RejectWatch

Twitter

2010-02-14T22:29:00.000-08:00

I'm going to use twitter to post silly thoughts and vent bile. You can hopalong for the ride at:

http://twitter.com/RejectWatch

Notes from the New Program

2010-02-14T21:23:00.001-08:00

It's been about a month and change since the beginning of my classes here at St. John's College, which I feel is a sufficient amount of time to have settled (in a manner of speaking) into a comfortable nook and hit a regular enough stride to begin the process of creating informed observations about this, the product of Stringfellow Barr's New Program.

I learned about the Program around the time I was graduating from high school. It was just a footnote in a newspaper which caught my eye: Great Books! Intellectuals! The pursuit of beauty, truth, and love! I was entranced, and intimidated, so I shelved the name of the school in the depths of my mind. It wasn't until three years later that I had found the potent cocktail of overconfidence and desperation that brought me back to St. John's to get myself what I wanted to be a worthwhile education. An education that didn't prepare me for a career, as the admissions folks are fond of reminding us, but for my entire life. I thought St. John's would be the panacea that would turn me into the man I want to be.

I have moved past those superficial impressions which came during my arrival in Santa Fe which filled me with the sort of inspired zeal to run into my books with a whole-hearted attempt to solve the riddles of those ageless questions on the nature of beauty, valor, and human nature. Instead, I find myself taking cues from other Johnnies (given parlance for a member of the student body, or associated alumni). For the most part this has ranged, depending on the relative cynicism of the advice-giver, from wry suggestions to drop out while I still have a hold on some semblance of innocence, to frank suggestions to kill myself while I still have a hold on some semblance of a soul. More often, folks have congratulated my choice on coming to the school, expressed concern that the January Freshman program, in attempting to squeeze 36 weeks of instruction into 26, is potentially crazy-making, and I've received countless admonitions to keep up with my Greek.

I should, I guess, stop and explain exactly what goes on at St. John's, at least in terms of how I understand how it should work. St. John's College operates around a couple very significant proper nouns, namely the Program, and the Great Books. The Program, in and of itself, refers to Stringfellow Barr's New Program, the curriculum instituted in the mid-20^th century as a radical departure from the "liberal education" model that defined liberal arts colleges of the time, and still influences them today. Rather than operate on a stand-and-deliver model of pedagogy, professors (recast as "tutors" at St. John's), instead rely on Socratic discussion and primary source texts, the so-called "Great Books" or "Western Canon". Through an all-required curriculum, which includes four years of language instruction, (two of Ancient Greek, and two of French) four years of mathematics, three years of lab sciences, and utilizes a reading list which begins with Homer, and ends, in Senior year, with Woolf after poring through the Bible, Kant, and Rousseau, St. John's has the stated mission of creating more whole thinkers. Men and women able to apply a variety of developed intellectual skills and insights into most every situation.

I, like most students, came because of the Reading List: it was everything I ever wanted to read, and knew I'd never get around to unless I made it the central focus of my life for a while. Happily, I've found a way to have my cake, and get a degree too. The upshot is that I've had the opportunity, so far, to find like minds to talk about these books with the sort of eye toward meaning that inspires all manner of deeper thought. Johnnies, at least the ones that last, are people who want to be here because they're fundamentally interested in the course of study that they pursue here. Sure, they may approach it cynically, with all the disillusionment that comes with being a modern human being, but something about the earnestness that allows them to put up with a ridiculous workload which may include several dozen hours of Greek homework a week, or preparing to present Euclid's geometric propositions with confidence from memory in front of a classroom betrays a sense of reverence for the mission of the college.

Somehow, in spite of ourselves, we've found ourselves caring about what others think, if only because we're beginning to glimpse that it is only by testing our own ideas that we can find ourselves moving closer to truth.

Letter to Momma

2010-02-02T22:47:00.000-08:00

Momma why’d you raise me right?
To bow and be polite?
The ladies like the bad boys, Momma
I’m so alone at night.

