Kafka calling: Infinity Insurance Company

A letter came in the mail the other day, from Sef Mawji at Infinity Insurance Company in Atlanta, GA, claiming that on 7/30/07 I was involved in an accident with one Dustin Ho. The letter didn't say whether it was a car wreck, a bed-wetting or some other kind of accident, but voice mail Mr. Mawji left yesterday said I had rear-ended the insured, who had identified my vehicle and license plate.

My last few phone calls to Mawji have gone unreturned, but you can imagine my curiosity to know more about this event, which took place more than two weeks after my car was totaled and left, with its key, at a body shop in Buffalo, WY. James reminds me that misunderstandings and clerical errors are more common than elaborate insurance fraud conspiracies and personal vendettas gone awry, but I am not comforted. Anyone who has seen Brazil knows that the object separating bureaucratic justice and tyranny is no thicker than the remains of a fly crushed between a typewriter key and a piece of paper, and even the most casual student of Kafka knows that bureaucracy's blood lust begins with unwarranted slander and accelerates swiftly and inexorably toward execution.

Here's the letter:

Foresight: Can recent studies about the health benefits of circumcision be trusted?

Check out my latest story on Nerve:

http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/festa/foresight/
Foresight: Can recent studies about the health benefits of circumcision be trusted?


My favorite part of the story is the first comment: "I'd take this guy's analysis of medical literature a lot more seriously if his bio picture had hair and a shirt."

There's something special about the puritanism of a sex magazine readership. In any case, I long ago gave Nerve this lovely picture of me by Greg Gorman, not because it has both hair and shirt (see lower right corner), but because it is about a decade fresher than the one on file:

Portrait of the essayist with hair and shirt.

diary: day (two) of the blog

I know that with my sprawling posts I am violating blog decorum but I enjoyed yesterday's prolix experiments so much and was up until three in the morning monkeying with them. Part of being up until three in the morning was ending my monthlong abstinence from alcohol and caffeine and getting further amperage from the cataclysmic electrical storm that blew through last night. The sky was constantly flickering at the horizons and then, after midnight, it was exploding with light. While it was still at a distance--we had stars overhead--I threw a blanket down on the lawn and blasted Holst's Planets: Mars, the Bringer of War, from the colony sound system, which with the clouds at the periphery of the valley lighting up as if under bombardment was the ideal accompaniment. One of my great experiences as an orchestra musician was playing first fiddle in that piece with Paul Zukofsky conducting the Juilliard Orchestra. He took it twice slower and drier than anyone I've ever heard and the resulting sense of menace was devastating. Zukofsky understood the Planets intuitively--as the violist in my quartet observed, the suite is a sort of "Ma Vlast" for him.

I have five hours left in my studio and have only blogging ambitions. Lots of photos to go through and edit and post, and also I owe the blog a piece of literary criticism promised near the launch.

I will try to keep my entries short.

But first a word about alcohol and caffeine--the latter came exclusively from a bittersweet chocolate souffle with Earl Grey custard sauce that I made for the group because everyone was ending their residency with a massive egg surplus. Even though I had to substitute soy milk for cow's, the dessert was a big success--especially the sauce. Here's the recipe, which is by far the most basic I've used for souffle.

diary: Wyoming bloodbath

Paul Festa
to linda
Jul 16

hi mamma--

I just arrived in Jentel after a traumatic trip. Last night at 10:30 coming over a mountain pass on 90 between Idaho and Montana I broadsided a deer. It was scary and then it was gruesome and then it was sad. At some point I'll post the details in a blog entry but for now I'm just too exhausted and talked out about it.

Jentel is surprisingly beautiful and deluxe. They emphasize the rustic and the rugged in their promotional materials but I'm reminded of the [...] summer digs. High style with a southwestern flair. the other 4 residents now here seem very nice--a fifth, also from San Francisco, is also late.

more soon--about Oregon etc--and [...]

Love,
Paul



Paul Festa
Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 7:58 PM
To: James

Hello my dear,

I am in the little computer room/library on the second floor of this swank house where the residents all sleep and take their meals. This place is cush! I was expecting something on the rustic side but it more resembles a $500/night Santa Fe bed & breakfast. Only they don't feed you breakfast--we're on our own for all meals. It's a nice big kitchen overlooking a nice big dining area, living room (with conversation pit) and vast windows overlooking the paved back porch area and the green meadow beyond. They've been getting a lot of rain up here and the landscape is surprisingly green. Rocky hills are behind us, a creek (which visual artist Mike and painter Kristen and I inner-tubed down this afternoon before dinner) wends its way through the valley and right by the retreat, and a short bike ride away there's a lake good for swimming. I haven't been there yet. I've spent a lot of time sleeping so far, not surprising considering how I got here and the caffeine withdrawal and the version of Mendocino sleepies that's common to all artist residencies and lasts at least three days. I barely got any work done today.

