Red Lightbulbs 9.5 -- Secret Santa Issue

Well, the 9 and a half issue of Red Lightbulbs is out (The Secret Santa issue). The penultimate issue. I'll be sad to see Red Lightbulbs go the way of the dinosaur and the Zima, although more notably as the former than the latter. It's a sad thing! But I know Russ is moving on to bigger and better things. I know the same is true of Meghan. I know that this is how these things go.

Issue 10 is shaping up to be amazing. This makes me glad.

Credit Theron Jacobs for the cover art:

Artifice 5! Artifice 5! Artifice 5!

Artifice 5 is coming folks. I wanted to trumpet its doing so here. You can snag a copy in advance of its March 2013 release date (or more accurately, you can secure the issue before its March 2013 release date, receiving it via mail or what have you in March(ish)). This is what I'm thinking. Great contributors! Thrilled to be a part of this, working with a phenomenal writer and editor in James Tadd Adcox. Check it here.

A Thing For 2013! "Why God Why"

I wanted to post a picture of the cover of my book, Why God Why, which is coming by way of Love Symbol Press in 2013.

Here it is:

So yeah. really can't wait to get this out in the world. There'll be a preview with a couple key pieces in the next issue and final issue of Red Lightbulbs. Till then, you can get a little more information about WGW at Love Symbol Press's website, here.

Happy New Year!

Books of 2012 That I Enjoyed Reading A Lot

I'm back, just in time for New Year's!

I'd like to issue a quick few kind words regarding books I've read in 2012 and enjoyed (above all others, though I've enjoyed nearly everything I've read this past year).

The Map of the System of Human Knowledge, James Tadd Adcox

Mr. Adcox, or "Tadd" as I affectionately refer to him, is not just a good person but a hell of a writer. This book fully lived up to (and maybe surpassed) my expectations. While the stories didn't have titles as such (and so are harder to single out for that reason) the whole assemblage really works. The layout and aesthetic is pulled off nicely, and the little fictions/poems throughout are equal parts hilarious and heartrending. (Also, if I draw any criticism for featuring writers here with whom I'm friends, let me just say I don't care this is my blog I do what I want here, so-called integrity be damned.)

I am a Very Productive Entrepreneur, Mathias Svalina

I haven't had the privilege of meeting Mr. Svalina in real life yet. I hope that changes. This collection is amazing, mesmerizing, enchanting. He really hits on something, and that thing that he hits on I can't rightly name. It's just something he hits. Certainly aspects of that something lie in certain kinds of criticism of our consumptive culture, but I'll be careful not to reduce it too much in that way. Besides, it's beautifully written, and even if you read into what Svalina is saying very deeply, and you find yourself disagreeing and perhaps incensed -- which would be more than a little nutty, but regardless -- I'm sure you'll concede dude knows how to construct a sentence or two, absolutely. I also thank Svalina for finally getting me to pin down the spelling of "entrepreneur." Psyched for his collection forthcoming from Love Symbol Press in 2013-14.

May We Shed These Human Bodies, Amber Sparks

Ok, full disclosure, I haven't technically completed reading this collection yet. I'm more than a third of the way through it, however. With that in mind, I think it's safe to say unless something drastic changes I'm going to continue to adore these stories. Sparks is just the right amount of ribald and surreal. She mixes them nicely. She mixes them earnestly. I know she's a fan of George Saunders, whom I have to believe would think this collection a very worthwhile literary effort indeed, though certainly all Sparks' own. I can't wait for more from Sparks. I hear she's working on a novel these days.

#KanyeWestSavedFromDrowning, Salvatore Pane

Sure, Sal Pane and I might have our differences about who, exactly, was evil, basketball wise -- Michael Jordan or John Starks respectively. (The answer: it was always John Starks, which is why Bulls' fans had to boo him during his brief tenure with the team.) However, this is a hell of a collection. And maybe I'm biased because I was on the team that selected this collection for publication by NAP (and one of its most adamant supporters, full disclosure), but that's because Pane's writing is fantastic, great, the perfect blend of pop culture reference, '90s nostalgia, and just really brilliant writing. I'm excited for Last Call in the City of Bridges, which likewise, will surely be an enjoyable read.

Revelation, Colin Winnette

Winnette has had quite a run of awesomeness over the past two years. Lots of deserved awards and accolades, and two story collections, Revelation and Animal Collection, and a third on the way from Atticus Books in 2013. Revelation is quite a feat in itself, a surreal semi-modern day depiction of the end of days referred to in the biblical book of the same name (or at least that's my understanding of the book of revelation). The three friends of this novel suffer as many breaks and divides as the earth itself seems to be subject to. My personal favorite was the swarm of locust that had all but consumed a retirement home.

