Saturday, September 15, 2001
Words fail.
To donate to the Red Cross, please click on hyperlink below.
Elie Wiesel said, something along the lines of: "Sometimes there are events beyond language, and even using words can diminish."
And yet, words are all I have for this site -- along with a few images. We, I feel sure, are super-saturated with images. Horrific images. But I feel it's important to make our voices heard, and to share right now, from hereon out, in whatever ways we can. To reach out, have dialogue, and community and unity.
PLEASE CLICK ON PICK-OF-THE-LITTER! WHERE I AM POSTING THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY RESPONSES I AM RECEIVING FROM WEB-BROWSERS, SUBSCRIBERS AND OTHERS ABOUT 9-11 -- AND JOIN IN THE RESPONSE! The emotion, the rawness, the humanity, the political savviness evidenced in these voices sent over cyberspace -- immense. Please keep writing to me. I will ask the writers' permission to post their emails -- maybe I can set up a live forum. We'll see what the need is out there.
As I write this, at noonish on Sunday, the 16th, a pack of coyotes wail somewhere in the Topanga state park nearby, and I can't help thinking their yelping and keening isn't somehow for the lost lives.
So here goes -- some random thoughts.
Every morning I wake up, since Tuesday, and I think, no, I'm having a nightmare. This can't be. I think, then, when I see the newspaper and the headlines -- okay, then we are having a collective nightmare. It's still impossible that this is real.
I see the picture of me at the heading of this Update section, and I think, that is me smiling in a way that I will never be able to smile again. Not that I will never smile again -- but that -- the world is changed. I am changed. We all are. Everything looks the same -- and it looks completely different.
For the first three days I was glued to the TV. Forgive the cliche, but there is no better word. Glued. And with the pounding of the media slants and images and stories, I spiralled down into a virtually catatonic depression. A depression that moved steadily into paranoia. Yes, I made many calls (most wouldn't go through to NY) and sent emails to loved ones and friends in New York and elsewhere, but I couldn't leave the house. It was only when I ripped myself away from the TV coverage on Thursday evening to attend a friend's birthday celebration (I had called off a fiction writing workshop, feeling that none of us would be able to concentrate sufficiently, and that it wouldn't be fair to discuss stories when the other Story was overshadowing us) -- I immediately felt better. Well, felt alive again, returned to the land of the living whereas watching the news on TV, hypnotized, I was a kind of wraith, caught in a hellish limbo, caught and trapped in the void such unimaginable horror inspired, with attendant paranoia, anxiety, depression, fear, despair, overwhelming sadness. I could not stop weeping. Imagining those people, simply at their normal work day -- and a jet comes through the building? These people, throwing themselves from buildings rather than burning to death? Is this the United States? And that plane, heading for Tower Two, steadily, and, incredibly, burying itself in the very Tower and bursting into flame -- that image, shown over and over again -- the imaginings spinning off from that (there were people in that plane, in the building, in the offices -- what the fuck were they thinking? Feeling? Did they suffer? Did they make cell calls? It could've been me. Or you.)
The truth is, they wanted us to watch the devastation spawned by their hatred. They used the media. Perfectly. We became prisoners of their pictures. Ironic.
But what we are not seeing analyzed on TV -- not even touched -- is, is -- WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS? WHAT DO WE NEED TO EXAMINE HERE IN OUR OWN BACKYARD? It'll come I hope. Will they talk of how we made bin Laden? How the CIA trained him, and fomented Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets in that other ear? How we just sent billions of dollars to the Taliban to congratulate them for their war on opium?! Money which was used no doubt to send people to flight school. About our many heinous policies pursued abroad? How many places have we interfered in, bombed, hurt and killed civilians? What is going on in the Middle East and what is our presence there? Is Israel right when they say if you don't fight back, you'll be destroyed? If they stopped retaliating, would the terrorism end? If they gave up the settlements, would the bloodshed end? I don't know. It's time to get way more informed -- and way more vocal with the government about our views, protests. Chomsky has an interesting piece circulating, and I am going to post it in its entirety. See what you think:
On the Bombings
Noam Chomsky
The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach
the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with
no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and
killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an
inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much
worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that this was a horrendous
crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as usual, were working people:
janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a
crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed
people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many
possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal
freedom.
