An exercise in taming inevitability by Kevin Smokler
Posts tagged: jobs
Assignment: Job applications. Did I mention I’m on the market?
Where my head went:
- Skippy Dies
- The New Republic
- New Year’s Resolutions
- Wounded Knee
Why? I heard a recommendation (ok, about the 20th) for the novel Skippy Dies on the most recent episode of The Bookrageous Podcast and it sounded like just my kind of book (coming of age, Ireland, premature expiration). Since I recently got a bookseller gift card from my wife’s grandmother as a holiday present, I think I’ll be buying it shortly in hardcover, an indulgence best indulged with someone else’s money.
I got to thinking this morning that, in order to save money on magazine subscriptions, perhaps I could offer to tweet my favorite articles from each month’s issue in exchange for a free subscription. And the first magazine that came to mind for this arrangement was The New Republic, which is odd as I’ve never subscribed to it and have barely read it in the past.
It’s getting to the point each year where I take myself and a legal pad somewhere private and write out my New Year’s Resolutions for the year. I’m thinking Thursday.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre. May we remember our mistakes long enough to both say we’re sorry and put forth a real effort to not repeat them.
Assignment: A deadly boring piece on social media for authors. For my company blog.
Location: Philz Coffee (aka “The Office”).
Where my head went:
Why? I wrote this whole piece listening to the 5 songs I liked from The New Pornographer’s most recent (and very strong) album “Together.” Which is catchy beyond all get-out but makes one’s prose sound like its being chanted by a marching band. Which is a flipped-coin worse than how I feel my writing normally sounds which is fussy, over phrased and lustfully stringing together depended clauses. Made me wish I could write like Joan Didion who never seems to have a word or phrase out of place, like a set of pearls on a string. And I was mad anyway, because I had to write this essay but there really isn’t anything new to add to the discussion. Betsy Lerner’s great piece for Publishing Perspectives really said it all.
When I’m restless these days, I spend too much time searching jobs on Linkedin. Because I’m on the market. Picture me a horse pawing at the dirt. There’s a fence to leap over somewhere. I’m looking for it.
