- best EB White quote from this week's very interesting (and maybe scarily relevant?!) article on White in the New Yorker

- title of my future autobiography

So I've never been pregnant, but most people agree that by the time the nine months are up, a person is ready to be done with it so that she can actually have that baby in her possession as opposed to just carrying it around without any idea of what it looks like or anything.  Yes, having a real live baby is at least as much of a pain in the ass as pregnancy, but it's still apparently worth it.

In this way, when a person has a book about to come out any minute, he (me) sort of just wants it to happen.  So he (me) can have the book and show it to people and have them read it, and basically just move on to something else.  One big bonus is that unlike a baby, a book does not cry or poop or seek sustenance from a person's breasts.  Sometimes there are bad reviews and occasionally annoyingly critical e-mails, but that's not really the same.

I know that most people reading this are probably not eager for a baby right now or even possibly ever, but let's just say that you were.  Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like if you had been pregnant for eight months or so and some doctor told you that gestation period in humans had been revised to eighteen months.  Oops.  No baby yet!  You'll just have to stay pregs awhile longer.

You would probably be a little bummed out. 

And I'm kind of bummed to announce that while The Blonde of the Joke is still definitely on the way, it's going to take a little longer than I expected.  Like, a whole year longer actually.  It was supposed to hit the stores was September 2, as in about a month from now.  That is no longer the case.  The new date is being hammered down, but word is that you can look for it in Fall '09.  It sucks, but this is how things work sometimes.  Why?  I'm told it has to do with astrology.  (I have a really unusual chart.)

That's the bad news.  The good news is that I'm currently hard at work on the NEXT book-- working title APOCALYPSE BLONDE.  That one will be out, uh, sometime after the first one. 

Finally, I know have sworn never to mention Carly Simon again on this blog, but given the circumstances, I really can't resist seeking leaving you with THIS:

P.S. To those people who have reviewed The Blonde of the Joke on their blogs, thank you so much for the reviews but I suggest saving them for next year, when the book will actually be imminent.

It seems that everyone is all ABUZZ regarding Margo Rabb's very thoughtful NYTBR piece on the indignities and ultimate pleasures of writing fiction for teenagers.  A lot of The Community seems mad about this article but, Margo, I hear you girl.  I started writing at least partially for the purpose of gaining respect and hopefully a little hot makeout action at parties and was surely in for a rude awakening when I actually started getting published and found that no one gave enough of a shit to even grab my ass.  The first question I get when I tell people that I write novels for teenage girls is "Oh, but you don't use your real name, do you?"

Yes, writing for young adults is something like being a porn star-- so shameful that a person is expected by the Serious New York Chattering Class to shroud his identity in secrecy.  (My porn name is Tommy Pinecrest, so if I ever decide to go the pseudonym route you'll know how to find me.)  It turns out the difference between being a YA novelist and a porn star is that people at parties are actually impressed by porn stars.  I can vouch for this; I have been at parties with a few porn stars and I was a quivering mess every time.  Did they even know I was in the room?  NO.

I have plenty of friends-- friends who shed big and sloppy tears at JUNO, for fuck's sake!-- who will never read any of my books for fear of losing precious IQ points.  People have basically told me this to my face.  For awhile I was offended, but I've decided that it's fine with me as long as these friends shell out the $$ for a couple of never-to-be-touched copies of the books or at least oblige me by filling a seat at a reading or two.  You can't worry about much else.  People at parties are never impressed by anything, and if they are, it only gives them cause to hate you and write bitchy things about you on the internet.  That's just how it goes around here.

I think a big part of the general suspicion about young adult books is that most people my age never read them when they were actually young adults.  What this means is that their notion of the category starts with Christopher Pike and ends, if you're lucky, with Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls. 

I myself read some really trashy YA books (not to mention WIFEY) when I was eight years old and then, having exhausted the limits of the school library, stopped reading entirely for awhile before I resurfaced at age fourteen and went straight to the grownup stuff.  It seems that a lot of people followed this trajectory, and it's for this reason that there seems to be a question of why YA is necessary at all.  If teenagers are capable of reading and enjoying books for adults, why should there be a special category of books for teenagers?  Are these books just intended for those teens too dull for Camus?

