The ice cream the night before was so hard I couldn’t scoop it. Today it was a cloudy tub of sweet milk. The Budweiser, I swore off, was piss warm. Even so—with all my new promises made to Denny—that was disappointing. I clicked my dry mouth. Denny watched me like how the sparrow watches the hawk circling in the sky. She looked down at her bandaged hands.
Our neighbors were fighting—F-bombs—nothing new there. The bear meat in brown butcher paper, that Denny loved, had red corners, leaking, dripping blood down the white fridge door off the “Scooby Doo,” magnet. Giving Scooby’s mouth a red wolfish look. A loud thump and a lamp or something crashed. Their muffled voices sounded sharper—more serious. The joys of Section 8 Housing.
I stood with the dead refrigerator door open with sweat on my forehead. Listening to the litany of their foul adjectives—married life is bliss—I guess. Denny wanted to help me but she couldn’t. Her hands were bandaged from falling into the fire. The refrigerator went out as soon as we got a load of frozen, and cold dairy products from the food bank—feeling like we had conquered the world.
Denny was especially excited about the bear meat. I was glad and thought it might keep her quiet about her tumble into the fire a few nights ago. She mentioned making a bear roast, but now I wasn’t sure it would be any good. It was very warm like the damn beer.
I wondered why she dressed herself up in her “new” Salvation Army outfit. Going somewhere? A golden dolphin flashed in a bar of sunlight pinned to her ironed striped blue blouse with matching shorts and red deck loafers. Like she was hosting a boat party. She kept pushing her bandages into the refrigerator checking to see if it was cold after I unplugged and replugged it several times. I got up again to see the wilting foods inside the silent compressor-less thing with its light on, like a stand up casket.
“Yeah it’s out. We’re hit! Fuck me!” The anger which I’m known for and sometimes take pride in scaring people, came on like a furious storm. A storm that wanted to throw and smash our meager Sanyo clock radio and other junk into the drywall that already had three fist holes, like a bowling ball’s grip for a giant.
She flinched and sort of sang, “It would have to go out in the summer.” An annoying sunny cadence like, “We’re off to see the wizard.”
Someone started knocking with a relentlessness that was undeniably Winona. I stared at the door my fist turning white by my red running shorts. I didn’t bother putting on a shirt.
“Be nice honey, please.” Denny smiled her scared little smile. “Why doesn’t she leave us alone.” Denny looked at her hands all bandaged up like she was trying out for “The Invisible Man.” “Maybe I should change my bandages.” Like that was a requirement for a guest.
I scoffed at her rolling my eyes up to the water-stained ceiling. It had a dark spot that looked like Indiana. An enormous black spider with some sort of red mark on its back came crawling out of a hole about where “Indianapolis” was, parachuting down then back up like an eight-legged Yoyo.
A big out of proportioned blob stood at the apartment’s door. I groaned inwardly at the sight of her pink sweats and shiny black tank top, barely capturing her misshapen breast. One was a juggernaut of mammary, the other a mere green apple by comparison. Her hips were also a strangeness, the widest harps I’d ever seen on a small frame. Winona was a freak of nature that could be the star of a sideshow. Move over, “The Elephant Man,” there’s a new kid in town. The joys of Section 8 Housing, again.
“Yes.” I said with a white line for my mouth.
“Hey, I’m so sorry to bother you but-but Kim’s on a rampage. She took my phone. Can I use your phone? You have a government phone, right? It won’t cost you. Please.” said Winona. Her face had a red slap mark on it. I could actually see the ghost of a hand print fading.
A door rammed open. I saw in the dim hallway, a skinny shadow with a baseball cap turned backwards, smoking, always smoking. Then slam!
“Hey, look, we don’t want any trouble with your wife.”
“Can I come in? She hit me.” Winona’s eyes were red, and she made a sad face. Thick lips pooched out, quivering like she might cry. I felt sorry for her, giving an inch, and she squeezed her big abused face into the doorway. Her eyes brightened seeing Denny, and she oozed, “Heeey, sex machine.” Then she saw Denny’s bandaged hands. “Oh, Denny, girl. Aww honey, What happened?” Winona gave me a suspicious look and then she brushed past me and was inside. I heard more thumping.
