Episode 412 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing.)
This week, my occasional co-host, Vanessa Blakeslee, and I discuss Douglas Glover’s latest collection, The Erotics of Restraint: Essays on Literary Form. We explore his insights on time and plot construction, as seen the works of Alice Munro, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, and others.
Photo by Shawn McKee.
TEXTS DISCUSSED
NOTES
This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.
TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
Check out my adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.
And check out Vanessa’s books, too.
Episode 412 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing.)
Greetings from the Hotel Cortez in beautiful downtown Los Angeles.
I’d like to say I hunker down here while the coronavirus cleans out the planet, but I’m just avoiding having to deal with the four recycling bins rolled out by the Victorian state government in Australia. One for glass. One for garden clippings and food scraps. Another for paper and some plastics, and yet another for everyday rubbish. All too hard and confusing.
As a neighbor said afore I fled the country, ‘I haven’t a fucking clue what goes in which cunting bin and when to put ‘em out, mate.’
The eloquence of the average Australian cannot be underestimated.
‘Dump it in the streets,’ I told him. ‘It doesn’t matter. The world is drowning in rubbish and the Chinese will soon take over.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Who would have thought the Chinese would wipe us out with a virus,’ I went on, oblivious to the trap I was walking into. ‘The consensus was they’d do it through finance and infiltration of Western universities and schools.’
I should have been more careful with my audience. Turns out the neighbor—a Caucasian named Clancy Smith—‘self-identifies’ as Chinese. Taking on the mantle of victims everywhere, he was greatly offended by my insensitive comments.
‘You are racist,’ he shouted as I fled up the stairwell. ‘I’m going to get the Chinese government to harvest your filthy organs.’
So here I am in the Cortez, safe as virgins in Harvey Weinstein’s orifice.
After freshening up in my room, I made my way to the Blue Parrot Lounge on level two. There to be greeted by the elegant bartender, Liz Taylor.
‘How are you, old piss pot?’
Liz and I go back a long way; I knew her when she was a salesman called Nick Pryor.
She slid an extra-dry gin martini across the countertop.
I tossed it back and said, ‘Feeling rather misanthropic. The coronavirus can’t come soon enough.’
‘My, my, we are in a bad way.’ And when I didn’t play word ping-pong with her, Liz added: ‘The personification of the virus sits yonder.’
She aimed a gleaming talon at a booth occupied by bombshell with long black hair.
‘Who is she/he/it/them/they?’ I said to Liz.
‘Corona.’
‘The Italian Eurodance singer?’
‘Strictly speaking she/he/them/they is Brazilian. But yes, that Corona.’
‘Baby, baby.’ I leaped to my feet with more zest than I’d shown in ages. ‘Bring a martini for the esteemed personage.’
‘She/he/them/they only drinks Corona beer,’ Liz advised, lowering her voice.
‘Furnish me with a bottle forthwith, fair lady, and stop dawdling.’
Excited, I approached the Corona booth with a fresh martini in one hand and an ice-cold bottle beer in the other.
‘May I join you?’
Corona looked up and said, ‘Slide your toosh in, baby, and hand me that piss.’
I dared not disobey.
Beer chugged and burped, Corona said, ‘Ah, cold chill down my spine. No no more tears, give me a smile.’
I showed my pearly whites and, in a sign of the times, asked: ‘And what pronoun do you prefer?’
Corona looked at me as if I was barmy. ‘I am She.’ Head tossed back, she sang, ‘I’m every woman. It’s all in me,’ in excellent imitation of Whitney.
‘I’m glad that’s sorted,’ I said, settling in my seat.
‘What about you,’ she said. ‘What pronoun do you prefer?’
‘We,’ I told her. ‘I have sixteen different personalities, like Sybil.’
‘And are you into men, women, or goats?’
‘Yes.’
Corona smiled. ‘I’m going to like you. Okay, spit it out. What do you want?’
‘I hear you’re the embodiment of the coronavirus.’
She preened, serious when an opportunity presented itself. ‘Word gets around.’
‘Help me destroy civilization as we know it,’ I said, putting my cards on the table.
‘You better have a good reason.’
‘I don’t like having four recycling bins.’
‘That’s good enough.’
‘It won’t be easy,’ I pointed out. ‘Trump has used magic to erect a forcefield that stops Mexicans and viruses from entering citadel US.’
Corona bristled. ‘Trump erections are useless. He is a powerful mage from the hellmouth, but he is no match for moi.’ She stood, resplendent in figure-hugging red latex catsuit. ‘Come.’
I came, dear reader. And then I followed her to elevator. It took us to the rooftop. The view as the sun set was across ragtag buildings to the Port of Los Angeles. A giant cruise ship, big as an apartment building, was about to berth.
There was triumph in Corona’s voice when she cried, ‘Behold.’
‘Is that what I think it is?’ I said, astounded.
‘The Diamond Princess cruise ship.’
‘From Yokohama?’
‘The same.’
I could barely believe it. ‘But that’s like the Demeter arriving at Whitby with Dracula’s coffin and the rats.’
