“Reclam” Books Are Cool But Don’t Have Any Free Space

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You have to hand it to the Germans for their ability to organize things. Sometimes their organizational skills lead to cool things. But only sometimes. Most of the time Germans can only organize themselves into a dead-end. But that’s another post.

The little Reclam books that you can buy in Germany is a favorite book format of mine and a result of cool German-ness and organization. They’re kind of like the VW Bug of book printing. The intention of these books was originally to provide students with a cheap source of literature for school and university. Over the years these books have become cult and they even have their own color code scheme to designate the different types of books the publisher offers. For example:

• The most common Reclam book is Yellow. This designates that it is a single language book, most commonly German, with introductions and comments (almost like a regular book but small).
• Another book from Reclam is Red. This book is usually a foreign language and helps students by providing vocabulary assistance and translates certain words to German using footnotes.
• The Orange books are my favorite. They are duel language and printed with the left page in German and the right page in English. Very cool.
• The Blue books are for reading practice and usually include short stories. I’ve never actually bought one of these.
• The Green books contain academic explanations, interpretations and sometimes sources of original texts, etc. The one I own is titled “Erläuterungen und Dokumente, G.E. Lessin, Emilia Galotti”.
• There are others but that’s enough for now.

All the books have the same size, about 6 inches x 3 inches. The paper is very light but has a wonderful and almost silky feel to it. They are all printed using the same font. One other interesting, albeit organizational aspect about these little books is how they are priced. They never have prices on them. Instead you will always find them in their own racks in bookstores. Attached to the racks are usually laminated paper on which is printed a price scheme. Each Reclam book has a square dot or a series of square dots on the binding. These dots you match with the price scheme and the color scheme and, walla, you find the price. Jumpin’ gerbils, eh!

These books always fit in my rear jeans pocket alleviating the need to ALWAYS carry a rucksack in order to take a nice read to a pub or bar. I would buy these books even if I owned the book in “regular” format. Unfortunately, because of my eyes, I can’t read the small print anymore. Smallness is a bother in other areas, too. I love it when books are printed with lots of empty pages. One of my bad habits, especially when I borrow books from others, is that I write notes in them and make lots of markings. As I age and continue to fail as a writer this bad habit is getting worse.

Below are pics of Maria Magdalena from Friedrich Hebbel; it has one dot, meaning it only costs a few Euros. You can also see that the back of the rear cover is an example of drunken wantonness and writing in pencil an idea I got while reading this play. Of course, the penciled idea has nothing to do with the play. It doesn’t even make any sense. Unless you’re an ex-patriot yearning to go home. I added the other pic because of the underlined text. Translated it reads thus:

“They (men) are ashamed of their tears more than their sins.” Friedrich Hebbel.

-tgs-

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Aspiring Writers and The Outsourced Publishing Industry

Update (Oct 6, 2008): I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on the “publishing” industry – nor should I be so hard on those really hard working lit agents out there. But I recently saw a documentary that turned my head. It’s about the music industry and how it’s fallen to the whims of corporatism. As I was watching this I couldn’t help but think of the article below. The documentary is available below.

Coming to terms with being an unsuccessful writer has been a long, twisty, uphill road. I have been battling with failing as a writer for almost twenty years. I would define success as whether or not I’m published. I don’t define it like that anymore. For example, the plays that I produced in German are good enough for publishing and the audience response proved that. Yet I have been unable to find an entry point to the world of publishers or theatres. Why is that?

By thumb measurement of the last twenty years I have spent ten of those years trying to get published. I have learned that there are only two difficulties in being a writer. The first is the actual writing, i.e. being productive. The second is, of course, getting published. I have purposely spent years on productivity. The idea was to improve and develop the/my craft. Some of these years were very good. As mentioned above I was able to produce my own plays and was awestruck by audience response. (There is something much harder than becoming a novelist, btw. Try becoming a playwright.)

The thing that has bothered me most over the years, though, is that so-called literary agents have become deciders of fate and the industry hasn’t really changed since the influx of technology. The second part of that sentence maybe a bit far-fetched so let me throw a wrench. I’m willing to bet that, in terms of volume, I am the most prolific unpublished writer in history. I have written so much that I can barely keep track of it all. Everything on this weblog is either from me now or it is from something I have written in the past. It is a fraction of what I have written and could potentially publish here. Every agent or publisher I have ever spoken with has barely given me the time of day. Can someone who writes so much be so bad and, hence, not be worth a bit of effort on the part of an intermediary?

Advice from a loser-failure-writer

For aspiring writers out there reading about how to make it and taking tips and tricks from so-called industry pros via the Internet I give you the free advice of a loser-failure-writer: don’t give a shit. Over the years I have learned that there are two realities you will have to face as an aspiring writer. One: you better be a damn good writer and you better be damn smart. Can you say Jeffrey Eugenides? Two: you better be damn smart. Can you scream Dan Brown or JK Rowling?

Agents can be really neat-o

There may be another reality here. And this is based mostly on my gut feeling mixed with the experience of trying and failing to get published. The publishing industry has been in an uproar for years. I believe lit-agents today are the product of the first round of globalization in any industry. With the influx of “new-media” coinciding with the downfall of book prices over the past twenty years, the publishing industry was probably at the forefront of corporate outsourcing. Many of the agents today are a product of that outsourcing. Combine that with technology and compulsive behaviourism that has overtaken western culture and the fact that anyone with a PC can… What would you do if suddenly, almost over night, the entire world was banging at your front door asking you to publish them just after your company outsourced you? Thank goodness agents are also good people.

So… how will it look when lit-agents start outsourcing?

The problem most aspiring writers have is originality. Originality and good writing will always get you published. The problem you have to overcome is the shear volume of writing about being a writer. Ten years ago a lit agent would ask for a query letter and a writing sample. Now they ask for personal biography, list of previously published work, exactly 40 sample pages, plot synopsis, potential endorsements, something about the book, something about the author, something about the market and competition, about promotion, production details, book table of contents, recommendations from other published authors, chapter summaries, etc., etc. Hello.