“Is Kim hitting the wall?” We had one wall in common, their bedroom and our living room. Where we heard all kinds of moaning day and night and a small machine running at a high RPM, like an out-of-control Ninja egg beater.
“She’s punching her heavy bag.”
I thought, Jesus, that damn nut. I hope Kim doesn’t think we’re balling her wife. Kim and I recognized something in one another. In some like-minded force-field of violence we repelled each other like the same polar ends of two magnets. Everything said in looking away—getting away.
Denny came over and lifted her hands like she was a Martyr for The Blessed Mother, going to shake or show them, but stopped. “Hi, Winona.” Then she put them behind her back like they were a secret and she looked down at the dingy gray indoor-outdoor carpet. I could smell the refrigerator stinking like old cooler water and pimento loaf. A beard of bear’s blood covered the Scooby Doo magnet—Scooby smiling—looking like he had just murdered Shaggy. I’m Scooby Doobie Doo, I just ate you!
“What happened to your hands, dear? Show me.” I watched Winona’s muddy eyes crawl over Denny’s small chest. Denny told me that Winona pinched her ass outside, by the blow-up swimming pool. Where Winona and her skinny crazy wife Kim lounged almost naked scrunched together on a double-wide Blatz beer raft. Spinning around with their toes, tracking me, walking by with my head down, going to Denny’s car. Trying to make like they didn’t exist. Then they would cackle and pass the cigarette between them.
“I fell into the fire.” said Denny, her chest rising, breathing out like she was on Dr. Phil’s show, finally able to let go of it. She was really laying it on. Trying to make me look bad, but that’s what she did.
“You fell into the fire, huh.” Winona put her hand on her flaring hip and glared at me. “Did he do it?” She never used my name, no one did.
Denny shook her head and crossed her chest like she was cold and glanced at me then at Winona. Like Denny was sending Winona smoke signals with her large brown doe eyes. I could see HELP ME spelled in red lipstick on the bathroom mirror. She made me look guilty—always looking for attention.
“What? I didn’t do anything to you. Tell her.”
Denny stared down at the floor. Denny didn’t lie, that’s what the problem was. It gave me pause. I got pretty drunk on Friday. I remember dancing around like a pagan by a bonfire in the burning Satanic shadows of alcoholism. A skid flaming up toward the trees, downing Southern Comfort and renouncing God with my friend, Terry. Then I got really pissed and blacked out. I never meant that God stuff, or about 90 percent of whatever else I did… Things I couldn’t remember and didn’t want to hear about.
“That’s what I thought,” said Winona. Her eyes settled on me like a Rhino ready to charge.
“Get out!” I stood there by the door. I thought she might do something, then she bulled past brushing her big tit into my arm, then down the hall, smelling faintly of onions and sweat trailing behind her. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
She turned around and glared. Then the door creaked open, and I heard Kim say, “Mmm baby, bouts to get me some.”
“Heeeey sexy.” Then we heard the machine buzzing and the bed bucking into the wall for about twenty minutes. The F-bombs started coming on, dropping like they were from a high altitude B-52, carpet bombing our apartment building.
“What are we going to do with this food, Denny?”
“I don’t know. I think I will go ask Mom if we can use her garage freezer.”
“Use the phone. Hell, it’s unlimited.”
“No, I need to see her, anyway. Kinda miss her—ya know.”
“I-I don’t think you should go over there.” Was that fear in my voice? It sure sounded like it.
“Why?”
I shrugged, her dad was like six foot four, and practically lived at the VFW. He had flown helicopters in Afghanistan. I shook his hand once when I stumbled in there, and it was like gripping an icy fist of Tungsten steel. Denny said, “It’ll be okay.”
