DanielNester

How to Be Inappropriate Round-Up: Bookslut,

2009-11-08T21:38:00.000-05:00

Jessa at Bookslut shouts out "Goodbye to All Them." And yes, I do a great imitation of Jessa-as-Andy Rooney.

I never noticed Judith Taylor's mention of How to Be Inappropriate on The Globe and Mail's In Other Words books blog. I think she builds up to my mention to tell us I am a lyrical flatulist.

People noticed that I enter the comment boxes at HTMLGIANT. I'm not going to do that anymore, by the way.

Some pictures of Beatrice Elsie Nester and Co.

2009-11-08T12:49:00.001-05:00

Mas Que Humano, from Argentina, covers Queen's Breakthru.

2009-11-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Just in: Library Journal reviews, recommends How to Be Inappropriate.

2009-11-06T08:58:00.002-05:00

I heard this was coming out, but I just came across this while checking out the book's listing on Barnes and Noble. Here it is printed in full.

Former McSweeney's editor Nester (English, Coll. of Saint Rose), whose writing has appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction, The Best American Poetry, and Poets & Writers, presents his debut collection of humorous nonfiction, amassing 41 years' worth of experience in nonconformity. His stories are, as the title suggests, inappropriate, and they often engender squeamishness, discomfort, and laughter. But they are fresh and, at times, touching, qualities that make this an enjoyable read. Subjects include teaching curse words to Chinese ESL students, reimagining a Terry Gross NPR interview of Gene Simmons by substituting Gene Simmons with an AI computer, a collection of references to flatulence in English poesy, the history of mooning, and out-of-context comments he made as a college professor in order to clarify and expand upon his students' writing. Nester includes photographs, illustrations, and a time line of his inappropriate acts from birth to the present. VERDICT Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs and essays.--Mark Alan Williams, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

How to Be Inappropriate round-up: West Coast Tour, a bad-ish review, Beast, Wilcox, Pank.

2009-11-05T10:20:00.001-05:00

The winter break is going to be busy. New dates to the PUBLIC AWKWARDNESS tour have been added out west; here are the details:

Thursday, January 7
7:30pm
Powell's Books on Hawthorne
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
503-228-4651

Saturday, January 9
6:30pm
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
206-366-3316

Monday, January 11
7pm
The Rumpus Reading
Lots of other authors and entertainers!
The Make-Out Room
3225 22nd St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-647-2888
Admission: $10

Coming up soon is my reading with Stephen Elliott on his tour behind his superb book The Adderall Diaries, along with Nick Flynn coming on Saturday, November 14 at 7pm, The Spotty Dog Books & Ale in Hudson, NY.

Also added: Thursday, December 10, at 8pm: Animal Farm Reading Series with Rachel Sherman and Jessica Anthony. Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street, New York, NY.

Now, onto Inappropriate Press.

The Daily Beast picked HTBI as one of the week's hot reads, and quotes one of my student-journalists in the process. She was, deservedly, excited.

Claire Shefchik reviews HTBI at literary blog called Vol 1 Brooklyn. Just when I think she doesn't like it, she kinda does. Either way, it's a smart review, well-written. Safe to say she didn't like the Terry Gross-Gene Simmons piece, excerpted here. For the record: It hurt the most when the reviewer didn't like my journalism-y pieces.

The Pank blog mini-reviews it.

Dan Wilcox reviews the HTBI Albany release party. He's too shy to admit it, but when he sang karaoke, the Danster changed "I Wanna Be Sedated" to "I Wanna Be Fellated." Genius.

Abigail Deutsch shouts out to "Goodbye to All Them" at the Poetry Foundation blog. So does Anthony Robinson.

Someone is "really enjoying" HTBI. Cool.

Just up on All Over Albany: How Not to Be Inappropriate in the Capital Region.

2009-11-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

It was only a matter of time. All Over Albany, my favorite Albany-related site, asked me to write about being inappropriate as it relates to Albany. I was happy to oblige.

