Secrets Secrets Hurt Someone

I was absolutely tickled pink when I heard the fabulous rumor that Sarah Palin's new retarded baby was actually the illegitimate child of her 17 year old daughter Bristol.

Bristol had been suspiciously kept out of school for 5 months prior to the birth with "mono," and Sarah Palin was allegedly leaking amniotic fluid before boarding the 8 hour flight back to Alaska, where upon landing instead of rushing to the closest major hospital she ambled along to some tiny town  an hour away to give birth in total seclusion. Nobody on her staff knew she was pregnant and the flight attendants claimed they hadn't the faintest idea there was a pregnant woman on the flight. 

This is fantastic people- top notch Republican shenanigans right out of the gate- they'd have to find an Obama-run cigarette sweatshop which enslaves privileged white babies to top it.

But now I find out that 17 year old Bristol Palin actually is pregnant! 

Either she's gotten knocked up once before and both babies are hers, or her mother is a reckless nut who gladly boards crosscountry flights while in labor with a down-syndrome fetus. Either way, McCain's new VP who is pro abstinence-only sex ed and pro-life even in rape and incest scenarios has an unwed pregnant 17 year old daughter.

Are the Republicans kidding? Part of me is giddy that McCain has dug his own grave with this nomination, but another part is gravely suspicious. I mean maybe they're just fucking with us- like the time they nominated an illiterate draft-dodging cokehead to office because they knew they could rig the election and win. Or the time they did that again. 

Bear with me while I explain that I just came back from my cousin's wedding in Florida, complete with cheek-pinching relatives and floofy dresses and that guy who is incapable of comprehending the meaning of personal space. 

And here is what I realized- everyone love gossip. I heard about overbearing mothers and selfish brothers and alcoholic sisters and manic-depressive gun-toting uncles. I heard about the best friend who's in love with the roommate's girlfriend, and I even heard about the cousin who was a big mouthed troublemaking yank and realized after a while that my gossip buddy was unknowingly referring to... me.

My grandmother says that 'lashon hara' (evil tongue) is, in the torah, one of the worst things a person can do aside from breaking one of the big 10. That is, of course, unless speaking the truth will prevent future harm.

So technically if I want to get into heaven, saying that Sarah Palin is a hypocritical bitch will not win me points with the big guy unless being a hypocrite will endanger the country. And maybe it will. But we do have a long illustrious line of hypocrites- Jefferson, author of the declaration of independence, not only owned slaves, but had illegitimate slave children! Fucking A! Why didn't they tell us that in school?

Well, probably because being a hypocritical bastard did not diminish enough from his positive accomplishments to warrant a juicy footnote. So as much as I hate to say it, and as great of a story as preggers-Bristol is, we can't write off Palin just for saying one thing and (her daughter) doing another. Without a condom. Again.

There are plenty of thing about all of us that are beyond humiliating and which, if plastered all over the tabloids, could be used to make us look like total psychopaths. In most every case, people are not divisible in a Good/Bad binary, and as much as I'd like this scandal to take down Palin and the Republicans in a fireball of elitist racist homophobic ignorance, I think that buying into the gossip instead of the real issues is eventually going to hurt everyone involved. 

The media has become so obsessed with gossip that honest discussion about experience and ideas is completely irrelevant if one of the candidates happens to not be donning an American Flag pin. And God help him if his middle name is Hussein. Even though the rumormills are favoring the Dems at the moment, mudslinging always goes two ways, and if we ever want to have an adult democracy it is incumbent upon our generation to demand relevance instead of spectacle. 

So, this is a long way of explaining Hannah's Guide to Eternal Happiness (Part 2):

2. Gossip is bullshit.

It hurts when it's about you, and it hurts you even when it's not. 

More to come. Keep me posted.

xo

H

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Education Revelation

Gosh... I never meant to "scare the bejeezus" out of a prefrosh days before camp Yale with my anti Ivy-Mythology rant. Sorry kid- you're gunna be fine.

