Name of the Day

I have now returned from not only dinner but a screening of the film "Amazing Grace" with my friend Zoe. We had originally intended to see "The Last King of Scotland," but it was sold out; I suppose exchanging Idi Amin for William Wilberforce was morally good for us, but as with many morally good things, it probably wasn't as much fun as the alternative. The acting is strong and the eighteenth-century costumes are gorgeous, yet it suffers from too-tight editing, as well as having to convince its main character of a cause the audience already knows to be just and right. Still, all these faults can be forgiven in the name of the actor who plays William Pitt the Younger, who is delightfully called:

Benedict Cumberbatch

I love this name more than I can say, and I hope he makes it big so I can say it often. "Have you seen the latest Benedict Cumberbatch film?" I'll ask my friends. "I so loved Benedict Cumberbatch in that role." Plus he apparently appeared in a film about University Challenge, and he will be in this year's adaptation of Atonement (amazing novel) -- although considering that's being directed by Joe Wright of P&P-from-Hell fame, I won't expect too much.

Nonetheless, who's going to be in the film? Benedict Cumberbatch. Baby, remember that name.

Q. What does a frustrated writing chicken say? A. "Block Block Block!"

My friends Melissa and Meg came over this morning for my fabulous pancakes (not boasting; simply a fact) and a writing day. They were working on creative projects; I was working on my talk for LA SCBWI in April. But while I could write down all the facts I want to put forward in my talk, I feel unsure about my metaphor tying them together; and so many of the facts seem to be taken from or inspired by Uri Shulevitz's excellent Writing with Pictures that (at the moment) it seems like the talk should really consist of my waving his book in the air and saying "Buy this! Buy this now!"

So instead I wrote a letter to an author about a picture book, because it's much easier for me to write about concrete things that already exist than theory I have to create. (Which is why I am an editor and all of you are writers.) I will go back to the talk tonight or tomorrow, get off the laptop and back on paper (which was probably half the problem anyway -- so hard to draw connections between things when you can't actually draw arrows), write write write till the deep structure of the thing clicks into place and the story I have to tell about words and pictures and how they work together emerges. (It's a romance! Hey, that's an interesting metaphor . . . )

Until then, I guess the ideas just have to percolate a little more. And I'm going to have dinner.

The Quote File: Love and Relationships

(I meant to post this last week for Valentine's Day, but circumstances escaped me; here it is now.)

• Love is not something in its own right, it is what people are and have become. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark. --Ursula LeGuin
• It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it. To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. -- Rainer Maria Rilke
• Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much. -- Zora Neale Hurston
• Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: our love to others, and others' love to us. -- Thomas Trahern
• To know the needs of another and to bear the burden of their sorrow, that is the true love. -- Reb Moshe Leib
• The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than the logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise. -- George Santayana
• We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together. -- Jean de la Bruyere
• One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter. -- James Earl Jones
• It is kindness immediately to refuse what you intend to deny. -- Publilius Syrus
• The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. --Maureen Dowd
• Absence is to love as wind to fire; it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big. -- Umberto Eco
• Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening. -- Maya Angelou
• The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man. -- Madame de Stael
• What is man that woman lies down to adore him? -- Grace Paley
• When you feel a pull, go with it. -- Grace Paley
• How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle? -- Katherine Mansfield
• If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders. -- Andrew Harvey
• I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference. -- Greta Garbo
• It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. -- William Thackeray
• oh god it's wonderful / to get out of bed / and drink too much coffee / and smoke too many cigarettes / and love you so much. -- Frank O’Hara
• To find a person who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness. -- Robert Brault
• Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new. -- Ursula K. LeGuin
• Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. -- Franklin P. Jones
• Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck. -- Iris Murdoch
• A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. -- Robert Quillen
• To keep your marriage brimming, / With love in the loving cup, / Whenever you're wrong, admit it; / Whenever you're right, shut up. -- Ogden Nash
• We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -- W. S. Maugham
• On the contrary, when each of the two persons, instead of being a nothing, is a something; when they are attached to one another, and are not too much unlike to begin with; the constant partaking in the same things, assisted by their sympathy, draws out the latent capacities of each for being interested in the things which were at first interesting only to the other; and works a gradual assimilation of the tastes and characters to one another, partly by the insensible modification of each, but more by a real enriching of the two natures, each acquiring the tastes and capacities of the other in addition to its own . . . When the two persons both care for great objects, and are a help and encouragement to each other in whatever regards these, the minor matters on which their tastes may differ are not all-important to them; and there is a foundation for solid friendship, of an enduring character, more likely than anything else to make it, through the whole of life, a greater pleasure to each to give pleasure to the other, than to receive it . . . What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities with reciprocal superiority in them -- so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and being led in the path of development -- I will not attempt to describe. -- John Stuart Mill, On the Subjection of Women
• It is something--it can be everything--to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below. -- Wallace Stegner
• Perhaps the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company. -- Rachel Naomi Remen
• For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. -- Carl Sagan

And this last quote is not actually about love and romance, but I love it so much I quote it whenever I can:

• The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, ''I love you madly,'' because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, ''As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly.” – Umberto Eco

Rhymes with "Float 'Em"

(Warning: There are four-letter words in this post, as well as other words of varying lengths and opinions readers might find offensive. Read at your own risk.)

