Pointing Toward the Moon

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One of my earliest memories are of  moments when I learned the words for things.  Especially when I was three. I  knew a lot of words and talked in sentences. But I was only three. So my world was a mix of words and nameless entities.

I  remember walking down the street in a lush midwestern summer.   My parents and I were going to the beach. The air was redolent with lilacs.   We passed a garden filled with roses, fresias, bluebells.  In the center was a huge piece of rough, grainy stone.

What’s that? I asked.

A birdbath, my mother answered.

All at once, the word birdbath wrapped around the stone, encasing it, like a cloak.  It was a transparent cloak that let me see through to the stone. And it was a skimpy cloak that didn’t cover the stone completely..  At times like these I understood what words did and didn’t do:  They allowed me to name what I was talking about.   They  allowed me to compare, so when I saw the birdbath on Hamlin Street, I could say that it was smaller. They even allowed me to write a story about a birdbath. But the wordbirdbath was never quite the thing I’d seen before it had a name.

I remember understanding this with several words–all of them nouns:

Birdbath.

Wheat field.

 Silo.

Swan.

At some point I knew words for almost every object in my world and stopped sensing that sliver of transition when  the word leapt toward the thing and the thing found its place in the world of words. I began to acquire what is known as a vocabulary.

But even though I forgot those moments, I think that these early experiences helped me understand the limits of language. Maybe this is why I studied linguistics, majored in philosophy, drowned in the dualisms of empiricists, and eventually found myself on an island with William Blake and Martin Heidegger (an unlikely pair, who probably would have fought while I gathered palm fronds and cracked coconuts).  And maybe this is why I bothered to read the postmodernists and have always loved Wallace Stevens

Most of all, it probably explains why, as a fiction writer,  I often feel like a journeyman with a humble set of tools.  Language is an unpredictable swinging door. It can bring us closer to experience or pull us farther away.  It only points toward the moon.  And except for those serendipitous passages and poems, in which language unites with rhythm, sound and the imagination, it never becomes the moon.

As must be apparent, I’ve spent a lot of time reading and thinking about language.  But what I understand best are moments when I was small:   The summer garden. The stony object.   The word wrapping around it.

Time in Fiction

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Time in fiction

 

Time is the dark horse of fiction.  Without a sense of unfolding, emergent time—time that is happening at the very moment of in the story–the reader remains outside the story, as one would stand on the banks of a river. Just as a character needs to convey the sense that they are moving through space and embodied, time needs convey a sense of immediacy.   It’s far easier to give a character embodiment because you can think of a character moving in space and assume time. But since time and space are simultaneous, we are deeply immersed in time, instantly at one with time. And time (for us and for characters) never occurs without a space.  So it’s hard to think of “time” as a singular element.

For this reason, much of the work you need to do to convey time consists of not depending on a voice that conveys timelessness, or thinly disguised attempts to fill the reader in.   Here, then, are some things not to do.

 

  1. Long narrative detail that is meant to provide the reader with facts.
  2. The use of flashbacks that interrupt the flow of the narrative.
  3. The use of flashbacks that are meant to give information and don’t convey the flow of time as it is happening in that moment.
  4. Expository or explaining dialogue—either between characters who are solidly in the story or characters who meet after not seeing each other and talk in paragraphs about what has happened since they last met.
  5. Sudden “memories” that overtake characters.

 

All of the above take the reader out of the time of the story and throw them on the

bank of the river.  There are, however, some things that do work—and I’m sure you can think of more.

 

  1. Trust that the facts will come out in the emergence of the narrative.   They often do—and the action of the characters or the momentum of the narrative arc will convey details that you thought you had to convey.
  2. Use a scene in present time that forces the characters to revisit the past: A trial, a missed reunion, opening a letter that’s not been opened on purpose.  In the movie The Angel’s Share this is handled beautifully when the main character has to have a discussion with someone he assaulted.  (This is a tradition in Scotland after one has served a jail term.)  In this discussion, we see elements of the protagonist’s past right in front of us.
  3. Get the reader to be curious about something, so the flow to the past satisfies a curiosity about the present and often some action in the present.  (Think of the reader swimming in the river, noticing something floating in the stream and reaching backwards to get it.)

