Christmas 1, Cynic 0

It starts a few days after Labor Day weekend. The stores begin to gradually fill shelves with Christmas stuff. Toy departments start their subtle swelling. Decorations and knick-knacks find their way into the home décor areas. And my level of disdain for marketing types who use Christmas as the ultimate sales tool rises accordingly.

But as the autumn progresses my cynicism abates as I enjoy seasonal changes. Disdain shifts to chores like yard clean-up and firewood preparations. Then Halloween comes along and the marketing efforts associated with Christmas kick into high gear. Decorations are all over the place. Advertisers ram the “beat the holiday rush” message down our throats. Christmas music leaks out of tinny speakers everywhere, from home improvement stores to little lingerie shops. And once again I’m convinced that Christmas is nothing more than a shameless marketing ploy and it has been for a very long time.

As I ponder the phenomenon I see how Christmas selling has intensified as mass marketing has developed over the past fifty or sixty years. Television was the beginning. As TV networks grew so did the Christmas push. Holiday programs were produced and advertisers signed on as sponsors. We all know the shows. The Charlie Brown cartoon, Rudolph and Frosty and the Grinch and on and on began in the Cold War years and have returned every year since. My cynical nature says that these programs are only around to sell the latest toys and games. Whatever message they may hold is superseded by the crap they promote. And really, are those programs any good?

Then along came the internet. And with the internet there arrived a whole new level of mass marketing. Advertising that runs every single time we search for information pops up incessantly. If you’re looking for the symptoms of psoriasis you first must endure an ad for the new Nurse Barbie play set. If you want the latest statistics on sorghum production, you’ll get ads for toy John Deere tractors. But it’s not only there that advertisers make their pitches. Even the so called news media gets involved. Have you noticed how Black Friday sale advertising is “leaked” to the news media? They play along with the game. Stories are planted about anticipated sales, new toys on the market, Hollywood holiday film releases and buying trends. It’s all treated as real news. And it’s all tied to the Christmas season and it’s all selling something.

By Thanksgiving weekend I’m in full cynic mode. I hate the very idea of Christmas. Commercialism has displaced and destroyed whatever inherent good Christmas had in years past. Even philanthropic efforts associated with the season seem to have been hijacked by commercialism. In fact the fund raising outfits are often raking off more of the donations for administrative costs and advertising than they are giving to their cause. It’s only more food to fuel the cynical fires.

But then about two weeks before the big day I talk to my grandkids. I see the excitement in them as we decorate the house and set up the Nativity display. We talk about the animals and the Wise Men and, yes, even Jesus. We talk about gifts and traditions and how so many non-Christian ideas have been assimilated into our overall Christmas heritage. Later I hear some folks from the local Mennonite Community singing carols in the mall. Then one afternoon as I’m walking near the library a homeless guy sitting on a bench tells a passing mother with an infant in a stroller that she has a beautiful child and he adds “Please, please love your children and Merry Christmas to you.” He wasn’t looking for a handout, he was saying something important.

So my cynicism slackens. In fact it fades away almost completely. I still get irritated with the commercial push. But I see that the message is still alive. The pure love of children for parents and parents for children is one sign. The kindnesses that are done without expectation of reward are another sign. The welling up of human decency is still another. Even when the most evil things occur there is a rising of immense goodness that inexorably follows. It happens over and over again.

Once again Christmas has beaten the cynic. And that’s a good thing.  Merry Christmas to all of you good people.

Now go on and have a fine New Year.

Poet in Paradise: Impressions of A Writers" Conference - Conclusion

After a restless night worried about my poetry reading I was up and about by six in the morning. This was to be the day, finally, when the poets would take center stage at the Faulkner conference. I wanted to make a good impression so I put on my best jeans and a clean shirt. Then I got all my luggage ready for my trip home just in case the conference organizers wanted to run me out of town after my reading. I even checked out of the hotel before the day’s programs so I could make a rapid escape.

The day opened with the usual breakfast spread of croissants, fruit and so forth. Since I was so nervous I had skipped the free morning meal at my cheap hotel. But I couldn’t pass up those fresh, warm croissants. The first speaker on the agenda was a young author who talked about an early twentieth century writer named Zweig who killed himself after a successful career. It wasn’t exactly an uplifting topic but it was interesting.

Next was an author who has written a book that posits that there is an ongoing World War in which the principal combatants are China and the rest of us. The book is “World War C” and the author was funny and extremely interesting in spite of his disturbing premise. He was followed by a Norwegian poet lady who had a near death experience a few years back and who has been “channeling” poems from a spirit guide since that time. The segue from world war to spirit world poetry was a little jarring but not unusual for this conference. I only wish the poetry coming out of that spirit world was of higher quality and not so close to the world of Hallmark.

