Have faith, or at least come to peace with the fact that some questions just won’t be answered in this lifetime. The good and the evil times occur simultaneously, so be good to one another. Those tired but true bromides are the core of most spiritual schools and, according to pop/religion columnist Cathleen Falsani, the subtext for the films of the Coen Brothers. In fact, The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers makes a mostly successful case for the brothers’ classic films as a treasure trove of teachable moments about the human condition both in its highest capabilities and lowest surrender to baser instincts. While not always successful—the basic structure of the book is problematic—this is a breezy, sometimes fun, sometimes wise, but always thought-provoking set of essays.

The book looks at each Coen film, both with a quick overview and a deeper reading. Each essay closes with Falsani’s thoughts on the “moral of the story.” This format grows tiresome, especially since it often seems as if too much time is spent on film summary than on development of her thesis. Her analysis is most effective regarding Barton Fink and No Country For Old Men; they provide the best grist for points.

Those two films are both at heart about the end of illusions—of hopes and trust in the former, and of the triumph of good and the hope for a basic sense of dignity to prevail in the latter. The title of the book, of course, refers to The Big Lebowski, and she does a commendable job of fitting it into her overall idea, but her summation of the spiritual point of the film (be kind to everyone, you never know who you may be talking to, essentially her summation of Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? as well), along with the moral of Blood Simple (be honest, don’t commit adultery, etc), seem a bit obvious. Likewise, she stretches a bit when discussing Burn After Reading (we live according to our selfishness and not on the road map to salvation provided by the Bible, which we have existentially burned after reading) and The Man Who Wasn’t There (take chances; don’t be spectator in your own life). She seems to waver between illustrating the profound truths of the Coen Brothers’ films while at the same time suggesting that those profound truths are, while difficult to put into practice, are really simple when you think about it. And, perhaps sheepishly she avoids making a moral summation of Miller’s Crossing, since the Coens have refused to talk about its meaning and therefore it is best to leave it ambiguous. A deep reading and a stab at a moral would have been worth it, as that powerful film, it seems to me, expresses the heart of the Coen Brothers’ spiritual/moral/philosophical ideas: life is messy, sometimes cruel and deeply arbitrary, sometimes beautiful and funny and full of enough love to make the betrayals at least bearable. All those emotions may be brief, as are our lives, but if that is what we have to deal with, so be it. 

She is at her best when that wavering is brought into sharp focus and those strains complement one another, as with Raising Arizona, where she rises to its ambiguity and offers some great insight. Her astute analysis of the film’s subtle commentary on childhood, as well as her judgment of Hi McDunnough (played by Nicholas Cage) as a prisoner of his fears and weakness in the face of his appetites, is moving as well as spot on. 

In an old Zen story there is a monk who asks a master about the core of the teaching. The master replies that one ought to be kind, do good, and avoid doing bad. The monk, offended, shouts, “Is that it? Even a three year old knows that!” To which the master replies that while that is true, even an eighty year old has trouble living up to it. How you react to that story will spell your delight or dissatisfaction with The Dude Abides. There is even a 14-point Coen Commandments at the end that may or may not tie things together for you. She sums them up thus: “Life has many more questions than it has answers. But life isn’t about finding all the answers; it’s about the journey. So go forth in kindness, with an open mind, a pure heart, and a watchful eye for occasional divine intervention—particularly when you least expect or deserve it.”

But, rather than go forth herself, Falsani tacks on some odd addenda: a list of “group study questions,” which feels like a jarring implication of self-importance, and an essay on how online spirituality and communication have invigorated her spirituality. Aside from the internet and film being aspects of media, I can’t see the need for its inclusion here. In all, The Dude Abides reminds us that life lessons are present everywhere, even in movies that seem to have no morals or that play with them mischievously. Though sometimes her analysis is simplistic, many of our most lasting guides for living are also simple—on paper. The Coens challenge us to maneuver through ambiguity, through simple and complex questions, without ever comforting us with the idea that we have any help in our journey.

Identity Theory

Have you ever claimed to read a book that you never actually finished? If so, it may have been one of these: The Books We Lie About.

