Dyson’s The Red Office April 28, 2005 |
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Insider news and ramblings |
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Book News § Please forward this newsletter to any friends who would enjoy it and tell them to sign up. I’d like to get as many subscribers as I can as fast as I can. Help me out. § The Elbow Room, that bastion and epitome of the glorious low life, is closed. Thursday, April 28, marked the last of a legend. Read the story. § My website is up and running. So far people either love it or hate it. What do you think? § And She Was is up on Amazon. So I guess you can pre-order it already, although it seems so early, I don’t really trust it. Author On the Loose § Dyson is just staying home, although her husband recently went to Beijing and Las Vegas and she’s jealous. |
Degenerate Prose Writing isn’t therapy. If it is, don’t let anyone read it. The dictionary is generous with the word degenerate, offering scads of meanings. But for our purposes two will suffice to explain this column — to decline from a standard of normalcy and to allow two degrees of freedom on either side. For this the first installment of DP we will explore that paradigm of the writing-life mentality — the journal. I should say I love journals. Especially those fancy ones with rough, primitive paper and something exciting on the cover, like pressed leaves. I even buy one now and again. But that’s where my flirtation with journaling stops. I would never write in one. No, a journal is beautiful only when it’s empty, when it embodies the idea of possibility. Once you’ve written in one, it’s over. The power seeps out and your only recourse is to buy another journal and another and another. So yes, buy journals. But do not write in them. At least not as a writer. You can jot down your kids’ cute phrases and your to-do list or work through personal issues. But do not use them to explore the artist within. Looking at the beautiful blank pages will get you way further down that road than actually writing in one (shiver). Here’s the problem with journaling and imagine me screaming this. THEY ARE A BIG WASTE OF TIME. You think you are writing because your pen is moving. But you are not, you’re frittering away time. You’re losing the battle. Also they foster the idiotic notion that you need to understand yourself in order to write. That’s crap. There is nothing to fix, nothing to package up and analyze in order to free you to write. The whole journaling system is set up to make you feel like you aren’t ready, that you’ve got to be a more self-aware, mature sort of creature before you can actually be a writer. Another problem is that whatever you write remains in that damn journal and just glancing at the spine will remind you of that sappy, sentimental spell in which you filled ten pages in one sitting. Even worse, if you keep meaning to journal, but don’t, you’ll just feel guilty and who needs more of that. It is okay to keep a writer’s notebook, which is a whole nother animal. This is something you stuff in your purse and get out when you hear a group of women tittering about their handsome gynecologist or see an odd bumper sticker. That kind of thing. Practical things. The back of old checkbooks work fine, but you can buy a booklet and be professional about it. Recap: Buy journals, but only to fondle the blank pages. The whole writer-journaling thing is a scam to waste your time and to make you feel inadequate. Keep a writer’s notebook if you’re really organized or just a pen if you’re not. Assignment: Rip out one of those sentimental pages from your old journal and tape it on a public bathroom wall so everyone can read it. You’ll feel free immediately upon escaping unnoticed. If you email a picture of your completed assignment, I will post it on my website or in a future newsletter. A note about the writing exercises in this column. Most will be performed on the walls of public restrooms. The reasoning here is obvious — it’s degenerate and extremely freeing. In preparation, recon the public restrooms on your beat. Find a couple that are dripping with latrinealia. Also get a couple washable markers. |
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WWBD What Would Brandy Do? This regular feature will allow you the reader the rare opportunity to benefit from the advice and wisdom of a trashy, wayward blonde who only exists in a book that hasn’t been published yet. Just email a question, preferably of a personal and embarrassing nature, and I’ll include Brandy’s advice in the next newsletter installment. I will make up a false name for you. Contest: Seduction of a Seedy Bar I’m looking for your stories of forays into dive bars, the good, the bad, and the uncatagorizable. Please send a 300-500 word true story about your experiences with a seedy bar. The winners will win something as yet undiscovered and their stories will be included in a future newsletter and maybe on my website. Reviews It’s the greatest book ever written. I hope it’s not too autobiographical. I’m sure it’s not. It couldn’t be. I’m really impressed. My daughter did this. — Jane Dyson, the author’s mother. Recommended Reading Second Hand Smoke by Patty Friedmann. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini |
Taking Offense When I write, I’m interested not just in the feel of words or the development of a character. I’m interested in ideas and how those ideas play out in a story. And the ideas I like best are ones that I’m, frankly, not too comfortable with. This column is a series of essays by thinkers whose ideas shaped this book. I want to share them with you as a peek behind the words and plot. I encourage you to get as offended, as provoked, as intrigued as I’ve been. Enjoy. Assumption of Power Vs. the Nature of Real Power By Marc MacYoung Marc “the Animal” MacYoung is a self-defense expert with a provocative perspective on rape. His premise is that most rape victims put themselves in vulnerable positions through high-risk and self-gratifying behavior. He believes as a culture we have done a disservice to women by discouraging them from critically assess their pre-attack behavior, sacrificing women’s safety in our desire to remold society’s attitudes. That we have stressed a woman’s desire to refuse to limit behavior over a commonsense approach to safety. In short, women are insisting on their right to walk in the shadows while claiming the protection of the light. So much of our literature delves into issues of power, particularly sexual power, and yet we seldom talk about it. Here, I’ve taken one section of his writings and chopped it mercilessly. I hope you will explore his thinking at his very dense site nononsenseselfdefense.com. Under normal circumstances both males and females have power over each other, which is a cornerstone of a functioning relationship. Although some will deny it, there is one underlying truth about power. This truth especially applies to the power women have over men and that is: Power is loaned; it can be revoked. Contrary to what you might think, power over people comes from them, not you. People grant you power because they believe it is in their best interest, because they trust you to function in a capacity that will care for their interests. What does this have to do with rape? Women have power over men. And with power comes responsibility. A responsibility that if it is abused can lead to a revocation of power. Often, this just means that a man will simply dismiss you, but occasionally, it has more disastrous repercussions. Many women don't realize the power they have over men is given to them BY the men. It exists only AS LONG as the man is willing. The reverse is also true. Men only have power over women as long as they grant it. But many women assume the power they have over other people comes from within themselves. This gives them a false confidence and a dangerous overestimation of their abilities. They assume the power is always going to be there and that with words alone they can control others. While this can be true as far as it goes, there are many situations where words no longer have power. There is nothing like watching men fighting to show the conditional nature of this power. Think back to the last time you saw two men engage in violence when a woman was present. What did she do? How did she react? Typically she screams at her man to stop. She may even try to pull him away. And he ignores her. The woman is shocked and confused when her normal influence is shut off by the male. For that moment in time, she has absolutely NO power over him. This sudden and unexpected stripping away of her perceived power is as much an overwhelming shock to her as the savagery of the fight itself. Afterwards - WHEN he is willing to listen again - the male is going to be seriously upbraided. Once again, the woman's power will be re-established. The nature of this new power structure, however, will be strongly influenced by the experience. One should take note of the female intensity when re-establishing her control. There is often substantial anger involved. It is reasonable to assume that female pride, ego and trauma from the loss of perceived control is involved. Watching a fight is a blatant example of what can happen when males choose to temporarily ignore social conventions and act primitively. Women are often traumatized and confused when this reality is thrown in their faces. It is even more traumatic when they are the target of a willful act of violence. We speculate that this is a significant contributor to the trauma of rape. It is not just the intensity of the physical assault, but the simultaneous destruction of her illusions of power over the male. But those illusions were based on a serious misconception about the reality of power and its source. You cannot control other people. The only absolute control and power you have is over yourself and what you do. |
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