Mandabach says everything collides

I still say everything collides

2011-09-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

But I'm not doing a lot of blogging lately.

This post is just to say hey to anybody who happens to cruise by.

Looking back on the posts, it is fun to see how much I was enjoying having a new book out, promoting it, and just playing around with the blog.

I recognize that person who blogged about butterbeer and his stingray attack, but it's not me anymore.

Or maybe I actually ain't no different. Here's me and my mom last summer:

Here's me and my mom at the book signing in '07:

wow. OR NOT available on kindle.

2010-03-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

NOBODY EVEN TOLD ME THE AMAZING NEWS!!!
does anyone care?
idk.

Click here to check it out, or click on the thingy on your left.

I always say be devoted to your INDIE BOOKSTORE and order the hardcover from them, link also in a thingamajingy on your left.

In any case, if you haven't gotten my one and only book yet in hardcover, don't wait for paper, get it at some sort of media content outlet while you still can. *

Dang. This is why I don't blog anymore. I can't believe how much time this has taken. Plus, I keep on rambling. And I start making inscrutable political remarks that probably piss everyone off.

Oh, well. I amuse myself. Peace. And if you comment, I'll be avenged upon you. 7x

* (it's also not too late to stock up on guns and ammo, but you never know, I've heard that Ann Coulter is brokering a deal with conservative dems {all of them except Dennis the Menace} to outlaw everything so she and her pals can say, "SEE! I TOLD YOU THEY WERE GOING TO OUTLAW EVERYTHING!!!! OBAMA IS THE BOOGIE OOGIE OOGIE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

WORD UP! it's WordGirl!!!

2009-06-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

So, my son's favorite superhero is now WordGirl.

I think he loves her because he's been raised on old school cartoons like Batfink, Scooby Doo, Underdog and the like. Not only does Wordgirl have some crazy villains--the most important part for him--but it has to be made by people who LOVE old cartoons.

I'm an English teacher, so I gotta love WordGirl.

And I'm me, so I gotta love things like today's episode, in which the villain Mr. Big sold WordGirl dolls that not only used bad grammar and pronunciation, but used mind control to get everyone to buy a bazillion accessories like limited edition gold-plated WordGirl back-scratchers. This is an idea channeled straight from the mind of my character Cassie!

I could go on and on, but as WordGirl said, when she got control of the mind-control recording device, "Go outside and play or read a book."

(first you can watch this teaser. WORD UP!!!!)

Facebook's Brian Mandabach Fan Club: Oh, Canada!

2009-04-07T23:13:00.000-07:00

Everybody needs a fan club, and I discovered not long ago that I've got one!

Brian Mandabach Fan Club

I have one friend in Canada, but somehow a few people up there have gotten their hands on OR NOT, and a dude named Kougar started my fan club. I've got as many Canadian readers, maybe, as readers from the NoNuTackses Republic of Colorado Springs! Okay. That's not saying much. But, still.

I love you, Kougar. Thanks.

Wanted: Novels, Stories, and Poetry for Alternative High School

2008-08-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping to get a whole bunch of books ordered for the library at my new school, and I'm looking for recommendations.

We have a very diverse group here, from voracious readers to reluctant ones, and they like everything from Orson Scott Card to Ellen Hopkins to Kerouac.

But we're alternative, so I'm thinking that the usual high school setting as it appears in the young adult novel won't appeal very much.

Or I'm thinking that they typical suburban issues won't appeal very much.

At the very least, I'm looking for stuff that's close to the edge, but maybe I'm wrong in my assumptions. Maybe our students will dig into any good read—regardless of my prejudices.

N E waze--- please comment!!

I really want your list of top titles for the 15-19-year-old set.

WHY IT'S SO FIRKIN HOT!!!

2008-08-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

In my little town, it's only 93 now, but it's getting hotter, rising toward the projected high of 98, and I'll tell you why!

Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn is coming out tonight, and we're
experiencing the HEAT produced by the THROBBING
of thousands
of teenaged and pre-teen
hearts!

I had to send my own daughter outside so the house doesn't burst into flames.

Can there now be any doubt that global warming is the result of human activity?

Anne Spollen's THE SHAPE OF WATER & her blog on THE ZONE OF NON PRESENCE

2008-07-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing wonderful things about The Shape of Water, by fellow FLUXOR Anne Spollen.

And she has an interesting blog on what she calls THE ZONE OF NON PRESENCE. My novel in progress is set in this time Anne references, when one had to find a pay phone, when a friend across the country was far, far away. It's fun to write about because if gives the characters some space---free from parents, free from each other.

But I'm not sure how the the current realm of hyper-connectedness feels to others---especially teens in regards to missing people, abscence, and the possible lack of space . . .

Here's a bit of what Anne has to say:

I realized that most teens are never away. Not anymore. Remember when your family went to the cabin or the beach for a week and you had to wait for your friend to return? My kids will never have that memory: they text, call, and send immediate pictures - here we are RIGHT NOW at dinner and here we are RIGHT NOW in our motel room, and here we are RIGHT NOW, texting YOU...

random notes on CONTACT HIGH

2008-06-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

I'm nearing the end of break time. I finished the latest draft of my work in progress 13 days ago, and am going back to work on the next round of revisions on Monday.

Until things are almost finished, I can't tell anyone anything about what I'm writing. But now, I'm excited and feel compelled to share a little:

>At this point, the novel is called CONTACT HIGH.
>It takes place in the late 1970's.
>There are no cell phones (or even cordless ones.)
>There is a lot of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and the Stones. **
>It's the story of one year, four friends, two couples, best friends, complications, breaking into an abandoned round barn, breaking up, breaking walls that maybe stood for a reason (of which the heart knows nothing), getting back together, driving to Wisconsin, a 1971 Duster, a motel, a bonfire, a beach fire, breaking up again, camping, Special Export, German Wine, rain, strip poker, stomach flu, stories, cigarettes & other combustibles, a redhead, the police, swimming, a basement, another basement, a pizza joint, a lake, a canoe, a field party, another lake, long hair, THE SOUND AND THE FURY, THE SUN ALSO RISES, blankets under the oak trees, blankets on the hay, sleeping bags, mosquitoes, OFF!

** I hate Journey and Foreigner and REO, and so do my heroes! {but not thier girlfriends, and like my heroes, I also adore some people who enjoy these horrid bands--my wife and Kylie C. among others.}

finally finished with the latest round of revisions, back to blog about Barnes and Noble reading, etc.

2008-06-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

I STILL AM GETTING TO BED CLOSER TO 3 AM THAN MIDNIGHT, but I am relaxing a little, now.

Despite plumbing projects. More on that later.

My first catch-up blog is about my Barnes & Noble reading on June 7.

The event started with a writing club mini-reunion. Taylor, Jack, Brandon, & Li-Mae and I had lunch and I read bits from my work in progress, CONTACT HIGH, and they helped me choose one to read that day.

The reading was super fun. I brought my new portable turntable and started with Cassie's fav form Zeppelin I, "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You." Then I read from OR NOT as well as a tiny bit of CONTACT HIGH.

I had great questions, including one about who had inspired Cassie and have I actually ever had someone that amazing as a student. No one in particular and lots of people. Some of my former students in the room are easily as amazing, gifted, insightful as my beloved Cass.

As I signed books, I played my Nirvana, LIVE IN NEW YORK record, and knew I was doing the right thing when management asked me to turn it down.

Overall, I love, love, love the energy I get from these things and am so thankful to have people who will come out and support me. Always a little sad when it's over, because I'd like to spend more time with people than I get to. But, you know me--I love being the center of attention, and I love you people who come to see me. Lot of love in this paragraph! Sorry for gushing, but that's how I feel, and I'm grateful and want to express it.

Here's a few pics taken by Liberty Grad, writer, and all around awesome-woman, Marty:

Also in attendance were:
Lee, Andy, Niles, Brandy, Kyle, Anna, Caltera, Chy and her two cool friends in the picture where V. is hiding, Kelsey, Kaley, Brittany Lana, Emily, Mary, Becky, Leah, Michaela, two old CC people and their wonderful daughter, Druzzie Dru and friend and sister, Dennis, and that lady just outside the cafe who was working on legal pads and laptop who kept scowling at me for having a reading in what she seemed to think of as her own private Idaho--love you, too, lady!

U like youtube better? a Book trailer for OR NOT by Brian Mandabach

2008-04-03T21:17:00.001-07:00

I love my myspace, but here's Meredith's OR NOT preview on youtube. Share if you like. :)

Book Trailer for OR NOT

2008-04-02T22:20:00.000-07:00

My dear family friend, high school senior and all around superteen, Meredith, made this video for me ages ago, but I only just figured out how to upload it. :)

Mandabach's OR NOT: a book trailer

NObody expects the SPANISH INQUISITION!! Contest, Interview, etc.

2008-03-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

ONE of my very favorite Monty Python sketches is The Spanish Inquisition:

But first, here’s a link to Niles’ full interview of yours truly. This was the basis of his article in the Doherty High School paper, (which I got some nice comments about that rightfully belong to him.) Be a friend and comment his blog, and read the interview--I go a little long sometimes, but there are some interesting questions and at least one embarrassing answer that has to do with Monty Python.

And here’s the contest:
What four items are among the chief weaponry of the Spanish Inquisition? (Not including nice red uniforms, the soft cushions, the comfy chair, and the rack.)
Email your answer to bmandabach @ msn dot com, and I’ll pick one person who answers correctly to receive a free book.
Peace, Love, & Vinyl,
M

And the winner is . . .

2008-03-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

Anna!!

At first she was confused by my previous blog that showed my sharpie drawing, but Anna has won a copy of Or Not, and I couldn’t be more pleased. She was a loyal fan of the book when it first appeared, bit by bit, on my myspace blog. She also left lots of comments, which I love.

Thanks forever for all of your support, Anna!

By the way, the ink is as permanent as my arm and its epidermis, and the design is by J.R.R. Tolkien. Not so original on my part, but my love for the professor and his work has lasted over thirty years without diminishment. My daughter and I are reading LOTR for the third time, and are at the point where Frodo has just taken off the ring (at Gandalf's long distance urging, and against Sauron's long distance urging) on the seat of Ammon Hen.

OR NOT by Brian Mandabach, an excerpt: Journal One

2008-03-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

Hey,

I am re-posting this here at the top to make it easier to find, should you want a preview of Or Not. I posted this originally in July 2007, so it may not be word for word with the book. :)

Here is the beginning of my book, the first of several

journals by Cassie Sullivan: Colorado girl, vinyl record nut,

teenaged naturalist, uncompromising nonconformist. . .

Cassie's an analog girl in a digital world, and

the digital world is almost as pissed as she is.

OR NOT

by

Brian Mandabach

a novel published by Llewellyn/FLUX http://fluxnow.com

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone. . . .

--Edgar Allen Poe

JOURNAL I

20 August 200~

In my attic room, the heat surrounds me even as my fan blows in the cool evening air. I'm holding a small hunk of granite, shot with milky quartz, and I place it next to a dried Amanita, deep cherry, and a northern goshawk feather, smooth and barred with gray. These are my tokens of the mountains, my antidotes against toxicity, my quiet space amid layers of noise.

And this is my new "Sketch Diary"--seventy plain sheets of acid-free paper bound with a wire. It is to be my canvas, my confidant, my Big-Chief tablet. It is my testimony, my not going out with a short rope and swinging from a tall pine tree. It is my not ending my beginning.

I've had the journal for ten days--a gift from a friend I miss too much to tell about--but I haven't written until now. I have only looked at the drawings of the two of us in the front, and re-read her admonition to write. And now, I have begun.

At dinner tonight, Mom and Dad wanted to know all about my first day of school. So I told them it was brutal--moronic kids, teachers offering, what? Rules and procedures? Couldn't I just go back to the cabin and live by myself?

"How about the walk, Cassie?" said Dad. "Did you have a nice walk to school and back home?"

My father is very smart, and he likes to ask penetrating questions.

"The walks were okay," I said.

I wanted to add "hot and smoggy and noisy," but I was getting tired of complaining. And since I suppose that's what journals are for, among other things--complaining--here's my portrait of day one, grade eight:

Everybody's early, thronging around under the big blue spruces and the Chinese elms on the over-watered but still splotchy grass. Many of the boys are suddenly as tall as I am, and all the eighth-graders are somehow swollen. Girls show off their summer swellings with their fresh, tight Abercrumby t-shirts and low-rise jeans. For two long years we have waited to rule the school, looking up to the tall, the bosomy, the rude. They were our inspiration, our role models--and now, we'll become them.

Classes are the first-day same as ever. In our seats well ahead of the almighty bell, everybody listens to the teachers, which is a shame because they all say exactly the same thing.

The one difference this year lies in our new responsibilities. First, we must conduct ourselves like good role models. Surely, we remember how we looked up to our older peers. So we must rise to this occasion. And we will, usually by setting the standard of rudeness and cruelty. The second responsibility is preparing for high school. High school will be different. High school will be hard. High school is practically the real world, and it will be a lot easier for us to "slip through the cracks."

Several kids perk up at this--they like the idea of unnoticed failure and wish it could begin right now. But they don't like the next part about having to earn credits by actually passing classes.

So, with this small difference, it's the same as it ever was. Kids fresh and clean and listening to their teachers' rules and suggestions for success. Kids optimistic about having a good year. Kids having high hopes about friends and grades and girlfriends and boyfriends and sports.

Don't they know that everything will be the same?

The smart kids will stay smart. The dummies will goof off. And the popular people will chirp in their little flocks, have their little pecking parties, and then run crying to the counselor.

The school year spreads before me like an endless pool of thick, green Jell-O, through which I am going to have to swim.

I should try to sleep.

*

Sleep and try don't work together, as I should know. I'm going to put on a record--headphones so I don't keep anyone up--and tell how I got into records.

One Saturday in May, just before the end of fourth grade, we stopped at a garage sale. My brother Sean had seen a bundle of fishing poles sticking up out of a barrel with baseball bats and hockey sticks, and he and Dad are always on the lookout for old fly rods.

This time they didn't see anything good, but just as we were about to leave, a few crates of records and a turntable caught my eye.

"Bet you've never heard an LP record, young lady," said the man.

"Oh, I allow as she has," said my dad, who has a few favorite records and a turntable on top of the CD player. "But she is a child of the digital age."

For some reason, I didn't like that "child of the digital age," and I didn't think it was true. I liked the look and feel of Dad's old records, and the sound of them too, so for fifty dollars--a good chunk of my life savings--I bought the record player, two big old speakers, and all the records.

21 August 200~

Homework finished: math and a language worksheet. I read ahead in the history book, American history this year, which is cool, though the teacher is a flag-waver with a whole "Proud to be an American" wall. I consider myself patriotic, but I doubt he would. And why should I be proud just because I happened to be born in the USA?

But I am a privileged American child with a super-cool room. I have the third floor attic and even my own bathroom. The walls have a steep slope and there are lots of cool angles. Two windows and a skylight give me light and air, but on summer days, the heat builds up 'til it's sweltering. A big fan in my north window makes it just bearable, and I can always go out onto my little iron-railed balcony outside the east window. There's just enough room to lie down and look at the stars, and the giant spruce trees at the end of our yard screen me from the alley and the old mansion across the way.

*

I must have dozed off there, because a moment ago I woke up all freaked out by Mom kissing my head. Why is it that when you get to a certain age your mother's kisses are like needles sticking in your spine?

"I just came up to wake you for dinner, sweetie. Fifteen minutes," she said.

Are you sure it wasn't to prick my flesh with stingy nettles?