Corona’s proclamation rang over the basking city. ‘Let’s party.’
Upon her word, the plague ship opened, the quarantined spilled forth in their thousands, and invaded the streets. And when the avenues and boulevards of the movie capital thronged, all stood still, took their places and waited.
Techno pumped out of nowhere. Corona stepped onto the parapet of the Hotel Cortez, spread her arms, and began to sing.
I want to roll inside your soul To know the things you need and feel…
By magic, the world broke into spontaneous synchronized dance. A seething mass of perfectly timed movement, as if all of humanity had been practising its moves and awaited only this summons to show its expertise. The music was infectious.
Every time that you’re by my side I can’t get serious, because you got me…
The refrain swept the width and breadth of LA, encompassing the high and the low— even Steve Bannon was momentarily light on his feet.
Baby baby, why can’t we just stay together, yeah yeah yeah…
After a while, I began to pirouette and gyrate, giving myself over to the spread of the Corona Virus as it dispersed nationwide, infecting all of North America so that in time the Un-united United States stopped tearing themselves apart and tripped to the light fantastic.
The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. Of no fixed abode, he has subsisted in Istanbul, Rome, London, New Orleans and is currently hiding out in Melbourne. He partakes of four bottles of Bombay gin and four packets of Dunhill cigarettes a day.
His mortified amanuensis, Dmetri Kakmi, is a writer and editor. The fictionalised memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia. He edited the children’s anthology When We Were Young. His new book The Door and other Uncanny Tales will be released in May 2020.
Episode 409 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).
This week, I speak to fiction writer Shane Hinton about his poetic, spooky apocalyptic novel, Radio Dark.
Photo by Kara Hoyt.
TEXTS DISCUSSED
NOTES
This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.
TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
Episode 409 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).
The Sozzled Scribbler sizzles as the Great Southern Land burns.
People are, of course, upset and yours truly thinks, What a bunch of whingers. What happened to the great Australian spirit? Let the fires burn, I say. Only good can come of it.
Let’s list three positives so that we can get a proper perspective on the affair.
First, the vast columns of smoke visible from space might alert aliens to life on earth. Let them come. Most Earthlings are barely sentient anyway. The Martians can’t possibly be worse than us.
The only problem is if they land in the land down under, they will end up in a refugee concentration camp…I mean immigration detention center… until they are approved by that arm of Rupert Murdoch, Inc. alternatively called a government.
Perhaps the aliens are better off going to the United States, where they will be merely shot at by the citizenry? Better bullet holes in the space suit than indefinite incarceration in Manus Island.
Second, the conflagration is said to be worse than anything that happened in the Amazon (not sure if that’s the forest or the company). If this is true, then it’s an occasion to celebrate.
I mean to say the fires might kill off Australia’s many deadly pests: flies, snakes, crocs, spiders, Derryn Hinch, Alan Jones, Michaelia Cash, Tony Abbott, and the serial killers that hunt down German backpackers. Though the latter could be said to be performing a public service. Australia likes its ‘quiet achievers’, you know.
Third, the smoke will block out the UV rays that mar with unsightly cancers the golden skins of the sun-loving populace. Think of it. It could be a return to the 1970s when persons of lower class lolled about all day on the beach, slathered in coconut suntan lotion. Now you can just grab some free ash straight out of the sky and rub it on.
See, take a negative, turn it to a positive. We must see the humour in all things. After all, what’s not to laugh about a town called Smoko going up in smoke?
As it happens, the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (ScoMo to the Twitterati) rang before Christmas last year to seek my advice on this very topic.
Incidentally, ScoMo once invited me to his Pentecostal Church, where we shared the same buttock-numbing pew and even spoke in tongues. Though it must be said I garble my words at the best of times, especially when I haven’t had a martini or two for breakfast. I did not go back. The lay person may not know but Pentecostals, in keeping with their Methodist-Holiness heritage, use non-alcoholic wine (!), or worse grape juice (!!), during communion. I ask you what is the point of going to church if there is no alcohol?
But back to our pre-Christmas phone conversation.
‘There’s a bit of a fire on, mate,’ ScoMo drawled, the usually assured voice quivering.
‘Beg pardon,’ quoth I, looking in some alarm around my luxurious, smoke-free apartment.
‘There’s a big barbie on,’ the Prime Minister clarified. ‘The wildlife’s roastin’ in the bush and the do-gooders are pissed off ‘cause the koalas and the galahs are falling out of the trees, burnt to a crisp. But the family’s booked in for a nice little shindig in Hawaii. I mean tah say I even sent the Deputy Prime Minister to buy me a luau shirt and a grass skirt.’
‘It’s wise to blend in with the natives,’ said I, leaning across to freshen up my drink. It was going to be a long call; ScoMo is not the brightest candle in the tabernacle.
‘Yeah, but should I stay or should I go?’
Silence from my end, as I waited to see where this was leading.
‘If I go will there be trouble?’ ScoMo pursued.
