Listening Steps Through Central Park

The poem below was written after a meditative listening walk through Central Park, guided by the poet and teacher Jonathan Skinner.

Listen, Mister Acoustic Tunnel, Listen to
Me—
demolition drill men: dtt dtt dtt dtt dtt dtt dtt,
basketball boys: b aw p b aw p b aw p,
all the belch bounce beep busy bull noise

Gather noisemakers to this
sound space slam clamor whirl dance party.

Honored guests Jonathan, Gale, Stephen, and Rebecca
Display the hip, new Listening Step

Zen left, Breathe right:
Moved by city soundscape,
let your
nose, lungs, and diaphragm become ears.
Inhale
Scratched-at dog tags mimic shaking key rings.
Here, Chinese Er Hu players and live rock musicians fracas.
Exhale
a beggar’s lament, a cell phone buzz, and the blowing of balloons,
the squirt from a bottle of sunscreen, and feet shuffling in the grass.

Inhale, exhale, and wonder
What would all this sound like from within Sad Clown’s red balloon?

She blew up an acoustic balloon around these walking companions.
She heard Stephen exhale relief shifting the bag on his shoulder.
She heard the even corduroy swish of Jonathan’s trousers.
She heard Gale clear her throat.

Welcome birds, flies, and squirrels; noises inflate us; welcome The Voices, cabs, subway trains, volleyballs, basketballs, roller blades, and carriage rides.

Breathe right, Zen left
expand universe; resound: balloon-call-bird-burst...
Opening
echo Infinity; explosive whisper: grass-falls-water-blades...
Resting

The Devil Reads Dada

Clarissa orders her nervous assistant to “Lay it all out on my bed. Carefully!”

Tonight, Clarissa will attend the single most important cultural event of the year: The Dada Legacy Poetry Reading. The assistant must not mishandle the posh party clothes of this fashion icon of belles-lettres. If she does, the girl can kiss her enviable career goodbye.

Tonight, Clarissa will wear a Duchamp ribbon dress: black, slinky, and corseted with a Marcel Janco fox fur shoulder wrap. She will wear her silver Man Ray stiletto heels, carry her Emmy Hemmings clutch, and adorn her ears with platinum, anti-war teardrops designed by Tristan Tzara.

The dress lacks a hole through which to put one’s head. The shoulder wrap is long enough to wrap around the world. The silver shoes have claws that sprout out like those of a cat in after-nap stretch. The clutch purse doubles as a cell phone. The platinum earrings turn into real wet teardrops after midnight, and they fall to form silver puddles on the floor. Clarissa’s is the prefect outfit for such a high-profile, surrealist poetry function. The paparazzi will go wild!

But if the outfit should be torn, wrinkled, or mishandled in the slightest way, Clarissa will pee on her assistant and then, horror of horrors, she might loose this great job as assistant to the famous Clarissa Holloway.

Lucky for this assistant, she performs this task to perfection. So, afterward, Clarissa gives her a more impossible task. “After you’ve finished cleaning up after the poodles, get on the phone and book the Cabaret Voltaire for my daughter’s Sweet Sixteen.”

“But the Cabaret Voltaire doesn’t do Sweet Sixteen Parties.”

“I don’t care. Tell them she’s a boy, and we’re throwing a Bar Mitzvah.”

“But…?” Before the assistant could say anymore, Clarissa had already given her a sharp, dismissive look and turned away. That was all.

Book Review of As You Were Saying: American Writers Respond to Their French Contemporaries; Dalkey Archive Press, 2007; 73 pages.

Attending PEN World Voices events comes with special charms of hearing extraordinary writers from the world over offer their on-the-spot insights on various great questions, such as what is Dutch humor? What dangers revolve around writing about sex? What is the next big taboo subject to confront in literature? What was it like to return to Iraq after living as an exiled Iraqi poet for 28 years? As precious as the conversation is, dealing with these kinds of questions in panel discussions is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the kind of reach and influence PEN World Voices may be having on the world’s literary scene. More than a mere conversation, we are beginning to see the possibilities and visions for cross-cultural, literary collaboration.

Anyone who attended any PEN event last week received the free gift of a small book called As You Were Saying: American Writers Respond to Their French Contemporaries. The idea behind this tiny anthology is very simple: seven of France’s most talented contemporary writers were asked to write short stories that were then translated and sent to seven equally talented American writers; the American writers were asked to write some kind of story in response to the French author’s story. The collection contains such collaborations between Marie Darrieussecq and Rick Moody, Camille Laurens and Robert Olen Butler, Jacques Roubaud and Raymond Federman, and four other pairs.

The idea of this project charmed me to the bone. I read the whole collection several times in a few short hours and felt it such a pity that more collaborations like it don’t seem to exist. I am surely hungry for more of this kind of thing.

Fabrice Rozié, Esther Allen, and Guy Walter edited the 73-page collection, and Esther Allen wrote an introduction that discusses the idea out of which this book emerged. Allen admits that the editing team thought that the idea “was startling, audacious, and, on first contemplation, almost entirely unworkable.” Rozié, Allen, and Walter feared that no one would go along with such a stunt because they assumed a kind of animosity between Americans and French. But when they pitched the ideas to the writers, they loved it. A collection of writers, translators, and editors birthed As You Were Saying, and every story proves not only a satisfying read but also a fresh and engaging exchange of ideas.

I am deeply in love with the idea of literary collaboration, especially across cultures and even regions within the same culture. I have been searching all my writing life for the proper outlet to explore my own funky ideas about collective authorship, but haven’t yet found willing or receptive partners for these ideas. In China, during the Ming dynasty, a huge novel was written called Jin Ping Mei Ci Hua or The Plum in the Golden Vase. Many scholars are confident that this multiple-volume novel was written, not by one author, but by many authors who circulated manuscripts among the literati and added stories, details, scenes, and characters as they saw fit. The result became one of China’s greatest classics. There are so many writers in the world, why insist on sitting alone behind a keyboard? Why not, once in a while, collaborate? I know that we prize individuality in our society, but when one author responds to another, they play with each other through a fictional medium, that is not compromising individuality but seeing it thrive.

In As You Were Saying, check out what happens when Rick Moody shifts perspectives from Marie Darrieussecq’s story of a man who gets the first-ever face transplant; enjoy the thoroughly chilling effects of surprise in Camille Laurens and Robert Olen Butler’s “She Had Waited For This;” notice the one or two words Raymond Federman uses to respond to Jacques Roubaud’s gory story “The Josephus Problem” about suicidal gladiators. You will want to read this volume over again because the stories are compelling, but also because of the delightful undercurrent exchange of ideas, the conversation, the writer-to-writer respect that becomes such an important layer in the reading experience.

I hope another collaborative volume emerges real soon of more world writers engaging one another on this level. It’s a fabulous idea and deserves international celebration. Cheers!

PEN World Voices: From Page to Stage I

This year’s International Literature Festival brought about the first collaboration between PEN American Center and the Martin Segal Theatre Center. Thursday afternoon, a Polish, Russian, and Portuguese playwright gathered in this intimate theater setting with moderator Tom Sellar, editor of Theater Magazine to talk about the challenges of bringing the private work of a play into the public eye. How does it feel for authors to see their work produced? To what degree do they get involved in the production process? How do they deal with issues of translation when their plays cross borders to different countries and cultures? What’s the difference between the work of translating plays and translating other literary forms? Those were some questions that Dorota Maslowska (Poland), Vladimir Sorokin (Russia), and José Luis Peixoto (Portugal) confronted during this session.

The highlight of this session involved a group of young actors, whom were not introduced to the audience, giving dramatic readings of the English translations of these playwrights’ recent plays. First up was Vladimir Sorokin’s Dostoevsky Trip. The premise of the play grew from the idea that literature is a drug. In the future, perhaps, we will live in a time and place where people can get their favorite literary fix in the form of a pill. In this play, seven literature addicts decide to take some pills together. They go to the dealer who is prepared to sell them Alexandre Dumas pills that offer a mellow trip, suitable for twelve friends. When the dealer realizes there are only seven of them, he shakes with disapproval; the Dumas pill will not work for seven; they must try the Dostoevsky drug. The friends make the purchase, pop the pill, and are suddenly transported to scene in The Idiot in which The Prince is admitting that he would like to marry Natasha Filippovna.

We heard a dramatic reading of an excerpt from José Luis Peixoto’s The Winter Arrives. The playwright was influenced by Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and Faulkner’s pregnant woman character from Light in August who changes the lives of the three men in the sanitarium. In Peixoto’s scene, three men talk nonsense over a grave then we see them sick in an asylum. Personally, I felt this play might be a more interesting read by an individual reader. It didn’t come off as well as Sorokin’s.

Dorota Maslowska’s play A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians includes two young Polish people who have this idea of dressing themselves up to try to convince others that they are almost homeless Romanians. Over the course of the play, their ruse breaks down. It is a play about hatred. The actors read lines that came off as crude, sad, and funny. Their dramatic interpretations were quite gripping, and I would have loved to see the whole play in context to get a better idea of these characters’ motivations.

Overall, I felt that the discussion with the playwrights relied too much on this idea of drama being difficult to translate. Instead, I wished the discussion could have focused more on the playwrights’ writing practice, craft, and influences. For instance, it turned out that the only answer Vladimir Sorokin could give to the question of his involvement in the production is that he doesn’t get involved. That is not his business. His business is the text. He admitted that he has walked out on the opening nights of his plays because he is so overwhelmed by what monstrous creations they become once they are produced. He laughed that he was sure the same thing would happen again in the future. But he also admitted that a writer shouldn’t get involved in the production of his plays. Maslowska and Peixoto echoed these sentiments. A play, in its life, goes through many layers of translation and interpretation, and everyone participates: directors, actors, and audience members. These playwrights agreed that variety is something to celebrate. There seemed to be a lot of consensus on this panel, though we had just witnessed vastly different dramatic creations.

