Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Literary folk are all in a tizzy today because Snooki "bumped" (though perhaps the proper word is "pouffed") the Newbery and Caldicott winners from The Today Show, where they have historically made an appearance after winning the award. Ìý

Here's Jodi Picoult, whose apparent publicity strategy of being really annoying on twitter is surely working, because I'm mentioning her:Ìý

"Valid questions: Who rushes out to buy the Snooki book? Why does Snooki think she can write a book? You don't see me acting on Jersey Shore."Ìý and "There are SO many good writers struggling to get 1st publishing contract. Breaks my heart to see Snooki's book taking up space in a store."

And Jane Yolen apparently believes this booking on a morning talk show is a harbinger of cultural doom.Ìý Apparently we'reÌý in danger of becoming "a second-rate culture that worships mediocrity and cares little about the death of genius or the leadership of America in the world of ideas."

Pass the smelling salts, Pauly D! The cultural apocalypse is upon us, and I do believe I have the vapors!

Everybody needs to take a deep breath and remember a few things:

1.) . It's not like they were sitting in the green room waiting to go on and didn't get to talk.Ìý The Today show decided not to book the winners.Ìý Which is their prerogative.Ìý The Today Show does not have a sacred trust with the American people to safeguard our culture. It's an infotainment program with a responsibility to deliver eyes to advertisers and thereby make money for its parent company. If they chose to book Snooki and didn't choose to book Clare Vanderpool and Erin Stead, well, maybe that's because Snooki makes damn good TV.Ìý She is a professional television entertainer and is fun to watch.Ìý I take nothing away from either Ms. Vanderpool or Ms. Stead's amazing achievements and literary prowessÌý when I say I, as a writer and a reader, would rather watch Snooki on TV than either of them, or, indeed, than most writers.Ìý

2.) The Today Show is not going to make or break these authors.Ìý Trust me-- I was on the Today Show in 2002, and the book I was plugging, It Takes a Worried Man, went on to become a spectacular nonseller. (Donorboy, for which I received no national media exposure, outsold it by more than 2 to 1. Go figure)Ìý Vanderpool and Stead will get nice shiny stickers on their books, placement in special sections in libraries and bookstores, and probably a tidy pile of cash as a result of these awards.Ìý They'll be fine and will be justifiably (I assume-- haven't actually read either one) celebrated for years to come as a result of these wins.

3.) I guarantee you Snooki didn't pitch this book on her own.Ìý It would not surprise me at all to learn that her publisher approached her. However it worked, there are agents, editors, and publicists behind Snooki's book, so if the fact of it offends you, you might want to spew some of your bile their way and not focus it all on Snooki. Who may be small but will, as she reminded us last week, "come at you like a squirrel monkey."

4.) You look silly trying to be highbrow and lowbrow at the same time.Ìý If you're going to sniff at the American people's lack of sophistication and the the horror of Snooki's ascendancy, you might not want to complain that she's not on the same TV show that once featured the talents of the late

5.)You don't do yourself any favors putting reading on a high plane above popular entertainment.Ìý It's already a problem that many people think of reading as something you do when you have to and tv watching as something you do when you want to.Ìý If we sit here and look down our noses at Jersey Shore and its diminutive star, we're just reinforcing that kind of thinking. Reading is not above entertainment-- it is entertainment.Ìý If people pick up Snooki's book and have fun reading it, maybe they'll think twice about dismissing reading as a leisure activity. Which is a way bigger threat to the culture of reading in this country than Snooki is.

6.) It's not like publishers or booksellers are in such amazing financial shape right now that they can afford to turn down a project that might make a lot of money.Ìý If Snooki's book sells, then her publisher will have more money and might conceivably take a chance on an unknown writer because it's feeling a little flush.Ìý Similarly, if Snooki is moving copies and putting cash into the drawer of your favorite bookstore, how can this be a bad thing?

Whew.Ìý Glad I got that off my chest.Ìý Is it t-shirt time yet?

Ìý

When I was a teenager, I had this poster on my wall:

I also had this one:

So maybe this explains a little about my feelings about John Hughes and his movies.Ìý

I just finished reading

It was a Christmas present from my mom!Ìý Thanks!Ìý I really enjoyed it!Ìý It's really a treasure trove of behind the scenes info about some of the best teen movies of the 1980's, and it inspired the following thoughts:

Ìý

1. As much as people who make zombie movies are playing in George Romero's sandbox, I think that many of us who write young adult fiction are playing in a sandbox that was co-created by Judy Blume and John Hughes.Ìý I think that the current boom in young adult fiction, while certainly having a lot to do with Harry Potter and Twilight, also has to do with adults growing up with the idea that teen life was something worth taking seriously and creating art about.Ìý Neither Judy Blume nor John Hughes was the first one to make art about teenagers, but they were, in my opinion, the first ones to do it really well.

