PANK is fun to say

And it's a literary magazine, collective, website, entity, group of individuals who are doing great things with and for writing. PANK 4 is available now, and contains my short-short story, "Comet's Return," along with new work from one of my favorite poets, Bob Hicok. Also included are Kyle Minor, Matt Bell, Jennifer Pieroni, Meg Pokrass, Coralie Reed, Ethel Rohan, Kathleen Rooney, Emily Rosko, Matthew Simmons, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Steven McDermott, JA Tyler, David Erlewine, Alicia Gifford, Elisa Gabbert, and many more.

PANK also published my short piece, "The Rest of Your Life," online last summer. There's audio to boot. Who doesn't like being read to?

There's a new robot in town checking out my blargh. Hi, robot! I hope you like my stories. I hope you are not rusting out this winter in the northerly suburbs, and if you are, maybe a girl in a gingham dress will come by soon with an oilcan. Tin man, robot -- OK, bit of a stretch. But anyway, robot? If, like other robots I have known, you are looking for lessons in how to feel, I've got two cd recommendations: Feist's "The Reminder" (featuring my theme song/credo, "I Feel it All"), and The Avett Brothers album "Emotionalism," esp. "All My Mistakes," which I found a way to quote in class this week.

Are you the type of robot that can see into the future? If so, I have a question: will I get Avett concert tickets for my birthday?

xo
Sarah

Jerome

Or Jerry. That was the "J" in J.D. Salinger. On a kick during a couple months of college, because I'd already read his books, I turned to a bunch of Salinger biographies. Pretty much all of them lacked any input from the reclusive author himself, but there were plenty of snippets of trivia. About his diet. About his love life. About his home in Cornish, N.H.

Reading about him, I remember thinking it made sense that he locked himself off from the world. I felt sympathetic, even as I mourned his decision not to publish any more books while he was alive. (I still carry a bit of a torch for Holden Caulfield.) Then in my commuting days I listened to Joyce Maynard's "At Home in the World," a memoir about Maynard's relationship with Salinger that began when she was a teenager. She was candid about the details, which were not at all flattering. I mourned again: maybe this misunderstood genius writer was just...human. Unlikably so, viewed from Maynard's perspective.

Salinger died today at the age of 91. I saw the news after I left campus, so I'm mostly reading online comments about his death. Snark abounds. Some people loved him. Some people hated him. The Onion nailed it, as always.

I'm surely sad he's gone and wish him a peaceful rest. And I'm eager to know if he really had 15 unpublished books in a wall safe. But in truth? I feel like J.D. Salinger left this world a long time ago.

Stone Canoe | A Journal of Arts

Last weekend I had the pleasure of returning to Syracuse, N.Y., for the Stone Canoe Issue 4 launch. Contributors include Hayden Carruth, Mary Gaitskill, Jennifer Pashley, Brooks Haxton, Juliana Gray, Megan Muldoon, Emily Farranto, and many more.



The arts journal was kind enough to award my short story, "Hysterectomy," the Allen and Nirelle Galson Prize for Fiction. The story had been in progress since 2005, and was kind of beaten down along the way. So this kind of honor makes me happy for my story. Fiction Editor Jennifer Pashley said a few incredibly nice things.



Visual Arts prize winner Emily Farranto (whose art can be seen on the wall, above) arrived from New Orleans, and I from Indianapolis. And now the Colts are playing the Saints in the Superbowl. Coincidence?

At dinner, I was so busy talking that I forgot to take pictures of my coffee-encrusted filet of beef with Irish whiskey demi-glaze. Understand that it was delicious. I did capture huevos rancheros from Sunday brunch at Alto Cinco. The picture is slightly blurry. My hands were shaking with anticipation. You have never had cornbread such as this.



Alto Cinco used to deliver food by skateboard courier. They have a mural made of hammered bottle caps. It is in walking distance from most of my Syracuse apartments. I chose most of my apartments based on proximity to Alto Cinco.

Me: "Hey, I'm going to take a picture, but you don't have to move or anything."
Guy: "OK."



I now live in a very flat land. I'd forgotten about Syracuse's icy hills, even though my story takes place in Syracuse, in winter.

Upstate winter can get to you. But it's also beautiful: a world all its own. I'm glad to have lived there. I was glad to return.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

Dean Martin* wants to know. And so did the grocery store bagger, all those years ago, who proclaimed something to be "better than a kick in the head."**

But what? What was better than a kick in the head? The price of ground chuck? A shopper's club card and its attendant savings? I have the sinking suspicion this isn't even my story: he was somebody else's bagger, remarking on somebody else's conveyor belt of comestibles.

Guess I'll just have to make it up. Which is convenient, for that is what I like to do best. I ain't sayin' I'm a liar. But I ain't sayin' I'm not. My associative brain hears Dean on the radio, and then I see this article on the Best Grocery Store of All Time***, and the song and the story reunite in my mind. The blanks are left to be imagined. It feels good to be writing again, even if it's piecemeal, in bits and chunks, in blanks to be filled in later. Lots of writers talk about "writing the islands," or just getting down the parts of the story that you can see, and eventually it'll all come together later. I'm going on faith that I'll be able to see the rest of the picture eventually. Not today, but eventually.