At 6 pm with the sun cooking the flat roof above like a tar pit. I started drinking the warm loose beers in a twelve pack of Budweiser after swearing never to drink again—again. Denny watched me from the sweaty black vinyl couch that was too short to lay on without hanging your legs over it. She sat with her legs crossed and gingerly turned pages with her right pinky poking out of the bandages. Some library book, by her favorite author, Mary Gaitskill.
I got hungry and stood in front of the refrigerator with the door opened looking at the bologna floating in the plastic meat tray filled with defrosted water. I slammed the door so hard it sent Scooby Doo flying off and he landed on the carpet. I downed the warm Budweiser and crushed it like I was killing someone, and went to the bathroom, and in the loud stirring of pissing three Budweisers soft movements came from the living room. Like pillows were being thrown around. Incognito padding of feet, a deft turning of the doorknob. The click of a latch. Then louder footsteps pounding-fleeing down the hall to the stairs.
I heard her old PT cruiser whining, coughing, catching, then it evened out, and the muffler rattled out of the driveway by the blow-up swimming pool. I ran out of the claustrophobic gas chamber-like bathroom with the great acoustics for howling in the shower. The door was wide open, shadows of the dim hallway leached inward. Like the darkness was already replacing the sweet light of Denny.
I looked through the dirty screen that held my face in the second-story apartment. Like I was alone on Devil’s Island. The sun was an angry red about the color of Denny’s hands and I wondered how she could drive, maybe with her knees. She had pretty knees.
Image: A slab of bear meat – (sorry) from Google images
literally stories 
Christopher
Too much great stuff here to summarize briefly. I used to think there were “types” of people who lived certain lives by choice. I have learned that anyone can wind up in any situation if it is the only one they know. No choice there.
The part about the hands is brilliant. And the inarticulate anger and frustration expressed by out of proportion emotional reactions to small events is dead on.
There’s a Carver story centered on a broken fridge creating apathy.
Great work (don’t eat Bears!)
Leila
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Hi Leila
Give me a bear sandwich! (Just kidding, love da bears)! Furry ones, especially.
Writing the story the bandaged hands suddenly appeared from some inexplicable place, and it started clicking from a setting into a story.
We had a fridge go out awhile back, actually it was our third one in the last six years. I started the story with it in my mind. Probably as a reaction to an aggravating problem. It was a catastrophe of moving food into coolers and even freezing milk in our old reliable freezer. I had to take the door off and the door frame apart to get the new one inside.
I’ve read “Preservation,” by R. Carver. It’s great like all of his stories.
Thanks for your kind comments!
Christopher
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This story is ‘wow’ right from the first paragraph which completely hooked me. Then the rich description is absolutely spot on – the Scooby Doo fridge magnet with blood dripping is genius imagery. Throughout the whole piece I was waiting to hear why Denny’s hands were bandaged, and then how its told in such a vague, brief way is ingenious. The voice throughout is excellent, the plot is superb, and the ending is perfect.
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I was hoping the Scooby magnet and blood would create something. It’s weird what comes out of a person’s mind. l think writers’ “one-and-all” must be half-crazy, lol.
Glad you liked the story! Thanks for your comments and kind words!
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A difficult read and to be honest it’s difficult to know who to feel the most sorry for. It’s an unfair world to be sure and so much of this is mean and tragic. Great tone and so many excellent observations it keeps the reader hooked and then the ending is, in my opinion, dreadfully sad but as has already been said the last line is spot on. thank you – dd
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This is very inspiring–really helps the writing train to chug forward.
Thanks so much! Glad you liked the story!
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Hi Christopher,
Not sure if this is a character study or a situation study. I think I’ll plump for both!
I heard one question years ago that made me wince to a poor soul who was obviously down on their luck, ‘Why do you choose to live like that’. The idiot who asked that was supposed to be a support worker!
But regarding support workers, I knew of worse. A resident asked me if a support worker should ever ask for money or sell him legal highs!!
Brilliant story. The imagery is wonderful in a horrible way.
It’s realistic, sad and tragic!!
