Leeches and Jars of Mustard

Altman as you know made the film Short Cuts - based loosely on some of Ray Carver's short stories.

Well Dead Beat who used to hunt and fish quite a bit with Ray Carver and Carver's old buddy Richard Ford, asked him one time while warming up a leech in his mouth:

"So Way temm me abow the stawting point fow yaw stowies."

"What's that Dead Beat?" Ray asks pulling in a big one.

Dead Beat takes the leech from his mouth, checks to see it is now wiggling just fine and puts it on his hook.

"So Ray, tell me about the starting point for your stories."

"Well Dead Beat, I never start with an idea. I always see something. I start with an image, a cigarette being put out in a jar of mustard, for instance, or the remains, the wreckage of a dinner left on the table. Pop cans in the fireplace, that sort of thing. And a feeling goes with that. And that feeling seems to transport me back to that particular time and place, and the ambiance of the time. But it is the image, and the emotion that goes with that image – that's what's important."

"How about a leech in someone's mouth?"

"That's good, Dead Beat. Now where did I leave my notebook?"

Dead Beat's Open Letter to Al Pacino

Al, Baby,

seems you were spotted around my old Alma Mater Trinity College Dublin yesterday to check out Oscar Wilde's old rooms. Now, Al, I know you have developed a passion for Wilde and are planning a documentary about the Irish writer's work. I know you appeared as King Herod in Wilde's 'Salome' on Broadway, but Al, hooh hah!

Did you think to be shown to Dead Beat's old seat of study in the 1916 Reading Room or his place at the back of the lecture hall in the Engineering Building?

Did you not want to see the many steps of the Pavillion Bar dear Dead Beat took a tumble down one rowdy Friday night?

* * * *

Al, you are like me, we refuse to be fools, to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by other men. I hoped the time for veils and dancing and heads on plates was over. That was my misfortune. That was your misfortune. I was hunted on the streets of Cavan when I was twelve years old because of who my father wasn't. I had no choice.

Believe in a family, Al. Can you believe in your country? Those Pezzonovante of the State who decide what we shall do with our lives? Who declare wars they wish us to fight in to protect what they own. Do you put your fate in the hands of men whose only talent is that they tricked a bloc of people to vote for them? Al, in five years the Dead Beat and Pacino family can be completely legitimate. Very difficult things have to happen to make that possible. I can't do them anymore, but you can, if you choose to.

Next time, Al, go see where I threw up in the toilets.

And hey, Al, read my book.

Blocking the Audiences View - Robert Altman

"Here's another thing..."

"Altman?"

"Audiences: I am not going to do their work for them. I like audiences to crane their necks."

Listen to him: make your audience lean forward and look more closely - block their view for crying out loud.

The Great Art of Blundering - Robert Altman

Dead Beat heard a voice from beyond the grave -

"Altman is that you?"

"Someone just called me an expert, Dead Beat."

"And aren't you?"

"I am not an expert. That is someone else's job. If I were expert, the approach would be all wrong. It would be from the inside. I am a blunderer. I usually don't know what I am going into at the start. I go into the fog and trust something will be there."

Blunder on Robert - the fog has been lifted.

And so Dead Beat would urge you in your writing to become blunderers - go into the fog and trust something will be there.

Kicking Jim Gallagher's Butt - and Dead Beat When He Is Down

So Dead Beat's eldest gets into Grade Seven and thinks he knows it all - starts berating Dead Beat for not being as good as some kid who wrote some piece of nonsense called Eragon when he was only 17 and made it onto the New York Times Bestsellers List. Now Dead Beat's eldest is reading Eldest the second part of the trilogy it seems. He thinks it is wonderful.

Dead Beat tells him that it is probably some mass market fiction dependent on plot.

"Doesn't all fiction depend on plot?"

So Dead Beat scoffs and gives him a lecture on the difference between plot driven 'entertainment' and character driven 'literature'.

"Yeah, well if it is characters we are talking about," Dead Beat's eldest responds, "Eragon kicks Jim Gallagher's butt!"


(Jim Gallagher being the main character in a very fine novel, The Eskimo in the Net, by a masterful but aged non-bestselling author).

Dead Beat Rewrites His Novel While Doing A Literary Impersonation of Jackson Pollock

Everytime Dead Beat thinks he has finally reached the last rewrite of his new novel, he discovers that he knows better. And so he sets out again on one more rewrite. He finally makes it to the end, and then he looks at the two narratives unfolding and decides the pacing of the unfolding narratives could be better. And so Dead Beat commandeers the kitchen table and spreads his novel out across it in sections. Then D.B.moves quickly from one section to another like a literary Jackson Pollock tossing scenes and paragraphs around like dripping fluid or a heavy impasto.

Thing is, Dead Beat now has a better narrative flow but has to rearrange all his chapter breaks - The Rhythm of The Chapters should keep him busy for some time to come.

An Entree to the Human Condition: Robert Altman Remembered

Dead Beat wants to know why they are all dying on him right now (See Intellectual Freedom Fighters) -

They don't come much bigger than Robert Altman however. Any writer worth their salt know how much they have to learn from his film work. More on this anon. But for now Dead Beat just wants you to remember one of the great independent filmakers of our time.

In his own words from his honourary Oscar acceptance speech:

"No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

Robert, it has give us all an entree to the world and to the human condition.

Thank you.

The Politics of Writing - Alice Walker

Dead Beat was on a mountain top just kind of wandering around, meditating about his life, you know, that sort of thing, well who should he bump into in a cloud but Alice Walker (see Expecting Mangoes)

She walks right up to him and says, "You see, Dead Beat, Anyone who is really alive in their own time will have to be a political writer. As we reveal different worlds to each other, we move us forward into being more compassionate people. Virginia Woolf said writing improves society and makes the writer a better person, too."

With that she walks away, disappears into the cloud, vanishes. And Dead Beat, well Dead Beat looks for the path back down the mountain, and there isn't one any more.

Expecting Mangoes - Alice Walker

Dead Beat notes that Alice Walker is out and about promoting her new book, a collection of meditations, "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness."

Okay so what, D.B.? Writers are at this all the time.

So what? Ask Alice Walker about not having a bestseller since 1991 (and a minor one at that) and hear her reply:

"The way I see my work . . . if you look at a mango tree, you expect mangoes from it. And I feel that way about myself. I expect from myself, as a writer, to write exactly what is natural to me. It is sometimes a problem for other people. . . . I wish that each gift could be received with the joy and the delight that I create it. But I don't wait around, hoping and wanting and wishing. I'm usually on to making something else."

That's what.

The Marketing of The Longlist - IMPAC

Dead Beat finds it heartening to read the publicity for the 2007 IMPAC Award Longlist and to see that there are 138 writers (and books) included. But he dearly awaits the day when the long long list of all nominated books are announced. Indeed there must be an insatiable market for a long long long list of all nominated and near-nominated books. Or godammnit any book published anywhere at any time, read or unread, since we all want to get in on this great big publicity machine that once was called literature.

This way for Make-Up and Costumes...