I want to clarify something- Yale got the brunt of my ire because of what I feel is an undeserved overly-lofty status in the collective cultural conscious, and because it's the only college I went to so therefore the only one I know enough about to write long whining diatribes, and because I fancy myself an Ivyconoclast. But Yale isn't hell, or else I would have left.

Yale is simply a symptom of a larger educational epidemic...

The roots of compulsory and linearly ranked (graded) education are sordid and surprising, and I wanted to share some of my research:

In the early 1800s the King of Prussia decided he wanted a KICK ASS army. The kind of army that would do and believe whatever the hell they were told no matter how absurd. So he sent guys with guns to steal kids from their parents and forced them to go to the first official nationalized public school, where they were completely indoctrinated, lectured with unflinchingly rigid royally-approved curriculum, and were not allowed to even ask a question unless they first asked if they had permission to ask a question. This is the origin of raising your hand folks. (...I always knew that prissy bitch Ms. Cook was a fascist...)

Then the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION in America comes along, and Horace Mann, the father of compulsory American public schooling, takes a trip over to Germany to study this tip top child-molding system. He brings it back to make sure there are sufficient cogs for the new American Industrial machine. Check out this creeptastic quote about his goals for indoctrinating, I mean educating, the masses:

"Having found the present generation composed of materials almost unmalleable, I am about transferring my efforts to the next. Men are cast-iron; but children are wax. Strength expended upon the latter may be effectual, which would make no impression upon the former."

Public education was made compulsory on a national level, but its private investors and most influential molders like Ford Rockefeller and Carnegie were never intending to help kids achieve the American Dream. These guys needed bodies to work in factories. John D. Rockefeller, THE FOUNDER OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, said "I don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers."

Traditional education was always intended to suppress individual creativity in favor of the collective good. And I'm pretty sure that's called socialism. 

But even after the Robber Barons kicked the bucket, this anti-child agenda held fast. Benjamin Bloom of the famed 'Bloom's Taxonomy,' which has arguably played a bigger role in shaping education than any other document, claimed outright that “The purpose of education is to change the thoughts feelings and actions of students.”

And there, in a nutshell, is the history of why you should be suspicious of traditional education.

But that isn't even close to the most interesting part. THIS is the BEST part:

In order to inspire obedience and competition amongst students, and to save time and money, holistic written evaluations were scrapped in favor of linearly ranked evaluation.  And those impersonal, maddeningly un-calibrated and mind-numbing grades, 4.0, ABCD, grades...WERE INVENTED AT YALE.

Grades. Came. From Yale.

http://books.google.com/books?id=R1QH0db2xGsC&pg=PA4&dq=%22It+was+not+until+1785+that+an+american+college%22&ei=8PK1SOb7ApW0yQSN6fTLAQ&sig=ACfU3U2ltFA7HC8x_r2-OjiaN9gO5IFLXg

(Not to be outdone, Harvard decides to use 100 points instead of four...)

Of course in order to impress these institutions, all the feeder schools began shaping their evaluation system to comply with these rankings. Grades trickled down from Yale to thousands of highschools and middleschools and beyond, tantalizing and torturing the brains of millions of kids for the past hundred years with their uncreative unproductive and unhelpful brand of labeling.

Holy Shit. When I first read this I fell off my couch and lay there basking in the horrifying possibility that I was a pawn in some sick cosmic cycle of elitism... I had spent 16 years perfecting a system to impress the very institution which invented the system?! WHAAAT?

I was horrified. I was furious. I was shocked that I hadn't looked into this sooner... everyone just follows the system without stopping to question its merits or relevance. Nobody tells you that the whole damn thing was concocted as a way to bludgeon your individuality to death with a cleaver and then pump your deflated corpse full of creamy sweet conformist filling.

But then after my blood boiled over I started to feel vindicated for having suspected something was fishy since the very beginning... school was a drag. I was good at it but it never made my soul sing, and I was sure there was more to life than being a good parrot. I was proud of myself for never giving in. And I decided to spread the word.

Consider it spread. 

Several very insightful commenters noted that if you try hard you can find inspiring teachers and great people at Yale, and they are absolutely totally right. In fact that's true of most places you'll find yourself educational or no.