‘And if you stay will it be double?’ I hedged with caution.
‘So come on and let me know.’
I chuckled at this, but our purely unconscious reference to the 1970s rock band went unheeded at the other end.
‘It’s hard to know,’ I replied, wiping the smile off my face. ‘What have you done to mollify your subjects?’
‘I denied there’s a such a thing as climate change.’
‘Always a good start. What else?’
‘Oh, you know, I sent them thoughts and prayers.’
‘That always pacifies the simpleton. What else?’
‘We’re gonna legislate sentences up to twenty-one years for environmental protest and we’re gonna stop journalists from going to disaster zones to report our stuff-ups.’
‘When all else fails, fall back on dictatorship,’ I quipped, draining my glass and reaching for another.
‘I’ve done all I can, mate. But the friggin’ lefties are still being mean tah me.’ The usually assured voice trembled further; I was afraid there might be tears. ‘Why can’t they see Gina Rinehart’s coal is good for them?’
‘You may be putting out the fire with gasoline,’ I said, indulging the sing-song mood of the day.
In the end a more determined note crept into ScoMo’s voice. I could almost hear the Australian national anthem strike up behind him.
‘See these eyes so red,’ he proclaimed. ‘Red like the bush burning bright. Well, I’m gonna wipe ‘em dry and go to Hawaii with my god-fearing, all-hetero family. And that’s that.’
‘Well said, Prime Minister.’
‘Yeah,’ he added, with rising determination. ‘Tel meth eta ocal.’
‘Scotty,’ I garbled into the phone. ‘You’re speaking in tongues.’
‘Sorry, mate. Got excited for a minute. All I said was, “Let them eat coal.”’
And he hung up, leaving me to think anyone who makes a melange of The Clash and David Bowie with Marie Antoinette deserves hell’s fiery storm.
Until next we meet. Cheerio!
The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. Of no fixed abode, he has subsisted in Istanbul, Rome, London, New Orleans and is currently hiding out in Melbourne. He partakes of four bottles of Bombay gin and four packets of Dunhill cigarettes a day.
His mortified amanuensis, Dmetri Kakmi, is a writer and editor. The fictionalised memoir Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia. He edited the children’s anthology When We Were Young. His new book The Door and other Uncanny Tales will be released in May 2020.
For those of you who may not know this already… I’ve spent the past few years writing fulltime in a yurt.
For complete clarity (and because some people just don’t know) Merriam-Webster defines a yurt as a circular domed tent of skins or felt stretched over a collapsible lattice framework and used by pastoral peoples of inner Asia.
Now, why in the hell would any respectable writer want to spend her days inside of a yurt? And, what’s it like inside?
Well, I’ll tell you… Here’s a peek inside the yurt and the method to my madness.
One way I disappointed my high school students was by not reading one of their favorites: S. E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. One particular student, Caroline, frequently reminded me how guilty I should feel for not reading the book she loved.
I promised her some thoughts when I got around to it, which only took about a decade.
Hinton wrote The Outsiders when she was fifteen, and it’s quite an achievement considering the depth of characterization. Despite the characters’ flaws, I care about them. Overall, I think I would have liked the novel more when I was younger, but I was reading Stephen King or Clive Barker, and missed many of the books we’re supposed to read when we’re young, like this one, or Catcher in the Rye. Though I hazily remember the movie for The Outsiders, I was too busy watching stuff like ET or The Thing. Plus, the movie characters looked like the kids who wore cut-off jean jackets, sang John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurt So Good” on the bus, and smoked on the walk home—a walk that might or might not involve punching a nerd like me.
Caroline says she understands what I mean, and explains who she was when The Outsiders crossed her path: “I was in seventh grade, and it was just a huge part of those formative years that bridged over into early adulthood. It was a time when reality seemed more avoidable and that my dreams could still be unrealistic and easily obtained.”
While The Outsiders reminds me of neighborhood bullies, for Caroline the book is bound with her own youthful dreams, one of the topics of the novel itself, which the reader mostly experiences through the protagonist, Ponyboy. He says, “It seems like there’s gotta be someplace without greasers or Socs, with just people. Plain ordinary people.” He’s one of the greasers, who live on the East Sideof a mid-size city in Oklahoma, a blue collar part of town. The Socs live on the West Side and are upper-middle class.
For Ponyboy, I think the “plain ordinary people” relate to having his family back together out in a house in the country. His dreams–with the exception of wanting to bring his parents back to life—are quintessential American pastoral, with farms and horses, cakes and cattle:
“I wanted to be out of towns and away from excitement. I only wanted to lie on my back under a tree and read a book or draw a picture, and not worry about being jumped or carrying a blade or ending up married to some scatterbrained broad with no sense. The country would be like that, I thought dreamily. I would have a yellow cur dog, like I used to, and Sodapop could get Mickey Mouse back and ride in all the rodeos he wanted to, and Darry would lose that cold, hard look and be like he used to be, eight months ago, before Mom and Dad were killed. Since I was dreaming I brought Mom and Dad back to life…Mom could bake some more chocolate cakes and Dad would drive the pickup out early to feed the cattle. […] My mother was golden and beautiful” (48).
