I don’t remember things anymore

October 31, 2009


I don’t remember things anymore.

I don’t remember all of the state capitals. I don’t remember advanced geometry. I don’t remember the purpose or need for the mole in chemistry class, or my old locker combination (despite a handful of frantic dreams reminding me of its importance.) I don’t remember on which days moving holidays fall.

Let’s take it even more basic. I don’t remember what I have scheduled for next week. I don’t remember what I wrote about two weeks ago. I don’t remember what books are on my bookshelf, or what CDs are on my iPod, or what season of The Office I’m currently three episodes behind on. The only one of my friends whose birthday I can remember is Jim’s.

Because it’s on Christmas.

But that’s okay. I don’t need to.

I have technology.

I have a calendar that not only chronicles important dates and appointments, but pipes up and reminds me at the most opportune time. I have a phone that stores numbers, organized and searchable by name. I have the wide sweeping grandeur of the Internet to remind me of even the most trivial of things.

Listen – I remember what’s important to recall on a moment’s notice. I remember the birthdays of my immediate family, my anniversary, my social security number and Kerrie’s phone number. It’s not like I need some kind of device hard-wired to my brain to bring up things that are of strict importance.

But, as a typical scatterbrain, I find that more of my time is lent to concepts and ideas, not stats and figures. I don’t need to remember the years in which Magic Johnson won the MVP award – I can Google it. I don’t need to remember which issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern Stephen King appeared in. I’ve got an online database. I don’t even need to remember all seven of Snow White’s dwarves. It’s on the Internet.

Though the concept of a global search engine has been with us for years – for what seems like decades, actually – it’s finally starting to hit home in the mainstream. It’s no longer novelty – it’s now commonplace. It’s Oprahfied. It’s Matlock-tested. It’s as cliché as those last two sentences.

The thing is, there’s really no change. It’s not like we weren’t creating huge depositories for complicated and dated information before. It’s just that, now, instead of relying on an index, or on a library, or on the available resources of our bookshelf, we’re now circumventing availability and cutting straight to need.

Leaving my mind free to squirrel away philosophies and applied knowledge.

That is, if my brain would ever bother letting go of its complete list of WWF Intercontinental Champions through 2001.

[Prompt: “Why do we memorize things anymore when we can just Google it? Case in point: I could only think of six of the seven dwarfs this morning, so what did I do? Googled it.” – Angie Johnson, who no longer has a blog, but has cute babies.]

Tags: BMOWP: By Request, On..., Technology |

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BMOWP by request

October 30, 2009


I hadn’t written in almost a week. I was busy. And I wasn’t inspired. And life is sooo hard, wah wah wah.

(Blah blah blah, shut up you stupid whiny writer-guy.)

So I opened my big mouth on Twitter. (And, therefore, Facebook.)

“I need seven random ideas. I will be writing a blog post on each one for the week, starting tomorrow. I may or may not stay on topic, though”

And then:

“Not just ideas. Anything. A bowl of soup. Your mom’s middle name. The War of 1812. None of them will end up being about the subject, prob.”

The response: good enough to force me into keeping my word.

I took on the first seven subjects that came to me. It didn’t matter what they were. Then, Friend of BMOWP Abi Jones gave me an additional prompt that I simply couldn’t pass up, so it was bumped up to eight.

This is often called “using your readership for attention.” In my world, it’s called, “opening your big fat mouth and discovering you have to not only write about Hume’s Fork, but also figure out what the hell it is.”

That being said, look for original prompts on the bottom of posts over the next week. I won’t go back on my word. And I won’t stop, despite how stupid I look when talking about neanderthal sex.

Or, maybe I won’t talk about it at all.

Because, seriously – these are prompts. And I’m going to take them and run like hell toward someplace I can comfortably digest.

Welcome to Black Marks on Wood Pulp: By Request.

Tags: BMOWP: By Request, Meta, On..., Writing |

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Writing fiction: in which the writer attempts to get over it

October 29, 2009


Amazingly, it took just one sentence to discover what my mental block is; why I have such a hard time writing fiction, and why so many attempts have been thrown into a folder on my computer named “Corey Writing,” a folder that would be freely overflowing if not for the constraints of Windows’ animation.

The sentence isn’t important. I’ve already forgotten it.

But as I wrote it, I kept thinking, “What if people read into this and think it’s about me? What if people think that this character represents something or someone in my life?”

And JUST LIKE THAT. Everything made sense.

My mind has yet to get over the idea that I don’t have to write from experience. That I can enter another world and create characters that aren’t like any characters I’ve met in real life. My mind hasn’t quite grasped that, if I write about a vicious mother-in-law, or a disruptive wife, or a jaded co-worker in search for some kind of vindictive revenge, the real mother-in-law and wife and co-workers in my life aren’t automatically going to see themselves.

They aren’t going to question my allegiance. They aren’t going to ask what I meant. They’re going to read it and understand, like all adults understand, like all normal, rational people understand.