But it just seems to me that for all the hype, for all the bullshit of applying, for all the time and for 40 grand a year for four years, your brain should be orgasmically stimulated. Call me a demanding customer, but that's the way I see it.

College is a product without a better business bureau to police it, and the most infuriating thing is that even if you don't want to buy it, it has made itself a necessity in many job circles. And with inflation, the jobs that used to go to college grads now require masters degrees, and the MA positions are only PH.D worthy, etc.

So work the system and get the most you can, but know that it's just that, a system, not an answer.

Be an Autodidact. Follow your passions. Thoughts?

Best,

HnnH

(Cuz you can take the 'A's and shove them up your SS.)

Hannah's Guide to Eternal Happiness (Part One)

I worked for Yale admissions all four years and have advised thousands of nervous prefrosh about everything from med school requirements to fire safety regulations (apparently his biggest fear was being burned alive...gotta love those fresh-faced, well-adjusted Yalies....)

But after a while I realized that these kids were not asking me how many sweaters to bring New Haven, how many APs to take, and what acapella rush is like because of their love of sweaters, standardized testing, and public humiliation. It was because they were, like any kid about to enter college, freaked out.

But even if they come to Yale armed with those answers (a shitload, a shitload, and a load of shit) and more, I realized they wouldn't really be any better off. Logistics are what overachievers excel at, and those kids don't need me telling them that New Haven is cold unless they're retarded *oops* I mean recruited athletes. So I started to cut through the bull and tell them the things that I didn't think they'd be able to find in their bluebooks. And the more I talked the more I realized how many of us who are awesome at SATs and internships and auditions and elections are surprisingly lacking in something most butt-sniffing dogs are constantly capable of- Actually Being Truly Happy.

So I've sorted my thoughts into a few chunks, this being the first. 

HANNAH'S (slightly hypocritical)*

GUIDE TO ETERNAL HAPPINESS Part One

1. The Voice

If you are like me, or if you are even slightly more interesting than unbuttered toast, you have some form of The Voice. The Voice sounds a whole lot like you except that The Voice is a dick. The Voice takes great pleasure in saying helpful things like this:

"You are never going to finish ____ you incompetent lazy baboon. Go eat Mars Bars and forget your woefully pathetic _____ abilities in the mindless abyss of reality television. You will never amount to anything."

"Wow. This idea sucks more balls than 1. Paris Hilton and Liberace at a ball sucking competition and 2. A sweatshop full of cute asian girls who are only fed that tapioca-ball bubble tea and 3.a powerball lotto machine combined. To review: this idea, and by extension you, suck."

"Holy shit this is a disaster! Everything is horrible and it's only getting worse! Bail out now."

the one that I'm sure all you Yalies in the audience will be familiar with:

"That's not good enough. Why do you even bother? You could do so much better."

and the wonderfully uplifting:

"Nobody loves you and you have no friends. That annoying habit you secretly fear someone could hate you for is only one of the thousands of reasons that everyone hates you."

The Voice insists that it's The Voice and not you're awesomeness that makes you a successful person. "Without me you'd be a crack addicted loser" The Voice declares. But just for kicks, let's think of The Voice as if it were a voice outside your head instead of inside for a moment.

Imagine if you had someone hanging around you pretty much all the time who shouted about what a failure you were, and told you you were ugly and unworthy, and insisted that all your dreams are laughable delusions because you're such a talentless slob. 

If I were you, I'd punch that person in the face. And I hope you would too.

And let's remind ourselves that on some days we inflict that kind of battering on ourselves hour after painful hour with the expectation that we're being realists. It's game time. Nose to the grindstone. Tough love. 

That's bullshit.

People tell us it's good to be motivated and to give yourself deadlines. We assume this means being hard on yourself. But you and I both know that you're going to reach the finishline much faster if someone is cheering you on even when you fall down instead of taking the opportunity to pour bees on your head and smack you around with 2x4.

Let's be logical- if you're like me, and you err on the side of perfectionism, you do not need The Voice telling you that you're doing a terrible lazy uncreative mediocre job. You'll get it done faster and it'll be more pleasant if you just stay positive and wait to critique yourself until the end.

