Holiday redux

By my watch (the watch of a dutiful and observant Roman Catholic for all but the last, oh, four years) we're only halfway through the holiday season--that blissfully limbo-esque week between Christmas and New Years. Nevertheless, I feel a holiday update is in order, since much has (and has not) happened.

I'm still unemployed. Surprise! But I did apply to a job today. I had planned to put in for a bunch (this one, this one, this one, this one and maybe even this one) but I only got around to the anonymous literary agency because, well, I had lots of Seinfeld DVDs to watch. There's always an extra mystique when the name of a company is absent from the job listing. Ever the idealist, I usually imagine some major name hiding behind the veil of anonymity. I probably should have learned my lesson with the last unnamed company I applied to: The infamous "writing job" for a "Pre-Law Yalie or Recent Grad." I never really found out what the job was. I think it had something to do with SAT prep, based on the domain name (800score.com) of the sender of the only email I received from them. I sent two emails a day for a week until I finally got a response telling me that "We have already a very high qualified person for the position." Maybe they were hiring for that guy's job. Hopefully over the next two days I'll cowboy up and send a few more apps out. I still stand by my January 31 deadline. (Eek.)

The "Kong" war of words is finally over. That situation had actually been weighing kind of heavily on me for a few days. It wasn't that I minded that someone vehemently disagreed with my opinion of Peter Jackson. I've fought that fight before. What got to me was that someone seemed to have spent at least a little time reading and thinking about things that I'd written and had some very critical (and, in my mind, cruel) things to say in response. I'm thin-skinned to begin with (a fact which unemployment has only compounded), and I've been away from the searing intellectual frying pan of college for six months. So it was a major trauma when I was suddenly forced to confront that fact that all this stuff that I write (which is one of very few things that I've found fulfilling lately) is vulerable to attack. I have a better understanding of dm's rules of engagement now, and I appreciate his point of view. I might have tempered the vitriol a bit, but that's just me. It was a reality check--an important one--to be put on the defense for a while.

In other news, it turns out that NPR hasn't yet started interviewing candidates for the editorial assistant position at Weekend All Things Considered. So there's still a possibility that I'll be...considered. I hope my belligerent emails aren't going to count against me. I swear, someday email will be my downfall.

Let me close with an indelible holiday memory:

It's December of 2003. The high school gang is at Corinne's for Hannukah Party version 7.0. Latkes are sizzling in pans of oil on the stove as apron-clad Dr. M lovingly tends to them. Most of the guests are clustered in the dining room taking stock of the various latke condiments: apple sauce, sour cream, cranberry chutney. Drinks are offered. Some ask for lemonade, which pours thickly (?) from a paper carton. Mike takes a skeptical sip, only half-knowing that something is amiss. Kate's eyebrows are furrowed as she looks down into her cup. Carina is polite and takes several long swigs of the unusual lemonade, which she assumes is a customary Jewish drink. After a few moments, Corinne comes to a startling realization: she gasps and says "Oh my God! That's the cooking oil!"

Ah, the miracle of Hannukah.

"Kong" considered

While browsing the blog this evening, I noticed a pretty scathing comment on my "King Kong" post of a couple weeks ago. You can see the post and the comment here. (It's the one below Josh's, duh.)

I wasn't going to bother writing a rebuttal to the comment, since I'd generally prefer to ignore antagonistic feedback. But I don't believe that my philosophy of how a film should be judged is all that unreasonable, so I can't in good conscience let the commenter's accusation (that my characterization of myself as a film buff is "absurd") go unanswered.

First of all, the initial "Kong" post was not a review of the movie, which hadn't even been released when the post was written. The point was to contrast what I expected out of the film with what I was reading about it. I freely admit that my prerogative was negatively biased, but I'm well within my rights as a filmgoer to dislike Jackson as a director (more on that later). And maybe the last paragraph of the post was excessively sardonic, but again, I wasn't making any specific criticisms of "Kong." Yet.

I have seen "Kong" since writing that post, and my review of it would be mixed. I was impressed with the way Jackson was able to carry off the relationship (if that's what you'd call it) between Anne Darrow and the gorilla. This was the part I was most skeptical about prior to seeing the film. To my surprise, I never once doubted the motivations of either player. It made perfect sense that a giant gorilla would be protective of a pretty young thing that danced and did tricks; and it also made sense that a pretty young thing whose life had been saved many times over by a giant gorilla would have reasonable objections to raise when that gorilla was captured, exploited, and shot at. Also, I thought that the scene atop the Empire State Building was magnificent--one of the most beautiful and engaging scenes on film this year.

