An Essay on Essaying

An essay is undoubtedly born out of the frustration of a blank page, or it seems, more fittingly, stuck in the creative birth canal. There is a weight to a blank page. A mental gravity.

A simple definition for the essay may include 1.) a short piece of writing on a particular subject, or 2.) an attempt or effort. In grade school, the word essay may evoke test memories: kids looking despondently at white stapled paper with two sharpened number two pencils, the teacher licking a finger, counting each kid in a row, droning, “at the end of the test please write a five paragraph essay about your understanding of the Revolutionary War. You will 30 minutes to do this.”

A little later, even the most esteemed professor will slap at the creative inklings towards “I” or the inclusion of oneself in the essay. You may be lucky to sneak in other pronouns such as “we.” The teacher will say, “The essay is not about you, but should instead focus on the subject matter. “I want you to write an essay about community agriculture.” or “I want you to draw a correlation between Emmit Till and Travon Martin.” Or “review what you know about this critical piece of literature.” And, you sit at a blank page, trying to perform mental telepathy. Letters shake and rattle on the little table in your mind but they don’t come together to form sentences. You may walk in the garden, but you’re not actually there. The blank page in the end, reflects nothing of you. No verb, no noun, no adjective, no clause, suggests that you’ve been anywhere on the page.

When I told a professor I wanted to do a contract about essay writing, he looked perplexed. He had a hard time suppressing his lack of enthusiasm , or maybe he was unable to muster up that cold hard and stoic support system that teachers should learn to be good at; the practice of supporting the students in all of their experiments, even if their experiments are wily and the teacher knows better. He said, “surely there is some context you’re searching for?” and I morosely recited my proposal: “I want to learn about the mechanics of essay writing.” Underneath the shallow vanities of our correspondence, it was getting harder and harder to suppress my frustrations and real desires. “I’m tired of writing shit,” I should have said. But I continued with a formal proposal, and he eventually caught wind of my idea, or so he thought. Something about two schools of thought: the creative one, and another one that seemed eerily similar to what we had been learning about Paulo Friere and his banking model of education and us students being receptacles and such. He revealed to me a pedagogical trade secret, like it was some dirty laundry about some fellow employee. “You know the essay is just a great way to prove that students have read the material.” He may have used the term academic essay. Either way. Note here, I have no qualms with this revelation. Why not? –given the proclivity towards stretching academic rules to a point of absurdity, rules that otherwise bring some organization and balance to the risky exploratory nature of the liberal arts education, -why not have the academic essay?

But.

The Life of a Song

An Essay by Gavin Aubrey Tiemeyer

You may remember Melanie’s folk/pop classic Brand New Key from P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights. You know? It’s playing during that sultry scene between Mark Wahlberg and Heather Graham; Dirk Diggler is auditioning for his part as the new porn king maestro with Roller girl. Roller girl rips off a one piece, and jumps onto Dirk, “Don’t come inside me,” she says. Depending on taste, and comfort level, the moviegoer will either find this scene uncomfortable, humorous, or sexy; all things true here.

No surprises really. After all, the movie is a comical meditation on the golden age of porn in Southern California in the 1970’s.

One of the layers that makes the movie so brilliant is the use of music, (namely pop hits from the period in which the movie takes place) to convey mood in any given scene; Best Of My Love by The Emotions accompanies the opening scene, a panoramic, no cut shot, leading the viewer from some iconic Los Angeles street, glowing with night life, right into the nightclub where we’re introduced to the characters, including Dirk Diggler and Roller girl. Spill The Wine by Eric Burden and War plays at a party by the pool, as if it’s being listened to in stereo, poolside, the sound designer of the movie going as far as adding a strange, underwater echo to the song, as the camera follows a swimsuit clad woman, jumping into the water right as the snare in the song climax’s. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

You could easily assume that Sean Penn, the music coordinator for Boogie Nights chose Melanie’s Brand New Key representing the first sex scene between Roller Girl and Dirk Diggler, for it’s chorus, which the title cleverly doesn’t elude towards: I got a brand new pair of roller skates, and you got a brand new key. The song seems ripe with sexual innuendos, but according to Melanie, the meaning of the song’s lyrics have been open to interpretation. “Brand New Key, I wrote in about fifteen minutes one night,” she says. “I thought it was cute, I kind of old thirties tune.”

I Guess a key and a lock have always been Freudian symbols, and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it. They made up incredible stories as to what they lyrics said and what the song meant. In some places, it was even banned from the radio.

Yes, it seems, the lyrical content of songs are open to interpretation, especially those that challenge the status quo. The Doors appearance on the Ed Sullivan show comes to mind; the band asked to omit or change the lyrics to Light my Fire, “girl we couldn’t get much higher,” implied drug use, and this couldn’t be accepted on telivision. Who knows really if Jim Morrison implied the verb higher as a metaphor for love, or if it implicitly meant “no, we can’t get much higher on these drugs, babe.” It’s hard to say, and in the end it doesn’t entirely matter, because the interpretation of the lyrical content is up to the audience or listener. Or more severely, when the lyrical intent of a song is questioned in a legal setting: Ice T’s Cop Killa, or various pieces from N.W.A’s catalog come to mind.

Later, in the same interview, Melanie offers, “my idea about songs is that once you write them, you have very little say in their life afterward. It’s a lot like having a baby. You conceive a song, deliver it, and then give it as good a start as you can. After that, it’s on it’s own. People will take it any way they want to take it.”

Maybe an essay arrives at a question instead of proving an answer.

Final Writing Assigment: Write an essay about being in a touring band.

Your assignment: Based on your subsequent research on the essay form, write an essay that details your experiences over a two and half week American tour, spanning from Seattle to New York. Nearly  5,800 miles round trip travelled in the confines of an aging Chevrolet Astro Van with three other human beings.

Page limit is unknown, but keep in mind it shouldn't be too short or too long. Remember, we're looking for quality over quantity.

Working thesis or "nut": Being in an American punk band is a right of passage for American kids. I've been playing music with someone I've known for 18 years. We've toured the United States countless times. We've played what seems like an endless amount of dingy basements, VFW halls, and living rooms. We've been in a roll-over accident in the Siskiyous Mountains in Northern California, (in the same van that is taking us cross county!). Now, getting a bit older, I have time to reflect on the moral underpinnings of the do-it-yourself music community that I have been a part of for so long, as well as all trials and tribulations; touring is stressful. It costs a lot of money. Most of the time you can't sleep. There are no motels. Only the confines of a van. But something makes it worth it; meeting new people, real people who share similar community based ethics, and the deep-seated desire for exploration and travel.