"Okay, Mom, sorry. Can you leave me alone now?" Trying hard to be nice, I still sounded like a brat.

She creaked across the floor and down the stairs. Our house is one hundred and ten years old and sounds like it's auditioning for a role in a ghost story. I love it though--it's old and wooden and real, with high ceilings and old windowpanes that give the view a slight distortion. Mom says it's like her vintage cello, the wood supple, mellow, and resonant with age.

Even though our family seems small since Sean went off to college last year, we still have a family dinner unless Dad is in trial or Mom is in rehearsals with the symphony. I have to give my parents credit for not bugging me too much, but I don't like being the only child. Too much pressure.

Tonight I said school was fine--using the old monosyllabic teen routine. It killed me when Sean went through that--I was just a little kid when he started acting freaky. Dad called him Mr. Monosyllable and challenged Sean to actually pronounce it himself. According to Dad, it meant that Sean wanted to be alone and was as good as alone even when he was in the same room. Dad would say this right in front of him, which, of course, made him sulk off.

So I said my day was okay, school was fine, homework was easy and done. Was I tired? A little. Did I want to watch a DVD with them? Not really, I'd just go upstairs.

So here I am, listening to a scratchy Todd Rundgren record, using the cover--featuring a rainbow-haired Todd--as a surface to write on.

The summer I got the record player was the last time I was really close to my former friend and soccer teammate Jenny. I quit soccer after that season because I would rather be in the mountains than driving all over the state for tournaments. Jenny, on the other hand, joined a more competitive league.

Mom and I were close that summer, too, because she drove us to practice and games, and we didn't get up to the cabin with Sean and Dad very much.

Sometimes Jenny came to the mountains with us, but she tended to get bored. And at home, I tried to interest her in my new record collection, but she was obsessed with boy bands and had no interest in obscure classical LPs, jazz-fusion, and the endless synthesizer solos of the seventies. She thought the Seventies were cool, of course, but not real Seventies stuff--just the TV Seventies.

So maybe the end was already in sight, but we still had some good times: summer days at her country club pool, sleepovers, and early morning practices. I remember how we'd sit on my balcony under the stars until way past midnight, whispering, giggling, and discovering infinity. We could just cram the both of us out there, lying back on pillows under sleeping bags, each with the legs of the other along one side.

"Have you seen the stars in the mountains, Jenny, how bright they are? Just think how many we can't even see. And past them, more, and past them, more, and past them, more . . ."

"Where do you think they end?"

"They don't."

"But that's impossible . . ."

"That's the fun part," I said. "Trying to imagine infinity--what's beyond the beyond."

It seemed that we were the first kids to play with these thoughts, that we were onto something special and profound.

But then Jenny decided that it made her feel small to imagine the enormity of the infinite universe. She spoiled it by claiming that God knew the number of the stars, God had created them all, and beyond them was God, who was also within them and within us--Him and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Jenny's mother had told her this, but what made it worse was that Jenny had asked. To me, these were our private thoughts, and I felt betrayed.

"Then God is infinity," I said, trying to preserve the mystery.

"I don't think so," she said. "I'll ask my mom."

22 August

Today was wonderful--the first and hopefully the last time I open my big mouth in a class "discussion." Dad says I "don't suffer fools gladly," but suffering them silently is a lot easier than trying to reason with them. Especially since I seem to have only two modes: mute and rant.

Here's what happened:

In my reading class, we were supposed to be talking about an article from Natural History magazine. Mr. Sinclair asked us to read the article, one page titled "What is a Species?" Then, he said, we would have a different kind of discussion. He would start us with a topic--the main idea--and let us take it from there. This sounded interesting for a change, but I had no idea how interesting it would get, especially since the topic was so dull. Come on--didn't he know that the seventh grade teachers had rammed main ideas down our throats and made us puke them out on about seven hundred standardized practice tests?

Anyway, the main idea was that scientists were having a hard time defining species, and the article outlined the various definitions and the problems with each. It wasn't easy, but I spent the summers in the mountains with my dad's collection of natural history books. Call me a freak--I like that stuff.

But I wasn't about to raise my hand.

"I don't believe in evolution," was the very first comment, courtesy of Stephanie Seabrook.

"Okay," said Mr. Sinclair. "Matthew."

"I think Darwin was wrong."

"Anyone want to respond to that?" He was looking puzzled, maybe because his question had been about the main idea. He matched a raised hand with a name on his seating chart.

"Kallie."

"I agree with Matthew."

"Because . . ."

"I just don't think it's possible for life to evolve. It's not like we see life evolving now."

"We're supposed to be discussing the main idea or ideas of the article," said Sinclair. "And one way to get there is to ask yourself what it's about. I'll stop talking now and turn it back to you. What is this article about?"

Half the kids in the room had been sticking their arms in the air, and now there wasn't one hand up.

"Well, I think this shows that maybe things go better when the teacher keeps out of it. You have a lot to say, then I tell you what I want you to talk about, and you all clam up. I still think we should start with what the article is about. We need someone to be brave and tell us."

He searched his chart again, to find me, shrugging off cowardice with a hand in the air.

"Cassandra."

"Cassie."

"Sorry, Cassie. What's the article about?"

"The definition of species, not evolution."

"Matthew."

"I disagree with Cassie because the article quotes Darwin."

"Christine."

"Darwin's dead and God isn't."

"Okay . . . Shelly."

"You go, girl!" Shelly said, and she and Christine did a high five.

Several others in the room flashed righteous smiles.

"Interesting," said Sinclair. "Rae?"

"I thought fossils prove that life evolved."

"Matthew."

"Then how come monkeys aren't evolving and becoming people today?" And then he started making chimp noises. "Ooo-ooh! Ooo-oo-oo-oooh."

A bunch of other people started making ape noises and scratching themselves. Monkey see, monkey do. They didn't realize it, but they were doing pretty good job of proving their primate status.

"Okay, wait a minute," said Sinclair. "Hush, everybody. Attention." He waited for quiet. "Let's let Rae respond."

"It takes millions of years."

"Christine?"

"I just don't believe that the earth is a million years old."

"What about the fossil record, carbon dating, basic geology?" I couldn't stand it anymore. "Wasn't that you I saw in science today?"

"Please raise your hand, Cassie. Jenny?"

"Actually, the earth is six thousand years old, Cassie. All the fossils came from the time of the great flood, and most of the animals from the Ark are still alive today."

"What about dinosaurs?" I said. "How the heck did Noah get those guys on his boat? I would have loved to see that--ol' T-rex chompin' down the breeding stock."

"What about Dragons, Cassie? They were sighted at least until the Middle Ages."

"Okay, hold on a minute, girls--"

"You're kidding right? Dragons? We're talking about dragons?"

"Cassie--"

"Holy mother of the living God, you guys are a bunch of--"

"Cassie! Class!" Sinclair tried to gain control, but I couldn't shut up.

"--freakin' morons. I cannot believe we are talking about dragons. And how do you figure six thousand years old? The Bible?"

"Cassie, you can take a time-out in the hall."

"Seriously--Dragons?"

"Out!"

"Okay, okay--I'm sorry--I'm going."

So I got to stand around in the hall like your average dummy. Beautiful.

Eventually, the bell rang. Rae was the first one out the door and she passed me by without looking at me. And do you suppose my other classmates were warm and jovial?

*

Done with my homework now, and I don't feel like writing. If I were up at the cabin, I would hike up to the rocks to watch the sunset. But the thought occurs, what's to stop me from walking now?

*

What's to stop me?

Parents. It's their job.

But mine is to argue, so it worked out okay.

"I'm going for a walk, Mom," I said, walking past her door. "Be back soon."

"No, sweetie, it's getting dark."

"It's twilight, I'll be back before dark."

"No way," said Dad, from the bottom of the stairs.

"Da-ad." I hated the sound of my whiney voice.

"No-o." His mocking really helped.

"I'll come with you," said Mom

Please, no.

"Unless you want to be alone," she added.

"Of course she wants to be alone," said Dad. "But she should be alone indoors."

"Oh, that's healthy advice," I said.

"It's safe."

"Maybe we should let her go for a short one, Gale." Unexpected help from the maternal quarter.

"Deb . . . Cassie . . ."

The problem is that Dad, as if being a dad wasn't enough to make him worry, is a public defender. I guess it would be the same for any criminal lawyer, but with the high PD caseload and twenty years in the system, he's defended more than a few people accused of doing very ugly things. So, he has a hard time letting me out in the big, bad world. Too many crime-scene photos.

I knew this was what he was thinking about, and I started getting nervous and scared myself. But I still wanted to go--even more, maybe.

"Just a short one, Gale. It isn't dark yet, and we don't want her feeling like a prisoner."

"Take my cell phone," Dad said to me. "Be aware of your surroundings. Don't talk--"

"--to anyone or look at anyone you don't know," I cut him off and finished his sentence.

"Why does your mocking not reassure me?"

I ran down the stairs, took the phone, and reached up to kiss his cheek.

He put both arms around me, hugging me hard. "Be back in twenty minutes."

"Will do," I said, and I made for the door.

Unlike every other kid in the American universe, I have never bugged my parents to buy me a cell phone. So I didn't instantly fire off a three-way call to my two best friends to gossip about the next best two. (Who would these friends be, anyway?) When it comes to consumer electronics, I'm not interested. I prefer real life to mLife or any other campaign for "digital enhancement of emotional life significance." That's actually what they called it--I Googled it once, mLife, though I'm not sure I understood it any better than I had before.

Do people really think they're more alive if they are digitally connected to everything? And what are you really connected to if you're virtually connected to everything?

Cassie Sullivan, asking those tough questions--so you don't have to.

By the time I got out the door, I forgot why I wanted to be out so bad. Was I upset about the incident at school, or was I just ready to jump out of my own skin because I couldn't stand being in here anymore?

Asking those tough questions.

Less than ten minutes away, in Valley Park, there's a good hill for catching the sunset, so I made for that. It looks out on a greenway along the creek, which has been converted from a wandering stream along the seam of the mountains and the prairie into a riprap and concrete-walled ditch that drains our acres and acres of pavement. Red gravel jogging and bike trails thread along the creek and split off along the edges of ball-fields, woods, and playgrounds. Past the creek is the huge and terrible Interstate highway, a constant source of noise, pollution, and other violence. And past that are more of the semi-real neighborhoods, where people live their semi-real existences, and then the mountains rise--mine-ridden, road-scarred, over-recreated, but still grand--to a horizon where the peach sky glows with sunlit smog. Beautiful.

Up there on the other side of the Peak is our family's own little piece of ground with our cabin and my tipi. This summer--last summer, I guess--Sean and I would have been up on the rocks, bathing in the last rays as the sun sinks into the glacier-white of the Collegiate Peaks.

We sit for a while.

The sun sets.

We talk a little, then walk slowly back, leaving our flashlights off, as it grows darker and darker, cooler and cooler, and bats skim the beaver pond to make ripples that shimmer reflections of the suspended stars.

23 August

Another wonderful day at school, Diary. I was getting stuff together for class when Matthew, whose locker is next to mine, started acting all nice.

"Good job expressing your opinions yesterday," he said. "I don't agree, but it sure made the discussion interesting."

I laughed, relieved. "Well, it certainly was that."

"But there's one little thing I wanted to make you aware of," he said with a grin.

"Yeah?"

"You're going to hell!" And he slammed his locker.

He high-fived Nathan McMahon, who had apparently been watching, (morons always high-five--it's tribal code) and they took off down the hall.

In reading class, Sinclair gave us something a little safer, a story from the lit book, and we had another discussion. Or they did.

People were trashing the story, one by Hemingway about a little boy who thinks he is going to die when he gets the flu. He hears the doctor say his temperature is 103º, and he remembers some kid saying that you die if you go over 44º. Trouble is, he's been living in Europe, where they use Celsius.

Some of them didn't get it, and Sinclair let the others explain. Then they thought there wasn't enough detail. They didn't like the dad going out quail hunting. They thought the ending was random. They thought it was boring.

Though he didn't say so, Sinclair looked disappointed that they weren't into it.

"What did you think of the ending, Cassie?" He tried to get me involved, but I wouldn't play.

"I agree with everyone," I said.

24 August

Saturday today. I was hoping that we could go to the cabin this weekend, but no. Stayed up last night listening to the Mamas and the Papas but didn't feel like writing. Slept until noon. Infernally hot up here. Stupid today. Math homework took forever. It's easy, but I'm just stupid.

*

I feel a little better now that that it's late, cooler, and everyone is in bed. I have a record on low--some freaky Pink Floyd, which also seems to help.

Earlier, I was getting the same feeling of stupidity that I've felt before. It started in sixth grade and became even worse in seventh. When Mom noticed that I "wasn't myself," she took me to the doctor--who couldn't find anything wrong with me--then hit the bookstore and loaded me up on vitamins. Maybe the vitamins helped, or the walks she forced me to take, or maybe the increasing light of spring brought me some relief. One of the books Mom got said that Seasonal Affective Disorder (they call it SAD--real funny) and PMS combine in some women for a double whammy. But a vegan diet was supposed to be good for it, so I got some points there.

Summer's always better because that's when I get to be in the mountains, wandering along the creek, hanging in my tipi, reading on a flat rock in the sun. After my first really rough winter in sixth grade, I read a bunch of Native American stuff like Black Elk Speaks and Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Ogallala. I loved the reading, but there weren't any happy endings.

Dad told me not to "romanticize the American Indian." I said at least they had some respect for the land. He said I was lucky I wasn't born a couple of hundred years ago into the Lakota nation because instead of lollygagging around reading and daydreaming I would be working. As a female, he said, my job would be "processor of bison," so I'd be spending every waking hour in hard labor. That is, if I was lucky, and the men had been successful on their hunts. I said, anyway, it wasn't fair the way we took their land and tried to kill them all, and he had to agree with that.

"But," he said, "you have to understand. Two cultures collide. They have two completely different ways of dealing with the world--and one was stronger in numbers and technology. The result was inevitable."

"Genocide is inevitable?"

"I didn't say that genocide is inevitable--I said in this instance, in these circumstances, at this point in history, the end result of the American Indian losing this continent was inevitable. And as the Talking Heads said, 'Same as it ever was.'"

"Sean," I said, "please instruct Mr. Sullivan to answer the question."

"Mr. Sullivan, you will answer Ms. Sullivan's question."

"Yes. Not here and now, but somewhere right now, genocide is happening and it is inevitable. There is nothing you or I can do about it."

Then he tried to backpedal, saying that just because it had been that way didn't mean it had to be that way--by doing what's right and protesting what's wrong, things can change. So, although he tried to take back the part about there being "nothing you or I can do about it," the message I got was that melancholia is not entirely a matter of hormones and sunlight. Things happen--things that cause it. It's not just me--it's the world that is wrong.

So I tell myself in the midnight dreary, as I ponder--yes, weak and weary--over many a quaint volume of my own forgotten lore. And wait for the raven's rapping at my door.

25 August

Slept in again today. And I'm dumb again.

Raven rapping? I'm pretty funny. Or pretty stupid.

*

It's hot. I'm on my balcony. If I wanted to do anything it would be to walk, but it's almost dark and I'm a prisoner. I had to FORCE myself to eat and try to act normal tonight. The monosyllabic routine works best if I'm faking it, but now I don't have the energy.

*

I imagine the drifting away at the end of "To Build a Fire," and I wish I could just fade away like that:

"How'd you sleep last night, pal?"

"Wonderful. Felt like I slept forever. Slept myself right back to camp, right back to you boys. Too bad about that dog, but I'd like to have a word or two with that old timer at Sulphur Creek."

