my thirtieth birthday, I stood in a stairwell of my apartment building, drunk and terrified, watching an equally terrified mouse trying to climb up the stairs ahead of me, one step at a time.

I guess my nature is to blame. Somehow I always end up feeling a little sad and alienated, even in the midst of the wildest celebration. Or maybe none of my celebrations have been wild enough. Or even remotely wild. Maybe what I need next year is to jump off a plane or climb a small mountain. Or travel somewhere. I don’t like the idea of April Fools’ Day passing unnoticed. Even if it means that year after year, I set myself up for disappointment. Maybe the disappointment is the point.

As for yesterday, it wasn’t so bad. I mean how bad can it be if you get to spend it eating ice-cream from a Russian store and watching a Korean flick called 200 Pounds Beauty? And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel lonely at the end of the day. How could I, with Movie Dictator explaining to me why birthdays should be outlawed.

From the Department of "No, I don't watch TV"

2007-03-24T08:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we watched Season 10 of The Amazing Race.

But first, let me explain. I still don’t watch TV. Not really. We have one, a little TV/VCR combo that I got from my parents, who have long since moved on to bigger and better TVs. Movie Dictator puts it on occasionally – to clear his head after hours of writing, to watch some Jerry Springer, or to wake me up in the morning. Speaking of which, I do understand the appeal of morning shows. There’s nothing worse than having to get up early in the morning when you feel like the rest of the world is still in bed. Fortunately, you have the well-dressed and perky TV hosts to keep you company. There they are --sipping their coffee in their well-lit studios. It’s sort of good to have them chirping in the background, though after an hour or so, they start to get on my nerves and I turn the TV off.

Now, back to the Amazing Race. This was my first serious exposure to the modern-day reality TV – yes, I know, I’ve been living under a rock -- and I sort of fell in love with it. Not with the reality TV, that is, but with this particular show.

First of all, it involves traveling around the world! Granted, I would prefer a more contemplative way to see the world. Something along the lines of Michael Palin’s documentary (Around the World in 80 Days). Still, there’s much excitement in trying to guess which country the contestants will get sent to next and watching them navigate unfamiliar cities and cultures.

What’s even more interesting is the dynamics among the contestants, especially within each team. The married/dating couples seemed to fight a lot more than the couples of friends. Is it because they tend to take each other for granted? Because they have issues to begin with? My favorite team was the couple of beauty queens (Miss California and Miss New York). I didn’t expect to like them, but I found myself really admiring how they handled all the challenges. Throughout the whole thing, they were mostly staying positive and having fun. They never turned on each other. And they were amazing at pep talks and encouragements. (Not surprising, I guess, given their occupations.) Needless to say, the other teams hated their confidence and sense of fun. But to me, they were a great example of how to treat life as an adventure (as opposed to the source of angst and suffering) and how to go through it with a partner.

The show also made me feel competitive. I kept thinking: could I do it? I grew up with back problems, which meant wearing a brace, attending a special school, and not being allowed to run or ride a bicycle. So I’m not exactly athletic. But could I be? One of the contestants on the show had an artificial leg, which didn’t stop her from running, climbing, etc. (I’d love to tell you that having watched the show, I immediately started exercising. But no, I haven’t even made it back to yoga yet.)

The thing is, Movie Dictator and I could probably get on this show. I mean, we have a good story: he’s from South Africa, I’m from Russia. We met on the subway. We’re both writers. I could learn to ride a bicycle. He could learn to drive…

I don’t care about being on TV, seriously! But I’d love to test myself, to try all these challenges – like climbing up the Great Wall of China, composing a hip-hop song, or driving a Ukrainian tank.

The biggest challenge, though, would be not to freak out. Not to give in to stress or panic. Not to take our frustration on each other.

And no, we’re not going to apply. For one thing, they don’t allow smokers and Movie Dictator has no intention of quitting. And for another thing, he’s like no way, you get stressed driving to Logan airport, let alone Chennai, India. And, of course, he’s got a point. Still, not all is lost. I might get my act together and start exercising regularly. I might even learn to ride a bicycle one day.

In the meantime, we’re not done with reality shows yet. On the agenda this weekend: Survivor: Season 13.

Killing Time

2007-03-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

Everyone agrees: Internet can be deadly. With its blogs, forums, online news sources, Internet Movie Database, Google, and everything in between, it can consume your life. Who has that kind of time? No one. And yet, we all do it, to greater or lesser degree. Blogs have become our guilty pleasure.

I am okay with blogs. I read a couple of literary ones (Maud Newton’s, for example), the one about Boston (Universal Hub), and I regularly check my friends' blogs. It’s not so bad, really.

My guilty pleasure (and the major killer of time) is online forums. Not that I ever post my own entries or responses, but I get ridiculously addicted to all the drama there. It’s like watching a soap opera.

It all started with Visa Journey. Now, to be fair, forums can be useful. I first consulted Visa Journey as we were preparing Movie Dictator’s green card application, and the forum had a wealth of useful information: from how to fill out forms to the common interview questions. Of course, I became obsessed with it. I checked the forum several times a day. I identified the people who sent their applications at the same time as us, and I watched their posts like a hawk. Was it healthy? No. But it was a stressful time, and monitoring the forum made me feel better.

We were fortunate: It only took us four months (and about a thousand dollars in application fees). We had an interview at the end of October; we were approved; and a couple of weeks later Movie Dictator had his green card. Hooray! Did I stop reading the forum? No.

In my defense, forums are fascinating. I love to observe the dynamics on Visa Journey. Self-righteousness often is the norm. Buttons get pushed. An innocent question can trigger a hurricane of angry responses. People stuck in limbo, people whose applications got approved, people whose marriages didn’t survive – they all keep posting, sometimes years after the fact. The forum is their community, their life, their way of self-expression. Admittedly, I look for drama. Immigrants who come into the country on tourist visas are a frequent source of anger. (How dare they?!) The brides from Philippines and Russia are commonly seen as suspicious. And then there are so called trolls who just like to provoke their fellow posters. On an anonymous forum like this, people feel free to reveal all of their prejudice and baggage.

