making light | Multiple Enthusiasms

Tag: making light

September 11, 2008

Every year, I think it’s going to be different. Every year, I write a little more about it, talk a little more about it, and every year I think it’s going to make some difference. Every year I believe I’ve processed it a little better, a little differently, learned to cope with it a little more.

Every year, I’m wrong again.

Every year, I think I might sleep a little later, and every year my body shocks me awake at almost exactly 8:45 am Eastern standard time. Every year I think I might just make it to my alarm, and every year I don’t. Every year I wake up confused and bewildered for a just a moment during which I don’t remember what day it is. And every year, I do, all over again. Every year, I get quiet and reticent.

Every year, I watch two videos. They are as traditional to me at this time of year as Twas the Night Before Christmas is traditional to December.

The first one is of Jon Stewart introducing The Daily Show on the day it returned to broadcast on September 20th, 2001.

The other is the video for Ryan Adams’ song “New York, New York.”

Unfortunately, WordPress, Comedy Central, and MTV don’t seem to play nice, so you’ll have to follow those links, but trust me, they’re worth it.

I just wanted to share them, because they are cathartic on a day on which I otherwise shut completely down. I tend to solidify like concrete, mute and rigid and immobile, and each of those videos seems to serve as tiny, persistent chisels, busting away all the defense mechanisms I’ve thrown up since the day I smelled that dust (some days I fear there are too many). And I figured, since I truly believe there is catharsis for all of us in sharing the memory of that day, I feel too that there is similar relief in sharing how we cope with it.

This year, I’ve had an epiphany, prompted by Making Light, a blog maintained by Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Making Light is intertwined with my memories of that day; there was a check-in post there, that day, and I remember I either posted there or to the well. Today, Making Light pretty much defiantly rejected commemoration of the terrorist attacks in favor of other anniversaries/memories:

I am sure that there will be many places to remember the dead, and to debate the lessons they can teach the living. I’m confident that the Making Light commentariat will have a lot to say on the subject.

This thread is not for that. This thread is for defiant normality. If the aim of terrorism is to produce terror, grief and anger, then let us laugh, and rejoice, and love.

And I both understand and acknowledge the value of such a sentiment.

Moreso, I say, I’m sorry, but grief, for me, is normality today. Today, I laughed at my students, and rejoiced in the fact that people read what I’ve written, but both come in utter defiance. That doesn’t necessarily mean that both are tainted, but still, I look around at where I am and what I’m doing and remember where I was and what I was doing. This year, I acknowledge it hurt, and I accept that it’s okay. In the past, I’ve felt at times like I don’t have a right to feel this way, because hey, I survived and that leaves me so much better off than so many other people, but this year I note:

I’m sorry. I’m not okay. I’m not even a little okay. I miss Manhattan more than I can express. I miss my friends and my crummy little apartment and riding the subway to work. I miss all the terrific people I worked with and all the wonderful friends I made. I miss the neon and the way the sidewalk sparkled under my feet. I miss blowing half my paycheck on bad CDs at HMV, and watching movies alone at Virgin.

But most of all, even though I may not be okay, I am grateful.

To you.

I don’t think I’ve said it lately, but thank you. Because a reader is not solely the single best thing any writer can have, but also, arguably, what makes a writer in the first place. In “Your Name on a Grain of Rice,” Roger Clyne wonders:

What good is my love song if you ain’t around to hear it?

I’m forever grateful I don’t ask that question.

August 27, 2008

Last week, I caught on Amazon’s blog Omnivoracious, in its weekly roundup, this story that publishing house Random House was removing the word “twat” from Jacqueline Wilson’s book My Sister Jodie. Jodie is, apparently, a novel aimed at readers 10 and older. Wilson and her publisher mutually decided to change the word to “twit,” which is apparently less likely to send parents and librarians and teachers all a-fuckin’-twitter, because you know those are the only people complaining.

And apparently, only three people complained in the first place.

This, by the way, is the same publishing company who decided not to publish Sherry Jones’ Jewel of Medina, a novel concerning Aisha, the 9-year-old wife of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, due to an irate letter from one academic in Texas. Also the same company who, in the UK, is inserting morality clauses into its contracts. Not just about the books, but about author’s lives.

