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Through the Uprights!

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 21:10:00 -0500

[Dear Thomas Friedman: I have written your Sunday column for you. Sincerely, Sean Carman (with special thanks to Ezra Klein and Lucia Graves)]

I was taking a cab from National Airport to my apartment in Washington the other day. I live in a gentrifying neighborhood that is home to a rising, fairly well integrated class of African-American, Ethiopian, and white beneficiaries of globalization and the housing bubble. It’s a neighborhood of yoga mats, African cuisine, and hip-hop culture, but those are stories for another time. The question on my cab driver’s mind was simple.

“Tom,” he asked me. “You’re a nationally syndicated columnist and highly-paid luncheon speaker. What’s the bottom line on the sequestration fiasco?”

“Good question,” I said.

And one on which we all need to focus in the coming weeks, I could have added, if we’re going to understand the dynamics of Congress’ latest foray into fiscal brinksmanship.

As with all American political quandaries, the first and most fundamental question is what sports analogy to use. Because the sequester is less a fiscal policy debate than a game in which both sides have moved the goal posts to buy time until everyone can save face. Meanwhile, it’s the bottom of the ninth, and the American people are set to call the balls and strikes.

Let me explain.

Governments operate on something called “deficit spending.” This means, in simple terms, that they almost always spends more than they collect in taxes. To finance the gap between spending and revenues, governments take out a kind of long-term, low-interest loan from investors, called “government bonds.”

“Tom,” I hear you saying. “I don’t understand any of what you’re saying. Please tell me what you are talking about.”

Fair enough. To be honest, this is also where my understanding of these issues breaks down. But there are two schools of thought on this, one of which, logically, must be right. Either the government must balance its budget to remain fiscally sound (the way a household has to balance its checkbook, excluding credit card debt and revolving accounts, student loans, mortgages, and car loans) or the government is not like a household at all, and can keep running a high deficit until growth increases and higher tax revenues pay down the deficit sufficiently to boost public confidence in the government’s bonds and keep inflation under control.

Basically, whichever school you subscribe to depends on whether you read Paul Krugman’s or David Brooks’ columns in the New York Times.

Who is right? Beats me. To be honest, I don’t read a lot. The jet lag I perpetually suffer from the myriad international speaking engagements I accept forbids too much of a reading schedule. These days, I spend most of my time asleep.

But back to the sequestration debate. Last year, when Congress was about to drive the national car over the fiscal cliff, and the world economy into a fiscal Grand Canyon, the Administration and the House Republicans compromised on something called “sequestration.”

Sequestration mandated exactly the kind of meat-axe approach to the federal budget the Republicans would enact if they could ever win back the Congressional and Senate majorities they once enjoyed.

The Republicans basically said, “How about, if we can’t reach a deal, we automatically impose the massive cuts in federal programs our side would enact if we ever had the votes to pass them?”

President Obama and the Congressional democrats said, “Sure! Anything you say!”

And now, so, here we are. Thanks to the brilliant negotiating of Harry Reid and President Obama, the Republicans have basically won. The cuts they wanted all along go into effect March 1 unless the President and the democrats, who won the last election and hold a clear political majority, can force the Republicans to enact legislation to restore previous levels of federal spending.

“I don’t understand any of that, Tom,” I hear you saying. “But I really only care about one thing: How does the sequestration affect me?”

And that’s just the thing. No one can really say. We just haven’t run the numbers on that.

“I thought this was all about running the numbers,” I hear you saying.

“Well,” I can only answer. “Washington is a confusing place. And it’s not like any member of Congress actually holds an accounting or economics degree. These people are not rocket scientists. In fact, they have problems with basic math. Logic, also, is not their strong suit. Neither is simple reasoning. They also don’t read much. What else?”

But we can, at least, say this:

Sequestration will either be so bad that a public groundswell will quickly force Congress’ hand, and the American people will have moved the goal posts yet again, or it will be annoying but just sufferable enough that most Americans will find they can live with the consequences, in which case it will become more or less permanent.

My driver pulled his cab to the curb. Our ride was over. It was time to pay the fare.

“But wait,” my inquisitor asked. “Let’s say it IS the bottom of the ninth, or the two-minute warning, or whatever. Is there still time for Congress to move the goalposts one more time? Do we even want them to? And if so, how far, and on what conditions?”