"Looked like you was sleeping the sleep of the righteous--or the sleep of the damned--one."

"Heh, heh, heh! You always was a real good pal, Buddy. Now I'm just dozin' off again. Just dozin' off . . ."

27 August

It's been taking all the energy I have just to, I don't know what, exist?

28 August

Why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?

--Edgar Allen Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart"

*

Do I tell you everything, Di? Do I reserve no secrets? Are we thick as thieves? Will you betray me, like a true friend? Is this life or mLife? Can I text you?

*

Maybe I'm not as stupid today. I feel angry and sarcastic--I guess that's a good sign.

And I want to play records--that's good, too. I love my records. I love to clean them with my Discwasher, move the needle-arm over to the right spot, close the dust cover, and lower the needle with the little lever on the side. At first I got tired of getting up to turn the record over every 20 minutes, and the pops and scratches grated on my nerves. But I got to like even those parts, if the scratches aren't too bad, because they make it more real than computerized music.

*

Reading over the last couple of pages, it looks like I was getting maybe a tiny bit depressed. It's still summer so it can't be the double whammy. But my winter mood started early last year, too.

That's when Sean took off for college in the great Northwest and, though we tried to be excited for him, we were all SAD then. There was a big empty space in the house. Mom and Dad turned to me, trying to be subtle about it, but I felt them watching me. It was supposed to be a good thing--having the house and my parents to myself--but the pressure made me want to be alone more, even while it was harder to do so. If I kept getting good grades, at least they couldn't bug me about that. So I forced myself to do what needed to be done, though I didn't care about any of it.

I hid in my tower on the third floor, reading and listening to my records and looking out on the world. I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in the fall, and I felt a little crazy, thinking of my room at the top of the house as my cuckoo's nest. In my institution--school--I wanted to be like Chief, tall but invisible, and I experimented with pretending not to be able to speak. Sliding through the halls, I imagined Chief Broom's fog. His voice ran through my mind, murmuring about machinery and the sinister something he calls "the combine." And strangely, he made sense.

*

If, as I compose this missive to wherever, I've been able to conceal how messed up I am, I guess I should drop the pretense now. Reading that last section, it seems clear that I've got more than a few bats in my belfry.

Not that I've tried to pretend that I go along with the herd, but I do act like I'm cool in my own world. And usually, I am--when I don't feel like jumping off a cliff--but I have strange ideas, weird thoughts.

For instance: hearing the machinery in digital media.

Now, to make that sound less weird, let me explain. A record or a tape is a recording of the music. And because analog carries a full-spectrum of the sound, all the music is there.

Digital, on the other hand, isn't really a recording, it's a sample. So a CD has sampled bits of each frequency, not the whole sound. Imagine a piano that has ten little keys for each note instead of one single key. That is to say, each of these ten keys combines to make the sound of one note. Now deaden every third micro-note. You only have two-thirds of the sound. My fractions may be off, but that's digital.

Why do CDs sound so good then?

The samples are high quality, there's no background noise, and the human ear isn't sensitive enough, we're told, to hear the spaces between the samples. But vinyl nuts, like me, can hear the difference: records have a warm tone that digital can't match.

That makes sense, doesn't it? But if I make a leap and say that I when I listen to digital music, I hear machinery, then it sounds utterly mad. "Why will you say that I am mad?"

I don't actually mean that digital media is a part of the combine, that it implants some sort of machinery, even virtual machinery--

Ahhh, it's too late for this, and I can't think.

Let me get away from Chief Broom and the ticking of "The Tell-tale Heart" and simplify:

1. Digital Music sounds robotic to me. It's too clear, too clean--it's virtual music, not actual music.
2. People are used to it. They like it. They think music is supposed to sound that way.
3. Since environment has an effect on organisms, digital music could change the way the brain works.

Now, number three may sound like Chief Broom, but maybe, just maybe, listening to digital sampling trains the brain to hear in a certain way. And not hear in another.

Is there anything wrong with this? I don't know--but CDs began to sound sinister to me, so I stopped listening to them.

Now if I were mad, I would think there were mental viruses hidden between the bits in digital samples. There could even be microchips in our brains that are triggered by digital media to produce thoughts like: "Drink Sexy Cola and be Powerful!" "You must buy things to truly exist!" "The virtual and the actual are ONE!" "Security is Freedom is Marketing is Art is Power is America is Right is Peace is Security is Strength is Truth is Might is Liberty is Lifestyle is Property is Happiness is Automobile is Independence is Globalism is Diversity is Oneness is Jesus is the Almighty Clean of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap--Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!"

But I'm not mad. So I don't think that.

Ink, Contest

2008-03-02T21:26:00.000-08:00

Permanent or permanent marker?

and, what does it signify? If you can answer both questions, I'll enter you in a drawing for a free book. Send your answer in an email to bmandabach at msn dot com. There are clues in an earlier blog on my myspace, if you feel like doing some research.

(no comments that give away the symbol, please:)

Sympathy, American History, We Wear the Mask

2008-02-28T20:56:00.000-08:00

One extra day of Black History Month this year, so I'll close it out with some thoughts and some poems:

Today's BHM trivia contest question at school pissed me off:
"Who killed Martin Luther King?"
Yes, knowing this person's name is knowing some history. But how many other, better things are there to know?

Forget his name, never speak it again, let it rot like his soul was rotten. Let's not sing the names of murderers. Let's close our fists around their syllables and plunge our hands deep in the mud and drown them.

And let's lift up the poems on our voices, because it's only one month until National Poetry Month! (formatting is funky--always is when I cut and paste from poets.org)
by Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!

When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;

When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

And the river flows like a stream of glass;

When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,

And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--

I know what the caged bird feels!



I know why the caged bird beats its wing

Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

For he must fly back to his perch and cling

When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;

And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars

And they pulse again with a keener sting--

I know why he beats his wing!



I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--

When he beats his bars and he would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,

But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,

But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--

I know why the caged bird sings!

American History
by Michael S. Harper

Those four black girls blown up in that Alabama church remind me of five hundred middle passage blacks, in a net, under water in Charleston harbor so redcoats wouldn't find them. Can't find what you can't see can you?

..>

We Wear the Mask
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,-- This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be overwise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!

Peter Cameron's SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU

2008-02-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

Saturday night I finished this amazing book by Peter Cameron. It's one of those stories that summaries fail, so I won't even try. This review does pretty well, Brian Farrey's review on Dispatches from an MFA-Seeking Writer, but it seems to me that this story is so well-told that telling what it's about doesn't say much about the book at all.

Furthermore, even though I've given you that link, I'll say that I think it's better to read Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You without knowing anything that's going to happen. Not that what you read in a review will spoil it, it's just that my preference is always to avoid knowing too much about a book before I read. I want to be open to the most subtle bit of surprise. I want the story to reveal itself. I want to guess and predict. I want to let the writing tell the story.

And this one is the kind of book that you can read the first page and know you want to keep reading.

What I will say here is that the book is hilarious and smart. Protagonist/narrator James slays me with his observations and Cameron just kills me with his dialog. James is a kid (18 years old, in the summer before college) with some serious issues, but despite how impossible he is, I believed that he was either right on or I sympathized completely despite the fact that I knew he was fucking up.

And the way Cameron begins with such a strong, endearing voice and "gotta read this passage aloud to your friend" humor, then gradually reveals the story with precision and restraint . . . What can I say?

I wish I could write like this!

Books from High School English

2008-02-03T12:02:00.001-08:00

WHAT BOOKS FROM ENGLISH CLASS DO YOU HATE?

WHICH BOOKS DO YOU LOVE?

I read THIS BLOG about how much Teen Book Reviewer hates Holden Caulfield and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I wondered:

What other books that I love do you hate? Or maybe you love them, too?

I loved these, and more, often because I had great English teachers who taught the books with love. It wasn't until college that I thought we over-
analyzed, but I come from a family of English majors. I expected the great books to be great, I assumed that they would lead me into mysterious and sublime realms, and they usually did.

Other titles I remember are Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar; poems by Robert Frost; Arthur Miller's The Crucible; Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury; The Plague by Camus; How to Kill a Mockingbird; The Odyssey; Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury, Paul Zindel's The Pigman, and many more!

Some were pretty difficult, and Walden I loved not just because of the ideas (or ideals), but because Mr. Nelson was so intense about it that I really wanted to understand and live the ideals.

But enough about me. Maybe I was just a little English teacher in the making!

I got lots of great comments on the subject at my myspace blog, but you should go to to Teen Book Review and comment.

What's young adult? What's not? Why? And other QUESTIONS . . .

2008-01-15T11:30:00.000-08:00

Not long ago I read a really interesting novel, The Tribes of Palos Verdes by Joy Nicholson.

It's a bildungsroman, story of a girl, her twin brother, water, and fire. (Salon Review of Tribes)

My wife, Lee, who doesn't read much YA, picked it up at the library, read it, and passed it my way. It's just over 200 pages, which is the usual length for realistic YA fiction, and the characters are the right age--so why isn't it YA?

A while ago I asked FLUX editor Andrew Karre why he though Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep wasn't YA, and he said it was just because a YA editor hadn't gotten a hold of it. But I wonder.

I happened to be on a pink-jacketed novel kick (why don't some guys read some books?) when I read Prep, which was the second in the series, the first being Natasha Friend's Perfect, which happens to be YA.

A couple points of contrast stand out in my mind more than a year later:

Perfect is 200 pages long.

Prep has a post-adolescent perspective.

Perfect's cover is almost entirely pink, while Prep's just has a little pink in it.

Now, I know that not all YA is under 300 pages, but it seems like most of it is. And don't you wish that more of it was longer? Are teens, if they aren't looking for fantasy or sci fi, scared of thick books? Or do adults just think they are?

And have not some agents, editors, and reviewers come to expect a certain length and formula from YA? I don't read nearly as much as they do, and I know most are looking for something that stands out as different, but it seems to me that a lot of the YA I read gets going and wraps up at much the same pace.

Back to Prep: it was a bit too long, maybe, and could have used some cutting, but the pacing of the book develops--as I remember it--with more immersion detail and complexity than Perfect. I'm loathe to criticize my peers--and Friend is probably a better and certainly a more successful writer than I--but Perfect left me wanting more.

Not because of the ambiguous ending. I had a fabulous discussion with a couple of my students about it, and we all appreciated how the end allowed us to imagine a future for the characters that is suggested rather than spelled out.

I wanted more because, though Friend brilliantly made me understand bulimia for the first time. (In a purely physical level her writing took me right there so I almost feel as if I have gorged myself sick and then released it all back again. I almost feel like I want to.) I just wanted more of the characters, their relationships, their lives, and all I got was 200 pages.

After all that about length, I still think that it's probably not a central issue here. Fantasy YA gives intricate detail, and tends to take its time--even if the time rushes by in fast-paced action--and gives us the characters' whole world.

Rather than quantity, I think that the what makes a book YA or adult is a qualitative difference. In Prep, a huge factor is the perspective of looking back on those teen years as opposed to being in them. This completely changes the voice, and though I don't think that makes it any less attractive for teens, I think it makes it a lot more palatable for adults.

At the same time, I think this perspective gives YA it's authenticity. As the FLUX motto says, "YA is a point of view." It's being a teenager, not trying to make sense of it from the dotage of your 20's or 3o's. The best writers of YA, then, must possess a gift of imagination (or else they exist in a state of arrested development).

In Palos Verdes there's also a qualitative difference--something present in the voice, something very spare that says adult. Maybe it's something not present in the voice, as well--the absence of a certain preciousness that too often finds its way into novels that we adults write for teens. I know there are plenty of YA novels that don't have the preciousness; my point is that the clean, spare prose and the cool, distanced voice makes Palos Verdes something that's marketable as a story for grown-ups. And, if such books get into the hands of the not-quite-grown-up, I think they will often appeal.

I asked Lee why she thought Palos Verdes isn't YA, and she said that the Medina (the protagonist) isn't exactly a great role model. (Andrew is screaming, now, if he's reading this! :)

C'mon! How many girls are there out there who are going to get themselves and their brothers nice, if slightly used, surfboards by lifting up their shirts in the pool house? Really clever girls might even figure out that they could "pay" for a snowboard by showing their stuff in the garage! Lee recognizes that its possible for teenagers to empathize with the protagonist without emulating her, but she--like a lot of adults--are concerned. What about the kids who might see maladaptive behaviors and be attracted to them?

I don't know. I don't think that the fabulous Alaska is going to tempt anyone to jump into a car after a night of boozing. Nor do I think that any more kids who have gone and asked Alice over the years have been scared off drugs than have been intrigued by them, regardless of what happened to her. If she really existed. I remember people saying that the whole thing was propaganda. And Alaska got hers, too, didn't she? Are characters who make bad decisions okay as long as they are punished?

Are characters in YA more likely to be good role models than those in other fiction? Unquestionably. Is this good for kids? Is it good for the literature?

Premise for a distopian teen novel:

In a not so distant place and future, all kid and teen literature (media?) is produced by a shadowy government/~~media conglomerate like Harpercollins~~ corporate collective with the purpose of inculcating future citizens/consumers with appropriate self image and values. Until the kids start writing for themselves!

But we old fogies need not worry. They won't really be able to write until they are old enough to ~~sell out~~ appreciate the need to guide the hope of our future!

Did I get off topic?

What is an isn't YA and why?

btw, snopes.com says that Go Ask Alice is not in fact "a real diary".

Who says myspace is an addictive waste of time?

2008-01-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, it might not be addictive, but who says there's no significant content there?!?!?!?

Check out Melissa's Poised at the Edge blog for an interview with MEEEEEEE!

Okay, I'm not all that significant, but Melissa and I are trying our best . . .

Click here to go right to Melissa's blog interview with me!

Beatles - Kansas City - I'm a Loser - Boys

2008-01-12T09:24:00.001-08:00

This is excellent and funny. The second song, "Loser" is one of my fav Lennon tunes, but dig the way they can't stop grinning even though it's such a sad song. And the last one, "Boys? lmao

Quotable Quotes for 500

2008-01-11T21:15:00.000-08:00

From Friedrich Nietzsche:

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate

his friends.

Digressions, objections, delight in

mockery & carefree mistrust are signs of

health; everything unconditional belongs

in pathology.

He who fights with monsters might take

care lest he thereby become a monster.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss,

the abyss gazes also into you.

I'm talking about SHINOLA! (Sheesh! Don't you know your brass from your woodwind?)

2008-01-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

shinola!

Shoe polish:

From Wikipedia:

Shinola was immortalized in colloquial English by the phrase You don't (or He doesn't) know shit from Shinola which first became widely popular during World War II. The 1979 Carl Reiner film The Jerk includes a memorable demonstration of the phrase, and Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow includes a lengthy discussion of the phrase.

Aside from being an amusing bit of alliteration, the phrase implies that the subject is stupid or woefully ignorant. Shit and Shinola, while superficially similar in appearance, are entirely distinct in their function; only one is good for polishing shoes, and anyone who fails to distinguish one from the other must be ignorant or of low acuity. Similar expressions include, doesn't know his ass from his elbow or Sir Henry Wood's doesn't know his brass from his woodwind.

Shinola!

NOT shinola: (and not prettiful like the shinola pictures, so DO NOT SCROLL DOWN here if you don't like being grossed out, because if it's not shinola, then it's crapola!!)