In “Confessions of a Literary Jingoist” Elizabeth Minkel writes: “You can seek out literature from just about anywhere — and now it’s easier than any previous point in history — but it’s a hell of a lot harder to bring it into the conversation.”

Becky Bradway’s “Public Enemy” earned a spot on the Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2011 list.

Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, appeared on the Bat Segundo Show in April.

It’s World Vegetarian Week, so might we recommend for you a Moosewood cookbook?

Granta has a poem by Gillian Clarke about “Blue Sky Thinking.”

Birnbaum interviewed Josh Ritter on how songs are “delivery vehicles for a story.”

Image by foxpar4 via Granta.com

Identity Theory

A bird in the house, and what do you do?

If he flies in through a window, through the upper portion of a large door, you react with panic, confusion. He flies in great circles near the ceiling, doesn’t understand where the sky has gone, while you wave your arms ridiculously below him. You’re not thinking clearly, and so you continue to panic, a bird, a bird in the house, what does one do?

A bird in high circles is a surprise and a shock. But what about a little bird who flies in low through the open door? Like an arrow he darts into the room, but now you are calmer, you can see him shooting around at knee level, you know what to do. Open a door, open several, let him find his way out. You are in control.

But what if you come home to find a bird already in the house? You set your things down, you wash your hands, preparations to turn you from pedestrian into person-at-home, and then you see him—on a rafter, or on the floor near a large window, or perched boldly, artistically on a lamp. You don’t panic, but your stomach sinks. Life is not how you thought it was. An intruder is in your house. Glassy, unclosing eyes have been watching your most secret rituals. You won’t think to open a door, you won’t panic, because the bird sits still, and it is this stillness which will define your reaction. You’ll stand still, too, thinking about what to do, but you will only be telling yourself you’re thinking. You’re standing still because you’re reeling, caught in a moment of unexpectedness.

But what if you’re not surprised? What if a bird walks into your house, slowly, like a tourist entering a gift shop, looking around idly, placing one bird foot in front of another in a slow hobble? You watch amused—what is he thinking, this bird, look at him walking around like he owns the place. You feel no fear, no confusion. This bird is like a friend. After not too long a while, you will escort him out, which will startle him but only amuse you further.

And what if, after years of living in the same place, the same town, getting to know the people, the streets, the changes in the seasons—what if after you’ve been somewhere so long that you can tell by the wind today what will happen tomorrow, you discover that a bird has been living in your house all along? During an extravagant spring cleaning, in the attic, the crawlspace, an unexplored dusty area of the garage, you are shocked to see the glint of a glassy eye looking at you. A bird, in this quiet place, resting, a doughy lump on a cookie sheet, staring at you with the same curiosity you feel towards him, his eye reflecting yours and yours his. How long has he been here, is he incredibly old, or is he part of a family that’s been here all this time? While your quiet life has been unfolding, have birds been living and loving and raising their own here, unnoticed within your walls? You will be surprised, yet, alone of all birds, this bird will not make you feel like the world is toying with you. You will not be inclined to chase him out. For this bird, you realize, is part of the background of your life, he’s been here so long that removing him may alter the fabric of all you have constructed so carefully.

And so this bird, whose unexpected presence makes you feel most at ease, also makes you most afraid. He is a wild, unknowable creature, and you feel your life tied to his twitching wing.

Identity Theory

Beneath all science fiction lies a dilemma, one solved by the best storytellers: whether the speculative devices are more interesting than the characters created to experience them. In the medium of film, sometimes action and atmosphere can compensate for cutouts populating the narrative. The works that balance humanity with sharp ingenuity are successful and, quite often, classics. 

The “device” in World on a Wire (1973, adapted for West German television from the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye) is a computer program Simulacron that creates personality identities for faux-beings who believe they are human. The conceit returns to the common themes of “Can machines be human?” and reality as a fabrication of science. By learning that the program is designed to measure consumer practices of the future, we find a nice critique of capitalism in tandem. The film concerns the scientists in charge of the program, one of whom, Stiller (Klaus Löwitsch) realizes that it has come too close to him. When Vollmer (Adrian Hoven), the original programmer of Simulacron, and the head of security, both disappear, the film seems like a political thriller, though the latter disappears in thin air, leaving us to question reality beyond putative intrigue. 