2. Some thoughts on the movies discussed in the book, though not all are John Hughes movies:

Sixteen Candles: Briefly, because I've written about this before, the sweetness of this movie coexists with some pretty awful cruelty toward not just Long Duk Dong, but also his girlfriend and the Joan Cusack character.Ìý I find this weird, but also depressing because I feel like a lot of people are shut out of the sweet parts of this movie by the cruel parts.

2.The Breakfast Club.Ìý A nearly perfect movie.Ìý People talk about movies changing their lives. This movie did not change my life, but it did speak to me in a way no other movie ever had before and very few have since.Ìý

3.Pretty in Pink.Ìý Kind of cool that they made a movie about social class, which is still a pretty taboo subject in this country.Ìý The ending sucks for me for two reasons:Ìý one is that the whole movie has been leading up to the original Duckie ending, and so the happy ending feels, rightfully, tacked on.Ìý Apparently the original ending really annoyed the female audience members, who wanted to feel like yes, you can be poor and quirky and still land the hot rich guy.Ìý But in pleasing that segment of the audience, they really sucker punched those of us who identified with Duckie.Ìý Because the message there seemed to be that you,as a funny, kind, not-terribly-good-looking guy (okay, I wasn't that kind, but that's how I saw myself) can give your heart to a girl, but she will always go for the better-looking, less quirky guy who treats her like crap.Ìý This felt like a sucker punch when I saw the movie at age 17, but, looking back, I probably would have been well-served to heed this warning and not think that inhabiting "the friend zone" was the way to a girl's heart.Ìý

Ferris Bueller's Day Off:Ìý I just never liked this one as much as anybody else did. I mean, there are definitely some very funny scenes, but to me it's the story of a douchebag who is extra douchey, and the only one who gets in trouble for his day of douchery is his long-suffering best friend who just wanted to stay home all day. Also the maudlin ending to me felt like an ill-advised attempt to add "depth" to a caper comedy.

St. Elmo's Fire: This is a terrible movie. Just awful from start to finish.

Some Kind of Wonderful:Ìý I didn't see it because I had already seen Pretty in Pink, and even though the female Duckie gets the guy in this one, I wasn't interested.

Say Anything:Ìý It was a cute movie I saw once and never really felt the need to see again. I kind of don't get why this movie resonates so much with so many people, but I guess I feel that way about most of Cameron Crowe's movies.Ìý I liked Singles, though.

I have mixed feelings about Hughes' oevre and I was a midwestern middle class white kid--i.e.,the target audience for these movies.Ìý Which just goes to show that generalizations about things that "impact a generation" are always overstated.Ìý Certainly these movies were important parts of the culture when I was a teenager, and, for all my misgivings, they've definitely impacted my work; but, I mean, so have a lot of things.Ìý

Finally, while this is a really good book that I thoroughly recommend to anyone who's a fan of any of those movies, it leaves a lot unexplored about Hughes. I hope someone's writing a biography because I am curious about the guy. Like, what kind of married man in his 30's forms incredibly close friendships with at least two teenaged girls?Ìý Isn't that kind of creepy?Ìý Why did he cut so many people off the first time they disagreed with him?Ìý Why did his movies devolve into cynical crap?Ìý Why did he write for years under the name of Edmond Dantes?Ìý

Dantes, hero of The Count of Monte Cristo, plans an elaborate revenge after he's been unforgivably wronged by someone he trusted.Ìý How was Hughes terribly wronged?Ìý Was he mad because Home Alone made him incredibly wealthy? What the hell was this guy's deal, anyway?ÌýÌý

I'm looking forward to that book, but this book is really good too.

It looks like Borders is pretty well screwed.Ìý According to stuff all over the internet, they're not paying some publishers, some distributors are not shipping to them, top executives are quitting, and the stock is in free fall.

As I look at my twitter feed and other bookish places I frequent, the reaction to this news seems to range from indifference to schadenfreude.

I think the independent bookstores have earned their schadenfreude.Ìý Borders and B&N have made their lives increasingly difficult, and with so many indies struggling, it must be nice for them to see one of the 800-pound gorillas of bookselling on the ropes.Ìý It was probably put there by the 1200-pound gorilla that is Amazon, which makes Borders kind of a victim of its own success. I'm old enough to remember when the chain stores first opened, and it was amazing to walk into them and go "whoa! This store has everything!"Ìý But, of course, Amazon really does have everything, so if that's all you want in a bookstore, Borders andÌý B&N are kind of irrelevant.

