Review of Bill by Vern Myers Essay Example for Free

Review of Bill by Vern Myers Essay To start, I would like you to know that I am writing this book review on an old fashioned manual typewriter, an Olympia Model 9 in fact, that I purchased at a consignment antique store. I think this machine dates back to the early 1970s. It makes a nostalgic clack-clack-clack sound. [1] I am not writing this book review in solidarity with author Vern Myers (who refuses to use a computer and composes his work on a 1968 Underwood-Miller, and before that a 1909 Corona 3, the same Ernest Hemingway employed for his early works[2]), no; I am afraid my reason is pedestrian in nature: my girlfriend, Michele, deep-sixed my Sony Vaio laptop into the back end of the toilet, where the water rises after you flush, after what one would call â€Å"a heated argument. †She locked herself in the shitter[3] (which she hates me to call the commode), after having grabbed my laptop, stating that I loved my machine more than her; that she was jealous of the attention I gave to my novel-in-progress. Needless to say, my laptop will not start up. A friend told me to let it dry out. I will probably have to take it to a shop and pray that they can recover my data—most importantly: my unfinished novel, which I have been laboring at for three years now. It’s an opus, this novel of mine, 850 pages and three-fourths done, so I would say it will be 1,000 manuscript pages when finished, or around 250,000 words. It began as a short story, and then I thought it would be a novella, 80 pages at best, but the thing took on a life of its own. I hear that is what happened to Vern Myers’ 23,000-word masterpiece, Bill. Talking grapes around the New York literati have it that Myers worked on the project for nearly five years and had 600 pages of rambling text, some typewritten, some hand-written, and his editor, Stanley Flint, pulled a Max Perkins (to Myers’ Thomas Wolfe) or Gordon Lish (Raymond Carver) and hacked away, jumbled and tossed like the proverbial salad of sentences, and came up with this current 102 page book. I read Bill in one sitting, or a single bath soak, an hour and a half’s worth of water: after Michele destroyed my computer and possibly my novel (which, by the way, is titled Lunch on the Grass), I drew a hot bath (I own a claw foot tub, talk about antediluvian delights! ) to calm my nerves, opened a bottle of cognac, and slipped into the water with the ARC of Bill that I had received in the mail from the book editor of the newspaper you are reading this review in. For Vern Myers, 102 pages (23,000 words, the margins generous) is War and Peace. Myers, the past decade, has been known as King of 3,000 Words or Less. Your typical Myers story is 1,500 to 2,000 words, each with the epic impact of a Shakespearian tragedy and the emotional complexities of a Chekovian triptych of 5-act plays. Some say it is his life-long friend and editor, Flint, who has fine-tuned the 5,000 words of new story Myers sends in to a magnificent 3,000 word slice of American Literature; Flint published many of these in Dapper Magazine, a slick where he was fiction editor for a decade. [4] Critics are certain to debate over this decades after Myers is gone. Myers was often asked, at readings and lectures and interviews (the few he has granted): â€Å"Are you ever going to write a novel? † and his jovial answer was (with a stiff Long Island Iced Tea in hand): â€Å"I’m working on said novel now, something I call Bill: A Life, but the real question is: Will I ever finish it? The second real question being: Will I ever publish it? † (I know this because I attended a reading of his at the UCSD campus four years ago where such QA took place. ) I read Bill: A Novella (what happened to a life? ) with delight in the clawfoot tub, sipping my cognac, trying to forget what Michele did to my Sony Vaio and my novel-in-progress (which I once considered calling Zombie Cheerleaders from Jupiter Attack!), and when I was done, I closed my eyes and considered the life of Bill, quite the epic one, and the moral/social/political/sexual implications of the story and character. I fell asleep; I did not mean to; napping is not a criticism of Myers’ fine novella; I was simply exhausted from the emotional outrage caused by Michele’s action, her not only leaving me, saying she never wanted to see me again unless I was in a casket at a funeral parlor and even then she would spit on my embalmed body, but destroying my life: for my life, the past few years, is contained on the hard drive (350 gigabytes) of that sunk laptop. My magnum opus, my Great American Novel, which I think I will change the title from Lunch on the Grass to Gargantuan. I see I have exceeded the 600 words the book editor asked for. Hopefully there will be room among the ads to fit in this complete text; hopefully my words will not be pared to the bone the way some say Stanley Flint has been doing to Vern Myers for years. Bill is about a Hollywood doctor named Bill and his adventures with various movie stars, porn starlets, studio moguls and drug dealers. He hops from bed to bed, romance to romance, leaving disaster behind him like the Tasmanian Devil in the Warner Brothers cartoons[5], or the Cat in the Hat paying a visit to unsuspecting latchkey children. Over the course of five years, Bill lives large, has experiences most of us cab only fantasize about; he crams ten lives into those five years and after each event, becomes wiser and older, yet maintains a youthful hop in his feet, always ready to bed the next pretty lady who crosses his path. Sounds like a soap opera, you say? A scalawag doctor from a trashy romance novel you shriek? Hardly! Bill is the literary event of the year and I expect prize Pulitzer, I demand a Book Critics Circle Award, I foresee the boys in the U. K. foregoing the Booker requirements and claiming Vern Myers a loyal subject to the Queen’s Crown (at heart). There is little doubt that the day will come when Vern