Day One: I should write in this blog

I mean, I have this dang blog. I should use it!

We're getting close to thesis-writin' & finishin' time. There are 172 days until it is due. I was joking around with another MFA student that I would just turn in a "Diary of the Last One Hundred Days" as my thesis, detailing my cranky complaints, my feud with the facilities department at the New School, a rant about various writers and/or artistic movements, a hurling of epithets at my instructors (j/k ya'll!), gossip, rumors, unsubstantiated allegations, scientific marginalia, and anything else I deem noteworthy. I might just keep a diary anyway, just because I'll never get back those treasured moments of total stress, agony and creative wrangling. Yay!

So, Day One: I set the counter at 172 days. I got a bagel because I skipped dinner last night to sit through all 2000 hours of the National Book Awards readings. While I was listening to the readings, I wrote 1-2 word impressions of each reader. Because I am really just here to serve you, my zero readers, here you go:

Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (YA lit): TARTAN.

Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival (Poetry): Ugh. Sestina.

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering (Non-Fiction): Garfield, Meh.

Aleksandr Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Fiction): INDIFFERENT.

Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (YA): CATS. FUCKING CATS.

Mark Doty, Fire to Fire (Poetry): HELL YES.

Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello (Non-fic): Finally.

Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Fiction): Forgettable.

Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (YA): Very good.

Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day (Poetry): MELLIFLUOUS.

Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index (Non-fiction): SEARING.

Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Fiction): GOAT MAN.

E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (YA): BOOB!

Richard Howard, Without Saying (Poetry): Choked turtle.

Jim Sheeler, Final Salute (Non-fic): Sentimental

Salvatore Scibona, The End (Fict): Flat planed.

Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (YA): Incongruous

Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler (Poetry): Tingling

Jane Mayer, The Dark Side (Non-fic): Methodical

Marilynne Robinson, Home (Fict): Delicate

I know, its like you were there with me, right? Actually, I went on a tear taking notes about Peter Matthiessen's performance, because I felt he behaved himself quite poorly last night. Sometimes I really do think some of these old literary men are more hype than quality, and they are easily shown up by younger, fierce female writers like Joan Wickersham and Patricia Smith, who really have something to contribute and who deserve our attention much more.

Matthiessen, for one, had to follow Joan Wickersham's searing, incredible reading from her memoir about her father's suicide. And here comes this old, horny geezer, reading tired lines about the "apple bosom" of his female characters and barely stumbling his way through. The disparity could not have been more evident between them. I was so bored and uninterested in his reading that I could barely wait for him to be finished. I felt embarassed that we were forced to heap laurels upon someone so obviously from another generation, so obviously dated and so full of his own self-regard. Bah. Honestly, was there not one single book better than his for the nomination? Can we stop celebrating the work of old white men who have already been celebrated and look at what the next generation is doing already?

Ok, end rant. That's day one for you!