I would almost call the stories parables. The first story, The Moment Childhood Vanished, recounts a visit to a temple by a boy and his mother, how the boy has a favorite rice bowl, but forgets it at the temple after they have already descended all of the steps and are about to leave. The mother has someone run all the way back to the temple, and fetch bowl, only for the boy to accidentally drop it into the river and watch it sink out of sight. Rather than be angry, the mother simply tells him to come get some tea…that “such things won’t be rare occurrences in the future.” The narrator confesses that this doesn’t become a rare occurrence, and that many things in his life have become lost, and occasionally broken. While this ending doesn’t exactly come out of the blue, if it isn’t hinted at directly in the text, there is a palpable darkness to the story that foreshadows the dark advice of the child’s mother, the ending does pop out in such a way that says, “this is important!”

Eighteen Passangers on a Bus runs a similar path.  The narrator talks about how the place he worked had two vehicles and one driver, Li Shan . He talks about how he wasn’t thrilled with his job and that his wife suggested he get another job. It’s mentioned that the narrator got driving lessons from Li Shan. The bulk of the story is taken with Li Shan being late to drive everyone to a business function. when he shows up, everyone on the bus hassles him, and the narrator eventually defends him, only to be targeted himself. Then Li Shan turns on him, kicks him off the bus, physically knocking him from the side of the vehicle. The narrator watches the bus careen off a cliff, and it ends with the narrator letting us know that it wasn’t one thing, but an accumulation of things that had pushed Li Shan over the edge towards killing everyone on the bus.  Li Shan driving everyone off the highway and sending everyone in the bus to their death is part of the story, but what it dovetails with is the earlier unhappiness felt by the narrator over his own life. Knowing that it wasn’t just one thing, but an accumulation of things, that finally pushed Li Shan to desperation, we are reminded of the vague unhappiness the narrator was suffering from earlier.

I think it’s significant that this isn’t really a standalone collection of stories, but apparently some form of a collection that the author picked from three earlier volumes of short stories. Despite this, it still reads as a coherent whole, it doesn’t read like a random “Best Of” collection, but a group of stories chosen to explore a theme, idea or form.  I find it similar to Billie Dyer and Other Stories by William Maxwell, or, as I said earlier, a collection of parables. The fact that the collection begins with an allusion to childhood and ends with a cemetery lends to the biographical air of the collection, and to the idea that it could also be a collection roughly documenting the arc of life.  On impulse, near the physical center of the book (the collection stretchs roughly 145 pages, this story began on page 75), there is a story about a young man spending a summer with an aunt and uncle who get along, but who have never really talked about an event earlier in their marriage, though each has their suppositions. However, the lack of communication has tainted their marriage for years. I don’t think it is an accident that this comes roughly in the center of the collection, with a younger person being shown mistakes to avoid in the second half of his life.

Alright, this has gotten a bit rambly, so I’m just going to cut it off here. I think the areas of interest for me are how the stories resemble parables, the collection roughly mirroring the course of a life, and how the main characters in a number of the stories are impacted by events, but aren’t necessarily the main actors, and aren’t always sure why the events transpiring around them are taking place.

To my surprise, Kill the Dead turned out to be some good stuff.

The readiest comparison would be to Mario Acevedo, someone else who is doing the hardboiled, horror PI thing. Acevedo’s stuff is a fun read. I’ve bought some of Acevedo’s books, I’ve read them, I’ve enjoyed them, and if you like such things, I’d fully encourage you to buy them, too. That said, they’re also not the best written things in the world. I know that sounds rough, I don’t want it to, but there are times where his character will lean on a crutch, like his vampire hypnotic gaze, a bit too often. Kadrey has the same hardboiled, almost pulpishness, feel and pacing to it, but it’s polished.  Of Sandman Slim, William Gibson said it was the best B movie he’s read in 20 years, and I’m not sure I could find a better way of referring to Kill the Dead.    Going off two hours of sleep in the past 36 hours, coming up with comparisons is a bit difficult, but if you’ve seen a gangster movie with Edward G. Robinson and liked it, I think you’ll probably enjoy this. Or maybe a much harder Dresden Files (the show from scifi that was cancelled far far before it’s time, and not the books).