Maybe Camus is a bad example because, okay, it's hard to find a teen too dull for Camus.  The Stranger is pretty perfect for teenagers: it's really short and it's all about existential angst.  So forget Camus.  But haven't all the grownups in the room ever had the experience of revisiting a book you'd read (and thought you'd understood) as a young person only to realize that it made way more of an impact upon a rereading ten or more years later?  Like maybe you were always smart enough for it, it's just that you needed the experiences and concerns of an adult to actually make you care?  I think most people would answer yes.  And I think if that's the case that the reverse is also true.

I read WEETZIE BAT for the first time when I was fifteen.  I don't remember what caused me to read it; like I say, I didn't really read YA books when I was in high school.  But for whatever reason I read Weetzie Bat, and at the cost of sounding like a jerkoff, it completely changed my life.  I think the assigned reading in school at the time was Billy Budd or something along those lines.  Billy Budd is admittedly an extremely hot book, but at fifteen it was just not doing it for me or any other person I knew.  Weetzie Bat, on the other hand, left me walking around in a daze for a week after I read it.  I was exhilarated by the lushness of the world Francesca Lia Block had created and at the same time kind of depressed because that world didn't actually exist.  It was the same feeling some of my friends got from certain types of music.  Block was my Moz.

These days I reread Weetzie Bat every few years, and I will always love it.  There are lines I can quote by heart and it still gets me in the gut to see them on the page-- both because they are great passages and because they bring back such visceral feelings of what it was like to be the person I was when I first read them.  The book is weird and gorgeous and revolutionary on its own terms, but I think it's probably somewhat difficult for a person over a certain age to wrap his head around the brilliance of it, especially if he's reading it for the first time.  Yeah, you can certainly love it as an adult.  I definitely love it as an adult, but when I reread it, I feel like parts of it are maybe going over my head. 

Reading Proust at fourteen would I guess not be totally pointless, but it might be better to save your efforts until you've at least eaten one of those little cookies.  In the same way, reading Weetzie Bat at thirty is definitely worth your while, but I feel sorry for you if you didn't read it when you were fourteen, because I bet you would have understood it better.  And that's the point of having books specifically for teenagers.  There are things you learn as you grow up, but there's also a understanding that you lose.  In writing what I write, I'm usually trying to relearn some of that lost knowledge.

As for the snobs in the mess hall at Yaddo: if I really wanted to impress people I would have become a BLOGGER.

 

Based on this picture and article, I have to conclude that Heidi and Spencer are clearly horsepeople of the approaching apocalypse.  But which ones are they and who are the other two?

(Via Videogum)

Is this cartoony thingy from the New Yorker cartoon blog funny or stupes? 

At first I thought it was fairly lolish, but on further examination started to change my mind.  There's something suspiciously SHOUTS AND MURMURS-y about it, which makes sense because it is after all the New Yorker.  And as everyone knows, SHOUTS AND MURMURS is just a bunch of scary old people men (and sometimes Steve Martin) amusing themselves and themselves only with embarassing reheated jokes about yesterday's news.  Anyway. 

Things that I like about this cartoon:

1) Amusing use of bold for emphasis

2) Amusing (to me) use of "biatch"

3) Somewhat amusing concept

 

Things that are dumb about this:

1) Sloppy/annoying/shockingly outdated use of "like, totally."  (Really, this alone can ruin anything for me.) 

2) You cannot actually "fill in the letters in the top row to spell the name MICHELINA" or any other name.

 

By the way, LOL or UNLOL is going to be a new feature here.  I will take votes in the comments, but of course, like Judge Judy, I make the final decision.  I'm the boss, applesauce.