Check out my thoughts on on Capital Region-related faux pas and also enjoy another photo by Joe Putrock, who took my picture for the Metroland profile. I got this local media shit locked down, yo.

Colleague's child's drawing of author of this site. Its accompanying text, "I'm a toodr [tooter]."

2009-11-04T12:43:00.001-05:00

Texan comic speaks in tongues, attacks audience member El Kabong-style (NSFW).

2009-11-04T11:14:00.002-05:00

God's Water performs Prince's "Bob George" (very NSFW).

2009-11-04T09:07:00.000-05:00

The band God's Water performs, word for word and note for note, Prince's "Bob George" at the Blowout Club in Charlotte, NC, 1991.

Did anyone get this? This is from Prince's bootleg release The Black Album. It wasn't widely released yet. I remember listening to this with college friends and being completely freaked out. Brilliant.

A naked Dan Wilcox, wearing a bra, covers his bum with his copy of my book.

2009-11-03T21:39:00.000-05:00

Rejected Book Cover, originally uploaded by dwlcx.

I don't know what to say, really.

CroMag's John Joseph talks Ian MacKaye, Belushi about Fear in SNL (NSFW).

2009-11-03T12:19:00.000-05:00

This is a video that was released around the time of The Evolution of a Cro-Magnon, former CroMags member John Joseph's memoir. Here, Josephs tells the story of when Lee Ving-led punk band Fear played Saturday Night Live, and how it really was Ian MacKaye who said 'eff New York' on national television.

My kingdom for a video of this. I've never seen it.

Note left on my car misspells douche bag as "Dueche Bag."

2009-11-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

Three Amtrak haiku

2009-11-03T08:38:00.001-05:00

Yonkers at sunset:
My backpack bursts open full
of used underwear.

If you stare enough
at Poughkeepsie, you
will make it go away.

The boy keeps asking
questions. Isn't it
enough he's on a train?

Above: British lobby card for Flash Gordon (1980)

The Last Vestige Record Store Blows Collection.

2009-11-02T12:06:00.000-05:00

I love looking at the master vinyl list from Last Vestige record store. In fact sometimes, I make up imaginary special collections, such as the Last Vestige Record Store Blows Collection.

FLATT & SCRUGGS/ Hear the Whistle Blow/ Columbia ltd.ed./ re-issue, lt jktwear, VG++/VG++ $6
MATTEA, KATHY/ Walk the Way the Wind Blows/ Mercury '86/ lt jktwear, VG++/VG++ $3
GOLDBERG BLUES BAND, BARRY/ Blowing My Mind/ Epic/ New Re-issue, SEALED $15
RENO, JOHNNY & THE SAX MANIACS/ Full Blown/ Rounder '85/ lt jktwear, taped seam, VG++/VG+ $4
SYKES, ROOSEVELT/ Feel Like Blowing My Horn/ Delmark '73/ WLP, punch hole, NM/NM $12
WALKER, JUNIOR/ Blow the House Down/ Motown '83/ lt jktwear, VG++/VG++ $5
BLOWFLY/ Blowfly's Party/ Weird World '80/ jkt-tear bc, VG++/VG+ - VG++ $7
THE BLOW MONKEY'S, THE 5 SATINS, etc., NM/VG++ $3
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS/ Orig Sndtrk/ Virgin '87/ feat. ROGER WATERS, DAVID
BAEZ, JOAN/ Blowin' Away/ Portrait '77/ insert, jkt-ring, sm jk tear, VG+/NM $5
BOGLE, ERIC/ When the Wind Blows/ Flying Fish '84/ with JOHN MUNROE & BRENT MILLER, lt jktwear, VG++/NM $6
MacCOLL, EWAN & A.L. LLOYD/ Blow Boys Blow - Songs Of The Sea/ Tradition/ MONO, lt jktwear, sm split seam, VG++/VG+ $12

Just up on The Rumpus: An Equinox Oral History with Alfredo R.

2009-11-02T07:30:00.001-05:00

Really excited about this: the first of our Equinox Oral Histories is up on The Rumpus. Check out Lisa Ashworth's very affecting interview with Alfredo R here.