Adapted and directed by West German great Rainer Werner Fassbinder, World builds Stiller enough to match the device fueling his story. And yet the film stands as unique through its visual style. Having also worked in the theater (to where he’d return during a short career of astounding output on film), Fassbinder was unique in his use of defamiliarization when directing actors. His control over their physical and verbal performances is evident throughout his work, and in World it brings about an unsettling feel. The design seems urban chic for the time, and the action remains in realistic locales, though human interaction remains a far cry. While science is used to benefit humanity, we learn that the former has virtually disintegrated the latter. 

If dystopic science fiction seems an odd choice for Fassbinder, we recall that this filmmaker, fond of classic Hollywood (like the French New Wave directors who debuted before him), worked in a variety of genres: the gangster film (Love is Colder Than Death), farce (Satan’s Brew), filmmaking satire (Beware of a Holy Whore), and the western (Whity). As a sheer creative force, Fassbinder could take on any style and make it his own. 

Identity Theory

“Go ahead and deal, Cyril,” I say. “We’re here to play. We’re here all night.”: “Casino” by Alix Ohlin is featured fiction at Guernica.

The N.Y. Times Magazine offers “The Great Pulitzer Do-Over.”

Check out the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions as judged by Dan Chaon.

Beatrice has an Author2Author exchange between Nick Antosca & Blake Butler.

The Morning News is holding a Paris, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down Cover Remix Contest.

The Baffler magazine, whose relaunch was recently discussed here, is raising money on Kickstarter.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons via Guernica.

Identity Theory

1.

It happens quickly, this fondness for a spider living in a corner of my bathroom. She’s been there for weeks, and one day, I look down and watch her. And we come to an understanding, or at least, I pretend to understand her, as if I’d just misunderstood a reflection of myself in a mirror and was shocked for a moment to discover a twin.

2.

When I began grad school, I moved into a garden-level apartment within walking distance of campus. The apartment flooded occasionally and let all kinds of insects in its windows. Its neighbors made endless batches of curry, the smell of cumin and turmeric always in the hallway. I got a job at a café several blocks away and worked evenings, walking home after midnight with a large cup of leftover coffee I warmed on the stove and drank while I did my homework.

3.

I’m sick much of that summer, with migraines, with stomachaches caused by statistics classes and eating only food from the café. At night, when I sit on the bathroom floor with my legs tucked under me, rubbing menthol on my throbbing temples or curling my chest over my sore middle, I am nearly eye to eye with the spider. What does she do all night? I am only learning to live alone, to trust the long moments of quiet, the afternoons reading with my legs on the top of the couch, the walk down the dark and narrow hallway at the end of the day, fumbling with my keys and pretending I am being chased as I did climbing the basement stairs as a child.

I’m fascinated by the spider’s choice of a solitary life, or whatever it is that choice is called when it’s governed by instinct in a species that must follow certain behavioral rules. Funny to think I would overcome arachnophobia with a healthy admiration for a spider’s lifestyle. I watch her like other girls listen to Bikini Kill or analyze feminism on Sex and the City. I want an example, a model for how to live independently, with the smallest bit of indifference and anonymity, without fear, for a while, for the summer.

4.

Morning customers at the café are all students and professors on their way to summer classes. Evening brings in the regulars. Every night, a motley group of men push tables together, spread out a chessboard, and play until the cafe closes. On any given evening, the chess players include:

An African-American man with a high voice who wears loose, thrift-store t-shirts and eats chocolate cake;

A physics professor, ten kinds of skinny, hair bleached and spiked like Billy Idol, always black leather pants, always a red leather jacket;

A man with dark and floppy hair, large plush features, uses his forefinger and thumbnail to flick a quarter into the tip jar after ordering (I hate him a little for this);

The boy, at least fifteen years younger than the rest, awkward, needs a haircut even when he’s just gotten one, loose hands.

