Emerson college graduate Archives

Photo by Henrikke Due on Unsplash. Girl prone on ground with bored look on her face.

I was a slush pile reader

Posted on 03/27/2023 | by admin

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I regret that I did not get practice in the field of professional writing while I was in college getting that degree.

I had one great writing teacher who required us to read and critique submissions by our classmates. I still remember Dennis saying that, “you will write nothing worth a damn until you are at least 30 years old.”

Although I went to the same college where the directors of Oscar-winning film, Everything Everywhere All at Once went, so that’s gotta mean something, right?

Yes, I agree it doesn’t mean anything.

But I have a degree from the same school as classmates (and old friends) who have written plays, and/or won awards, and published books. Which puts me into a great collection of people.

But in my post today, I’ll write about another learning experience: when I was a slushpile reader.

In the aughts

I worked for the online magazine, Absinthe Literary Review.

The magazine is on the Wayback Machine,

See – I use that page on the internet archive a lot.

and is also saved at LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe). That’s good, because cyber-squatting happened to the original “ALR” site. So, ALR is further protected through Preservation by Distribution.

My experiences at ALR made me felt better about my writing abilities…, and also a little bit worse. But I did find some enjoyment through the experience.

Here’s some good things I learned about getting writing rejections:

When someone writes that your submission didn’t work for their publication, it really doesn’t.

When a person says, “It’s just not right for this issue,” sometimes it actually means just that.

When they write that it was a hard choice, they honestly mean it.

The first time I read for ALR

The editors of the magazine gave me 55 entries. Out of these, I was to whittle them down and out of those, send them 5 “hopeful” submissions. With my job of picking one out of 11 entries, I really spent time on some, wondering if they went in the “possible/not possible” pile.

But first, I had to find, in those 55, which were “possible/not possible” that I would send to ALR; and which were, “OMG ABSOLUTELY NOT THAT ONE.”

That’s because some of the writing on these submissions was just, really, bad. Those that I knew, within a page, sometimes in the first paragraph, that this was not a good story.

In that case, I did not waste any of my energy writing the rejection letter. In that case, I just copied and pasted the rejection. Those rejections are the ones that stay with me.

Those in the first paragraph:

Were closely inspired by George Orwell’s novel, 1984.

Where the author intentionally spelled things incorrectly. To either amp up the feeling that this was taking place far in the future, or indicate the narrator’s lack of education.

Or a story, say, with a giant praying mantis, in which I figured out that there was going to be a giant praying mantis from the 2nd page of a 9-page story.

Stories with words we need to retire:

betwixt
tresses
- Actually, I hadn’t seen those words in 15 years, at least. But making a list of words to retire might have just been evidence that I was getting cranky.

Or this story

Which began:

“Breath of my breath, keeper of my soul. My angel and my demon. My sacrament and my damnation: Violetta.“

…. I didn’t even know what to think about that one.

Not to be hoity-toity, but that’s a cover version of the beginning of Nabokov’s Lolita.

Still, I tried to give things an honest shake. Sometimes I knew to set things aside so I could look later with fresh eyes. Although the story with the giant praying mantis? No. But I might have put the story with the word “resplendent” away for a little while before coming back to it later.

There were many levels of understanding

on whether to pass the piece back to the editor.

I sent him a .pst file with everything—including my rejections—in case there is some question at a later date from the writer. But the editor only got the complete submission on items I was sending up the chain.

The reason this made me feel worse:

When I read something (even the take-off on 1984) from someone who, in the intro letter, told me that they had previously been published.

Even multiple times!

Re-reading that, after looking at a submission that was, well, terrible, just depressed me. I thought: am I wrong? Am I dumb? Do I not have the wherewithal to submit my writing so that I could be published multiple times?

In the end I decided to just not read the intro letters until after I read the story.

It’s kind of like when I take the snacks off the counter so that I’m not tempted to cheat.

In the end, I divided the pieces sent up the chain into three:

a piece that I loved
a piece that might be something good, but I didn’t know whether it was right for the mag or not, and
almost interchangeable with the 2nd level. It’s sort of an imprecise thing…. More of a feeling.

Although when it was horrendously bad, I kept the example in my brain. Like, worse than the bastardization of Lolita. But something that still makes me laugh.

I am not alone in coming across bad writing. There is, after all, the Bulwar Lytton Fiction contest:

[P]articipants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written. Our whimsical literary competition honors Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1830 novel Paul Clifford begins with “It was a dark and stormy night.”

