David Thayer

I offer a map of the brain, something never attempted on a blog, at least to my knowledge. Don’t expect graphics, however. The brain map will be textual in nature and is not intended for scientific use. Your brain may differ from the brain presented, but this is the overview: the brain is bisected by a principal avenue with a scary Latin name. Think of it as a boulevard, with or without leafy trees. Large streets intersect the boulevard. Here you may insert traffic circles, public monuments, stuff you enjoy. Billboard advertisements are optional; are you going for fifth Avenue in Manhattan or a Parisien vista along the Champs D’ Lysee? If you picture yourself in a Calvin Klein ad high above Times Square, go back to the beginning and start again.

At the intersection of the Principal Avenue and Grand Street, you’ll find the brain’s major buildings clustered around a sculpture at the center of a square. That’s you, the Owner, depicted on horseback, holding a copy of your high school diploma. Across the square is the Office of the Urban Prefect, someone you’re not very fond of. The UP commands the riot police, deployed along the boulevard at regular intervals. Riot police guard the entry to The Archives, a Greco-Roman montrosity administered by a Chief Librarian and a non-union staff. A small alley from the rear of the Archives leads to a maze of streets surrounding the Tar Pits. The Pits contain the remnants of many plans, ambitions, schemes, devices, and stuff you bought on sale. Municipal workers trim the grass in Pits Park. They ride John Deere tractors and will not stop to smile and wave.

In the next post, we’ll map the edges of the Urban Brain where two rivers, one muddy and slow, one clear and fast, mark the city boundaries. You’re pondering a stadium proposal for this undeveloped tract. We’ll see how that turns out. There will be a live demonstration of a Jail Break, an exciting look at the brain in action. A New Idea tries to make its way down the Principal Avenue all the way to the Tar Pits. If it lodges there…well, that’s what the riot police are for.

Over at Collected Miscellany I posted a review of Eric Maisel’s forthcoming book, A Writer’s Paris. It’s a fun read for aspiring writers. Maisel postulates a six month sojourn in Paris wherein you, the reader, arrange your life so that you can finish that novel in the City of Lights. Maisel warns that only Paris will do, so don’t try this trick in Dallas without consulting a local hairdresser. I remember a writers conference I attended, nowhere near Texas I might add, that was slammed by a crowd of big-haired guys and gals from the Lone Star state. I don’t what’s in the water down there, but, Good God Almighty, they’ve got hair.

Paris, Texas won’t do either. Hemingway did no drinking as far as I know south of the Red River. He didn’t have nearly enough hair for the Texas literary scene. Besides, if you were caught reading the Diaries of Anais Nin in Fort Worth, they would toss you in jail and shave your head. Your writing career will be sidelined, hair ruined. Don’t go there.

Every now and then Lee Goldberg regales us on his blog with emails from readers. After careful consideration, weeks of study, I have a pitch for Lee. Pam Anderson as a librarian! We’ll call the show Stacked. Norman Mailer will play her mean boss. In Episode One, Sandra Bullock tries out for the Library Team, but all the girls are mean to her. The library is outdoors, so Pam and the other librarians have to wear bikinis. Sandra saves the Bookmobile from a biker gang. Norman violates California’s outdoor smoking regulations. A lot of tense moments, but it all turns out okay. In Episode Two Sandra and Pam recover the General Lee from a chop shop after investigating overdue books. Those fines are ten cents per day, no exceptions.

So, Lee, this is the pitch: Baywatch with Books. I like your blog more than Tod’s. Let’s make some magic…Ciao.

In the name of research, I came across the literary hits of 1970 and 1971. Many of you already suspect that my ‘research’ was nothing more than tomfoolery, something Sister Philomena cautioned against before applying God’s justice to your correspondent’s beleagured knuckles. To stand in classroom corners beneath a portrait of His Holiness left an indelible impression. I still believe that on Judgment Day flights of angels will descend from atop the Chrysler Building, armed with wooden rulers. God will emerge from a cloud of chalk dust, bearing a strong resemblance to President Eisenhower. Fortunately I know how to duck and cover.

Back to the subject. Some big hitters rolled out books in 1970. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Deliverance by James Dickey, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. by Maya Angelou. Almost singlehandedly Eric Segal tips the scales with Love Story, a book that paved the way for the movie of the same name. Al Camus’ A Happy Death never made it to the silver screen, possibly because Ryan O’Neal was busy. Bertrand Russell, John Dos Passos, John O’Hara and EM Forster died that year, and Robert Heinlein suffered a stroke. Maybe they’d all read Love Story.

Ursula Le Guin captured the Hugo for Left Hand of Darkness, and Jim Bouton, a righthander, published Ball Four.. The films MASH and Catch-22 were released. Why did I bring all of this up? I’m just tracing the collapse of our culture. Sure, Love Story undermines my case for cultural chartism, but the movie was the real culprit as it left many viewers wondering if Ali McGraw had a pulse. That she dies at the end of the movie, her character dies, is a tribute to Ryan O’Neal’s remarkable ability to raise his eyebrows when the emotional shit approaches the Pavlovian fan.

Next class we’ll examine the meaning of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Little Norman will punch Gore Vidal and have to stand in the corner. Fireworks!