Here’s an original idea for success: plagiarise

There was recently a wake-up call to aspiring writers around the world. This wake-up call was in the form of two plagiarism cases. One was in New York, the other London – two pretty important publishing towns, I’d say. You can read my previous rants here and here on that issue. Am I the only aspiring writer to recognize the wake-up call? I mean, we’re talking historical publishing achievements with the likes of JK Rowling and Dan (smart guy) Brown. Gazillions of books are being printed and sold. Rowling – a friggin writer – is worth a billion friggin dollars. How do things like this happen? It is all at the expense of originality. So the choice is simple for aspiring writers, eh?

Avoid the standards, rebel, be different

I’m not trying to blame agents for anything here. Some of them are very good, wise and have given me great advice – well, they are actually only really good. Unfortunately, agents have incorrectly taken on the middle-man role, they have worked too long in cohort with the same publishers that outsourced them, and they are all critics. Let’s face it, agents are overwhelmed and they deserve respect for dealing with the situation at hand. But I think it’s time for writers to start realizing what needs to be done. There is proof in Hollywood, throughout the media and blogosphere that readers yearn for originality. I am willing to accept the fact that I suck as a writer, or am not as smart as Dan (really smart guy) Brown. But at least I’m original and I don’t steal from others and… If only I could learn to use the grammar check thingy…

So let’s feel for the tough road ahead for outsourced publishing industry employees. At least we writers won’t have to consider that our jobs will be moved off to India or China.

Rant on.

-tgs-

Update google-video; it’s not about publishing but it’s kinda the same, eh:

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Freiestheater = Dead End

Although not an outright rejection, I consider the “deferment” letter (pic) attached below to be related to the various other writer-rejection posts which you’ll find here, here and here. You can search “rejection” with the side-bar for others. Here another rant on failing as a playwright in Germany.

Freiestheater is almost comparable to New York “Off” and London “Fringe”. Almost.

As I have said: rejection is good. Seriously. As a prose writer that cannot get published or as a playwright rejected by theatres, I think it very important, no matter what, to absorb all the failure, learn from it, keep going, and, most importantly, stick to your beliefs, don’t change for others, develop your style, blah blah, blah blah… The scary thing is, I will stick with it, and the way it’s gone thus far, I’ll die very unsuccessful. Whoopee.

So much theatre

Did you know that between Berlin and Munich there is no place in the world with so many theatres? Yeah, there’s actually some kind of UNESCO historical recognition of the German theatre landscape – or at one time there was. Whoopee. It was a big mistake for me back in the late eighties to think that I should go to Germany to kick off my playwriting career. It was also terribly naive to think that I didn’t need to go to New York to make it. At the time I thought: why not do something different?

Thank God for intelligent German chicks

The idea back then was if I’m gonna be a playwright I need to learn all about theater. There was no opportunity to do that in the US. At least not where I’m from. Since I had relatives in Germany, the move wasn’t that difficult. Living here with proper credentials, though, was – but that is another post. After I got settled and did a bit of research, I quickly realized that I could also produce my own plays in Germany – hence, jump-start my second career as a theatre producer and/or director. I met a few intelligent German chicks and got them to help me with translations. I got to know some actors and technicians. I found theatres. I financed the projects with the money I was making from working as a research consultant. Bang. I got laid and made theatre.

Annihilation probably isn’t good

As any creative person knows, achieving the slightest success in the arts is accompanied by the struggle of ALL those who are also struggling to be successful with their creativity. In theatre I suspect this is compounded by the fact that there are many instances of creativity. Perhaps in the early stages of becoming a playwright, dealing with the various creative elements is what determines success or failure, especially in a wholly subsidized community as is the case in Germany. In my opinion, and as I’ve stated here, theatre has three main pillars: actors, directors and writers. The subsidized German theatre has basically annihilated the writer as one of those pillars. Oh my, the actors and directors have taken over. I never had a chance.

Subsidized pay-checks = “writing” German

I heeded the advice of “career” theatre people (dramaturgs, directors, etc.) fortunate enough to have pay checks from subsidies, and sought other venues for my work. I eventually produced two relatively successful plays in the early 90s and two more in early 2000. When I went with these “dues” back to state houses I was still rejected. No one was open to new writing, although I could prove that my plays worked, i.e. that they were ready for the stage. I was then told that you have to be a name first if you don’t write in German. What? Seriously? But I live here and speak your language and… They were absolutely right. See here for post about a no-name German writer who gets a premier in a state house.

Why do I stay here? I enjoy being shunned as though I were a leaper, I guess. Plus, I’m getting old. Life is over.

You can’t start at the top if there is no top

From a writer’s point-of-view – yes, even a failed one – German theatre sucks. (Except for the work of the above mentioned Ms. Kettering, of course.) My reason for this generalization is not because Germany has rejected me or because I’m becoming a bitter old man. It’s because German theatre hasn’t produced a world-class play, actor or playwright in probably thirty years. Productions today are wonderful and exuberant, see my post here – but there is nothing new. Instead it swallows more than 1 billion euros in state subsidies. You would think, with that kind of money, there would be some fantastic funky German play known to the world or some fantastic funky German playwright.