Keep in mind the essence(s) that make essays their own, I.E. -that unique blend of fact, narrative, suspense, and poetic prose. Does your essay ask a question? Is it polemic? Or does it just offer a parable allowing the reader to arrive at her own conclusion?

Based on what you've learned from your previous readings at the beginning of the contract, how can you use these "essences" to create an effective piece of writing, one that is capable of evoking emotion in the reader, or making them think about something new? 

With such a vast amount of experiences to document, how to you execute pacing and an economy of words? The essay shares all of the wonderful elements of traditional storytelling that make fiction so enjoyable. Keep in mind that the writer has master over time, and controls what moments are passed over to push the story forward, and what moments are focused on for subtle details that show underlying themes.

Lastly, just write. Write. WRITE. Perfection kills creativity. Despite all the wonderful, thought evoking pieces you've read, you're not shooting for literary gold right now. The most important thing you've learned is to just write and write about what you're doing and thinking. There may be a ton of garbage, but out of that garbage you may find a couple threads of great reflection. Even if literally just two sentences.

Lastly, have fun. It will show in your writing.

Final essay. Draft.

8/11.2013: we get a late start. Show in Missoula apparently fell through. But we get a call at 2:15. "Can we make it?" "If you drive now." We make it to Spokane by 6pm having averaged a driving speed of 85 miles per hour, under the anxieties of a van with 195,000 miles with a possible slipping transmission. 4 hours later we're in Missoula MT.

-drive time: about 7 hours, roughly 476 miles travelled from seattle to Missoula

8/12: Jason wakes me up at 5:20am. "We need to get up. We have a 14 hour drive to Fargo." Muster the troops. I brush my teeth in the kitchen sink. The sun isn't even out. The house we are staying at is pleasant and filled with nick nacks. Stuff that must have taken the person years to accumulate, the kind of lived in house that takes the work of a long relationship, and I remember the guy we're staying with is recently divorced. there are band momentos on the wall: total fest posters, a Missoula Montana fest. notes on the fridge, "thanks for letting us stay. The lighting is pleasant. 

-van is not starting at 5:40. The sun is not out. Fuel pump? At any rate, the 850 bucks we've put into the break system, and anxiety about the transmission dropping, hasn't prepared us for this.

We use the CC to re-up Jason's tripleA. New CC balance: 56.34 

-van gets towed, we settle with some correspondence with tow truck guy, on Midas. Tow truck guy drives us to Denny's. Jason and I eat grand slam breakfasts. Surrounded by old people at 7am. 

9:15: while the van is waiting to be looked at, Jason and I sleep in a public park.

-hours of sleep: 1-2. Jason sleeps like his body has been prepared for funeral. In moments is snoring. I wonder, does he need some sunblock eventually?

-100$ and a 24 hour drive to Milwaukee since we missed our Fargo show

We have to spend 900 bucks to get the fuel pump replaced.

We spend the remainder of the evening, from 6pm driving from Missoula to the destination which is now Milwaukee, WI. We ride all through the night chasing thunder storms.

 8.13.2013, 5PM

The funny thing about this "stunning shot" of pastoral Wisconsin, complete with "rolling hills" of green grass, corn, and blue sky, is what you'd see if you inverted the lens.

 We have been in the van for nearly 24 hours straight, this new trajectory the result of a series of unfortunate circumstances. We will have taken multiple turns at the wheel while the rest of us attempt sleep, which in this van is a delicate act of body contortion. Towards the beginning of the trip there were futile attempts on my part to organize space in what little space we have, but by this point, the cabin of the vehicle is strewn with personal belongings and the junk of gas station food, drink, and plenty of other random objects with their own stories to tell.

But it is not as bad as it sounds. 

This space represents the collective, unspoken resignation on our part, to let the mess take its natural course. It is the  manifestation of physical and mental fatigue sprawled out unapologetically  within the confines of a traveling space. It is a lived in mobile house, capable  of traveling a vast amount of space. And similarly, in times of duress, it is a point of centeredness and calm.

9:30PM: The weather is surprisingly cool in Milwaukee. The show is in a basement. Some kids drinking out of a bottle of wine. Some people look like someone you know back home and this reminds me that even throughout regions, Americans always have more in common than we think. But half the excitement of traveling is finding those subtle cultural novelties that makes us all different.

The place where the drums should go is soaking wet. Maybe 20 people under a yellow light. After we play I'm covered in sweat. Ears ringing.

 "Hello, we're the exquisites. We just drove about 26 hours to get to this show on time. We're going to play for you now." 15 minutes and some absolution later. Done.

"What interesting facts can you tell me about Milwaukee?"

"This is the city where Geofrey Domner lived."

"Oh wow."

8.14.2013: roughly 7 hours and 23 minutes of drive time. 453 miles from Milwaukee Wisconsin to Columbus Ohio. The route takes a southern dip past Lake Michigan.

In Columbus we play to a decent crowd, at a cute bar with good sound. We hope to sell records and shirts to help chip away at our debt but nobody buys anything. When all is said and done we stay out our friends Austin and...stealing a rare moment for peacefulness and rest.

8.15.2013 Our drive from Columbus Ohio to Oaklyn New Jersey will take us through a part of West Virginia and the state of Pennsylvania. 536 miles of corn fields and farms and beautiful green wildnerness that is confusingly nothing like the familiar conifers of the Pacific Northwest.

Even with the best intentions of making the nine hour drive productive, it's hard not to succumb to the traveling-in-a-van-specific-fatigue, that is not unlike the feeling one gets on a long airplane ride.

We arrive at the show which is nestled in a neighborhood in Oaklyn, New Jersey, right next to a Pizza shop. In the houses surrounding the practice space where the show will be, people have electric candles in their windows.

8.16.2013 Philadelphia, PA

 

We wake up in Philladelphia Pennsylvania, putting an end to the first leg of our grueling travel regimen, having spent nearly 64 hours in a van. 

We're lucking enough to be staying at a place called Big Mamas house, the premier punk-warehouse-complex in Philly, apparently named for the crew who stayed at the warehouse while filming the Martin Lawrence comedy. In a past life the building may have been a disco-tech, but now it houses 10 people, a funny pit bull with a licking obsession, a screen printing studio, a recording studio, and a mess of nostalgia-enducing junk; cultural artifacts from a time past that strike some emotional resonance with the people who live here. Every corner of the warehouse is filled with a cacophony of randomness and art. A rope swing hangs from a support beam in the middle of the warehouse. A massive dream catcher with severed manakin limbs tied and dangling to it, hangs from the ceiling.  There are rickety stairs that lead up to, what can only be described as a miniature one bedroom cabin, a living-quarter-within-a-livinng quarter Mise en Abyme. Though he is away at our visit, Greg, who operates the screen printing studio, maintains a striking visual presence in the space, his signature sand dollar-esque symbol, printed on brightly colored tie-died shirts for sale, or painted on various objects, or strewn about on tiny brightly colored construction paper. Some momentos strike a nostalgic chord  somewhere in me, conjuring up dimly lit memories of child hood that flicker and struggle to come back to life. I imagine that the people in this space, keep all of this stuff around for that very same reason. The conjuring up of a bygone happiness that they never want to forget. Recycled would be a grave understatement. All of this stuff or junk, once labeled obsolete, finds second life in this space. So strange to think of the meaning we place in objects.

