Lee Wochner: Writer. Director. Writing instructor. Thinker about things.


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An appreciation of his appreciation

Saturday, February 28th, 2009

Three weeks late, I come across this small memorial to John Updike by Garrison Keillor and I’m struck again by the economical virtues of Keillor’s writing. I also find more and more that I enjoy Keillor because of our shared values. Nothing so leads to agreeableness as agreement.

For instance, this, about his young daughter’s score of 96 on a spelling test:

Having begotten a good speller is no small matter to a writer. Writing is an act of paying attention, and if you don’t care about the difference between “their” and “there” or “needle” and “noodle,” then I am sorry for you.

Just so. Keillor is a nice man. With others among us, blood squirts from our eyes when people who should know better confuse “their” and “there” (as well as “they’re”). On Facebook, someone who knows me well enough recommended that I join the group “Seriously, Learn the Fucking Difference Between Your and You’re.” I joined. Whoever started this group must be kin.

I also like this, from Keillor’s piece on Updike:

I saw him a year ago in New York, and my wife and I rode the subway with him from 155th Street down to 72nd, and he grinned all the way, a white-haired gent of 75 in a tan raincoat, like a boy going away to school, and a little nervous. As it turns out, that was my very last chance to tell him, standing above him, the train swaying, that “The Centaur” and the Rabbit Angstrom books are permanent masterpieces and also his Olinger stories, and I didn’t tell him that. I opted to be cool. And then a gaggle of college kids boarded and crowded around him, not recognizing him, and in all that chatter and attitude, Updike sat soaking it all up. Material.

The description of Updike as “a white-haired gent of 75 in a tan raincoat, like a boy going away to school,” matches what I’ve seen of him too; it just feels right.  Something like 14 verbs move that little paragraph, only two of them forms of the indolent “to be.” I enjoy the way Keillor uses “and” to string  you along until the final end note:  “Material.” He often employs “who” in the same way, appending clause after clause, building to a penultimate sentence launched with that conjunctive pronoun before coming to a full stop with a final brief line:

And I think of John Updike, who illuminated private lives and wrote so lovingly of the world, who called snowfall “an immense whispering” and compared a brilliant snowy day to overdeveloped film. Who re-created the backyards and clotheslines of small-town 1940s Pennsylvania and described the way a girl walked in the hall of high school carrying her books against her body, and in a great story, “My Father’s Tears,” three years ago in the New Yorker, he gave us his father bidding him goodbye on a train platform. Nothing was beneath his careful attention.

Keillor has a strong voice. I can hear him in this piece of writing, just as I hear him in “A Prairie Home Companion.” It flows from his phrasing and from his point of view. He has something to say and he says it simply and well.

Rabbit is dead

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

john_updike.jpg

John Updike has died.

While I’m not an admirer of his work per se — some suburban lives are better left unexamined — I do admire his powerful ability to convey the unsaid and deeply felt, especially in his earlier short stories.

The texts of ten-year-olds

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Her older brother having taught her the art, my 10-year-old daughter is now texting people. I have it on good authority that she exchanged several texts the other day with a 44-year-old man. (Who turned out to be her godfather.) Obviously, I’m going to be getting a little more involved in this.

Today she started texting me, and if these texts are any indication, I can see the run-up into adolescence and then womanhood. Because while she may start out by saying hi, essentially she just wants things, and quickly gets around to asking for them. This is not unknown to me from my dating days.

One text read, “Yeah kid castle”. I had offered to take her and her little brother — he of the hair — to the indoor gaming center Kids Castle, and this was her epigrammatic way of agreeing. But by now I was onto her and texted back, “Okay. Are you paying?” Her reply: “What um no”. And that’s where I’d like to spend a moment.

“What um no” at first sounds like bad Indian dialogue from an early John Wayne movie, or perhaps the name of a sinister Asian in a 1930’s pulp thriller. But it strikes a further chord with me. Look how simple but expressive the phrasing is! “What um no” conveys tone and timing in a way that would thrill Harold Pinter, but goes even further by eliding the punctuation and calling up comparison to Cormac McCarthy. And in the subtle wordplay, where “What um no” may be purposely conjuring up our forebears’ unfortunate racial misconceptions, this text brings to mind the wordplay of later James Joyce, but with the added bonus of being intelligible.