I wish independent booksellers all kinds of success.Ìý But I still don't want Borders to fail. Here's why:

1.) Borders and B&N have tremendous power over which books get sold and read in this country, and what the covers look like, and whether they'll be sold in hardcover or paperback.Ìý They can make or break just about any book.Ìý Doing away with Borders concentrates all this power in the hands of even fewer people, which is to say, the buyers at B&N.Ìý I just don't think it's ever good in any area to concentrate a lot of power in very few hands.Ìý It's a dicey enough situation with 2 brick-and-mortar gorillas, but going down to one...well, I just don't think it's good for authors or publishers or bookselling.

2.)Borders, being a big gorilla and all, probably owes a lot of money to small pubishers.Ìý Without those payments, which some of these small operations desperately need just to keep the lights on, some of these small publishers will undoubtedly go under. Which is bad enough on its own, but this also means a lot of authors might not get money they desperately need from the sale of their work.Ìý If a publisher goes under, they are taking six months or more of royalty payments due to authors (who, believe me, have their own bills to pay) with them.Ìý

3.) I'm a fan of genre fiction, and the chains, and Borders in particular, are just way better places to find fantasy, science fiction, and horror novels than independent bookstores are, in general.Ìý I don't know why this is.Ìý I remember that, locally, when the Barnes and Noble down the street from Brookline Booksmith (an excellent store where I shop, and if you're in the Boston area, I recommend you shop there too) closed, there was an article in which someone from Booksmith said something to the effect of "now we'll have to beef up our science fiction section" in order to keep the former B&N customers.Ìý I interpreted this to mean that, as an independent store locked in a battle with a big box rival, Booksmith hadn't even been competing for science fiction readers!Ìý If you work for an independent bookstore and can explain this logic, I would actually be really interested to hear it.

(Strangely, most independent bookstores that skimp on fantasy, SF, and Horror tend to have decent mystery sections, which makes the whole thing even harder for me to understand.)

Borders is the only bookstore around here with its own horror section.Ìý Even B&N has folded horror into Fantasy and Science Fiction.

I discovered Charlie Huston, who, as regular readers of this blog know, I think is one of the best writers working today, at Borders.Ìý His Joe Pitt Casebooks have always been hard for me to find at independent bookstores.

Genre fiction is going to take the biggest hit if Borders shuts down. Authors will lose one of their most reliable pathways to readers.Ìý Readers will lose a great place to find and discover Fantasy, SF, and Horror. And the small genre presses for whom shelf space at Borders has been the secret to solvency will take a hit from which they might not recover.

I get paid on Thursday.Ìý I'm gonna go over to Borders and buy a horror novel.Ìý

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about the popularity of the assertively mediocre Lady Antebellum reminded me of something I've been thinking ever since Boston's WFNX released their

WFNX is the station I listen to in the car. ÌýBecause it was one of the few stations in the country playing "alternative" music before Nirvana hit it big, I maintain a certain loyalty to it despite how often it falls short of being the station I really want it to be. Ìý

(Yes, there is a station that is the station I want it to be: Little Steven's Underground Garage, but after my third Sirius receiver was stolen from the car, I realized that I am simply not the kind of guy who can have that service.)

One of my chief frustrations with WFNX is its reliance on really tired 90's music as the mainstay of its playlist. ÌýBased on my own unscientific, unquantified observations, I would say that the top three artists played on this station are, in this order, Sublime, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana.

Sublime came in at number 89 on the listener survey. ÌýThe Chili Peppers were at 35, and Nirvana were 11. ÌýAll of these bands were below other bands that are played much less frequently on this station. ÌýSo why on earth would Ìýa radio station do this? ÌýWhy wouldn't they play more of the bands their listeners actually like?

So here, finally, is my point. ÌýExcellence is dangerous. ÌýIt has to be. ÌýBecause any art that really touches and moves me may actually repulse you. ÌýThe best art is the stuff that moves you in the very deepest parts of yourself. ÌýAnd since we all have different stuff swirling around in the deepest parts of ourselves, art that some people find deeply moving is going to be actively alienating to others. Ìý

Hence WFNX playing Sublime on what seems like an hourly basis. ÌýBecause WFNX, as a commercial station, has a responsibility to deliver your ears to the advertisers. Ìý(This is what all commercial radio is for--the music is just a means to this end.) So they're far more likely to play a fundamentally safe and mediocre band like Sublime than they are to play, say, The Velvet Underground, which hits the list at number 34. ÌýI love the Velvet Underground, but I get how it's not really for everybody, even the tiny slice of everybody that listens to WFNX. Even though apparently many of us like The Velvet Underground way more than we like Sublime, there are probably those who will change the station at the first sound of Lou Reed's, uh, distinctive voice, whereas something that is neither profoundly moving nor profoundly offensive such as Sublime's "Santeria" (Well, perhaps it's profoundly offensive to those who practice Orisha worship, but I guess that's a pretty small slice of the FNX listenership.) will probably be suffered through even by the people who don't really care for it.

