July 01, 2009
Be Amazing. Maggie Koerth-Baker with Will Pearson and Mangesh Hattikudur.
It takes a lot of work and imagination to be someone other people want to remember for all time. We’re not talking about eating-a-lot-of-hot-dogs or profiled-by-People-magazine level of awesomeness. We’re talking about being the type of person to the history books for learning to grow meat, becoming a superhero, or ruling with an iron fist.
There are plenty of self-help books out there that teach you about building your self-esteem, but that's nothing compared to learning the secret of time travel (hint: head for the future) or walking on fire (know your physics; ashes make great insulators for your tootsies).
For those who want to become the epitome of awesomeness, “Be Amazing” is for you. Written by contributors to the Mental Floss website, it's a lot like Cecil Adams’ “Straight Dope” books, which combines questions people really want to know the answers to with the research to back it up, plus ample amounts of humor.
For example, to find the mate of your dreams, “Be Amazing” draws on studies of hormonal behavior showing that women prefer very masculine men (considered unfaithful but hot in bed) to have flings with ─ think Christian Bale or Alley Oop ─ but marry men with softer features, considered better at child-rearing and faithful (think Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp).
In addition, the illustrations by Mike Rogalski take the text and put a twisted spin on them ─ such as putting a huge Swiss army knife in the hand of a duelist, dressing a llama in a hazmat suit and dressing Andy Warhol stocking grocery store shelves (with Campbell’s soup, natch) ─ that adds another level of fun.
As a self-help book, it shouldn't be taken seriously (unless you really do want to learn how to drive a tank, or become an American icon). But if you ever need to know how to operate on yourself, build an inland sea, become a ninja or become an American icon, “Be Amazing” will show you how. It may not be easy; it may even be impossible; but it will be amazing.
June 26, 2009
On this day, English writer Malcolm Lowry dies at 47 from an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates. Was it accidental, as the inquest ruled? Or suicide, as his wife, Margerie Bonner, suggested? Or was it something more sinister?
Malcolm Lowry was one of the great drunks of literature, leaving behind a trail of broken promises, broken bottles and broken works. He wrote massive amounts of material during his lifetime, but published only two works, both novels: "
Ultramarine
," written as an undergraduate at Cambridge, and "
Under the Volcano", considered one of the great novels of the 20th century.
Not surprisingly, it was the bottle that loomed largest in his life, and Lowry was violent when he was drunk. In Mexico, where he had set and written most of "Volcano," his behavior led to the dissolution of his first marriage, numerous breakdowns and the threat of deportation. In the United States, he met and married Bonner, a former silent film actress, and settled in a squatter's shack outside Vancouver. There, he found enough serenity to be able to finish his novel.
Published in 1947, "Under the Volcano" was a best-seller in the United States, but after that, Lowry's life quickly unraveled. When the shack was demolished, he and Bonner were forced to move, first to Sicily, then back to England, to the village of Ripe in East Sussex. There were attempts at sobriety, using aversion therapy and hospitalization, but Bonner's drinking — she could match him, glass for glass — encouraged him to revert to routine. He would be violent at times, and during a trip to Italy years before had tried to strangle Bonner twice. His health faltered and although he was working on a novel, the chaos made it difficult for him to create. Worse, Bonner seemed to have formed an attachment to a neighbor, Lord Peter Churchill.
This night, events came to a head. There was drinking, as usual, and an argument, as usual. Bonner later told police that, to stop him drinking, she smashed the gin bottle. He threatened her with the broken shards, and she fled, spending the night at a neighbor's house. When she returned the next morning, she found Lowry on the bedroom floor, dead, amid the debris of broken glass, a splintered furniture and scattered food.
But as Bonner told her story to the police, to friends and to Lowry's relatives, inconsistencies began to crop up. She wrote to friends that Malcolm had repeatedly threatened to commit suicide and that she had found a note, which she had promptly destroyed, a point she never mentioned to the police.
A bottle containing 20 sleeping pills was missing, yet she had taken one that night at her neighbor's house. Two hours after the police had searched the room, she found the missing bottle, in a drawer in the spare bedroom. Lowry's friends were suspicious. They'd seen him with the shakes. The prospect of a drunken, suicidal Lowry able to twist off the cap on a pill bottle, then replacing the cap and hiding the bottle in the next room, seemed too bizarre to be believed.
The truth behind Lowry's death will probably never be known, except maybe to Lowry, who told a psychiatrist that either he was going to kill Bonner, or she was going to kill him.
