The Space Between

OPENING MONOLOGUE

I don’t know where you are, but it’s already cold here. This means the heat is on. Not in the way Glenn Frey meant it either. Now that I think of it, what did he mean?

“Caught up in the action, I've been looking out for you
Oh-ooh-oh-oh, oh-ooh-oh-oh
Tell me, can you feel it?”

I mean, it’s sex, right? But this is the 80s we’re talking about, so it could also mean cocaine — or the devil’s chalk dust, as the kids say.

I just watched the music video. I forgot about that saxophone and the brief time when every song had to have a sax solo, like “Careless Whisper.”

(I have this friend named John who I’ve known since I was 13. His dad was Italian — like real Italian, not what I pretend to be when the mood hits — and he was super nice to me as a kid. But I rarely saw him standing up. He was always sitting on the living room couch watching TV. But — BUT! — whenever the music video for Wham’s “Careless Whisper” came on, he’d stand up and scream to his wife, “Lola! Lola!” She’d come running in from somewhere else in the house and they would start slow dancing. And when it was all over, they’d kiss, she’d leave the room, and he’d fall back on the couch like a marionette having its strings cut. I must have seen that scene — like a call of the Sirens — happen three times. It was like witnessing a miracle.)

Anyway, I always thought “The Heat is On” was from Beverly Hills Cop 2, but it’s the original. But you knew that, didn’t you? Because you’re smart. And it’s probably warm where you are.

It’s okay, you can tell me. We’re all friends here.

Here’s what I re-learn this time every year: It’s usually in October and November when I’m more disciplined about what I eat and I start feeling better about my weight. There’s even this two-week window where I even like the person I see in the mirror.

But then, I’ll throw on a winter coat to take the dog for a walk. I’ll pass under a street lamp, see my teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle-shaped shadow, and hate myself all over again.

All right, let’s do this.

Today's reading

• What is paraspace?

• We Need to Boo the Pilots More

• Catching up with King

• “I think you’re the greatest.”

• “Tell us something that will save us from ourselve …

What is paraspace?

One of my favorite books is Fictional Space in the Modernist and Postmodernist American Novel by Carl Darryl Malmgren. I discovered it in 2008 while working on my master’s thesis.

Do you like to explore the mechanics of fiction (especially American fiction)? If so, this book is for you because Malmgren gets into the weeds. He even introduces formulas to help explain fiction — because if there’s anything an English major loves, it’s math!

Here’s a quick sample:

One of the things I latched onto was his idea of paraspace where “the TEXT SPACE refuses to fill or to complete” that “exists ‘next to’ the TEXT SPACE of the fiction.”

He defines it more clearly later in the book:

Paraspace sounds like one of those words I’d see in a comic book that would have fired up my imagination as a kid, so seeing it here to explain the process of reading and understanding fiction (two things I love dearly) felt like a revelation.

A lot of this had to do with the fact that I had read so many academic books on fiction for my MA work and most of them were recycling old ideas or were so dry and pedantic that it was sucking the air out of the room. Malmgren’s approach was a breath of fresh air.

I found Malmgren’s work by way of Dr. Katarzyna Bazarnik, a professor in Kraków who is also the co-founder of literature (another idea I’ll nerd out on in the future):

“A dynamic field in which the text and the reader come into an interaction” is a great way to understand paraspace. I see it as the space where the words you’re reading intersect with your imagination, the collision of the author’s intent against your interpretation.

I’ll be writing more about paraspace here, but I wanted to show where I discovered it before I shared my own ideas on the subject. And if you’ve followed my work, you know paraspace has shown up in my short stories and essays — it’s one of my obsessions.

Obsession or not, this might sound terribly boring for you. But give it a chance because I’ll be using paraspace to sell some Crazy Ideas.

I’ll make it fun, you’ll see.

We Need to Boo the Pilots More

Here’s something I never saw until I moved to Poland. In fact, it was on the first flight when I landed here back in 2003. The plane comes down, does that bounce or two, and finally lands. As the plane is coming to a stop, the passengers start applauding.

It’s not a Pan's-Labyrinth-at-Cannes level of clapping. It’s more controlled, and there’s no standing ovation. But Polish people clap when pilots fulfill a basic part of their job, like landing the plane safely. This is how low the bar is set for Poland.

When my friend Derrek (whose parents I have never seen slow dance to “Careless Whisper”) first came to Poland by plane and everyone started clapping, he looked to the person next to him with horror and asked, “Did we almost die?”

I’ve seen the clapping dozens of times over the years. I’m proud to say that I have never participated.

I prefer to boo.

As the roar of the applause echoes up the plane into the cockpit and the pilots are feeling god-like and immortal, I want them to hear my lone solitary boo. I want it to be imperceptible, so part of them can doubt what they’re hearing. 

It’s the doubt that’ll be their undoing. I have planted seeds that will take root deep in their souls. This doubt will grow and grow, blossoming when they lie in their hotel beds in the darkness of night. They will remember the applause from earlier, but now the boo will be louder.

My boo will become UNDENIABLE. My boo will become EVERYTHING.

Yes, my pilots, you have brought me back to earth. But now I have done the same for you.

We are even.

Catching up with King

I’m one of those people who has slipped in reading over the years. Because of this, I fell behind on Stephen King’s more recent output. Some of this was on purpose, as part of me knew that King wouldn’t live forever, and it might be good to stockpile a book or two for those eventual rainy days. I’ve been reading him since I was eleven years old, so I can’t imagine my life without something new of his to read.

Maybe it was because I turned 50 in July, or because this year has been fucked up in general, but I decided to jump the gun and cash in on those rainy days now. Because, honestly, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Here’s what I’ve read this year by King:

It turns out, I missed a lot more books than I thought, and I still have plenty to go.

He’s had an extraordinary 50-year career, and you can almost see a line of demarcation in his work around 1999 — particularly after his near-death experience. While I love the books I grew up reading, the post-1999 King is a different writer — more polished, experienced, and willing to take bigger swings.

For instance, Billy Summers (not on the list because I read it last year) initially reads like a “hitman takes his last job” story we’ve seen a dozen times already, but he does a magic trick in the book's second half that took my breath away. It’s a trick a younger King couldn’t have pulled off, and it’s so extraordinary and perfectly executed that you want to re-read the book to find the parts where King was distracting us.

And the first 99 pages of The Outsider are incredible — just solid propulsive writing.

I’ve also been slowly rebuilding my hardcover King library. I had about 80% of his work in hardcover up until about 1999 and I gave all of them away before I moved to Poland, along with most of my other books. I forgot the feeling of having shelves lined with King books and going out into the world with a big brick of a book to read.

“I think you’re the greatest.”

Comedian and musician Fred Armisen tells a story about going to a party after Prince’s appearance on SNL. Prince was sitting alone at a booth eating a bowl of mac and cheese.

Armisen carefully sat down beside him and said, “Hey, I just wanted to tell you, I think you’re the greatest.”

And Prince said, “You know what I think is the greatest?”

“No,” Armisen said. “What?”

“This mac and cheese.”

“Tell us something that will save us from ourselves”

I stumbled across this quote about writing that I thought you’d appreciate.

That’s great, isn’t it? I especially love the “Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone” bit. Damn.

I don’t need to share any deep dark secrets for you to know that you’re not alone. I certainly don’t need to clap because you landed the plane safely. You’re not alone. And, of course, you landed the plane safely. It’s what you do.

You got this.