Marcopocast: The Frank Marcopolos Podcast, with Frank Marcopolos

This week, only 3 members of the notorious Austin Writing Workshop gathered to do battle over literature and philosophy. But that was enough. Listen to the sparks fly, the philosophical theories rumble, and the rhetoric zoom off the hook! 0:00 Introductory Clip from the Episode 0:40 Infinite Ending Advertisement (You should buy this, no doubt.) 1:16 Group discussion of “The Santosbrazzi Killer” by Heidi Julavits, including broad discussion of style used in the piece, plot summary, making up words, owning the language, Ernest Hemingway, David Foster Wallace, Brooklyn hipsters, jicking, amateur attempt at copying Wallace and Dave Eggers, use of details, hyper-maximalism, Carver, assholeness of character, setting up the intrigue of the story, being open-minded to the style, word-maker-upper, colloquialisms, general critiques against postmodernism, the prison of choice, philosophical conundrums, subconscious choices on the menu of life, theme of alienation, lady Hush Puppies, men sitting on a chair and taking a bullet in the head, cultural comment on American life, consumerism, character becoming a writer for the ‘Nati, David Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the McSweeney’s gang, The Believer magazine, Kundera, writers having too many choices, having more energy, selling the reader your story, universal rules, comedy in the story, the Tuck Inn, using larger words, surreal feel of the story, something for the reader to believe, the pirate people, subtlety, being concerned with plot only, Transformers, Groundhog Day, more discussion of pirates, horror, Don DeLillo, mysteries, Dashiell Hammett, Victorian literature, following the rules, slickness, academics not finding value in David Foster Wallace, teaching Hemingway’s tactics, anthologization, Tom Hanks, learning crap, urban dictionary, jick meaning, whipping out of the pen, basic outline of story, MFA Programs, being a paratrooper, Donald Barthelme, dilution of the process, ee cummings, the art cycle, Richard Ford, Stephen King, hating every story, The Girl with Curious Hair, Lyndon Johnson, the avant-garde, guessing who the author is, revealing the writer as HEIDI JULAVITS, Harold Bloom, The 12 Best American Writers, J.D. Salinger, Nick Adams, Updkie, Roth, Cheever, Coover, American Pastoral, and creating a villain character. 53:13 Infinite Ending Advertisement (WHY have you not purchased this yet??? Are you loco in the coco?) 53:45 End of Podcast

Every Friday (more or less) a group of renegade writers gathers in Austin, Texas to drink alcohol, eat gluten-free snacks, and discuss literature, philosophy, and all manner of stimulating ideas. Listen in to the 96th episode of a Texas classic. Saturday Show Literary Podcast is an MFA program in fiction writing disguised as a podcast. However, we are not accredited. By anyone. Approximate time stamps and discussion topics are provide below. 0:00 Excerpt from the podcast 0:56 INFINITE ENDING Advertisement 1:33 Group discussion of Coming Sun.Mon.Tues. by Don DeLillo, including the rules of keeping the story anonymous for group members, the gimmick, Cory looking stuff up, explaining the game, F. Scott Fitzgerald, perfect length, style, time period, setting, Cloud Atlas, well-established tropes, meta-comments, plot summary, irony, comedy, comment on story itself, wall of words, evoking a time and a place, the Western world, Vietnam, 1960s, twirling, illegal activities, knowing the characters, demographics, minority experiences, insider knowledge, staccato sentences, Hemingway, meaningless details, the basic rules of stories, anti-stories, cleverness, postmodernism, picking up the baton, relay races, Spin The Bottle, Vladimir Nabokov, risky writers, Spring in Fialta, details, Lacan, theme, Ethiopians, Asia, Europe, Africa, details analysis, not latching onto any details, Junot Diaz, the fallacy of story as a way to gain meaning in our lives, the guessing game, Donald Barthelme, ee cummings, New Yorker stories, George Saunders, Bob Dylan, “Frank Fucking Marcopolos,” Robert Coover, Richard Ford, Don DeLillo as the author of the story, Don Rickles, fame and luck, David Foster Wallace, arguing over who selects the story, the hairbrush story, and literary shenanigans. 43:50 Group discussion about Philosophy, including Zizek, Martin Buber, Thomas Aquinas, religious ways of knowing, Immanuel Kant, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Saint Anselm, art, science, philosophy, relationship with the divine, atheism, Freud, Texas State University, the baby Jesus, enlightened atheists, miracles, gratefulness, C.S. Lewis, tradition, pre-enlightenment, religion as guesswork, Ayn Rand, epistomology, empiricism, philosophy’s role in real writing, answering Ayn Rand’s four questions, epistomology, metaphysics, morality, politics, reason, Ambrose Bierce, experience, Hegel, cultural specifics, Buddhism, students of philosophy, Duck Dynasty, professional philosophers, Socrates, Fight Club, Nietzsche, believing in absolutes, absolute truths, the agora, the debate itself being the point, scientific theory, House M.D., the discussion that never ends, the Jewish faith, Rabbis, how many angels fit on the head of a pin, streams of religious thought, the philosophical orientation of our main characters, The Atheist, religion as obesity, everyone worships, worshipping anti-worshipping, over-thinking thinking, being too rational, going to the gym too much, drinking too much, non-commercialized art, quilt-making, bad art, the rules of art, and the rules for everything, quilting, Jackson Pollack, DeLillo’s technique, Andy Warhol, the urinal, and rules for religions. 1:19:00 INFINITE ENDING Promotion Here is a clip from the show in handy video format:

Is art completely subjective? Or are there objective rules which need to be observed in order for an artistic project to be successful? This podcast explores. Plus, why Junot Diaz is terrible, considering subjectivity and objectivity as the same thing, and the limits of scientific empirical inquiry. Plus wine and laughs galore! 0:00 Excerpt from the Podcast 0:29 Advert for Infinite Ending: Ten Stories by Frank Marcopolos 1:05 Group discussion of the short story, “The Pura Principle” by Junot Diaz, including keeping the professional stories anonymous for critiquing, 98% story-hating ratio, Frank Marcopolos’s Italian heritage, having free reign to criticize the story, professional writers, the mystery of the anonymity of the author and its implications, being engaged in the story, losing one’s eyeballs, plot summary, elevation of the narrator, literary allusions and references, Horsefaces of the Apocalypse, Dominican characters, doing research in a medium amount, Lemoncello, tolerant readers, generous readers, diversity of opinions, not reading the story (bad!), thinking the main character was a female, being an asshole reviewer, aesthetics of a sentence, The Philosophy of Art, bad details, having no literary merit, clarity and concision of narrative language, variety of characters, plot attractiveness, slice of life nature of the story, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, biculturalism, realistic literary fiction technique, research versus experience pouring into the writing, not being able to escape the gravity of one’s environment including family and culture, Sam Harris, free will/determinism, taking science to its limit, maximizing Hispanic writing, lionizing themeless writing, pro-culturism, erasing the theme, pseudo-intellectual literary marketing, Rock Springs, the gold mine, the monkey, subjective extreme reactions, guessing game about who the writer is, MFAs, Tim O’Brien, studying Junot Diaz, The New Yorker, Is Frank Marcopolos a better writer than Junot Diaz, New Yorker standards of quality, Hair Jewelry, Stephen King, not trusting Cory, Laura Vandenberg, more plot summary, a writer uprising!, Chuck Pahlaniuk, a horrible passage from 50 Shades of Grey, Charles Bukowski, Joyce Carol Oates, E.L. James, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, A Casual Vacancy, cultural snowballing, fame as a momentum, The Story of O, and Cory’s love of cults (Cults R Us.) 50:30 Group discussion of the first two chapters of Frank Marcopolos’s new novel, including it being a “real” story, enjoying the story, one of the best things Frank has written, fine-tuning the characters, story being closer to the bone, losing the game, feeling the loss, the moral courage, ending with a mystery, the writing works, the chapters being better, honing of the craft, cleaner narrative, taking notes, revelation of plot, seeming trite, filler dialogue, the balance of art, Enzo being likeable, heavy-handedness, the unimportance of the dialogue, dialogue doing multiple things, character diversity, stories siding with the absurd, Rock Springs (again), Richard Ford (again), Sideways, car thieves, the monkey story (again), rich versus filler dialogue, feeling like Chapter 1, Name of the Rose, mako sharks, Chuck Pahlaniuk, out of place details, dryologue, slickness, Jaws, two different backstories, details doing work, shaking up a story is only as good as the shaking up, long debate about leaving in the detail about a mako shark. 1:20:00 Group discussion of a member-submitted poem, including reading and interpretive dance, babies being thrown out the window, explanation of why a poem was submitted, poetry slams, reading the poem, coffeehouse applause, mawkish performance, acting, and performance pieces being considered art. 1:27:00 Discussion of the Philosophy and Rules of Art,

