Enter Postcrossing, the new project that allows you to receive postcards from random locations worldwide. All you have to do is register with Postcrossing and start mailing postcards to the addresses they provide you with in order to start receiving cards from random locations. So why not sign up and start swapping your story with new friends from all over the world?

Six-Word Memoirists: Highline Ballroom, Nov. 17 2009 from SMITHmag on Vimeo.

Growing up, Oran Canfield’s life couldn’t have been further from the average person’s childhood experience. The son of Chicken Soup for the Soul author and self-help guru Jack Canfield, Oran spent his early years honing his juggling skills among circus people, attending punk rock shows, and just basically spending time with every possible unusual subset of fringe culture.

As an adult, Oran relocated to San Francisco, where he played drums in a number of art rock bands, opened a successful recording studio, and developed a drug addiction that nearly killed him. In his debut memoir, Long Past Stopping, Oran chronicles his long and often frustrating road to recovery with unexpected humor as he unpacks the numerous bizarre stories he collected along the way.

Chris Teja: How did the idea for Long Past Stopping come about?

Oran Canfield: The whole thing started because of a clever title I had come up with. I woke up one morning with, Give Me Some Bread with that Chicken Soup in my head, and said to myself, “Damn. I’m going to have to write a book.” I had never written anything before that.

Chris: That would have been great. So you just kept writing even after the original title fell by the wayside?
Oran: The original title was scrapped towards the end of the writing process because the book didn’t have as much to do with my dad as the proposal had. Although I agree with the decision, I still love the working title.

Chris: What effect do you think you father’s involvement will have with how people react to your story?
Oran: I think the biggest effect is the obvious irony between my childhood, my lifestyle choices as an adult, and my cynicism, and my Dad’s feel-good, self-help, Hallmark-style pop psychology. I have already received a number of emails from people whose parents made them read his books and who can relate on that level. So far the sensationalism that could have come up has has been minor.

Chris: I think people will be surprised to find out that your being the son of Jack Canfield is probably the least crazy aspect of your story. I really loved all the surreal, almost unbelievable moments (particularly your trip to Mexico). Was there anything you left out thinking that it might just be too strange to believe?
Oran: Believe it or not, I actually left a lot out. Some of it because the stories were too strange to believe, but mostly because a book only has so much room for crazy story after crazy story. In the end I even had to cut about 70 pages from the original manuscript. Very sad.

Chris: I bet. After reading about how, as a teenager, you helped a middle-aged Mexican man carry his drunk friends, who inexplicably fall asleep in the middle of the road night after night, I can only imagine what was deemed too strange. Did you have any journals to reference when you were writing or did you have to do it all from memory?

Oran: I had journals from certain time periods, but mostly I worked from memory and/or interviewed family and friends. I am actually still in touch with many of the characters in the book, and I tracked down others I hadn’t spoken to in years. It is amazing how these age-old experiences I haven’t thought about in years come right to the surface when I sit down and start writing, or how someone’s voice or even listening to music from the time period can trigger certain memories.

Chris: What it difficult to revisit some of those times?
Oran: It was possibly one of the hardest things I have ever done. Surprisingly, it was mostly the childhood stories that were hard to re-live. By the time I started writing, I had already come to terms with much of what I wrote about in the drug-using chapters. It was really the childhood stuff and family stuff that was hard to get through because writing requires a certain amount of empathy for all the characters, which I had never experienced before. All of a sudden I had to contemplate what my parents and friends might have been going through, which made it a lot harder for me to be angry at them. There were more than a few moments when I broke down crying during the writing process.

Chris: Did you have a sense that doing something as straightforward as writing your life story could be so exhausting?
Oran: Having never written before, I knew it was going to be hard, but I really didn’t have any idea what I was in for.

Chris: Is there a specific thing you hope that people will take away from your story?
Oran: Hopefully a certain amount of acceptance and even appreciation for themselves, the weird people in their lives, and their own crazy experiences. In the end, it’s all these crazy stories that made me who I am today.

Chris: And they also resulted in a completely fascinating book. So Oran, if you were to take you’re entire story and edit it down to a six-word memoir, what would it be?
Oran: Chicken Soup for the Misanthropic Soul.

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BUY a copy of Long Past Stopping

VISIT Oran Canfield’s website

Get Your War On

Doors open at 6. Show starts promptly at 7. We’re kicked out of the Highline by 10.
The Highline Ballroom
431 W. 16th St., NYC
Buy tickets here.

When we opened the slam up to the room, we heard former teenagers look back on adolescence with memoirs like “Spent every spare moment making out” and “Oh jeez, Mom, shut the door!” A certain 60-something admitted he often forgot he wasn’t still a teen and shared his reassuring six, “Doctor says it happens to everyone.” So whether you arrived at this post via SMITHteens or AARP, feel free to comment with a six-word middle-school memoir of your very own…

Whether it happened when you started your first post-college job, bought your first home, or simply the first time somebody called you “Sir,” the moment you suddenly notice that your all grown up is a huge milestone in anyone’s life. So, why not go ahead and share your story with the rest of us? And let’s not get too down on the idea of growing old. Because honestly, I’m a firm believer that being an adult is way more fun than being a teenager if you do it right. There is evidence to support this theory.

Back in July, we interviewed Philip Smith about his new memoir, Walking Through Walls, which explores his late father’s fantastic life and work as a faith healer. Now it’s out in paperback, so we checked in with him to find out how he feels about publishing his story and how people (and spirits) are reacting.

Photo credit: Guido Apicella

It’s been a few months since Walking Through Walls came out in hardcover. What’s the most surprising reaction (human or spirit) you’ve received to the book?
The response has been amazing not only from strangers, but also from people who studied with and were healed by my father. I’ve been delighted that many doctors have read the book and told me that they are rethinking how they practice medicine. However, the most surprising and satisfying reaction was both human and spirit. A few months ago a woman who had read the book called me up. After she introduced herself, she told me that my father was with her and did I have a few minutes to speak with him. She proceeded to channel my father for the next 45 minutes, and it was quite a conversation. Those 45 minutes were worth all six years I put into writing the book.

That’s amazing. It seems that your father is definitely still around you and that you are communicating with him in unexpected ways. In your previous interview with us, we learned that the spirits have told you that you’ve barely begun to become the psychic healer you’re perhaps destined to be. Have your abilities developed further in any way since you last spoke with us?
I’ve had several wonderful incidents of communication from the other side. Growing up, I would watch my father communicate with invisible spirits just as he would with the living. For him there was no separation between the living and those in the spirit world. However, I was surprised when this started happening to me.

A couple things have happened: first of all there is much, much more synchronicity in my life since the book came out. People and events seem to materialize holding a big arrow that points in the direction I need to be going. Maybe I’m more sensitive to these signs, but it seems as if my father is all over me these days. I think the book woke him up and he’s back on the scene.

Recently, I have helped several people, but I’ve always felt that my father’s ideas and energy are best manifested through my paintings. The Tibetans make paintings called Thankas that provide the viewer with a blessing or insight. Humbly, I hope that in some small ways my paintings can do the same. They all speak about my father in various ways. By the way, the woman who called me up to talk to my father also told me that I am working with a lot of his information in my paintings.

You mentioned that you stopped painting for a while in order to devote yourself entirely to the book. Have you gone back to painting? Has the experience of writing the book had any effect on your creative process?
Even though in my mind, I never felt that I had stopped painting, I was surprised by how difficult it was to really get back into the flow of painting. Writing the book engaged the less frequently used logical aspects of my brain. As a result, it took a while to reawaken the more atmospheric portion of my brain that flourishes in the creative process. It seems to me that the book writing process dramatically increased my sense of logic and objectivity that was not there before.

With painting, facts, or at least facts as we think of them, do not exist. However, in writing the book, I needed to assemble mountains of facts from his archives to make the book accurate. This required a real switch in brain function. Because my father’s life is so fantastic and stretches our very notion of reality, I needed to make sure that I worked exclusively from documentation. Writing the book was like an archaeological dig; I had to put together shards of our lives into a cohesive whole that made sense to the outside world. This is very, very different from painting.

To an outsider, it may seem that the paintings have not changed, but to me they have. They are simpler and much more charged. The lushness has dropped away and the viewer is now smack-dab in the middle of these strange vignettes, like some sort of surreal black and white movie from another dimension.

Philip Smith with his father

Now that the book is finished and you’re painting again, do you think you will ever be compelled to write more?
Possibly. When my father was alive, he wanted to teach as many people as possible his methods so that we could move on to the next level of treating human beings and their bodies as energetic entities rather than animate objects that need to be cut, sawed, and chemically repaired. I have received thousands of emails requesting more information on my father’s healing methods and techniques. So as part of my obligation to my father and his work, I do need to assemble his work in some cogent fashion that can be imparted through a book. However, there are some wonderful characters in my life that might make an interesting book as well. I’m just trying to get my sea legs back after a year of being available to the public for the book. Hopefully the next book project will unfold a bit quicker than this one did.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I am very, very grateful for the tremendous interest in the book and in my father’s work. During his life, he was not well received and was harassed by the authorities for his ideas. Now, fifty years later, his ideas are finally being thought about and discussed. This is the problem of being a visionary and being ahead of one’s time. But I am so happy that I was able to bring his work back to life.

And, finally, would you like to give us an updated six-word memoir?
Lucky you, lucky me.

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BUY a copy of Walking Through Walls (Now available in paperback!)

VISIT Philip Smith’s website

The scribe is Rob Agredo, who tells us he is a “reluctant dolly grip, living in the Bronx with his beautiful wife, twin three-year-old girls, and little dog Zuzu.” Rob receives all the loot from an online auction of that lighter/pool ball and his tale about it. Make a bid yourself or follow the money on eBay. Hemingway would surely approve.

It wasn’t easy to arrive at one winner—scroll through the entries, they’re awesome—so we also wanted to mention five more of our favorites and their authors.

“After pool table sex, smoked cigarettes.”
- Kelly Kreth

“He smoked me, I just smoked.”
- Cameron Vest, Reston, Virginia

“Old flame. Great rack. Plays game.”
Paul de Denus, Santa Rosa Beach, Fl

“Fire ball…….colliding………Earth………remain ca…”
Kritika Kushwaha, New Delhi, India

“Never needed those eyebrows. Your rack?”
Pete Sosalski

Thousands of teens have flocked to SMITH Teens to share their life stories in six words. We’ve put hundreds of them in our latest book, I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous & Obscure, which NYT’s columnist David Carr calls it “Fab…a must read,” while Publishers Weekly writes: “The range of powerful emotions, expressed in just a few words, is an ideal oick for teens seeking evocative, easily relatable stories.” Our evening and open-to-all-teens slam at the library should be a memorable night of self-expression, storytelling, and secret-sharing. Teens, we hope you’ll arrive psyched to read a six-word memoir on stage—you’re what will make this night amazing.

Need inspiration? Check out the beautiful magic happening over at SMITH Teens. Or press play below.

Here’s what they came up with.

What happened to the good grades?
- Sky L., grade 6

Just have to keep them guessing.
- Genevieve S.

Horror and mystery is my world.
Dark is mysterious just like me.
- Catherine P., grade 6

I shine like a golden star.
- Zainab M., grade 6

Sad, depressing, sullen, happy, joyful friendly.
- Nathan B., grade 9

Curious to see what happens next.
- Anon E. Mous

I am blue like the sky.
- Amal A., grade 6

I forgave but I can’t forget.
- Tabassum M, grade 10

At least we’re not dead, right?
- Austin D., grade 10

When your friends ditch your hopes….
- Caroline M., Gr. 6

Made many mistakes, but no regrets.
- S.T. grade 12

Traveling around globe unaware of destination.
Winning’s a start. Losing’s no end.
Life is fun. Breakdancers live it.
- Maiwand T., grade 9

I am very happy, sad not.
I love study and fun.
- Maimuna M., grade 6

Love to read, makes me happy.
Happy with great friends and family.
- Ariyana C., grade 6

I live a fairy tale life.
- Anon

I love books. Books love me.
Light is kind so am I.
Boys drool. Girls rock the world.
11 and never went to hospital.
- Ishita S. grade 6

Still here. Can’t figure out why.
- JL (”way old lady”)