The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project of
"missile defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed
out
repeatedly by strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense damage
in the US, including weapons of mass destruction, they are highly unlikely
to launch a missile attack, thus guaranteeing their immediate destruction.
There are innumerable easier ways that are basically unstoppable. But
today's events will, very likely, be exploited to increase the pressure to
develop these systems and put them into place.
"Defense" is a thin cover for plans for militarization of space,
and
with good PR, even the flimsiest arguments will carry some weight among a
frightened public.
In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who hope
to use force to control their domains. That is even putting aside the
likely US actions, and what they will trigger -- possibly more attacks
like this one, or worse. The prospects ahead are even more ominous than
they appeared to be before the latest atrocities.
As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we
can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making
an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we choose the
latter course, we can do no better, I think, than to listen to the words
of Robert Fisk, whose direct knowledge and insight into affairs of the
region is unmatched after many years of distinguished reporting.
Describing "The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and
humiliated people," he writes that "this is not the war of
democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the
coming days. It is also about American missiles smashing into Palestinian
homes and US helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996
and American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a
Lebanese militia - paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking
and raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." And much
more.
Again, we have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so,
contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead."
And here is Susan Sontag from the recent, superb, New Yorker in "Talk of the Town":
"The disconnect between last Tuesday's
monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright
deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is
startling, depressing. The voices licensed to follow the event seem to
have joined together in a campaign to infantilize the public. Where is the
acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack on
"civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity" or
"the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed
superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and
actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing of
Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might be more
aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high
in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill
others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may
be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards.
Our leaders are bent on convincing us that everything is O.K. America is
not afraid. Our spirit is unbroken, although this was a day that will live
in infamy and America is now at war. But everything is not O.K. And this
was not Pearl Harbor. We have a robotic President who assures us that
America still stands tall. A wide spectrum of public figures, in and out
of office, who are strongly opposed to the policies being pursued abroad
by this Administration apparently feel free to say nothing more than that
they stand united behind President Bush. A lot of thinking needs to be
done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and
elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and
counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign
policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a
smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to
bear much of the burden of reality. The unanimously applauded,
self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed
contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing
rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent
days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.
Those in public office have let us know that they consider their task to
be a manipulative one: confidence-building and grief management. Politics,
the politics of a democracy which entails disagreement, which promotes
candor has been replaced by psychotherapy. Let's by all means grieve
together. But let's not be stupid together. A few shreds of historical
awareness might help us understand what has just happened, and what may
continue to happen. "Our country is strong," we are told again
and again. I for one don't find this entirely consoling. Who doubts that
America is strong? But that's not all America has to be."
Back to me. This is an extremely
complicated situation. It calls for a national grieving, and a national
examination from so many different angles. Chomsky and Sontag have been
very eloquent. Provocative. We all need to do our own thinking,
self-educating, and soul-searching. And to contact representatives with
our thoughts and concerns. If you are anti-War, write a letter. Whatever
your views, let them be known.
I weep continuously for the people lost,
the rescue workers. and the firemen. The firemen.
Turning off the TV, leaving the house -- I felt I was escaping a kind of
prison. I SUGGEST IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, TURN OFF THE TV AND LIMIT YOUR
MEDIA INTAKE! Enjoy living. Give blood. Donate money to Red Cross. Get in
touch with those you love, see them if possible. Roll in the grass. Play
with your dog. Cat. Bird. Child. Lover. Grandma. Breathe. Pray. Whether
you are religious, or spiritual, or not -- pray. Breathe.
David Halberstam, on an NPR special discussion of the media in this tragedy, points out that he thinks real national isolationism and real trivialism and self-absorption is implemented by the media, and has been increasing for the last ten-twelve years. And it is a huge part of the problem, and has helped lay the groundwork, for a hellacious event like this happening.
Indeed, it is a time to be mindful, and look at our own presence in the world. And to be a more mature democracy indeed, now that we have felt terror on our own soil -- like the rest of the world has felt for years. Welcome to the world, America.
Below, I am going to leave some of the announcements from the September 2nd update -- because they are still timely, even if the tone they're written in is a tone that perhaps is no longer possible -- or at least not right now.
