1.) What inspired your story, “And the Angels Sing”?
The story was based on visits I did make to my ailing uncle and also, at random times, a group of subway singers. Over time, I combined them with my thoughts about music in general and turned them into conversations with the hospice person.
2.) Who are a few of your favorite writers? Favorite musicians?
Favorite writers include Fitzgerald, the short stories of Hemingway, Ann Beatie, Phillip Pullman. In terms of music, it’s a wide range from theater to rock and pop. From Hammerstein to Sondheim, Sinatra and his pack, the Beatles and Beach Boys, Bruce, Motown.
3.) Which do you feel is a stronger mode of communication, literature or music?
I think music communicates best. Even if you hear a song in a different language and don’t understand the words, the vocal and melody can affect your mood.
VIEWING A SCENE FROM THE 1959 FILM VERSION OF BEN-HUR
“The grown man knows the world he lives in.”
Though it won eleven Academy Awards when it came out, today the 1959 movie version of Ben-Hur is ridiculously underrated by film critics and historians. In visuals and sound– including a best-ever film score by Miklos Rozsa– it provides one of the great cinematic experiences. Including the best-ever movie action sequence, the famed chariot race. But it’s also the most literate film epic ever made, with the possible exception of 1963’s Lawrence of Arabia. Contributors to Ben-Hur’s script included Karl Tunberg (who received screen credit), Christopher Fry, Gore Vidal, Maxwell Anderson, and S. N. Behrman– outstanding talents all.
The talent is shown, in my opinion, in one scene in particular, which, with everything happening in the world today, is more relevant than ever. This is the encounter between Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, and Judah Ben-Hur after Judah has won the chariot race. The subject being what path for an individual to follow when facing the cruel complexities of this world. To choose the big-picture reality of Empire– or move to the side of personal tragedies which may be indirectly or directly caused by Empire.
It’s a dilemma I notice taking place right now regarding the same part of the world, between America’s pro-Palestinian left, and those left-leaning liberals supporting President Biden on the issue, who are taking a broader, Pax Americana view– the view outlined in Biden’s October 19, 2023 televised speech. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Hopefully it won’t take 2,000 years to figure it out.
Anyway, the scene–
NOTE: The film is based on the novel by Lew Wallace, published in 1880, before the United States was considered an empire. Wallace had been a general on the Union side during the American Civil War. The reigning world empire at the time, Great Britain, had tacitly supported the South during that war. Did this influence Lew Wallace’s novel? One wonders.
“Do you remember?” I continued, “I was into the Beatles and all the British Invasion groups that were out then, but you never cared for them. It was difficult for me to understand that you could not see what I saw in those performers. You talked about Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and the like. You insisted that I listen to their music and gain an appreciation for their artistry. I felt I knew them well enough since they were who mom and dad listened to. I now had my own stars and their songs dominated my head. Of course, I was sixteen, so I thought my opinions mattered more. I wanted you to understand what ‘my’ singers were talking about. If your favorites sang about love, mine sang about love, but also civil rights and injustice. Wasn’t that more important?”
1.) Which would you rather be doing: writing or practicing tai chi?
As much as I enjoy the sense of accomplishment after completing a story, feeling as though I was able to successfully crystallize my emotions, experiences, and imagination into words, I would have to say that I enjoy practicing tai chi more than writing. Writing has never been easy for me. And while learning a new tai chi routine can also be difficult, I am in love with the experience of moving in time to the music, performing in perfect sync with my fellow tai chi classmates, and mastering something physically. It is my burning passion.
2.) Are there a writer or writers whose work you use as a model, or at least as an example of something to strive for?
My favorite writer is James Herriot (true name Alf Wight), the author of the All Creatures Great and Small series. I may fall short, but I always reach for his level of excellence when I write.
3.) What’s your goal as a writer?
My goal as a writer is to capture the wisps of memory and creativity floating around in my head, share them in a way that is clear and melodic, and leave the reader with an understanding that, despite our differences, we can relate to each other through the common experience of being human. I hope that my stories make people feel as though they know me and that I care about making their day a little happier.
THE STATE of education in this country has become so poor or willfully misleading that even approved literary critics don’t seem to know what’s meant by populist art.