Born: Bernard Berenson, art critic, Vilnius, Lithuania, Russian Empire, 1865;
Sidney Howard, playwright, screenwriter, Oakland, Calif., 1891;
Pearl S. Buck, novelist, short-story writer, Hillsboro, W.Va., 1892;
Laurie Lee, poet, memoirist, novelist, Slad, Gloucestershire, 1914;
Charlotte Zolotow, children’ s author, Norfolk, Va., 1915;
Colin Wilson, novelist, author, Leicester, Leicestershire, 1931;
Thomas Boyle, novelist, East Stroudsburgh, Penn., 1939.
Died: Peter Rosegger, poet, novelist, Krieglach, Syria, 1918;
Ford Madox Ford (ps. Ford Hermann Hueffer), novelist, editor, critic, Deauville, France, 1939;
Kenneth Fearing, novelist, poet, New York City, 1961.
Quote for the Day: “Dr. Miller says we are pessimistic because life seems like a very bad, very screwed-up film. If you ask ‘What the hell is wrong with the projector?’ and go up to the control room, you find it's empty. You are the projectionist, and you should have been up there all the time.” —
Colin Wilson, author, who was born today in 1931
Also from “Writers 365”:
June 25, 2009
Serving as a model for disaffected youths sure of their brilliance, French poet Charles Baudelaire publishes his first collection, "
Fleurs du Mal." Like a
Marilyn Manson album, "The Flowers of Evil" touches all the bases as it lashes out against society, religion, hypocrisy and praises death, decedence and the erotic. Or, as he put it: "I put my entire soul, my entire heart, my entire religion, my entire hatred into that horrible book."
As a distillation of concentrated evil and sex, "Fleurs du Mal" rivals an
Alice Cooper album. After an introduction that praises Satan and condeming boredom, Baudelaire cuts to the heart of the matter, saying that if you don't love evil, you aren't trying hard enough:
If rape and poison, dagger and burning,
Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs
On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,
It's because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!
After that, you can pick and choose your poison to your heart's content. For gloomy despair, there's
"The Desire for Annihilation":
"Conquered, foundered spirit! For you, old jade,
Love has no more relish, no more than war;
Farewell then, songs of the brass and sighs of the flute!
Pleasure, tempt no more a dark, sullen heart!"
Adorable spring has lost its fragrance!
If you seek the delights of travel, there's the island of
"Lesbos""Where deep-eyed maidens, thoughtlessly disrobing see
Their beauty, and are entranced before their mirrors, and toy
Fondly with the soft fruits of their nubility"
And if it's sex and despair you want, there's
"Metamorphoses of the Vampire":
"My breasts like two ripe fruits for his devouring — both
Shy and voluptuous, insatiable and loath —
Upon this bed that groans and sighs luxuriously
Even the impotent angels would be damned for me!
When she had drained me of my very marrow, and cold
And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss — behold,
There at my side was nothing but a hideous
Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus."
Not surprisingly, "Fleurs du Mal" was a hit, especially after the Second Empire fined the author and his publisher for "an insult to public decency." Several poems were excised in the next edition, including "Lesbos" and "Vampire." These were republished separately in Brussels, perhaps for the tourist trade. Among the banned poems
It would be lovely to say that Baudelaire laughed all the way to the bank, but when it came to disaffected, dissipated poets, he was the real thing. He lived for poetry and the arts, and championed in his journalism for Edouard Manet, Richard Wagner and Eugène Delacroix. His translations of the stories of Edgar Allen Poe boosted his reputation in France, and, in turn, back in America. He also handled money badly, spending when he was flush and begging for help when he wasn't. Inheriting 100,000 francs and several parcels of land 21, he blew through both within a few years. He also drank heavily and indulged in laudanum, both of which probably contributed to his stroke in 1866 that left him a semi-invalid before his death at 46 the next year, leaving his mother to pay off his massive debts.
But "Fleurs du Mal" lives on. Edmund Wilson and T.S. Eliot praised it; H.P. Lovecraft drew upon Baudelaire as inspiration for his short stories; he's been namechecked in "Dragnet," New York Times columnist, and the works of "
Lemony Snicket." He even gave his mother, who he loved passionately, some consolation over her boy who died too young: "I see that my son, for all his faults, has his place in literature."
Born today: John Horne Tooke, philologist, essayist, politician, London, 1736;
Rose Cecil O'Neill, author, illustrator, Kewpie Doll creator, Wilkes-Barre, Penn., 1874;
George Abbot, playwright, director, memoirist, Forestville, N.Y., 1887;
V.F. Calverton (ps. George Goetz), editor, author, Baltimore, Md., 1900;
George Orwell (ps. Eric Arthur Blair), novelist, essayist, critic, Motihari, India, 1903;
Dorothy Gilman, mystery novelist, New Brunswick, N.J., 1923;
Eric Carle, children's author, Syracuse, N.Y., 1929;
Anthony Bourdain, chef, author, New York City, 1956;
Yann Martel, novelist, Salamanca, Spain, 1963.