Ponyboy’s grief over the loss of his mother is central to the novel. In the previous passage, Ponyboy calls her “golden”—a descriptor in the book associated with Frost’s poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and related to innocence and idealism in the novel. His mother is like Eve in an Eden that never existed, this dream garden of a farm and a family made whole again. Throughout the novel, Ponyboy attempts to shore up his adopted family of brothers and similarly troubled friends, the same way people today are likely to build a family or peer group through fandom.
Ultimately, I find the absence of women and the feminine frustrating, but one that makes sense in the novel.
But femininity doesn’t belong with the greasers social codes or either notion of being tough as described by Ponyboy. Tough has traditional masculine connotations: strength, courage, stoicism, etc. Tuff is something aesthetically pleasing or cool, like a Firebird Trans Am or a kickass jam. Given this, I wanted more scenes with Cherry Valance, a spirited girl and potential love interest for Ponyboy. Her appearance is all too brief, but she is more sophisticated, smarter, and quite possibly tougher than a few of the outsiders themselves.
Caroline had a different reaction when she first read the book: “Personally, I loved the lack of female characters because I was a melodramatic teenager and couldn’t stand the possibility of even fictional characters somehow taking away from my own feelings. When I found out Hinton was female, though, and that the characters were semi-autobiographical, I related to it even more. I, too, was drawn to misunderstood rebellious guys with shit tons of issues for me to capitalize on and solve. My dad was extremely strict, and I couldn’t hang out with a lot of my friends. So naturally, I rebelled more and eventually grew into quite a bad influence myself. ”
There’s a moment with these misunderstood rebellious guys that I find revealing and tender and is an example of Ponyboy’s concealed sensitivity. Ponyboy, while looking at one of his brothers says, “Asleep, he looked a lot younger than going-on-seventeen, but I had noticed that Johnny looked younger when he was asleep, too, so I figured everyone did. Maybe people are younger when they are asleep” (104). Most parents can probably relate to Ponyboy’s idea and I think it plays into these boys having to nurture each other. Small moments like this show that the guys are more than troublemakers.
I remember holding my children until they fell asleep and then watching them in their cribs. I still look at them in bed at night and in the morning. It’s hard not to see them younger, even as babies when they sleep. The outsider kids try to nurture each other in ways acceptable to their codes, while showing how they are still children fending for themselves in difficult situations. Caroline says, “It was invigorating to vicariously experience those emotions with the characters. That’s always been my favorite thing about literature and I’m relieved that’s remained the same since having to grow up.”As different readers, Caroline and I read that vulnerability in different ways, which is one of my favorite things about literature.
There’s another scene that shows the kids taking care of themselves like adults, but with the tastes of children. It’s funny and bittersweet. Ponyboy says, “All three of us like chocolate cake for breakfast. Mom had never allowed it with ham and eggs, but Darry let Soda and me talk him into it. We really didn’t have to twist his arm; Darry loves chocolate cake as much as we do. Sodapop always makes sure there’s some in the icebox every night and if there isn’t he cooks up one real quick. I like Darry’s cakes better; Sodapop always puts too much sugar in the icing. I don’t see how he stands jelly and eggs and chocolate cake all at once, but he seems to like it. Darry drinks black coffee, and Sodapop and I drink chocolate milk. We could have coffee if we wanted it, but we like chocolate milk. All three of us like chocolate stuff. Soda says if they ever make a chocolate cigarette I’ll have it made” (104-5). I can’t help thinking Ponyboy would have it made today with the vaping craze, but I like how it’s a scene of making breakfast and coffee, but everything gets infused with chocolate and sweets. My kids have badgered me daily for pancakes, sometimes even for dinner, knowing that we will likely have them on the weekend.
While I was reading, I kept pondering whether or not younger readers would identify with these characters. I approached the book considering it for classroom use, the old habit of a teacher. A prejudice towards YA books I have is thinking they are for someone else, not me. (What YA means as a genre or marketing tool is for another time.) I should just be asking if I felt something while reading the book. Was I moved? Did it make me think? Did I enjoy it? Yes. Yes. Kind of.
Caroline says she was invigorated by experiencing the lives of these characters; maybe I let too much of my own baggage get in the way. She also says, “I was still an oblivious kid when I read it, and I still had a lot of dreams and plans for my life. My priorities were having friends, looking cool, putting minimal effort into class, smoking cigarettes and getting the hell out of school. Unfortunately, life finally happened and my dreams currently are not being late on rent and my car insurance, finding a new apartment/moving when my lease ends in less than a month and to eventually finish school. Meanwhile, I’m a waitress and hooked on the cigarettes that I started smoking to look cool. My American Dream is holding on to the dreams I used to have and wishing I never had to grow up.”
What she says does sound like experiences in the book. We have dreams and goals and we would like them validated. We want family and friends, to be close to others, feel loved, feel appreciated. Ponyboy might give us a model for holding onto dreams and goals while making a life of what one has and the people around us, even if that life does not immediately—and may never—look like what we have imagined.