Technical Sergeant John F. Gladwaller, Jr., ASN 32325200, had on a pair of gray-flannel slacks, a white shirt with the collar open, Argyle socks, brown brogues and a dark brown hat with a black band. He had his feet up on his desk, a pack of cigarettes within reach, and any minute his mother was coming in with a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of milk. Books were all over the floor—opened books, closed books, best sellers, worst sellers, classic books, dated books, Christmas-present books, library books, borrowed books. At the moment, the sergeant was at the studio of Mihailov, the painter, with Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. A few minutes ago he had stood with Father Zossima and Alyosha Karamazov on the portico below the monastery. An hour ago he had crossed the great sad lawns belonging to Jay Gatsby, born James Gatz. Now the sergeant tried to go through Mihailov’s studio quickly, to make time to stop at the corner of Fifth and 46th Street. He and a big cop named Ben Collins were expecting a girl named Edith Dole to drive by. . . .There were so many people the sergeant wanted to see again, so many places worth— “Here we are!” said his mother, coming in with the cake and milk. Too late, he thought. Time’s up. Maybe I can take them with me. Sir, I’ve brought my books. I won’t shoot anybody just yet. You fellas go ahead. I’ll wait here with the books. “Oh, thanks, Mother,” he said, coming out of Mihailov’s studio. “That looks swell.” His mother set down the tray on his desk. “The milk is ice cold,” she said, giving it a build-up, which always amused him. Then she sat down on the foot-stool by his chair, watching her son’s face, watching his thin, familiar hand pick up the fork—watching, watching, loving. He took a bite of the cake and washed it down with milk. It was ice cold. Not bad. “Not bad,” he commented. “It’s been on the ice since this morning,” his mother said, happy with the negative compliment. “Dear, what time is the Corfield boy coming?” “Caulfield. He’s not a boy, Mother. He’s twenty-nine. I’m going to meet the six-o’clock train. Do we have any gas?” “No, don’t believe so, but your father said to tell you that the coupons are in the compartment. There’s enough for six gallons of gas, he said.” Mrs. Gladwaller suddenly discovered the condition of the floor. “Babe, you will pick up those books before you go out, won’t you?” “M’m’m,” said Babe unenthusiastically, with a mouthful of cake. He swallowed it and took another drink of milk—boy, it was cold. “What time’s Mattie get out of school?” he asked. “About three o’clock, I think. Oh, Babe, please call for her! She’ll get such a kick out of it. In your uniform and all.” “Can’t wear the uniform,” Babe said, munching. “Gonna take the sled.” “The sled?” “Uh-huh.” “Well, goodness gracious! A twenty-four-year-old boy.” Babe stood up, picked up his glass and drank the last of the milk—the stuff was really cold. Then he side-stepped through his books on the floor, like a halfback in pseudo-slow motion, and went to his window. He raised it high. “Babe, you’ll catch your death of cold.” “Naa.” He scooped up a handful of snow from the sill and packed it into a ball; it was the right kind for packing, not too dry. “You’ve been so sweet to Mattie,” his mother remarked thoughtfully. “Good kid,” Babe said. “What did the Corfield boy do before he was in the Army?” “Caulfield. He directed three radio programs: I Am Lydia Moore, Quest for Life, and Marcia Steele, M.D.” “I listen to I Am Lydia Moore all the time,” said Mrs. Gladwaller excitedly. “She’s a girl veterinarian.” “He’s a writer too.” “Oh, a writer! That’s nice for you. Is he awfully sophisticated?” The snowball in his hands was beginning to drip. Babe tossed it out the window. “He’s a fine guy,” he said. "He has a kid brother in the Army who flunked out of a lot of schools. He talks about him a lot.

With the explosive successes of the work by Frank Miller, Alan Moore, and others, it may be time for the literary world to ponder the questions that their noir and bleak worlds raise for us. What, in particular, does the noir detective fiction genre bring to the table in terms of theme, philosophical content, and emotional redemption? You may wish to purchase Miller’s SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR by clicking on this very link.

The Austin Writing Workshop returns from hiatus to discuss a piece of micro-fiction and then “The Laughing Man” by J.D. Salinger. Buy Nine Stories here. Click here to read what Goodreads readers have to say about the story (and compare/contrast with the AWW! For funsies!) Approximate time stamps and micro-descriptions of topics discussed are provided below. 0:00 Excerpt from “The Laughing Man” by J.D. Salinger 2:14 Ad for INFINITE ENDING by Frank “Zeus” Marcopolos 2:49 Podcast introduction 3:47 Live reading of “The Hairbrush” 7:09 Group analysis of “The Hairbrush,” including brevity, microfiction, dog-world, wistfulness, plot summary, invisible narrator, putting up with the story, evoking of emotion, being mawkish, avoiding mawkishness, making obvious choices, mysteries or the lack thereof, limitations of human knowledge, epistimology, death, the unknowable, the true nature of reality, narrative technique of mysteries, organic introduction, the question of the MONKEY STORY, explanation of what a monkey story is, avarice, Rock Springs by Richard Ford, carelessness, details that don’t match, Nabokov, Humboldt’s Gift, ethereal theme-connected details, Cinema Paradiso, Fillini, Bergman, Through the Glass Darkly, hats and clouds, needing a chalkboard, finding the complexity within a story, and anonymous bylines. 29:51 34:34 Group analysis of “The Laughing Man” by J.D. Salinger, including frame stories, John Updike, typical Salinger styles, plot summary, Hollywood endings, non-literary themes, Ernest Hemingway, idealism, coming of age, over-idealizing things, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, Franny and Zooey, The Catcher in the Rye, Seymour Glass, A Perfect Day for Bananafish, 1984, Huckleberry Finn, overt theme, the power of art to be existentially redemptive, symbolism, deconstructing the ending, art and life intersecting, subtle theme of natural versus supernatural, dualism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Scientology, Mary Hudson as the symbol of the natural, the laughing man as a symbol of the supernatural, political theme, geographical symbolism, being from New York, marrying up in class, seeing the dentist quote-unquote, abortion, message, power of art failing to be redemptive, unmasking of the true reality of life, organic theme of loss of innocence, and becoming a man, comedy within the story, style as technique, Salinger’s fame, Salinger’s reputation, Hemingway’s reputation, the Salinger vault, and David Foster Wallace. 1:03:18 End of podcast

This is one of the ten stories collected in INFINITE ENDING. Click here to purchase. "The Load-Out/Stay" by Jackson Browne (video) below:

On this episode of the podcast, Professor Jim gives a fascinating lecture on theme. Also, a member-submitted story is discussed. Pull quote: “William Shakespeare’s entire canon is concerned with the pathos of the irretrievability of time.” Discuss. Listing of topics discussed and approximate time stamps are below: 0:00 Podcast Teaser 0:17 Infinite Ending Advert 0:53 Podcast Intro 1:46 Professorial lecture about THEME, including structures for academic papers, approaching arguments, different kinds of themes, differentiation from repitition, eating pizza, getting drunk, famous writer aura, messing with the students’ heads, the smaller something is being harder to write, an award-winning micro-fiction short story involving a hairbrush, Hair Jewelry, opening doors, meaning, Mick Jagger, differentiating kinds of theme, OVERT theme, Sideways, wine, motif, symbol, SUBTLE theme, William Shakespeare, the pathos of the irretrievability of time, theater and literary professors, two layers of subtle theme, Huckleberry Finn and symbols, Charles Bukowski, POLITICAL theme, 1984 by George Orwell, MESSAGE, the moral of the story, Clint Eastwood, racism, government interference into small business, science fiction, universal ideas, difference between philosophy and science, the ending of 1984, embracing Big Brother, ORGANIC theme, author didn’t mean to do it, least contrived kind of theme, the Jewish intellectual community literary movement, Seize the Day by Saul Bellow, Malamud, Ernest Hemingway, The Matrix, Midnight in Paris, Fight Club, Sigmund Freud, book vs. movie, Chuck Pahlaniuk, Nietzsche, Memento, scene where he pays a hooker to dress like his wife and play with a hairbrush, Joey Pants, monkey stories, Identity, Guy Pierce, Inception, Borgias, Labyrinths, Christopher Nolan, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick, Oliver Stone, the theme of masks, Minority Report, free will vs. determinism, Being John Malkovich, The Orchid Thief, Adaptation, creative plots that open up themes, Gran Torino, porno, Jesus, Ayn Rand, Natural Born Killers, American History X, Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Fountainhead, Objectivism, Christian philosophers, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and the problem of representation. 1:08:29 Group discussion of member-submitted story, including fiction vs. non-fiction, style, content, thematic elements, curmudgeon as main character, line editing errors, author authority, A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell, stream of consciousness writing and flow, details doing work, male members, hating parties, being good at being drunk, marriage, universalized themes, political themes, love story, character, back story, and potential dialectics.

For this episode, a brief discussion of irony in literature and then a performance of the classic short story, “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry, the punster and trick endingster. Enjoy!

You may think of David Sedaris as the smart, funny, gay writer that everyone seems to love. But he’s also something else entirely and it is *this* identity that holds the key to his phenomenal success. David Sedaris is an iconoclast. What is an iconoclast, anyways? Mr. Wikipedia sez: “People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be applied figuratively to any individual who challenges “cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the grounds that they are erroneous or pernicious”. Conversely, one who reveres or venerates religious images is called (by iconoclasts) an iconolater; in a Byzantine context, such a person is called an iconodule or iconophile.” It’s interesting that since the dawn of time, civilizations eventually generate cultures which end up building institutions to support those cultures. The vast majority of the citizens then love those cultural institutions…until an iconoclast appears to attack them. This iconoclast, then, can gain a large following of “anti-” people. People who are against certain aspects of the culture and their institutions. I think of Socrates undermining the fabric of ancient Greek society with his dialogues and endless questioning, of Martin Luther and his 99 problems (and a bitch wasn’t one), and of counter-culture figures of modern times like Hunter S. Thompson, Jimi Hendrix, Jackson Pollock, David Foster Wallace, and especially David Sedaris. The Austin Writing Workshop discussed this iconoclasm as it relates to irony in literature last Friday night. I recorded it, and you can listen to the discussion as a podcast by clicking PLAY on the audio player above. But this idea of iconoclasm also got me thinking about artists and identity in general. In the world of hip-hop music, every artist has to have a unique identity to go along with his talents. I was watching a documentary about Eminem’s label, Shady Records, and that’s essentially what they look for before signing an artist to the label. In music, I had a discussion with the band Blues Traveler recently (really — see below) about a news article labeling them as a “jam band.” Their attitude was that if you get recognized in any way as an artist, you will then become defined and confined in a certain role. They didn’t mind it so much, but they’re one of the few successful musical acts in a sea of failed artists. I thought, too, of Hemingway’s reputation as a “tough guy” writer, David Foster Wallace as a “people’s academic,” and Stephen King as a horror writing machine. Human beings seem to need to label, and to taxonify everything so they can keep things sorted in their minds. This being the case, I’m going to re-brand myself as the knish-eating writer. (Just kidding. Although knishes are delicious.) In a sense, all innovators and inventers — people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the Google dudes, the founders of Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, etc. — are iconoclasts. There’s even a new company with my friends @meggilliland and @tiffanymadison called Creative Destructors that celebrates this need to break apart the old and raise up something new. And when these new technologies start threatening traditional businesses, the trad-bizzes run to the government for more laws, more enforcement, more protection from innovation. In art, there’s less of this, since there will always be a segment of the “art market” anxiously awaiting the new new. Of course, it sounds cool to be the rebel, the iconoclast, the lone ranger. But there’s a reason why most people don’t go that way. It’s dangerous.