We moved deeper into real world poetry with the presentation of a paper about W. B. Yeats, one of my all time favorite Irish guys. The young PHD delivering this paper was really good and very knowledgeable about her subject. I wished that she could have gone on longer, not because there was so much more to say, but because we were getting closer and closer to the time that I’d have to stand up in front of this audience.

After a brief intermission the next panel discussion began. On the panel were three highly regarded poets, all members of the academic world, all widely published and all quite capable of ripping my work to shreds. Before the discussion started the runners-up in the poetry competition were asked to sit up front so that we could take part more fully in the proceedings. My days as an edge of the room lurker were ending. The two other runner-up poets, a woman from Maryland and a younger woman from South Carolina, seemed as nervous as I was. The discussion commenced. The subject was “Poetry as an Avenue to the Soul”. Holy cow! Deep philosophical discussions combined with poetry are a real opportunity to sound like an idiot. I resolved to keep quiet. But I shouldn’t have worried. The poets on the panel took the whole thing pretty lightly, made some very fine observations and then read some of their own work. The winner of the competition was on the panel and he did a really fine reading of three of his poems. The other two poets were equally erudite and skilled at reading their stuff. And then they were done. The first runner up, the woman from Maryland, was called to the podium. She was shaking with nervousness but she did just fine. Then it was the other young lady’s turn (ladies first) and she too was very nervous but did a really nice job. Now it was up to me.

I got up to the podium and looked around. Seated to my right and left were three poets who have all seen their work in books, anthologies, magazines (yes even the New Yorker) and broadcast on NPR. In front of me sat academics, authors, editors and a few students. So I made a little joke about how losers in New Orleans were treated much better than losers up here in the northeastern states. The people laughed and that was helpful. I started my poem and in a couple minutes I was done. There was enthusiastic applause. I floated back to my chair and collapsed in relief.

Only one more ordeal remained and that was a meeting with the contest winner and one of the other poets for a critique of my work and some advice about getting published. This meeting was in a private room and people say things in private that they may be too kind to say in public. But it turned out that these people were kind, even in a private setting. Some questions about my techniques and structures were asked which I defended pretty well. Then we had a lively discussion about publishing where I learned that I’m doing what the other guys have all done. Write stuff, enter contests, send work out to magazines and journals and watch the rejections pile up. Don’t expect to make money with poetry but do the best work possible and have a good time doing it. I was happy with that.

Now it was time to head home. I went back to my cheap hotel and waited for the airport shuttle bus. As I was sitting there I began to write, mentally, a new poem and the little articles that I’d put on my blog. The trip home wasn’t too harrowing. There was one problem with a broken airplane in Charlotte but even that didn’t dispel my good mood. My lovely wife eventually found me at the Baltimore airport and we made it home around two o’clock Monday morning. It was a fine and fabulous trip which I’m so glad I could make. My dear wife made it possible and I thank her so much.

Now, ya’ll go have a fine day.

Poet In Paradise: Impressions of A Writers' Conference - Day 3

On Saturday morning I got back to the writers’ conference site bright and early again. After I had a croissant and coffee I settled in to the workshop routine. The first session, another panel discussion, was concerned with the use of non-traditional methods in making fiction. Or something. It seemed to me that these guys were talking about using stuff like poetry, performance art techniques, dramatic devices and so forth in writing novels. But a lot of the discussion was about how writing plays was different from writing books. It was interesting in the same kind of way that watching brain surgery is interesting; I didn’t understand what the surgeons were doing, or why, but it’s pretty cool when the blood starts squirting. Of course that’s just a “figure of speech”, another bit of writer jargon.

The next panel discussion (they really favor that format here) was about how truth can be revealed in fiction. You know, fiction isn’t real so how can truth, which is real after all, exist in a made up story? I’ll be damned if I know. And the panelists couldn’t seem to come to any good explanation for why it works but only that it does. I’m being a little facetious (of course) and the discussion was actually fun and very interesting with lots of cool personal stories. One bit of advice I took away from the program was that if I write anything personal about family or friends or strangers who happen to be alive, even in poems or blogs, eventually someone will be very angry about it, so I should be prepared to deal with that anger. Dealing with the anger could even involve moving to another state which actually happened to one of the authors on the panel. So far I’m okay because I try to disguise the bad stuff with false names and other lies. So I’d say this session about truth was one of the best of the whole conference.