Now to the negative: If we needed any more proof that Peter Jackson has no concept of what constitutes cinematic excess, "Kong" would be it. Every scene in the film could have been shortened by half. Every chase, every fight sequence, every long gaze, every establishing shot. The commenter mentions "Kong"'s "shit screenplay," which is an assessment I'm inclined to agree with. But this movie was never about the screenplay, and it didn't need to be. Better films have been made from worse screenplays ("The Matrix" comes first to mind). It's the "awkward pacing" of "Kong" that threatens to be its fatal flaw. As an English major in college, I was often told that "economy of language" is a mark of good writing. That is to say: write sparingly, not excessively. It's a concept Jackson would do well to consider. His films are bloated. Seriously, who ever heard of a remake being twice as long as the original? At the risk of sounding snarky, I'd advise Jackson to take a cue from his recent physical transformation. Trimmer is better, at least as far as movies are concerned.

The commenter says that Jackson "employs cg better than anyone else in Hollywood." I'm not sure how well-equipped I am to take that one up, but I think A.O. Scott got it right with his point that "the blending of computer-generated imagery and live action is pushed to a point where the seams begin to show." But that's Scott's (and my) opinion.

The main point of the comment seems to be that "King Kong" is the most entertaining movie of the year in spite of any flaws it may have. Whether one bases his assessment of entertainment value on the use of computer-generated imagery--or more minor considerations such as screenplay, pacing, etc.--is, of course, one's own business.

I don't think it's fair to say that it's absurd for me to call myself a film buff because I'm not "into" Peter Jackson. I'm not even really sure what that means, and maybe I've spent too much time defending myself against a vague accusation. My guess is that the commenter means to say that I'm ignorant and pretentious because I don't respect Peter Jackson for his technical accomplishments. Of course, my rewording of the accusation relies heavily on the belief that my dislike of Jackson's movies is indicative of disrespect. I'm fine with acknowledging that Jackson has pushed his kind of filmmaking to impressive new levels. But I don't have to like the movies he makes. I doubt that anyone who invests a lot of emotion in films can say that they appreciate every filmmaker who's supposedly at the forefront of his genre. I'm sure lots of film buffs feel fine about disliking Wes Craven's horror movies, Merchant Ivory's period pieces or Nora Ephron's romantic comedies.

I guess this comment struck a nerve with me. I love watching movies, I love talking about movies, and I love writing about movies. And I've long understood that my taste in movies is a lot different than most everyone else's. But I've obviously got a right to my own opinion, especially when (as I hope I've done here) I can back it up in a thoughtful and reasonable manner.

Hey, Maureen Dowd, Read This.

Gah! It drives me crazy that I can't read Maureen Dowd on NYTimes.com anymore! That new Times Select silliness has had virtually no effect on my Times reading habits except that I can no longer read Dowd's column. I've always found Friedman's columns pretty boring (heresy!) and I get enough of Brooks on Meet the Press and The Chris Matthews Show and NPR and The News Hour (I like the guy fine, but seriously, enough already). But I miss my biweekly Dowd injection like a monkey misses bananas. Do you Yale kids get a free subscription? I'll be really jealous if you do. It's bad enough that I have to condescend to Merriam-Webster for my online dictionary needs since I'm no longer deemed worthy enough to access my beloved OED.

Eh, who am I to complain. I read 99% of what I want to read of the Times for free every day. What a spoiled brat I am.

Happy holidays again!

Two quotes

In case any of you regulars are checking in while you're home for the holidays, here are two little nuggets I came across recently.

"Jesus drank. It came straight from the Bible that he had a glass of wine. Actually, I don't know if it says he actually drank it, but whatever."
-Kelly Clarkson

"The New Yorker's review of "The City of Falling Angels" by John Berendt (Penguin Press), in the issue of October 3, 2005, incorrectly referred to the 'seduction and swindling of Olga Rudge, Ezra Pound's mistress, by the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.' This statement was inaccurate, and The New Yorker regrets the error."
-The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005/Jan. 2, 2006

Happy holidays.

