feeling like the underdog

In honor of my birthday, I'm posting a rant that I wrote in early February, 2007...

Dear Lizzie B.,

You fuckin' pissed me off tonight.

When I first saw you many months ago, I thought you were amazing! So accomplished! So articulate! So well read! So beautiful! And you play on my team! Welcome aboard!

But your maneuver of the celebrity-author-handler equivalent of cock-blocking was inexcusable. You seemed so incredibly phony and unlikable when I was initiating a conversation with S-L P as I was reflecting on her previous visit to Powell's reading from her not-a-play novel, complete with guitar and accompanying songs. You whisked her away while I was in mid-sentence, completely disregarding that my conversation with her mattered a great deal to me and might have even mattered to her, as well. All the while, you smiled that fakey pasted on grin, decked out in your white wool coat, trying to look pure, pristine and untouchable. I don't really admire you anymore, for the record. I don't care if you're so young to be holding such a prestigious position in the Portland cultural scene. I don't care if you've published your writing in literary journals. I don't care if I'm the only one who doesn't think you're no longer all that great.

Signed,
bk

and, at the same time,

Dear S-L P,

I wanted to talk to you tonight. I really did. But I was feeling shy and unworthy of attending a reception in your honor in a fancy-pants post office lobby with supersized portraits of Dubya and Dick looking down on me while I consume the complimentary chocolate chip cookies not-from-a-box and wine that doesn't suck at all.

And it's not that I really had anything that compelling to say to you or any burning question about what it's like to be a writer or how did it feel to win a Pulitzer Prize or - wow - what was is like to take a writing class from James Baldwin? I just wanted you to keep talking.

And I don't even fully understand why you couldn't keep talking as long as you were on the stage and the people were listening and enjoying themselves. I mean, what was up with them flashing that blue light at you, trying to hurry you up? Hurry up for what??? It's not as though there would be a late night cabaret or anything and they needed to make way for that. You were happy talking to us and we were happy listening to you talk to us and answer random questions, even ones from young and naive writers-to-be who are seeking a panacea for writer's block.

So what would have happened if you had ignored the blue light and just kept on talking? Perhaps it could have been the literary equivalent to the old Portland story about Prince showing up at the Roseland theatre at the conclusion of some show or another and then playing until 2am. Were the blue-light blinkers telling him 'no'? Of course they weren't.

At the beginning of the lecture, when you were introduced by mean-lady-who-shall-not-be-named, we learned that you entertain even your most far-out ideas and breathe life into them to see what they hold. Would it have been such a far-out idea to just keep talking?

Perhaps the reception at the funky post office had a limitation on the hours permissible for using that space? After all, it is a government facility and there were two bonafide police officers guarding the chocolate chip cookies. And I would have been perfectly content listening to you talk at the reception but, the young man in the hat (who I gather is the aspiring writer with writer's block) seemed to have a great deal to discuss with you.

And by the time we were close enough to say hello, mean-lady-who-shall-not-be-named caught the eye of my friend, Kara, who works with her. Kara had just been talking about how mean-lady is kinda icy and phoney. But I was able to squeeze in a friendly hello and you so warmly returned my greeting. What I was starting to say, before you were so rudely whisked away in the middle of my sentence, was just that I thoroughly enjoyed your lecture /songs/personable book-signing event at Powell's some time ago and your warmth and clear interest in the individuals in your captive audience were so impactful - I have such fond memories of that event.

Here is, in particular, what I wanted to say to you about that event: The way you read your characters from your book and then pulled out your guitar and sang songs from the book and then every single person in that audience obediently nabbed a copy of your novel and stood in line for a moment of your time and perhaps a signature in their new book. The fact that you spent time actually saying hello and speaking to every single person in that line was so kind and generous - I'm certain that I'm not the only one who looks back fondly on that reading for that exact same reason. I left that reading feeling really fantastic.I couldn't believe that, while signing our books, you asked us questions about ourselves - that you seemed to care who we were as individuals. I appreciated that.

And that, even though tonight's event was much larger and less intimate, your warmth, humor and approachability still emanated through your anecdotes and reflections.

That was really all. I know it wasn't important or insightful or brilliant, but I just wanted to express my appreciation. You're a wonderful artist and storyteller and a beautiful woman - inside and out. Please continue to visit Portland regularly!

With warmth and admiration,
bk

Ya Gotta Have Style

It was my first term of graduate school and I’m working on a research paper and want to do it up right. I learn that my program requires the use of the APA (American Psychological Association) Style Manual, rather than the MLA (Modern Language Association) Style Manual, which is what I used as an undergrad and in my previous grad program.

While I try to wrestle with my confusion as to why the librarians would use the APA over the MLA, I make peace with the fact that it doesn’t make sense to me and that the bottom line is that I need to get myself a new style manual. Stat!

As it turns out, J owns a copy of the APA Style Manual, but it’s an older edition and does not address how to cite web articles in my bibliography, so I decide to purchase a new style manual altogether. I recall that I have a gift certificate for Borders, so I head there instead of my usual stomping grounds, Powell’s Books. And, besides, I’ve always had some respect for the Borders.

