The Wonder Wheel

I pack my agenda book with enough events to keep the strip on my MetroCard warm. It's unrelated to making my blog more interesting. I leave that to Youtube videos and pictures of burlesque dancers. Some of the most interesting moments of my life don't make onto the 'blues. I suppose then, the superfluous amount of ridiculous things I fit into my week is simply a side effect of living in New York City, like guttural "a" vowels.

I went to the Barnes and Noble on 86th St. (Lexington Ave) to listen to Richard Price talk about Harlem and writing. He shadows drug dealers, cops, and gangsters and immerses himself in communities he then writes about. Of course someone asks the question, "How much of it is real?" To which he gives an expectantly vague answer: (NOT verbatim, "Everything is made up, the scenes, the people, but I just try to get the beat, the musical tone of the language." The audience, or maybe just me, want to pinpoint that moment when an author starts writing fiction that you actually call fiction. When someone who writes becomes a writer. But I learned that this moment is just primordial mush, or sorcery. Not even the eloquence of Price himself could explain it, except that his life on the street and his life writing the book are two different worlds that somehow must communicate. John Irving creates within his characters that are writers (they show up in every novel) this innate, unstoppable compulsion. Example: He did so-and-so because he was a writer. Price talked about inventing the identity before actually putting anything on paper. He was "the writer." All this time, I am trying to prove something to the world, when I could just be making shit up? Suddenly I am on the boardwalk of Coney Island asking people where the Wonder Wheel is.


I started blogging to practice writing. But I just talk about these events and use NYC as a crutch to substitute my lack of true creativity. There is a bridge somewhere between reality and a fictionalized representation of it, I am still digging in my pockets for change so I can pay the toll.

I need to find a corner in this godforsaken city where I can score some plot.