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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Hi Hugh
Wow that’s ironic! Makes me want to write a good ole halfway house story. Reminds me of Captain Willard in “Apocalypse Now,” saying, “We cut ’em in half with a machine gun and give ’em a Band Aid.”
Thanks for your kind words! Glad it came across like that.
Christopher
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Christopher
Massively good work once again!
This piece is like a handbook of advanced fiction writing techniques all compacted and compounded together into one twisting, twisted, wickedly accurate tale that is just as hilarious and satirical as it is realistic and full of unstated commentary on the way the world works in modern America.
One of the extremely advanced writing techniques which is employed here is that all the main action has already happened offstage so that the tale exists in the aftermath, which takes the drama, tension and suspense of the tale off into new heights. Perhaps this technique got absorbed into your work by a close reading of Chekhov with a good dose of natural genius thrown into the mix. However it got there, this is a rare technique that very few writers can come close to using with power, but when this technique is used with power, it can help to create stories of amazing intensity and memorability. This technique seems to be a signature of your style and its history goes back to ancient drama, as previously discussed. Part of this also has to do with the extremely well-rounded conclusion that also functions as an open ending as one of the main characters drives right out of the story.
The way you use the technique of “indirection” is also amazing here. Any good story, whether oral or written, is about leaving things out as much as it is about putting things in. You know WHAT TO LEAVE OUT of a story and this technique or key to great writing CANNOT BE EMPHASIZED ENOUGH.
It can LITERALLY be stated that you are a MASTER of LEAVING THE RIGHT THINGS OUT of your stories. This makes the mystery and the realism of this story so powerful that it becomes downright haunting and creepy in a good way.
Another technique seen on display here is your ability to paint the portraits of your characters with very few words. This technique might be called THE WELL-CHOSEN DETAIL and this tale is so good at this that your characters rise up before the reader as if they were really standing in front of him or her. And we cannot just SEE these characters; we can even SMELL them and FEEL them and HEAR them. Words don’t get this lifelike very often.
If there is a better fiction writer in the world than Anton Chekhov his name is Leo Tolstoy. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” “Master and Man,” and many other Tolstoy tales are so real the reader often looks up from his work at the real world and realizing that the REAL WORLD SEEMS LESS REAL THAN THE WORLD OF THE STORY. “Dirty Screen” has moments that almost seem like Leo Tolstoy wrote them and that is like saying (it is saying) it doesn’t get any better than this.
Finally (for now), in this story there’s the masterful use of the First Person, the “I” narrator. This technique says everything about a story when it’s employed, since obviously the “I” narrator seems both more, and less, reliable than the more standard fictional third person (“he” or “she” or “they”) narrator does.
In the First Person, obviously and not-so-obviously, EVERYTHING is filtered through the lens of a single character and when handled well, this can shed lights and shades and nuances over a story that are perhaps not possible in the more standard third person.
The first person narrator in this story is so complex an entire novel could be penned about his situation, his problems, his opinions, and his perceptions (and his paranoid imaginings). And yet it’s all boiled down into the length of a short story.
That means this story is very very much like A NOVEL IN MINIATURE.
It’s my belief that the true modern form is NOT the novel, but the story, because A. The Story is much older than the novel and right now ONLY the oldest and the best things in literature can survive the current climate. B. We live in apocalyptic times and in those kinds of times the Story predominates over longer works, ALWAYS. And C. The essential American form has ALWAYS BEEN the short story, ever since Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe laid down the laws of American literature (or discerned them) a long time ago (which is also not that long ago).
Even the two greatest American novels, Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick, are both like novellas that have been padded out or expanded by being filled with none other than STORIES.
More soon as I want to say a few things about the title but have to go do something first…
Dale
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Hi Dale
Thanks so much for your excellent comments! Highly in-depth and it really helps me get a handle on what it is to use techniques in writing.
I was hoping some of the satire and humor might come through, glad you picked up on that! You have a super sense for reading, literally, between the lines. The waves and troughs of the paragraphs smoothed out and examined with such clarity is amazing!