Thanks for being there for me when I called the other night so distraught about the accident. In the bright light of day it's hard to even conjure the horror of that experience, and the sadness that overwhelmed me afterward. I really do have the heart of a vegetarian! Meanwhile I passed (and actually hit) the corpse of another deer some hours later, and after that saw a dead dog on the side of the road, and several other smaller roadkill. A couple of the artists here collect these specimins and paint them. I'm very glad Ziggy's not here! They all went for a walk this morning and saw a four-foot rattlesnake. So far all I've seen is a little garter snake and a bunny rabbit.

[...]




Paul Festa to Jim
Jul 17

Hi Jim--

I've been on the road almost continuously since I saw you last and have finally landed in a place where I will stay put for a month, the artist retreat in Wyoming. It's heavenly--landscape, campus, residents and staff. I had a somewhat traumatic drive here, via the Oregon Country Fair (a giant hippie outdoor mall)--the drive was endless, half again as long as Google Maps suggested, and crossing the stateline between Idaho and Montana on a mountain pass in the middle of the night I broadsided a deer. It was scary, gruesome, and sad, and having been on the road for the previous 12 hours I was not in a particularly stable frame of mind to begin with. I didn't manage to kill the deer, which was the very worst thing about it, and then there is the condition of my car, which I might have totaled though I did manage to drive it the rest of the way to Banner, Wyoming, going 60 miles an hour while everyone was passing me at 85.

[...]

New York, Israel and Paris were all overstimulating. How has your last month and a half been?

Love,
Paul



Paul Festa
Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 2:11 PM
To: Holcombe

so great to get your message--it was on my list of things to do online to look you up on tribe and say hi and thanks for all the fun hours at OCF. I have an idea to be a vendor next year. No more of this tourist-without-a-wristband bullshit!

wyoming is amazing so far--this place, the jentel artist residency program, is really swank, a big surprise--I was expecting rustic. A river wends its way around our little campus (6 residents, 3 of us queer) and a lake is said to be a short bike ride away. rocky hills above us past the river and the Bighorn Mtns. in the distance. the weather has been pretty mild, with a few thunderstorms. lots of snakes and rabbits out here, and I'm keeping my eyes open for antelope, which are common as deer out here.

speaking of deer, I had a traumatic drive from OCF after broadsiding one on the mountain pass at the Idaho-Montana stateline, in the middle of the night, after 12 hours of driving. Unfortunately, I just wounded the animal--heartbreaking! I was running back up Highway 90 with a flare in my hand to warn other cars when I saw the flashing lights of a state trooper, and stopped running (and burst into tears) a minute later when his gun fired, twice. I have to get going now because I'm taking my car into Buffalo to a body shop. It's pretty smashed up--kind of a miracle that the airbags didn't inflate and that the car was drivable the rest of the way here (15 mph under the speed limit until the sun came up--boy was I spooked, esp. after the (cute) trooper warned me that elk were also on the roads...)

thank you for the portland invitation! i would love to visit and spend more time with you. I don't think this is going to be the time to do it, because I want to spend time in Yellowstone on my way out of here, and then visit friends in Nevada, and my next destination is Camp Kunst-Stoff in Willits if I can work the event, Aug 17-19. I'm anxious to hear your music! Thanks for the link--and for looking at my essays. Hopefully I'll have a novel to show you one of these, um, years.

Love,
scribble



Paul Festa to Cory
Jul 19

Hi Cory! The rest of my OCF experience was brief. I hung out with Holcombe and some of his buddies at the campground, ate some dinner, passed out, packed up, and drove to wyoming. I almost made it here safely, but crossing the Idaho-Montana stateline, in the middle of the night after driving 12 hours, I broadsided a deer. I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I'm grateful not to have been injured,and sorry about what happened to that poor animal and my poor car.

I'm here at an artist retreat and like it very much--there are five other residents and we're all watching the sky wondering what the hell we're going to do if Mother Nature makes good on the tornado warning that was just broadcast on the radio. The area (near Banner) is spectacularly beautiful--surprisingly green, hilly, with the bighorn mountains in the distance to the southeast, antelope and deer, rabbits, bullsnakes, rattlers all spotted just in the first few days here. I have my work cut out for me--I'm aiming to write the third draft of a novel. My computer just arrived--Apple just replaced the optical drive for the second time.

[...]

xx,
pf



Paul Festa
Sat, Jul 21, 2007
To: James

[...]

I'm doing OK about the novel. I've ramped up very quickly to my 6 hours/day routine, and they've been productive if painful hours. Yes, I'm excited about where the novel is going, but before you get excited you have to be demoralized about how bad the previous work is,especially work that was revised ad nauseum--you have to grieve the deaths of all those little darlings, which took so much time and effort, revision and residencies and reading aloud, to produce. I swore Wyoming would be a bloodbath--and this was before I knew I would hit a deer--and I'm going to make good on that. I'm just not going to enjoy very much of it.