In the end, I really wrote this today for 2 selfish reasons.

One reason is that I want to impart this line from one writer’s submission letter. He wrote this to describe the basic plot of his story:

“Daniel falls in love with a robot—a lesbian robot!!!”

[sic]

I checked, and that line

– even in after the movie, “Her” in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an operating system –

still makes me laugh.

And the second reason I wrote:

I want to give the link to this one piece that I sent “up the chain” at ALR. It’s a short piece written by Nathan Radke, entitled “Dot“.

When I read the piece today and still enjoy it.

I’m proud of that, like I’m proud of that “B+” that Dennis McFarland gave me in the last creative writing class I took from him.

First published March 27, 2023
The photograph at the top of this post is by Henrikke Due and was published here on the site for public domain images, Unsplash.com.

Stage and audience before the beginning of The Rivals at The American Players Theatre

Up the Hill

Posted on 07/15/2022 | by admin

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Photograph taken in the American Players Theatre on June 11, 2022, before the start of the show, The Rivals. Members of APT belong to the Actors Equity Association, so photographs are prohibited during performances.

I’m not writing this week about Frank Lloyd Wright, the Taliesin estate, or other non-Wright things I’ve delved into. I’m going to write about something close to the estate that contributes to the area around Wright’s Wisconsin home. This is the American Players Theatre.

Founded in the 1970s, “APT” is a repertory theater that operates during the warmer months. It puts on 8-9 plays each year, many of them simultaneously. 5 of these shows are “up the hill”: an outdoor, 1,089-seat amphitheater that you get to by literally walking up a hill (there are snacks once you get there, I promise).¹ APT has a smaller theater near the base of the hill called the “Touchstone Theatre“. It seats 201, opened in 2009 and has 4 plays running during the season.

APT is made up of a core-acting company, as well as cast members coming from around the country each season. Its regular season starts in mid-June, and runs until the last night of the first weekend in October.

Perhaps Wright/Taliesin changed the town, or the town was changed due to so many other Wisconsinsites. However, APT is a notable factor in the town’s

current character.

In addition to many core acting members and the Stage, Production, and Operations Managers, in residence in/around town, every summer Spring Green’s population increases with more actors, directors, and everyone else involved in

Putting on a show!

Also, a yearly audience of around 100,000 people come to the shows, see the town, etc etc.

Now, I could keep going on with every stage person I could possibly think of that was/is involved. But I stopped because I realized I wasn’t writing a piece for Morning Edition. I apologize to those I left out.

And me? Well…

For a few years in the late 1990s I had a part-time job at APT (which, at that time, was only on the stage “up the hill”).² In no way did I do anything important.

‘Coz informing people that Wright didn’t kill his second wife is important enough, man!³

No, I just worked on the House staff, 12-15 hrs a week. Getting over $300+ bucks a month was nice.⁴

Here’s what I did the majority of time:

Told people where to park in the lot before the show
Stood near the top of the hill and ripped the top off of tickets when theater goers got up there
Worked the concession stand during intermissions
Following the play, went through the stands with the rest of the House staff and collected trash.

Really — why did I do this?

I thought it would be cool to see the APT shows, despite not having a background in theater

(except for being surrounded by friends in college who were actors, and taking a couple of acting classes)

And, as I worked completely in tours (as a guide, a House steward, and in the bookstore), it was refreshing to be completely anonymous.

The freedom to observe different plays through an entire season:

Gave me the chance to watch my favorite scenes over and over throughout the season. And see the actors play with their line delivery from night to night.

Or just slog along while the actors dealt with the wind, rain, heat, and cold.

Well, yes, and everyone who was in the stands had to deal with this, too. But the actors and other staff had to be there.

In particular,

there was a Saturday during a summer heat wave the season that one actor played both Richard III and Cyrano de Bergerac. This one day, Lee Ernst acted in Richard III—a play lasting several hours with the battle scene at the end—in the mid-afternoon show. And this was followed by him as “Cyrano” in the 8 p.m. show. The play in which Cyrano fights with a sword in his first scene.

These engendered moments of fascination. I knew a little of what it was like to be outside giving tours through spaces lacking climate control on hot and humid days. However, I wasn’t holding a sword and wearing a costume that covered me from my neck to my ankles.

