Narrative...Briefly

I have been reading through the last couple of issues of dwell magazine -- a modern design magazine focusing on homes and furniture -- and the notion of a space creating a narrative has come up in both issues by two different authors.  First a designer talking about filling a space with furniture that creates a narrative of a room, second a writer exploring the narrative of design.  But I have to wonder if that is the right use of the word?  If space does create a narrative or if the narrative is assigned by the inhabitants.


Narrative is  "A spoken or written account of connected events; a story," but as a culture we have assigned narrative to most scenarios under which we live.  Our designed space becomes a narrative.  Our activities of choice -- biking, hiking, sports, reading, writing -- becomes a narrative.  Our relationships become a narrative.  The conflict between how a person makes a living (occupation) and what that person is meant to do/be (vocation) becomes a narrative.  A few years ago there was this notion of meta narrative, a collected experience that is the over arching story of human experience.


I believe that our lives create a narrative.  We leave behind a human experience, recorded or not, that tells the story of who we are.  And, as a Christian, I believe my life fits into the greater narrative of the story begun by the living God.  But I have a hard time with assigning narrative to a room.  A painting.  A song.  A bike ride.  A hunting trip.  A baseball game.  These events may be an experience and have story of their own but they fit into the individual stories of the participants and creators.  A room, in itself, is a reflection of the narrative of the designer and if it is designed by a person besides the inhabitant, it would seem that the inhabitant is living in the story of someone else, by guidelines set outside their experience.


Our individual experience is important.  We are born, we grow, we live and learn and step out into the world to make our own ways to choose to marry or not, to start a family or not.  To work, to play, to spend, to save.  But our narrative is our own and how we define events in our life is contingent on our experience, our history, our narrative.


We can set about trying to make it something its not, I think we begin to assign narrative to things like rooms and sports and arts (though with art the lines do become blurry because art typically sets out to tell a story) in an effort to fill the empty feeling that our own narrative is not enough.

Reflections on the Move: Week 1

It is a different view than I am  used to.  The thick forests of fir and cedar trees sweeping down to sandstone cliffs and the gnarled madronna trees perched on the ledges, taking on the wind and the rain and the surf spray and watching over the ragged coast of Bellingham Bay has given way to rolling hills of grain.

The thick wheat fields are scattered with old farmhouses and grain elevator stand like lighthouses standing sentry.  Tractors are parked in seemingly random fashion, left where the days work ends so tomorrow can pick up where it left off.  Some are new, some are old, some are parked in machine boneyards and left to rust under the heavy sun and long summer days that will, in time, become the long season of short winter days and they will alternately be covered with rain and ice and sometimes snow but never snow for very long.

The cackling of eagles and the cry of seagulls has been replaced by the harsh caw of unseen pheasants from the weeds and the edges of the wheat fields and the delicate coo of mourning doves is a near constant sound, wether I am near the fields of sitting in the shade of the ancient maple tree in the back yard.

Right now the wheat fields are highlighted with green giving way, day by day, to the harvest ready gold color.  In a matter of weeks the combines will cut across the fields and mow down the wheat, chaffing the grain from the heavy heads as they go, filling their hoppers with grain and dumping it into trucks or trailers pulled by tractors and they will run in a constant pattern of cutting and emptying without stopping.  But for now, it is peaceful with only the birds and the wind to keep me company in the quiet moments of the morning before I fire up the air compressor and enter into work.

As my thoughts look back to Bellingham, it is with a sorrowful heart at the community -- friends, places, memories -- we left behind but Bellingham no longer has "home" attached to my memory tag, but I can't say that Pendleton does either.  Home, I am learning, has as much to do with where my wife and children are as much as it does with a physical place.

I have the sense of returning but not of having arrived.  Pendleton, I do not think (but I have been wrong before), is not our final destination, I feel that through and through.  But we are in the right place at the right time and I am quite certain we are on the right track.

Reflections on Bellingham: The Move

It was raining the morning we left Bellingham, WA, it was raining the afternoon we arrived in Pendleton, OR.  If there is a way for me to highlight this parallel it is to say that rain in both places, separated by a distance of 370 plus miles, is a stark lesson in irony.  I expect rain in Bellingham, had become accustomed to the areas insistent dampness and humidity and had battled my way through long bouts of seasonal depression -- a condition that should not be understated -- but crossing the cascades and dropping out of the mountains into the long stretch of sand and sage brush and sliding smoothly into sees of rolling wheat fields, in June no less, should have been a long journey into sunshine not more rain.  But we made the eight hour trek (made longer by my truck overheating) into rain.