Instead I give you a really cool German word

The market for German-language theatre is huge. And it is self-indulgent. It has become nothing more than an Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahme comparable to Germany’s struggle to rebuild autobahns with a day-late-and-euro-short budget. Of course, one could argue that writers like Botho Strauss and Moritz Rinke (German link only) and Ms. Kettering are great German theatre writers. But they are no where near the likes of Pinter, Albee or even Brecht because their work doesn’t transcend German-ness. With that in mind it is hard for me to swallow all this rejection, which btw, has left me to only writing and no more producing. The advice of the privileged subsidy pay-check clan:

Freiestheater

I waddled around Freiestheater for about ten years and learned that ALL German actors, directors, stage hands, lighting technicians, electricians, carpenters, etc., who were not privileged enough to get a “contract” with a state subsidized house, all worked in Freiestheater. It was a smorgasbord of wannabe Liza Minnelli’s, pseudo intellects who made fun of politicians, rejects. The layers of creativity here, it is very creative!, was suffocating. Beyond that, unlike New York “off” and London “Fringe”, there was no proof of bottom-up success with German Freiestheater. It took me those ten years to realize this. And now, I believe they should take the word “theater” out of Freiestheater. Replace it with hobby.

Ich bin (und darf) kein Deutscher (sein)

I am proud of one aspect of all this failure: of the four plays I originally wrote in English and translated to German and then produced in the dead-end Freiestheater scene, none of them received any state funding, even though I lived, worked and paid taxes in Germany. I financed them myself and owe a lot to the participants, actors and theatre managers. Hundreds of people saw my work. And I consider that a privilege! Ironically, state and city theatre budgets were being cut yet all Freiestheater stages that I tried to get into were still receiving subsidies and they all said NO to me. Ouch.

Can I get a break here?

Below is a deferment letter which never resulted in an affirmative response for a funding request from the city of Düsseldorf in 1992. I consider it a fun reminder of having made a big mistake. And I’m not bitter. Seriously.

Prost!

-tgs-

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Throwing Stuff To A Seagull

Not quite an anecdote and not a poem on more yellow paper?

Writing starts somewhere. It has an origin. I have recently lost that origin, what ever it is, and I wish I could find it again. And so, I go through all the writings of my past. Fifteen years or so. Various pages, some typed, some hand-written. They seem to be everywhere and I wonder at times if I were to post them all would there be enough time – or should I say, life-time? It’s interesting to go through old writings – I don’t know why I kept them, only why I didn’t throw them away, it must have something to do with vanity. I’ve thrown enough of me away.

Writer’s Block rules my world. It’s in front of me and it taunts me. Worse than any nasty child of youth, Writer’s Block waves all my ideas in front of me and laughs and giggles. She is preposterous. She is like a Seagull that won’t stop…

Again, the yellow paper. A symbol for me of when I worked in an office. The great thing about working in an office is the boredom. The boredom of menial tasks and go-nowhere deeds. I would take breaks in-between it all and try to write something. The result is posted below. Probably from around 1995. I was working in consulting and researching the real-estate market of eastern Europe. I remember one day while on lunch having a conflict with a Seagull near the Rhine River. An ornery thing that would not leave me and my pizza alone. So I started throwing her pieces of my pizza and thought that I was throwing her pieces of my soul. I thought about it all day long and the next morn while I was bored with the mediocrity of cubicle work I was able to write this down.

-tgs-

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Letter August 1994

This is a letter I wrote to someone dear to me around 1994. This also from another scan/text recognition. I’m starting to get the hang of it. But only if it’s nicely typed on white paper. The typos I’ve edited – but that doesn’t mean it’s without error.

Dear So-n-so,

Being still in a moment; thinking of you. My chair is hard and my butt hurts. The light in this room seems crystallized; it reflects off of everything. The room is the biggest in the apartment, the ceiling is 12-13 feet high, and we still haven’t quite gotten around to putting proper light into it. She says something about eggs, a chandelier of eggs. And when I work in a corner of this room especially at night my eyes tire quickly. Of course staring at this damn screen for hours… I sit here and stare at this fucking screen. And I think I’m going nowhere, although there is movement; the movement of the keys. My typing must sound like a woodpecker pecking on hard wood chips as another women lays somewhere behind a wall or door or… But there is no one ever here who really hears me peck away. This is my choice – the loneliness to be creative.

Speaking of sounds

I’ve come to know the sounds of this area well of late. I can never sit here in silence; the only silence available is that of the small fan inside the computer and, at times, a vehicle of the newest build, fresh from the factory, passing by on the street below. Sometimes the building rumbles, though. I can feel everything begin to shake. If I wasn’t sure where I was I could easily mistake this for LA. I lived in a warehouse on the east side of the LA train station many years ago. Oh, what a time that was – reading Bukowski and his alter-ego Chinaski and hoping to lose another job and have enough to drink and not get beat-up by locals who saw through my attempt to play a European which was foiled every time by my own skin. But like I said, I know where I am. And the trains in Europe are different. They’re small, cute, almost play-things of a rundown playground. The funny thing is you can’t see the European trains causing everything to shake; you can only feel them; tons of steel and human effort, rumbling through the heart of industrial Germany, going nowhere fast.

Speaking of industry

I used to fall into daydreams and see pictures of a destroyed Rheinland. The allies certainly did a job on Germany during the closing days of the war but that’s almost nothing compared to the three solid years of bombing that the city of Cologne had to endure. I know, they deserved it, and now is not a time to have discourse regarding “deserved”. When you walk through Cologne, I mean just walk through it, you cant help but come across one of the four gates that were built by the Roman’s as they surged north and west two thousand years ago. Each time I stand near one of the gates I get this microcosmic feeling – I feel the littleness of things. It’s a cute feeling. Once I came across an aqueduct the Romans had built – one of the first attempts at building a sewer system, by the way – and as I felt small I realized that nothing has changed anywhere or at any time since two or maybe three thousand years, except how we build aqueducts.

