Category: Essays

Because many of you asked what I thought about Molly Ringwald's recent essay in The New Yorker. 

 1. Ms. Ringwald is absolutely right. Movies endure not just b/c they meant something to us way back then but b/c they should allow for rigorous re-examination as our culture evolves. Great movies hold up to that examination, not by seeming contemporary (which is impossible) but by constantly engaging us as we change, even though they don't. 

2. It is not "political correctness" to re-evaluate a work of art in contemporary context. It is perhaps mypoic to say it shouldn't ever be seen again because of what it said when it was made and how it isn't cool to say that now. But Ms. Ringwald isn't arguing for censorship. She's arguing for not letting nostalgia gum up the rigor of our intellect. 

3. Nostalgia is, by definition, a failed enterprise: A wish for what is no longer presumes a) we can turn back time and b) nothing should have changed between then and now. Both are impossible. There's nothing wrong with looking back fondly on things from the past. Bear in mind that the best of those things (like, for example, The Breakfast Club) are still remembered not just because of what they were then but how they continue to speak to us now. 

4. John Hughes made great movies not in spite of being a flawed person but because he was a flawed person. The remarkable thing about genius is that it happens in human beings who are by definition good at some things and not others. If they are in fact, geniuses and the things they create are too, then they invite that rigor of examination not shy away from it. Dude, Where's My Car deflates like a leaky balloon upon examination. Huck Finn, The Age of Innocence, James Brown Live at the Apollo and The Breakfast Club are so good and complicated and magnificent and frustrating in so many ways that they are gifts that keep on giving. And we look away from the full extant of those gifts, if we ignore that Mark Twain was a genius but a terrible businessman which probably hurt how much we know of is work, that Edith Wharton was a genius but an unapologetic snob that probably made her output less rangy than the true scope of her genius, that James Brown was a genius who was a terrible boss and lost a young Bootsy Collins as a bassist because of it and imagine what Mr. Brown's music COULD have been like and that John Hughes was a genius who had great difficulty emotionally reaching beyond whom he was as a teenager and examine what could have been had he been able to write and direct movies not about the suburban midwest?

5. "Imagine if" always comes with examination of genius. Bad movies/books/songs/tv shows you cannot even summon the energy to do that.

6. I promise you, no one, not Molly Ringwald or Criterion or I or anyone else who wishes to have lively conversation about your favorite movie from childhood, is trying to ruin your childhood. We are in fact trying to acknowledge that we all grow up and change and we STILL have the opportunity to have ongoing evolved, long term relationships with the pop culture of the past. That, in fact the needlessly linear narrative of pop culture as new–>passe–>forgotten–>kitsch–>reboot is a diet of junk food and culture is meant to be a feast. 

7. The evening I read this Molly Ringwald essay, I also saw Night Ranger in concert. And 35 years after their heyday, they were fantastic. Which led me to watch a ton of concert footage of theirs and to the one, every video had at least a dozen comments talking about what Night Ranger does is over, musically and will never be again, despite what I had seen with my own eyes the night before, they fact that I could watch 35 years of the band's history for free, the fact that armed with a Spotify subscription and a web browser, I could summon Night Ranger and 25 bands like them across four decades of popular music with a few keystrokes and search terms. 

I submit if you spend a bunch of your time talking about how "over" something is, you are really not talking about "it" being over but you. You're sad because that band/movie/book reminds you a special time in life from long ago. Fine. If you want to be done having special times with art and pop culture, be my guest. That strikes me as an entirely avoidable self-inflicted cloud of depression you have decided to stand under without an umbrella. Show a little backbone, take two steps to the left and come out in the sunshine where the rest of us live.

8. I am deeply thankful to Ms. Ringwald for saying from her unique point of view better than what I tried to say in Brat Pack America that nostalgia often keeps us from further discussion, further engagement, from having marriages instead of flings with art and culture we love That living there is a wasteful and potentially dangerous enterprise. And we owe to our kids and nieces and nephews and our mentees and our young friends who we wish to share it wish to keep talking.

I've been having great fun reading McSweeney's Lists that last few days so decided to try one of my own.

And it would seem I've caught some sort of bug. Below is attempt #2.

MYTHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS OF PARADISE AND THE RAPPERS WHO REPRESENT THEM…

Vahalla Back

L Dorado

Jannah Z

Mag Mellie Mell

Naughty by Nirvana

Elysium Skeekium

Aaru D2

The news of the Big O closing down her book club left me vaguely melancholy, like the death of someone famous you’d never heard of when they were alive. I remember when the book club began, a few highbrow versus middlebrow editorials and the big Franzen fracas of last fall. Other than that, Oprah’s selections were to me a bit like the Grammys: a barometer of a what a wide swath of the culture bought but I wasn’t much interested in myself.

For, you see, my province was contemporary literature, land of the “important book” and the MFA from Columbia. In this success-smells-bad-unless-its-mine world of “bold new voices,” Oprah’s choices were something we readers pushed against — albeit with grudging respect. Liking an “Oprah Book” meant allying yourself with the most obvious, least cool demographic in publishing: over 30, female, someone who thinks “Friends” is a bit racy. Outwardly, we smirked and claimed we wanted our books supported by Guggenheim Fellowships, thank you, not commercials for Palmolive. Yet as the evidence mounted, it became harder to ignore how Oprah vigorously promoted literary mainstays like Toni Morrison and Ernest Gaines, and how demographic slam dunks like Danielle Steel and Mary Higgins Clark were curiously absent from her list.

Moreover, how could we argue with the numbers Oprah put up on the board? Forty seven books have been chosen for the club, and each has become an instant bestseller. Bookstores — chain and independent alike — dedicated whole sections to her choices. No-profile authors like Wally Lamb became brand names. Publishers campaigned for titles to be chosen nearly as heavily as film studios do for Oscar nominations, and compared (too often) an Oprah nod to winning the lottery. And while mourning a cash cow put out to pasture is inherently self-serving, its influence on publishing has been unmistakable. When Oprah talks, the industry listens — something you can’t always even say about the New York Review of Books.

While the Industry and the Talk Show Host were in the first years of their love affair, several grumbling critics claimed that the golden wave of Oprah’s hand was actually leading us all like lambs to the literary slaughter. Since Oprah’s audience slavishly tuned in each afternoon for another dose of comfort and self-affirmation, would they recoil at books that challenged them? Would publishers follow along, focusing even more intently on Oprah-friendly novels of Determined Mothers Overcoming Traumatic Childhoods, and leave “real literature” out in the cold? Or, as the counterpoint went, was it good news that the masses were excited by reading instead of just more television?

The “should read” versus “want to read” question that had danced just behind Oprah threw itself at her feet last fall when Jonathan Franzen declined to have his third novel, The Corrections, become a book club pick. In several interviews, he stated that the Big Golden O on the cover of his book would dissuade both readers looking for serious literature (instead of a good coddle) and men, who in his mind, would have no more use for an Oprah book than they would for a bra. Oprah retaliated quickly by uninviting Franzen from her show — a “so there!” gesture that didn’t make her look much better. Again, the question became whether literature had rightfully stood up to publishing’s immovable force, or whether the rebellion was merely another marketing gesture.

The debate, as Michael Korda points out in his new book Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, is as old as American publishing itself, and in the case of Oprah, mostly misses the point. We can neither blame Oprah for sinking literary standards, nor exalt her for bringing a nation back to reading. Instead, the legacy of Oprah’s book club seems almost counterintuitive: books build audiences when someone who feels like a close friend recommends them — even when that “close friend” has a viewership of 22 million.

The success of Oprah’s Book Club was predicated on the essential mystery of publishing — how to successfully match books and readers? Oprah solved the riddle for anyone who trusted her, and there were lots of them. Me, I’m crazy enough about books to want several Oprahs on call at all times, from reviewers in my favorite publications and on NPR, to fellow bibliophiles at the online community I run, to, most importantly, my friends and family. Recommendations lined up at the door means I never have to stop reading.

It’s going to be a long time before there’s another force like Oprah in publishing. No other public figure has her kind of intimate connection with the audience. But that doesn’t mean book marketers should sit around and wait. There’s a mini-Oprah in every town in America, someone who is not only well read and loves books, but has an intuitive way of discerning who would enjoy what.

I say find those mini-Oprahs. They’re out there, asking intelligent questions at author readings, weighing in at online forums, talking with strangers at bookstores. In their own lives, they’ve already answered the question “What do I read next?” and are doing so for others. Serve them well and they will do the same.

1. The web is alive and well, thank you. No one is getting rich but that’s like saying all the gold is gone from Sutter’s Mill so therefore the shovel is now obsolete. Hogwash.