“All excellent questions,” I told him, as I lifted my bags from the trunk and passed him a $20 bill, which also covered the two dollar tip. “No one can really say. But the good news is, we won’t have to wait very long to find out.”

A Brief Ode to Richard III

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:40:00 -0500

Beneath space 5 King Richard lies;
Of his bones the tarmac’s made;
Those potholes were once his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
His welcome here is o’er-stayed
Six centuries’ fines unpaid.
Parking maidens ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Bloody hell.

First They Came for My Assault Rifle

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 12:51:00 -0500

I wrote this piece early in the morning on the day after the Newtown shooting, at the small desk in my room at the Milwaukee Hilton, where I spent the month of December for work. Yesterday it ran on McSweeney’s, to mark the passing of one month since the tragedy.

Resolutions

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 18:17:29 -0500

My new year’s resolution was to be more present. As a result, I spent the first few weeks of the new year scolding myself whenever I caught myself daydreaming, or absent-mindedly leaving my apartment without something I meant to bring along (the shoes I needed to take to the shoe repair store, for example). One day last week I caught myself returning the ice cream to the refrigerator. Later that day, I stopped myself a moment before I put shaving cream on my toothbrush.

That’s when I realized my mistake. “Who am I kidding?” I thought. “I’m never going to be ‘more present.’”

I immediately changed my resolution to “try not to worry so much” and have been much happier since.

Geoff Dyer Writing About Not Being Able to Write

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 08:26:00 -0500

The best circumstance for writing, I realized within days of arriving at Alonissos, were those in which the world was constantly knocking at your door; in such circumstances, the work you were engaged in generated a kind of pressure, a force to keep the world at bay. Whereas here, on Alonissos, there was nothing to keep at bay, there was no incentive to generate any pressure within the work, and so the surrounding emptiness invaded and dissipated, overwhelmed you with inertia. All you could do was look at the sea and the sky and after a couple of days you could scarcely be bothered to do that.

— Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage

Precipice

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 11:30:00 -0500

“This time,” the Speaker said, “we have to insist on massive spending cuts.”

“Absolutely,” his first aide said.

“But we cannot propose any cuts ourselves,” the Speaker said.

“Goes without saying,” the first aide said.

“Wait,” the second aide said. “Why not?”

The Speaker and the first aide looked at him.

“I mean, for the sake of argument,” he said.

“Because no one wants them,” the Speaker said.

“Social security, Medicare and Medicaid,” the first aide said, frowning as he spoke. “Federal programs, infrastructure, disaster relief. Every line item turns out to be something someone needs.”

“That’s the Hell of this,” the Speaker said.

“Proposing cuts ourselves would be suicide,” the first aide said.

“I see it now,” the second aide replied. He was looking at the carpet.

The Speaker and his first aide surveyed the ceremonial office. It was paneled in carved oak and decorated with the insignia of power — flags, photographs of monuments and iconic vistas, a stuffed bald eagle posed as if in flight. The corner fireplace was cold, and went unused, but it had once been real. The second aide kept looking at the carpet. He saw a field of blue decorated with evenly and widely spaced gold stars.

“There has to be a panic,” the Speaker finally said. “A frenzy powered by euphoria, that borders on insanity.”

“Like when a mob begins to riot,” the first aide said.

“Exactly.”

“And becomes a single entity,” the first aide went on, “irrationally bent on violence.”

“That’s when we do it,” the Speaker said. “It’s the only time.”

“And what happens then?” said the second aide, who was still looking at the carpet.

The Speaker’s eyes, bloodshot from the long meetings and the sleepless nights, became glassy, then welled with tears. The tears brimmed behind his lower eyelids, then spilled onto his cheeks, like water pouring through the spillways of a dam.

“Oblivion,” he said, his voice choking just a little. He reached for his hanker-chief and dabbed it on his face.

And that was that. The two aides, somehow knowing the meeting was over, snapped shut their briefing books and took their leave.

