Reading, Writing, no Arithmetic

One day I might be important enough that I’ll be asked to compile a list of books that others must read before they die. Book-loving is a difficult kingdom- it is impossible to remain faithful to a genre or even to a list, when so many new temptations and paths are constantly offered. Even the insanely dedicated and speedy of readers can only mow through a tiny percentage of the total offerings. From every side you have experts, and self-inflated experts like myself with their own insistences, telling you what the best books ever are. Then there is the emotional fallout what crushing disappointment and defeat when it turns out you HATED one of the Top One Book of All Time That You Must Read and Love Otherwise You Just Aren’t Intellectual After All. How about that moment of truth when you bubble on about the book club’s tome of the week, about how thrilled and moved and changed you are. Then you look around, and every other person begins to outline the text’s many flaws, wooden characters, inaccurate setting, and poorly concealed systemic racism? Oooooops….

If you are like me, you may feel embarrassed that Shakespeare was once a breeze, when you were say, in grade nine, and now you couldn’t possibly trudge through it on your own. You may dread the classics because they yammer on and on and describe the sleeve and hat of every passerby in minute detail, with no action until the 74th page, against all the plot and conversation rules drilled into you as a writer at night school. It’s true that from ages seven through thirteen, I read most of the Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens and Dostoevsky that I’m ever going to. I could plow through lengthy epics with ease and then give a feisty briefing of the important themes and symbols.

The ten years or so I worked the front lines in the book industry were a double-edged sword. I thrived off the constant adulation and disbelief from coworkers and customers. “Oh, WOW, have you read EVERY SINGLE book in the store?” I would blush, lower my eyes demurely, and defer the praise with a murmur of graciousness and a recommendation that would surely alter the course of that person’s existence for the better.

But then, there were all those other books I hadn’t read. “What do you mean, you haven’t read each and every book ever written?” “But it won a Pulitzer!” “But you have to read some sci-fi adventure to even understand what Dan Delillo goes on about.” “But he wrote 437 mysteries and you’ve only reviewed 29!”

A few years ago, I removed all the shoulds from my reading list, leaving it open as air. Free to read what I want, any old time. Or to watch game shows instead. What a relief it was. I didn’t have to catch up on Booker nominees unless by absolute chance and desire. I could smile and say “No, I haven’t, and unlikely that I ever will.” Because there are thousands of books coming at me all the time and though I love them with all of my heart, I am still a human being, who can read only so many words per minute. Besides, all this reading has made me fat. I’m taking up pole dancing and raving and the art of making sushi.

Well, that’s great and fine and good and I thoroughly recommend the hiatus to everyone. But a bookworm cannot stray far from the madding shelf for long. And because I’m writing the plot of 2008 ahead of time, in a likely vain attempt to avoid any unforeseen disasters and deaths and forgotten deadlines, I’m devising a reading list for the first time in years. Some of the books have been on that great big list in the sky for a decade or so and it’s time to finally get acquainted. My list is very, very different from anyone else’s, as other brilliant literary types do not have a slot for Anna Nicole scandals and the book by Britney’s mother. I’ve left them off the official list below, but don’t be fooled.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This book was a major source of shame and headshaking. “No, I haven’t read it.” “No, I haven’t read it.” I firmly believe that some books will find you when the time is right. The Shipping News was recommended over and over, and I didn’t read it for a very long time. But when I did, I read it half a dozen times in the years that followed, and saw the life of the Tarot archetypes come alive in the grey east coast scenery. I doubt my experience could have been as vivid had I picked it up when the news of its amazing grace first hit. Life of Pi won the Man Booker, was recommended by Margaret Atwood, and was a gift from a very special lover who saw my pantheon of selves inside the lore of the pages. You’d think that would have been enough to open and blaze through, but somehow it didn’t happen. Zoe, who slipped through the hands of this world during this year’s Thanksgiving, also fiercely recommended this book to me. Something in me can’t help but think there are clues inside as to why she went and died. Needless to say, this one’s at the top of my list.

A Life’s Work: The Joy of Discovering What You were Born to Do by Thomas Moore

I keep all of Moore’s books plus extra copies together on their own shelf. Whenever I start to freak out about the unanswered questions, the gaping maw of death around me, or the absolute tyranny of love’s insanity, I flip one of his books open and inevitably find exactly the necessary comfort. It would be indulgent for me to say I think like Moore but no one else comes close to describing the way I see things as he does. I hope one day my mythological literacy and maturity as a writer will come close to the profound ways of his pen, but I know those works follow life experience and practice and I have a long way to go. This new book is a cause for celebration, as are all his titles, but as I strive to clear the path for my life’s work, my admired and revered guide is putting out a book that I know will be unlike any other book about work, and it will give meaning to the years I felt were wasted in donut shops or as a telephone psychic. To Moore, no moment is throwaway, and hence, his work is as life affirming as it comes.

