mayasloan.com

Yogi Bair: The Real Mountain Man

maya — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:16:57 +0000

It isn’t that often you meet a guy like Yogi Bair. And yeah, you might have to hike 11 or so miles uphill into the backcountry of the wilds to find him…but it is so worth it.

I met Yogi last summer when Katie (see www.katiearnoldi.com) and I spent a few days at Bear Paw in the Sequoia Mountains. And Yogi is unlike anyone you’ll ever meet…and not just because he lives the majority of his life in the wilderness (and could probably fight off an angry mountain lion with stick)…but also because he is genuine, cool and hilarious. I wrote all about him here:

http://www.mayasloan.com/goin-to-the-backcountry/

At Katie’s urging, Yogi wrote a book about his adventures living in the backcountry…and I swear it will blow your mind. He’s what Hemingway – “roughing it” on a weekend camping trip or traipsing on safari with a battalion of servants – only wished he had the guts to be.

Yogi went to the outback to escape society…and he ended up staying. This is a man who spends months surviving on his own in the wilderness…and this book could only have been written the kind of guy who doesn’t give a damn what the world thinks of him or what deems appropriate. The book is raw and honest. Not to mention hilarious and emotional.

So meet Yogi Bair…and read his book. This guy is the real deal.

Yogi’s website

I met someone last night…

maya — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:50:42 +0000

Nazy, I’ll Miss You

maya — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:54:11 +0000

Nazy was a member of our family. Not by blood, but it didn’t matter…she was part of us. She posed in family portraits, she was there on every occasion that mattered. When people learned that she was sick, they’re response was always shock. “But she’s so young…she looks so healthy.” And honestly, that was a choice on her part. I’ve never seen someone fight so hard against a disease. Nazy never gave up. She was funny, sweet, cheerful, loving until the very end. This is her final Facebook post, less than a week before she passed:

Nazy Baskin what can I say, life is always a challenge!

Right before she died, my brother asked Thomas to draw her a picture. My brother builds motorcycles, and Nazy loved them too…she also loved elephants. Greg wanted a picture to put on his motorcycle…something cool and funny that would make her laugh. “A memorial,” he told me. “I want to show it to her. It will make her happy.”

I was shocked. “A memorial? But she’s not dead!” I said.

“She will be soon. You have to face that. I have. So has she. She’s happy now. She’s happy the struggle will finally be over.”

It was just hard to imagine Nazy actually dying…until the end, she chose to go through life seeing the goodness around her. Even when she was dying, she chose to be alive.

When I think of Nazy, I will always come back to this word: grace. She was one of those rare women who were born with it. Grace, beauty, style, eloquence in everything she did – in the way she smiled at you, in her laugh, in her approach to the world. I’ve been told, even in the end, despite the pain, she was still the Nazy we all loved – warm, hopeful, kind. She went out this world like she lived in it.

I will really, really miss her.

Why Facebook is Weird

maya — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:29:07 +0000

Facebook is weird because you smack headfirst into your past…whether you are looking for it or not. Ex-boyfriends, people you went to school with, that goth dude you used to hang out with in food court of the mall…

And sometimes it sucks. But then, sometimes, it is kinda great.

So, I’ve been wondering where Carl and Remy were all these years…

Over ten years ago, when I dropped out of college for a year and moved to NYC, I auditioned for a group called CITYKIDS. CITYKIDS is still going strong to this day.

CITYKIDS WEBSITE
In 1985, cultural activist Laurie Meadoff founded CityKids as a non-profit, multicultural youth organization located in New York City. She began by working with a group of 10 young people from across the City. Since then, the CityKids Foundation has grown to service over 650 youth directly in CityKids programs every year, led by CityKids staff and senior youth participants. CityKids performances, workshops, and mass media productions touch the lives of an additional 75,000

young people.

my rep class…i was probably outside sneaking a cigarette

(Classic CITYKIDS moment that proves how completely different I was than most of the kids, not to mention what a little idiot I was – we do a fundraising show for youth mentorship at the Mariott Marquis in Times Square…some famous basketball player was there in the audience…and so was John F. Kennedy Jr. Of course I had a huge crush on him…so during the show, I performed a poem I wrote called Mentor Me…they were so smart at CITYKIDS to use me as a writer and keep me in the back during the dancing… and I swear I did the whole damn thing to Mr. Kennedy. I mean, it was probably embarrassing to him. I distinctly remember looking in his eyes at the last line - “I want you to mentor me.” Anyway, show ends and the entire cast runs for the basketball player, it might have been Shaq, to get autographs…and I, of course, run straight for JFK Jr. Yeah, I shook his hand. I was probably blushing like crazy. I was probably drooling too. I was such a silly little girl.)

some famous CITYKIDS alums

I’d never lived in a place like NYC…and I didn’t know shit about the world…and lots of the kids in CITYKIDS were real citykids…born and raised in NYC. And even though I was some white chick from Oklahoma who didn’t even know most of their slang or the cool basketball players, they were my friends.