This weekend my friend Katy went to the Tate Modern gallery in London, which was having a major retrospective of the English artists Gilbert & George. Gilbert & George are most famous for huge, aggressively colored photomontages, usually featuring pictures of themselves among other iconography; to go straight to the most notorious and extreme example of their work, in the mid-1990s they completed a series called "the Naked Shit pictures," featuring both themselves naked and pictures of feces and urine. (Both links are safe for work and explain a little more of the artists' metier.) Katy didn't see the Tate exhibition itself, but she said to me after her visit to the museum, "I'd rather have one of their pictures on my wall than a Thomas Kinkade."

"Really?" I said.

"Definitely," she said firmly. "Wouldn't you?"

And here it was, the extremes of these two choices forming a wonderfully devilish artistic "Would You Rather": "Which would you rather have on your living-room wall: A six-foot-high, purposely confrontational photomontage of two naked men pointing their anuses and genitalia at the viewer? Or an overly idealized, artistically simple-minded, corporately marketed, sickeningly sentimental painting of a lighthouse at sunset? Painters of shit (literally) or painter of shit (aesthetically)? Art as meaning, or as decoration?"

And what did I answer? I didn't. I cannot in good conscience say I'd prefer living with a Gilbert & George, particularly the one cited in the conundrum; I come home to rest and think and be, and I don't need a challenge literally hanging over my head 24/7. But Thomas Kinkade is the antithesis of everything I think art should be -- light without dark, generalization without individuation, beauty without truth, which makes it only a pretty lie. I think I would go with Gilbert & George in the end, solely to maintain my intellectual self-respect. But I'm not 100% sure about that choice, nor that I'd be happy with it.

All of which is leading me to, of course, the current debate over The Higher Power of Lucky. For those readers not involved in children's books, this year's Newbery winner by Susan Patron uses the word "scrotum" on page one, where the main character (Lucky) hears a man say his dog was bitten on that body part by a rattlesnake. Lucky does not know what the word means, and her attempts to find out apparently form a minor and in the end meaningful motif throughout the book (which I have not yet read; this opinion taken from Linnea Hendrickson's post on child_lit). Many librarians know that their patrons will object to the mere appearance of this word and thus have announced they will not stock the book. (See the New York Times article here for a (poorly-written) summation of the debate.) The discussion that followed on ccbc-net, child_lit, and various blogs has tend to run along these lines:

• It's an anatomically correct term for a body part. Are we not going to tell children about their bodies? Isn't it best to give them the correct information from the beginning?
• Yes, but parents have the right to determine when their children learn information about their bodies.
• Do they really? Aren't librarians supposed to provide information to whoever is looking for it -- particularly when other people (like parents) don't want them to have it?
• But the libraries are financially supported by the community. Shouldn't they follow the standards of the community?
• And librarians have such small budgets and so much to do, and frequently no support from their higher-ups when challenges come in . . . Isn't it easiest and perhaps best to avoid the issue altogether?
• Those stupid, uneducated Southerners and Midwesterners -- I'm sick of them taking over the country and trying to make the rest of us conform to their Puritan moralism. Down with George W. Bush!
• This is all irrelevant as the book has no child appeal anyway. Can't the Newbery committee pick a book kids would actually want to read for once? I miss Holes.

Now, this isn't quite as in-your-face as Gilbert & George vs. Thomas Kinkade. But it strikes me as the same thing in the end, complicated by the public-funding debate and all the questions always implicit in adults making and purchasing art for children: How much truth do we want to have? And here, How much truth do we want children to have? And, What if I disagree with your answers? And finally, of course, Who gets to determine truth anyway?

And again, I'm in the mushy middle here. Not on the principles of the thing -- I think we should always use correct, precise language, and libraries shouldn't decide not to purchase the book based solely on that word -- but on its practicalities: the poor librarians having to deal with challenges, which distracts them from their larger mission of serving their communities as a whole; and parents, who, it seems to me, do deserve to determine how much information their children have about sex and the body parts involved in it until the children reach a certain age (though the children will likely beat them to the information long before). For some people, seeing the word "scrotum" is like being forced to live with the Gilbert & George: It's something they don't want to look at, for whatever reason, and we have to respect their right to that. But neither should they be able to deny us the right to look at it, to keep ourselves from living in a Thomas Kinkade world. I wish the repressive communities would change, become more open-minded and thoughtful, but until that happens, I guess I sympathize with everyone but the book-banners.

Which, I freely admit, makes me pretty much useless.

The one thing I am absolutely sure about here is where the author and editor fit in to the truth debate. When these issues come up for me as an editor -- and they have -- the question is simple: What's best for the artistic integrity of the book? Does this word or plot development in question feel integral to the character's journey, the voice, the themes, and the overall story? If it does fit, it belongs there; if it doesn't, it should come out anyway. With Lucky it sounds very much as if the word is used intelligently and sensitively, in a manner consistent with the overall storytelling, so it seems perfectly appropriate. (And Richard Jackson is an editorial genius who has seen this all before -- he edited Judy Blume in the 1970s -- so I doubt it was ever a question.) It was part of Susan Patron's vision of Lucky's truth, and as the author, she gets to determine that; readers and communities fight out whether they agree with it with their purchasing power.