Kat, our gracious host, makes us tacos, or really, a kitchen sink blend of nutritious food slabbed on a tortilla. After a steady diet of gas station food we are eternally  grateful for the sustenance and hospitality. Herein, lies a staple of the D.I.Y. punk ethos. The meal is a great focal point in which to exchange meaningful correspondence.

The warehouse is in sweltering heat making it hard to sleep.

The next day we explore the area surrounding the warehouse. 

On the way to the show we smell radiator fluid, the first telltale signs of an overheating vehicle. The temp begins to spike into uncomfortable range, risking warped head gaskets and other terrible stuff. 

9PM: we play a house show with an all girl band from Vancouver Canada. Because of entertainment/merchandizing laws in Canada, getting musical gear in and over the Canadian/U.S. border is infamously hard. They couldn't get there gear to the states, so they devise the genius plan of buying cheap instruments at guitar center, and returning them before they get home.

8.17.2013 Phillidelphia Penselvania

Jason and I wake up early to remedy the theoretical overheating problems with the van. We need to go to a Home Depot in order to buy a large enough screw driver with enough torque in order to remove the screws from the doghouse. Smart phone directions take us to a vacant lot in front of a derelict building somewhere in northeast Philly?

The streets in Philladelphia seem smaller and compact and apartments are boxed atop each other. On this Saturday blocks are filled with people barbecuing right on the sidewalks. In the neighborhood we're in, busy colored streamers hang over the streets from apartment to apartment. The streets are littered and from some places there is the fetid smell of sewage. A dead pigeon in the road. The temprature of the city must be made hotter by all of the concrete. The trash is a thing I notice. Trash litters the street, not as if someone has recently knocked over a garbage can, but trash that is old and settles indiscrimately into the cracks and periphery of life on the city block. There is the fetid smell of sewage and grime.

Here are Jason and I parked on the corner of a busy street somewhere in Northeast Philly in a sweltering heat, trying to remove the the screws from the doghouse in order to find a theoretical leak in the coolant system. We buy a screw driver from an auto-parts store with enough torque in order to loosen the

 screws that attach the doghouse, but through sweaty hands and frustration can't get the screws loose. An arguement as to the relevancy of taking the doghouse off or whether we should just spend some of our diminishing funds in order to just get the van checked out professionally, erupts into a heat induced exchange of terse profanities, manifesting in a temporary rage that Jason channels into the screw driver and the doghouse is freed, and the both of us forget our anger. But, with the doghouse off, the naked engine doesn't reveal any clues.

Plan B is a diagnostic from any auto mechanic, the route that anyone with a reasonable income or cushion of cash would consider, but not us. Not us poor musicians. Sometimes not having options puts you in places of taking things apart, and i keep trying to tell myself that even if its just a doghouse, and even if taking it apart was useless, at least we're learning and trying.

2pm: Self diagnostics is a waste of time. We drive around the block for a bit looking for a mechanic.

"It's pretty dangerous driving without the doghouse on."

"Is it?"

"Yeah, I mean, if the engine explodes our legs will catch on fire."

"Yeah that's scary."

"We should roll down the windows too so we don't get carbon monoxide poisoning."

"Yeah that's a good idea."

On the block, we find two men sitting in plastic lawn chairs in front of a narrow and dark garage filled with tools to work on vehicles. (This is obviously a business, but maybe they don't use plastic and a good majority of this work is done under the counter, who knows.) We have no money and nothing to lose. The men are nice. With a cigarette in one hand, one of the men jacks up the van which is Angled kind of goofy between the curb and street. But no difference to him, he sticks his head under.

"Not good," he says. "Not good. Coolant is leaking out of the head gasket," he's on the ground still, showing us a diagram that he is making with his two hands.

"It's leaking out though. Is the radiator fluid milky white, or the oil?" No? Then you you might have some time. Buy some head gasket sealant and see what happens."

The man is incredibly friendly through broken English, and smiles showing a couple of dense, worn down chompers.

"How much do we owe you."

"Lets see. Five dollars." I lie and say that all I have is a ten and give them ten. Jason has this funny thing of letting this east coast hard guy accent slip out when we're talking to mechanics, even though we're from the west coast.

A head gasket problem is the worst news, but we have no other options but to buy the sealant. 35$.

We stop for delicious sandwiches. (Should you include this part of the story? Is any of it relevant?)

-the first signs of tension are brewing among band mates at this point. People can't eat and are pissed at each other and trying to maintain civility even though all of us are getting frustrated.

***The newest signs of Jason's mysterious allergic reactions over the last six months  began to manifest as redness and puffiness around his eyes making him short tempered and irritable, and if you were to ask him he would rub his eyes, and say, "it just makes me feel like I'm going crazy."

5pm: Tensions and frustrations travel between people sometimes before they leave the world. We are successfully irritated with the situation and each other.   Jason is showing the first budding signs of a stress induced breakdown. I hold a heavy guilt about the van falling apart, and I'm insecure about this which I try and channel to Taylor in passive aggressive ways. While the van is circulating gasket sealant in front of the warehouse, Dan and I dig at each other a bit.

All of this culminates in a silent van ride to Bethlehem, New Jersey. Roughly 1 hour and 33 minutes. About 80 miles.

We arrive in Bethlehem around 7pm. The city seems green, lush, and fresh. Muggy but the heat is not assaulting. Maybe all of this is contrasted more by the grittiness of Philladelphia. Bethlehem must have been a steel town in the past? Whatever the massive complex of industrial era buildings was, is now a casino. Strange. Our casinos back home represent the capitalization of some wild time past, of American Indian, and this east coast casino represents something post colonial industrial failure now revitalized by a gambling economy.

The house we're playing is set on the side of a mountain or something. A cute house, with a young family who put shows on in their basement. Where I'm from property that overlooks the city, houses multi million dollar homes, but from the look of it, at least in this part of the city, the houses still hold the elure of accessible homeliness, that is affordable and cheap. When the sun sets people start collecting in the front yard under streamers of white Christmas tree lights, smoking cigarettes. From anywhere on the mountainside you can look down on the red "Sans" casino sign that dominates the rest of the tiny glowing cityscape.

