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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Tag Archives: Rachel Kolman

Episode 235: There Will Be Words and/or Doom!

03 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Live Show, There Will Be Words

≈ 1 Comment

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Election Day, Glendaliz Camacho, J. Bradley, Rachel Kolman, Richard Nixon, There Will Be Words, Whitney Hamrick

Episode 235 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I present an Election Day version Jesse Bradley’s prose reading series, There Will Be Words, or in this case, There Will Be Words and/or Doom. The readers included  myself

twbw-john

Rachel Kolman,

twbw-rachel

Glendaliz Camacho,

twbw-glendaliz

And Whitney Hamrick.

twbw-whitney

Thanks once again to our host, J. Bradley.

Flash Fiction Spooktacular Jesse Bradley


Episode 235 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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Buzzed Books #28: Making Sense of Marshall Ledbetter

16 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Buzzed Books

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Florida State University, Marshall Ledbetter, Rachel Kolman

Buzzed Books by Rachel Kolman

Making Sense of Marshall Ledbetter

making_sense_of_marshall_ledbetter

Around 4 A.M. on a June night in 1991, a 22-year-old man—drunk, stoned—stumbled up to Florida’s capitol building. He wrapped a whiskey bottle in a towel and threw it at a glass door, which broke. No alarm sounded. Nothing. Wouldn’t you want to wander around inside, too?  

Making Sense of Marshall Ledbetter is a book-length discussion of FSU dropout and radical thinker Marshall Ledbetter, the man described above. The book, written by sociologist Daniel Harrison, dissects Ledbetter’s life, from his humble upbringing in Polk County to his acid-tripping days on FSU’s campus, with an attempt to better understand Ledbetter’s motivations – both psychological and political – and the lasting social implications of this incident.

Ledbetter’s invasion of the Capitol is considered a precursor to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, but it’s also memorable for Ledbetter’s eccentric list of demands, which included a large veggie pizza from Gumby’s, 666 Dunkin’ donuts, a carton of Lucky Strikes cigarettes, $100 worth of Chinese food, and a CNN news crew. It’s a crime more humorous than harmful, but authorities at the time didn’t know that. They assumed Ledbetter was armed (he wasn’t). They assumed he had taken hostages (he hadn’t.)

Ledbetter would have gone completely unnoticed until morning if he hadn’t made an anonymous call to 9-1-1 himself. “The Capitol building is occupied,” he told the dispatcher, leaving his list of demands at the door and kicking back in the sergeant-at-arms’ office. By 8 A.M., the building was surrounded by a crew of officers who had no idea what really waited for them inside. Ledbetter could have been anyone, least of which a stoned college kid.

Ledbetter exited the Capitol six hours later, after being tricked into believing he had been broadcast on CNN, and went peacefully to his arrest.

As he was escorted out of the Capitol, reporters swarmed Ledbetter, asking why he’d done this. Ledbetter responded, “I needed a soapbox.” It’s unclear what his soapbox was really for—maybe some political agenda, given that Ledbetter was vocal about his distaste for President George H.W. Bush. Ledbetter followed that with, “I can’t explain it all in one sound bite.” Ledbetter seemed to have a general frustration with the government at all levels that maybe he himself couldn’t quite figure out. So many of us need a soapbox, and time, and an audience. These commodities are just as difficult to find now as in 1991.

Ledbetter was quickly seen by medical professionals and diagnosed as manic-depressive, but refused to take the court-ordered lithium. Because of this, Ledbetter was deemed as unfit to stand trial and was circulated around mental institutions for another decade.

Making Sense of Marshall Ledbetter is an interesting piece of true crime writing. It dives deep into Ledbetter’s life and psyche, creating a bond between Ledbetter and reader. It examines Ledbetter’s influences and how he’s a product of his time (he loved both NWA and Paula Abdul). It’s thought-provoking, letting the reader pause and consider what it means to be mentally ill.

On a personal level, this book appealed to me for its connection to Tallahassee and Florida State University, where I myself went to school in the mid 2000s. Ledbetter’s antics happened about a decade before I attended, but reading about his trips to Gumby’s and afternoons spent in front of Landis Hall, I felt like I knew Ledbetter just a little bit better. I could see him stumbling drunk on the Tennessee Strip or wandering the Hogly Wogly. For me, it was comforting to feel Tallahassee’s presence again through Ledbetter’s experiences and Daniel Harrison’s writing.

Harrison is careful not to place judgment or bias against Ledbetter. Even when Ledbetter is diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder, Harrison treats this simply as a “diagnosis” and never refers to Ledbetter as actually mentally ill. In his final paragraphs, Harrison finally offers his own opinion, stating, “At times Marshall could be frustrating or hard to handle, but he is far from being a lunatic.  It is clear Ledbetter wanted to have a positive impact on society. But the fact that Marshall took his life demonstrates that despite his courage, he was also a fragile human being.” The switching between first and last name references is telling.