My Only Wife, Jac Jemc

Ghostly, otherworldly. A narrator who seems so detached it's hard to tell where reality begins and delusion ends. Beautifully rendered, which I'd never expect anything less from Jac Jemc. She's a poet, I feel, first and foremost, despite her knack for telling stories. You'll know this is no ordinary story from the very first chapter onward. You'll be pleased with what you find throughout.

Hot Pink, Adam Levin

God, I love this book. I don't care about the comparisons to David Foster Wallace. Adam Levin writes like Adam Levin. He's not the next anything. He's the inimitable writer he is. His work is complex and inviting of your own puzzlement. Puzzle over, for example, the nuances of a term like "hot pink." How might that appear through another point of view? What about a house that refuses to be mended? Why?

Us, Michael Kimball

I've raved about this book already, richly deserving of being raved about. It's dark, it's emotionally challenging. It's also insightful and incredibly evocative. Michael Kimball is among that great tradition of writers who don't need to dance around you prosaically (not that there's anything wrong with that or especially right with that, either). He gives you what is there and lets you assemble your own meaning. You might also check his latest, Big Ray, an intense journey through the complicated relationship between an abused son and his abusive father.

Light Boxes, Shane Jones

If you're in the mood for one fantastical, surreal fable-esque jaunt, Light Boxes should do it. Like Us, I raved about this book earlier this year on the blog. Because it's good, so good, I want to remind everyone that I enjoyed it so much. I could list the reasons, most of which are gone over in the earlier year's post. Still, February as a villain? Winter as never ending? Fiction as fun? Read Light Boxes. Do it.

Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me, Mark Leidner

Unlike the more pithy titles above (Svalina and Adcox excluded) this poetry collection is a mouthful. But it's a mouthful in so many ways, so many good words to read and maybe speak aloud. So much fun and funny, too. You'll love how Leidner twists and turns both language and the tender threads of narrative he either does or does not include in his poetry. If you like to have fun you should like Mark Leidner. That's all I'm saying.

Lessons Learned, I Think

Before I begin, I should note I'm not entirely sure what inspired me to write the forthcoming post. It probably has something to do with my feelings about politics and the greater discussion taking place at this most recently pertinent moment in American governance, the incumbent decision we're collectively soon to make. There's been a lot of discussion about Mitt Romney's first debate performance, which was exactly what the center-left feared it would be -- a very real opportunity for the GOP candidate to make his case to the American people as a credible candidate and to simultaneously and effectively cast the president in a bad light. Mission accomplished. We can discuss the reasons, but that doesn't really bear much mentioning. I will say the measured acumen of a politician more professorial in background is not conducive to a good show, debate wise. It's boring. It reminds people that our brains aren't designed to ruminate hard on anything. That our brains are instead designed for the quick flitting, downright thoughtless action needed to survive on a daily basis (see: Why Don't Students Like School? By Daniel T. Willingham). You don't ruminate much of your waking life about the things that surround you, at least not more than you take passing inventory of them for that reason I mention above. The point is, Mitt was all about survival, and if there's been one truly effective mantra of his campaign, it's been that as a businessman he is uniquely suited to helping America survive and then thrive again.

So what? Well, I got to thinking about my own self. Of coming to realize what kind of person I am. I never set out to write or be a "writer" when I was still a student in high school. Looking back on a letter I wrote to myself for a senior year English assignment, a letter addressed to me who is now 28, I asked about how my football career went, or perhaps was still going. A lot of hope in that. I can still almost feel the desire of my younger self, wanting to be in the NFL.

I am sorry to disappoint my younger self, too. I feel like if he had all the facts at the time, he'd be grateful for things working out how they have.

Thing is, while playing football I also liked writing very much. It was just more of a leisurely activity. I did it when I wasn't practicing, or weight training or otherwise prepping to be a football player. I wrote what I would have called satire then, a blanket term for anything humorous and possibly, possibly befitting of the true definition with some shred of sarcasm or irony, as well. It was at best a very raw skill I possessed. But that, along with drawing and reading were the seedlings of pastimes I found myself turning to more and more during my first year of college at Illinois State University, all with the hope of, as alluded to earlier, becoming an NFL player.

But it slowly became clear that I wasn't so cut out for the football grind. The practices were grueling and seemingly endless. I remember heading straight for the dining hall after getting out of the locker room and eating mass quantities of whatever was being served. And then the early morning practices I had through the entirety (it seemed) of the winter, when I'd wake up at 5am or so and put on my shoes to go run and train in nearby Redbird Arena with a number of my teammates and our strength and conditioning coach, who was, maybe by necessity, pitiless. You really didn't want to be late, ever, for any reason.