One area that I think is a particular strong suit is Kadrey’s refusing to linger over details that are largely unimportant. Hell is constantly in the background of the novel, and it stays there. we get the occasional detail, but we’re never over burdened with a lot of information we don’t need. Even when characters who have played significant roles in the main character’s past are brought up,  their appearances aren’t given an over abundance of weight. They are parceled out as necessary morsels we need to know to flesh out the story or our protagonist’s place in his world. With a hardboiled, horror PI  novel, Kadrey’s restraint is one of the most powerful forces in the shaping of the novel.

So, go out and read the thing, and I think I’ll give Sandman Slim another look, too.

By the way, if you want to read some of Kadrey’s short fiction, check out his homepage. He has linked a number of his shor

This is a memoir I went into totally blind. While I knew of this “Onion” thing that is mentioned throughout the book and placed liberally in the author’s bio, it’s not something I ever spent much time perusing. I didn’t have any real clue who Nathan Rabin was when I grabbed his book off the shelf at the Friends of the Library Sale (sorry Nathan, bought the thing second hand, for less than a buck. But it did go to support a library, so don’t complain), and I think I probably got it just as much for it’s cover as for anything else. And thank god the cover was interesting enough to make me throw down my pennies for it.

Rabin is seriously funny, despite his having one of the saddest, most ridiculously ill-fated lives I can imagine. The guy makes Precious look truly blessed for only having to deal with AIDS and her abusive mother and molestering “father.” The only thing that appears to have gone ridiculously well for Rabin is his falling in with The Onion, and that has ended up blessing us all (apparently, if you read it. I really should look at it sometime).

The only part that dragged for me, ironically, was the bit towards the end of his relationship with an overly sexed up grad student who thought getting gang banged was the equivalent of a religious experience.  Other than that, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read, addictive and a whole lot of other things that Roger Ebert already said about it on the back cover. At the end of the book, after the acknowledgements, there is one line in the center of a page, all to itself: ever feel like you’ve been cheated? Yes, I have, but not this time.

Now, I don’t get anything from anybody. If I review a book,  I’ve either bought it, taken it out of the library, or stolen it from my girlfriend. What’s more, I don’t see how William Morrow is making any unseemly demands with this, other than an implied feeling that they are looking at bloggers as extensions of their marketing department rather than as critics. If they want us to work as extensions of their marketing department, put us on their payroll, lord knows I could use the extra income.  However, their limiting bloggers on the books they want to review and asking them to do it in a timely fashion seems more than fair. If they publish a new mystery novel, it’s better to have as many people talking about it as possible when it’s actually published, and not three months later. After all, you’re getting the book for nothing. While they may not treat the Times this way, face it, most of us don’t have the exposure or power of a good review in the NYT.

Truth is, I don’t think any publisher would be doing this if they didn’t think they’d be saving/making money on it in the long run. William Morrow might have just looked at this and figured that the money they shell out in sending out gobs of freebies to people who might not even bother reading the damn things is a waste.  Maybe whoever compiles internal research for them figured they benefited more just from positive reviews on Amazon than any reviews from blogs. Or maybe their sales just haven’t changed a whole helluva lot since before book blogging took off to now.

On a personal level, I don’t see why someone just wouldn’t go to the library, take out whatever book they want, review whatever book they please, however they please. It’s still free, it doesn’t kill your shelf space, and you don’t have to feel like you’re having to give a good review to this or that, or any review at all.  Your independence is your power.

When reading the author’s note, we find out that Bolano didn’t believe he would live past 35 – which was sadly prophetic. While Bolano left thirty-five in the mirror, he didn’t exactly live to a ripe old age, dying when he was 50. Bolano also notes that he had a piece of paper tacked over his bed that read, in Polish, “Total Anarchy.” He wraps up his author’s note saying that “Then came 1981…and everything changed.” I’ve tried to find a reason for the allusion to 1981, but have come up empty. Now, it’s an author’s note, so if it’s entirely personal and not explained, that’s fine. Part of me wondered if that was the year Bolano was married. I was able to find vague summaries of his life, saying that he moved to Spain in 1977, bummed around the Mediterranean, got married, and then everything just sort of jumped to the 1990s. There’s been talk of Bolano doing heroin, and at least one place I visited wondered if that was the year he first tried it. Of course, it could also be a reference to some world event. In 1981, the first space shuttle was launched, the Pope was shot, the first IBM-PCs were manufactured, and Spain legalized divorce (which might go with Bolano getting married). What stood out as the most likely, though, was that Poland crushed the Solidarity Movement in 1981. Given the other Polish connections with and within Antwerp, Bolano’s reference to 1981 fits. Or it’s a massive red herring.