(Though I have to say I'm frustrated with The Higher Power of Lucky getting all this press because of one little word, when I edited an absolutely brilliant book where God disappears and Jesus is seen as friendly but useless -- and no one has challenged it yet! This follows the general trend among book-banners where they're so obsessed with the overt content of a book that they miss the larger and much more dangerous point . . . people who go after Harry Potter before His Dark Materials, for example. I know I would fight to the point of physical violence for libraries to have the right to purchase His Dark Materials; maybe I'll feel the same way about Lucky after I read it. In the meantime, book-banners, my book is called The Book of Everything by Guus Kuijer, it was published last year, it's funny and beautiful and joyous and wise -- bring the challenges on! And bring your media circus with you!)

So. If you feel strongly about your school or local library having the right or responsibility to purchase The Higher Power of Lucky, or any other banned book, make your opinion known to the librarian in writing. That was s/he can point to your letter as an example of community support for the book should it be challenged -- or you might simply get it bought in the first place. All of us should try not to be self-righteous, please. Keep on writing your truths. And may the Higher Power bless us, every one.

Notes from a Weekend + One More Squid 101

• The SCBWI Writers' Intensive on Friday was, in a word: intense. In two hours, nine writers and I critiqued their nine 500-word manuscript excerpts in twelve-minute bursts, boom-boom-boom round the table. I enjoyed it, even though I was exhausted afterward, and I worried that perhaps things went too quickly for the writers to record or process the criticism . . . but I do hope the writers who attended got something out of it as well.
• One problem that came up a lot in these excerpts: in a novel, a first paragraph that, in trying to set up the situation, ended up explaining it, thereby destroying much of the suspense or surprise (and therefore the reader's pleasure) in what was to come. To test this on your own ms., cover up your first paragraph and start reading with your second: Is that where the action starts? Is it perhaps a more involving, less portentous beginning? (This is also worth trying on the chapter level.)
• I arrived late to the kids' book drinks night at Bar Nine, but whoo! Writers, artists, editors, agents, even a Newbery winner in there . . . Cheers to Betsy and Alvina for staging a fine event.
• Instruction for all illustrators everywhere, but especially ones who display their work at next year's SCBWI art show/reception: GET A WEBSITE. If I like your piece, I will want to see more of what you can do, and the easiest way for that to happen is if you have a website I can visit and see your style beyond what you showed at the show. Thank you.
• If you like reading about writers' processes, the ever-fabulous Jennifer Crusie is reworking her novel You Again and will be talking about it on her blog.
• Todd Alcott compares-and-contrasts two of my favorite films, It Happened One Night and The Sure Thing (the young John Cusack -- be still my heart), and brilliantly deconstructs Green Eggs and Ham.
• Or heck, I'll take the old John Cusack too.
• Last night I saw City Center Encores! production of Follies, with the incredible lead cast of Victoria Clark, Donna Murphy, Michael McGrath (Patsy from Spamalot), and Victor Garber -- yes, the beloved badass (there is no other word for him) Jack Bristow. It's one of Sondheim's concept shows, far less story than songs and style -- but what songs and style! "Broadway Baby," "Losing My Mind," "I'm Still Here," and some wonderful 1930s Berlinesque pastiche, terrifically staged, sung, and choreographed.
• And today I saw "Children of Men." It starts with the nightmare proposition that, in the year 2027, no children have been born on the planet for 18 years. Flu pandemics have come and gone; mushroom clouds have swallowed New York. Britain is the only stable nation left, and it's a police state that seems primarily dedicated to locking up illegal aliens. Theo Faron (the marvelous Clive Owen) is drawn into a plot to smuggle one of these aliens out of the country for a world-changing reason: She's pregnant. The war-torn world shown in the picture is depressing and scary as all hell -- and happening somewhere on the planet right now, I know -- but Theo's journey from walking-deadness to hope and purpose is beautifully realized, and even when it's showing death and destruction, the cinematography and direction are so gorgeous, so powerful, so incredibly accomplished, I didn't want to look away. (If Emmanuel Lubezki doesn't win Best Cinematography, I will throw things at my television.) (The Academy quakes in fear.) I'm not sure what the film is saying in the end, nor do I want to think through the plot too closely, but for pure visceral world-building, style, and storytelling, only "The Departed" came close to it in 2006.
• Oh, and a homophone I forgot:

discreet: (adj) judicious in one's conduct or speech, esp. with regard to respecting privacy or maintaining silence about something of a delicate nature; prudent; circumspect; showing prudence and circumspection; decorous; modestly unobtrusive; unostentatious

If you'd like to tell a secret / I would recommend a squid; / They will listen to your story / And close tighter than a lid. / They're discreet, restrained, remarkable, / All ego and no id; / For confidence in confidantes, / Always trust the squid.

discrete: (adj) apart or detached from others; separate, distinct

Then I spied five discrete sucker marks on the knife, and I knew: Jack the Squidder had struck again.

Drinks Night Tomorrow Night

If you're in town for the SCBWI Conference tomorrow night -- or if you just feel like hanging out with cool people, or drinking exotic drinks, or getting your children's books groove on* -- head on over to Bar Nine at 807 Ninth Avenue, between 53rd and 54th, starting roundabout 7:30 p.m. There will be a room for us in the back, reserved under the name Betsy Bird.

I, sadly, will not be there for some time, having another engagement; but I'll swing by after said engagement is over and see if you party people* are still around. And if not, I'll be at the conference all day tomorrow and much of the evening Saturday, so come on up and say hi.

* I find it hilariously wrong, and therefore delightful, to use these terms in connection with my life in children's book publishing (not that you all aren't awesome party people, of course). Funk out!