A deadline, or Three new jobs (2)

I've tentatively decided that I'm going to be working by the end of January. I think this is the first arbitrary deadline that I've set for myself, so I'm hoping to make good on it. My resume "is being considered" for a part-time job at a newspaper publisher in New Haven. I haven't heard anything back from the two I sent several weeks ago (Atlanta and Virginia), so I'm ruling them out (pardon my repetitiveness, but it never ceases to gall me that 95% of the places I apply to never get back to me--and I sent my materials by mail to those two!). Here are three leads I dug up this morning. They were all clustered together in the Newspaper/Wire Services section on JournalismJobs.com.

Position: Opportunity to Learn the News Biz!
Company: The F*
Location: Colorado

Description:
The F*, an award-winning weekly newspaper in Colorado (50 minutes SW of Denver) seeks an individual with good writing and reporting skills to cover county government, breaking news, features and other assignments throughout Park County. This is a great opportunity for someone to get inside the newspaper business and cover a variety of news stories, as well as learn pagination and layout programs. Journalism degree and experience preferred but we will work with the right individual. The successful applicant must be well-organized and be able to turn around multiple news stories under deadline.

See how it says "Park County"? Well that's South Park, like the cartoon. That reason alone is almost enough to warrant applying. Another interesting note: I was going through some recent issues on the paper's website, and it seems as if there's been a dust-up about the paper's decision to publish the name of a juvenile sexual assault victim. I remembered seeing another ad from this paper seeking an Editor-in-Chief--maybe they're doing a little house-cleaning after the scandal. Could be an interesting place to go in and make a mark. Next:

Position: Reporter/copy editor
Company: S* R* & L*
Location: North Carolina

Description:
The S* R* & L*, a 15,000-circulation daily near Charlotte, N.C., has an immediate opening for a reporter/copy editor. December grads are encouraged to apply. This position involves general assignment reporting three days per week and working on the copydesk two days. Send a cover letter explaining why you are an ideal candidate for this job along with your resume and work samples.

I like this one mainly because it's two jobs in one. I really liked doing layout and page design in college, and I'd actually be excited to get some professional experience in that niche of the business. And it'd take some of the pressure of turning out daily stories off.

The part about "December grads" got me thinking: am I now going to be up against a fresh influx of job-seekers? I've never had the slightest clue of how many people are applying to the same jobs as I am. The fact that I got an interview at "Food & Wine" suggests that it's not hundreds, but who knows? Not that I'd notice if it suddenly got much harder to get writing jobs, since I haven't been in serious contention for any of them to this point anyway. Third, and finally:

Position: Reporter/Writer
Company: M* N*
Location: New York

Description:
REPORTER - Award-winning weekly newspaper group in upstate New York offers excellent opportunity for ambitious journalist. Report and write community news, features and sports. Great situation for recent college grad to launch career.

Probably the most appealing of the three. It's in the Northeast. And Google Maps suggests that it's quite close to a little Vermont town called Poultney, which I happen to have heard some wonderful things about. Once again, the word "ambitious" is something of a turn-off in this context (which is odd because my life has been propelled by one ambition or another for as long as I can remember). But where writing is concerned, my ambition isn't to break big stories and muscle my way into scoops. To analogize: I don't write to exorcise the demons of others, I write to exorcise my own.

However, it's long been obvious that I'm going to have to start somewhere. Will any of these be the place? Will I find something by the end of January? (I hope I hope I hope)

Vonnegut

A friend of mine lent me the latest Kurt Vonnegut book, "A Man Without a Country." It's not a novel, and it's not quite essays, and it's not quite memoir. It's selected reflections on life and the world. It's a blog in book form.

I found this passage to be particularly inspirational:

If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

The friend who gave me this book made a good point about Vonnegut. She said that Vonnegut is a writer who doesn't use a lot of hard words; instead, he puts easy words together in a really smart and interesting way.

I'm trying really hard to suppress my compulsion to go and dig up a lot of biographical details about Vonnegut. I know he went to Cornell, and I know that he fought in World War II and was a prisoner of war in Dresden when the British fire-bombed the city. I'm starting to wonder whether it takes a significant trauma to successfully wrench one's authorial voice out of oneself. My most significant trauma to date has been, well, being indecisive about my future.