Lately, I’ve moved away from Visa Journey. My newest addiction is the discussion board on the Chronicle of Higher Education, particularly the discussions related to the job search. Why? you might ask. And believe me, I ask myself the very same thing. I’ve got the job now. Why do I care so much? I don’t know.

Compared to Visa Journeys, this forum is more subdued, more civilized. In addition to the job search discussions, it offers discussions of money, teaching, and balancing teaching and life. Some topics are frivolous, i.e., vacations, flings, etc; others a quite serious. There’s a huge discussion on procrastination, where people seem to post their to-do lists every day, which they then update hourly. Welcome to the academic life!

Still, my plan is to wean myself off the academic forum. There might be some important/useful stuff in there, and maybe I can check it once a week or something. But right now, it renders me completely unproductive. Last week was a waste. This week is better. I guess this post is my way of “exorcising” the remaining demons.” No more killing time! I say. Until, of course, I find another forum that is relevant.

Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys…

2007-03-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Last night, we finished watching a four-part (BBC?) documentary called Boys & Girls, about music and sex and how sex (and sometimes politics) influenced musical trends -- and other way around -- in Britain. Each of the four installment covered a decade: sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties. The part about the eighties was my favorite. It just seemed like the campiest and most fun era. Plus I grew up on some of this music. Pet Shop Boys! Depeche Mode!

It was interesting to see how much sexual ambiguity was used in each of these four decades. But the conclusion – the nineties – was disappointing. While previously artists tried to challenge and/or provoke the mainstream, the nineties culminated in something bland and, well, democratic. Instead of wanting to stand out, the artists now try to blend in. Anyone can be an artist. Hence, the American Idol (or Pop Idol in Britain).

The saddest thing, though, is how little the nineties have to show for themselves. The sixties had The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The seventies had David Bowie and the Sex Pistols. The eighties had The Smiths and Morrissey and lots more. And the nineties? Spice Girls? Something called Robbie Williams? There were cameos by the members of Garbage and Chambawamba, but their music was barely mentioned. Suede sounded interesting – I didn’t know of them before -- but they, too, became lost amidst the mainstream.

That said, the documentary is worth taking a look at. It is ambitious, to be sure. And maybe it tries to bite more than it can chew. And inevitably some musicians get ommited. Still, the four installments give a good sense of how pop/rock music developed in Britain, how the country itself changed, politically, culturally, and sexually.

Job Search: What I’ve Learned

2007-03-10T09:28:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I informally accepted the offer from UConn (via e-mail to the department chair). The official letter arrived yesterday, so now I can sign on the dotted line. I ended up negotiating a 1/1 load for my first year, which is probably unheard of for someone in my position, and which will be very helpful for when the book comes out. (I want to do my best to promote it.) All in all, I feel like I’ve won a lottery.

The insanity of the search is finally over (although last night I dreamt I was assigned to teach Piano II class! And no, I don’t play piano). Here's what I've learned.

I’ve learned that patience is a virtue.

I’ve learned that patience is a virtue I don’t have.

That the whole process is trying and the outcome is impossible to predict.

That each college/search committee has its own process. UConn, for example, didn’t do MLA or phone interviews. On the other hand, some search committees had two rounds of phone interviews before selecting their finalists. One place interviewed at MLA, but didn’t plan to do on-campus interviews.

That colleges that express interest early on might all ultimately reject you. I had lots of early responses from California colleges. It seemed we were bound to end up there. Yet in the end, none of them panned out.

That silence doesn’t always mean you’ve been rejected. One university I applied at was silent through the whole process – no updates, no interviews. And yet, when I got the rejection letter, I learned that my application was in the finalist group.

That there’s a wealth of information about the job search on the Chronicle of Higher Education website, particularly in its discussion forums. (I only discovered it after getting the offer. ) There’s also, it turns out, a wiki page where people anonymously post info about specific colleges/job searches. It’s organized by discipline.

I’ve learned that it might be a good thing that I didn’t know about the forums. Some of what I did is apparently considered “a red flag.” For example, bringing along your partner when you travel to an on-campus interview. Some people do it (though sometimes in secret). Others see it as being presumptuous. Hell, some even take off their wedding bands, just so their marital status doesn’t influence the search committee’s decision. Unaware of the controversy, I brought Movie Dictator along (I wanted him to see the area) and I was open with the search committee about it (they invited him to the dinner afterwards). Was I making a mistake? Who knows. Maybe. In the end, I did get the job. Also, a friend of mine (in another field) did the same last year, and also got the job. So I guess you never know.

Go Huskies!!!

2007-03-03T07:57:00.000-08:00

This morning I got an offer from UConn! I have a job! We won’t starve! We won’t have to live under a bridge or sell ourselves for medical experiments! I’m jumping up and down, laughing manically, and scaring Movie Dictator.

The position is Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Creative Writing. Which means that I’ll be co-directing the program and teaching 3 courses a year. A year! And in terms of location, it’s a 1.5 hours drive from Boston, 3 hours drive from NYC, 1 hour drive from Providence, and 40 minutes form Hartford. It means I can visit and enjoy all of these places. It means I’ll be close to Boston, Grub Street, and all my friends there. It means I can continue to teach creative writing, which I love so much. (Though don’t start me about teaching comp. Fortunately, I won’t have to do that anymore.) It means I’ll be working alongside some wonderful, talented, and very funny people, one of whom, as it happens, was the inspiration for Robin William’s character in Dead Poets Society. Can it get any better?

And to all of you who’ve been listening to my angst and helping me get through this insane job-search process: Thank You!

I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy!!!

Counting Chickens

2007-03-01T11:13:00.000-08:00

This week I got the first image of my book cover from my editor. I’m not sure whether it’s okay to post it here, but what the hell. Very communist-looking, no? I like the quirkiness of it, but I also wish for something more subtle, something that would reflect not just the humor but sadness of the stories too. I’ve been browsing gettyone.com (thank you, Jane!), searching for pictures of chickens and supermarkets (I seem to be especially attached to the images of parking lots and lonely shopping carts), and sending some of them toward my agent & editor. But so far all my suggestions have been shot down. I’m not sure it’s a battle worth fighting.