Finally, leading into the novel, Bolano has this quote from Pascal: “By whose command and act were this place and time allotted to me.” Antwerp plays around with time and place with near whimsy, and this idea that we are placed in the right time and the right place by some higher power, and without our say or knowledge, seems to be something that Bolano returns to in other works, as well. It’s been awhile since I read 2666, but it’s something he touches on, at times, in By night in Chile. Here’s the list of notes I compiled while reading Antwerp:

1. Kid walks towards a house. “My darling…it’s too late.” “It was just a facade.” -the house or a relationship? Is this a movie set? There is a quote to begin this chapter by David O. selznick, a movie mogul from Hollywood’s golden age of studios. I don’t believe this is a movie set, but I think Bolano may be making a reference to the artificiality of life. Even the things we take for being authentic could be artificial, created and situated by a more powerful force. These are just unsubstantiated thoughts, though.

2. +Sophie Podolski is kaput in Belgium. -Belgian poet, whose life story seems to have been lifted pretty literally by Bolano. She did try to commit suicide in 1974, and she did die 10 days later because of it. +man sitting alone, trying unsuccessfully to write poetry. -this has made me wonder how much of a work of metafiction Antwerp might be. Bolano is referencing a real person, in his author’s note he might be making a personal reference to the importance of 1981, and this was a time when he was trying to find himself as a writer. I don’t think it’s a big leap to say that the man trying to write poetry, while lamenting the loss of another poet that Bolano admired, was Bolano himself.

3. -man on a train –half a man? –hunchback lives in forest that the train is passing. —has can of sardines in tomato sauce —he’s eating —he watches the train -man on train –The Great Triangle Escape —Cigs —box of matches, called, “playing with matches.” -”opaline smoke.” –1. A mineral of hydrated silica. 2. A gemstone made of this mineral, noted for its rich iridescence. (free dictionary)

4. -Blonde girl, biggest window of boarding house -”My name is Roberto Bolano” -”Frankfurt” -preparing for death and subsequent transpareny –Bolano or blonde girl? —Bolano: expected to be dead at 35

5. -calabria common campground –the news is “sensationalistic” –harassed by locals –6 kids discover friend dead nearby –out of control screwing all over the place —sex and anarchy

6. -Reasonable vs Unreasonable People –collection of thoughts —”But I also dreamed of girls.” —”Pale men could see what was hidden in the landscape.”

7. Nile -sophie Podolski killed herself years ago -abandoned buildings in Barcelona -where girl was killed? -Belgian girl (Sophie?) who wrote like a star We know that there was a real Sophie Podolski, but it seems that Bolano is either mixing fact with fantasy, or there was a shift in girls that I missed entirely. We learn that this Sophie Podolski was killed in Barcelona, involved in drugs in someway, killed by a man who put a gun under her chin (which is important for later) and it was her involvement that got her killed. Also, the narrator of this chapter (which I would assume to be Bolano) remarks that she would have been 27, the same age as him.

8. next to juke box, girl listens to greatest hits 11. -man dreaming of woman with no mouth –connects back to this fictional Podolski who was killed with a gun pressed under her chin. I realize now that I have not found anything about how the real Podolski committed suicide. I’ve known of people who have tried to kill themselves with a gun, only to horribly disfigure their face. While gruesome, such an accident would explain why it took the real Podolski ten days to die from it. –works at a riding school –is getting married: previous affair with Podolski? –writer —lives in separate city from fiance

12. police sergeant looking for someone in Paseo Maritimo (someplace actual Bolano lived?)

13. -hunchback in a bar -Jewish girl listening to sad stories (sophie?)(jukebox, greatest hits?)(Podolski is a Jewish name)

14. -Child (?) whore, fucking police sergeant -red hair, green eyed girl

15. -Englishman hangs sheet in woods to watch movies -hunchback is watching: why?

16. -red haired whore in Barcelona – near Paseo Maritimo? –same girl fucking the sergeant?

18. -Mexican girl, blonde, sleeping w/ dark haired man: “soon she’ll reach the sea.” -hunchback referenced but not specific

19. -Roberto Bolano once loved blonde mexican girl years ago –same girl as in 18? –dark haired man=Bolano? —show connection to hunchback goes back years.

