Tuesday 11/10/20
Walked five miles. Here is tonight's Downtown interview, which was about Meatheads. Light-headed on my walk. I just push myself so hard. Cleaned up the Tatum piece. Did a little work on "Girls of the Nimbus." Since June 2018, I have written 120 stories alone in which women or girls are the main characters. Peeling off my wet clothes to jump in the shower just before going on Downtown, I realized how much they say about me. I was wearing a Boston Symphony Orchestra sweatshirt. Boston Ballet T-shirt. Boston College sweatpants. I hate BC on account of my experience there, but it is where I run my stairs. Boston Bruins beanie. The mere fact that you like sports--and know about sports--and are a symphony-goer would disqualify you with most people in publishing. They almost always hate anything athletic. That the sporty person who is the sports expert is also the leading expert on all of the intellectual and arts topics they know next to nothing about is true nightmare territory for them. That's an apple cart they'll have to try to overturn--or at least, block the road so it can't pass.
I did not stay up to watch the Patriots game, with the whole "arise at 4 AM and work my ass off" deal. I saw some of the first half. I read after that the team was encouraged, and the recaps were largely positive. Or the three or four I saw. Piecing things together, this win represents their lowest point yet. You trailed the Jets by double digits in the fourth quarter? The Jets don't want to win. They want the first pick. You require a 51-yard field as time expires to win the game? What I did see was J.C. Jackson turned to toast a few times. I thought he was their most consistent corner last year. I've never been a Gilmore guy. I think he's so overrated. I know Jackson leads the league in interceptions, but that can be misleading--it's commonly a guy who is targeted a lot, and who profits from some misfires that hit him in the chest. They have to turn over this roster. The McCourty twins need to go. Start anew. And not to sound 100, but people stay up until midnight to watch that? Also: Joe Flacco may be better than Cam Newton. And even during his best years, Flacco's style of play can be characterized as, "Shit, I'm throwing this deep, I hope it works out."
The Mary Wollstonecraft sculpture is hideous. Pretentious. Pointless. Insulting to women. Insulting to Mary Wollstonecraft. Looks like Leisure Suit Larry's idea of a sexy hood ornament. People are terrible at most things. The difference here--in terms of the arts--is that the sculpture was seen. Being a sculpture commissioned for wide public viewing. If you put the short stories of American literary magazines out there like that, and everyone saw them, people would be like, "Holy shit, no wonder no one reads anymore." They'd laugh. The laughter of mockery and eye-rolling. They'd make jokes about how bad and pretentious it all was. How they could do better. And they can. But I was coming through the Public Garden late this afternoon, and a woman was talking on her phone, telling her friend or whomever how stupid some guy was because he didn't even know who Mary Wollstonecraft was. "And I was like, she wrote Frankenstein." Hmmm. Might want to double check that. Actually, if Leisure Suit Larry said that to me, I'd wonder if he was making a clit pun.