Otherwise, no news. I’m in the midst of a gut-wrenching waiting game. Waiting to hear about the Connecticut job. Checking my e-mail incessantly. Feeling like I’m going insane. Movie Dictator has had to talk me off the ledge repeatedly (at least once a day), and I think he’s getting fed up with me. Not knowing is the worst part. With every hour that goes by without a phone call, I become more and more convinced that I didn’t get the job.

In an attempt to make myself feel better, I’ve done the following things. Stayed in bed for a day, reading and playing TombRaider III. Developed a Plan B (i.e., if I don’t get any job at all), which involves us selling our belongings, packing up the Subaru, and driving to Seattle, where it’s cheaper and where my sister lives. Went back to working on my novel. If I’m destined to spend next year answering phones, serving burgers, or teaching comp, the least I can do now is use the free time that’s left and write, write, write. Write like hell.

What I’ve Been Watching

2007-02-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

Since tonight is the Oscars night, it seems appropriate to talk about movies. Except I haven’t seen many nominated films, despite all my recent movie watching. So, no Oscar predictions here.

However, I did manage to finally see Little Miss Sunshine, just the other day. It was nice. But not great. Maybe I’ve heard too much about it. Yes, it was funny and quirky and fairly intelligent, and some of the writing and acting was great. But it was also familiar. The same quirky family we’ve seen so many times. The same Toni Collette in the same odd/hassled mother role. The same familiar trajectory – the outrageous/annoying characters are allowed to develop and show us their humanity. Movie Dictator loved this movie, actually. My sense is that despite his international movie-geek expertise, he hasn’t seen as many American “indie” films on the subject of dysfunctional family as I have.

Speaking of which, what is an indie film these days? (We had a discussion about it.) Movie Dictator pointed out that to produce a movie like Little Miss Sunshine, with actors of Toni Collette/Greg Kinnear/Alan Arkin caliber, they had to have a significant budget. Granted, not the kind of budget that, say, Babel had, but still, significant. My understanding – or rather a guess – is that anything not produced by one of the major studios is considered indie. This would include total dark horses that come to light at Sundance, and the bigger players like Little Miss Sunshine. Am I wrong? I might be.

Actually, the best and most surprising thing about Little Miss Sunshine was the music. Most of it was by DeVotchka, one of my favorite bands. Their music is gorgeous, a mix of instruments and influences, Gypsy, East European, Italian, Mariachi. Find it. Listen to it. Like the stupid Natalie Portman character says in Garden Sate, “It will change your life.”

Okay, enough of Little Miss Sunshine.

The movie that I recently watched and really liked was The Lives of Others – a German movie, set in East Germany before the fall of Berlin Wall. (Something in me seems to respond to the communist angst. The spying! The repressions! The plight of artists in a totalitarian state!) Seriously, though, the movie is smart and subtle, and there’s something to be said for subtle. What I liked the best is reading the face of one of the main characters (as he’s spying/listening on others). Nothing is explained, and yet one can see what he’s going through.

And while we’re at it: why does everything has to be so over-explained in American movies today? It didn’t use to be that way. Here’s an example. A few months ago, Movie Dictator introduced me to Black Christmas. The original version. Black Christmas is a horror movie about sorority girls who start getting crank calls and end up getting killed one at a time. (And no, in case you’re wondering, in the original 1974 version the sorority girls are not slutty. Well, except for one.) The movie’s not exactly a masterpiece, and it’s got some degree of predictability in it (i.e. one girl will survive and you know pretty much from the beginning which one it will be). What makes it interesting, though, is that crank calls are never explained. They’re odd crank calls, There’s a story behind them, and you can glimpse some parts of it, but the story is not explained and not revealed completely. By the time you get to the end of it, you’re still not sure who the killer is.

Now fast forward to 2006. Black Christmas is remade. The sorority girls are finally slutty. (Hooray!) The killer is revealed right away, even before the killings begin. And the back story of the killer, his connection to the sorority house, his family, his horribly abusive mother (made to look like a fairytale witch – just so we don’t miss the point that she’s horrible and abusive) – all of it is given to us immediately, in a heap of ridiculous flashbacks and lengthy explanations by some secondary characters. The dialogue is trite and clunky and obvious. More importantly, the movie is completely stripped of mystery.

Moving back to the good, quality movies and the Oscars: The ones I’m rooting for this year are Pan’s Labyrinth and Children of Men. The former one is a beautiful and scary fairytale -- the kind you can’t take your eyes off. It’s set in Franco’s Spain. The latter one is dark, apocalyptic, and set in England. Both are strange and haunting.

What I'm Reading

2007-02-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

With all the movies and travel and job angst, sometimes it’s easy to forget that I’m a reader first. So what have I been reading lately?

Mostly magazines at this point. But I’m happy to report that I’m almost caught up on the New Yorkers. A new issue of N+1 has arrived. And so has the new issue of Poets and Writers.

There are times when I wonder whether I should renew Poets and Writers for another year. Then I get a new issue and find something really useful or even inspirational. In the current issue, for example, there’s a great article by Walter Mosley, “Writing Every Day: The First-Time Novelist's New Year Plan,” which is an excerpt from his upcoming book on writing. And yes, he talks about writing every day (nothing new here, and yet a good reminder given how scattered I’ve been about writing lately), why it’s important not to miss more than one day, and how much work is done subconsciously.

I’ve assembled a file of P&W articles—interviews with the authors I like, practical advice about MFA programs, magazines, and getting published in general, essays on craft—all of which I use a lot when I teach. Walter Mosley’s is definitely joining the file (in fact, I used it yesterday in my Grub Street class). In addition to the “pep talk” about writing every day, it also talks about character development ( “The story you tell, the characters you present, will all have dark sides to them. If you want to write believable fiction, you will have to cross over the line of your self-restraint”) and about using autobiographical material (“[W]ait until the book is finished before making a judgment on its content. By the time you have rewritten the text twenty times the characters may have developed lives of their own, completely separate from the people you based them on in the beginning”).

