In Which the Writer becomes a 12-year-old Girl and a Serious Writer

how 'bout dem apples, eh?

so for most of my friends here in new orleans it has become increasingly apparent that i'm going through some sort of something (i promise to get less vague). thesis takes up lots of my time, i spent 16 hours in a basement staring at lines on screens this weekend, etc etc.

but other than that. my writing class this semester plus graduation have really made me start to re-think my goals and priorities. i've rediscovered my passion and hunger for writing. i've become disenchanted to some extent with academia and the realities of actual research.

so where does that leave me?
with tonights like this apparently.

tonight the largest auditorium was packed, standing room only, with students (mostly tulane but from all over the city, and some public too) waiting to hear Sir Salman Rushdie speak.

some of you might not know who he is, i hope you fix that. it took me almost two weeks to read Midnight's Children and for those of you that know me you realize how significant that is. i devour books. this one made me sit and read slowly. parts i could read a chapter, maybe two if i pushed at a time, others i had to read parts of chapters then sit and digest until later. it's dense, wonderful and brilliant. i am going to read it again soon. and i just bought the Satanic Verses which is the more controversial of his novels.

that being said, he's lovely. the creative writing department had a reception right before the reading for the creative writing students and he was there. Paula Morris , the prose prof here at tulane introduced me to him as "a literary luminary of tulane", which shocked the hell out of me, so i got to chat with him briefly before he was hustled off to meet more students. but i got all sorts of tingly and awed that he even inquired as to what it was that i did that made me this "luminary" (what an odd word, Pam. thanks for the pressure) and i told him and he smiled and nodded and said that it was nice to meet me. *serious swoon squee*

so then we went over to dixon auditorium. and sat in the front row because we know people n shit. and he gets up and just starts talking. the title of the lecture was "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World"
so he talked about life and politics and how now, in this day and age they are so much more intertwined then they have ever been. he gave an example of jane austen and how in her books, written during the Napoleonic wars, don't seem to even be remotely affected by the fighting and how the british soldiers served to "look cute at parties".

but how today we are constantly rewriting ourselves and our history and that makes life difficult because waht we remember will always contradict "official truths". the very act of remembering then is a political act because it is in opposition of what the powers that be have decided is true.

and in fact that even memory is faulty, that each time we remember we mis-remember. we remember things we were never there for.

but that in this time the world is so strange. that the greatest fiction of our time is that we are living an ordinary life and the only way to navigate this essential strangeness is through fiction. it's the only way to make sense of it. but that literature cannot only be useful, because it should be a pleasure to

and that what he fought for in the satanic verses battle wasn't for his book to stay on the market, but against the idea that anyone could have the right to tell anyone what they "ought" to write, what could be written and how and when. he fought for the right for people to tell their stories, and alter their stories themselves.

which really is what humans are about. we are "storytelling animals". we tell stories to make sense of our world and how we fit in it. so that a crime against story is a crime against the very creatures we are. that our stories serve to open our universe and our understanding of ourselves and of everything around us.

he ended with a quote from saul bellow, saying, "For god's sake, open the universe a little more!"

and that is what writing is for.




and this is where i sit. and tears roll down my face at the beauty and sincerity. and the truth. that this, this is what life is for.

this is why i want, need, to write.
and this is why i struggle nearly every day now with my decision for graduate school. because this is what i am being called to do in some way. can i do it through archaeology? i don't know. i'm worried now, that with this semester that a door has been opened for me and i don't know if i will ever be satisfied with the path i've set my foot on to.

granted, there are side paths that i can go on, and i plan to write for the rest of my life but i am so so scared that if i don't take this, right here and right now and harness this ache this lightness of perfection in my chest and run wtih it...that i will lose it.


so now we get the comedic break.
the man is deep and brilliant. and fucking hilarious. it was essentially "Story Time with Sir Salman Rushdie". the man is fantastic. making jokes about the fatwa and how "well, one of us is dead" and that critics criticize him of being tangental, "Using going sideways as a means of going forward", but that they're dead too. and just saying that deadpan

and the stories of his life, and how a woman came up to him thinking that he had written her into Midnight's Children (even though they'd never met) and walked up to him, smacked him with her fan and said "Naughty boy! nevermind, i forgive you"

because obviously he took liberties with her person in his book. and how the whole fatwa thing would have been quite hilarious had it been not funny at all.

we were laughing the entire time, even with all the heavy stuff he had to say.

so, the moral of the story is: wow. i want to be Salman Rushdie. or rather, i would love to be his friend. what an inspirational story and what an immensely amazing man.

i don't know if i can do anything tonight after this. my mind is blown. and all i want to do for the next month is hide away and write furiously. i have no desire to look at my thesis, i don't care anymore. and i've felt that the majority of the semester. i don't want to be doing anything other than reading poetry and fiction and writing. that is where i have been happiest.

and that scares me some, but it's the best feeling ever

and I love Salman Rushdie.