It’s great to hear these kinds of comments, like “Off stage” because you help the writer SEE what they are doing, and why they would want to continue. Anything in writing that works should be put in the writer’s tool chest. Like SK talked about in his memoir, “On Writing.”
I think Chekhov has no doubt influenced my writing. I read “A Student” awhile back, the one you told me about, and it is masterful!
Wow glad the characters came out as real! Thank You! It’s a tough battle getting people defined as individual characters lining up with their dialogue and not head hopping. I use parts of people I’ve known in the past. Kind of supplanting them into different places. Like how dreams get murky–combing your hair with a dog brush or a bird bath scrubber, then you realize your stirring spaghetti. lol
Leo Tolstoy. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” “Master and Man,” I’m definitely going to read these. You have given me a lot of great tips on who to read!
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out writing in the 1st or 3rd. This story got me writing in the first, because I lived in a place sort of like this, but not as crappy. My good neighbor Robert had a blow up 3 foot deep pool God bless him hope he is okay. Not sure how that explains writing in the first, though. I think the very first paragraph of a story determines a lot as far as what tense and what person. Kind of determines itself. I think that’s how a lot of the writing goes. Not a lot of forethought… Like chipping away at a rock. Michelangelo said “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block.” Not sure if I’m writing stories or finding them.
Yes-sir I’m in total agreement with you on the short story vs the novel. And like you said about some of the very best novels they are made up of short stories.
Thanks again for your great insights and kind words!
Christopher
PS I will get back to you on your comments from “Girl on a Trampoline.” I have some thoughts about Kafka.
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Hi Christopher!
I’m super-glad we get to have these dialogues about writing in this context and I can also say that I’m not the only one who can read between the lines, as you yourself also seem to always know what I mean even when I don’t say it!
Weirdly enough, sometimes I’m so good at reading between the lines that I can even tell what people look like based on how they write…I won’t give details or examples here but will say that this has happened to me enough in enough different contexts that I know it’s true.
These were/are five of the techniques I highlighted about “Dirty Screen,” to recapitulate:
One: OFFSTAGE ACTION.
Two: INDIRECTION AND/OR LEAVING THINGS OUT.
Three: THE WELL-CHOSEN DETAIL.
Four: THE FIRST PERSON, OR THE I NARRATOR.
Five: POETIC CONDENSATION OF LANGUAGE.
Five Examples:
One: Offstage action: Everything Blanche Dubois does in Tennessee Williams’ play (and film) A Streetcar Named Desire BEFORE she arrives in New Orleans (this includes sleeping with thousands of strangers and having become an alcoholic).
Two: Leaving Things Out. Example: Shakespeare leaving out “WHO” his Sonnets are really about.
Three: The Well-Chosen Detail: Who The Student talks to in Chekhov’s “The Student” and where he talks to them.
Four: The First Person: Henry Miller in “Tropic of Cancer” or Charles Bukowski in 90% of his works.
Five: Poetic condensation: A raindrop that falls on your forehead instead of all the water in the world.
I also want to say again how IMPORTANT I feel your work is in terms of “what it’s about.”
YOU TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICA in your stories and THIS is so desperately needed right now that I go crazy thinking how badly this is needed now. How many readers there are or other similar concerns DO NOT MATTER AT ALL in this regard.
WHAT MATTERS IS THAT THE TRUTH BE TOLD, AND IT IS TOLD IN YOUR STORIES.
Jesus was (obviously) a Jew. In his day (as now) the Jews were a very, very SMALL people in terms of population, and they lived in a backwater part of the world FAR from the centers of power (Rome).
And Jesus addressed himself to this tiny population and never even traveled to Rome. More than that, he didn’t even address ALL the Jews. He only addressed himself to a very, very small fraction of an already marginal and small population.
And his message seems to have spread last time I checked (after his death, I mean). (And here I mean his REAL message, not the horrible and ridiculous perversion of his message which he also warned us about: “Many will come in my name…false prophets.”)
WHAT MATTERS IS TELLING THE TRUTH, and your stories do that!