In fact, doing something creative like writing, and something more critical like editing, uses entirely different parts of the brain. Doing and criticizing is like simultaneously trying to tweek and analyze the exact decibel frequency of the aria you are trying to perform with passionate emotion- it's gunna trip you up.

So... what to do?

First thing's first. Identify it. The Voice is super sneaky and, as I said before, sounds exactly like you. It also knows everything there is to know about you, every icky awful cringe-worthy detail, so it has a pretty big arsenal of insults to draw from. Don't let it get to you. You're too important to waste time getting stamped on by some figment of your own imagination.

Secondly- Reason with it. Eventually you'll be able to hear the voice and tell it to shut the fuck up, but at first The Voice is not going to back down easily, so you'll have to be pugnacious and deal with feeling like a skitzo for a little while. It goes a little something like this:

"You suck."

"Glad to hear that you think that. But I'm busy right now."

"Ya, busy sucking"

"A helpful suggestion, but one which I know will only serve to make me feel crappy, which is ultimately going to hurt my productivity and quality of life, so I bid you good day sir."

"Who do you think you are you pretentious freak? This is why you have no friends."

"No, this is why you have no friends. You're negative and obsessive and if you talked to any of my friends the way you talked to me they would punch you in the face."

Thirdly- After working hard at the last one, you'll eventually have sussed out The Voice's tricks enough to smell The Voice like a distant but swiftly approaching hint of dog poo in the breeze, and just put it aside. It's not helpful. It's not enjoyable. You're not even going to dignify it with a conversation.

Woohoo!

So here is my footnote about why my guide is *(slightly hypocritical) ...

This is hard.

This is really hard. It is 100% worthwhile but you will have to work at it constantly, especially if you, like me, have The Voice turned on so loud that sometimes it has edged out your own voice entirely. *I do not claim to have mastered this system.

But I do know that every day I use it, my life is happier, healthier, and more meaningful. I have more productivity, more joy, more fun, more energy to make friends, more confidence in myself, and more certainty in what I want to do with my life than ever before.

Sussing out The Voice is the most powerful gift I've ever given myself, and I hope you find it helpful. 

Check back for another Happiness Guide and How To Get Published installment.

Let me know if you have questions :)

Much Love and Light,

H

Pilot Audition Tape

The audition tape which won me the New York Television Film Festival Flying Solo contest. (turn up the volume on the bottom it defaults very low)

CLICK HERE

My pilot premieres September 17th. Hooray!

video url: http://www.youshare.com/hannahannahanna/3c5d0c2d73eb588c.flv.html
contest details here: http://www.nytvf.com/2008_pgp_info.htm

Spamming Quips and Publishing Tips

Last night I did something brazen. I sent out a mass blog advertisement to every possible Yale panlist I had ever been a part of in four years. I broke the yalemail rules. The possibility of my dignified and dapper Master Haller browsing a slapdash post about curry & cunnilingus wasn't even enough to dissuade my triggerhappy click finger.

And I did this for two reasons. Firstly, I think it's important to start steeling myself against critics, and I don't know anywhere with a higher density of socially frustrated elitists who get their self-aggrandizing kicks by pointing out pedantic imperfections in other people's work (myself included) than at Yale. Secondly, my Yalemail expires in about 3 days and I was more than happy to bid the buggy system goodbye in a spam-tastic flurry of self promotion.

Encouragingly, despite this caveat I included at the end of the email:

If you are FUMING because you received this email three times in a row then either get a better spam filter, or take this as serendipity and see if one of my posts doesn't tickle you. That, or write derogatory sarcastic comments on my blog to vent your anger at me while soothing the pains of a pathetic life in which email decorum takes up 1/3 of your mental energy while STILL supporting the career of a struggling artist.

I have still ruffled the feathers of people who don't seem to understand sarcasm, like the Grammar Gestapo, who is quick to tell me that “I think if you're going to write a book, you should learn how to use punctuation with quotations…” and, helpfully, "...you know it's spelled Tandoori, right?"