 

There is an opportunity for timelessness in fiction.  This is when the voice of the narrative persona (the voice of the author of the story) emerges.  This can happen in third-person fiction but not often in first-person.  You’ll probably notice that many of the things to avoid in fiction involve relying on timelessness—which takes us out of the river of the story.  Among them are endless exposition and flashbacks without a sense of emerging right then. A good writer can find ways to ally the reader with the narrator so the segues between action and information, past and present, are seamless. Ben Marcus does it in his current story in The New Yorker)  (The Dark Arts http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2013/05/20/130520fi_fiction_marcus) by managing to stay close to the feelings of the character.  He has the advantage of telling an up-close third person story—i.e. one in which we stay with the feelings of one character and remember and see the world through his eyes. But there are other techniques—even in the first person—for example when the butler’s memories in Remains of the Day are tied to something that is deeply important to him at the moment. Perhaps one of the most challenging forms is an omniscient third person narrator who inhabits many different characters.  However, even in this form, you can use an up close approach every time you zero in on a character.  Or—as Jane Austen or Flannery O’Conner do—you can insert a brief narrative comment, never taking the reader out of the river but allowing them to rise above it for a miraculous instant, that is to know they are in a river.

 

 

 

The Failure of the Intended Story

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There’s always a point in a story where the triggering idea (what makes me want to start a story)  falls flat. It’s time to improvise and  generate material within the story. At this point I can’t think of what to do.  There is a  wobbly line inside my head that says this is a viable story  and this wobby line intersects with a hidden line  (but much sturdier line) that saysthis not a viable story, but you can’t write in the first place.   I beat my h ead against the wall, and eventually, magically, improvisation happens.   In a sense, the failure of the intended story guarantees the success of the final story.

I told this to Yuki Zalcow (www.yuvizalcow.com) when he interviewed me for The Rumpus

This intrigued Yuvi and eventually he added his own alchemy and made a video about the failure of the intended story.  Thanks Yuvi!

The Failure of the Intended Story (with Thaisa Frank) – YouTube

Thanks, Yuvi.

 

(The interview is at (http://therumpus.net/2012/12/the-rumpus-interview-with-thaisa-frank/)

After the Book Tour

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The publication of my last book made me tired. It was a special kind of tired because I was tired of myself–tried of hearing myself talk about a book I’d written and left behind. I was also tired of confusing the tired person who talked with  authority on what she’d written with someone who had no idea how she’d written it and no idea what she’d write next.

 

Georgia O’Keefe said I did my best work when no one knew what I was doing.

I’m sure this is true for all of you who write or paint or dance or write complex computer codes.  These are times when you aren’t required to remember who you were  or are.  There are times when you never have to  think about an audience. And there are times when you are all alone.

The artist, Philip Guston said: When I first go into the studio there are a lot of people in the room.  Slowly there are fewer and fewer.  Eventually, there’s only me.  And finally no one’s in the room.

 

Sometimes readings and book tours are fun.  They’re ornate masked balls, jubilant celebrations.  At these times I feel privy to a secret: The journey was never the point: It was always the destination.  And actually, I always knew. Except now I have proof. The party is happening.  And it’s so much more fun than the journey.

But then it turns out the arrival is over: You can’t arrive at the same destination forever.

During the celebrations,  I’ve explained that writing is a profession, a  mix of discipline and agift that comes from nowhere.   Suddenly it isn’t a profession and I don’t receive any gifts–not even a paragraph or a sentence. In a word, I am unemployed.

It’s easy to blame the sense of unemployment after a book on the hysteria of the times: Writers need a platform. There are debates about whether a Twitter following  creates an audience or is merely evidence of an established one.  There are e-books.  And the tragic loss of independent bookstores.

Yet I have a sense that many writers got tangled in self-promotion.  Dickens engorged his work  because he was paid by the word. At the Beatrix Potter Exhibit at J.P. Morgan, I was astonished to learn that she’d created a Peter Rabbit Doll. And even though Kafka wanted Max Brod to burn his manuscripts (he knew Max wouldn’t), he couldn’t wait to publish The Judgment.

Between books, and after the publicity that makes me tired of myself, I am uninspired, rudderless–wishing I had could join Doctors Without Borders or be an archeologist discovering goddesses from the Stone Age.  And I’m painfully aware that I can’t even work a cash register.

 

What happens to break this spell?  No writer ever completely knows  since the spell is ready to be broken before the writer is released. For me  it’s always a lucky accident–a phrase, a moment of play that eluded me, the sudden appearance of a title.

