Writer's Digest blog - This Writer's Life by Kevin Alexander

Warning: I was given one of those Coca Cola Blak coffee-Coke drinks for free by some promotion person right before I wrote this. Point being: Don't drink Coa-Cola Blak.

I took one of those online IQ tests that popped when I was trying to buy a used Fine Young Cannibals CDs online. It wasn't hard. I got around a 180, which ties me with Charles Darwin, according to Wikipedia, as the second smartest person ever recorded. Of course, I'd have to pay to find out my actual specific score, but honestly, why bother? That sounds about right.

But now I have a new problem. You know that phrase that George Washington or Spiderman said, something about "with great power comes great responsibility"? That's sort of my life now. Before, when I didn't realize that I was a genius, I was content to revel in the sort of carefree semi-bohemian lifestyle that comes with growing a beard, especially here in Bratislava, Slovakia, where I just got a mineral water, hot chocolate, and a sesame seed bagel with mozzarella, tomato and pesto at the Slovak equivalent of Starbucks for about two bucks (No joke). But now I can feel the intellectual burden weighing down on my well defined shoulders. For example, I was just reading about global warming in the International Herald Tribune and I started to feel guilty, like, "Should I just take the weekend and solve the problem?" But I'm all conflicted because I wanted to go out this weekend and I can never do anything hungover. Nevertheless, the point remains: Am I under utilizing my genius-ocity? And where the f**k in Bratislava can I get a haircut?

Just in case you're thinking, "This has nothing to do with writing or really anything. Why did i subscribe to this blog when I could be reading PerezHilton.com?", I'll have you know that this same issue affects my reading and writing as well. I used to think that the reason I felt like I wanted to die every time I'd read something old, dense and ultra-literary was because I couldn't pronounce most of the words and--it sounds silly to even say this now--didn't understand the deeper meaning, context and symbolism within the texts. But, obviously, since it's been established that i'm, like, a genius, maybe the reason I was so bored was because I understood the work too fast and already knew exactly where the story was going. Don't believe me? A little suspicious? Fine. Take James Fenimore Cooper's snooze cruise Last of the Mohicans. I knew Natty Bummppo would eventually get revenge on Magua for killing Chingachgook and then eventually tongue kiss with Alice before I even finished the second chapter, and that wasn't only because I'd already seen the film starring Daniel Day Lewis.

And i know this might seem like a stretch, but maybe my writing is also a lot deeper and intellectually grounded than i first thought. Sure, on the surface, my ne'er be finished novel-in-progress/master's thesis might seem like its just a story about a sexual assault at a school that is a thinly veiled replica of where i went to undergrad, but that's just a surface read by someone I like to call a non-genius, or, in layman's terms, Ramsey. On a closer reading, it's quite obvious that my book is really a commentary on the effects of global warming on the rockhopper penguin; a scathing critique of Sherman's "scorched earth policy" during the Civil War and an objective review of the second Matchbox 20 album 'If You're Gone'.

Ok. I would attempt to further analyze my new found burden but my time in the Internet Cafe has been cut short by Bratislava's policy of closing stores before the sun goes down in an effort to avoid vampires during the commute.

I'm going to use my nascent intelligence to find a Mexican restaurant in Slovakia.

Rhythm is a Dancer,

KA

PS- As incentive to actually leave your actual email when you post a comment: Besides the likely possibility that you could receive a message from me 3 weeks down the line asking you to wire me money, I am putting together an exclusive group contact list so that those of you who actually might be interested will be the first to know when I release the first single off my inevitable R&B/Pop album, get an inappropriate forwarded email from my grandfather or God forbid, publish something, like, you know, a book. So if you want in, drop your email. I'm almost 70% positive I'll be able to read it.

2/23/2007 3:50:49 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [14]

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Who Doesn't Like Book Lists?

Warning: This a rather aggressively lengthed post. The Scene: I am now in Istanbul in the first Internet cafe that had an American keyboard. It is warm here (maybe 60) and there are more cats in this city than in every musical cast combined of the contemporary musical Cats, which is to say somewhere on the heavy side of 5 million. As I type this, a cat with one eye keeps rubbing against my leg and possibly asking me if I want to buy hand rolled cigarettes. Needless to say, I am mildly freaked out. While obviously important, that isn't the point of my blog.

