May 7, 2012

My Dad Says Shit Too

My dad, Walt, is indisputably one of the coolest people I know. In honor of his upcoming birthday, and to embarrass him mercilessly, here are a few of his best neologisms* and colorful phrases.

1) Happy Horse Shit: A frivolous thing or event.

Example: “Spas? I’m not into any of that happy horse shit.”

2) Nickel Shit: A minor or irrelevant thing. “I told him I didn’t have time to deal with his nickel shit.”

3) No Jump for a Show Dog: Words of encouragement about something that requires little effort due to a person’s level of expertise or talent. “Hey you’ll get that job Cyn. It’s no jump for a show dog.”

4) WallyWendyCyndiMistyMaxHeidiSnoopy: The names of all of his children and past pets combined into a single word, said when he forgets one of his children’s names.

5) Nothing’s illegal until you get caught.: A kindness offered during our youth when one of his children were caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Usually followed by a punishment.

6) Warsh/Rinsch: “Wash” and “rinse”… (he’s from Ohio, but no one else from Ohio I know says this…). Derivation unknown.

7) Go like hell: To move fast or get out of the way. “You’re late.  Just get in the car and go like hell.”

8) Shit Box: Annoyed reference to a small child or cat. “Tell that little shit box to get over here.” “Get that shit box out of the house.”

9) Crumbgrabber: Kind reference to a small child. “Her little crumbgrabber is alright.”

10) Hammered horse shit: The state or condition of ill being, often caused by traveling or overindulgence. “I only had two glasses of wine last night and I feel like hammered horse shit.”

Happy Birthday Dad. You’re the best. :)

* Look it up, Dad. ;p

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March 4, 2012

stolen grammar sign from pintrest…

Courtesy of Sara Freeman’s “Praise the Grammar Police” board…

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February 26, 2012

Punctuation botanica: thoughts on interrobangs and fresh tattoos

I’ve been mildly obsessed with punctuation since college. Learning about what to use, and when, took time (and I still go to the guides when a heated debate of dash use erupts at the office…).  How often–as with most forms of professional communication at least–less is so much more. For beginning writers, use of punctuation can be the textual equivalent to a child getting into Mommy’s makeup. But creative work? Go freaking bananas– in fact I love when I see writers and poets do cool things with astrisks and em dashes and ellipses.

Here’s my favorite scene involving the discussion of the “dot dot dot”, from one of my all-time favorite movies.

I could go on right now, about how punctuation is either a visual cue for the eye or a timing mechanism for the brain, but frankly that sounds pretty boring and not really what I wanted to talk about.  Fluidity, syntax, style… got it? Moving on.

I want to talk about tattoos.

I’ve been researching my most favorite punctuation for my next ink session and came across a super cool article on rarely-used marks.

This article has a few especially cool ones… which had me saying “interrobang” repeatedly just because it’s fun to say. Naturally I had to learn more so I went to my most favorite dubious source of information, and found a fine list of punctuation and usage.

My favorites so far:

The irony mark

The astrisk… although it seems a bit fashionable at the moment.

The one I really think is cool is the hedera… Latin for “ivy”.  It’s pretty and rarely seen today. Back when people actually wrote Latin, the hedera was used to block off large sections of text or long paragraphs. I studied Latin in college, but personally never came across this mark.

It’s pretty, timeless, less pedantic, and less obvious than the irony or other admittedly cool marks. There are lots of different variations too, from clean to frilly. I want one.

Now the question is… where does it go?

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February 20, 2012

Give it up girl: Writerly advice on creative control

It’s always interesting when my worlds collide as a writer and actor.

A while ago I auditioned for an independent film that, really, sounded like a fantastic project. The story concept was novel and sharp, the characters were relatable but not cliche, and a surfeit of zombie killing was inevitable. I was thrilled.

I went to the audition, submitted my headshot and information, and was handed sides to go over for the read. But the script I was given wasn’t full of zombie-killing awesomeness. It was a scene from “Pretty Woman”. I was confused… and slightly nauseated. When I asked the casting assistant what was up, she gave me a loaded look and shrugged.

Actor hat on. I dug in, read, and felt pretty good about it. The next day the director called me and said I was being considered for the female lead, and would I meet him for a second read. I said yes of course, and asked if he wanted to send me sides to prepare. He said no, because he trusted no one with his script, not even his sister, and that I’d be required to sign an NDA to even look at the script in person. Long story short, you won’t be seeing me killing zombies any time in the near future. Sad, but true.

;

Here’s the thing. As a writer, your words go out into the world, where you can’t protect them. They run around and party with bad words, misspelled words, and words that make no sense. You can’t shield them from corruption or abuse. Hollywood knows this, Silicon Valley knows this, hell, TMZ knows this. Yes you have implicit copyright, but creative control is hard to wrangle when you’re blasting buckets of text into the internets. I’d hazard to guess it’s pretty much impossible. Just like photography… (and if you know me you know why I say this), the copy/paste option can create a lot of conversation in a model’s life. At some point, you just have to stop thinking about it. It’s out there. Deal.

Writing is an art, and like many artistic endeavors, it’s highly collaborative. Yes you can create art alone… I’m not saying you can’t or that it doesn’t happen. When I start a project it’s usually when I’m alone. Most artists I personally know do start working on their own. But it can get lonely sometimes, and you can get a little bit of what scuba divers call “rapture of the deep”. You lose perspective on a piece and forget which way is up. Aside from perspective, a lot of projects simply require collaboration. Directors use actors, assistants, makeup, hair, and wardrobe people, DPs, grips. Painters use models, other painters, muses. And even the solo, curmudgeon-y writer has editors, publishing house readers, proofreaders, and yes… even a boss sometimes. We have to trust each other and work together, knowing that the end result might not match precisely what is in our minds’ eyes, but that together, for all of us, the vision should be something we’re all pretty happy with.