Speaking of flow

I’ve been reading lately (little by little) a Norwegian’s telling of the history of philosophy. It’s so wonderful to know that men like Anaxagoras (500-428 BC) or Democritus (460-370 BC) said things that today most people couldn’t imagine even thinking about. As if we’re so advanced. And other men like Parmenides (540-480) who believed: (1) that nothing changes, (2) and that even if we see something change (like a river to ocean or a baby to adult) that doesn’t indicate change. Heraclitus (540-480 BC), on the other hand, believed: (1) that everything changes (“everything flows”), and (2) that if we see something change (like a river to ocean or a baby to adult) then it has changed. Isn’t it odd how they both are right? After these men come Socrates and Aristotle and so on and so forth. And what has changed? So I sit here, an old car has just passed by, it’s raining tonight, in fact, it’s quite stormy out, the wind gusts tenderly on the walls of the building as though someone is stroking it and saying…

Sleep now my pretty.

Oh, dear So-n-so, you asked me in your last letter if I had anything for you to say to our real father on my behalf when you see him. I’ve given the answer some thought and… Well… No. Say nothing. It is always best to say nothing.

And, no, Thomaske isn’t bitter!

Btw, I watched someone die the other day. Have you heard of a speed ball? It’s usually a half/half mixture of cocaine and heroin either snorted or taken in the vein. Some like to shoot up the heroin and snort the coke. I say, what ever floats your boat. These drugs are so violent. Bet you never thought a drug could be violent, eh? What is the difference between someone that takes that stuff and me? I’m just as capable. I’m also willing. But if you put it in front of me I would run away like a puppy from a ferocious blood hound. Why put the two together? Because of the high? Why? Should I tell you why? Because I’ve seen people die from these violent drugs. One second their wiping their noses or putting some spit on the needle wound and the next second they keel over with one spasm and the body gently falls limp. The violence in those last few seconds of life must be tremendous. I’m afraid to face that. I’m ready for the natural thing, though, unless it has something to do with airplane decompression at thirty thousand feet.

What was I saying?

I recently saw another over dose victim here. These people seem to pick a nice little corner of a very expensive street, pump their vein with a gold-shot and keel over vomiting gastric acids through their nose. And all the people in furs and fancy dress just keep walking by as if nothing has happened. I tried to help one once but he wasn’t dead yet and sprung to life just as I was straightening his body and, to my surprise, a person dying from an over-dose can do the most amazing acrobatic yoga stuff, he started yelling at me that I shouldn’t steal from a dying man. I let him drop to the cold hard floor, heard his head go thug and went on my way. These people don’t deserve me.

PS

I do wish you a wonderful cruise this summer and that you send me a postcard. Write me and tell me how things are at home. I’m still waiting for a picture of Justin in the biker jacket. And we want Justin to come for a visit this summer. I promise I won’t show him dying druggies on the streets of Germany. Instead I’ll show him the film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man? Tell the boys I said hi and make sure that they know I miss them dearly and that I wish I could come every two months to visit and let them help me work on my Triumph.

PSS

The letter you sent with the article about Eugene O’Neill’s work is enlightening. But it was written by a therapist. I haven’t read an O’Neill play in years. I’m sceptical really whether or not I should say something critical about him, although I feel I should. His work can be boring at times but it does contain something profound about my home. Oh, I would be here forever, saying what I think. He is the father of “pipe dreams” and perhaps that’s enough. But what’s often forgotten is that O’Neill portrays America during the turmoil of early industrialization. The therapist that wrote the article has a knack at falling into an abyss of interpretation. O’Neill’s not that difficult to understand. Why do I think instead of the American evangelists? He interprets the bible too much when it should be simply understood. Does that make any sense? O’Neill didn’t interpret America. He just wrote it down. And so the whirlwind begins. Yet… Who really was the bad person in little red riding hood? Only because she is cute and innocent and the wolf is painted black and mean – is that right? The wolf stands for something – what? The US? Is that what O’Neill tried to do, albeit with a golden tongue? Portray the US. Is the pipe dream the world or little red riding hood? The US is a place that is obsessed with good and evil, with rich and poor, with succeed and fail. And those few that land in the positive are idolized. It is not the land of opportunity. It is the land of interpretation. How does one interpret the extreme? Everything is concentrated on the extreme – the loser and the winner. And winning doesn’t have to be interpreted because there is no interpretation to winning. If you’re a loser you don’t have to think either because you can always consume. No. A therapist of the late twentieth century should not be interpreting Eugene O’Neill – just as he/she should not interpret red riding hood. Unless. Unless the therapist concentrates on the wolf. The wolf as pipe-dream. The wolf as victim. The wolf has won a lifetime supply of tickets to Disney World.

PSSS

I woke up the other morning and heard a wonderful tune, it went like this: I just lost my job but that’s OK I’m going’ to Disney land, I just robbed a bank but that’s OK I’m going to Disney land, I just shot a man but that’s OK I’m going’ to Disney land, etc.

Who is the wolf?

Hickey: “I swear I’d never act like I have if I wasn’t absolutely sure it will be worth it to you in the end, after you’re rid of the damned guilt that makes you lie to yourselves you’re something you’re not, and the remorse that nags at you and makes you hide behind lousy pipe dreams about tomorrow. You’ll be in a today where there is no yesterday or tomorrow to worry you. You won’t give a damn what you are any more. I wouldn’t say this unless I knew, Brothers and Sisters. This peace is real!” – The Iceman Cometh

That’s all for now. Write you next month.

-tgs-

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Missing Bukowski

I read somewhere (or heard), according to his publisher, that Charles Bukowski left a huge body of unpublished material when he died in 1994.

Where is it?

One of the things that I owe to having moved abroad so many years ago is the literary discoveries I have made. Seriously, if I would have stayed put, become the motorcycle mechanic or truck driver that youth counselors told me I should choose as careers, I probably would have never discovered Charles Bukowski. Now that I’m a complete failure in life, and as a writer, there is solace in the fact that I have had the pleasure to read at least more than most (but, of course, not all) motorcycle mechanics.

