FEAR OF WRITING

I'm out of town, and today I start my first day of Tin House Summer Writing Workshop, an amazing weeklong intensive of workshops, readings, seminars and panel discussions. The writers attending are quite impressive.
Today, I meet some of my fellow students as well as writers, agents, editors, and the always present demons of doubt. I was admitted on the basis of my manuscript, and so were my fellow attendees, and I've read their stories in preparation, and they are good. My group leader is Colson Whitehead, the author of "The Intuitionist," "John Henry Days," and "Apex Hides the Hurt." I'll keep you posted on my progress this week.

In the meantime, Jacques Derrida, the famous French deconstructionist, will discuss the "Fear of Writing."

LE MYSTERE PICASSO

The third volume of John Richardson's A Life of Picasso has just been published. I just read a review in the New York Review of Books, and now I wish I had the books -- and a time machine! Here is an excerpt from the review by Andrew Butterfield.

The book starts with Picasso's trip to Italy in the spring of 1917 in the company of Jean Cocteau, Sergei Diaghilev, and Léonide Massine, three of his four collaborators on the ballet Parade that they were then planning. Erik Satie, the composer of Parade, stayed home in Paris, but Igor Stravinsky joined the group in Rome and swiftly became close friends with Picasso. Stravinsky and Picasso studied the Sistine Chapel and the museums of Rome, and with Massine and Cocteau explored the ruins of Pompei and Herculaneum. In Rome they went to the puppet theater, and in Naples they attended performances of commedia dell'arte, experiences that not only helped shape Parade but later directly inspired the ballet Pulcinella which Stravinsky, Massine, and Picasso created in 1920.

For the entire review
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20892



A clip from the documentary "Le Mystère Picasso", produced and directed by H. G. Clouzot. France 1956.

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Senate Joint Resolution 8212 was approved yesterday by Washington state voters, allowing private companies to hire inmate labor. These arrangements were banned in 2004 by the Washington Supreme Court, which ruled they violated the state constitution, and so SJR 8212 amends the constitution. Privatizing prison labor goes along with privatizing everything else, and part of the big push by corporations. FOR PROFIT. Iraq and New Orleans are being rebuilt by private companies for profit, and mercenaries are fighting the war, for profit. What next? Ethical and moral questions aside, do we really want the dollar sign to be the ultimate criteria for social decisions? Suggested reading: Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine." And any Charles Dickens. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/Stiglitz-t.html?ref=review