It’s fiction.

And by addressing this, maybe I’m telling myself to get over it.

Tags: Literature, Writing |

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What I’ve Been Reading – McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31

October 22, 2009


What I’ve read:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31 – Dave Eggers (editor)

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31 “Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old forms, unearthed.”

The title page of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31, promises a lot. Don’t worry. It delivers. Offering a peek into the past, and serving as both a historical overview and a retelling through parody and mimicry, Issue 31 takes long lost literary styles – the Socratic Dialogue, the Whore Dialogue, the Pantoum, the Biji, etc. – and compiles both a classic example and a modern retelling.

It’s this pairing of old and new – and, in turn, the differences and similarities therein – that makes Issue 31 so wonderful. I wouldn’t know a Socratic dialogue from a Shakespeare play if it wasn’t for the example (in this case, THE example: Plato’s Republic). The red text in the margins shows historical references while being unobtrusive enough to ignore in cases of rapt attention.

That so many authors (the list includes McSweeney’s regulars like Douglas Coupland, Dan Liebert and Joel Brouwer, and newcomers like Okkervil River’s Will Sheff) can tackle so many lost texts – and do it in a way that’s both true to the form while still holding strong to the McSweeney’s style – is a testament to the writers the series brings in.

But let’s face it: that anyone could spend time mastering the art of these lost texts (Douglas Coupland’s biji of a videographer’s disastrous work trip shooting for Survivor is fantastic, as is David Thomson’s Socratic dialogue on the #1 movie of all time between Charlie Chaplin, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Susan Sontag and Ernest Hemingway) while I struggle to master the more banal acts of language is both inspiring and a little dispiriting.

Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I’m supposed to be writing in haiku, and I never realized it.

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading, Writers, Writing |

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Another graphic day at Graphic Content

October 20, 2009


Someone over at Graphic Content – the region’s premiere art and design blog – must have me confused with an actual artist. For the second time this month, something I’ve created has made the cut: this time, some photography from D.C.

Humbling, as always.

For more photos, I implore you to check out the photoblog (Much More Sure) or our Flickr page. And get Graphic Content into your feed reader, if you haven’t already.

Tags: Blogging, Career, Photography, Random Links |

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Gold stars

October 18, 2009


There’s a green star stuck to the coaster. There are two gold stars on the floor, about three feet apart. There are worn stars scattered around the carpet; points curled, foil tarnished, backsides no longer sticky. Everywhere we turn, star stickers turn up.

The sheet upon which the stickers once lived, pulled fresh and untouched from its package just three days ago, is now battered, half-bare and folded, manhandled by wet, greedy hands.

From that sheet to the floor? What’s the progression? How do star stickers find themselves separated from their backing and borne into the wild?

First, Sierra must use the potty. Successfully. No release, no star.

Then, the dominoes begin falling. The potty: Dump. Flush. Rinse. Sierra: Wipe. Wash. Dry.

That Sierra took it upon herself to begin potty training is both frustrating and inspired. Naturally, we weren’t ready. I don’t think any parent has ever been ready. Sure, we might have said to ourselves, “Hey, maybe it’s time to let our child use the bathroom on his/her own.” But no one is really ready when it begins – when the diapers come off and the pull-ups and underwear and toilet paper and accidents and constant sitting and crouching and waiting and waiting and waiting finally take place.

Maybe Sierra was aware of that anxiety. Maybe she was fully aware that, unless she took charge and got the ball rolling, she’d never get to wear the new underwear we’d purchased months ago.

She’d never get to sit and read on the toilet. She’d never get to wash her hands seven or eight times a day.

She’d never get to start depositing star stickers throughout the house.

Oh. There’s another one stuck to my sock.

It’s blue.

Tags: Home, Sierra, Vilhauer |

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Kerry Von Erich’s wooden leg

October 14, 2009


One of my favorite jokes is the one about how Kerry Von Erich – professional wrestling’s Texas Tornado – died in a brush fire when his wooden leg started on fire.

Oh, you’ve never heard that one?

No. Probably not. It was what we call an “inside joke.” It’s based almost exclusively on the experiences, thoughts and interactions between three people – my friends John and Doug, and me.

I could explain it, but it wouldn’t be worth it. I could recall how the Von Erichs as a family were cursed – most of them went into wrestling, and nearly all of them died young. I could mention how Kerry Von Erich really did have a wooden leg, and that a drug overdose didn’t seem like a cool enough cursed death, though the prospect of wrestling with one leg seemed amazing and, obviously, pretty funny. I could describe how it was late, and we were waiting for the doors at FuncoLand to open so we could start selling Playstation 2 systems at midnight, and Doug’s sense of humor has often bordered on the absurd.

Even after all of that, you wouldn’t get it.

So all I can say is, “Sorry.”

“It’s an inside joke.”

Tags: Friends, Wrestling |

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