Like most basements, the height cramps your sense of personal space. Musty water smell and spidery corners, illuminated by a too-bright white light hanging from a string.

A kid from centralia plays folk songs with an adopted southern twang, even though he's from Centralia, Washington. Waxing about ridesharing across country on an acoustic guitar, is to a folk artistic traveling by boxcar in the 50s. (Develope idea further. Is this portion of the story necessary or does it derail any of the rising suspense or forward motion of the story?)

We play a deafening 15 minute set to the chagrin of the 15 people who are drunk on wine and pleasant acoustic tunes. it may be rough. I don't realize it at first, but the humidity keeps me constanly saturated with sweat.

Jason's mood is steadily deteriating. At the end of the evening he is withdrawn to himself. The four of us split ways, with Taylor, Dan, and I riding with some people downtown. In some bars in Pennsylvania you can still smoke inside.  

We stay the night with the family who put on the show in their basement, with the only stipulation that we leave for awhile in the morning because they are trying to adopt a cat. 

8.18.2013 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to New Brunswick, New Jersey. 

We drive to get some food at some food metropolis on the end of Bethlehem. Jason tells me that he feels like he's gonna have a nervous breakdown.

Drive time is 62 miles, one hour and seventeen minutes, to New Brunswick. We arrive around 3pm with time to walk around downtown New Brunswick. Jason stays in the van.

New Brunswick is a college town. Rutgers University. One of nine pre 1776 independence Universities. The city is a strange blend of college atmosphere and poverty. On this day the sky is grey and the whole cityscape seems devoid of any color, save the greys of concrete and the university themed burgundy red that makes its way into the streets like dried blood. It's a Sunday. The city is empty making getting something to eat frustrating. At one point I break off from Taylor and Dan, to catch up on some homework. I eat at a terrible burger place and feel sick and decide I'm in no mental state to write succinctly. So instead I amble around a grassy Noel somewhere on the Rutgers campus, and watch people come out of cathedrals.

Our shows are developing a similar theme. A straight line that doesn't deviate outside of a few people with very little merchandise sold for us to sustain ourselves, sustain ourselves meaning the ability to pay off some debt and get out of the financial red. We've seen a lot of basements this tour round. Literally. We've played in a lot of basements. This is a basement. With the white light on a string, that cool damp and mildewy smell. This classic basement atmosphere  mixes with the body heat of people already effected by the summertime humidity. The basement is set up so A pair of stairs acts as a barrier between the band and the few people watching, so these people mainly stand to the left and towards the back of the basement, so the band is forced to play to a large inaccessible empty space.

When we start, half of the people at the show, are still standing outside smoking or mingling. This can't be taken personally, although its hard to play with this in mind, when you drive three thousand miles across the country. But you try. You try. This is not unlike trying to deny you're having bad sex but following through with it once you've begun. I think some people are leaving while we play. A couple of girls are gracious to stand close enough to us with a look of despondency that could mean anything even if you overanalyze their facial expressions. 

(Break)

The skin around Jason's eyes continues to swell and puff up. In vain, Jason takes little pink pills of benadril.

8.19.2013 New Brunswick, New Jersey to New York

55 minutes. 38 miles from New Brunswick, NJ to New York City.

Literally right outside the Holland tunnel the van starts to overheat. We pull over. We've done this before. Troubleshoot. Run through all possibilities and ways to fix the problem. First the van needs to cool down so we can open the radiator cap. I climb up a grassy hill that looks over the parts of New Jersey and New York that are bisected by the New Jersey River, and down on the Holland Tunnel. A ground hog pokes his head out to stare at me.

The van may need to be burped we are told from a reliable source. This requires parking on a slight incline and pouring coolant into the radiator with the radiator cap off while the engine revs. We drive around a Jersey neighborhood that is close to the tunnel, to test drive to see if the van will overheat.

The tunnel is a beautiful thing to get through. It's around 3pm. Jason decides that it's time to stop guessing about the ailment and to go to the doctor. But not having insurance is a tricky venture. We drop him off at the Brooklyn Hospital and head to the show. Driving a van pregnant with musical gear through Brooklyn is exhilarating. We manage to cross the Williamsburg Bridge in the wrong direction, to the right address, but in the wrong part of the city, and have to cross back into Brooklyn.

The pizza bar where we are playing is on the riverfront in Williamsburg. We have to get clever about loading gear into a bar that has no parking, requiring parking in a bus zone while we load all of our gear to the sidewalk, while someone reparks the van, two of us taking turns spotting the sidewalked gear while the other loads  stuff into the club.

After some reciprocated irritation on who's gear we are using, the young punky sound guy reminds me that we've been put on this show last minute, and that he is "doing us a favor."

(Break)

At this bar you get a free personal pizza when you buy a beer.

I'm corresponding with Jason who has been at the hospital for four hours without being seen by a doctor and is not happy, to say lightly. I have a narrow window of time to pick him up at the hospital before we play, whether he's been seen by a doctor or not.

There are a good amount of people at this bar regardless of who they are here to see. The atmosphere is opposite of a basement. Even when the band that people came to see plays, there is not a focal point in the space, just the steady din of personal conversation and washed out comotive sound. So, the crowd does not direct their collective attention to the stage in excitement and aww, and this has to be a humbling experience whether we like it or not, because we still have to play.

After we play Jason takes the subway to the Beth Israel Heart in Manhattan in hopes of a speedier medical diagnostic. We are left to negotiate money.

The sound guy plays drums in the last band, with a shit eating grin, and I watch from the front mean mugging him for no other reason than our terse exchange of words earlier in the night. When his band is done playing, I pop on stage and extend a heavy hand on his shoulder filling every word in this sentence with unnecessary emphasis towards exultation.

"Thank you so much for the favor and letting us play."

He looks at me with a tinge of anger and confusion and responds, "are you being sarcastic?" And I say "no, of course not" with the same razor sharp focus. "Of course not," stepping off the stage without breaking eye contact with him. Oh well, we won't know each other in the morning.

We say our thanks and goodbyes, and I make sure to stare at the sound guy outside.

1AM. Jason is still in the Emergency room. Taylor and I resolve to stay up all night since we're in New York City, and we will need to pick up Jason eventually. We drop Dan off at a friends house and head over to the suggested Brunswick Country club. Outside the club, a local man intoxicated in shorts, flip flops, a ball cap, and a red hawaiin shirt that is un buttoned revealing a tuft of wiry brown and grey hair, offers us some insider knowledge of places to check out in the neighborhood. And coke. And quaaludes. And we're on our way to another hip destination having politely declined on the party goods.