Saturday, April 28th at 6:30 pm, the Martin Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY will host “From Page to Stage III: Whose Translation is it Anyway?” Speakers include playwrights Charles Mulekwa from Uganda and Koffi Kwahulé from the Ivory Coast. Their plays will be read in English and discussion will follow. Again, the discussion is supposed to focus on cross-cultural challenges. I wonder if there will be a future PEN festival that won’t be so hung up on the challenging aspect of translation. Of course crossing borders poses challenges, but aren’t the audience members who are hungry for this PEN festival showing that they are willing and ready to cross borders, face the challenges, become more aware of the World out there? Perhaps someday panel discussion will better reflect our readiness to feel at ease with the challenges, confront them with grace, and move on so that we can ask these artists and translators about craft, transitions, adjustments, and fusion. Crossing borders is nothing new, really. It’s been going on for thousands of years. When people learn that I speak and write the Chinese language, they often will say, “Isn’t that a hard language to learn?” I have not figured out a good answer to this question yet, but I know the question unsettles me. Usually I tell them, compared to English, Chinese grammar is very simple. So what if learning a language or translating a text is hard? Life is hard for most of us, and a hard life is also a good life and is someting to celebrate. No?

Home & Away: The PEN World Voices Festival

This is the theme of this year’s PEN World Voices International Literature Festival: Home & Away.

Last night, the festival began with an amazing line-up of writers reading from works, others’ and their own, with the theme of “Green Thoughts: Writers on the Environment.”

Here was a splendid literary banquet: We heard Geert Mak read a Frisian poem; Gary Shteyngart read about SUVs melting in Syracuse; Roxana Robinson read a Chekhov story about the Steppes of Mongolia; Moses Isegawa read about machines making the farmer’s life easier; Billy Collins read about gated communities; Janne Teller read about a Norwegian hermit and hunter; Colson Whitehead read about a father and son post-apocalypse road trip; Jonathan Franzen read about a polar bear raised by a generous father who then let the polar bear eat him; Pico Iyer read from Peter Matthiesson’s Snow Leopard; Marilynne Robinson discussed the perils of nuclear power and read from her amazing essay “Wilderness”; and Salmon Rushdie read from Don DeLillo’s White Noise.

For Vimeo coverage of the event, check out Bud Parr's site Chekhov's Mistress.

Last night’s was a splendid opening event for this year’s festival that is in its third year running. I can boast perfect attendance, as I have been a fan of this festival since its initial run in 2005. At that time, PEN’s idea was to provide New York City (and America) with a service that it was missing: A real dialogue between the U.S. and the rest of the world. As Salmon Rushdie commented, at least we can do this in a cultural realm. Now through Sunday there are over sixty events and over 100 writers from all over the world giving readings and speaking on panels at venues all over the city. It’s thoroughly refreshing and inspiring. I don’t even have to say, “I wouldn’t miss it for The World” because this festival is for The World.

Below are my own five little riffs on the PEN Festival theme:

When she’s home, she often thinks of those she loves who live far away. When she’s away, she often thinks of those she loves who stay home.

Home is where, even if you don’t speak their language, they understand you, or more often where you do speak their language, and they don’t understand you.

Away from home, the supple mind will surrender to a home away from home.

Home offers a place to invite friends and keep rivals away.

When the situation at home overwhelms, away sweet away.

The Ghosts of All Aborted Fetuses

Riva Djinn has been hanging out with the acid rock band again. She’s not a groupie in the traditional sense. She’s more like their occasional muse, though the rhythm section likes to refer to her as its throbbing wet nurse. When it’s looking for a sharp lick, the band follows Riva’s whims; and this week she just feels like slapping any joker who mistakenly refers to the medical procedure of Intact Dilation and Extraction as “Partial Birth Abortion.” Not only does Riva think that the Supreme Court’s most recent decision about “Partial Birth Abortion” can be easily dismissed by its lack of concern for medical science, women’s health, and Constitutional rights, but also the majority opinion is fraught with mistaken terminology. How can we have a real debate about women’s rights to choose when we’re caught up in the issue of fetal viability? So what does The State plan to do with all those “Viables” anyway? Plenty of living, breathing children are ignored by The State every day, plenty of children are left behind. Where is federal protection for an unwanted child once it is living in the cruel world? Why does The State give such a hot damn about fetuses and then ignore children? So this week, Riva felt obliged to experience her morning sickness vomiting episode on the steps of the United States Supreme Court. Write a lyric about that, acid rock band!

Though the musicians of the acid rock band have tried on many occasions, none have discovered what is eating Riva Djinn; they have tried to discover the secret in Riva’s heart. They’ll never find it, and that’s because they’re looking in the wrong place. Riva doesn’t keep secrets in her heart. She keeps them in her womb, which is much more central to a woman’s physiology than the heart ever was. While someone like Don Juan will seal his doom when he dines with the ghost of the father of a woman he tricked and raped, Riva Djinn feasts with ghosts of aborted fetuses who are more than grateful they never saw the daylight that slips off this greasy planet. And it’s not her doom Riva seals during this feast. No. She seals a promise that in the Land of the Never-Have-Lived, no being ever knows the dehumanizing feeling of rejection.

The Belly Dancer is Expecting

Lyric Evans worked years at mastering her skills as a professional Belly Dancer. She recently received the good news that she is pregnant. And, yes, the pregnancy is desired. As of this week, Lyric is eight weeks along and feeling the unpleasant effects of the first trimester. But she is also feeling how silky and luxuriant grows the lining of her uterus. When she is supremely relaxed, quiet, and indulging a state of bliss, Lyric feels a miniature sensation, a tiny, rapid beating, a primitive heart rhythm, a fluttering yearn for human life surging up from her core. This is pure joy, and Lyric, who is normally very composed in her “too-cool-for-school” urban attitude, can hardly keep her eyes from tearing up, due to the unspeakable elation.

On the other hand, a few days ago, she was taking a leisurely stroll down Broadway. She passed the old “It’s a Wrap” sandwich shop whose window had gone dark. There was a sign that read: “We’ve closed. Thanks to the neighborhood for ten great years!” At this, Lyric started crying, no, grieving over the done-for business, even though she’d never even been to that sandwich shop. A funny-faced stranger felt sorry for her and handed Lyric a clean, folded polka-dot hankie. He said, “Dry your eyes, Lady! Nothing to cry over. That was a lousy lunch dump, anyway! Wasn’t even organic.” Lyric wiped her eyes and thanked him and said, “You mind if I soak your hankie with my pregnancy hormones?” Lyric didn’t even see what happened to the man next. He either ran away or tripped into the gutter or disappeared or fainted. What did it matter? She had a crying fit to work her way through and then she had to vomit and then it was off to the studio to rehearse.

Lyric considers herself most fortunate because her pregnancy will never get in the way of the growth and mobility she will enjoy in her career. Pregnancy is to a professional Belly Dancer what a fat holiday bonus is to a financial analyst: abunDANCE!

Dance on, Lady Lyric, dance on!

Who is Doctor Pablo Delgado?

Pablo Delgado is a scientist who writes erotic graphic novels in his spare time. He has secured a mobster’s trunk-load of grant money to continue his highly confidential lab research. Doctor Delgado is concocting The Elixir of Immortality for our planet Earth. He pulls his dread locks out trying to come up with the perfect eco-chemical equation that will save the Earth from its environmental demise. Indeed, Doctor Delgado has got a tough job to do.

But who wants to have the job of breaking the bad news to Mother Earth?

“Mother Earth, darling, you have a condition. I’m sorry, it’s terminal; it’s fatal; there’s no cure.”

Breaking such news to the Earth would be as challenging as convincing the Bush administration that the War in Iraq was always, and will forever be, a deadly mistake. Face it. It's a bust.

But Pablo Delgado is not someone who takes war stories, nationalism, or violence all that seriously. Nope. When Doc Delgado has had a hard day's night, he removes his lab coat and goggles and gets busy airbrushing the genitals onto his wild-haired fictional characters. In fact, right now he is finishing up a story about two lovers who met in the Pentagon and made the humiliating mistake of consummating their relationship on a desk piled with documents revealing some doped-up enemy’s weapons plans. Delgado is working out the scene in which the tears, jism, blood, and shit left by the lovers on the documents lead to a totally misguided military occupation.

Keep the midnight oil burning, Doctor Delgado! Someday, even if it is the last day of Earth, there may be an audience for your deranged scribbles.

An Inconvenient Idiom

Priscilla Charles owns a cherry farm outside of Washington D.C. Her small, all-natural operation is being threatened by Big Business dairy farms. And if those dairy farms are renowned for anything, it’s for their inclination to pollute. Ms. Charles lobbied a small-farm initiative to the central government. No one listened. She motivated other small farmers to join her in loud protests. She wrote a book. She went on the radio. Finally, she got the government involved but only on a local level. “We need to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. We need to become energy independent.” She would proclaim high standards for environmental change. Still, no one listened, until after Al Gore's documentary won an Oscar. It followed, one evening that Priscilla Charles was featured on a local television station on a show called Sixteen Minutes. Ms. Charles presented a fascinating lecture on “A Small Farmer’s Solution to the Energy Crisis.” Those in the studio who witnessed it said that Ms. Charles’ speech could blow Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth out of the nitrate-overloaded water. Unfortunately, during the airing of Sixteen Minutes, when Priscilla Charles gave her stellar and convincing presentation, the show was interrupted by a national broadcast of the President reporting on dire international absurdities from his Safe Seat in the Oval Office.