Just out: Queen The Illustrated Biography.

2009-11-02T07:26:00.000-05:00

This listing has quietly sat on the OTHER CRAP page, but let me just say that another book came out this month--besides mine, I mean.

It's a beautiful thing for Queen psycho nerd fans like myself. Queen: The Illustrated Biography, edited and written in large part by by Phil Sutcliffe, includes two short reviews written by yours truly--one for Queen's 1989 album The Miracle, and a second on the Queen + Paul Rodgers Rock The Cosmos. I of course was psyched even to be asked to be part of it, and with a lot of really super rock writer types, as well as Slash, Tommy Lee, and some new stuff from the very underrated--at least these days--Billy Squier.

I heard from Georg Purvis, author of the essential Queen: Complete Works, whom I mention in one of my reviews. He told me he digs the book. You can't get a better endorsement than that, Queen fans.

The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.

2009-10-31T08:00:00.001-04:00

Plot summary from imdb:

Paul Lynde attempts to celebrate Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day before his housekeeper, Margaret, gives him the bad news. It's Halloween: the time of the year when a kid can carve up a pumpkin and Lynde's sports car at the same time. Lynde is no fan of ignorant youngsters, who seem to know more about Alice Cooper than Alice Faye. Margaret drives her employer to her sister's house, so he can escape the little pranksters. Unluckily, the sister turns out to be Witchipoo; and Margaret herself is the Wicked Witch of the West. The two witches believe witches in general have a bad rap. And so they want Lynde to be their spokes-human. In return, they give him three wishes. Lynde uses two of them to become a rhinestone trucker and a romantic sheik. Meanwhile, KISS performs three songs and Florence Henderson sings a disco version of "That Old Black Magic."

Sent in by my mother: A mooning pumpkin man.

2009-10-30T12:21:00.001-04:00

Happy Friday and all that.

How to Be Inappropriate round-up: Urban Outfitters, Writer's Rainbow, Chronicle, TU, HTMLG.

2009-10-30T09:35:00.002-04:00

If you walk into an Urban Outfitters store, chances are you will see a copy of How to Be Inappropriate. You can even buy it on their site. Either way, expect an attractive hipster staff person to walk up to you and say you look good with it on your body.

Tamara at The Writer's Rainbow sent some questions to me, and those questions, along with my so-intelligent-they-will-bite-your-face-off answers are up on the site now.

At HTMLGIANT, I took a stand against fucking gerunds.

Teresa Farrell reviews the book for the Saint Rose Chronicle. She gives it 4.5 stars--not too shabby for a youth-oriented publication.

They updated the cover art at Soft Skull's site. Still waiting on Powell's and Barnes & Noble. Oh, and my own website's header.

On goodreads, people I do not know have put the book on their lists "to be read." One user, "Michael Minneapolis," who seems like a discerning reader, writes that he was "was surprised and delighted by the intellect and emotion in these brief essays. A great read." Michael, wherever you are, I appreciate your kind words.

I am not sure if I linked to my shout-out in the Times-Union's Campus Notes column. But I will here.

Also from the Times-Union: Steve Barnes' Table Hopping blog shouts-out my McSweeney's sentence-combining "fictionalized fish fry" essay-thing.

I might be Tucker Max. Wouldn't mind some of the sales, however.

Roxanne, Roxanne gives me a shout-out at The Collagist.

I should give this guy a book.

Also not sure if I linked to a photo of me at the Brooklyn Book Festival by my old neighbor, Denton Taylor. But here it is.

24 leftover blog writing prompts, written and "rejected" by students in blogging class.

2009-10-29T20:46:00.000-04:00

Top 12 penis jokes.
What I hate about scents.
Top 12 occupied spaces.
Top 12 cups from which I have enjoyed a drink.
Top 12 empty spaces.
Top 12 top 10 lists.
Top 12 things you shouldn't do to your mother.
Top 12 cans.
Top 12 pictures of people upside down.
Top 6 suicides of the 70s.
Top 6 suicides of the 80s.
Top 6 suicides of the 90s.
Top 12 places to _____ with your puppy.
Top 12 varieties of soft drinks.
Top 12 homeless people knocking on my door for my spare cans.
Top 12 Yo Momma Jokes.
Top 12 YouTube videos of someone breaking a body part.
Top 12 horror movies. Go!
Top 6 worst places to parallel park.
Top five things I've found in the garbage or on the ground.
Write about the differences between two characters.
Top 6 people you aspire to be.
Top six things to do on Advisement Day.
What I hate about school.

[Note: not all of the naughty ones were written by the boys.]

78 blog writing prompts (from my blogging students).

2009-10-29T20:01:00.000-04:00

Top 3 foods to avoid when sick.
Top 12 things I Know, or think I know for sure.
Top 6 Pairs of sunglasses.
Top 12 types of pizza.
Create Backstories for strangers you see more then once.
Top 12 ways to find friends.
What I hate about my life.
What if every can had more than one drinking hole? What if there wasn't a hole to drink from, what then?
What I hate about the color light blue?
Top 12 frustrating moments explaining something that is quite simple.
Top six types of excuses.
Write about a bad Thanksgiving dinner with family.
Top 12 tastes, not food but tastes.
What is the overall problem with the education system in the United States?
Write something about carl sagan.
Top six places that you shouldn't go without gum in your pocket.
What I hate about MySpace...
Top 12 Animal Organs
Write about someone who is not qualified enough to be an expert on your topic, but is famous for your topic regardless.
Top 6 "Clue" guesses
Top 12 desserts to eat while watching tv.
Top 12 Strange Musicians.
Top 6 nail polish names.
Top 6 things you don't want your grandma to know, even if they're not about you.
Top 12 fun drugs that may or may not kill you.
Top 5 favorite animals.
What I hate about this blog.
Go ahead, be dirty (no, it's not what you're thinking). Think mud, etc.
Top 6 words based solely on aural appeal.
Write about yourself.
Top 3 Kanye West quotes of all time.
Give human qualities to an object & write from it's point of view.
The evil twin post.
Ever run into the cops? What happened?
Top 6 ways to eat spaghetti.
Top Six Embarrassing Childhood Moments.
Top 12 Things Fat Guys Shouldn't Wear.
Stand Outside and Pick up a Can; Write about It.
Top 12 Frustrating Moments on the Computer.
Top Six Old TV Shows.
What I Hate about Old People.
Describe a physical altercation you have been in.
Write something about your personal concept of time.
What I hate about riding in other people's cars
What I hate about TV/ What I hate about recycling.
Top 10 Favorite Drinks.
Write about things drunk people have told you.
Top 12 Major League Baseball hats.
What I hate about taking the bus.
Top 12 hats I have worn.
Top 12 Superheros who suck.
Top 6 Silent Movies and the albums they should be listened with.
Top 12 Ice Cream flavors.
Top 12 people who have disappeared from the public view.
What I hate about feet.
Top 12 annoying people.
What I hate about reality TV shows that have to do with Hollywood fashion.
Top 8 worst presidents.
If these shoes could talk...
Top 12 Colors and How They Relate to My Life - Dan with his yeller paper.
Top 6 Bathrooms in Albany.
Top 6 Facial Features.
Sit in front of your blog and think of nothing and see what comes to mind.
Top 10 favorite moments.
Top 11 Spinal Tap Quotes.
Top 6 ponies which I have ridden on.
Top 6 friend-related fiascos.
Top 12 photos I love.
Top 6 favorite athletes.
Top 6 oddball things children aspire to be when they grow up,
Top 6 ways to draw a cat,
Top 12 commercial slogans of the 90's.
Top 12 favorite quotes.
Take 6 things that are unknown to you and find out the facts.
Top 6 Embarrassing moments in which clothes were invalid.
Pregnancy scare? Holy shit. Write about it.
"The only zen you find at the top of the mountain is the zen you bring with you"
What I hate about human contact.

13 mostly 10-question interviews (by my blogging students).

2009-10-29T20:00:00.002-04:00

Interview 1.

1. What is your favorite tv show?
2. Pepsi or coke? why?
3. Why did you choose to blog about your topic?
4. Favorite outside class activity?
5. First book or movie that changed your life.
6. First car you ever owned
7. What inanimate object are you most afraid of?
8. What was your favorite childhood tv show or cartoon?
9.Favorite pre-college memory
10. What website do you visit most often?

Interview 2.
1. What, in your opinion, is implied by underscore?
2. If you were a shephard, how many dogs would you have?
3. Describe your experience with/relation to the segway. If none, how do you feel about them?
4. How's your family? Well, I hope.
5. Analyze the word 'jiggly.'
6. Describe your ideal casket.
7. About how many miles do you think you have walked in your lifetime?
8. Are your clothes comfortable?
9. Please relate, in detail, your level of enthusiasm for insects and why you hold them in such high/low esteem.
10. How much cash do you have on you at the moment, and would you be willing to lend it to someone if the asker were desperate?

Interview 3.
1. What was your first thought upon waking up this morning?
2. What was the last thing you ate with corn in it?
3. When did you realize you were truly alive?
4. What things wouldn't you say around your grandma?
5. What is your favorite public bathroom to date?
6. Who in your family pisses you off the most?
7. If you had to wear one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
8. How do you feel about cotton balls?
9. Who taught you to wash your hands?
10. Flip flops or sneakers?

Interview 4.
1. When was the first time you thought you were pregnant or got someone else pregnant?
2. When were you closest to giving up on college?
3.If you could only have sex with one person in your lifetime, who would it be?
4.What would you rather eat for an entire week, hot pockets of pizza rolls?
5. If you were a "Doug" character, who would you be and why?
6. If you're a girl: would you rather have sex with James Earl Jones or Emma Watson? Boys: Rosie O'Donnell or Brad Pitt?
7. Die young or die old?
8. Would you rather be rich and stupid or poor and smart?
9. Gary Coleman or Celine Dion?
10. Kevin Federline or Levi Johnson?

Interview 5.
1. What are your least favorite styles of music? Why?
2. What was the last thing you bought at WalMart?
3. What is the ideal name for a dog?
4. What is the worst book ever written?
5. How old were you when you got your first cell-phone?
6. How do you feel about Billy Idol?
7. Are swim-up bars really a good idea?
8. Where is the last place you would want to go on vacation?
9. If you could only drink one thing for the rest of your life, what
would it be?
10. How do you feel about cats?

Interview 6.
1. Are you familiar with the vocal stylings of George Michael?
2. Have you ever swallowed any coins? If so, state the total amount of change ingested.
3. What crime do you wish you could commit without consequences?
4. Do you, or have you ever, Yahoo(ed)?
5. What is the most embarrassing nickname you have ever been given?
6. Rats: cute pets or disgusting sewer-dwellers?
7. How do you eat an Oreo cookie?
8. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear "Detroit"?
9. Have you ever been sick on an amusement park ride?
10. What would be the title of the sitcom on which you were the star?

Interview 7.
1. Your favorite Spring Break spot?
2. Coke or Pepsi?
3. Have you ever been to a movie underage?
4. What is your favorite rock band?
5. What is your least favorite smell?
6. What is your favorite moment?
7. What is your most embarrassing moment?
8. If you were a cat, what kind would you be?
9. Kirk or Picard?
10. If you were a food what kind would you be?

Interview 8.
1. Most random costar of a sex dream.
2. What sound do you hate?
3. Most nerdy quality.
4. Toothpaste brand and why you use it.
5. Worst job you ever had.
6. Last time you wet yourself.
7. Things you should like based on other tastes, but don't.
8. Bad smell that you like.
9. Movie/book that made you scream.
10. Hygiene ritual you enjoy most.

Interview 9.
1. Where are you now? Why?
2. What kind of socks are you wearing?
3. What is your porn name (First Pet, First Streeet you Grew Upon)
4. When do you go to the bathroom?
5. Do you pluck your eyebrows: why or why not?
6. Britney or Christina?
7. Beatles or Rolling Stones?
8. Blue or Red? Why?
9. Do you want to be famous? Why/Why not?
10. Favorite kind of storm?

Interview 10.
1. What do you think about global warming?
2. What color is your personality?
3. How often do you clean your car?
4. Do you write in pencil or pen?
5. Who is your least favorite relative?
6. Coffee or tea?
7. When did you know your true calling?
8. Would you go sky diving with me?
9. What was your favorite moment to date?

Interview 11.
1. Sophie's Choice: If you had two kids, boy and a girl, which would you let live and which would you let die?
2. Would you do porn for 1 million dollars? How about $10,000?
3.You are given a choice to win a new convertible car or an orphan. You can only pick one (and the orphan knows about the contest).
4. If you had to drop a nuke on any U.S. state which would it be?
5. Do you wish you ever had different parents? What if your parents could have been celebrities?
6. Your ideal partner asks you on a date but they have a terminal disease (not contagious). What would you do?
7. Which group of people do you hate most and why?
8. Favorite song and why.
9. You have to choose how you are publicly executed. How would you like to go out?
10. Do you think you would have acted any differently than the bystanders who witnessed that rape at homecoming?

Interview 12.
1. First time you weren't sober during work?
2. First time you got pulled over?
3. First time you could legally consume Alcohol?
4. First time you wrecked something out of anger?
5. First time someone got in a fight with you?
6. First time you were cheated on?
7. First time you realized the Yankees are the best team in baseball?
8. First time you had a convo with a homeless person?
9. First time you drove more then 3 hours consecutively?
10. First time you met your neighbors?
11. First time a cop came into your house?
12. First time you talked your way out of trouble.

Interview 13.
1. When was the first time you went commando? Or have you never?
2. What is your shoe size?
3. What was your first car?
4. When was the first time you had a beer?
5. How old are you in cat years?
6. Who's yo Mama?
7. Do you have any tattoos?
8. When was the first time you ate Chinese food?
9. Do you like Cheese?
10. When was the first time you ate a taco?

Interview 14.
1. If you found a ten dollar bill what would you spend it on?

2. If you lost your keys, where is the first place you would look for them?
3. How many times have you visited New York City?
4. How long will it take you to finish school?
5. What would you name your fish, and why?
6. How do you spend your Sundays?
7. If you could start over again, what would you go to school for?
8. What does your ring-tone sound like?
9. Where do you buy your groceries?
10. How many piercings do you have?

"Cartoons are evil" televangelist clips.

2009-10-29T10:15:00.001-04:00

This one's for the writer nerds: More notes against the lyric essay.

2009-10-28T12:19:00.006-04:00

HTMLGiant put out a call for guest posts for entries for its Mean Week feature. You're supposed to be mean. As a regular reader, I thought this would be my chance to A. be mean and B. post something there.

So that's what I did.

I have long thought the term Lyric Essay was a bullshit term for craptastic writing, a catchall cop-out for folks who wrote a crappy poem or a crappy prose piece to call it something else. I had been taking notes and stuff for an essay called "Against the Lyric Essay (As a Term)" but I did not draw on those notes for my splenetic screed; here, in all its 194-word glory, is my Mean Week post:

Lyric Essays. Let's say your poems make discursive sense but lack human emotion. You're in a graduate workshops in Iowa. What do you do?

Get rid of those linebreaks, honey, and join the growing ranks of lyric essayists!

Or let's say your shitbad poems with, like, math equations in them aren't cutting the mustard. Denver Quarterly won't touch them. Who you a gonna call? Lyric Essaybusters!

First Iowa's 80s and 90s products ruined whole wings of poetry. Readers fled accordingly. Then, just when personal essays and literary memoirs re-entered the public sphere and earns actual book buyers in the 1990s, Iowans take up another cause: to ruin nonfiction. Their weapon of choice: The Lyric Essay.