I know, Bukwoski is not for everyone but I cannot help love this guy because he actually dedicated several of his books to…

Bad Writing

A man to steal my own little wretched heart. I saw him at a reading in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1989.

“Many a good man has been put under the bridge by a woman.” (From his novel “Women”)

Not very original but direct and without regret. Oh, I really miss Henry Chinaski as well.

Pic: Bukowski is the guy on the right. The guy on the left is one of his distant relatives. Photo: Michael Montfort, from “Die Ochsentour”; Die Zeit, 18. März, 1994

-tgs-

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Recent Areas In My Mind & Betty Blue

Does anyone remember the movie “Betty Blue“? I first saw it at a small, privately owned cinema in Köln (Cologne) in 1992. The cinema is now gone, of course. As usual, such visuals mixed with the literal make something spark in my imagination. I find these kinds of films to be very inspiring. Subsequently I read the novel by Philippe Djian. I love the idea of a movie motivating to read a novel. Yeah, there’s just something about the idea of a get-away-for-two-hours-movie but then buy the book and actually learn something. The book was fantastic. Now books are written to be filmed and it doesn’t matter if you read the book if you’ve seen the film. Oh well…

I came across this letter, see pics below, amongst all the paper that I happen across all the days as they pass. The letter was part of the inspiration I got out of the movie. Yes, days pass by for unsuccessful writers. They pass by and every once-a-once I go to a book store to try and find something worth reading and I stand before the shelves that house the top selling books and I cry. I cry like a baby, sometimes yelling at someone who passes by, because I have reached the point where there is nothing new to read from these shelves except formulated and regurgitated shit. And I think of Betty Blue and the woman I sent this letter. Oh well…

No more intertwining of the literary and visual, I suppose. I must instead go the basement of the bookstores and waddle around the translated works of the past – none of which have been filmed – only to be told by an employee…

Excuse me, sir, but we’ll be closing in five minutes.

Thank goodness all books aren’t written to be filmed and would make great films all the same. For example, check out some of the work by Yann Martel and Jeffrey Eugenides.

Oh well…

I wrote this letter to someone and had to black her out because I don’t think it appropriate to incriminate the innocent.

-tgs-

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Oh Gunter

This is almost a commentary. It’s also another installment of my ex-pat experience in Germany; here and here and here for others.

If only I could focus more maybe this could be an editorial for Der Spiegel.

When the news broke that Günter Grass had recently admitted being in the Schutzstaffel, or better known to the world as the SS, I asked the following question:

Why now?

Why now is this coming out? This has been in public records for years. Is there something to gain as a writer, as his publisher, by doing this now? But my questions were hurled away from me by a supernatural force that I experienced that same night at a German wine festival.

Hr. Grass is probably one of the 20th century’s greatest novelists. What perhaps many people do not know is that he is also western Germany’s greatest post WW2 “moralists”. Of course, in today’s context, “great” and “moral” and “German” are superbly confusing.

Speaking of the confused.

As I’ve posted here and here and here, living as an American ex-pat in Germany is not easy. To me this country is a very confused place. One of the main reasons for this, in my humble opinion, is that Germans are overly pacified, extremely spoiled and, to a certain extent, obsessed with their past. There are at least two generations, post world-war, that have done nothing and everything with compulsive labour and the achievements speak for themselves. Life in Germany is so good that from the outside and compared to other western nation-states one would think Germany might be close to utopia. Well, at least that’s how things looked prior to, let say, the nineties.

But what way has it come?

Germany has come a long way but not half as far as it could have gone. The other night, at a wine festival in Wiesbaden, three young, sporty, good looking men, with lovely fräuleins at their sides and lots of empty bottles of Riesling on their table, called me a fascist. This isn’t the first time I face criticism as an American living in Germany. I will admit that I deserve much of the criticism. My voice can be loud and my thoughts at times, when expressed, a bit provoking. Yet, this came unprovoked and with a bitter smile and intellectualized self-indulgence that earned my usual response…

Would you little pansy-asses like a piece of me?

I immediately told the German with the wine-laden mouth to apologize or explain himself or else I was gonna set him straight, or at least take his fräulein. The smile left his face, his girlfriend fell silent and his friends tried to say how much he didn’t mean it. For me this was one of those beautiful and rare moments where the adage…

It’s better to shut your mouth and make people think you’re smart then to open it and show how stupid you are.

Calling me a fascist can’t go without a reaction. I am a US ex-patriot citizen and in the context of American politics I am profoundly against the Iraq war and the Bush administration. I am also aware of what US foreign policy is doing and has done to the world. Calling America fascist has almost become common place these days – just read this blog or this blog. But I don’t agree with the use of the word – no matter what your political orientation or nationality and it is especially hard to swallow from a young klugscheisser.

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

As they were fumbling for an explanation, their fräuleins holding their beaus tighter, I started thinking if it really was – as a few have said regarding Mel Gibson – the alcohol? Or was it my fault because I didn’t feel like speaking German that night which ultimately caught their attention and perhaps provoked them? Was it because of my short hair and all the military bases near-by that housed American soldiers – who do not have the best reputation for mingling among the locals in and around Wiesbaden?

I didn’t volunteer to tell them that I was nothing more than a failed writer living off of German hospitality. Eventually their explanation became venting about Bush, the war, and the 9/11 conspiracy of how the twin towers were intentionally demolished; they continuously asked me if I had seen “das Google video” about the conspiracy?

But those fräuleins were gettin’ hotter with each glass of wine.

I was quickly bored with their conspiracy krapp. Gunter Grass and his recent admittance to being in the SS took over my thoughts. What the hell is going on with Germany’s greatest living writer? I won’t go the route of saying that just because Grass was 17 he could be forgiven for doing stupid stuff. But then again, I was sitting across the table from three young Germans, they were obviously well educated, they were dressed in nice designer clothes, they were twenty-something, and they were doing some really stupid stuff. As the young men continued to apologetically explain themselves I thought: do you guys know Gunter Grass?