Raining it was, but we followed a rainbow, the final stretch, to the end, our destination, Pendleton, OR.  This little town made famous by its whiskey, indian blankets, and faltering rodeo is the town in which I grew up and to where we have made numerous trips over the years, each trip a little, dry, oasis out of Bellingham but never with the thought of settling here, for a time.

It is funny how life deals the cards but try as we might we have to play the hand we are dealt to the best of our talent and skill.  For us, our hand brought us out of the city and community and setting we loved into a unknown future, a changing environment, and a period of wandering in the wilderness.  All I can think of, sitting here slapping away at the keyboard, is that I wish I knew what was coming!

I have a dream of a quiet life in pursuit of literature and writing and raising my boys in a place where they are free to roam and explore and in a way that is comfortable for my wife and I to live in work and leisure in a way that is challenging and fulfilling and in line with our hopes and dreams.  But experience has shown me that this dream is a dream of the far future and that life is, predictably, toilsome.  In the novel Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtrey, a character on his death bed sums it up thus:  "This is a fine world though rich in hardship at times."  I find this quote to be insightful and honest and as I live and work I often feel similarly.

My family and I, as I have been writing for the past couple of weeks, are in a period of transition and searching.  We are wandering in the wilderness as tentatively as the nation of Israel searching for the promised land, and we are doing so, literally, in the desert.  I have faith that God has an intention for us here, in Pendleton, and that his intention is to lead us somewhere different soon.  But how soon and where is uncertain.

Tomorrow, as has happened so often in the past three years, I will start work with a new contractor on a new project in a new place.  Carpentry is carpentry and slotting in with this crew or that on come-what-may is all the same to me.  Just another day at the office.  The difference is, that starting a new job with a new company in a new place will also be the beginning of seeking out community and belonging, rebuilding all that we left in Bellingham.

We made a choice to wander, we feel called to something new.  But change is hard, ir-regardless of calling, and we are in the throws of suffering under the pressure of change and wilderness.  But this is a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.

Reflections on Bellingham: Galbraith Mountain

I have tried, in the past, to write about mountain biking.  But it tends to fall flat, becoming either over sentimental and cliche or hopelessly lost in vague-ry and  stereotypes.  However it would be unfair to downplay the importance biking has had on my experience in Bellingham -- ultimately mountain biking brought me to a healthier place (spiritually and emotionally) and led me into a relationship with my, next to my wife, the closest friend I have had since high school.

A few years ago, after the birth of our first son, in the throws of post part em depression (which triggered a host of other things)  my wife entered a journey of intense spiritual healing and counseling.  After initial skepticism, which I wholeheartedly regret, I threw my full support behind her and walked faithfully with her on her journey.  A lot of what was revealed to her in the process was too much to bear alone and I have done my best to bear it with her.  Through the grace of God, we have walked faithfully on this journey together.  But I could not have done this without an external outlet into which I could pour my angst and sorrow and the horrifying range of emotions that I found myself struggling with.

At about the same time, maybe just after, I was, through a mutual friend, introduced to a local cabinet/furniture builder who was also a pretty devoted mountain biker.  It so happened that we mutually needed a friend, initially to ride with.  Me as I had been out of the sport for some time and before we had met had not really even thought of riding as a realistic outlet, he because the guys he rode with were generally much older and coming from a radically different place in life.  We started riding together.

My friend and I rode together frequently, sharing our life experience on the long climbs up and gradually becoming very close.  Without his friendship life in Bellingham would have been a much harder life to bear.  With out biking into which I could dump my emotional refuse life would have been much harder to bear.

Galbraith mountain became, gradually, my sanctuary and escape and has taken on a reverent place in my life.  My bike (a transition covert, the latest in my biking journey) is a money pit which I alternately neglect and spend too much time with is the medium upon which I have connected closest to Bellingham and my closest friend.

There will be riding in our new location -- where ever there are hills there will be those of us on two wheels building trails and pushing the boundaries -- but it will not be Galbraith Mountain which has become so much more than a system of trails.