Myers receives the Nobel Pri I thought I heard Michele coming in. No, that was the neighbor. The walls are too thin around here and I am sure the neighbors heard us fighting, the accusations Michele made. She thinks I am sleeping with a doctor, in fact, a vet who saved my cat, Poe, three months ago. Guess how it all started? I noticed a tattered copy of Vern Myers’ first collection of short stories on her desk, Can You Speak the Hell Up and Pass the Sugar, Please? and commented on it; she said she had discovered Myers in college, her roommate was taking his writing class and she happened to read his stuff and became a fan. I told her I too was a writer of fiction and the occasional essay and memoir (and dozens of book reviews) and, well, one thing lead to another†¦ And so Michele is right. I have been seeing said doctor and it is serious. I would have eventually broken up with Michele, told her the truth, but she beat me to it, and it is always the shits when you are the dumpee, not the dumper. It’s an ego thing, a guy thing, and it makes me think of something Bill says in Bill: â€Å"It’s better to end a romance first to avoid a pain in the brain. † Love ‘em and leave ‘em, Bill, that’s the ticket†¦only, I think I will ask the doc to marry me. I am serious here. I have never felt this way about any woman†¦ It’s five hours later since I wrote the above sentence. I had dinner with the doctor and guess what? She broke up with me, says she is getting back together with her ex-husband. I would be very depressed but my laptop has dried and boots up just fine and now I can get back to my novel. Will it be as fantastic as Vern Myers’ Bill? I could only hope so, but only Vern Myers can be Vern Myers, there can be no other. Michele has been calling, she wants to come back; she says she is sorry and loves me and will never let me go. I’ll take her back. I’ll get my life back on track and finish this book and maybe I can get the literati attention that Myers does. I will tell Michele that there was never anything real with the doctor, it was just a passing thing, no need to get into all that â€Å"pain in the brain† stuff. Editor’s Note: A day before going to press with this review, The Village Voice published an interview with a former student, and lover, of Vern Myers, wherein she claims she actually wrote the text for BILL because Myers was too drunk or high to get any writing done. This accusation comes on the heels of BILL garnering a nomination for the Transamerican Book Award (which reviewer Gerald Bass failed to mention in his rambling[6]); should these accusations be truthful, a fruitful literary scandal of the decade is certain to birth, like a dead baby whale oozing from the foul-smelling womb of a beached momma whale on a sandy, bloody cove near the shores of contemporary American letters. How do you like them apples, eh? Viz! To wit! To arms! [7] [1] I hear you can get that sound to come out of your laptop keyboard. The virtual clack-clack-clack, methinks, would be rather annoying and just damn rude. Everything has to be a simulacra these days. [2] Hemingway said of the Corona 3: â€Å"It is the only psychiatrist I would ever submit to. † I once had a t-shirt with that quote on it and a picture of a harried Hemingway. He wrote his second novel, A Farewell to Arms, on the Corona 3. He probably would have done the same with The Sun Also Rises but he sent that one out to a typist to create the manuscript sent to F. Scott Fitzgerald editor Max Perkins at Charles Scribner’s Sons. [3] She once said, joking, â€Å"The loo is the only psychiatrist I would drop all my emotional crap on. † [4] Myers’ first publications were in regional and small literary journals, then moved on to The Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, and The Paris Review. After he graced the pages of Dapper, and after Flint left the magazine because new ownership wanted to cut the fiction section (â€Å"do people actually sit down and read this stuff? †), Myers started to appear in Playboy, Harper’s, The New Yorker and Granta, getting top dollar and top recognition. All the places that only sent me form rejection slips! It is easy to not only admire, but also envy the professional career of Vern Myers. As for his personal life, from what I know of all his disastrous relationships and problems with vodka and LSD, there is no room for desiring that. [5] Have you ever seen some of the antiquarian classic cartoons, uncensored, often used as war propaganda to show between double features at movie theaters in the 1930s and 40s? Bugs Bunny, the transvestite rabbit, foiling bucktooth Japanese soldiers and suicidal Nazis? A prototype of Bugs Bunny—same situations, same voice—was Private Snafu, which you can locate on Youtube for a blast from the past. I always seem to be drawn to cartoons and comic books whenever I have great stress in my life; it’s a way of escaping the hell. Kids do it, adults do it. Some escape into the fantasy of online porn but I tend to switch on animated superhero TV shows and movies, like Batman and the Justice League, which also happen to be owned by Warner Brothers. In Bill, Bill has a sexual encounter with an actress on the Warner Brothers lot, doing her in the trailer while gong over her lines, and then doing lines of cocaine off her naked ass. I would like to see that animated. I would like to see Michele’s psychotic tirade animated, then I could really say that my life is like a cartoon. [6] It was not a â€Å"failure† on my part; I just happen to have a long history with the members of this so-called organization and happen to know, FOR A FACT, it is all a ruse, embedded in the beds of supreme nepotism; given the â€Å"quality† of the books this award has been handed to in the last five years, the obvious should be, well, obvious. Oh the stories I could relay! The lays, the drugs, the mouths to genitals and feet shackled to bedposts and whips applied to tender, eager flesh! But that’s for another in a different context.