So, this year, when Spring Weather hits his heels to the cement and takes off running to his girl, Summer, don’t be surprised if you see fewer cherries on top of children’s ice cream treats. It’s not because Summer isn’t willing to put out; it’s because the independent cherry farms are being wiped out by the overrated delusion that "bigger is better," which, by the way, as it turns out is one of the most environmentally destructive American idioms in our langauge and it should be banned in the same way that the "N word" has been banned in The City.

Coming this April...

This April will be an exciting one for The Scribble Bitch book club. All five of its members will attend the third annual PEN World Voices Literature Festival.

In case you haven't heard, and there is no reason you should not have heard of the Scribble Bitch Book Club; it's popularity is second only to that one hosted by that woman with the talk show...what's her name?...oh, yeah: Oprah. The Scribble Bitch book club is an exclusive group of people who share a peculiar talent: they can write, read, and bitch simultaneously.

Members include the following playful beings:

Rebecca Jane
Riva Djinn
Sheela Swift
Bei Qi “Precious Queer” Chang

And the Scribble Bitch book club is proud to invite its first and only male member. He describes himself as a ravenous reader, rogue writer, and a renegade bitch; thus, he qualifies to join the club. His name is Pablo Delgado. He writes and designs erotic graphic novels that have been rejected by every publishing house from here to Timbuktu.

You’ll hear more about Pablo and Timbuktu later, but for today, click over to PEN’s website to see what plans they have for the April Festival. Here’s a quote from PEN:

“This April, PEN will host an exhilarating range of international writers along with some of the best-known U.S. authors. Programs touching on the Festival’s theme, Home & Away, will include conversations and discussions on the effects and implications of today’s migrations, changing notions of nation and identity, the literatures of travel and exile, and the essential characteristics of home.”

Here’s to literature in translation! Cheers! Here's to Home & Away! Cheers! Cheers!

Flash Drama

Characters
Paul Silvers; 31 years old & deformed
Pablo Delgado; 31 years old & dangerously handsome

The two men stand in the center of a shabby studio apartment. One barred window with sunlight pouring in onto Paul's deformity.

PAUL: Drop it.

PABLO: Never.

PAUL: Drop it, or I’ll tell the lawyer you’re sleeping with his wife.

PABLO: He already knows it!

PAUL: Does he know you’ve also seduced his daughter?

PABLO: And his cleaning lady and his shoeshine boy!

PAUL: You agreed to drop it. You promised.

PABLO: That was before I knew the truth about you, before Alice told me that you’re a…

PAUL: She lied. She always lies. I’m not a cop.

PABLO: She didn’t say you were a cop. She said you were a prosecutor. Narcotics Unit.

PAUL: C’mon Pablo. You can’t believe that. Why would I be trying to get you to drop acid with me if I worked for The Feds.

PABLO: Because that’s the way The Feds get people to talk. They drug ‘em. I have nothing to say to you, Sir. Get out of my house.

PAUL: Pablo, it’s me. You’re telling me you don’t even recognize me. It’s Paul Silvers, your old college roommate from Northern Illinois University. I served in Iraq. This accident? My face was blown off in one of those damned suicide attacks, and the surgeon gave me this botched job. Fuckers. My wife left me. All I’ve got now are the hallucinogens. Drop it with me.

PABLO: Paul Silvers…? But in college you organized the Students Against National Government. You called yourself a Neo-Tribalist back then. You attended your classes in the nude. What the fuck happened to you? No, you’re not the Paul Silvers I knew in college. That guy never would have served in a war that was a lost cause to begin with!

Paul drops his pants to show Pablo proof of his identity. An unusual birthmark.

Pablo does “drop it;” he drops his jaw, that is.

Lunch with Lady Leisure

She is ravishing. Her name is Clowdia Neuvogue. She hails from baroque Bohemia. She has survived from way back then and on into the modern ages because she consumes the secret elixir.

Clowdia Neuvogue lives on Manhattan’s Upper Wild Side. She makes tomato soup that you could just die for, regardless if you are God or Godzilla. Whoever you are, Lady Clowdia Neuvogue, the Divine Giver of Leisure invites You to her table (yea, You! dear Reader).

Accompanying today's blog post are two photographs: one reveals what Tomat d’Immortalite looks like before it is consumed; the other photo reveals what Tomat d’Immortalite looks like after it is consumed.

Clowdia Neuvogue speaks ever tongue, every dialect, every language ever spoken by humans and animals on this earth. But she only knows how to say one sentence; in every variation, she can only say this: “Welcome to my table!”

If you haven’t met her yet, you really must. Oh, darling; You must!

Epistolary Flash

Dear Nuala,

Your last letter sent me into a frenzied desire for revenge. I agree to do as you instruct.

I’ve dropped the petals from the dying blood roses into my foam bath. I lit the temptation candle and repeated the incantation you taught me. The gris-gris dust has been sprinkled under his pillow and in his trousers. It was hard enough for me to get myself into his apartment to spread the dust in these intimate places; there’s no way I’ll manage the dash of gris-gris in his bourbon, unless I pull some impossible stunt like make myself invisible. The liquor cabinet was locked, so I tried to use the expert lock-picking skills I learned in that Fine Arts program. But I heard his wife coming home, and I had to make a hasty exit out the window and down the fire escape.

Regardless of my failure to spike his drink, I hope your methods work as you have promised. I want the man responsible for my unjustifiable dismissal to get what he deserves. And I’ll owe it all to you, the Hoodoo Queen. I’ll send the two grand I owe you when I see the results. At that time you will receive payment through my messenger, Lord Fatface. You’ll find the money I owe you under his tongue.

‘Til then, keep your crystals hot and your agenda free and easy.

With respect,

The Nymph

Live and Die in Bed-Stuy

On Saturday night, Wren threw a birthday party for her girlfriend Bianca at their digs in the formerly-notorious-now-on-the-rise-hip-gentrifying neighborhood of Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. The theme of the birthday party was Flashy Clothing. Guests were encouraged to dress in their best. Prizes would be bestowed on the most impressive outfits.

Simona belongs to Wren’s Park Slope book group. She was invited to the party. And Simona invited Alissa because Alissa was always thrilled to meet new people.

Simona wore a tailored suit and wide-collared disco blouse that made her look like the Chief Executive Officer of Funk. Alissa wore a Betsy Johnson dress made of snowflake lace with matching, white fingerless gloves. They both brought a dessert.

They followed the Mapquest directions to get them from Simona’s place in Park Slope to Wren’s place in Bed-Stuy. They arrived at 5551 Willoughby Street at around 8 pm. It didn’t take long to find parking, but it was a little challenging to parallel park the Camry on a dirty snow embankment that must have been about a foot high.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get out?” Simona said.

“I guess we’ll find out after dessert and a glass of wine.” Alissa shrugged.

They left the party at one am. The temperature had dropped a degree or two. After spinning the wheels in vain, Simona was unable to get the car out from the parking spot. Both women got out of the car. They tried to break snow away from the front and back tires with a window scraper. Alissa eventually found a snow shovel abandoned on top of a pile of garbage. But this snow shovel proved of little use for breaking up the snow under the car. They kept busy with the ineffective tools. They’d be here all night.

Then a man with wild eyes and missing teeth approached them. “I got a shovel!” He cheered. He held up a classic iron farm shovel that looked like it had experience digging mass graves in the Iraqi countryside. He was wearing a beat-up, red leather top coat that had Yusef Komunyakaa verses embroidered all over its long tails. The rugged man promised, “I’ll get you out of here!” He scooped up a monster’s mass of snow, put all his strength into his work, and tossed the mass over his shoulder so that it might have flown all the way to Park Slope, or even Manhattan for all the women knew.

While the man worked, Alissa slipped into the car to warm her frost-bitten toes. She was wearing her Italian ankle boots. While the boots may have had mini firearms for heels, they were certainly not ideal barriers to the freezing wind blow. Simona remained outside with the helpful man. His name was Louis. His mom died three weeks ago; he had only recently cleaned up and gotten himself off the streets. Now he was shoveling snow to make some money. He prayed God for more snowfall.

Alissa sat in the passenger seat of the car, the heat blasting on her feet. She got crisp bills out of her wallet to give to Louis. While she watched Simona chat with the shoveling man, Alissa remembered meeting another man who lived in this neighborhood all his life, a man who sat down next to her on a bench in the park at Borough Hall three Springs ago. He had just started talking to Alissa for no other reason than she looked lovely, queer, and alone. This stranger told Alissa that his family was from Barbados. Once, he went to visit Barbados; he described the beach like so: “I could see the hand of God holding all the water back. It’s the grace of God,” he said, “that is keeping that water from drowning us all.” He added, “I had to make that pilgrimage to Barbados because I don’t want to live and die in Bed-Stuy. No, I don’t want to live and die in Bed-Stuy.” He said it with a jazzed attitude, and the words sounded, to Alissa, like a song.

When the car was finally out of the snow embankment, they paid Louis who said, “God bless you beautiful ladies. Now I’m gonna put all the snow back! Ha ha!”

Simona was driving Alissa back to the L train that would bring her back into Manhattan. She told Simona the story of the man who didn’t want to live and die in Bed-Stuy and went elsewhere to seek God’s grace.

“But didn’t that guy with the shovel remind you of God?” Alissa asked Simona.