*Check out the video for the three classy dames seated front and center. I can't tell if they're bored or entranced. Ain't that a kick in the head?
**This phrase enjoyed a brief resurgence in my personal lexicon circa 1999. I'm bringing it back, 2010-style.
***Which I will visit in mere days, as a matter of principle.

It's 2010! What should I wear?!

IN
Stronger coffee
Orange bowling balls
Taking it out, chopping it up
Reading Knee-Jerk Magazine, which includes my interview with Porter Shreve
Giving stuff away
Poetry, daily (and Poetry Daily)
The number 8
Long e-mails
Chatting with random strangers about Fela Kuti

OUT
Benevolent gestures performed angrily (No, YOU go first!)
Soda pop
The number 10
Short n' pithy e-mails
Hoarding
Autotune
Footage of celebrities tripping
Mental footage of me tripping
The Christmas tree, eventually

My Books of 2009: A High of 70, with a Chance of Eye Strain

I'm sending out 2009 with 70 books read.

This was my second year keeping track, and last year's book total was 61. My tally as of this Tuesday: 69 books. It was too close to 70 -- and too close to nerd dirty jokes -- for me to stop there. As we say around the holidays, "Why stop eating now?" So when 2010's breathing down my neck, "Why stop reading now?" Books!

This year I considered rejiggering the spreadsheet. Adding more categories, potentially some formulas, maybe a 3D rotating representation of the data. People weighed in with questions and comments throughout the year: Does a reread count? Was I going to add literary journals? Poetry collections? Anthologies? Encyclopedias, a la A.J. Jacobs?

Alas, I come from the Avril Lavigne school of thought: Whydja have to go and make things so complicated? Also I do not read encyclopedias. So once again, I counted only books that I read all the way through, in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young adult novels.*

We may also consult Lavigne on the issue of choosing books. She posits: HEY HEY YOU YOU I DON'T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND; the girlfriend in question's offense being that, quote, She's like, so whatever, unquote. From this we can surmise that issues of taste influence our basest needs and desires, and are not to be trifled with, lest a Sk8tr Grrl engage you in a round of mini-golf bullying.** In other words, different people like different things, often for reasons they cannot articulate. OK.


And now it's time for the breakdown:
-29 novels, 20 nonfiction (11 memoirs), 13 young adult, 8 short story collections
-31 books by women, 39 by men
-High: 11 books in December, 10 apiece in May and July
-Low: Once again, November, 1 book read atop a whole lotta grading.

Power of the spoken word: Some of my favorite books this year were by people whose readings I attended. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (at the AWP Conference in Chicago), Paper Towns by John Green (at the Second Story fundraiser - a great nonprofit, should you wish to contribute), Space by Jesse Lee Kercheval and The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl (both on campus. Joe Bonomo gave another great reading, and I'm eager to finish his book Sweat in 2010.)

Location, location: I read Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, set on the Maine coast, at the beach. Years ago, my friend Barney recommended Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn; I read the Boston-based memoir on the flight to his wedding there (Barney's, not Nick Flynn's). Far more books were read on my porch for as long as the weather allowed. In the winter I retreated to the couch with my homemade Snuggie. (Wanna make something of it? Do not anger the Snuggie.)

Word of mouth: still my favorite way to learn about books. Students, friends, family, the mailman -- everybody's got a suggestion. And this year I was able to recommend something new to Walt, our literary letter carrier: Mailman by J. Robert Lennon, also a rec from the aforementioned Barney, set in my old stomping grounds of Central New York. I had to warn Walt: the title character besmirches the occupation's name. He was interested nonetheless.

I finished Middlemarch -- a hefty book that I actually started the year before -- the same day Michael Jackson died. I have no idea what this means. Except for this (spoiler alert) from the book's last page: "...For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Thanks, George Eliot. I needed that.



Notes on the note
*Also comparing '08 and '09 is easier using the same categories. Apples to apples, rather than oranges to Runts candy shaped like oranges. And I did make note of poetry collections (11), because why not? I am officially reporting two rereads this year, for the stringent book auditors among us: Which Brings Me to You by Elinor Lipman, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Though I'd read and loved both in 2008, it was like opening brand-new books. Way to go, retention. Slow it up already.

**Notice that the bookish/nerdy Girlfriend who is mocked in this video is played by Lavigne herself. The singer's divided persona*** clearly shows her competing desires to be loved for her brains (as indicated by plaid skirt, glasses, and do-you-smell-bleu-cheese facial expressions) as well as her Sk8tr Grrl looks. But watch who indirectly sends whom into the pond. And then a Port-a-Potty. Just sayin'.

***There are really three versions of Lavigne in the video, two of which get the same guy. It's practically Jane Austen, save for the skirt hems and (dramatic pause, sharp intake of breath, Gwyn-brit accent) utter lack of honor.

Unburdening

The research is clear: people are happier when they unburden themselves to others, whether it's face-to-face or written communication.