Delusions of Grandeur

Boy was it icy out last Thursday night. Here in the Northeast, we had an ice storm. In fact, "The Ice Storm" was going to be the title of this post, and I was going to write about how it took me an hour and a half, and a deus ex machina (deus=my father, machina=his four-wheel-drive Ford Explorer), to get across town. But that'd be pretty boring, and besides, I've just said all there is to say about it.

The real excitement came when we finally got home and I scurried over to my laptop to find out how many new hits there had been on my blog since last I checked. (I'll refrain from judging this action myself and allow you, dear reader, to arrive at your own conclusion.) I gleefully discovered that there had been a flurry of activity on the old (T)UILG since I'd been out. More than 25 hits!

A closer inspection of the statistics revealed that this spike in hits did not signify a clutch of new readers all spontaneously flocking to the site at once. Rather, it seemed that a single reader had gone through and read practically every post I've written since I started blogging a couple of months ago.

I jumped to the conclusion that some saavy, widely-read reporter had stumbled onto this site, gave it a comprehensive once over, and was preparing to feature it prominently in his or her next piece. The exposure would catapult me into the national spotlight, land me a book deal, and in no time I'd be retreating to rural New Hampshire to join J.D. Salinger in mythic, sequestered obscurity.

The moment passed. I'd been down this road before. A month or so ago I got an email from a friend telling me that I needed to look at the back cover of the New York Times Magazine(!). Thoughts similar to the ones above raced through my head. It turned out to be a full page ad for some cosmetics brand, which my friend thought I should see because it featured the golden-tressed, pale-skinned face of Gwyneth Paltrow. You'd think I'd've learned my lesson after that episode.

It seems that every day that goes by causes my ambition to grow that much more. And it gets harder to stomach the idea that someday soon I'm probably going to have to settle.

I was reading an article on Wikipedia about Thomas Pynchon recently. The article stated that he had graduated college in 1959 and that he began to work as a technical writer for Boeing in February of the following year. While he was at Boeing, he worked on his first novel, which was published two years later and was awarded the William Faulkner Award for the best first novel of the year. Now, I'm often looking for people whose post-graduate careers resemble mine in any way (you may remember my Susan Orlean period). Here was evidence that the great author Thomas Pynchon had been unemployed for several months after he graduated, took a low-rent job, wrote creatively in his spare time, and went on to have one of the most distinguished literary careers of the 20th century.

My journalistic instincts kicked in after I read this, and I commenced a thorough scouring of the internet for more biographical information about Pynchon. There were a few gaps in the timeline that Wikipedia had left out:

By the time Pynchon graduated from college, he was already earning money from the publication of short stories. He turned down many opportunities (including fellowships, a position as a writing instructor at Cornell, and a job reviewing films at Esquire magazine) and took the Boeing job so that he would have more time to finish his novel.

So, another potential role model had bit the dust. Maybe it's time to start writing my own version of the biography of a successful writer.

Red in the Face

Yet another chapter in my ongoing saga with The C* of P*...

I sent an email to the contact person at the C* to confirm that she'd received my application. It was obvious that I hadn't gotten the job (I applied a month ago) but, as always, I felt like I was owed some form of acknowledgement. I got a reply within an hour, and here's what it said:

Hi Michael:

Yes, I did receive your materials. We have made a hire for that position. Thank you for your interest.

By the way -- the attachments you sent me included a cover letter addressed to a Mr. D* C* at the L* C* T*. Just letting you know that you might want to doublecheck your documents before emailing them to employers as you continue your job search.

Best of luck.

I was so ashamed of myself that I almost deleted the email the moment I was finished reading it. In fact, even as I'm writing this, I'm trying not to look up.

In one fell swoop, this woman drained every ounce of my self-righteousness. As a matter of personal character, maybe this was beneficial. But my self-righteousness has been the foundation (albeit a shaky one) of my emotional stability as I claw my way toward a career. An hour ago, I was a valiant warrior fighting for the principles of fairness and professionalism against a corporate enemy that was cold and cruel and ambivalent. Now, I'm just another soulless resume monger, whoring his shiny ivory tower diploma and flabby cover letter prose all over town.

For a moment, I considered sticking it to the Man (in this case, the Woman). I mentally drafted this reply:

Thanks for getting back to me, and please forgive my faux pas. I'll be sure to be triply dilligent in checking my materials from now on.

By the way, I must say that it makes for a rather disheartening experience when the only substantive response I've received from any job I've applied to in the past month has been your message pointing out the error in my application. To think, had my application been flawless I might never had heard from you.