This question surprised Simona because she knew Alissa was not religious or pious. Alissa prided herself on not prescribing to any dogmas, doctrines, or religions. Hell, Alissa was so secular that she thought a crucifix was a backscratcher. Alissa was well-known for her civil disobedience; she liked to boast that she did not “support our troops.” No, she supported people who enlisted and then had the balls to desert the U.S. armed forces. Alissa spent half her days calling up the Fort Knox Desertion Center to check in with the latest stats on service men and women who she thought were choosing real freedom by deserting. Yes. Alissa had some odd political leanings, but Simona didn’t know she cultivated any kind of relationship with God. Simona considered herself a feminist, anti-war activist, and agnostic. Now Simona was worrying that Alissa’s newly-revealed, quaint spirituality might put a wedge between their relationship. Either that, or else Simona was feeling annoyed because their Flashy Clothes did not win any door prizes.

A Female Weightlifter's Erotic Nightmare

Stella Carpenter lifts 350-pound barbells with strength reminiscent of the Incredible Hulk lifting a 150 billion ton mountain range. After breaking the state record, Stella is ready to move on to the national competition. She has been training hard and is eager to prove herself. The night before a big competition like this, she usually gets a little nervous; so, her mother rubs warmed almond oil over Stella’s muscles until the girl drifts off to sleep. Tonight, however, her mother can’t find the bottle of almond oil; she’s looked everywhere. Really, she forgot to buy a new bottle because while last at the market, she’d been distracted thinking about the date she planned with someone she’d met on Matches.com. At last, Stella’s mother was able to scare up some Habanero Exotica Oil that she had received as a gift from a previous date she’d had with a South American she’d met on Matches.com. That date hadn’t gone over too well, but as for the Habanero Exotica Oil, Stella’s mother figured “This will do.”

Indeed, Stella fell sound asleep during the ritual rub. Deep in the night, she had a weird dream about Fidel Castro taking a long stroll with Gabriel Garcia Márquez. The two men talked of all things absurd and surreal; they talked of what it's like to be 80-years-old; they talked of male secrets while Stella overheard it all in her dream. All of Havana turned into a scene straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

Stella awoke so wet that birds could bathe in her underwear. Strange. She hadn’t even been using performance-enhancing drugs. She could only blame such excited dreams on eating way too many nuclear-powered protein bars she'd bought from the General Nutrition Center. With that bonus round of wet dreams, sleep had surely refreshed her. Stella went on to win the National Championship for Female Weightlifting. Little did she know, her record wouldn’t be broken for another two centuries, and then only by a woman who was also famous for writing erotic poetry.

Gossip

Yes, they say if you pull the veil off a virgin
Bride you’ll find a realist, the CEO of wireless
Service, a Yoga tycoon, or the micromanager of Military Spending

Who owns a Neo-Byzantine villa
Decorated with Edgar Degas’ Blue Dancers
& Brittany Spears’ underwear. Disguised
In Lady Liberty combat boots,

She plays a drum with her tongue
& teaches the city-dove songs to draw suicide watchers
To urban gardens. Injected with enough methamphetamines
To instant message the Daylights out of us

All, she’s the fertility clinic’s
Most valuable player. But contrary
To what you may have heard, this
Athena, she wouldn’t make a good mother.

Trans-fat-free Fiction

If you’re going to have a heart attack, choose a weekday for any such cardiac mischief. Why? A study conducted by a network of New Jersey hospitals revealed that a heart attack victim receives better care during the weekday than on weekends.

If you’re terminally ill and happen to use marijuana for medical reasons, avoid making your appeal in federal court on Wednesdays because in nine out of ten such cases that fall on a Wednesday, judges will decide you are not immune to federal prosecution. You’re terminally ill; you’re immune system’s on the fritz anyway; why did you think you’d be immune from government intervention, the worst sort of dis-ease?

If you’re a National Football League player who is feeling the onset of Post N.F.L. trauma or a soldier returned from Iraq feeling the onset of PTSD, for crying out loud, don’t choose a Friday morning at 6 am to check into the Psycho-social Ward at places like the Walter Reed Medical Center because at that time Doctor Dementia hasn’t had his Venti White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks Coffee. In that condition, he’s likely to misdiagnose you, steer you to the wrong supportive network, and you’ll end up in a talk session with a bunch of victims who suffer from IRS-related allergies that have gotten them into severe trouble for tax evasion. And those poor darlings were just too embarrassed to submit their tax forms because they had sneezed all over them. What a mess? Who needs it? Be well. Eat trans-fat-free.

On Being Curt

Jim Utterbug is a host of public radio’s Community Hour. His show has earned high regard over the years, and last year it won the prestigious Radio Activity Award for Best Talk Radio 2006. Listeners throughout the community tune into his show at 10 am every day to hear engaging interviews with featured guests that include celebrities, experts, poets, thinkers, professionals, and officials from the local community.

Today, Jim Utterbug has invited a state court judge to speak on his program. This morning, he was running late to work and did not have time to eat breakfast. What’s worse; he bought coffee at the drive through for the first time, ever, and it spilled all over his favorite work shirt when he had to take a sharp turn. He cleaned himself up, but it all felt like the wrong way to start the day.

When his polite guest arrived at the station wearing a pleasant smile, Jim Utterbug did the best he could to bite back his irritable mood. The interview started with discussion about mandatory retirement versus life terms for judges. That topic was followed by how to make divorce proceedings less acrimonious.

Of course, Jim Utterbug invited listeners to call in to the radio station to ask questions. When someone called in to ask the judge about judicial immunity and appealing her own case to a higher court, Jim Utterbug quickly cut her off because she was talking about her personal dispute, about losing custody of her son. This show was supposed to focus on judicial policy only, not personal cases. After Jim’s curt reprimand, the nervous caller curbed her question to make it more applicable to more people. Jim Utterbug was pleased to move on with a show that would satisfy all his listeners.

Next, a senior citizen called in to ask why state court does not have an option allowing Senior Citizens to opt out of jury duty. The federal courts do have such an option, why not this state court? Jim Utterbug quickly became frustrated with this caller too because he wasn’t getting to the point and wasn't stating why he thought it was important for Senior Citizens to be able to opt out of jury duty. The Senior Citizen said, “Jim, you’re cutting me off, not letting me finish.” Jim responded with a curt, “That’s my job!”

Little did Jim Utterbug know that, later that day, the woman who lost custody of her boy would break down in her psychotherapist’s office. She would tell the doctor she knew she shouldn’t let this happen, but Utterbug’s curt tone shattered her fragile emotions. She would cry for what she felt was “no reason at all,” and that would just make her even more upset at herself.

Little did Jim Utterbug know that later that day, in the afternoon, the Senior Citizen who called in to ask about opting out of jury duty would take his regular afternoon nap at 3 pm and would never wake.

This is not to say that Jim Utterbug should not be curt with his callers and not try to steer their comments to the proper ends so that his show maintains its stellar reputation. This is just to show how little Jim Utterbug knows sometimes. And also, this story might point out that while Jim Utterbug did not let that old man finish, Death did. So, maybe Jim Utterbug is not absolutely clear about what his job is because who is he to determine, really, whether a person is or is not finished?

On Location in Chicago

The movie Stranger than Fiction written by Zach Helm is the first movie I’ve seen in a while that kept me awake. Could the reason be because it is filmed in Chicago? Could it be because there is humor, romance, and a hilarious portrayal of a novelist who is wrestling with the problem of how to kill off the protagonist in her newest piece of fiction? Yes. I adored Stranger than Fiction for all these reasons, but I like it most because of its playful high concept.

Harold Crick has been working as an IRS auditor for twelve years. For twelve years, numbers and solitude organized his entire life. Every day, he’d have a 45.7-minute lunch break and a 3.5-minute coffee break. When he starts hearing a disembodied woman’s voice narrating his life, his mundane life turns suddenly dramatic. After consulting his one work friend, a psychiatrist, and a literature professor, Harold realizes that he is a tax man, who lives a real life in the real world, but there is a novelist writing his life in one of her novels. Her fiction project influences his real life. Harold's concern is whether the story will turn out comic or tragic. Will he hitch up with the attractive baker, who he is auditing; or will he meet with an early death?

This movie combines film and narration in a comic way reminiscent of 1970s Woody Allen kind of humor. It inspired me.

I also realized what a fabulous place Chicago is to make a film. The variety of architectural styles in Chicago offers filmmakers an exciting palette to work with.

This movie featured these places:

55 East Jackson Blvd.
Daley Plaza
River City South Wells Marina Tower Buildings
111 West Jackson
350 East Cermak
Emergency Room at Michael Reese Hospital
Little Village 2500 South Christiana

Chicago’s architecture provides the perfect artistic backdrop for a good high concept movie.

My favorite line was Dustin Hoffman delivering these words: “Dramatic irony will fuck you every time.”

The Cursing Cure

Last Saturday, the night sky adorned itself with a stunning lunar eclipse. Many pedestrians walked around The City, looked up—or didn’t bother to look—and noticed—or didn’t care—that an uncommon shadow obscured the full moon. This seemingly quaint celestial event filled Riva Djinn with total dread. Every time there is a lunar eclipse, Riva suffers from a rare form of feminine aches and pains. Last Saturday, she experienced one of those gruesome attacks. For years, Riva has been trying to find the cure, but medical science hasn’t even assigned a name to her disorder yet. Riva has been thorough in trying to get to the bottom of this problem. After three physicians referred her to nine different specialists in all fields from neurology to cardiology, the mysterious ailment always returned in the event of a lunar eclipse. Naturally, Riva tried holistic approaches. The psychic healer said Riva’s aura gave off too much extrasensory sludge; even the best clairvoyant would never get a clear reading. The Feng Shui Master said Riva’s inner compass bewildered the four directions. The Spiral-energy Healer said that the force fabric of Riva’s inner vitality needed a vacation. And as if her body wasn’t messed up enough, Captain Spirituality said Riva needed a gut renovation in The Core of her consciousness. After amassing a healthy dosage of professional opinion, Riva decided to make peace with her condition. So when last Saturday’s eclipse attack came on, and the sharp pain started to invade her pelvic floor, she cursed the lunar eclipse in nine different languages. “Wouldn’t you know it?” Riva thought to herself. Nine-fold cursing indeed proves an effective way to restore one’s health. Riva’s pain eventually passed, and that was that.