 

Often it’s finding fellow travelers.

This time I found two fellow travelers. The first was Mary Ruefle (www.maryruefle.com) who wrote Madness, Rack and Honey. Mary Ruefle is an extraordinary poet with an extraordinary gift as an essayist who engages the reader in a conversation.  She is enthusiastic about sharing her mind and sees poetry everywhere —even in Victoria’s Secret ads–which are a seamless part of a rumination about how writing itself is a revelation of secrets.  When Mary Ruefle writes she is unpretentious and intimate. She also shares–unselfconsciously–how she feels about her essays at the moment of writing them.  I went into her workroom with her. And was reminded that writers all over the world are part of an invisible community.

The second fellow traveler I met was Karen J0y Fowler (www.karenjoyfowler.com). I’ve long enjoyed her work (The Jane Austen Club, Sarah Canary  and numerous short stories). And I was surprised when we met together at the same reading.  As soon as I met her, I sensed someone who thought about writing—even when she was out in the open marketplace. At one point, during dinner, she said she’d love to give a reading to dogs. I understood! I’d always wanted to read to dogs, too. But I’d never met anyone who said that out loud.  Soon I was writing a story called Reading to Dogs.

Thanks, then, to Mary Ruefle and Karen Joy Fowler.  Neither of them knew they were answering a call. And that’s the way it is with writing. Just as meetings between readers and writers are invisible, meetings with other writers are often invisible.  That’s the conundrum of the journey. It’s also the delight and mystery.

 

 

Karen Bender, author of A Town of Empty Rooms talks about her novel and the flying carpet of the web

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When Thaisa Frank asked me to contribute to her blog,http://thaisafrank.com/blog/, for The Next Big Thing, project, I was happy; I’m excited to read her latest book, Enchantment, which was one of the SF Chronicle Best Books of 2012 and which reviewer Skip Horak described in the SF Chronicle, as having a “marvelous, dreamlike quality–the sort of book that is not read as much as it is experienced, a spellbinding blend of flash fiction, short stories and novellas that also move seamlessly and pleasingly from the concrete and the surreal, the historical and the fantastic (often within the same narrative.” So the next big thing I’d advise you to read it is Thaisa’s book!

It’s also great to be part of an online network to help get the word out about literature coming out this year, and offer up a little info on my own. My second novel, A Town of Empty Rooms, is first book I’ve published since social media really became a presence in book publishing. My first novel was a 600-page brick that I dumped on my agent’s desk and that he sent by messenger to editors around New York. My last book was sent in as an attachment to an email, and travelled through the world this way until it found its home at Counterpoint. Now I love seeing the way news about books can travel, freely, from my computer into yours, via facebook, blogs, twitter, etc. Here’s some information on my new novel, A Town of Empty Rooms and its evolution, and some books to look out for in 2013:

What is your new novel called My new novel is called A Town of Empty Rooms; it was published January 15

What kind of book is it?I’d call it a work of literary fiction, which means that I hope it illuminates a reader’s own unique, perhaps unthinkable thoughts.

What  inspired you to start this book?

I stared thinking about this book when I wanted to figure out why people liked  accusing one another. I think an image that stayed with me was watching enormous tanks roll down Oleander Drive in Wilmington, on the way to Iraq. This was happening when people were protesting this war around the globe. I wondered–how was this war starting? It seemed that no one was listening to each other, that the government was just barging ahead doing its own thing, and I started noticing how failure to communicate was happening on a massive scale–in our nation, in communities, within families. I wanted to write to find out how this happened and maybe how people could learn to connect with each other more.  It’s also about a couple who have trouble talking to each other, a troubled Jewish congregation in the Bible Belt, the Boy Scouts, and an unfortunate neighbor.

How long did it take to write?

It took about two years to write a first draft, and a couple years to revise. It was about five years in the making.

What stars should play your characters in a movie?

I’d like Jeremy  Piven to play Rabbi Golden; watching his volatile Ari Gold in Entourage helped me, in some ways, create this character. Julianne Margulies for Serena; Tom Cruise, the master of the suppressed cheerful guy, to play Dan, and Gene Hackman to play the upbeat but sinister neighbor, Forrest.

What books would you compare this to?  