Reflections on Bellingham: Out of Isolation

Yesterday dawned on the beginning of our last week in Bellingham -- literally -- we will be loading the trailer and driving out on Saturday.  It has been a tumultuous 11 years in Bellingham in which I have run the gamut of human emotion.  From the desperate isolation of the new guy in town to the euphoria of getting married and watching my children come into the world and all those experiences and feelings that come between that make up the rhythm of our lives.  Today, while mountain biking on Galbraith Mountain, I was reflecting on Western Washington University (WWU), the reason I moved here in the first place.

My wife is wanting to take a walk, with our boys, across the campus, go back the beginning, as it were, and I am sure that spurred on this reflection.  I drive here in a '93 v.w. golf, 4 door, with a yakima rack for my skiis and my bike, trunk full of cloths and climbing gear and camping gear and a head full of energy and fear.  The majority of my gear stayed packed in boxes as I found I was a very small fish in a very small pond and everyone around me had the shape and speed of a predator.

I withdrew into a desperate search for a job (I had to pay the rent and I ended up with two) and a place to live, both happening at the same time.  I moved into a little room in a big house and promptly became best friends, then romantically entangled with, the woman who would become my wife.  I struggled with work and school and besides my bride to be I made few friends and when she applied for an Americorps position on the east coast I went to Australia.  We re-united in Bellingham, got married, had kids, and have struggled to build a life here, watching friends move away and building our way out of isolation and into community one day at a time.  But it has been a slow, long slog out of darkness and desperation for us as we have struggled to identify who we are, build on our dreams, on our marriage, and raise our children.  Just now, at the end, can I look around me and identify a tangible community of friends and neighborhood, at the end, as we prepare to leave.

A couple of months ago I was working on small custom home with a local general contractor.  I was nailing together sky light boxes -- that would then be fastened to the roof, flashed, and covered with a sky light -- with my framing nail gun, which "bump fires" (when trigger is pulled, the nose of the gun needs to be pressed against the work piece for a nail to shoot) and I double shot a nail which went past my sky light and into the pointer finger of my left hand which was holding things steady.  The nail went through the big knuckle, out the other side and pierced the skin of my middle finger an inch away.  I looked at my hand, saw the nail going through my glove and pulled it out.  This entire sequence took less than 10 seconds.  I wrapped my finger in tissue from the porta-john and duct tape, creating a splint of sorts, and went on to finish the day in near constant pain, though I had full mobility (two months later my finger still hurts to high heaven if it gets bumped or have done a lot of heavy lifting or a lot of breaking on my bike).

This incident was a microcosm of my life in Bellingham, taking on injury and pain in isolation and bearing it as best I can, finding inner strength and carrying on with the day as it comes.  I have chosen to bear the burdens of my family, be the provider and to sacrifice, not always cheerfully but certainly willingly, to lift them up and carry them through the darkness. 

I would like to dodge a bullet here and say that the strength I rely on comes from me, it is all buried within my innate human nature to summon reserves of strength and determination.  But I am a weak person and I can only stand as determined and capable man by the strength of God.  No matter how I fail to live in his image, no matter how I resist engaging the living God in relationship and worship, He always gives me the strength to be the man I have to be --  not for myself but for my wife and my children.

As I look back on WWU, looking forward to a walk across its ever evolving campus, I look back at the begining of a journey with God, one in which he carried me through isolation, depression, and darkness, and delivered me into my family, into community, and into a place from which I can confidently lead my family into the future.

I Am Convinced that Fear is a the Root of Most Bad Writing

"I am convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing." (Stephen King, On Writing)  I am certain that fear is the reason my writing suffers.  In the past I have made excuses for my writing, or lack thereof, chief among them being that I don't have time to write but when the time presents itself I lack the discipline to enter into a process of writing, afraid of starting a project that will languish unexplored but a non-committal writer.

For a long time I have believed that being a writer meant I got paid to write and the key of becoming a paid writer was pursuing a graduate degree in writing.  That somehow a MFA is a silver bullet that will slay my fears and lack of discipline and rocket me into a life of writing and literature.  While I am sure that it would give me a leg up in the field, it is not the silver bullet I once believed.  I believe there are two things that constitute a writer being a writer.  A person must write and have a readership, or strive for a readership.