When Samuel Beckett finally boiled his writing down to two-or-three-word phrases with lots of space in the margins, critics decided he was at a dead end — and then Beckett proved them right by dying. Looking at “Yeah kid castle” and, especially, its sequel “What um no,” I’m left to wonder sadly how much more work Beckett might’ve produced if only he’d had a cellphone.

Live long and prosper

Friday, December 26th, 2008

That’s what we hope for President-elect Obama and for the rest of us. The sooner the better.

There was a time that being a pop-culture fan was frowned upon. I remember when as a senior in Stephen Dunn’s fiction class I wandered into class early and found a largish student reading a magazine. “What are you reading?” I asked, because it looked familiar. None-too-pleased but caught in the headlights, he lifted it up for me to see, and it was indeed the Comics Journal. “Oh, I write for that,” I said. I watched the strain of being seen in flagrante delicto drain away and a friendship was born. In the 1970’s and 80’s, being a comic-book or fantasy or science-fiction or horror fan meant exchanging secret signals like the early Christians.

All this has drained away as the pop cult has grown from clandestine conclaves into the megachurches of Comic Con and the global multiplex. And being of this generation that did that, Barack Obama is revealed, unsurprisingly, as a “Star Trek” fan. This will delight my friend Larry Nemecek to no end, and rightly so: Like Obama’s election, “Star Trek” has always represented hope. Jesus had it almost right: It’s the geek who shall inherit the earth.

Now it’s the elitists I feel sorry for. This results partly from my usual siding with an underdog, and largely from my deep gratitude to great artists with small fan bases. Increasingly, we live in a post-text age. (As I often tell corporate writing clients when reviewing their existing efforts, “This is too texty. Nobody’s reading Great Russian Novels any more.”) As Wallace Shawn noted in “The Designated Mourner,” soon no one will grieve for the loss of John Donne.

As liberating as it is to publicly carry around a “graphic novel” (really just an overpriced and beautifully printed comic book, one that won’t decay into brittle but beautifully aromatic pulp), I continue to hope for a dialectical synthesis, one where a discussion of Tony Stark’s roiling inner conflict can glide effortlessly into references to “Hamlet” and onto Jung, and necessarily back to Joseph Campbell on Darth Vader, an unformed man hiding in an encasement of his own making. Mr. Obama holds hope for us in that arena as well, because while “Star Trek” inspired him, it’s a lifetime of heady reading that’s driving his policy efforts. So maybe that’s it:  High culture rules the head, while pop culture holds our heart.

Harold Pinter, R.I.P.

Thursday, December 25th, 2008

Nothing much to say.

Yet.

(Pause.)

Good advice from Adam’s mom (and me)

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

My friend Adam Chester is a very funny and talented man. If you saw “What’s My Line – Live on Stage” last year, you’ll remember him as the one-man band who always had the right song to cue guests on or off, and as the singer-songwriter behind such memorable tunes as the Counterintuity jingle, which I promise — promise! — we’re going to post one of these days. Adam is a gifted musician and lyricist and songwriter and singer and you don’t have to take my word for it, because Elton John and others have noticed all this as well.

Adam is gifted. But as they say, behind every gifted Jewish man, there’s his Jewish mother. And now that I’ve learned a little more about his mom, it’s no wonder Adam has turned out so well. Adam is smart, but his mother is a sage. As you can learn by reading his blog, which is over here, over the course of 27 years, Adam’s mother has written him some 600 letters advising him on the do’s and don’ts of surviving the hell that is adulthood in the big city. To wit: be careful of intruders, get new tires, beware of killer bees, and don’t eat sushi.

For me, you’re going to want to watch the video below and then click over to YouTube to comment. And you are going to want to do this, trust me.