By one o’clock or so I was pretty well work-shopped to death. So I left the conference and wandered down to the Mississippi (I love spelling that word) to watch tourists look at the river. It kind of reminded me of when Clark Griswold visited the Grand Canyon on his way to Wally World in the “Family Vacation” movie. The men on the lovely river-walk just kind of looked out straight ahead, looked left then right and then said “Let’s go!” as they dragged their family back to the French Quarter to look at ladies in tight clothing. And by the way, what’s the deal with fishnet stockings on the streets of New Orleans? I saw more women (and a few men) wearing black lacy stockings than I’ve seen in any other city. It isn’t just the local women sporting this fashion either. Even blue haired old tourist ladies who should know better were wearing black fishnet stockings with their culottes. I even saw a couple of grandmotherly type women with fish-net knee highs. I suppose there’s no logical reason for fashion statements like that.

After pondering questions about local fashions and other esoteric matters I made my way back to my cheap hotel to get ready for Saturday night’s big gala event at the fancy conference hotel. I needed to clean up and put on my “going to funerals and weddings” suit as I looked forward to a high class meal and maybe, just maybe, a free beer or two.

At seven o’clock I walked on back to the conference hotel feeling quite natty in my crisp white shirt and tie and my suit that would make any Philadelphia lawyer proud. As I said before I only wear a suit for weddings and funerals and on those occasions I’ll try to skirt around the requirement if the dress code isn’t too rigid. Years ago I had to wear suits and ties and such as part of my daily working garb. I hated it then and, no matter how distinguished it makes me look, I hate it now. The sacrifices we make for Art are truly a burden.

The first part of the big gala was a cocktail party and the presentation of awards to the Faulkner competition winners. I entered the room set up for that part of the program and found a dazzling sight. Beautiful women in elegant dresses stood in little groups chatting and sipping wine and fruity mixed drinks. And there were men, of course, also standing around in groups drinking beer and looking uncomfortable in their party attire. Some guys were even wearing tuxedos and they looked more uncomfortable than anyone else. The tuxedo is the silliest fashion creation ever foisted upon men since chain mail armor. At least armor had a purpose. A tuxedo has no logical connection to usefulness or comfort. Sure James Bond looks good in a tux but the rest of us look like (get ready for the Frank Zappa reference) penguins in bondage. So I ordered up a beer, Bud Lite, which only set me back six bucks. No free beer here. And I took up my place at the edge of the room where I watched and eavesdropped on scintillating conversations. Most of the talk was about publishing. Questions like “Are you published yet?” “When is your book coming out?” “Did you see that poet lurking at the edge of the room?” I made up that last question. No one notices a lurking poet except another poet.

And suddenly, across the room I spotted another lurking poet. He was a little fellow, ten years or so older than me and he was wearing what looked to be the most uncomfortable tux in the room, maybe in the whole city of New Orleans. It didn’t take long for me to recognize him as the poet who won the competition this year. So I crossed the room and introduced myself. Now this fellow is a pretty famous poet, the head of the creative writing department at a major university and a scholar with an international reputation. His first words to me were “My wife made me rent this damn tuxedo and then wouldn’t even come to this party because she thinks these things are far too boring.” I was moved. We went on to discuss beer, women, traveling, fishnet stockings and poetry. The night was a success, as far as I was concerned.

After the awards were handed out and speeches were made we went up to the main ballroom for the actual dinner. By now it was nine o’clock and I was really hungry. I staked a claim to a table at the back of the room and was actually joined by four young people who turned out to be quite nice even though they weren’t poets. The dinner was fancy enough and consisted of a complicated little salad followed by a shrimp and pasta entrée. After the main course there was a dramatic program featuring Cicely Tyson, recreating her role as Miss Jane Pittman, which was in honor of the author Ernest Gaines who wrote that book. She was terrific and in just a few minutes she conveyed the amount of strength required of a person who had to come up out of slavery and live to be a hundred years old. Then we had dessert. Now doesn’t that seem a little bit incongruous to you? It did to me. It was a wonderful performance but I thought maybe they should have done something with a little lighter touch. But that’s just me and the dessert was delicious.

By eleven o’clock I was done with my dinner and feeling tired so I left the party. The next morning I was told that the gala lasted until one o’clock. That just goes to show that those high-toned artsy folks are much better at partying than this old poet.

There’s only one more part to this tale but it won’t show up for a day or two. Be patient and have a fine day.