There was a time that writers struggled  a solitary existence working at all manners of poetry and prose, sharing their work with a couple of select readers and submitting it to various publications who would then, for a long time, reject their work.  The writers in question would continue a disciplined life of writing until they were no longer rejected or they would give up.  With the endless availability of blogs, a readership is a mouse click away.  It is so easy for a writer to share work with the world at large and full fill the two requirements necessary (in my opinion) to be a writer:  writing and readers.

I have always dreamed of living a literary life, the principles involved have always come fairly easily to me.  I read voraciously and write with competence.  But I am hindered by fear, fear of the work involved, fear of rejection, fear of exposing a vulnerable heart, fear of failing to live up to the work I hold in such high esteem.  I will never overcome my fear if I do not write.  To pursue that which I feel a calling I can find time and muster the energy, of course I can.  The question then:  "will I?"  I hope to God yes.

I can not leave my occupation, work as a carpenter, to pursue writing full time -- I am responsible and called to provide for my family.  I can, however, pursue my vocation, writing, as time time allows and with a disciplined mind.

We Are Moving

A couple of months ago I alluded to an extended time of impending change.  That time is upon my family.  Around Christmas we started talking about what it would look like to move away from Bellingham and relocate to the east side of the cascades.  As we talked and wrestled with the idea the reality of it began to set in and gradually we realized that it was, indeed, time for us to move. 

That realization came as a major blow to our family.  We had, really, just been creating community in Bellingham, so it seemed, though where we are is the culmination of 10 years living in one place -- finishing college, getting married, bringing two boys into the world and finally settling in a church and neighborhood at which we feel connected and have a support network.  Along the way has been immense spiritual growth and healing for my wife, several places to live, and, for my part, an uncertain construction industry that has seen me bounce through employers like a pinball.

I have found it incredibly hard to articulate why we are moving as the mitigating factors are complicated and twisted and don't flow in linear thought but at the end of the day the sense that we are making the right decision is unmistakably clear even through the lenses of the sorrow of leaving a place we have come to love and the anxiety of starting somewhere new.  

And so we have started to pack and tie up the countless loose strings that ultimately tie a family to a place and we have entered a time of sustained chaos as we sort our belongings and pack them away for the long trek somewhere new.  But it is the goodbyes that are the hardest.  Leaving behind the watering wholes and coffee shops and restaurants we love and Galbraith Mt. (mountain bike trails, the importance of which I will not understate, there have been times that my forays out on my bike were the difference between complete emotional collapse and the energy to make it through the week).  But hardest is letting go of the community it was so hard to create in the first place. 

Yet there is a still small voice in the midst of the chaos and sorrow calling us forward, out of Bellingham, and into something new and when I take a moment to listen I can hear clearly the voice of God and I know that our decision is a faithful decision and when we act in faith we are blessed.  That is not to say it will be easy -- in any way -- at first. 

So we look ahead at the next two weeks with anxiety, stress, and continued sorrow as we grieve all that we will leave behind.  But we are fortified by the presence of Christ and will take the challenges that lie ahead head on, with confidence and faith.

Privatized Liquor Sales: a bad choice.

To the People of Washington State:

In this time of deep political and spiritual divides, when we face issues of such pressing urgency that even the most moderate thinkers feel their blood boil as they pluck splinters from butts while rising from the fence upon which they typically sit to turn and yell at both sides of the political spectrum.  The world presses in on us from all sides and our economy struggles and our weather has been a-typical.  You have managed to unite in one thing:  privatizing liquor sales.

I am so disappointed in you.

I have no moral objections to booze.  Rather I am a champion of spirits and regularly have a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard and often tequila and vodka and take a great deal of pleasure and pride in mixing simple drinks with complex flavors and enjoying them in a mature and responsible fashion.  But I choose and pursue my spirits in an intentional manner.

This past weekend liquor became available to purchase in stores over 10,000 square feet, or something like that.  While I was at the store throngs of people flocked to the newly stocked liquor isles and displays and loaded their baskets with half gallon jugs of piss poor vodka and gin and fifths of bad whiskey and bottles of bad tequila all in the course of their regular shopping, picking out broccoli then their bad booze.

The fact that people have always bought bad alcohol is not lost on me.  It was readily available in state run liquor stores as well and it was purchased just as greedily but intentionally so.  But Costco has convinced us that they deserve to sell liquor as well and the general population has toed the Costco line...literally.