The web is a tool–powerful, complicated, and highly capable of enabling wonder and mystery. I spent the week around hundreds of people whose creativity hasn’t been limited by lack of funding or a short attention span media but simply by how big they can dream and how quickly they can type.

2. Passion is contagious. Excitment feeds off itself. Every third conversation I had this week sparked another idea. Every other got me all electric about someone else’s project. I landed back home completely high on web juice, ready to write, conceptualize and pitch in all around the place.

3. You often have more impact than you think. I began going to SXSW in 1999 when Central Booking was a cut-rate hobby site I dabbled in while trying to finish graduate school. During that first conference, I took in a panel on online journaling which, years later, resulted in CB becoming a community of readers. On that panel, I had a very pleasent chat with a woman named Sarah who introduced me to Blogger and the medium of weblogging. Three years and as many redesigns later, I run into Sarah at the festival’s opening event and she recognized me instantly. It took me a little bit longer and a lot of stammering but soon we were talking like old friends. Or maybe brand new ones.

4. I should buy a digital camera. Everybody’s doing it.

5. People relish the opportunity to act silly, especially in the loose embrace of new friends. Sounds a little clinical but it’s the best way I can explain why I spent a substantial part of this conference playing kickball, singing karaoke, and trying to sober up a drunken monkey.

6. You can go back to where you once lived and it may not have changed all that much. You almost certainly have.

7. A perfect airline flight resembles a short trip on a bus: You board, read a newspaper and have arrived when you look up. Exiting should be as painless as entry and effortless like hopping to the curb. It helps if no one’s sitting within six rows of you.

8. What is real is your story. Tell it.

9. Webheads read. Lots. They dig books. Some of them had even heard of Central Booking. Now more have.

10. Community is a rare and precious gift today. When used with grace, the web is a tremendous community builder, uniting rather than locking us apart. I experienced that more than I thought I could this last week where hundreds of strangers were instantly kind, thoughtful and intrigued by one another. If you’ve found a place like that, real or virtual, stick around. It’s very a special thing.

Thanks everyone.

P.S. I did a similar essay for SXSW 2001. What a difference a year makes.

I get asked every now and then to predict the future, what will be the big book
this year and who will care other than the person asking. Usually I’ll stare back
ruefully and say “Wish I knew” while praying inside they won’t ask any further.
Truth is I don’t have any idea and have learned not to try too hard. When it comes to predictions, I suck. Long and hard, like a garbage disposal. Example: A friend once bet lunch that I couldn’t guess whether I would owe him lunch. He ate well.

So what will happen in books this year? Ask someone else. Anyone, really.
But if you want some uneducated guesses, consider these…

• In a gesture so postmodern it almost makes sense, Jonathan Franzen decides to boycott himself. The author of The Corrections anoints his birthday "A Day Without Jonathan Franzen” and pleads that all newspapers cease mention of his name and that bookstores not only stop selling his novels but drape a swath of burlap over the shelves where they sit. Readers should throw his books in a vegetable crisper alongside a half-dozen onions to fumigate them of any authorial voice. Franzen himself promises to spend the day standing in the food court of the Paramus Park Mall disguised as Joyce Carol Oates with a handwritten sign around his neck that reads “Won’t Write. Even for a cookie.”
• The nation’s publishing companies decide to end the voodoo and witchcraft behind determining “The Book of the Year” at this year’s BookExpoAmerica conference. On the eve of the show, publicists from each house will play an all-night game of Twister with the colored dots replaced by logos of each imprint. It’s quickly determined that the toughest move on the board is “Left Hand, Doubleday” to “Right Foot, Hyperion.” which causes any publicist on the board to immediately bend ass-over-elbow like Silly Putty in the microwave.
• A second volume of “The Reader’s Manifesto” finds its way to the offices of Atlantic Monthly, this one simply stating “Don’t read. It only encourages Stephen King.” The magazine says "What the hay?" and sticks it in the back next to an ad for a home winemaking course. Manifesto II incites nearly 10,000 angry letters, many so deliciously venomous that the Atlantic spends the entire next three issues printing them. In our Readers Crosshairs, a compendium, comes out in the spring of 2003 and becomes a bestseller, prompting The Atlantic Monthly Group to mandate the shenanigan become an annual affair.
• Writers Maya Angelou, Nicholson Baker, and Jennifer Egan found the Hyper-Amiable Authors League and vote unanimously at the inaugural meeting that the literary feud has an image problem. No longer should authors snipe at each other in haughtily worded essays in the New York Review of Books or pooh-pooh each other’s National Book Award nomination in lectures at the 92nd Street Y. Authors looking to scrap will now be invited to a monthly luncheon in the storage area at Zabar’s where they may settle their differences over a plate of expensive coleslaw and, if needs be, retire to the alley out back to fling pumpernickel bread at each other. Then everybody gives each other a hug and promises to trade blurbs. Plans are also afoot to change the Pulitzer Prize motto to “When one of us wins, we all do!”
• The corpse of the ebook will rise again. Publishers still hell-bent on showing how 21st century they are will avail plans for the zzzzbook, a joint venture with the M.I.T Robotics Lab, Jeff Bezos and a consortium of aimless billionaires. Now when you buy a regular old book, you may elect to purchase the author’s next book as a pinhead-sized microchip to be implanted via nose dropper in your cerebellum. When you’re ready to read, you visit Amazon’s web site, stick a specially designed USB cable in your ear (retail price $299) and jump up and down several times. The book will seep into your brain as you sleep and you’ll remember it as well as what you did the night before.