I’m slowly making my way through the issue 5 of N+1. (Full disclosure: I’ve been a big fan of N+1 from the beginning. One of its founding editors is my dear friend/compatriot/fellow Syracuse classmate, Keith Gessen.) I’m reading slowly because the articles are complex and challenging and not that easy to get through, say, at 7 in the morning when you’re barely awake. They require your undivided attention. Which is a good thing. For me, the highlights so far are the essay on pornography and a wonderful short story by Rebecca Curtis. I would’ve included links, but I couldn’t find the usual annotated table of contents. (Hint: Dear editors? Keith? Are you reading this? Will you update the website?)

And just in case you’re thinking that I’ve sworn off books in favor of magazines, I was reading a book this morning – The Voice Actor's Guide to Home Recording. No, I’m not contemplating a new career. But Movie Dictator is a voiceover artist, and we’re currently trying to figure out how to assemble a recording studio for him. So if you know any sound engineers, send them our way!

Back from Pittsburgh

2007-02-18T20:16:00.000-08:00

It’s been a week from hell.

Exactly a week ago, on Sunday, Movie Dictator and myself got into our car and went off to Connecticut. I had an interview there the following day. The trip took only 1.5 hours and we spent the rest of the day exploring the towns in this semi-rural area, known as “Quiet Corner” of Connecticut. We checked out Manchester, which seemed eerily deserted. We drove to Glastonbury, which looked expensive and lacking any sort of town center. We drove to Hartford, which looked kind of nice in the lights of the setting sun. Some old building and sculptures (men on horses). Finally we made our way into West Hartford, which seemed nice enough.

The next day, I had my interview. It started at 9 am went on until 9:30 pm, which was when the dinner ended. It was a lot of fun! All the faculty and students were lovely, enthusiastic, kind, funny. It just seemed like a great place to be. I think I did well, but there’s just no way to know for sure. All I can do right now, is keep my fingers crossed and wait.

The moment the dinner was over, though, my cell phone rang. It was my father calling to tell me that my grandfather passed away. My grandfather had been at a hospital for the past 3 weeks. He was 89 years old and his heart had been failing. On some days he was given 50% of survival, on other days, 5-10%. We didn’t know what to think. On Monday he got worse, and by the end of the day, he was gone.

I considered driving to Pittsburgh directly from Connecticut, but my father talked me out of it – Pittsburgh was in the midst of a serious snowstorm. Instead, Movie Dictator and I went downstairs and got drunk. I was feelings exhausted and miserable.

What can I tell you about my grandfather? He was great. He was funny. He was fond of practical jokes. He was about to turn 90 this summer, though in reality he was only 88. He had added a year to his age to get into a Naval Academy. He had one son and two daughters; 6 grandchildren, and a bunch of great-grandchildren. He’d had 4 wives, though most of his life he spent with our grandmother. They met at a hospital: he was critically wounded, she was his nurse. She nursed him to health. Reader, they married each other. Their first daughter was born in 1943, while Leningrad was under siege. My grandfather defended Leningrad. He was a captain of a minesweeper. In 1945, he was sent to Alaska, where he became a captain of an American battle ship. He fought against Japan. Then he came back. In 1953 during the last round of Stalin’s purges he was forced into an early retirement. It could have been worse. My other grandfather (my dad’s side) didn’t survive 1953 at all.

Next morning, we went back to Boston. On the way there, we drove through the town of Willimantic, about 8 miles away from the university. I instantly fell in love with it. It seemed both rundown and up-and-coming. It had a character and charm. Also, a food coop, yoga studio, and a Polish breakfast place. Still, we agreed not to count the unhatched chickens or – to use a Russian expression -- not to split the skin of the unkilled bear.

Back in Boston it was time to run errands, pay bills, buy airplane tickets, and pack. For various logistical reasons we decided that I would go to Pittsburgh alone. The following morning I got up at 3:30 am and headed for the airport. The flight was several hours late—they had to de-ice the plane several times and then wait for a better weather—but it eventually took off. I was lucky. It was the last plane to Pittsburgh that day, all the other ones were canceled.

At the airport in Pittsburgh, I was supposed to wait for my brother-in-law and drive home with him. Unfortunately, his connecting flight from Chicago got canceled, and so I had to get a cab again.

Pittsburgh was cold and sunny and covered in snow. A real winter wonderland, with big white snowdrifts, snowed-in roads, and the tree branches silvery with ice. (And Movie Dictator was missing it all.)

My sister arrived the morning before. My brother-in-law that afternoon. The funeral was the next day.

We spent much of the week talking about my grandfather, telling stories, looking at his old pictures. He used to be stunningly handsome. In his last days, mostly unconscious, he thought he was a captain again. He was on his ship, tough and powerful, scolding the slackers, giving out commands.

The funeral was on Thursday. The ceremony -- fairly quick: a couple of speeches by the relatives (me included), a speech by the rabbi (why can they never remember the name of the deceased, the only name that is important?). Fortunately, the rabbi kept the prayers to the minimum. We drove to the cemetery. It was another beautiful and freezing day. We were given paper packets of earth. A few more words of Kaddish, and then it was all over.

The rest of the week was spent on clearing my grandfather’s apartment (not a trivial thing, since my mother wanted to keep everything and my father to throw everything out), visiting family and friends, entertaining visitors. Every day we were up until 1 or 2 in the morning, I was -- and still am -- exhausted. But it was also good, the way our family came together. It made me realize a bunch of things about my relationship with them – but that’s a subject for a whole other posting.

And now is the best part: I’m home, with the Movie Dictator, and I can finally relax, catch up on e-mail, and sleep.

Catching Up on the New Yorkers

2007-02-10T06:24:00.000-08:00

It’s that time again. A stack of unread issues of the New Yorker has formed on my nightstand – about 2 months’ worth of them—and lately I’ve been trying to catch up, issue by issue, making a slow but steady progress. Along the way, I figured this was a good place to mention some articles that have made an impression on me.

For example…

"My Father’s Suticase", the 2006 Nobel Lecture by Orhan Pamuk (12/25-01/01 issue). A lovely meditation on writing and writing life. I liked his way of describing of what it’s like to be a writer:

“A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man—or this woman—may use a typewriter, or profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is complete—after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy.”