Allow me to digress…

At the onset of my final year as an undergraduate, a new Borders store was about to open in Portland and my friend, David, and I decided that it was time to ditch restaurant work altogether and use our noodles helping people decide what to read! We were literary! We were smart! Together, we chose to attend the Borders Job (un)Fair.

After receiving a stamp of approval from our first round of interviews, both David and I were corralled into an area where we were administered a super fun test (which I understand Borders no longer uses in hiring). We had to tackle several literature-related questions (“Who wrote 1984?” “Name a novel written by Virginia Woolf,” etc.) as well as several questions about where to locate certain types of things in the bookstore (such as Feng Shui and I.M. Pei). For a geek like me, this was CANDY!!

During my second round of interviews, I was told by Shane, who was going to be the Café Manager, that I obtained a perfect score on the test (Yay! I’m gonna work in a bookstore! I’m gonna work in a bookstore!). After our first two interviews and testing, both David and I were advanced to meet with the General Manager of the store-to-be and were interviewed briefly by her. We both left the job fair with the impression that we’d be hearing from Borders soon. We were going to work in a bookstore together and, because we were also roommates, we’d carpool to our bookstore jobs!

We were going to fight illiteracy and save the environment! Together!

But then David was offered a job and all I got was a form letter, but it wasn’t even a letter – it was a post card, so a form post card telling me that there were many fine applicants and it was so hard to decide and blahblahblah I wasn’t one of ‘em. I was crushed. Absolutely crushed. Since I’d done so well on the test they’d administered at the job fair, I could only conclude that something had gone very very wrong. That something was very wrong with me.

Some time after this horrible blow to my ego, I learned through my spy, David, as well as through another friend I later realized knew the GM of that store, that this particular Borders was only looking to hire full-time employees – no part-timers allowed here. Although there was some relief in learning this, I still found it enormously ironic that what prevented me from getting a job at the bookstore was my status as a full-time student – majoring in English – at the local university. I then somehow arrived at the conclusion that if I couldn’t get a job at the Borders and I clearly knew a lot about books, then the folks who did get the jobs must be even smarter and more knowledgeable about books than I.

So, about that style manual.

Not wanting to be distracted by things I didn’t know I wanted, I head straight to the information desk of the Borders store, gift certificate in hand. This is not my typical modus operandi, as I am typically rather reluctant to request help finding something until I have exhausted my own possibilities within the search. I enjoy the search and appreciate serendipitously stumbling upon things I didn’t even know existed and wouldn’t have learned about if I always let other people find stuff for me. A young, intelligent-looking fellow seemed eager to assist me.

“I need to find the most recent printing of the APA Style Manual, please,” I tell the clerk. I know it’s likely somewhere in the reference section, but if I go at it myself, I’ll go home with an armload of dictionaries and books about writing that I have no time to devour.

“Hmmmmm,” the clerk looks super-perplexed and I do my best to be patient with him as he taps away on his computer. Since the APA manual is so commonly used and this particular Borders is within walking distance of a university, I’m surprised they don’t have a surplus stack under the counter, that these things aren’t flying out the door. I can’t figure out what is taking a seemingly inordinate amount of time to locate the APA Style Manual and, after a few minutes and resisting the urge to tap on the counter with my fingers, I jump to (what seems to me) the only logical conclusion for his apparent confusion.

“Are you out of stock?”

“Well, no,” he responds, looking more bewildered than ever, “We have an APA Style Manual, but I’m afraid it has nothing to do with fashion.”

“Well I should hope not!!!” I can barely contain my laughter at this point. Particularly considering what I was wearing (cargo shorts and a tank top, with old Jack Purcell’s)! Poor guy thought I wanted the most recent update of that kind of style manual!

Space. The final frontier. To boldly go where no man has gone before and should never go again...

To the pregnant, balding man wearing an orange fleece vest at the Adrienne Rich reading on 20 March, 2006:

Do you have any idea how much space you consume? Your heavy breathing should be reserved for your more intimate moments and your overly audible "Hmmmmmm," "Mmmmmmm," "Oh," "Yeah," and "Wow" at the conclusion of each and every poem read aloud by Ms. Rich does not need to be heard by the person three rows back and five people over. Do you have any idea how intrusive it is to be so very vocal when you are in a crowd of mostly women listening quietly? Were you feeling dwarfed by the 15:1 ratio of women to men in the audience? Did it make you uncomfortable to be in the minority? Did you feel threatened? Were you wanting others to view you as a "sensitive man" and perceive you as one who is identifying with the works being read? Because I can assure you that your bodily outbursts painted you as something quite the opposite: Ironically, the precise patriarchal form that the uber-feminist Rich personifies in her prose. If you really stand behind what Rich proclaims, please, do so with respect to your fellow feminists and think twice about what you emit from your body and how far it travels; then consider whether or not those around you likely wish to share in these emissions.