The business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.
Hunter used to say....
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Creationists: Selected Essays: 1993-2006 by E. L. Doctorow (the audio version read by the author is a must hear)
I wish I could find the text of the introduction to this book - it's as good, if not better, than any of the essays included.
Creationists is a set of 16 essays adapted from reviews, book introductions and public lectures in which E. L. Doctorow explores the themes of literary and scientific creation and the ways that “creators” shape and are shaped by the culture that surrounds them. While this is a highly inspiring work for writers, as well as for those who love to read the written word, Doctorow goes beyond literature and explores the worlds of humor as well as of science.
He begins, well, at the beginning, with Genesis. He describes how there was a time when someone told a story, it was regarded at the truth. He explores how this expectation, over time, broke down. By the time that Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, Defoe had to try to convince the reader that he was only reporting the story to give the illusion of fact.
In the essay on Mark Twain, Doctorow explores the two faces that are Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He describes the fun-loving Sawyer, who rejects the social class that he is a part of via his Aunt Polly, and compares it to that of the serious Huckleberry Finn, who is just trying to survive his drunken father and those that are trying to kill him for what he has seen and what he has done. The author talks about how Twain begins to explore the issues of slavery, but in the end never quite does it justice.
In the essay on Melville, the author explores the realm of “What might have happened” when at chapter 20 Melville realizes that Ishmael has not even left land. Melville’s choice was “to pass the time by destroying it”. By being a creationist of a novel, he “blasted its conventions”.
In each of these essays, Doctorow digs to the heart of the topic. Sometimes he explores a single work; at other times his focus is on the creator themselves. Always he makes us think by looking at the essay through the eyes of someone who has been there and can look at the work from the mind of a creator. I highly recommend this to any one who has a love of literary work.
The material is read by the author, who does a wonderful job. I always enjoy hearing the words from the voice of the author who can deliver as no other, especially in the case of a book of non-fiction.
And he knows of what he speaks: Edgar Laurence Doctorow is the author of several critically acclaimed novels, including The Book of Daniel and Ragtime. The author blends history and social criticism in to his stories, which are acclaimed for their prose, narrative and atmosphere.
The EssaysAnonymous translators - Genesis
Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn
Sinclair Lewis - Arrowsmith
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Crack-Up
John Dos Passos - U.S.A.
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom’s Cabin
W.G. Sebald - The Emigrants
Harpo Marx - His mute humor
Albert Einstein - The Bomb
Edgar Allen Poe - His work in general
Ernest Hemmingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
Hermann Melville - Moby Dick
André Malraux - L'Espoir
Arthur Miller - His work in general
Heinrich von Kleist - His plays in general
Franz Kafka - Amerika
We’ve Got Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Bastards’ Script -- Vulture -- Entertainment & Culture Blog -- New York Magazine
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The Adderall Me
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
My romance with ADHD meds.
Depressives have Prozac, worrywarts have Valium, gym rats have steroids, and overachievers have Adderall. Usually prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (read Sydney Spiesel in Slate on the risks and benefits), the drug is a cocktail of amphetamines that increases alertness, concentration, and mental-processing speed and decreases fatigue. It's often called a cognitive steroid because it can make people better at whatever it is they're doing. When scientists administered amphetamines to college shot-putters, they were able to throw more than 4 percent farther.* According to one recent study, as many as one in five college students have taken Adderall or its chemical cousin Ritalin as study buddies.
The drug also has a distinguished literary pedigree. During his most productive two decades, W.H. Auden began every morning with a fix of Benzedrine, an over-the-counter amphetamine similar to Adderall that was used to treat nasal congestion. James Agee, Graham Greene, and Philip K. Dick all took the drug to increase their output. Before the FDA made Benzedrine prescription-only in 1959, Jack Kerouac got hopped up on it and wrote On the Road in a three-week "kick-writing" session. "Amphetamines gave me a quickness of thought and writing that was at least three times my normal rhythm," another devotee, John-Paul Sartre, once remarked.
If stimulants worked for those writers, why not for me? Who wouldn't want to think faster, be less distracted, write more pages? I asked half a dozen psychiatrists about the safety of using nonprescribed Adderall for performance-enhanced journalism. Most of them told me the same thing: Theoretically, if used responsibly at a low dosage by someone who isn't schizophrenic, doesn't have high blood pressure, isn't on other medications, and doesn't have some other medical condition, the occasional use of Adderall is probably harmless. Doctors have been prescribing the drug for long enough to know that, unlike steroids, it has no long-term health consequences. Provided Adderall isn't snorted, injected, or taken in excessive amounts, it's not highly addictive—though without doctor oversight, it's hard to know whether you're in the minority of people for whom the drug may be dangerous.
As an experiment, I decided to take Adderall for a week. The results were miraculous. On a recent Tuesday, after whipping my brother in two out of three games of pingpong—a triumph that has occurred exactly once before in the history of our rivalry—I proceeded to best my previous high score by almost 10 percent in the online anagrams game that has been my recent procrastination tool of choice. Then I sat down and read 175 pages of Stephen Jay Gould's impenetrably dense book The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. It was like I'd been bitten by a radioactive spider.