I apologize guys. Although I too used to extract meager droplets of self worth from making sure English papers footnotes were formatted exactly perfectly, I am now a Yale graduate and this is a blog, so I am no longer beholden to the ALL HOLY MLA FORMAT. Witness a daring rebellion as I cavalierly leave this sentence totally un-punctuated

Also- that's what I have an editor for. Do you have an editor? No? Then I guess it's a good thing you can use punctuation marks correctly. Well done. Gold star!

The ones that I won't admit stung a little more included: "Jesus h christ you're not funny" and the thrilling "you are not funny and I hope no one buys your book." Well I don't think you're particularly funny either.

But I do think it's funny that you may be stuck at Yale writing 10-12 page papers which will be scanned for 4 seconds by a manic depressive TA playing guitar hero with his free hand while I get to sort through comments about writing that people are actually reading. People including you, funnyman.

My alltime favorite comment was "The least you could've done is facebook friended me first, you trollop." Consider it done Chris. Anyone who can combine 21st century telecommunication and 17th century prostitution in one swiftly condemning quip is ok by me.

I was really tickled to read that one person had already heard of my blog when a friend told him something along the lines of "believe it or not, someone we went to Yale with is doing something better than turning other people's money into more money or doing coke off of toilet seats."

I am humbled by this compliment and hope I will live up to it. In fact I am resolving here and now before all and BlogGod only to turn other people's money into my money and do coke off of strippers' elbows nowhere near toilet seats.

He promised "I will read your book cover to cover when it comes out, tell my friends about it even when I lack an appropriate conversational segue, AND read your blog...if you tell me about the process you went through to get to this point" which I think is a pretty legitimate deal seeing as I claimed to be writing about professional writing. You're on AC. So here's a little intro which will be fleshed out over the coming weeks:

How to get a book deal.

First, have a unique idea. Do research into your target demographic and be familiar with the hooks of bestsellers in your market. See if you can find a niche for yourself amongst them, and once you do, start writing a killer chapter sample.

A lot of people I know slaved away writing entire books before shopping them around, but the truth is that most book deals are sold based on a proposal which includes, generally, a compelling summary, 2 sample chapters, a chapter outline, marketing info, and a bio. That's it.
Then you get an editor to help you figure everything out, and an advance to bolster living expenses while you write for a few months, so sometimes it's better to concentrate on a killer proposal that gets you in the door than driving yourself nuts writing the perfect completed novel which people are going to want to change anyway.

There are two ways to go after you assemble this stuff, and please ask questions if you want more details on any of those specific proposal elements.

First, send emails to a gagillion agents. Agents will help you craft a proposal and shop it around to the big buyers. There are tons of listings on the net, one of which is here: http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/agents.html.

Do your research and figure out which agents specialize in what. Don't send your slasher murder mystery to a children's book agent. If you have a favorite series or an author you want to pattern yourself after it wouldn't hurt to find out what agency they work with.

Calls are generally considered creepy, so write a short but intriguing email about your book, attach your summary or chapter, and hope for the best. Be enthusiastic and appeal to their mentorly side (Having a yale.edu email address really helped me out here). I sent about 50 emails and got 6 or 7 responses, two of which resulted in meetings, and one ended up with a contract. Still, even the contractless agents offered me tips on how to make the proposal more industry-ready and I think I ended up with a much better product after hearing so many 'no's.

However, this is where things get tricky. Agents are basically professional leeches no matter how nice and competent they are, and it's a big commitment to give 20% of your career to someone before you even have one. You don't need one right away.

I actually got this book deal without my agent through contact with the publishing company, which can be established through more emails, tenacity, and personal contacts. If you know a friend of a friend who is interning at Random House, get them your proposal. Often interns our age are the ones sorting through submissions and can make the difference between a proposal winding up on an editor's desk or in the garbage.

Also, blogs are the new frontier in publishing, and if you get a lot of traffic and fill a niche you'll be able to attract attention from publishers while honing your writing chops.

And you may even get a bunch of your former classmates anonymously accusing you of hackery.