Fictionasana

In ancient times, lovers were united anatomically. People did not walk around in the erect manner that we do today, but they rolled around here, there, and everywhere fused to their beloved in a cozy embrace of happy unity. Say these fused lovers aspired to write fiction: they would turn tricks around a pile of oracle bones. If they didn’t display too much dizziness, they were admitted into the storytellers’ guild. The tribal chief chanted some prayers over their heads that we would think sounded like hip-hop lyrics in today’s idiom. Then people would go out and plow with their tongue. That is to say, they would tell stories in the marketplace and be thrown fruit and coins as payment if the audience liked the tale.

To pay homage to the tradition, the women in the Scribble Bitch Writers Group do a little exercise before each meeting. They do a yoga posture (or Asana) called “Simhasana.” In this posture, the legs are folded and crossed under the buttocks; the palms are placed on the knees with the fingers stretched and spread wide apart. Open the jaw wide and stretch the tongue out towards the chin as far as it will go. Concentrate the gaze on the tip of the nose. Hold the pose for 30 seconds breathing through the mouth.

According to B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga, this posture cures foul breath and cleans the tongue. But the Scribble Bitch Writers Group likes to think it performs this posture with devotion and reverence for the ancient storytellers, also known as “those who plowed with their tongues.” This group of rogue scribblers have been tossed out of every tradition they’ve ever tried to join—if simply because they’ve been too flamboyant about revealing the darker feminine secrets. So, they’ve simply appropriated Simhasana for their writing discipline purposes and given it a new name: Fictionasana. Now if only they were really in love with one another, perhaps they could bring that eternal embrace back in style. But wouldn't it be a bit of a challenge to navigate a catwalk while ambulating in that roundabout motion?

A Legendary Leak

Tamara Rainy met a guy in a bar.

“Hi. My name is Ted.” He said. Then he went ahead and made a preemptive strike and kissed her smack on the neck.

Later, they went on an official date, and Tamara got to know Ted better. Maybe she liked him? Maybe this time she wouldn’t have to walk away before confiding in this lover that she used to be a man?

But Ted Grove was a Professor of Scandal Management at PL University, so maybe he’d be able to handle the truth in a nuanced way? So Ted and Tamara carried on a passionate relationship, well, until it violated federal statute.

One day Ted opened up and told Tamara that he used to work with the CIA. The Professor told Tamara everything he knew.

“There are bizarre facts that Americans do not know about the war in Iraq.” Ted said. Then he told Tamara everything he knew.

She intended to tell him that she used to be a man, but after learning the whole truth about the war in Iraq, Tamara’s gender transformation seemed a petty detail.

Months later, Tamara found herself on the witness stand in a high profile trial. Prosecutors wanted the whole truth. Tamara didn't know the purpose of most of their questions. They never asked about the most important things, but wanted to know all the details about the night Tamara met Ted at the bar and what she made of the way Ted relieved himself in the gutter outside afterward. She told all she knew; her own testimony bewildered her.

Tears fell from Tamara's eyes when the jury found the professor guilty of his role in a leak.

Later, Tamara visited the professor in prison. He was crying. She said, “Oh, Sweetie. Have no worries. You’re so accomplished. All of America was watching your trial about a leak. That’s one helluva public urination; now, you’re the envy of all big pricks! I should know; I used to have one.”

The professor wiped his eyes dry with Tamara’s silk hankie. He went back to his cell, and she sighed a big sigh of relief to finally get the truth off her chest. Now, that wasn’t so bad.

A Fiction Diet Will Lower Your Cholesterol

There is no saturated fat in the current reading list of the Scribble Bitch Book Club.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
Nobody’s Perfect by Anthony Lane
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

Though the first four books on this list have no clear relationship, reading these books together has been proven to improve kidney function and increase bone density. And there’s nothing like a good Tom Robbins novel to irrigate the colon!

How to Wake Your Playful Writing Voice

A fellow writer who reads this blog, wrote an e-mail to Rebecca Jane asking how to develop a sense of playfulness in prose.

Here’s a possible response to that question, written, of course, in the form of flash fiction:

Kristin Linklater teaches an acting class at Columbia University called Shakespeare and the Modern Voice. She guides students through exercises to strengthen the power of the human voice. In her class, students speak long ooooo vowels that roll up from the pelvic floor. Also, she guides, feel the consonant “B” bounce around in the head until “B” takes over the speaker’s lips. Visualization is an important part of the exercises because a vision triggers a subtle thought/feeling impulse that inspires the breath; so, vowels have colors: O is dark blue; AW is scarlet; EY is pink. Linklater encourages students to work on more than merely beatifying the pronunciation of vowels and consonants; instead, a speaker should use the liberating vocal exercises as a type of “consciousness-raising” activity. The ultimate goal is to be able to read aloud the Shakespearean sonnets with the same urgency as the Bard wrote them.

Dharma Mittra teaches a Psychic Development Meditation class at the Dharma Mittra Yoga Center on 3rd Avenue and 23rd street. He guides students through repetitions of sounds with the voice that are supposed to correspond to the different “Chakras,” or imaginary energy spinning wheels in the body. While the voice releases different sounds, the yogi is supposed to contemplate different colors: red, orange, yellow, green/pink, light blue, indigo, and violet/white. According to the yogis, stimulating the charkas in this way is supposed to promote life force.

So the Scribble Bitch Writers Group decided to enroll in both the Shakespeare seminar and the Psychic Development class. This group of three roguish writing women realized that actors and yogis use similar methods/exercises, just packaged ‘em differently, to boost their energy. To the degree that there is harmonious agreement between the acting warm-ups and yogi’s meditation, the Scribble Bitch Writers Group embraces the shared ideas and applies them to their Writing Practice. Frequency, vibration, symbol, and color—no doubt—have as much a subtle influence on the Writing Voice as they do on the actor’s stage presence or the yogi’s spiritual balance. If you don’t believe the Scribble Bitch Writers Club, check out the recent conversation about Music and Writing featured at Metaxu Café.

Bonus material: Below is a weird writing prompt.

Read the nonsense words while standing up. Allow the vibrations of the sounds of the vowels and consonants to move through every limb of your body. The vibrations will urge your body to move. Follow those urges. You will find yourself moving around to the sounds while you speak this nonsense.

KIWI KI KI KI KI AW KIWI
PAY PE-EY EH EH MMMEE PAY ME
DEBT DEh DEh DEh DEh DEBT
BA BA BA BYE BA MMMMEYE BO OOOHK

Then sit down and go ahead and write a piece of flash fiction. The exercise will have a subtle impact on your Writing Voice. Promise! It'll move your mind!

This exercise reminded the members of the Scribble Bitch Writers Group that they frequently attend poetry readings after which they felt the reader could have been more animated. They agree that some monotone poetry readers they have heard could benefit from adding a little thought/feeling to their breath and speaking voice. Or else at the local poet’s read-aloud, they might try turning those ol’ Chakras to the Spin Cycle.

AAAAYEEEE!

The Writing Business Ain't Nobody's Business

Carol Mackey reported from the Middle East and Asia for Violent Times Magazine. She is currently a Tickle-Me Fellow in Journalism at Power Lust University. While reporting for Violent Times, she has dodged the Jihad in Pakistan’s tribal lands, and in Katmandu has been caught between the Maoist rebels and the king’s army. Gideon, Tate and Hambolt will publish her first collection of poems entitled “Hate” May 2007, and her first non-fiction book entitled “The Glory Parallel.”

Riva Djinn sold used college books on e-Bay. She is currently a fictitious character from Arabian Jewish folklore living in the Real World. While lounging on her vintage make-out couch, she contemplates those years she spent learning the Chinese language in Guangzhou, China where she lived a very peaceful existence with her husband and his father, mother, and grandmother. Riva recalls delighting in clouds of steam that rose from teacups and rice bowls. A few years ago, she had written and pitched her book entitled "Memoirs of a Chinese Daughter-in-Law" to all the major book publishers, but she never hit pay dirt. As luck would have it, however, she recently sold, on e-Bay, a huge collection of rejection slips that she had bound and covered. Apparently, some guy in Oregon collects rejection letters received by would-be authors. The stacks in his library are growing by the day, and it has recently been reported in Violent Times magazine that his volumes outnumber those collected by the library at the well-endowed Power Lust University.

The Volunteer in a Psychological Study

Riva Djinn replied to a Craigslist ad seeking female volunteers for a psychological study. She didn’t really think the research team would find her qualified to participate. They wanted women under 40 who had never been pregnant, nor to Mount Rushmore, and had never been seduced by a politician. Now, Riva matched all the criteria, but she worried she might not qualify because she had certain powers of mind control that most mortals do not have. Wouldn’t that constitute cheating if she were to trick the researchers into a state of Trance Dance? To Riva’s surprise, the research team called her and told her to come to the clinic the following Friday. They instructed her not to eat or drink anything for 24 hours before the experiment. They assured her she would be paid $165. She could really use the money, so she wouldn’t have to throw yet another rent party this month. Last month's rent party ended with a police raid, and she didn't want that again.