Maybe this ambivalent equilibrium is what Hinton achieves. If she leans too far into dreams and fantasy, the book becomes YA pulp and pap. Easy to eat, but no sustenance like the chocolate cigarettes Sodapop jokes about. If she leans too far the other way, past reality, the book becomes as monstrous as those little boys stranded on an island, who not only kill their only true, wise friend, but also kill what’s true and wise within themselves. The Outsidersis a very American novel and Ponyboy negotiates with the idea of the American Dream and the difficulties of being poor in an America full of dreaming. Ponyboy has to be tough, but he also chooses to be kind. Much like the American cognitive dissonance of dreams and disparities, he knows that nothing gold can stay, but fights to stay gold.
Stephen McClurg (Episode 24) writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama. He co-hosts The Outrider Podcast, writes at Eunoia Solstice, and infrequently blogs. He has contributed music as a solo artist and with the group Necronomikids to past episodes of The Drunken Odyssey.
Having just seen The Rise of Skywalker, which made me miss the contributions of Michael Arndt, but was mostly pretty okay, here are The Drunken Odyssey’s current ranking of the Star Wars filmography.
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
The Force Awakens
The Return of the Jedi
The Rise of Skywalker
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Attack of the Clones
The Phantom Menace
Revenge of the Sith
Troops
The Star Wars Holiday Special
The Star Wars Holiday Special (Again)
Hitting Yourself in the Head with a Hammer
The Last Jedi
Please disagree with me in the comments below, though you’ll be wrong.
John King (Episode, well, all of them) holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University.
Clint Howard finally enters the Museum of Schlock!
Yes, someone apparently made a Silent Night, Deadly Night 4. In the United Kingdom, the title of tonight’s movie is Bugs. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this movie isn’t conceptually part of the Silent Night, Deadly Night series. I think someone made a horror movie that takes place at Christmastime and decided to slap Silent Night, Deadly Night on it. You won’t be finding any slashing Santas in tonight’s movie, but we do get a poorly-groomed Clint Howard so there’s that.
1990’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation from director Brian Yuzna begins with a young woman bursting into flames before leaping from the top of a building. A disheveled man named Ricky (Clint Howard) gets distracted from his dumpster diving and sticks his hand into her charred remains.
Enter Kim (Neith Hunter), a fearless reporter looking for her big break and this story, naturally, is it. Her boss, Eli (Reggie Bannister), hands it off to her boyfriend, Hank (Tommy Hinkly), and asks Kim to fetch some coffee. Kim decides to investigate the story on her own and stops at the local bookshop.
While looking for a book on spontaneous human combustion, Ricky touches her butt. Can you imagine browsing in a bookstore and Clint Howard walks up to you and touches your butt? I think I would see red and go into a homicidal rage.
This won’t be the last time Ricky does something inappropriate in this movie.
Anyway, Kim screams. The bookstore owner, a statuesque woman named Fima (Maud Adams), chases Ricky away. Fima gives Kim a free book, something pastoral landscapes and Celtic lasses. Yup. Fima is some kind of devil worshipping witch. Fima gives Kim a date to snack on and I suspect that date is really a roach. Oh, and Fima invites Kim to a picnic so she can meet the other members of the coven.
It’s not long before Fima slips Kim slips some sleeping powder in her tea. When she wakes up, Fima and the other witches are stripping Kim down. Ricky throws a giant larvae under the blanket covering Kim and before we know it, the larvae is pushing its way under her skin. You can use your imagination as to how it got inside her, but maybe you shouldn’t. Kim then throws up a giant roach…or was it a beetle? Fima says something about Kim giving birth to her fear and it’s about this time that I’m wishing I were watching a movie with a psychotic Santa Claus.
And then there’s Clint Howard—I mean Ricky. I seem to recall a scene where the coven was oiling up a naked Ricky with roach oil, prepping him to mate with Kim. I can’t really get that scene out of my head. There’s another scene where Ricky strangles an old man to death with Christmas lights and then the family Christmas tree catches on fire. I guess this makes this a Christmas movie.
I’ll leave you now while I go contemplate my life choices.
Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #14 by Stephen McClurg
Sweating to the Goths
In middle school, I couldn’t elude the yearly discussion of the science fair project on how different music affects plants. In English classes, someone would try to recycle their report as their English research paper.
Today, there is keen interest in the link between music and physical performance.
Much of the research shows how music supports workout intensity better than other activities. As much as I like reading, I’ve never been able to read and exercise. Unless I’m walking or cooling down, I don’t maintain workouts with podcasts or audio books either. That bears out in the study in which people gave a thirteen-percent higher happiness rating when listening to music rather than podcasts.
My gym time is now essential. For complicated reasons and another essay, I ended up weighing 400 pounds and on the verge of some serious health issues. I worked with my doctor on diet and exercise, and had some counseling on changing behaviors. I was able to drop over 100 pounds, but like so often happens, I’ve gained 30 pounds or so back, which I’m working on getting rid of now.