Harrison expresses frustration at the way Ledbetter was pushed into mental institutions over and over again. And that’s where the larger significance of this book lies: the examination of the way the mentally ill are labeled and discarded in America, and the lack of “real” treatment and rehabilitation for criminals. “The irony of our tale is that Marshall was treated by a number of certified professionals over and over again for many years. Suicide was still the result.” A heavy fact to acknowledge. Ledbetter’s story is chilling, at times silly, at times sad, but nevertheless an important story to tell.

_______

rachelkolmanphoto

Rachel Kolman (Episode 85) received her MFA in fiction from the University of Central Florida. She currently teaches composition at Valencia College and Seminole State College. She’s also a barista at Vespr Coffeebar and can make a mean cup of joe. When she’s not grading papers and drinking coffee, she’s probably watching Netflix and eating Vietnamese food.

Buzzed Books #23: Einstein’s Beach House

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Buzzed Books

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Einstein's Beach House, Jacob M. Appel, Rachel Kolman

Buzzed Books #23 by Rachel Kolman

Einstein’s Beach House by Jacob M. Appel

einsteinsbeachhouse Einstein’s Beach House, Appel’s latest short story collection (and his third publication of 2014), is a quick, fun, clever read.

Appel is a writer who knows how short stories work best. He knows how to hit all of the right notes and how to balance humor with serious emotional engagement. Appel’s diverse background (on top of being a writer, he’s also a physician, attorney, and bioethicist) gives him a rich world of details that provide authenticity to his characters. Each story is a line-up of quirky character habits and genuinely unique conflicts. The opening story, “Hue and Cry,” features two young female pre-teens, who might have slight crushes on each other, spying on the registered sex offender who lives next door. In “La Tristesse Des Herissons,” (which translates to “the sadness of the hedgehogs”) a couple tends to their depressed pet hedgehog while the husband wonders if their marriage is falling apart.

And these quirky stories are great, for a while. However, by the end of the collection (which is only 8 stories, mind you), the consistent, similar beats and voice of every story grows tiresome. There’s not one, but two stories that feature a couple strangely over caring for a pet as if it were a child, and two stories that feature a young daughter being exposed to some aspect of adulthood through a disturbed father. There are also at least four older narrators looking back on some anecdote of their childhood, as is the case in “Einstein’s Beach House” and “Limerence.”

Often, Appel’s tells the readers just exactly what his story is about at the end – essentially, a statement of the story’s theme summed up in one line. In case we missed it, an extra beat to feel the author’s smugness at his own clever nature, after a deeply enjoyable narrative. And the few stories that strayed away from that idea (“The Rod of Asclepius,” for one) were incredibly more enjoyable.

There’s still plenty that Appel is doing right: he aptly explores the way the past influences us, with insights that linger long after the story is finished. “Einstein’s Beach House” and “Limerence” both feature older narrators looking back at some particular incident of their childhood, attempting to figure out what it meant, using the distance to reveal more insight into what could seem on the surface as a meaningless childhood adventure.

The distant narrator looking back works well for these two stories; it doesn’t work, however, for the most intriguing story in the bunch, “The Rod of Asclepius.” This story shows a father and seven-year-old daughter going around to hospital rooms and “injecting” patients. It is later learned that the father is quietly targeting and killing the relatives of doctors, due to a bitterness over his wife’s own death in a malpractice case. It’s an intriguing, complicated storyline, which loses some of the immediate thrill with the distance of the narrator, the seven year old now re-telling this story in her thirties, ironically now a doctor herself. Personally, I’d rather have stayed in the scenes with this young girl who already knows at seven that what her father is doing is wrong. The whole present-day narrative of her now being a doctor steals from the complex internal conflict she faced with at such a young age

Despite this, the idea of facing the past and trying to understand the complex dynamic of relationships is a commendable theme and explored thoroughly and inquisitively in this collection. There’s no doubt Appel’s voice is fresh, contemporary, quirky, and lively. Sure, he might be a bit “one-note,” but lucky for him, it’s a remarkably good note to hit.

_______

rachelkolmanphotoRachel Kolman (Episode 85) received her MFA in fiction from the University of Central Florida. She currently teaches composition at Valencia College and Seminole State College. She’s also a barista at Vespr Coffeebar and can make a mean cup of joe. When she’s not grading papers and drinking coffee, she’s probably watching Netflix and eating Vietnamese food.

Episode 85: Erotic Poetry Night 2

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Erotic Literature, Poetry

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Creative Writing, Episode, Erotic Poetry, Erotic Prose, Jesse Bradley, John King, Michael Pierre, Naomi Butterfield, Rachel Kolman, Susan Lilley, Valentine's Day, Writing Podcast

Episode 85 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week, I present our first live show of the year, from our night of Erotic Poetry, as either a prelude or an antidote to Valentine’s Day, according to taste.

Erotic Poetry Night 2014

NOTES

The Heaven of Animals, the forthcoming collection from friend-of-the-show David James Poissant, is available for pre-order. Please support the launch of his book, which is wonderful reading.

The Heaven of Animals

Episode 85 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

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