Coca-Cola Cake

This cake is precisely as good as you'd expect a cake containing Coca-Cola, marshmallows, cocoa, buttermilk, and two sticks of butter to be . . . which is so good it may actually be EVIL. I know recipes for this have been floating around for ages; I got this one from http://southernfood.about.com/od/chocolatecakes/r/bln274.htm

• 2 cups self-rising flour (or 2 cups all-purpose flour + 3 tsp baking powder + 1 tsp salt)
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 cup Coca-Cola
• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grease and flour a 9 x 13-inch pan and set aside. In a large bowl combine flour and sugar. In a saucpan combine the cocoa, Coca-Cola, butter, and marshmallows; bring to a boil. Combine the boiled mixture with the flour and sugar mixture. In a separate bowl mix eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, and vanilla; add to the first mixture. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes, until cake tests done. Serves about 16.

Frosting*:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 6 tablespoons Coca-Cola
• 1 pound confectioner's sugar (1 box)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

In a saucepan, bring butter, cocoa, and Coca-Cola to a boil. Stir in the sugar and mix well. Stir in nuts. Spread over the cake while both cake and frosting are still warm.

* Cheryl's note: I just sprinkled confectioner's sugar and pecans over the finished cake, which looked pretty and tasted just as good.

Coming to New York for SCBWI?

Here's my list of things I always recommend to visitors to the city; sorry I don't have time to post links as well. (New Yorkers, feel free to chime in with things I've forgotten.)

• Take the subway -- after walking, the cheapest, fastest, and most enjoyable way to get around New York
• Visit one of our fantastic art museums: MoMA (free on Friday nights after 5 p.m.), the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, the Frick Collection (this latter especially appropriate if you like Stately Homes as well)
• Or other museums . . . The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is a terrific glimpse of "how the other half live[d]," and I particularly commend the Morgan Library for readers, as they have two terrific exhibits up right now -- one on Victorian bestsellers, featuring some of Charles Dickens's manuscripts and book contracts, and one on Saul Steinberg -- as well as the jaw-dropping heaven that is J. P. Morgan's library
• Have authentic Chinese food in Chinatown (Goodie's, New York Noodle Town, Dim Sum-A-Go-Go), New York-style pizza (Lombardi's, Patsy's, John's of Bleecker Street, or Two Boots for funky toppings), a hot dog from a corner stand, and at least one ethnic cuisine you can't find in your hometown
• Stand in the center of Grand Central Station and marvel at the ceiling; extra points if you can find the whispering corner on the floor below
• Take the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty and back again; best when the sun is setting on a sunny day
• Visit Patience and Fortitude at the New York Public Library at 42nd St. and 5th Ave.; extra points if you go up to the Rose Reading Room, one of the most beautiful spaces in the city, IMHO. You can also visit Winnie-the-Pooh and Betsy, too, at the Donnell on 53rd St. between 5th and 6th, across the street from MoMA.
• Stroll through Times Square and Central Park
• Go to the top of a tall building -- probably the Empire State Building or Top of the Rock -- for a view of the whole city (probably not advisable in the cold)
• Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (ditto)
• Visit Coney Island (ditto II)
• Go to a taping of "Late Night with David Letterman," "The Daily Show," or a daytime talk show (probably a little late to get tickets now, but it's worth a try)
• See a show, on Broadway or off (I love "Company," "The 21st Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," and "Avenue Q")

And have fun!

Happy Second Blogiversary!

Happy Blogiversary to me!
Happy Blogiversary to me!
Happy Blogiversary, my-sellllllf,
Happy Blogiversary to me!

If I might be permitted a brief (and hopefully non-pompous) speech on the occasion:

*clears throat with a ladylike ahem*

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to visit, read, comment, link, or in other ways contribute to Brooklyn Arden in the past two years. This blog began as my continuation of a correspondence gone defunct; evolved into a journal and observational bulletin board for my friends and family; and, upon its discovery by writers in November 2005 or thereabouts, became a repository for occasional thoughts and comment-conversations on publishing and the editorial life. What all of these things have in common is that they offer me the very great pleasure of thinking out loud, on everything from September 11 to Jane Austen movies to submissions to (of course) pants and the funk; I've always loved E. M. Forster's quotation "I know what I think when I see what I say," and that's been proved true here over and over again. But just because I'm thinking out loud doesn't mean you have any responsibility to listen to it, so again, I appreciate your kind attention.

Another great pleasure of this blog has been the community that has grown up through the comments here -- the frequent posters I've gotten to know through their thoughts on my words, and the great blogs I've discovered through their comments. This is why I'm always glad when commenters sign their names to their remarks: It's hard to be part of the conversation without a name or a face! I understand the reasons writers might wish to remain anonymous, particularly if you've submitted something to me, but I do hope that if you post, you might consider using at least an alias (Natasha Badunov, Roonil Wazlib, Harriet the Spy), so we have a name to know you by. And if you lurk here and something interests you -- why not add your voice to the mix? I am a great believer in the power of creative energy: The more you say, the more you think, the more you create, the more you do -- always with thoughtfulness and passion -- the more people come together around you and the more possibilities blossom everywhere. But it starts by saying, thinking, creating, doing. This blog has proved that for me in the last two years, and I feel extraordinarily lucky because of it. Thanks again to all of you for being part of it.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS to be published July 21, 2007!

Yay!

For more information, see the Scholastic press release or the Leaky Cauldron.