I like his idea of the “inward gaze.” It’s so essential, and yet so hard to accomplish, especially on the days when everything is hectic, and when writing is supposed to somehow fit in between errands, grading, grocery shopping, and doctors’ appointments.

In comparing himself to his father (who wrote much of his life but wasn’t published), Pamuk describes two types of writers. He describes himself as someone who’s at odds with the world, lonely and alienated, and his describes his father as the opposite of that:

“In fact, I was angry at my father because he had not led a life like mine—because he had never quarrelled with his life, and had spent it happily laughing with his friends and his loved ones. But part of me also knew that I was not so much “angry” as “jealous,” that the second word was more accurate, and this, too, made me uneasy. I’d ask myself in a scornful, angry voice: What is happiness? Is happiness believing that you live a deep life in your lonely room? Or is happiness leading a comfortable life in society, believing in the same things as everyone else, or, at least, acting as if you did? Is it happiness or unhappiness to go through life writing in secret, while seeming to be in harmony with all that surrounds you?”

I wonder if all writers belong to one of these two camps. I like the idea of being a writer who lives in harmony with his/her world/surrounding. But god forbid, I wouldn’t want to be a complacent writer. So some degree of anger is essential, isn’t it?

Pamuk also makes an important—and to me, unexpected--point. Growing up in Istanbul, he felt he was living in the provinces, far away from the cultural centers where the real art happened. Not only the country didn’t seem very encouraging towards its artists and writers, it also lacked, according to Pamuk, the excitement and richness of “the centers.” (This is surprising to me, because I never thought of Turky as provincial. To me, it was a part of Europe. Then again, how many Turkish writers do I know?)

This idea of provincialism is continued in "Die Weltliteratur” by Milan Kundera (the New Yorker, January 8th), unfortunately not available online.

He defines “provincialism” as “the inability (or the refusal) to see one’s own culture in the large context.” What’s large context, you ask. Kundera exaplains that “[t]here are two basic contexts in which a work of art may be placed: either in the history of its nation (we can call this the small context) or else in the supranational history of its art (the large context).” He says that in most anthologies, “world literature is always presented as juxtaposition of national literatures! Literatures in the plural!” “And yet,” he points out, “Rabelais was never better understood than by a Russian, Bakhtin; Dostoyevsky than by a Frenchman, Gide; Ibsen than by an Irishman, Shaw; Joyce than by an Austrian, Broch.”

This made me want to look at the authors less known and more marginalized than Doestoevsky and see whom they influenced (across the national borders) and how. It made me wonder how often the idea of nationality is used as a crutch, how often the works of literature become linked to information, i.e., read this book by a Russian writer and learn more about Russia. I think of all the panels at AWP that use region/ethnicity as their organizing principle. Chinese Women Writers. New Russian Literary Diaspora (in which I participated). It’s marketing. I don’t think it’s wrong, but I also don’t think this should be the only focus. Yes, it’s great to read a book and learn something about the country and the people among which it’s set. But as far as literature is concerned, it should be a secondary benefit. First and foremost, it’s art, and as such, it should be able to transcend national boundaries. Anyway… Kundera says it much better than I.

The final article I wanted to mention is also about writing. "The Art of Extinction" is about Thomas Bernhard, an Austrian writer, who may be seen as one of those marginalized writers Kundera talks about. I’ve read only one of his novels so far, Yes, and it was glorious—dense, dark, emotionally sweeping. (He uses very few paragraph breaks.)

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the article:

"Bernhard had a well-deserved reputation as the country’s most provocative postwar writer: he spent his career alternately mocking and mourning Austria’s Nazi legacy, which, with typical bluntness, he once represented as a pile of manure on the stage. At first, he declined to participate in the commemoration, saying with caustic humor that a more appropriate gesture would be for all the shops once owned by Jews to display sign reading “Judenfrei.” But the author of play like “The German Lunch Table,” in which family members gathered for a meal discovered Nazis in their soup, could not resist such a rich opportunity to needle Austria’s political and cultural élite."

Searching for Snow

2007-02-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

It’s cold in Boston. Very cold. But still no snow. Apart from occasional flurries, there’s been nothing this year worth speaking of yet. The rest of the country, sure. But in Boston nothing.

Movie Dictator desperately wants snow. He’s South African, he doesn’t know any better. He becomes mesmerized at the sight snowflakes. We even had one little snowball fight! But it’s not enough. What he wants is a real storm, with a state of emergency and excessive snow shoveling. I keep telling him it’s not all fun and games, but he remains unperturbed.

So a couple of weeks ago, we got in the car and went in search of snow. More specifically, we went to Vermont. Even more specifically, to Killington. Now, you need to understand, we’re not exactly skier types. Not at all, actually. We felt totally out of plays in the Killington Village (or whatever it’s called), among all the sporty-looking people dressed in their bright skiing gear. But we did see some cars covered in snow, and this filled us with hope.

We drove a little further—by then it got dark—up a hill that looked increasingly deserted. And then, suddenly, we were at the bottom of a mountain. And all around us was…snow. Okay, it wasn’t real snow. But it felt real. And we saw how it was made—right there, in front of us.

Below is the evidence. The white round blobs are the snowflakes. Movie Dictator wouldn’t let me post a better picture of him (the dictator that he is), but you get the idea. Also, as a bonus, there’s a picture of me with bunny ears on New Year’s Eve.

Movies and the Pursuit of Communism

2007-02-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

Two movies on the subject of communism were consumed this weekend. (You’d think I was from Russia or something.)