When I decided to go on this trip, I had to make several difficult decisions, not the least of which was what books I would bring. I would be gone for four months potentially not being able to really talk with anyone the entire time except for the Big Cat, and so I knew the choices that I would make for books would dictate whether or not I would be able to find myself, especially since I planned on spending most of my time reading in a TGIFridays in Budapest. I realized, also, that I would have to lug said books across the globe and so weight would be an issue. Immediately, hard cover books and World Book Encyclopedias were ruled out. Plus, I wanted the books I would bring to say something about me and say something about the importance of reading and literature and current events on my life.

So basically, I had no choice but to leave the Nancy Drew-Hardy Boys SuperMystery #26 at home. Some of the books I brought were books I've been dying to read, some of them books I've been meaning to read and some of them I purchased at an English bookstore in Vienna. I think I ended up with something like 16. The Big Cat, on the other hand, brought one (something about a man walking across Afghanistan), but to be fair he's also purchased two issues of Okay!, the British version of US Weekly.

Anyway, because it seems important right now as this pirate-like tabby cat again attempts to sit in my lap and lick my hand, here is the list of books I brought on this trip and the reasons why and possibly brief responses to the ones I've read so far.

1. The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart. Reason: I like Shteyngart's non fiction a lot and have had this book on my bookcase for upwards of a year, always meaning to read it. Plus, the guy is Russian and I am going to Russia and I believe in being knowledgeable and worldly. Verdict: The dude brings it. This book is amazing, hilarious, fast paced, informative, broadly scoped, a masterpiece. How could this be his first book? Read this. Laugh. Use the restroom. Feel slightly insecure about your own writing. Go back to the restroom.

2. Wake Up, Sir by Jonathan Ames. Reason: While doing a profile of another writer, I interviewed a very cool editor at Picador and, along with the proofs of that writers book, he sent me a bunch of his other writers books. I brought along this one based on a review on the back that called Ames "Like an edgier Sedaris". Also, the book was pretty small. Verdict: hilarious, about a writer who has his own butler and is an alcoholic and incredibly productive at self diagnosis but not at doing much else. Again, many laugh out loud moments and great book for writers ever dreaming about the realities of working at a writers retreat (Ames bases the one in his book on a real one somewhere...get off me, cat)

3. Underworld by Don Delilo. Reason: This book is almost 900 pages paperback and I've never read any Delilo and I feel guilty about it. Plus, if I'm being honest with myself, then i can admit that I wouldn't read it unless I forced myself to bring it with me. 900 pages!!! That's like 16 Nancy Drew Files mysteries! Verdict: Truly impressive. He creates his own specific, evocative language, and it reads almost like poetry for the entire 3 million words. Also, covers something like 50 years... people like him make me feel both incredibly lucky that they exist so we get to experience their work and small and insecure. Well played, Delilo.

4. A Moveable Feast by Some Guy Who Probably Isn't Important (Hemingway). Reason: Come on now. You and I both know why I would bring this book. Who doesn't want to know what Gertrude Stein is really like? Verdict: Um, interesting. I am a huge fan of Hemingway and this didn't really do it for me. Although, if you are interested in hearing about F. Scott Fitzgerald's, um, sexual proclivities...please stop reading my blog.

5. The Sportswriter by Richard Ford. Reason: Richard Ford came out with a new book in his series of Frank Bascombe mid-life crisis novels and I had never read any of them and my father was like, "Why haven't you read any of these books? Aren't you a "writer"?" And I said, "Stop doing that quotation marks thing with your hands every time you call me a writer." And he's like, "How can you even tell I'm doing that? We're on the phone." Anyway. Verdict: Frank has some serious issues, namely his inability to make any decision without asking himself deep penetrating philosophical questions that shake him to the core. Or something. I liked this book because it made me think that maybe I'm not quite as crazy as my therapist seems to believe. And although I am not yet in my late 30s, Ford makes me seem like I know what that's like. Actually, I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing.

6. Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King. Reason: I first read Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water in a Native Amer Lit Class in my MFA program and I thought it was one of the 5-7 best books I'd ever read. His wit is sharp, he renders things so damn accurately, i just was actually mad that I had never read any of his stuff before and vowed to read everything else. Then the class was over and I forgot about the promises I made to myself. Luckily, I happened to stumble upon this while walking past a used bookstore in NYC. It was, again, another case of my life almost exactly resembling the John Cusak film Serendipity. Verdict: Not quite Green Grass, but still, humor and childhood and Native Amer life (even though it takes place in Canada).