As a former employee of the Gap, I was interested and horrified to read this psychotic Fake Trend piece in the Wall Street Journal, which tells a scary story of the "legions" of former Gap clerks who are afflicted with a strange kind of Post Traumatic Folding Disorder that causes them to compulsively fold everything in sight.  According to the article

"Gap Inc. says it has trained "hundreds of thousands" of Gap store employees in the art of folding since the late 1980s.
Along the way, legions of retail grads have spent countless hours neatly folding T-shirts and jeans and stacking them on tables and shelves.
Now, their peculiar idea of perfection is straining marriages and leading to bizarre behavior ranging from buying clothes based on an item's foldability to straightening up sloppy displays while shopping."

I worked at the Gap for something like five years I think.  Not continuously-- I started when I was a Junior in high school, quit when I got mono, went back when I needed money to pay for whatever it was I spent money on in high school (fast food and Compact Discs?), quit when I went to college, went back for summers, went back when I was broke during the school year, and finally quit unceremoniously and for the last time when I was stressed out about exams.  This pattern lasted between I think 1997 and 2002-- I worked in three different stores.  And yes, I can now fold a mean pair of "denim" if I absolutely need to.  By which I mean I can do it if it's a fucking matter of life and death, so if it isn't please don't ask me to fold shit for you.  Until the day comes when my folding skills can somehow stave off the destruction of the planet Earth, my clothes will be in a crumpled pile covering my bedroom floor, thank you.   

The obvious and overlooked thing about this (by the way completely made-up) article is that, of all the annoying and often degrading things a person must do as a Gap employee, the absolute worst of all of them is FOLDING.  It is a thankless, boring, and truly sisyphean task.  And also: BORING.  It takes forever and you're finally making some progress and then some horrible person comes along and knocks your whole pile over and it's like you never even started.  When I worked at the Gap, I came up with a million ways to get out of doing the folding thing at all.  My specialty was walking around sort of rubbing the clothes in a way that I imagined made it look like I was folding them.  I figured if anyone asked me why none of the clothes I was supposed to fold were remotely folded I could just say they were perfect a minute ago until some bitchy customer ruined the whole thing.  (Not sure if this fooled anyone or not.)  The idea that a person's time in the retail trenches could make them "unable to go shopping without automatically spending 10 or 15 minutes refolding messy T-shirt piles in stores," as the Journal article claims, is insane to me.

That's not to say that I didn't pick up a few things from working at the Gap. The company spent so much time teaching us all about shoplifters as well as trying to catch us-- the employees-- in various forms of theft, including something called "Time Theft", that stealing became a fascination of mine.  The fact that our corporate overlords trusted us about as much as they would trust your average crook-- but surely not as much as they would trust actual proven rich-person criminals like Leona Helmsley or Cindy McCain-- made me obsessed with the idea of taking them down.  In other words: I'm working, but I'm not working for you.

I spent many of my zoned-out folding hours trying to devise the best possible way to steal from the company in the hopes of DESTROYING it from the inside.  The thing is that shoplifting from the Gap is actually really easy-- ask me sometime and I'll tell you exactly how to do it-- but it's running a successful ongoing SCAM without eventually getting caught that is trickier.  You could run a return scam, sell register tape on the black market, be the inside-man for a shoplifting ring... there were many possiblities, and even though I was never going to actually try any of them because I am really just not that kind of guy, it was my number on on-the-job fantasy.  Like I say, if the company was going to treat me like a criminal anyway, it wasn't such a leap to imagine myself as one.

I think a lot of my co-workers were thinking along the same lines, because every now and then, the Gap Secret Police, known as "Loss Prevention," would show up from Corporate and take someone into the back office and that would be the last we'd ever see of that person.  Hopefully people all got assigned to laundry-folding duty in prison.  At least allow them that small pleasure.

Happy Fourth of July.  The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday not only because I am a patriot but also because I enjoy fireworks.  They appeal to my very gay sense of instant nostalgia.  Watching the fireworks inspires a simultaneous feeling of awe and regret: they're over practically before they start.  With fireworks (especially local fireworks versus impersonal big city extravaganzas) you get a visceral sense that your life is passing you by.  This is a feeling I love.  Yeah, I know it's childish of me to find this kind of angsty wallowing so delicious.  I can't help it, but I will try to be more grown-up by next year. 