APT eventually added a sunshade over part of the stage (as in this 2011 photo through Foursquare). I was told that at these times, the stage itself could be over 100F (38C). You could only wonder at the physical brutality that the actors went through.

My one full season

To get back to my easy work: I worked at the end of APT seasons (like the season with Cyrano and Richard III), and one whole season (1998). The plays at that time were:

The Comedy of Errors, by William Shakespeare
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
Macbeth, by William Shakespeare
Mary Stuart, by Friedrich Schiller
Wild Oats, by John O’Keefe

I remember

It rained a lot that year. A LOT.

Oh, and June of that year saw an oak tree at Taliesin’s Tea Circle oak tree crash onto Wright’s front office, next to the Taliesin studio. Which was followed 10 days later by a landslide at Taliesin.

I think all the staff got to know the lines in the plays that referenced rain.

btw: Since APT’s Hill Theatre is exterior, they have lots of ways to deal with rain and do everything they can to make sure the show goes off. In fact, APT’s weather policy has its own webpage.

At the end of that season, there was a private party of APT staff, with awards that staff members gave each other.

A note about me in the Taliesin tour program:

The APT awards inspired me to start awards for our end-of-the-season parties. I put the awards together for about 5 seasons.

Some awards: “most chronometrically challenged tour guide”, “Answers the question, ‘Is this the House on the Rock?‘ with patience and aplomb,” etc. etc.

Another note on weather in another season:

One time while working on the House crew at the end of September, I watched snow flurries during “Much Ado About Nothing“. Not what’s envisioned:

That’s why the costumes allow actors to wear either heat or cold packs.

However,

Enough days and nights are magical that they make up for everything. There are nights at APT that are warm with the call of Whipporwills and the audience sees distant clouds discharging silent thunderbolts. Nights in which the lights come up at the end of the show and you look up and there are stars over your heads.

And, during one performance (as an audience member in 2017), a bat flew near the stage during the farce, “A Flea in Her Ear“. The actress playing the character of Olympe (a proprietor of the slightly run-down hotel, Coq d’Or), following the overhead visit by the flying little rodent, casually said, “don’t mind the bats” to her patrons while she walked out.

Lastly,

APT is the way I got introduced to my friend, Terry Teachout. He came out to Spring Green to review shows from APT and saw Taliesin, for the first time and met me. I can’t go too much into it since he died unexpectedly this past January. He just loved APT, and thinking about him gets me teary-eyed.

First published July 15, 2022.

Notes:

1 There are buses that drive people up the hill starting 45 minutes before showtime. We’re only hardy in Wisconsin; not sadistic, or murderous.

2 and given my post-Covid situation, $300/month sounds nice, too.

3 No: he didn’t kill his wife.
I thought we went over this.
Plus, she wasn’t his wife; she was his mistress/partner.

3 I’ve heard this at least once from staff over the years: sometimes APT receives complaints from people who have seen a show, and would like the “volume of the whippoorwill” to “be turned down.”

Granted, I have been in all-inclusive amusement parks where you don’t know what sounds or events are planned/piped in. However, in this case I can tell you: the whippoorwills at APT are real.

Photograph from Taliesin's Hill Crown to its Living Quarters. September 2005.

False Clerestory at Taliesin

Posted on 07/04/2022 | by admin

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The entry to Taliesin’s Living Quarters as seen from its Hill Crown.

What’s a clerestory?

Clerestory—

“1. An upper zone of wall pierced with windows that admit light to the center of a lofty room.
2. A window so placed.”

My definition comes from Dictionary of Architecture and Construction, 4^th edition (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2006)—

Yes, I own that volume. I don’t understand everything in it, but I feel super prepared.

The Art History teacher who introduced the term to me said it was pronounced “Clear-story”. But I’ve also heard it pronounced, “Cler-eh’-story”.
Yet, I only found the first pronunciation (the way I was taught). So, a big “whew” toward our teacher, Dulcia, and my own memory.

Or, easily, we’ll just look at a pretty picture from Wikimedia, of what a clerestory looks like from inside a building:

Where you see Taliesin’s false clerestory:

That’s in the photo at the top of this post, under the tallest roof you see.

You’ve also seen current photos of it in several of my posts already.

What – you didn’t realize I would constantly pull out my posts like baseball cards? Then my sneaky job of edumification is going along nicely.