Kryl's Horn Still Blows

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:00:00 -0400

This weekend I was in Crawfordsville, Indiana, attending a celebration of the life and work of my great grandfather, the 1930’s cornettist and bandmaster Bohumir Kryl. Kryl carved the Indiana limestone friezes on the Victorian man-cave (personal study) built by Crawfordsville resident General Lew Wallace, the Civil War hero who wrote the novel Ben Hur. After completing the sculptures, Kryl left Crawfordsville to become first cornettist in John Phillips Sousa’s band. He went on to become one of the most famous musicians and band leaders of his day, and the greatest cornettist in history.

The Bohumir Kryl Project was the brainchild of Tim McCormick, a Crawfordsville insurance agent, musician, and antique phonograph collector who became somewhat obssessed with our great grandfather’s life and music career. The weekend program included a presentation of Kryl’s life by Richard Bowen, the Wabash College glee club director, who dressed as Kryl, and a rousing concert of period music (including Kryl’s “Josephine Waltz”) performed by the Crawfordsville Community Orchestra and musicians from across the country, including my cousin Mark Yancich, principal timpanist with the Atlanta Symphony (pictured above), his nephew Putt, also a percussionist, and Kurt Christiansen, principal trumpeter for the U.S. Air Force Band, among others.

This website (via Wabash College) has a nice collection of photographs from the event, including one of Mark playing the anvil and brake drum for Verdi’s “Miserere and Anvil Chorus,” a shot of Tim McCormick presenting my aunt, Pauny Yancich, Kryl’s last living granddaughter, with a certificate recognizing her as the inaugural General Lew Wallace Museum Scholar in Residence Emeritus, and one of my cousin Dave returning the favor by bestowing upon McCormick a certificate of adoption into the family, which, Dave noted, McCormick had earned by demonstrating the ”interest, tenacity and, frankly, insanity” that qualified him to become a member of the family.

Michelle Dean on Leaving "Brooklyn"

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:09:00 -0400

We’ve all read personal essays that lurch from one subject to the next, their loosely-connected ideas rolling along like train cars threatening to jump a disjointed track. Michelle Dean’s Saturday Rumpus essay on realizing your dream by leaving the place most associated with it organizes its themes into a streamlined whole. Like any good story, every turn feels at once surprising and inevitable. Of course, I also liked it because it is about a lawyer’s dream to become a writer.

An Interesting Case of Fertility among the Peasant Population

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 14:39:00 -0400

“It happened the previous year Kardamanov had sent to the magazine Niva an article entitled “An Interesting Case of Fertility among the Peasant Population,” and receiving a reply which reflected unfavorably on his pride as an author, he complained bitterly to his neighbors, thereby earning the reputation as a writer.”

Anton Chekhov, “St. Peter’s Day”

An English Translation of William Giraldi’s Review of Alix Ohlin’s Novel Inside and Her Story Collection Signs and Wonders

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:31:00 -0400

[With apologies to William Giraldi.]

In last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, William Giraldi wrote an inexcusably vicious review of Alix Ohlin’s novel Inside and her story collection Signs and Wonders.

Unfortunately, Giraldi didn’t write his review in English. Instead, he wrote it in an ornamental, hyperbolic, pseudo-intellectual approximation of English, that employed synonyms and pretentious phrases that sounded like English, but didn’t actually make sense.

This left a number of readers puzzled. Giraldi was clearly angry with Ohlin, but why? All she did was write a couple of books. Did she borrow something of his and not return it? Maybe they dated at some point?

And why didn’t he like Ohlin’s writing? Something about it being “stiffened in a morgue of mentation” and that he didn’t like her titles. Apart from that, it was hard to tell.

In an effort to get to the bottom of these mysteries, I took the trouble to translate Giraldi’s review into English. Let me say, at the outset, that this was not easy. It was painstaking, difficult work. So difficult, that I stopped even before he had finished his review of Inside. I didn’t even make it to the Signs and Wonders part. I just couldn’t keep going. It was too exhausting.

In the end, I’m not sure it really helped. Anyway, judge for yourself.

Here If You Need Me (NB: There is no clear English translation of the title)

By William Giraldi

There are two kinds of novelists: those who write about the world as if they know where it is, and those who write about the world as if it didn’t exist yet and they have to invent it. It’s lazier to write about the world as if you already know where it is, because then you already know what you’re talking about, plus, as I said, you can be lazy and use familiar words.