All Germans read Grass as part of the compulsive learning that is the origin of their collective success in the world; but did they really “read” him?

Suddenly Germany’s past became a Frisbee flying right over my head. I ducked and continued drinking wine, listening to young Germans eject nonsense. But eventually an inebriated ghost popped in and caught the frisbee. It stood in the rain, it danced in the mud, it dirtied my shoes, and it laughed at me. The ghost wore a long, dark Ausgeheanzug, tall leather boots, it had a horse whip and a monocle. I laughed back at the ghost at which time it took my original question regarding the timing of Grass’s recent admittance and stuffed it in one of its pockets, along with the frisbee. I broke from my trance as the ghost was leaving and I said to him:

Was willst du von mir, schwuchtel?

Instead of questioning Grass’ timing I now thought of Vergangenheitsbewältigung and morality. I’ve tried to understand religious doctrine and the ugly-cousin ethics in the hopes of understanding Germany’s past. But that didn’t work. Morality is simply too confusing. Today, as in the past, people use morality more as a cover-up for wrong instead of an outline for doing right. It does nothing more than leave people hanging or it arms them to the teeth. Yet it is part of life today and people don’t question it as it should be questioned. Except, perhaps, Günter Grass. And so, young Germans, drunk on sour wine, equate my nationality with fascism and they do it, according to their apologetic explanation, in the name of morality. Can that be more confusing?

Oh, where is Oskar Matzerath when you need him?

It was/is Gunter Grass that helped me understand morality; he helped me see the duel edged sword that is even now tearing the west apart. When he criticised the US response to 9/11 for example, I thought he was right. We should have looked more deeply at not a response in the form of war but how the US and the west treat the rest of the world. In his book Crabwalk it was as if he is trying to make morality tangible, in the form of a ship or at least a picture of it, that questions the necessity of killing 9000 people with a Russian torpedo.* Add to that Grass’ public appearances during and after the fall of the Berlin wall, I quickly learned, as sometimes confusing as he may be, I’d rather him tell me about what’s right and wrong then, say, a politician or a preacher. I owe Grass the following line:

Morality should be replaced by ART or at least some kind of creative process that seeks truth.

Yes, I am naïve. And a German wine festival is an odd awakening. I have been living in Germany for almost 17 years and I have once again been shown that this is not my home. To go out into the blind German Gemütlichkeit, of which I have become so cynical, and drink wine and have a 20 year-old German call me a fascist…

Being lost is not as bad as being without direction.

What America is currently doing to the middle east, Iraq, Afghanistan is wrong but America is not fascist. I can only hope that future generations, in whatever country or origin, will be given a voice as brilliant as Gunter Grass to help it see through all its confusion. I also hope that Grass’ attempt to deal with his own – and even Germany’s – past won’t have a tarnishing effect on his work.

Too much hope is never enough.

I also hope that some people, no matter what their age, do not assume the worst of other people or places just because of something that defines their own past.

Now how ’bout another drink…

-tgs-

*That may be a far-fetched interpretation but I’m gonna stick with it.

Technorati Tags: german, writing, playwright, fail

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Jewel Stuck in Faucet

Almost a story. A beginning to a story. Not sure what it is. Not sure, if I would have continued with it, that it would have amounted to anything. It’s about finding something, then finding someone, then, suddenly, it goes nowhere. It does have one interesting line though:

“The everknowingness of the everything”

I don’t know. I just like that. Word combinations like that tickle my fancy. That’s ok, right? Oh… when I look at all the text I’ve written, everything I’ve kept, the questions pop out of me as though I were a very young woman who just learned to say:

Amazing

And just like that little beaming woman, I am as silly as her words because I can only ask why did I start doing this? This writing. It’s surely my destiny to always start something and never finish it. I fight to not just incomplete something but to begin my incompletion. The fight though is wearing me thin (not literally, of course). I am reducing myself to being pretty much nothing. A useless eater. But I did try. Try I did. I guess that’s something.

-tgs-

Technorati Tags: writing, fiction, short story, story, fail

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Dialog – where could it have gone?

Digging. Digging deep. The bowels of my drawers are filled with paper, so much paper. Although it’s all typed on, printed on, written on, it’s still just… paper. Right? Typing was fun when I filled all these pages, if only I would have stuck with it. I remember starting to write but I cannot remember having stopped. That’s like lying to yourself. Yes, I will be the second or third best “what if” guy. I suppose that is something.

Here some short-winded dialog.

-tgs-

Negative Zero

The following question came to me the other day.

As opposed to me coming to it.

What would the world be like without math? Numbers, perhaps not unlike musical notes, are really not about answering questions or making consciousness available to the senses but instead they are tools to enable us to get through all the chaos of being one step ahead of animals (i.e. beings with little or less consciousness). Math and music are part of the inadequacy of the human mind, although at times quite profound and aesthetic.

Just go with me here a bit longer so I can screw this up…

There needs to be a negative zero. I know “mathematically” there is no such thing as a negative zero? Zero is a constant. I mean, seriously, I know that – it has been embedded in my mind from grade school to driving school. Yet, if I do “know” such a thing then where does my question come from? Remember the old adage about humans only utilizing ten-percent of their brain capacity? Well, it’s not about the ninety percent not being used but instead about it being used by something else and we not being aware of that. Maybe…

Am I losing my mind?

I sat down at my typing device to try figure out the absurdity. Thus far I’ve concluded that mathematics as we know it is completely wrong. Music is too but that doesn’t seem to influence our lives in such a negative way. Music helps the time pass, too. If one applies the principles of Newtonian physics to life then everything simply moves in one direction unless acted upon by something else. The problem is that the object that has been set into motion has no influence on whether or not something else can act upon it. Although at one point in time music was original and unique nothing has influenced the original object that was set to motion. Remember: human subjectivity has no value in the universe.

