The Application of Everything

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

This is Mr. Lockard, My High School Algebra Instructor

He wasn’t a bad guy. He’d served in the Peace Corp and arrived at Columbia High in Burbank, WA to teach algebra, geometry, trig and calculus. He rode a motorcycle on which he regularly wiped out, thereafter coming to school on crutches for months at a time. My siblings loved him. Me, not so much.

I’ll wear it: I earned a D+ in his classes. My three siblings all earned A’s. The problem lay in applying the concept of the subject to the real world. Unless Mr. Lockard could demonstrate how the formula could be used, I could never retain the knowledge. Too much theory swamps me. Most of the Malcolm Gladwell books delighted me, but seemed too long. Once he’s supported his theory with a few anecdotes or examples, I get bored by the repitition and wish the books had been as pithy as the magazines articles they’d arisen from. The same goes for the book Supercommunicators sent to me by John R. The book’s early anecoted-supported information is a wonder to read. But once the book lapses into more theory and fewer examples to illustrate that theory, I began to scan for verbs. Call it a failing on my part, but I can only talk about a concept for so long. My interest depends on applying it.

In her novel Heartburn Nora Ephron’s narrator is at a party where a friend complaints, “Why do you have to turn everything into a story!?” At the Prague Writers Festival I appeared in a panel discussion with an essayist and a poet. We talked in platitudes so much that I tried to illustrate a point with an anecdote, whereupon the poet complained, “Why do you have to turn everything into a story?” IDK, because abstracts bore me? Because I can’t retain concepts unless I can apply them? Maybe — Mr. Famous Egyptian Poet — I’m just stupid. Mr. Lockard would agree with the Poet. Did I mention I got a D+ in algebra and geometry?

Platitudes sound lofty. But anecdotes get you on the Rogan Experience. An anecdote is a little machine that does something. An anecdote carries a smell.

Did I mention that Mr. Lockard smelled terrible? He smoked heavily and sweated profusely, and when he knelt beside my desk to coax me through an algebraic formula, he reeked so bad that I held my breath the entire time. I’d pretend to grasp the concept just so I could nod in agreement and he’d hurry away to the next student. That’s all I can remember of his classes. He smelled bad, and his students who could hold their breath got higher grades. Now, I couldn’t calculate the area of a circle if my life depended on it.

People remember smells. Proust will back me on this point.

At a recent acting class the instructor had recommended the book The Actor and the Target.¹ It’s pithy and punchy and full of anecdotes from many different cultures that illustrate each concept the author describes. I’m loving the book, but I get the impression that I’m the only student in years who’s taken our teacher’s advice and read it. The teacher seems pathetically grateful to me for going that extra step, and I can empathize. For years I’ve recommended books to students — Amy Hempel, Mark Richard, Nami Mun — but very, very few actually read those books.

And I understand. Years ago a friend suggested the book Wired for Story by Lisa Cron, and it’s taken me years to finish reading that book. Again, because I’m swamped by too much theory. In the first writing workshop I ever attended — circa 1989 — we had to read The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. Mind you we never referred to the book at any point in the two years I attended that workshop, but the book’s only reference points were the lofty books that had soured me on fiction in high school and college. My gut tells me that I was the only student in that workshop who actually bought and read the Gardner book.

So, what’s the point of recommending books no one will read? What’s the point of talking a bunch of theory? Why do I always have to make EVERYTHING into a story?

In the German school system they have the distinction of Kennenshaft v. Wissenschaft. Roughly put, it’s knowledge versus wisdom. Sure, you can memorize the multiplication tables, but you have to “learn” how to ride a bicycle. I can hammer a lot of rules into you — Attribution! Textures! — but you need to apply them and test your work and learn how to ride the bicycle of storytelling.

That’s why I’ve been going heavy with the Gloves Off postings. Writing guides are crammed full of “tips” and “hacks,” but you need to see all of this applied to your work. Not everyone will get a deep dive, most of you won’t, we just don’t have that much time here. But everyone in Tom’s workshop learned from the work presented by other writers. As did everyone in Lish’s workshop, Tom included.

Yes, I will still post the “think” pieces and the writing prompts and the recommendations — see below — but this needs to be a two-way street. “Gloves Off” serves that purpose, as did Story Night. On that note, I regret to say The Cavern, where we’ve staged our two most recent story nights, is closing June 30th. We’ll always have “Dear Santa” night and “Dear Shirley Jackson” night, complete with their stunts, but the bar will soon be gone. Fingers crossed that Netflix will soon release The Madness of Writers and you can see Oliver read his filthy story at the bar where the champagne cork magically exploded.

Criminy, I loved Wildcat, the biopic about Flannery O’Connor. It’s hands-down the best film bio of an author I’ve ever seen, in particular in its ability to weave O’Connor’s best stories into the narrative. It balances the author’s ability and her arrogance against her circumstances and leaves room for the viewer to make connections that most films pound into us with a hammer. Sadly, it makes the two recent Truman Capote bio-pics² look artless by comparison. The filmmakers dealt with untouchable issues in a way that O’Connor would’ve appreciated, a way that made me laugh aloud (and almost alone) in the theater. As a member of the Writers Guild I look forward to my screening copy (hint, hint, Academy Award guys). That said, I’m happy to have seen it on a big screen so I could appreciate how beautifully each shot was composed. My only gripe is about the ending, but that’s an inevitable and natural human response to a film I wish had gone on forever.³

My special thanks to Krissy and Colton for attending; I wish you both lupus to hone your writing talents. And extra thanks to Emory (Emery?) who drove all the way from Salt Lake City to Portland to attend the screening and say “hello.”

1. My understanding is that the book was originally written in Russian and translated into English. Or written in English and translated into Russian, then translated back into English. Whatever the case, the resulting sentences are short and bold, and I love how the author breaks down complicated ideas and articulates them. In my reading I’ve only see Lewis Hyde do such a good job to support concepts with cross-cultural references.

2. Capote and Infamous. I favor the second because it was based on the oral history by George Plimpton. Oral histories exemplify the style of pointillist storytelling I most love.

3. Sigh. But the happyish ending would’ve also probably irked O’Connor herself.