But those who write about the world as if it didn’t yet exist — it’s like they are painting on a canvass, but painting with their imaginations instead of with paint. Not only that, these writers paint by inventing words and expressions that are smart and true. Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Middlemarch, and Augie March — those are some great books! They make you think the universe is important in a sparkly and shiny way, when before it seemed rather dull, rather lacking in coruscating import, one might say.

They also make you think, as Ezra Pound once noted, that the universe has “irrepressible freshness,” like ripe fruit, or fabric softener. Pound really knew his stuff. He said, “Literature is language charged with meaning.” How “charged with meaning” was the last book you read? Not very? Same here. It’s been a while since I read anything I liked.

Titles are so important. Don’t be fooled: A title is part of the text. David Lodge said that. An important part to boot, because it comes first. Alix Ohlin’s second book has a real yawner for a title: “Inside.” Yuck. Totally forgettable. Inside — what does that even mean? I have no idea. It’s not like “Busy Monsters.” Now there’s a title! “Here If You Need Me” — another winner of a title, as long as we’re throwing them out.

By the way, Arthur Miller’s original title for “Death of a Salesman” was “The Inside of His Head.” What a terrible title! Luckily, he came to his senses and changed it. All novels are about what goes on inside someone’s head. Well, OK, they can be about other things to, but what goes on inside someone’s head — that’s the important part. But Ohlin’s novel has rigor mortis and is lying in a morgue of ideas, since it relishes the fake beating up of women and men. Her book indiscriminately reveals the “inside” of her characters’ precious little hearts. “Inside.” It means “inside” of their hearts. Get it?

In other words, her book is about FEELINGS!

Feelings: gross.

Meet Ohlin’s four cliched Canadian characters, whom she flies around like kites in a dying wind, meaning they are on strings, are colorful, and move around a lot, sometimes in circles, sometimes in steep dives. Sometimes they just float there, the strong wind holding them in place. Anyway, Grace is a therapist. Therefore, like all cliched Canadian therapists, she is wackier than her patients, who are from central casting.

There’s also Annnie, Grace’s teenage patient. Since she is a cliche, she hates her parents and wants to depart quickly to New York in the manner of a cartoon character, to become an actress, a profession only pursued by cliche characters in novels about feelings. She soon finds herself in Los Angeles, whereupon you are molested by every conceivable movie business bromide. Well, by “you” I mean the reader; the reader is molested. By the book. The reader is molested, by the book, with bromides from the movie business. Well, not bromides, exactly. It’s more that the reader is molested with characters and scenes.

Sorry my language is not more precise, I’m writing this on deadline and I still have to finish my syllabus for the freshman composition class I’m teaching this fall.

[long passages omitted here due mainly to tedium]

Ohlin’s language has an appalling lack of range, or is appallingly not like a list, or a book containing regular entries, or a roster, or a set of organ pipes, or a device regulating admission of air to fuel, or a grille often with shutters for admitting heated air or for ventilation, or an automatic device registering a number or a quantity, or a number or quantity so registered, or a condition of correct alignment or proper relative position, or a device (as in a computer) for storing small amounts of data (Webster’s). Clearly, I mean one of these, since if I meant “range” I would have just said so.

Her language limps onto the page, indifferent to how it sounds or how much strength it has. I mean the language itself is indifferent, not that Ohlin is indifferent. Most critics expect the author to be sensitive to the aesthetic effects of her prose. Not me. I expect this of the language itself.

In one place, Mitch’s “heart sang” and then, in another place, his “heart sank.” What is going on with Mitch’s heart? Is it singing or sinking? It can’t do both, and Ohlin doesn’t explain. Another time his heart felt like it was “cracking like ice cubs in warm water.” Again, which is it?

More confusion: Annie “had touched Grace’s heart” but had also “gotten under her skin.” Well, she can’t do both, now can she?! Elsewhere, Grace “feels marooned on her own private island” and then “her nerves were singing.” Look, either she’s on her own private island or her nerves are singing. Just pick one. Don’t make the reader do the work.

… And here, dear reader, I gave up. Because it’s late, and I realized that William Giraldi’s review doesn’t mean anything, even when it’s translated into plain English.

The End

"These Things Will Make All of Us Just a Little Bit More Free"

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 21:24:00 -0400

But for me this trial is a “so-called” trial. And I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of falsehood and fictitiousness, of sloppily disguised deception, in the verdict of the so-called court.