I remember one of my friends on the team describing his ultimate decision to quit in roughly this, very paraphrased, way: "I felt myself standing in the doorway of my dorm room, wavering back and forth. I said 'fuck this.' And I went back to sleep." I could relate.

There really was another problem during all of this, probably the most decisive of all. The coaches and I just didn't jibe. They were all (almost without exception) Oklahoma guys who'd gone to schools like OSU and Tulsa, one of them playing with the likes of Barry Sanders (or as he put it, jokingly, "Barry Sanders played with ME." This coach's most constant refrain was, "You don't like me, fight me," which sounds about right, no?)  And to be fair, these guys weren't exactly bad guys, (they certainly weren't humorless authoritarians) but their worldview was at least a 180 turn away from where mine is today, and where I was headed at the time. I had leaned left politically since high school, after an especially memorable U.S. History course I took and friends of mine who'd made, and continue to make, exceedingly compelling points for the liberal cause.

It was likewise around my first year of college that I got interested in reading Al Franken, who was funny and political, who knew? (Much funnier, as I saw it, than his right-wing foes and foils.) I took a class on political history that was taught by Manfred Steger, a pretty well regarded authority these days on the effects of globalization. I was also excited to hear a lecture by Noam Chomsky who visited campus that year, fall '03.

Suddenly, I was by all rights a regular card-carrying communist.

I remember feeling like I didn't understand a lot of what Chomsky said at his lecture, but the parts I did, I agreed with. Chomsky was certainly no fan of President Bush. Because of my various influences, I certainly wasn't a fan, either. A year later, and mostly to my embarrassment and shame now, I was a rabid supporter of Michael Moore's polarizing documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11.

Some of my teammates who were in the same class as me, one of whom I definitely let read off my answer sheet during the final, that a coach had warned them about taking what Chomsky said too seriously, or at least reminding them to be skeptical. The coaches weren't "shades of gray" sorts of people. They were "cause and effect" sorts, who occasionally had to cram a round peg into a square hole.

I felt myself become that round peg. I wasn't fitting, no matter how hard they yelled. That's when I realized I was some kind of anomaly to them. I'm not saying I was ever given terribly much though, actually I think the opposite is true: I was written off. They equated smarts with football intelligence, and I was too unsure of myself to be that in their eyes. I remember toward the end of spring practices meeting with my position coach, the one who, if you didn't like him you could fight him, and having a candid conversation, most of which I don't remember. I do remember for one reason or another he left me alone in his office and I sneaked a look at the report on my skill development (all of this informed a big part of scene I've hitherto written into a story). It said things about my "good, quick feet, strength and flexibility" -- big positives for linemen -- but it also mentioned my failure to grasp their system, and that I would not be ready to play in the coming fall. When my coach returned, I figured I'd level with him and tell him that I'd been sort of struggling with some feelings of depression, which I was having trouble explaining. After my so saying, he looked at me as though I were an alien species. He didn't have much to say that was encouraging. I left with the feeling that I'd REALLY dampened his opinion of me, if it wasn't irrevocably the case already.

The last team meeting I attended, I felt like a stranger amid good friends who understood all of each other's inside jokes. It was raining outside. I was so desperate to get out of there. I also remember the disgust on my strength and conditioning coach's face when I told him I planned to workout at home over the summer, rather than spend it almost entirely on campus. I wanted out of there, as said. I got out of there and soon after realized I wouldn't be returning.

I got the sense from my experience at ISU that there are certain people who look at certain attributes in others as exclusively weakness, as though to save the body something's sometimes gotta be amputated. I was a bad football player largely because I was always second-guessing myself, not reacting to the play and just acting on instinct. When I'd played my best football in high school, my mentality was playing instinctively. The best football player is the one who just does. And the more unsure I got the worse my playing got. And it was abundantly clear there'd be no help coming to get me back on the right track. Maybe things could have been different at ISU, but I guess that's not my real concern in writing this, my real point. My real point is, while I felt the divide widen between myself and my coaches, I see them in retrospect, as the adults in the situation, doing more to widen it than anyone else. We were told by our head coach, "there are no atheists on our football team." I remember the defensive coordinator (one of the coaches I can say WAS humorless and actually, yes, a douche bag) in the midst of spring workouts telling me he thought I was "weak." Not in a motivating way, in a way that signaled his contempt.

I think we need to stop finding weakness in others, and instead determine where the true strengths reside. Are we really stronger with exclusion? With finding ways and means to tear down instead of build up? Certainly sometimes everyone needs a good kick in the pants and to stop feeling sorry for his or herself, but when do we know we've gone to far? And how do we get ourselves back on track when that happens? I tend to think with the support of each other, not the delight in besting a hated (or at least strongly disliked) enemy.

