WLA 2009: Lynda Barry "Writing the Unthinkable"

[How exciting to even be in the same room as Lynda Barry! I've got celebrity awe...]

Writing the Unthinkable
Lynda Barry, multi-talented artist

• Recent book "What It Is" won WLA award
• Born in Wisconsin, again living in Wisconsin
• nervous
• sweat will Roschach you into a past life
• first breakup figured might as well get my wisdom teeth out - it already hurts
• singing to tune of Coalminers daughter - daughter of meat cutter and janitor from Phillipines
• German Shepherd look "she doesn't look Filipino" - quarter Norwegian, and that'll suck the color right out of you
• All she ever wanted to do was move back to the Midwest
• Lives in "Greater Footville"
• Yahtzee - 2009 - award from Wisconsin libraries and now speaking to them - coma inducing excitement

Libraries

• emily dickinson poems can be sung to many tunes - gershwin - loneliness as a good thing - library can sustain that kind of loneliness, good kind, of wanting something
• Smelling books is all the antidepressant I need
• Librarians good at people watching - always look busy like not paying attention, but you know who's in library - which kids are trouble - handing kid a book or laying on a table

Images

• Went to Evergreen State College 1974 - how I got into college is cuz they needed hippies really bad, and not enough in area - all had to do was glue lentils into shape of a peace sign to get full scholarship
• "Images" class - marilyn frasca[sp?] - asked a q: what is an image?
• Anything we call the arts is a container for what she called an image
• Remember your first phone number? - we all remember it - how about 3 numbers ago? - different areas of brain
• image is spontaneous, not trying - it just comes up, and it feels alive - emotions attached
• biological function - kids with blankie - always something in their hands - like librarian with pen or pencil - kid in airport all he had left was the leg of his incredible hunk doll - first artwork - personality into it - is it alive? no, but don't say it's dead - something in between
• book somebody gave you - they say they thought about you the whole time - favorite part? main character and conflict, then resolution... - finally read it - tickling feeling 20 pages in "this could be a good book" - like falling in love - don't mess this up, man! - can't put it down - that world - slow down when reading the last 40 pages - you lay in bed and hold that book - you want to kiss it - the object is forever changed
• image is specific - I wanted to know how to get an imaginary friend - realized I could lie - i had an imaginary imaginary friend - I had a friend with a real imaginary friend - name Sprinkles - only talk through moving fan - you can't make that up - friend tried to keep a journal every day - he found it from high school - started reading, all feelings, no details - he was so upset it was lik original footage of battle of waterloo shot by monkey - just bananas, bananas, bananas
• image is satisfying even if it doesn't make total sense - The Rascals - groovin on a sunday afternoon - that would be ecstasy - you and me and leslie groovin - really you and me endlessly groovin - not as good, can't picture it

Writing & creativity

• reliable structure - thought you needed a symbol of death to fit story arc - didn't realize that it already existed - don't have a ribcage because it was drawn by doctors
• if I start drawing, kids will always talk to me - i tell them I'm a cartoonist, they say draw a chicken, and they say you are! in Footville they say you hold on to that dream - when they ask what kind of books I write, i say horror cuz that's the look on their face
• scribble game with kids - ooh ooh I have a story and you can draw it! - chicken attack by jack - chicken eaten by man, went to portolet, out came chicken, make chicken boss of construction site
• first book wrote in 10 days in really big handwriting - next one took 10 years - i already knew what story was ging to be, knew story arc, and wrote on a computer
• "if i was doing this, how would i do it?" - if I was a kid, how would i do it? first make the book with construction paper and staples
• babysat kid who dictated story to me word by word, wouldn't give me the next word until i'd written it down
• everybody smoked while doing everything - mom smoked while watching bambi at movie theater - cake decorator perfect writing in frosting - i thought after painting book i could do this - finished story in 9 months
• when people say i wish i could draw, wish i could dance... - we give up so early - radio: if you want to be a ballerina, have to begin by age 3 - you hear at age 9 and give up - art - we give it to professionals - can only sing happy birthday, only movement left is exercise and you need an outfit so people know what you're doing - drawing = doodling while on hold - i ask people who say they can't draw, sculpture = peeling label off beer bottle while someone tells you their crazy dream from last night - if you want someone to care, say "that you were in" "at the end"
• brain looks in deep concentration like kid in deep play - not "fun" - it's some other thing - not playing with truck, but truck is playing with you
• all around world, people know if you have a kid who wasn't ever allowed to play will become a psychokiller - we know first hand - you can't play, but let's watch a kid playing really well with legos (picture, video, live) - does that help? no - same with adults
• adults don't think they can make something for no reason, just for experience
• brother would fold paper and draw line, draw 2 stick men with grenades and stare at it in cereal trance - ingredients have never looked so beautiful - after, he'd draw the war in red crayon, and yell out the words "incoming! save yourself!" - the paper didn't mean anything, he didn't keep it
• element of anxiety in play
• moms are on cell phones while with kids - playing with food, not sure he knew he was playing until mom said "what are you doing?" - we have internal voice
• if I was in a bar having a beer - which you can say in wisconsin to anyone! - no one would come up to you and say why are you doing that? you could be cleaning.

