Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

The Frenchman and I have started watching this series. I just accidentally got a spoiler when reading a Salon article. Dammit! No more spoilers! We just saw Episode 7. There is much potential spoilage.

I have my ring back! It's shiny and gorgeous like it was when I first got it. Maybe more so.

Meanwhile, I'm plugging away at getting out of here and writing at the same time. Oy! This afternoon I'm sending out "Though Thy Lips are Pale" to Chris Cervasco at Paradox. His reading period opens tomorrow. I do think this is the best fit, especially since he's the first person I thought of when the story fell in my head at the Cluny.

As I was getting bounces from Slate's submissions email address, I had an epiphany about the France article and immediately dug into it. It's not only leaner by a thousand words, it's much meaner. That thing comes out swinging now. We like that. I also realized that Mother Jones is an excellent place for such a thing. I've retitled it, "The Other France: Sex, Guns and the Sarkozy Presidency." Titillating, ain't it?

Hopefully I'll be getting some news either way about a couple of other stories. We're standing on the lip of June and no word yet from Matt about "Saturnalia" for his Holy Horrors anthology. No news is good news. And as for the story I sent Cemetery Dance...well...it's been a year and a month. I know it passed the first reader and sits with Richard Chizmar. I can't get an update for my life, so what's a gal to do?

Back to the grindstone.

Labels: cemetery dance, heroes, holy horrors, mother jones, ring, salon, slate

Oh! One of my favorite icons of the 1970s has passed away. I adored him as a kid!

There will always be Lidsville...



"How's that for a topper?"

::sigh::

(Yes, that's Butch Patrick of Munsters fame in the video.)

Paris has a bad case of Sloppy Goth. It's incredibly annoying to see young bats moping around in these shapeless tents of black ribbon and lace. And no makeup. What he hell is that about? The only thing I can think of is that it's some kind of simultaneous FY to both gothdom and France that just looks thoughtless and depressed in the end.

Not so at Harajuku, a Gothic Lolita store I happened upon on Lagrange yesterday. The deliciously pretty gothling who helped me absolutely makes the Big Bat in the Sky proud, no doubt. As tempting as they were, I couldn't convince myself to spend 200€ on one of the Lolita dresses. They also had some Japanese punk clothing but I passed on all of it for a frilly black sheer cardigan that looks like a 1950's negligee for the damned. I can definitely wear it out and about in L.A. over a camisole or tee as part of my summer black collection (as dubbed by the Marquise).

I'm dithering about what to do today, my last day in Paris. Last night we had dinner and drinks with The Frenchman's bourgeois friends. They were so kind, they even thanked me for coming to their home and being their guest. I was deeply touched. Yesterday afternoon, I wandered about Le Cité quite a while and saw a great many things I'd never seen before. I had no specific intentions of doing anything but observing Paris, and I was rewarded for my wanderings. One of the things I saw was a rare encounter between a yuppie young man and a beggar. While people often talk to beggars in the U.S. about why they don't have work, here it's completely unheard of. But yesterday, apparently emboldened by Sarkozy's election, a young man absolutely ripped the beggar a new one. "You've got two hands, two feet. You can work!"

Mostly entrepreneurs, all of the Frenchman's bourgeois friends are ecstatic about Sarkozy's win. Everyone is sick of being held back economically. They want to let capitalism have a go.

Okay, I'm outta here. There's a crepe with my name on it out there.

Labels: gothic lolita, paris, sarkozy

I finished the first draft of the article and The Frenchman is reading it for accuracy. It's about France and French stuff, and I'm well inclined to send it to The New Yorker, since Kathleen Spivack and my agent keep saying my style is perfect for that. I guess we'll test that theory. Also, it's around 3500 words, so it's much too long for Slate's sound bites and I have no desire to try it on Salon since it's highly critical of something they published (but in the nicest possible way, of course).

We're about to take off for Paris and Rouen tomorrow. It's our final goodbye to family and friends before we head back home. I'm feeling mopey about it but at the same time thrilled to see The Frenchman's brother-in-law play his cello in a classical concert. The cello is one of my favorite instruments. I don't have any recordings, which is odd. If any of you have recommendations, please let me know.

In other news, I've been doing some broad research that accidentally included the case of a girl I knew in school who was murdered around the same time as two of her friends were also murdered, Summer 1984. Once I saw the PDF of the news article, I remembered reading it the day before my birthday, August 22, 1984. The only things found were bones and clothing in separate locations and times. They positively identified the remains but have no clue as to what actually happened to the three teenagers. In the meantime, the case itself is one of the most insane things I've read in many, many years. With the help of a fellow high school alumni, I've been able to get swarms of newspaper articles from the local paper. The upshot is that some guy has been sitting on Death Row for over 20 years in San Quentin due to the perjured testimony of two teenage girls who turned out to be chronic liars. There was zero physical evidence. In 2003, because of the loopy testimony recantations over the years and assertions of satanic rituals, a judge finally said he would grant writ of habeas corpus, but he was the dissenting judge. I cannot for my life figure out how they upheld the conviction this way. It all chills me to my toenails.

The prosecuting attorney committed suicide in 1989. If these were the kinds of cases he was dealing with, I can totally see what pushed him over the brink. What I want to know is why these girls aren't in prison for perjury, but I suppose various immunities were granted for whatever reason.

Satanic rituals my ass.

Back to the word mill.

Labels: murder, paris, the new yorker

Fox News just invited Chris Hitchens, the author of God is Not Great, to speak about the death of Falwell on the Hannity Colmes show. What ensued was an hysterical "debate" between Jack Abramoff's buddy Ralph Reed, some other schmuck and Hitchens, who never for a moment gives the conservative drill team an inch of space to flail their flags.



I disagree that Falwell was a fraud and believe that he actually drank the poisonous brew he drew for others. Still, FOX calling Hitchens on the carpet for his comments after the far less than flattering "obituary" they aired for Vonnegut is a whole lot of pot and kettle action.

After a long walk in the forested estates of Provence, I've been writing today but not working on the book. I've taken a break to write an article I've been itching to get out. This should give me something to keep my brain busy whilst I work out some things in my head about the spine of my story.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Labels: falwell, fox, hitchens, vonnegut

Today, I took the ring to the very frou-frou jewelers today, Pellegrine. They might not be able to repair the ring. If not, we're going to wait until I return to Los Angeles and take it back to Antiquarius.

Afterwards, I hung out at L'Elfike for a few hours, talking to my goth friend Ange. She helped me understand some of the sentiments towards the Arabic immigrants. Apparently, she's been attacked and robbed on multiple occasions by young Arabs and the police won't do anything about it. She works bad hours, too, making her especially vulnerable to this kind of violence. She's very happy Sarkozy is in office because he wants to clamp down on immigration and, more importantly, create jobs. She told me that the older Arabic folk -- those over 30 years old -- were great people because they choose to learn the language and assimilate into French culture, but that the younger Arabs were a nightmare across the board. I discussed this with The Frenchman, and he believes the reason the younger people are committing crimes is because -- hello! -- they can't get jobs due to discrimination and all the other economic problems. According to Ange, they're only discriminated against because they refuse to learn the language and the customs. She asked me how I'd feel if someone came to the U.S. and refused to learn English whilst demanding social services and committing crimes. Honestly, it would be difficult for me to accept. The Frenchman and his colleagues, however, seem to believe it's far more complicated than that. It's always more complicated, that's for sure.

Meanwhile, Ange is asking the owner permission for me to take photos of the interior of the bar. You have no idea how beautiful it is. These photos will not be on Flickr, as a promise to the owner, who fears their use in magazines trashing the gothic culture in his club (sound familiar, Los Angeles club owners?). They're for my private research when I write SECRETS FOR MELUSINE. Ange seemed to dig the story premise a lot. I'm terribly grateful for her help.

Ange also introduced me to a real live pagan! Woo! His name was Mark, and he said there were maybe three or four pagans in all of the South. However, up north there were a great many pagans, especially in Brittany and Paris. Once a year, they hold an exposition with ceremonies so that pagans can meet one another. Sort of like Pantheacon in San Francisco.

And, yes, I had all of these conversations in French. It was exhausting.

Must do more writing before I fall over and sleep another night.

Labels: France, l'elfike, paganism, politics, ring

Yesterday I went with The Fabulous B, her British boyfriend, and another friend S to hike up Mont Sainte Victoire, the famous mountain painted obsessively by Cezanne. I forgot my camera, which was both a blessing and a pity as I needed all my attention on the paths so as not to miss a step or a gorgeous rock formation. Also, the Mistral has been plaguing us since Tuesday. (It comes for 3 to 9 days, always in sets of three days.)

I'm taking some medication prescribed by Dr. K that is supposed to make me more sensitive to sunlight. So, I slathered on layers of sunblock, wore a big hat and a gauzy long-sleeved white shirt over my tank top and sports bra. Although my face has been spared, I've still managed to come back with a tan over my arms, chest and shoulders.

This is so not goth it makes me faintly queasy. On the other hand, I look kinda healthy.

We brought a picnic lunch and ate on a blanket under a couple of wobbly baby truffle oaks, somewhat out of the wind. Large black ants invaded our feast -- not to steal cookie bits or bread crumbs, but big chunks of duck paté. Carnivorous little bastards. When we stopped at a small park refuge for a nap, we met two policemen on horseback. I called out "Bonjour!" to them, and one of them came over so that we could pet the horses. As we chatted, I understood everything he said! (The cop, not the horse.) That was kinda cool.

Later, we met up with some of B's hiking group and went to what turned out to be someone's incredible two-story mas on the park grounds. They forced good rosé on us from Côte de Provence, tasty olives and dried tomatoes soaked in olive oil served on fresh bread. A curly-haired dog named Salsa sat on the cliff overlooking the paths and woofed earnestly at everyone walking up to the house. I spoke to wealthy British expats and homey French mothers. One guy explained to me that he was searching for an old friend of his, an American James Joyce scholar named John Deeple who'd graduated from Princeton and lived in Ireland for a while. (The Deeple Dude has apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.) S and I talked about cats whilst I scrubbed love into Salsa's ears.

For dinner, I made lamb with the fresh wild rosemary I picked on the mountainside, and served it with potatoes and green beans. I then called my mom, wrote for a while and finished Issue #3 of Buckaroo Banzai's new adventure. I'm highly annoyed about a plot hole in Issue #2 that I thought would be resolved by Issue #3. Silly me! The story resolves, but not the plot hole. They have a female Cavalier now called Lady Gillette (heh) who kicketh much poot hole.

A thunder storm is brewing and The Frenchman will be home soon. That's enough good news for the morning!

Labels: buckaroo banzai, hiking, mont sainte victoire

If something looks easy to do, it probably isn't at all.

In fact, the easier it looks, the harder it is to do well.



But you knew this...right?

R.I.P. Douglas Adams

Six years ago, Douglas Adams died of a heart attack at the age of 49. He's sorely missed, that hilarious man who taught me words like "hoopy" and "frood," and that I'm not alone in never getting the hang of Thursdays.

I wrote an In Memoriam entitled "Goodnight, Marvin" for him that was published in this book published by Benbella Books. The truth is, thanks to Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" feature, you can read all of it without buying the book.

As for the living...

I'm please to be among them. I played longer with my sword this morning, did some grocery shopping and carried a lot of things all the way home. I've been spider wrangling as I do the laundry, pulling long, woolly threads off of the line and finding their inhabitants a safe place in the grass. We encountered a massive ochre spider the other day. Actually, I encountered it when I opened the front door and found it dangling at face level. It high-tailed it down the thread to the ground. The Frenchman wanted to kill it but I just blew on its fuzzy butt until it scrambled away. Hopefully it's tormenting the girl who lives behind us now.

I ordered the first three Buckaroo Banzai comics and they arrived the other day. I've been reading them rapturously except that these days I'm not remotely enamored of the fact that the women all still seem to be either evil sex objects, carrying clipboards or knitting. Penny Priddy isn't even in the story (yet). I'm giving it until Issue #3 and then Earl gets a Maria Letter(tm).

Another chore, and then I'm going to write. Or try, anyway.

Labels: buckaroo banzai, douglas adams

I did my Beeb bit.

To me, that felt like the most uneven of the three shows I've done. Things felt rather heavily tilted towards the theists weeping that atheists just talk too loudly these days.

The summary of my response to that was, "So what? Atheists have had to listen to the voice of theists turned up to '11' for centuries. Just because some atheists are speaking up loudly back, we're all gonna cry now?"

Gobs of dumb. It was hard not to laugh at them. Actually, I did laugh at them. I fell on the bed, weeping with giggles when the professor of the divinity college said those atheists throw away all "the facts." Then Kelly from the Rational Responders replied to Mr. Facts, "What facts are you talking about? Where are YOU getting your facts?" That was the best!

The most problematic moment was when Mr. Facts said his son had proof of God because a voice told him not to go into work at the Twin Towers that morning of the 9/11 attack. Okay, so what does that say about his son's God who cherry picked certain people to die a horrible death that day? Proclaiming on international radio your son's incredibly cruel, irrational God is somehow nicer than someone writing a book about the lack of evidence of any God whatsoever? I'm confused. Why would I be comforted by that anecdote? I'm not an atheist -- more of a rational mystic -- and I'm utterly horrified by this.

At one point, I took on something said by Terry Waite, ex-envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ooo!

I'll post a link if the Rational Responders recorded it. I'm hoping that they did, given that Sapient recorded the Blasphemy Challenge show I did on WHYS back in January.

I need a rub down and people saying, "You did good that round, Rocky!"

Labels: atheism, BBC, blasphemy

Nicholas Sarkozy is the new president of France.

But...just as I'd predicted...the cameras are following him in his car and he does NOT look happy. He's talking on his cell phone and his expression is just total depression. And yet he's the new President!

Wow.

I wonder what's going on...

The excerpt from the late Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives just has me in stitches, and I bet he wasn't looking for that response. It's based on real-life thugs, otherwise known as the "infrarealists" (or some variation thereof) break up poetry readings and mock Octavio Paz. Gangsters hell bent on changing the poetry world.

That is simply hilarious.

Meanwhile, Slate is referring to the new Spiderman as "Emo Parker."





HAHAHAHAHAHA! Awww, Spidey! Turn that frown upside down, man!





I was thinking the other day about what I miss most about the U.S. You know what that is? My goddamn immune system. Yesterday, I went through another hellish, painful ailment that involved an emergency visit to the doctor, the lab, the pharmacy, and now all kinds of French meds. And I mean, so much pain, I couldn't speak English, much less French. And we'd just finished a major Vitamin C + Royal Jelly run prescribed by the pharmacist, too. You want a gangster poem? I got yer gangster poem right here, Roberto:

Fucking France
I'm always sick here
La grippe
Le rhume
La gastro
Not to mention
All sorts of other
Damned things
I never get at home
You know
I love Provence
And Paris more
But fuck this
I bet I'll
Catch a cold
On the plane
Home


I'm going to mock me some Paz now and rest some more. Good night, and good health.

Labels: France, poetry, sick, Spiderman

Again!

Just sent the agent the first acceptable draft of what I just wrought. Let's see what she says.

It's been storming here in Provence like I've never seen it all year. Great showers of rain pummeling the shaggy trees and stone tiles. Thunder rattling the shutters after flashes of steel-blue lightning seep through the cracks. Absolutely amazing.

Here is where I pause in the mad typing. Starting tomorrow, I play with the sword every day and take extensive excursions into town to document Aix for SECRETS FOR MELUSINE.

In two weeks, I begin shipping things back to Los Angeles and letting everyone know I'm headed home...

With luck, I'll finish Draft 1 today. Yesterday had a happy interruption when The Fabulous B asked if she could come over for help with a visa application to Canada. I helped her with some other correspondence in English, as well, and we giggled over crazy boyfriend stories until The Frenchman came home. We all then had appero and she parted for a movie she'd been wanting to see. Before she went, I promised to go on a hike with her, her British boyfriend and a bunch of other people up Mt. Saint-Victoire at 8:00am on a Saturday morning while The Frenchman is away. Am I stupid, or what?

Today in France is also known as Labor Day. You're all welcome to continue carrying the American stereotype of French people being oversexed and perverted, but frankly this one holiday speaks for itself. The French have taken a fertility holiday and turned it into a day to celebrate work. If that doesn't dispel one or two ridiculous myths, I don't know what will.

Here's me, rushing headlong towards "The End"...