Hello sophomore, my old slump…

So as I dig into Entry Two of Lives of Famous Catholics, I realize that I’m basically re-doing Entry One. A story about a film director (Guillermo Del Toro) pursuing a passion project (At the Mountains of Madness) that never gets made but nevertheless reveals something about his spiritual state, told from the perspective of a collaborator on the project (an illustrator). For that matter, Gaga Confidential also treats a failed artistic effort (The Secret Show), only it’s told from the perspective of an embittered fan who uncovers a link to a collaborator on the project (H.R. Giger).

I keep thinking back to the line from the opening to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History: “I suppose at one time in my life, I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.” Heh.

Hell’s Mels!

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It looks like Mel’s not gonna make my movie after all. Nor the movie that my movie was about the not-making of. Nor the Revelations movie he was always meant to make. Instead, he’s taking on Christ’s post-Resurrection sojourn, which, frankly, seems more in Terrence Malick’s wheelhouse. But then, nobody asked me.

The Novel May or May Not Be Dead …

… according to a magazine nobody bothers to read any more. I think this article is mostly, or probably, or at least hopefully a load of crap, but the subject is certainly on a lot of people’s minds. Maybe because a lot of people want to write novels, but still … c’mon now!

The novel still stands, sure enough, but it stands uneasily, a kitschy McMansion whose vocabulary is steadfastly outdated, a form that can only look backward. I can’t think of a single full-length novel published in 2014 that did anything new. Most of the ones I read rehashed the same realistic formula that has held at least since Raskolnikov wandered through St. Petersburg’s dingy courtyards.

A McMansion? Really? Might this have more to do with which particular shelf you choose to browse?

And don’t forget that Korrektiv has a couple of novels, or one novel and one novella qua screenplay, available for your reading pleasure just as soon as you can tear your eyes away from this screen.

Potato Salad — Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/324283889/potato-salad

Surfing with Mel (the movie) will be Lickona’s potato salad.

Believe.

Three Sonnets

I. Word House
Where Amherst’s hermitess had bitten
The Puritan tongue with reproof,
Spokane now speaks such song, begotten
As rain, pronounced as raftered roof,
Refined as wine in cooling cellars.
What whirrs there through the threshold’s pillars?
It sounds to be a potter’s lathe
That spits out earthen sparks to bathe
The night with reason: words are shelter
For faith which palates reach with speech
Like star to planet, wave to beach.
The mystery of diction’s altar:
In stormy house, a world of calm –
In sonnet’s hovel, castled psalm.

II. Beard Nest
A formal nudity is shameless
Because the body knows what lust
Denies to serve: the many nameless
Conspiracies of love that nest
Like birds within the beard of Jesus.
Will darkened theaters cease to please us
(More known than knowing) just because
The plight of Job excites applause
For pleasure’s picture show? With Satan,
The naked frame reveals; but beer
Is found as near to elbow’s cheer
As language brewing roots in Latin –
And here, a man and woman found
A common tongue on common ground.

III. Water Board
The sifting surf is sorting shingles
Upon the beach. The clashing sounds
Of armies, ignorant as angels,
Is drowned as holy rage compounds
The wave that builds. But you know, fuck it.
A man can throw up in a bucket –
So justice gains what mercy lost –
A man can take his licks on a post –
So blood and history are bonded
As Adam waxes up his board
Now bounden where he lay, a lord
At play. Sea-savaged and up-ended,
He’s framed by grace – and tries to name
Its aspect ratio to fame.

“The Celebrity for Believers” – interview over at Dappled Things

surfing-with-mel-cover-upright Over at Dappled Things, Bernardo Aparicio has an interview with Old Man Lickona in support of Labora Editions’ very fine hardbound edition of Surfing with Mel.

Triangulation at Its Best…

 

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In an outtake from the recent Salinger biodoc.