Why I Really Can't Pretend Conservatives Are Reasonable Anymore

I'm finding it harder and harder to be reasonable about the other side, politically speaking. I say that mainly as, I think, a result of the polarized conditions of governmental elections. It's like somebody turns up the heat during the election season. I also think it's because of the inflexibility of the conservative side of the debate. I'm perfectly willing to hear someone tell me differently, say that no, it's because of the liberal side and the haughty contempt they hold for views they deem lacking due intellectual vigor, what I might also call a sincere willingness to look at a hypothetical situation from standpoints outside of my own. My friend (and I don't mean that in the Joe Biden referring to Paul Ryan sense) Michael Frissore has done a better job than most at putting forth this argument, which I would describe as, if nothing else, devil's advocating for some of the more extreme positions of conservatism in the generally extreme contemporary Republican Party. I don't disagree, for instance, that we should try to preserve life, even nascent life, in the case of abortion. Where I think we're free to argue and disagree is where life precisely and truly begins, and to what extent this is a conversation that should be of concern to the public, when the greater majority of people in our society will never be faced with the decision to abort or not to, and whether said option should at least be on the table. As with the example of the highly ineffective war on drugs, people will still have abortions, so do we decide to make them safe and legal or not?

My point basically is, I'm tired of pretending that the political climate today is something both parties can be blamed for, and that liberals share equally with conservatives. They don't. Liberals can be moonbats, but they don't typically get elected to congress in that event. Even Elizabeth Warren, largely considered of the moonbat set, I would say, is not so hard and fast to her positions as some of the more averagely conservative politicians. Think of what's become of John McCain and others of a more center-right Republican bent. Pushed out by those who consider them to be "Republican in name only." I'm not saying you have to agree with me to be a good politician, but I do believe you need to be able to represent the views of individuals outside the demographic you most closely resemble, and that is becoming increasingly impossible for those of the Republican set, even if they wanted to (and there's a part of me, a small part, that despite many of the things he's done and said, believes that Romney would be more comfortable moving toward the center himself, but in order to be a viable Republican candidate, he can't).

So I welcome a push toward secularism, which isn't atheism, and the respect politicians in this country need to show for all different groups, either by leaving them out of the public sphere or by finding ways and means to show support for each and every representative group, even if that means multicultural learning where there's a rather homogeneous population. And of course, when I say that, I'm most especially referring to small rural communities that tend to be Christian in orientation and often very skeptical of outsiders, for both good reasons and quite a few not so good reasons.

This Romney Believes...

Through all the rhetoric, and man is there a lot of that, I believe the Republican party really stands for things. They're things on the whole I don't stand for, but I don't hold it against them that we disagree. The truth is, they really do stand for established privilege. I don't think Eric Cantor could make a claim like the tweet he let fly on Labor Day if that weren't the case:

Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.

Give the laborers one day? Nah. They didn't build that.

So that brings me back to Romney. The Atlantic Monthly had an interesting, recent article, "Slugfest," about the upcoming presidential debates. The article spent a little time talking about Romney's 1994 run to unseat Ted Kennedy, which proved ultimately unsuccessful. I found this bit about it particularly telling, Romney reflecting upon the whole experience:

Romney now looks back and says he knew he never had a chance and was running mainly because he felt a civic duty to stand up against 'a man who I thought by virtue of his policies of the liberal welfare state had created a permanent under class in America.' [emphasis mine] 

I don't know if you can exactly fault Romney for these views. In some ways I agree that we do need to fight against the idea that government in the solution to our problems, but of course that's never been Obama's argument. And I don't think that's by and large the prevailing view of the modern Democratic party.

If it's an argument about proportion, fine. If it's an argument about the difference between having safety nets in place and not at all, I take exception. And I think most people should, too. We live in a world of uncertainty. Nothing's perfect, granted, but it's good to feel as though there's a prevailing attitude that we're together in this, if only somewhat. Paul Ryan's fiscal vision seems hell bent on ridding us of that concept wholesale, which doesn't seem like a partisan statement to me. It's the closest thing to objective truth I think you can find in politics these days, or maybe ever all time. Of course Ryan wouldn't spin it as negatively, never has and never will, but he's said effectively the very same thing. And he's Romney's Vice President. And Romney by his own admission sees most government interventions as categorically bad (see above), unless of course he's instituting them (see Romneycare).

For as aloof and uncomfortable as Romney, the man, can be when dealing with people who are different from himself, I also think we see him at his most sincere. Take the following two clips. The first, more recent in his discussing gay marriage with a gay veteran.



And then this video (circa 2007) in which we see Romney talking to a man in a wheel chair about medical marijuana. Romney is completely unyielding in both encounters and completely uninterested in the differences, and the unique struggles, of other people, of different people. It shines right through.