Keeping writing (I know you will anyway)!! And: BRAVO!!
Dale
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Hi Dale
Yes these dialogues are highly interesting! I think after communicating with someone these perceptions of their physical nature are let out in perhaps Freudian slips and shades of the pen. Where the mask of ego is lifted, and the person appears. Could even be a developed sixth sense.
This list of writing techniques is exceptional. The way you also added examples. I like “Offstage action.” That sticks in the mind. I could consciously go to work on that.
“Five: Poetic condensation: A raindrop that falls on your forehead instead of all the water in the world.” That is really well said! Poetically defining it.
I don’t set out to use any techniques, besides trying to create tension. Glad these techniques appear in my work. Sometimes I think I’m in the dark chasing ghost.
That is wild how Jesus was in such an isolated place compared to Rome. How Christianity caught fire!
I was thinking about communication the other day. Like what speaking is really for? Besides achieving survival and propagation. Maybe, the real purpose of life is to speak the word. Spread the good news to a fellow soul on the sojourn, because almost everything in this life is temporal and gets broken.
Thanks again!
Christopher
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The piece has a gritty voice that captures the chaotic atmosphere. Also, realistic dialogue gives each character a distinct presence. The leaking bear meat imagery is yech but good. Strong ending.
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Thanks so much! Glad you liked the story!
“Yech” that’s a cool word.
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CJA
To elaborate a little more, the character complexity in this piece, especially the narrator, makes it read like a condensed novel.
And: the language use of the piece makes it read like a poem that’s been expanded out into a thousand/s plus words.
The poetic nature of the language can be fruitfully analyzed by honing in on the awesome title, which is brilliant in its simplicity.
It does the good title’s job of creating intrigue right from the start; and then it has its literal meaning in the story.
But in a poetic way, it also seems to mean other things. Perhaps an allusion to “Dirty Wedding” by Denis Johnson. Perhaps an allusion to the term “Dirty Realism” which was coined by some crazy critic in order to describe Raymond Carver’s world. Perhaps a reference to the real world we inhabit now, dominated by THE SCREEN and screens. Perhaps a reference to the pornographic nature of much modern life (and I both do, and do not, also mean “real” pornography when I say that). Maybe a reference to the double-handed nature of screens as selling devices (when used that way). And other speculations and guesses can also be made. Which is great because it’s both CLEAR and the final meaning of it ESCAPES the reader, making it poetically resonant.
By the way, if you ever want to send more poetry, either a whole poem or part/s of poem/s, etc., I’m looking forward to it very much.
Last evening, under “Girl on a Trampoline,” I made a few comments about one of my favorite novels of all time (really a novella or long story), Albert Camus’ THE STRANGER.
“Dirty Screen,” like Camus’ short book, also has a fascinating first-person narrator. Different, but the same, in that way. There’s something about the Kafkaesque nature of the material but then transformed into a form of REALISM that is very similar (in a very good way) between “Dirty Screen” and Camus’ short novel “The Stranger”…..
DWB
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I don’t suppose I’m the only one who was happy when Denny left. I can imagine a sequel I will try not to think about. The narrator will find another Denny to continue his evil ways. Even worse, there will be children and the pattern will repeat.
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Thanks for your comments!
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Dale
Thank you!
The title eluded me until the end. I can’t remember if it had a running title?
I love “Dirty Wedding,” by DJ. That is a gritty story, and I like how he doesn’t judge the mother or the father for “Their Ghost,” the aborted baby. That story takes you on a ride! It’s disturbing and real. DJ is/was awesome! Still reading some of his poetry.
I could see how “Dirty Screen” could take on different meanings. I’ve thought about what that means to see the world from a “Dirty Screen.” How we all have a window of perception, from which, we look out into the world. Jaded in this person’s case.
I could also see what you’re saying about pornography and the dubious nature of those bright lights that blind and bind us to filth.
Yes. I read where R. Carver didn’t like the label of “Dirty Realism.” Like how another reporter labelled the “Brat Pack.” They frowned on that too, but the “Rat Pack.” They were good with it, lol.