I know it doesn't really say anything, but the point was to sound like a prick. I didn't send it.

The nagging question that's left in the aftermath of this absurdity is: how many other applications have I screwed up? I won't kid myself by thinking that every employer who's ignored me has done so because I incorrectly addressed the cover letter. It's just one more thing to be paranoid about.

The kicker is that I didn't really care about this job all that much anyway. The kicker to the kicker is that I never even applied to the Litchfield County job.

Some thoughts on film (3) - King Kong

I refuse to believe that "King Kong" is a good movie.

On the one hand, there's what I know about the it: Naomi Watts and a giant computer generated gorilla meet, fall in love, fight dinosaurs, watch the sun set and waltz around on top of the Empire State Building. And it's directed by Peter Jackson, the man responsible for my least favorite movie of 2001, and 2002, and 2003. Jackson has proven himself adept at creating stunning visual spectacles, to be sure. Nevertheless, I can't imagine that any measure of visual wizardry can transform the flimsy subject matter of "King Kong" into an intelligent, purpose-driven motion picture.

But everything I've read about the movie has insisted that Jackson has created yet another "masterpiece." Rolling Stone raved about it. So did Entertainment Weekly. And Roger Ebert. Even my old friend A.O. Scott, usually a stalwart crusader against populism, sang its praises in The New York Times.

It's funny, because this is exactly the kind of movie that I tend to get most excited about seeing--a movie that I know is going to be terrible, but has gotten really good reviews. I can't wait to get in there and see past the smoke and mirrors, sift out the flaws (the more the better), and prove the world wrong. I love being a killjoy almost as much as I love being smug.

Some thoughts on film (2) - Biopics

I hate biopics.

Well, that's not quite true. But there are so many things that I find intolerably obnoxious about the genre that I can't help but ball my fists, clench my teeth and stifle a rant every time I even hear the word. And what an abrasive word! "Biopic." Blech. It sounds like what it is: the deformed crack baby of the benignly descriptive phrase "biographical motion picture." "Biopic" sounds more like some science lab torture device than a film genre. The recent release of "Walk the Line," a dyed in the wool biopic, inspired the following rant.

For reasons which I have yet to fully understand, biopics are often award fodder. One main component (which does make sense to me) is that at the center of a biopic is usually at least one Oscar-baity role. If someone is the subject of a motion picture, they've probably had an eventful and interesting life; in following, the actor playing the real-life individual is sure to have plenty of material to use to flex his acting muscle.

One of my main problems is that, in my mind, all so-called great biopic performances amount to little more than glorified impersonations. On this point, I don't discriminate between biopics that I like--there are some, but more on that later--and those that I don't like. It's always distracting to see a recognizable actor attempting to play the role of another recognizable figure. Biopic performances are routinely mired down in the intricacies of the subject's mannerisms, speech patterns and physical appearance. Jamie Foxx in last year's "Ray" is a prime example. I'll concede that Foxx does a brilliant Ray Charles impression, but any subtleties of the performance are completely obscured by the audience's being distracted by the scratchy drawl, the wavering head and the glinting sunglasses.

The character constraints that generally accompany biopics often translate into plot deficits as well. There's a basic biopic formula: character faces hardship in youth; character discovers natural talent and/or pursues ambition; character faces hardship in adulthood (usually some form of addiction); character either overcomes hardship and lives happily ever after ("Ray," et. al.) or character succumbs to hardship and dies ("The Hours" et. al.).

A sampling of some of the worst-offending biopics of recent years: "Walk the Line," "Finding Neverland," "The Aviator," "Kinsey," "De-Lovely," "Beyond the Sea," "Frida," "Ali," and "The Hurricane" to name just a few. I liked some, I disliked others, but they were all unmistakably biopic-y.

There are some techniques a biopic can employ to break ranks with the dismally repetitive pack. When the subject of the film isn't such a cultural icon--as in "Monster," the Charlize Theron lesbian serial killer flick of a couple of years ago--the impersonation effect is less of a problem. But even "Monster," which I liked immensely, was bogged down by Theron's extreme uglification. A biopic can also succeed by refraining from being overly episodic. Biopics that focus on shorter time frames and more specific events make room for a deeper examination of the film's human subject. I would put "Erin Brockovich," "A Beautiful Mind," and "Capote" in this category. But on the other hand, I wouldn't saddle any of those movies with the loathsome label of biopic to begin with. They're movies about specific episodes in the lives of real people. "Erin Brockovich" is about an investigation and a trial, "Capote" is about the writing of a book. In those cases, the stories just happen to be true.