Not long ago, I spoke to the novelist Ethan Canin who, after teaching through May at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, moves back to San Francisco with his family for the summer. “One of my favorite things about being back here,” he told me, “is seeing people on the bus reading good books.” I nodded vigorously. Just that week, I had sat across the row from a German tourist reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point (as was I at the time), behind a teenager reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (a selection of my last book club) and next to a curly-haired woman balancing a copy of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (which has been recommended to me 837 times at last count) between her knees.

I didn’t say anything to these people but I felt a bond. We’re part of the invisible network of public readers.

There’s something both comforting and subversive about reading in public (on trains, at bus stops, on park benches and street corners), the two main reasons I love doing it. Opening a book on an overcrowded subway train seals you in your own world, mentally switching you being accessible to others to unapologetic time with yourself. “When I open a book on the bus,” a friend once told me, “psychologically, I’m already home.” On the other hand, read in a restaurant and people may think you’re a friendless loser or they may admire your self-reliance. Their curiosity is as delicious as having a secret.

An average week will find me reading in public at least a half-dozen times but the reasons seem to change with my lifestyle. In graduate school, I could spend days in my apartment hacking through required texts and none of my classmates would blink since they all did it too. That drove me batty so I took to reading at a coffee shop near the campus library for some fresh air and a dose of sanity. My best friend arrived late to everything so I began stowing a book in the glove compartment to kill time while waiting outside movie theatres and restaurants. When I began working full time, a small library rested in a desk drawer and so I could read at lunch. I was too tired the end of the day to enjoy it.

Now I live in San Francisco, a dense, frenetic city and I spend most of my time in the whirlwind of it. I work long hours, ride subways and buses to get around and often have dinner with friends or run errands before heading home. The few hours before sleep belong to the dishes, the laundry and returning phone calls. Before I figured out otherwise, that gave me 10 minutes before I close my eyes to read a few pages and waiting until Saturday to give a book the attention it deserved. I hated it.

The answer came when I began slipping the private act of reading into the folds of my now very public life. I worried at first about shutting the world out in this way, beginning and ending my day with a word fog enveloping my head. I didn’t choose to live in a city to ignore it whizzing by. Yet I soon discovered that rather than feeling cut off, I had unconsciously joined a secret network of book lovers. Passersby would look over at my book and nod or squint quizzically. Many pleasant exchanges followed. I once spent about 10 days reading David Sedaris’s Naked in restaurants, the gym and the neighborhood pool. Sixteen people passed by and had something about to say about it (I made a checkmark on the back cover for each one). Many just said “what a funny book” but several others asked me about my favorite essays and had I heard Sedaris’s commentaries on the radio? The book had sent out a beacon to like-minded readers, drawing them in.

A few weeks ago, I confounded Ethan Canin’s theory by sitting on the bus with a thoroughly lousy book. A man one seat in front of me asked if I liked the book. When I told him no, he asked if I always read on the bus and I said yes, that it passed the time and made a hot, crowded ride more bearable. He nodded then saw a Borders Bookstore by the next stop and exited the bus quickly. Just before walking in, he waved at me and laughed. I waved back with my book. For a moment, I’m engaged in the world’s most private act, but don’t feel alone at all.