Momma why’d you raise me right?
To treat the ladies nice?
The girlies I’ve ran into, Momma
Chill with stares of ice.

Momma, why’d you raise me right?
To put the girlies first?
The ladies think I’m awkward, Momma
Oh Momma, I must be cursed.

Momma, why’d you raise me right?
To treat the ladies fair?
These modern girls are cutthroat, Momma
It’s no time to be a square.

Momma why’d you raise me right?
With manners from years past?
Haven’t you heard these days
Momma, nice guys finish last.

January 29, 2010
@ St. John's College

Frequently Questioned Answers.

2008-04-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

No.
Six pence, daily.
42.
A little.
I don't know.
English.
Oxford comma.
That's a stupid question.
That's with an F, not a PH.
Two T's.
Large.
Eleven or maybe ten and a half. It depends.

BANDITOS

2008-04-08T21:21:00.000-07:00

I met someone at a party recently, and that someone (Evan) recently spotted me chuckling over a copy of Wired (this April's article profiling gadget blogs Gizmodo and Engadget) in Foothill's cafeteria and reintroduced himself, sans rum-induced haze. Mr. Evan Nolastnameyet is a delightful fellow with the height and build of Mr. Patton Oswalt, which I mentioned to him at the party (but did not repeat this time around). He is a trained electrical engineer, which I suppose is what they call electricians these days. He is back at Foothill because although said occupation brings in the dollars, it does not fulfill him in a creative manner. So he's taking art classes, with the hopes of someday working on some sort of Futurama project.

I mentioned briefly that I had once worked on a webcomic with a friend in highschool. As a writer. My drawing abilities are so poor that my childhood dream of architecture was dashed when I realized that not only could I not draw buildings, I could barely scratch out a stick figure.

Then I mentioned that I missed working on said project. The lightbulb went off in Evan's head. He was looking for stuff to draw. I could give it to him. We started brainstorming ideas for a general concept. From my previous experiment with the medium, I found that trying to start with a concept is like trying to float a boat on dreams alone. Creative teams are forged, not found. I suggested that we start with a sort of non sequitur approach. You know. Make a bunch of strips until we find something, be they characters, a setting, or a genre. Plus, it's a good way for us to "feel each other out" in a totally not homosexual but at the same time entirely unhomophobic way.

In the course of the conversation, we started throwing out ideas. I mentioned my predilection for things steam-punk and noirish. He showed me a map of a high fantasy world, and high fantasy caricatures of his friends. From there, we giggled about certain tropes, demonic cats (cat hates owner, thirsts for blood, hijinks ensue), nerds/geeks+video game couch (hijinks ensue), and other staid, tired webcomic seed ideas. And then we stumbled upon a potentially untapped market: Mexican banditos. They make an excellent punchline, what with their inverted puncuation, outlandish moustaches, ponchos, sombreros, and revolvers. Plus, you could totally see someone wearing a webcomic shirt with "¡BANDITOS!" and some sort of cartoony, menacing in a sort of Yosemite Sam-ish way, bandito pointing a pair of Peacemakers at you.

Possible strip seeds:

Little girl loses ice cream. Who's to blame? ¡BANDITOS!
Election stolen. By whom? ¡BANDITOS!
Code leaked. The source? ¡BANDITOS!
etc.

Reboot and the One Click Redesign

2008-04-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

Tis the season for dusting off the ol' blogonet, heating up the coils on the computron, and making empty promises of frequent, regular posting from now into the great unknown future. Expect a flurry of posts enthused with naive optimism, and then a sudden, crushing silence as I lose interest.

I should be posting some sort of statement of intent, but really, I ain't got one. I suppose this is one way for me to follow that old writing bon mot of writing 500 words a day, but I'm not sure I've got that in me. I'm sure I average more than 500 words a day anyhow, if you count IMs, emails, and all other forms of correspondence I may engage in. And if you count shopping lists, well, hey, I'm sitting pretty.

So no promises for 500 words a day here. I'm not that guy. I'm not going to pretend to be that guy.