Lifted from Camus book cover and bowdlerized by Iowans, who now have a freaking MFA for the thing, the lyric essay, which is basically an excuse to pee on a couple of fire hydrants to mark off academic territory, has produced prose that is at once unreadable and untethered to any human feeling. As George Carlin once said about farts, it's like shit without the mess.

I say: Make it stop. Leave writing non-feeling non-person-aware wankathons to the poets.

I guess I got a rise out of some people, but what surprised me is that some people took on that now-signature arch comment box personae. Adam Robinson of Publishing Genius Press chimed in; he quotes one of my sentences by way of a question:

"Leave writing non-feeling non-person-aware wankathons to the poets."
Just who are you trying to piss off here?

Whether people would get 'pissed off' by what I wrote remains to be seen. I saw that sentence as more of a statement of fact. There are poets who would say "non-feeling" is their calling card; same goes for "non-person-aware" and even "wanking." I would even say there are non-feeling, non-person-aware wankathon poetry and poems that I love. Take Flarf, for example--more about that later. And much of the conceptual writing poetry on Ubuweb.com would qualify. If some are surprised at my salty language ("wankathon"), oh well. That's sorta my bailiwick, people.

Me, I thought I made it clear who I was talking about: poets who write subpar poetry, usually sequences with a tacked-on overarching subject, and then turning around and call them lyric essays. They know who they are--all you have to do is look around you--but it seems that Robinson and others want me to name specific names.

After that, the discussion gets interesting. Side-stepping the issue of whether the term "lyric essay" sucks or not, I guess, is a good thing. So we comment box peops start talking about what exactly is an essay and even what qualifies as "essayistic." There, it feels as we are more confident in the theory/academic sphere. Critic John Madera took some time to point out the elasticity of genre definitions. Which is, of course, interesting, if you're into talking or being reminded about what an essay does. Also interesting: that he quotes Annie Dillard, who quite famously switched from poetry to essays so that what she writes could be better accommodated.

"The essay can everything a poem can do, and everything a short story can do," she wrote famously. "[E]verything but fake it." An essay to Dillard is both "coherent" and "meaninful" and "thinks about actual things."

Here's my point: I think a lot of what is published specifically as lyric essays are not meaningful, are not coherent, and do not think about meaningful things. It is a catch-all term for a wide range of hybrids, and I prefer there be another term for this. I don't mind "lyric," as long as it adheres to that word's spirit and definition and traditions, at least by 20th century standards. Most lyric essays aren't lyrical at all, but that cause is for someone else to take up.

Just call it an essay and see what people think.

Where I have a problem starts is when "lyric" is combined with "essay" and how and when it is combined. First: There is this idea that lyric essay is a genre. It is not. It is a form. It is also a form defined, by and large, I would argue, by its formlessness, not so much its content. When one talks about a particular lyric essay, in my experience, one usually talks about not what is written, but how. In that sense, the lyric essay term is set up by writers for other writers. It is not set up for readers, especially readers who do not write. And hasn't that been one of many inside-baseball reasons poetry has lost chunks of its audience in the past century?

And here's where I get to talk about Flarf again for a bit. Lots of people have tried to define Flarf, and I will probably get some of this stuff wrong, but it would be fair to say that Flarf is a kind of conceptual poetry that draws from and then crafts found texts. I love a lot of Flarf. I think it's smart; it has concepts behind it; it has a writer around it and in each piece. In a lot of ways, Flarf is a reaction to non-Flarf poetry: it sets out to make some thing or experience quote-unquote "poetic" that is not.

But do you see the rigor I had to use there, even in my ham-handed definition of Flarf? And this is my try at defining, in my opinion at least, the most out there, free-jazz experimental kind of writing there is.

I doubt anyone would get their gander up or muster the desire to define, defend, or even denounce a lyric essay. It's another made-up term, sure. But it is not a form defined by its content, as you could say Flarf or a sonnet or a Roman a Clef is. Nor is it a form set up to help readers.