The first hour or so of being on Adderall is mildly euphoric. The feeling wears off quickly, giving way to a calming sensation, like a nicotine buzz, that lasts for several hours. When I tried writing on the drug, it was like I had a choir of angels sitting on my shoulders. I became almost mechanical in my ability to pump out sentences. The part of my brain that makes me curious about whether I have new e-mails in my inbox apparently shut down. Normally, I can only stare at my computer screen for about 20 minutes at a time. On Adderall, I was able to work in hourlong chunks. I didn't feel like I was becoming smarter or even like I was thinking more clearly. I just felt more directed, less distracted by rogue thoughts, less day-dreamy. I felt like I was clearing away underbrush that had been obscuring my true capabilities.
At the same time, I felt less like myself. Though I could put more words to the page per hour on Adderall, I had a nagging suspicion that I was thinking with blinders on. This is a concern I've heard from other users of the drug. One writer friend who takes Adderall to read for long uninterrupted stretches told me that he uses it only rarely because he thinks it stifles his creativity. A musician told me he finds it harder to make mental leaps on the drug. "It's something I've heard consistently," says Eric Heiligenstein, clinical director of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin. "These medications allow you to be more structured and more rigid. That's the opposite of the impulsivity of creativity." On the other hand, lots of talented people like Auden and Kerouac have taken amphetamines precisely because they find them inspiring. Kerouac and the Beats ingested the drug in such heroic quantities that it didn't just make them more focused, it completely transformed their writing. According to legend, On the Road was drafted in a 120-foot-long single-spaced paragraph that burbled down a single continuous scroll of paper.
There's also the risk that Adderall can work too well. The mathematician Paul Erdös, who famously opined that "a mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems," began taking Benzedrine in his late 50s and credited the drug with extending his productivity long past the expiration date of his colleagues. But he eventually became psychologically dependent. In 1979, a friend offered Erdös $500 if he could kick his Benzedrine habit for just a month. Erdös met the challenge, but his productivity plummeted so drastically that he decided to go back on the drug. After a 1987 Atlantic Monthly profile discussed his love affair with psychostimulants, the mathematician wrote the author a rueful note. "You shouldn't have mentioned the stuff about Benzedrine," he said. "It's not that you got it wrong. It's just that I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics to think that they have to take drugs to succeed."
Erdös had good reason to worry. Kerouac's excessive use of Benzedrine eventually landed him in a hospital with thrombophlebitis. Auden went through a withdrawal in the late 1950s that tragically curtailed his output. That's some trouble I don't need. Perhaps I could get a regular supply of Adderall by persuading a psychiatrist that I have ADHD—it's supposed to be one of the easiest disorders to fake. But I don't think I will. Although I did save one pill to write this article.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2118315/
I heard from William Peter Blatty today regarding a previous post of mine
Unsure how I could have ever missed this, and I apologize, but reminds me of the many times I'd answer the phone up at Richard Pryor's estate. It goes kinda like this...
RP: "Was that the phone I heard?
David: "I didnt hear anything.
RP: "Sounded like the phone rang.
David: "Nope.
RP: "This MS has me pretty fucked up, but my hearings fine.
David: "OK, the phone rang.
(moment of silence)
RP: "Are a gonna tell me who the fuck called me on my phone in my house... or am I gonna have to grab the heaviest fuckin' thing I can lift and hit ya in that white muthafuckin' honky head of yours?
David: "Gee RP, take ANOTHER pill. It was no one important.
(RP reaching for anything he can get his hands on, but I knew he didnt have the strength to pick up a Q-Tip, so I wasn't worried)
David: "It was AP... again.
RP: "I ain't givin' no interviews.
David: "OK, good. Let's watch a film.
(moment of silence while I load the DVD player)
RP: "They didnt call for an interview, did they?"
David: "Nope.
RP: "They callin' to see if I was dead... looking for a comment?
David: "Yep.
RP: "Whatcha tell 'em?
David: "Same thing I always tell them, RP. That I'd come in here and ask the source for a quote.
(another moment of silence while I started the film)
RP: "Thanks, man.
David: "No problem, RP."
TODAY THIS ARRIVED FROM MR. BLATTY (as Regis, I assume of Bogart's 'The Big Sleep' fame):
Regis Toomey has left a new comment on your post "Old Lion Manor: The House The Exorcist built (wher...":
I am William Peter Blatty and to quote Mark Twain, "The reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated. And if I WERE dead I wouldn't be caught so in that in that horrible display of bad taste called Lion's Gate which I certainly never built or re-built. The home in Hidden Hills I lived in with a wife and two children certainly had no neeed for a Men's room with 20 urinals and which I suspect was flown over from some country club in Dubai. or the set of a Mel Brooks movie.
Stephen King Talks About Amazon Kindle
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos joined Stephen King to unveil Amazon's Kindle 2. The slender digital reader will cost $359 and ship on February 24.
The new Kindle has 25 percent more battery life than the original, holds 1,500 books, and keeps a reader's place in-between digital reading devices.
2009 Writers Guild Award Winners
Sunday, February 8, 2009
New York and Los Angeles – The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) and the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) tonight announced the winners of the 2009 Writers Guild Awards for outstanding achievement in writing for screen, television, radio, news, promotional, and videogame writing at simultaneous ceremonies at the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City and the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
SCREEN WINNERS
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Milk, Written by Dustin Lance Black, Focus Features
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Slumdog Millionaire, Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, Fox Searchlight
(Based on the Novel Q and A by Vikas Swarup)
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