It helped to finally start writing the third draft, this new document into which I've forbidden myself to cut and paste. So far it's a really good discipline, and a lot of things that would have seemed impossible to delete are, in fact, not getting typed in. I've radically rewritten the opening chapter--not revised, rewritten--so that will take a lot of tinkering and reading aloud, etc., before it's settled, but I think it's a better foundation. That thought does battle for my mood with the dread of how much similar rewriting remains, and that dread is a powerful motivator to produce a much shorter draft this time.

I'm just facing up to the hard lesson any writer has to face, which is that this is a necessarily destructive process, and you're not destroying some external object, you're destroying something that came out of you, something you flattered yourself at one point to not consider shit. I have to keep reminding myself of the blithe energy with which Picasso painted over his bulls and turned them into women and flowers, though it's worth noting that his objects rose and fell and were finally born in a matter of hours, while I (we novelists) have to endure this process over years.

[...]

Love,
Paul


Paul Festa
Sun, Jul 22, 2007 at 12:41 PM
To: linda

Hi Mamma--

Unless USAA throws me a curveball, it looks like Ed should just repair the car. I think he took pity on me and deliberately skewed the estimate low so that the car wouldn't get totaled out. If it were totaled out (for example if USAA quibbled with the pre-accident worth of the car), then USAA would offer me a check for that value and the company would own the car. I would have first right of purchasing it back from them for the salvage value. This is how both Ed and the USAA agent described the situation to me. Ed, meanwhile, said if I did buy it back, he would buy it from me in turn and for a few more hundred dollars--he seemed very interested in the car. So I think he overrode some personal interest in lowballing the estimate.

Things here are going very well after some brutal days staring at the novel and the harsh comments of my readers. I appreciate and ask for unvarnished honesty but it's still very painful to read, re-read, come to grips with, synthesize along with my own judgment. Plus I was still upset for much of the week about the nightmarish experience of hitting the deer and the consequences for it and for my car. But after two or three depressive days, the work is going really well. I'm rewriting the novel from the ground up, in a new Word document. This revision technique was recommended to me by a MacDowell writer and it's really proving its worth. The standard method is to delete things from the existing draft, perhaps write over them, but that is a destructive, painful process. Now it's just a passive matter of unworthy leaving things behind, with the option of adding them later, and so I'm anticipating a much leaner novel when I finish. That will certainly not be by the time I leave here--with three weeks left I'm only ten pages into the new draft.

There's one other San Franciscan here, a painter, and she and I are the stay-at-home workaholics. The others went to the movies last night; they just took off to go see show trials. [...] I like most of my fellow residents well enough and we have pleasant interactions but nobody likes a workaholic and that would describe me for the duration of this residency. I get out on my bike every evening for an hour at sunset, when it's cool, and the surrounding landscape is breathtaking, rocky hills on either side of our flat green valley, and the Bighorn mountains in the distance, the sky full of magnificent cloud formations and electrical storms throwing around distant, oddly silent lightning bolts. it feels like we're on a nature preserve--deer and antelope by the dozens, wild turkey, bull snakes and rattlers (I haven't seen one of these yet but the others have), rabbits and of course a menagerie of insects. I vacuum my studio for box elder bugs, living and dead, four or five times a day, and the day I read about the first West Nile cases in Wyoming I got three mosquito bites. In any case these bike rides and my three meals are my only leisure time. I carve out two hours a day for reading, and while I'm enjoying (fellow MacDowell fellow) Mary Gaitskill's Veronica a lot, I'm struggling with [...]. I have to look up two to four words on every page! And they're not big pages! In any case I will leave Jentel with a bigger vocabulary, but not a bigger circle of friends. Also, hopefully, the first half of a much smaller novel.

[...]

Love,
Paul



Paul Festa to Tom
Jul 24

Hiya Tom--

I just logged into friendster when I realized that I don't have your email address! how could that be? email me at paulfesta@gmail.com.

I picked up your message in the middle of a long and extremely difficult road trip, from Eugene OR (oregon country fair) to Wyoming where I'm at an artist retreat for another 3 weeks. the night you called I broadsided a deer on the Hwy. 90 mountain pass at the Idaho-Montana stateline. Horrible! middle of the night, no shoulder, no cell reception, car just about totaled (but operational), the animal not quite dead. truly one of the worst experiences and, if I may say so, a grand excuse to be late in getting back to you. I've been a little scatterbrained since then.

In Wyoming is this small artist's retreat in the micro town of Banner called Jentel (http://www.jentelarts.org). I'm here with five others for a month and I'm beginning the third draft of my novel. I'm also trying to learn a hideously difficult violin part for a Messiaen quartet I'm supposed to play in the spring. It will take me exactly that long to learn it.