Dictionary of the Khazars- a Lexicon Novel by Milorad Pavic

I’d never heard of this Serbian masterpiece, but my husband, whose mind was formidable and brilliant, made sure to put both versions in my hand. There is, you see, a red and a blue version, or male and female edition. He said the difference is only a few words. The Chicago Tribune said this book no one has heard of rivals Umberto Eco. It’s true that it may be a bit of effort to plod through the dense historical details and unfamiliar names, but very few masterpieces of Serbian literature are available in English, and very few books ever are compared with Eco and Garcia Marquez. Besides, this book is full of Transylvania, suicide, secret books, sages and dream priests, and the romance between life and death- all exquisitely relevant themes in my life today.

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

I like to stretch my borders, and I’ve read a lot about McCarthy, who seems to be a distinctive and eccentric writer, just how I like them. The books seem far more appealing to men, but that may be an unwarranted prejudice on my part. I can’t actually make a call like that at all until I read one. I also know that McCarthy’s prose goes on for miles long without a break in paragraph, much longer even than Isabel Allende! Because I’m working on a piece called All the Pretty Whores, about the prostitute in literature, I should read All the Pretty Horses. I’d like to read Outer Dark, though, one of his earliest works, about a brother and sister and their child. I’m not immune to the lure of the salacious, but it’s also about seeing how a reasonably intelligent man would tackle a story like this, one I might usually read only from Margaret Atwood or Judy Blume.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami

I love novels of unusual coincidences and quotidian strangeness, and apparently this one’s full of the extraordinary ordinary. Ariel Gore, author of Atlas of the Human Heart, and my future wife, said it’s her favourite book ever. That’s enough to get it on my list.

The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley

This was a childhood favourite, but try as I might, I can’t conjure up anything about it except the beautiful cover, blue-green with the mer world. I know it was a fantasy about another world, one which I often fantasized I’d come from, just like Darryl Hannah in Splash, and later, in tales of the West African mermaid goddess, Yemaya. I also know that the character Tom was a chimney sweep and that the book questioned issues of child labour and child poverty.

Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia

This is the kind of book one must read every time they become a bit older and wiser. The density of material and the breadth of understanding that Paglia shows toward the whole of history, religion, and literature demands revisiting as contexts deepen from one’s own life experience and education. While it is a text I constantly refer to or meander through, I’m determined to re-read it from beginning to end without distraction. Paglia is a scholar extraordinaire and her sheer velocity of memory is astounding. Who can recall every incident within every last story or poem? Who can place chronologically the events of Western culture, and see the whole context of the world at that time in political, spiritual and sexual manifestations? Writing this book was a massive undertaking, and her no-nonsense pragmatism and absolute reverence for all things holy despite her atheism contrast wonderfully with my mushy spiritual pleasantries. This is definitely the most vigorous and rigorous work on art, literature, and Western history ever written.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I have to admit that I found the “ladies and parlours” literature of classic chick writers a tremendous waste of time and painfully boring to boot. I’m hoping for more from this one. Many references have been made to the madness of thwarted love in this story, including Kate Bush’s mesmerizing masterpiece of the same title. I’m always intrigued by stories within a story, and read so much about the “Matryoshka Doll” structure that I even did a book review in high school about women’s literary innovations that centred on Wuthering Heights, despite not having read the damn thing. Its time has come.

Dante’s Inferno

I was ripped off by the wussy lit classes at journalism school: how I longed for the scholarly devouring of all those boring but life-altering works of yester yore. So my education went by without this integral work, one that must be read in order to truly examine the psyche of human spirituality. I’ll have to go it alone.

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

Yes, Virginia, there are always a lot of kid’s books on my reading lists. Children suspend their disbelief much more readily than adults, and are able to absorb the nuances of fantasy and mythology. Pinocchio’s underlying themes about truth, deception, betrayal, grief, and unorthodox friendship are themes we may all do well to revisit. I treated myself to a deluxe edition of this book, with haunting, surreal illustrations by Iassen Ghiuselev. The least I can do is read it. Forget the abridged and the Disney versions and read the real thing.

The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker

Though I tired a long while back of that roster of tunnel-vision literature where all women are perfect and in the matriarchy everything was la-de-da, especially when the scholarship was fanciful at best, it doesn’t hurt to remember our roots occasionally. Barbara Walker’s encyclopedias don’t really intend to be etymological resource tools for writers and spirituality seekers, but the frequency with which she delves into the meaning of words to reveal forgotten or ignored history (herstory, more appropriately) make this the first choice for me when wondering about something’s origin. With society’s recent explorations into Magdalene as apostle or wife, we have finally begun to crack our bullheaded refusal that we were, are, and will be pagan regardless of spiritual manifestation. From the days of the week to our most sacred holidays, the mythologies of paganism shimmer from every ritual and every small task we do. I use this amazing text as a reference, but vow to read two entries a day from the zillion pages next year, straight through. A single entry changes the whole of the things I think I know: a favourite discovery was why Islam’s symbol is the crescent moon- because Allah came out of Al-laht, the great goddess of the moon. Gives new meaning to the phrase “every little thing she does is magic.” While phallocentric reasoning will refute much of what we discover here, Walker provides in-depth research and sources for further exploration.