Instead, I will promise a single coherent thought, with at least some degree of elaboration up to the point where I get bored with said thought, and let it go. Things I may write about: pirate journalism, hatred (mine towards world), hatred (world towards me), hatred (mine towards the Game).

Enjoy standing under my raging bile duct. Peas out.

Vacation: Status Report

2006-08-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

So, I've figured something interesting out about my blog:

It doesn't get read unless I give someone the link directly. Therefore, I have no readers unless I update and hand people the link, therefore, it takes effort to be read. That's kind of lame, really. Where's my unconditional love and affection? All in due time, I'm sure.

Anyhow, how goes my vacation thus far, you're asking? Very well, thank you. Let me give you an update:

I arrived around the beginning of July. Independence Day was not celebrated. I didn't particularly care. I went to several shows and clubs in Rio, got very wasted (legally, mind you) and was probably overcharged several times for cab fares. I also went to the beach during the day, and spent a lot of time wondering how nice Morcheeba plays next to the beach, and how right Douglas Adams was about beach houses.

Oh, by the way, about shows, I have to relate this story:

So there I was, at the show at one "Circo Voador"(or the Flying Circus, whether it's related to the Monty Python show is unknown. I would wager against.) watching the sambão band (sambão is sort of like a samba/hip-hop/rock fusion) "MonoBloco", who rock hard. I got thirsty, and went to get myself a drink. At the bar, I overheard two gringos, English by the accent, having the following dialogue over two caipirinhas, a cocktail made with cachaça, ice, limes, and sugar.

Gringo 1: God, this shit Brazilian liquor. I can't believe they have this swill.
Gringo 2: Yeah, yeah. Hey amigo! (gesticulates wildly to the bartender) More sugar please. Açucar por favor.

(Note, most bartenders at large events and popular clubs speak at least enough English to ply their trade. Gringo 2's accent, also, was more horrendous than I can simulate in text. Also, it's considered extremely bad manners to swamp your caipirinha in sugar, as these kids were about to do.)

Now, understand that there's a certain something about the Brazilian character that makes most Brazilians to be utter assholes when we're drunk. Asshole isn't really the right word. Kind of a mean-hearted trickster, minus malicious intent. The word in Portuguese is sacana. By that point, I was feeling more or less sacana, and I felt like I should give those boys a shock to their system. I turned to gringoes 1 and 2, and said in my most perfected ESL accent: "Excyoose me! I am seeing that you are speaking English, yes? I am seeing that you are drinkando caipirinhas. How do yoo enjoy ower nacional drinque?"

The gringos said something like "Oh! (shit!) Uh! It's good! Great! Excellent! We love Rio! Beautiful city! Bye!" and were out of there like whores at a Baptist picnic.

The other day, someone asked me if I thought of myself more as a Brazilian, or more as an American. I think it's an interesting question of identity. I grew up in the States, but I always thought of myself as a Brazilian, because it was one of the things I had that made me different from my peers, and I liked that. Likewise, when I'm in the Brazil, I easily slip into being the gringo. I guess the answer I gave my friend down here was that I was always what the public wasn't, always a little bit the outsider. I said, "Eu sempre sou o que não é." Translated literally, that means "I always am what isn't." I thought that was an interesting paradox I made for myself.

I've been going to poetry readings, and I'm due to present something to the crowd there as part of an open mic. Which, in reality, if I've been invited to come, doesn't make exactly so much of an open mic as it is an obligatory mic. Oh well. I intend to read "Unsaid", along with "Shout Out" by Sekou Sundiata. The rest of my work isn't really coffeehouse material, in my opinion. Much less Brazilian coffee-house material.

Speaking of which, Brazilian coffee is the only coffee which I can take black.

I went to a literary festival in a city south of Rio called Paraty. It was fantastic, I got to meet a ton of authors, and I was sneered at by Toni Morisson. Sneered at by Toni fucking Morisson! I think that's like being raised to knighthood in the order of lit-snobs. I will win the Nobel Prize some day, and I too, will sneer at aspiring writers.