Meanwhile it's great to hear from you and do email me at gmail so we can be in touch more easily.

xx,
pf



Paul Festa
Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 1:51 PM
To: Greg

Dear Greg--

I write from Wyoming, where I've been rewriting my book at a residency here for the last two weeks. I had a fantasy about finishing the third draft here, but it's very slow going and with only two weeks left I'm going to have to content myself with getting through about a third of it. Still, this place is beautiful, in a green valley filled with wildlife--we see antelope and deer, porcupines, wild turkeys, bull snakes and rattlers. I'm the stay-at-home workaholic of the group but did join the 5 others to catch a production of The Laramie Project in town the other night. College and high school kids put it together and what they lacked in acting skill and experience they made up for in passion for the play.

[...]

Love,
Paul



Paul Festa
To: Suzan
July 28

Sorry you won't be able to join us--do wish john a happy birthday for me and break a leg performing! Yes, brunch on the deck was the last gathering, and I have your crepe-maker to prove it.

My summer has been a little nuts. Getting out of town was nuts, New York was nuts, Israel was nuts twice, first visiting my sister in Tsfat and then faeries in Tel Aviv who took me to a celebration of [...] in the Negev for the summer solstice; then Paris was really nuts especially after Air France lost my valise. It arrived in San Francisco just as James was leaving to pick me up at the airport.

I had a brief stay in SF and then drove to the Oregon Country Fair, a big outdoor hippie shopping mall and then drove to Wyoming, where, crossing from Idaho into Montana in the middle of teh night after driving all day, with no shoulder and no cell coverage, I struck a deer, didn't manage to kill it, and totaled my car.

So now I'm stranded in Wyoming. The plan is for James to pick me up and then we'll do the drive together, a few nights in Yellowstone. A woman at the Berkeley Rep school of theater wants me to play fiddle in her production of 12th night, along with a couple of tiny roles, and I'll have about five minutes to learn my lines and rehearse between getting back and the start of previews.

I'm very flattered and gratified you're looking at my blog and I look forward to looking at yours. Mine appears to be a complete ghost town. Write some comments goddamn it!

LOVE (and hi to Lizzi)
pf



Paul Festa
Sat, Jul 28, 2007 at 2:38 PM
To: Robin

Hi Robin! I write from the Gentile Artist Residency Program (http://www.jentelarts.org) which is very near Ucross but is smaller, just six of us here for a month in swank southwestern-style house in a lush valley that resembles an animal preserve. they do have bikes here but I brought my own and have been riding it every evening there isn't lightning in the sky.

I am rewriting the novel from the ground up, a method of revision suggested to me by someone (you?) at MacDowell. It is very slow going, but I'm pleased with early results.

congrats on the jaffe! I got a small grant recently, on my way here, in the form of a collision with a deer that (sickeningly) didn't quite kill the animal but totaled my car. I wasn't quite prepared to be carless but it will certainly save some moola and tide me over to some income-generating spring screenings of my movie.

Yes let's get together in September! Brunch on my north-facing deck, while there's still sun.

Love,
pf


Paul Festa
To: Barry

[...]

How was Sea Ranch? I just farted thinking about Luca.

Wyoming is, in your phrase, spectacular nature. The real spectacles are off in the distance--the bighorn mountains. We have a small green valley and rolling rocky hills, but the profusion of wildlife is astonishing. I spend ten hours a day in my studio and most of the rest of it in the house preparing meals and sleeping, but just in my ritual sunset bike rides I've seen dozens of antelope and deer including lots of bucks and spotted fauns, two porcupines (the only two I've ever seen outside of a zoo), a rattlesnake, on the path five feet from the front door, two bull snakes on the road, and no end of cute little rabbits, everywhere. Adam, a Pittsburgh painter, saw a golden eagle a few mornings in a row, but everyone's jealous of me because of my porcupine sighting (there's a picture on a recent entry of my blog).

The other five artists are very friendly but I'm the workaholic recluse of the group. I don't take my meals with them because it just takes too long, and I decline invitations to town, to the county fair (that hurt), to hike in the hills, to tube down the river. I feel the cost of this trip, mostly to James who is chained to the house with full dog responsibilities, and I feel a tremendous impatience to get this draft finished. I had a fantasy about finishing by the time I left, but the pace of the rewrite is making December/January a more likely completion date. Your comments continue to goad me to clarity and directness in my prose--and I would like to have said brevity too but the new draft is shaping up (at p. 50) to be exactly as long as the last one. Still, I think it moves faster--and dirtier, as Daniel Handler put it in the prior crit.

Love to Dan!

Love,
pf



Paul Festa to David
Aug 1

Hi David--

I'm still here--the Jentel sessions run for a month from the 15th to the 13th. I've been an incredible workaholic here, at it seven hours a day for 15 days straight now. The idea of taking a vacation day seems terrifying! The going is slow--I'm rewriting the book from the ground up, retyping it into a new document. Some parts from the second draft are going in almost verbatim, but not before going through the very fine-toothed comb of my having to type each word.