In this spirit of sharing, allow me to unburden myself of this creepy-yet-compelling photo of Vladimir Putin.



He appears to have a deep interest in this baby's nutrition. (Oh, I know he can't really see the baby. Or CAN he?) Will the spoonful reach the mouth, will some of the brown mush dribble out? Stay tuned, World Watchers, just like Putin. It seems like yesterday when he was kissing a little boy's stomach, wanting to touch him "like a kitten," but really that was 2006. And this week it will be 2010. Oy.

Unrelated, but also intriguing:



I doubt I need to say anything more about this newsmaker; I'm interested in the image/text combo. Here's how I read it: "I Have Let My Family Down. HEEEYAAAAAA!" Sort of a primal Howard Dean-esque scream (a scream for which Dean took much flak, a scream sent forth while he was seeking the 2004 Democratic party nomination. While hilarious, the criticism of him was overdone: the burst of excitement was touching. Humans being human, you know?) The above photo is not touching, and it's only quasi-human -- a photo of a celebrity on a Nike poster that appeared in a newspaper and has been scanned in and which is now viewable on a multitude of different computer screens. It's pretty far removed from the situation. HEEEYAAAAAA!

Recently I read Lia Purpura's wonderful book of essays, "On Looking." Poetic and lovely, it's a meditation on seeing, watching. She uses a glacial metaphor -- dropped rocks and detritus and so on -- to explain how we sort out details and eventually, after much time, make sense of what we see. "Poor sorting" is one term the glaciologists use.

In nature and among people, looking is among my favorite occupations. It's different at a remove. TV, news, interweb, seemingly unreal celebrities and politicians -- we're burdened by it, all the sorting and sifting required as part of existence in the electronic age. Sometimes I think it's a good burden, a mental exercise. Sometimes I'd rather just go for a walk. Maybe I will. And later today I will drive a car for the first time since I was T-boned last week. A rental; my own car is unavailable for comment. This is the longest I've gone without driving since I was a teenager. I'm scared. Unburdening. Maybe I should bring along a small television for the car so Big Brother Putin can keep an eye on me. Heeeyaaaaaa.

I, too, am a strange loop

I don't expect to be amazed in the doctor's office,* reading the magazines. I don't expect to be amazed by a magazine I actually subscribe to, but haven't read yet. (I will, promise, even if they are stacked up accusingly with all the rest.).

Yet: amazed. This interview Matt Gonzalez did with IU prof Douglas Hofstadter in Indy Monthly took up a single page. I can't stop thinking of it.

Short excerpt: "We copy. We absorb. We are so profoundly influenced by other people that we become partly another person. A part of that person remains inside other people after the brain of that person has perished."
Read the rest here. He wrote a book called "I Am a Strange Loop." Which I must now find and read.

I have tried to write about this. I have tried to write about memory and loss and the brain's desire to recreate the missing, the brain's often inaccurate rendering of people/places/events. I have felt the presence of those whose physical presence is impossibly gone, whether by death or distance. I have mimicked and copied and absorbed into my brain. I don't know how successful I've been, but I've tried to write it down nonetheless.

Hofstadter's words linked my ideas together in a new way. Not unlike when I read Don Quixote, which took approximately 8 million years,** and I came across the line that would become an epigraph for my novel. I actually sat up in my chair and said, "Ha HA!" I thought to myself, THAT is why I've been reading this book. To find that line.*** Which makes me think books are a way to copy and absorb and become what has perished, which is the past. And we read and write through the filter of the present. For the future. Loop-de-loop.



*A wrist X-ray for what is likely tendonitis. Waste of a day off.
**Two.
***I fear you'll be disappointed, here in this context-free setting. Read Cervantes yourself and find the line that does the same for you. When you find it, you may not say "Ha HA!" Perhaps you will harumph quietly, or a single tear will trickle down your cheek. Maybe you will sit silently in shock. But the moment will be yours, and that is the worthwhile thing.

Highway of Vice Presidents

This is the title of your next story or poem. Any length, any style. And...GO.

I was just talking about how I get distract--

There are many things I could be doing, and in fact should be doing. But this is the time of year when I find myself...

-Answering telemarketer calls
-Completing annoying online surveys
-Scrubbing the stove
-Checking e-mail and Facebook 8 million times (but somehow not summoning the energy required to respond. I'm sorry: I probably owe you one. I'm sorry but I'm just thinking of the right words to say (I promise) I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be (I promise) But if I had to walk the world I'd make you something something, I promise you, I promise you. There: When in Rome just handily proved my point.)
-Watching for the mail truck
-Wandering aimlessly around the house
-Letting the kettle scream too long
-Dusting (!)

You know it's desperate when I start dusting. My students would find my procrastination hilarious -- that is, if they weren't so eager to know their grades. I'm exaggerating a little (really, Sarah? you?), since I seem to be on track: breaking the work down into small, manageable chunks. But I'm all out of my grading go-to energy source, candy corn, which could necessitate a trip to the store. Where maybe I should do some Christmas shopping. And buy a gift for my adorable new niece. And her big sis, so she won't feel left out. Also need more coffee filters. And is there an aisle that sells sleep?