I'm an intern now, as well, at a publisher called Casa da Palavra. My work consists of reading books and telling people whether or not I think they're okay. Life is good.

On vacation

2006-07-13T16:38:00.000-07:00

Sou surfista
sou rockeiro
sou da paz
sou Brasileiro!

See you fools soon.

Indie Cred

2006-06-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, long time no see! It's been a while for me, what with actually writing stories, graduating high-school, wasting time, and generally doing things on the internet that did not particularly include updating this blog. Here's a quick update on what I've been doing:

CrimeWatch: I think I mentioned that I sent a manuscript to CrimeWatch a while ago. I still haven't recieved a reply from them. I'm chalking this one up as a temporary loss, and my first rejection. I need to rework the story I sent them anyways. It's a mystery story, sans one mystery.
GlitterTrain: Doug Adams said it best: "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." They've had a couple interesting contests that I never wrote anything for, so I might look into writing more stuff for them later.
Foothill College has a writing conference this summer that I might attend (if I'm not gone when it happens) but they are also offering a fellowship. That's right, children of the corn, the prestigious Richard Maxwell Fellowship. Basically, all I have to do is turn in a five page deal with a cover page, and I'll see if I get accepted. I think I have a piece that'd fit well with this competition, so there's really no reason for me not to do it.
Class: This is actually where the heading for the post comes from: over the last couple weeks, I've been compiling a zine of my writing over the past four or five years. The zine, unimaginatively named RejectWatch, turned out pretty well, and I made twenty or so copies of it. Technically, this is the first time I've been published, but I'm not counting it, because that'd ruin my indie cred.

Really, I'm not going to count anything as a rejection or acceptance unless the publication has a circulation of more than... oh, about 1000.

See you guys later, Felipe out.

Sacrilicious

2006-04-07T23:20:00.000-07:00

And lo, did the Savior raiseth His hand towards the Father, and He doth raiseth it as a fist, extending the fingers second and last, in countenance of the Prince of Lies.

And lo, did the Lord look down upon his only begotten Son, He of human flesh and Divine Being, and the Lord did Launch Himself into a Mighty Guitar Solo.

And the Savior did Rock Out, moving His Sacred Body hither-and-thither with such force that His Tresses flew outwards and into His Face. And the Apostles did imbibe much wine. And the festivities did Escalate. The Apostles did make make Rowdy Gestures, and the Lord did Launch himself from His Heavenly Stage upon their unworthy hands, and they did Convey him back unto the Stage for another Set.

And it was good.

Manuscripts are like scone dough

2006-03-27T14:58:00.000-08:00

Overwork them, and they get all messy and gross. At least that's what a friend of mine tells me. I'm still working on the manuscript that I'm planning to send to Crimewatch, but that's that. Along with finals and everything else that's been going on at school, I haven't had much time to actually update the blog.

Meanwhile, I'm giving a couple folks here at Middle College a quick tutorial about how blogs work, teaching them such basic techniques such as hyperlinking and blog satire.

Here goes nothing

2006-03-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I've settled on sending a story to Crimewatch, and I've got a cover letter ready and everything. Meanwhile, I'm going to start writing one of those fancy shmancy "literary" stories which plumb the depths of my soul in a very mundane, boring setting. I can't stand reading the stuff, but it might be good for me, you know, widening my writing palate, and all that jazz.

Anyhow, I've been practicing setting up cover letters. Here's the one for the story I'm sending to Crimewatch, "No Comment".

Dear Mr. Cox,

Attached is my short story, “No Comment” (2,555 words). After the murder of an important Clark International executive, journalist Tom Fletcher begins probing the corporation itself for signs of foul play, unwittingly moving into the crosshairs of a murderously ambitious company suit, Edward Molino. Tom must deal with the primal fear and rage at an attempt on his life, and loses the battle, becoming a vengeful killer in the process.

