Tell me about your childhood...

If you are like me, you've probably done the radio interview in the bathroom. You know the one where you use the hairbrush for a mic and it goes something like,

"Tell me how it all began"
"Well, Terry..."

If you have read Roddy Doyle's wonderful Barrytown Trilogy or seen the movie the Commitments, you'll get the above reference. I am embarrassed to say that I could relate to the guy in the Commitments interviewing himself.

It's not because I thought someday I'd be famous, but I think everyone, if they're honest, loves to have questions asked about themselves. Well, okay, maybe not the true introverts or the Garbo's that "just vant to be alone" - but many of us would love to answer that "How did it all begin" query.

"Well, I was born at a very early age..."
(insert rimshot here)

This week I am working on an interview that doesn't involve hairbrush mics and someone else, an actual person, is asking the question. The interview is for Smokelong Quarterly and will appear along with my piece, "Night Birds" in the March issue (out on the 15th, I believe).
I have been asked some fine questions and best of all I get to respond by email, which gives me a bit of grace in retracting the dumb things and making me sound a tad more eloquent. Okay, more than a tad.

So, um, uh,... (pause cough), I'll post a link soon.
.. is this thing on? Testing... testing.

Roddy Doyle Interview

You wanna be a what?

  I have read voraciously all my life - starting with Dr. Seuss and moving to William Steig and Norton Juster.

Junior High was all about Sci-Fi - notably Philip K. Dick. High School was a bit of everything, including this new guy I had heard of, John Irving ("The World According to Garp" was a book above me, but dazzling). College was all Vonnegut all the time. Toward the end I started reading Hemingway (I was a late bloomer).

 But as much as I loved it all, I didn't think of being a writer until two things happened. At 22, I read Catcher in the Rye (again, late bloomer). Then a while later, (okay maybe 10 years later) I saw the movie Smoke (based on Paul Auster's work). I looked at IMDB and couldn't believe Smoke came out in 1995 - memory is funny like that. I thought I read Salinger's book and saw Auster's movie shortly after.

Nonetheless, I came home from Smoke stunned, and I couldn't quite say why. I came across this review of the movie.

 
SMOKE is a beautiful movie about nothing at all and at the same time about everything. I don´t even know how to describe it to someone, I guess it´s indescribable. It´s one of those rare movies that it has to be felt. If you don´t feel it, then you are missing the whole point. SMOKE is one of those rare movies which we don´t know how to recommend this to our friends, because it´s so original and simple that there is nothing to describe. Anything we might say ,it only will give the illusion this is an shallow or boring movie. SMOKE is not an adventure, not a drama, not a comedy, not a cops movie, not an action movie, so what it´s about ?!! It´s about life. But in a real way, and surprisingly not boring.

 "It's about life" - maybe that is what struck me.
I clearly remember how a huge beam of light went off in my head. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write about life. As I read that, it seems slightly pretentious, yet there it is.

In 2005, Zoetrope reprinted Auster's story, "Auggie Wren's Christmas" - Smoke was based on this story. I wondered if I would get that same shivery feeling reading it. I read the story and I was stunned - I shook at the depth of the emotion. And when I synopsized the story for my wife, I was on the edge of tears until the end, I just needed to weep. And I did. There is something within that story that reaches deep inside me. That is a goal of mine, to write a story that can have that effect on a reader, even years later.

Auster reads Auggie Wren's Christmas

Shuffle over to 3:AM

My story, "Shuffle" is up at 3:AM magazine. Have a look and tell me what you think.

And if you scroll down a bit too the Flaming Noggin Writing post - I write about how this tale came to be.

Here is the 3:AM link – SHUFFLE

A brief woohoo

This morning, I finished what may be the last story of my collection, working title: The Plate Spinner. The story, Ziggurat, feels like the sort of story that would be the last in a collection - maybe, it's the "Z" in the title, or the feeling that an end has come (the main character is reflecting on his father's funeral).

Presently, I am going through my "raw" material and seeing if I have enough to carve out my manuscript or if I need one more story.