I’m not sure what books I’d compare this to, but ones that nourished me while I wrote it: The Widow’s Children by Paula Fox, Little Children by Tom Perotta, Intuition by Allegra Goodman, The Collected Stories of John Cheever, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick, anything by Philip Roth. I was drawn to books that explored all the interesting flaws in their characters, all the wonderful mistakes that make us human.

What books should we look for in 2013?

First, Dana Sachs’ new novel, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace, which comes out in February, and features what I know will be the most memorable grandmother/granddaughter road trip ever; I know it will be beautiful and moving and full of radiant compassion, as Dana’s books always are.

In June, Rebecca Lee’s story collection Bobcat, which introduces one of the best voices in contemporary short fiction.  Ben Fountain compares her to Chekhov and Munro, and I’d like to throw Nabokov in there; a gorgeous, funny, brilliant voice.

Second, in June, Rockaway by Tara Ison, one of my favorite writers, whose new novel is a love letter to the town of Rockaway, New York, and whose new novel promises to be a unique and beautiful exploration of love and art.

And also, in June (a big month!) look for Craig Nova’s All The Dead Yale Men,a sequel to his novel The Good Son, which is a modern classic.

In October, Nina de Gramont’s new YA novel Meet Me at the River; I can’t wait to follow de Gramont’s luminous, singular prose as she leads us through this story of love and ghosts.

Definitely pick up these books this year! Let the relay of literature continue on.

 

 

Anne-E Wood: People at Night

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What is the working title of the book?

The title of the chapter is Celia the working title of the book is The Warblers.

Where did the idea come from the book?

The idea of the book came with insomnia. When I was in my mid-twenties, I had a hard time sleeping. So did my sister, so we would call each other up sometimes in the middle of the night. I thought about how odd it was: we had taken very different paths in life, but we shared this frustrating sleeplessness. We were up for separate reasons, but for those hours, we felt exactly the same way. So this idea of a novel about a family that can’t sleep came to me.  Night is a setting that reveals something about character that daylight hides. I didn’t invent this.

For this chapter…

I came across some photographs of my mother from the 70’s, when my siblings and I were small children. In all of them she’s engaged in a loving motherly action: you can see her silhouette pushing a child on a swing, her hands buttoning an infant’s coat. In many of them, her face is hidden, completely cut out of the picture or half-veiled with her long blond hair. So I wondered about her emotional state. What did the pictures show and what did they hide? What truths and lies were they telling? She had given up her career as a journalist to raise five children in the suburbs. Was she happy with how things turned out? Had she ever been happy?  So this character, Celia, started speaking to me. Celia isn’t my mother at all, but she might be some restless shadow of my mother. She’s also some aspect of me and a lot of other women and men I know. She’s in love with someone from the past, but maybe that memory is just something that sustains her in the present. I wanted her voice to capture a particular kind of loneliness. It’s not angst. It’s more terrifying. It’s the loneliness of missing something you never had and wanting something that might not exist. All the members of the family in my book suffer from that kind of desire, and besides blood and insomnia, this is what connects them.

 Genre

It’s Contemporary Literary Fiction

Which Actors Would You Choose:

Walter: Tracy Letts

Celia:  Jennifer Connely, but she would have to gain some weight

Benjamin: Heath Ledger type

Dahlia: Scarlett Johansson

Noah: Patrick Wilson

One Sentence Synopsis of the Book 

The story of a father whose family abandons him, told through the family members’ voices at different nights of their lives.

Publishing 

An excerpt, “Celia,” will be published in the debut issue of No Tokens, a new Brooklyn magazine that will come out in the fall.

How Long Did it Take to Write the First Draft?

Years.

What might peak the reader’s interest?

The story  involves murder, betrayal, sex, drugs, and a dog, but I’m hoping the characters’ voices and conflicts with each other will pull the readers into the narrative.

Light and Transient Causes–A Corner of the Next Big Thing

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I’m delighted that Peg Alford Pursell (http://www.pegalfordpursell.com/) invitedme to talk about what I’m working on. She is the tireless founder and curator of Why There are Words, named Best of the Bay in 2012.  In an age where bookstore readings are on the decline, Why There are Words (held in a Sausalito art gallery) recaptures a time when bookstore readings were lively, warm, and packed with people. She’s also a fine writer (you can read some of her stories online) and is working on a prodigious novel, callled Blow the House Down.  