Two of them play while the group, sometimes larger, offers ongoing commentary and advice. A playwright, handsome, with a strong jaw and a shy way of flirting with the waitresses, sits at the table nearest the bathroom and records snippets of their conversation for his next play.

The other regulars:

A student here from the Netherlands for the summer. We are attracted to each other, but neither of us can overcome our shyness to do much about it. I know I like him because I spill things when he’s around. He orders coffee after coffee and frowns at his book. I spill more coffee beans, a cupful of ice, a bowl of orange pulp. He occasionally wears a kilt, a long tan-and-red pattern that drapes past his knees.

The biker, tall, a dark beard, leather jacket adorned with chains. He comes in ten minutes before closing, orders a bottle of root beer, and tips a dollar for it. He opens it quickly with a turn of his large wrist. It is not a twist-off.

The man with hair spaced shorter and longer, lighter and darker, across his scalp. He said they had to fix his head from the inside out. He talks about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his voice is hedged with genuine pain. He wants to move to a peacenik commune in Indiana after this summer. Sometimes his eyes are bloodshot, and sometimes he hasn’t appeared to have slept in days. Usually he is talkative, sexually inappropriate in a vague way. When he doesn’t feel like talking, he reads stacks of anatomy books, like the beauty of a vessel, an organ, is the only thing for making sense. Some nights, he sits with his daughter and buys her caramels.

The bouncer from the club across the street, the biggest man I have ever seen. He wears long dreadlocks and asks me about the books I’m reading. He likes blended drinks with lots of sugar, cream and caffeine. He watches out for the waitresses when we close up at night, makes sure we are safe, that no one is bothering or threatening us as we try to lock the doors and walk home. It is a college campus surrounded by bars, and someone is always bothering us. We give him all the free, heavily sweetened drinks he wants. It’s unspoken, of course, this exchange of frappe for protection.

They are all men, the regulars. I like to watch them, learn what brings them into this warm space every night. Most are men from the neighborhood, the campus, men with joking voices, ways of flirting with the waitresses, ways of wanting company and coffee, ways of wanting to be left alone.

5.

The Dutch man stays late one night until everyone has gone, and we talk as I clean. I spill an entire plastic tub of coffee beans. He finds this funny and smirks as I stare at the mess. He helps me clean, although we must look silly, me with a broom and dustpan, him scooping handfuls of coffee beans from the just-mopped floor. He asks me if I like movies, and I can’t think properly. All that I have in my mind is that day several months ago in the woods, with the man I trusted, the man I couldn’t get away from, the man around whom I froze and tried to be nice so he wouldn’t get angry, why didn’t I fight? And I’m shaking my head, no, I don’t like movies. He looks perplexed, and I feel awful. It wasn’t a lie. I really don’t like movies. He hangs around until I lock the doors, and he waves goodbye. The bouncer lifts an eyebrow, and I grin and wave him off.

6.

After coming home from class one afternoon, I notice another spider in the web. Because I have never seen mating or killing look like this, I can only describe what the spiders are doing as a dance comprised of beautiful, painful movement. I don’t know it is painful, but if I were in pain, this is how I would move – slowly, reaching toward something that might help – the kinetic equivalent of keening. The larger spider – my girl – is leading, instigating movement from the smaller form. She plucks the end of a leg, guides motion with a vague stroke, backs off for a moment and comes back to touch and roll and slide her partner again. The smaller spider is – do spiders writhe? Do spiders undulate? Picture a spider in space, falling over itself in heavy movements, its legs splayed and squirming outward, away, trying to escape, its body caught in the command of something larger, something that is barely touching it at all. I can’t stop watching, and it seems like it will never stop. I don’t know if this is sex or death or both.

I leave to eat dinner, and when I come back, the only thing left of the smaller spider is a few shards of black. I shut the door and wait until morning to take a shower.

7.

These are the only places I go: the café, school, my apartment. For a while, for the summer. The neighborhood becomes the universe, and on the sidewalk, it’s nice to be known as the girl who serves coffee from five to midnight. It’s nice to watch the men straggle in every night, to watch, to oversee from the counter. To give them sweet pastries and warm coffee, to add extra whipped cream because I know they are too embarrassed to ask for it, to prompt a smile when I have jasmine tea ready for the Egyptian cigar shop owner before he can ask. To watch their faces soften because I care about how they wish to eat and drink.