My advice is to write a lot, even when you don't feel like it, because if you wait 'til you feel like it you'll be that 80 year old guy still working on his first and only novel. I don't like writing. But I do like having written.

What do you guys think? How have you managed to motivate yourselves beyond the realm of GPAs? How have I endured my first official Ivy-avalanche of troll posts? Keep me posted, keep smiling, keep the faith.

Best,
H

Tandori

My friend goes on a date, he and the lady get tipsy, she takes him home, she goes down on him, and as any gentlemanly gentleman would do, he attempts to return the favor. He has never done this before and is less than pleased with the results.

"My god it's like trench warfare down there" he shrieks retelling the harrowing tale.

Nausea swells but then subsides. It subsides because he has vomited chunky curry tandori dinner all over her... trench. He says that she says it stings even after she's run into the shower and rinsed and redressed and called a cab to take him home.

"I'm gay" he announces.

I try to sound surprised, like his tapdancing and love of lavender scented candles and obsession with American Idol were just flukes. "Reeeeeeally?"

"I guess sometimes God works in mysterious ways" he says mysteriously.

"And so does Tandori" I conclude.

He pauses. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat it again."

"...well that makes two of us."

Dog

I've been caring for a narcoleptic poodle and she's making me suspicious.

At first I was convinced she was about as intelligent as a doorknob who you also had the privilege of feeding, walking, and petting. She had been biting her tail and had her head in one of those oversized clear plastic cones to make sure she couldn't reach it. "Stop biting your stupid tail stupid dog. It's not good for you. Stopit how hard is that?" I say while watching TV eating brownies surfing the internet and drinking a glass of wine.

Dog follows me around the house, even into the bathroom, and cocks her head to the side perplexedly like I just sprouted alien antennae when I say "Go. Get out. Just because you can shit in the middle of the Stop and Shop parkinglot at rushhour doesn't mean that this is a spectator sport." She cocks her head to the other side. I do whatever shooing I can from the toilet, then resort to hurling a roll of toilet paper at her, then lock the door. I feel guilty about it the rest of the day because she hangs her head like she's done something wrong.

Dog likes to sniff things and tugs at the leash powerfully when she decides that prime sniffing loations are behind us. "This way! Eiw that's a dead bird! Come ON stupid dog." She gives up after a while but still seems perfectly satisfied with herself by the end of the walk having smelled, pooped, and smelled lots of poop, and lies down for some tail gnawing or some squeezy toy chewing or some shut eye.

Dog watches me get dressed and follows me back and forth from laundry to mirror to closet to mirror to bathroom to mirror to closet. I feel like a tour guide and suddenly feel an aggravating pressure to be doing something more exciting than color coordinating. Dog has no clothes and a floofy poodle haircut but that wasn't my decision and presumably not her's either.

Dog catches me masturbating and thinks this too is a spectator sport. It's beyond awkward and the mood is beyond ruined and Dog seems to think we are playing a game. Dog offers me her squeezy toy. I do not return the gesture.

Dog does not procrastinate.

My Dad says his philosophy on life is based on his dead dog Barker. Barker insisted on healthy cardio and spending time in nature, and not letting the man get you down. One day in the park Barker made friends with the dog of a beautiful lady who turned out to be my mother. Barker sure could pick 'em, Dad says.

My mother is suspicious of anyone who the monkey (see note) does not trust. My mother says the monkey can smell dishonesty. My mother also says the monkey might be psychic. Sometimes the monkey drinks her own urine.

Sometimes I hate my writing so much it makes me sick to even approach the computer letalone face the screen and come to terms with how much more I have to finish. I squeeze my theighs, enraged at my inefficiency, til white thumbprints appear. I watch the blood fill them in as a temporary distraction from the lame lame lameness of how lame everything is.

Dog offers me her squeezy toy.

We take a walk. She cocks her head.

I wonder what Dog is thinking as Dog wonders what I am thinking and I realize that we are thinking the same thing. And I wonder which of us is slumming it. And I don't think it's me.






Note:
Monkey (Amelia) has lived with my mom for 23 years. 2 years longer than she's had me. Monkey gets the good towels.