Couple of great old movies about alcohlism… “Days of Wine and Roses,” Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. “The Lost Weekend” with Ray Milland.
Thanks again!
Christopher
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Christopher
It’s also very much worth mentioning LEAVING LAS VEGAS which is a great drinking novel and a great(ish) drinking film made from the novel.
I met the author, John O’Brien, briefly in Wichita, Kansas…we were both extremely “high” on alcohol at the time…(the novel was originally published by a small press in Wichita near the headquarters of which is where I also met James Lee Burke – but as I said before, Burke had quit drinking by then (I had not – yet))…
Dale
O’Brien committed suicide a few weeks after selling his novel to Hollywood…
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Dale
I saw the movie, which was great and horrible. Not one that I would want to watch again. It is so realistic. I can see why Cage won the Oscar, and Elizabeth Shue was great too. I did a brief search J. O’Brian sounds like he lived his book.
You have met some talented people! And partied hardy with them. lol.
The Kansas-Iowa area seems to produce a lot of great writers or attracts them.
Too sad about John O. committing suicide. It sounds like he alternated between the tables of AA and the bar. RIP.
Christopher
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Christopher
Just wanted to throw out there something the literary critic Harold Bloom said about Jesus.
He said that Jesus was smarter than all the other geniuses of human history who ever lived – combined.
He also said Jesus was The Just One – the One who cannot be corrupted.
When we put those two facts together, it gives a very enlightening picture about a man who has influenced history more than any other person ever on this Planet. (The fact that his message has also been perverted by satanic folks is a separate issue and not surprising at all – given that the Evil One is still lurking around here.)
I also think you’re right to mention a developed sixth sense, and writing. I think any born, real, good writer is going to have a built-in sixth sense already to make them any good. All the READING and STUDYING of writing helps hone, sharpen, develop and further create the sixth sense that the born writer was already born with.
The writer CANNOT BE PASSIVE. Being Passive, and being a real writer, are two things that cannot happen at the same time. All the striving, struggling, studying, and SEEKING that go into making one’s self a real writer are probably the thing that really matters in the end, not even the final art product and how well it is or isn’t achieved.
I have a book to recommend that you should definitely check out (I may have mentioned it before?). This book is absolutely my favorite book on writing of all time. This book is as good as Stephen King’s book on writing, except this one is in a more hard-boiled form.
Its title is: HOW TO READ AND WHY. The author is the man I mentioned at the top of this comment, Harold Bloom.
In this short book, Bloom examines four types of writing: Stories; Poems; Plays; Novels.
He has three main ideas that he explores in this book, HOW TO READ AND WHY.
ONE: The goal of reading is intellectual and spiritual growth. Growth should never end until we do, therefore reading never ends.
TWO: Reading should be A STRUGGLE; a good struggle, like a mental athletic event. If it’s too easy, if it isn’t challenging enough, it won’t do ya any (or much) good.
THREE: We do not have to complete the work we were put on this Planet to do; BUT WE ARE NOT FREE TO ABANDON IT. You have to keep working, seeking, struggling, and growing right up until the very end, no matter what else happens.
HOW TO READ AND WHY, by Harold Bloom. Published in 2000, when the author was 70. It has very, very great material in it on Hemingway’s short stories, among many others. Bloom is the greatest American literary critic of all time, hands down, but this book is about how to LIVE THE LIFE of a writer, what to do in order to become who one really is. Brilliant, profound, spiritual, and not to be believed how great it is.
Check it out some time when ya get a chance!
Dale
PS
It’s totally COOL how well you understand Freud – and Jesus…
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Dale
H. Bloom is right they could not corrupt Jesus. He is the one. Scary strength.
I’ve never entertained the thought of a writer having a sixth sense, but it does, excuse the pun, make sense. This world of thought, somewhat schizophrenic, wishes to be put in written form.
HOW TO READ AND WHY. Just borrowed it from the digital library. Thanks! Today is a great day for reading. It’s raining non-stop here.