Editorial Anonymous posted her chagrin that Wilson had deigned to Random House’s censors. I noted there that I agreed that Wilson should have changed it, but had I been her, I would have changed it to “cunt.” In the comments section, though, someone had the idea of a naughty alphabet book. Which really set me thinking. Amazon’s got a listing for something called The Erotic Alphabet, but it looks more like a series. Then again, any series one installment of which is H is for Hardcore is totally okay on my shelf.

In my warped head, though, I started thinking about an illustrated kinky alphabet book. Fully illustrated and everything. A is for asshole, b is for bitch, etc.

But it’s hard to come up with a naughty word for every letter. Over at MakingLight, Abi Sutherland asked for comments/help filling up a list of obscenities, which yielded one of the most obscene and profane list of words I have ever seen.

I’m still coming up empty for “I.” The Alphabet series uses “indecent,” but that’s not really obscene. “Inbreeding,” maybe, but I think that’s more discomfiting as an idea than as a word.

April 5, 2008

I just finished watching Cloverfield. For anyone unfamiliar, it’s a J.J. Abrams (he of Lost fame) movie that came out in January and begins with a going away party at a SoHo apartment. Before long, there’s a tremor, which causes a brief black-out, after which all the partygoers decide to go to the roof. From there, we see an explosion near the harbor, and then some panic as a bunch of people run down the steps.

By this point, I was already having some problems; after what appeared to be a pretty major earthquage (which, for the sake of this post, we’re going to define as any ground shaking of suitable strength it shuts lights off, however briefly), whose first thought it is to go to the roof? Especially in Manhattan, where the buildings are so many multiple stories tall?

What I liked was that the whole movie wasn’t exactly like that. Sure, some of the characters make some questionable decisions, but amid chaos like that, a lot of decisions are going to come flying, and no one can decide them all well. A lot of times you do the best you can with the information you’ve got; a lot of time, the best you can do isn’t much (or could even be nothing at all), while the information you’ve got is limited (or, again, nothing). After you’ve seen a military stand-off between a handful of soldiers and . . . something big as a skyscraper, retreating to the subway tunnels in favor of being caught out in the open isn’t that bad a decision. Also, constant movement in the best direction possible, when possible, is good; otherwise, cover is your friend. The characters maintain a pretty consistent balance between the two.

I like to think I’m good in emergency situations. I grew up in scouts (Be Prepared), and if I never encounter a situation as uncertain as being in Manhattan on September 11th, I’ll be a happy man. As I watched the movie, I kept thinking of what I would have done. First, no going to the roof. Second, on first sight to the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty, get my friends who were just at my party together, walk back up into my apartment, quickly grab some supplies, and start walking. Away from the damage. Considering said monster was in midtown, I’m not crossing the bridge to Brooklyn; I’m starting north, toward Harlem and the Bronx.

Along the way, I’m stopping to make sure the women in my party can get more sensible shoes and clothing than the trendy/pretty clothes they wore to my going-away. I’m also making sure everyone is carrying at least one bottle of water, which I’d continue to make sure they were drinking, rather than rationing, stopping to refill as possible/necessary.

Also, and I think somewhat important, I’m not trying to keep control. Not that I’m running with the chaos, but I think the most important thing in any such situation is flexibility to adaptation. I’m starting north because I think that’s the best option, but if better ones present themselves, I’ll take them. I’m with my friends, at least, and if I can keep a group together, safety in numbers.

Most important, of course, is not panicking.

My father got me into Boy Scouts when I was a kid. He was an Eagle, too, and he was my cubmaster and then my scoutmaster and then committe chairperson–he was very often more than just a father to me, and his influence did a lot to shape who I’ve become. When I was 16 or 17, he handed down to me his old stereo system, in which I found some old clippings, one of which was a copy of “If,” I think by Rudyard Kipling, which included the line, “If you can keep your head about you, while those around you are losing theirs,” and I think I can.

Which is probably why I liked the movie. I didn’t love it, and I could have done just fine without seeing the big monster thing, and, honestly, (MAJOR SPOILER, SO IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW, SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH BREAK), I wish even one of the characters had survived, but it certainly wasn’t bad.

Thinking about emergency prep always reminds me of Making Light, where I’ve learned a lot. One of my favorite posts concerned how the characters in the movie could have (or should have) responded to their emergency; now that I’ve seen the movie, I understand what the author was talking about in which places.

I think it’s stuff everyone should know.

Multiple Enthusiasms

Infinite jest. Excellent fancy. Flashes of merriment.

Tag: making light