So that part is a woohoo - going to the next stage in revision, I mean. The other woohoo is 3:AM is working on my story right now and it should be up soon, today, even.

Stay tuned.

The Best List

I was an Oscar junkie before I knew what the word meant - "junkie", not oscar, those were wieners. I loved movies and everything about them. I spent whole afternoons at my library reading about Capra, Hitchcock and Ford. Yes, a kid reading film criticism is a bit weird, but hey, it was a small town, I had to do something.

I was probably a pain to go to the movies with. I remember the people sitting next to me were often "shushed" so I could hear the dialogue – this was at the Saturday matinee, playing such cinematic gems as "Pinocchio In Outer Space" (yes, that is a real movie - see the still above).

Oscar night was one of the few nights that I could stay up late - even until midnight, if needed, and it often was. For some reason, I remember them as being in April, but that must be some childhood fog. But I do recall vividly how I was mesmerized by the spectacle. A lot of the movies, I had never seen, actors and directors I had barely heard of – but would be researching at the library the next week. I remember watching the clips for Cabaret (what's that about, mom?) and seeing the streaker run past David Niven (what's THAT about, mom?).

I haven't missed an Oscar night in years. I now have a devoted group of movie lovers that come over to eat, laugh at the dresses, drink, yell at the screen, and eat some more. We have the ballots and everyone throws a toonie in the pot - yours truly has faired well over the years, gaining some coffee money for the week. Alas, last night was a bust, my crystal ball was way off and I had to be satisfied with the fact that one of my favorite actors of all time (Alan Arkin) won, against the odds. Hell, I didn't even put his name on the ballot – but I was still happy.

This being a blog about fiction, I finally reach my point about storytelling. I have become increasingly aware that my favorite film of the year walks away with one of the screenplay awards, usually the Best Original Screen-play. When I am watching a movie that I love, I can almost sense it, this is such damn fine writing, it HAS to win screenplay. And quite often, it does. Looking at the list of screenplay winners over the years, it's like a list of my favorite films.

Starting with Citizen Kane (1941), then On the Waterfront (1954), The Apartment (1960), The Producers (1968), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Midnight Cowboy (1969 - adapted) Patton (1970 - written by Francis Ford Coppola!), MASH (1970 adapted). When it hits the 70's, that is when I really notice - The French Connection (1971 - adapted)), The Godfather (1972 and Part Two in 1974 adapted), The Candidate (1972), The Sting (1973), Chinatown (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1975 - adapted), All the President's Men (1976 - adapted).

 
The 70's were called the Second Golden age in American Film making for a reason. As the studios rose in power and the blockbuster emerged (curse you George Lucas and Spielberg), the 80's tanked. I looked over the winners and shook my head. Maybe Melvin and Howard (1980) and a couple of others, but mostly the well written movie went in the toilet.

The 90's started out bad, I mean Ghost (1990)! That piece of crap with Demi Moore and Mr.Dirty Dancing himself? Oh please, could we just have someone original appear, anyone, someone....

Then a ray of hope - Pulp Fiction (1994) - thank-you Mr. Tarentino. Then, the Usual Suspects (1995) and even better Fargo (1996) -thank-you Mr. and Mrs. Cohen for your brilliant sons. Then in quick succession L.A. Confidential (1997 - adapted from the amazing James Ellroy), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and American Beauty (1999) - I am like, whoa, check your decade clock! Is this another golden age?

I haven't checked the data, but in my head the other trend that emerged was that the best written picture did not translate to the Best Picture award. That award seemed to be based on some other criteria, possibly signals sent from another planet (Titanic anyone?). But that's okay, I knew which category mattered.

Almost Famous (2000), Gosford Park (2001), Lost in Translation (2003), Lord of the Rings (2003 - adapted - showing that blockbusters can also be well written. Though, it helps when you have Tolkien as source material) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Sideways (2004 Adapted) and last night, my favorite movie of the year, the one I knew would not win Best Picture (but secretly hoped), Little Miss Sunshine (2006). I remember watching it and remarking to me son, best written thing I have seen this year, gotta win screenplay.

Until next year.