Ornaments

We took our Christmas tree down last night. Some would say it is a late for that. The tree should have been down by now. But of course we like to put off the truth of the holidays end. We are all back to work after all and Christmas is packed away with all the other stuff of family life. But one can not help but think of the fading moment as the ornaments go back into tinsel strewn boxes. Sad that those candles and snowmen and shiny globes of cheer should not see the light of day for another year. Some feel a relief. There is no more work of the parent and life resumes it's regularity. For the rest of us it is the door to childhood closed once again. If Christmas is for children then we are allowed into their world only at Christmas. But we are older and those ornaments stand now as memories of past Christmas and people we have lost and people we no longer see. We remember them for a moment as we take out a particular ornament and hold it, flashing back to a different time when a first snow and the smell of a fire stood for so much more. This is a hard thing to get your hands around without drifting into sentimentality. But there is that moment in the attic when the boxes are laid to rest and you turn by the door. The brown cartons are stacked in the gloom and you pause, knowing then you are just a little bit older, maybe a little further away.

Mount Oprah

You should be on Oprah. Oprah would love your book. Maybe she would and maybe she wouldn't. But as a man with a book out I hear this about every other day. Strange dynamic. Publishing a book so the end result will be an endorsement by a single person. In the age of everyman fame, Oprah is certainly the lottery ticket to the sure milk of immortality if not wealth. But of course one has to get there. I received a call yesterday. Mr. Hazelgrove, we would like to publish your next book. Oh really. I can hear other voices in the background. Yes, this is blankety blank and we want to publish your book. I recognized the vanity press. Well my book has just come out I say and of course the call is terminated. No prospects here. Even self publishing is in a downturn. There is no shame in self publishing. Great writers have done it through time, but the wholesale Juggernaut of instafame is something new. All eyes on the prize we do whatever flips trained seals must to get to the top of the pyramid. I get it. I really do. The man who told Oprah he received food from a long lost lover in a concentration camp got it too. He just made it up. So did James Frey. Can you blame them? Morality says yes, but reality says they are just doing whatever they can to get to the final stop on Mount Rich and Famous. A lot of people talk about the American Dream, but of course the dirty little secret is that we are covetous old sinners who want that final branch, the one that says we are not just a blip on the radar screen of mortality but someone special, someone different, the star that flashes out of the night and we all sit in wonder. But there are only so many seats on that Oprah set, a couch that Tom Cruise destroyed his career on and another seat for Oprah. After that, it is every man and woman for themself.

Maybe We Should Change The Rules

Here is the hard truth of the financial situation--nobody knows what they are doing. You like to think that someone does, but really, they don't. Not the guy running your 401K fund, not the big hedge fund managers, not even Bernache. How could they? Economics follows no rules, just the rules we set up. Imagine trying to predict the course of water. Money is water, slippery, eel like, slithering away in a heartbeat, seeping between our fingers. No one has any real idea about what it is going to do. Not now. But people do operate from a premise of greed. That is about it. People will do whatever it takes to make sure they have more money and not you. Listen up middle class brethren. This means that your fund managers will make sure they do what is the interest of the firm and their commission before they do what is in your interest. In the New York Times article this last Sunday they tried to figure out where the bail out money went. Turns out most of the banks just banked it. You guessed it. They put it in their accounts as their money. They are not going to lend it and nobody said they had to. So they did what you and I would do if someone handed us say a hundred dollars, we'd put it in our account. That's what they did. And of course the middle class will get none of the bail out dollars. So essentially, your money was just given away to some guys who cried wolf and said we need it or else. Citibank is a perfect example. They gave them billions, then just guaranteed their 306 billion dollar debt. The government didn't' say they had to start lending, they just said, ok, your good. Now why is that? Why would all these banks just be able to walk away from all their debt? You and I can't do that. We have to follow the rules, pay our bills, pay our debts, or pay the consequences. You know, maybe we should change the rules.