Talking about “the next big thing” is challenging for some writers, and I’m certainly one of them. I prefer to work in silence. Like the most fragile seeds of plants, my stories grow in the dark. (Yuvi Zalkow has made me nail this a little bit in his recent interview in The Rumpus (http://tinyurl.com/cmweoqy).  Still, I find it challenging to talk about the unspeakable, and so I’m going to talk about my next novel–as much as the characters will let me.   Here goes:

What is your working title of your book (or story)?  

The working title is Light and Transient Causes. I may not use it for the book, but it’s clinging to me and says something to me right now. (I heard it on the fourth of July in a small town, where someone was reading The Declaration of Independence and it leapt out as ironic, hopeful–about causes so light the sun shone through them.)   However, other titles also are auditioning.

.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It’s very hard for me to know where my ideas come from.  I seem to be hanging out at the pneumatic tube of the imagination when no one else is and I get an assignment.  Usually it’s in the form of a passage, a phrase, or a title. .  (The key passage I wrote from Heidegger’s Glasses took me sixteen years to understand.  And I understood it when the title Heidegger’s Glasses came to me. ) I can’t say much now, except that I like to put my characters in unfamiliar locations–places you know about and have seen but can’t identify.  I also like to put my characters against a backdrop of political unrest so they are dealing with a common cause, as well as interpersonal struggles.  Last, I would say that I’m fascinated by the issue of identity.  What is it?  What makes one sure of who one is?
What genre does your book fall under?
It’s literary fiction and I’m going to borrow Karen E. Bender’s explanation (she’s going to blog next week). “Literary fiction is fiction that I hope illuminates a reader’s own unique, perhaps unthinkable,
thoughts.  I’d also add that I’m interested in fiction that broadens a reader’s sense of other lives–how they are and aren’t like our own.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
,I would choose Sarah Polley (after seeing her in The Secret Life of Words I know she can act!)
Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Javier Bardem. I would look for any one of a number of actors in
Spanish speaking countries and would want some of the movie to be in subtitles.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
I can’t speak for the book at this stage!
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m represented by the Diana Finch Agency
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 
A year with breaks to do book tours for my short story collection, Enchantment. .
What other books would you compare this  story to your genre?
That’s not a question the book can answer yet.  My last novel was compared the The White Hotel but that never occurred to me.
Who or what inspired you to write this book? ?
As I said, I don’t know what inspires me. I give a great deal of credit to the mysterious wisdom of the imagination–and also to everything that’s ever happened in my life, ranging from hearing radiators rattle on cold New York mornings to having a child.  When I get an idea–through a title, an image, or  a passage–I don’t try to understand it. Eventually, I can tell if it’s growing in the silence and the dark
That is—I begin to hear things, or read things, or see things, and start to think “That can go in the book,” even thought I haven’t decided to write a book. And at some point I have a lot of material  in fragments and I want to put them together to see how they fit and what other pieces are needed.When I feel driven about completing that puzzle, I know I’m writing a book.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
 Often what readers notice and like is startling and original , as though they’re writting the story in their own imaginations. So it sort of feels like hubris to talk in advance about what a reader will like. It’s more exciting to let the reader make the discoveries.
Coming up next Tuesday, February:  Three wonderful writers talking about a work in progress, Edie Meidav, Anne-E Wood, and Karen Bender.  They will ALL publish on this site.
,
Karen E. Bender will talk about her novel, A Town of Empty Rooms, out January 15th with Counterpoint Press.  lt got rave reviews from The Boston Globe, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus, among others.
 
Edie Meidave has written a number of highly-regarded books, including Crawl Space, The Far Field of Ceylon, and Lola, California, which is coming out this summer with Picador. Edie will blog about her next work.
Anne-E Wood, a sparkling story writer from Brooklyn, who’s  written Two If By Sea and  publishes in Agni, Tin House, The Chicago Quarterly–among many others.  Anne-E will talk about her.upcoming novel.
Please visit us again!.

 

53-word story contest judged by moi

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It’s hard to write a story in 53 words, but it can be done.  This week is a story that take place in an empty attic and the judge is moi.  Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/b9c7kuq

I’m writing a 53-word story today and will post it later.

As for a 100-word story, I did one with an interview at  http://www.100wordstory.org/

The story took me two days!