OK, that was a bad example.

Let’s forget music for right now. This will be much easier with math since it is by nature always right. Right? I figure mathematicians avoid the idea that there are two different types of zeros. They do this because having one zero enables logic. So what we get is life and all that it is about being subject to self preservation, self indulgence, self interest. If, on the other hand, there is a positive zero and also a negative zero what are the implications of that?

Is this so far fetched? For example: isn’t it time for economist and accountants to start learning how to count backwards? I mean, look at how we live? We live in the negative. There is nothing – and I mean nothing – positive about the world. Ever. People live for the mundane and monotone which is obviously really fucked up; and this is the stuff that rules lives.

So I say, what about splitting a zero? A zero doesn’t have to be the centre between one and negative one. Does it? Ever since I read that some physicists had to invent forms of math to answer certain questions I’ve had this thought: as good as they all are (the math guys) couldn’t they also be way off base? Long after knowing the world was not flat Einstein had to mathematically figure out how space could bend. I don’t know about you, but I see a serious philosophical connection here between falling off the edge of the earth and connecting time and space in order to understand gravity – the significance of which we are just now beginning to grasp.

You see, I spend at least ten minutes a day hoping that something supernatural will occur and save me from being such a loser. I’m hoping that there is an opposite to how I live. Failing is very hard because I am obviously working hard at it. So I figure, if I’m a zero here, in this spatial-time thing, then there must be an opposite of me, somewhere, somehow, that is a success. I know that’s ludicrous. I graduated from grade school and have a driver’s license. Could it be that the state of mind that I am in is also a constant and it is impossible to break from such a state? Is there nothing out there to influence me?

Zero equates with NO hope.

I’m starting to think that the entire physical universe is a result of the soup that is human senses and consciousness. The human eye sees, the ear hears, the tongue tastes, etc. Theoretical physicists make the grand error that conclusive math proves something. Yet I can only see fault in the soup of which we proclaim to know the ingredients. “Seeing” is just too easy. Is anyone following me here? So when I close my eyes and try to shut down some of the consciousness what do I get?

“Can there be a negative zero, please?”

-tgs-

Technorati Tags: writer, satire, physics, failure

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The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Recommended reading for those who like fantasy without the formulated, predictable Hollywood (or Disney) krapp.

It must have been during middle school and my sister was in High School. My sister looked like Pocahontas and she was also a social butterfly. One day my sister had visitors from high-school. I thought that was cool because I was going to enter high-school the next year. Maybe I could get some tips so I hung around. One particular friend of hers stood out from the others – and it wasn’t because of his bright red hair. His name? Keith Donohue. That was back in the seventies in a relatively small town just south of Washington, DC.

My sister recently called me and asked if I had heard of the book “The Stolen Child”. I had not. Then she said that I should read it. I asked why, knowing that she knew I have a very long reading list. And then she said, “Do you remember…?”

I was eventually fortunate enough to contact Keith and he remembered both me and my sister.

I’m not good at reviewing novels, so I won’t. I will say this: This is not just a “fantasy”. This is a literary work that is both intriguing and eye-opening. If you are only looking to be “entertained” then that’s ok, you’re safe here. If you are looking to acquire knowledge, wisdom and a perspective on life, this will be a wonderful read. Although the protagonist(s) is a bit kitchy at times, I believe that Keith is going where few authors go. I’m not sure, but I think this is one of the first novels of the 21st century to walk in the footsteps of Swift, Frank Baum, etc. A great story well told.

For German readers, it should be available in 2007.

It’s available here at Amazon.

-tgs-

Technorati Tags: debut novel, novel, writing, fantasy

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Wal-Mart and free grocery bags no more

This is yet another installment of Tommi’s ex-pat German experience. Go here and here for previous installments.

Coming full circle means what? Ending? Beginning? How is it that life when left to run its own course, without influence or infringement, can mutate into a Goliath of preposterous exuberance with nothing but an all-consuming orifice that belches nothing?

I’ve been living too long in Europe. Either that or I have not quite understood Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Please, let me try to explain.

Circumstance has kept me in Germany – just like it also keeps me from certain loves-lost. But most recently I have come to believe that my circumstance, not unlike celestial anti-bodies, has a partner (or perhaps opponent) without which existence could be questioned.

Eventually I will either depart of free-will or be thrown out of Germany. The cause? I don’t know… cursing a federal judge or a high ranking police officer – to his/her face; if I’m actually lucky maybe striking a German parliamentarian and/or bureaucrat with a clean swipe of the back of my hand for doing nothing – but raising taxes; in a drunken disposition raising my right hand and arm in a forbidden salute and…

Living under such circumstance is not easy – especially when you have no other choice. It requires patience, humility and manners – two of which (I’ll let you guess which), like the word yield, are unknown to West Germans.

As I have stated here I am a capitalist. For me, being a capitalist means not relying on a political system to manage the welfare of citizens. It also means individuality. In my definition capitalism is (or should be) devoid of compulsive labour as the driving force for creating or maintaining a consumer base. Hence, in the west (all of the west), there is no real capitalism. I became a capitalist about three years after moving to Germany because in doing so I finally realized, first hand, how good, for example, the US system can/could be. Being a capitalist and living in Germany though is a heavy contradiction, and, like everything else in life, or like the cards I’ve been dealt, a burden I do not carry well. But, almost paraphrasing Churchill, what alternative is there?

Most people in Germany, especially politicians, are ignorant to the dynamics of running such a complex machine as a country. This is most obvious in how the government incompetently positions itself as authority and coercive ruler. I won’t even get into the German collective reaction to globalization – which is practically nil. So they redefine and manipulate ideas, hence, “capitalism” is like political sustenance. On top of that, like most other countries in the West, they ride on a perverted board of inertia and laurels. Since capitalism is simply there you can either take it or you can hand it out. What they don’t get is…

Capitalism is not a political system

and

Capitalism is not a means to an end.