SQUIDS 101: Commonly Confused Homophones

I often see these common homophones confused online and in printed matter, and I thought a quick and handy guide might be of use to readers. All definitions are taken or adapted from Dictionary.com; all examples, as will become clear very quickly, are my own.

complement: (n) something that completes or makes perfect; (v) to complete; form a complement to.
The squid's hot-pink tentacles were the perfect complement to her sterling-silver skin.
compliment: (n) an expression of praise, commendation, or admiration; (v) to pay a compliment to.
Squids are a highly sycophantic species; they can spend a flood of ink in compliments.

eminent: (adj) high in station, rank, or repute; prominent; distinguished; conspicuous, signal, or noteworthy; lofty; high; prominent; projecting; protruding
The Great Sand Squid of the Kalahari is the most eminent example of the rarely seen desert variety (suborder Oegopsina, family Psanditeuthidae).
imminent: (adj) likely to occur at any moment; impending
If you feel a squid attack is imminent, remember: Do not use nunchucks.

faze: (v) to cause to be disturbed or disconcerted; daunt.
The squid was unfazed by my display of underwater kung fu.
phase: (n) a stage in a process of change or development; (v) to plan or carry out systematically by phases.
Common Phrases: phase in; phase out
Many young squids go through a Goth phase; only rarely is it cause for concern.

foreword: (n) a short introductory statement in a published work, as a book, esp. when written by someone other than the author
Dr. Mollusc wrote the foreword to Madam Calamari's classic study Squids and Sensibility.
forward: many definitions, most commonly (adj/adv) onward, (adj) ready, prompt, or eager, and (v) to advance.
The squid was very forward in his approaches, and I rebuked him for his uncouth manners.

mantel: (n) An ornamental facing around or a protruding shelf over a fireplace
Where most humans would mount their prizes over the mantel, squids apparently preferred to employ them as lawn ornaments.
mantle: (n) something that covers, envelops, or conceals; a loose, sleeveless cloak or cape; a single or paired outgrowth of the body wall that lines the inner surface of the valves of the shell in mollusks and brachiopods; (v) to cover with or as if with a mantle; to flush, blush
The squid's mantle mantled chartreuse in recognition of the compliment.

peak: (n) the pointed top of anything; the highest or most important point or level; (v) to attain a peak; to become weak, thin, and sickly
Stan Stanford and the Squids' latest record, "The Cephalopod Shuffle," peaked at number 127 on the charts.
peek: (n) a quick or furtive look or glance; (v) to look or glance quickly or furtively, esp. through a small opening or from a concealed location.
Common Phrases: take a peek, sneak peek (NOT "sneak peak")
Two squids in love peek / At a sweet tentacle's touch; / Six hearts beat as one.
peke: (n abbrev, short for "Pekingese"): A small yappy dog of Chinese origin.
The squid considered today's specials: peke, bichon, pug, or chihuahua?
pique: (n) a feeling of irritation or resentment, as from a wound to pride or self-esteem. (v) to wound, to excite, to arouse an emotion or provoke to action.
Common Phrases: a fit of pique; to pique one's interest (NOT "to peak one's interest")
My poking piqued the peke on the peak to peek at the hungry squid below.

pore over: (v) to read, study, gaze at, ponder, or meditate upon something with steady attention or application
Squids and Sensibility is widely regarded as the Moby-Dick of the mollusc world, and I pored over it for hours.
pour over: (v) to issue, move, or proceed in great quantity or number: to flow forward or stream
The squids poured over the coral reef in a Teutonic display of Teuthida power.

principal: (n) One who holds a position of presiding rank, especially the head of an elementary school or high school; a main participant in a situation; the main body of an estate or financial holding as distinguished from the interest or revenue from it. (adj) First, highest, or foremost in importance, rank, worth, or degree.
My principal objections to the plan were 1) the height, 2) the giant squid, and 3) Barry Manilow.
principle: (n) a rule or standard; an essential quality
The first principle of Squid School is -- you do not talk about Squid School.

stationary: (adj) not moving; having a fixed position
The fire squid remained stationary -- but for how long?
stationery: (n) writing paper and materials
As I picked up the stationery, my heart beat like a rare Euprymna scolopes, for there, in the corner, gleamed a tiny silver squid.

Looking for Good Theatre in NYC This Weekend?

Come to the Impact Theatre Winter One-Act Festival, featuring six new works by six exciting new playwrights! My boyfriend James (who henceforth shall be called by his proper name here) directed the first show on the list, "Snow in Galveston" by Schatzie Schaefers. It's on a bill with plays entitled "CAUTION! The True Imagined Story of My Parents' Romance," "The Fears of Harold Shivvers," and "Suicide Gal, Won't You Come Out Tonight, Come Out Tonight," among others, so it ought to be an interesting, thought-provoking evening of theatre.

The Impact Theatre itself is at 190 Underhill Avenue between Sterling and St. John's Place in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn (Q train to 7th Ave. or the 2/3 to Grand Army Plaza). The first week of the Festival runs this Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 3 p.m.; tickets available here.

