MSDR: I find your work to be socially conscious, politically provocative, and at times grammatically experimental. That is why I wanted to feature it here in Miss Stein’s Drawing Room. Do you consider yourself a literary social activist?
I thought this interview is happening because we both know Bob and David Goldman. I appreciate the compliment, Linda. But while guilty of the question’s aspirations, cheerleader of activists is a better fit. And even then my track record’s no better than loyal opposition. Activists work very long, hard, hours organizing and showing up. All I’ve ever done is watch and make sure my answer is “no” to that question, “are you now or have you ever been a member.” Because even if the past's dead, history remembers and should actually reflect when our shames have been, sufficiently, faced. Instead of justice made the scapegoat for our descent from sociopathic predators. Prohibiting our moving past reinforce-ably comforting prejudices that grip the ritually obsessed who miss the point of forgiveness. Justice is an absence of crime and hate, not just execution of revenge.
Achieving my grail after thirty-five years chasing that novel, I consider myself a novelist. And rather than experiment, the soapbox craft lends itself to the magic in stretching the English language that seemed to sprout wings when my essays took on The Soapbox View. Except, of course, Sisyphean foolishness precedes the huge fall. But that's cool so far. What can I say? Expansiveness thrives on cliché.
MSDR: The Miss Stein’s Drawing Room website and the original group was inspired by Gertrude Stein’s love of language and her staunch belief in an artist’s personal expression not being expurgated. When you write, do you ever say to yourself, “I cannot go there with my readers, it is too far?” Do you work with anyone as an editor who tells you to reign in your beliefs?
Jay Gissen is the hammer and cycle’s editor. He asked why there's too much and it’s because the symbolism isn't made up. If possible I reach too far and whittle from there. While specific to the essays, the soapbox name has an obligation. I’d prefer Jay read everything first. But there’s also the ideal someone's making a stand all alone, if necessary, on that box.
MSDR: You have your own site, The Soapbox View. You also have the website for The Hammer and Cycle Messenger Service. What sorts of readers stop by and interact with you? What is that relationship like? Do they challenge your ideas? Are they confreres?
Few interactions. But my hope is rare response demonstrates respect for the Don’t Be Anyone's Sycophant theme. If that slogan ever hit home it would mean progress. Only a lot of life’s a coin flip, ya know. What're you gonna do?
If I were a friendlier, engaging, person maybe my platform would be a better forum. What I want is readers having my expectation expressing questions, as much as possible, ascertains more points of view. Rather than just repeat what’s commercially proven and what pop music's for. Nothing's as much incentive as being reminded to think about something that's been missed.
MSDR: I know that you have actually been a bike messenger in your life. If you still are, do you receive a lot of your writing ideas while biking? Do you relate to the books of Henry Miller and his descriptions of messengers?
Reading Miller it was easy visualizing him in the back of his office, playing cards, mastering his universe. If messengering now doesn't mean I didn't retire. It’s real work I did for so long I refuse to be a poser. I became a bike courier for time to think and could still go to the exact spot on Manhattan's Broadway, just below 34th Street, where, heading south, catty-corner from Macy’s, the title, the hammer and cycle messenger service, occurred to me.
MSDR: With the advent of the internet and smartphone, there has been a decline in traditional reading materials, etc. Is that why you feature your writing online for all to read free of charge? Do you think that the career writer is something that has really changed and that most writers will be kind of The Everyman as blogging and self-published material eclipses traditional book sales?
Druthers, commercial success speaks for itself. But by sharing the novel everywhere through Internet connection, half the readers are American and half the rest of the world’s worthwhile places that wouldn't have otherwise been sold the chance to even know there's this Cold War parody fathoming the serious foolishness that blew quite, a lot more than, a few generations' minds.
Once I’d weighed all the commercial variables. Adding distrust for networking's trumping actual work. And given the time frame and hammer and cycle's real value. I was left with no other choice than feeling the novel could and should stand on its own. Have the guts, courage and belief in what the book should mean. My decision. But Jay laid the groundwork for the playing field change when the book began looking like it would when finished. Andrew Wylie confirmed the inevitable and I really gained a-lot attempting some kind of traction in traditional publishing that clearly fell short. But, to re-emphasize, where the novel’s already reached is worth it. Of course money matters and I respect that, cue Doris Day. “Que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be.”
I like holding books. The commercial process was given due respect as described in the Quail Bell Magazine essay, The Writing of the Hammer and Cycle. My next idea is a pitch to Sports Illustrated. However much Traditional Publishing was undermined by the fact people can always have something to read for free, attention’s cheap is the illusion. We lose a lot losing any of literature’s professionals. Even agents as there’s no business without the sharks.
Remember the old days when nothing much was lying around. People picked up any stupid thing to read just to have something to do? Finally people are reading and choosing amusement as Huxley predicted to a T? Even if our thrills are so sophisticated. That's what a lot of history's sick bastards assumed.
Meanwhile gloss solves everything. We’re all corporations now as reality always confirmed, and if the Supreme Court of the United States is to be believed. It would be deceptive for people, much less writers, to feel immune to the choking of independence even though guaranteed we're really alone. Corporate Protection For Everybody?
MSDR: Finally, because of the rapidity with which cultures as we have known them have changed, do you think that we can even fathom what our world will be like in just 5 years? Do you think the role of the writer will change drastically? Do you think there will even be writers in the distant future?
Huh. Loving history is the sense our evolution reveals the future. Why riding inflation is apparently just a luxury for the rich. A writer’s role is wanting people to think harder. Once that function dissolves, it’s imaginable we're all done anyway. In five years there’ll either be a grip on illusions or the same inadequate conscience remains applied to all our civilizations' meanings as predators.
Linda, your invitation to write in Miss Stein's Drawing Room has been a distinct pleasure. Fostering this road trip memory of seeing Hemingway's perch, where he wrote from, behind his house, in Key West, overlooking his cats and the sea.
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