standBy Bert

The Awesome and Great Reading Show

2010-01-04T12:19:00.004-05:00

The Awesome and Great Reading Show!

Hey everyone - I was away from the bert for a while due to technical difficulties but I'm back! And if I have any Austin readers who aren't facebook fans, please come to the show - this month we've got Tod Goldberg, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Amelia Gray and Kacy Crowley!

Writers write stories based on songs! Songwriters write songs based on stories!
It's backwards and bizarro awesome and great fun!

This May Be My Andy Rooney Moment

2009-04-16T08:55:00.006-04:00

So picture me with white hair and a cranky look on my face while you read this:

What's the deal with Twitter? Or let me rephrase: Will someone please, for the love of god, explain to me what there is to like about this website, because I am truly, madly, deeply uninspired. Every day this is all I hear about, it's on the news, it's all over facebook, but try as I might, I don't get it. And I've been on there for months.

Granted, myspace and facebook each took me a while to warm to. But not this long.

I have experimented with following only close friends. I have experimented with following news organizations and celebrities. I, who am a known fan of exclamation points, find PTwitty's use exclamation points alarming. I, who has an unhealthy interest in celebrities, am unmoved by the opportunity to know Ashton Kutcher or Spencer Pratt's every thought.

What am I missing?

A lot of times I don't understand the shorthand. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there's no rhyme or reason to the shorthand, like, everyone seems to have their own and you either get it or you don't. I have to say this too, and this may be just me, but it feels a wee bit like the cool kids party I'm not invited to. I'll give you that John Mayer has sort of a charming sense of humor, but what kind of relationship do we have where he gets to do all the talking? John Mayer and Demi Moore aren't going to answer my tweets. With all due respect, I can't even get Punky Brewster to answer my tweets, and she seems like a very sweet person.

If Lydia Davis and Deb Olin Unferth jump on board, maybe I'll be back. I think those gals make something out of that Twitter thing you kids are playing with these days. Meantime I'll grab my cane and stick with facebook until the next party comes along.

Naked City

2009-01-29T10:06:00.003-05:00

Woke up at 3 am last night and came into the living room and found this program and had to stay up to watch the whole thing... I'm sure some of you have seen this or heard of it, but I had only the vaguest memory of hearing about it - anyway - by the look of it I figured it was very early 60s New York, black and white, and this episode featured Diahnn Carroll as a teacher for the blind or sight-impaired who takes a small group of her students on a city bus and then one of them runs off the bus, loses his glasses, and is lost in the city for the rest of the day. I didn't really know what to expect - it kind of looked like a cross between Dragnet and The Twilight Zone - but the location footage of NY was actually incredible; in this episode they went everywhere from the lower east side to Bethesda Fountain to the Brooklyn Bridge and into Brooklyn and gave you such a sharp sense of the landscape at that time. (Which was slightly before mine, I didn't arrive there until 67.) You could see Jewish delis, bakeries, bars, vegetable markets - and huge piles of rubble and dirt down along the east river - it's hard to think of any parcel of land in NY that's not built on at this point, but it reminded me so much of my childhood when things were a little rougher and darker than they are now. And to boot - this episode, anyway, was incredibly thoughtful - it wasn't so much a cop show as it was a really (really circa 1961) introspective drama - the teacher doubts her methods because she believes they can become independent until this kid gets lost - and then in the end he finds his way home because she had taught him he could. Another interesting detail that was only just dealt with under the surface was the issue of race - her boss is talking to her about it at one point and he's extremely empathetic but in so many words tells her that if this kid isn't found, she's going to be 'held more accountable' - and says something like 'you know what I mean?' Anyway, I can't be getting up at 4 am every night but I really want to see more of this show.

Plus Diahnn Carroll is wearing a really smart suit and looks totally fabulous through the whole ordeal. I tried to find a photo but no luck.

Shortest Conversation Ever In Which Both Parties Knew What the Other Was Talking About

2008-12-30T09:48:00.003-05:00

Me: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah.

Alright, admittedly there was a slight bit of context. We were driving up Division Street past where Leo's Lunchroom used to be, and we'd driven past it about a week earlier, when I commented that I wondered if it was now part of Bob San.

Nevertheless, it made us laugh for about five minutes straight, and we decided to communicate like this from herein.

51 Birch Street

2008-11-29T10:53:00.003-05:00

So, this mindblowing documentary is about a fifty-year marriage, and if you haven’t seen it, queue it up now, see it, and then come back and read this, cause I’m gonna spoil this too.

It’s a subject I have become really fascinated by ever since I got married – go figure – although you might think I’d have thought about it more deeply before, given that my folks were divorced, and I waited so long to get married. I mean, that wasn’t by accident. I knew I wanted to try to get it right if I was going to do it. But it wasn’t like I was mired in contemplation about my parents’ marriage, or either of their subsequent ones to any great extent. Probably just to the usual extent. Anyway. This guy starts out just by trying to document his parents and his family and then his mom dies, while he’s still making the film, and the father remarries very quickly (there should be an investigative documentary on this subject alone, I say) and slowly, more gets revealed about their history, and as he comes to think his father may have cheated with his new wife many years before, he discovers his mom’s extensive diaries, and it turns out she had been unfaithful, but that really, that was just one small thing, that she had profound feelings of unhappiness in her marriage, in her life, and all this stuff, and but, then in the end, it turns out that the father and his new wife are actually really in love, for the first time, and somehow all this ends up bringing the father and the son closer together, in letting all these secrets out.

For me, it just brings up, again, the central questions of – why do we do this marriage thing – when the odds are as low as they say they are – and how do we do this marriage thing, and what makes a marriage a good marriage or not a good marriage – are these questions all entirely individual? Or are there any universal truths? Are there cultural truths about it? You’d think I might write some fiction about this – and maybe I will – but I’m still figuring out what the questions are. Would love to hear what all y’all think about it, married, divorced, remarried, divorced parents, whatever. Maybe you can help me figure it out.

Bye, The Wire

2008-11-29T10:10:00.002-05:00

Ben and I watched the last episode of The Wire last night. Oh, man. That was some good shit. Spoilers ahead, if you haven’t seen the whole series yet. Really amazing how they wove in all the storylines, and wrapped them up without it being all neat. And so perfect that in the end, they sort of show a sequence where it’s pretty clear that everything will more or less go on as always, in the form of different people and places maybe, but more or less the same. The whole last season, all I really wanted was that Bubbles would get clean, stay clean, and come up out of the basement, so needless to say I’m happy. And as much as I hoped Du’Quan would have a chance, I thought it was perfect that he sort of – took Bubbles place, if you will. I was totally bummed about Omar, and the worst part of that was that I actually saw that one episode out of order, before we’d started watching this season on DVD, at a friend’s house. I don’t know how any of you read this, but I actually thought the end for McNulty was kind of perfect, like, maybe if he weren’t a cop he and Beadie could have a chance. Anyway, goodbye, The Wire, it was great.

Omar.

Bubbles before.

Bubbles after.

More Awesomeness

2008-11-26T09:49:00.003-05:00

So stoked that I figured out how to post this over here. This is my buddy Kacy Crowley (you need her record Cave) singing with the African Children's Choir the other night. We were there, and these kids were amazing, sparkling little lights. Try not to cry. I doubt it's possible.

Kacy with African Children's choir

November 4, 2008

2008-11-25T12:56:00.002-05:00

I was not in Chicago for this, but Ben was in Grant Park that night, lucky! Anyway, you've seen a lot of the footage from the park that night, but he took this in the street, after everyone was leaving the park. Still cheering. Pretty rad. But actually, I'm still cheering now.

No Wonder Cardigans Are So Hard to Come By Lately

2008-11-25T12:17:00.004-05:00

Okay, I am LOVING Mad Men for like sixteen different reasons, not the least of which is the wardrobe. Many of you know my obsession with vintage cardies, the truly special ones of which were increasingly hard to come by even before this show came on. I'll try not to cry too much, because the show is totally worth it. But if you see me repeating the same ones for a while, we can all blame Mad Men. Anyway, I have always loved the clothes of this era, although watching this show makes me really, really glad to be a woman in 2008 who can have the best of the clothes, without the foundation garments or the sexual harassment or the inequality.

NOTE: I have just finished watching Season One on DVD so if you lucky people have cable and you've seen Season Two, DO NOT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS or I will come out in my nightie and shoot you with a BB gun.

Greatest. Thing. Ever.

2008-11-05T07:58:00.001-05:00

The words I saw on my tv screen last night: President Elect Barack Obama.

'Nuff Said

2008-11-04T10:09:00.001-05:00

(for Obama)

Another Crane Story on Selected Shorts!

2008-11-02T18:49:00.002-05:00

I just found out my story "Ad" is airing on Selected Shorts this week, so check your local NPR listings. I haven't heard this yet (we were supposed to fly to NY for the live show last year, but got snowed in), but it's kind of one big long run-on sentence and I've only read it out loud once myself, so I am really looking forward to hearing what Jill Eikenberry did with it.

VOTE FOR OBAMA! HE'S AWESOME! AND GREAT!

2008-11-02T11:41:00.008-05:00

For the love of all that is good and holy, I implore you, Bert readers, to vote for Obama this Tuesday. As much as I remain optimistic, the race is still too close for my comfort, and what is it all about if it isn't about my comfort, really, and so if there is even one Bert reader who is on the fence in any way (which I can't imagine, seeing as how awesome and great Obama is and since I'm guessing I'm preaching to the choir here, but you never know), I beg of you to consider how dangerous it would be to have McCain and Palin running this country (and god forbid, just Palin). As Tina Fey said of her, she's as smart as me, and that's not good enough. And frankly, I think Tina Fey was being extremely generous in describing her this way, because I'm pretty sure Tina Fey is way smarter. I'm pretty sure I'm way smarter, and I've had some insecurities with my own smartness level over the years, which ought to tell you something.

Also - I've been making calls for MoveOn this weekend, and I urge anyone else who has any little bit of time between now and Tuesday, to volunteer for Obama in any way that suits you. It's actually exciting and energizing, as well as eye-opening. We're almost there - but we aren't there yet.

Listen Up, People of the Internets

2008-10-30T12:49:00.007-04:00

Dear Bloggers Everywhere,

Okay, it has recently come to my attention that some of y’all are like, putting your whole sordid lives out into the blogosphere, and I really, I just, I um, I I I, it needs to stop. Just, just please, make it stop. It’s really not okay. Back in the day, us crazy kids who’ve been around since before the internets, we bought these little books, these little empty notebooks, sometimes they were very pretty on the outside, covered with lovely fabric, and on the inside, these notebooks, sometimes they had lines, I need lines, I can barely read my handwriting without lines, but some of you prefer a blank page, that’s fine too, some of them come with blank pages, maybe you have nice penmanship, maybe you like to draw, or paste in pictures or mementos or what have you, all fine, anyway, we bought these books, back in these pre-internet times we called diaries, nowadays they are sometimes called journals so as not to seem so fourteen-year-old girlish, although I would encourage those of you who prefer the term journal to refrain from using the term ‘journaling’, because as I have said before there is far too much turning of nouns into verbs these days, anyway, some of these blank books, these diaries, they even had locks! (flimsy, they were at best, agreed, but the point, if unclear, is that one was not to open something that had a lock on it, if you were not the keeper of the key) In fact, these books still exist, in greater numbers and greater varieties than ever before. Here are some pretty pictures, you can get most of these and many more just from Paper Source.

Here's one with a lock and a mermaid - what's not to love?

Who doesn't love an uglydoll? I know I do!

This one comes with it's own pencil!

Moleskine - very popular. I always carry one with me.

Simple With Cloud

Love Who You Are - a great suggestion - maybe you could start by using this book!

In these books we called diaries we wrote our private thoughts. Private. In these books we were free to ramble about how mad our moms made us, how that cute boy did not notice us, how drunk we got at the frat party, and whatever else. In my own, it would be repeated decades of: this boy this boy this boy this boy mom this boy this boy this boy this boy I’m depressed this boy this boy this boy what is wrong with me. Trust me when I tell you that that is all you need to know about that, that is all I will ever share with you about that, and if you want to know more about that you will have to pry those diaries out of my crypt.

I am both a writer and a blogger. It’s super great and fun to have a blog on which to throw out some random stuff that interests me, and I encourage anyone to do the same. There are plenty of blogs I follow on a regular basis, from personal ones to ones on various subjects that interest me. But for me, as much as some of my stuff, fiction and here, begins in autobiography, I choose to write fiction for any number of reasons ranging from I’m just better at it to I just like it better to what’s true and what isn’t is my own damn bidness. It’s not even that I wouldn’t consider writing a memoir someday, if I was moved to. I haven’t been, thus far. But maybe what I’m talking about here is a matter of boundaries. I feel very clear, for myself, about what I would and wouldn’t write about in my blog. Which brings me to another point I think is kind of interesting. It has been said about the writing on this blog, and of my writing in general, is that it’s honest. I really hope that’s true, and I take it as a great compliment. But to me, there’s a big difference between honesty and too much information.

Do I have to read what you write? Hell, no, and I generally don’t. But for your own good, and for the love of god, if you must write every last grisly detail online, take advantage of the privacy options, and keep your blogs private, or choose a program that allows you to be selective about your readers, say your two best friends, or whoever it is that you might actually talk to face to face about these private things. You understand that employers look at this stuff, right? Maybe you were born rich and don’t care about employers. Surely, then you understand that random creepy people look at this stuff, right?

I am now done with my rant/plea for the day. Thank you for your time.

Yours truly,

Elizabeth Crane

Austin Events

2008-10-28T18:04:00.003-04:00

Hey Y'all!

Come to some readings and stuff in Austin!

This Sunday, November 2, 8:00 pm at the Texas Book Festival:

Austin Bat Cave
1807 W. 11th St
Panel: The Worst Years of Your Life: Writing About Adolescence
with Owen Edgerton, ZZ Packer, Andrew Sean Greer, Robert Boswell, Amber Dermont, Mark Jude Poirier

Five Things Reading Series
Friday, November 14th, 7:00 pm
Do512
2208 S. Lamar
(more info to come)

Follett's Intellectual Property
Tuesday, November 18th, 5:30 pm
2402 Guadalupe St.

These People Cannot Catch a Break

2008-10-11T10:06:00.004-04:00

Oh man. Ben, Lisa (visiting from Los Angeles) and I watched Pelle the Conqueror last night - arguably, an excellent, excellent movie. But never have I had so much gratitude (fine, any) for not being a Swede trying to hack it in Denmark at the turn of the century, holy toledo. Jeebus. This movie is brutal, people, utterly relentless. You can't believe this many bad things could happen in one movie. Relentless. But you know, worth seeing. Just be sure to have your Kleenex handy, and maybe take an intermission halfway through to regroup or something.

Why We Don't Have Cable

2008-10-07T11:57:00.002-04:00

I do not speak one word of Spanish. Okay, well, crap. That’s a lie. Truly, I do not speak Spanish. I speak a few words of Spanish. I wanted a punchier first sentence. I usually write fiction. Cut me some slack. Here’s a list of Spanish words I know, off the top of my head:

1. maricon (sp?)
2. conio
3. mira

(this is the point in my list where you might be figuring out that I grew up in a neighborhood with a significant Spanish-speaking population) (and also where I might point out that I am fluent in swear words in several languages)

4. ola
5. abuela
6. supermercado

So I think it goes without saying at this point that for me to watch as much Telemundo as I do is curious at best. But I haven’t had cable in years, and the truth is, Telemundo can be a hell of a lot more entertaining than some shows in languages I do speak.

Occasionally I watch the telenovelas. Sometimes I watch the talk shows. On one, there is a very animated middle-aged lady with big curled blonde hair and a push-up bra. Actually, I’m pretty sure that being a guest on this show requires a push-up bra and if you do not come prepared, it’s like going to a fancy restaurant and getting a dinner jacket – they’ll provide one for you. Guests on this show include a lot of musical acts with, in addition to push-up bras, short skirts, and very bad choreography (which may be a function of the fact that the set seems to be the size of my bathroom). Sometimes if there’s some event going on they cut away to stars on red carpet. Not speaking the language, I like to try to figure out if they’re pop stars or soap stars and frankly sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes I also watch the talk shows in the vein of Jerry Springer or Maury Povich where the people have very long titles underneath with only one or two words I can catch, like “papa,” enough to surmise that someone is trying to find out which of two “papas” someone’s baby belongs to.

Plus it’s just fun to say, “Sabado Gigante!”

Mostly, though, I love to watch American movies in Spanish. It works fairly well if it’s an action movie. There’s very little dialogue, none that you couldn’t figure out fairly easily, anyway, and lots of dramatic action and expression. I watched the entirety of Anaconda on Telemundo, a movie I would never have watched in English in spite of the presence of Owen Wilson. (Although he gets eaten by the snake fairly early on. Oh, sorry, did I give too much away? People getting eaten by the anaconda?) And let me say I am no friend to snakes, they skeeve me out, and I certainly don’t like big giant ass ones.

But as films to watch in a language you don’t speak go, this is a perfect example. You have a cast of characters on a rickety boat in a swamp somewhere. Jennifer Lopez is the sexy one, Kahri Wuhrer is the other sexy one who’ll probably get killed, which we know because she used to be on MTV. Ice Cube is the black one, Eric Stolz is the weird one. Some of them don’t get along. Jon Voight seems to be the egotistic leader, which you can tell by the determined look on his face. One is as skeevey as the snake itself. They fight. It’s probably about how to kill the snake, or a money issue. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that the skeevey one eventually gets eaten by the snake.

What’s fun about watching movies in Spanish is that it forces you to actually pay attention. I’m inclined to be reading a book while watching TV, which you can’t do if you’re watching in languages you don’t understand. Granted, the very title of Anaconda in and of itself is probably as much attention as need be paid. Big snake, got it. Talky dramas, for obvious reasons, don’t work as well, although it can be interesting to watch a better movie in Spanish, to see if people really are good actors. I saw a bit of that vampire movie where Nicolas Cage eats a cockroach, in Spanish, and, you know, in any language this is not enjoyable, and makes me rethink Nicolas Cage, who I’ve liked in English.

Anyway, just to refer back to the title, imagine all the things I’d watch that I don’t need to watch if we had more channels. We had cable for three weeks when we first got to Austin and it was AWESOME – do you know there’s a whole show about throwing all the junk out of someone’s house? Think about it! There are enough people out there who have a house full of junk to warrant an entire TV show, not just a special two-part episode of Oprah. And who can resist reruns of 90210, or all-day marathons of The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency or What Not to Wear, even when I want to yell at Clinton and Stacy not to just leave the tattoey hipster be! On cable I want to watch everything and nothing. The only shows I truly cannot watch are the ones that show surgeries, real or fake, and The Hills. Thoroughly unwatchable. I do not have any idea who’s watching this show. I tried. But the conversation is like, Are you going to the party? I guess. Is Lo going to the party? I don’t know. Okay, well, I guess I’ll go. But what if there’s drama? I don’t know. And then cut to the party and the drama is about as dramatic as the pre-party discussion about the drama. Even writing this is putting me to sleep.

My New Thing: Little Houses

2008-09-13T09:59:00.011-04:00

Austin has a cool mix of houses, a lot of old little bungalowy houses, with some modern ones mixed in. Most of them aren't huge, and it seems that very often the new construction is considerate of the general scale of the surrounding area. The one we're in has one bathroom, one bigger bedroom, living room, sun room - but I'm realizing that any much more room than this and I wouldn't spend time in whatever extra rooms I happen to have. Our place in Chicago is bigger than this house, I'd say, especially including the storage we have in the attic - no complaints, mind you, I love that place - but sometimes when Ben's in the office and I'm in the bedroom - I don't want to have to yell, or, you know, get up and walk to the other end of the house to say the three words I feel he needs to know at any given moment. Here, everything's in easy reach. It's cozy, without feeling claustrophobic. The sun room makes a nice office for both of us to work in at the same time and Ben even has room to do a little painting.

Not that I have ever had any interest in moving into a McMansion - I'm staunchly anti-McMansion aesthetically and otherwise - but these smaller homes here have such character and modesty and charm. All I want one day, when we own a home, is a designated craft area that isn't in a part of the house I can only use when it's a perfect 70 degree day. (My sewing machine is in the attic, and winter/dead summer sewing - not enjoyable.) And I've never really had a proper crafts table with all my stuff in easy reach for - spontaneous crafting!

I think this one is especially cute, even though it doesn't have the traditional front porch.

This one is brand-new, and seems like it's trying to fit in, but is just a little too big, I think.

Pink Flamingos

2008-09-12T16:42:00.003-04:00

A classic, or so I'm told. Ben thought it was hilarious. I don't have a very strong stomach, so I couldn't watch the whole thing. But lucky me, I got to see how it ended...

Critters We've Seen In Austin So Far

2008-09-12T16:22:00.007-04:00

A whole family of deer we saw as we were leaving a party. Two full-grown, five little ones.

A turtle in a parking lot. Ben picked him up and put him on the grass. This guy was about soup bowl-sized, but I saw one about twice as big the other day when I didn't have my camera.

A peacock. Or - peahen, I guess. We actually saw her boyfriend as well, but he was gone by the time we got the camera out.

Ben has seen an armadillo, but I have not.

9/11/08: UT Austin Campus

2008-09-12T16:15:00.002-04:00

I thought this was a nice thing to see yesterday. Today it was gone.

Boasting Not Necessary Here

2008-09-09T18:01:00.002-04:00

I saw an ad for some fancy face cream or something that promised "Five percent of every penny we earn will go to charity!"

All well and good. But the phrasing, not so much. I would suggest maybe just going with the five percent and leaving off the every penny. Otherwise, all I can think about is the other ninety five percent of every penny that's going in your pockets, fancy face cream company.

Notes from Austin: The Weather

2008-09-09T17:54:00.003-04:00

Greetings from Austin!

Finally, internet service! As such, I will try to provide more frequent reportage, Austin-related and non.

Austin-weather related:

One: instead of saying 20 % 'chance of rain' down here, the weather folks say
20 % 'rain chance.' Which is a little bit poetic, I think.

Two: I also heard this on the weather the other day. 'It's about 86 degrees right now, but it'll warm up later.' This was said with absolutely no irony whatsoever.

More soon!

Dream Chicago

2008-08-30T08:33:00.004-04:00

Total bummer, I have to miss this, but if you're in Chicago, you don't!

Steppenwolf is putting on a show of Chicago-centric stories in Millenium Park at the Pritzker, September 8, at 8:00 pm for free! Martha Lavey will be performing my story, Jesse Jackson, He Lives in Chicago, and she's a superstar, and did such an amazing job with my story Football for Selected Shorts.

Here's a linky.

There's a very cool green beetle on my window who just flew in to insist you go see it!

Last-minute crafts

2008-08-14T11:05:00.004-04:00

'Cause, you know, I didn't have enough to do what with getting ready for Texas and all - but actually I saw these little rag bracelets on whipup.net and they take about three minutes to make and I have absurd amounts of scraps around.