In my humble and perhaps simplisimus opinion, capitalism is a framework from which a person or a people are provided a means and, perhaps, motivated to do what nature never intended to be done. If this is true, that does not presuppose the chaos currently engulfing western societies. Nor does it mean that if you cannot live with nature then you manipulate it. Because of the confusion and identity crisis caused by their past, Germans must now lay claim as arbitrators of a centralized and controlled system whose purpose it is to provide prosperity and dignity to its citizens – and yet not be based on the idea of an all-consuming system of bartering, bargaining and haggling.

What a challenge, eh?

Of course the Germans are very smart. The trick they’ve come up with is to embed in their political system the idea that capitalism is the means with which to finance a welfare state. Conveniently the Germans call their system…

Sozialmarktwirtschaft.

Such a word is not readily definable unless you break it down into its parts at which point the words are no longer compatible. The convenience of having such a Lego-like language is obvious; the inconvenience, though, is not.

For whatever reason, the Germans think that you can actually manipulate capitalism to be the sustenance on which a welfare state feeds. I suppose that works for nation-states with a bit less complexity and interdependency on international markets. But then again, I could be wrong. I mean, this website is about failure, right?

The Wal-Mart miracle.

Although I don’t like to brag, when I came to Germany in 1988 I brought with me two things. The fall of the Berlin Wall and, a few years later, kind of in-tow and by accident, Wal-Mart. Unfortunately the Wessi didn’t like either. Hence, I don’t have many German friends. At the time I stood on the side of the Ossi as I thought they were the ones who deserved a bit more from the national-corporate fusion that unfolded subsequent to the fall of the Berlin wall. You see, the Ossi was less pompous, had some humility and during rare moments actually gave way, or yielded, when crossing paths. To this day I’ve never experienced that with a Wessi.

As confusing as they were, the nineties in Germany were kind of fun because of the variety brought into West Germany from the east. The East German chicks were even more promiscuous which meant, when they served cappuccinos or brought some extra lemon for my oysters, I had to decide right then and there if I would face the affirmative of my come-on. The downside? I had to learn yet another dialect. All-in-all, I thought the Ossi thing was pretty cool – except, of course, for the craziness of the neo-you-know-whats that emerged.

Oh yeah, Wal-Mart.

The recent announcement that Wal-Mart is pulling out of Germany is a wake-up call. The Wessi’s have wanted it since the beginning, which can only mean they want me to go, too. It also means that any chance I had of making it as an individual in Germany is gone. Don’t get me wrong here. I hate Wal-Mart. As a rational thinking human being there is nothing worth praising about the corporate entity that is Wal-Mart. But Wal-Mart has nothing to do with capitalism. It is, in fact, the predominate example of capitalism gone awry, i.e. a mutated Goliath. It is also the best example of how the US system has gone kind of wacky. But that’s all for another post.

In Germany Wal-Mart stores are ugly. In the US they actually are clean and neat and pretty well-kept. Unfortunately, when Wal-Mart leaves Germany they are also gonna leave the ugly stores behind. When flying over the country Wal-Mart superstores look like pot holes on a highway. Inside there is always a broken bottle of soda-pop on the floor, the carts are bent and out of shape and never go straight, the racks of clothes and shoes smell like mildew and formaldehyde and I won’t even go into how the cheese counter looks. The lines to registers can be so long at times, even though there are a dozen cash registers left unattended, that I’ve actually dropped all my groceries at the back of the line and walked out.

But I kept going back to Wal-Mart. Why?

Grocery bags.

There will be no more free grocery bags in Germany. For all its evils and horrible-ness and cheapness, Wal-Mart brought one revolutionary and certainly great capitalist invention to Germany. Sadly, the greatest thing to happen to Germany since the Beetle rolled off the assembly line is now over.

No more free grocery bags.

Boo fuckin’ who.

-tgs-

Rejection VII

And yet another cute pic of my rejection. This one is from a very nice Physical Doctor lady I met who offered to give my work a read. Even though the result is half of what I expected, the memory is worth all the effort to recall it and then post it here. Of course she didn’t read the manuscript because if she did then she wouldn’t have been so nice in the letter. Being a bad writer, or worstwriter, doesn’t automatically guarantee you friends and/or collegiality among the deciders of fate. It’s quite a challenge and privilege just being able to speak with publishers, let-alone be friendly with them. Still, they wish me well and lots of luck and all that nutty stuff. Then, of course, the Germans always seem to think that thanking your for trusting (vertrauen) them is also worth some effort. I don’t get that. Trusting them for/with what? Stealing my idea? Stealing my story? Stealing me? Seriously? Steal worstwriter. That would automatically so heavily counter my worstwriter reputation that I might have to give up this site – or change the name. Goodness forbid. I mean, come on. Complimenting one in that way on being a bad writer is just a bit too rad don’t you think?

Note: you may notice that all my rejection letters posted here and here (there are more if you use the search module at the tip right of the side-bar) are in German. I write in (American) English. I don’t know what it is exactly, but when I have tried to send my work to, let’s say, Anglo publishers, they won’t even give me the time of day, let alone an address or name to send an expose. And although I haven’t sent many manuscripts, of the ones I did send, they didn’t respond. I also think (or thought, have thought) that by going through German publishers I could some how open a back door. So please, all you aspiring writers out there, this is not a good strategy. I know that it’s a far-fetched idea but my German is pretty good and my understanding of the Germanic-thingy is even better and most of my work includes something… Germanic. It’s as though I know these people better than the back of my hand or the suds at the top of their beer (bier). Remember, all publishers are the same no matter what nationality, race, religion or creed. They are all really hard working people doing their best so don’t challenge them in their strategy of success…

Whatever.

- tgs-