Died: E(rnst) T(heodor) W(ilhelm) Hoffmann, author, composer, artist, Berlin, Prussia, 1822;
Johnny Mercer, songwriter, Bel Air, Calif., 1976.
Quote for the Day: "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent." —
George Orwell, who was born today in 1903
June 23, 2009
Here’s how to write a nonfiction book. First, you gather your materials.
A bookcase full of author biographies and collections of anecdotes.
Two drawers of file folders containing material gathered over last ten years.
A hard drive stuffed with nearly 2,000 files: notes from books, snippets from other sources, articles downloaded off the Internet.
Out of this has to be boiled down to a 60,000-word manuscript, due by November 15.
OK. Deep breath. Don’t panic. Take it one day at a time. Or as Annie Lamont says, “Bird by Bird.” I can do this. I’ve got an office under the basement stairs, a computer with cable Internet, and iTunes packed with music.
Let’s rock.
For the next five months, I’ll describe the process of writing “Writers Gone Wild.” It’ll probably be rough and unpleasant, but it might shed some light on the creative process, messy and disjointed as it is, its highs and lows.
This series of posts will focus almost entirely on my side of the desk. My editor and agent will remain anonymous, and will be rarely mentioned. I don’t wish to make them uncomfortable, wondering if anything they say or write to me will appear online. So I’m drawing a bright line: they will not appear.
So here’s what’s happening today, June 23:
At this point, the manuscript is at about 13,000 words, nearly 25 percent. I’m behind for the week and it’s only Tuesday. Wrote two brief essays for the web site yesterday and gathered notes from O’Hara biography because the book had to go back to the library (interliberary loans can only be checked out once; sudden inspiration, I can check it out in my wife’s name. We both have separate cards!). Must remember.
In addition to this week’s essays, there are other tasks to be performed. The book will need a bibliography, so I need to build it as I’m writing. There are a ton of sources: books, newspaper articles, online material. All to be carefully delineated: title, author, publisher, copyright date, link. Possibly 600+ sources, easily.
In addition, there are corrections and comments from the Editor to be reviewed and integrated into the manuscript. To keep ahead of the curve, I’m sending in sections of the manuscript as they are finished. This lets me get early feedback to follow while writing later sections of the book.
One slight problem: Publisher uses previous edition of Word; I use Word 2007. We also need to keep track of the changes. So I’ll have the Master Manuscript, and the section I’m working on. I’ve never worked with Word before, so I’m feeling uncomfortable about this. Fortunately, I have a great reference, “Using Microsoft Office Word 2007,” and I have people to ask for help should I need it.
I’m probably worrying too much, but there’s plenty to be worried about. I need to keep up the pace, keep up the quality, keep track of everything and get it done on time. And I know that that’s what depressive personalities do: worry.
Then there’s real life. Today, I must finish up early, so we can take the kids to Hersheypark this afternoon. Fortunately, I’m off tomorrow from work, and go in late on Thursday and Friday. Plenty of time to catch up. That’s another good thing about depressives: when I’m confident about something, I’m
really confident!
Never one to let a good deed go unpunished, Jean Jacques Rousseau writes a letter on this day to Scottish philosopher David Hume, accusing him of conspiring to dishonour him.
It was his characteristic way of saying thank you to those who helped him. When Rousseau's notorious publications attacking the ancien regime and religion made France and Switzerland too hot for him, Hume was asked to find a home for the writer in England. Hume, his works ignored in England and Scotland, had found a home for a time in Paris, where he was known as "le bon David." So he was inclined to help Rousseau, who had vigorously praised Hume: "Your great views, your astonishing impartiality, your genius, would lift you far above the rest of mankind, if you were less attached to them by the goodness of your heart.”
Baron D'Holbach, tried to warn Hume: "you don't know your man. I will tell you plainly, you're warming a viper in your bosom." But Rousseau considered him an enemy, and Hume paid him no mind.
Six months later, Hume had to agree with the baron. Rousseau hated living in London. He wanted to live in the country, where he could pursue his interest in botany and continue writing his "Confessions." So he was moved again, first to Chiswick, then in March to a country house in Staffordshire.
But along the way, he began to suspect a plot against him. His letters were being read. His papers were in danger of being seized. The pressure increased until it burst in his letter to Hume, where he accused "le bon David" of being behind the plot: "You brought me to England, apparently to procure a refuge for me, and in reality to dishonour me. You applied yourself to this noble endeavour with a zeal worthy of your heart and with an art worthy of your talents."