I am a high-school senior at an alternative high school program at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California, and yours is the first publication that I have ever approached to print one of my stories. Obviously, this also means that you are the first editor I’m soliciting with this story, and I will wait eight weeks for your response before I approach another magazine. If you are not interested with this story, feel free to dispose of the manuscript, but please notify me by email. If you do choose to publish the story, I can send you an electronic version by email.

Please feel free to contact me via any of the above numbers or addresses with questions or concerns. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Felipe Motta

Encl.: Short story, “No Comment”

I took the basic format from the opening sections of the Novel & Short Story Writers Market 2006, which, I might add, is where I found Crimewatch to begin with.

So there you have it, I've taken my first step into a larger world.

Know Thine Audience

2006-03-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

The first dillemma I'm facing between me and getting rejected from magazines is finding magazines that would potentially publish the sort of work that I produce. There's sort of a complex rubric involved in finding the "right" magazine to make a debut, and among other things, what I look for in a publisher is:

The genre and "culture" of the publisher. Somehow, I have this silly idea that a magazine named "Glimmer Train" would be terribly interested in a crime fiction story. Likewise,
the Strand Magazine won't be quite interested in more the thoughtful outdoorsy works that made Faulkner famous.
Respect. In the end, being able to say "I've been published in the New Yorker once", is way more impressive than being able to say "I've been published in a crapload of magazine's you've never heard of. One thing that I have to look at as a freelancer, even at this time, is how I'm going to build a resume that advertises the fact that my writing is a hot commodity.
Compensation. A lot of these magazines demand exclusive printing rights in exchange for about 25 bucks, which sucks royally. (See? There's a pun there, if you look hard enough.) Personally, I'd like to be able to recieve adequate compensation for my work, so aside from standard submissions, I'm also looking into contests that could not only prove that I'm way better than everyone else, but also hand me fabulous cash prizes that go a long way to helping motivate me to write more.

Really, trying to find a publisher is like looking for foster parents for your child. My stories are my babies, as creepy as that sounds, and I'm not giving it to just anyone for anything.

Then again, this might be the same reason I'm single at the moment. I have issues with standards.

Stuff I'm working on

2006-03-02T18:23:00.000-08:00

Like any self-loathing would-be author, I have a couple different projects floating around my head at the same time right now. For my own sake, and maybe for your enjoyment, I'll go ahead and list them and about how far I've gotten.

A spy-thriller type novel, currently under the buzzword "Shadow". I've been working on this sucker since November, and have about twenty-something pages of actual legible printed matter that I'll let people read. I haven't touched it in a while because I've been too busy slacking off at...
School. I've got a couple research papers, not to mention my old film history midterm, and I'm currently studying up for a whole new slew of research projects coming up: next up, the effects of U.S. political, economic, and military policy on the perenially misunderstood island of Taiwan.
A fantasy/pirate adventure that I've been kicking around in my head for years. Really, it's more like roleplaying fodder. Fun stuff, though. I might pick it up again if spy fiction gets old.
Room 42. Who knows? If I can see if the artist is still interested, you might very well see me writing up new scripts for a webcomic that I stopped working on about a year or two ago.

Hmm... that's about all I got for now. Then you've got all that bullshit that I have to deal with in... what's it called? Real life. Who knows? Maybe I'll find time to actually write sometime this year.

Required reading for devout sociopaths

2006-03-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

Hi! Name's Felipe, and I write. I've been promising myself to start a blog for a while, now... and starting it hasn't been a problem... I just have issues with actually making sure the blog lasts more than about a month... so we'll see where this leads.
Basically, I wanted to make a blog that'd track my first forays into publishing my growing portfolio of short fiction and other assorted crap that I've slapped together over time for school, personal pleasure, or some sort of perverse fascination with pain and frustration.
Over the course of this blog, I'll be posting some of my work here, before, during, and after the creative process, up to the point where they hand me a letter saying something to the effect of "Fuck you, Felipe, your writing is mediocre, you have no references, and I don't like you. We don't have space in our magazine for chickenshit authors like you."

Of course, this just shores up my indie following, hence creating my new place in society as a renegade cult superstar. You know, like Kevin Smith, but cooler.