But first, let me just add this: This wonderful video provides a fascinating look into how the other half lives. Because this is utterly counter to how my stern German Lutheran mother raised us. Example: If you were going to cry, you were told to “Go cry on the steps.” And the steps were outside. What might life have been like with Adam’s mom? And if I had saved all those letters, my mother would have said, “Why?” This video opens an entire new realm of experience to me!

Fourplay

Saturday, December 13th, 2008

Today I did something I haven’t done in at more than 15 years: I signed up for someone else’s playwriting workshop. This one-day affair was run by a very good friend and former student who confessed to me the other night that she was a little unsettled when she found out I’d signed up for it. (And I had thought she’d be hurt if I didn’t. Which shows why we shouldn’t make assumptions.) I assured her that I just wanted to be “anonymous playwright #7.” “I signed up for your workshop,” I told her, “because I already know what I think and I already know how I write plays, and I’m actually pretty tired of me, so I’d like to be putty in someone else’s hands.”

Which I was, and which I was glad to be. This workshop turned out to be just what I needed to do today:  unwind artistically, using someone else’s methods. It reminded me of fly fishing the first time under the tutelage of my friend the skilled master. And, as you’ll see, I got something else out of this workshop, something I hadn’t expected.

The workshop started in typical fashion for most things: waiting for the people who are late. Which always annoys me. Perhaps in 2009, I’m going to be consistently late so that people can wait for me. I was determined to be as unannoyed as possible by anything all day, so I checked email while pretending to be blase about waiting. (And the last person didn’t arrive until 10:52 — almost a full hour late. Glad we didn’t wait for her.) We got going by introducing ourselves and why we were here. Everyone had their own reasons, none of them far from mine: to change the workout routine. When it came to me, I volunteered that I was writing three plays at the same time and that I think they’re coming along well enough, but that I wanted to do something different for the day to get out of my head.

After a brief intro, we got the first writing prompt, which was: “Write an action. A single action: changing a lightbulb, changing a tire. Step one, step two, step three, step four.” “Plays are about action,” the workshop leader said (and I agree — good ones are, at least). Here was mine:

Starting my car:

Pick up my keys with my right hand. Put them into my pocket for some reason even though I’m going to fish them back out within a minute. (That reason being that I’m still afraid I’m going to drop them down a storm drain as I did once in 1984.) Find the car. If it is parked inside a parking garage, this is easier than ever because for five years and two cars in a row now I’ve made a point of buying a red car, having once lost a common grey-blue colored car in a parking structure in Pittsburgh for no fewer than two hours. Press the button on the key remote to unlock the car. Open the door, clutching those keys tightly so that, again, I don’t drop them onto the street or otherwise lose them. Throw my jacket onto the passenger seat. Get in. Close the door. Insert the key into the ignition. Hear music or the news as it comes on and if George W. Bush is on the news, immediately switch to a CD. Turn the key. Look in the rearview mirror. Look in the side mirror. Put the car into drive. Drive. Think about how much I love this car while driving.

(Just after I finished reading this aloud, that last late-arriving person arrived. Fifty-two minutes late, as I said, and now she had missed hearing what we’d read as well. “I’m so sorry,” she said, seeming not very sorry at all and, in fact, sounding rather casual, as though this were her routine. The way she said “So sorry” sounded like “Sue Sorry.” Later in the day we had a disagreement about what an unreliable narrator is (because, I think, she doesn’t understand the term), and I couldn’t help thinking that she exemplified one: saying she’s sorry when she isn’t.)

In any event, this little piece of unconscious writing clarified for me why I do that odd key thing: picking up the keys, putting them in my pocket, then removing them from the pocket less than a minute later when I’m near the car rather than simply carrying in my hand all along. I knew why I had the red car — to find it and because I like the color red and I like it on that car — but I hadn’t realized I’d internalized the 25-year-old lesson of how not to drop your keys down a storm drain. It’s unfortunate to be reminded just how self-programmed you are.

