Yesterday, editor Stephen Elliott sent out a particularly long Daily Rumpus. Most of these aren’t published online. If you’d like to get them via email you have to subscribe.
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Today I’m on a panel about making the small story big, and then later about writing sex scenes. I’m on a porch and it’s morning and there’s pigeon that’s been circling back and forth from the ledge. The pigeon is beautiful, with a silvery purple neck. I was trying to answer emails, an interviewer wanted to know where I got my inspiration from, an acquaintance wanted to know if Adderall might have caused her boyfriend to have a psychotic break.
A squirrel climbs to the end of a branch near the porch, a nut stuffed in its mouth. We stared at each other while I finished that last sentence. He was breathing heavily. Then he leapt away to a further branch and then the roof.
The interviewer said, “Tell me something most people don’t know about you.” I thought about it. I’m fairly open and the things people don’t know are recent and raw. I decided not to answer. Who was this person? She was starting a blog or something. How do we stay inspired? It’s like asking why we stay alive, it’s like Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, all of philosophy can be boiled down to one question.
The interviewer asked about the future of the print publication. Two friends bought houses recently. She wanted to know what I would do if I didn’t write and I imagined I’d own a small business, a cafe or something, except I don’t write all the time, and I don’t own anything.
Speaking last night with Rachel Resnick about the erotica panel I joked that the erotic novel was a book length personal ad. We talked about whether erotica was literature or porn. I believe it’s literature, because the most important thing is character and sex is merely the act which instigates insight and change. In porn all that matters is whether your turned on, in erotica that’s irrelevant, it’s about making sense of the human condition.
Last night I heard a songwriter playing guitar by a pool in Beverly Hills. I drove east on Sunset into Hollywood. Yesterday a dominatrix and her friend visited me at the booth where I was signing books. She followed with a note that she would beat me and her friend would make me muffins. I said it sounded like a perfect day. Except actually it didn’t. The muffins sounded OK.
The truth is, it’s been this way since late February, which is why The Daily Rumpus has been so sporadic. Sometimes a person asks, “What are you thinking about,” because they want to know, other times they’re looking for a compliment, sometimes they’re trying to fill an awkward space but only making it worse, and sometimes they think they know but they hope they’re wrong.
On the panel today about making the small story big I might talk about Joan Didion, or verisimilitude, or feeling. In the interview I was sent the last question was, “Please do a five minute free-write with the word ‘forgiveness.'” I suppose that’s what this is.
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Caitlin Colford on the Tribeca Film Festival.
The Sunday Book Blog.
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Good morning,
stephen
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P.S. donate?
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