Because all you can deprive me of is “so-called” freedom. This is the only kind that exists in Russia. But nobody can take away my inner freedom. It lives in the word, it will go on living thanks to openness [glasnost], when this will be read and heard by thousands of people. This freedom goes on living with every person who is not indifferent, who hears us in this country. With everyone who found shards of the trial in themselves, like in previous times they found them in Franz Kafka and Guy Debord. I believe that I have honesty and openness, I thirst for the truth; and these things will make all of us just a little bit more free. We will see this yet.

— From the closing statement of Maria Alyokhina, a member of Pussy Riot.

All three closing statements are brilliant. Read them here: http://nplusonemag.com/pussy-riot-closing-statements

“So thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed...

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 14:47:19 -0400

“So thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him each time as if it were something new.”

— War and Peace

On Usain Bolt

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 13:07:00 -0400

You might think he has
the perfect sprinter’s name,
but in fact Mercury,
the winged messenger,
would be even better:
A fleet, antic
envoy between the
mortals and the Gods.

Olympic Poetry

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 13:03:00 -0400

Here’s my favorite of the Olympic poems I’ve found so far, “Once More,” by the Slovenian poet Ales Steger, featured on NPR’s Poetry Games. Translator Brian Henry notes that the Slovenian title would translate into “Encore” in French, but encore is an English word, too, and would make a better title.

So here it is, “Encore” by Ales Steger:

Encore

If a great idea is translated into a body,
Then Greg Louganis is an Einstein

If a body is translated into a great idea,
Einstein is Tralala Oompah

Which gods do chess grandmasters dream about?
It is time, my love, we all participate
In this outrageous activity.

Let bankers with pacemakers run the marathon.
Let naked sumo wrestlers decide our common fate.
Let us pierce the concrete with our heads.

Every time it’s a top score
And we are in no hurry to get anywhere.

/ /

The Scottish poet Jackie Kay reads three of her Olympic poems on the Guardian website. They are intricate, playful, and beautiful:

http://gu.com/p/39t95

The Poems of the 30th Olympiad

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 20:18:00 -0400

McKayla

On the runway she is either a rocket sled
or a girl sprinting toward a dream
or both,
but on the vault she is an uncoiled spring.

In the air she is a galaxy —bright, stretched out,
spinning with celestial grace.
She lands like a thrown-down switchblade — thump.
Arms raised, it’s over in an instant.

On the Small Travesties of NBC’s Olympics Coverage

On the whole, you can’t complain.
Five cable channels,
every event carried live
on the internet.
Even wake boarding, which,
if we’re being honest,
shouldn’t be a competitive sport.

But if, like me, you have a day job and no cable,
God help you.
The prime-time
broadcast coverage
is just awful.

Naked Characterization!

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 12:38:00 -0400

Before William Giraldi turned Alix Ohlin’s novel Inside into a small sensation by giving it such an underservedly vicious review, I reviewed Alix’s novel for the Rumpus.

At some point in Inside, Alix Ohlin’s elegant second novel, you will probably notice, as I did toward the end, that her characters have a lot of sex. I mean a LOT of sex.
Holy cow do they have a lot of sex.

The Pulitzer Prize Debacle: A Confession

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 08:42:00 -0400

By Sean Carman

Believe me, I was as surprised as anyone to find myself sandwiched between New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Joyce Dehli, Vice President for News at Lee Enterprises, at one end of a long line of battered wooden tables, under a stained glass window depicting Lady Liberty floating on a cloud.

How had I been chosen to serve on the Pulitzer Prize Board? Beats me. Like a lot of things in life, it just happened. Suddenly, there I was. It was like I had passed through a liquid layer of reality into another world.

Indeed, everything about the experience was a surprise. I was surprised to learn that the Pulitzer Board met in an old conference room at the Columbia School of Journalism, with wooden doors with big square panes of frosted glass and walls that could use a fresh coat of paint. I was surprised to learn that Thomas Friedman was on the Pulitzer Board. I was surprised (and disappointed) to learn that the honorarium was so small.