The Trial of Jesus Essay -- Religion, Christianity

In The Judaeo-Christian Tradition by Jack H. Hexter, the trial of Jesus is addressed in an unorthodox perspective. The trial of Jesus incorporates two trials: the Roman trial and the Jewish trial. In Hexter's book the Roman trial is addressed in great length while the Jewish trial is almost unaddressed. Hexter provides a perspective of the trial of Jesus with only one cause: the charge of sedition, for claiming to be king of the Jews. By using the four gospel texts, Hexter's view is illuminated and we find crucial aspects to the trial that not only counter Hexter's view on the sedition charge but also provide evidence for other important charges. Themes other than the charge of sedition supporting Hexter's perspective include, the blasphemy charge addressed in the Jewish trial, along with Jesus' holy new kingdom and Pontius Pilates innocent role throughout the trial. Christianity having sprung from Judaism is a crucial fact when concerning the beginning of Christianity and the threat that it posed to the Jewish community. According to Hexter, â€Å"the conquest of classical civilization by Christianity is one of the wonders of history.† ( Hexter 50) Hexter's interpretation of the trial of Jesus begins with the charge of sedition. â€Å"...charges with sedition for claiming to be king of the Jews, a claim he refused to disavow, Jesus was condemned to death that Rome inflicted on criminals. He was nailed to a cross and left there until he died...† (Hexter 63) It is apparent that there is evidence for the claim of sedition such as the power Jesus held when acting out miracles to the public and also the act of Jesus neither declaring or refuting the title of â€Å"King of the Jews†. However, Hexter uses only the sedition charge for the condemnati... ...eir hands dirty in the matter. In the trial of Jesus, Hexter addressed the sedition claim for being the sole reason that Jesus had hung on the stake to die. However, evidence in the Four Gospel texts illuminate other reasons along with the sedition claim, that had effected the verdict that Pilate had ultimately delivered. Because of the huge threat Jesus had posed to the Jewish community, and Jesus' claim for a holy new kingdom that was not secular, Pilate was forced to please the people of his city and reluctantly delivered the verdict to crucify Jesus in order to restore civility in his city. Jesus was formally charged on the account for claiming to be King of the Jews but died for more than just a secular cause. Jesus was preaching a new universal criterion of truth, that many of his followers believed in and many people around the world still believe in today.