Riva arrived at the clinic on the designated day, hungry, thirsty, and ready to play some queer psychological game. A bearded lady dressed in a kimono led Riva to a dark, empty theater and told her to remove her clothing. Then the bearded lady, whose breath smelled of clove and ginger, leaned in close and hissed, “Wait. Wait! Wait for the Puppet Master!”

Riva waited. No one ever showed.

Several hours later, the bearded lady returned, told Riva to dress. Riva was paid the $165 promised to her, and she left. Back at her way-overpriced apartment, she flopped down on her vintage make-out couch and counted the dough. "Next month," she thought, "I'm resorting to the old rent party."

Classic Rock

To conjure the spirit of today’s piece of flash fiction, take a deep breath then speak out loud the quoted phrase below; be sure to use your strongest Rock-n-Roll-Man growl:

“WNXQ New York!”

Riva Djinn dances with the ghost of John Lennon on her private roof deck. It’s Thursday morning. Overcast skies. All Riva’s neighbors have implored Riva to turn up her radio.

Q104.3 Ten in a Row

U2
Eagles
John Fogerty
T. Rex
The Weight Band
Clash
Billy Idol
Rolling Stones
Janis Joplin

At the end of this set, the dead Beatle starts singing along:

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the Walrus.
goo goo g’joob

Riva’s hips move in a smooth rhythm with this goo goo G’Ghostman.

While they dance, Riva tells Phantom Lennon some random thought that pops in her mind, “You know? Alfred Hitchcock would have despised your song. He had ovophobia. Egg yolks revolted that creeped-out film director so much that he never touched eggs in his life. He considered blood more cheerful because it was red."

Phantom Lennon, knowing a thing or two about women, got the hint that Riva's sudden interest in Hitchcock and ovophobia could only mean one thing:

“Hey, Riva. You ovulating?” Phantom Lennon asks the unemployed genie.

“Indeed, I am, Mister Eggman, Sir! You come closer now! Perhaps we can conceive something. Aren’t you so curious about what the offspring of a phantom and a genie would look like?”

“Well, Riva. Our offspring would surely frighten Alfred Hitchcock because our child would look like the World Army with egg on its face.” Phantom Lennon laughs. Such is the humor of a dead absurdist.

Year of Rumi

Riva Djinn couldn't be happier that UNESCO has declared 2007 as the International Year of Rumi.

Riva Djinn has a mystic flair, but hers is unlike Rumi's. You see, Rumi's mystic poems expressed his longing for union with the divine.

Ms. Djinn insists that union is permanent.

Sure, Riva Djinn composes mystic poetry, too. But you'd have to meet her in person to hear precious phrases dribble off her lips. She dare not write poetry because she knows The Divine would consider such a brazen act to be grounds for divorce.

Who is my audience?

Riva Djinn was fortunate enough to spend last Friday afternoon with the novelist and film critic Marcy Dermansky. This happy encounter would never have taken place if Riva hadn’t indulged her strange urge to read books in unlikely places throughout New York City.

Last December, Riva was reading Marcy’s novel Twins while sitting at a bar called Verlaine on Rivington Street. She sat for hours, reading the novel by candlelight and sipping dirty martinis.

By the time Riva finished the novel, she looked up and there was the story’s creator in the flesh. There she was—Marcy Dermansky, chatting with a group at the next table. The group shared tapas and swapped gossip.

Riva makes it a rule never to get too close to writers, but dirty martinis mixed with chance encounters sometimes have a way of relieving Riva of her allergy to wordsmiths. That’s what happened in this case, and Riva was not only willing to approach Marcy Dermansky, but was even willing to give the author a pat on the back, if it came to that.

“Can I buy you lunch sometime?” Riva asked while Marcy signed her copy of Twins.

So, last Friday they went to Café Lalo on 83rd Street. They sipped soup as Marcy gave generous answers to all Riva’s questions. Riva asked Marcy why none of the interviews or book reviews really mention the lesbian themes that Dermansky plays with in this novel. Marcy said she didn’t know why Sue’s sexuality is a topic that rarely comes up for discussion. Riva wondered why Marcy would dare write homoerotic material. Well, during Marcy’s writing process, Sue and Lisa Markman plunged into physical intimacy, and Marcy just decided to keep the homoeroticism in the novel because it worked to move the story along.

Riva listened carefully, hoping Marcy would not divulge too many deep, dark creative writing mysteries. It was hard enough for Riva to keep from falling off her chair and into a fit of sneezing. She didn’t know how her body would react to hearing unwelcome details about the writing craft. Riva did not wonder why she was getting herself involved in yet another one of these itchy situations. These situations just fell into her lap the longer she stewed in her unemployed status. But Marcy did not disappoint Riva or set off more severe allergies. This made Riva comfortable enough to dare reveal to Marcy what she did, or used to do, for a living.

“I am an out-of-work genie.” Riva said. She gave Marcy her business card in case a novelist and film critic should ever need three wishes granted. Marcy humored Riva and was reminded, once again, that a writer can never completely answer this question: “Who is my audience?”

That afternoon, the waitress at Café Lalo was not attentive to Marcy and Riva. When they wanted to order dessert, the waitress snubbed them. When they were ready for the check, the woman affected being overworked and underpaid. Riva wanted to lean closer to Marcy and say, “Shall we dash?” Instead, Riva paid up and left a magnanimous tip.

Why?

Well, Marcy couldn't have known this, but Riva and the waitress had just enjoyed an intimate and short affair only the weekend before. Riva met the waitress at a dance club on Columbus Avenue. The next day, the waitress—whose name was Gina—invited Riva to go horseback riding on the bridal path in Central Park. Riva enjoyed a leisurely Sunday afternoon with Gina. But Gina eventually said she would never endure a long-term relationship with a woman who was so tied up in old-world lore and superstition. Gina just didn’t believe Riva could grant wishes. “Well, suppose I enter a different line of work…?” Riva started to say, but Gina nudged her horse behind his girth, and she rode off. That’s when the snub-job started.

Riva couldn’t bring herself to reveal all this relationship drama to Marcy because Riva assumed that writers write all the dirt about everybody they meet. And if there is one thing that makes a genie itch more than being physically close to a writer that is worrying over whether or not the genie’s story will be told.

Today, Riva sits in the waiting room at the Allergist’s office. She’s reading Anthony Lane’s Nobody’s Perfect. She’s hoping (nay, wishing) she won’t encounter Anthony Lane because book critics give her severe migraines.

The Whole Story in Six Words

Enthusiasts of flash, sudden, or micro fiction are aware of Hemingway's famous six word story.

He wrote: "For sale: baby shoes, never used."

So below is my six word story for this fine Sunday morning:

Widower seeks companion who won't shoot.

Year of the Golden Pig

The seventh day of the Lunar New Year is known as "Everybody's Birthday." Don't forget. This Sunday is Everybody's Birthday! So Happy Birthday to You!

This is the Year of the Golden Pig, and it only happens once every 600 years. Condom sales have plummeted in China, and couples are crowding the fertility clinics.

Let's plot!

EVERYBODY make love to someone or masturbate at midnight on Sunday, February 25. Imagine! Everybody will coordinate orgasms so the world can enjoy a big sigh of relief; we'll breathe international delight; we'll Globalize our Pleasure!

You know how those ugly terrorist freaks syncronize those damned terror attacks?

We'll get even by synchronizing Sex!

What do you say? Are you in or out of this Orgasmicist plot?

Celebrating W.H. Auden

Today at Bloomsbury's Day in Literary History, a reader can find interesting remarks Ray Bradbury made about a line that W.H. Auden changed.

Auden's original:
"We must love one another or die."

Auden's re-write:
"We must love one another and die."

Bradbury preferred the first version. He scolded, "Damn it to hell, Mr. Auden, put your words back the way that you wrote them in the first place!"

Bradbury thought that the second version fell into the same habit of mind of the typical Doomsayer while the first version celebrated loving others for Loving's sake.

This re-write also reminds us what Gems are those conjunctions, what weight carried by those small words!

Oh, Darling! Do you have any preference for "and" or "or" in the sentences above? If so, I'd like to know about it; so, please whisper it in my "Comments" if you like.

I think I agree with Bradbury; and if Auden were still alive and kicking, I'd give him a shining "OR" carved from saphire. He could wear as a stunning toe ring. Would that help relieve some of those Funeral Blues?

Book Review of "The Illusionist" by Françoise Mallet-Joris; Cleis Press 1952; 250 pages

Illustration de la lettre LXXI des Liaisons Dangereuses, 1796


Anyone who can imagine pursuing a love affair with her father’s mistress will not be too shocked by the relationships depicted in Françoise Mallet-Joris’s 1952 novel “Les rempart des Béguines,” translated by Herma Briffault. The English title is “The Illusionist,” but I suspect this was not a choice made by the translator herself, but more of a title that might sell the book more easily than simply naming it after an ill-famed neighborhood in a provincial town in France.

In this novel, the reader is taken on a thrill ride through an adolescent girl’s psyche. The novel is narrated in the first person by the neglected daughter of a wealthy businessman. Hélène’s boredom and loneliness urge her to pay a visit to the bohemian harbor district where her widowed father’s mistress resides. Not without pangs and vertigo does the reader witness Hélène’s dark sexual awakening; Mallet-Joris is particularly masterful at depicting vulnerability. Ultimately, this novel invites the reader to bear witness in a way that demands a heavy investment of emotional energy, which is fine if you’re searching for a read that might make your heart bleed. Perhaps it needs a good bleed to heal.