20. -hunchback in woods talking to English -cops searching for someone -cops fuck “nameless” girls -South American dying and lost on the roads (Bolano?)

24. -”The gun was only a word.”

26. -Hunchback & englishman -South American didn’t die

27. -cop finger fucking ass of girl – “already overcame the gaze.”

29. -Hunchback can’t hear Englishman speak – figment of imagination?

33. -red head messed up in drug trade (Sophie?) fucked by cop w/ dildo, but never his “large” dick

35. -60# girl -”destroy your stray phrases!” -”In his gaze there is no hunchback, no Jewish girl, no traitor.” -”But we can still insist.”

39. -foreigner lived in a tent –paid with French money –spoke perfect Spanish

40. -girl hiding on balcony -40ish man confesses through door of being chased by Colan Yar

43. -Dreams of girls who open mouths but couldn’t speak –Andalusian girls –Lola Muriel –night watchman, madly in love

45. -she loved busy days -cops rush into building –arrests man standing at window —thinks of Andalusian girls

47. -bolano couldn’t help falling in love at least once a year –writing in pit stops, etc.

50. -secret sickness named Lisa –connected to Bolano—his yearly love affair

51. -can’t go back to crime stories

52. -gangsters equal mothers -at golden hour, no one remembers the hunchback

53. -nameless girl wanders working class neighborhood of Barcelona –”Born in France, to Spanish parents?” –Rosario or Maria Dolores –blonde hair –”She goes back to the bathroom. Girl kaput.”

54. -movies in woods -man with yellow face, badly scarred -fleeing Colan Yar

56. Postscript -”All I wish to recover is the daily availability of my writing.”

I did some research on Colan Yar, trying to find a significance to the name. As words, I ran them through a number of languages in Google Translate, but didn’t get anything interesting, or anything at all, really. Then I did searches for them as names, and I came up with a few different things. Colan originates from the UK, and has different meanings depending on what part of the UK you’re from. In gaelic it meant “from the coal pool,” which didn’t seem to be something that would fit. But the Irish meaning is “peaceful dove,” while Olde English has it as “young child.”  At another site, they give a French meaning for “young boy,”  though their Gaelic meaning is noticeably different from every other site I’ve seen that gives the Gaelic meaning. Yar doesn’t have near the variation, pretty solidly being given credit to having a Persian origin and meaning “friend.” I think there might be something to this, given Bolano’s interest in time and memory. I would wonder if “Colan Yar” is a way for the characters to be fleeing their youth in some way, or their past.

I, also, looked up Andalusia. I had heard of Andalusian horses, but I was wondering why Bolano repeatedly referred to Andalusian women towards the end of Antwerp. It’s an area in the south of Spain, bordering the Mediterranean sea. It’s capital is Seville. I wondered if this was connected to the Paseo Maritimo, but it doesn’t appear to be – at least not directly. Andalusia is a southern coastal region, while Paseo Maritimo is the eastern coastal region. While one could bleed into the other, it seems like they are likely to be distinct areas. What it could be implying for the story is a direction of travel for one of the characters.

In looking over the web, there are some fine articles/sites up about Antwerp. Emmett Stinson does an incredible job of running down the disparate threads in Antwerp and creating a logical progression of events. The Owls has a thoroughly awesome series of articles called The Antwerp Project, and which nothing I saw could do justice to, and they turned me onto another post by Morgan Meis about the Romantic allusions made by Bolano. The blog that I found myself favoring was Mike Ettner’s review. While reading Antwerp, I couldn’t shake the metafictional feel of it. I wouldn’t go as far as Mike Ettner does, and suggest it might be the structural underpinning of an unfinished novel – I think the novel is finished, and Bolano says as much when he says it’s the only novel he wasn’t ashamed of. However, being able to articulate what I think it is, or at least what I think I think it is, is more difficult than I imagined. The closest I can come is to say that I think it’s a fictional account of Roberto Bolano writing a fictional account of a murder. What I couldn’t help but see as I read was a movie, where some chapters were of the writer working, or those moments between work, while other chapters were showing us what was going down on the page. It is a world where we are seeing both the inspirations for the story, and the story itself. If you ask me tomorrow, though, I might say something different. I, also, agree with Mike that a fullscale biography of Bolano could be very enlightening with Antwerp.