The first one was Underground by Emir Kusturica. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it until I realized he also directed Arizona Dream(the one with Johnny Depp and Lili Taylor). Without giving away too much, I can say that the movie is set in former Yugoslavia. It starts straightforwardly enough, though not without some vaudeville-like flourishes: Yugoslavia under German occupation, two likable friends (communists or thieves or both), a girl they are both after who seems to prefer a German… All of this accompanied by the scenes of drunken revelry and Balkan music. Then the movie jumps ahead. The war is either over or not. Some of the main characters are either dead or alive or played by actors in a movie that’s being filmed as a part of the plot. It’s a glorious mess that ultimately begins to make sense. Suddenly what we have is a perfect allegory of what communism (or socialism rather) was: a bunch of people living in the dark, blindly believing in the ideals that didn’t apply anymore -- a farce created by a group of corrupt puppeteers. The movie might be a bit too long, but its third part, in which Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore and what’s left of it is, once again, in a state of war, feels especially poignant.

Which is more than I can say for the second movie, 1900 (aka Novecento). On the one hand, it’s Bertolucci. On the other hand, it’s 5+ hours long. And yes, in the uncut version you get to see naked Depardiu and De Niro, in the same scene and with their genitals visible. But is it worth it? This story takes place in Italy and starts long before the WWII. De Niro plays a landowner's son (at least his grown-up version, and trust me it takes a while to get to that point); Depardiue plays a peasant’s son. From their early days, the two share an uncertain friendship, made even more so by the good old class antagonism. De Niro’s character is interesting. He means well, but he’s indecisive and corrupted by his family wealth. He wants to please too many people at once. Depardiue’s character is supposed to be likable, but he’s way too smug for my taste. The third significant figure is played for Donald Southerland—and I’m sorry to say that even Southerland’s charm (see Kelly’s Heroes or The Eagle Has Landed) can’t help this evil character.

Still, despite the lengthiness, I basically enjoyed the movie. Until we got to the ending. I’m not sure what Bertolucci was up to here, but the scene of incoherent peasants testifying in a makeshift court does little to endear one to the idea of socialism in action. And maybe that’s how it should be.

Books: Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender

2007-02-03T06:53:00.000-08:00

I like odd stories. Surreal, magical, experimental. I like them because they are unpredictable and surprising. Because my own writing is not like that. Most of all, I like them because they can talk of familiar things (relationships, feelings, conflicts) with unfamiliar precision.

Aimee Bender’s books seem to belong to the camp of magic realism. Willful Creatures is her third one, and like her first collection, it has its requisite magic: a woman discovers a store that sells words; a woman finds seven potatoes in a cast-iron pot, and no matter what she does, she can’t get rid of them; a boy has fingers shaped like keys; a pumpkinhead couple gives birth to an ironhead child. These are lovely stories, emotional, poignant, full of melancholy.

But the stories that affected me the most have no magic at all. They are strange, though. They have flawed characters. In one (“Off”), a lonely rich girl at a party decides she must kiss three men (a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette); in another (“Debbieland”) a group of vicious school girls is terrorizing an unpopular girl. This latter story is at first narrated by a collective “we,” but later a single (if unidentified) narrator emerges. (It shouldn’t work, but it does.) These narrators have oddly appealing confidence to them. Their worldview is whole. But underneath it all lurks doubt. Like everyone else, they’re vulnerable, mortal.

The language, too, is full of unexpected turns. Normally, Aimee Bender’s prose is not flowery. It’s deceptively simple, and this book is no exception. And yet, the language here felt thrilling. In “Death Watch” the sex with a dying man is “like castles; it has moats and turrets.” In “Off,” the narrator says, “[W]ine is making my bones loose and it’s giving my hair a red sheen, and my breasts are blooming and my eyes feel sultry and wise and the dress is water.“

Finally, I’d like to say that I’ve seen Aimee Bender read from her work a few times, and she’s a great reader, generous and down to earth. After her reading at Newtonville Books, for example, she made a point of talking to people, actually initiating conversations, asking what they did and whether they also wrote. So the next time she’s appearing at your local bookstore, by all means go.

Why I Love Arlington Public Library

2007-02-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

But first a couple of side notes:

1. I’m enjoying blogging so far. What I’m learning, though, is that it’s no fun when you don’t get any responses. If a tree falls in a forest and no one’s there… does it really fall? I’ve always been the kind of person who never left comments. But I’m reformed now. Promise!

2. Some news on the job front. Did another phone interview yesterday (with a college in San Francisco area), and I think it actually went okay. Also got a note from a university in Connecticut trying to schedule an on-campus interview. That was unexpected, as there were no preliminary interviews (on the phone or in person). Don’t have any details yet, but I’m feeling excited and nervous.

Now back to the previously scheduled topic: the library.

Ideally, I am fine working at home. However, having two writers in the same smallish apartment can get claustrophobic. So I’ve been writing in various cafes in the area – not a perfect solution, but doable with the help of earplugs.

Then I discovered Arlington Public Library. It’s quiet! That’s probably the best things about it. Occasionally, you get some teenagers jabbering on the phone, or a couple of seniors talking history books and how Stalin was an okay guy and how we should nuke all of the Middle East. But those are exceptions. For the most part, everyone is courteous and focused on his or her work. There are plenty of tiny cubicle-desks (each comes with a shelf and a lamp), which make for some much needed privacy. Plenty of electric outlets (each desk is equipped with them). Free wireless on the third floor. Also you don’t have to keep spending money on food. I usually bring along my lunch and later eat in my car (no food in the library!). A little uncomfortable, but I get to listen to the NPR while I eat. Parking can be challenging, but after 5-10 minutes of waiting a space usually frees up.

Still, there are days when it’s cold and windy outside, and all you want is to sit on a comfy couch with your computer in your lap, tinkering with your writing while sipping hot tea and snacking on egg-and-cheese sandwiches. Which is why I’m not at the library today.

Job Situation

2007-01-30T10:36:00.000-08:00

This morning I printed out a list of all the teaching jobs I applied for and posted it in the kitchen. (Movie Dictator wants to know what the future might bring.) So far, I have applied for 26 jobs (and some fellowships), and got rejected from 3. Any day now I expect a whole batch of rejection letters to appear in our mailbox. The teaching positions are all over the place: East Coast, West Coast, South, Pacific Northwest. I’m open to just about anything -- though I did avoid Midwest.