LA TIMES PIC & THE MYSTERY MAN IN PSYCHEDELIC WOODBLOCK PRINT: I have two winners!!! First, the Mag Man himself, Peter Magliocco, from America's hubcity Vegas, whose wildass prose you've enjoyed in BOTH the fiction contests! (check back postings of Pick-Of-The-Litter), guessed correctly that the Mystery Man in the Psychedelic Woodblock Print is none other than the great Russian poiet and playwright VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY! Then, only HOURS behind, Marcy Dyment, first-rate runner and writer and elementary school teacher, winner of the UCLA James Kirkwood Prize, also weighed in with the correct answer of MAYAKOVSKY! So Marcy and Peter share this shining honor. How shall we honor them? Email with suggestions!!!
Weird new online posting. Via the fabulous Jo-Ann Mapson, got an email invitation from Gianluca Bassi, editor-in-chief of STORIE, an Italian lit mag that's in print and online. They were doing a special issue called AFTERNOON. All around the world, they were getting various writers to write what happened to them, where they were, at exactly 5:50pm to 6pm on April 19th, 2001. So I did it. Click on the link that follows to see what was going down in Topanga: http://www.storie.it/pomeriggio.htm . There are TONS of writers who participated -- from Michael Tolkin to Jerry Stahl to Mary Morris to T.C. Boyle -- as Tolkin said, it didn't seem a very interesting time of the day...but you be the judge. As I lived in Rome in '88 for a couple years, I couldn't resist the chance to be in an Italian lit mag. There is a horrific foreshadowing of my beloved bird's demise in the piece: let it be a lesson of, what, the power of writing? Of the danger of articulating nightmares? Or simply life's coincidences, retrospectively eerie and black-tinted, or at least coated with the hubris of the alive and well.
Forthcoming: I have three reviews of Topanga eateries, with many local color details, in the second HUNGRY? guidebook coming out from hypercool local publishing house, Really Great Books, edited by former fabulous student Kristin Petersen. Look for it in October. Check www.reallygreatbooks.com to learn more about this happening LA-based house.
Just finished proofing the final version of "Scenes From Thailand" -- a double-piece excerpted from my second book-in-progress, titled tentatively EDUCATION OF A CUNT (as Mark Z. Danielewski said eloquently, Why don't you just shoot a big hole in your foot with these titles!) -- which I read at the recent Track 16 Gallery event with Joe Donnelly, Jerry Stahl, Arty Nelson, Ann Heche, Aimee Bender, and Bernard Cooper. Ann Heche even came up to me after and said how educated she was after hearing my piece! Hmmm. I think she's the one who can educate us, on these and other matters, including speaking in tongues..."Scenes From Thailand" will appear in a Cleis Press antho called something like Best Bisexual Erotica 2001, edited by the ever-vivacious and vixenish Cara Bruce (Viscera). Will keep you posted on that. She's got another one coming together on Fetishes, including J.T. Leroy. Think I might be tapped out on the fetish/erotica dimension right now, though. Only in L.A. is there such a close overlapping/lapdancing of arenas -- the erotica with the literary, the porn stars at the local poetry readings, IN the local poetry readings. Is it good, is it bad, is it ugly, is it the future, is it progressive, is it the slow-sifting together of lowbrow highbrow and middlebrow into Frida Kahlo-like monobrow? A melting of molds. Or a rotten sloppy mess.
Long as the writing's good, I say, it's all good. But the writing has got to be good. And, and, it's got to be about something else. Something beyond sex, something beyond the cup on the table and the way the sun hits the chipped ceramic lip, something beyond the words the characters say to/past each other. Somehow, whether from subterranean linguistic burbling forces, the irruptions of the unconscious, from the spaces between the lines, or what's offstage lurking and informing and throwing its shadow -- somehow, the words on the page and the pages all together in a cumulative symphony, must mean more than what they say. And that is the trick. And that is the mystery.
OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS:
October 3rd, I will be beginning a course at UCLA Extension called A TOUCH OF EVIL: WRITING UNFLINCHING FICTION. (In light of the Changed World, how bizarre -- ) -- at the UCLA Open House, so many people signed up there's a big waiting list. We will have much to talk about now -- the main book we'll be looking at is MEETING THE SHADOW about examining the dark side of human nature, and our own in particular. Timely.