I tried to look up some facts of Bolano’s personal life from that time period, but there was just nothing out there, aside from the barebones of him moving to Europe in ’77, getting married (but I still don’t know when that happened) and then suddenly catapulting into the 90s. Anyway, I hope this is at least mildly helpful for anyone reading Antwerp. I know my notes lack a bit of cohesion, but they are what I took as I read, for better or worse.

Now, I do know, but it’s not really the book. It’s a great read. If you’ve seen No Reservations, you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Bourdain’s voice is all over this thing, just like his ever present voice overs move us through his television show. Ribald one moment, juvenile machismo the next, and then dropping just the right note of seriousness at just the right moment to remind you that,yes, despite his behavior, he’s actually a pretty decent guy; the kind of guy you would want to go to dinner with, and not just watch him act like a jackass on television for the rubber necker factor.

Still, outside of that, I didn’t know what to write about as I moved through this book. I figured it would become another in a long line of books that I have read lately that I haven’t been able to put a blog together for. As I read, though, I came to know Bourdain better, to get a better idea of his world, but I was also able to discover a bit more about my Uncle J.  He died a few years ago, working nearly 30 years as a chef/kitchen manager, the majority of which for a relatively well known national Italian chain. I looked up to him, literally (he was well over 6ft tall) and figuratively. He was one of the few people in my family who had been able to go into the world, and make a pretty decent living doing something he enjoyed. Unfortunately, his work forced him to live pretty far from home, most of the time, and to move often. I didn’t get to see him, or talk to him, nearly enough in the years leading up to his death.  His death was very unexpected, and it’s something that still bothers me. I had been in his kitchens a few times at work, but I’d never really gotten an idea of what it was like. It’s been a part of his life that I’ve always been curious about.

Reading Bourdain’s book gave me an idea of what my uncle’s life must have been like. From how Hispanics dominate the kitchen staff to how the restaurant business, especially the kitchens, are a sort of way station for the lost, the oddballs, and the outcasts. It’s a world for those who don’t really fit in anywhere else. And the appeal of the business suddenly made  a lot of sense. My uncle grew up in a very small town. He was a very big guy, height and weight, and the weight was something he battled with all his life. And he was gay, though not openly around home. Still, he was an easy target. He never forgot how he was treated, he avoided places where he figured he would be likely to run into former classmates, I had the very clear impression that he loathed coming home because of it. I have a feeling that a kitchen was one of the few places where he could just fit in, where he could be accepted, not necessarily despite his differences, but because of them.

Bourdain wrote a wonderful book. It’s worth the read. As for me, I owe him for giving me a better understanding of the life my uncle lived, and that’s been priceless.

Thankfully, Stephen King (specifically, his Eyes of the Dragon novel) rescued my interests at some point in middle school and I took up reading again. Truth be told, I’ve never been overly interested in the horror genre outside of King. I tried Koontz, but couldn’t get into it. Lost interest in Lovecraft, and enjoyed the occasional zombie anthology. There was a brief time when I really dug Phil Rickman, but suddenly his books quit appearing on the bookshelves. Though intermittent reader, I’ve always kept at least half an eye turned towards the horror section, looking for something new and interesting.

I found it with the first book of what’s promised to be a trilogy, The Strain. It was original, returning vampires to the ugly, brutal cloth that I think they were originally meant to be before they were sanitized and made glittery.  It was a breath of fresh air for a subject that had simply lost me.

Reading The Fall, the newness of the approach is, as expected, gone. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does force the novel to stand on its own feet in a way the first novel didn’t have to bother itself with. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite hold up its own weight. The people you expect to die, do. Those you expect to live, do. And it clearly leaves off in preparation for a third act, so any great revelation isn’t to be expected.

Where the third book goes, is still up in the air. They seem to hint at a somewhat darker turn at points in this novel, specifically regarding Ephraim’s son and the biblical turn his story line appears to take towards the end of The Strain.

There are some larger themes at play in the book. There is certainly a question of obsessions becoming a blinding force, luring characters into actions they feel are necessary but are really foolish and destined for failure, often leading to the loss of loved ones. We see it with Ephraim. We come to see it with Setrakian. We see it with Palmer. We see it with the Ancients.  It’s repeatedly early and often in both books.