Forgive me if this is repeat from my Tribe email, but i inaugurated the trip with a car accident, broadsiding a deer on a mountain pass just over the Montana border on 90, middle of the night, no shoulder, no cell coverage, wounded animal, hysterical queen. Twenty minute later, gunshots from a state trooper, tears. Since then, autobody shop, insurance, parents, etc. None of this counts toward my seven hours.

How's by you?

xx,
s


Paul Festa to Mike
Aug 3

[...]

I've had a crazy summer since I last saw you. Israel was nuts, Paris, nuts, Oregon Country Fair and the drive to Wyoming, nuts (I totaled my car colliding with a deer, mountain pass, middle of the night, no shoulder, no cell coverage, dear not quite dead until a state trooper came along and put a few bullets in her). I've been a complete workaholic since I've been here, taking only one night off so far to catch a production of the Laramie Project in the nearest town. I've written about 60 pages of a ground-up rewrite, which incorporates a lot of the old draft but I'm writing it in a new document. On my evening bike rides I'm seeing a ton of wildlife--a couple of porcupines, wild turkeys, deer and antelope, rattlesnakes and bull snakes. the other 5 residents are more social, the eat together and hang out every evening, so I'm the oddball recluse, but I knows what I came here to do and it wasn't to spend 3 hours around the grill every night with wine! Today's my one day off from the novel and so am happy to catch up with you a bit.

Will I see you en route to or from BLC? I got a gig playing violin and some very tiny parts in a production of 12th night in the north bay every weekend in September, so I will be busy but daytimes will be good.

love,
pf



Paul Festa to Christopher
Aug 8 (4 days ago)

[...]

How are things with you? I'm in Wyoming where I have been working my brains out on the novel, preparing to play violin and a few small parts in 12th Night, and recovering (emotionally) from totaling my car on my way here. I struck a deer on 90 coming over the Montana state line, mountain pass, middle of the night, no shoulder, no cell coverage. Cute cop though. When he shot the poor wounded animal I burst into tears.

xx,
pf

Paul Festa to Christopher
Aug 9 (3 days ago)

Yeah, the deer thing was pretty awful, made worse by the fact that I'd been on the road for 13 or 14 hours at that point jacked on caffeine. Fortunately the accident wasn't through my own error--I was driving under the speed limit--she was just right there when i came over the hill around a curve and when I honked and slammed on my brakes she just stood there and stared at me like a...well, you know the rest.

MacDowell Colony: Landlines

When I was at MacDowell late last year, Oct-Dec, an artist by the name of Anna Schuleit was working on a big installation having to do with telephones for MacDowell's centenary celebration. A few days ago, I got email explaining that

one hundred telephones -- that taboo device at a colony meant for undisturbed creative work -- have been temporarily installed on one hundred trees across MacDowell’s grounds by Schuleit's team of more than 200 volunteers. On Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, as the thousands of celebrants walk the grounds, the telephones — drawn from every decade of the 20th century and with 100 different sounds — will begin to ring.

But who will be calling?

Why, it will be YOU. Colony Fellows from across the country and across the decades. It is you, those who cannot be here, who will play the most important role of all: to call and lend your voice to the Colony’s 100^th anniversary.

[...]

We ask, we plead, we implore, we beg, and we so hope that you, a friend of MacDowell, will dial your phone and tell a story, ask a question, pose a riddle, sing a song or otherwise reach out to meet one of the celebrants on the Colony property for this once-in-a-lifetime event. Your call will pass through an old fashioned switchboard operated by children from Peterborough. They will connect your incoming call, by hand, to one of the telephones mounted on 100 trees spread across the MacDowell property. There, the phones will ring, and the visitors physically present will answer.

I got all excited about this--it seemed propitious that I would be calling from another artist colony, and on my last days here, and I decided I would call and offer the person on the other end of the line a choice between music and fiction. When I called earlier tonight, the switchboard was overwhelmed. I called four times before an operator picked up, and by the time I reached him, he'd been brought down to a low frazzle. Some of the trees around the colony weren't accepting calls, and he wound up trying to connect callers to each other. He had a number of us connected on a party line, and one older fellow seemed very put off by the fact that he wasn't being connected to a tree. The rest of us tried to make the best of things--what part of the word party didn't this old fart understand?--but the experience was a bit like being at a very loud cocktail party at an art school reunion where you don't know any of the other people and you're all blind, a little hard of hearing, and possibly underwater.

Eventually I was put through to a tree, and that's when things really went downhill. I offered the woman on the other end of the line a choice of fiction or music, and when she chose fiction I got nervous. The thing I was prepared to read was the monologue by an eccentric and potty-mouthed black queen, a scene I'd read in high Ebonics with great success at the Jentel Presents presentation at the public library on Tuesday. I figured if I could pull off an African-American Radical Faerie rant at a public library in Wyoming, it would go overjust fine in the MacDowell woods. But not very far into my reading I felt very, very foolish--there was no way to perform this over the telephone. It required space and body language and an audience. "I think I got the gist of it," said my tree woman about halfway through, putting us both out of our misery.