Shinola

2008-01-07T21:56:00.001-08:00

From an old song I used to dig from from Todd Rundgren & Utopia,
"Shinola":

Sung:
I see you're still in the headlines
You pegged the latest trend again this week
I'm not impressed by the outfit,
Or your revolutionary chic
And here it comes,
I see you forming the words, you're performing the exercise
And here it comes,
It's the feeling that I heard the same speech a hundred times:
Screamed:
This is the jabber of a
chimpanzee!!
The motion of your mouth
looks much the same to me!!!
The differentiation might
be hard to see,
But this is crapola!!!

(the political message of the picture, while I don't
disagree) is incidental to what I'm talking about)

Sung, very melodically, with harmony:
This is shinola--
shinola!!!

Spoken:
Everyone's talking, few of them know The rest are pretending, they put on a show And if there's a message I guess this is it Truth isn't easy, the easy part's shit:

viral

2008-01-06T21:47:00.000-08:00

I keep thinking about this, from Publishers Weekly:

Yes, teens spend a lot of time online. But for publishers trying to use that to their advantage, it takes more than just shifting promotional dollars to the Web. "Part of the trick to marketing books to teens online is that the most effective results seem to come from the coverage that appears most organic, viral and uncommercial in nature," says Tracy van Straaten, v-p of trade publicity at Scholastic.

wtf?

of-the-people, bottom-up, nonhierarchical

2008-01-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

Dictionary
grass roots (also grassroots |--gras?ro--ts|)
plural noun
the most basic level of an activity or organization : the whole campaign would be conducted at the grass roots. | [as adj. ]
• ordinary people regarded as the main body of an organization's membership : you have lost touch with the grass roots of the party.

Thesaurus
grassroots
adjective
a grassroots movement: popular, of-the-people, bottom-up, nonhierarchical, rank-and-file.

Book Lists, Recs, Reviews: Teen Book Reviewer and Melissa's "Poised at the Edge"

2008-01-02T22:47:00.000-08:00

I promised Em that I would post some book recommendations on my blog, but I am sick and lazy, so I will just point out a couple of links:

Teen Book Reviewer missed her goal of reading 365 books last year, but she did read over 300! Here is her myspace, and here's a link to her 30 favorites of the year.

Melissa has a myspace blog, Poised at the Edge, filled with reviews, interviews, etc. Melissa is a great resource when you're looking for a good read.

And there's also the Cybils! Short list of young adult novels coming on 1/7!!

What I Read Last Year--An INCOMPLETE List for 2007, the Common Era

2008-01-01T17:44:00.000-08:00

EVERY SO OFTEN I start keeping a list of books that I've read. Once I even tried an annotated list. Trouble is, I never manage to stay interested in these lists, and the one I began last January in the foolishness of my new year's optimism was lost along with my little moleskine notebook.

So, this list will be incomplete, but I'm having fun looking at Lee's list for titles I also read, going through the bookcases, and remembering other books that have been returned to the library or loaned out. One book leads to another, both in time and in the mind, so I've remembered a lot, but not all, of them. Blogging about some--like the Stephen King and the Margaret Atwood--has made them stick in my mind better, which reminds me of Aidan Chambers' saying: "All writing is memory," which speaks both to how we write from memory and remember what we've written about.

The lists are in no particular order. Books that made a really strong impression on me are in bold, and are followed by a one word description.

Though I just started it, Jess Walter's The Zero blew me away in the first sentence, paragraph, page, three pages. Shelter, by Beth Cooley, (another Spokanite) also has a strong beginning. Titus Groan is a slow starter, but I can't wait to really get into it!

Read in 2007

Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep

Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment (Pevear and Volkhonsky, trans.) *tortured

William Faulkner: Sanctuary *whiskeyjar

Stephen King: The Dark Tower VII *hile!

Philip Roth: Everyman *compression

Ian McKewan: On Chesil Beach

Barry Lyga: The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Gothgirl

Robin Brande: Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature

Aidan Chambers: This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordia Kenn *fearless

Auralie Sheehan: History Lesson For Girls

Jennifer Bell: High Maintenance

Kevin Brooks: Candy *breakneck

Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke *truth?

Pamela Des Barres: I'm with the Band *love . . .

John Green: Looking for Alaska *Alaska.

Nick Hornby: How to be Good

Joy Nicholson: The Tribes of Palos Verdes

Jeff Eugenides: Middlesex *epic

Margaret Atwood: Alias Grace

Carrie Jones: Tips on Having a Gay Ex-Boyfriend *real

Alex Richards: Backtalk *snarkvoiced

Erin Hunter: Warriors: Into the Wild (r/a=read aloud)

JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (r/a) *finale

JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings ( r/a) *favoritest

ibid: The Sillmarillion (r/a)

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little Town on the Prairie (r/a ) *growing up:/

Julie Andrews Edwards: The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles r/a

I read part of these, but drifted away from them and want to get back-- includes short stories & essays:

Anton Checkov: Stories (Pevear and Volkhonsky translation)

Margaret Atwood: Surfacing

Joan Didion: The White Album *true

Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn

Currently Reading:

Beth Cooley: Shelter

Jess Walter: The Zero *amazing

Cynthia Voigt: Dicey's Song

Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan

Just bought or received:

Jess Walter: The Zero

Peter Cameron: Someday this Pain will be Useful to You

Calvin Peake: Titus Groan

Henry Miller: Tropic of Cancer

Robert Penn Warren: All the Kings Men

Dostoevsk: Notes From Underground

Jonathan Ames: Wake Up, Sir

I'm going to read a lot more this year--starting tonight.

Happy reading and Happy New Year to you!

Love and Peace . . .

Brian's Better Butterbeer Booster--Pyro-style and other . . .

2007-12-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

ONE CHRISTMAS DINNER, many years ago, my father went a little overboard with the brandy--not in the consumption, but in the quantity with which he doused the plum pudding. And so, as he carried the platter into the darkened dining room, while blue flames danced around the tray, they also danced in a little stream onto the floor and left a trail of melted carpet.

I offer this tale as a caution: if you like fire, by all means enjoy the "pyro butterbeer." But don't set anything on fire that you don't want to burn.

More recently, about three years ago, I went googling for a butterbeer recipe to share at my "Lunch at the Three Broomsticks" club at school. I found many ideas, (sorry! can't remember where:( ) though I couldn't bring my favorite to school. I did, however, bring all my test-batches to the annual Heiss family New Year's Eve gathering for testing.

I'm presenting here the top tasting recipe:

BRIAN'S BETTER BUTTERBEER BOOSTER (I think that night we came up with even more b's, but I disremember now:)

You'll need:

Good cream soda in large quantities

Mrs. Richardson's or other good caramel sauce

a few cups of Butterscotch schnapps

pure vanilla extract

butter

a stout sauce-pan

stove

fire

jars, mugs, ice

tasters & helpers

What you do:

Pour a couple of cups of schnapps into the sauce pan and set to heat on medium. How much cooking you do depends on if you want to boil/burn off the alcohol so this mixture is safe for house elves & children. Even if you don't, it won't be very stong (unless you're a house elf). Buttershots is about 15 % alcohol. If you mix the booster with cream soda at 1/10 ratio, this dilutes it to about 1.5 % or less, since some of the alcohol is going to evaporate, and there are other ingredients.

If you want to leave it a little boozy:
- warm up the schnapps, but don't boil or let it steam.
- Stir in some caramel sauce as it warms--maybe one or two overflowing, dripping tablespoons-full per cup of schnapps.
- pour in a cap-full or so of vanilla
- melt in a little butter--a very little because it hardens when chilled. You may want to leave this out unless you like your butterbeer hot; even then you can dot the top with butter.
- stir it up.
- slide the pan off the heat as soon as the caramel and butter are melted and stirred into the mixture.

If you want it safe for house elves (almost alcohol free)
- Do everything the same, but heat to boiling.
- boil until it the mixture reduces to about 75% of it's original volume. Since alcohol vaporizes at a lower temp than water, the alcohol should be pretty much gone by now. Give it a sniff or a taste and see what you think.

Pyro Butterbeer! If you like fire:
- Add only the vanilla to the schnapps.
- Heat it until just before boiling.
- sniff it carefully! Smell that alcohol?
- give it a good stir to get the fumes going and set it ablaze. Be careful! Use a long candle/grill lighter if you have one. Don't let your hair swing over the pot.
- Turn off the light and enjoy the blue glow.
- stir it around, taking care not to burn yourself or set your wooden spoon on fire. The burnt wood flavor is unpleasant. (use a metal spoon:)
- When it goes out, stir it up and light it again. You can keep burning it until it won't light anymore, or you're bored.
- Add the rest of the ingredients.
- boil/burn/mix until reduced to 75% of original volume.

When you finish cooking the booster, let it cool.

I like my butterbeer cold:

Pour a little booster into your mug. (try about 1/10 ratio and add more if you like it strong and sweet)

gently add cream soda.

gently stir

put in as much ice as you like--again, gently.

You now have a mug of rich, creamy, sweet, and foamy butterbeer!

If you want to try it warm:

Mix to taste with warmed cream soda and serve with a dot of butter. Don't boil the soda, or it will loose its fizz entirely.

If you're of legal/moral age, and you like a little extra cheer:

add some good rum to taste, but watch out because this is very sweet and might give you a headache in the morning! ;-)

If you have suggestions for bettering the booster, and thus the butterbeer, please comment!

Finally, enjoy your butterbeer with good friends--muggle or magic! Or alone with your favorite book or movie. And watch those house elves!

Too Many Links! Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Movie! A Contest! & A Question . . .

2007-12-13T22:10:00.000-08:00

Andrew Karre told me, and Sara of Sara's Holds Shelf told him about this first. But tonight I read about it on Rachel Cohn's myspace blog: the film adaptation of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist! Sara wondered, but sounds like it's going to be fantastic. When I brought this book to school last year, my students were practically fighting over it, and they are going to be really psyched about this flick. When I first saw this pic of Rachel and Kat Dennings, I thought Kat looked almost too beautiful to be Norah:

I like this picture because it shows me something else, not exactly Norah-like, but, well, you know, gangsta.

Also check out Andrew Karre's album and book coupling contest and win yourself a book!

Question: I'm keeping my livejournal, because I can post simultaneously. And I love my myspace like a baby blanket. But should I keep my blogspot, or direct my traffic to my mandabach.com website?

SUSPENSE! A DAY IN THE WRITER'S LIFE

2007-12-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

Check out this blog by Rhona Westbrook about a sudden attack of angst, Walmart, revelation, and the comments on suspense. This woman has some good stuff going on!

AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D

2007-12-09T18:08:00.000-08:00

Here's another link that I'm excited about--this one to a website that has named me its AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D The site is called Embracing the Child and the main feature of this honor is an interview.

Here's an excerpt:

ETC: The voice of Cassie, the main character, rings so true, especially her thoughts and emotions as she makes entries into her journal. How were you able to achieve that authenticity, writing in the voice of a teenage girl?

Mandabach: One of my old friends who just finished the book emailed me saying, "Are you sure you're NOT a 14-year-old girl?"

I'm pretty sure I'm not, but that's the exciting thing about writing fiction--going deep into your imagination, bringing everything you know and feel, and living that alternate reality via language as you attempt to communicate it.

So how did I achieve authenticity in the voice of a teenage girl? (check out the whole interview at the link above to find out . . . :)

Peace, everybody, and talk to me here or at www.mandabach.com!

<3
M

New Ink; Next Gig; Spokane Notes; Coronado, North Central, and Barker High Schools

2007-12-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

FIRST OF ALL, here are links to a couple of new things out there:

My longest and most in depth interview so far: Authorlink Interview

Another, different, interview: ETC Interview

More good ink: South Florida Sun-Sentinal Teenlink Review

NEXT GIG:

My fall micro-tour is over, but I'm doing one more event in town before the close of the year:
- Barnes and Noble @ the Citadel, on Academy Blvd.
  - December 15, Saturday @ 1:30-3:30ish.

I hope to see some of the new friends I met today in Chapman's creative writing class at Coronado High School. What a great class. You guys really know how to make an author feel good: laugh a lot and at the right places and say, "Read more!" It was also fantastic to see old friends Mr. "Stay Black" Ken, Tiffany, Kara, and Emily. Love you all.

WASHINGTON NOTES:

Spokane was amazing--what a cool city. But it helps to hang out with the best people:

My incredible friend Sam Ligon, author of the great novel Safe in Heaven Dead and editor of Willow Springs

Sam's wife, Kim, and kids Jane and Paul, who are all brilliant.

His friends, Kelly Chadwick, who introduced me to some fantastic wine, and

poet Renee Rohl, who introduced me to her students at Barker Center.

Other friends, novelist Jess Walter and his wife

Ann, who used to live in my fair city and write for our hometown newspaper The Gazette. (Both she and Jess worked for the Spokane Spokesman-Review until former Gazette editor Stevie Smith came on board and began ~~running~~ ruining it.)

I had a great day visiting with creative writing students at Barker with Renee's class and also with Jim Creason's groups at North Central High School. Special thanks to Dylan, Pauline, Cassie, and (your dad-burned name slips my mind, but you're the best) who I met in class and who actually came out to the reading that night at Auntie's Books.

This event was a little different for me, with the reading showcased up front and with microphone, even, which made the power of the poet's voice truly tremendous.

Then it was a weekend of hanging out with my daughter who is the same age as Sam's girl, Jane. Or the girls spent time together, mostly, and Sam and I stayed up until three or four every night listening to music and talking. And talking. And talking. It's funny to think that I'm still friends with the guy I pulled a desk out from under in Mr. Johnson's actor's workshop class when we were in high school. But that he's still the most brilliant person I've ever met is no surprise.

Not Your Mother's Book Club and Spokane Bound . . .

2007-11-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

I never got a chance to do a write up on my last trip, but the hostess with the mostest has done a better job here Literaticat on the Mandabach, Hopkins, Asher, & Lyga gig
with the San Francisco portion.

Here's silly me reading:

Tomorrow I'm off for the last stop on my fall 2007 micro-tour, Spokane, WA.

That where my best old friend Sam Ligon lives, and where I'll appear at Auntie's books on Friday night. I'll also be visiting two creative writing classes at two different schools, North Central and Barker Center. This is is my favorite part, I think, becuase it's so energizing to talk with the kids about writing. I'll miss my own students, of course, but the new groups are refreshing.

It's cold and snowy over in Spokane today, but looking at this pic from the area makes me wish I was going to be there in fishing weather. (Though I have fished in the snow!)

Peace, and wish me happy trails!

Q & A from Barrington High School Creative Writers, Part 3

2007-11-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

It's been almost 2 months now since my visit to the old home town of Barrington and my beloved Barrington High School.

Or, disbeloved, unbeloved, nonbeloved . . . You get the picture.

I loved my English classes and my biology classes and my friends.

And I still love Baker's Lake, which used to have an island with couple of big trees on it, where herons nested. Both black crowned night herons:

And great blues:

But the herons loved it to death, and the conservationists love the herons, so they built these scaffolds for the rookery.

But let's get to some more questions from the BHS class of '08:

Have you distinguished yourself the way you wanted?

I joked about this question in class, mentioning my distinguished grey temples and beard, because I try not to think about winning renown. But the truth is, no—I haven't.

I would like to have written more and have garnered more recognition and money with my work than I have. (essentally none at this point.) I've written a novel that's as good as I could write it. It's been published, and I am grateful for that. But—I don't think I'm supposed to admit this—I'm jealous of writers who have bigger publishers and bigger budgets for promotion. But I'm also proud of my publisher's independence and that I have complete artistic autonomy. More than anything, I try my best to focus on the work for the work's own sake, and I believe that by loving the work, the process and the product, that I'll distinguish myself in my own esteem. If I retain any integrity at all, that's what matters most.

What do you think of the self-publishing option?

Sorry, but I don’t think much of it. I know somebody who self-published a good tween novel that my daughter loved, but I think she should have held out and pushed harder for a regular publisher. Unless you have something unconventional that you really believe in, and have the drive to do all the marketing work yourself, I think self publishing is best for those who have written something that they only want to share with family, friends, and close professional associates. But that's just me.

How do you find an agent in Chicago? What do you think of the Writer's Market books. How many query letters did you send out?

I think they are great, though I found my agent by using Jeff Herman's Guide to Agents, Editors, and Publishers.

But first, I tried to concentrate on the writing: on preparing to write a draft, and on getting the draft done. I want to clarify what I said before about giving myself permission to write a really crummy first draft: what I mean is that I try to avoid perfectionism and the paralysis of being self-critical. From the beginning, as I write about character and place, relationships and events, I strive for quality. I want real characters, characters that I love—I want a good story and good writing. But in that first draft, I don't try to get it perfect. I try to free myself to let the story come out, which means writing naturally and quickly. Then I'll go over it again and again and again, making my work as good as I can with my own skill and the help of people I trust to be honest and not destructive. These people also must also be readers (and writers) whose judgement I trust and who know how to talk about reading and writing.

Then, with OR NOT, I combed all the books trying to find agents who represented what I did, talked with everybody I knew who had published or knew people who had, googled the hell out of agents that I thought might be appropriate, and sent out 60-80 queries, in batches of 12-24. 6 wanted to see a chapter. 2 wanted the whold book. One became my agent and sold the book. Oh, and he's not in Chicago. He's in NYC.

How do you manage writing and other things such as jobs and school?

Luckily, I'm a teacher, so I had a summer to write my draft. And even then I had to sacrifice a lot of leisure time. During school, it's even worse. I have to give things up, some trivial, some that I miss. I don't watch TV. I watch fewer movies than I'd like to. I don't get out fishing, or skiiing, or hiking, or even walking very much. Sometimes I hardly have time to read, which is dangerous for a writer. My house is a wreck. My yard is an embarrasment. I don't get enough sleep.

Was it worth it?

Totally.

Do your parents approve?

My mom is sooooo proud. She is 85, raised six kids, and has always been a reader and a writer. She's kind of in awe because she feels that she never had the discipline to write a book, and we're a lot alike, so maybe she never thought I had it in me! My dad would approve, too, though he was on the conservative side, politically, and he wouldn't approve of Cassie and her parents' unabashedly progressive politics.

Have you ever been to a book signing?

Yes, but my first book signing is October 11. (I was in Barrington on Oct. 4. Now, as I revise this a get ready to post it, its Nov. 24th and I've had 7 book signings! They are so much fun.)

Be Thankful; Buy Nothing!

2007-11-22T10:54:00.001-08:00

Do you love to shop? Hate to shop? Indifferent?
..

(this is an old video, btw, this year it is the 23rd)
Wouldn't it be nice to give it a rest? A one day shopping fast?Should there be exceptions? Buy only one special book and only from an independent bookstore? Buy only beer, locally brewed, from the tap? When I think of Katie, the proprietor of Village Books, or Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books, I think I would exempt them. But they're not in my neighborhood, so I ain't buyin' nothin' tomorrow.

ELLEN HOPKINS, BARRY LYGA, JAY ASHER, and . . .MANDABACH?

2007-11-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

WOW. How did I manage to get myself on a bill with these talented and successful authors! Very exciting :D

And Frisco rocks, despite the Oracle convention. Not that I have anything against being surrounded by tech geeks who never take off their id badges per se, but remember when Oracle was somebody at Delphi? A seer, a priestess? No? Well, I don't technically remember either, but it's not exactly GREEK to me either.

And the oil spill! I feel so sorry for the poor birds :(

next question . . . from Barrington High School

2007-11-12T18:19:00.000-08:00

THIS IS ENTRY TWO in my series of questions and answers from senior creative writing students of my alma mater, Barrington High School.

I DON'T KNOW ANYBODY in Barrington anymore except for my high school girlfriend, Claire, and my favorite English teacher, Dale Griffith. So I spent the night in the Barrington Motel, and took a cab over to the high school. My cabbie dropped me off at the wrong entrance, by the gym and the senior lockers, but the garrulous security guard had the authority—after checking his computer—and the technology to scan my Colorado driver's license and print me a visitor's ID sticker. Then another security staffer escorted me to the main entrance, and a third called Dept. Chair Jack Bowyer, who collected me and led me up the stairs that hadn't existed in my day.

Here's the second question that teacher Maggie Olberg gave me from the class:
What influences you? (Style & content)
Everything I read influences me a lot—or everything I read that's good and substantial, because the stuff that isn't just passes through me without leaving an impression. When I read, the language echoes in my mind. So I have to be careful what I'm reading when I'm writing.

Right now I'm reading I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek, and I can hear his voice, very lyrical. The good stuff becomes part of me, the characters are real people inside me, the worlds that are created become real places within me. I like writing that has a deep sense of place, urban or natural or both, and I like characters with a lot of love in them, or perhaps sympathy—with other people, with nature, with music and stories and all the arts. There will be alienation, disconnection, despair—but without what I'm calling love or sympathy, the alienation has no consequence.

Sometimes the language itself expresses love. I think Hemingway did that. One of my favorite stories, which is in a book that I borrowed from the BHS English resource center and never returned, is "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." It amazes me that I was so attracted to that story at so young an age, and I believe that even very young people often sympathize with the loss and disappointment of the age. The sympathy of the waiter in that story, the old waiter, carries the story—and the reader despises the young, self-involved waiter because he has none. Though the old waiter is preoccupied with nothingness, with emptiness, his emptiness is not nihilistic because he still feels the emptiness and sympathizes with those who also feel it.

Was this supposed to be style OR content? I think they are of equal importance. There is no style without content, and since the content is expressed via language, it can't be communicated without good writing (which is one way to define style) or without a voice that arises naturally from the subject and expresses the content.

And everything influences me. My best friend Sam, whom I met at BHS when I was a junior and he was a soph, influenced and continues to influence me. He's now the editor of Willow Springs and the author of an excellent novel called Safe in Heaven Dead.
But "everything under the sun", as it says in the finale of Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon, influences me. Growing up in Barrington, coming back, meeting new students . . . I could go on and on. (And usually do ☺)

Another Sell-out!

2007-11-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

It's been tough keeping up on postings--just too busy.

I haven't even told about my book launch party at Hillside Gardens, where we ran out of books.

Then I went to Charlotte, NC for visit to Myers Park HS--amazing students--and a fab party at the Trennings with Park Road Bookstore.

And today, when I did my thing at Borders at the the Chapel Hills Mall in Colorado Springs, they ran plumb out of Or Not!

I guess without the amazing Frazer Dobson of Park Road Books around, I'm a sell-out!

Details later--my friend and I have some papers to grade!

Creative Writing Questions from Barrington High School Seniors

2007-10-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

ON THE 4th OF OCTOBER, I visited with six creative writing classes at Barrington High School, about 40 miles NW of Chicago. I hadn't darkened the doors of BHS since I'd graduated in June of 1980, and coming back was a little weird.

It's always strange returning to Barrington, where I spent the first 18 years of my life in a big house my father built by Bakers Lake. Despite all the changes in the neighborhood, I seem to breathe memories in from the humid air, and the shape of the land (though much of it has been built over) and the sky that sits over it (the same way it always has) strikes me with strange familiarity.

Inside, the school was so different as to have little of this effect. But I knew it was the same place. And there were moments, such as looking out the window of Ms. Sultan's classroom and realizing it was my old typing room, when I could remember sitting there buzzed on coffee from The Breadbasket restaurant, making mistakes and borrowing Jena's typing eraser.

THIS IS THE FIRST of a series of blogs in which I respond to questions from BHS students:

How do you come up with a concept for your writing?

For the novel that I'm currently avoiding revising, I started with an image: a canoe lodged in tall cattails at the shore of Bakers Lake, and someone--me, I suppose--lying down in the bottom of the canoe. The tall, thin blades of the cattails exude coolness and green, but from the warm water the scent of decay rises: ripe with algae and the biology of fresh water, millions of organisms living in the water and the mud. The green of the cattails and the algae breathe out the fresh oxygen, converting the sun into energy, while microorganisms eat and decompose and die and are decomposed themselves.

In the canoe, the character--the more I think about him the further he goes from being me--is aware of everything around him. He knows the ecology, the relationships between the living and non-living things around him, and his imagination brings it all into his consciousness. He is himself alone in this place, but he is thinking about his friend, and something has happened. Maybe his friend has died. And a song they used to listen to comes to his mind, haunts him, " . . .story of her boyfriend, of teenage stone death games, handsome lad, dead in a car . . ." And he thinks of his best friend's girlfriend because of the "story of her boyfriend" line.

So my concepts come from memory, and changing memory by drifting deep into the scenes brought to my mind from memory and letting the possibilities of those scenes shift.

Aidan Chambers uses a repeating line, placed throughout his amazing novel, This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn: "All writing is memory." Some of the shifting is very deliberate--I take a memory of my best friend, and I say, "He can't be blonde, his hair is dark." Or I'm thinking about his girlfriend, (only it's the character's girlfriend now) and I'm doing the dishes and she's not coming to me, and I'm getting frustrated. Then I think her name might be Sophia,* and the image of a Sophia I once knew comes to me. Suddenly I realize that her name isn't Sophia, but that she looks like Sophia, and from that memory of Sophia's physical presence--not just her hair and her eyes and her body, but the way she carries herself, her gestures, the movement of her eyes--the character suddenly takes shape.

To BHS Seniors: Hope this answers your questions better than my random presentation!

*name changed to protect the innocent. ;-)

Mandabach's OR NOT T-shirt BANNED!! Is the book next?!?!?

2007-10-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

Don't hate her because she's beautiful, hate her because she has the shirt, and you don't! lol

I thought it would be fun to get some t-shirts made up, so I worked on a design based on the last paragraph of Journal One (link here to it) of OR NOT.

To wit:
Now if I were mad, I would think there were mental viruses hidden between the bits in digital samples. There could even be microchips in our brains that are triggered by digital media to produce thoughts like: "Drink Sexy Cola and be Powerful!" "You must buy things to truly exist!" "The virtual and the actual are ONE!" "Security is Freedom is Marketing is Art is Power is America is Right is Peace is Security is Strength is Truth is Might is Liberty is Lifestyle is Property is Happiness is Automobile is Independence is Globalism is Diversity is Oneness is Jesus is the Almighty Clean of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap--Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!"

But I'm not mad. So I don't think that.

The shirt just starts with "Drink Sexy Cola and be Powerful!" and ends with "Dilute . . . "
On the back it says
. . . OR NOT
a novel for audacious teens and other young adults
by
Brian Mandabach

I think it looks cool, and I like that it starts catchy and I imagine people looking at it and being embarrassed about staring at your shirt and then looking away and wanting to look more and maybe looking at your back as you walk away. Or people you know will make you stop so they can read the whole thing. So, I think it's fun. And also, I like the irony of the ranting.

I gave one to my daughter, and guess what? After lunch a teacher noticed it and asked another teacher, and they agreed that it was INAPPROPRIATE, and they made her turn it inside out.

I have to guess that it was the word SEXY *gasp!* omg! But come on! It's not as if she had on some sweats that said, SEXY or JUICY right across the butt! This is a statement of protest against the absurdist imagery of advertising, multimediocrity, and Johnny Jingo public "discourse".

Or maybe that's what they objected to, but that might be expecting too much.

Anyway, I got kind of a kick that the shirt that I sent her to school in, that I designed using an excerpt from MY book, had to be turned inside-out.

If you've got one of the shirts, send me a picture. And if not, come see me at one of my events and pick one up with your copy of OR NOT.

Hope to see you soon.

peace, love, & vinyl,
M

events listed on my myspace profile as "shows" and at www.mandabach.com

Dumbledore Gay--is this news?

2007-10-21T12:14:00.001-07:00

JK Rowling revealed some backstory that never made it into the novels, which, though not exactly short are too filled with broomstick sport and Harry YELLING in ALL CAPS to have contained details about the headmaster's (no pun intended) intimate life. Albus Dumbledore is gay.

Here's a link to a brief story about the revalation

Newsweek article with comments and discussion here

Now. Though I'm poking a little fun in the top paragraph, I've enjoyed all the Potter books. And I adore Dumbledore. I'm first and foremost a Mithrandir man (That's Gandalf in the Common Tongue), but Albus is my second favorite wizard. And as I contemplate my reaction to the news, I have to say that I don't care about him being gay at all. And I really like that I don't care. Even better would be if I didn't care that I didn't care--does that make sense? I'm thinking about one of the comments (from a 13 year-old) on the Newsweek story, about how much homophobia there is in middle school. When I got punched in the face for calling my scoutmaster's son a faggot, my dad told me what I had said (I'd had no idea what the word meant). But beyond the message that this epithet might get me punched in the face, and a pretty much non-judgemental definition, there were not a lot of messages out there telling me that love is just love. And there were a lot of messages teaching me to despise anyone who was "queer", including myself if I might have any queerness in me.

Back to the big ''news": the way Dumbledore rolls doesn't change anything about the way I feel about this beloved character, though it does make me sad to learn about his heartbreak. Too, I think this might further illuminate his empathy for Snape. Although Snape's heart was hurt in a different way, both of them lost in love.

What I'm wondering is: does anyone else think it's unusual for a writer to reveal backstory in this way? Or is it just unusual for people to notice? For it to be "news"?

In any case, as Roxy says:

Kitdlitophere Chicago O'Hare--Kudos to Robin Brande

2007-10-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to my tardy blog on Kidlit '07:
Not really scared of Barry--Mandabach's too-long post on Andrew Karre's FLUX Blog ;-)

Peace, Love, and Vinyl!
Brian

BACKTALK!!! Trailer for/scene from ALEX RICHARDS's novel, by Alex Richards!

2007-10-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Even though I feel that--at this moment in time--everything should rightfully be about MY book, I have to give props to my girl Alex Richards and HER book.

It's an original take on teenaged NYC, and Alex is a filmmaker as well as a writer, so this is a very original take on the Bookomercial Book Trailer.
Short and sweet!
View it!
Send it around!

Invisible Children, Mandabach's literary debut, and you?

2007-10-08T23:18:00.001-07:00

I'm getting excited about my book launch party. This should be a fun little gathering at an amazingly cool place: a nursery and garden with cool statuary everywhere, little copses of trees, and a gorgeous sunset-over-the-Peak-view!

There'll be music and sodypop and Cassie's favorite vegan food.

And you? Come on up the Colorado and join me! :)

Hosted By: Mandabach, author of OR NOT
When: Thursday Oct 11, 2007
at 5:00 PM
Where: Hillside Gardens
1006 S. Institute
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
United States
Description:
Mandabach, author of OR NOT

Click Here To View Event

Get the book! ... or not

2007-10-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've heard that my book is in stores and I know it is available via internet shopping. Local librarians tell me that it's already reserved.
Cool.

I'm off to Kidlitosphere in Chicago, hosted by Robin Brande whose Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature is an excellent read. I've been way too busy to blog about it, though I've wanted to--not just because it is well-written and right-on, but because it has some odd similarities to Or Not. And some dissimilarities as well. If I had my students read both, we'd be able to make some serious venn diagrams.

I'm also going to teach 5 creative writing classes at Barrington High School, a place I haven't set foot in since graduation in 1980.
Damn.

And spend a couple of days in the city with my beloved, with whom I haven't had a vacation alone since 1996.
Damn.

Wish me happy trails.

Peace

It's a REAL BOOK!

2007-09-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I got a package:

My novel is now a book.

Very excited, of course. I still can't really believe there is a book with my name on it. I'm a writer, I suppose, and I should be able to describe it better. The dust jacket is glossy and covered with that girl who isn't Cassie, but whom some of the guys in my 7th period class liked the look of enough to want to read about. The cover itself is black. I like it. The pages are smooth, but not too smooth, and very white. I like the design, the set-up of the journals, and the weight of it. It's not a slim book--at 400 pages--but not too thick to seem intimidating, I think.

I'm NOT let down, but since I have been waiting so long and with such trepidation, maybe I am more relieved than ecstatic.

The thing that really energized me was how excited that 7th period class was when I told them about Or Not yesterday (just before I found out it had arrived!) Then when I passed it around today, it was simply very cool.

I warned them that it might be too mature for some of them, lol, and expressed my horror of the thought of them going home and telling their parents that their English teacher had written a book with lots of bad words in it, and they had to get it. (I told them how Robin Brande, in Evolution, Me, & Other Freaks of Nature will say something like, "he called him a male body part," while I just write what people actually say. I do think Mom and Dad, as well as some kids, won't appreciate me calling a dick a dick, so . . . I guess we'll see soon enough what sort of a reaction I get. :/ :D)

Scary and fun.

". . . the story is great and the writing superb!"

2007-09-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

Can't argue with a quote like that, especially when the rest of the review is also really nice!
Check it out: review of OR NOT!

And my first interview.

Excerpt:

TR2: What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?

MANDABACH: I had a student who was told by a holier-than-thou classmate that she was going to hell. How can a person who professes to be inspired by a god of love be so mean? Not that the particulars of that incident are important—I see so much meanness, from girls being called fat to boys being called gay. But I see a lot of love, too. So, my students inspired me a lot in the writing of Or Not.

:)

John Nichols on Or Not

2007-09-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Dear Journal Friends--

WRITING is a magic journey, but waiting for the book to come out is a nerve-wracking time. Like other writers I know, I'm pretty good at convincing myself that my work sucks and that it won't find its way into more than a few stores let alone anyone's backback, bedside table, or desk.

But sometimes, it just feels good to have a book on the way, and sometimes even my limitless need for reassurance abates.

When I sent OR NOT to a big hero of mine, John Nichols, who is an amazing novelist and a champion of beauty and truth in both the human and natural worlds, I didn't really expect him to read it. Not only is he a busy man with a lot of demands on his time, but he almost never blurbs. He'd much rather be hiking down into the Rio Grande Gorge, with or without a fly rod, than reading some hack's first novel.

So I was pretty much floored to get a note from him only two weeks later--filled with good wishes and praise about my book. Including this:

"Cassie Sullivan is a lovely kid, aware of the earth and how to save it, but nobody's listening. Cassie's voice is funny, angry, sad, sarcastic, and perplexed as she struggles to find her own identity. And to find hope for the future despite all the yahoos surrounding her. You will laugh, you will weep, and you'll really enjoy this delightful and poignant novel about a kooky idealist who refuses to give up as she grows up."

My editor doesn't think Cass would like being called "a lovely kid," but take it from me: though Cassie hasn't read Nichols yet, she'd glow in his words. Nichols' uncompromising integrity shines as a light of inspiration to me. Without him, OR NOT would not exist. That he read it, and approved of it, is not only a personal thrill, but it helps reassure me that I'm on the right road.

Peace,

B

An Illustrated Conversation With Alexgirl Richards

2007-09-05T23:48:00.000-07:00

After having a few conversations with Alex on our blogs and via email, I decided it would be fun to interview her and post our public conversation. Alex's super-fun and smart novel Back Talk came out in July from FLUX.

Introducing the interview section are the emails that went along with the questions and answers:

>On 8/27/07, BRIAN MANDABACH wrote:

> Hey, Alex! Sorry this has taken so long. I'm slammed now that school
> has started. I thought I would send these along. Some of them may be rather
> random & I didn't really revise, so some may not be {REDACTED}. Feel free
> to skip any that don't inspire you.

>From : Alex Richards >Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:55:41 -0400

>Hey Brian!
>Yowza! I've added my responses in italics below. Thanks for the interview!
>Yes, those were some very crazy questions, but fun, too. You're a nut.
>Anyway. Can't wait to read Or Not and interview you.
>Let me know when you're gonna post it and I'll set up a link.
>A

On 8/30/07, BRIAN MANDABACH wrote:
Great. I love it! Now, a couple of follow ups, and I'll call it "A
Conversation with Alex Richards"

From : Alex Richards alexgirl@
Sent : Monday, September 3, 2007 9:28 PM

Thanks Brian. The follow up Q's were great!
Have a great Labor Day.
A

THE INTERVIEW:

BRIAN: Getting straight to the heart of the matter, you just married a bloke from Bath. (as in UK, city of Roman spas--not as in "room" or "THE bath") Was or is he a DJ? Did you meet on the subway, or as he probably says, "tube"? How close is your real world English heart-throb to the dreamboat boy in Back Talk?

ALEX: Well, the similarities are more in his physical appearance, mannerisms, and personality. I wish I could say my husband was a cool DJ, but instead he's a cool physicist. And no, we didn't meet on the subway. I rarely make eye contact when I travel! We met at a Yo La Tengo concert in Prospect Park.

BRIAN: Physicist sounds more interesting than DJ to me. How's married life?

ALEX: Married life is great! I'd give it a 10 out of 10. I never thought I'd have so much fun introducing him as "my husband." lol

B: Why is Gemma from Idaho?

A: An homage to my best friend. She's from Burley, Idaho, and I wanted to give her a little shout out. It ended up making sense though. Gemma meets Dana for the first time at the ultra popular ski resort, Sun Valley, near Ketchum, Idaho, where Gemma is from.

B: How did you arrive at what I call the "Snarky Omniscient Narrator" of Back Talk?

A: It's basically me. I can be very snarky. My editor suggested I beef up that aspect, and so the snarky commentary went from a 6 to a 10 by the time I finished the book.

B: That's cool when an editor can set you free to be yourself. Andrew Karre
rules. But speaking of being yourself, I've to to tell you, it's rumored
that you're actually a dude named Richard Alexandria. From LA!!! Care to
respond?

A: Damn that blasted Richard Alexandria! Nope, never heard of him. Maybe if I'd gone for a pen name I could have rocked that one. No, I think If I were going to use a pen name, I'd go with something way more exotic, like Vegas Roberts--oh wait, that's the name of a character from one of my Potato Riot films.

B: How can I see your movies?

A: The World Wide Web is stocked with my movies! Check out www.potatoriot.com for the full collection.

B: Back to writing, which is harder: 1st draft or revision?

A: Revisions. Definitely. The first draft just spews out of you and it can never be "wrong," it just "is." But then when you're doing revisions, it's all about making it perfect--and I am a serious perfectionist.

B: What are you reading right now?

A: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl. I'm really enjoying the story so far. Also, Snow Flower & The Secret Fan, by Lisa See. That book is frigging awesome, and so well written. Next up: Pretties, by Scott Westerfeld. Uglies rocked.

B: What's in your cd player or the last thing you listened to on your ipod?

A: Well, I'm going to give two answers because the last thing I listened to was my gym mix (at the gym), which is full of embarrassingly cheesy pumped up pop tunes (like Sweetest Escape by Gwen Stefani and Fergalicious). But in the real world, the last thing I listened to was Cold War Kids. Oh, and Jeff Buckley.

B:Why do you blog?

A: Is this a trick question? Why do you blog? No, I started because I thought it'd be good book promotion. I'm not really sure if that's true, but now I'm addicted. Blogging is like a drug. And I've made so many awesome friends in blogtopia.

B: This was not a trick question, and my answer is a carbon copy, or a ditto--wait, can I update this to the digital age?--a facsimile of yours! On to another serious writing question: Which do you enjoy writing about more: clothes or clothes?

A:Are you making fun of me?

B: Yes. But though I loved reading BACK TALK, I didn't get some of the clothes
stuff. I guess that makes me curious--I want to hear why you write about
the outfits, designers, etc. Please?

A: There are certain things one pays extra special attention to. A well crafted, creative clothing design will turn a lot more heads than some run of the mill T-shirt. Maybe it can be equated to boys and cars. Por ejemplo: if you were into cars, you'd probably be more excited about a Lamborghini than a Ford Focus, right?

B: You're allergic to shrimp. I agree. But what about rock shrimp?

A: Now I know you're making fun of me.

B: Actually, not. I think shrimp are disgusting. I wish I was allergic so my
wife would stop bugging me about tasting hers. But a rock shrimp is more
like a tiny rock lobster (as in lobster tail, not as in the B-52's). They are delicious, and they are not the same animal, so I wondered if you're
allergic to them, too.

A: Well, I'm actually allergic to shrimp and lobster, so if rock shrimp is like lobster I'm going to have to say No. Though my allergist has invited me to sit in his waiting room with a bucket of shrimp to eat just to "see how it goes." I said No to that, too.

B: What are you wearing and why?

A: Odd interview question, but: denim skirt and a polka dot tank top, because it's freakin' boiling in NYC!

B: I think this came to me because your blogging friend Emma (who ROCKS by the
way, and who I always imagine hanging out with you in NYC proper, not just
in blogtopia NYC) always closes her posts with this information. BTW, I'm
wearing jeans, a blue plaid cotton shirt, and {REDACTED}, because it was casual
Thursday at school today, and it's cool enough here in Colorado so that I
didn't have to change into shorts when I got home.

A: Don't tell Emma you wear {REDACTED}. In fact, if you want to stay cool with the fashion community, I'd keep that bit of info to myself.

B: What's your favorite part of speech? Explain:

A: Expletives. They don't even have to be "bad words" in order to be really fun to say/write. Get creative!

B: Flagellate creativity! Why can you write fuck in a novel and not in an interview?

A: Good point.

B: America Vanderbilt?

A: Yes.
Oh, wait. Was that a question? She's awesome. I love the way America's character develops. At first she may seem like a bitch, but there is a lot going on underneath that sleek, heiress exterior. And how cool is that name. Come on.

B: Precisely. I love it.
Where would you rather look at Georgia O'keefe's paintings: NYC or New Mexico?

A: I've never even been to the O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe. Ooops! But honestly, I'd rather look at her hubby's photography. I love photography and Stieglitz was a pioneer.

B: How do you feel about Taos?

A: Boh-ring. Although they do have a good ski basin. And Julia Roberts.

B: They have Julia Roberts?

A: Yep. And her liiitttle dog, too!

B: Assuming you could change their ages to make them fit the roles (ie. Hugh Grant would be young enough to be Andy, uh, I mean the foxy boy in Backtalk), pick three actresses/actors for leading roles in a movie adaptation of Back Talk:

A: Oooh, I like this question! Hmmm... I think I'd pick a young Daryl Hannah for Dana Cox. Molly Ringwald for Gemma Winters. Or possibly Katie Holmes circa Dawson's Creek. And maybe Mischa Barton
for America Vanderbilt? Or Selma Blair. Wow, that's tough though. I'm gonna keep thinking.

B:Sorry! is that too much Mischa? Nah! Not possible.
What are you working on these days?

A: Just finished my second novel. Woo hoo! The characters are friggin'awesome, and I think people will really fall in love with my main character.

B: Sounds great--I love that feeling of loving your characters so much that you
want others to love them. Tell me a little more?

A: I would tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you.

B: And when you say you're finished, how finished? Finished with the draft? The first round of revisions?

A: Just finished with the first draft. That's why I can't really tell you any more about it. I think I'm going to be making changes, so I don't want to lock myself into anything. But the main character is a really awesome chica, and she wants to be a rock star.

B: You've worked in talk television, film, and literature. What advice do you have for Karl Rove as he moves into a new career?

A: Interesting yet bizarre question! I'd suggest that whatever he does, it be far, far away from politics. Flex the right brain for a bit, K-dog. Knitting perhaps?

B: That seems like a lot of questions. Thanks for doing this--I hope it's
fun. And I can't end on a picture of Karl, so how about this one of Selma Blair?

Peace,
Brian

Book Trailer Contest

2007-08-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

Email me and I'll send you scripts and details. My address is in my profile.

I need two or three-minute video trailers or "book commercials"
and
I want you to make one or even two!

*First prize: A signed copy of Or Not
and a 25 gift certificate to Amazon.com or itunes
*Second: A signed copy of Or Not

Here is the sortof thing I'm looking for, only it would be a different style, and rock more. :)

Grrrrrr! Another book challenge:

2007-08-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

KL Going's Fat Kid Rules the World attacked!

SCBWI LA, & Misc.

2007-08-04T15:42:00.001-07:00

Planning a trip to see 3 of my brothers and other assorted family, I heard about this Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference. I'm traveling with my two kids, and family get-togethers are hectic to say the least. But I had to go over and check it out.

I really can't believe how many good things I'm missing, but at least I got to meet some people:

Rebecca Grose, kids book publicist for Cynsational Cynthia Leitich Smith and also for Brian Mandabach! Rebecca is a riot, a wellspring of detailed Seinfeld knowledge, and--you heard it here first--she confessed to an adoration of Christan Bale as seen in American Psycho. How can she get publicity for books with this image as her desktop, idfk, but maybe it inspires her!

Cynsational Cynthia Leitich Smith, who thought there would be plenty of room in her Keynote Address on blogging and such, and was surprised that people were crowded around the door. Clearly she underestimated the power of her virtual presence on the very actual conference attendees. A clue to that sort of power might have been deduced by the "face-out" placement of Tantalize on the shelves of Barnez & Nizziloblz. What do you think?

Vegetarian reviewer and aspiring novelist Melissa, who was reportedly indulging in two kinds of meat, and at the same time: Grey Goose and Red Bull--though I can't confirm this unequivocally. Melissa's another myspace friend, and it felt funny to be exchanging cell phone numbers--despite the safety of the writing conference, I kept remembering warnings against meeting online friends in the "actual" realm.

Possibly the most erudite of these luminaries had to be Russian lit prof and blogger Kelly Herold, who I love almost most of all because her daughter got to Or Not before her mom and read it THREE times. That girl rules, and so does her mom.

And last, but definitely not least, can anybody who meets Carrie Jones not totally adore her? I knew I loved her just from reading Tips on Having a Gay Ex-Boyfriend and from her blog. She is so clever and smart and straight from the heart (and MIND). And when you see her in person, you just want to hug her and not let go .

Oh, and though I didn't meet Tracy Grand of Jacket flap, I did meet Paul, who was very cool and welcoming to this unofficial SCBWI conference attendee. Jacketflap called the meeting on the patio where I met these folks, and I have to say that everybody was warm and cool. I think the people involved in this biz are the best.

"The White Tree" & "The Jena Six"

2007-07-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

A high school student is knocked out and brutally kicked as the usual fight mob watches.
Prosecute the perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law, right?

Read more:

Click to get to Carrie Jone's blog and see CNN coverage, read a detailed account of the events and issues, and take action.

OR NOT by Brian Mandabach, an excerpt: Journal One

2007-07-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hey,

I am re-posting this here at the top to make it easier to find, should you want a preview of Or Not . . .

Here is the beginning of my book, the first of several

journals by Cassie Sullivan: Colorado girl, vinyl record nut,

teenaged naturalist, uncompromising nonconformist. . .

Cassie's an analog girl in a digital world, and

the digital world is almost as pissed as she is.

OR NOT

by

Brian Mandabach

a novel published by Llewellyn/FLUX http://fluxnow.com

New Characterization of Cassie

2007-07-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

by the fabulous Roq'cze:

Cassie by ~LoZoreh on deviant ART

NIghtowl Candy, Midnight Magic

2007-07-21T14:58:00.001-07:00

When Spottedstar and I rushed out to Midnight Magic last night, I left my book on the table by the door, so I picked up a copy of Kevin Brooks' Candy. Wow.

You know those books that you get into so much that you can't read fast enough? This is one of them. I found myself blowing through paragraphs at speed-reading rate, afraid that I would miss something, wishing that I could slow down and savor the prose, but powerless in the grip of the story.

The hours before midnight passed quickly, and we got a good place in line. Spottedstar (aka Sissy) read The Deathly Hallows to me as I drove us home, and I finished reading the first chapter to her when we got there. She made me promise not to read ahead, and I was okay with that, because I wanted to get back to Joe and Candy.

And I couldn't stop until 4 O'clock, when I was just on the verge of the climax. I think I was able to stop there because I was afraid of what was about to happen. That must be the reason, as I had been telling myself that I would stop after one more chapter for two hours, and then for another hour I told myself that, since I was so close, I might as well just finish it "tonight".

When books are this much of a rush, it can be disorienting. I'm sure Brooks' writing is some of the cleanest prose I seen in a long time. I'm sure that I love Candy like Joe does, that I totally get his feelings, and that the story caught me up as few stories do. And it took me deep within--where love smashes up the self with terrible tenderness.

I'm not sure about some of the ways the plot works in terms of probability and the way the resolution works. All novels are flawed, aren't they? But the whole thing has left me suspecting that this one might be almost perfect. Maybe it is my own fault-finding nature that wants to take it apart.

Complicating things is that the book was emotionally moving and that staying up all night messes with my mood. I love staying up late. But then I'm not a very good person in the daytime, and I need daytime hours to write. So I am going to have to quit this dissipated nightowl existence and become a righteous morning person, at my desk at five every morning.

Right?

oh, btw, here's the US cover, slapped on a characteristically shoddy Scholastic binding, guaranteed to fall apart on the second reading (if not the first):

Stingray Summer

2007-07-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

THE WIND had been whipping down out of the north for days, creating a strong lateral current across the beach. When my daughter and I waded out for body surfing, it tugged at our legs like a really excessively adverbed sentence, decisively powered by verbs maladroitly fashioned from nouns, each clause burdened with 23 K attachments of prepositional phrases screwed onto them like similes on a homily. Dragging us down the beach. Like frags on a slag heap. Heavy.

But today, as the tide went out and the crowd on the beach followed, the wind was light and the current mellow. Our only challenge, when throwing ourselves into the breakers, was to avoid the other frolicking swimmers.

"Three more good rides, Sissy," I said. "And then let's get out."
"Okay, Daddy," she said, knowing that I defined a good ride so narrowly that three might stretch to ten.
"OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!" I said. "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I said. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I said, "SOMETHING GOT ME!"
"What is it?" she asked.
"OHHHH! OHHHHHH! OHHHHHHH!" I said. "I think was a jellyfish."

I headed for shore, moaning as jets of hot venom pulsed in my foot. Some kids in the surf wanted to see what was hurting me so bad, and when I pulled my foot out of the water, there was a half-inch gash on the knuckle above my big toe. Didn't look like a jellyfish sting.

stingrays lie hidden in the sand on the bottom, waiting for unsuspecting humans

"Stingray," said the lifeguard, "sit up here." She jumped down from her platform and got her first aid kit while I climbed up and said how it was almost worth the pain to get to sit on the lifeguard chair.
"I'm the coolest guy on the beach."
"You're really brave," she said. "Grown men usually cry."

I felt really cool then. But not so much when, as she wrapped a bandage around my foot and ankle to hold a chemical hot compress on there, the venom started shooting up my leg to my groin, cold sweat burst out all over me, and I suddenly felt like I was about to puke. She helped me down and I lay groaning in the sand, and after a little water, I was back to being brave. And I didn't cry.

Maria, my lifeguard, was an angel of first aid. I think I fell in love with her for a few minutes there. Intense pain and abject helplessness can make a man susceptible to these lapses. But add the ministrations of a beautiful lifeguard in a swimsuit who takes complete control of the situation and praises my bravery . . .

Meanwhile, my daughter, the next hero here, was stuffing our beach clutter into our beach bag and calling Mom on the cell phone. The situation brought out the best in this girl who whines and complains about every request for help (trying to disprove the adage that "it's easier to get a kid to do it than to do it yourself"). Sissy hauled all our gear up the beach and acted with more self-possession that I could have hoped.

The third hero, my wife, Lee, didn't really believe that I was all that hurt until she saw me being led hobbling up the beach path, supported by Maria and Maria's mom, who had appeared from nowhere (ostensibly to have lunch with her daughter, but more likely to save her from middle-aged men who fall in love with her daughter after she saves their lives).

The pain got worse in the car, while Lee teased that I was a big faker and wasn't really hurt.
"I had just opened my book," she said.
"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!" I said.
"I have the worst luck," she said.
"OOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
"I never get any reading time, and now--"
"UUHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"You get to sit around soaking your foot and reading while I take care of you."
"STOP TALKING! I'M GETTING SICK AGAIN!"
"I have the worst luck!"

True to her prediction, I did get to sit around with my foot in scalding water (it does something to either the nerves or the venom, and lessens the pain) and read while she took care of me. We found a doctor nearby, who gave me antibiotics, narcotics, and a tetanus booster, and I got to sit in the car and read while Lee filled my prescription. Sissy continued her heroism by babysitting her brother, gratis, and I realized, despite my momentary infatuation with Maria, how much I love my family. Family is the people who have to take care of you when you're incapacitated. And for me, true love is the woman who tenderly nurses me while recycling a decade and a half of sarcastic inside jokes so they fit this exact occasion. "I have the worst luck. I still don't think you're really hurt. How did you really get that little cut?"

Epilogue: Lee's (and Sissy's) luck continued bad as I had to go for an x-ray the next day, causing them to miss their mother/daughter pedicure appointment.

Mine continued good as, upon my return to Colorado the day after that, I was diagnosed with a nasty infection and got to hang out in the ER with an IV antibiotic drip while nurses brought me warm blankets, ice water, and I read another whole novel!!

Postscript question: I have NEVER seen an episode of baywatch! but, still, who's your favorite? Jenna, above, or CJ: ??

Alexgirl's book!! BACK TALK

2007-07-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

I have so much to say, after being off line and on vacation for a good long while.

But tales of the heavenly beach, all the books I read, and the stingray from hell will have to wait, because THE MOST IMPORTANT THING NOW IS

BACK TALK

by the hilarious and way too cool

ALEX RICHARDS!!

If it's not on the shelf, ask your bookstore to order it, ask your librarians to get it, grab Mommy's Visa and order it from Amazon, but get this book!

Goodbye small town hell . . . hello Big Apple!

Sixteen-year-old Gemma Winters couldn't be more ecstatic—and terrified—about scoring a summer internship at one of the hippest daytime TV talk shows, Back Talk with Kate Morgan. To top it off, she's staying in a palatial brownstone in Manhattan with celebutante Dana Cox (a virtual E! True Hollywood Story in the making) and world-weary millionheiress America Vanderbilt. Gemma's corn-fed naiveté melts away as she gets a taste of designer clothes, underage clubbing . . . and a cute Johnny Depp look-a-like.

The glamour fades by nine a.m. when Gemma becomes slave labor for harried producers. Not even her borrowed Manolo Blahniks can shield her from an office romance turned ugly and backstabbing fellow interns. When someone is unfairly fired and a show is at risk, Gemma goes out of her way to prove this small-town girl is more than just a "photocopy bitch."

Here's a link to Amazon:
BACK TALK

And here's an interview with Alex on Slayground, by that miraculous girl, Little Willow

Summer Reading: LOG THE HELL OFF!!

2007-06-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

Livejournal, myspace, blogspot: they all SUCK!!!

Even as I write, indulging in this vampiric wastetime, I must briefly rail against!
Especially for an ADD person with a strong tendency towards hyper-focus, such as yours truly, it's hard not to get sucked in. So, I have begun unplugging my wireless at 5 pm. It's a start. While I love my internet friends, and I have fun reading interviews & book reviews by the likes of
Little Willow as well as the hilarious observations of Emma, I'm now reading like crazy.

I FINALLY finished I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, the touchingly innocent and simultaneously earthy (though never pornographic) memoir of Pamela Des Barres (who refused the advances of Mick Jagger because she was so in love with Jimmy Page!)

Then, it was Alias Grace by my favorite Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood. (The Boob Lady
is second, sorry!) She's amazing. I'm in awe of the combination of her research and imagination into pure seamlessness. And her mastery of voice in multiple points of view--including Grace herself, who is far from reliable--helps Atwood spin a tale in which I was far from certain what the truth was or exactly what the truth meant.

On to Stephen King and the finale of The Dark Tower. In the thrall of Mr. King and his gunslingers, I'm no good to anyone. I was was told yestereve, as I read myself into another world, oblivious to the familial chaos around me, "I think Daddy's checked out."

So much for the idea that I'd would be a better family member after unplugging the wireless. I was no good at all this morning either, on account of being up until after one last night reading until I had not the strength to make it into bed. Waking on the couch around five, I pulled myself out from dreams of Low Men, were-spiders, and portals to other times and worlds, and managed to make into bed with a sore neck.

Next, it's going to be one of my fellow FLUX authors Carrie Jones
or Brian Yansky, probably Carrie because now that I'm in Maine with King, I might as well stay there. Ayuh. :)

Escape! Isn't it best with a book? Forget about my former righteousness in getting offline--I just needed a better way to slip out of the real world. I do say so and thank ya!

The Real Goat Horn

2007-06-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is the mountain that inspired the Goat Horn, which rises above Cassie's cabin.

Read my old pal Jeff's blog of his climb to the summit, and see his awesome pictures! Wow!

Then get outside and get some altitude!!!!!!!

A Half Birthday

2007-06-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Or maybe just a quarter-birthday. Certainly not an occasion for champagne or cake. In the life of a book, it's not much of an occasion.

Nonetheless, I feel like marking the "completion" of a reading draft of my next novel. The final pages are spitting out of the printer upstairs, and I am a little scared. For a year and a half, this story has been working, and I've only shared a couple of pages with my trusted Becky and my writing club. It's just a reading draft, but that means that I'm going to have to let my readers, um... look at it. And though I have loved working on this monstrosity that currently weighs in at 127,00 words, 355 pp. 1.5 space, I'm terrified that I haven't pulled it off.

I guess I'll have to trust the fact that I smile when I think of my characters and parts of their story, and trust my readers to help me figure out what I've got wrong.

Here goes nothing!

King Soopers Book Tour

2007-05-31T15:09:00.000-07:00

So, while some of the cool people are at BEA, I decided to go on tour!

Check it out, from the bakery, to non-dairy, to produce--its the all vegan tour on West Uintah Street, View of Pikes Peak, USA--the anti-NYC!!!!!

Gothic Novels to put some chill in your summer:

2007-05-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a blog from the author of TANTALIZE with a killer list of gothic novels.

Cassie's Songs

2007-05-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

I have published the first imix of songs that Cassie, my heroine, listens to on her record player. The irony never ends here, because digital media pervades our every synapse more and more with every passing moment, while Cassie remains stuck in her analog neverland . . .

So, I want you to hear the soundtrack of Cassie's life, and the best way to do that is through the computer, just as I want you to read the book, and the best way to spread the word is via the computer, and I want to hear from readers and old students and new "friends," and the best way . . .

The first of these songs is from The Worst of Jefferson Airplane (because they're radical like that, lol), a record that is widely available in thrift stores, e-bait, and record stores. Cassie listens to it with her friend Liz, who appreciates the some of Jorma's heavy guitar, and the general tripped-out feel.

The rest, in no particular order:

"Summer's Almost Gone" is a song that everybody should have on the mental ipod (you know, the one that plays in your mind, those songs that run through your mind), with Jim Morrison's smooth, deep voice giving you the essence of autumnal loss--the bluesiest season of all--before the first leaves even fall. Meanwhile, Robbie gives you some sweet slide guitar, John taps a subtle beat, and Ray fills in everything else with piano and organ. "Where will we be when the summer's gone?"

If you haven't felt like a "Teenaged Lobotomy," you haven't turned 13 yet. The Ramones took things back to the Fifties, by doing away with all the tripped-out extended guitar solo jams of the Sixties. Two minute is the average length of a Ramones song, many of which have the brilliance of urban rock & roll Haiku. Cassie was lightening up a great deal when she got into the Ramones, courtesy of Quill and DJ.

Todd Rundgren's Todd is another of the obscure records in Cassie's yard sale purchase. The electric keyboard intro of "Don't you ever Learn?" is longer than most Ramones songs. Todd seem to have financed, with a couple of hits, many hours of the music that is close to his heart--rambling, spiritual, electronic, and often very rocking forays punctuated with some powerful singing, lyricism, and guitar work that have made his hard-core, cult fans proclaim, "Todd is God."

Cassie loved Lightnin' Hopkins, and lots of his obscure records are out there still, scratched up, cheaply pressed, and beautiful because when you listen to them it feels like you are sitting there with ol' Lightnin' as he picks and sings you a story as wet and muddy as an East Texas swamp.

"In the Pines" or "Where did you Sleep Last Night" is one of those heavy, emotional songs, especially when screamed by the inimitable Kurdt Kobain. The lyrics, to my way of hearing it, are not so important in a literal or even figurative sense. They are evocative, and the image of shivering "the whole night through in the pines, in the pines where the sun don't ever shine" blends with the melody to create a psychic icon of loss, alienation, and despair that chills my heart. This song has been sung and recorded for a hundred years by too many people to count. Leadbelly claimed to have written it, and copyright is erroneously claimed by his estate even now. But it's folk music, written by folks, and so it is called a "traditional," meaning it was created by lots of people, and if one person first came up with the idea, nobody knows who that person was. . .

It's a book!

2007-05-18T19:25:00.000-07:00

Actually, it's an advance reading copy, an uncorrected proof.

But it looks like a book, it feels like a book, it smells like a book, it reads like a book. So it must be a book! It's hard to believe that an idea of mine, after a little bit of a struggle and a lot of help, is now a book. Kinda cool.

Hey, you! You OTHER Book! Yeah, YOU--the SMUTTY one! Get OUT of the library!!

2007-05-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

I just learned of another book banning, this one earning a young defender of morality a BOY SCOUT MERIT BADGE!

Gail Giles' SHATTERING GLASS banned
You'll have to scroll down a little on Gail's livejournal, because the same book, Shattering Glass, earned her the California Young Readers Award, and her later blog entries are about that.

Kudos for our illustrious scout and his mom, who, armed with a photocopier and a highlighter, made one library a more moral place! And in addition to the patch for his uniform sash, sources close to the troop say the scout was also given possession of the offending books (safely wrapped in brown paper) so that he could burn them on his next campout!!!! (this photo is NOT authenticated)

You might have seen my earlier blog, or read lots of others about the banning of Maureen Johnson's Bermudez Triangle. The outrageous thing about that incident, most people said, was that there was nothing "inappropriate" about the novel. The only thing the girls do is kiss, and the only thing that the enemies of free speech seemed to object to was that the girls are kissing each other, which some people seem to think is unnatural.
Intellectual Freedom=Good.
Homophobia=Bad.
And I totally agree with these equations. The damage inflicted by self-righteous haters on countless excellent people who happen to be gay, lesbian, bi, or transgendered--some of whom are my friends and neighbors--what can I say? It's horrible.

But something about the argument that there is nothing wrong with Burmudez Triangle bothers me.

What I'm wondering is, what about the books that have more "objectionable" content? It is easy to defend books that are pretty much innocent. What about the poem, "Have You Ever Faked an Orgasm" that appears along with the other Best of the Best American Poetry in a certain middle school library? What about the adult novel that sneaked into the same library--by a well-known YA writer--containing much that is beyond the ken of 11, 12, 13, and 14-year-old experience? What about Robert Cormier's Fade that a couple of my 8th graders stopped short in reading because of the protagonist's attraction for his aunt? Should these books be purged?

My earlier blog on MJ's book mentioned that I'm a pretty protective parent, but I also think that libraries should be dangerous places. When she was in 5th grade, my daughter read Fahrenheit 451. It was in the classroom library--clearly not part of the vetted curriculum approval process--and though the book terrified her, I did not insist that the book be removed. There are plenty of 5th graders in this "gifted and talented" class who would benefit from the book. If my daughter was not mature enough to read it, the fault for letting her read it belongs to her parents. Maybe I should have paid more attention, but maybe it was okay. She was tested against her own limits and learned that she wasn't ready for that sort of thing. I can't see that any harm was done--no lasting scars from the fires of 451. Not like she when she saw Beauty and the Beast when she was five and became terrified of wolves, woods, and every aspect of nature that isn't equine.

So. Shouldn't libraries be dangerous places where wolves lurk? And while kids need a librarian to come out from behind the desk, a teacher to lead them through the stacks, and parents to read to them long past the age when they can read by themselves, shouldn't older kids, teens and even tweens, negotiate their own way? Shouldn't we trust them more and more as they get older? I'm not saying that middle school libraries should stock Naked Lunch, but I don't see what purpose is served by sanitized literary environments devoid of strong language, procreative desires, and complex moral situations. In other words, where people don't say fuck, where people don't fuck, and where people don't get fucked.

I'm nowhere near ready to let my kid read whatever she wants. I'm not even sure I'm going to let her read MY book! But put me on the committee if somebody wants to start taking books out of her library.

BOOKS OUT OF THE LIBRARY!!

2007-05-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to an account of a rather horrifying book banning by a school library: BERMUDEZ TRIANGLE BANNED

The book is BERMUDEZ TRIANGLE by Maureen Johnson, and it sounds pretty innocuous to me, but then I'm homophilic rather than homophobic--"straight but not narrow," more or less, and from my way of seeing it, "they're here, they're queer, I'm used to it."

At my school, SHADE'S CHILDREN by Garth Nix was challenged by a parent a few years ago. Even after she and her kid moved, Mommy insisted that the challenge go forward, apparently because she did not want anyone else's kids exposed to this tale of the triumph of freedom and the family, which, had she read the book, she might have been able to figure out. Yes, there was some rather mature content, but in the view of our committee, it was appropriate for middle school. While some parents and students might object, there is a simple remedy for that: DON'T READ IT and DON'T LET YOUR KID READ IT!

I'm a pretty picky daddy myself, by some standards: there is a lot of stuff I don't let my kids, 3 and 10, look at. Yes, it does come up even with a 3 year old--at day care--and some G movies are too much for toddlers, in my view. I don't want my little boy traumatized by sharp-teeth! (Oh, no, no! I do not!) But parents have the responsibility: take a look at what THEIR kids are reading, and focus on their OWN families. But they have no right to deprive others the opportunity of reading certain books.

As Maureen says, "Book banning sucks!" (yup, yup, yup!)

I don't have time to read . . .

2007-04-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

and I could blame my new macbook, but I know it's my own damn fault.

I am writing blogs, I am going over my next book, and I am being a dad (blogging in between tearing out coloring pages for my son to paint, and I did take the boy outside to play hide and seek, and get up with him in the night, twice, to smooth the hair from his fevered brow, and in the morning before six to lie down with him so he could rest some more and his mom could get forty more winks), and I am sort of teaching, and I have to be giving the devil of obligation his half-assed due in several areas.

What I most want to be doing is immersing myself in this novel that I am revising. I get a second wind after the kids are in bed and it keeps me up past the time I can really concentrate or trust the work.
But by then it is too late to read. I need immersion in reading as well as writing but I can't fit both into the time. I miss Cordelia (This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kennby Adan Chambers). As soon as I hit post, I am going back to her for an hour--forget my own stupid book.

COME SUMMER! COME SOON! I'm going to get the DARK TOWER (the last one--I have been reading them after my birtday and Christmas for the past few years) for my birthday (even if I have to buy it myself) and I am going to read a ton of other books: King Dork, I'm with the Band, novels by Carrie Jones, Alex Richards, more Simone Elkeles, short stories by Denis Johnson and Stuart Dybek . . . the list goes on and on.

Come summer, before I become the kind of teacher who actually stoops so low as to count the days! I know everyone who isn't a teacher hates me because of my summers, but I hate you becuase you don't have to try to inspire and discipline in the perfect measure so that kids learn stuff they don't give a good goddamn about. I love teaching and I love my students, but I LOOOOVE SUMMER!!!!!!

Hey, I just realized that I have NOTHING to complain about.
I get summer vacation, and you-hoo doh-hon't!!
:D

Cover

2007-04-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the cover for OR NOT coming October 2007~~~~~

Cordelia Kenn: Reading the Pillow Book

2007-04-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

Now that I've read more than a third of THIS IS ALL by Aidan Chambers, I thought I'd write a little bit more about it.

I still love Cordelia, and her voice is stronger than ever in my ear. I sometimes worry about this when I'm writing because I have a great capacity to absorb the rhythms I read and a great penchant for subconscious imitation. Novelist Anna Quindlan says this is no problem for her--she just makes sure that she reads really good stuff, and then if she imitates it, all the better. I'm not really sweating it either. Cordelia's voice is fresh and unique, real and true, and the style is different enough from the book I'm revising that I'm not concerned about excessive bleed-through.

Style, Voice, and Form:
19-year-old Cordelia tells her story in the form of a book she is creating for her unborn daughter, a gift she will present on the girl's 16th birthday. She skips around from musings and narration in the present--6 months pregnant, looking back on her life--and her Pillow Book, a term she has borrowed from Japanese literature, which is a collection of her journals and early poetry dating back to when she was 15. Or maybe the current musings and narrative are actually part of the pillow book, too.

Cordelia likes to mix things up, and in the first section, she skips around as she tells her story. Chambers manages the various voices, ages, and moods of Cordelia so well that I can feel and hear the difference in her style without becoming overly conscious of it. And the transitions are handled so that, while I am sometimes confused, I appreciate not having the, annoyance of obvious indicators--Cordelia lets me figure things out on my own without insulting my intellegence.

In the next section, the form changes. We get currently written narrative on the right page, and straight pillow book on the left. This is a bit dodgy, but I manage the reading of it by holding my place with a bookmark for the pillow book as I read ahead on the main narrative. I tend to get carried away in the story, but when I get to a stopping place, I go back and read the left pages, where she writes poems, notes to her boyfriend, and musing on such subjects as: rain, things that make her heart beat faster, poetry, breasts, masturbation, etc.

Subject Matter
Oh, did I say breasts and masturbation? These are two separate sections, btw, and there are more topics here that I'll leave alone. I'm not as brave as Aidan Chambers, at least not in this blog. (Wait until my second book, if it ever sees the light of day.) Chambers has balls, though. My editor, Andrew, calls him "fearless", and he seems to be. Not only does Cordelia muse on anatomy, but in true Cordelia fashion, she very logically anwers all the objections people have about self-stimulation, countering each with her own arguments about how beneficial and healthy it is. And she makes me ashamed that I am so filled with trepidation at this mild summary. But this is blog, not fiction, and fiction is an easier form for telling the truth. Plus, I'm a teacher of adolescents *gasp*, so I exist in the world where, as one of my own characters put it, everybody pretends that sex doesn't exist. Or the adults try to, and wish the students would, which usually seems for the better. Who knows when or if frank discussions are appropriate when maturity levels and family backgrounds are so varied. But this is about Cordelia, not about decency in the schools.

Cordelia loves to argue with common opionion, and it doesn't have to be sex-related. I loved when she, again very logically, put forth the proposition that, contrary to common belief, we do NOT live only in the present moment, but in the moment just after that, because there must be a brief space of time between event and awareness of the event. For Cordelia, awareness, KNOWING, is everything. I'm not sure that the present isn't that moment of awareness. The photon of a star may take years to arrive here on earth and be absorbed by my wide, staring pupils, and then there are nanoseconds from that moment until the awarenss is in my mind--so when IS now? I'm tempted to say that there is no present moment, but I might get into some sort of Mahayana Buddhist philosophical negativism in which I can't argue that:
a. there is a present moment,
b. there isn't a present moment,
c. there both is and isn't, or
d. neither is nor isn't a present moment.
I can't argue any position at all, I just have to live in the present moment, or not in the present moment, or niether in the present moment or not the present--wait! Weren't we talking about auto-eroticism? I might have fallen into a verbal form of it right there, so I'll stop.

You go, Cordelia. Question authority.

And you go, Aidan. This book rules.

Oh, and I just had an idea for another Cordelia blog--or an essay topic for somebody: mother, sister, daughter roles in THIS IS ALL: THE PILLOWBOOK OF CORDELIA KENN--how Cordelia functions in all these capacities in relation to herself. :-)

Anticipation; Pre-reading Aiden Chambers' THIS IS ALL: THE PILLOW BOOK OF CORDELIA KENN

2007-03-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon--

My wife and daughter are at the library, and my son is refusing to nap. He's in there talking to himself, quietly, happily--but I know it won't last.

I want to be reading, I should be doing the kitchen floor, but I'm taking a break to write about the book I'm going to start reading. (Oh, great, he's crying again! He gives just a couple of wails and then is still. Probably, I think—as I listen to the silence broken only by the dryer in the basement where a pair of overalls or some other loud garment is clacketing around--probably he's only waiting and listening to hear if I am on my way. In a moment, he starts kicking the wall, the little varmint. Oh, well. Let him kick!)

Okay, back to the subject at hand:

I've been reading Crime and Punishment, just finished it last night, and the whole while, This is All, the Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn, has been sitting on my bedside table, and every so often, before or after my Dostoyevsky, I'd pick it up, feel its weight, and put it down again.

Sunday Night, 10:22

Still haven't read any of This is All, and as much as I would like to get to the subject at hand, I'll indulge myself by saying that I'm just at this late hour finishing a dinner of salami, cheese (extra-sharp Tillamook and The Dubliner), assorted olives, and wine. The interim has been filled with the usual Sunday chores, and augmented by my daughter showing the chief symptom of "the stomach flu" which necessitated my cleaning vomit off her bedroom floor.

IT'S QUITE A BEAUTIFUL BOOK, THIS IS ALL, the kind that makes you thumb through it and caress the pages, which have a soft quality of fabric, a woven feel. The book is six hundred pages, thick and decidedly narrower than it is tall, and the only complaint I have is that the margins in the middle seem a bit small. I am hoping that the book will loosen up a little as I read. We shall see.

AMAZING that Cordelia's voice is, already, a little bit stuck in my head. All I have done is read the first couple of pages in the bookstore, then hit a few random pages, including one in which she describes several ideal, perfect things: a dream kitchen, complete with favourite ingredients, and a new, well-made book, among others.

I like Cordelia already.

I ALSO LIKE THE BOOK ALREADY, or at least the idea of it. The jacket tells me that it's "for ambitious readers" and "not for younger readers" and is "A huge book in every sense."

I also like little books, shallow little books even, but most of all, I like a big, huge, vast, book. Teen literature is particularly awash in small books. Most titles seem to come in around 200 pages, and though there's nothing wrong with that length, I like to get lost in something that meanders around like Raskolnikov through the streets of Petersburg. Ann Zwinger, whom nobody outside of natural history has heard of but who is an incredible writer and teacher, told me that I am an "encyclopedic" writer. This causes me some heartache in the revision process when I have to cut at least a quarter of what I've written, but maybe that's what makes me love a long book so much. I want it all, and deeply.

That's why I like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky--but more on the Russians later. I still have Raskolnikov on the brain, and I hope I get a chance to make a few notes before I am swept thoroughly away into the world of Cordelia.

And there we have it: to be swept away, transported, lost. That's the thing! With a great, big, book, you're in the fictional world longer, and the fiction is more real--if it's true. A big book can give you more characters and can more closely elucidate the lives of those characters. The places and the movements of people through those places form patterns in the mind that sing and hum like memories of your own life in the "real world." Or maybe they sing more clearly, with more truth, than your own memories.

Now it's after 11:00, and I want to read, and maybe to get to sleep before it's tomorrow. So I'm off to prop myself upon the pillow, and lose myself in Cordelia's pillow book.

Because here's the thing: I like a big, serious book. A big, real book. One that gives me characters that are not merely made-up fictions, but characters that are true, characters that exist so fully in their world that they live inside me, and so--as any beloved person does--they enlarge me. Dig that! To be enlarged. To extend the dimensions of heart and mind. To expand the soul.

Dig that.

OR NOT, a novel by Brian Mandabach

2007-02-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

Here is the beginning of my book, the first of several

journals by Cassie Sullivan: Colorado girl, vinyl record nut,

teenaged naturalist, uncompromising nonconformist. . .

Cassie's an analog girl in a digital world, and

the digital world is almost as pissed as she is.

OR NOT

by

Brian Mandabach

a novel coming in October 2007 from Llewellyn/FLUX http://fluxnow.com

Brian Mandabach & OR NOT

2007-02-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

There's an Edward Abbey book, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto), that I'm thinking of as I post my first blog here. It's a little collection of pithy Abbeyisms, such as "A word is worth a thousand pictures, if it's the right word." It's a good Abbey title, though his was really more of a voice crying from the wilderness, a voice that echoes still in the coffee-scented aisles of Barnes & Nobles and Borders stores across this great land.

My editor, Andrew Karre of FLUX, said that on my myspace blog, I'm "not a voice in the wilderness," but I really am. I love myspace, but it's not a place where people read much. I had to do a lot of pleading with my friends--mostly former students--to get them to look at the postings of my as yet unpublished novel, OR NOT. Once they did look at it, I was very pleased with the response, even by some of those that I thought might not relate or might even be offended.

But I'm still vox clamantis in deserto, and I remember a night when I left the party next door to my apartment in the old Colorado College student dive that we called the Wahsatch Hotel, retiring to the tuberculosis-cure porch that was my bedroom at the time. As I sang and played my guitar--some traditional song that I knew from the Grateful Dead, I'm sure--philosophy snob Allen Hill passed by and called out, "Are we having an audience yet?"

Aparently, yes. Not very appreciative, to be sure, but yes. And as Gandalf the Grey said (though he was, in fact, Gandalf the White at this point in the tale), it was customary of old to address the wisest person present, which allowed one to avoid the annoyance of tedious explanations. So, in Gandalf's case, he was--as Strider suggested--speaking to himself.

Vox clamantis in deserto, then! I've always been able to amuse myself by talking and singing to myself. If somebody happens to listen in, then s/he's welcome to lend an ear. And if thine ear offends thee, or mine mouth, pray don't pluck it out--just move along until you're out of earshot.