******

And, in unrelated news yet to happen, there’s this…

JOB [To Interviewer]: “So, you better talk to Jonathan Potter about this, but it’s a great story. The way he tells it,  or at least how he told it to me, Matthew Lickona was just beginning to get his life back in order, right? He was recently out of debt and was returning from some bigwig marketing meeting at the prosthetics company he was working for. Anyway, he decides he’s going to take a cross country trip by train – not bad, right? See a little bit of America’s ass side, spend some time knocking back a few in the dining car, snooze to the clickity-clackity rhythm of it all… Well, anyway, so he’s sitting there, America’s backyards and back alleys racing past his window in a cartoon blur. Meanwhile, unknown to Matthew, Angelico is seated two seats behind him. And so at some point during the trip, the train is about to take one of these God-sized mountain tunnels – it’s out in the middle of Utah or Colorado or something – and it just so happens that who? Right! Dorian Speed is walking up the aisle to the smoking car – she smoked in those days, Camel filterless if I recall – I remember because she started a three-pack-a-day habit soon after the giraffonet replaced the internet and she was having such a hard time transitioning – at any rate, Angelico thrusts his foot into the aisle because he’s got this cramp in his calf, see? He just made this big sell to Icon Productions for his client – but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself – anyway, so he puts his leg out like he’s going to kick a door in and Dorian, tripping on his leg, stumbles forward – but just then Jonathan Webb is walking down the aisle in the other direction, having just finished in the smoking car a Romeo y Julieta – a Churchill I think it was – you know, he could afford them in those days, what with the movie deals he was getting for the Death Fables and all – and he lunges to catch Dorian, but she meanwhile is putting her hand out to save herself from falling flat on her face, and in the process grabs Brian Jobe, who is also on the train – a seat behind and diagonal from Matthew – unbelievable, right? I thought so too! – so she grabs Brian Jobe by his black mock turtleneck – this was during his black period, the whole Propertius affair was still a fresh wound at that point – and she yanks him into the aisle as she’s falling and Webb accidentally grabs for the emergency brake – except, you know, it wasn’t accidental? Because just then Webb sees Matthew at the same time that Matthew spots Webb. Their eyes lock and for one furious moment – well, think crossing streams and Ghostbusters and marshmallow bits everywhere! Well, at the very least, fireworks, hello! So Matthew stands up and is about to punch Webb in his gob – because, you know, poor Matthew is still sore about Webb’s refusal to testify in the Gibson suit – but then Angelico, still rubbing his calf, sees Matthew and unaware of Matthew’s ire tries to get his attention by throwing a copy of Groundwork at him – which someone told me he’d found in the WalMart remainder pile – that’s where I find them, anyway – but anyway, the story – so instead, right? Angelico hits Webb with the book – his own client and he hits him with the book -and right between the eyes – and so, well, anyway, everything sort of went black for a moment as the train passes into the tunnel and…. well, look, I don’t know. This is just what I heard. The only one who was there was Potter. Ask him. He knows the whole story.”

Mel Gibson alert

mel2Paul Elie:

Gregory Wolfe in a memorable (if unappealing) formulation insists that the current generation of Catholic writers is a “whispering generation.” Which leads me to ask: Whispering why?

The answers usually have something to do with the state of the church or the state of the culture or some such.  But my approach to the issue begins with the conviction that literature is made by individual writers, not by the surrounding culture or the spirit of the age – by individual writers who for whatever reasons are (the religious word is undiminished here) inspired to make written works in some ways rather than others.

I wonder if the “whispering generation” is really a cowering generation – writers who are timid when they ought to be bold.

See also?

“Which movie do you want to see?”

Stack

The Catholic Beat reviews Surfing with Mel!

Surfing with Mel available for pre-order

Spread the word.

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Happy Labora Day!

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Big news. Labora Editions is going to do a print run of my very recent historical fiction Surfing with Mel. Naturally, I’d be thrilled about any kind of print run, but Labora Editions isn’t just any kind of publisher.

Not too terribly long ago books were works of craft, at least, often works of art. So it shall be again, I believe. I call Labora Editions a publishing studio, rather than a company, because I alone constitute the whole operation at present, but also because the quality to which I aspire is of a kind more native to art than to commerce.

Release date is October 1. Please spread the word. And keep checking Labora Editions for production photos!

How the heck did I miss this?

Miss Ellen interviews Mr. Matthew … and does crackerjack job of it.

Join the fray…

USA. New York. 1950.

Where they discuss the not-so-usual suspects – including you and you and you and you and and you and you and…!

 

Mel Gibson’s Sunset Boulevard?

Mel Gibson’s Sunset Boulevard.

A Scene from Surfing with Mel

I got to messing around on the Internet last night. Warning: F-bombs and such …

Inside the Mind of Mel

Go ahead, take a peek.

Thanksgiving Special

Today only, download the Kindle edition of Surfing with Mel for a mere 99¢ and get a free turkey while supplies last.

Wait a minute … we’re out of turkeys. So … er … today only … well, not only today, but … yes, only … 99¢. Get yours today!

Image credit: Ryan Charles Trusell (yes, that Ryan Charles Trusell) by way of Seinfeld.

P.S. We love ya, Mel!

Heartbreaking

Ryan Charles Trusell, of Ora et Labora et Zombies fame, reluctantly ventures into Kindleland for the love of Lickona:

This weekend I broke down and bought my first kindle book….

Lickona’s story, and perhaps the whole Mel Gibson saga writ large, acts as a kind of Rorschach test, especially for Catholics. Tell me what you think about it and I can probably tell you something about yourself, like a proper sideshow carny. My one-word descriptor, if forced to give it, would be “heartbreaking”.

Read the entire review here: Lethal Capon.