One scene that could provide fodder for book discussion is the scene in which Hélène’s father summons her to his office to ask Hélène the long-awaited “how long have you been visitng Tamara?” question. Her father would never suspect the two are lovers, which is an ignorance the narrator relishes. At the end of this chapter, Hélène brings up the topic of literary influences. At first, the narrator is dishonest with her father; she tells him that Tamara assuaged her loneliness and suggested good books for her to read. The reader learns that while Tamara does read, she and the narrator do not share the same literary tastes. There is only one book Tamara has made Hélène read and that is the title “Liasons dangereuses.” Contemplating her introduction into the erotica, Hélène boasts, “Due to this direction of my literary tastes I became infinitely superior to my classmates, who could think of nothing more daring than to go out with a boy and get kissed in some dark corner.”

Leave it to a nineteen-year-old French female author to endow an oversexed heroine with a superiority complex. This is not intended as a criticism but more as an amused remark. In this novel it becomes clear that Hélène's literary mind, after meeting with openly eroitic works, makes her feel no longer vulnerable. Can and should this confidence boost be attributed more to her literary tastes than to her sexual awareness? Mallet-Joris always seems to leave the reader in the dark about many details of the physical dimension of the relationship between Tamara and Hélène. Could this be a suggestion that sometimes, and somehow, books and minds Fuck each other more readily and gracefully than people do? What does that mean for all the worrisome energy wasted on lamenting our culture is "sex-obsessed?"

This novel is full of the complexities of split emotions that a mind can get tangled in when involved in affairs that mingle maturity with vulnerability. One sentence can contain both gentleness and cruelty. Here’s an excerpt of Hélène describing Tamara’s hands:

“And on my shoulder she laid her hand, that brown, hard, lined hand of a haymaker, not at all the hand of a sexual pervert, but rather a hand made to lie on the neck of a horse or the hip of a woman, with its fingers a little too flat, a little too supple, evoking the hands of Chinese torturers.”

Sentences like these convey kinky majesty, taking sex and elevating it by art. The more dramatic tension arises when Hélène's father wishes to run for local office, but beware of how townies Talk...

A special bonus in the 2006 Farrar, Straus, & Giroux arrangement of this novel is Terry Castle’s affecting introduction. In the introduction, Castle characterizes this novel as erotically charged. I would argue that it is much more emotionally charged than erotically charged. The psychological transformation of the narrator provides the more interesting substance of the novel than the sexual content. I want to delve deeper into the implications in Castle's introduction, but I'll save that for another post.

I’ll close here with a strong recommendation of “The Illusionist” for anyone looking for something erotic and emotionally intense.

Paul Auster Reads from His New Novella

Tuesday night, Paul Auster read from his new book Travels in the Scriptorium to a dedicated audience at 192 Books. The proprietor of the tiny bookstore on Tenth Avenue was kind enough not to turn anyone away at the door. The boutique size of this bookstore bravely accommodated the shifty-eyed crowd that showed up. Although the audience was cramped, the body heat provided cozy shelter from the severe February weather. The most intense winter storm so far was on the rise; what better way to spend the cold evening than listening to a silver-haired writer read his work aloud in a tiny bookstore?

Natasha attended the event. She hadn't made a reservation earlier that day, but they put her name on the list. That's the name she gave the bookstore’s proprietor, anyway—Natasha. She liked that name because it sounded like the name of a tragic heroine from some classic Eastern European romance. The name made her feel like her whole life was more interesting than it really is. Natasha, in reality, is one of those less-than-stoic heroines who forgets to call to make reservations for a free event (but come to think of it, her information source had never mentioned anything about making reservations for this event). Natasha sat on the floor with her feet tucked under her. She felt like a little kid, but then she whispered the name Natasha in her mind, and that made a bit of a difference. Then Paul Auster started reading, and she became absorbed. The floor, the bookshelves, the shifty-eyed listeners, and the woman pretending to be Natasha may as well have dissolved.

The reviews of Paul Auster’s latest book have been less than glowing. Some readers found it “hard work.” A blogger named Condalmo claims Auster’s latest is a disappointment, mostly because there are not any themes that Auster has not explored before. Natasha hasn't read the novella yet. She is always careful not to allow too much negative reception of a book to influence her reading choices. Sometimes negative reviews make her want to read that book all that much more. She merely wants to feel sure that Auster’s latest book will provide a familiar pleasure she herself has come to know through Auster’s style. To her, there’s no question he is a great storyteller. Reading Paul Auster’s work guides her mind through philosophical inquiry in the ways that a storyteller can stomach. Besides, the man's got a sense of humor. Entertainment Weekly appreciated Auster’s latest work, but recommended that readers that don’t know his other books should not start with Travels…

Natasha started reading Auster with his sixth novel Mr. Vertigo, about an orphan from the Midwest. Mr. Vertigo is still Natasha's favorite. Natasha credits that book with saving her from despair at a time when she was feeling low. She promised herself that she wouldn’t give up the ghost until she finished reading and solving all the riddles in all of Paul Auster’s work. So, she’s glad he’s still writing enigmatic tales. Maybe Natasha will never have to give up the ghost.

An Afternoon with Angela

Angela writes erotic poetry for an elite group of elderly, wealthy impotent men. These men meet once a month to listen to Angela read aloud from her oeuvre. Discussion, wine, and cheese always follow.

Angela is never invited to the discussion afterward. Instead, she is asked to pose, naked, in a huge glass cabinet with only a velvet divan and a miniature poodle enclosed. She steps into the cabinet, sighs, and disrobes as the butler closes the soundproof glass door behind her. Then Angela gets busy acting like the Goddess of Leisure while the men outside the cabinet engage in talk of the highest brow. Angela sometimes tries to read their lips, but more often she doesn’t bother. The only rule is that she is not aloud to fall asleep. Angela sits on the end of the divan, picks up the poodle, and strokes behind the little dog’s ears until it laughs.

This job comes with its perks. In this glass cabinet, Angela can enjoy her afternoon downtime, the time when she can think of what she will make for diner for her husband and two children. How will she help Miles take an interest in his math homework? How will she entice Bruce Jr. to spend less time playing video games? A woman who writes erotic poetry has lots on her mind. But it is not as though she lets on like that when she’s playing the role of the Goddess of Leisure inside this cabinet.

Angela stretches and rolls over upon the red velvet in her voluptuous feline way. The men stop and stare when she shifts her body now and then. If her mother were still alive, Angela could boast of these silent afternoons as proof that all the acting lessons were not a waste.

At 2:45 pm, the butler opens the glass door, and Angela is free to leave. This gives her enough time to dress and meet her sons in front of P.S. 36 by three o’clock sharp.

The friends of Angela’s who know that she does this kind of work for extra money like to tell her, “Angela, your life has way too much weird kink in it.”

Angela shrugs and pouts (a gesture the elderly men would applaud). Then she says, “Be honest. Whose doesn’t?”

I Confess My Real Purpose For Taking the LSAT

Photo by Dusan Stojkovic


I completed the Law School Admissions test this morning. Now, I must confess something.

The Law School Admissions Council is very strict about making test takers certify with a thumb print and signiture promising that they are taking the LSAT "for the sole purpose of being considered for admission to law school."

I admit I did NOT take the test for that purpose.

I took the LSAT so that I could finally wear the outfit you see me modeling here in the photograph that accompanies this blog post.

You see, I received this gorgeous lioness coat as a gift for Winter Solstice years ago, but I could never think of a single place to wear it. Well, I didn't hesitate to put it on today to take my LSAT.

I am usually quite modest about these things, but I have to admit that I was the Belle of the ball. Don't you think they really ought to do a write up of me for Couture?

If you think not, then consider this. For my "nonprohibitive time piece," I used an old wind-up soviet soldier's watch with a hammer and sickle emblem and the word "DEMOCRACY" written in Russian on the face. A time piece that a friend purchased in a Soviet surplus store in Armenia for Pete's sake! Now, come on and admit that time piece is uber chic!

I know fashion week is over, but I think we are all lucky that the paparazzi that spent the past week at Bryant Park happened to show up at the Test Center today to get this candid photo of the stylish L(iones)SAT getup.

Must See Youtube

If you have not been over to Youtube to see the work of a filmmaker named Rogier Wieland, then you are certainly missing brilliant short films that use stopmotion animation to create fascinating effects. To watch a Wieland short film is to get a real sense of an artist devoted to perfecting his craft. Wieland can turn the camera into a musical instrument; he can turn real people into dancing paper dolls. He can make a ballerina invisible. Watching his Youtube films will give the viewer a sense of charm only a true magician can convey. Wieland's work is remarkable for its ability to throw the old-fashioned Showgirl and Strong Man theater through the gears of the techno-cyber fun house. Please don't miss the work of this truly brilliant, and so far little known, artist.

A Disenchantment

The first time a worldly gentleman leaned in and kissed her, Jenny didn’t think she might be getting herself involved with an egoist, an influential man who sought a quick, midnight stroke with Vanity. Back then, fresh out of college with degrees in Poetry and Classics, Jenny desired romance, a literary romance; in her susceptible mind, she had thought up a whole exchange of passionate words. She thought of pages in envelopes like folded bed sheets; she thought words could age like wine; the mailbox, a cellar where words could keep in order to grow more palatable. Back then, Jenny dared ask of the world a Lover who would drop dark ink from a jeweled pen. To be more precise, she wanted words delicately formed with a writing instrument from the Montblanc Bohème Collection. Words slowly arranged with the sole intention of communicating tenderness.

Jenny is older now and times change and technology just keeps getting sexier.

So whenever some Wrong Number is in the mood, Jenny has phone sex on her Motorola Razor. Everyone admires how that phone has got as much edge as has Jenny. Sharpening her edge keeps her from slitting her wrists, which is what she might do if she thought too long and hard about her naivety of the past. Forget that. Now she hopes the Wire-tapper regime is squeezing in on her line so that more strangers might also be gaining something from her pleasure.