Having to go to the gym has also meant that I have had to figure out ways to make the experience something that I want to do. I’ve found music essential.
The way I choose music goes through phases. Preferring albums, I don’t like playlists. Initially, because high tempo music can increase exercise rates, I started with uptempo music that I knew well: most of Public Enemy’s records, Ice Cube’s The Predator, a variety of rock and metal, especially Entombed’s Wolverine Blues, The Misfits, and Faith No More’s albums through Angel Dust. These are still favorite records for workouts, but I had to find ways to vary it.
I discovered that I could listen to almost anything that had one of three drummers: Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, or Billy Cobham. They are ferocious, master musicians, who propel their music forward. Oddly, a fourth drummer I deeply love, Zigaboo Modeliste from the Meters, just does not work for me a workout. Modeliste has one of the deepest grooves ever, but I find his music too relaxing, maybe too bound with Mardi Gras, revelry or something. Modeliste makes me dance. Elvin Jones has a similar deep pocket, but he also has the forward propulsion of someone like Williams, albeit approached dissimilarly.
Another phase of listening has been simply checking out new music, whether a new release or an older album I’ve never heard. I never thought this would work, but workout intensity hasn’t suffered. If a record just isn’t keeping me going, I skip to a new one. If I check out three that don’t work, I go to an old faithful like almost any Fishbone album or Mastodon’s Moby Dick-inspired Leviathan, which was I found through this process. Even when I’m working out, I need music of some substance. I’m not much of a dance fan, and though I like electronic music, I can’t workout to it. Hearing some of these rock and pop records from year’s past has worked. I also get to hear new releases that I normally wouldn’t. Lizzo’s work has been refreshing and energizing lately.
One of the records that I didn’t expect to enjoy with workouts is Bauhaus’s In the Flat Field. I had only seen “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” on MTV’s 120 Minutes, but I had never listened to an album by the group. For whatever reason, Flat Field was recommended to me and I thought it was contrary to my setting enough to be fun, like listening to Joy Division or The Cure and looking at brightly lit rows of ellipticals and tank tops. The first song, “Double Dare,” has a slow descending riff like “Bela,” so I thought that if this is their thing, then I was going to have to listen to it at home. As the song continued, though, I found myself settling into my workout.
In “Spy in the Cab,” the guitar felt oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And the drums, which sound like some sort of hand drums were also messing with my musical memory. A few minutes into cardio–it hit me. Secret Chiefs’ “Renunciation.” The guitar parts and arrangements, forwardness of the melodic component as well. Peter Murphy’s voice in the case of Bauhaus and Eyvind Kang’s violin/viola in the case of Secret Chiefs. I thought Bauhaus–though not an impossible–but at least a strange influence for SC3, but they certainly share some theatricality–especially the liveversions.
Then I remembered that “Renunciation” was a cover. It was originally written by Ananda Shankar. Maybe it influenced Bauhaus, too, and that was possibly the connection.
“Stigmata Martyr” seems like an obvious influence on Ministry, particularly “So What” and maybe in title only– “Stigmata.” For one, even early on Al Jourgensen was singing in a British accent not too removed from Murphy’s own. The approach toward basslines, the noise, the repetition, all seem cut from the same prayer cloth. I love Murphy’s exorcism in this song, as scary as anything Ministry has done. The bands project a similar chaos and energy on stage as well, though Ministry was certainly upping the ante throughout the ‘90s.
I’ve thought about music as something fun, spiritual, or intellectual most of my life, but there’s been a joy in experiencing music in a practical sense–How fast can it make the flowers grow? I’m too late for the frizzy hair and leather pants, but I feel lucky to find In a Flat Field when I needed it, on the elliptical, bathed in the most unflattering fluorescent lighting.
We should all be lucky enough to find the music when we need it.
Stephen McClurg (Episode 24) writes and teaches in Birmingham, Alabama. He co-hosts The Outrider Podcast, writes at Eunoia Solstice, and infrequently blogs. He has contributed music as a solo artist and with the group Necronomikids to past episodes of The Drunken Odyssey.
Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #47 by Drew Barth
Live from Miami, Part 1–Patrick McDonnell
Every day for as long as I can remember, it has been difficult to go through a newspaper every morning and not see Earl or Mooch looking back from the three-panel joy of Mutts. Beginning twenty-five years ago, Mutts is the daily comic strip from Patrick McDonnell that we have all come to know and love each morning. But comic strips themselves aren’t enough to do McDonnell’s art full justice. From his more experimental works to his picture books to his work with animal shelters across the country, to encompass McDonnell’s expansive work, there needed to be more than comic strips. Enter The Art of Nothing: 25 Years of Mutts and the Art of Patrick McDonnell. The Art of Nothing is a marvelous work of both compilation and celebration—from the beginning phases of a strip of Muttsall the way to some of McDonnell’s latest work with the Jane Goodall institute—everything is here to showcase some of the best illustrative work of the century.