 

If you want to read more about the beneifts of working with restrictions and a limited palette, take a look at a column I wrote at Red Room.

http://redroom.com/member/thaisa-frank/blog/53-word-story-contest-limiting-your-palette

Tolstoy and the Underpants Model

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200px-L.N.Tolstoy_Prokudin-Gorsky

Like some of you, I have surfed the rogue galleries of dating sites.  Sometimes I find people so poignant and interesting, I think about them as characters. Round chararacters–in the sense that the reader lives inside their lives and hearts. There are also flat characters—the stereotypes of Dickens’ London, translated into 21st century cyber-people.

1. The Pet Contingent: Men photographed cuddling dogs. Women photographed riding horses.

2.  The Outdoors Contingent:  Men in helmets on skis next to motorcycles laden with golf clubs.   Women in pink pants playing tennis on roller skates next to a racing car. Men and women with camping gear whose faces are partly hidden by backpacks, bedrolls, and necklaces of water bottles.

3. The Music Contingent:. Men bending over guitars.  Women obscured behind mikes.  People in bands who look like at least one other person in the band.

4. The Vacation Contingent: People grinning by the Eiffel Tower, Shinto shrines, Serengeti zebras, Welch sod huts, the Great Barrier Reef.

5.  The God and Goddess Contingent. People with pendants, amulets, and a great admiration of The Secret.

6. The Natural Habitat Contingent. People photographed next to their televisions with puce drapes and a cactus plant in the background. Or: in elegant living rooms with white sofas, fine art and glass tables.

7. The Costume Contingent. People wearing Renaissance capes and brandishing dueling swords or wearing nothing but pasted feathers for Carnival.

8. The Nature Contingent: People photographed on top of mountains, in meadows, or oceans, their faces distant against extraordinary vistas.

9. The Writer Contingent: People who identify with the souls of famous writers and poets.

Since I’m a writer, the last contingent interests me most and I’ve collected  some profiles and rewritten them with disguises. Here are four, with one commentary:

 

Exhibit A: Even though I was the first CEO gal in my company, I feel closest to Rumi.  With my long hair flying, and my briefcase banging against my athletic body, I still am on the edge of the roof  making love with the Beloved under water. 

Exhibit B: I move and sit and walk like a twenty-something from climbing and surfing and loving the outdoors—the spirit of the Hardy Boys with the soul of Tolstoy in the body of an underpants model.

Exhibit C: I’m a computer-progammer and love to golf;  but I feel closest in spirit to Jane Austen because she understood that  timing is everything. Of course I want to meet a lady who plays golf, too, but she also should appreciate the man who waits for just the right moment to linger at her office cubicle. 

Exhibit D: I have worked as an actress, singer, and songwriter and my friends consider me attractive. But I found my calling when I started to be a life coach for people with dogs who were too high-strung to handle normal training school. I feel closest to John Steinbeck. It isn’t just about  Travels with Charley.

Sometimes I wonder how these writers would feel if they saw their spirits invoked and read the ads. I imagine Rumi–after a period of confusion–would write a poem about cyber-union. Jane Austen–once educated about cyberspace–would write a satire.

Steinbeck would be saddened—cyber-realism isn’t his thing.

I mostly worry about Tolstsoy, who  died of pneumonia at the Astapovo railway station at age 82, after deciding to leave his family and become a wandering ascetic. He had ended a claustrophobic relationship with his wife by sharing his journal with Chertkov, a much younger man, and preached for all kinds of causes.  He probably would understand that cyberspace could be a great podium for his ideas and even a new book– if only he could get out of his current persona. I think he would have cried out in the voice of his cyber-double:

Please help me! I am a 19th centuy epic writer from Russia trapped in the 21st century body of something called an underpants model.  Instead of a rustic life outside of Moscow I have to race all over New York City to big buildings. When I get there they fit me with a strap that makes my entire privates look enormous and after that they put on something tight-fitting that still exposes my chest and legs. Then I am forced to stand many hours under lights, and after that I go to a place called a gym with machines, always perspiring, not understanding the language of my trainer. Then I have to go to dark caverns called clubs where there’s no good vodka to speak of. I’m never able to write and someone stole my Bible on the subway. They won’t let me grow my beard and no one listens when I talk about pacifism, acesitism, poverty and denial of the will.

I know it’s all the fault of a certain man who wants  women to make love to him and I am outraged that he invoked my name along with the words “underpants model.”   How will I live with this epithet?  Or is it a living proof of the great Buddhist and Hindu philosophies of denial of the will?