If it is not a genre, not a form, then what is it, then? Is it set up as a publishing niche? Maybe. For, like, 5 presses and 20 literary journals. Is it a movement? Maybe again, if you count multiple issues of Seneca Review congratulating itself on coming up with its own term and publicizing it.

What I do know is that the term was invented and its promoters set up shop as for the most unhelpful and insidious of reasons: writing workshops and academia.

And even then it's not that helpful pedagogically. It does not, in my opinion and experience as a teacher, help a writer figure out what he or she is writing. There are descriptors for essays, sure--Mosaic, Collage, Episodic, List, Segmented, Vignette, Jump-cut--all used by teachers and writers, all with varying degrees of success. Does it help readers? Not so much.

Maybe "Lyric" helps other writers, sure, but perhaps only ones who are want to find a home for their writing. One comment box writer to my HTMLGiant post did present a story of being 'inspired' by the idea of writing a lyric essay, at least insofar as figuring out what she had already written. And here's what I wrote back.

Amy--I think your story cuts to the heart of my grumpiness about the lyric essay. I mean, here you are, trying to figure out what you're writing--which is one of the joys of writing, if you ask me--and this term helps you get excited about writing. How could I take that away from you? I wouldn't.

For me, it was a reverse process. I started writing short prose pieces about my favorite rock band, and all the while, it was: is it a poem? prose? memoir? essay? I loved the indefinable nature of enterprise. I wrote poems for years, with a few successes here and there, but all the while feeling something wasn't quite right, that my writing could do something else.

And then when I did, when I feel I'd finally broke out on my own as a "creative nonfiction" writer or "essayist" or whatever, along comes this term, lyrical essay, promoted by other ex-poets with far more cultural zeitgeist mojo than I, staking a claim on a whole wing of what I thought to be my new genre. What the freak? was my reply. And so it seemed that a good chunk of the preciousness, the we-are-prophets poetryland bunk that I'd grown so tired of, had implanted this new term, lyric essays.

So for me, my experience with the term comes at a different point in my writing life. Which is all I meant to say.

Still, as I think of it, for that writer and others out there who feel limited by the essay form, or the idea of an essay, the term "lyric" tacked onto it doesn't solve anything. Genre is a gesture, an amorphous thing; form is anything but amorphous. The idea of an essay provides plenty of leeway to allow much of the good of what passes off as lyric essays.

But why not just call it an essay and see what people think?

For myself and many others, the term lyric essay doesn't really help us think about how the essay is written, what is written about, what an essay does, or why it was written that way in the first place. And yet it's invaded the publishing sphere in its small way, as well as MFA land, almost to the last person by ex-poets who want to stake out not only their own form or movement, like Flarf, but their own freaking genre. Think of hubris involved in such a move, how it falls outside the parameters of what I am talking about here. I urge you to think about that, if you are invested in the writing world at all: setting up one's own genre! And a school for it, too! Conferences! Empaneling speakers!

I think that when we have a genre such as the essay--one that, through its 400-plus years of history and incarnations, has proven sufficient enough to include, in the 20th Century alone, Joe Brainard, Amy Fusselman, Albert Camus, Lester Bangs, Jenny Holzer, Larry King, John Hejduk, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Jenny Boully, Joan Didion, Albert Goldbarth, and David Lee Roth, all under the same essay tent--it begs the question: why get all record store clerk-y and come up with a sub-genre, other than to exclude readers and make those in the know feel more special? Or is it to make a conscious careerist grab for a chunk of the creative writing pie?

Just call it an essay and see what people think.

BookCourt top seller; American humor top 100 in Amazon.

2009-10-27T09:16:00.000-04:00

I heard this might happen last week when we had the book launch at BookCourt, but here it is confirmed: How to Be Inappropriate is the top seller in paperback nonfiction!

Suck on that, Omnivore's Dilemma!

Also: HTBI made it into Amazon's top 100 of American humor books. Which is really, really cool. We were at, like #76 there for awhile last night.

So suck on that, countless other humor books!

I didn't take a screen shot to prove it, but it really did happen. Thanks to everyone for buying the book. It makes an excellent Christmas and Hanukkah gift.