Thursday, May 14, 2009

"There Is A Near-Hysterical New Beat In The Air"

This afternoon, I was looking for a story collection called Nelson Algren's Book of Lonesome Monsters: 13 Masterpieces of Black Humor. My dad suggested I look at our anthology bookcase. (Yes, our bookcases are full, genre-designated, and replace what are known in other people's apartments as "walls.") I grew up walking past the bookcase dedicated solely to my dad's books and plays every day, meaning a) I only recently learned God does not live in a steambath off-broadway, and b) I wound up asking my father, Daddy, what's a "dick?" at age 5. But there was just one mysterious book on those BJF shelves that I never once inquired about: Black Humor, a collection of essays by Joe Heller, Nabokov, Edward Albee, and Thomas Pynchon (among others) he edited in 1965. Recently, whenever I'm working on my book, the title keeps haunting me. Judging by these excerpts from my dad's introduction, I now know why:

"There is a new mutative style of behavior afoot, one that can only be dealt with by a new, one-foot-in-the-asylum style of fiction."

"If you are doing anything as high-minded as examining society, the very best way to go about it is by examining first its throwaways, the ones who can't or won't keep in step...Perhaps 'bad' behavior of a certain kind is better than 'good' behavior."

"The novel is the proper place to open every door, to ask the final questions, turn over the last rock, to take a preposterous world by the throat and say okay, be preposterous, but also make damned sure you explain yourself."

"If you are alive today, and stick your head out of doors now and then, you know that there is a nervousness, a tempo, a near-hysterical new beat in the air, a punishing isolation and loneliness of a strange, frenzied new kind."

"The Black Humorist is a kind of literary Paul Revere, a fellow who unfreezes his mind, if only for a moment, and says, 'For Christ's sake, what in hell is going on here?'"

"There is a fading line between fantasy and reality, a very fading line, a goddamned, almost invisible line."

BJF wrote this in the 60s–over forty years ago. But somehow this "near-hysterical beat in the air," the need to confront a preposterous world, and rising prominence of "society's throwaways" is eerily relevant today. Despite lacing his definition of the then-emerging genre with such ominous, esoteric themes, he ultimately noted that "the effective social critics are working through humor." And then I had a kicker for my book's elevator pitch: a black humor renaissance.

"There is an awful lot of questioning these days, some of it despairing, bleary-eyed, bedazzled, some of it young, vigorous, outrageous. And a group of novelists, very often working obliquely, coming at you from somewhere in left field, throwing you some laughs to get you to lower your guard [will] follow every labyrinthian corridor to its source."
~Dad, 1965

Somewhat related is the fact that, while eye-ing our anthologies, I spotted a tiny red paperback called The Rascal's Guide: Naughty Women and How to Tame Them, with my father's name barefaced in bold-face on the spine. This odd collection was his very first Editor credit, published in 1959, making him just four years older than me at the time. Among the story titles:

"What to Do When the Lady Is a Tease"
"How to Be Unfaithful"
"Southern Girls–Lousy Lovers?"
"Secrets of a New York Free-Loader"
"The Grande Olde Sport of Girl-Tickling"
"How to Lush It Up and Influence People"
"Making It on Madison Avenue"
"A Tip for Rogues: The Wildest Party in the World"
"How to Be a Damned Fool at a Convention"

Then I remembered the time my dad disliked one ex-boyfriend because he used the word "awesome" twice over dinner. When he disliked another because he had never "shown much interest" in my dad's books. Another because he "just seemed too calm."

The point? My elevator pitch may fail. My first manuscript may wind up in several recycling bins, stained several times by several manicured D-girls' red polish. Ideally, Knopf will publish it, commission a glossy Chip Kidd-designed cover, and feature it prominently in every Barnes & Noble across the country. But someone like my father was first published in the form of a 35¢ cringe-inducing cad's guide, earning the most laughs not from a reader, but fifty years later when his daughter recites its chapter titles back to him. But then? He went ahead and canonized Black Humor, instantly earning himself a spot in every index of every book dedicated to the genre written after his own.

I'd love the Kidd/Knopf treatment, for Sam Tanenhaus to deem me a post-millenial McInerney detached from D words, a movie option sale pre-publication from Weinstein...the works. But knowing I could pull a Rascal on the first at-bat, then "obliquely" hit a Black Humor on the next swing? These last forty pages I've bent my brainstorm-heavy head over suddenly feel less like labor, and more like that last rock my dad insisted should be turned over without fear.

Friday, May 1, 2009

My Watch Is Exactly Two Days Slow.

I like to hyperbolize springtime, even before it arrives. But all that embellished anticipation never disappoints. The trees turn pink, we suddenly can't find our jackets, and the deep end of this chaotic city is now an unrestricted area. I recently decided not to wade on over, but dive right in. To start making money again, to take risks in love, to demolish so many follies I'd created mid-winter. I'm even writing my book again, and this time I know why I'm writing it in the first place. More on all these adventures and misadventures soon, but in the meantime, a nostalgic quote-plus-photo post.

I may or may not be appearing in a groundbreaking documentary, shot in the very best of mumblecore style. Above is a still from my five-hour interview.

"Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it–don't cheat with it."
~Hemingway

"It's not men who limit women. What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don't have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it."
~Tom Robbins

"Where's your will to be weird?"
~Jim Morrison

"The Edge...there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."
~Hunter S. Thompson

This is a photo of my mother around my age. I recently interviewed her on camera and asked her what was going on in her life, in her head, in this photo, at the time. She kept trying to explain it all to me, but in the end, told me it didn't matter. She was now here, and all that was now there.

"I'm a romantic; a sentimental person thinks things will last, a romantic person hopes against hope that they won't."
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

"Linguistic Fuego"

A Manhattan Fairy Tale

Scene I: "Once Upon A Whirl"
Characters: BEV REY (pr. BEV-ray), blonde female, athletic and flirty, tan cleavage; MOLL FRIE (pr. MAWL-free), brunette female, lean and jaded, long legs.

Set: NEW YORK CITY, 2009.
Dir. Notes: TEXT EXCERPTED FROM BLACKBERRY MESSENGER; Until Scene II ("The Ballad of Bevs 'n Molls"), characters are synonymous (GIRL ONE and GIRL TWO).

GIRL ONE:
I hope I don't fall out my window.

GIRL TWO:
Why would you fall out of your window?

GIRL ONE:
If you compel me to write the letters LOL on my Blackberry, you'll need to cab it to Gansevoort and scoop me up quickly before they turn me into a Tory Burch store.

GIRL TWO:
You've officially just forced me to L O far too L for my Blackberry to forgive. I've just fallen right out my window to the gutters of Chelsea. Please retrieve me before I become a pair of American Apparel tightie-bluesies about to make my debut as part of "Matt's-A-Dame-On (West-25th St.)"'s 11pm show.

GIRL ONE:
I am the saddest girl to ever hold a martini.

GIRL TWO:
Poor pretty young thing, you. No black Amex, no Bea, a belly full of Thai food. Those kids in Darfur don't KNOW from misery.

GIRL ONE:
He wants to come pick me up in the city and have another go-round. I told him my chin was still erupting.

GIRL TWO:
I think you need to plug that tub. Mine is a verklempt gent and sweet as Suge Knight.

GIRL ONE:
My chin, though. I've tried excess moisturizing, scrubs, acidic sprays...

GIRL TWO:
It still looks like someone cast it as the lead prop in Meth Face Returns.

GIRL ONE:
At least it makes the marquee.

GIRL TWO:
My vodka is yum. I just toothpasted my face. How sweet-sixteeny bop. I set my alarm for midnight to alert myself that this Proactiv Info-Star Understudy should put down the substances and sleep like beauty.

GIRL ONE:
Please don't be your incredible whirl of a girl self right now. I've got a cheek full of red sitting on a crisp white bedspread.

GIRL TWO:
Fate Says Holla Back Bevs: my wit balloon just popped. Coincidentally, just as my vodka headache commenced.

GIRL ONE:
I just started choking. I miss cute things, like dads and blankets. I want Nyquil.

GIRL TWO:
We live in New York. Nyquil never sleeps, dear.

GIRL ONE:
You're kind of on linguistic fuego this eve.

GIRL TWO:
I'm kind of in love with you.


Scene II: "The Ballad of Bevs 'n Molls"

Set: Two corporate offices, one uptown and one downtown. Both BEV REY and MOLL FRIE sit near large windows in private key-required cubes as springtime-esque weather provides the only source of cinematic color to otherwise monochromatic atmospheres.
Dir. Notes: TEXT EXCERPTED FROM FACEBOOK WALLS.

MOLL FRIE:
At approximately 2:02pm, debaucherous sneaker whore Bev Rey was overheard screaming, “I belong on a tour bus four months out of the year!” Somewhere high above Manhattan, Moll Frie, an eccentrically-monikered muppet, jotted down a note: “By the time I finish writing this, I will have fallen asleep in my risotto.”

BEV REY:
Moll awoke to find a furry creature dragging her across the newly appointed Archbishop's annexed section of Fifth Avenue, leading her towards a black van with the letters "D.E.A." scrawled on its SVU-But-No-Thank-You-esque apparatus in heartbreakingly hacked hues of J. Crew Ecru. For no apparent reason, the muppet looked up at the badge-appointed mutt with a sly smile, winked, and finally cooed, "I wasn't aware there was a Dior.Escada.Armani trunk show today."

[Pause as planet proceeds spinning.]

What are you actually doing?

MOLL FRIE:
I’m exchanging pleasantries with the guard dog in our lobby. You?

BEV REY:
I’m wrapping band-aids shaped like cupcakes around my fingers. I need a work flask.

MOLL FRIE:
"Excuse me, where do you keep your work flasks?"
"Ah, Aisle 7, alongside the other inordinate items designed for alcoholics."

BEV REY:
If I were a dog, I would play dead. Not fetch nor play.

MOLL FRIE:
Before leaving the office, Bev tapped her boss on the nose and transformed him into a happy meal, then asked the receptionist if she had any new messages. “The scrapes on your fingers are imaginary,” she replied. Bev considered this, and then wondered aloud "whosoeth knows whether anyone has ever had sex in the city of Portland before?” Moll gazed through her never-ending set of eyelashes at the mutt, once an orphaned APSCA pup now playing the role of Narconsense Wonder-Dog, and asked him why he looked so sad. “My foot. It sleeps,” said the furball, and Moll kindly corrected his carnal syntax.


Scene III: "Fireworks"

Set: Manhattan's post-millenial, Recessionist zeitgeist, as depicted with Depression-reminiscent, yellowing newspaper headlines. Script entirely VO over B-roll.

BEV REY:
NY Post's "Page Six" Column, Apr. 16th, 2009:
Friends and downtown debacles Moll Frie and Bev Rey found themselves shackled together for sidestepping The Law circa the "wee hours" of their collectively vintage and nostalgic vision of New York City when it never slept. Rey, the duo's doyenne, looked at her muppet and said, "Hi, babe. Did they find you in aisle 7?" Frie, the frisky ephemera of minds lost and laughing, nodded in the affirmative, then spoke of risotto, bestial dialogue, and the importance of always employing the vernacular. Before Frie could Rey about her night, lighter fluid and Metrocards fell from her pockets.
"Fireworks," Rey giggled.

MOLL FRIE:
Shizzle yo, gimme summadat Bucayne and a Metrocard? Bitch be happy as a mollfrey in an oprey, jigga wut. Check this fo' you wreck...

[Changes dialect from young, urban male to conservative, white lawkeeper.]

New York County Residents Be Advised:
NYPD Relinquish Myriad Policepeople On Quest To Capture And Straitjacket One Miss Bev Rey (Known Alias: "Debaucherous Sneaker Whore"), And Miss Moll Frie (Known Alias: "Eccentrically-Monikered Muppet") Across All Five Boros. BR Last Seen Procreating In Portland, Oregon; MF Last Seen Skipping Down Horatio With K-9 Unit. All Squadronauts On Fluorescent Alert. Over, Outsies.


Wednesday, April 1, 2009

"You Make Every Day Feel Like Kindergarten."

I took a Facebook Quiz today. It was called, "Which Crazy Bitch Are You?"

I'd taken two already. First, Facebook told me that Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" was the song that illustrated my life. Then Facebook told me that I should be living in Seattle. Anyone who really knows me (all three of you?) knows that any song with the chorus, "I'm still standing, yeah yeah yeah" has nothing to do with me. Twelve years of ballet did little to perfect my posture, I spend most of my time in repose, and the rare moments I do stand up, I'm usually akimbo. I don't think I've ever said "yeah" three times in a row, ever. "No, no, no," maybe.

As for Seattle, aside from spending four years at Southampton Intermediate in a permanent sartorial state of Kurt Cobain-esque cargo pants and flannel button-downs, searching for someone to be my Heart-Shaped Box and convincing myself that maybe I'm Dumb, the dreary epicenter of grunge never fully enticed me.

Third time? The charm. As it turns out:

Molly completed the quiz 'Which Crazy Bitch Are You?' with the result Mallory Knox.

"Sweet when you want to be but tough as nails when you need to be. You are disgusted by humanity and are not afraid to make them pay. You want revenge. You want infamy. Even if it means getting your hands dirty. You do have a sweet side and a fondness for unruly, angry, psycho badboy prince charming types. You would do anything for true love."

So let's call a truce, Facebook. Go ahead and clog my home page with all the mind-numbing status updates from "friends" telling me how "way-sted" they are, which "honey pot" my ex-boyfriend's index finger is currently "fingerbanging," and what exactly some girl I haven't seen in 10 years is wearing at 6am ("a t-shirt and jeans!!*!"). Now that you've outed my Mallory esprit de corps, I forgive you.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

"Meet Me At The Playground. Let's See How Far We Can Run." ~Sia

Last night I found myself walking up Fifth Avenue with an old friend. I wasn't wearing tights, my hair was in a ponytail, and I spent most of the walk smiling. We were walking in that part of the 60s where getting inside Central Park means climbing over very tall rusty gates. The last time I'd spent a springtime evening in Central Park, I wound up thrusting my body against one of the Met's glass walls, barefoot, arms outstretched, in an effort to "hug the museum." But that was an April night. And I'd ridden there on a motorcycle.

New York nights change in April. Part of it means bare legs, messy ponytails, and suddenly deciding that climbing a 10-foot rusty gate with gothically sharp tips isn't such a bad idea. But most of it has to do with that "kind of magic" Freddie Mercury and other folks like Jonathan Richman and Shakespeare and Vonnegut tried putting into words.

Richman sang,
"Say what you want, but I feel my heart beating. Cause I love springtime in New York. Springtime is wild, New York is exciting."

Vonnegut informed us,
"To whom it may concern. It is springtime. It is late afternoon."

Shakespeare wrote,
"The April winds are magical, and thrill our tuneful frames. The garden-walks are passional, to bachelors and dames."

Even T.S. Eliot insisted April is the "cruelest month," but had to admit,
It "breeds lilacs" and "mixes memory with desire."

All I know is this:
1) My favorite New Yorker covers always seem to come out in April.
2) I've fallen in love three times, and every time I fell, it was springtime.
3) Those impossibly pink flowers that suddenly show up on every Manhattan street? They blossom on the same day every year: April 26th. It's my father's birthday.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

"Some Pretty, Bright and Bubbly Terrible Scene." ~Neutral Milk Hotel


I've just spent what felt like the coldest winter playing a far less glamorous, but still eerily similar, type of Edie alongside a far more talented, and eerily more captivating, type of Andy. Consider these bits of dialogue from the so-bad-it-was-good "Factory Girl":

Edie: To me, New York was Jackson Pollock sipping vodka and dripping paint onto a raw canvas.

Edie: And what would I have to do in one of your movies?
Andy: Just be yourself.
Edie: Well, which me?


Andy: I wonder if people are going to remember us?
Edie: What, when we're dead?
Andy: Yeah.
Edie: Well I think people will talk about how you changed the world.
Andy: I wonder what they'll say about you... in your obituary. I like that word.
Edie: Nothing nice, I don't think.
Andy: No no, come on. They'd say, "Edith Minturn Sedgwick: beautiful artist and actress...
Edie: ...and all around loon.
Andy: ...Remembered for setting the world on fire. Made friends with eeeeverybody, and anybody...
Edie: ...creating chaos and uproar wherever she went. Divorced as many times as she married, she leaves only good wishes behind. That's nice, isn't it?

I am no Edie. I'm still here. Among our infinite differences, I'm pretty sure the reason we took opposite exit routes from the kind of purgatory only an artist whose ego overwhelms his art can place you in, has to do with family. Edie notoriously spoke of her parents as "horrifying," and despite how obvious her deterioration became, her elevator-inventing grandfather may have thrown cash her way, but buckets of money can't cure Stockholm syndrome. My dad can.