As many of you know, applying for teaching jobs is a long and torturous process. You look for openings. You send out applications. Some colleges want everything at once: your CV, your recommendations letters, your writing sample, your creative statement, your statement of teachings philosophy, your statement of Christianity (no, I’m not kidding). Others keep it minimal at first and then follow up with requests for extra info. Then there are initial interviews. Many of them happen at the MLA Conference (which takes place between Christmas and New Year, the worst and most expensive time to travel). Some initial interviews happen over the phone. Then, if you’ve been picked as a finalist, you get invited for a campus visit, also known as an all-day interview. You might be asked to teach a workshop, a lit class (full-length or abbreviated), do a reading or a lecture, meet with various people, go to lunch and/or dinner during which you’ll be carefully scrutinized. It sounds hellish, but the one time I did it, I actually had fun – though preparing for it was a nightmare.

So what happened this year? Not much so far. The MLA was in Philadelphia, and I traveled there in December and had 4 interviews. I thought they went well. How do I know? I don’t. All I know is, the people were lovely and friendly, the conversations were good, the questions made sense. I enjoyed every interview. (The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the general confusion of the conference and running around – in heels! -- from one hotel to another.)

I also had two phone interviews, and these are always tough. You’re talking to a group of people. They are on a speaker phone. You’re on your cell phone. You can’t see their facial expressions or reactions to what you’ve just said. They can’t see you. Phone interviews make me feel like a fake. An incoherent, fumbling immigrant.

It’s been a month since the MLA, and I haven’t heard from any of the places that interviewed me. Which is not a good sign. Of course, it could just be a delay, something to do with budget. Movie Dictator likes to point out to the inclement weather in California. But I have to be realistic (without being pessimistic), and the truth is, I probably didn’t get picked.

I try to stay positive though. This year is somewhat unusual. Many job postings appeared late. Some colleges are planning to interview at AWP conference (end of February, Atlanta). The response time is also strangely slow. I mean where—where—are my rejection letters? So the process continues, there’s still hope – i.e., 23 places that haven’t responded yet. After a couple of weeks of obsessively checking my e-mail and phone, I decided I have to stop worrying. Something will happen. Something will come through. I don’t know what or where. I can’t predict it. But something will. I just have to believe this and set the whole issue aside and not to think about it. I’ve got a life to live, a new book to write, a class to teach, fiction to read, a blog to play with, and Movie Dictator still hasn’t shown me all the Fawlty Towers, and there’s still a couple of seasons of Absolutely Fabulous left, not to mention all the Kubrik films, which we barely tapped into, and Kurosawa, and little known Korean flicks. So stay tuned for more updates.

Life and Kurosawa

2007-01-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

Is it okay not to like Rashomon? (Movie Dictator doesn’t think so.)

To be fair, it was late when we watched it, and it came on the heels of two lovely Korean tearjerkers (Traces of Love and Ing). Still, I really struggled through Rashomon. I felt it was excruciatingly slow, and I couldn’t connect to the story.

So far, we’ve watched Kurosawa’s Ikiru (mostly liked it, except for the last third; but Movie Dictator made me see the light), The Hidden Fortress (an adventure story, very enjoyable and funny), and Dreams (stunningly beautiful, probably my favorite so far). I’m sure there’s more to come.

Movies: This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

2007-01-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

If you don’t know much about the MPAA Rating system, this might come as a surprise. I personally never gave it much thought. I remember the controversy over The Eyes Wide Shut and its NC-17 rating, but really, to me NC-17 meant the movie took risks and that’s always a good thing.

The father of the rating system (G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17) and the MPAA itself is Jack Valenti -- a former staff member in Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House, according to the New York Times. The ratings are supposed to be harmless, but in reality they determine where a movie can be advertised, which studios might be willing to carry it, and which theater chains would be willing (or unwilling!) to show it. The whole thing is terribly secretive. No one knows who the raters are.

The director of This Film Is Not Yet Rated hires private investigators, and what they find out is quite astonishing. Here are some facts:

1. The raters are supposed to represent average American viewers, especially those with young children. According to the MPAA, that’s what all the raters are themselves. However, the investigators discover that almost all of them are parents of grown-up children (20-22 years old), and one of the raters doesn’t have children at all.

2. Movies are slapped with NC-17 four times more often for sex than for violence. Gay sex is seen is more “dangerous” as straight sex. The scenes of women’s orgasm and/or masturbation are usually seen as unacceptable (no matter how discreet), while the similar scenes featuring men might be okay.

3. Independent movies get harsher treatment than those released by major studios. In the former case, the MPAA might not tell the director what cased a NC-17 rating, while in the latter case, they might be willing to provide some pointers (just so the director can make some edits to get a better rating).

4. Not only the raters are anonymous, but so are the members of the appeals committee. The director will be in the same room with them, but won’t be allowed to know their names. Present on the board are two members of the clergy (Catholic and Episcopal). According to some, they cast their vote; according to others, they don’t. In the course of the movie the identities of the appeals board is revealed. And what do you know? They are all big wigs at major studios and theater chains (a buyer for Regal Cinemas, a VP of sales for Sony Pictures, the CEO of Fox Searchlight).

The movie itself is quite funny—though the scenes with the private investigators eventually got too tedious. At one point, the director (Kirby Dick) submits the movie itself to the MPAA. He gets NC-17, and the conversations that result from that are just great.

Someone in the movie commented that the problem with the MPAA’s rating is that it’s the only game in town. I kept thinking that the one way to fight it is to create an alternative system (if ratings are indeed so important to parents). I mean, Hollywood has tons of money, and I doubt any director or actor there is a big fan of the MPAA’s ratings. Why not create an alternative? Assemble a group of reviewers. Announce their names. Use some prominent figures as well as regular Americans. Make it diverse. Use Internet.

Or am I being too idealistic here?

It’s Official: We’re Yuppies.

2007-01-28T08:05:00.000-08:00

Back around Christmas time, we got a GPS device (Mio). Movie Dictator insisted we needed one, and he had a point -- given my near-psychotic level of stress while driving and my ability to get lost just about anywhere. In that respect, Mio’s been a miracle. Not only does it map the whole route, not only does it tell and show you where to turn, it can also find parking garages and Burgher Kings that are nearest to you at any given moment. Initially, I worried that I’d just be driving on autopilot, not noticing or remembering the routes. But instead I’ve discovered and learned all sorts of neat shortcuts. Driving has become fun!