Also, there seems to be a lot going on with blood, not just in the sense of nourishment/poison, but in the sense of family, connections and responsibility and it often ties into the idea of obsessions. The vampires introduce their own idea of “blood” and family, and the obligations that go along with it. With the human characters we see varying definitions of what family means and entails, and the sacrifices that go with it. There might really be something here in regards to how the male and female characters treat the idea of familial responsibilities, and the success each gender has at fulfilling the roles they largely self-define.

This idea of family and blood, and the differences along these lines between the vampires (and specifically the ancients) and the humans gains a bit more depth considering the connection between the ancients and their “homes” and between humans and their homes.

Alright, my coffee cup is empty. I’ve been tempted to google some of the stuff from The Strain having to deal with The Master and things Satrakian said, but I actually don’t want to chance upon some part of the story the authors plan on revealing in their own good time. So while there might be more depths to plunge in that direction, they are going to have to be spelunked by someone else. Or if  I am to do it, it will be at a later time after having read the next book.

No Tell Books’ best selling title broke even after three years and is now earning a very modest profit. This is by an author whose work has appeared in places like Poetry and Best American Poetry. This title has been taught at universities. How many copies does one have to sell to be the best selling title at No Tell Books after four years? 228. That is not a typo. This number doesn’t include what the author has sold herself, probably around 200 copies on her own. But the press doesn’t earn money on those sales.

So if that’s a best seller, what’s a flop? 74 sales after five years (again, this number doesn’t include what the author sold on his own, which was maybe 50 or so). (UPDATE: Gatza states, “In general, books by new authors sell around 25 – 30 copies.” Shocking? Only if you don’t know the first thing about poetry publishing.)

This is the reality of poetry publishing. There are certainly presses that sell more copies. A poetry title reviewed in The New York Times can sell 2-4k copies, it is true. But small, independent presses, those small shops, usually run by one or a few people, rarely see those kinds of sales. University presses, for the most part, don’t see those kinds of numbers for poetry. I attended a panel by the publisher of Grove/Atlantic and he said his press’ poetry sales was around 800 per title. They publish “big-name” poets, their books are often shelved by chain bookstores, they have good distribution, a strong reputation . . . and that’s what they sell. Publishing poetry is their charity–their poetry titles are subsidized by their fiction and non-fiction sales.

I am somewhat shocked by this because I am new to poetry publishing. I had no idea what sales should be expected by a publisher putting out quality works (or crappy works, even). As I’ve seen elsewhere, part of the problem might be over-saturation with publishers and people wanting to be poets and make some sort of living or mark in the industry. Maybe there are just too damn many. But that’s awfully pessimistic and not an agenda or direction I would really want to push my way down. For one, I’m willing to bet that there has always been a bunch of people wanting to be poets, people who filled notebooks full of  verse and prose, and just didn’t have the numerous opportunities present to modern poets. Secondly, if there are that many people out there looking to be published, there certainly seems to be a market out there.

The problem that I see is that it appears to be a one-way market. A bunch of people wanting to be published but not overly enthusiastic about throwing their money down and seeing other people published. Part of me has to admit to being a part of this group, at least to the extent of really not being a poetry person. I will rarely buy literary mags because of the sheer volume of poetry in them and my lack of interest and chapbooks, well, pretty damn unlikely to get my money.  This is something I certainly didn’t bring up very often at AWP.

In glancing through some of the replies on the other sites, I see there have already been people pushing for better marketing, and poets re-thinking their ambitions, maybe not pursuing conventional publishing routes and instead just seeking to get their work viewed by as many people as possible. And the numbers pulled into the light by No Tells and BlazeVOX may support that. After all, if the best they can hope a new book does is 25-30 copies, it’s clearly not being exposed to a great number of people. And if you’re not being read, what does it matter who publishes you?

So maybe it’s time to go back to mimeographed pages stapled together and sold out of the back of the car or stacked in the public areas of universities? Or some sort of collection of websites that push poetry that can link to each other and push viewers from one site to the next? Or maybe it’s time to start buying up adspace in news papers and publishing poems in the ad space?

I don’t know. That’s why I’m putting this out there. Poetry seems under appreciated, at least by people with money to throw down on it. While many of us are closet Silvia Plath’s, we’re also not interested in reading what the uncloseted poet across the hall has published. And maybe the poetry scene is really dying a slow death, filled with people who continue to push the medium but who continue to have an ever quieter voice beyond the edges of their personal radiance.  We need to find aways of not just helping our small presses survive, but of pushing poetry back to the front and center, or at least onto the stage. Alright, back to work.