That’s the way I see reading as a mental exercise. Sometimes I wonder if audio books count? It helps to listen to the cadence of good writing, but as a writer I like to see “the how” in the construction of the sentences. I might be getting lazy. I fall back into reading Chekhov for both pleasure and study.
Bloom sounds like another great tip, thank you! I’m looking forward to this.
Thanks. Jesus and Freud are so fascinating!
Christopher
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Christopher
I also met Jim Harrison, a truly truly truly GREAT midwestern writer from Michigan.
His novella “Legends of the Fall” is his best-known work. It’s in a book of three novellas also called LEGENDS OF THE FALL. Brilliant novellas, well worth checking out some time. As good as Jesus’ Son for sure! Lots of Native American characters in there, too…
The movie “Legends of the Fall” with Brad Pitt is the Hollywoodized version of the novella.
Harrison was a master of three forms – the novella, the essay, and the poem.
When I met him, he and I were both intoxicated and chain-smoking, and he hit on my wife (no longer my wife) which was ok with me because I trusted her and it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. Also, he was probably joking.
A massively great writer from Michigan – Jim Harrison. In many ways, Jim Harrison is almost like a companion writer for Denis Johnson.
Harrison, Johnson and Harold Bloom are 3 of my favorites…
Dale
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Hey Dale
Jim Harrison sounds like a great writer. LEGENDS OF THE FALL. I liked the movie a lot, Anthony Hopkins plays a great role as the Colonel.
It’s amazing these people you have met!The only famous person I ever met was Evander Holly field, and I kind of ran into him while he was addressing some other people in a hallway at the Superbowl. He reached out with his left hand and shook mine. I said something stiff like, “Hello sir.” He was very kind, and I found a great respect and admiration for him. A kind act, sort of nonchalantly bestowed onto me (one of Chekhov’s modern day peasants), goes a long long way. I saw Jerry Rice too, right next to us in a box seat behind a glass partition, and he was smiling that big Jerry Rice smile. Serena Williams was there in the other one in a sort of juxtaposition of Jerry’s warmth and she was cold.
The back story… My brother in law took my wife and a whole troupe of his salespeople friends. Flew us first class to Tampa. We stayed at the Marriott. Ate a four course meal at some fancy restaurant, then another dinner at an exclusive country club, and rode a limo to Miami. I was unemployed at the time and felt kind of like a bum, but it was a great event. The Colts lost.
Harrison and Harold Bloom have to check these guys out. I did read a little about Normand Maclean and his adventures in Little Missoula Montana. He seemed like a hard headed dude. lol. A professor in your stomping grounds at Chicago U.
Christopher
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Christopher
Holyfield is a smart guy, and my guess is he recognized some sort of kindred spirit in that moment and on that day – like the spirit of the writer, which is like the spirit of the fighter, in that they both do it alone, and have to be bad-asses to get it done.
Somehow I got it wrong, and didn’t know one of my essays was appearing today. But it appears today, and has already appeared – check it out when you get a chance. Looking forward to your astute, detailed, and always-original commentary! I think you’ll enjoy this one…It’s about Leila, me, and also about literary magazines and sites…The history of, and currently.
Dale
PS
Anyone who can step into the ring with Mike Tyson is f-ing impressive! He’s made his mistakes but anyone who thinks Tyson hasn’t read, and understood, all those books he says he’s read is kidding themselves. The dude is smart – very, very, very smart…Far smarter than all of the people who attack/ed him in the press.
I did Jack Daniels shots with Leon Spinks one time, and couldn’t believe I was drinking with a man who’d beaten Muhammad Ali, and I kept telling him so…long story, but I ran into him in a bar in Chicagoland. He kept taking his teeth out and showing everyone, cuz he was (is) famous for having no front teeth…we did at least eight shots of Jack each, all washed down with huge mugs of beer (and that was just the beginning of the evening)…the last thing I remember about him is me lighting his cigarette before I headed out of the bar…this was some time in the ’90s in Chicago’s western suburbs…
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