I will miss the small, state controlled liquor stores and diverse crew who manned them and I resent Costco and company for their manipulative efforts to gain control of one more aspect of consumer goods.  I am frustrated that buying whiskey, gin, vodka, tequila, or whatever poison you prefer will be as casual as buying a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, and a gallon of milk.    I hate watching people (in my case mostly college students) lugging around cheap, clear, swill piss in plastic half gallon jugs and off brand Cheetos.

I hope you are happy Washington state.  I hope you like your higher prices both in the stores and at your favorite watering whole.  There is no way out of this one.

Re-Inventing a Voice

I was inspired this weekend by a couple of things.

First, a friend of mine started a blog recently (www.abrahambates.com), the energy with which he writes is infectious, fun, and informative but the candid way he writes about his faith and family has been a little convicting for me, a man who writes with, by and large, a critical and negative voice.  In the history of my blog there have been some positive, light moments but they are few and far between and if I am trapped with despondent view on life then my blocks of silence bear witness to my fear, insecurity, and general laziness in the craft/discipline of writing.  I have said it before, I will probably say it again, but I am a writer who fails to write and it leaves the identity I long to full-fill an empty husk crushed under the considerable weight of my insecurities, fears, and the sinking stuck feeling that I carry with me from one temporary carpentry job to the next.  The second inspiration came in the form of the resurrection of Christ.

This is, of course, a pivotal element in my faith as a Christian, a faith that I am reluctant (refer to my fears as a writer) to share period, much less on my blog as a regular feature of who I am.

But this weekend, being Easter, I was struck by the insurmountable power of the living God to resurrect Jesus from the grave, in the process, overcoming death and bequeathing, upon his followers, the power of the Holy Spirit.  If God can resurrect the tortured, battered, defeated human body of Jesus, surely my fears are a footnote in the list of obstacles to be overcome.

These two inspirations came in a one two combination this morning as a license to re-invent my blog, or, rather, change the tune of how/why I write.

Originally this was a blog started on the cusp of life change.  I was staring an impending layoff in the face and eager to strike out in new directions and pursue a new career in come-what-may.  But what came was another carpentry job and then another and another and another again and I slipped into the voice of a trapped and near desperate man struggling to tread water.

I imagine that when you are treading water and the sharks are circling all you can really see are the sharks and all you can really focus on is keeping your head above water, the sunset spilled in the color of blood oranges so close you could reach your fingers into its sticky juice is an after thought if it registers at all.  But I was struck this weekend that, yeah, I maybe treading water and, sure, the sharks are circling, but I still choose to look up at the sunset and for a moment I can close my eyes and the sun can cast its fading warmth on my face and slowly rest into the water, letting my feet rise to the surface and float for a little while.  It has been impressed upon me that I am able to focus on some of the things I find inspiring and engaging and maybe a little sappy and sentimental.

We are (my family and I) again on the cusp of change, preparing to enter into a season of radical change and uncertainty but it is a change of our choosing and I feel released to make a choice, empowered by the Resurrection and inspired by friends writing with a candid voice about their family, faith, and role in life.

For a moment tonight I was prepared to scrap this blog all together, bury King St. Industries and start somewhere new but a blog, mine anyways, is a reflection of my organic, evolving story of who I am, what I am, where I am.  I am quite sure that I will not leave the dark and troubled waters behind me and I don't know if I will ever have the luxury to do any more than tread water, but I am damn sure going to choose to look at the sunset.

Return to Dust

Originally I had written this for a short, short story contest (see rules here: http://www.npr.org/2012/03/10/148251671/three-minute-fiction-round-8-she-closed-the-book&sc=fb&cc=fp) but i miss read the deadline, by March 25, they did not mean March 29.  So, I am sharing it here instead.  I hope you enjoy.

Return to Dust

By Kevin Johnson

            She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door.  Outside the wind had picked up, leaves blown across the dry lawn, bare branches twisted, flaying and dust swirling, ever present, filling space and time with grit.  Nothing was ever clean, dirt gathered beneath her fingernails and sifted through the course fabric of her cloths, the curtains and a box that protected the remnants of a life before this one; his photo in black and white to match the rented suit: sitting on the hood of an old car he had borrowed from a neighbor, her legs crossed in front of her, both smiling at the prospect of whatever lay before them and frightened, too, expectancy and pressure and the desire building up and focusing in on their bodies, just under the delicate feel of the short formal dress, the two of them budding and naïve, excited and afraid.  That photograph is simple in her memory as the newness of “she” was before reality – delusion, disappointment, life – chased away youth. 

