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Friday Quiz, Pirate Week Special: Where Is This?   (July 21, 2006)


Here is the secret to my ability to fund this wretchedly unprofitable website. Yes, I discovered a pirate's treasure chest. I'm slowly auctioning off the pearls, rare gold coins and assorted jewelry on eBay that were plundered so long ago. Which reminds me of the old joke. A writer wins a million dollars in a lottery, and a friend asks, "Gee, what are you gonna do with the money?" The writer replies, "Keep writing til the money runs out."

Cue a pathetic round of bitter laughter. Yes, writing does not generate much treasure unless you're Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Anne Rice, et. al.

To survive, some of us free-lance in the only lucrative alley of writing: marketing. So feast your eyes on this ad I wrote for Kroika! cookies, featuring the handy-with-a-rapier star of the Disney "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise (reviewed here on Monday), Keira Knightley.


The ad, of course, will be translated into various Asian languages and then quickly distributed into Kroika's Asian markets. Disney's lawyers won't have time to track down the source until the ad agency has vacated its temporary quarters in Xiangxi. (They just move down the hall, place another name on the door, and that's the end of Disney's legal claims. What could be more appropriate that pirating a pirate movie?)


The treasure, alas, is fake, but the location is real. (hint: this is not the Caribbean. There is an obvious clue elsewhere on my website.) Be the first to identify this specific beach, and I'll send you a collector's copy of my book I-State Lines. So email me!

Speaking of treasure, the only real "treasure" on this site is literary. What makes literary fiction different from airport lounge/beach reading? That it's boring and unreadable? Sadly, that is often true. But the real difference is there is nothing beneath the surface story in a thriller or romance; the surface is all you get.

A literary novel, in contrast, is supposed to offer layers of meaning which reverberate through your reading and long after. It has a surface plot or story, but there are layers beneath which can be explored should the reader be so inclined. The success or failure of expressing these meanings define the success or failure of the novel. (Its financial failure is already a given.)

I could illustrate this with the literary novel I'm currently reading, The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville (reportedly the author's favorite of his own work), but then why use a difficult-to-read masterpiece when there's an easier, more fun read close at hand? Like, say, for instance, this little book which happens to be mine (and hopefully yours), I-State Lines.

There's room for everybody on board the confidence man's Mississippi river boat (who's conning who is the question), just as there's room for easy-to-read thrillers and hard-to-read masterpieces on everyone's bookshelves. So when Alex and Daz visit San Francisco for the first time, guided by new friend and romantic interest Nikki, the surface is a fun tromp through the tourist-trap bits of the City and some residents-only hideaways. But the chapter is also an exploration of friendship's underside, of suppressed rivalry and jealousy, and of romance's awkward, tentative beginnings.

Of course you're curious, aren't you? Here it is: A Day in the City.

And here is another helping of literary treasure, a short "letter from Basque Country" by author/artist John Kinsella. (A link to his main website can be found in the righthand sidebar.) John is writing from his summer haunt, the town of Hendaye. Enjoy!

You can get I-State Lines from my favorite online independent bookstore, The Kaleidoscope: Our Focus Is You (Shipping is free on all orders).

Or if you have an open order at amazon.com, you can of course add I-State Lines to it for $13 (orders over $25 ship free), which is less than two tickets to a lousy summer movie. And I-State Lines contains no ads or product placements! Furthermore, it is an excellent hiding spot for plundered pirate treasure. (Just hollow out the inner pages.)


Want to see a real pirate movie, Matey? Click here!
ads by Groogle


For more on this subject and a wide array of other topics, please visit my weblog.

                                                           


copyright © 2006 Charles Hugh Smith. All rights reserved in all media.

I would be honored if you linked this wEssay to your site, or printed a copy for your own use.

                                                           


 
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