The other thing about the 4th of July is that there are a lot of great songs about it.  Off the top of my head I can think of Galaxie 500's 4th OF JULY (above, featuring sparklers!), X's 4th OF JULY, Aimee Mann's 4th OF JULY, Bruce Springsteen's 4th OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY), and Elliot Smith's INDEPENDENCE DAY. I think there are a lot more that I'm forgetting right now too. (Oh! The Elliot Smith video on youtube just led me to this great-seeming song.  And who remembers a lady by the name of ANI?)

When I was little I was always concerned about what would happen if somehow the fireworks didn't extinguish themselves as they were falling for the ground-- if somehow you managed to catch a piece of one, what would happen?  Good or bad?  I thought about this for awhile and finally asked my mom and she told me your arm would fall off and you would probably die.  I guess she didn't understand the question or was worried that I wanted to go out and play with fireworks or something.  Whatever-- her scare tactics did not work.  I was generally a skittish and fearful child, but in this case, my mother's dire warning just increased the appeal to me.  It was at this moment that I first understood that it is worth risking life and limb for dumb things that are pretty and short-lived.

Based on the reaction to last week's video it can be surmised that most of my readers not only don't watch television but don't stand in line at the supermarket.  Well well well!  I can't say I approve, but go ahead and do you thing.  Actually, no, don't.  TV rules.  Everyone should be watching more TV.  Even bad tv is better than most people give it credit for.

And maybe truly crap tv like THIS HILLS is secretly genius.  This post from a blog I never read before today puts forth this very thesis quite convincingly.  Seriously, I really wish I wrote this because it's exactly how I feel about reality television:

"Some people take issue with the fact that some aspects of "The Hills" are fake, staged, or scripted, whereas I consider metatheatre the key to the aesthetic success of "The Hills." The complex interplay between the multiple layers of plot is what makes the show so compelling...

On "The Hills," the theatrical device of a play within a play is taken to a new level, with its multiple interwoven layers of fiction and the shimmering thread of Truth that runs through them. There is the surface plot, a conflation of actual events in the lives of the characters and events staged by the producers. There is another plot reflected in the tabloids and gossip columns. There is the plot as each individual character believes it to be and the plot they attempt to portray on screen and articulate in interviews. There is a larger story that encompasses the various stars' experiences with television program itself as they expose their lives and personas to the public, the producers' attempts to orchestrate drama and dupe the audience, and the incredible interplay between fiction and reality. The producers and the audience are all participants in this larger story. And buried among all that, there is Truth. There are real people with real personalities and real emotions and real relationships. And the Truth can be entertaining and amusing and depressing and heartbreaking and surprising, but to detect it at all is exhilarating. Every facial expression or gesture, every interview and every rumor hints at the Truth among the layers..."

Doesn't that sound intellectual?  Duh!  It should!  The Hills is classy/sophisticated pomo metatext.  And Heidi and Lauren Conrad are the Cindy Sherman and Karen Finley of our times.  (JK, Heidi and Lauren are still idiots.)  In conclusion, you should definitely be watching more television if you want to be as smart and cultured as I am.

Okay, I wasn't supposed to post about this until the press release came out, but I'm just going to jump the gun, because I'm so excited!  So, I don't know if you remember this, but awhile ago, my little sister was the star of an unforgettable episode of THE HILLS.  Unfortunately, her scenes didn't make the final cut, but MTV was so enthralled with her that they decided to give ME my own amazing HILLS spinoff!  It's called FOUR CEE (after my apartment number) and it's going to be totally amazing.  The best part is that MTV decided that I am so charismatic that I get to star in every role.  No Whitney, no Audrina, no Lauren, and DEFINITELY no dumb old Heidi!  Just me talking to myself!  It has been focus grouped to death, and everyone agrees that it is going to be MTV's biggest hit of all times.

Check out the super-secret preview clip from the first episode below!