 A worn and tarnished silver necklace with a small opal that caught the light and glimmered like a star; two ticket stubs and a little cash she would never spend, all covered in the dust that did not stop blowing with the wind or without it, always moving and sifting into places into which she could not believe dust could find.

 She stood at the door a long time, leaning against her cane, the final remnant of the man in the photo, never again able to smile like he had that night, on their way…she smoothed out her shirt, gnarled hand resting gently on her stomach, the traces who had made it and who hadn’t still lingered but there were no longer any tears for the dead or the living.   She was no longer sure upon which threshold she stood.

 With effort she stepped through the door and walked onto the porch, worn white oak creaking beneath her fragile frame, tentative steps, the tap of her cane, dust stirring, down the steps, onto the lawn, where she felt stronger, had always felt stronger on the ground and out, away from the business of living. 

 In the company of the walnut cane she walked through the yard and towards the hill that blocked out the ocean and the evening sun.

Had she been prone to sentiment it would have been a path of memories, faces staring from the ground, the blood of her body soaked into the soil and toil of a life they had built from ruin and ash into a comfort from which they could not escape, passion flaming into companionship and then into silence as he slipped away into the sea. 

She had watched from the top of the hill unable to speak or cry for help or rush to the edge with the intentions of salvation.  She was frozen in silence and later in grief and now she walked up the hill, a tree planted in his honor, its bare branches covered in dust, the grass brown beneath its gaze, how long had it been since she had stood beneath his cover and cried?

There were no longer any tears left.

She new that they wouldn’t understand, the faces that remained, they never did.

She sat against the rough bark allowed herself to finally fall asleep.

Thoughts on The Hunger Games

On Saturday night I went with a friend to see The Hunger Games.  In short it is set in a post apocalyptic North America in which the continent has been carved into 13 colonies.  As retaliation to a colonial uprising against the capitol colony the 12 other colonies give up two young people between the ages of 12 and 18 in a roman gladiator meets survivor arena called the Hunger Games.  The competition is to the death, the last child standing is the "winner".  (For a detailed synopsis go here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games_%28film%29).

Before I go any further I want to say that I have not read the book, by Susan Collins, upon which the film is based, so, keep that in mind as I reflect on the movie.

This is one of those stories, one of those movies, that has stuck with me and has a similar feel to The Giver, by Louis Lowry, both by it dark nature and the idea that the idealism and strength of children (or, minors in the case of The Hunger Games) can bring change against systems and ideals that marginalize and exploit their youth and vulnerability.

As far as the movie, directed by Gary Ross, goes, it is well done.  The acting is strong despite some weak points in the script and the hurried feel to the story at large.  Obviously there is more in the book and from a strictly movie stance this could easily have been two movies and given, I assume in ignorance (again, have not yet read the book), the themes in the story -- friendship, loyalty, family, the abuse of power, the spectacle of reality T.V. standing up for personal values and beliefs, et. al. -- a lot more time and attention.  As it is the movie is intensely gripping and drives forward with action from start to finish.

Lots of adventure movies are gripping and exciting but few bring home such powerful moral themes in such a vivid way.  The nature of the Hunger Games themselves are haunting, watching young adults not yet in puberty fight to the death with wounded lion ferocity is horrifying.  To see them compromise their personal values to survive for their families is both realistic and heart breaking, to watch a power hungry government exploit and capitalize on the innocence of children is sickening.  But this movie is worth it.

Yet, for my praise, I am troubled by the low PG-13 rating (so eloquently criticized by David Edelstien here:  http://www.npr.org/2012/03/22/148941034/acting-trumps-action-in-a-games-without-horror) and the fact that so many people, teens and adults alike, are watching The Hunger Games in the same fashion as the spectators in the movie, with a hunger for entertainment and sensationalized action.  These same people are going home to watch American Idol or Desperate Housewives or Survivor (is that still a show on T.V.?) or Deadly Catch or Ice Truckers or whatever-the-hell-people watch to find some sort of vicarious life outside their media programmed lives.