Its 3AM. We end up at a bar with a taco truck in their patio area. For some reason the taco truck reminds me of the ship in the jungle in 100 years of solitude. streams of lights hang from a tree to the patios surrounding the taco truck to the taco truck itself, casting everyone in a comforting yellow light. drunk people everywhere with rosy flushed cheeks smoking cigarettes, leaning on each other and squeezing the last bit of cut loose out of the morning hour. I want a glass of water but a couple makes out too closely and I don't want to interrupt them.  We order at the taco truck from two cooks, who seem to stand imposingly over us. They both cook and take orders with an earbud in one ear, and I can't figure out if they're listening to music or talking shit about all the drunk idiots over a closed circuit. I ask for hot sauce, and the cook squirts bright red sauce on my plate, and I ask for more, and he gives me a look like, I don't think you know how hot this is, but I couldn't care less because its three in the morning on a Tuesday and I've made food for too many drunk idiots. You could be offended with their complete lack of enthusiasm, but you can't blame them, and the honesty in their faces is refreshing.

4AM. We pick Jason up in Manhattan at a CVC who is picking up a prescription for steroids. If you ask him he will tell you of a speedy and thorough doctor exam at Beth Israel Heart. Like a television drama. With a benadril drip and electrodes. They eliminate the possibility of any viral or bacterial infection since his eyes are equally swollen. They suggest getting an epi-pen for $300 dollars, a device that will shoot adrenaline into Jason's system should the allergic reaction cause Jason's airways to close shut. They cannot provide a definitive answer as to what is causing the allergic reaction and suggest that Jason see an allergist when we get home.

We sit in the van somewhere in Manhattan. It's almost 5AM. Jason loopy and exhausted off of benadril drip. We missed the window of opportunity for a couple of friends who offered us a place to stay, and are looking at the reality of sleeping in the van for an hour or two until we're pushed away by city workers or the police.

5AM. A friend answers an early morning request for a place to stay, and we end up in Bushwick sleeping on the floor of an apartment. The humidity forces me to bypass my humility in asking to take a shower. I definitely don't ask for a towel, and wipe my body off with my dirty laundry. 

8.20.2013 New York City to New Haven.

I wake up covered in sweat around 10AM. 

8.21.2013 New Haven, Connecticut

8.22. 2013. Day off.

8.23.2013: drive day.

The Wave, is an Essay, Nestled in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas

Hunter S. Thompson's famous Roman à clef, helping to put gonzo journalism on the mark. For awhile I avoided this novel, because it seemed impossible to get passed the conversational tropes of drug culture that some seemed fixated on. It was hard to mine for deeper meanings among the text's drug induced debauchery, however endlessly enjoyable they are.

But the truth is, and you don't need me to tell you this, Hunter S Thompson was an amazing writer, and underneath the whole excessive weirdo mess in Fear and Loathing, is Thompson's sobering, True-with-a-capital-T reflection on what happened to the "hippie zeitgeist" of the 1960's:

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again."

 Fear and loathing takes off when the wave crashes...

The essay is a reminisce, a memory of Gonzo, sometime earlier, San Fransisco in the late nineteen-sixties. A super concentrated ball of reflective energy.  A younger man maybe, capturing a moment in time that "no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories," Thompson says, "can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world." He is riding a 650 lightening across the bay bridge towards Oakland, riding "a hundred" miles an hour wearing L.L. Bean shorts and a sheep hurders jacket. Too twisted to find neutral while he fumbled for change at the toll on the bridge. "There was a universal sense that whatever we were doing was right," he says. "That we were winning."

 Any direction up the coast, Thompson muses, things would be the same. Unexplainable forces were prevailing against evil, not in a military sense. "Our energy would prevail. There was no point in fighting -on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave..."

There is a pause here. A moment of suspended animation, the kind of peak that never comes again...

Some of us didnt experience the late sixties in San Fransisco/America the way that Thompson did but that is O.K. Because he does an excellent job describing the situation for us, one that isnt ours but his. More importantly, under the historical and cultural pinnings, is a universal theme of everything that is fleeting, hence an inability of an explanation or music or mix of words, that could possibly describe the energy that words seem to come short in describing.

 All good things will eventually end, and all things will pass. "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation," in the immortal words of Wernher Von Braun. 

The sixties counter culture eventually did fail. The environmental movement did fail. New media exposed Americans to the horrors of war in realtime. And somewhere in there, was the American dream mutating and peaking and distorting, crashed and burned somewhere in Las Vegas in the 1970's. At least from the seat in which Hunter S. Thompson saw the whole thing.

A Roman à clef, is by definition, a novel with a key, or a story of real life overlaid with fiction. The fictitious characters represent the real, and the "key" is a relationship between what is considered fiction and non fiction in the story. 

Thompson chose The Wave often times, when asked to read a selection from his novel. Why did he chose this small portion in the 8th chapter to represent Fear and Loathing?

Maybe because The Wave is an essay, the heart or thesis (if you will) that the narrative recedes and gravitates towards. Thompson's writing here, represents, the essay at its most effective and optimal form. The expansion of an idea; almost as if reading it, bridges gaps to new cognitive and spiritual dimensions in the human brain. After all, isn't that the purpose of living?

 And eventually, the essay closes, quite literally, like gravity, the metaphor of the wave coming full circle: 

"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -that place where the finally broke and rolled back."

This essay was composed while traveling light speed  across the state of Montana, on the evening of August 12, 2013, en route to Milwaukee, WI.

Father Along

Father Along
by John Edgar Wideman

Polemic: A strong verbal or written attack on someone or something.

In this project, a lot of attention has been focused on the
experimental essay form, namely the lyric essay, and other more
introspective, self reflective writings that include the use of “I” in
the narrative. Lets not forget for a moment however, despite a mild
disdain for the restrictions of the academic essay, that the essay can
be an effective tool to call attention to something critically
important about history or our society. An essay that has the ability
to draw attention to some topical event, and draw correlations through
our history and our culture. Some essays, such as Father Along are
more concretely relevant to systemic issues of race and class and
inequality, then lets say, the more heady work of the Montaigne school
of thought, that we’ve investigated.

Father Along, written by John Edgar Wideman, has a lot to offer and a
lot to digest in regard to race in the United States. Although this
essay is short in length, there is never a doubt that Wideman spent a
considerable amount of time polishing the piece, considering how much
historical and factual data is at stake. And, towards the beginning of
the essay, a thought from Wideman that will lay the framework for the
rest of the piece: “Louis Till,” he says, “ is the first father I
think about when I am asked to comment on the alleged failure of black
males to assume properly the responsibilities of fatherhood.”