A Jazzy, Picture Book, New York Day

Yesterday was a nice New York day. In the spirit of research for my April talk, I went to the Central Children's Room of the New York Public Library, Donnell branch, and sat down with a two-foot-high stack of excellent picture books to think about what they had in common. I made lots of notes on pacing, writing style, characterization, etc., and found I was dividing most of the books I read into two categories: "Writing" picture books, where the story was mostly carried through the words and the pictures served as illumination and spirit more than an integral part of the narrative (Bread and Jam for Frances, Strega Nona, the mouse books by Kevin Henkes, much of William Steig's wonderful oeuvre); and "Art" picture books, where the art was so integral the story would make no sense without it, and which were mostly created by artists, unsurprisingly enough. (Aren't you impressed by my imaginative category titles?) The perfect picture books are the midway ones -- Kitten's First Full Moon (which has much the same structure as Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, the same crescendoing of effort), Where the Wild Things Are -- not that the individual Art and Writing ones aren't lovely themselves. And I am not sure these categories are useful anyway. I said hello to Betsy and John Peters, who was doing an enthusiastic storytime in another room, and I read Wilfrid McDonald Gordon Partridge, which I loved, and The Paper Bag Princess, which was funny but not quite as satisfying as it could have been, I thought -- in any case, they lifted my score here to 80.

Oh, and I glanced through a book called "How to Write a Children's Book and Get It Published," by Barbara Seuling, to see what she had to say about writing picture books. It seemed excellent advice, but I was tickled by one of her chapter titles:

YOUR EDITOR: FRIEND OR DRAGON?

I don't see why those identities have to be mutually exclusive.

Then I went down to the East Village, where I had dinner in a Puerto Rican cafe on Avenue C while reading the first draft of Charm School Dropout; and thence to stand in line in the cold outside a tiny storefront on the corner of 2nd St. and C, where Cassandra Wilson was in concert. Truthfully I wanted to go home after the library -- I had a bit of a headache from my contact lenses -- but a visionary jazz singer playing at an unmarked location in the East Village was one of those "only in New York" things I felt I couldn't pass up, and I was glad I didn't. She and her band played four songs based upon Yoruban principles of music and religion: the drums a waterfall, the saxes low bird cries, the voices mourning and benedictions.

Off to church now with me; wishing equally restful and thoughtful Sundays to all of you.

Brooklyn Arden Review: "Frank's Home"

Last Saturday I went to see “Frank’s Home,” a new play by Richard Nelson at Playwrights Horizons.* The title is both a complete sentence and a noun, and laced with irony in both constructions: As a sentence, in reference to this play, it recounts the tumultuous homecoming of Frank Lloyd Wright from Japan in 1922, where he met again the children he hadn’t seen in fifteen years and a country not as confident of his genius as he was. And as a noun, it is what Mr. Wright seeks and never finds, even as he builds houses for others from his own aesthetic visions. The play is like all the best features of Mr. Wright’s houses: strong-boned; elegant; contained, but with a view to the distance; and deeply inhabited by the spirit of its source materials—that is, the historical figures who populate the play, to whom Mr. Nelson brings understanding, great sympathy, and again no small dose of gentle irony in his recognition of their humanity and contradictions.

As the play opens, Mr. Wright has just returned to the U.S. from six years in Japan. He is confident, careless, energetic, broke; an architect without a house of his own, a prophet without recognition in his own country, and, as so often happens, both a true genius in his work and an absolute bastard in his personal life. He has come to California, where his grown son (Lloyd) and daughter (Catherine) live, accompanied by his mistress, Miriam Noel, and soon joined by his mentor, one of the first major architects of the skyscraper, Louis B. Sullivan. Lloyd and Catherine hate Miriam, not least because their mother has finally agreed to give Frank a divorce, and they love and hate their father in turn: He casually denigrates Lloyd’s abilities as an architect and he’s never met (or tried to meet) Catherine’s husband. Miriam is a morphine addict who expects Frank to marry her, but he’s just as likely to send her away for her unpredictability; and Louis Sullivan is a wry alcoholic who has been eclipsed by the apprentice he now must beg for a job. And then, in the middle of this idyllic family reunion, news arrives that the Imperial Hotel in Japan, the lifework of Frank’s last half-decade and the world’s first “earthquake-proof” building . . . has been destroyed by an earthquake.

Historical plays, like historical fiction, live only as much as the characters who inhabit them, and Mr. Nelson has done masterful work here in that every character seems effortlessly real. His Frank Lloyd Wright especially has just the right degree of cruelty and charisma—he’s astoundingly attractive for the very assurance and vision that blind him to anyone else’s needs. As Frank, Peter Weller (yes, Robocop) offers a terrific performance that never slips over the top, as much as that must have been a temptation given the character’s egomania. Weller is equally matched by the rest of the fine cast: Chris Henry Coffey and Maggie Siff as Lloyd and Catherine, who each reveal the longing and hurt beneath their characters’ priggishness; Mary Beth Fisher in a brief but searing appearance as Miriam; Holley Fain as a young woman who shares Frank’s arrogance and thus manages to resist his advances; and especially the wonderful Harris Yulin (yes, Quentin Travers) as the ever-observant Louis Sullivan, a man past his prime both personally and professionally but still maintaining a worthy dignity. Special appreciation also to the lovely costumes by Susan Hilferty, which subtly enhance each individual character while uniting in a coherent and beautiful stage picture. This is an excellent play given an excellent production (transferred from Chicago’s Goodman Theatre), and worth seeing by all students of architecture and character.

Through February 18; for tickets, see the discount here.
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* Full disclosure: Playwrights Horizons offers me comp tickets to previews of its shows in exchange for posting a discount offer and a review of the play here on my blog. I am allowed to say whatever I like regarding these shows, and I do, as you can see from my reviews here and here. Many thanks to the PH staff for the opportunity.