I love that they want only small things, only a spot of sweetness or warmth at the end of the day. When I lock up at night, I put my headphones in and walk the eight blocks to my apartment, ignoring the frat parties, ignoring the drunk college students. I wear my apron home. It’s a talisman, I suppose. It tells people I’m a fixture in this neighborhood in a way they aren’t, that I’m the girl who serves them coffee. It is a terribly powerful thing to be the girl that serves coffee.

8.

I want only small things. For a while, for the summer. I want to eat leftover chicken Caesar wraps from the café and drink warmed coffee in the middle of the night, and I want to sit on the bathroom floor and watch the spider.

I was terrified of spiders as a child. At night, I lined up stuffed animals along the edges where my bed met the wall to impede their imagined progress onto my sleeping body. When he found them in the house, my father killed them and chased me with the tissue containing their crushed forms. He meant no harm. It is the way of boys and men, I think, to tease fear, to be encouraged to face and overcome fear so often that laughter is the default response.

I suppose there are many reasons for fear, especially unexplained fear of beings that rarely cause harm. We find their movements uncanny, our genes are wired to protect us from animals that could be venomous, phobias are implanted in the same way as a distaste for carrots or a love of chocolate. I lose my fear of spiders that summer, and I don’t know why, other than that I identify with this particular, solitary spider. I see in her that my current way of being is okay, that it is fine for a while, for the summer, to live in a corner of the world, to venture out only when it is desirable.

I hope she isn’t frightened of me. The more I think about my arachnophobia, now draining away, I think I was more afraid of the crush, the fragility, the killing of a life, the total destruction of its form, than I was of a living spider. It’s too easy, to eradicate what they are. To be big, to be something they cannot get away from, to be a threat from which they cannot run fast enough. It’s easy to take their lives, and to take their bodies, their structures, to leave them only a stain on the floor, a dark smudge on the phone book. More girls than boys are afraid of spiders. More girls than boys fear their bodies’ permeability, its potential to be rendered into something broken.

9.

The Dutch exchange student asks me out again. He has tickets to A View from the Bridge, and for a moment, I know he sees my eyes light up, because I love Arthur Miller. I tell him I have to work that night, and he’s disappointed. He sees me walking around campus that night. I smile as if I were just taking a break and heading back to work, but he ducks his head and drops and his eyelashes because he knows I am not working. He comes into the café only rarely and does not talk to me. I try not to catch his eye when he looks up from his book. I wish I could tear my belly open, tell the truth, let him look at the panic still sitting inside me, make him know that sometimes there are days in cars with men where you don’t know why you didn’t yell. I wish I were just the girl who serves coffee. I wish everyone only wanted small things, a slice of cake, a warm-up for their tea, a date to a play. I wish the small things didn’t have so much potential to break open. I wish I were not just the girl who serves coffee. I wish I wanted only small things.

10.

There are different kinds of fear. There is phobia that floods your body with chemicals even as you try to reason it away. There is panic like a white light illuminating your muscles, charging you with electricity and liquid muscularity, a way to run, a way to lift and push and fight. There is terror that pulls your reason and your thinking mind out of your body, hustles it away to safe space while your body can’t think to move. There is dread that drips out of your past, a drop into the bloodstream here, a hold on your actions there.

No one will talk about it, but there is fear you deserve and fear you don’t, the fear that gets compared, the what really happened? how bad was it for you? are you worth what keeps you stuck to the floor of your bathroom? There are good reasons for wanting to be alone, for wanting to watch, to bury understanding of how the world behaves into your mind, to learn to love the men and spiders that fill your nights. There are good reasons to want only small things, to want to observe, to learn. There are good reasons, for a while, for the summer.

Identity Theory

Meta: This is a novel by John Irving to be published May 8, 2012 by Simon & Schuster. The hardcover version spans 425 pages. It is Irving’s 13th novel.