Read “Expelled” by clicking HERE. A modernish fairy tale? What is the traditional role of the fairy tale in human life? According to Robert Bly, “The knowledge of how to build a nest in a bare tree, how to fly to the wintering place, how to perform the mating dance–all of this information is stored in the reservoirs of the bird’s instinctual brain. But human beings, sensing how much flexibility they might need in meeting new situations, decided to store this sort of knowledge outside the instinctual system; they stored it in stories. Stories, then–fairy tales, legends, myths, hearth stories–amount to a reservoir where we keep new ways of responding that we can adopt when the conventional and current ways wear out.” Reflecting on the importance, then, of this style of writing, it is hard to condemn Cheever for using it in “Expelled,” especially considering the seriousness of the context within which he deploys it. The only condemnation that could come is when one realizes not that Cheever was wrong, but that his warning failed to change anything. Unlike stories like “Huck Finn,” “The Jungle,” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” society seems to have shrugged off young Mr. Cheever’s dire warning bell of a story, and for that, we are all worse off. Time stamps: 0:00 Pre-intro 0:05 Promo for INFINITE ENDING by Frank Marcopolos 0:40 Intro to the podcast about the publication history of “Expelled” by John Cheever 2:20 Group analysis of “Expelled” by John Cheever, including publishing history, the story as fairy tale or fable in genre, morales, themes, messages, evidence for the fairy tale theory, fairy tale techniques, juxtaposing the natural and the man-made, repitition, context of education, Sacco and Vanzetti, anarchists, Galleani, getting expelled from school, being outside of the system, conforming to the system, being eighteen years old, teaching to the test, the Battle of Hastings, analogies, gravy-colored curtains, plot summary, Round Rock school district football stadiums, Japanese students, James Joyce, different teaching styles, World War Two, World War One, the Depression, the Red Menace, discussion of history, Communism, the story as non-fiction, author observations, ADD, following the sheep, identifying with the story, personal recollections about college, imagery, not being impressed by the story, First Fictions, Raymond Carver, being subtle with metaphor and simile, unopened details, parallels with 1984 by George Orwell, flowery language, minimalism, Hemingway, Kundera, The Unbelievable Lightness of Being, story arc, Tao Lin, Haruki Murakami, hipsters in Williamsburg, fables, finger-wagging, Exeter, Harvard, Vonnegut, sci-fi, fantasy, and the celbration of iconoclasts in society. 43:30 Group analysis of Chapter 1 of the new novel by Frank Marcopolos, including that this is a re-write, loving details, winnowing down of details, leather seats in a diner, plot summary, first-person narrative techniques, team buses with athletes pictures, raindrop symbology, making characters real, knowing girls that are crazy, repetitive langauage throughout, David Foster Wallace, rating Frank’s work against itself, baseball stories, military stories, comparison to other stories and other drafts, narrative flow, throwing a baby out a window, improved details, telling and showing in the same paragraph, pacing, Raymond Carver, revealing dialogue, rounder characters, tricky song titles, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, narrative flow, and symbolism throughout the story. 1:35:58 Promo for INFINITE ENDING by Frank Marcopolos 1:36:34 End of Podcast ****

The Austin Writing Workshop discusses a short story by the legendary David Foster Wallace and a member story. Wine flowed, food was consumed, and good times were had by all. Also, too: writing techniques galore, literary theory, and a wee bit of philosophy. An enjoyable listen, maybe. Approximate time stamps and detailed topics are listed below: 0:00 INFINITE ENDING Promo 0:37 David Foster Wallace biography from Wikipedia 1:40 Reading of “Everything is Green” by David Foster Wallace 5:27 Group analysis of “Everything is Green” by David Foster Wallace, including plot summary, grammatical messes, unreliable narrators, intentional techniques, interruption by the dogs, the ending working, symbolism of color green, Richard Ford, Rock Springs, The Sportswriter, rednecks as transcendent figures, Hemingway, rednecks in a trailer, bare bones, no narrative intrusion, internal and external, communication, Mayfly, mayfly insects, short life spans, analysis of the ending, feeling of a mood of incapacitation from drugs and alcohol, religious saying of the name of God, Yahweh, I am I, making the external real, Biblical significance of the incommunicable name, taxonomical significance, packing a lot of meaning into a small space, narrative efficiency, risking by keeping the narrative short, silhouettes in the shade, maximalism, brevity, postmodern techniques of suggesting rather than telling everything, internal monologue, grammatical choices, lack of connection between the characters, it’s all in his head, putting the character on a pedastal, redneckese as a narrative technique, INFINITE JEST, Richard Ford quitting INFINITE JEST, stream-of-consciousness, positivity, Anton Chekhov, splitting up of any thing and every thing, liking the story first, then thinking it is a contrivance, the backyard and the sink and the setting, directing sadness through laughter, sublime details, hating every story the first time around, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Murakami, authenticity, Richard Ford stealing cars, socio-economic status, recording dialogue, fiction transcending reality, schizophrenia, and Googling. 41:56 Group analysis of member story, including no title, author, page numbers, Word documents, Jester as the real-life dog named “Dexter,” inside information, learning about the main character’s life through the “love life” of the dog, conflation, non-dog people enjoying the story with a dog in the spotlight, absurd characters, writer jealousy, grammatical errors, first drafts, getting thrown out of the story, writing a story every day, plot summary, emotional stuffing, ruining relationships, Zsa Zsa Gabor’s pillow, confusion at the dog park, unnecessary characters, dog toys, character analysis, plot summary, timeline issues, liking the dog character, brutality of critiques, postmodern techniques, anthropomorphising, author as archetype, tape recording dialogue and how to use that as a technique that achieves a writing goal, THE ATHEIST, Swedish women with muscles, the torn chain-link fence, science-fiction characters named Jester, O. Henry, and The Hairbrush. 1:22:04 Conflation of David Foster Wallace and Salinger’s Glass family and tribute to DFW.