Full of Cheers

I am going over the copyediting queries for Jaclyn Moriarty's wonderful next novel, The Spellbook of Listen Taylor (to be published in Fall 2007), and I've just discovered this very cool feature on Dictionary.com: Whenever you look up a word, the bottom entry provides not only an English definition, but translation of that word into twenty-eight other languages! Thus I can tell you that "plate glass" is not only two words in English (in its noun form, anyway; the adjective can be compounded or hyphenated), but it is "lembaran kaca" in Indonesian; "telefonstolpe" is Norwegian for "telegraph pole"; and "hood" translates not just to "Capuchon" in French -- meaning it probably gave its name to the Capuchin monks, and perhaps the monkeys too? -- but also "cappuccio" in Italian; so the drink name, I'm guessing, derives from the hood of foam over the top of the coffee. This could provide just hours of distracting fun: Yay language and etymology!

Also, in completely unrelated but equally cool news, a documentary that my boyfriend worked on has just been nominated for an Oscar! It's called "My Country, My Country," about a doctor in Iraq under the American occupation, and he (the boyfriend) served as assistant editor. Yay him!

Lisa Yee has posted the winners in her Bodacious Book Title Contest, which was judged by Michael Stearns and yours truly. Yay Lisa and winners!

And did you hear George W. Bush mention health-care credits, climate change, and balancing the budget in his speech tonight? I'm reserving the hoorays on this for real action; but it's nice to see him becoming a Democrat -- or at the least, a rational and responsible Republican -- at last.

Okay, I Lied

Having bragged/whined/self-aggrandized my getting to work on a Saturday at the end of the last post, I immediately thought, "Wait! The second half of Zadie Smith's essay was supposed to go up today!" And indeed it has, and is here. It's much too rich to unpack now, because I do need to work, but there was one line that stood out for me in relation to that work: "Fiction confronts you with the awesome fact that you are not the only real thing in this world."

This articulated for me exactly why I love Lisa Yee's "Millie trilly" so much -- because you are first drawn into Millicent's viewpoint, and you think her perspective on events is the definitive account, the only real thing in the world; then you read Stanford's viewpoint, and you realize how much you missed when you were reading Millie's POV -- how much of his pain and sensitivity she was unable or unwilling to see or admit, or simply didn't know. And then you read Emily's take on things and you realize how much both Millicent and Stanford underestimate her according to their particular tastes and needs: Millicent sees her as unintelligent and has to learn to appreciate her emotionalism and heart, while Stanford sees her as the perfect girl and has to come to accept her complications. And of course Emily has a whole journey of her own with her parents, recognizing these same limits and possibilities. Each book, read in concert with the others, reminds us how limited our viewpoints are and becomes an argument for greater empathy toward us all. Quoting Smith again: "Both the writer and the reader must undergo an ethical expansion -- allow me to call it an expansion of the heart -- in order to comprehend the human otherness that fiction confronts them with. . . . That writing and reading should be such difficult arts reminds us of how frequently our own subjectivity fails us. We do not know people as we think we know them. The world is not only as we say it is." And great fiction, like Lisa's, reminds us of that every day.

Miscellany

How long has this week been? So long I can't even come up with a clever title for a blog post.

• I had some friends over for chili earlier this week and made two of the recipes from the comments here -- both ones that involve chocolate, which I couldn't resist: Mrs. Pilkington's vegetarian variety, and the meaty "Laura's Chili" from facelesswords. They were both terrific, so thanks very much to those commenters and to all of you who left recipes.
• I also made my mother's signature Ramen Noodle Salad, which we Kleins break out for pretty much every potluck and picnic we attend, thanks to its ease and deliciousness:

Becky Klein's Ramen Noodle Salad

• 1 package precut cole-slaw mix
• 2 packages ramen-noodle soup mix, beef or Oriental flavor
• 2 bunches green onion, chopped
• 1 cup oil
• 1/3 cup vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Slivered almonds as desired (optional)

Mix the slaw mix, ramen noodles (crushed), onions, and almonds. Separately combine the liquid ingredients, sugar, and seasoning from the ramen-noodle packets. Toss salad with dressing and serve immediately. Yum!

• I finally saw "Casino Royale" last night -- also yum. I went in thinking I wasn't going to like Daniel Craig as Bond -- too lined, too thuggish -- but his smile and the intensity of both his performance and the movie won me over.
• And last week I saw "Pan's Labyrinth." It's definitely not for children, even though it's partly about children's stories, and I recommend it if you can stand bloody, sometimes gratuitous violence. More commentary, but also spoilers, if you highlight what follows: What most impressed and depressed me was the ending, because it isn't often that writers/filmmakers/fantasists of whatever sort are willing to admit that sometimes stories are only stories, no matter how beautiful they are, and they can't heal and comfort and fix everything -- that sometimes they're just escape, not rescue, and escape isn't enough. It's a gutsy move on Guillermo del Toro's part, considering his audience would be primarily aesthetes like him and me, and it left me feeling, "Well, my job is pointless . . ."
• Also thinking about my job: I don't often watch "American Idol," but I like the audition shows for the sheer range of characters they display, and my heart hurt this week for poor Nicholas of Salt Lake City. After he gave a truly awful rendition of "Unchained Melody," Simon barked, "What the bloody hell was that?" and Nick answered, in a tiny voice, "That was me." It wasn't a put-on line -- Nick was speaking from his heart, just as he sang from his heart -- and I wish Simon had tempered his criticism a little more after that, as he seemed to do for the overweight man toward the end of the show (sorry, but I can't remember his name). . . . Actually, Simon's critiques reminded a lot of Jane Austen, in that the fools and villains in Austen's novels are people with either no self-awareness or no humility or both; and while Simon, like Austen, always called things exactly as he saw them, the degree of vitriol in both creators' judgements felt generally in proportion to their subject's arrogance or lack of talent. Though also sometimes neither one of them can resist getting in a good line. . . .
• Finally, for any of you who think editors are slackers: I am now going to work, and I'm planning to work tomorrow too. From home, granted, but.