Keywords: bisexual narrator, “sexual suspect,” Vermont, amateur theatrical society, AIDS

Random Jacket Copy: “His most political novel since The Cider House Rules.”

Random Quote: “In the fabulous seventies, when I picked up a guy, or I let myself be picked up, there was always that moment when my hand got hold of his butt; if he liked to be fucked, he would start moaning and writhing around–just to let me know I’d hit the magic spot.” (p. 115)

Author Website: http://john-irving.com/

More by John Irving: The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Imaginary Girlfriend, Setting Free the Bears

Further Viewing: “How to Tell if You’re a Writer” by John Irving

Buy In One Person at Powell’s

Identity Theory

“You could say these stories are meant to shock, but we all know that we live in an unshockable age.” -The Internet is the Machine, a review of Elizabeth Ellen’s Fast Machine

A Conversation: “Cataclysm Baby” Author Matt Bell On Apocalypses, Fairy Tales, And Much More

Another Conversation: Jonathan Lethem on the Talking Heads’ Fear of Music

And Another: Neil Gaiman interviews Stephen King.

E.L. Doctorow’s contribution to the N.Y. Times‘ “Writers of the World: Looking at America” series: “Unexceptionalism: A Primer”

And then there’s this Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich meme.

Finally, if you have a few extra hours a week to spend manipulating words, you should apply for one of our updated editorial staff openings.

Identity Theory

“I like going to a show where everyone is into the music…Everyone’s on the same page for whatever, how long, twenty minutes. That feeling’s pretty cool.”

This interview took place on a bluff overlooking the Puget Sound in the spring of 2011. Mike Dumovich and I had just met at the first Vashon Island Round, where three songwriters are brought together to take turns playing songs and improvising with each other. Having a lot of musical tastes and personality quirks in common, we started playing music together, and I asked if I could interview him while he was writing his third album. We spent one of Seattle’s sunniest days sitting on the grass in his backyard, drinking coffee and passing a guitar back and forth.

Unfortunately, one of my hands was taken out by tendinitis a few weeks later, so I wasn’t able to transcribe the interview until now. In the meantime, he finished recording his new album, Acres, in a shack on his friend’s farm on the island, with a handful of Seattle’s best musicians backing him up. His sound is skillful and unpolished at the same time, gritty-sounding instruments and smooth, rich vocals, aggressive guitar solos followed by pretty ballads. Talking to him with the tape recorder running revealed that Mike holds a similar combination of vitriolic and sensitive opinions.

Anna-Lynne Williams: What’s the first show that you can remember ever playing?

Mike Dumovich: Oh man. I remember it. I wasn’t playing guitar yet, and then I got really into this one record by Mark Lanegan. And Mazzy Star. And I started playing slide guitar, especially after the Mazzy Star record. And there was a young singer out here on Vashon. And a guy that kind of looked like the guitar player from Mazzy Star. So we decided to start a band. But we kind of sucked. But we weren’t that bad. We played at the VFW Hall. And I’ve seen pictures, and it’s horrifying what I wore.

AW: (laughs) How old were you?

MD: I’d say 19.

AW: What did you wear?

MD: It’s horrifying. I had…oh boy…OK, I had long johns under camouflage shorts, hiking boots with wool socks, you know…pulled up…kind of that ’80s hippie purple color. Like those Nike hiking boots, you know what I’m saying? And a t-shirt and some beads. And a hat that I thought made me look like Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction — but it really made me look like I took too much acid at the Oregon Country Fair.

AW: Were you a hippie, or were you a punk rocker?

MD: I didn’t know what I was, actually. I was really confused. I had a mullet until I was 18. I was lost.

AW: So you said you weren’t playing guitar back then?

MD: I was playing guitar, but I’d just started to play. My dad played blues, so I learned some slide tricks in open G. And there was another guy going strum strum strum. And there was a girl going la la la.

AW: And you’ve been playing music ever since then, or have you ever taken some time off from it?

MD: I took a little miniature time off when I went to Colorado for a summer.

AW: Did you live in the wilderness?