What he offers next in the piece is a historical jaunt between the
lives and paternal relationship between Louis and Emmett Till, a
microcosm for the failed relationships of black males at large in the
united states, and a meditation, or call to arms to reexamine what we
think we know about Race. Considering the not guilty verdict of George
Zimmeran recently, this essay holds considerable weight, even having
been written 4 years ago now. In Fatheralong, Edgar asks important
questions: “If louis Till had been around to school Emmett about the
perils of the South, about how white men treat blacj boys down south
and up north, would Emmet have returned to Chicago safely on the City
of New Orleans train from his trop to visit relatives in Money,
Mississippi, started public school in the fall, earned good grades,
maybe even have become successful and rich?”

Aesthetically, what is most fascinating about this essay is how
effective it is, without the inclusion of the writer on his own piece.
In fact, “I” is used only once in the essay. Otherwise the narrator
maintains complete trust almost omnisciently on the subject matter.
Again, this is in stark contrast to the pieces that we’ve read in the
past, proving that self reflective meta essays, are not always the
most effective, and one can draw upon an argument or attack, without
the inclusion of oneself in the piece.

James Wright

May Morning

More on the lyric essay.

“Deep into Spring, winter is hanging on. Bitter and skillful in his
hopelessness, he stays alive in very shady place, starving along the
Mediterranean: angry to see the glittering sea-pale boulder alive with
lizards green as Judas leaves. Winter is hanging on. He still
believes. He tries to catch a lizard by the shoulder. One olive tree
below Grottaglie welcomes the winter into noontime shade, and talks as
softly as Pythagoras. Be still, be patient, I can here him say,
cradling in his arms the wounded head, letting the sunlight touch the
savage face.”  -James Wright

This essay is so joyfully short. It’s funny, after years of academics,
when I stumble upon a piece of writing, an essay to be exact, not
labeled as poetry or other, my first reactions is, ‘my oh my. How
awkward, this person is surely not going to get the grade they’re
looking for. Even after seven+ years at Evergreen, I still use the
expression grade. But here it is, the planets equivalent of Pluto
maybe. A tidbit. And if you read over it a couple different times, you
really ask yourself, what separates this from poetry, other than the
fact that the editor has eschewed what we thought we figured to be an
essay? The Editor speaks, refers to Wright’s essay as a technically
perfect sonnet, making it’s case perfectly in the Italian Petrarchan
tradition: “the first quatrain states a thesis or supposition; the
second elaborates upon that theme; the succeeding tercet offers a
piece of evidence for example; and the final three lines provide a
spin on the exposition.” D’Agata continues by explaining “in other
words” that the essay is a poetic argument presented with the same
perfection that is admired in the essay’s traditional “five-paragraph
form. For the record a quatrain is a stanza of four lines, especially
on having alternate rhythms. A tercet is a set or group  of three
lines of verse rhyming together or connected by rhyme with an adjacent
tercet. Poetry, then always has a way of surprising those of us who
pass it up, in favor of more concrete prose. But, as D’Agata points
out this is poetry with a purpose, achieving all the prerequisites for
the traditional essay form, just spoken more poetically. D’Agata
concludes his observations on Wright, by reflecting on a memory: “…As
I began to to enter high school and am trained for a lifetime of
five-paragraph essay an accidental encounter with James Wright’s
sonnet leaves me with the suspicion that there are essays somewhere to
love.”

To Essay or Not To Essay

There are some things toxic to essay writing: 1.) the constant gnawing anxiety of having to complete work to turn it in, and 2.) The drained feeling one gets, one can feel physically in the bones and mentally, after standing in a warehouse for 8 hours, heaving lifting, and performing other creativity crushing repetitive tasks. I often feel envy for those professional writers who can get a full nights sleep, wake up, make breakfast and proceed to his camp out in some nook in a cafe where all mental and physical energy can be focused like a laser on the task at hand.

But for now...This is the reality of a lot of college students. Does this exhaustion bleed out on the pages somehow? Maybe writing suffers, cripples and wanes. Maybe corners are cut. Maybe a bit of frustration and aggression is communicated subtextual.

David Foster Wallace on the Illinois State Fair

Ticket to the Fair by David Foster Wallace
As included in The Next American Essay and in A supposedly Fun Thing
I’ll Never Do Again.


It is David Foster Wallace’s writing that helped bring to my attention
that I was reading essays for fun on my own time and loathing writing
essays on academic time. His essay here, Ticket to The Fair was
initially included in a collection of his called A supposedly Fun
Thing I’ll Never Do Again, published in 1997. DFW will probably go
down in history as the writer of Infinite Jest, a gargantuan 1000+
novel, complete with Wallace’s signature footnotes. A sprawling
meditation on addiction, tennis, family relationships, ripe with
heartbreaking humor and more than human reflections on our obsession
and need to be entertained.

His essays are contrasted however to his fiction writing. Take for
example Ticket to the Fair which was an assignment given to Wallace by
Harper’s Magazine post Infinite Jest fame. What could a famous and
revered, self deprecating fiction writer in his prime, possibly take
away from the Illinois State Fair? The simple answer is a whole hell
of a lot actually. It is peculiar, but refreshing that this essay made
it into John D’Agatas collection of lyric essays, considering it is so
grounded in concrete observation, containing a linear plot line and
facts –these things contrasted to the other essays in the anthology
that seem moody and abstract at times (not bad things) and seem to be
always teetering on the edge of word salad -stuff that is joyfully
defunct and playful, like the eccentric friend you have to prepare to
hang out with, but don’t want to be caught off guard, say they come to
your house unbeknownst, and you haven’t mustered the energy to see
them.

The essay is a gem, just because it contrasts so starkly with the
story about the essay D’Agata is trying to weave together. On Wallace,
he says: [1997] “in this year when fiction writer David Foster Wallace
turns his fact-obsessed attention to the Illinois State Fair, he
proves, once again, that the world around us sometimes is more
interesting than those within us.” This statement is interesting for
two reasons: 1.) You have to give it to D’Agata for including an essay
by a guy that is “fact obsessed” considering D’Agata tells us to
question the fact, like shaky wide-eyed conspiracy theorist tells us
to question the government. Secondly.) It is hard at times to
differentiate this essay from journalism, although once you get to
reading it, you understand, that for all of Wallaces objective,
fly-on-the-wall musings, all of these observations are filtered
through a very intelligent man in a humorous light. It’s confusing.
This essay, does not seem to fit the lyric essay mold, but then again,
I think this is what D’Agata is aiming for.