Hume was shocked. He feared for his reputation. Rousseau's pen could wreck his good name, and the news of the feud was already spreading by letter and salon throughout the intelligensia of two nations. Could Hume risk not responding to the charges while Rousseau was already calling Hume "noir, black, and a coquin, knave." He wrote back demanding that Rousseau put up or shut up. What proof did he have?
This proved a mistake. While Hume was a man from the Age of Reason, Rousseau relied on emotions and feelings, bending the facts to fulfill his preconceived notions. He fired back with a long, blistering letter, written with a novelist's eye for drama, overwhelming with emotion but playing fast and loose with the facts. For example, as evidence of a plot, Rousseau wrote that he had heard Hume mutter in his sleep "Je tiens JJ Rousseau" ─ "I have JJ Rousseau."
Not a night passes but I think I hear, I have you JJ Rousseau ring in my ears, as if he had just pronounced them. Yes, Mr Hume, you have me, I know, but only by those things that are external to me ... You have me by my reputation, and perhaps my security ... Yes, Mr Hume, you have me by all the ties of this life, but you do not have me by my virtue or my courage."
Hume tried to respond effectively in an essay, "Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr. Hume and Mr. Rousseau," but this added fuel to the flame war. Everyone piled on, either drawn in by the charges (such as King George III and whether or not he promised Rousseau a royal pension), or the enemies of Hume or Rousseau who saw it as an opportunity for payback. Anonymous letters appeared in the press, blasting Rousseau for his lack of gratitude, while Hume was roasted for his perceived lack of hospitality and respect for the eminent philosopher.
But was Rousseau wrong to suspect Hume? In "Rousseau's Dog," from which much of this account was taken, David Edmonds and John Eidinow make the case that Hume, his best work behind him and jealous of Rousseau's popularity, was not quite a pure of reason as he claimed. He had his friends in France investigate Rousseau's finances to see if he was as poor as he claimed. He may even have contributed to the notorious "King of Prussia" letter that Hugh Walpole circulated. This satirical letter, purporting to be from the King to Rousseau, promised sanctuary, saying "If you want new misfortunes, I am a king and can make you as miserable as you can wish." While claiming not to know anything about the letter, history shows that he was present at two dinners where Walpole read his satire at the table.
Eventually, the wildfire of talk burned itself out, leaving both men personally exhausted but their reputations intact. Rousseau returned to France, having found another protector, and Hume was left to reflect on the controversy. One wonders if he recalled a prescient line from his "Concise Account."
"Quarrels among men of letters," he wrote, "are a scandal to philosophy."
Born: Typewriter patented, 1868;
Irvin S. Cobb, humorist, journalist, Paducah, Ky., 1876;
Anna Akhmatova (ps. Anna Gorenko), poet, near Odessa, Russia, 1889;
Jean Anouilh, playwright, Bordeaux, France, 1910;
Theodore Taylor, novelist, Statesville, N.C., 1921;
Richard Bach, author, aviator, Oak Park, Ill., 1936;
David Leavitt, novelist, short-story writer, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1961;
Miss Piggy, self-help author, star.
Died: William Kirby, historical novelist, Niagara, Ontario, 1906;
Michael Arlen, novelist, short-story writer, New York City, 1956;
Boris Vian, novelist, playwright, Paris, 1959;
Shana Alexander, journalist, author, Hermosa Beach, Calif., 2005.
Quote for the Day: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.” —
Miss Piggy, best-selling self-help author, who was born today in YEAR
Also from “Writers 365”:
June 22, 2009
As part of a dreary week at a rented villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the guests, including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley, decided to pass the time writing supernatural stories. Byron and Shelley, experienced writers, immediately got to work, while Mary grew frustrated at her inability to find a suitable idea.
The night before, Byron and Percy Shelley spent the evening discussing Madame de Stael’s “De l’Allemagne,” particularly the section that discussed “whether the principle of life could be discovered and whether scientists could galvanize a corpse of manufactured humanoid.”
That night, inspiration struck Mary. In what she called “a waking nightmare,” this is what she saw:
“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life...His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away...hope that...this thing...would subside into dead matter...he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains...”
Mary had found her story, and she began writing what would become chapter 4 of “Frankenstein.” The beginning of the year 1818 would see the publication of her novel, and the debut of a new type of monster, one created not by the supernatural, but by science.