The next three prompts were drawn randomly over the course of the day from an envelope that the workshop leader had brought. We were to write a scene for each. The first prompt I drew said: “One of the characters is naked.” That stopped me for a few seconds, in which I conjured then rejected these three ideas:

  1. My former roommate Gary’s story about a boy they used to call “Puddin’ Pop” who lived across the street and who would run naked into the woods; I couldn’t see what to do with that
  2. someone who has been vomited all over and gotten locked into a bathroom while changing; again, it didn’t seem alive with possibility to me, and additionally drew forth in my head an image of Jim Carrey, a surefire creativity killer for me
  3. a couple having had sex and the one partner refusing to hand back the clothing of the other; this seemed too close to play I already wrote some time last decade.

And then I had it — something I liked that I could run with. It was a story I’d read long ago about two famous men, one that has lived with me ever since. And so I had great fun writing that scene for about 10 minutes.

We were then told to write a scene while thinking about “compression of time,” i.e., a ticking clock — an imminent deadline that drives the action. I drew the prompt “one of them has a gun.” As soon as I saw it, I realized it could work with the scene I’d already written. So I just kept writing that scene, but now introduced a gun, which took me to a very fun place.

Now we were told to write a monologue. I immediately had a monologue in mind for one of my characters, in which he could pass judgment on the other man to us, without fully realizing his own declining situation. (Which would again provide an opportunity to display unreliable narration.) I drew my last writing prompt, which was “father and daughter” and I remembered that the other character had had a daughter, and so now each of them would have a monologue.

By now, having completely tossed out the instruction to write separate scenes, I realized I was writing a play that I would indeed be writing to completion, I said to the workshop leader, “Damn you. I came here with three plays I’m writing. Now I’m writing four.”

Every one-day writing workshop should work like this.

The GREATEST poet that ever lived

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

saroyan-a.jpg This semester, I’m having immense fun team-teaching a survey class with fellow writers Christopher Meeks, S.L. (Sid) Stebel, and Aram Saroyan.

I realize you may already know this, but Aram is most famous for, secondly, being the son of William Saroyan, and, firstly, being the (in)famous poet behind the poem that first got the NEA into hot water politically, almost 45 years ago. Here’s the entire poem (no need to get comfy, it’s quick):

lighght

That was it. If you need further time, go on back and read it again and we’ll wait here.

Okay. Good. For more about this poem and the controversy it stirred, here’s the full story. Let’s just say that some people were outraged that taxpayers’ dollars were funding such work, and even some well-known and highly respected poets had responses to Aram’s early work that could be best summed up as, “What the fuck is this?”

However one feels about that, here’s how I feel every Monday night:  pretty fucking lucky because I get to hang out with Aram Saroyan. (And, make no mistake, Sid Stebel and Chris Meeks. But we’re talking about Aram at the moment.) Whenever Aram’s lecturing, I learn more in that hour than some people learn in their entire lives. A couple of weeks ago I stirred the pot by getting some students riled up about seemingly bad meaningless poetry just so we could see what would happen. The result was electrifying. Aram never lost his cool, proved that he knows his stuff, and didn’t bother to fall into the trap of defending poetry other people don’t like. “Maybe this isn’t for you,” was the gist of his response, but the general lesson was that he’s deeply schooled in literature and language. It was impressive.

So. Onto last Monday night.

After class, we faculty members usually go drink. (We are, after all, writers.) Somehow or other we got to talking about Aram’s name — that he’s known  for these accomplishments, including the rather strong-selling “Complete Minimal Poems” (which would take less time to read than this blog post, but which will live on far far longer). Aram would have none of it. Despite his produced plays, his widely collected and awarded poetry, his biographies of the Beats, his essays, his novels, his lineage, his personal association with other important writers, Chris and I couldn’t get him to see himself the way we do. Which, no doubt, is good.

So yesterday I’m on Facebook and still thinking about this discussion and I decide to add Aram as a Friend. So I search “Aram Saroyan.” Turns out he’s not on Facebook. But there’s a group devoted to him. Here’s what it’s called:

“The GREATEST poet that ever lived”

Here’s the link.