And that's my rant on biopics.

Some thoughts on film (1)

As we are currently in the midst of prestige season--the last few weeks of the year during which art houses and multiplexes teem with Oscar hopefuls--I've had plenty of fodder for opinion-formulating on the subject of film. Here's the first of a continuing series:

-I find it incredibly bizarre--and bordering on offensive--that three Chinese actresses (Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li) play the three female leads in the film adaptation of "Memoirs of a Geisha." It's probably excusable that this Japenese historical drama was written, produced and directed by white Americans. Stateside moviemakers shouldn't be restricted to making films about their own personal cultures. (Imagine if Scorsese had only made movies about Italian-Americans...All right, bad example.) I suppose the argument could also be made that actors are actors and that they, too, should not be excluded from roles simply by virtue of their national origin. Maybe I'm a cynic, but I have a hard time believing that the Chinese Ziyi Zhang was cast because she was the most qualified actress in the Hollywood orbit to play a Japanese geisha. From this outsider's perspective, it seems that she was cast because she is a vaguely recognizable (and thus marketable) Asian woman. American audiences aren't expected to know, let alone care, whether she's from China or Japan or Korea; nor are we expected to be aware of the cultural and ethnic differences that exist between the nationalities that we would lump together under the Asian heading. Whatever aspirations "Memoirs of a Geisha" has of exposing Americans to a facet of Asian culture are negated by the film's reinforcement of the embarassing American perception that "all look same" and, therefore, all are the same.

Test post

Something seems to be screwed up with the main page of my blog. Maybe adding a new post will fix it.

At last, a response

I got an email yesterday from the Y* D* R*. A surge of electricity went through my body when I saw the strange addressee and the subject line that read "features entertainment reporter." It had been a while since I'd had any job correspondence to speak of (NPR is refusing to answer my repeated emails, and I've stopped caring about a handful of other applications (not including the three that I sent by mail last week)). Here was one of those rare reminders that I am, in fact, actively seeking employment.

Now, Gmail has this feature where, when you get an email, you see the subject line in bold, and then as much of the text of the email as will fit in the remainder of a single line in the Inbox. This is what I could read of the email before I even opened it:

"Michael, This is to acknowledge that we have received..."

[Great! I thought. A simple acknowledgement is all I've ever hoped to get out of most of the applications I send out. And here was one that was courteous, timely...this Y* D* R* seemed like a classy operation! I went on to open the email, not expecting anything more than another word or two in addition to what I'd already read. Here's the rest of the email:]

"...your letter of interest in the features entertainment reporter position.

This position has been filled.

Thanks for your interest."

All right, fine. I can deal with that. It's disappointing, because I was actually interested in this job, but it was the least appealing of the three from last week. And the ad for it was a couple of weeks old by the time I responded to it. I'm sure they received more applications than just mine. It's my own fault for waiting too long. I don't necessarily have to think of this as an out and out rejection.

Except for the fact that I was told on Thursday (five days earlier) that they were still accepting applications.

I should probably just stop thinking about this now. They told me the position has been filled, there's no chance I'm going to get it, and that's that. But still, there's this nagging voice in my head that keeps saying "They probably read through your cover letter and writing samples and decided that you weren't even worth interviewing. They were just being nice when they told you that the position was filled. That's how small town people work." Can it be? Am I not even worthy of being considered for a writing gig at a little paper in rural Pennsylvania? I'm going to do my best to forget the whole situation.

So that leaves the Virginia and Georgia jobs from this round. No news, I suppose, is good news. But why has my job search suddenly started feeling like a countdown?

Iambic inspiration

Whenever my writing hand gets itchy, and I'm starved for inspiration, I have a habit of copying down poems that I've committed to memory. It's a short-lived diversion, since I have exactly four poems memorized (not counting the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales or The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams [thanks, Lester]). Three of the poems are by Robert Frost, one is by John Updike. If you happened to be paging through any of my college notebooks, you'd find these poems scattered throughout (along with pages full of my signature, and lists of all of the U.S. states and their capitals).

As a dutiful English major trained in the art of hermeneutics, I look to these poems for insight into whatever problem is facing me at the current moment, and I'm usually able to find it. What would Robert Frost have to say about my current situation? He'd probably remind me that my idealized youth was bound to come to a bitter end sooner or later. And Updike? He'd probably assure me that adulthood is just a melancholy march to the Great Beyond. (Maybe that's not what they'd actually say, but all that matters is that, at this particular moment, that's what I think they'd say.)

It makes me happy that I know a few poems by heart, and I'm OK with the fact that three of them are by Robert Frost (I wish I could memorize "Birches," but it's a little long). The constancy of poems is soothing. Writing them down is like seeing an old friend.

Below are those four poems, in whatever order they happen to come out. My apologies to the authors for any typos or lacunas.
---------------------------------------
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake

These woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
--------------------
Shipbored
by John Updike

That line is the horizon line
The blue above it is divine
The blue below it is marine
Sometimes the blue below is green

Sometimes the blue above is grey
Betokening a cloudy day
Sometimes the blue below is white
Foreshadowing a windy night

Sometimes a drifting coconut
Or albatross adds color but
The blue above is mostly blue
The blue below and I are too
--------------------
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice
----------------
Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower
But only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay

The margarita was way too salty (and other sensory experiences)

The gang and I went to c. o. jones for dinner and drinks yesterday evening. It was the third night in as many nights that I'd gone out and had a really good time. As a result, there's been less angst to report over the past 72 hours. For a change of pace from the usual soul-probing thought excavation, here's a five-point all-sensory account of last night's bacchanal:

Tactile: A triangular patch of cold on my right thigh. I was wearing my favorite (and currently sole) pair of corduroy pants last night. They've got a right angle-shaped rip on the right leg, which has been there for a while. Sometimes I put a piece of duct tape behind it to keep it closed, but last night I'd forgotten and so the ripped piece was folded over to expose a small portion of my leg. I wore my hat and gloves, so the only part of me that was cold outside was that little triangle.

Visual: A big, black "9.00" on the screen of the cash register behind the bar. c. o. jones is a Mexican restuarant (get it? like cojones?) that is well-known for it's 5-7 p.m. margarita happy hour. When we first arrived, I ordered a margarita called the "Parrot Head " from the drink menu, and put a five dollar bill on the counter (assuming my drink would be around $3). The bar tender raised an eyebrow at me and said, "That's a nine dollar drink. Only house margaritas are half-off." I sheepishly reached into my wallet for another five. I didn't order any more drinks.

Auditory: Lots of noise. The restuarant is tiny--just a single room that holds, at best, maybe 5o people. Every word any one of us spoke to each other had to be shouted. But we were all half in the bag anyway, so we didn't really mind.

Gustatory: Carina's salty margarita. Tequila, lime juice and ice were flowing freely to our table last night, but unfortunately, so was salt. Carina ordered one last drink toward the end of the meal, which ended up sitting, practically untouched, in the center of the table for the last 15 minutes that we were there. She asked if I wanted it, so I took a sip--it was like taking a big, unexpected gulp of seawater. It was vile.

Olfactory: My car smells like cigarettes. In the car on the way home from Starbucks on Sunday, Carina (again) was smoking a cigarette and telling me the story of how she once threw a butt out the window of a moving car and it flew back in and landed on her lap. I told her to make sure that she did a good job of throwing her current butt out. She assured me she would. When I got back to my house, I made a quick, paranoid check of the back seat, and sure enough, there was a cigarette butt on the floor of the car. It had burned a hole in the mat. Last night my car still smelled like cigarettes.

In spite of a $9.00 margarita, a mouthful of salt, a cold thigh, a loud restaurant and a car that smelled like cigarettes, it was a very pleasant night.

The radio, driving, and thinking

I was driving around aimlessly last night, and I was upset to find that there was no good talk radio to listen to. Cruising in my trusty/sexy 1998 Nissan Maxima (beige, leather interior), biding my time before meeting up with some buds for a night at the bar, all I wanted was to hear some thought-provoking and insightful commentary on some interesting topic. But Saturday night is the wasteland of talk radio. A Prairie Home Companion finishes up at 8, and then all of the NPR stations in my range switch over to instrumental music (one station was blaring some God-awful Celtic crap last night). All I could find on the AM dial was the play-by-play for a high school football game, which I think was a rerun. I was left with no choice but to pop in my CCR greatest hits CD, which I did grudgingly--it only took me a moment to settle into a relatively contented state of singing/shouting along to "Lodi" and "Bad Moon Rising."

I find that I do most of my best thinking behind the wheel. Something in the nature of driving engages my mind like no other activity. The act of driving is a series of instinctual motions and reactions. Muscle groups contract and extend in response to images taken in through the eye and processed in the brain via the miracle of cognition. Pistons fire, fuel burns, wheels spin. As with any habitual activity, the mind is given ample room to wander.

Last night was a particularly splendid driving night. Pristine road conditions (prior to this morning's powdery dusting of snow). Dark, with only the tiniest thumbnail sliver of moon visible. Chilly, but not frigid. One small pleasure of mine is rolling down the driver's side window and letting the cold air stream in. Talk about head-clearing, and anyway it keeps the windows from fogging up.

What was I thinking about during last night's drive? Lots of things. I wondered what winters are like up in Lenox, Massachusetts, and what they're like down in the northern suburbs of Atlanta. I wondered what they'd have on tap at the bar we were going to. I tried to remember where I thought I'd be spending this New Year's Eve a year ago. Most substantially, I arrived at the conclusion that my current lifestyle is self-perpetuating and self-justifying. (How to describe this one...hmm. Here goes: Because I'm unemployed, I am lazy and unmotivated. Because I am lazy and unmotivated, I am unemployed. It might be a Catch-22; it's definitely a vicious circle.)

I really, really want to get one of those jobs I applied for last week. No more excuses: if I get one, I'm taking it. Fuck how far away it is, or how much it pays, or how much I think I'm going to dislike it. I graduated from college six months ago, and I'm sick of being a loser. It's time to become a person. Writing pretentious bullshit about the radio and driving and thinking isn't turning me into a person. It's turning me into a joke.

Three new jobs

After a bit of a lull (the only application I've really got pending is for an editorial assistant gig at NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. I've "followed up" many times, but haven't even been given the time of day by the NPR folks. I'm not sure if I'll ever hear anything, and that pisses me off. Speaking of being pissed off, I waved the white flag at the F* & W* people [my "follow up" email said something to the effect of "I'm sure you've already hired someone by now"] but they haven't decided to display the tiniest speck of human decency either. I mean, come on, it cost me fifty bucks for that lousy twenty minute interview! The original clause of this sentence, pre-parenthesis, by the way, was "After a bit of a lull"...)I've applied to three new jobs.

Uno: Entertainment writer for the Y* D* R* in York, Pennsylvania. Wasn't sure about the old YDR at first (what, you haven't heard of it?), but then I realized that it's actually a pretty well-respected little paper. Especially recently. The D* R* has received a lot of attention for it's coverage of a little case called Kitzmiller v. Dover--the "intelligent design" case. If you haven't heard of it, check out www.ydr.com, and follow the link to Dover Biology or something like that. Anyway, the job description sounds like something that's along the lines of what I might conceivably like to do, so I drafted a cover letter, printed a resume, tossed a few writing samples into an envelope and sent it off yesterday.

Due: Features writer for the P* N* and M* J* M* in Woodbridge, Virginia. Sounds a little random, but the area is just outside Arlington (which is just outside of D.C.) as far as I can tell. So, I think this qualifies as a writing job in D.C. Sent that baby off yesterday as well.

Tre: Copy editor for P* N* M* in Cumming (heehee!), Georgia. Apparently, P* N* is a society/lifestyle type magazine in the "well-to-do" northern suburbs of Atlanta (pardon me, HOT-lanta). The job description sounded warm and friendly: "The work load will include creative writing, fact checking articles, updating databases, story photo retrieval, representing the magazine at area press events and assisting editors on special projects. We are looking for a creative and talented writer who feels comfortable taking on various writing assignments and someone who works effectively as a team." None of those abrasive terms I've gotten accustomed to; things like "highly driven and ambitious" and "not afraid to dig deep for a good story" and "willing to make children and old ladies cry." Well, the last one is a little less common. I get the sense that this magazine is looking for someone a little more my speed. Atlanta wasn't high on my list of places to go, but...well, we'll see what happens.

So that's the news from Lake Employmenow (bonus points if anyone reading this gets the Garrison Keillor reference).

P.S. - I'm up early cause I'm going blackjackin' today! I hope I come back with more than I left with! Christmas is coming!