On October 23rd, I will be doing a reading and talk at Whittier College as part of their Fall Writers' Series, which also includes Kate Braverman, Richard Garcia, Philip Levine, Majid Naficy, Charles Webb, Marilyn Chin and a few others. Laurel Ann Bogen, lustrous local poet, is teaching there and running the series, and was kind enough to invite me. I will be Dreaming Of Nixon as I prepare for that one. Shaking my sympathy jowls, and peacenikifying my prose. If you guys haven't been to the Nixon Museum, by the way -- you must. I took my Chapman University novel writing class there on a class trip -- only some took offense at my irreverence: I laughed during the whitewashed Nixon short film. Not to mention the blue-haired-docents-in-uproar.
Then, that same week, I will be doing the Induction Speech (what's that?) for Sigma Delta Chi, or Kappa Gamma Ray, or something like that -- it's the English society at Chapman University, and their president (I think) Mindi Combs has kindly invited me to do that. That's Friday, October 26th. I might also be doing a special workshop down there at Chapman the same day, per Pamela Ezell, English Chair's, invitation. Will keep you posted.
HEAR YE, HEAR YE!!! NEW SECTION!!!
STUDENT NEWS
That's right. After teaching at UCLA, and Antioch, Chapman, various private workshops for the last five years -- I've got a bunch of former students who are making the news with their publishing, MFA'ing, or general antics!
NEWSFLASH!!! YASMINE LEVER, one of the first place winners of the First Fiction Contest on this site, subsequently took a fiction writing class with me at UCLA, I nominated her for the James Kirkwood Award, and she won!!! Just got the news today, Friday, October 5th. There will be a luncheon in her honor on Friday, October 19th at the Faculty Center of UCLA. And check this out -- the prize money was just doubled this year to $1,000!!! Not too shabby. All the instructors at UCLA Extension nominate up to two students, so this is really an honor. I'm so happy for her. And it all started with her writing something for the Fiction Contest #1! So that reminds me -- we must forge on, and within this month I will be posting a new Fiction Contest #3. In the meantime, please contribute something to the current post 9.11 Pick-of-the-Litter. And congratulations to Yasmine!
Phil Ruta sold his haunted house up in Woodland Hills, relocated to the beach area, and got in a nasty motorcycle wreck. But things got nastier post-wreck, when the medical technicians seem to've fumbled a bit, and his wife had to step in and help with some stitching. Leave it to the every-wry Czech surrealist to make a motorcycle wreck cause for satire.
And Teresa Boyer, who unlike "Six Feet Under", grew up for real in a mortician's house, has given up writing literature for now to study it instead. She's enrolled at UCLA and headed for a PhD! In part, she blames me and all the heavy reading we had to do in our workshops -- along with, of course, the true blinding angel Flannery O'Connor.
Andrea Drugay just finished up her MFA at San Francisco State. Linda Alcorace, the Venetian rollerqueen, did a year at Florida State but didn't turn rebel. Now she's about to enroll at St. Mary's, where she'll study with Gail Wronsky, Chuck Rosenthal, Greg Sarris.
Mia Taylor is busy over at www.thebookla.com writing articles, interviewing the likes of Sam Jackson and John Leguizamo, and serving as Associate Editor! All this after her spectacular debut in journalism in the acclaimed film issue of Tin House magazine from this past winter.
If you want to check out a pic from the recent winter issue release party, which includes two former students -- Mia Taylor, who's now assistant editor of The Book LA (and has a raw and irreverent interview with Vincent Gallo in this issue), myself with eyes wide shut, and Yasmine Lever, who just recently won the UCLA James Kirkwood Award, click on http://www.bookla.com/spevnt.html .
More to come!
Saturday, September 15, 2001
Only a couple weeks ago, I returned from a visit to New York. And in the last update, I wrote mostly about the loss of my beloved Severe macaw, Lima. That occurred on July 1st, when this extraordinary bird and constant companion of mine was swiped from the deck of my home in Topanga Canyon (which borders a state park) by a bobcat. It was the middle of the day. I have been heartbroken, devastated. Only a week or so after, Lisa Wyeth Kirk, a larger-than-life woman, one of the publicists for Go West...along with wonderful Anita Halton, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. She left two radiant children behind, and a stricken husband.
Now -- another kind of loss has occurred. An unspeakable, unimaginable one. A loss of lives. A massive loss of lives. One that I think you and all of us has felt physically. I have felt ill since the news. Feverish. Exhausted. Head-achy. So many lives, fellow Americans, in one sickeningly, shockingly quick time -- taken. Extinguished. And I think we all felt that loss. Feel it. And will continue to for the duration of our lives.