I looked up at the stained glass window. Why was Lady Liberty floating on a cloud? Shouldn’t she be striding through New York Harbor, carrying the good news of freedom to the huddled masses teeming on her shores? Instead, she had experienced some kind of religious transformation and was holding up a reading lamp for God.

I was also overwhelmed with the responsibility thrust upon me. How was I supposed to do this? But then I looked over at Friedman, who was talking on his cell phone and furiously scribbling in a notebook, oblivious to the world around him.

“On the other hand,” I told myself, “if Thomas Friedman can serve on the Pulitzer Board, how hard can it be?”

I remembered Friedman’s May 28, 2011, column, in which he illustrated the reluctance of the Egyptian military to loosen its grip on power by describing a stuffed camel made in China that was for sale in a Cairo Airport gift shop.

“It’s OK,” I said to myself, “you can do this.”

Kathleen Carroll, one of the board’s co-chairs, got things started by making the assignments. It turns out the Pulitzer Board assigns small groups to unanimously recommend a winner in each prize category. By custom, the board endorses those recommendations with its own unanimous vote.

Carroll worked her way around the table with all of the speed of a minute hand on a slow clock. Beat Reporting, Breaking News Photography, Commentary, Correspondence, Criticism. There were a lot of prize categories to assign. When finally she got around to me and Friedman, there was only one prize category left.

“Looks like you and Tom get to choose the fiction winner,” Junot Diaz said. He was sitting a little ways down, with Danielle Allen and Margaret Sullivan. They were laughing and sharing photos on their Iphones. They had taken on Feature Writing and Explanatory Journalism.

I gave Diaz a plaintive look. “You won the award in 2008,” my look tried to say. “Surely you can help us out?”

“Sorry man,” he said, as if reading my mind as he passed his Iphone back to Sullivan. “My plate’s full.”

Friedman was already latching his briefcase and pushing back from the table.

“It’s no big deal,” he muttered as he prepared to stand. “We only have to read three books.”

Over the next few weeks I worked my way through the three novels nominated for the fiction prize: Train Dreams, Denis Johnson’s beautiful and haunting book about the Pacific Northwest; Karen Russell’s Swamplandia, a fiery sparkler of a novel; and The Pale King, David Foster Wallace’s farewell epic, by far the heaviest of the three. In fact, The Pale King was the heaviest book I’d ever read. All three novels were amazing. We could have easily given the award to any one of them.

The problem was Friedman.

First, it was impossible to reach him. He was always at a conference, or traveling, or on deadline. I read his columns during this period. It was his usual stuff — anecdotes enlisted in the service of grand philosophies, the distillation of the Arab experience into a narrow set of interests and ideals. He had a charming way of describing the Arab World as it all if its people were alike.

“What’s he doing?” I wondered. “Why hasn’t he gotten back to me?”

When I finally reached him, we only had one week left, and he still hadn’t read the books.

“Got them here with me,” he said. “They’re at the top of my list.”

“Tom!” I said. “We only have a week!”

“This Foster Wallace book is really heavy,” he said.

“That’s what I’m saying!” I told him.

“I’ve read them,” he said, the evening before the meeting. It was the only time he had picked up when I called. “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

The next day was the second and final meeting of the board. I was nervous, almost frantic. Friedman and I had exchanged pleasantries as we filled our paper cups with coffee and took our seats, but that was it. Had he even read the books? I didn’t know.

I watched the other groups present their nominations. It was inspiring, and also humbling, to see how seriously they had taken their responsibilities. When our turn came, Friedman began a meandering discourse on contemporary American literature. He spoke from behind his prominent mustache. It was as if his mustache itself was speaking. He began with an anecdote he heard from a cab driver that morning, then he transitioned to a declaration.

“Contemporary American fiction is in a state of crisis,” he said. “Here’s why.”

He had three reasons: The confusion of the American narrative in the post-imperialist age, the inability of local narratives to address global influences, and the breakdown of language in the face of truth.

The other board members frowned, whether in concentration or disappointment I couldn’t tell. When he was finished, Kathleen Carroll spoke.

“And the winner?” she said.

“Each of these books is, in its own way, a winner,” Friedman said.

The room let out a collective groan as Friedman proceeded to describe each book, but only in general terms. As he spoke, I saw the same look come over the faces of the other board members. It was the look of people having an uncomfortable truth revealed to them, a truth deeply at odds with their expectations. And yet the reality of the situation was clear: Friedman didn’t have a favorite.