To graduate to the CITYKIDS rep, you had to perform a final show. I had no dance training, and could not get the moves for the hip-hop dance we had to do…and Carl stood in front of the mirrors and showed me, step by step, for four hours. He was so damn patient while I stumbled around. When I’d get frustrate he’d just say, Okay, calm down, you’ll get this. I promise. And I did. I mean, it wasn’t necessarily pretty…but I got it, graduated, and was in the rep.

I’ve looked for Carl since then…Googled him, asked around…but I heard so many different things. Then, boom, I run into another CITYKID, Remy, on Facebook.

Maya and Remy then

Now he's married with a gorgeous wife and children …and he's a businessman!   You did good, Remy. I swear, though, you'll always be a kid to me…remember when you took me to Harlem, Remy?  I mean, way before it was gentrified.  You showed me the Apollo, Studio Museum…I was the only white girl I saw there, but that was okay…you made me feel like I was safe and belonged.  I’d only read about Harlem, and you actually showed it to me…and though your eyes I understood it was beautiful.

So, through Remy, I found Carl again!:

And then, out of nowhere, Laurie Meadoff (who started CITYKIDS), posted this picture of us online:

Maya and Carl then

Crazy, huh?

My Team!

maya — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:58:22 +0000

So y’know that sterotype about people in publishing being stuffy, boring old men ? Well, let me prove that whole concept outdated and wrong…look at these hot chicks:

Megan McKeever (editing genius), Erica Feldon (publicity goddess) and Kerrie Loyd (marketing guru and OKIE!)

Yeah, these ladies are my team at Simon & Schuster…yeah, that’s right, I got a team. And my team took me to Sak’s for lunch, got me drunk on S&S’s dime, and made me laugh hysterically…and besides being hot, they are pretty damn brilliant. So f— that old sterotype about publishing being full of boring pretentious idiots…’bout time publishing got exciting, and these are just the chicks to do it!

And PS, I’m not saying this to suck up, ‘cause I already got (and spent) my advance…I really had the best time and feel so lucky to have these amazing woman helping me on my book!

Why I Love My Neighborhood

maya — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:51:09 +0000

Jesus is Lord Mr. Dollar

Gettin’ Your Perscriptions Filled By A Wannabe Bloomie’s Window Dresser

The Mafioso Suit Store

Booty-licious Mannequins

Tax Time is Fun Time

maya — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:30:51 +0000

The Key to Literary Success? Be a man.

maya — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:36:43 +0000

My cool friend (and Kickass writer) Julianna Baggot had a really interesting Op-Ed piece in the Huffington Post, I LOVE it, so dead on…

You should also read her books too…not only are they often hilarious, but beautifully written and sometimes heartbreaking (in a good way, you know what I’m saying):

Julianna’s Website

The key to literary success? Be a man — or write like one.

By Julianna Baggott

Wednesday, December 30, 2009This fall, Publishers Weekly named the top 100 books of 2009. How many female writers were in the top 10? Zero. How many on the entire list? Twenty-nine.

I wish I were scandalized, or at least surprised. I’m not. I understand the invisible prejudice — from the inside out. I’m a woman, but I’ve been a sexist, too.

In my grad school thesis, written at 23, you’ll find young men coming of age, old men haunted by war, Oedipus complexes galore. If I’d learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can’t be a man, write like one.

No one told me this outright. But I was told to worship Chekhov, Cheever, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Carver, Marquez, O’Brien. . . . This was the dawn of political correctness. Women were listed as concessions. In the middle of my master’s, a female writer took center stage with a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award — E. Annie Proulx. Ah, there was a catch. She was writing about men and therefore like a man.

I ran out of things to say about men, however, and began my career writing about women. When I started as a poet, I was told — many times — not to write about motherhood because it would be perceived as weak. I didn’t listen.

But when I invented the pen name N.E. Bode for “The Anybodies,” a trilogy for younger readers, I had to choose to be a man or a woman. The old indoctrination kicked in. I picked man. The trilogy did well, shortlisted in a People magazine summer pick, alongside Bill Clinton and David Sedaris. I was finally one of the boys.

I could understand Publishers Weekly’s phallocratic list if women were writing only a third of the books published or if women didn’t float the industry as book buyers or if the list were an anomaly. In fact, Publishers Weekly is in sync with Pulitzer Prize statistics. In the past 30 years, only 11 prizes have gone to women. Amazon recently announced its 100 best books of 2009 — in the top 10, there are two women. Top 20? Four. Poets & Writers shared a list of 50 of the most inspiring writers in the world this month; women made up only 36 percent.

When asked about its choices this year, Publishers Weekly said it chose books that “stood out” and weren’t trying to be “politically correct,” as if this were the only reason female writers could have gotten on the list. Or is it that we have stamped the publishing industry post-feminist and can now slide back to comfortable stereotypes?

What are the stereotypes that drive these biases? Over the years, I’ve developed many theories. Let me offer one here.