Recently at Miami Book Fair, I had a chance to sit down and talk with Patrick McDonnell about The Art of Nothing as well as the quiet wonder of Mutts.
Drew Barth: First off, congratulations on this: The Art of Nothing: 25 Years of Mutts and the Art of Patrick McDonnell. This is honestly one of the cooler books I’ve ever seen in terms of a retrospective of a newspaper strip comic. I have some Peanutsbooks at home, but I don’t remember them going as in-depth as this one does.
Patrick McDonnell: Thanks, that was something I was shooting for. I wanted it to be more of an artbook than just a comic strip collection.
DB: So how did the concept for this first come out because it’s the 25thanniversary of Muttsand it could have just been a greatest hits of strips, but this goes into a full retrospective of everything: the picture books, the work with Jane Goodall, all of that. So how did this concept come about?
PM: This is with Abrams Books and I did a book with them on the art of Muttsin 1982. And Charlie Kochman, the editor at Abrams, approached me and thought maybe we should do a twenty-fifth anniversary edition of that 2004 book. And we were thinking originally that we would just add thirty more pages to that book. And since that book there were so many things that happened with Muttsincluding the picture books that the thirty pages became more and more and so we thought “let’s just make a new book.” The twenty-fifth anniversary became its own art book.
DB: It became its own art book with a ton of content, especially with some of your original sketches and a lot of the work-in-progress pieces.
PM: I really wanted to show the process, you know. I mean, twenty-five years of doing a strip, I really wanted that to be part of the book, so we included a lot of my sketchbooks and even the dummies I did for the picture books. I’m totally mesmerized by artists’ sketches, I always like the immediate, you know, right from the heart to the hand, I love looking at that. I thought it might be fun to include my stuff.
DB: I always love looking at that for any kind of nice artbook. Like where did it begin? We have this wonderful finished piece, but what were the sketches and the bare bones that you’re working with. And the fact that they’re here just shows off that nice beginning to end point in your process. And I was reading through the book and you mentioned that when you were selecting different strips that this was almost like going through a family phot album. Was it difficult to figure out which pieces to include?
PM: Twenty-five years is a lot of strips, that’s a lot of ink under the bridge. You have your favorites and they are like children almost to you. Even though it’s a large book with two hundred something pages, with twenty-five years there’s a lot to choose from, so it really was trying to select. I mean when it came down to me was just intuitively which ones put a smile on my face, or I felt were important to the different themes I used. It was a combination of trying to show all the different characters, but then, like I said, different themes too. The shelter story strips I do, the more spiritual strips, the more arty strips where I enjoyed playing with the medium of comic strips. I included a lot of the strips that talk about comics.
DB: To me, those were some of the stand out ones. Especially the ones where there’s stark black panels with the little interlays of light or Mooch peaking the head in, that’s still one of my favorites. I think I remember reading that when I was much younger and then years later reading Krazy Kat and thinking “man, I can’t believe Mutts has been going on this long.”
PM: I can’t either. The daily comics strips is a strange artform. I mean, people live with it every day. When I think of Peanutsand strips I grew up with and love, they become a part of your family. It’s like a family conversation first thing in the morning. You meet your old friends and you spend some time with them.
DB: It’s that comfort level—like a nice, warm hug with the newspaper every morning.
PM: Like family and friends.
DB: For me every morning it was Mutts, Peanuts, and Foxtrot.
PM: I call that the business section of the newspaper, for me.
DB: You mentioned themes before and we do see those variations on different themes throughout the years and how certain strips have that certain repetition, like the shelter strips or those similar stylistic choices of the vase. There’s also that need to experiment we see with those stark contrast strips. So what drove you to keep wanting to experiment and break out of the typical Sunday strip of three-panel funnies?
PM: I’m a big fan of the classic comics, I love Krazy Kat and Peanutsand I compare doing a comic strip a lot to being a jazz saxophone player. I mean you play the same songs every night, which would be the themes, but then you get to solo and every night the solo is different. So with the comic strip I have certain themes—the little pink sock, the shelter stories—it’s a dog and cat strip so I do a lot about the weather, autumn when the leaves change, and then it’s like riffing on those themes in the way a saxophone player would riff on a melody.
DB: And I love your riffs too with those large Sunday panels where it’s showing off the artists that you love as well.
PM: Yeah, those are called the title panels. They’re also called the throwaway panels because most newspapers don’t show them because they don’t have space for them. But way back, almost from the very beginning, I though it would be fun to do little homages to different artists and illustrators that I like. It was a dangerous thing to do because they take a lot of time and time is of the essence when you draw a daily comic script.
DB: I still think my favorite one in the book was the Big Brother and Holding Company Robert Crumb tribute. The structure was amazing especially for the more narrow space than the twelve inch record.
PM: Crumb was a big inspiration for me. He came out when I was a teenager and I always wanted to be a cartoonist since I was a little kid and then when I was a teenager I though maybe being a cartoonist isn’t that hip. But then Bob Crumb came out and maybe cartooning can be hip. And the fact that he did that old style that I just love. So he was a big inspiration, so being able to do the Big Brother and Holding Company as a MuttsSunday page was fun to do.