The Call of Fame

The phone rings. I glance at the clock. Six A.M.
"Hello," I mumbled groggily."Mr. Hazelgrove, sir! I know it's early, but have you seen the paper?"
I stare at the ceiling with sleep circling somewhere above."No," I mumble."Sir," this very agitated voice continues. "You are PAGE ONE in the Chicago Tribune!""Page One," I repeat, sitting up. "YES SIR! This is John Tabot from Fox 32 television and we were wondering, sir, if you would consider being on the morning show?"
I hold my head, fog clearing by the second. "When?"
"This morning, sir! We have a crew standing by that can meet you at the attic, and we'll broadcast live! Can you meet us at 7?""I'll be there."I hang up the phone and run to the bathroom. My wife has just emerged from the shadow."That was Fox 32...They saw the Tribune article and want me live TV from Hemingway's attic," I say breathlessly."I'll watch the baby, "she says before I can ask.
Now I'm excited. It has all the earmarks. Awaked by a producer who wants me on television. I was being, dare I say, discovered! That was the way it always was, wasn't it? The writer from nowhere submits the dogeared manuscript to the sleepy editor and genius is discoveredon a nondescript morning. Wasn't that the way it happened to Fitzgerald and Hemingway? Waking one morning to find that and fortune hadknocked on their doors. I had opened that door many times to find no one there.



In the early part of the century, Fitzgerald was pulled from anuncertain career in advertising and Hemingway rescued from obscurity on Paris's Left Bank y the legendary editor Max Perkins. Their books published , the writers were left to explore the world. Fitzgerald went on a 10 year party from New York to Paris to Switzerland and back to New York. Hemingway drained absinthefrom cafes in Paris, then on Africa, the Germans, loyalist Spain, and basically had a hell of a time while his books propelled him on. That was the fare modern writers grew up hearing. That was the way it was then. Now lets take a modern writer such as myself. After more than 100 rejection letters, I found a printer in Chicago who would bring out my first novel. A printer. Max Perkins had changed vocations. My book, RIPPLES, recieved critical praise. I kept my job on the night shift in a bakery. My second book, armed with the good review of first, was roundly rejected again. I went back to the printer. My second go round started with a starred review from Publishers Weekly for Tobacco Sticks. After 10 years publishers came knocking, I sold the paperback rights, the foreign rights, Book of the Month Club rights, even the movie rights. I recieved money. it was time to explore the world as my predecessors had and reap forturnes bounty. But it is the late 20th century. Things change. Oh, it was time to hit the road alright. Muncie Indianna was where I started with a book signing. Then I was off to the South , pushing my novel in the area where it would be read, talking to newspapers, TV stations and radio along the way. This was gritty hard work. Not even remotely glamourous. Where the hell were the book parties? The tete-a-tetes on the Left Bank? The drunken brawls of the success in the Plaza Hotel?
The literary author of today must write what he or she believes in or perish. It is the only way one can stay with it. The money is scant for so long, the work outrageous, the future uncertain. But the work drives one. The novel becomes a grail that, like your children, you will do anything for. In todays mass culture the task is titanic. To quote a rejection letter from an agent, "You write well, but unfortunately, seriel sex muders are what is selling. Keep at it. Quietly good books get published."
Still, one cannot help but feel a little like the huckster. Wasn'ttalent supposed to be discovered? Wasn't a book supposed to catch fire like a lightning storm in a dry forest? It seems unnatural to fight for something that should be natural. Surely the days of Hemingway and Fitzgerald can't be completely gone. But now I'm writing in Hemingway's attic and the paperback of TOBACCO STICKS is just out. I dress quickly because fame has finally knocked on my door. I am about to leave when the phone rings.
"Mr. Hazelgrove, sir, this is John Tabot the producer at Fox 32.
"Yes, I'm on my way.""Yes sir, well...there is a fire on the west side and our crew has been called away...so we're going to have to wait on this.""I see," I say slowly.
"But listen, we can do this sometime in the future...Let me know if you get in PEOPLE magazine and we'll do it for sure."
I hang up the phone. Fame, that willowing ghost had slipped away again. I look at the front door then open it. There is the dewy morning and the sun on the porch. I close the door slowly and stand there. Maybe it was my imagination, but I swear I heard someone knocking.