Laying Bare my Own Conceptions

Since everyone knows that by engaging in sex you are bringing horrible dangers upon yourself, I would just like to start this post with the caveat that I realize by discussing issues of sex I am treading into the danger zone. Or, at least engaging in dangerous discourse, through which I may die.

Now to the post.

Fiction and the Ladies

SO WHAT is the deal with women fictionists? And by deal, I mean where are they?

Ok, I'm not stupid. I know that there are many women authors who write fiction. What I mean to say is that it seems that there are few female authors that I know of who write experimental, creative, or surrealistic prose. That is, the sort of literature I am most interested in. Female straight-forward novelists, there are plenty. Female journalists, poets, academics: yes, yes, and yes. I even remember hearing somewhere that the editor/book production field is skewed towards the female, in terms of gender of the professionals engaged in the industry. And they obviously do their work well, or they would not be doing it.

But of the more esoteric "literary" variety of prose, I see it being dominated by men. I'm thinking of: Palahniuk, Dick, Grass, Pynchon, Rushdie, and more. Am I wrong? Have I been missing some incredible women writers just because I am not looking in the right places, or because I just don't know what I'm talking about?

It has nothing to do with ability. I know a lot of creative women, who I think with some practice could really write well, but they are all interested in other media or different pursuits. I'm trying to gather together good writers that I know, both personally, and more well-known authors (after all, who am I?), and almost exclusively they are male.

I wonder if it takes a special sort of jerk to think that s/he can flaunt literary and/or societal conventions to write really creatively. These jerks being more often than not men? Or maybe, I only like writers that are jerks, or men, and so I am biased. Or maybe I am just a jerk.

Please, let me be wrong. Women should write; they should write crazy, off-the-wall shit. Why don't they? Or if they do, where are they? Help me, point it out to me, guide me out of the cloud of my ignorance.

Blog not Prog

Since the sailors were released from Iran, it seems that the pressure is off on the next series of the blog post re: Iran and American foreign policy. Not that it isn't very much still relevant, but it doesn't look like we will find an excuse to invade Iran this week. Also, the very limited pressure the British put on Iran shows what mood the US' allies are in for a new war, so I don't think the neo-cons are going to be able to put the pressure on, at least until the next incident. This also might mean that the next incident will have to be stepped up in severity. But I'll cover all that in detail in the post.

Actually, I'm pretty busy at work for once, so I don't have time for the post anyway. I'll just say this for now; there should be more music written about science-fiction themes that is not prog rock. Not that there is anything entirely wrong with prog rock. I like it, but it isn't that appealing to most people. However, I'm listening to a post-punk band called Cortex right now that has some surprisingly poppy songs about futuristic armies and paranoia that are a joy, and I think a lot of people might be able to get into. It might take the edge off the more fantastical prog too, and bring it back home to the short and sweet, like a good Grand Master short story (which is not unlike a catchy pop song). Pop songs need better lyrics anyhow. How many times can you sing about love and partying? Well, quite a few, apparently.

But let us not go the way of Panic! at the Disco, for goodness sakes, no. Apparently, many of their lyrics and song titles are stolen from various "hip" literature sources. Palahniuk, for one. And I've already posted about what I think of that, regardless of the horrible hipsterism that PatD represents, or attempts to represent. Uggh.

coming soon: the death of hipsterism!

Sicks

Home with a cold today. Right now it's in the sore throat stage, I'm sure we'll be well on to the stuffiness head cold stage tomorrow. I went out this morning and bought four cans of soup, a loaf of bread, a stack of american cheese, a stick of margarine, and two gallons of orange juice with pulp. Gotta have pulp. There are alot of people who are anti-pulp, but in my opinion, they might as well drink Tang. The pulp is part of the orange, without it you might as well be drinking water without the hydrogen. A woman at the grocery store with no teeth asked me if I am vegetarian (I think she asked because I had bought the two kinds of soup available at the grocery store that didn't have ground beef in them) and then suggested I go to Whole Foods because they have a better selection. I agreed, but said that Whole Foods was too far away.

Now it is soup and grilled cheese time. Unfortunately, TNT seems to be on the blink, so I cannot watch Law & Order, which was my one chance for a miraculous cure. Also unfortunately, I cannot get either the Campell's or the Progressive soup commercials out of my head, and this makes me want to put my forehead in the frying pan.

I had a good topic for a post today, but I seem to have forgotten it in all this excitement. Maybe I'll remember later while I'm doing my taxes.

Until then, here is a link to a creepy but very entertaining article by Sarah Aswell, who went to my college. She is a good writer. The article gives me a post-modern mystical "ghost in the machine" feeling about the internet, similar to some of Chuck Palahniuk's better stuff. But I hate Palahniuk. Lately, I've been hating every writer that I like that is successful because I am not.