Helping people to write

• story of your life - often sounds like an obituary - i was born in xxxx, my mom was xxx, my dad was xxx, i went to xxx college, and then she died.
• picture car from childhood - are you inside or outside? - which seat? - which part facing? - day or night? - season? - how old are you? - directly in front of you? - to right? - to left? - behind you? - feet? - above head?
• you can do that with any noun - haircuts, teeth, dogs, other peoples' mothers - gerunds - squatting
• local historical society in Footville area - people who want to write their lives but don't knjow how - first person present tense for 8 minutes like happening right now - coming from image - always contain history
• walk down street and smell something remind you to aunt and uncle's house - flooding - one moment you're there and then not - happens thousands times each day - just need to freeze in that and ask above questions
• mental health - does life feel like it's something worth living?
• you as librarians are the guardians of the images - platform of meaningful life, and not being bored
• state of mind when listening to a joke - neighbors introduced themselves: Donovan and Joni Mitchell - really - joni loves jokes a little naughty like a lot of wisconsin women - oh come here i've got one for you -dog snored so bad she could never get sleep - vet didnt kow what to do - heard something if you tie a ribbon around dog's balls, will stop snoring - dog named chainsaw - did it and he quit snoring - husband out with boys and goes to bed - starts snoring - does same - quits snoring - good night's sleep - husband goes to take a pee - i can't remember what we did last night, but by god we took first and second place
• to get that joke you had to hold your mind open, not trying to figure out joke - joke is image, image, image, image goes to that - wireless communication - now you're going to go out and tell it - doesn't belong to anyone, belongs to everyone

"What It Is"

• Reading from "What It Is" - thank you for the award - done without a computer -
• what is an image - the formless thing that gives things form* "something can only become an illusion..." when you experience disillusionment
• "there are certain children who are told they are too sensitive..."
• sculpture the thinker - doesn't he look like he's never going to get another idea ever? - i have the piece of paper i'm working on, and the one next to it to keep my hand working - most important thing someone could have told me growing up
• doris mitchell school teacher in hillsborough wisconsin - her nephew donovan mitchell - she had kept all students papers in basement of farmhouse - sedimentary layers - i take her wherever i go because she didn't get to travel

Importance of books and the arts

• phantom limb pain - ramachandran - was ruining guy's life - dr. r had idea - built box with mirror so he could see mirror image of other arm - made fist then opened and relaxed - his pain went away - that's what images are
• book that saved life relieved phantom limb pain - nothing other than image can open up certain things
• notion that arts are an option, expendable - where do you put it in bookstore? - let's just take it out of schools - we ignore it at our peril because they're about as hard to come by as opposable thumbs
• party trick - wisconsin people are good at it - they have one trick - guy who can dance with beer on head - how'd you learn that
• I can sing without moving my lips - puffs out cheeks and sings inside - you are my sunshine

Questions

• Q: writing on a computer? A: at a certain point does work, but after the fact - took first draft and copy it - i do that with my students - i let it expand if it wanted to - copied again on manual typewriter - no delete button - i knew the story by then - next copied on computer - rule that i couldn't think about swtory unless had brush/pen in hand - our brains and hands shape have a lot to do with each other - difference in brain - writing is drawing - spatial relationships - lines are different - when are using brush, supposed to be exhaling - something about hands, and using fingers, not having delete button - computers are email source, distracting, deals you make with your computer
• Q: your images are flooding experience for me - i need to go out and buy your book for 14 year old daughter on verge of voice of reason taking over - you and public school teachers are the last possible person who can keep people from becoming just observers - reading is participating. A: if past 11/12, probably will keep. if you met a 4 year old who was terrified to draw a line with a crayon, you'd worry - but not 40 year old? - kids go to a page to find something - adults think they have to make something - remember using your hand as template for drawing a turkey?

Parting words

• Arts are not an elective, we ignore it at our peril
• Award and invitation meant so much to me - I've never given a talk at 8:45 in the morning before

WLA 2007: David Maraniss keynote

I discovered as I was about to blog my first event of the conference that a) my laptop battery is dead, so I need to keep it plugged in to type; and b) wireless access is password-protected in the conference rooms. I couldn't do anything about the former situation, but was happily able to get the login info from conference center staff later in the day.
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I've missed all of David Maraniss' speaking engagements in Madison since *They Marched into Sunlight* was published, so I was pleased to see that he'd be the keynote speaker at this year's WLA conference. He didn't disappoint!

On libraries and his family... "My dad always said his church was the public library."

On a writer's life... "50% is boring - you have to sit in a chair and write. The other half is exciting!"

Maraniss recounted his visits to about a dozen formal libraries and archives, plus informal collections held by individuals, in the course of conducting research for his books on Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, Roberto Clemente, the 1960 Olympics, and the October 1967 anti-war protest and Vietnam War battle which are the focus of *They Marched into Sunlight*.

This is a man who understands the value of preserving access to historical materials. In particular, he lauded recently-retired James Danky of the Wisconsin Historical Society, for his invaluable collection of local/alternative press newspapers. As a grad student, I was lucky to have Danky speak in my classes about the importance of libraries collecting locally-produced publications, especially the controversial ones.

The role of both in-person visits and serendipity in the research process came up several times, as Maraniss mentioned a trip to Arkansas where he met Bill Clinton's great-aunt, who happened to possess the personal effects of Clinton's grandmother, including the letters he'd written her over the years; an interview with a lawyer who had secretly maintained the only records of the legal case related to Roberto Clemente's fatal air crash; and a visit to a meeting room in Rome which had just undergone a renovation entailing the removal of wallcoverings that revealed Fascist-era murals, that would have surrounded the 1960 Olympic planning committee. I do wonder about the future of such serendipitous discoveries and contextual understandings, in the digital age.

When asked what in libraries he has found to be most useful, and what has been lacking, he replied, "Not many criticisms... Just want them to stay open and have the money they need to keep doing what they’re doing."
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I bought four copies of *They Marched into Sunlight* and had them signed :)