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The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole

Since moving to a ‘nice’ neighbourhood, I’ve concluded with certainty that respectable citizens are nuttier than the various crack-addled crackpots that populated my back patio for years. It was admittedly frustrating to head out to work only to find the unlaundered misfits of the region counting their panhandling wealth on my picnic table in between hits of crack. It’s too bad: Cabbagetown has its charms, and it goes up and down as the crackheads go elsewhere and then return. I lived there for a long, long time but finally couldn’t take it anymore.

Though I’m just a quick ride to downtown, nestled on the east side of the valley overlooking the ravine, it feels like I’m at the cottage. Busy Broadview is a few steps west, but I feel deliciously remote. The charming brick-faces of the few buildings on my street are all the same: when I moved in, I joked that they look liked retro- Kingston- the days of Upper Canada, perhaps homes for the criminally insane to convalesce after treatment, or special places where older sisters went away for the summer- the Delores Gulch Home for Unwed Mothers. Joking aside, I had every confidence that I was moving into a place of sanity at last.

Not so.

For all the seniors and nuns that populate the area (yes, nuns) madness is still the general rule of thumb, and that’s how I now know that we are all stark raving. No one is exempt. There’s poor old Eddie Fisher, constantly shaking his walker at squirrels and yelling at taxi drivers. The f-word comes out of his month so frequently that it makes a prison visitors’ room seem like a PG comedy. For no good reason, Eddie Fisher is frequently standing in the hallway of our building, shouting fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck and shaking his fist. The funny thing is, if he sees someone coming, he’s all cheery. “Oh, hi, there, how are you dearie?” I got used to it. I mean the guy must have Turrets or something.

Then there’s the retired professor next door who spends most of the day walking her dogs. She has some old furniture that apparently helped smuggle slaves from the south over our border to freedom. I enjoy a good conversation with this intriguing old lady, but it sure would help matters along if she wore a bra once in a while.

Then there’s the guy who stands on the front lawn washing his forearms with rubbing alcohol. Every time I see the dude! First time, I thought he must have been cleaning off grease or something. Maybe he’s a mechanic. Maybe an electrician. But now I know he’s just nuts. He may be drinking it, but it makes no sense when there’s a beer store down the street. Also, he could drink inside, or around the back. I haven’t seen the guy drink it, but if I had a secret rubbing alcohol problem, I wouldn’t be standing on the front lawn showing it off. Always, if he’s there, he’s washing from elbow to knuckle and muttering while he wipes. In my head, he killed his wife 23 years ago, and still keeps trying to wash it off of his hands. They let him out of prison a few years back, and he’s still crazy. Same dude always nods hello with politeness and reservation. Could be he’s a germophobe, but given that he’s evidently never washed his hair, not with alcohol or even shampoo, I doubt that.

There’s a very old lady who lives across the hall. She’s at least 104 and walks all hunched over. She’s very, very sweet and I help her get her mail. I doubted that she ever left the house but she seemed to have plenty of grandchildren looking in on her and bringing her nice dinners so I didn’t really worry about her. Her body limited her but from what I could tell, the lady was in full faculty of her mind, a rare gift at any age.

One night at about 2 a.m. someone knocked urgently on my door. Not since the days of Parliament and Gerrard, when the crack dealers from the bar downstairs hoped to ‘borrow’ my pad to entertain their ‘guests’ did anyone knock on my door at that hour. I got used to calling the police in my sleep and almost did it now. But I sat upright as soon as I realized I was not in that world. I peeped through the peephole and there was Eleanor.

“Oh, dearie,’ she said. “Might I come in and sit down? I’m so sorry for waking you but I just can’t stand up any longer.” Her cane was shaking under her tired weight.

“Eleanor! What is going on!” I asked, clearing a soft cushion for her.

“My key doesn’t seem to open my door,” she said. “Please forgive the intrusion.”

I assured her it was no bother and went to see what the problem was. Indeed, the key was stuck and it was quite difficult to get her safely inside, but we did manage.

When I asked her what she was doing out all alone so late at night, she smiled and said she hadn’t been all alone- she was with her boyfriend until the bar closed. I choked back some laughter but I realized she was dang serious. “What kind of ill-bred gentleman would leave a lady stranded and stuck outside her apartment?” I wondered. Didn’t the old goat at least drop her off? “Dearie,” she said, “ a lady can’t be seen with a gentleman caller in the middle of the night! What would the neighbours think?”

Yesterday I went down to check on my laundry and there was Ed Fisher, standing completely and totally naked, poking a stick into the dryer, whistling.

“Oh, for crying out loud, Eddie, go put some clothes on!” I begged. Ed is prone to wandering with his pants falling down or with an undershirt and sweat pants. But the full monty is precisely the very last thing I had ever wanted to witness in all of my days.

“Margaret, is that you?” he asked, poke poke poking with the stick. Who’s Margaret?

“Go get some clothes,” I order. Poor Eddie Fisher doesn’t even know he’s naked. The dude starts grumbling about how difficult it is to get any service around here.

Poor Eddie Fisher reminds me of Bert Baxter, the crotchety old pensioner in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three Quarters. Surely you recall Adrian’s Good Samaritan program: he had to spend time with an underprivileged and helpless old dude who turned out to be as cantankerous as they come. Bert had a fondness for beetroot sandwiches that I doubt old Eddie Fisher shares.

It’s been a while since I thought of Sue Townsend’s brilliantly comedic diaries. Adrian Mole- he fancied himself an intellectual, wrote poetry on napkins, and was obsessed with the spots on his face. And he’s got crazy old Bert Baxter and a bunch of other loony tunes.

I rummage around until I find this wonderful old book that made me laugh my ass off as a teenager. Seems it’s time for a re-read. Seems the misunderstood Brit nerd and I have a hell of lot more in common that I ever realized.

Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net

Michelle Tea’s Rent Girl

Along with more doomsday prophecies and important manuals on avoiding total environmental destruction, the early years of the 21st century meant a whole flood of books about hookers telling all. Michelle Tea’s Rent Girl promised me more than others: its distinction is the artwork of Laurenn McCubbin, director of the awesome and now discontinued Kitchen Sink Magazine. The artist is known for her adept skills at drawing naked women, and here there are more than 200 stylish red, black and white illustrations, many of babes in fishnet stockings, getting ready for work.

The back blurb promises that this book will avoid “the stereotypes of prostitute as victim or superhero” and instead will “explore the complicated occupation in all its nuances”. Umm, sure. Michelle Tea is a talented and unique writer, no doubt about it, and her customers often seemed like men I and every woman has dated over the span of her life. But the hatred oozing off of every page really made me happy to finish the damn thing. No one was holding a gun to her head and making her work as a whore. She was not enslaved by addiction, though later she tries selling drugs instead and does too much coke. She is not an illegal alien, hoping to live in the margins and escape deportation. Of course, the easy money is hard to let go of, she says. Understandable, but most of the time she’s talking about how it’s not easy money; it’s torture and violation.

I can’t argue with a person’s true experiences, and I doubt that hooking is a nonstop barrel of laughs and joy. Still, this girl had other options! True, for work that has been constant since the dawn of civilization, it’s perhaps difficult to find something new to say about it. This was a whole lotta ‘men are disgusting’ stuff, more reinforcement of stereotypes that all prostitutes had been molested by step-dads or grandparents, and that most are lesbians. While it doesn’t always take a lot to convince me that men are unfaithful and predictable, I actually felt sorry for Michelle’s clients. A depressed man, glued to his remote control, pays the girl $700 for a few hours of companionship. She eats pickles while he watches TV. She says, “I sat and smoked and fantasized about David Smith dying.” Perhaps I have bought in too much to other stereotypes, the hooker with a heart of gold, but I really did think any and every erotic service provider had to have a serious soft spot. To cheerfully provide the thing men believe they need most, whether you’re low rent or high, must mean there’s a deep well of compassion in you for patrons with hairy backs or low social skills. Like Madonna, since I was young I’ve been mixing the whore up with the nun.

I’d like to read something else by this author, though I suspect that I’ll never find her perceptions or intuitions about human nature particularly astute, especially if it’s more whining about men from a lesbian who has the option to not even mingle among them. She does have an interesting style that I’d like to experience more of, but I hope it won’t be more ‘men are scum’ stuff, because I chucked my ‘Dead Men Don’t Whine’ button into a sewer in the early ‘90s, about the same time I decided I liked shaving my legs after all.

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Cheers, Lorette C. Luzajic

Feud of the Gods

I missed what is now old news: Moby’s declaration of love to Eminem, after years of feuding between them over whether or not Moby’s music should be called “techno.” Seems the yappy rapper impressed the lily-livered sage with his anti-Bush rhetoric. I’ve been a fan of Moby’s music for a long time, but spent 2007 hopping around to Eminem and dreaming up ways that we could get together. Eminem used to offend me, too, and now I just can’t get enough of his dynamite. I think Moby is catching on, too, as he ages. Some gods are more theatrical, some more solemn. Each has his place. Britney and Kevin? Elton and Diana? Madonna and the rest? It’s just the feud of the gods.

Now Moby is more famous for his one minute on last week’s Daily Ten than he is for his baldness, unorthodox ethical life, and 20 years of innovative, exquisite music. “I love Eminem, and I decided if I’m gonna have feuds in the future they’re not gonna be with the most successful musician on the planet, who travels with people who have guns.”

Moby was not, of course, the only queer or woman to take offense at Eminem’s fag and bitch jabbery. Whole armies of human rights advocates were up in arms. So was Boy George.

Then again, Boy George and Elton John both made public their distaste for their own mother, The Madonna. Weird. It was just plain bizarre for Elton to poopoo Madonna’s live shows for lip-synching. Consider that if I am naked, dancing aerobically on the roof with acrobats and drummers, flying through the air, I may have to lip-synch here and there. But everyone knows Madonna does all the work that is humanly possible, all the time.

You would also expect a skinny white boy like Eminem to very realistically diss fags the way many cultural groups do- most certainly his demographic. It was refreshing to see Elton John get it right for once and join with Em at those infamous Grammy awards of yesteryear as if to say, “can’t we all just get along?”

I’m the quintessential fruit fly, born that way in my own way, and the view from here is this: Elton John performing with Eminem is building a bridge the way nothing else could be. Props to both parties for showing the truth: that showbiz is just showbiz. You gotta read behind the scenes. Music makes a world where Eminem and Elton can merge audiences in peace. In the Madonna era, we are the champions.

Hilarious that some of these same girls have got too big for their britches. That they dared to lash out publicly at Madonna! Oh, keep it to yourself. I mean, come on, Madonna made a world where I can spend my life in clubs with the fiercest and the finest. I can go to gay church on Sunday and watch Will and Grace with my best friends and their shih tzu Lola. I can drink frosted crantinis and still pick up men, because everyone mingles now like one big happy family. And those crantini girls? They’re a really married couple, because I live in an awesome country that affords my friends to make the same marital complications that I’m allowed. Elton was still in the closet until Madonna let him out. I mean, wow, ELTON JOHN tried to pass himself off as straight- kind of like Jodi Foster. Imagine.

So what was what’s his name? Yes, war is stupid, my silly bear. That’s why Eminem and Madonna put out powerhouse songs like Square Dance and American Life. So what was your sketch, honey? Oh, right- Madonna doesn’t do her own accounts and she should have dissed Eminem for saying ‘fag’ instead of giving torch to free speech.

Since when do we only hear what we want to hear? How little can we then know about human nature and behaviour? Besides, Georgia you’re a big girl now. You’re allowed to walk on the streets with those eyebrows without getting killed.

Here’s the deal: whatever our special subgroup, whatever our unique identity markers, we’re going to have to endure some blatantly irritating stories and insinuations, but we also get to tell ours. We MUST fight to keep free speech, not fight to censor the speech of someone we don’t like. It riles me up how much we take for granted: it wasn’t too long ago that I could not vote because of my pretty little head. I don’t have to be married or live as a man in order to paint. I might hear “bitch!” as I walk down the street. Bring it on. But don’t send me to a country where I would go to jail for showing my ankles. Come on, George, you should be going up to the guy and asking if he wants to talk about it, for crying out loud. Do you think there are ghetto kids home in from the streets, crying because Tupac said nigger?

The thing is, ladies, we need Madonna to remind us, like the great Mother that she is to all, that though gay music is indeed among her inspirations, the rest of the world is still breeder. And in that world is also eroticism, and oppression, and sorrow, and beauty, and those worlds must also tell their stories. I’m very happy to be among the shiniest gems in this city, but at some point I am also one of those fine breeder specimens (with a twist, of course!) with unique needs and stories of my own.

The point is, Georgie Girl, Eminem and Madonna are both a zillion trillion kabatetrillion times more spectacular, creative, talented, smart, and more adept at perceiving the world around them than you will ever be. Yeah, it was a blow to me as well, and I just had to accept that I will never be as celebrated as Madonna! And as soon as I understood that we have to have teachers, the easier it got for me to be humble. What could we learn if we were at the top of our game? Even Madonna learns, gleans, muses over and mulls. She knows she is not the only player in showbiz, even if she is the Lady Messiah.

Besides, if I were relegated to a life of nothing but the Pet Shop Boys and Erasure, I’d shoot myself in the eye. Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Pet Shop Boys are underrated and love their glossy, detached sardonicism. And Erasure is so happy and angelic, a true flame of positive energy making. But once in a while I’m going to have to mate. And when that happens, it’s either smoldering with Nina Simone’s blues, or Led Zeppelin maxed up on volume, or, well, Madonna’s Bedtime Stories.

I knew Moby was smart enough to come around, and that he’d come to agree to disagree and offer his respect. I’m not saying you have to love Eminem just because I suddenly do. I was very much of that mindset that I couldn’t tolerate the word ‘bitch’ and hence, I missed out on a lot. Then I figured it out. I do not have to endorse a certain headset toward any group just because I am capable of listening to elements of those groups through their cultural markers like music, film, art. But I sure as hell have to give props where props are due, and allow you space and audience to say your piece, so that I can also have mine.

Sigh- the last man I seriously considered running away with, the rippling army brat slash firefighter- expressed some surprise that someone of my awesome intellectual fortitude would give a flying flick about what Paris was wearing and whether Eminem’s 20 year relationship with his foster sister/wife was going to last.

Well, I wasn’t going to go anywhere if I wasn’t allowed to read my magazines! Most people are a little embarrassed about their celebrity fixations, perhaps guilty because they cannot name a dozen Nobel or Pulitzer winners. But I’m not ashamed. Guerrilla scholar and intelligence of the world, Camille Paglia, is also very candid about her worship of various icons, including Madonna.

By following the triumphs and tragedies of our stage and screen, we are merely re-enacting the great loves and the great feuds of the gods. Like Dionysus and Isis and Ganesh and Pan, like Medusa and Imanja and Thor- our pantheon is rife with vanities, insanities, jealousies, scandals, affairs, murders, adventures, broken hearts. Human beings have a profound need to deduce their world through the scandalous sagas of the gods and goddesses.

Ancient or modern, we do now and always will weave our stories within theirs. Moby and Eminem are just classical archetypes, finding their places after a dramatic rift. The escapades and sagas of the immortals are exactly the theatres we’re re-enacting. Academics can snivel at me, and turn into their soulless diagrams of the epoch of Horus or Tristan and Isolde.

But we live our life in archetypes, and today’s paparazzi zeitgeist is no exception.

November 2007
Lorette C. Luzajic
www.thegirlcanwrite.net
www.literaryaddict.wordpress.com
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Sam Bourne’s The Righteous Men

Five years from now I won’t even remember that I read Sam Bourne’s The Righteous Men, but so what? Not every book has to change your life.

I’d been longing for another page turning religious thriller in the post-Da Vinci Code era. While there were dozens of possible ‘spin-offs’ to choose from, none held my attention past page four, and most were blatantly parroting the exact same themes. I mean, how lame is it to write another whole novel using Da Vinci? Try another artist, at the very least…while there is nothing new under the sun, a tiny bit of originality surely goes a long way.

Bourne’s first novel, complete with banal sentiments, kidnapped wife, and an implausible plot was still a book I devoured cover-to-cover. Throw in an unusual Hasidic Judaism movement in Crown Heights, New York, a NY Times reporter who is a link to the possible Moshiach (Messiah), some ancient Kabalistic legends, a dead pimp, a weird Christian sect, and an ex-girlfriend with curves to there. What an adventure.

Some of the puzzle solving is indeed a bit of a stretch. Bourne can spin a good yarn, but doesn’t yet have the mastery to make you really care about the characters. I couldn’t have cared less, really, if the kidnapped wife was ever returned, and I never felt real affection for Will, the main character, or his amazing father, who handily is a judge. I was never turned on by the ex-girlfriend and felt the rabbis were a rather wooden lot. But nonetheless, it was still compulsive reading, and I always love a few religious legends thrown in. Religion has always been a fascinating panorama of human behaviour, and too much or too little of it seem to be bad news. Without any, stress levels skyrocket. With too much, weird obsessive fixations are seeded. Religion is also the distinguishing element between cultures and generations. Other people’s religion always seems bizarre, and puzzling out what the cues mean explains so much about them. The details of rituals make for great reading, and I’ve always been partial to a good Catholic mystery, with stained glass and flickering candles and corrupt priests and banished sinners. The sterile Protestant world I grew up in did not have luxuries like rosary beads and saints and weeping statues, so I always found fascination in a good Catholic plot. Now that all of the intriguing Catholic storylines have been done to death, what’s girl to do?

It takes a very imaginative writer to find conspiracy theories, Messianic plots, and global murder blue prints in the legends of the Torah and other Hasidic books. Bourne introduces the kabala and only refers to Madonna once. While his character sketches and the plausibility of the plot are definitely suffering a little, he does bring alive the studious world of Jewish theology and makes the reader curious to learn more. The title Righteous Men refers to an ancient belief that righteousness and justice can cloak itself into invisibility in a simple man (never a woman, of course) – or even a sinner man. And you’ll wonder if Jesus ripped off that bit about angels disguised as convicts or whatever it was. In any event, it brought to mind Peter’s letter: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8). And as it turns out, for all his malevolence of trade, the pimp was a very nice guy.

Lorette C. Luzajic – read more of my work through www.thegirlcanwrite.net. Check out my other blog at www.thegirlcanwrite.wordpress.com.

The Young and the Reckless: Pirates I Have Loved

Perhaps 2007 will go down as the Year of the Pirates. Had the cinematic trilogy featured anyone other than Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, I doubt it could have been such a triumph. I’ve always had a thing for a man in eyeliner, and Lord knows I’m not the only one. Here’s the perfect, bewildering, beguiling, hot marriage of rebel with a cause and sensitive guy. (Men perplexed at the whims of women need only don some clunky jewelry and a soul, though snaring the lady of his dreams is no guarantee to a man of happiness.) Those effete mannerisms mixed with smoldering playfulness and an indomitable thirst for adventure makes for a scrumptious pirate. Yeah, thanks JD, honestly, it was so fun to have a giant crush these past few years that wouldn’t actually alter the course of my life.

Of course, I’ve a predilection toward the pirate, and later I married one- thought he was a ‘sea captain’ but semantics like that tripped up even romantics like me…it began when I was in the twilight years, ten, twelve, the years when I begun to emerge…through my noble literary quests I found my first love, Rhett Butler. Well, actually my first crush was Barbra Streisand, a little weird I admit- but she gave me this lifelong pride in being a Second Hand Rose. She used to be the queen of vintage Salvation Armani before that dreadful old lady bob and the beige dresses- is that my fate? Regardless, her archetypal presence still reigns in the drag circles I occasionally mingle in.

Thankfully, that particular estrogen surge left as quickly as it appeared. Enter the man of my dreams, Rhett Butler. I mean, God, if any man out there is wondering, “What do women want?” just observe Rhett’s every thought and action. Watch how his shit plays out. A man of such ill repute must also be solid and fight for what he believes in, tell the truth, adore us. This man, my friends, is why Gone with the Wind had the kind of substance it did: Rhett’s character and the way he saw things showed profound truths about human nature. Rhett was dashing and intriguing, but polite enough to keep to the wings for the duration of much of the story. He did not need to be flashy, though he enjoyed it when appropriate. Rhett seemed to be the glue, not just of a fictional book, but of the whole world.

Obviously my feelings about this man are strong, and because I hadn’t heard any preamble about the book, it hit me by total surprise: Rhett Butler’s People, a novel by award winning Civil War-era novelist Donald McCaig. The shock of it is rather, well, like having your childhood pirate pop unexpectedly in town some twenty years later for a clandestine rendezvous.

The Margaret Mitchell estate chose the novelist, and I have complete assurance that this writer is competent to create an unforgettable and honourable oeuvre. The fact remains, however, that he is a man. Is it fair for a man to tell Rhett’s story? The strength of Mitchell’s writing was her profound understanding of the human heart in all its guises. Her success at creating the dream lover of every woman to come after 1936, when GWTW was first published, was simply creating the absolute female ideal. Which only a woman could know. (I’m not being sexist: can a woman create the woman of men’s dreams? I doubt it.)

In addition to flawlessly colouring the details of female fantasy, each character was a fully illustrated archetype, unfolding via natural ‘show don’t tell’ storytelling. Were the things Mitchell noticed things McCaig would notice? While this question is surely relevant no matter who wrote the book, I admit to some trepidation for the emotional nuances of the character. I don’t want to get confused- after all, no matter how amazing this guy is, he is not the creator of Tara and friends, who are real people to half the world.

So, what if Rhett has changed? I know that has the power to change me. This is a unique chance to shatter something I prefer to leave in tact. There is much at stake here.

But of course, I would never have the strength to stay away and leave well enough alone. Come on. You know I was on the phone within seconds of hearing the word, with Book City. It made me sad that the clerk had never heard of it. What kind of marketing plan was that? And what bookstore wouldn’t have a five-minute meeting to recap the event and to have fancy editions of Gone With the Wind…astonishing. It seems there is an unfortunate lit scene poopooing of Gone With the Wind. All I can say to any of that is: did you read the book? Simple. Those who say they have usually carry brittle reasons for their disdain, but face facts, any one who HAS read the damn book would agree over and over, “Gone with the Wind- that’s probably my favourite novel of all time.” “Best book ever.” “Amazing book.” Here was a work by a very peculiar and outrageous woman that tied up a thousand ends masterfully. Here is a book that recorded war differently, as a woman always will- it’s the story of the people. The rich and spoiled digging in the same dirt as their slaves, and what the hell they talked about in the fields. About love and birth and family carrying on through hell. About losing your boys and your fathers and husbands for a war that most didn’t even believe in, including Rhett, of course. He knew the truth: the Cause was rubbish, but that men love war.

Well, Whatever. I wish some book types would recognize an event of such historical anticipation, really, even if it were not earmarked for the obscure prizes, even if it is destined to be consumed by ‘mass culture.’ Perhaps the Americanism of the story has fallen out of favour in recent years, but come on, a lot of stories take place in the United States. Some of my best ones did! The library came through for me today, God bless you redheaded ladies at the Todmorden Branch. It’s very likely a book I will buy, regardless, to have and to hold, but I couldn’t wait.

So who is Rhett Butler? Not sure how Mitchell found the words: I don’t have them. Now here’s a scoundrel who commands and deserves respect without actually lording over anyone. A man so free to do what he wants, he feels a reputation is a ball and chain. And yet, in such rebellion and dangerous devil may care machismo, you know you can depend on Rhett to do the right thing. He’d despise a word like morality, yet you could count on him- unless you tried to play mind games with him, something some women have a weakness for, admit it ladies. You can’t win with Rhett, though, because he knows how people work, and as hedonistic as he seems, he cares for his family and loved ones in ways that are passionate and absolute. He’s a man who loves she thrill of the gamble, literal and in life, and usually calculates correctly. He will never compromise the truth even if you’re begging for a lie. He’ll give you his heart without reservation if you would just be courageous enough to express your own desires, physical and spiritual. He is not received by any societal groups except brothels and pirates. Yet you’ll find him easily slipping into the most unexpected circles and making casual, pleasant company. You feel at ease in Rhett’s presence, whether you are a millionaire or a whore.

So here goes. And I’m opening my heart to McCaig’s story because it came out of him, and the gift is that I’m able to read it. Many stories remain unopened, inaccessible. I’m grateful.

Madcap Captain Jack was a whole lot less refined than Rhett Butler, and Rhett’s not really a pirate. I mean, he IS really a pirate. But he does not live roughly on the seas or have a parrot or chest of gold or haunted ships and other such ‘lore’ that was so wonderfully vivid in the Pirates of the Caribbean spectacle. Depp gave depth to this sort of rogue – but then, Depp reminds me a bit of Mr. Butler on various occasions, not just this one. I was sorry that there weren’t going to be annual installments, but Jack sparrow must stay in tact, too- stuffing another actor in his clothes so JD could move on to new challenges would be hideous.

Exit, my beloved pirate, and now I walk down the planks, ready to open my new book, to reunite with my long-lost lover.

Lorette C. Luzajic

Don’t be shy: I’ve got a lot more stuff for you to read! Catch more at my main site, www.thegirlcanwrite.net, and try my other blog, Chatterbox, at www.thegirlcanwrite.wordpress.com.

Scared Straight: Reading Boy George’s Autobiography

Could it be that under all that festivity, sassy saccharine songstress Boy George is just one of those sniveling, whining queens no one really likes?

So it appears after reading his tedious and self-absorbed autobiography, Straight, with Paul Gorman. I definitely admire anyone who wears extreme makeup with panache and aplomb. Georgie Girl writes as if his artistry is an inner force that has knocked the world over, but even hardcore fans can only name a song or two- the chameleon one, yeah, that’s it. It’s fine to be fluffy; it’s fine to be famous for your public persona and style, but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?

Boy George defends this lack of artistic production as a conscious, stress-relieving system that works for him. He says he’s very choosy about what work he takes on. Very selective. Sure, perhaps the joy of your life is radical clubbing and you are surrounded by intriguing fuck-ups and want to tell us about them. Terrific!

Sort of. There’s lots of stuff about the clubs and the weirdoes inside them, but instead of getting the feeling that Boy George is a very funny, friendly girl, you’ll just hear about how well-adjusted he is versus all the others. Factory freaks were far from “well-adjusted,” and it seems George wants to come across at the same time as a post-Warholian diva. Problem is, the art and the personality are both lacking.

Finally, half the book is anti-Madonna simpering, which is hardly good for anyone’s image. It used to be fine for your mother and mine to dismiss her as nothing but a half-naked tartette, but since she ruled the world with her mastermind magnificence, dissing Our Lady is really rather silly, even if she’s not your cup of tea. Leaving well enough alone would be the wise idea for George, given the obvious contrast in success and innovation and spirituality and performance ideas between the two. But Georgie can’t look up from his navel long enough to realize Madonna rules the world, or at the very least, has accomplished something.

However, this doesn’t faze him: “I’m not one of those people who respect success for the sake of it,” he writes. “Arms dealers and warlords accumulate fortunes but I don’t respect them.” Oh, yes, right, the tyranny of the breast.

Or this: “People always say she’s a brilliant businesswoman, but trust me, at that level of income she hardly does her own accounts.” I bet she does, George, I bet she actually hand selects each and every advisor, investor, accountant and runs the show thoroughly, but whatever, darling. You go back to your corner of the room now.

Oh, yeah, he says either she’s predicable or else he’s a mystic, and that she’s just an abandoned little girl wanting to be loved. You know what? So am I. So is everyone. And I’m not strutting the globe in the coolest boots ever and spreading the good news to every nation under the sun. And neither, George, are you.

It gets worse, though. You’ll want to leave your radical ‘80s childhood in tact, so skip the whole thing before the illusions burst and leave you with nothing. Apparently George is a better artist than Eminem, so he recorded a song called Swallow Me, where he rapped about the “great white saviour of hip hop.” You can be sure I’ll be downloading this one for a good laugh- good thing he mentioned it, otherwise I would never have heard of it. Anyhow, here he whines on about how easily Eminem throws around the word ‘faggot’ and how since Eminem got popular, he’s had to endure people shouting ‘fag’ at him more frequently than before.

First of all, sister, if you show up anywhere in swaddling neon scarves with lipstick on your forehead, someone’s gonna pipe up with the f-word. Second, can our rainbow nation please develop a thick skin and a funny bone? People are gonna dismiss faggots and women from here until the end of time, and I’m gonna roll my eyebrows, not roll over and die when I hear it.

We’ve come a long way, baby. Give me a bleeding break, my friend. The world is more faggot-friendly than ever before. It’s true that when I grew up, I was ostracized for hanging around with queens from art school and listening to Culture Club. But now Dan Savage, lover of Ashton Kutcher in the tightey-whitey, is sex advice guru to all men. It’s the age of the metrosexual and the sensitive male. It’s post-Will and Grace, and yes, dear George, it’s a culture taught by Madonna that gays are people, too. It’s the age where gay marriage is finally allowed, and changes are happening all over the world. For the very first time in history, the fag has a few rights, and more are coming, and ladies are allowed to vote, too!

Still, he digs the grave deeper siding with critics who lambasted Madonna for standing up for Eminem’s right to free speech, when she should have been attacking Em’s shock-cock values. I have about a zillion queeny friends and all of them agree that Eminem is a cherubic hottie, and no one, including Elton John, is afraid he may attack them for being queer. It may or may not be stage personality in good taste, but I’m not even going to bother going after rap for what it says about women. I’m going to say what I want about women, and listen real good to Madonna’s message, and leave it at that, because some things are just stories. Lest we forget, it is free speech, however disarming, that let Will and Grace on the air, that let us talk about taboos, that lets us get away with outrageous talk and dress, that lets us address sexuality and religion and make sense of things. If poor white trash is not free to speak, then neither are poor white peasants like myself or apparent aristocracy like Boy George.

So yawn. I could hardly stay awake to endure another supposedly outlandish opinion. All I could think was “Who are you?” and mourn that my beloved favourite sultry trannie song will now forever flash through my head as The Whining Game. Now that is something to cry about.