So there we were yesterday, in our Subaru Forester (which is a wagon, not an SUV) and with Mio mounted to the dashboard, the envy of everyone on route 2 (or so we’d like to think). We were heading to British Delights in Westford. It might be the only British food store in the area. An odd little place, easy to miss (unless you use Mio, that is, or just keep an eye for the British flag). They have the best bangers. We also stocked up on sausage rolls, Horlics, Scott's Porage Oats and assorted sweets that were half-price and that we really shouldn’t be touching. You don’t want to know the appalling amount of money we spent. We drove back in high spirits, trying to justify to each other the value of every items we’ve picked up. Then we got home, unpacked the loot, looked at each other, and realized we had nothing to eat. It was time to boil some pasta.

Movies: 49 Up

2007-01-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

It was sad.

I’d been wanting, desiring, yearning to see it; waiting for days while Netflix lost one copy in the mail and had to send us another; convincing Ian (the movie dictator in our household) that it had to be seen immediately.

Then we saw it.

I love Michael Apted’s Up Series. For those who don’t know: the first installment was released in 1964. In it, the director interviewed 14 British kids, who were all seven years old at the time. Since then, every seven years he returned to these same kids to ask them questions, track their progress. These are lovely films. I particularly loved 35Up and 42 Up. I even showed it to my undergraduates one year (they complained that the English accents were hard to understand).

Now, I’ve seen 49 Up, and as much as I hate to say it, I was bored.

What I loved in the previous films—especially 35 and 45 Up—was the hopefulness and uncertainty. The characters—not kids anymore—were struggling, making choices. Their class was always a factor. Some kids came from working class families of East London. Others were little privileged snobs. A couple of boys were growing up at a children’s home. You could actually see the way their background shaped their lives.

But I guess age is a great equalizer. Now, 49 years old, “the kids” have settled into very similar and quite comfortable lives. Almost all of them are married (or remarried), living in nice enough houses, with modern kitchen sets and cozy yards. Their children are mostly grown and several have children of their own. While their economic circumstances vary, no one is starving. To which, of course, I say, Good for them. But not so good for the movie. I was seeing the exact same story over and over again. Complacency replaced uncertainty. They’ve struggled enough, and now they are raising their grandkids, doing their work, enjoying their summer homes. There’s little drama and very few variables left in their stories.

It’s not their fault, though. They’ve had their share of problems, they’ve deserved a bit of calm. But despite the quiet, the director still could have made an interesting movie. Over the years, he asked the same questions, followed the same template: romance & family, career, parents. And this time around, his questions are still the same. He doesn’t ask how “the kids” feel about England, whether they think it’s changed for the better. His doesn’t mention economy, global warming, education. Only one of his subject, Tony the taxi driver, gets to talk about East End where he grew up and about his current feelings toward immigrants who live there. To me this was one of the most illuminating moments in the film. But the director misses these opportunities. He doesn’t ask Nick, who spent the last few decades in Madison, Wisconsin, about the war in Iraq. (Instead he asks him whether he misses England. Yes, says Nick, he does.) Nor does he ask Neil -- formerly homeless, now a politician -- about his politics. When another character, Jackie, accuses him of never asking her good questions, she actually might be right. It’s a shame. There’s so much that could be gleaned from these interviews.

My recommendation? If you’ve never seen any of these films, start with the earlier ones—28, 35, 42 Up. Then, if you want to know what happens in another seven years, scan through the 49 Up. And try not to be disappointed.

Why me? Why blog? Why now?

2007-01-26T11:58:00.000-08:00

First, let me say that I like the idea of blogs. I read them, I find them useful, I have my favorites. And yet, I didn’t think I’d start one. I could see myself agonizing over each post, spending hours on it, trying to make it entertaining, funny, relevant. What’s more, I like being anonymous. I read forums but never post on them. I read blogs but never leave comments.

So why now?

A couple of reasons, which I will try to explain.

Reason #1. To keep in touch with friends. I used to be good at it, but lately I’ve been slipping. I grew up in Moscow, and I thought I’d spend my whole life there, surrounded by family and friends. Then when I was nineteen, we moved to the US, and I became Frog the Traveler, moving every 2-3 years. Pittsburgh to Baltimore to Boston to Syracuse to Madison to Boston…and who knows what’s next. Not only that, but my many of my friends move as well (to Ireland! to Texas!), Or they live far away to begin with. So what am I to do? Starting a blog might be just the right solution. I’ve been inspired by some of you, who’ve done just that (Jane, Heidi). It’s great to have a place where I can go and read about your experiences, see pictures, hear your voices. And even if I don’t leave comments, I still feel connected to you. Now I will try to do the same.

Reason #2.

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.

I’ve always wanted to be Dorothy Parker. Albeit without suicide attempts, lapsed fiction career, failed marriages, and general heartbreak. What I like is the idea of reading books, watching movies and plays, and then writing witty reports about them. In other words, I’d like to be a reviewer. What strange is, I don’t even like Dorothy Parker’s reviews all that much. They are funny, true. But in general, I prefer the more thoughtful reviews (see James Wood or Keith Gessen), the sort that puts forward ideas, the sort that informs as well as entertains. It remains to be seen what kind of “reviewer” I will turn out to be. But I’d like to give it a try. I read a lot, and lately I’ve been watching lots of movies as well. On the most basic level, I want a place where I can tell you about it, and let’s hope it won’t be too boring.

Reason #3.

The Chicken or the shameless self-promotion.

I have a book coming out in the fall -- The Last Chicken in America -- and I’ve been trying to learn a bit about publicity: op-ed columns, web sites, stuff like that. I haven’t figured it out exactly. On the one hand I’d like this blog to be semi-anonymous. On the other hand, if it turns out to be interesting, I might want to link it to my web site (when I have one). I don’t know. I’m torn about this. Privacy vs. publicity. For now, I’m thinking of it as an experiment.

And on that note, let me conclude this somewhat indulgent introduction and get to work…