DB: You mentioned that it’s almost like being a jazz saxophonist where you do the themes, but then you get that chance to solo, so when I see things like the picture books and the collaborative poetry it’s like that need to do those solos.
PM: Yeah, to expand. I was doing Mutts for about ten years and I loved comics as a kid, but obviously I loved picture books too, I’m a big fan of Denslowand Winnie the Pooh, so I always wanted to do that too and I finally found a little time. I was getting a little faster with Mutts after ten years so I did The Gift of Nothingwhich was my first picture book. And I loved doing the picture books. It’s mainly to solo but in a different space. The comic strip, to a certain extent, is a routine, I mean it’s the same size, always the same medium, three panels most of the time. It becomes kind of standard, but with the picture books, I could do watercolors, oil painting, I could do anything I want, any size, I get thirty-two pages. I really get to flex the art muscle with those things.
DB: Getting to break out of the mold, especially with those bamboo brush drawings.
PM: I had gone to a great show at the New York Public Library of Japanese art books and that just inspired me to try to draw with those brushes and that ink. And the books I thought would be a good place to play with that.
DB: There’s this constant theme of compassion throughout The Art of Nothingthroughout the entire work, with animals and people and how they treat their animals, especially the Guard Dog chained up all the time. And those were some of the most beautiful panels that I had seen. And you mentioned how one of your biggest influences was Charles Schulz and I always think of Peanuts as a very compassionate comic. Do you feel that Mutts was a continuation of that?
PM:Peanuts and Charles Schulz was the reason I became a cartoonist. I got so much joy and comfort from those Peanuts books as a kid that with MuttsI was just trying to give back some of that comfort and joy. Underneath all of that, Peanuts was just this kindness, and the way he drew it there was just so much love in the way he drew. So with Muttsthat was kind of the main goal. And the other thing with Mutts was that, when I started it, I really wanted the dog and cat to stay—even though they talk—I wanted to keep them as animal-like as possible because anyone who has a dog and cat know how much fun they are and how much personality they have. Most animal strips, they’re animals but mostly they’re people in animal costumes, so I really wanted them to stay that way. So my goal was to try to see through the eyes of the animals and when I started seeing how tough it is for so many animals on this planet, compassion and empathy became a big part of the strip. To talk about dogs and cats in shelters waiting for homes, it kept on growing and then I started talking about farm animals and endangered species, so compassion and empathy is a main focus of what I do.
DB: I think one of the most powerful moments I saw in The Art of Nothingwas that strip of all the animals on the savanna just slowly fading away and there’s an impact there that hits really hard, especially when you couple it with the shelter scripts as well. So what was the main impetus to push you to start integrating that deeper animal compassion?
PM: The more I learned about animals and really trying to see through their eyes, the more empathetic I’ve gotten. And also, the planet’s in a dangerous place. Things are getting tougher. We really can’t avoid that truth anymore, I don’t think. Again, what’s nice about a comic strip, because people do see them as family—those are pretty big, strong issues—but I think with Muttsand comics I think you can kind of slip those in and people have their guard down. And like I said, because they feel like they’re family—and I try to do it entertaining, I don’t want to be too preachy with them—but I think I can reach some people.
DB: Reading through those shelter strips did make me tear up, it was one of the more heart-wrenching things. But seeing your work and trying to raise that awareness I think is one of the best things in a daily newspaper comic.
PM: Nothing makes me happier than when I get a letter or an email from someone saying that they were inspired to get a new best friend. And also I’m very optimistic. When I started Muttstwenty-five years ago, shelters back then were seen as scary places, people didn’t really want to go to them and that’s totally changed in twenty-five years. Now people are proud to talk about their shelter pet and there’s been a lot of progress. I’m a vegan and that’s getting so much easier all the time. The world is changing. So hopefully we all end up in the right direction.
DB: With this book, you have the Mutts website, you have all the different picture books, collaborative work, working with Jane Goodall, where are you seeing Mutts in the future right now?
PM: There’s still the daily strip, which, amazingly even though it’s been twenty-five years, sometimes I feel like I just started and there’s plenty more to do. I’m still going to be doing picture books. There might be, there sounds like there’s a good chance, I’ve been working on a Mutts movie for a long time. I was originally with Fox Animation and then things kind of got on hold for a year because Disney bought Fox, so now Disney has Muttsand it looks like there’s a good chance they’re going to do something with that. So I’ll keep you posted, but I might be busy with a Mutts animation. And also there’s a chance, there’s a wonderful animation company called Cartoon Saloon and they’re going to try to sell Me, Janeas a TV show, the Jane Goodall collaboration I did. Hopefully it’s going to happen soon. They’re the perfect company to work on Jane Goodall. They have the sensibilities down, they really respect Jane and they love nature, so I think it’s really going to show in the cartoon.
DB: Patrick, thank you so much for your time.
PM: Thank you so much.
Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.