The Austin Writing Workshop is led by a former professor of literature and philosophy at Texas State University. The group meets more-or-less weekly in Austin, Texas to improve members’ writing, drink wine, and eat gluten-free snacks. This podcast is a recording of the group’s meetings. This week we discuss a story by Laura van den Berg and one by the leader of the group. Specific details and approximate time stamps are below: 0:00 Introduction to the Podcast 0:37 Group analysis of “Where Will All the Buildings Go?” by Laura van den Berg, including finding the story, Open Culture, the story as an example of a young literary writer, having the same credentials, MFAs, the story is not serious, Austin Community College, getting the workshop accredited, where the story was published, lambasting it, the writing being weak, Fight Club thematic structure, The Babysitter by Coover, pseudosurrealism, Edward Norton, sleeping in the basement, Tyler Durden, character description, plot summary, Synocdoche New York, pursuing dreams in your spare time, crazy people, losing one’s mind, criticizing the plot, designing parking structures, pee in the stairwells, schizophrenia, wearing a mask, criticizing a literary story, ending with an elephant, architecture and structure and buildings, a blank piece of paper, the clues, deconstruction, zombies, online literary magazines, FSG, living in North Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, MFA stories, theme being so subtle you can’t describe it in one sentence, finding your style, putting together craft, appeasing professors, the progress of a writer, Emerson College, Plowshares, Glimmer Train, Tao Lin, and Haruki Murakami. 24:05 Group analysis of a member story, including being derivative of van den Berg, novel vs. short story, tightness of the piece, thematically discussing free will, freedom, conflation zoo animals and human animals, hippo criminals, murdering hippos, psychopathic hippos, psychopath vs. sociopath, the trapped nature of humanity, all the constraints of culture and of the five senses, birds as a symbol of freedom, choice of details, ice cream cones, meaning of conflation, Albert Camus, suicide, Hills Like White Elephants, coming to a conclusion, the intelligent reader, justifying the criticism, pointing to the text as evidence, subconscious writing, the misery of confinement, choices we make, marriage and suicide, debate about the meaning of the word present, Fabbio, the proper evidence for the theme, lobsters, penguins, Jacques Derrida, no Internet in Saint Louis, stingray petting pools, piranha petting pools, combining reality and fiction, verisimilitude, veritas, authenticity, marriage and death, the average reader, Samira’s story, the greatest writer of all time in Pakistani history, the Pulitzer Prize, getting the details correct, the invention of the ice cream cones, and Chicago’s trains. 1:07:14 End of Podcast

