Apostrophe Cast News

Hello Randall,

This is your email interview from Apostrophe Cast.  I am sick, and yet I am going on a whirlwind trip to a friend’s wedding. Quite possibly no sleep for days, at least two rental cars, and then a plane home at 6:00 am Sunday. What are you doing this weekend?

All your answers will be posted on our news blog unedited. Only the questions you do not answer will not appear.

1) What is the sickest you have ever been? Who or what got you sick? How long were you sick and how did you get better?

Well, for four years I was having undiagnosed panic attacks pretty much twenty-four hours a day. I got better by having it diagnosed and doing some therapy at the University of Pennsylvania. I haven’t had one for years since that fun, fun time. I’m not sure exactly when they started, but it seemed to be right around January 18, 2001.

2) What is your favorite song to dance to? Any special reason? Do you have a signature move?

I had some pretty trippy Grateful Dead moves going on in college and too long afterwards. Now I’ve settled into a combination of Travolta in Saturday Night Live & Pulp Fiction, except there’s nothing cool about my dancing. The Talking Heads SPEAKING IN TONGUES works for me, and what’s better than doing some dorky moves and yelling out, “Makin’ flippy floppy / tryin’ to do my best!”

3) What short story or novella should someone read if they are going to be stuck in an airport and they don’t feel all that well?

I really loved THE MYSTERY GUEST: AN ACCOUNT by Gregoire Bouillier, translated by Lorin Stein.  Here’s how Publisher’s Weekly describes it: ” In this slim and lyrical memoir, French writer Bouillier tells of the moment when he received a phone call in his Paris apartment in the fall of 1990 (’It was the day Michel Leiris died’). Bouillier was 30 years old and asleep in all his clothes, and it had been years since the unnamed woman on the other end of the line had left him ‘without a word… the way they abandon dogs when summer comes.’ Rather than calling to reconnect or explain, she called to invite him to a party, several weeks hence, at the artist Sophie Calle’s apartment, where he was to serve as the ‘Mystery Guest.’” It’s about a journey from the state of being undead to life, the very kind of message you need to hear when you are sick and confined in airports or airplanes. And it’s very funny, too. And slim, so you might be able to read it before passing out.

4) If you could start a rumor about a candidate for president, and you knew it would be all over the internet in a day or so, what would it be?

Oh, it would have something to do with candidates talking about pigs and lipstick while the economy crumbles, a war continues on, and the health care crisis deepens,  but I’m sure no one would believe it.

5) Have you ever been inspired to write by a movie or a television show? If so, what was it?

Both the curtain that Toto pulls to reveal the “Wizard of Oz” and the shower curtain the killer pulls in Psycho to reveal Marion Crane led me to compare and contrast the two curtains in an essay that ended up getting published. The idea of “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane—that search for the referent—ended up in a bunch of stories as a kind of postmodern idea about the impossibility of finding meaning. And I really liked this quote from CATCHER IN THE RYE: “Then, after the Rockettes, a guy came out in a tuxedo and roller skates on, and started skating under a bunch of little tables, and telling jokes while he did it. He was a very good skater and all, but I couldn’t enjoy it much because I kept picturing him practicing to be a guy that roller-skates on the stage.” I wrote a story about how I was that guy that roller-skates on stage, practicing for a moment yet to arrive.

6) Is there a color you particularly dislike? Is there a food coloring you find unappetizing?

Blue seems to be a bad color for food which might explain my preference for Frankenberry over Booberry. There’s a a pale yellow color that evokes sickness, and  I’m not very fond of it. Any food that has the word “log” in it is unappetizing, in case you were wondering.

7) What is your favorite board game? When is the last time you played it, and with who? Who won?

My favorite is TROUBLE with the popOmatic. I haven’t played it since those rain days in elementary school, and I’m sure I never sent the game pieces of the girl I had a huge crush back home. So I imagine I lost, but for a good cause.

8) Have you ever been/wanted to be in a band? What instrument did/do you/would you play? Name of the band? Did you write your own songs? What kind of music?

In fifth grade, we had to take a music test and I failed each test, especially the one for drums. Finally, exasperated I’m sure, the tester told me to put my lips together and blow–and voila, I was a coronet player. That didn’t last long. But man I wanted to rock like KISS, masks and all, like superheroes or wrestlers. I wrote songs as I rode my bike for my paper route, songs that had that Springsteen feel of escape and darkness. Well, every now and then they did. Mostly they were KISS-like in their depth: “No place for hidin baby / No place to run / You pull the trigger of my / Love gun, (love gun), love gun.” Oh yeah.

9) Did you consciously set out to write flash fiction? or did you write something and say, “I’m pretty sure this is flash fiction.”

I did set out consciously to write flash fiction, mainly from loving the condensed form of poetry but realizing I didn’t have much poetic talent. I liked the idea of brevity, of making something meaningful and expansive out of it. Plus, it gives my wife quite a kick to say her husband is the master of the short short.

10) Did you ever go to summer camp? Where? Did you like it? Do you remember and counselors, fellow campers? If you never went to summer camp, was there any place you went on vacation more than once?

No camp for us, but there was the Jersey shore. I came home after a shore trip with a friend and his family wearing a t-shirt with bees buzzing around a hive that said: “Bee Healthy: Eat Your Honey.” My mom looked at it and said, “Oh, that’s nice.” I love that both of us didn’t really get it.

I am coughing.

GBB

PS: Congratulations on winning Flume Press’s 2007-2008 fiction chapbook prize for Mad to Live