Ticket to the Fair, comparatively, is a long piece of writing, and
there are too many funny quips on pudgy Americans that you lose count.
Wallace is given the assignment to observe the Illinois State Fair,
from an un-named East Coast Magazine. “Why exactly they’re interested
in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me,” Wallace says. “I
suspect that every so often editors at East Coast Magazines slap their
foreheads and remember that 90 percent of the United States lies
between the coasts, and figure they’ll engage somebody to do
pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and
heart-landish.”
So Wallace has an assignment, he’s also from Illinois it may be
important to note. Throughout the essay he is trying to develop or
come up with some groundwork or thesis or something, for what the
piece of writing about the Illinois State Fair is going to be about.
What is it about the Midwest that contrasts so starkly to the east
coast maybe? This question isn’t terribly important because it will
develop and become more interesting over time.

Wallace has a way of blending details with sudden humor. Just by his
observations alone, of a landscape so seemingly boring, the story is
well, made very interesting. Senses are evoked. You get the real
feeling of summertime heat: “The heat is all too familiar. In August
it takes hours for the dawn fog to burn off. The air is like wet
wool…The sun is a blotchy in a sky that isn’t so much cloudy as it is
opaque.” The fly-on-the-wall observations continue over the course of
two days at the fair. Attention to sharp detail and thousands upon
thousands of unique observations.

For all funny quips –seemingly uneventful observations on livestock
that turn in to hilarious drama, “The sleeping swine thrash in dreams,
their legs working. Unless they’re in distress, swine grunt at a low
constant pitch. It is a pleasant sound…(Next paragraph, abruptly) But
now one butterscotch-colored swine is screaming. Distressed swine
scream. The sound is both human and inhuman enough to make your hair
stand.” –there a these beautiful, brief explanation, or ways that
Wallace synthesizes the details and makes sense of them. It is this
particular ability in his essay writing –a blend between objective
observation and almost anthropological and social theory, that make
his essays so fun:

“Kids are having little epileptic fits all around us, frenzied with a
need to take in everything at once. I suspect that part of the
self-conscious community thing here has to do with space. Rural
Midwesterners live surrounded by unpopulated land, marooned in a space
whose emptiness is both physical and spiritual. It is not just people
you get lonely for. You’re alienated from the very space around you,
for here the land is not an environment but a commodity. The land is
basically a factory. You live in the same factory you work in. You
spend an enormous amount of time with the land, but you’re still
alienated from it in some way. I theorize to Native Companion
(Wallace’s anonymous nickname for the woman he took to the prom who is
accompanying him to the fair)…A special vacation from alienation, a
chance, for a moment, to love what real life out here can’t let you
love.”

So the original question is begging for an answer here. What if
anything, separates journalism from essay writing? Well, the obvious
answer is there: journalistic objectivity, removing oneself from the
story, a devotion to “fact.” Sure. This is an easy answer. A textbook
answer, if you’re going to journalism school. But for all of Wallace’s
fact obsessed details, whose to say that the reader can’t get just as
much from his essay about going to the fair, then from a piece of
“journalism that you’d find in the Illinois Herald?” Who knows
entirely. I can say however, there is something to be said, about an
essay, so entertaining, you can’t wait to turn the page to figure out
what happens. And then you think, I’ve been to the fair, and I’ve
never had as much fun, as just enjoying the blend of humor and insight
that Wallace offers in this essay.

Girl

By Jamaica Kinkaid


More on the lyric Essay.

We continue this week reading some essays from The Next American Essay
series by John D’Agata. Here is a short one by Jimaica Kinkaid, who I
know in a roundabout way is an important writer, whatever that means.
Whatever that means. That may come across as condescending. I guess
what I mean to say is, I know her writing is significant, but I
haven’t read anything about her, and I haven’t yet had the chance to
(over) analyze her work in an academic setting, or on more leisure
terms, maybe including her in a cache of writers to bring up in bars
or cafes or putting on my sleeve when getting to know somebody. In
doing so, and I know I spoke about this similarly with Susan Griffin,
I experience her writing, thus far, in a pure sense; by just reading
it and experiencing it. Just reading it for the joy. Reading as a
blank slate, or something malleable, in which I am at the complete
mercy or joy of the writers intent.

This particular essay is short. Here is a glimpse. To give you some idea:

Don’t pick peoples flowers –you might catch something; don’t throw
stones at black birds because it might not be a blackbird at all; this
is how to make a bread pudding; this is how to make doukana; this is
how to make pepper pot; this is how to make a good medicine for a
cold; this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before
it even becomes a child; this is how to catch a fish; this is how to
throw back a fish you don’t like, and that way something bad wont fall
on you; this is how to bully a man; this is how a man bullies you;
this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other
ways and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up…

The segment above was taken from the latter part of the essay towards
the end. First noticeable things are the semicolon, which in this
poem, is used, well as a junction, or the essay never really takes a
breath, or comes to a complete stop. What is lyrical about this essay?
What about this essay lends credence to the lyric form? Well for one
thing, Kinkaid uses this is or Don’t as a metre in her prose. The
verbs are declerative. She is speaking directly to the reader and
telling her to do something. You get the idea very quickly, that an
older figure, maybe a mother or an older female sibling, is telling a
younger woman, how it is. The do’s and don’ts of life. Knowledge to
pass down. Important stuff. At some points, in contrast to the main
voice in the essay, which is telling us, or the young woman in the
essay how to do stuff, somebody asks a question. In Kinkaids essay,
this separate voice, constantly obscured by the more dominant voice in
the prose, is represented in italics, feeling small and nimble, and a
little defiant, feeling like some adolescent who doesn’t want to be
told what to do, but would rather make her own mistakes:

This is how to make ends meet; always squeeze bread to make sure it’s
fresh; but what if the baker won’t let me feel the bread?; you mean to
say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who
the baker won’t let near the bread?

Here, in the exchange above, is the first official exchange of
communication between the two people. Is this significant somehow?
Well, another important question comes to mind actually. What
separates this essay above from poetry, or even fiction for that
matter, and what, if anything, even makes it an essay?

No easy answer we’ve learned really. Only more questions. Actually, at
this point, lets continue to throw out any search for easy answers, or
research for the sake of some answer reward. No answers here. Only
more questions. So lets assume it’s an essay. And, as far as we know,
without any formulaic device to stifle the creative achievements of
any of these pieces, the lyric essay has full reign of creative
licence, and isn’t stymied by form. The essay, is hanging out on the
periphery of our creative and intellectual scope and is tryin’ hard to
focus on those obscure shapes that we can barely see just outside of
our line of site. Or the essay is swimming out just a little bit
further, to the danger zone, where there are bad things lurking, away
from that dock of safety where our parents are, where we can, swim
back to safety, should we get cramps and drowned.

Would the essay be as effective, without the use of a semicolon? Yeah
sure. This is an aesthetic grammatical thing. Kurt Vonnegut hated
semicolons. Said they make you seem more esoteric and stuffy, but
Kinkaid has authority here, because it works.

In the spirit of obscurity, in the part of his introductory essay for
Kinkaid’s essay, D’Agata just asks a question, or something like a
question even though it doesn’t end with a question mark, so maybe he
is just making a statement:

Or: Maybe the essay is just a conditional form of literature –less a
genre in it’s own right than an attitude that’s assumed in the midst
of another genre.

Red Shoes

Susan Griffin
Red Shoes
From The Next American Essay

There is always a unique joy when reading a piece of writing, or a
novel, or a project, from someone who you know little about. Or to
explain differently, once you’ve built solid admiration for someone,
you will always read their work with a bit of bias, or preconceived
notions whether these are good or bad. Usually good, if you love
someone’s writing so much.

I’ve read Red Shoes by Susan Griffin knowing nothing about her
personally, other than the fact that I loved her essay. After having
read it, I skimmed briefly some photos of her, and read the first two
sentences on her Wikipedia page. Eco-Feminist. I don’t know what that
means, and when reading her essay, these labels aren’t entirely
important just yet.

This essay struck me as particularly fascinating, first by syntax, the
way that she breaks up her paragraphs. Similarly to what I have done
for the last two quarters, I’m sure these breaks in ideas, reflect a
growing frustration and dissatisfaction with institutionalized writing
form. But also, I feel that breaking up paragraphs helps me to locate
ideas. Not necessarily isolate them on the page, but give them room.
Griffin uses this same approach so deftly, so refreshingly. From what
we can tell, her essay bounces back and forth between a somewhat
linear storytelling of her childhood, and dense reflections on the
color red, rape, torture, and the differences between fiction and
essay writing. And…a whole lot of stuff in between. Her essay is one
that presents such fascinating ideas, one could spend a whole quarter
reflecting and dissecting the elements of this single essay. It really
is pact full of dense ideas, but it is also beautifully written, and
there is no clear objective or thesis or conclusion. Each little
floating paragraph is, in and of itself, a cell of activity. Almost an
altered state. Somehow, she has completely freed herself from the
banalities of convention. It proves hard to pick just one section.

1.) In my mind, as I remember my grandmother, I can feel the shape of
her larger body next mine. Her elbows are wrinkled in a way that
fascinated me. The flesh on her forearms hangs in beautiful white
lobes, not so different than the lobes of her breasts.

2.) Why is it that the novel can enter the private sphere in a way,
for instance, that the essay cannot? One answer presents itself
immediately. The novel is fiction. It is not true. It exists in an
epistemological category unto itself. Yes, it is lifelike, it evokes
or even, as it is said metaphorically, creates realities; still the
reality of fiction is not to be confused with reality.

The two sections above represent her technique of jumping back and
forth between a reflective narrative: memories and interpretations of
her past, and almost this conjuring or deep meditation on language,
sexuality, color, semantics, and just about everything in between. It
is hard to say if her essay arrives at any destination, but the reader
is just overjoyed with how she spins language, and how this spinning
evokes the senses. You can imagine quite clearly, with the aid of your
own memories of course, the flesh of an older woman’s forearms hanging
like white lobes, and how this imagery lends itself to the intimacy of
a women’s breasts, makes you unconformable, as if you haven’t entirely
earned the trust, to invasion such an intimate detail.

The Next American Essay

“Lets call this a collection of Essays, then –a book about human wondering.”

This collection here is the companion to D’Agata’s The Lost Origin of
The Essay. If we were to get an inkling about what exactly an essay
is, based on what D’agata thinks, it’s something that has to do more
with art and less with fact. This belief is echoed in his writings in
The Lost Origins of the Essay. Something having to do with the
separation of art and commerce without quoting him directly. And
somewhere, between both of these books, is non-fiction, a word or
median or form or what have you, that has no distinguishing
characteristics that separate it from the essay. D’agata has a
preoccupation with fact, and he wants us to know that facts are gooey
things prone to abstraction and misrepresentation.

In 2003 an essay by D’Agata was rejected by a magazine that
commissioned it due to “factual inaccuracies.” That same essay laid
the ground work for another collection of his called About A Mountain,
and was eventually picked up by The Believer, but went through arduous
revisionss with The Believers fact checker Jim Fingel. We’re not going
to read that book, because we don’t want John D’Agatas opinion to be
the only authority in this project, although we do respect it.

D’Agata is great about using some direct quotes that are short and
crisp and say everything they need to say in one statement. On Facts,
again, he quotes Emerson. “There are no facts, only art.” Hard to say
if this is true or not, or hard to say if true is even true or not.
Regardless, D’Agata has a way of framing an argument that only offers
up more questions instead of easy answers. Sometimes this can be
incredibly frustrating. Philosophy and existentialism are frustrating.
Sometimes you just want nails and a hammer and the belief or knowledge
or fact or whatever that you can pound nails into a piece of wood in a
certain way and it will build shelter no question asked.

In a note to the reader at the beginning of this anthology: “[Some of
the writers} have something in common beyond North America, besides
the late 20th Century; they have debt, nerve, good hair, nightmares,
cars that smell like McDonalds sometimes…I’m telling you this now out
the start of our journey, because I know you are expecting such facts
from nonfiction.” He Continues, “But henceforth please do not consider
these “nonfictions.” I want you preoccupied with art in this book, not
with facts for the sake of facts.”

So maybe there is a distinction between the essay and nonfiction, or
maybe D’agata is making the argument that nonfiction and the essay
represent a black and white that could not possibly account for the
complexity of human expression and that big word art? Blah-Blah.
Banal. These are literary binaries, apt to change. Everything changes.
So maybe he is write…ds Somewhere in here, Fiction has to exist in
order for there to be non-fiction and fiction, by definition, is
something made up or not real, but we can all agree that it’s
impossible to omit subjective interpretations and experiences from
fiction.

And where does our essay fit into all of this? Do we yet have any
clear representation as to what an essay is? D’Agata wants to make
clear that it’s art, and in this wonderful collection he has writings
from some brilliantly crazy people: One spoke at the 2013 Evergreen
graduation, lambasting the school, and successfully pissing off every
single person in the audience, libertarian grandparents and democrats
alike (thank you Sherman Alexie!). One essay is written by a literary
idol of mine, whom I promised myself I would stop referencing first
thing when I went on dates with people. I think, for the sake of all
the males I’ve referenced, when I read an analyze the essays in this
collection, I’ll try and focus more on the women. Yes, that’s how it
has to be. Not because they’re women, but because I do want a
different perspective from my own, which whether I like it or not will
involve the subconscious pretenses of having a penis and white skin
and a hell of a lot of privilege and unprocessed guilt.