What can we do with humor in literature? Listen to this episode of Saturday Show as the Austin Writing Workshop discusses the finer points of comedic writing and much, much more. 0:00 Introduction to Podcast 0:39 Reading of “Today’s Special” by David Sedaris 6:00 Group discussion of “Today’s Special,” including likeability, Sedaris’s biographical information, farmer’s, FarmersOnly.com dating site, farmers porn, single in the country, microniche, rednecks, Bones TV show, Moonshiners, sports, eHarmony, not being dateable, rejection by an entire dating site, the artifice of Sedaris, lack of technique, intuitive writing, racoon teachers, Jim Robison, Anne Robison, “Prett Ice,” being a lazy teacher, writing comedy stories, University of Houston, cheating at sports, political subtext, service industry, invisible techniques, maturing as a writer, culture, making fun of high culture, surprises, aspirin sauce, goofy dishes, the definition of art, inspiration, Lichtenstein Bobsled Team, Facebook, Fat by Raymond Carver, The Art of the Tale by Daniel Halpern, chalk sauce, hot dogs, vegans, filthy water dogs, and making sausage. 30:23 Group discussion of a member’s story, including explanation of a master’s thesis, works from 15 years ago, stopping to do comedy, size of the lens, lack of likeability of the main characters, telling and showing in the same paragraph, Saint Louis, trees, the great lines not connected, Annie LaMott, chattering voices, all the ugly cities, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Austin, San Antonio, Seattle, New Orleans, San Francisco, New York City, Disnification, overuse of the word Interesting, ending of the piece, slingshot technique, confusing the narratives, Woody Allen, Socrates, hemlock, being too clever, misogyny, Henry Miller, large breasts, running over mentally disabled people with a vehicle, Genghis Khan outlook on life, David Mamet, the sound of the sentences, singing the story, dialogue, having a foil, discussion of PLOT, literary vs. genre writers, George Saunders, plot through the iterative process, intuitive writing, The Glass Swan, plot structuring, cold editing, The Babysitter, Robert Coover, cut-and-paste fiction, translating Cory/Bory/Roazbear, linear storytelling, multiple perspectives, not knowing reality anyway, the jerks living in New York, absurdity in character, Women by Charles Bukowski, freedom of action, believability issues, archetypes in literature, and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. 1:19:33 End of Podcast

This episode of the podcast features a performance of the short story “Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway. Also, a discussion of literary techniques follows by the Austin Writing Workshop, wherein Hemingway’s style is contrasted with that of workshop member Frank Marcopolos, as well as numerous other literary and philosophical concepts. Wine was consumed by the participants of this podcast, and therefore, that should explain some of the comments made. Perhaps. 0:00 “Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway 6:53 Intro to the Podcast 7:41 Group discussion about “Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway, including whether Frank’s new story is a continuation of his novel “Almost Home,” the longing to have a child, concern for animals in the rain, cats as utilitarianism, plot summary, face tightening, inconguity, the maid finding the cat, symbolism, hopes for a child transferred to a cat, Hemingway’s love of cats, cat love in general, being a cat lady, rabbits, the big cats, lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, “Hills Like White Elephants,” comparing Hemingway’s style to Marcopolos’s style, definition of style, dry realism, honing the craft of style, polar opposites of the expectations of writing, lyricism, singing the prose, speaking the prose, the sound of the words, aesthetics, staccato paragraphs, David Mamet, Raymond Carver, West Wing, Aaron Sorkin, the walk-and-talk dialogue, Mamet v. Sorkin, New Yorkese, examples from the story, sentences trying to do very little, the reader’s mind to do more of the poetry, comparison to Vladimir Nabokov, baroque and flowery and decorative writing, bauhaus, Ayn Rand, Frank Lloyd Wright, artistry to plain prose, Tao Lin, porn, distracting words, Nabokov poetry, slippery salamanders, more critiques of Marcopolos’s style, sentence structure, camera angle fiction, carefully chosen details, colors, glistening, all elements of the story working together, varying reader experiences in stories, developed ability vs. innate talent, intuitive writing, thematic elements, critique of American society as opposed to Italian society, lessons in making a few small things go a long way in a story, comparison of reading eras, nothing happened or everything happened at the end, Hills Like White Elephants again, abortions, and INFINITE ENDING by Frank Marcopolos. 37:07 Group discussion of the beginning of a novel by Frank Marcopolos, including comparison to Hemingway story, word choices, doors closing in expensive cars, Derridaean deconstructionism of the story, the definition of grime, getting thrown out of the story, vitality of first paragraph, more deconstructionism of the narrative, not understanding the sound of cleats on dirt, word choice, being careful about picking details, overusing irrelevant details, flibbertygibbets, wiggily wavered, having to pee, the pee detail, the equivalence of importance for certain details, trite characters, introductory writing in chapter 1, making the reader catch up, telling vs. showing early in the novel, Name of the Rose, Name of the Rose board game, the Enlightenment, the Inquisition, monasteries, foreboding towers, monks, the first chapter seeming like a first chapter, The Sportswriter by Richard Ford, the slingshot method of storytelling, Heroes, Save the Cheerleader Save the World, Atlas Shrugged, and red leather or plastic seats in the diner. 1:15:10 End of Podcast