A Poet In Paradise: Impressions of A Writers' Conference - Day 2

I got to the conference site a few minutes before eight and was able to enjoy the nice croissants and coffee set-up that was provided. This welcomed nourishment, my second breakfast of the day, was necessary fortification for the day ahead. The workshop sessions began. First on the agenda was a program about the major changes that are going on in the publishing industry. The panel consisted of three published authors, one of whom is an editor for Penguin Books, and a literary agent who specializes in helping authors who self-publish. It was a very lively and informative group. Self-publishing is definitely something a modern day poet needs to consider. In my case, without academic credentials or connections, I have very little chance (zero in fact) of being published conventionally. These panelists offered hope.

The next part of the morning activity was the presentation of a paper about religions in science fiction writing. The presenter talked about Vonnegut and a couple other writers and made some interesting points. However her paper, full of excellent and interesting content as it might have been, was read in a less than passionate way which made it a little duller than last night’s Chinese menu. She was followed by another panel discussion led by two authors who have written works of speculative fiction, as opposed to science fiction, and it was a livelier presentation. All of which proves, I guess, that speculation is better than science.

That all finished at about 11 a.m. and I went off to contemplate my 11:30 meeting with an editor from some big ass publishing company. So I went to the hotel bar and ordered a beer to help the contemplation along. Folks who know me know that I don’t usually quibble about the prices of things. But at eleven in the morning being hit with a bill of eight bucks for a glass of beer is a shock to one’s sense of right and wrong. My inclination was to put up a fuss. But, since the cost of beer distracted me from the nervousness of my imminent meeting, I remained quiet. The meeting with the young editor fellow went fine. He offered a thoughtful critique on three of my poems and a cupful of sympathy for the plight of poets in today’s literary world. He didn’t really have any fresh suggestions about the road to publication and didn’t start drooling when I showed him my full manuscript. In fact he just handed the thing back to me and wished me luck.

Instead of having a few more beers, which was what I really felt like doing, I wandered back up to Canal Street and got some Popeye’s chicken for lunch. Popeye’s seems to be the ubiquitous cuisine of Louisiana. Those places are all over and they are all busy. The food is good and hot, cheap and filling. That’s my recipe for haute cuisine. Then I went back to the hotel room to freshen up (such a feminine euphemism) and relax before my next appointment with the agent lady. To fill in the rest of the time before the meeting I built myself up into a state of high anxiety. I’m good at that.

My meeting with the literary agent went fine. She owns her own company and specializes in advising authors (usually female authors) about using non-conventional routes to publication. Her company will evaluate (or “vet” as we say in the book biz) a manuscript and then guide the thing either to an editor on her staff or help the author through the self-publishing process. She was a very nice person and was quite enthusiastic about my poems. Since her company deals only in fiction and non-fiction book length stuff written by women, she didn’t offer to take up the cause of getting me published. She did give me a couple of leads to publishers she knows and she was eager to tell me that she would write notes of reference for me. That was nice. So it was a good meeting with some nice feedback and a couple of possibilities for further contacts, as well as several suggestions about how to get started on the self-publishing route.

That was that for the day’s activities and I decided to stroll down towards the river and Jackson Square. That enabled me to experience some of the tourist ambience of New Orleans which is more than a little strange. Tourist activity in this city seems to be divided between walking around the streets drinking and that other time honored tradition of watching crazy people. A companion to the crazy people watching is listening to some very good “street” music played by crazy people. Besides that there is a sub-genre of street music played by crazy young and very dirty people. There is art on display all around Jackson Square but it’s nearly inaccessible due to the proliferation of Tarot card readers and fortune tellers. From what I could see though, the art is either darkly weird stuff on canvasses made from strange materials, or it consists of layer after layer of brightly colored acrylic or oil paint knifed onto regular canvas until the paintings are several inches thick. Even little pictures the size of a sheet of regular paper must weigh five or six pounds. Judging from the prices on these creations I do think they’re sold by their weight.

After walking around for some time I stopped in the Crescent City Brewery and Pub for a nice dinner and a tall beer. Once again the price of beer in this city made me grab for my wife’s credit card because there was no way I would pay those prices with my own money. My New Orleans style dinner consisted of Pennsylvania’s finest beer, Buffalo chicken wings and a German sausage dinner plate with Idaho potatoes and New York state sauerkraut. It was delicious. Then I made the trek back to my hotel where I settled in for the night. Another good day had come to a close.

A Poet In Paradise: My Impressions of A Writer's Conference

Last Wednesday, November 28th, I flew down to New Orleans to take part in a writers’ conference, the Faulkner Words and Music Festival, since I had been second runner-up in their poetry competition. Those people are nice enough to invite and provide a tuition free opportunity to writers who come close to winning. Their generosity is highly appreciated. The flight down was as pleasant as flying can be nowadays. We are all familiar with the process of humiliation, embarrassment and physical discomfort that is endemic in commercial air travel, so I won’t belabor that issue. But the flights were on time and no worse than being crammed into an aluminum tube, forced to sit on a cramped uncomfortable seat in the company of disease ridden co-passengers is intended to be.