No, that's not accurate--I still had the misery of embarrassment and disappointment to contend with. I'd wanted to contribute something fun and vital to what seemed like such a great project, and for twenty minutes I felt like I'd let Anna and MacDowell and myself down by simply trying too hard (the usual way). Twenty-one minutes after hanging up, though, I remembered that it's an *artist colony*, and that the occasional performative face-plant, while painful, is most definitely the price of learning how to make art.

Here's a story in the New York Sun about the Landlines Project.

Rhapsody, Part 9: local news

Rhapsody on the Theme of Somebody Else's Superior Vocabulary, Part 9
Local News
Jentel Artist Residency Program
Banner, WY

The Sheridan Press Options, Friday, August 10, 2007
Sheridan Area Looksee
Saturday, Aug. 11: Sheridan County Rodeo--Sheridan County Fairgrounds. For more information, including times, call Jeff Way at 655-9285

It doesn't seem just antiquated but willfully perverse that to find out what's going on at the Rodeo today I am asked to call an actual person. Earlier today I was looking for a print shop in Sheridan where I could have the novel printed so as to have something to show for myself when James comes to get me tomorrow night. I found the Web site for Sheridan Quick Print, whose contact page reads:

Quick Printing is a family owned and operated Print Shop that has been serving the Sheridan Wyoming area for 70 years. Established in 1938, QP serves all of northeastern Wyoming. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, QP can upload any file electronically, print your documents and mail the finished product to your door.

The wonders of modern technology notwithstanding, the contact page lists only a phone number and a snail mail address. You cannot email these people. My interest in the rodeo is abstract--the Sheridan County Fair wore me out. You may be wondering, as I am, how any of this relates to my vocabulary exercise. How the hell am I going to work the word "homburg" into this anemic discursion on northern Great Plains cultural practices and communication technologies? The word as described seems awfully close to fedora, though the homburg is supposed to be more sharply rolled on the brim and lacks a pinch somewhere. Rodeo, rodeo--maybe I was hoping for a connection with cowboy hats.

Buffalo Bulletin, Thursday, August 9, 2007
Diversions: From the Bench
Justice court
Johnson County Circuit Court
Magistrate Paul Jarvis and Circuit Judge John Sampson fined the following:
--McMurtrey, Tim Alan, Cheyenne, speeding 85/75, $105 fine.

WTF? I thought you could go ten miles over the limit and get away with it (which I was NOT doing when I hit that deer, Mom, so relax). I love that "From the Bench" is in the "Diversions" section. There is a refreshing honesty about journalism in that.

--Williams, Shirley E., Casper, speeding 87/75, $110 fine.
--Hill, Richard A., Gillette, speeding 83/65, $84

Math question: Shirley is going from Point A to Point B at 87 mph in a 75 mph zone. Dick is going from Point C to Point D at 83 mph in a 65 mph zone. If Dick's ticket is $26 cheaper than Shirley's, how much did Dick save per mile per billable hour expressed in terms of Halliburton's tax savings if the vice president gets his corporate welfare provisions passed?

--Causey, Jessica R., Buffalo, violating fishing regulations, $110 fine.
--Malyurek, Lucas Paul, Gillette, failure to provide orange skier down flag, $60 fine.

What, no fine for skiing in August?

--Williamson, Lamar G., Sheridan, failure to provide life jackets, $110 fine.

Safety first, bitch.

--Humphries, Bridget. V., Sheridan, speeding 100/75, $220 fine.

Damn, girl, where's the fire? Wait, I know:

Sun setting through Little Goose Canyon fire
Big Horn's biggest since '96 -- 200 acres burned by Friday afternoon
as seen from the Jentel driveway

I'm sure I had a way of working in the word "fence," as in a receiver and seller of stolen goods.
I'm sure I have no idea what it was. Oh yeah--I was hoping "From the Bench" would provide some thieves. Maybe I'll have better luck with "Rolling Log" (also in Diversions):

Officers responded to a fight call.
Ministerial aid was provided with a room for the night.
A sick squirrel was reported at local business.
Officer found a dog at large on West Brock Street.
Officer responded to a local business where a 3 year-old girl had collapsed and was having seizure-like symptoms.
An adult male was arrested for entering a motel room without permission. He was charged with criminal trespass.
Officer was asked to talk to a rude subject at the city pool.
A noise complaint was received.
Officer assisted EMS with an intoxicated 71 year-old male that had fallen and cut his head.
...
A man was yelling and punching holes in a door at a local motel, officer arrived and arrested the individual for property destruction and breach of peace.
Person reported that an RV pulled into their lot and pulled a tree branch off of the RV and dumped it into their lot and left. Subject was contacted and information obtained. Subject returned and cleaned up the mess.
A man called to report someone had tied a black Pomeranian dog to his truck. Officer retrieved the dog and transported it to the animal shelter.
A transient was reported asking patrons for money. Officer arrived and advised him to stop. Subject headed for the Interstate.
Person reported that a dog was getting into garbage in the 700 block of Klondike.
...
Officer picked up a gray tiger-striped cat.
Business reported a gas drive-off.
Officer talked to a kid playing in a cardboard box on the street in front of a business.
Officer observed a group of youngsters running away from a parking lot. One subject was arrested for minor in possession of alcohol.
A dog was hit by a vehicle and the reporting person asked if the city could possibly put a speed limit sign back up.
Person complaied (sic) about five dogs chasing him when he left on his bike.
Officer picked up a friendly black, white and tan cat and took it to the shelter.
Traffic control was provided for the trike parade.
Person reported someone stole a fanny pack with a camera in it from a motel lot.

Do local authorities have the goods on the Sheridan County camera-in-fanny-pack fence?

...
Person reported someone was bleeding and covered in blood and asking for a ride. Officers responded and patrolled the area but subject could not be located.
...
A noise complaint was received that sounded like a fight. A large group of people were having fun but since it was after 2 a.m. they were advised to stop making so much noise.
...
An accident involving a car and a deer resulted in the car receiving a hole in the gas tank.
...
A complaint of horses being neglected was received.
...
Assisted EMS with a person who fell off a horse.
A family member requested a welfare check on his father. Everything was fine and officer advised man to call family member who requested the check.
A caller reported a civil dispute.
...
Person reported picking up a sick hitch hiker and wanted an officer to show him how to get to the hospital when he arrived in Buffalo. Deputy led person to the hospital.
Officer picked up a bike and placed it in the storage area.
A large snake was reported. Officer collected the snake and released it in the country.

these horses are not being neglected
I whistled from the slow mvt of the Brahms concerto
and they all came over to listen

It's probably not premature to judge this idea of combining local news and my vocabulary exercise a total failure. One would think that in the above catalogue of human frailty I could find a use for the word "atavism," but the items are so gnomic and irreducible that I can't even comment on them in my own inferior vocabulary. Atavism is a word I know but periodically forget, and the act of forgetting, reverting to a prior state of ignorance, is inherently atavistic, come to think of it, so now I'm off the hook.

Now what words are staring me down? Several that were not in the OED: "tocking," "flaques," "thrillhound," "snik." Perhaps somebody with a superior vocabulary is making shit up. Sombebody is entitled, but I'm getting impatient, because in very few words I'll be done with Canto One of the Rhapsody and it can't happen quickly enough.

My Faerie name is Scribble (no relation to the DJ), and I'm a fan of word games, so I feel I should know "scrabble" which is sometimes used as its rough synonym. The OED has three separate entries for scrabble, one of them referring to the board game, and that's not including "scrabblement," which describes perfectly this fiasco of a blog entry ("Writing of a rambling character like that of a madman." Don't try using it in Scrabble, it's Obs.).

So "scrabble: A scrawling character in writing, hence, a document composed of such characters. Also, a picture composed of or characterized by hastily executed line work." In the US it's also "a scramble; a confused struggle, a 'free-for-all'" and, as a verb, "to make marks at random; to write in a rambling or scrawling characters; to scrawl, scribble." See? But my vocabulary idol uses it to mean "of an animal: to scratch about hurriedly with the claws or paws; hence, of a person, to scratch or scrape about with the hands or feet" and "of a person, to scramble on hands and feet; to stumble or struggle along." And I think that's why I don't like the word, because I wish they'd just say scramble. Actually, the idol uses it to mean "to scratch or rake (something) up, off, out, etc. hurriedly; to obtain by scratching or raking about." I'm still not in love with this word.

I won't get into a discussion of "scribble," but I do want to call attention to the following words: scribable (suitable for writing on), scribacious (given to, or fond of, writing), hence also scribaciousness; scribblage (scribblines, ephemeral writing); scribblative (pertaining to scribbling); scribblatory (tending to cause scribbling); scribbleable (scribable); scribbledehobble (a nonce word titling a Joyce notebook); scribbledom (the practice of scribbling); scribbleism (scribbling); scribbleomania (the mania or craze for scribbling); and scribble-scrabble (in a scribbling manner).

Now I can sense the robins and lawn bunnies outside cheering me on toward the scribblative finish line. But every word resists use--we're in Wyoming and at nearly six in the evening it's too friggin hot to wear anything made of twill. I've enjoyed parts of this canto, but this home stretch has been a downright plutonian experience. Perhaps it's the heat and my refusal to turn on the AC, which I imagine as tantamount to focusing the sun through a magnifying glass the size of Wyoming on the polar ice caps and its starving, drowning bears. What is it with the fabrics? There are no tartans here either. This isn't the conclusion of the canto, but its truncheon. In one entry I've followed the trajectory of my residency here: from enthusiasm and dedication to burnout and apathy in an afternoon.

