Does this mean that, technically, I am a published “author” ?

Alternate Headline: Hello, writer obscure here….

Update: NPR story on the latest Smith Magazine Six-Word Memoir book here.

Jonathan Yardley does not seem to be a fan of J.D. Salinger

“I shared Caulfield’s contempt for “phonies” as well as his sense of being different and his loneliness, but he seemed to me just about as phony as those he criticized as well as an unregenerate whiner and egotist. It was easy enough to identify with his adolescent angst, but his puerile attitudinizing was something else altogether.” - Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post, via Arts and Letters Daily

Another from Yardley’s “second reading” series:

“The answer? It is, if anything, even better. Most of the nearly four dozen books that have been reconsidered in this series have held up well, but few have actually grown — in my own mind if nowhere else — even larger. “Look at Me” most certainly has….

There are words in “Look at Me” that echo those so precisely as to border on heartbreaking. Frances Hinton has been disappointed in love — “I knew about love and its traps. . . . I never speak of it” — and has turned to writing as a form of therapy and escape, as a way to reorder her world. She does it well, and manages to sell a story to a prestigious magazine in America, but she views it harshly:

“I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world’s tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present, and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state ‘I hurt’ or ‘I hate’ or ‘I want.’ Or, indeed, ‘Look at me.’ And I do not go back on this. For once a thing is known it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, of thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.”  “

“Those of a more secular bent will no doubt agree with me that, God notwithstanding, the more love there is in the world, the better off we all will be.”

“As I have said in these pages before – and as I continue to believe – no one chooses to be gay or straight; they are as their God has made them for reasons known only to Himself, and if God is love – as he surely must be, or else he be not God – then he cannot want any of his children not to know him. Those of a more secular bent will no doubt agree with me that, God notwithstanding, the more love there is in the world, the better off we all will be.” – Neptunus Lex

I’m not a religious person – agnostic is the best categorization I suppose, and a tiny bit of a seeker, still, too – but I am incredibly attracted to a certain type of religious (Christian) language. Stemming from a love of the English language and literature, perhaps? Well, I don’t know. At any rate, Neptunus Lex is a fine writer and the above moved me.

“How Am I To Be,” The Watson Twins

“Clip Art” from Schmedlap

Visuals are always good. (Although, isn’t Afghanistan, like, four times bigger or something? Can’t be bothered to look it up now!)

“In the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian gun owners are coming out of the shadows for the first time to mobilize, U.S.-style, against proposed new curbs on bearing arms.”

“When gunmen attacked 10 sites in Mumbai in November 2008, including two five-star hotels and a train station, Mumbai resident Kumar Verma sat at home glued to the television, feeling outraged and unsafe.” – Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post

I have no idea if the above represents an oddity reported as a trend, or, in fact, is a trend. Interesting story either way. (Link thanks to commenter “elf”)

(cross-posted at Chicago Boyz)

“Gill and his agent think the lineman is the first Super Bowl player of Indian descent. Nobody asked him about that. Who knew?”

Yes, a sports link. From me. Weird, right? Anyway, link is from ultrabrown.

Busy, Busy, Busy….

….and even busier than that. I’ll check in with you all in a bit, I promise! ( I seem to love exclamation points. It’s  a Mickey Kaus thing, yeah?)

Links of the Day

1. “He was very unequivocal, solid and showed real strength and humor in his remarks. He told a story from the early days of Solidarity, when nobody gave them a chance. And if you added up the tanks, guns and airplanes of the Communists, they didn’t stand a chance. He said the difference was that Solidarity’s principles and values were stronger.”…. “He said I reminded him of a young Lech Walesa. I was touched by those remarks.” – National Review

2. “The narrative is in a style the Russians call skaz, a nice word with echoes of jazz and scat in it, which uses the repetitions and redundancies of ordinary speech to produce an effect of sincerity and authenticity — and humor: “The thing is, most of the time when you’re coming pretty close to doing it with a girl … she keeps telling you to stop. The trouble with me is, I stop. Most guys don’t.” ” – David Lodge on J.D. Salinger

(I remember disliking Catcher in the Rye when I first read it – I think it was an immigrant thing, you know? I really didn’t want to hear about middle class American angst. It made me go all *eyeroll* and *facepalm*, you know? And now, seeing how I write blog posts – with all the I means and you knows – I realize I’m echoing the slang, the skaz, the jazz of that era and that book. We all like to think we are complete originals, true individuals, but really, we are such a reflection of what is all around us.)

3. I keep meaning to write a post about training young physicians and how that relates to the series of COIN skills posts at Schmedlap, but life is busy, I’m a scatter-brained goof, and I don’t know – I’m still thinking about it. Because, somehow, it kind of struck a chord….You know what? I think it struck a chord because something is slightly wrong with how the medical profession thinks about training young physicians. We are so caught up in theory and language that we forget results, even as we pretend that we are results focused and oriented. Or maybe not. I don’t know, I’m still thinking about it.

4. “I am currently reading a book called Vivians, by Mary Hughes, who wrote A London Family, 1870-1900. It is about her mother and her aunt, who were born before Victoria ascended the throne, and lived long lives. They were not famous or important people, so the book captures the texture of ordinary life in those days.”  - Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz

I want to read that book….

“Satellite Heart,” Anya Marina

Update: I’m too old to properly enjoy the Twilight books (which I admit I’ve not read, so how would I know?) or the films (I’ve seen part of the first one on television and it was okay), but my inner teenager completely gets the fuss! I’d probably be all dreamy-eyed about that kid in the movie, too, if I were still a teen. The story taps into a fairly durable Western mythology: it’s Jane Eyre with the Gothic and the rain and the damaged man and the redeeming woman and the “Reader I married him“, and yada yada yada. So, not new. Not particularly new at all….

A related note: The Twilight movies are the ultimate in retro 90s: flannel, darkly painted “matte” lipstick, gray skies with a North West American vibe, and boys with long straight hair, outdoorsy clothes, and, er, flannel. Watching a bit of the first Twilight movie on television – multitasking! – reminded me of the following:

Visiting New Mexico in 1994,while  interviewing for a residency spot at UNM, I stopped in Old Town to do some sight-seeing. In one of the “adobe-fronted”  stores filled with Indian blankets, a clerk talked to me about the town.  I wanted to know what it was like to live in Albuquerque. The guy was Native-American and had long black hair, like silk,  falling down his back and a flannel shirt tied around his waist. Some of the guys in the Twilight movie looked just like him. And so, I am now old enough to see retro stuff that seems as close as yesterday. Oddly unsettling, and kind of fun, all at the same time….