Writers can
be particular about the tools of their trade and the places where
they write. John Cheever wrote each of his books in a different
room of his house. Natalie Goldberg writes with a particular
brand of
ballpoint in spiral
Mickey Mouse notebooks in offbeat coffee shops. John Irving turns
his back on the hum and ease of technology, choosing the clang
and chime of an old manual. William Hazelgrove, author of last
years critically acclaimed, Mica Highways and Tobacco Sticks
has stumbled on the most unique spot of all to write novels,
Ernest Hemingways attic in Oak Park. Hazelgrove sets his laptop
on a steamer trunk that belonged to Hemingway's sister Marcelline,
twenty feet above where the Ernest was born, and gazes across
the rooftops that must have caught the imagination of the great
writer as a young boy and gives us the "view" from
Hemingways attic in a series of essays on writing, the arts,
and culture.William
Hazelgrove on the Web
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- The Reality Of Our Times
Our reality is a strange one. One has only to turn on the television
and see what people are pawning off as the new reality. The Osburnes,
Anna Nicole. These are reality shows presented because presumably
fiction can no longer hold our attention. Our dreams are no longer
of any interest to us. Reality is what we are really craving.
We would rather watch a decrepit old rock star who can barely
talk or walk than be entertained by drama of the made up vareity.
His kids travails as they roll around in their beds and watch
big screen television are to be followed as opposed to the dribblings
of some screen writer or novelist who would dare to present their
take on reality.
Ozzie cussing out his cat as he shuffles and makes his dinner
is much more preferable than any flight of fancy that would allow
us to leave this earth for an hour or so. Or his angst as he
discusses concert dates with his wife and where he will not perform.
All this takes place in his million dollar mansion where we watch
him wrestle between family man and fading rock star.
Anna Nicole. Now here is some reality for our time. If you dont
know who she is then you are lucky. If you do know who she is
then you have been witness to an overweight woman in scanty clothes
who gets drunk every other show and parties in hot tubs with
men in G strings. We watch as she discusses bad parties with
her lawyer and assistants and fights with family members who
did not follow the Nicole gag order she had them sign. Literally,
we watch as nothing happens. We watch a bored woman who inherited
a lot of money do nothing. This is the reality we are to watch
as entertainment.
Turn it off. Dont' watch it we say. But people do watch it. These
shows are popular. There will be more of them. Liza Menelli was
supposed to have one but it never got off the ground when she
wouldn't let them into certain areas of her life. Television
has become the ultimate voyeur. The peeping tom in the keyhole
of our lives. Not content to entertain us it now offers to take
us into areas where decent people shouldn't be. It has become
the eye in the bedroom window, hoping to catch the perosonal
moment of the rich and fallen. We don't care anymore if our idols
are current. We have used up the current idols and now recycle
has beens in our voyeuristic obsession with human weakness.
Ozzie is surely decaying. He had his time and is now a husk of
a man trying to raise a family. It cheapens him and us to have
it displayed all over our screens as we see him get packaged
off by an industry that knows no bounds. Anna Nicole should take
her inherited millions and be glad she doesn't have to work anymore
for surely the odds woudl be against her. But she too has fallen
victim to the voracious appetite for the oddities of fame and
fortune and the sure trajectory down into sloth and waste.
But this is the reality of our times isn't it? Or is it just
television falling victim to it's own evolution as the self concious
eye of human failing? Either way, fiction has always been the
antidote to our self obsession, taking us out of ourselves, allowing
us to see over the rooftops and get a glimmer of the bigger picture.
Maybe it's time for a better view.