G-d bless my vocabularian, the final word isn't in the OED. I'm apparently not the only person wondering what the hell it means and suspecting it's Yiddish for a big wallop (Mom, did your parents ever threaten you with one of these?). I had just begun that sentence when I noticed a box elder bug on my foot. I took the first novel of my vocabulary idol and zetz the end of that glorified cockroach.

day of the blog

an angry Wyoming mob

Jentel Artist Residency Program
Banner, WY
I spent the first three and a half weeks here writing as though I had a publisher and a deadline--you know, money at stake. I took the novel and the comments of my pitiless writer's group (in last night's dream Barry called the last draft "morally bankrupt"), the notes I'd fed into a tape recorder on my drive out here, the dark suspicions I've harbored about the work but never faced, and I brought all this knowledge and self-loathing to bear on a pack of 4x6 note cards, each of which became a chapter outline for the third draft. These three days of work, among the unhappiest of my creative life, propelled the subsequent 21 days of difficult but fluent labor, which have resulted in 80 pages (40,000 words) of a brand new draft, typed into a new Word document, that I hope I don't flatter myself to think are almost readable.

I almost made it to the end of Part I (of IV), but twenty-three days of writing seven hours a day, with one day off in the middle, have slowed my output to a stingy, viscous drip. I may not be done with Part I, but I'm done with the novel, at least for this residency. Confronted with the attractions of the Wyoming landscape, the Jentel movie collection and library, and my four congenial colleagues here, who are all winding down their work too, I have decided that I will spend the day blogging.

Having blogged early, with the year-long site for daily writing disciplineandpublish.com (launched on my birthday in May, 1999), I've gotten some encouragement to blog seriously now that so many are doing it for so much money. I've been sorely tempted to follow this advice, having enjoyed D&P so much and being so long unemployed, short on money and loath to squeeze myself back into the cubicles of industry. But when I'm going full-tilt on the novel, I can't even write in my diary. I certainly don't have the mental capacity or motivation to blog, even half-heartedly. Blogging and fiction are mutually exclusive, and only someone with much more effectively delineated mental cubicles than I could pull it off.

Blogging is about immediacy and impulse, throwing it away, shouting outrage into tunnels and hoping angry mobs come stampeding out of them. Fiction is about writing it, loving it, rereading and hating it, revising it, then throwing it out and starting it over. I've tried to harness the energy of the blog for the purposes of fiction, having it out with my sadistic writer's group in blog format, also churning out rhapsodies of vocabulary enrichment. But I cannot write fiction and blog seriously. So today, when I will not write fiction, I will blog.

photo essay: Sheridan County Fair

Rhapsody on Somebody Else's Superior Vocabulary, Part 8

Jentel Artist Residency Program
Banner, WY

Is the artist retreat a kind of harem? We laze around in luxury, preparing our offering of bliss for whomever is on the other side of the purdah. We know that not everyone's offering will be accepted, at least not all at once (barring a spectacular party), but by virtue of being in the group we feel chosen, and burdened. I am burdened by bug bites, including one itchy bleb on my right wrist from my trip to the pond last week when I crushed a mosquito just after penetration. He left something behind--maybe more than one thing. West Nile is in the area, I saw a headline.

Worse things than bugs can bite you--take this baby rattlesnake Kristen and I saw on our way up Snake Hill to the Thousand Acres. He might have been six inches long, thin as a child's pinkie, his black rattle more cirrate than segmented. He slithered away from us on our way up the hill and was waiting, coiled (but not rattling) on our way down. The babies are scary because they discharge all their venom--most adult bites, according to Lynn, are actually dry. Lynn also described shooting a snake clean in half and watching the snake continue to strike. Kristen almost stepped on this one. We also saw two screech owls.

Speaking of the wildlife (which is all I seem able to speak of after getting in trouble for my now expurgated New York blog with a person or persons who was/were unhappy to discover him- or her- or theirselves written about), I have been misidentifying mule deer as antelope. I figured this out after swimming in the lake with Jessica, when we pulled over to look at some truly bizarre looking animals and realized they were anteope--white underbellies and rear ends, faces that look like African tribal masks (don't tell me it's the other way around, I'm not that gullible). The confusion stem in part from the fact that there are two types of deer in this valley, white-tail and mule, and very few antelope compared to the fields along the highway, where they're common. The confusion also stems in part from the fact that I'm a clueless city boy.

Now I'm desperate to see that antelope herd again. Is there a jacklight that works for these exotic creatures? I was thinking of creating a little mojo hand out of found animal parts--a feather, a porcupine quill, a bone from that virtually intact bleached ribcage on the side of Highway 14. Probably a mule deer's.

I do know what horses look like and there are some beauties in this valley.