Well, either that, or you’ve left the page b/c I write too f*****g much.

Oh, and that is one area where Wright, imho, changed things in ways I’m not crazy about.

You see the clerestory on tour

when you enter the living quarters.

As I wrote in the post, “Why did you have to do that Mr. Wright?”, that clerestory didn’t come in until the 1950s.

To see an early appearance in photographs, we’ll play a game of “spot the difference“.

First I’ll show you the “before” photo. The photo below was taken by former Wright apprentice, John Geiger (1921-2011), when he was in the Taliesin Fellowship (1947-1952).

Color photograph from Taliesin's Hill Crown to its Living Quarters. 1947-1952. — Photograph by John Geiger. 1947-52.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)

Taken from the Taliesin Hill Crown. Looking in the same direction as my photo at the top of this post.

There’s no clerestory at the roof over Taliesin’s Living Quarters.

Compare that, with what’s below.

This is the “after” photo. The photographer took this on April 3, 1953. It was also taken on the Taliesin Hill Crown and the Living Quarters has the clerestory:

Black and white photograph from Taliesin's Hill Crown to its Living Quarters. April 1953 — Taken by Richard Braun or his brother.
Property: Taliesin Preservation, Inc.

While the Taliesin Fellowship was still at Taliesin West, Richard Braun and his brother came out to Taliesin and took a bunch of photographs. Years later, he took a tour at Taliesin and decided to give his photos to Taliesin Preservation.

Here is the kooky thing about this particular clerestory

The clerestory didn’t, and doesn’t, do anything.

Clerestories are there to bring in sunlight. This clerestory does not.

When you see the clerestory from the outside it looks as if light is coming in to Taliesin’s living quarters. Like the light coming taken at the “Winchester Mystery House” that I showed above.

Take a look at the photo I took in Taliesin’s Living Room that I posted in “Bats at Taliesin“:

If the clerestory were doing its job, you’d see a line of light in the balcony behind the Buddha that stands back there. Yet, there’s only blackness.

And the photo I took below shows what you’d see if you were standing in that balcony:

Photograph from balcony at Taliesin. Taliesin's living room is in the background, past the Buddha under the white sheet. — By Keiran Murphy. Taken February 27, 2004.

I took this photograph in February 2004.
Scanning my memory, I was probably there while working on a chronology of this part of the building. That was a crazy assignment I should write about some time.

So, why did Wright do this?

There isn’t any evidence that Wright added the clerestory for a photograph, like he did maybe for Architectural Forum (like I talked about in my last post, “Taliesin West Inspiration“).

And, while I went looking for things in my copy of Frank Lloyd Wright: Complete Works, volume 3, 1943-1959 it wasn’t helpful. Because I thought maybe he was thinking about clerestories at entrances.

But then I thought:

in order for someone to get to “the front door” at Taliesin, they’ve got to walk quite a long way.

But, I found one building that might have been part of the process. It came at around the right time. That’s –

The Harold Price, Jr residence:

a.k.a., “Hillside”. The link I put above takes you to one of Maynard Parker’s photos of Hillside, but I put a color photo of this area, below. It comes from Frank Lloyd Wright: Completed Buildings, v. 3, 340.¹

I took this photo in the book with my smartphone; that’s why the photo almost looks like a painting.

There’s not a clerestory above the entrance, but a balcony. However, the view looks similar to what Wright did at Taliesin. So, when you come to the Price Jr. house, there’s what looks like a clerestory right above the door. Maybe Wright made the change because he was testing out the composition?

I mean, there were things he apparently did at Taliesin to test things out, or maybe because he liked what he did for someone else. And, like I wrote in my last post, he changed things for a photograph. But, despite how practical these things were, people at Taliesin could usually more-or-less use them when he was done.

But there’s no mistake: this design change that Wright made at Taliesin is completely unusable. Hey – it’s Taliesin Trompe l’oeil!²

First published July 4, 2022.
I took this on Taliesin’s Hill Crown in September 2008 during a garden party held for locals.

Note:

Yes, I own all of the volumes from the “Completed Buildings” series (there are 3). I had stopped smoking, and was rewarding myself. Plus, I was hoping the books would become as valuable as the Frank Lloyd Wright Monograph series (c. $8k for the full set of the monographs in hardcover – girl’s gotta dream, right?).
Maybe not, really. But I like those words. And Wright playing tricks with Taliesin always pleases me.