I have a mad writer crush on Zadie Smith

because she writes things like this:

[Once] you have removed all the dead language, the second-hand dogma, the truths that are not your own but other people's, the mottos, the slogans, the out-and-out lies of your nation, the myths of your historical moment - once you have removed all that warps experience into a shape you do not recognise and do not believe in - what you are left with is something approximating the truth of your own conception. That is what I am looking for when I read a novel; one person's truth as far as it can be rendered through language.

and this:

Writers fail us when that interface is tailored to our needs, when it panders to the generalities of its day, when it offers us a world it knows we will accept having already seen it on the television. Bad writing does nothing, changes nothing, educates no emotions, rewires no inner circuitry - we close its covers with the same metaphysical confidence in the universality of our own interface as we did when we opened it. But great writing - great writing forces you to submit to its vision. You spend the morning reading Chekhov and in the afternoon, walking through your neighbourhood, the world has turned Chekhovian; the waitress in the cafe offers a non- sequitur, a dog dances in the street.

and this:

Readers fail when they allow themselves to believe the old mantra that fiction is the thing you relate to and writers the amenable people you seek out when you want to have your own version of the world confirmed and reinforced. That is certainly one of the many things fiction can do, but it's a conjurer's trick within a far deeper magic.

Marilyn asked a long time ago what I thought constituted good prose, or good style, and I've been thinking about the question for a while. My answer thus far is "observation and surprise" -- observation, that the writer tells the truth as s/he sees it, and it's a human truth one recognizes (if not necessarily relates to immediately); and surprise, in that I have never seen this truth described that way before, and the newness and rightness of it delights me. Ms. Smith's essay here touches on this question of style and others, and is eminently worth reading; many thanks to Monica for pointing it out.

Drinks Night Reminder, and Y, oh Y?

A reminder: Drinks night Thursday! Put on your sparkly shoes and come buy a drink for Betsy to relieve her pre-Newbery stress. Sweet & Vicious, on Spring St. between Elizabeth and the Bowery, 6 p.m.

Also, my laptop here at home seems to have a bizarre virus wherein every fifty times I type a "y" (I am guessing at the number), it kicks my cursor up or down a few lines to the middle of another word. I have no idea what causes this, and of course it never works when I want it to test it scientifically, e.g. typing "sysysysysysyys" etc. for the length of a line, but it occurs often enough to be really distracting. Has anyone ever seen this kind of thing before, or know what's making it happen? Thanks for any tips!

FAQ #6: Why does it take editors so long to respond to manuscripts?

So you are a polite, mild-mannered children's book editor sitting at home on a Saturday evening, waiting to meet your boyfriend for a night out with some friends. You have 45 minutes to kill, and quite a bit of work you've brought home with you; so do you

A) Review the copyedit for the dauntingly long (but excellent) Fall 2007 novel, which will be due back to the production department within two weeks
B) Respond to the author under contract, who has written asking a few questions about your latest editorial letter, and who needs an answer to progress with her revision
C) Respond to an author who isn't under contract (but whom you like a great deal), who has written asking a few questions about a recent editorial letter and request for revision, and who likely won't move forward with full confidence until you write back
D) Read an agented manuscript, as the agent will need a response within a month if not sooner
E) Read an unagented requested revision
F) Read an unagented new manuscript
G) Work on your talk for April, which requires planning long in advance, and which has been retitled "Words, Wisdom, Heart, and Art: Making a Picture-Book Cookie"? (This title will make much more sense in practice than it does on the screen.)

Of course, if you were in the office, you would have even more choices/responsibilities, including:

H) Follow up on foreign projects
I) Respond to questions from the Legal department about contracts
J) Prepare materials for Acquisitions meeting
K) Line-edit a manuscript under contract (not right now, but a couple are coming in soon)
L) Write rejection letters
M) Write offer letters
N) Write editorial letters
O) Attend meetings
P) Basic office work: phones, mail, filing

And so forth. But because you're at home instead, the options include

Q) Read something for pleasure
R) Surf the Web
S) Talk to your sister
T) Procrastinate fifteen other enjoyable ways
U) Scrub the bathtub so you feel at least mildly productive, and
V) Write a blog post about your dilemma in deciding

So -- what would you do on a Saturday night?

I chose (U) and (V), because it is a Saturday night, so I didn't feel like getting deeply involved in work, and the bathtub was really water-stained. But I wanted to write this up precisely to illustrate the amount of work there is to do as an editor, and the number of choices and competing priorities I'm faced with when it comes to how to spend my time. So if you ever wonder why an editor isn't responding to your manuscript as quickly as you'd hope, it's not personal -- it's A-P, and the desire to preserve enough of a life for ourselves that we can have Q-V as well.

ETA: For more thoughts on this, from both me and many writers, please see the comments.