When he was finished, Carroll looked at me.

“Sean?” she said.

“I’d give it to The Pale King,” I said.

Everyone turned to Friedman.

“It’s not a bad novel,” he said. “On the other hand …”

Carroll cut him off. “We need a unanimous recommendation from both of you. Otherwise we can’t vote.”

The room was silent. A moment later, Friedman resumed his soliloquizing.

“It’s just Johnson’s use of language,” he said, pretty much picking up where he had left off, “it’s so inventive, and yet so real.”

Carroll cut him off a second time.

“There doesn’t necessarily have to be a winner,” she said. “Six times before the board didn’t give a fiction prize.”

I was stunned.

“We can do that?” I asked.

“I’m just saying, it’s been done before,” she said.

“But think of all the readers,” I said, “and the writers, editors, and publishers. Think of Maureen Corrigan, Susan Larson, and Michael Cunningham. They read 300 books to choose these three. What are we going to tell them?”

“Well,” Carroll said, measuring her words, “we don’t have to tell them anything, necessarily. All of our deliberations are secret.”

“Get out of here!” I said. The biggest prizes in journalism were awarded by a secret process? I couldn’t believe it.

“That’s the way it works,” Carroll said.

“There’s no transparency?” I asked.

“Why would anyone want to know how the prizes are awarded?” Carroll asked. “And anyway, why tell them? It would only raise more questions. It’s easier if we don’t have to explain.”

Paul Gigot, an editor of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, chimed in. “It’s true,” he said. “Sometimes, accountability can be overrated.”

“Paul Gigot!” I said. “I’ve seen you on the NewsHour!”

But Gigot didn’t answer me, and everyone else nodded, or shrugged, or gazed at the floor. With that, the matter was closed.

When the prizes were announced the following week, I read the news with a sense of dread. I felt guilty about my role in the fiction prize debacle. I also made a mental note. “The next time you are asked to be on a panel or a special commission,” I told myself, “say no!”

Since then, I haven’t spoken to Thomas Friedman. I mean, I don’t call him. What would be the point? He probably doesn’t even remember who I am.

One good thing did come out of my experience, though. I made friends with Junot Diaz. A few weeks ago, when I was up in New York, we had cheeseburgers at the DeLuxe Grill on Broadway and 113th. I used the last of my modest honorarium to pay for the meal.

We talked about our meetings with the Pulitzer Board. He made a joke about the columnist and the fish out of water who couldn’t get their act together to recommend a winner for the fiction prize. I gave him a hard time about taking the Feature Writing and Explanatory Journalism assignments.

“Explanatory Journalism?” I said. “Come on, man.”

“That was some crazy shit,” Diaz said, smiling and dabbing his napkin on his chin.

“You think Friedman read those books?” he asked.

I said I didn’t know.

“I don’t care whether you’ve read them or not,” he said. “You have to give that award to Wallace. There’s no other choice.”

“Effing Thomas Friedman,” I said.

“Cheerleader for the Iraq War,” Diaz replied.

We both nodded. The cheeseburgers at the DeLuxe were excellent, as they always are. Fragments of pleasant conversation drifted from the sidewalk. The street was a river of traffic, and down the numbered side streets the wails of sirens ricocheted off the tall apartment buildings.

We finished our meal, paid the bill and said goodbye. We locked our fists. Said we’d keep in touch.

I dropped down the steps at 116th and changed trains at 14th Street and 6th Avenue. The F train rumbled and screeched as it ran below the river, a noisy chariot swinging low to Brooklyn. It was one of the older cars, without air conditioning, but someone had slid down a couple of the windows.

I kept retracing my experience in my mind. It was like blackening the lines on a palimpsest. Diaz was right. We should have given it to The Pale King. And I should have done something, but what? Sat next to someone other than Friedman? Insist he make a choice? Maybe I could have spilled coffee on him and named a winner before he could disagree.

But I didn’t do anything, and now David Foster Wallace, one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century, can never win the Pulitzer.

I only hope America can somehow manage to forget the whole debacle or, barring that, forgive me.