MD: No, I was going to go to school at this place that…sucked. It’s called Naropa, and I was really impressed with it because it had this impressive title, called like The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics or some shit. And Allen Ginsberg was involved with it, so I was like “Oh man, I’m going there.” And I went down there and then I didn’t end up going cuz every time I went to talk to any of the kids that were going there they were all just totally rich kid…spoiled…fakers.

AW: (laughs) So how long have you been playing your own Mike Dumovich solo music?

MD: I guess I started pretty much at 19 or 20.

AW: Soon after you started…

MD: Yeah I just started writing my own songs.

AW: Do you like working with other people?

MD: I love it.

AW: But you’re not right now?

MD: Oh, you mean like me playing other people’s stuff?

AW: Like, have you been in any other bands recently?

MD: I would love to actually do more of that, where I’m not the writer and I’m just playing guitar, because I really like playing electric, too. I don’t do that very often — out. But I love it. It’s refreshing. Music can be really fun. And if you write stuff it’s really more rewarding, I guess. But it’s also painful somehow.

AW: Do you have any period of your songwriting that you don’t like to play anymore because it reminds you of anything, or…

MD: Hmm…yeah. And I don’t like to play stuff that’s too old. I get sick of my own stuff pretty quick.

AW: So when you play a show now, do you pretty much play all new stuff that you’re working on?

MD: I try.

AW: That’s very Animal Collective of you.

MD: Is it? I just think it sucks to play songs when you’re flat bored on them.

AW: Yeah I like playing a lot of covers at shows, too, just cuz it’s like the first time I’ve ever played them. And obviously with my own songs that could never be the first time…

MD: Yeah. I’ve done a few covers. I kind of pound covers too much, I think.

AW: You pound them?

MD: Like, if I learn a cover I’ll play it too many shows in a row. Cuz I don’t learn many. So I’ll learn one and I’ll really love it…

AW: What are some favorite ones that you cover?

MD: I really love that Bert Jansch one. Well, Anne Briggs wrote it and then Bert Jansch covered it, with his crazy guitar stuff on it…

AW: What’s the title?

MD: “Go Your Way My Love.”

AW: Ok, yeah. Do you feel when you perform other people’s songs live, does it feel as emotional and personal as when you do your own?

MD: Sometimes more. Well that song, when I first heard it, it really emotionally hit me. And then every time I’d play it, I’d get really emotional about it. And it’s fun to play. Just the guitar and the way the vocal line…At first it was more the emotional things, it fit what I was feeling at the time. But now it’s just really fun to play. It might be the first thing I play if someone says, “Oh, play a song,” or something. My fingers get addicted to that feeling of like multi picking strings.

AW: So what sort of things make you want to write? Like, what are some things that generally inspire you or give you ideas?

MD: That’s hard. It depends. It happens differently…

AW: So are you an autobiographical writer, or do you find yourself sort of thinking like characters or…

MD: I rarely sit down and go, “I’m gonna write a song about yadda yadda.” In fact, I’m trying to do one about my grandma who just passed away, and it’s fucking brutally hard because I just…I don’t usually do that.

AW: You mean having a goal when you set out?

MD: Yeah, just a specific topic. Like I had my dad write down a history about her because I didn’t know enough about her. And then I had him send me a bunch of pictures of her. But the words still haven’t…There are lines of the song I’m working on that are there. But the rest of them…It’s just been really, really hard.

AW: Was she an artist too?

MD: No, she was a badass though. Really, really truly. Cool lady.

AW: Did she make pie?

MD: No. But she did turn me onto peanut-butter-and-mayonnaise sandwiches.

AW: I haven’t had that.

MD: It’s really good.

AW: Oh yeah. So I wanted to ask you about what it was like playing a show with your dad recently. Because you were on the same bill…

MD: Really fun.

AW: Have you done that before?

MD: Yeah, we did it two other times.

AW: So what is it like being a musician in kind of an isolated environment? I mean, you’re close to Seattle. But living on an island…

MD: Well I’ve only been out here for like six months this time.

AW: Ok.