I often hear people exclaiming that they’re astonished that a particular book was written by a man. They seem stunned by the notion that a man could write with emotional intelligence and honesty about our human frailties.

Women, on the other hand, are supposed to be experts on emotion. I’ve never heard anyone remark that they were surprised that a book of psychological depth was written by a woman.

So men get points for simply showing up on the page with a literary effort.

What’s interesting, however, in the Publishers Weekly list is that the books are not only written by men but also have male themes, overwhelmingly. In fact, the list flashes like a slide show of the terrain I was trying to cover in my graduate thesis, when I wrote all things manly — war, boyhood, adventure.

Playwright Julia Jordan pointed me toward a recent study about perceptions of male and female playwrights that showed that plays with female protagonists were the most devalued in blind readings. “The exact same play that had a female protagonist was rated far higher when the readers thought it had a male author,” Jordan said. “In fact, one of the questions on the blind survey was about the characters ‘likability,’and the exact same female character, same lines, same pagination, when written by a man was exceeding likable, when written by a woman was deemed extremely unlikable.”

So how do we strip away our prejudice? First, we have to see prejudice. The top prizes’ discrimination against women has been largely ignored. We can’t ignore it any longer. PW hasn’t yet owned up. Neither has the Pulitzer committee — though there’s hope. This year’s Pulitzer for fiction went to a woman (Elizabeth Strout) writing about — of all things — a woman (“Olive Kitteridge”).

What are the best books? The answer is always subjective, and I’m not a literary arbiter. But the message I received from this year’s lists was painfully familiar. It forced me to explain to my students — the next generation of writers — that the men in the class have double if not five times the chance of this kind of recognition. I’ll hand over the statistics and explain that an industry kept afloat by women is sexist. I’ll confess to my own sexism. And I’ll tell them that we have failed, but they don’t have to.

Julianna Baggott is an associate professor at Florida State University’s creative writing program. Her most recent novel is “The Ever Breath.”

Creepy Doll Alert, the First New York Installment

maya — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:21:15 +0000

I Hang With Rock Stars

maya — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:17:22 +0000

One of the most intense concert experiences I ever had was seeing Sonic Youth play in a sweaty, dark ballroom in Montreal. I was right in the front with Emo Goes Postal, letting ourselves get mauled and slammed around and loving every moment. The music is raw and so are the concerts. And the fans. We all get to be raw together. They never sold out, Sonic Youth. You like our music or go fuck yourself, which I love.

So when I knew I was going to meet Lee Ranaldo, it kinda blew my mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ranaldo

Lee M. Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo and Thurston Moore, of Sonic Youth, the 33rd and 34th Greatest Guitarists of All Time, respectively.

I got to go to his new art exhibition in Williamsburg:

note the record print in the window. more to follow on that!

The show was at The Hogar Collection, which is a very cool gallery. Check it out: http://www.hogarcollection.com/Information.htm

My friend helped set up the show, which is why I got to go (more on Tom later, ‘cause he is a trip.) Because, let’s be honest – I am in no way cool enough to be invited to a gallery opening unless I have an in. But somehow, they let me inside, and let me drink free beer too!

my friend Tom, who helped set up the show; Lee (yeah, I'm on a first name basis with him); brilliant and hot Danish artist Thomas Warming

And the thing is – Lee was so fucking nice. I mean, the dude could be or do anything he wants…he’s a legend. He could be a total ass, or have a crew of groupies in tow, or trash the place and get away with it. People would go: Well, he’s Lee Renaldo after all.

But instead, he hung out with everyone drinking beer…he was warm and sweet and funny. And talked literature with me! And, true, we have completely different taste in writers (shocking, I know), but the guy knows his stuff. He writes poetry too.

And his art was great. He projects images on a wall and paints them…a lot are newspaper clippings with the articles cut at awkward angles…one had a lot of q’s and c’s, and g’s…now, as I’ve said, I know very little about art…but maybe it was the beer that gave me the guts to point it out….and instead of ignoring me or deciding I was a freak, he said. “Yeah. I wanted them to be like poetry. Little poems or haikus.”

What I loved about his art was this: I’ve never seen anything like it before. But what would you expect? His music is the same way. And in the world of art and literature – which is often redundant (sometimes I get really sick of ‘highly regarded, well-crafted novels with vividly drawn characters’…sometimes I want a big, messy suckily crafted novel with weird characters that makes me feel something, anything at all…) But Lee reminded me that if someone has a new perspective or fresh way of looking at the world, if there stuff is totally unique – well, damn. I appreciate that. Not to mention, he uses actual words in his art, and they mean something.

Anyway, I loved the stuff because it was disturbing and dark and funny all at the same time. And I’m not just saying that because he promised to read my book and I want him to like it…though I WOULD be THRILLED if he LIKED IT.

PS Since I wrote this, Lee was invited to the housewarming…”I know you’re a famous rockstar and all, but if you could come….” And they guy actually wrote back and said he’d have been there if he didn’t have to go to Sudance…how crazy is that? What a cool guy.