I will never again dismiss a single token of my father's advice, including those most recently given and ignored:

"Do not marry a writer."

"Be charming, but not too charming."

"No man should ever keep you waiting. By the phone, in a restaurant, or anywhere at all."

"Love means loving being able to love them with wrinkles." *

"You usually know the first time you see him whether or not he likes the same Broadway songs as you. Different productions is one thing; it's the songs you'll see when he smiles."

"Only boring people get bored."

"Men are not good or bad. They are either good to you, or bad to you."

"Be wary of wactors [waiter/actors]."

"If you hear the line, 'I'd like to get to know you as a person,' he might as well be asking if you're a Capricorn. Anyone you want to get to know as a person will not ask you that." *

"Try not to make promises." *

"So what?"

My mother had her appendix taken out a few years ago. My father and I left whatever it was we were doing to be there when she woke up in the East 30s, dizzy from painkillers. The doctor had given us only one strict instruction: we were not allowed to make her laugh. As soon as we walked into her sad little corner of the ER, she burst out laughing. We did too. My father said:
"I will listen to absolutely everything a doctor tells me to do. But I will not stop this woman from laughing."

* From a BJF book or story.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

"Even Ugliness Looks Beautiful Next To You." ~Mickey Knox

An ex-boyfriend once told me there are only two types of people: those who "get" Bob Dylan, and those who don't. There are infinite dichotomies like this. You either "get" Michel Gondry or you don't. You're a Mac or a PC. You either rooted for Mickey and Mallory or you didn't. (My cat's name is Mickey, by the way.)

And then there's the one character-defining either/or I could never choose between: was I the type of girl who gets a tattoo, or the type who doesn't "get" one? Last week, I joined Team Tattoo. Bored by childish notions like hearts or initials, I wanted words; a phrase that summed me up, that no one would understand. I considered quotes from Gaitskill, McInerney, Waugh, Wilde...but then, for whatever reason, I remembered an obscure review I'd read of a Gwendoline Riley novel. The critic said Riley's books are drenched in "love and dysfunction." As a chaos theorist who insists the point of living is to fall in love, I knew these two words would become my tattoo. Serendipitously (and without telling me first), my tattoo artist decided to draw a red heart in front of the phrase. Lovely, since sufficiently summing me up includes the fact that I am, and always will be, in a slightly dysfunctional sort of love with childish notions.

"Give me back my broken night, my mirrored room, my secret life. You don't know me from the wind, you never will, you never did."
~Leonard Cohen

Thursday, January 22, 2009

My Brother, The Hero


"I wish I had this guy's talent."
~R. Crumb

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

“She Is My Best Friend, But I Suspect I’m Not Hers.”

At my last job, I spent every minute of every day trying to be creative. From, literally, the minute I got out of bed in my pajamas and turned the computer on, to the end of the (Los Angeles) work day, my mind was turned on. I had to be as funny and smart as I possibly could without any breaks. So I’ve taken a long break from creativity. I’m slowly coming back to life, but in the meantime, I’m happy to see friends churning away. Without them, this not-so-leisurely hiatus from doing the only thing I know how to do might have lasted forever.

"I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art."
~Carrie Fisher

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

"Instant Gratification Takes Too Long." ~Carrie Fisher

Bruce Jay Friedman, my hero and father, has not been reviewed in the New York Times Book Review since 1995, when his highly celebrated collection of short fiction was called a "bona fide literary event" by Newsweek. At 13, I cared less about the fact that the Times had called the book something that "finally establish[es] him for what he is: sui generis," than figuring out exactly how one straightens unruly and frizzy adolescent hair. My silly dad added another leather-bound book to his shelf, and I aggressively tried (and dramatically failed) to become popular at boarding school.

This past Sunday, the Times reviewed my father's latest collection. Now 25, having mastered the hair-straightening technique and abandoned those ancient desires for acceptance (useless these days, considering how much of a damn I've apparently given about my reputation), I read the piece at least six times. Having read both collections at this point, noting that both books are dedicated to me, and include stories with characters transparently resembling me, I remembered something my dad recently said in an interview:

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."

Okay, Dad. Will do.