MD: It’s good and bad. It’s good because I grew up out here. And it’s bad because I grew up out here. The isolated part…it’s good and bad. I get a lot out of it but…I was just telling someone that Vashon’s kind of like, it’s either this really green, misty, wonderful, beautiful place. Or it’s like literally the Swamp of Despair from The NeverEnding Story, and you can be drawn down into it, and Atreyu is trying to save you…You’re like a big horse, you’re like sad and sinking…No, no, it’s not that bad. But it can be. (laughing)

AW: So what are you working on right now, musically?

MD: I have to get words done for two songs. And after that I’ll be two or three songs short of another record. I want to record it in a couple months. I’m gonna record it with Johnny {Goss} from Cock & Swan. Johnny’s really knowledgeable. He has an amazing sound that he gets out.

AW: How long have you known that you were a musician, and that you wanted to do this? By the time you played that…show in the shorts? (laughs)

MD: Well, I was originally going to be an actor, out of high school. And I had a potential full ride at Cornish that I was gonna go do. But I didn’t like other actors that I met that were theater students. I just didn’t like them.

AW: This is interesting. So you didn’t like the other students at that other school, and you didn’t like the other actors. But you do like other musicians.

MD: For the most part. Well I mean…just back then. But fake people always bothered me.

AW: Did you study music at any point?

MD: I just taught myself, yeah. You know, you learn some chords. And then you get — like I was saying — that addicting thing. You just get into the sound. I remember when I first started playing I would get really stoned and pluck a chord on my acoustic guitar and just listen to it ring out for a long time. And think, wow it’s so cool that you can take your hand and do that and this thing would come out of it. But acoustic guitars…I’m starting to lose that energy towards them.

AW: Yeah I’ve never really had that with acoustic guitars myself. I guess I kind of feel that with weird little small guitars or…I’ve always felt really drawn to pianos. I guess that kind of finger/muscle memory. Like it’s the way it sounds and the way it feels that’s also rewarding. Where playing acoustic guitar I’ve never had that. So what are some things that make you happy?

MD: (whistles)

AW: Some things that you like. What do you love?

MD: I love…musically?

AW: In the world.

MD: It’s pretty cheesy, you know? I have some really basic things that make me happy. Like when I see people being nice to each other I’m really moved. Or when people are really strong in the face of bad stuff. Or I also like going to a show where everyone is into the music. Playing it or just going to it. Everyone’s on the same page for whatever, how long, twenty minutes. That feeling’s pretty cool. And I like not being angry.

Interview and photographs by Anna-Lynne Williams

Recommended listening: “Norway” and “Are You Sith” from the new album Acres by Mike Dumovich.

Listen here: http://mikedumovich.bandcamp.com/album/acres

Identity Theory

Matt Borondy, Publisher: A Moveable Feast by Hemingway, Just Before Dark: Collected Nonfiction by Jim Harrison, All I Did Was Ask by Terry Gross, Zazen by Vanessa Veselka, The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore, Hobart #12: The Great Outdoors (May 2011).

Robert Birnbaum, Editor-at-Large: Canada by Richard Ford, Mission to Paris by Alan Furst, The Cove by Ron Rash, Prague Fatale by Phillip Kerr, The Life of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, In Search of Small Gods by Jim Harrison, Baffler #19, Grantland #2, The Wet Engine by Brian Doyle. I stumbled across Brian Doyle’s 1st novel (of 12 published books) last year and have been avidly interested in his writing since then. His story collection Bin Laden’s Bald Spot was also a fictional high point last year.

James Warner, Fiction Editor: Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke, What I Didn’t See by Karen Joy Fowler, Fun With Problems by Robert Stone, Through the Valley of the Newt of Spiders by Samuel R. Delany

Hilarie Ashton, Assistant Editor: DFW’s Pale King, Carver’s Where I’m Calling From, James Wolcott’s Lucking Out, and Gary Lutz’ I Looked Alive. Just finished J. Franco’s Palo Alto. Stay far, far away from that one. His genius in Pineapple Express does not translate to readable prose.

Alexandra Tursi, Visuals Editor: Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt, The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits.

What are you reading?

Identity Theory