NOTE: It’s not best-selling genre novels cranked out by giant conglomerates. Neither is it paint-by-numbers superhero movies appearing in cinema chains: mindless products also distributed by gigantic conglomerates. Real populism recognizes that authentic culture is a grass roots phenomenon. From the people upward, not imposed by some bureaucracy or other from the top down.
Twentieth Century populism was a left-of-center aesthetic, without being doctrinaire about it. Many populists were in effect liberal centrists, including John Steinbeck, Frank Capra, Carl Sandburg, William Grant Still, Aaron Copland, and many others.
An example of a populist painter who definitely was on the left– populism, in taking a big-picture view, often references politics– was Mexican artist Diego Rivera, best known for murals depicting broad swaths of society. Such as the one at the Detroit Institute of Arts. (See above image.)
What of New Pop Lit?
Our roots are in the underground writing scene. Both NPL editors are from the tough industrial town of Detroit. Populism is part of our aesthetic and our ethos– though not exclusively. However much our vibe now is more retro modern, we’re never going to abandon the “pop” part of the New Pop Lit equation. Just saying.
“It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us to escape– not from our own time, for we are bound by that– but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our own time.”
FIRST IN A SERIES EXAMINING THE INSIDER LITERARY SCENE
photo c/o Bustle.com
One has gotta love this photo of high-powered literary agent Felicity Blunt, because it captures so well the remove and cluelessness of today’s Manhattan publishing scene. With the world in the process of change from every direction, it’s time to offer alternatives to established literature’s stale offerings and business-as-usual ways of doing things.
OR: Is a new counterculture possible?
Stay tuned for more images of how New York publishing has lost its edge– if it ever had any!
A RESPONSE TO THE 2023 NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE, FROM A NOTED AUTHOR?
Do I have a response or reaction to someone named Jon Fosse winning this year’s Nobel Prize? (Do I have a reaction of course I have a “reaction.” Public? Private?– known only to myself: “self.” But after all what is the “self.”)
Of course! I have a reaction very public not squeamish or disappointed to news of this person, nobody, obscurity– this man having won the most prestigious of literary prizes and after all I’ve won my share, garnered accolades, but does any woman ever properly obtain her “share” in this world where male privilege has been constant– constant!– has been overbearing, residue of the father figure, patriarch of the tribe (“tribe”), designated enforcer of tokens, benefits, awards including that most hungered-after of all awards. A prize. For which her mouth watered. For which no alternate compensation Princeton dons with hypocritical smiles is ever enough (“enough!”) compensation for the neglect of too-many years spent waiting for the just-due award– speech at ready– an award which never arrives. No ringing doorbell, no cable of congratulations, no telegram– do people any longer send telegrams? I must ask my students– “students”– those too-hungry animals with avaricious eyes waiting not for “A’s,” for grades, but for something deeper, more dangerous and violent, like cannibals; waiting for word from me to send them to the Big Time– fame! fortune!?– as if I could send anyone to the “big time” (well, there was Mr. Foer, callow and eager, pliable, but he had other connections), as I who await word by my phone in the morning, the important call– how many years has it been? “years”– more like decades, each passing year of months waiting, producing more words, more works, more volumes– volumes!– volumes upon volumes, entire forests hacked away to create, as evidence– does the Nobel panel need more evidence? As I sigh and think, onto the next one! The next novel, the next book of stories, the next volume. The next Nobel, next year. Maybe then.
Have I exceeded my limit? Oh dear. I commend Mr. Foster– Fosse?– for his win. Sincerely,
To be remembered. To be recognized. Accepted. The Nobel Prize is an attempt to answer that question. Legend says that Alfred Nobel funded the prize after reading an untimely published obituary about his life. Dynamite tycoon. He didn’t want to be remembered that way. He didn’t like that that was how others viewed him.
Today, no one knows about Alfred Nobel and where his wealth originated from. They know about the Nobel Prize, and they think good things. Nobel used to mean dynamite, now it means excellence. The pinnacle of prestige.
Jon Fosse is a great writer. A bright seal of approval has been stamped onto his name. Nobel Laureate. Lauded by his peers and just the right amount of fame to go along with it. His writing will be immortalized in books crowded into shelves. Under each title will be his name and that seal. Winner of the Nobel Prize.
If that will suffice to be remembered, God only knows.