A willingness to share is risky, no doubt, but in the end, it’s part of why you’re making art in the first place. To share.

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February 1, 2012

Learning to Shave

There was a time, not so long ago, when Gus was my best friend.

He wore loud, polyester button-downs and a stretchy gold watch and always, always wore a hat when he went out of the house. He’d come visit from Akron and stay with us when I was little, and my favorite time was each morning watching him shave. It was a deliberate ritual worthy of study: stretchy watch off, wash face, foam face, get to work with the razor. At just six years old I had become obsessed with men’s shaving, the confidence and masculine potency of it all was awe-inspiring. The sound of the blade scraping foam off his face gave me chills. The morning ritual.

Everything Gus did had a ritual to it: researching stocks, walking laps for exercise, shopping at the discount market for canned salmon and dented corn soup. We’d sit at their plastic-clad kitchen table and get drunk, which pissed off my grandmother to no end, but we pretty much pretended she wasn’t there, which wasn’t rude because she seemed to prefer it that way. Any time I’d teeter up to offer to chop or clear anything, she’d mutter the same thing by rote: “Sit with him. Talk. He’s waited all day to see you so you go.” So I did. And we talked.

Herman Melville. The Crash of 1929. Judge Judy. Sputnik. How the cleaning lady spent too much time arranging the fringe on the living room rug. What Papua New Guinea was like during the war.

He’d tell me I was too smart to be a teacher and I ought to do something practical. Business, or banking, or maybe if I could get the writing thing going I could do that too, but only on the side. He discouraged me from getting married and said I was better off going to college and learning how to think right, not to let someone else do my thinking for me. Sometimes I listened, usually I didn’t, but he taught me my first lessons in questioning power and not being afraid to disagree with anyone I didn’t think was right. He believed in calling people on their shit, especially fancy folks,  especially folks who seemed too sure that they knew what they were talking about. Coincidences are meaningless. Can you check the facts you’re being told? What’s the worst case scenario?

For him it was getting cancer. As a post-war building inspector he inhaled asbestos daily, and by the time he entered the new millennium his lungs were hardening like coral. Soon he was trapped in a housing that betrayed him daily. I’d visit often, but we didn’t drink like we did in years past. Instead we talked about treatments and inhalers and what he regretted most in life. “At eighty,” he weezed, “at eighty, they should just take you out back and shoot you. Because. This? Just isn’t right.”  His arms grew thin and blackened with blood and when I hugged him goodbye he wound around them me so tight I’d lose my breath but I didn’t mind. Neither of us wanted to be the first to let go.

Watch who you love in this world. Study them often, be enthralled with their rituals, remember the things that fascinate you about them. Time passes when you’re not looking.

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January 22, 2012

Weeping Genius: Poems I Love

I’m in perpetual awe of poetry. It’s a form of writing I’ve always been pretty dreadful at. I tend to prefer long, meandering confessional-type writing, with lots of run-ons and subordination, and poetry usually doesn’t have the patience for that sort of thing. It’s economical. It’s distilled. It catches thin, corner-of-the-eye moments you might otherwise overlook if you’re in a hurry on a busy day. But if you slow down a moment, look up and see what’s around you… you see them everywhere.

The trick is getting them down the way you see them.

Here are a few poems, poets, or books of poems I re-read regularly… especially during frigid-wet weather like we’re experiencing now in San Francisco.

Robert Hass, Sun Under Wood
The verse in Sun Under Wood is both crisp and lilting. My pick: “Shame: An Aria”

I had the immense pleasure of taking Professor Hass’ American Poetry class when I was at Berkeley. He was the U.S. Poet Laureate back in the 90′s, and has since won a Pulitzer for his 2008 book, Time and Materials. A gentle, vividly-smart man, he was the only professor that signed autographs before class. He’s also the man who encouraged me to write a book about Poe.

Speaking of Poe…

I’m far more interested in the literary historicism of Poe’s life and the lives of those surrounding his, but truth told, Poe was a fine poet. “A Dream Within a Dream” was first published in 1849, the year of his death, and asks the question of what is real in this life. I suspect for Poe, the confusion between lush dream states and arid realities was real, and he manages to capture his query in the prettiest of ways.

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Speaking of dreams… (obvious and bad segue way… sorry)

Pablo Neruda destroys me. He destroys anyone in his path. He’s the undisputed master of love poems. I was sent this poem back in 2004 by a man I was dating. I ended up marrying him. The marriage didn’t work out, but like this poem, the most romantic moments in life are often shorter than we expect.

The Queen

I have named you queen.
There are taller than you, taller.
There are purer than you, purer.
There are lovelier than you, lovelier.
But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets
No one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks
At the carpet of red gold
That you tread as you pass,
The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear
All the rivers sound
In my body, bells
Shake the sky,
And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I,
Only you and I, my love,
Listen to me.

There are so many more, but I’ll save them for another time. Read a poem you love today.

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January 15, 2012

Sunday Funnies

Once of the many reasons I adore nineteenth-century print culture is the bone-dry humor often found in advertisements and announcements. And some clips just remind me how so little has changed. Here are a few recent finds…

The era of social media did not invent OMGing…

Source: The Atchison Globe, April 26, 1878.

Wry criticism at its finest…

June 6th, 1881

And lastly, little Clarence dreams big:

May 31st, 1879

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