I am afraid we will miss the opportunity to have a conversation about what our lives look like, what we value as entertainment, what it means to stand up for who you are and what you believe irregardless of age, status, size, race, or sex.

The Hunger Games is a good movie with strong acting and a powerful story but does it go far enough?  I am not sure.

Pete Dexter

About a month ago a member of a small book club i am apart of chose Deadwood by Pete Dexter as our book.  I don't like to go into a discussion of a book not being familiar with the author so, to better aquaint myself with Pete Dexter, I read Paris Trout (national book award winner) in anticipation of Deadwood.  Since, I have also read The Paperboy.  There is a darkness and a haunting that permeates Dexter's work, it reminds me of a man bitten by a rattlesnake cutting open the bite, a bit to deep, in order to draw out the poison.

Paris Trout is set in the south and centers around the man, Paris Trout, who kills a young black girl while out collecting on a debt.  The unfolding story is elegent and grotesque as Trout slips from just managable to completely out of his mind, a man desperate to go down fighting and take down every one else en route.

Deadwood is a fictional retelling of, well, Deadwood around the time Wild Bill Hickock was there.  If you are familiar with the HBO series of the same name, there is no need to go into the setting, but as Charley Utter reflects, from novel, "It looks like something out of the bible...the part where God got angry."  But Dexter's ability to write so comfortably and without apology on something spiraling out of control marks it as something exceptional and powerful... not a read for every reader, but certainly a book that will stand in posterity.

The Paperboy...I have no new superlatives for Dexter with this novel.  Haunting, dark, elegant, and powerful...a story about a family in the newspaper business and the crushing effects of overwork, dark secrets, and need for belonging.  The final line of the novel sums the whole of the book:  "There are no intact men."

Familiar, to some extent, with Dexter, I can safely say he does not, necessarily, write only about the people in his work, rather the landscape and communities work as characters and aid, one way or another, the failures and achievments of the people by whom they are inhabited.  The barren, dangerous landscape of Deadwood and The Paperboy (badlands of the Dakotas and the swamps of Northern Florida respectfully) have a crushing effect on the people wandering in and out, the institutional racism the permeates the small southern town in Paris Trout has a suffocating, blinding effect on Trout, his wife, and the lawyers involved.  These are not simply books about the protagonists and antagonists and plot lines and story arcs but become regional exposes that you might find condensed in an issue of Time magazine or, perhaps, National Geographic.

I intend to continue reading Dexter, after a short repose, I am drawn to the honesty with which he writes, and the honest reflection of people on the cusp of darkness.  He seems to have found a way to write the way desperate people balance on a knife edge, either withdrawing, wholly, into themselves and by doing so leaving the poeple around them to the violence of the wolves or openning themselves up, just enough, in vain effort to protect those around them.  But at his core, Dexter is authentic, there is nothing contrived or dreamed up and I think he desperatly wants to order the failures of his characters with  a sense of redemption at the point all is lost.

Music and Writing.

Just this weekend I downloaded Spotify.  Having been a Pandora user for sometime I didn't quite see the hype of Spotify.  Listen to full albums, big deal.  I had it in mind that I would always want the radio stylings of variety and surprise and there was very little that Spotify could offer that Pandora could not.  Au contrair.  I am reformed.

I love that I can sit and slam away at my keyboard working on various writing projects while listening to the musical styling of The Decemberists, I honestly don't know the name of the album I am listening to right now, I don't care, but I love this band and I was in the mood for their slick guitar rifts and haunting, poetic vocals and when I write I thrive on melancholy music, it is a way I close the door and engage fully on what I am doing.  Bands like Modest Mouse, Deer Tick, Mumford and Sons, Elliot Smith, a little Tom Waits, among others are the soundtrack to my muse and then the back ground of my writing.

I wish there was a way to put the color of what I hear, physically, in the background of my writing, when I work on fiction I can see the characters coming to the fore of the canvas, my brain splattered across the screen, my fat fingers to slow to keep up with who and what i see as the words pour out, trying desperately to keep rythym and pace with the music ringing in my ears, blocking out the world around me, and when I am truly focused on writing it is as though I am sitting in the blackness and the only light is the screen of my computer and only writing exists -- heart, soul, being, pouring across the page in shades and shapes and sounds and explosions of imagination and reality.