Childhood in Crisis Essay

Levels of depression and antisocial behavior in children have increased dramatically in the modern societies. This situation has led many people to believe that childhood itself is in crisis. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this view? Childhood! The most magical time of our lives; the essence of our reminiscence; and most importantly the foundation of what we are today. Even when so much around us has changed, the concept of childhood, as a whole, is still perceived as a period of joy and buoyancy. The stage of childhood, from birth to the age of 16, is a shield, behind which children are nourished, taught and made strong and sensible before they inevitably grow up and face the harsh world. Ironically, this ‘harsh world’ is due to people who were once a part of the innocence and protection of childhood. This statement sort of nullifies all the adjectives I used for childhood, but this is the unfortunate truth of the contemporary world. The shield of childhood has weakened and bad influences are seeping through it and infecting the most innocent of minds, the minds of children. Somehow, somewhere, in our race towards achievement of technological advancement, we have lost our creed and the bonds of even the dearest relations are beginning to emaciate. All this leads to a dreaded demise of childhood’s happiness and prosperity. Family is the building block of society as well as a symbol of peace and collaboration. Father, mother, siblings and kins are always there to help, nourish and care for the child. The underlying base of the childhood crisis can be traced to the fall of this family unit. In the modern society climbing rates of divorce have made single parenting an acceptable lifestyle. But for the child lack of role models, of both genders, become emotionally detrimental and this continually aggravates the problems of the child. Adding to this, the economic crunch requires both parents to work tirelessly for long hours to make ends meet. This results in absence of parental guidance when the child requires it most. The economic crisis also transfers a lot of stress to the parents who in turn take it out on the child in form of verbal and physical abuse. The presence of these threats at such a close and personal level leaves a deep mark in the personality of the child, causing antisocial behavior. This shows that childhood is in crisis. In the ‘good old times’ children learnt everything from the society, hence the parents and relatives could create a strong barrier between a child and bad influences. Children were urged to disregard any bad habit they may observe. But today’s generation grew up with technology. Sadly, trillions of dollars are being spent, on this technology, to transmit movies and images portraying criminals, violence, drugs and other immoral actions. Now consider an innocent susceptible child being continuously exposed to these types of influential entertainment alternatives and imagine the end result. It is exactly what we see today. Children are acting out in a destructive manner and even at their young age, they are practicing the amoral actions that they observe in the media. â€Å"Nearly half of those questioned disagreed that children who get into trouble are often misunderstood and in need of professional help.† (Salmon 2008) . If you ever needed a strong evidence of childhood plummeting into a crisis, it is the statement above. Affection is a part of human nature and it should be nurtured, especially in children. It not only provides support but also motivates kindness. Even between children of opposite genders, affection and communication has always been a source of confidence. But as we progress through the 21st century change is taking its toll. The age of puberty is decreasing due to increase in nutritious diet. The children go through the ups and downs of puberty though they are not mentally mature enough. The outcome is that children succumb to their desires in detrimental manners, like having deep personal relationships. This proves perilous because when they grow apart they are hit with severe depression, which may even be to the point of suicide. This proves that in the modern society childhood is in crisis. One may argue that childhood is still a protected haven and the parents, who have the capability to love without limits, will go to the ends to preserve the innocence of their child. One could even argue that the teachers, if diligent and willing, could provide an alternative for every bad influence a child displays hence fending off antisocial actions in the long run. One could argue these and he/she would be correct. But I am a realist and I am of the opinion that in the modern world the scarcity of humanity has escalated to such an extent that even children are not protected as the delicate blessings they are. Therefore, observing all these logical arguments, I do believe that in our modern society childhood is truly in a crisis. (794 words) REFERENCE LIST * Stollenwerk, Steve. Childhood is in Crisis – Socially & Politically. In Steve Stollenwork. Retrieved June 3, 2012, from http://www.steve-stollenwerk.com/children-issues/childhood-in-crisis-contents.htm. * Nation Master. Divorce rate by country, divorcereform.org2004. Retrieved June 3, 2012, from http://www.NationMaster.com/graph/peo_div_rat-people-divorce-rate. * Woods, Tyler. (July 16, 2010). Unhealthy Family Problems Damage Young Children. In Exam Health. Retrieved June 3, 2012, from http://www.emaxhealth.com/1357/unhealthy-family-problems-damage-young-children * Zwozdiak-Mayers, P.Z-M. (2007). Childhood and Youth Studies. Learning Matters Ltd.

Reasons to Send Graduation Announcements

Amidst everything else youre trying to finish before graduation—least of all, your actual classes—youre being pressured to send out graduation announcements. Why should you spend the time to send them out when you have so much else going on? Reasons to Send Graduation Announcements Your family and friends want to knowSure, some may know that you are graduating...sometime this year. An announcement is a great way to keep them informed and to let them know what your degree is and when, officially, youll be receiving it. Your parents and other family members want to brag about youHave you ever been to someones house and seen a graduation announcement hanging on their fridge? Wasnt it exciting and impressive? Your family has been supporting you during your time in school; let them have some bragging rights for the next few months by having their own announcement to post. Not to be crass, but...many folks might send you some cashIn many cultures, its traditional for friends and family members to send money as a graduation gift. And who doesnt need a little help as they have to pay for work clothes, a new apartment, and everything else thats needed for a new job (or even graduate school)? Its a good way to start networkingYoure graduating with a degree in Computer Science, and your uncle Chris just happens to work at a computer company youre interested in working for, too. An announcement can be a great way to open the door to future job opportunities  since people will know you are now officially a college graduate looking for work. Its a great keepsakeIt may seem like a pain now, but finding a copy 20 years from now of your graduation announcement, stored in a shoebox in your attic, is a great gift you can give your future self. Its a good way to keep in touch with peopleSure, Facebook and social media is a great way to keep in touch with friends. But what about family members or other folks who you dont see very often but still consider an important part of your life? Sending an announcement is a great way to keep the doors of communication open. Its a great way to celebrate your achievementLets not forget all the late nights, study sessions, hard work, cramming, and everything else you did to earn that degree. This is your perfect chance to let everyone know that youve finally earned your degree without sounding too pompous about it. Its a great way to thank those who helped you get to where you are todayDid you have an influential high school teacher who helped you get to college? A mentor in your church? A family member who really stepped in when you needed it? Sending graduation announcements to those who really made a difference in your life can be a great way to thank them for all their love and support.