We have also lost our innocence, as a country. Perhaps our arrogance -- I hope our arrogance. Hopefully our tendency toward triviality, celebrity obsession, isolationism. But not our spirit. Never our spirit. I believe, contrary to the Terrorists' aim, our spirit has been AWAKENED. As has our strength. And unity. I must believe that. Let's make it be. But we need to do a lot of work. We need to truly be AWAKE -- much more awake to our policies and the politics of our country, self-proclaimed Superpower. I am horrified by some of the crass responses to 9-11 -- the hate crimes, the war-mongering without thinking everything through. Do we want full scale Jihad unleashed against us?
Someone is saying on NPR, instead of calling this a War Against Terrorism, it is The Beginning Of World Peace...I fucking hope so. I just don't know. I just don't think so. Especially not if we don't make our voices heard. Troops are mobilizing. I worry for innocents. I worry for the difficulty of routing out terrorism -- where removing one layer will not do the job anyway. What is wrong with our intelligence? What is wrong with the way we, America The Beautiful, the flashy bawdy crass Superpower, carries herself in the world? With bombs bursting in air...
I had this incident written in the September 2nd update:
"One night, in swelter city, the sweat drenching my back and clothes, water bottle in hand, navigating through the vibrant streets, on my way back to Christopher Street where I was a guest of publishing legend Jim Fitzgerald, when I saw a book lying open on the street. Of course, I had to stop. I did. I stopped. I looked down. The book was splayed open. It was muddy. Maybe trod upon. I bent down. I saw this chapter heading: THE NATURE OF DELUSION. I took in my breath. I stood up. I didn't need to see any more. Nobody would believe me if I wrote this in a story, let alone recounted it as fact! But fact it is, dear Website browsers. A new depth of journey is opening up, a subterranean corridor full of dark and damp and, probably tons of spiders, too."
Migod --
This too below is from the earlier update, inspired by beloved Severe macaw Lima, and Lisa Wyeth Kirk:
"I'm informed by loss. Life is loss. I appreciate the gifts, the momentary hovering of a hummingbird, the gesture of a loving friend -- with so much more depth."
I attended a local Topanga candelight vigil last night at the Pine Tree Circle, and it was so moving. Various speeches by members of the community might have tended toward the granola-peace slant -- but no matter -- the mood was unified and compassionate, and the children speaking? They broke my heart over and over -- and gave me hope. Or, impetus to have hope -- for their sakes. And when Suzanne Teng was playing a lovely mournful tune on her magic flute, and the local fire truck pulled up and flashed their gorgeous red and orange lights which swept over the crowd already softly illuminated by so many candles -- I wept openly, holding the arms of my neighbors up there on the balcony above -- people I didn't know at all -- but it didn't matter. They are neighbors. We are all Americans. I hope that we make the right choices. Or, the best choices. And that we don't go to that place of blind hostile prejudice.
Let us take this hellish event as a time to join together as a nation, as a humanity, to look to our own faults, to open up our hearts -- to change in a way toward good rather than evil, to political awareness rather than ignorance -- to deny these Terrorists their aim, which was to crush us. Rather, we shall rise up and be changed, as the world is now changed, but for the better. We cannot sink the way those Towers sank -- or, if we do, we can sink, and contemplate what we find there deep down -- then, we will rise up again, stronger, more full of vision, and a unified desire for open eyes, mindfulness, compassion. We must get more informed, more active, more participatory in politics -- even if, and especially if, it is through our art.
Please feel free to write me your own personal comments and/or experiences or thoughts about this devastation -- and I will post them. Someone in New York, a friend who was safe, though shaken and changed, a fellow bird owner, said she thought Lima was in heaven with the others who lost their lives, and that Lima was entertaining them -- maybe biting their toes. I like to think that.
My thoughts are with you all.
Yours,
Rachel
Click to get back issues of updates -- more gossip, ranting!
September 2nd Update: Loss of Lima, and, other ramblings from the days before The World Changed
June-August 2001: Off the Rails at Track 16 Gallery & Other Tales
April/May 2001: Second Pick-of-the-Litter Winners! plus Snap and trash from Tin House bash
December/January 2001: Happy Kwanzaa Send-Off, Holidazing
November 2000 Update: Seven Deadly Sins Contest! Plus Bonus Political Rant
June 2000 Update: Hell's Angels, Rocking the Tin House, and More!
February 2000 Update: My Bloody Valentine