Born: Guissepe Mazzini, patriot, diarist, essayist, Genoa, (Italy), 1805;
Margaret Sidney (ps. Harriet Lothrop), children’s author, New Haven, Conn., 1844;
H(enry) Rider Haggard, novelist, Norfolk, Bradenham, 1856;
Julian Huxley, biologist, philosopher, educator, author, London, 1887;
Erich Maria Remarque, novelist, Osnabrück, Germany, 1898;
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author, Englewood, N.J., 1906;
Billy Wilder, screenwriter, director, Vienna, Austria, 1906;
Octavia E. Butler, sci-fi novelist, Pasadena, Calif., 1947.
Died: Catherine Macaulay, historian, Binfield, Berkshire, 1791;
Ángel Saavedra, poet, playwright, politician, Madrid, 1865;
Walter de la Mare, poet, novelist, anthologist, Twickenham, Middlesex, 1956;
M.F.K. Fisher, food author, Glen Ellen, Calif., 1992.
Quote for the Day: “Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” —
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author, who was born today in 1906
Also from “Writers 365”:
June 16, 2009
Translated, that means I've had a full day writing entries for "Writers Gone Wild," and I'm off to make dinner (on my days off, I cook for the family). Three essays about Daniel DeFoe going to the pillory, Edith Wharton meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dashiell Hammett going to prison for refusing to testify during the Red Scare. About a thousand words, which is very, very good.
I did have a disappointing walk, though. Every afternoon, I go out and stretch my legs, and while I take my notebook along for sudden inspirations, I didn't take my camera. "Why bother?" I think to myself. "I've done this walk a number of times and never see anything interesting."
It's a bad habit to get into, if you're like me and want to record interesting things. Essentially, I didn't listen to myself, and I KNOW that I should.
This time, walking in front of the Hershey factory, on the long, freshly-mowed sward of grass, I saw Canadian geese.
No big deal, that. We have a pond about a half-mile away, in front of the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center, and they congregate there all the time. So why wouldn't they come here?
Except this time, a good dozen of them were sitting on the ground. Not walk around, but hunkered down, in formation. A flying V of Canadian geese.
They looked like they were swimming on the grass.
And me, without my camera.
I'm an idiot.
A few tabs, now:
Megan Fox, Hotter: CGI,
is there anything it can't do?
Die, Star Trek fans, Die! And when you do,
Get buried in this Star Trek coffin.
Back to the '80s: I was a big fan of Frank Miller/Bill Sienkiewicz's "Electra" books back in the day, so this
riff on the "Flashdance" album cover made me grin.
More Austen Zombies: I liked "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" better than I would thought. It cut Jane Austen's prose, making it much more readable, and I admired the way the author tried to weave the two stories together (although the artwork sucked). Now, in the tradition of "Da Vinci Code,"
they're publishing the Deluxe Heirloom Edition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, with redone artwork. Really, how difficult could it be to take public domain art and refashion it?
Dustbury lays it out: Women and the multiplier effect.
Fans of James Joyce gather in Dublin and other places to celebrate the most famous handjob in literature. I'm not talking about "Ulysses," in which Leopold Bloom's odyssey around Dublin is set on this day, but Joyce's first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle, a chambermaid he picked up on the street.
As he recounted later in a letter to her, the couple took a walk, and at Ringsend, a small park near the harbor, she "slid your hand down inside my trousers and pulled my shirt softly aside and touched my price with your long tickling fingers and gradually took it all, fat and stiff as it was, into your hand and frigged me slowly until I came off through your fingers, all the time bending over and gazing at me out of your quiet saintlike eyes."
That Joyce would assign the date to his now-classic novel is only one example of his risque sense of humor. When a female fan asked if she could kiss the hand that wrote “Ulysses,” he replied, “No. It did lots of other things, too.”
Also on this day in literary history:
1936: Dorothy Parker awoke to find her husband, screenwriter and drunk Alan Campbell, dead beside her. Later, when someone asked what she could do for her, Parker said, "Get me a new husband." When another visitor accused her of being sensitive, Parker apologized and added, "You can go to the deli and get me a sandwich."
1952: Anne Frank's "Diary of a Young Girl" is published in the United States.
Born today: John Howard Griffin, author, photojournalist, Dallas, Tex., 1920;
Katherine Graham, newspaper publisher, New York City, 1917;
Erich Segal, novelist, professor, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1937;
Joyce Carol Oates, novelist, short story writer, Lockport, N.Y., 1938;
Torgny Lindgren, author, poet, playwright, Vasterbotten, Sweden, 1938.
Died: John Ballantyne, publisher, literary agent, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1821;
Duboise Heyward, novelist, playwright, poet, Tryon, N.C., 1940.
Quote for the Day: “When you're 50, you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity — but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.” —
Joyce Carol Oates, prolific writer, who was born today in 1938
Also from “Writers 365”:
