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Joseph E Bird

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vanity

tell me what I don’t know
see which way the wind blow
spinnin like a gyro
playin with the vertigo
puttin on a big show
fakin like a puppet show
hear me up in idaho
this is it, here we go

it don’t matter what it is
it don’t matter if it true
listen what i say to you
dig my words, dig me, too

leavin on a jet plane
hoppin to the south of spain
sippin on the champagne
scared to try the cocaine
stayin home it so mundane
want to be like charlemagne
livin large, i can’t complain
it ain’t real, its all in vain

it don’t matter what it is
it don’t matter if it true
listen what i say to you
dig my words, dig me, too

tell me that you like my song
yo to me, i can’t be wrong
be my posse, be my throng
if you like, you sing along
ring the bell, bang the gong
dig it man, like tommie chong
fifteen likes and goin strong
make me feel like i belong

it don’t matter what it is
it don’t matter if it true
listen what i say to you
dig my words, dig me, too

copyright 2016, joseph e bird

7

Static

Electronic vacuum tube

“…for in my radio with all its static I could hear, over and above Beethoven, the progress of a lightning storm a thousand miles away.” – from Prelude, by Mark Helprin.

Do you remember listening to the radio, late at night, and hearing that intermittent crackling?

Things have changed, of course, especially when it comes to how we listen to music.

Back in the day, my dad would occasionally tinker with our old-school television set when it would act up.  Televisons used to be big consoles that sat on the floor, and you would pull on a knob to turn it on, then wait while the vacuum tubes and the cathode ray tube (the tv screen) warmed up. Radios used to be like that, too, until the invention of the transistor. The glowing tubes went away.

Well, they’re back.

So are vinyl records and turntables. Audiophiles (if you play music using a turntable, you’re an audiophile) use words like “warmer” and “richer” to describe the musical experience they claim to hear.

I grew up listening to records on turntables, ranging from the cheap turntable in a cardboard suitcase that we played Beatles 45s on, to my college turntable that I bought after extensive research at all of the high fidelity stores that used to abound. As kids, we’d play a record so much that it would start sticking. So we taped pennies to the tone arm to hold the needle down so it wouldn’t jump the grooves in the record.

Of course with my high-end Yamaha turntable, the needle was referred to as a stylus and there was great debate over the merits of direct drive versus belt drive. I chose belt drive and was surprised to learn that the belt was little more than a rubber band. I wiped each record clean before and after playing with a special record cleaning pad and record cleaning solution, allowed a suitable amount of time between playing to allow the grooves to cool, and never, ever taped a penny to the tone arm.

Then along comes the CD. Digital music. Clear and perfect every time. No scratching from an overplayed record. If I wanted to play a song repeatedly, no problem. It was just as good as the first time.

Next, we started downloading music over the internet. But in order to keep files manageable, they need to be compressed. Some music quality is lost. This is when the audiophiles start to sing the blues.

Now we’ve come full circle in the quest for the ultimate stereo experience. Records, turntables, and vacuum tubes are back. And if I weren’t so cheap, I’d jump on the bandwagon, if for no other reason, than the fun of it.

But I can’t help but think that you’ll hear some crackle and pop from the stylus rumbling over the vinyl grooves, just like we used to, no matter how much you take care of your records.

I was reminded of all of this today as I was reading  Mark Helprin. His character was lamenting the bludgeoning march of progress and its effects on the simple things in life, and he says this:

“…for in my radio with all its static I could hear, over and above Beethoven, the progress of a lightning storm a thousand miles away.”

Maybe there’s truth in that.

Maybe a life is richer with a little static. And scratches. And imperfections.

Maybe perfect is too good.

photo credit: iStock Photography

 

 

 

0

American Pastoral

“I have to go write my review,” I said.

“Why do you have to write a review?” she asked.

“I don’t have to write a review.”

And then I realized that, yes, I have to. Not that anybody really cares what I, an overfed, long-haired leaping gnome, thinks about a book that’s almost 20 years old. Still, I need to get this out of my system. Let’s call it writer’s therapy.

As I said before, I can’t think of anybody in my circle of friends and family to whom I would recommend this book.  It’s just too much…of everything. And yet, I’m glad I read it. It was good exercise.

“The Swede.”

As if to answer who the book is about, the first sentence leaves no doubt.

It’s about Seymour Levov, aka The Swede, and his seemingly ideal American family set in the time of the Vietnam War. The pivotal event: his daughter blows up a post office as a protest to the war and a man is killed. The daughter goes on the run.

This plot line is slowly dripped (more slowly than my father’s decrepit coffee maker) as the author tells us everything about everybody that dares make an appearance in the novel.

Warning: Never volunteer to be a character in a Philip Roth story. He knows all and tells all.

And this is why I’m glad I read the book. It was one heckuva an exercise in character development. Layer after layer after layer.  After layer, after layer, after layer.  After layer, after layer, after layer, with enough hints at a story to keep you interested. Like the daughter has been missing for five years. And then, three-quarters into the book, he finds her.  Ok, we know the characters pretty well, so now the story is going to pick up.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Everytime something is about to happen, we get more dense paragraphs of exposition. Layer, after layer, after layer.

Then there’s the character Marcia Umanoff, a militant non-conformist whose duty in life is to make people uncomfortable. She’s a thinker and disdains simpletons. She’ll do anything to get under your skin. An elitist. Her actions in the novel are irritating, yet the perfect foil to the perfect world of the perfect Seymour Levov. I’m not giving away much to tell you that his world is not as perfect as it seems. Marcia Umanoff represents reality.

So here comes Joe Bird, a simple man (with a simple name) taking on a highly-acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Because he concludes that the book will not be in his top ten of all time, an elitist might conclude that the allegory and symbolism and sheer depth of the narrative might be too much for such a simple man. The elitist may be right.

Page 413: “These deep thinkers were the only people he could not stand to be around for long, these people who’d never manufactured anything or seen anything manufactured, who did not know what things were made of or how a company worked, who, aside from a house or a car, had never sold anything and didn’t know how to sell anything, who’d never hired a worker, fired a worker, trained a worker, been fleeced by a worker – people who knew nothing of the intricacies or the risks of building a business or running a factory but who nonetheless imagined that they knew everything worth knowing.”

Yeah. It’s like that.

 

 

2

whisper hello (a love song)

a glance of the eye, the innocent look
the curl of your lips, was all that it took
we talked without words, there was so much to say
my world went to sleep, when you went away

the hollow of lonely
it shakes me with fear
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

the care in your heart, always ready to share
you left me so humbled, my sins so aware
to witness your goodness, i now realize
it’s what i should live for, to be good in your eyes

i long for your warmth
and to kiss your sweet tears
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

the devil he tempts, the weak ones to test
he knows how to charm, my lust is impressed
my life is now stained, there’s nothing to do
but beg your forgiveness, your judgment is true

to touch your soft skin
and hold you so dear
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

the sound of your voice, echoes soft in my mind
i wish i could see you, for all others i’m blind
our love was so fleeting, and me, i’m to blame
i dream of the light, and live with my shame

please laugh for me honey
and bring joy to my ear
i whisper hello
but nobody’s here

copyright 2016, joseph e bird

author’s note: this is not autobiographical and i’m not depressed or missing anyone. i’ve been listening to a lot of “love gone wrong” songs lately and this is my contribution to the genre.

11

How to win a Pulitzer.

I recently came across a short piece written by Joe Bunting that I found on Jane Friedman’s website, 8 Techniques to Win You a Pulitzer. I won’t go into the details (click the link for the explanation) but here they are:

1. Write long sentences.
2. Write short sentences.
3. Be lyrical.
4. Make an allusion to the Bible, or Moby Dick, or Milton.
5. Use an eponym to name your characters.
6. Be specific.
7. Write a story within a story (or a story within a story within a story).
8. Have a wide scope.

As I’m making my way through Philip Roth’s American Pastoral, I see the first technique over and over. In this example, The Swede, the book’s tortured soul, is wrestling with what he should have done, didn’t do, did do, might have done – the kind of endless hand-wringing that we all know too well. He just does it one long sentence.

“But instead he had driven directly home from the office and, because he could never calculate a decision free of its emotional impact on those who claimed his love; because seeing them suffer was his greatest hardship; because ignoring their importuning and defying expectations, even when they would not argue reasonably or to the point, seemed to him an illegitimate use of his superior strength; because he could not disillusion anyone about the kind of selfless son, husband, and father he was; because he had come so highly recommended to everyone, he sat across from Dawn at the kitchen table, watching her deliver a long, sob-wracked, half demented speech, a plea to tell nothing to the FBI.”

That’s one long sentence, complete with semicolons and everything. Technique No. 2 should be easier to master.

0

Writer’s Log – 11/27/16

In novel writing, much importance is placed upon the first sentence, the need to capture the imagination of the reader – love at first sight, if you will. Certainly there are many terrific opening lines for great books. (Do you own Google search, just for kicks.) Is this one of them?

“The Swede.”

It’s the opening of American Pastoral, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Philip Roth.

Ok, let’s not be so literal so as to limit the “opening line” to simply the first sentence. Let’s say we’re evaluating the opening in general. Roth follows the not-so-descriptive introduction of one of his pivotal characters with this:

“During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city’s old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete.”

Are you hooked yet?  No?  Me neither.

And yet I kept reading. Page after page after page about the old neighborhood and its people. Not much action. Some conversations in a class reunion about days gone by.  in medias res?  No, not really. It’s all backstory. It’s what writing coaches would call exposition, and they greatly advise against it.

Take another look at that second sentence. It’s really long. The coach would advise to break it up, to get that comprehension level down a couple of notches. Roth also uses big words that most readers would have to look up. Again, not something they say you should do. It takes the reader out of the story.

I used to read a lot of John Grisham. Lots of story and action, and Grisham will keep you turning those pages. He follows the rules, has lots of fans, and piles of money. Roth probably does too, but he’s not exactly a household name.

Yet Philip Roth is a highly respected novelist. He breaks the rules and wins a Pulitzer.  How?

On page 86, he wrote this:

“The daugher who transports him out of the longed-for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the couterpastoral – into the indigenous American berserk.”

It took Roth 85 pages to get to the reader to the point that the meat of the sentence is understood mentally and emotionally, and so on-point that its resonance is profound.

I’m starting to get it.

It’s all about what you’re trying to acccomplish. It’s all about what you want your writing to do, and not so much about how many people read it. The truth is, the odds are greatly against any of us writing a best-seller. If you’re going to put in the hours, it had better be for something worthwhile. It had better bring at least one reader some satifisfaction, that one reader being the author.

Footnote:  The number one best-selling author from 1996 to 2000 was John Grisham. Philip Roth didn’t even crack the top 15 in 1997, the year American Pastoral won the Pulitzer.

 

 

 

 

 

2

Monday

It was a Monday, the only truthful day of the week. All other days were liars. Only Monday told you how bad your life really was. It had been a long, gray winter, but that morning in March the sun filtered through the trees on the east bank of the Seneca River and tried to convince her that this Monday would be different. It was the twenty-ninth spring for Savannah Joyce and she would be nobody’s fool. Especially not Monday’s.

copyright 2004, joseph e bird

This is the opening of my first novel, Counsel of the Ungodly.

2

Is this really necessary?

Inculcate – verb: to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions.

Socrates inculcated his pupils with the love of truth.

What a clunky word.  Sounds like a medical procedure. If you left off the last phrase of the example sentence, it would sound like Socrates had vision problems.

Socractes inculcated his pupils. 

Maybe he used eye-drops.

But he’s talking about the love of truth.

Love and truth. Two beautiful words. Noble concepts. What a better place the world would be with more love of truth. Or just more love, for that matter.

So let’s inculcate truth. Sounds like something politicians do all the time.

Let’s inculcate love. Yikes.

Why not use a word everybody understands?  One that has the same air of nobility as love and truth?

How about instill?

Socrates instilled his pupils with the love of truth.

I like that better.

The meaning is clear. The thought is uplifting.

Just because words are out there, doesn’t mean we have to use them.

0

The Heart is a Boring Atrocity

Last year, thanks to my friend across the pond, Amos Mallard, I read Carson McCuller’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Though there are some passages that may be offensive to our more enlightened sensibilities, it is nonetheless now in the top three of my all-time favorite novels. (Thanks for the recommendation, AM.) This is not a review, I just want to say that I agree with most people who consider the book a classic.

Then I came across this non-professional review (edited for a family-friendly format):

“This is one of the most atrocious books I’ve ever read. Over 300 pages of simple sentences, annoying repetitions, talentless descriptions, force-fed conclusions and moral lessons, and maudlin two-dimensional characters. It was a pain to go on after 50 pages, but I kept hoping that the characters might grow some sort of backbone and be cured of McCullers’s boring style. Beware: this does not happen. Boredom and desperation levels skyrocket after a while and the book just grows dismally pathetic. It rarely sounds plausible, and all characters seem to be a different version of just one; even the way they speak is always the same. Essentially, they are criminally deprived of personality and endowed with rage-invoking repetitious ideas.

Unfortunately that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The faults of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter lie deep and spread wide. I have rarely been so disappointed with a book.”

So, fellow artists, when considering the words of critics, remember that not everyone thinks van Gogh was a genius.  Some think Beethoven is boring. And I read another reviewer who thought To Kill a Mockingbird was “a sorry excuse for a book.”

A grain of salt, my friends. Maybe more.

0

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