Jenny never speaks, much less writes; she only sighs and sometimes weeps. She hates words. They never really did much for her.

Gallery

Creation invites you to this art opening, this book signing, this cocktail party, this cosmic slam dance. You will not wonder why nobody at these crowded gatherings ever speaks. All remains silent. They say one military official dared visit here, made his crossing with Minako Yoshino’s artwork, and fell under a fierce and everlasting contemplation. They say he abandoned his life: quit his career, left his wife and children. His knees are turning blue now while he prays outside the gates of the Cloister of Humanity.

Book Review of The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak; Viking 2007; 357 pages

Photo by Mahua Guha Thakurta


Before I heard Elif Shafak speak at the very first PEN World Voices festival in New York City in April 2005, I had not been aware of this author’s work, nor of her courage.

That April in New York, Shafak spoke on two panels: one was entitled, “The Way We Live Now: Who Wrote the book of sex?” The other was “Crossover Artists: Writing in Another Language.” Shafak writes in Turkish and English. I was attracted to this discussion topic because I had just spent the previous summer teaching Chinese language at my alma mater, Beloit College, in the Midwest. The title of the second panel attracted me because while learning Chinese, I wrote short stories and short essays in Chinese. And while teaching Chinese, I wrote my own short, dramatic dialogues for the students because they had requested supplementary material for further practice. Writing creatively in an acquired language remains one of the most profound experiences of my life, yet I have had no serious opportunities to discuss and digest what this experience means for me. That’s why, at the World Voices festival, Shafak’s example as a threshold writer provided a much-needed sense of solidarity.

But it was Shafak’s candid discussion of sexuality in the Middle East that provoked my interest in reading her fiction. Her comments ranged from Ottoman Empire books on sexuality to the Sufi mystical tradition of Islam that is very much open to discussions of eroticism. Shafak said, “The interesting thing that happened in Turkey is that in the name of modernization, secularizing, and Westernizing ourselves, we cut our ties with the long tradition of eroticism, erotic literature, and especially homoeroticism.” This comment interested and excited me most because I had graduated from Columbia University in 2002 with a Masters in Chinese Literature, and throughout that program I was amazed at how much erotica we were reading in our Pre-modern fiction class, including titles such as The Plum in the Golden Vase, The Carnal Prayer Mat, and What The Master Didn’t Speak Of. Through study and discussion, it eventually occurred to me that a post post-modern consciousness, might at first assume that these days we are more progressive in our attitudes toward sexuality just because we live the outcomes of the Feminist Movement and the continuing struggles for Gay Rights. But if a reader digs deeper, she will discover cultural and literary traditions out there that could be informative on matters of sexuality in ways that post-modern minds may not have thought of. Shafak is very keen at pointing out the negative consequences of creating historical divisions.

Now I am recalling a discussion I’ve had with grad school friends of mine. On occasion we speculated about Bisexuality in the Chinese concubinage. Among our group were those who defined their sexual identity as anything ranging from Lesbian to Metro-sexual to Poly-amorous, even a Retro-sexual; we were friends who studied culture, literature, and language who dared to entertain the wildest hunches. For instance, in a wealthy Chinese household, the man typically chose one wife to sleep with for that evening, according to however his whims guided him. He would order a servant to go to that wife, prepare her with pampering and a foot massage. This wife would beam. In the traditional literature, drama erupts due to the rejected wives’ disappointments and jealousies. And in our little discussion group—these centuries later and miles away—we came up with this question: well, what if it wasn’t really like that? What if the wives who were not chosen to sleep with the husband for that evening did, in fact, sleep with one another? Wouldn’t that solve a whole lot of issues? Or would that just fan the dramatic fire?

It’s impossible to prove any such thing really happened, and we wade in the dangerous territory to impose certain assumptions on other times, places, cultures, etc. But the whole point is the fascinating dialogue that such speculation opens up, a dialogue between Now and Then—Mr. Past taunting Ms. Present, and Ms. Present teasing Mr. Past. All this helped us to conclude that celebrating erotic traditions helps us riff on the themes of sexuality in its colorful variations without feeling alienated from the past.

Elif Shafak’s fiction gives me strength and energy to write about this now. Colorful options that provide comfort are the kinds of considerations that Elif Shafak’s work invites. Because she is a woman from a threshold culture and because she embraces tradition and modernism with humor and grace, her fiction offers much food for thought to a cosmopolitan mind.

Recently, I finished reading her latest novel The Bastard of Istanbul. Now, not only do I appreciate a sense of solidarity with this author, but I am welcoming all her work into my life and cherishing all it can Teach.

Photo by Jakop Eskinazi

Now. What if we learn brutal truths about our families’ pasts? What if we learn about the atrocities from which we are all descended? Are we victims? Are we perpetrators? Aren’t we all suffering the consequences? Once we gain knowledge of the truth of our past, what should we do with that knowledge?

Shafak’s novel is a sweeping family saga that handles these tough questions.

The story revolves around the revelations of two young women: Asya Kazanci, who is fatherless and Turkish, and Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian, who feels exiled as an Armenian American, so she journeys to a foreign land. When Asya and Armanoush meet, their bond provides striking illustration of human connectedness. Transcending our hang-ups seems possible here. What hang-ups? Well: History. Identity. Community. Family. For starters…

The story begins with a nineteen-year-old Istanbulite woman, the seductive Zeliha, lying on an examining table about to have an abortion. She hears the call to prayer as the anesthesia starts working. When she comes to, she learns that the abortion could not be performed. She still has the fetus inside her because when the doctor tried to do his work, Zeliha shrieked with such horror that the doctors and nurses abandoned the procedure. Zeliha decides she will keep her baby girl, even though the city she lives in is hostile toward bastards.

If that opening isn’t absorbing enough, by the time readers get to page 53, Barsam Tchakhmakhchian, an Armenia exile, is asserting the taboo proclamation, “I am the grandchild of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives at the hands of Turkish butchers in 1915.” These words spoken by Barsam—and similar claims made by other characters—including the ravings of a bitter djinn who induces a memory trance in the thoroughly affecting “Pomegranate Seeds” chapter—got Elif Shafak into trouble with Turkish nationalists. Come on guys. Be real. Article 301 is for the birds!

But, back to the story.

The sensually-rich saga unfolds in chapters named after ingredients: Cinnamon, Garbanzo Beans, Sugar, Roasted Hazelnuts. Gathering around for mealtimes, one ingredient might trigger a memory or sensation, might open an opportunity to tell of something that once was or something that once wasn’t. But all the ingredients are vital for a sweet surprise later in the text. Shafak is a generous with her sensual writing; she hoards nothing and all are welcome to enjoy desserts prepared by Armenian and Turkish grandmothers alike. But beware of bitter and poison.

Some scenes take place in Istanbul while others take place in Arizona and San Francisco. Shafak handles the geographical shifts smoothly. Reading her work makes transition feel effortless.

A brother of five sisters leaves Istanbul to study in America. Mustafa meets Rose. She is a young, embittered divorcée, originally from Kentucky, who has a daughter by her ex-husband—Barsam—a member of a huge Armenian Catholic family. Of Rose, that family says,

“Rose had no multicultural background. The only child of a kind Southern couple operating the same hardware store forever, she lives a small-town life, and before she knows it, she finds herself amid this extended and tightly knit Armenian Catholic family in the Diaspora. A huge family with a very traumatic past! How can you expect her to cope with all this so easily?”

Shafak writes as gracefully about family discord as about family unity. An example of unity is the comfort prompted by the Armenian grandmother’s knitting.

“Grandma Shushan’s knitting affected the family like group therapy. The sure and even cadence of each stitch soothed everyone watching, making them feel that as long as Grandma Shushan kept knitting, there was nothing to fear and in the end, everything would be all right.”

This is a story of how the Armenian Diaspora survives through collective spirit, how the Turkish cope with learning the truth. To ease all distress, Shafak becomes like Barsam’s Uncle Dikran who eases his nephew’s distress by telling him a story—more like a long joke—about what happens when an Armenian visits a generous barber. In Shafak’s world, stories ease distress. Tell stories.

The crux of the narrative opens fully in the chapter entitled “Pine Nuts.” In this chapter, Asya translates Armanoush’s story for her four Turkish-speaking aunties. While the American girl is re-telling the story of Armenian genocide that has been erased from the women’s Turkified memories, the Turkish version of the television show The Apprentice is airing in the background. This scene reveals that the complexity of these characters’ situation extends to communities and cultures beyond the characters in the story. This chapter’s dialogue raises the question, “who all is responsible for erasing memory?” But Shafak gives the screw another turn by forcing us to ponder, “what does it mean to remember?” But in this scene we see a young woman traveled from the U.S. to Turkey in search of her Armenian identity telling a Turkish family a fact about their history; meanwhile, a purely American knock-off television show provides somewhat distracting and odd-ball background noise. These are the kinds of techniques Shafak employs to tell this edifying tale. Readers come away from The Bastard of Istanbul with admiration for this writer’s courage to confront atrocities of History and the hard questions we have been gifted. Though this novel forces readers to confront tough questions, it also offers most satisfying surprises that are as bitter as they are sweet.

There are so many sophisticated ideas packed in this novel. I hope that it sells as well, or better, here than in Turkey; I hope readers’ groups, book clubs, and classrooms welcome this important tale to their discussion tables. I hope families read it together and talk about it around the dessert table while eating ashure. As the celebrating Istanbulites would say, “S¸erefe!”