Brian Trent dot com

Mornings are getting chillier. You can feel summer winding down, and we’re about to turn the corner into one of my favorite seasons.

Last weekend, I went horseback riding with my girlfriend throughout some wooded trails here in Connecticut. It had been a few years since I’d done that, and of course I imagined I was astride Pegasus for a while… before I realized how impractical it would be to actually ride a winged horse. Forget about inertia for a moment; where do you hang your legs while its feathery wings are beating the air?

*

I’ve made more progress with the screenplay I’m writing with my friend Damian Dydyn. It isn’t easy finding an effective collaborative partner; lots of writers don’t work well together. I’ve been fortunate to have met some very talented people who don’t let ego get in the way of their art. We plot together, give and take, compromise, negotiate, debate, and through it all, the screenplay moves forward. Usually the only bump in the road we get is when we try to come up with names for our characters. Or that great challenge of naming the screenplay when it’s all over.

I have the same trouble with books. Titles come last for me.

But as to the writing process itself, I have read many interviews with writers and have to say I don’t believe I’m related to them. Here’s a snippet from one of my unpublished novels about the writing process, creative collaborations, and the author’s fever:

The few writers I’ve met personally are tranquil bastards.

While still in high school, I attended the local book-signing of a popular novelist. She looked like the Queen of Sheba in her plush chair. She sipped her tea. She spoke about the writing process, and it went something like this:

The writer sits at her desk, calmly typing away at the typewriter. The rhythm is almost musical, lulling like ocean surf. It is the sound of order. The writer straightens pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose, and decides to take a break to enjoy the golden afternoon.

“Darling,” she calls to the kitchen, “Bring out the ice tea and join me on the porch, would you? ‘Tis a glorious afternoon that fills me with the dazzling light of existence!”

During the Q&A, I raised my hand and asked her to elaborate on the writing process itself.

“A writer reaches deep into the collective soul,” she told the enrapt audience, “And learns how to tap that well. It’s like magic! You put your mind out there, and you reach into the collective ocean.”

I left wondering what the hell was in that tea she was sipping.

A few years later I met another tranquil bastard. This fellow was grey-haired and possessed all the gravity of a Teddy Bear. His voice was like honey mixed with copious amounts of Prozac. He spoke about writing as if he was in a peyote trance. I remember noticing, with a great deal of alarm, that he also was drinking tea.

I left both incidents in a bewildered haze. Because I don’t write like that.

In my friend’s seaside house, we set up camp on the water-stained grey carpet of a barren living room. Three laptops are plugged in and become individual creative stations like refreshment stands in a marathon race. On another table is a pot of coffee set to boil, assorted snacks, and a jar of pencils. Each one of us is armed with notebook and pencil like gladiators, stepping into the arena.

We who are about to write salute you!

The coffeepot shrieks.

We’re off!

I strike the laptop keys like pummeling an enemy. We leap onto couches, shadow-box with devils, avoid chariots and weapons-fire. We hop to each station, shifting genres as we do, becoming different people as we do, cursing, dancing about like goblins at a midnight Sabbath, hurling javelins into the heavens to encourage a rainfall of ichor.

I know nothing of peaceful writing… even when I’m alone. The art of creating is beautiful torture, flesh-hooks hoisting us above an altar pit until the stone below us has imbibed enough of our blood.

When our stomachs rumble we order pizzas and soda, and between bite and guzzle we keep writing, the crust crumbs on our lips, speaking half-conscious in our frenzy of production. Pages are written, revised, shaped, chiseled, polished like working on a new sculpture. They spring out of our notebooks, like caged tigers finally let loose for a night of carnage.

The daylight beyond our fort turns into scarlet sunset, then into blue gloom.

The hammering of the keys is like Vulcan’s forge. My fingertips feel numb after several hours of this. We glisten in sweat, faces flush, eyes glittering.

Maybe it’s because I don’t drink tea.

*

Oh, I have a new Public Profile on Facebook . I’ll be using it, and of course this site, to discuss some new film and writing projects I’m involved in.

I write historicals and contemporaries, poetry and even science-fiction. I love ancient Rome as much as the mysterious days of tomorrow’s calendars. As I reflected on what to submit to the Public Profile, I was stricken with the desire to post – on a job search site – an honest resume. Because let’s face it – we’re lying Deceptacons when it comes to our resumes.

No one’s really honest on their resumes. If they were, few would get hired. For example, most people who apply for a customer service position would write something like: Seeking a challenging company in which I can grow and find a fulfilling future.

The honest answer would be: Seeking a job that allows me to pay the bills while I secretly work to free myself from the rat race and do the things I want to do. Your company seems to fit the bill.

Just to inject a healthy dose of honesty into the mix, I uploaded my Honest Resume.

Job objective?

“To join together with other creative artists and bring about a new Renaissance of ideas and freethinking.”

Education?

“Scraped knees, books, foreign countries, climbing Mount Fuji, beloved friends, hated enemies, movies, scars, B. A. in English Literature and Creative Writing, Master’s Degree in Education, fights, video games, parents, teachers, diaries, lovers, self-reflection, strangers, graffiti, music, dreams, debates, photographs, museums, parks, beaches, mountains, and thunderstorms. Especially thunderstorms.”

References?

“Anyone I’ve ever known.”

The funny thing is that since doing it, I’ve been getting automated emails suggesting I apply for management positions at Petco. Hell, maybe the pet thing is a front for a delightful creative cabal bent on sparking a new age of the arts. Or maybe they just have really unique pets. Like a Pegasus.

One final note for this week in history: Mount Vesuvius erupted, buried Pompeii on the 24th, and killed Pliny the Elder. On the 26th, his body was found beneath the ashes.

Random Fact:

The Red Spot on Jupiter is a hurricane that’s three times the size of the Earth, and has been raging for about three hundred years.

Quote of the Day:

“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies. “

Aristotle

Tomorrow (August 22) is Ray Bradbury’s birthday, and I will be lighting a candle though I’ve never met the guy and, frankly, have never been to Waukegan Illinois. But through his books, I’ve always felt a kinship with this master of poetry and fantasy.

And we have crossed paths – sort of. In 1996, one of my stories was published alongside his story “The Pedestrian” in an Elements of Literature textbook. The two stories were even compared in the ensuing review questions; both turned a spyglass on the isolating effects of society.

In 2003, Connecticut had a statewide writing competition which used Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” as the theme. Contestants had to compose a story which fit in that universe. In other words, we had to write along the themes of totalitarianism, censorship, and the suppression of individuals. I won First Place for my story “Embers in the Dark.”

Ray grew up reading Flash Gordon; I grew up reading Ray Bradbury. In the strictest sense, most of what he writes isn’t science-fiction. Instead, he writes with an entrancing mythic power, as if his pen came from the same forge that made Thor’s hammer. The Mars that he describes doesn’t exist (though in defense, right into the 1950s there were still Atlases being produced that described Mars as being filled with vegetation – (I have a 1953 edition that shows just that.) Mars is a burnt-orange desert. Mars has no canals, so gold-eyed Martians with six fingers, no gossamer ships that cruise the barren wastes. But we want them to, and so Bradbury’s Mars remains immortalized as a ghostly parallel world. And you know what? When people do set up little colonies there, they will sow those imaginative seeds upon the dead planet.

Bradbury is a shaman of imagination.

So, favorite Bradbury stories? Each one has their own glint of magic, like river-stones catching moonlight:

The Sound of Thunder
The Long Rain
The Halloween Tree
The Martian Chronicles
The Illustrated Man
Frost and Fire
Fahrenheit 451
R is for Rocket
The Rocketman
The Foghorn
Tomorrow’s Child
The City
The Concrete Mixer
Among these, “Frost and Fire” is one of my favorites… and the unapologetic longing in “R is for Rocket,” balanced so smartly against the somber “The Rocket Man.”

The Martian Chronicles stands uniquely apart and cherished. It isn’t the fanciful pulp adventures of John Carter rescuing scantily clad blue-skinned Martian beauties from cruel villains. Neither is it the ardently scientific look of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. Bradbury’s take is neither science nor pulp, but a strange kind of myth that burns eternally in the mind.

So for Bradbury fans, join me in our remote birthday celebration. October is still a ways off, but I think tomorrow we’ll hear the soft mad laughter of Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show unfurling their tents…

Wherever you are tomorrow Ray, Happy Birthday!

*

After my article condemning Orson Scott Card, I received a lot of email. Most of it was from the open-minded freethinking crowd. Not everyone agreed, but most could come to the table of open ideas and have a real discussion about it.

Here’s one response I got from a guy named Dan, located in CA:

“Thanks for your prose, Mr. Trent. The ramblings of Mr. Card are indeed scary…at least for me. It’s people in the straight community like you that bravely stand-up to say this is wrong, that will change the hearts and minds of average Americans or at least Californian’s. As a gay man and recently sworn in Deputy Commissioner in the State of California, I’ve had the privilege to marry 6 couples, 1 of which was gay, I’ve also witnessed 6 more couples get married in my gay-friendly church. One was this lesbian couple together 25 years. It’s cool because when I marry people, I get to see love up-close 1 foot from my face and hear them recite their vows…It feels like love in its purest form. So…thanks for standing up…I really appreciate it.”

Then there were some others, like this from Felix, located in MO:

“I can’t agree with you that gay marriage should be legalized, I would prefer it come to a vote of the people. I am Christian but I don’t want to see peeple killed over this, and I am forced to agree with you that the Constitution is secular and religion should not interfere. I see some of OSC’s concerns, but think he took them too far, still I feel gay marriage is wrong.”

And then there was the Fallwellian Taliban’s responses (or the Block-headed Beasts, if you prefer.) They were a distinct minority — most maniacs are — but here goes:

This one is from Michael, located in 1692:

“Your hostility to God and his written word are duly noted. If we obeyed God, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in, but unrepentant sinners never believe they ar sinners nor do they believe they need salvation. I understand your hostility to God; that which loves the darkness flees the light… There is this strange belief these days that God is love and loves everyone. Nonsense! The bible is clear. He loves all those that are his chosen ( a thematic issue throughout scripture). It is CLEAR that not all come to him.

There seems to be a conflagration of forces moving on the side of light. In my times at Gunshws and at the ranges, there is grumbling and anger… I do sense a storm coming. A violent one… I will point out that there are 85 million gun owners, the vast majority of those are conservatives. Your threat to join the opposite side will make you quite unmatched and don’t count on government to help you… a threat I know I will resist in accordance with the oath I took to defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I find it instructive that the oath the founders set up has no loyalty component to government officials.”

I gave him a lengthy response, which involved reminding him about the Constitution’s true nature, the difference between religious freedom and religious fundamentalism, and that there are many, many gun owners who don’t agree with him at all.

So Michael, my “threat” about standing up for freedom wasn’t a threat, sir. It was a promise. But why even let it get to that; a one-on-one fight is nobler. Hector and Achilles. Guess what side you’re on?

Random Fact:

Bees make honey, royal jelly, and bee bread. But they aren’t just clever cooks; they are unintentional masters of geometry. The hexagonal-shaped honeycombs are the best possible shape for the maximum storage of honey. (They’ve had since the Cretaceous to figure it out.)

Quote of the Day:

“True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read”.
– Pliny the Elder

In 1985, one of the best things I had ever read was Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

In 2008, one of the worst things I’ve ever read is by this same man.

No, this isn’t a book review.

Ironically, I had a run-in with an ignorant zealot yesterday in a grocery store parking lot not far from my house, and I was all prepared to write about it during this week’s blog… but now that will have to wait. Today a couple articles by bestselling author Orson Scott Card were forwarded to me, and I have to respond.

What’s the big deal? Oh, nothing… just that Card is advocating a violent overthrow of the American government if it supports gay marriage.

He writes: “Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. Only when the marriage of heterosexuals has the support of the whole society can we have our best hope of raising each new generation to aspire to continue our civilization….”

I have long admired Orson the novelist, and so it is with great difficulty that I type this. But even smart people can be wrong (Ptolemy thought the sun went around the Earth) and in this instance Orson is very, very wrong. Inexcusably wrong. It’s actually worse than that; his views are the corrosive slime on the future of our civilization.

This isn’t the first time I’ve disagreed with Mr. Card; for the life of me, I can’t see how he can consider Terminator 3 a good film. But we have our agreements also; we both feel Citizen Kane is overrated. And yes, we even agree that revolution in America can be a good thing.

I am disgusted with the tumor-like growth of government in America… and we can thank both Democrats and Republicans for that. I am appalled by the way our elected officials use our Constitution as toilet paper, at the fear-mongering and the contempt they show for their citizenry. Personally, I do foresee a balkanization of the U.S. in the future; too many people care only about their religion or ideologies at the expense of the Constitution’s Enlightenment ideals of reason, humanism, and liberty for us to stay united.

The National ID card? Yes, that’s a reason to fight a revolution because it rapes the Bill of Rights.

But Card wants to play a bloody real-time game of Risk over the issue of gay marriage:

First, there’s this:

“In the first place, no law in any state in the United States now or ever has forbidden homosexuals to marry… Any homosexual man who can persuade a woman to take him as her husband can avail himself of all the rights of husbandhood under the law… Ditto with lesbian women… To get those civil rights, all homosexuals have to do is find someone of the opposite sex willing to join them in marriage.”

Ah. Nothing like an ugly little game of semantics, Mr Card.

And then there’s this astonishing diatribe:

“However emotionally bonded a pair of homosexual lovers may feel themselves to be, what they are doing is not marriage… they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is… They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won’t be married. They’ll just be playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes.”

There’s something almost sad – and definitely horrifying – in this passage. Why does Card feel so threatened?

Note he has been very careful not to say what others of his ilk do: That their bigotry finds its ultimate justification from the Bible, which condemns homosexuality. This of course is the same Bible that says the faithful are required to kill people who refuse to listen to priests (Deuteronomy), kill fortune-tellers and homosexuals (Leviticus) kill adulterers (Leviticus) wipe out an entire city if a single person in it worships a “false god” (Deuteronomy), kill people who work on the Sabbath (Exodus), kill your family and friends if their religious views differ from your own (Deuteronomy) and so the list goes, in a long crimson stretch of barbarism including death for blasphemers and women who aren’t virgins on their wedding nights.

This same pathology was at work with the shooting, by a rabid right-winger, at the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church last month, and yesterday’s attack on the Arkansas Democratic Headquarters.

But in the end, Card can’t really hide the fact. He writes: “In my church and many other churches, people still cling fiercely to civilized values and struggle to raise civilized children despite the barbarians who now rule us through the courts.”

“Pure democracy” is what Card is grasping at. Want to know what “pure democracy is?” A lynch mob.

That’s why we have a Constitutional Republic in America, one where our courts can make certain that Constitutional freedoms are made available to all… not just what a majority want. A majority once supported slavery, women’s subjugation, and racial inequality. It was less than fifty years ago that American courts had to step in to states like Mississippi and Alabama and protect racial minorities there. Even then, the Freedom Riders had to take a bus down South to bring the message home, and they were met by fire-bombings, tire-slashing, and brutal physical attacks. Some of the same people who participated in those attacks are still alive today. It is NOT ancient history.

Card writes: “Homosexual ‘marriage’ won’t accomplish what they hope. They will still be just as far outside the reproductive cycle of life. And they will have inflicted real damage on those of us who are inside it… they will make it harder for us to raise children with any confidence that they, in turn, will take their place in the reproductive cycle.”

This is rich. Most anti-gay crusaders are content to say that God will attack America if gay marriage is allowed. Card does it one better: Allowing gay adults the right to marriage will cause our species to go extinct.

I’m a straight, white American citizen, and at this point in my life I don’t want any children. So am I also pushing the human species down the road of zoo pandas everywhere, Mr. Card?

His statements are vile, and not because it’s PC to say so. I’m a proudly nonpartisan freethinker and I reject “political correctness” with every fiber of my being. But there is simply no way to rationally justify telling consenting adults who happen to be homosexual that they can’t marry each other. The Far Right’s obsession with the subject is both medieval and intellectually dishonest with their rabid falsities (how affording consenting gay adults the right of marriage will somehow lead to bestiality.)

Readings Card’s words, what I feel is disgust. Not just at seeing a talented writer fall to such primitive depths, but when I think about the disclaimer that will go along with any future generation which has the pleasure reading Ender’s Game or Ender’s Shadow. “What great books!” Sigh. “Too bad the writer became such a Nazi.”

A lot of people have been conditioned to believe that gay marriage means the fall of civilization. Think of how surprised people were to realize that, in places where it has been allowed (and by largely conservative justices, by the way) , the sky didn’t fall. Life went on, much as it had, with the added plus of freedom being expanded for a long-persecuted minority.

So yes, Mr. Card certainly has the freedom of speech. He can start his revolution if he wants to advance his own backwards ideology. But I’m not a pacifist. If Card takes up arms against a progressive regime (i.e. the opposite of what we have now), I’ll be on the other side of the battlefield, with my Constitutionally protected right to bear arms, to fight against him.

And since unlike many others, I CAN separate the man from his work, I would be perfectly willing to be his humble Speaker for the Dead when it’s all over.

Random Fact:

Just this week, scientists at Warwick Reading University announced they have taken 300,000 neurons from a rat’s brain, placed it into a robotic body, and use it to control the robot’s wheels while it navigates by sonar. That’s right, rat-cyborgs have arrived.

Quote of the Day:

“A prince must know how to use both natures, and that the one without the other is not durable.”

– Niccolo Machiavelli

So it’s official – The Copperfield Review has just published two of my works. You can study a magazine, peruse what they like to publish, and deliberate over this field intelligence, but in the end you can never be certain what will strike an editor’s fancy as she sits down to work, sips her morning coffee, and begins making decisions. I had sent both a fiction and a nonfiction work – and was delighted to see both published.

The nonfiction piece is a how-to on writing historical fiction, entitled “Humanity and the Historical.” It encapsulates both my writing philosophy and initial inspirations. You can read it here if you like.

The fiction piece takes place in the pre-samurai period of Japan, and is entitled “Motherhood.” It’s actually an abbreviated episode from my novel about ancient China; I just distilled one particular section and transformed it into a short story. The main character is a quasi-historical character from Japan’s legendary past. It’s here for your viewing.

I’m making progress with both my new screenplays, too. One I’m writing with one of my best friends, Damian Dydyn; once a week, over pizza and ice-tea, we get together for some marathon screenwriting hours. The rest of the week, I’m working on my newest novel. Banish any thought that writing is a gentle, peaceful process. As I bang on the keys or pace my room like a caged tiger, I feel like a gladiator.

And my chest is a cage for a dragon/

And my heart is a wrath born of fear/

And my fear is the fear of the living/

Who knows that all things disappear.

*

Last night I decided to re-watch The Seven Samurai, directed by the incomparable Akira Kurosawa. The film is black-and-white, made in 1954, but possesses that unique quality of true cinematic masterpieces: It hasn’t aged. Kurosawa’s direction here is cool and confident, and the story of a poor village hiring seven dubious down-on-their-luck protectors against a horde of ruthless bandits is simple and engaging.

All around, the acting is perfectly credible, with the standout being Takashi Shimura. He’s just a powerhouse actor. The film’s pacing and wit mesmerized the viewer, and there are scenes which burn themselves onto the mind – no spoilers here, but watch for the scene with the wife, and of course the stirring realism of the battle sequences. Amazing. Rent it or own it. You won’t be disappointed.

*

Today is already a muggy day, and the air-conditioner in this room is broken. The humidity is so strong that I expect rain-clouds to materialize in front of my eyes any second, swirl like a slow cyclone against the ceiling, and unleash a downpour. But a quick word on the month of August before I swim for the cooler rooms of the house:

Next Tuesday is the when William Blake died (“Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright!”) And Wednesday saw the passing of the incredible H. G. Wells, who with just four books introduced four completely original concepts which have since spawned countless imitators: alien invasion, invisible men, genetic experimentation, and time travel.

But August is also the month when Cyrus the Great died, and there are some great stories associated with him.

King Croesus was the filthy rich ruler of Ionia. The Donald Trump of his day, only more arrogant. In fact, even now the expression “rich as Croesus” is used to refer to fabulous wealth.

Croesus hit upon the idea of attacking his Persian neighbors, which at that time were ruled by Cyrus the Great. Cyrus was an extremely noble leader, who had begun life as a cup-bearer to the previous king, but who rose to kingship and came as close to being an enlightened philosopher-king as those years could expect. (And in some ways, way closer than our years.)

Before launching his invasion, Croesus decided to consult the fabled Oracle of Delphi. “Should I attack Persia?” he asked. The oracle responded with her famous ambiguity: “If you invade Persia, you will destroy a great empire.”

Pleased with his own interpretation of this omen, Croesus proceeds with a unilateral invasion. The empire he ended up destroying was his own.

Now, years before this miscalculation, Croesus had been throwing a party at which celebrity statesman Solon was in attendance. Resplendent in his fine robes, Croesus had taken Solon on a tour of the kingdom treasury and declared, “I am the happiest man in the world!” Solon, hearing this, politely countered that life was fickle and that fortune could be turned to misery in an instant.

Croesus was furious by this damper on his good mood, and Solon wisely excused himself and headed for the exit. On the way there, he ran into Aesop (the brilliant fable-teller himself) and the two had a terrific exchange. It seems that Aesop had been eavesdropping on Solon’s conversation with the king, and so he said, “Solon, either we must not come to mighty men at all, or we must try to please them.” But Solon disagreed, remarking that, “Either we must not come to mighty men at all, or we must tell them the truth.” It must have been the only time that Aesop was ever out-duelled!

To be a fly on the wall in that instant! Aesop and Solon, two of the most brilliant wisemen of all time, having a banter!

Fast-forward to Croesus’ ill-fated invasion of Persia. His armies are defeated, and Croesus soon finds himself being led up to an execution pyre. As the flames begin to creep towards the bound king, Croesus lets out a piteous cry. “Solon!” he says, acknowledging the Greek’s sage advice.

Cyrus, who has been watching the execution’s proceedings, hears this. He has no idea who Solon is, but he is intrigued enough to order the flames doused and Croesus brought before him. “What is this word that you shout at the moment of death?” Cyrus asks. And Croesus relates the party episode. Listening carefully, Cyrus perceives the wisdom in Solon’s words, and seeing that his vanquished foe is really no different than himself, he spares him.

This is the kind of stuff that history classes don’t talk about. A powerful humanistic tale featuring a cast of all-stars.

Gotta have breakfast now. Cold pizza awaits.

Random Fact:
There are more than 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses in the average human brain. It is the most advanced device in the known universe. And it’s a device that can be shaped by what we do and what we learn.

Quote of the Day:
“It is certain that he was a lover of knowledge, for when he was old he would say that each day he grew older and learned something new.”
- Plutarch, writing about Solon.