Here’s the description:

Aram Saroyan the author of the famous award winning poem, Lighght. We come together to support this amazing man.

You can see all of his amazing work here:

http://www.ubu.com/historical/saroyan/saroyan01.html

No, it wasn’t started by Aram. Or a relative.  It was started by a young woman in Washington, DC.

So I emailed this to Aram:

Subject: OK, Aram, TELL me you’re not so famous

On 11/29/08 12:25 AM, “lee@leewochner.com” <lee@leewochner.com> wrote:

There’s a frickin’ Facebook group DEVOTED TO YOU!

And it WASN’T started by you! (Some girl on the East Coast.)

And it’s called — drumroll please —

“The GREATEST poet that ever lived”

(Boy, you’d better NOT have started that!)

Here’s the URL:  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18400632419

No, I haven’t joined the group. I mean, don’t misunderstand, I like you, but there’s this Shakespeare guy, and I kinda like Rilke, and Eliot is pretty good… I’m sure  you understand.

I’m standing by my debt to Shakespeare, Rilke, Eliot, and some others (Whitman, Dickinson). But hey, as Aram jestingly suggested when he emailed back, maybe these other poets ultimately led to him.

Extinction in the theatre

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

p1000603.jpg

Last weekend, I did a talkback with playwright and good friend EM Lewis after a performance of her play “Song of Extinction,” which she developed in my “Words That Speak” workshop. That’s us, above, while she ponders the answer to one of my questions. It may have been this one: “Your play is about extinction, and yet even plays like ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Wit’ are life-affirming precisely because they take place in this live medium. It is called ‘live theatre,’ after all. In your play, we’ve got genocide, parental death, and species extinction. Is it still life-affirming?”

(And yes, that was pretty much the question. And Ellen’s unspoken answer may have been this one: “Why did I agree to do this with him?”)

Like Ellen’s writing, her answer was thoughtful, poetic, and unexpected. Her characters are entering a new phase after the play, she said, and so are we as a species. And she is hopeful.

The producers promise me that our 45-minute discussion, including questions and answers from the audience, was recorded for podcasting and will be uploaded soon. When it’s available, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m going to once again highly recommend this play (this time after having actually seen it). Ellen’s play is smart, funny, and packed with meaning, and the production is filled with terrific performances, especially by Michael Shutt, whose work always blows me away. (I have directed Mr. Shutt, and he’s directed for me — now I need to get him cast in some of my plays.) The show runs through December 14th. Info and tickets available here. I’m very proud that this production at the lovely John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is by Moving Arts, the theatre I proudly serve.

Join me this weekend

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

 mpw-reading-poster-nov.jpg

Tomorrow night at 7:30 I’m doing a reading downtown as part of the USC Master of Professional Writing program reading series. The reading is in a bar, so in the fine tradition of Charles Bukowski and any number of Irish poets, I have high hopes for this. The bar’s website (the URL of which is unfortunately wrong on the flyer, by the way — it’s actually www.themountainbar.com) promises “bleeding walls,” which is something I last saw in a Takashi Miike movie. I think if they were to bleed while I was reading, I would find that distracting. Anyway, please join us for this. Previous student readings have been fantastic, and hey, drinks are available. The address is 475 Gin Ling Way, and no, I have no idea where that is either, but that’s why we have mapping technology.

My friend EM Lewis’ terrific new play, “Song of Extinction” is currently running at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre’s Inside the Ford venue in a production by Moving Arts. Ellen (that’s what some of us call her) is a gifted playwright and I’m proud to say this play was written in my workshop. The production is populated with theatre friends I’ve worked with for many years, every one of them fiercely talented — so I’m going to take the risk of vouching for this sight unseen. But hey, why don’t you be the judge? This Sunday at 5, I’ll be moderating a post-show discussion with the playwright, and the producer (another longtime theatre ally, Kim Glann), is offering a 20% discount to readers of this blog; just enter the promotion code SONG when you click here to RSVP. And students with ID are $12, so yes, USC student, this means YOU should come join us. Ellen is a graduate of that program of ours.