Linked to an NYT interview with VS Naipaul is an article by Rachel Donadio that explores the ascendancy of non-fiction and the presumptive decline of fiction, citing Atlantic Monthly’s decision to limit fiction to one issue as well as Naipaul’s concerns about the limitations of the novel. Naipaul announced last year that the novel was dead, and, it appears, remains so. Add to the scrapheap poetry and short stories, also dead. Non-fiction aka truth, is very much alive, although confusing non-fiction with the truth is a dangerous game. Donadio is on safer ground when she quotes a publisher who relishes the predictability of non-fiction. The South Beach Diet will be read by more people than The News from Paraguay, last year’s National Book Award winner. That’s because we’re fat and the news from Paraguay is never good.

Damn it, Rachel, I had to look up the word opacity to realize that I’m just as fed up with it as the next guy. Now that I know you meant impenetrable nonsense posing as literature, I have to concede your point. Still, non-fiction? Memoirs? Political books? Dewy eyed politico gazing from book cover into a glorious future neatly frames everything despicable in modern life. “It’s safe to say that no novels have engaged the post 9-11 world in any meaningful way.” Hell, they all do. The post 9-11 world is the world we live in, and all the Hunt for Osama tomes from experts are travelogues.

Magazines live in a different world than books. That Atlantic Monthly is squeezing out fiction probably means their circulation is down. It could be an opacity problem. Maybe they should publish a diet book.

A couple of posts ago I wrote about reviewing Belly by Lisa Selin Davis. Belly is a character named William O’Leary, a 59 year old ex-con, denizen of Saratoga Springs, New York. What Belly does during his first week out of jail brings his outlook on life into sharp relief. He lands squarely on his daughters, their kids, husbands, the fabric of their lives, turning the simplest moments into confrontations with those around him, both living and dead.

A ‘reviewer’ on Amazon called the author a manhater and pretty well ripped her as a writer and teacher. His name is Tony C. Let’s just refer to him as The Asshole for the moment. How does this guy manage to level the emotional playing field with Davis? Amazon, man. I posted my CM review at the author’s request, but I didn’t want anything to do with Amazon and its fake name horseshit.

Amazon pimps for people like The Asshole. Amazon employs a lot of people, is a publicly traded company, and needs to grab itself by the throat and squeeze. Their setup encourages unsigned reviews, essentially providing equal weight to anything that appears on their pages. Too bad the SEC doesn’t have a Wells Notice for public companies that promote character assasination.

While I was away two posts appeared, Number 28 and Number 29. Very mysterious. If this were a Sandra Bullock movie I would soon be plunged into a sophomoric yet diverting techno thriller, threatened by the very technology that created all the good things taken for granted. The fact that both posts were blank is significant, a prelude to alien abduction. What are they trying to tell us?

It might have to do with the upcoming Quills awards, the attempt at cold fusion in media terms, wherein bookish types will be feted on television. Lots of big hitters form the Quills executive council, Jane Friedman CEO of Harper Collins, Peter Olsen from Random House, Bob Gottlieb of Trident Media from the publishing side along with studio heads, television heads, the chief of McKinsey & Co.’s media practice. Their stated goal is to celebrate excellence in writing and publishing and to promote literacy. That’s nice. On the other hand, the suspicion lingers that book publishers are being seduced into believing that television offers a glamorous alternative to the dull process of promoting their products.

Imagine that the high school cheerleader squad has usurped power, forming a perky junta that judges quality across the spectrum of human endeavor. Knowledge of physics and chemistry might suffer, but we could be consoled by the spectacle of scientists limber enough to perform splits, and, if pressed, a human pyramid. Televising author awards might quickly dissolve into selecting writers who look good in the belief that glam head shots drive sales.

Publishing execs, don’t be afraid of the product you sell. Don’t borrow the busted flush television hides in its fist. Keep your wits about you. Television has less to offer than you think.

Mini vacation wrapup: Straights of Juan de Fuca, immortalized by GM Ford in Who the Hell is Wanda Fuca. Pandering to the Inner Tourist, staring lovingly at the breakwater, MV Prince William Sound, blue water, the Victoria ferry, the usual collection of gulls and cormorants hanging around street corners waiting to unload on your car. The desire to shoot a seagull is rooted in the fear that, left unattended, the valet parking guy is choosing gull dropping points in exchange for kickbacks. If I were James Elroy, the boys from Vegas would take care of the airborne rats, the valet punks, a government in Southeast Asia, and a sitting federal judge. That’s how high it goes.

Tried blogging with a ball point pen and a small but neatly lined pad of paper. In the serenity of purple mountains, pristine lakes and meandering RVs, thought blogging by pen might work. Thought trees and snow capped peaks might soothe. Watercolor of Blogger with Pen and Ink hit the retinas. Turns out that blogging with pen and ink is just doodling, that the wilderness has its own mojo working and yeah, it has an Air Force. Nobody asked you to come. Perhaps that phrase should greet every visitor to our national parks. Carmen Electra could be the spokesperson, Dennis Rodman standing by in mute testimony to the whim of Mother Nature.

The quest for Walden leads inevitably to bad jokes about the mall. No gulls at the mall. No guys in Smokey hats pointing the finger. One of the things that’s missing in the outdoors is Musak, which is why we don’t know what to feel when a whale jumps out of the ocean right before our very eyes, nearly swamping the Minnow and her crew. The disclocated urbanite stands dejected, having failed the REI snap quiz. Do you enjoy ocean kayaking? Sure. Do you enjoy blogging with pen and ink?