October First

Happy October from Bono, the King of Ireland.

Author Photo

Last week, Suzanne and I moved a dresser, shifted a shelf, and emptied some drawers. This led to me finding a trove of stuff. Among the old postcards, student evaluations, and old papers for school were a few photos.

When I graduated from BSU in 2003, our little cadre of would-be writers got together for a class picture and "author photos." Meghan Kenny ('02) kindly obliged us and took a bunch of photos of us as a group being silly, wearing hats, etc. and also one of each graduate to use on the dust jacket of the next Great American Novel or, in my case, the next tiny book of poetry.

One thing that makes me laugh about the group shots is that Maryn is in them. She was the unofficial mascot of our graduating class and my classmates joked before she was born about naming her Emma Faye (get it? MFA?). I can't remember why she was with me that day but with me she was, so she got in on the photographic action.



From left to right: Chris, Emma Faye Brown, me, Callie (Judith), Maura, Matt, girl I had so little to do with I can't remember her name after only five years, Bill, Will. (I feel bad about not remembering that girl's name. I remember that she had a tiny, purse-sized dog named Winnie that she brought to school with her - but I don't remember her name. Isn't that bad?)



And here's me, looking skinny, shorn, and all ready to unleash my poetry on the world like a bad virus.

P.S. Meghan or Maura, if you read this - help me out with the name of Winnie's owner.

A Savant of Beauty

My friend and mentor Scott Samuelson once wrote about going to see a Shakespeare production in England. I think the play was Hamlet and it seems like he saw it in some venerable location - Stratford or the Old Vic or something like that. The lead actor, he wrote, was brilliant, nuanced, and very powerful. Later, the group Scott was with got to have a backstage tour and a Q and A with the lead. Scott said that, as a person, the guy came across as shallow, vapid, and really, really uninteresting. He was extraordinarily gifted but didn't have a clue about it. He wrote about how he couldn't figure out how someone could be so good at something and yet be so unaware of how he's doing it. He was some kind of acting savant apparently.

It's not exactly the same thing, but that story did come to mind as I watched Kim Kardashian perform on DWTS last week. For those of you who don't know, KK is a wealthy socialite ala Paris Hilton. Her dad was O.J. Simpson's lawyer and her step dad is former Wheaties cover boy, Bruce Jenner. She's one of those model/stylist/designer/doesn't-really-do-crap types like Paris Hilton. Lots of people know her name but not many people can name a specific thing that she does. The thing is, unlike Paris who looks like your average high school senior with a lot of money, KK is sort of ridiculously beautiful. She's exotic-looking and isn't shaped like every other stick figure on television. (Please, Susan Lucci, eat something! I'm begging you.)



So okay, she's rich and beautiful and, naive though it may be, I thought she might be an interesting contender on DWTS. Non-entertainment people have come out of nowhere and proven to be strong competitors and interesting personalities. (Hello, Helio Castroneves? The guy sits for a living. Who would have thought that dude stood a chance?) So I was curious to see how KK would do. Unfortunately, as it turns out, what one might assume to be true about a rich, beautiful friend of Paris Hilton's is shaping up to be the case. Not a lot going on there. Here's a bit of last week's write up from Entertainment Weekly:

"I can't tell if the producers chose Kim because she has no detectable personality (beyond being ''shy'' and ''reserved,'' of course) or in spite of it. Anyone with the remotest sense of humor, or even a vague understanding of the term ''sense of humor,'' would have, after agreeing to dance to ''Baby Got Back,'' at least hammed it up for a few seconds. The quasi celebrity seems so afraid of looking stupid or silly that she's forgotten she agreed to be on a show whose primary function is to make quasi-celebrities look stupid and silly. Mark's gross overcompensation for Kim's lifelessness only made the entire spectacle more embarrassing and bizarre."

I know, I know. You're out there saying, "She's boring, untalented, and lacking in personality - and you're surprised, Mr. Brown?" I'm a sucker, I guess. I never thought she would win by any stretch. (That will be either Brooke Burke, Misty May-Treanor, or Lance Bass.) I just didn't think she'd be so lifeless on the stage, you know? The way this links into what I initially wrote about is that I think KK is a savant of beauty. She has the gift of looks but, seemingly, little else. Even Paris showed a little spunk and smarts recently by agreeing to that Paris for President spoof. But alas, KK is all looks and no brains (or dancing ability, I'm afraid.) Watch for her to be eliminated midway, sometime after Cloris Leachman and but before Maurice Green.

This Made Me Laugh

Though not as hands-down brilliant as the opening sketch from the season premiere, this is still pretty good.

Tag-Tastic

I am pleasantly rested considering my late night in a smoke-filled club in downtown Detroit.

I miss the unstructured pleasure of summer vacations as a kid.

I think about the Presidential election, its various ups and downs, the strategy involved, the combination of optimism and stone-cold cynicism it represents.

I love bacon on sandwiches, hot pizza, cold lemonade, Indian summer, and going to the movie theater.

I know I'm chubbier and less healthy than I'd like to be. (Probably because of the bacon and pizza.)

I want more time to write fiction.

I have a weekend coming up and I'm so happy about it.

I wish for world peace, puppies, rainbows, and unicorns.

I hate people who neglect their kids.

I am scared of snakes.

I feel fine.

I hear dialogue from Rudolph Maté's D.O.A. It's playing on my DVD player next to my computer. Frank Bigelow is talking to Mr. Halliday, the comptroller. Frank is trying to find out who poisoned him with a luminous toxin.

I smell the nasty, bitter, chemical smell of latex gloves. I had to wear them to hand out cake and ice cream at our groupwide meeting this afternoon and I can't wash it off my skin. Echh.

I don't do windows.

I wonder - I'm a-walking in the rain, Tears are falling and I feel the pain, Wishing you were here by me, To end this misery and I wonder, I wah, wah, wah, wah wonder
Why
Why, why, why, why, why she ran away
And I wonder when she will stay
My little runaway a-run, run, run, run, a-runaway.

I care about good writing.

I am not afraid of my students or being in downtown Detroit after dark.

I believe in a thing called love.

I dance in the seat of my car while driving home and listening to loud music.

I sing like Dean Martin on an off-day.

I write blog entries, papers on film, stories.

I win at the blow-up-the-balloon-on-the-clown's-head-by-squirting-water-in-its-mouth game at the fair.

I lose at almost everything else.

I never watch football, baseball, or basketball on TV.

I listen to my coworkers when they speak. It makes them think I'm a genius.

I can be found at the new HP computer in the lab adjacent to my classroom. Next to the wall, across from the door.

I read dense film texts, blogs, movie news, Poets and Writer's Magazine, the funnies, movie reviews.

I am happy when the sun shines, good music plays, and my family is around.

I tag anyone.

And P.S. I encourage everyone to do Mike's sad song meme too.