(Just to be fair, I should point out that Radiohead hit number 4 on the survey, and I hate this band like they stole something from me. Clearly their music is not for everyone, and I'm one of the people it's not for.)

I should have a really interesting idea about how this relates to the business end of publishing and bookselling, but I'm honestly not sure. ÌýBecause publishers, to some degree, want to publish authors who are going to inspire the kind of fanatical devotion shown, for example The Clash, who are number one on the FNX survey despite not having released an album since 1983. (And no, we don't count Cut the Crap. ÌýEverybody knows that.) ÌýAt the same time, publishers and booksellers (and authors! ÌýUs too!) need to make money in order to survive, and producing stuff that alienates people is not good business.

And yet producing stuff that touches people is also good business. ÌýAs my end of year post revealed, I really loved Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist. ÌýI found it to be one of the best explorations of grief, guilt, and the legacy of parents that I've ever read. ÌýAnd one of the reasons I loved it so much was that it was horribly gory. ÌýBut then, one of my preoccupations is the fact that our minds exist in these fragile and kind of gross sacks of meat and bones, which is one of the reasons I love horror. ÌýThe gore in the book made it, for me, more honest about the truth of life and death than most books. ÌýAnd yet, for some people, the gore is just too gross. Ìý

I wish I had a brilliant conclusion here. ÌýI guess all I can say is that whether it's a book, a song, a tv show, or whatever, speak up loudly in support of art that moves you. ÌýBecause it's probably pissing off somebody else.

As people are always reminding us, it's a brave new world for authors, we have to leverage social media platforms to build our brand, blah blah blah. Ìý

(Pet peeve aside: Ìýthe current vogue for using "leverage" in any situation where "use" would work just as well. ÌýSo, so, annoying. So, so prevalent.)

Nobody knows what this means, really. Or, more accurately, nobody knows which social media outlets actually help you sell books, or how using them might help you to sell books.

Most "experts" will tell you that the best way to go about this stuff is to sell stuff by not acting like you're trying to sell stuff. ÌýThat's too complicated for me, so I just kinda blunder through all this stuff, mostly because I like it.

So here's what I am doing these days, and my operating philosophy behind each one.

: I now got smart and am pushing it to both Amazon and Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. ÌýI am trying to keep my rantings here more focused on writing and book stuff than on, like, movies I've seen. ÌýWell, I have done a bunch of rants about education, but that's kinda related to Losing My Faculties. ÌýI'm still interested in movies and TV and whatever, but with so many excellent blogs out there focused just on movies and TV, I don't think random people are going to be attracted to this blog by my tv rantings and then check out my books. ÌýSo I'm trying to keep this blog related to my writing, at least tangentially.

Facebook: The overwhelming majority of people who are my facebook friends are people I actually know. ÌýFormer students, co-workers, classmates, etc. Ìý

I'm using this one as a way to share interesting info about my books and what's going on in my writing career. ÌýI have also had nice interactions with people who've read my work here. ÌýI'm also trying to use it as a way to have conversations with people who like my work.Ìý

: Probably my favorite of the social media services. ÌýI enjoy having conversations with people about whatever random crap is on our minds. ÌýLike many people, I'll share links there if I see something interesting on the internets. ÌýAnd my posts here get shared on twitter (synergy, baby!). ÌýI always follow people back when they follow me, unless they are clearly marketers or spambots. ÌýThe part of twitter I really enjoy is the back and forth, and I don't really get people who don't follow back. ÌýI mean, okay, if you're a big celebrity, I understand. ÌýBut a surprising number of my fellow YA authors , as well as book bloggers and agents and editors, have way more followers than people they follow. ÌýI just unfollowed a bunch of those people, and since they won't read this anyway, I will humbly suggest that they get over themselves. Ìý

Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ: I post my honest opinions about books I'm reading here. I've also got one of their author pages, which features this blog as well as info about books I've written and books I've read. I friend pretty much anybody on this. Not sure if posting my honest opinion is the greatest strategy, as I believe I've earned myself at least one professional snub as a result of being honest about a book I didn't really care for. ÌýBecause I have so many friends here, I can't really keep up with what everybody's reading. Ìý

Good ol' email: With so many other ways for me to share career news, I'm not really using this to push info out the way I used to, but I still welcome random emails telling me how great my books are. Send 'em to brendan at brendanhalpin dot com.

It's that time of year again!Ìý Everybody's putting together a "best of the year" list for this or that or the other thing, so I thought I would share with you the ten books I enjoyed most over the course of 2010.

Not all of these were actually published in 2010.Ìý They're just the books I read in 2010.

They are listed in alphabetical order.Ìý As it turned out, it was pretty easy to select the ten books I liked the most from this year, but it would be nearly impossible for me to rank these 1 to 10.

I'm including my goodreads reveiw for each one, with some additions or subtractions as I see fit.

Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman.

Okay. This isn't King Dork 2. But it is an incredibly ambitious, dense, somehat frustrating, and incredibly courageous book. Frank Portman dares to give us an imperfect heroine who might or might not be mentally ill. He dares not to resolve every problem the book raises. (have you resolved your relationship with your parents?) and he dares to write a book about a character obsessed with the occult when the very mention of such things is enough to keep your YA novel off the shelves of many libraries. And oh yeah, he manages to present a teen heroine who is probably bisexual without coming across as either prurient or condescending. No mean feat.

The tarot stuff is occasionally a pretty tough slog, but, in the end, I just loved this character and would follow her through just about anything.

This book isn't as immediately loveable as King Dork, but it is still thrilling to watch a great author at work.

Addendum: I wrote that at the beginning of the year, and this book has continued to stick with me and percolate in my mind since then.Ìý I really think this book is stretching the boundaries of YA fiction, and all of us who write it are going to benefit.

Bite Me by Christopher Moore

After the disappointment of You Suck, this one's a real return to form. Hilarious, and engaging and ultimately touching, it's a great, quick read. Loved it.

Ìý

The Dark Volume by Gordon Dahlquist

Another fantastic adventure with fully-formed characters and a lot of interesting ideas. In some respects this is a deeper book than Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, in that it touches on questions of what makes us who we are. Once again the conspiracy stuff is a little bit hard to untangle and fully get, so once again I didn't bother and didn't really care. I devoured this and can't wait for the next one. Because the chapters alternate between Svenson, Celeste, and Chang, this felt much shorter than it actually is.

Note: This is a fantastic book but can't be read without first reading The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, which you should absolutely do if you want a rollicking, slightly kinky steampunk adventure for adults.

Drood by Dan Simmons .

Ìý

Ho.
Ly.
Crap.
This book amazed me. I'm still kind of woozy from spending 3 weeks in the narrator's twisted mind. It's a huge book that, for me, totally rewards the time and attention it demands.

Just completely f'n brilliant.

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

An absolutely incredible book that was way better than it needed to be. Which is to say this: it was already working as a really creepy horror novel, but it's also a very deep and surprisingly moving exploration of death, greif, guilt, what constitutes a monster, and the relationship between fathers and sons. Not just a great YA novel and not just a great horror novel; just a great novel, period.

Warning: this is a very gory book. Which is absolutely necessary, as one of the points of this and all the best horror is that we are fundamentally fragile pieces of meat. Having said that, if you're put off by, for example, the word "suppurating," this is not for you.

My Dead Body by Charlie Huston

Figured I'd read the last Joe Pitt Book. Figured I loved the first, second, and fourth ones.

And yeah, I admire the way Huston writes and the way he dared to open this story up and make it bigger with every book.

Didn't figure on this: My Dead Body is the best book Huston's ever written. Couldn't put it down. Even half dead and one-eyed, Joe Pitt is a badass.

Don't want to spoil anything. Think that ruins the book for some people. Let's just say having read the Hank Thompson trilogy, I figured I knew where this one was going. Figured Huston's only got one kind of ending for this kind of thing.

Figured wrong.

Great book.

Writing this on Easter, wondering if it's wrong to worship Charlie Huston. Probably is. Figure I'll probably do it anyway.

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston

Charlie Huston is simply one of the best writers working today. This might be his best book. It works as a rollicking noir novel, definitely, but what really makes this one special is the fact that it's actually about how survivors cope with death and how to continue living after something goes horribly wrong in your life. Also, strangely, this one has a really soft, sweet heart, which is also really unusual in a crime novel.

Passing Strange by Daniel Waters

I freaking loved this book. And that's without having read the first two. It's my very favorite kind of thing--it works perfectly as a fast-paced horror/mystery, and it's also jam-packed full of really interesting ideas. In short, it's both entertaining and thought-provoking. That, my friends, is art.

Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari

Well, I loved this book. What I loved:
1.) The central mystery of the book is solved in a satisfying way.
2.) Different characters narrate and each is credible, distinct from the others, and changed by the events of the novel.
3.) It's a page-turning mystery that's actually about a whole mess of interesting ideas.
4.) It's well-written and not written in a showoffy way. That is to say, Ritari's not out to impress us with the awesomeness of his prose stylings--he writes well enough to get out of the way and let his characters tell the story
5.)In a world of 500+ page tomes, it's really refreshing to read a book that's under 300 pages yet packs more of an emotional and intellectual punch than most books twice its length.

Tweet Heart by Elizabeth Rudnick

I really enjoyed this. It's a quick and easy read because of the format, but what's really impressive about this is that the characters, both male and female, emerge as fully-formed, three-dimensional people through what they write in 140-character bursts. That's some good writing! Also, it's a really charming and really sweet love story. Highly recommended.

Ìý

If you want to read my capsule reviews of everything I read more or less as I finish the book, come and befriend me on goodreads!Ìý

BONUS!!!

I was also fortunate enough during this year to read a couple of early drafts of my friend Dana Reinhardt's forthcoming novel The Summer I Learned To Fly.Ìý

Dana doesn't self-promote as much as I do (but, then again, she gets way more critics, librarians, and bloggers to promote her books than I do), so she won't tell you this, but I will: Ìýshe's written a number of excellent books, smart money has her on the short list for the Printz this year for Things a Brother Knows, and The Summer I Learned To Fly is her best book yet. ÌýLook for it next year!

Ìý

Ìý

is the book that most consistently moves people to reach out to me. ÌýUsually these people are people who've been teaching for a few years who respond to the frustrations I describe in the book.

But sometimes they are prospective teachers, people who clearly have the same passion for working with young people that I have and who see, despite the frustration and heartache I describe in that book, encouragement from someone else who understands the joy of teaching.

This is for those young people.

I've been taking a very hard look at the state of education lately, and I'd like to share some friendly advice. But first, some background. ÌýIn Losing My Faculties, I mention a philosophical disagreement with my mentor teacher. He held (more or less) that teaching has to be replicable and scientifically measurable, while I believed and still believe that there is art to teaching, and that this art is kind of mysterious in the way that all art is mysterious. Ìý(Ironically, my mentor teacher, "Gordon Stevens", was one of the most artful teachers I've ever known and remains a consistent inspiration to me in the artistic side of my teaching.)

I'm sorry to report that I, and those who agree with me, have lost this argument decisively. ÌýI still believe I'm right, but in the larger culture and educational establishment, teaching is now about moving scores on standardized tests. I hate this, but it's reality.

It turns out that we don't get much better at moving standardized test scores after the first couple of years of teaching. ÌýSo if you look at teaching this way, which everyone with money and power does, there is no reason to have career teachers. ÌýAfter a few years teachers expect raises and after many years they expect pensions. ÌýLooking at teaching only as moving points on tests, there's no reason for cities and towns to spend this money.

What this means:

For people of your generation, the prospect of making a middle class living as a public school teacher for more than a few years is becoming increasingly doubtful. ÌýPublic education is moving toward a private education model, where a few experienced teachers anchor a young, energetic, inexperienced staff.

But can't I be one of the people who anchors the young staff?

Yes, provided you want to work in a relatively wealthy suburb. ÌýPrivate schools make up for their low pay by offering tuition benefits for the children of the staff. ÌýThis amounts to a pretty sweet benefit that will keep those few teachers who choose to stay teaching for 12 or more years. ÌýSuburban schools can offer the same benefit, and some already do. When I worked in Brookline, a wealthy town that abuts Boston, I, like most of the servant class of Brookline, lived in the city of Boston. Though my work with the town of Brookline didn't pay enough for me to afford to live there, I did have the option of "tuitioning in" my child or children. ÌýFor a nominal fee that was far less than what I would have had to pay to actually live there, I could get one of the chief benefits of living in Brookline. ÌýWealthy suburbs throughout the country will be able to use this model.

The less wealthy suburbs, though, remain a mystery, as do the cities. ÌýThe private school model won't work in urban education because urban schools have nothing to offer in exchange for career longevity. ÌýAlso, the work is harder than working in suburban schools. ÌýSo over the next ten or fifteen years, urban schools will be testing an unproven staffing model. Ìý(That an unproven model for staffing educational institutions is being tested on predominately poor students without an honest discussion of its potential merits and problems is depressing but not really surprising.)Ìý

It may or may not work. ÌýIf it doesn't work, the "no excuses" crowd that currently dominates educational thought will develop a lot of excuses about urban problems, and the model will spread from city to suburb anyway.

And, in the current political climate, this may be the only hope we have for getting real solutions to the real urban problems of poverty, violence, and addiction. Once they can't blame all the problems of urban education on teachers' unions, people will have to confront some of the real causes of the difficulties.

What this means for you:

I hate to say this because I got so much out of my ed school experience, but if you're going to be a teacher, I don't think getting a traditional credential is worth your money. ÌýPaying for 2 years of graduate school in order to get what is going to wind up being a non-professional job is simply not worth it. ÌýI would advise you to get a non-traditional credential--alternative paths to certification are springing up everywhere. If you find that you love teaching after a couple of years, you can set your sights on one of the anchor positions and get a traditional credential.

The Wild Card:

Special Education. Special Ed services are mandated by law. If you want career longevity as a teacher, get a special ed certification. ÌýYou will simply never want for work.

It's not clear how Special Education will affect the agenda of the educational establishment.ÌýRight now they appear to be aiming at a 2-tiered system where special ed students are segregated into their own schools where they won't drag down the standardized test scores of the other kids. ÌýEventually even the people who want to destroy teaching as a profession will realize that this is a social justice issue. ÌýWhat happens then is anybody's guess, but if you have a credential in special ed, you are going to come out ahead either way.

Please disagree with me:

I'm kind of in mourning right now as it seems to me that most of my deepest beliefs about teaching and learning and even justice for cities have lost the ideological battle. ÌýBut maybe you know something I don't. ÌýIf so, please, please leave a comment and tell me I'm being too melodramatic, or that I'm a cranky old man who can't see the positive, or even just that it's going to be okay.

An ironic update to Losing My Faculties:

At the end of the book, I mention the fact that one of my favorite students was considering becoming a teacher, and I felt a lot of ambivalence about whether to encourage her or not.

I'm proud to report that she was so committed to helping others and so unconcerned with money and prestige that she chose an even harder and less-respected profession than teaching.Ìý She's now a social worker!

I've been absent from the blog for quite a while now. ÌýHonestly, I'm kinda depressed about the state of the world in several respects and haven't wanted to unleash a torrent of bile here. ÌýSo I'm steering clear of the state of the world and writing about the latest literary tempest in a teapot!

Some guy I never heard of named Edward Docx wrote in the Guardian.Ìý

It's yet another retread of the tired "genre fiction vs. literary fiction" Ìýfalse dichotomy piece, though this one does have a few interesting nuances.

Docx (Really. Why the hell would anyone adopt as their last name the name of a file format that everyone hates and that is making life difficult in workplaces around the world? ÌýAnd don't tell me he was born with that name. The guy's English. ÌýThat's not a consonant cluster we have in this language.) basically says that Stieg Larsson and Dan Brown are bad writers. ÌýI've never read either one, but that matches up pretty neatly with everything I've heard from people I know who've read them. Ìý

But, unlike the usual literary fiction sulk ("we don't sell, but we're better than you"), this one does recognize that there are good genre writers. Ìý

(Genre writers have their own cliche'd sulk that they raise from time to time that goes like this: "nobody respects us, but they really should because people read us." )

Docx further says that bad genre writing is better than bad literary writing because at least bad genre writing delivers the satisfaction of adhering to the conventions the reader expects. Ìý(mystery gets solved, nuclear armegeddon gets averted, couple falls in love, etc.) Bad literary novels deliver just about nothing.

So far I don't really have a problem with anything this dude has said. Ìý

But then we get to the dumb part:ÌýMainly this: that even good genre (not Larsson or Brown) is by definition a constrained form of writing. There are conventions and these limit the material.Ìý

Yeah, like the way that Shakespeare guy kept working within the conventions of comedy and tragedy. ÌýHis work is fundamentally constrained by those conventions and therefore really not as deep as, say, your average aimless Paul Auster novel.Ìý

But it doesn't stop there. ÌýDocx implicitly condemns pretty much everything ever written in any kind of format. ÌýSonnets? ÌýAdhering to a format. ÌýInherently constrained. Pop songs, symphonies, concertos, operas, portraits, landscapes...well, you get the idea. Ìý

For me, the most satisfying and profoundly moving art does adhere to some conventions. ÌýWorking within a format really seems to bring out the genius in certain artists. ÌýThis is why, for example, Steve Miller's 4-minute Ìý"Swingtown" is a genius pop song, while his 16-minute "Macho City" is an unlistenable piece of crap. ÌýPhilip K. Dick's science fiction novels are amazing. His literary novels...eh, not so much. ÌýI could go on, but the point is, having boundaries and conventions can actually free an artist. When every element of what you can create is on the table for you to decide, where do you even start? Ìý

Docx has written a more thoughtful and nuanced version of the same old dumb false dichotomy. Can we just agree that we all like some books and dislike others and put the tired convention of the genre vs. literary essay to bed forever?

Ìý

Back when I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, there were a number of nice and somewhat funky restaurants on Sansom Street between 34th and 36th. ÌýI think most of them are gone now, and I know that the university put in a food court in the building at 34th and Walnut when I was there. Ìý(I saw Melissa Rivers there once, which is a pretty lame celebrity sighting, but, you know, that's what we had. Elizabeth Banks is also a graduate, but she started there 2 years after I graduated. And, also, she wasn't famous then anyway.)

One thing I know is that the most affordable place there, Le Bus, is gone. ÌýThis was a cafeteria-style restaurant where I used to enjoy the vegetarian chili even before I was a vegetarian. And they also happened to serve the best cornbread I have ever eaten.Ìý

There is a restaurant called Winnie's Le Bus in Manyunk, which seems to have the same logo as the restaurant I remember, but I looked at their menus and saw nothing about cornbread.

Anyway, back in 1990, my late wife Kirsten once had the guts to ask for the cornbread recipe at Le Bus, and someone very kindly handed it over. ÌýIt has been delighting everyone I've Ìýmade it for ever since. Ìý

For 20 years it's been a closely guarded secret, and now, at Thanksgiving 2010, I offer it to you. ÌýI mean, anyone can access this page, but this is a special thank you to everyone who has bought or borrowed or been given or one of my books and has thereby helped me to achieve (and maintain!) my dream of becoming a professional writer. ÌýBy the way, I signed my first professional contract about 10 years ago, so that's a nice anniversary for me too. Ìý

Enough of my yakity-yakking. ÌýOn to the recipe!

1 1/2 cups white flour

1 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal (use any kind you like, but I like my cornmeal like I like my language: coarse.)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powderÌý

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil (oh hell yeah! ÌýWe're not playing around here!)

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup buttermilk (or another 1/2 cup of milk with 2 teaspoons of white vinegar added.)

Grease a standard loaf pan. ÌýDust with flour or cornmeal. (Be assiduous about the dusting. ÌýI've had mine stick kind of a lot.) Sift together all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. ÌýIn another bowl, beat the eggs until they're just blended and then add the rest of the wet ingredients. ÌýAdd the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend until smooth but no longer. Pour into the pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 315 and bake for 50 more minutes or until knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.Ìý

Thank you again for supporting my work. ÌýI would make you all cornbread if I could, but I can't, so I hope you'll enjoy the recipe instead. Ìý(Vegans: I have subbed soy milk for the milk with no problems. Don't know what to do about the eggs, but I'm sure you crafty vegan bakers can modify to suit. ÌýIf you do, please post in the comments!)

I spend an inordinate amount of time whining about stuff that isn't happening--where's my award, where's my conference invite, why didn't I make this or that list, where's my movie deal, why aren't my books selling more copies (or, more accurately, why aren't my books selling as many copies as this or that book which is not as good as mine), waah waah waah.

It's unseemly to do this in public as I sometimes do, and I'm even more of a whiny pain in the ass in private.Ìý

So today, in an effort to shake off some career dolrums, and to get into the spirit of next week's Feast O'Gluttony, I'm focusing on the great and cool stuff that my writing has brought me over the last ten years and trying not to think about the stuff I haven't gotten.Ìý

First and foremost, the fact that I got a big advance for allowed me to stay home and write during the period right after my late wife Kirsten's death.Ìý This was great for a number of reasons, but especially because I didn't have to put my daughter into both before and after-school programs when I suddenly became a single parent.Ìý

That would be enough, really, for me to feel like my writing career has been a tremendous success.Ìý But wait!Ìý There's more!Ìý

Here are the cities I have visited, at no expense to me, because of my writing: London, Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Wichita, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and Memphis.Ìý Not too shabby!Ìý

I stayed for free in all of those places, and in some of them I stayed in really nice, top-notch luxury hotels that I could never have afforded to pay for in real life.Ìý Sweet! (if problematic: once you've seen what a really nice hotel is like, it's very hard to go back to the Days Inn where you belong. Oh, who am I kidding.Ìý Super 8.Ìý Okay, okay, Motel 6.)

One surreal morning in New York, I woke up early, had a delicious breakfast, and appeared on the Today Show and the Rosie O'Donnell show in one two-hour period.I sat on the dark set while Matt Lauer made jokes he couldn't have made on the air.Ìý I remember being at Rockefeller Center where Rosie taped her show on the same floor as SNL.Ìý (They had me wait in Horatio Sanz's dressing room.) I went into the bathroom and thought, "hey, I bet Belushi did lines in here!"Ìý

(By the way, I will not stand for any hatin' on Rosie, who was incredibly kind to me and my family and who actually read and really liked my book. She is a very cool person.)

I have met some really cool people, some of whom I've been lucky enough to become friends with. At the , and her family opened their home to me and served an amazing, -themed dinner. I met and hit it off with and .Ìý and I have formed a great working partnership that has evolved into a great friendship as well.Ìý On the recent tour for The Half Life of Planets, I became friends with and .Ìý My wife's best friend is now my writing partner and friend as well.Ìý I'm very lucky to have met all of these cool people.

And then there are the readers.Ìý I get the occasional email or facebook message from someone who has read and really enjoyed my work, and these are always amazing.Ìý I mean, most of us in most jobs don't get this kind of praise nearly enough.Ìý "Hey, you know that thing you worked really hard on?Ìý It was great!Ìý Thank you for doing that!"Ìý Probably we'd all be much more content with our work lives if we were able to get that kind of message, even at irregular and unpredictable intervals like I do.

So I leave with this message for myself:Ìý Quit your incessant whining and try to remember what a great ride the last ten years have been. You did totally get screwed on the thing, though.