The conference took place in a posh French Quarter venue, the Hotel Monteleone. It is a lovely place; old and prestigious, ornate and impressive. Of course, since I had to pay for my own lodging I didn’t stay there. No, I stayed at a place a few blocks outside the Quarter (notice how I slip into the jargon of a native of New Orleans?) on O’Keefe Avenue, the Quality Inn and Suites. I was expecting the worst. I was almost wishing for the worst. But I was disappointed to find absolutely no material for ridicule in my accommodations. The room was clean, the amenities were fine, the condition of the place overall was adequate and the breakfast was hot and free and pretty darn good. I couldn’t even find an unpleasant or incompetent employee in the four nights I stayed. They were all unfailingly pleasant and helpful. That just goes against everything I’ve come to expect when I travel to big cities.

It surprises me how non-social I’ve become over the years since I retired. Crowds, unless at a concert or some other event, are nearly repulsive. Club-like atmosphere can be repulsive. And the Faulkner – Wisdom, Words and Music Festival is a club-like event. Most of these folks know each other. Many are published authors, some regionally well known, several are widely known and this is an annual deal for them. They enter the contest every year. Often the winners come from their “membership”. And they socialize like crazy. I knew it would be a difficult week for me, socially speaking. I figured beer and my uncanny ability to lurk unnoticed around the edges of a room would help me get through the thing.

At the first luncheon program I walked out of the session after one beer in the bar. There wasn’t a struggling writer in the room or, if there was one, he or she was wearing the cloak of yuppie-dom quite nicely. Even the real youngsters in the group were somewhat pretentious in an MFA kind of way. My name tag said “Writer” in big letters. But when I added the subtext of poet as the conversation began these people suddenly acted like I was a rabid raccoon. On the other hand, in a couple of cases my mentioning of poets and poetry seemed to elicit a kind of sympathetic feeling as if I had a bad case of shingles or perhaps leprosy. It was kind of funny actually. On the first day of the conference I couldn’t find another poet. There were some around, I know, and a group of them were scheduled to be there on Sunday the final day of the event.

Now that doesn’t mean that the programs on the first day were dull or lacking in interest. On the first morning we were treated to small readings and mini-lectures by a varied and rather fascinating selection of authors. The day started with a panel involving a nice book called “Meanwhile, Back at the Café DuMonde…” by Peggy Sweeney McDonald. It was funny stuff and very good. There was even a nice jazz trumpet solo by one of the panel members. Then there were a couple of historian type authors followed by a music writer. Next came two more historians, a graphic artist and then a panel of fiction writers. Nice. Lunch was at a posh joint called Arnaude’s. As I said, I escaped that venue and had a crawfish omelet at a little café nearby.

The festival so far had been chock full of “cultcha” but I decided to skip the club meeting on Thursday night. They called it a party but that was just a ruse. It was actually a ritual involving the worship of the New Orleans Saints, disregarding their completely futile attempt to beat the Atlanta Falcons. I’m not into NFL shamanistic practices so I opted out.

Anyway, I returned to the conference site for the afternoon session on Thursday which was a workshop about the pleasures and perils of writing about dead people. I mean real dead people as opposed to zombies or ghosts or vampires. Four authors who have written non-fictional accounts of various famous or semi-famous people’s lives spoke about their books then participated in a panel discussion about that type of writing. It was interesting stuff and when I get back home I intend to get their books out of the library, if they’re available. If I bought every book I was interested in that was being sold at this conference I’d surely be a starving poet. Or, at the very least, I’d end up as a husband who got knocked around by a wife angry about credit card abuse. The session ended a little after five. Since I had opted out of the evening NFL witch-craft event I decided to try New Orleans style Chinese food. Buying Chinese food in different cities is part of my campaign to search out regional nuances in ingredients and preparations. Amazingly, after checking out that cuisine (there’s a language stretch) in many cities and towns throughout the northeast, mid-atlantic, and southern states I haven’t found any differences. None. There’s not even any difference in the photos on the menu from town to town. Anyway, after dining at the Golden Wall on Canal Street I went to my hotel room, made a phone call home and then did some reading. I even watched the TV for twenty minutes or so until I couldn’t stand the noise. More reading was then followed by a good night’s sleep.

Now have a fine day.