You don’t get to see the faces of your students. They don’t get to see you. The entire reward of working with people is fairly obliterated by the computer screen. Having two discussion threads and 25 papers littered with basic spelling and grammatical errors per class , per week, week after week, can be fairly dehumanizing. After awhile, all that you know is that this massive pile of incredibly tedious work descends on you every sunday night and you just wish it would stop. While your employer pushes for greater retention, you just want them to disappear, one by one, until you’re left with something a bit more manageable, or at least a bit less soul  crushing with its omnipresent weight of tedious repetition.

And that’s under the best circumstances, teaching online, at least for me, anyway. This fall has already fallen into the “worst circumstances” category.  The institution (business?) I’m working for decided they needed to revamp their email system for this fall. So, in August, I got instructions for setting up my new email account to use in the fall. Assuming I had a job, which hadn’t been confirmed when all of these emails were going out, but I assumed it was a promising sign. So I set up the account and then pretty much set it aside, believing it was for the fall.

Except for one of my bosses, and I mean “one of,” as in, I have several. And all of are able to simply nip into my class and observe me quietly from afar and all of my students have ready access to complain to them over any real or perceived slight. With a little imagination, you are probably beginning to grasp how nerve wracking this existence could be, with this idea that Big Brother could be omnipresent and that anyone can turn anyone else in and have it given weight, after all, because retention is key.

This one boss was using exclusively this new email address while the summer semester was still going on, while there was still three weeks left in the summer session. So I missed out on his email saying that the class I’m teaching was being revamped. I missed out on the email offering a workshop in all of the new stuff they’ve crammed into this thing. And I missed out on the email reminding me to get the new books for the new course, just in case I didn’t notice that the entire course has been altered for the fall.

Frankly, I was too burned out to care too much by Aug. 8, and I still 17 days in the summer semester. And when that Summer semester ended, I had to simply bottom out for a few days. So, I was pretty much fucked when I opened up my new classes the day or two before they were to begin and saw the whole damn thing changed. I’ve been playing catch-up ever since. My students are miserable and bitchy because the campus bookstore can’t manage to send them any of their books on time, so they can’t access half the work. I’m in a horrible mood because I still haven’t gotten all of the books myself and my students are freaking out because of something I essentially have zero control over. But that hasn’t stopped them from bitching to me about it.

And the worst thing is that I sort of like the new class layout so far. It actually seems easier if Ihad my book or if mystudents had theirs or if any of these emails that I missed had been sent to the email account my other bosses and department secretaries were using.

And what does all of this have to do with writing or literature? I don’t have time for it right now. I’m trying to make time but it’s just not there and when I do find free time, I’m so stressed and angry and tired and just thoroughly unhappy with what I’m doing for a living that I can’t concentrate on anything I really care about. Instead, I continue to just need to crash. To bottom out. To push everything aside for a bit and engage in some mental.emotional candy like obsessively scouring ebay and craigslist for specific toys for the kid or trying to figure out what that song by the cranberries is that I have stuck in my head from 15 years ago (it was Zombie) or watching Ghost Hunters International on Hulu while also bitching about the regular Ghost Hunters no longer being on Hulu.

The thought of picking up pen and paper or opening an office document file and diving into serious editing and revisions is damn near impossible at this point.

Alright. Piss and moan over. Back to the world.

I thought the best story was “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad,”  about a guy who finds a whistle, blows in it, and then is bedeviled by a spirit that comes, uses the sheets of the spare bed in the guy’s room to form a body for itself, and tries to scare him to death. It sounds…kooky…when explained, but James’ grasp of language and attention to detail in constructing his setting pulls it off with aplomb.

The collection I had was the Penguins Classic edition.  If you’re really interested in James, I think this is the copy you should look for. Not only is it well done, as pretty much all of the Penguin Classics are, but it is heavily annotated. So, if you’re really curious what that bit of Latin means that James put into a story, you can flip to the back and see. While the annotations aren’t necessary, they can be helpful and they do bring a greater depth to the story and an appreciation for the amount of work James put into getting the details right. I plan on coming back and inserting reviews of a few of the stories but, for now, I’m just going to put this up for everyone.