A Little More on Facebook

I may have been a little harsh on facebook the other day.  It is easy for me to re-direct all of my insecurities and frustrations and make whatever is most accessible and a scapegoat.  That is not to say I would take back what I wrote, I believe in what I said, I would not have written it otherwise but it is not a blanket statement. 

My facebook time is always brief.  I scan the postings like reading classified adds, looking for buzz words to pop up before I take a closer look at who, what, when, where, etc... and as such it is, essentially, a non entity in my life.  My frustration stems from the "sound bites" that catch my attention.  It will never cease to amaze me the kinds of things people say in a public forum with the blanket assumption that everyone will agree with them.  Political, religious, social issues raised with the expectation of agreement.

Now, before anyone gets hostile or defensive, hear me out, briefly.  I know the expectations of opinionated statements by virtue of the level of defense leveled at anyone who dares contradict the author.  This is not a inclusive of facebook, Bellingham, were I live, is the poster child of half thought, knee jerk, narrow minded, social causes.  I say narrow minded because once someone has prescribed to the movement of the month they are blind to discussion, debate, and ulterior thinking.  Facebook reeks with those same qualities and draws down our social thinking/interacting to sound bites.  One off sentences from which we expect to stay connected.

What I was trying to say the other day, and perhaps I am beating my own dead horse, is that we are connecting more to sentences that people and the facebook profiles we work so hard to curate become caricatures of who we are or who we used to know.

Of course meaningful relationships can be renewed and maintained on facebook.  It is easy to share photos with grandparents or check in with family overseas.  As I said, it has brought me a great measure of joy to see old friends get married and become parents and lead generally successful lives but facebook is a shadow of who they are behind which  of the complexity and excitement of relationship is hidden.

I stand by what I have written but recognize the value of facebook.  For my part it will be what it will be, shadows of people I only know now through the Internet.  Connected but not really a part of life.  On one hand I wonder at the value of the connections but that wonder is moot in the nature of our society, using social networking as a crutch to limp through the lost relationships in our lives.

Facebook

For the past couple of months I have been slowly weaning myself of facebook.  Perhaps that is not quite accurate, I have let facebook fade from who I am.  I heard a writer on the radio recently, Diablo Cody, say she thought facebook was keeping people too connected with their past, clinging to relationships that "should have ended 15 years ago."  For me, right now, that is where I am at as well. 

I have enjoyed seeing old friends, glancing at what they are doing with their lives, who they have become, their joy as they discover parenthood and the miracle of their children and this is fun and insightful and pretty soon we are all commenting in heartfelt prattle or chiding in with glib remarks and then feel empty with unresolved posts or offensive jokes or the socio-political double standard in which we live, free to comment our way but defensive at comments your way.  I have never thought of my self as a voyeur, have always lived quietly behind the scenes, a hard and fast introvert, but facebook as brought out in me something strange.

When I spend time on facebook searching my past, looking into others present, liking this that and the other thing for the sake of public affirmation that yes I like whisky, beer, wine, and food, and mountain biking and reading and local stores that cater to my whims and political movements for which I would never carry a sign in person, and I shut it down to move on with the here and now and the pressing issues at hand -- like work and bills -- it feels as though I am emerging from a smoke screen but the heat of the fire is real and damaging and all the connections I have made are made through that smoke screen and lost the human element of sincerity and compassion and while I find joy in your children as well and cry with your losses and empathize with your plights and love your clever jokes and word play as soon as I entomb it in facebook it feels cheapened and dead.

Before I continue, this is how I feel and not a blanket statement.  There are some who are perfectly content to live their relationships through facebook and leach onto social media with a frenzied passion and dedication to staying connected and being in your life.  For some people this is not a problem and is, in fact, healthy.  More power to you, keep on keepin' on with what gives you life.  Just be sure what you are getting is life and not a caricature of human interaction.  Because facebook has become a receptacle for the mundane minutia of our everyday lives and that is some how translated into a justification of our weakness, our fears, our insecurities turned interesting footnotes to the greater context of our lives.  Footebook does not have the same ring to it as facebook.

I would like to say goodbye to facebook but that would be a lie on my part.  While I rarely contribute to anybodies posts or profiles or thoughts or pictures, or to my profile therein, it is still a part of the social conscience in which we live.  Facebook has become as much a part of the our daily vernacular as cell phones, email, and craigslist.  It is hear to stay but I don't have to particularly like it.