On Afternoon Thunderstorms

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:30:00 -0400

One of my favorite things about growing up in Laramie, Wyoming was the afternoon thunderstorms that rolled through in the summers. Every day, it seemed, after a morning and early afternoon of sunshine, gathering clouds would darken the land, pour down rain, and fill the sky with bolts of light and thunder. Then the skies would clear, as quickly as the clouds had formed, and when you went back out the air smelled like flowers and fresh cut grass.

I moved away from Wyoming after college, a little over 25 years ago, and I’ve missed those afternoon thunderstorms ever since. For most of the time I’ve lived in Washington, D.C. (21 years), we haven’t had them. Instead, in the summers, the weather on any given day stayed pretty much the same. I always used to tell my friends, if I could change anything about D.C., it would be the weather. It would be wonderful to have those afternoon thunderstorms we had back in Wyoming, I used to say.

Well, now, thanks to climate change, the thunderstorms are back. Now we get them in D.C. They roll in just as quickly and can leave as quickly, too. Lately they’ve been arriving with almost predictable precision. It’s 6 o’clock on a Sunday as I write this, and another one is forming in the skies.

But these thunderstorms aren’t natural, and they don’t just bring rain and lightning but winds that knock down trees and power lines, taking away the one amenity — air conditioning — without which it is almost impossible to live. Just as it can’t cope with even a light snowfall, this part of the country isn’t equipped to handle sudden storms.

I like the rain. I like hearing it against my window, seeing it in the street. I like the cool air it brings. But these afternoon thunderstorms are like a wish I made against my better judgment. Who do I talk to about taking it back?

The Thinking Man's Rape Joke

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 11:14:00 -0400

Lindy West’s piece on Gawker is the best thing I read about Daniel Tosh’s insensitive rape joke at the Laugh Factory two Fridays ago. (Tosh either responded to a heckler by joking she should be raped, or said to a woman in the audience who asked him not to talk about rape, “You sound like you got raped by, like, five guys or something.” For purposes of the ensuing internet discussion, it doesn’t matter which account is accurate.)

West’s sharp piece made an excellent point that rose above the categorical thinking that had been dominating the discussion, namely that it is possible to joke about rape, you just have to be really smart and really responsible about it. To put it another way, you have to be artful.

West tagged an easy shortcut to her piece (“Do not make rape victims the butt of the joke!”), but she got at something more interesting when she said this: “Comedians are just people telling stories about the world, and it is okay to laugh at horror and talk candidly about ugliness.”

The best comedy, I think, explores the way that life, the world, and language seem incomprehensible, or at least ineffable. A good joke doesn’t have to explain the mystery, it just has to bring it into sharp relief.

But the fundamental point is that the art of comedy lies beyond our ability to capture it in rules. As soon as you try to make up a rule about how comedy should operate, someone will break it. That’s the beauty of comedy, or any other form of art.

Louis C.K. is a comedy genius, so it’s not surprising that, when it comes to rape jokes, he has two of the best examples. One is the joke Lindy cited in her piece. C.K. jokes:

“I’m not condoning rape, obviously—you should never rape anyone. Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you.” He then goes on to make the point explicit. The joke works because, as West points out, it gets to the heart of the psychopathic quality of rape. The only instance in which rape would be acceptable demonstrates that rape is never acceptable.

But there’s an even better — in fact, an amazing — illustration of how to tell a funny rape joke in the July 6 episode of “Louie,” C.K.’s weekly show on FX. C.K. posted a video of the scene on YouTube. Here’s the scene, although be warned, it contains graphic language:

It’s hard to describe the brilliance of this scene, but I think it has something to do with the way it illustrates the mystery of who we are and how we understand ourselves. The scene basically shows us a situation in which it turns out to be OK to bully someone with deeply personal insults and then physically force him to have sex. It may be the only situation imaginable in which these things become OK — and maybe this scene can only exist in the constructed reality of a television show — but still, it makes you think.

Chelsea Peretti said it better on Twitter than I have here:

My Cartoon Caption Contest Entry

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:59:25 -0400

I’ve thought about posting my entries here before, but I worried I wasn’t allowed to if the contest was still continuing. But then I learned that Roger Ebert posts his entries on his Chicago Sun-Times journal page. Well, if Ebert can do it, so can I!

Here’s my (almost certainly) losing entry for contest number 340: