Sim Carter: Past Tense Imperfect

My interview with Jane Wells, the broadcast journalist who covers business news at MSNBC came out in the April issue of 805Living. For those of you unfamiliar with the magazine, it was just nominated for a Maggy for best overall design which is pretty nifty to say the least. It's published in Westlake Village, California for the communities of the Conejo Valley and surrounding areas. Basically, we cover from Calabasas to Camarillo... with an emphasis on Agoura, Oak Park, Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, and Newbury Park. It's mostly a lifestyle magazine, highlighting great places to shop, eat, and go to plus we also highlight notable and interesting people who live in the area. Hopefully I'll be able to link to it or post it here in the future. In the meantime you have to pick it up in the Conejo.

I was a copywriter at Max Factor for about five years back in the eighties. I came up with shade names, wrote package copy and created names for products too. Here, a piece inspired by that work. Maybe you’ve never heard of me but I’m the one you listen to in your heart of hearts. I’m the one who tells you how to be. I’m the cosmetic copy writer. Maybe I named your lipstick or told you exactly how to apply your blush. Maybe it was a little thing like putting on your mascara. Now you remember. “For big, fat lashes that last and last. Smudgeproof. Smearproof. Even kissproof.” Yes! That was me. I’m the one you run to when your mirror makes you moan. It’s me you turn to when Johnny Angel picks Carol Ann -- not you -- to take to the Senior Prom. Let’s face it. Without me you’re nothing. No one will ever love you. You’ll never have a boyfriend. You’re ugly. A pale, pimply, lipless, lashless, small-eyed, big-nosed, mousy-haired gnome. You are the walrus! Koo koo kachoo. I’m the cosmetic copy ...

It must be Spring. The leaves that fell from the tree last fall and landed on the patio have been rained on and rerained on so many times they’ve formed a rich carpet of mulch on the cement that only a shovel will be able to remove. The umbrella that was hanging from the front hall chair has been put away deep in the closet and the empty planter swinging from the shepherd’s hook just beyond our front door is crying out for color. A pair of ducks from the pond across the street, a dazzling green headed male and his mousy brown spouse, have taken up residence on the lawn across from our townhouse. The hills are still so green here in the Conejo that if you squint and block out the freeway exit signs you can almost trick yourself into believing you’re in Ireland on holiday. And at the end of the month, the kids at least, will be on spring break. Maybe the luck of the Irish has rubbed off on you and you’re off to some exotic locale - far enough away to escape your day to day world as well ...

Enough about my stories. I'm sick of my writing. What I'm not sick of is the writing of Khaled Hosseini. I am only 1/4th of the way into The Kite Runner, an exquisite book by Hosseini that is part fiction and part anthropology lesson. Set in Afghanistan, a country whose name formerly conjured up not much more than a rocky barren landscape with sheeted blurs for people -- those people,now one sees, are very much like you and me. From their blue jeans to their weakness of character. Hosseini has painted his country with a rich mixture of colors and textures, hate and love, pity and shame. I was shocked to find it such a beautiful and moving book! If you haven't read it take the word of the NY Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Isabel Allende and more and get thee to a bookstore or a library or Amazon.com quick. I can hardly wait to finish blogging so I can crawl into my bed and read right now. To learn more about Khaled Hosseini check out his website at http://www.khaledhoss...

I've been writing up events for the April 2005 edition of 805Living magazine and I came across the fact that Santa Barbara author, T.C. Boyle, will be reading his own story Chicxulub at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara on April 18. I was even told he's one of the few writers who actually does a superb job at this. Which lead me to look the story up and give it a read. It's the kind of thing that makes a writer cry. First, because it's so moving, you'd have to be a clump of clay not to cry and Second, because it's so rich and real and f'ing brilliant! I'm including here for you to read - even though it highlights what a crap writer I am ESPECIALLY in comparison - and including the New Yorker link. Every month they include a short story that you can print out and read offline. Damn nice of them, don't you think.To read Chicxulub now, click on the Read More. To go to the New Yorker click on the title. February 28, 2005 home CHICXULUB by T. CORAGHESSA...

Blogging along and feeling groovy when I'm suddenly struck with a nasty case of perfectionism. Shouldn't blogging - like an old fashioned diary - be free-form, stream of conscious, loosey-goosey, yeah- that's what I'm talkin' about!? Yet I'm weighted down by some inate writer's tendency to hone and shape and craft and revise the hell out of any and all posts. Shitty first drafts, be gone! I log in, you know, just to see how this new little blog of mine is looking and before I know it I'm editing past posts, tweaking the type, picking at my profile like it's a bad sunburn starting to peel. And it's driving me mad. Help. Someone. I want to move on, I don't want to get blogged down in my own neurotic need to create the perfect post, the beginnings of a brilliant blog. Won't someone out there tell me what to do?!?!

Updated:  Bernard Cooper was doing personal essays so long, long ago... back in the day when english teachers and editors all said stay away from "I". I remember reading "Maps to Anywhere" and feeling that I had found my personal compass rose. I lost my way somewhere on my writing journey and when a friend suggested she'd prefer to see my pieces, based on my life, as short stories, to see my life 'fictionalized', and I set to writing short stories that all grew out of my reality.   They didn't just lack imagination, they lacked r ealism. I'm back to struggling with memoir, even if it does feel like a whole lot of me, the me feels authentic and true. That's the goal anyway.  The link takes you to Vimeo and a reading by Cooper from The Bill from my Father: A Memoir For some of my personal essays start here