7. Important Things That Don't Matter by David Amsden. Reason: Amsden is a contributing writer at New York Magazine and I am a fan of his magazine articles, which often are fresh takes on ideas I have several months after the fact for Boston Mag. Plus, he's a young guy with the charmed benefit of having the New York Times write an article about going out with him in New York ("A Night Out with David Amsden: Oh, to be a Bold Faced Name"), which makes me kind of hate him, kind of want to be him. Verdict: The book took me an hour to read, tops, and covers a teen growing up in the 80s and 90s and is very, very autobiographical, even though it is a novel (I only say that bc a closing scene in a restaurant is almost exactly like a nonfiction essay i think he wrote for Nerve.com). It's a fine book, but I've been reading such hot shit, it didn't have much of a chance.

8. The IRA by Tim Pat Coogan. Reason: I was going to Belfast and wanted to be informed about the conflict in N. Ireland from something else besides the film The Patriot Game starring Harrison Ford so I picked up this tome in an English bookstore in Vienna. It's almost Delilo long. Verdict: Delilo long, none of the narrative arc, all of the millions of words. I still am not done with it, and it has some very interesting parts about the conflict, but essentially it is a history book and I feel like I'm doing homework when I read it. Not always in a good way.

9. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes. Reason: See The Russian Debutante. Verdict: Oh man, more history? What am I trying to do, educate myself? To be fair, some very interesting facts and stories about how St. Petersburg was formed and the crazy, hedonistic parties aristocrats in Moscow used to throw, and lots of stuff on all the Russian writers, which sort of gives me a frame of mind for both places, but ultimately won't help me sort out where the TGIFridays is. Also Delilo long. Not done with this one, either. Helps me fall asleep.

10. Can't Stop, Won't Stop by Jeff Chang. Reason: Sorry, but I like hip-hop. I can't help it; I grew up in an upper middle class suburb and was obsessed with basketball. Conversely, and perhaps just as infuriatingly, I also like country music. I blame that on spending my childhood in Texas. Either way, Jeff Chang won the American Book Award for this history of hip hop and I like to pretend that I know about things that I like. Verdict: Just started. So far, so good. Using a strong font, that i like. Might be Georgia. I'll keep you posted.

11. The 27th City by Jonathan Franzen. Reason: I read The Corrections and loved it and that does play a big role in why I picked up this book, but mainly, I just want to be able to say, "Well, actually, I prefer some of Franzen's more obscure work." in a faux English accent and actually sort of know what I'm talking about, when people I don't like bring up The Corrections. Honestly, am I really this petty? Verdict: Yes. I am. (Book remains unread).

12. Glamorama by Brett Easton Ellis. Reason: Am I the only mid-twenties male writer with embarrassing facial hair who hasn't read any Easton Ellis? I mean I actually lie and tell people I've read American Psycho but I've only seen that part of the movie when he is tanning nude in his apartment and puts on Genesis. Wait, that didn't come out right. Verdict: Unread

13. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. Reason: I love the book Motherless Brooklyn and heard this was almost as good. Lethem is a genius. I think I could marry his work and be moderately happy. Okay, maybe I'm starting to lose it a little. (Oh my God. Not joking, the cat is licking the side of the computer monitor, and I seem to be the only person in this full Internet cafe moderately fazed by this.) Verdict: Meow.

14. The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Reason: Falls right into the "Are you f*cking serious, you've never read that and you write for non-fiction for magazines?" genre. I found it in my mom's basement and its small and yellowed and inscribed "Chris (my mom's name), Lot of good times. Julie." I have no idea who Julie is or what these good times were, I just hope they weren't happening while she was pregnant with me. Verdict: I don't think anyone wants to know what their parents did in the late 60s, early 70s.

15. Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala: Reason: I picked it up in Vienna. About a boy caught up in an unnamed West African nation's civil war, I read the first page and knew I would want it. Electrifying Prose. Plus, the author is 24. Verdict: Unread, but probably next on my list.

16. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. Reason: This one is sort of cheating, because I read it a year or two ago and The Big Cat actually bought it out here, but I want to read it again because of Obama's recent choice to run for the Dem nomination. I remember being jealous of how clear and solid the prose was, and impressed that any politician (or honestly anyone that wasn't primarily a writer) could put forth such a coherent, well-written book. Or at least I think that's what I remember thinking. I can't remember anything right now because the Jack Sparrow cat is licking itself in private places on the chair next to me. I desperately need to get out of here.

Okay. Wow. That's a lot of stuff. I'm not sure why anyone would get to the end of this post, other than to find the post a comment box and unleash expletives about making them read something as interesting as my book list, but, hey friends, come on. I'm in Turkey. But you're (probably) not. So go write, publish, and get wealthy. Then call me. KA

ps- Progress has been made in the "Kevin can't seriously be this inept" quest to respond to reader mail. I now understand that the word dot signifies the . in the emails. If cats weren't attempting to ruin my life, I'd even respond to questions right now. Blame the cats.

2/15/2007 7:30:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [9]

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Muses, British Big Brother and the Mysteries of Technology

Let me begin with a confession and an indisputable fact.

Confession: I am bad with technology. I know this is not a startling confession, like admitting that, until I was 14, I slept with the lights on in my room (also true). My point in telling you this is to beg for your patience with me as I sort out exactly how to work this blog and figure out how to read everyone's email addresses, so I can respond promptly to questions and comments, which leads me to my indisputable fact.

Fact: Right now I happen to be in an Internet Cafe in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For those of you who don't know, I am one month into a three and a half month travel writing/self discovery tour of much of Western and Eastern Europe for which I took a semester off from my MFA program and begged my credit card company to up my spending limit. One of my friends from home, Casey Hurley (oft referred to as The Big Cat because he's more or less a giant), quit his job with the Dept of Defense and agreed to accompany me on the journey, in exchange for 'walking around money' and an agreement that I wouldn't 'publicly ruin his chances of getting another job'. We've kept a pseudo-travel blog of our trip and subsequent quest for self-discovery, the likes of which can be found on the blogroll (to the left) if you have any interest in hearing inaccurate biased critiques of major European cities and embarrassing facts about myself, which Case delights in revealing. I also swear, which--when used effectively-- can be awesome.

Anyway, I apologize if you've heard all of that before, but my main point in telling you about the trip is that--from a writing standpoint-- I had very real expectations for this trip that have now changed somewhat significantly.

When I first envisioned this trip, I imagined that it would greatly enhance my magazine journalism career by adding travel writing to my resume. I pretty much thought I'd be writing stories while doing active, extreme things like dog sledding in Finland and base jumping off the Space Needle in Bratislava, Slovakia. But it turns out, they don't even have a space needle. And I would never go base jumping.

So in reality, I've spent much less time working on magazine story ideas (As of this writing, I have one solid story idea, which someone is probably in the midst of pitching right...now) and working on my novel and writing a short story about going on a date with a former reality star in Zurich, Switzerland. Perhaps it's the sheer quantity of contemplative (moody?) people sitting in cafes, or maybe, more realistically, its the fact that I don't speak any other languages and, thusly, am terrified to make eye contact that have propelled me to work on fiction, but either way this reveals an undeniable truth: with writing, you really have no choice but to go where your fickle, slightly overweight Muse takes you. And for whatever reason, my Muse is forcing me to spend an inordinate amount of time sorting out what it'd be like to go on a date with a former reality star. So I guess my point is that while it's good and productive to set goals and have expectations for your writing, you never know what the hell is going to pop into your mind, and you just have to be willing to tell yourself that it's okay to see where that goes. And if that means that you're forced to watch a sh*t ton of the British version of Celebrity Big Brother while eating a family-size package of Kit Kats in the name of research, remember, it's not you. It's your Muse.

KA

ps- thanks everyone for writing in with your support, questions and requests for pantless pics. And if you did pose a question, I'm not ignoring you. I'm not even kind of avoiding you. I'm just incompetent in sorting out people's email addresses with the NOSPAM thing inserted. But I'm learning things very, very quickly and I will be sure and get back to you as soon as possible. I just need to see if this chick gets kicked out of the Big Brother House, because she's being ridiculously unreasonable, plus I think she hooked up with that guy Matt (or maybe Chris) strictly for personal gain:)

2/6/2007 12:12:44 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Comments [9]