Thelonious Pinsky in Mexico...writing
June 1, 2009
Last night I was down like a baby at 10:30 PM. Thought sleep would resist but it came quickly. At 2:37AM, I woke up and was looking around wondering if I’d slept in. And again at 4:15AM, and 6:30 AM. Meanwhile, I got an e-mail from my friend Thelonious Pinsky, who is living in Mexico, about two hours south of Cancun. He’s working on a new book based around an incident that happened in 1977 near a high observatory in Peru – it snowed for the first time in a hundred years and the resulting melt caused the desert to burst into bloom. He’s pretty pumped about it. “Have you ever been to Peru,” I asked. He wrote back: “Well, no, but who the f- - k cares? I’ve been to deserts. I’ve been to observatories. I’ve seen flowers. I’m very intimate with snow. I’m a writer. I have an imagination.” “Okay,” I wrote, and obviously there was no way he could discern my doubt in that okay, but he did. “Look, do you seriously think some dumb f- - k off the street could write the Peruvian desert better than I can just because they’ve been there? Dude, give your head a shake. Do you think writing is something dentists, or accountants, or brain surgeons say they’re going to do when they retire? This is a “practice.” It’s a life-long practice of observing and playing with language, and moving through life as a writer. Look, my maids are here to clean up my room. That means it’s time for my mid-day cerveza. You’re an idiot, Trofimuk. I don’t know why you don’t pack up your family and move down here. The beach is beautiful. The Caribbean Sea is stunning. There’s a lot to look at, if you get my drift. Talk soon. Pins.”
Later, I got another e-mail, rife with mistakes. Obviously, Pinsky was into the cerveza pretty good at this point. It was epigrammatic to say the least. I’ve cleaned up the spelling: “Trofimuk. The Peruvians don’t own the experience of that desert in Peru. The Spanish don’t own the Columbus story. Women don’t own the experience of being a woman. Imagination is the nuke that blows the crap out of all these borders.”
9 Comments
1. Daniel Poitras had this to say: May 08, 2009 ~ 10:29 ~ #
There are so many things wrong and right about Thelonious. Some day I’ll grow up to be just like him.
2. Thomas had this to say: May 08, 2009 ~ 11:23 ~ #
Pinsky is a self-centered idiot. Damn he can write though. I think he’s involved with one of the maids down there in Mexico. Wouldn’t surprise me, actually.
3. Thomas had this to say: May 08, 2009 ~ 13:11 ~ #
Just got another note from Pins:
“Stop f – -king writing about me on your little website! The internet is for pin-heads. You’re not a f – -king pin-head are you, Trofimuk? Look, Inka is down at the beach — she’s completely nude, it’s 31C, the sun is shining and there’s a cooler full of beer down there. Just stop writing about me on your pathetic webspace. Nobody cares. Inka has the most exquisite breasts! I wish I could send you a picture. The soft, welcoming roundness of them makes me weep. I must go. Yours, Pins”
4. Justine had this to say: May 08, 2009 ~ 14:16 ~ #
Pinsky’s right.
Difference between an artist — a painter, a poet, a writer, a dancer — going to the mountains and noticing everything…the air, the lichens, the three million shades of grey — and a dickass downhill skier, who’s just there for the speed and thrill and the velocity. Or a dumbass snowmobiler who’s just there for the thrill.
5. deb had this to say: May 08, 2009 ~ 19:50 ~ #
Somehow the name Thelonius Pinsky doesn’t ring true, he does sound like an interesting character though and what he says does ring true.
6. Daniel Poitras had this to say: May 09, 2009 ~ 16:32 ~ #
Totally…like Mark Twain or Muhammad Ali for that matter.
7. Mike Gravel had this to say: May 11, 2009 ~ 08:43 ~ #
I’ve been mulling this since it was posted and the only conclusion I can come to is that Pinsky is mostly full of shit.
It’s writer’s hubris to think that imagination alone can conjure what it’s like to be a woman. “Women don’t own the experience of being women.” Bullshit. They sure as hell do. No man can write as a woman and convince everyone (and vice versa). Burroughs once said something about hustlers, but he was really talking about artists (they’re the same, arguably): ‘Hustlers of the world, there’s one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.’ In other words, don’t believe your own bullshit.
If Pinsky thinks he can write about the Peruvian desert without actually having been there, then I should be able to write about the beaches of Santorini or the Alps with aplomb. Maybe I can, and maybe I can convince some people, but I know it’ll be false and I’ll be no better than James Frey. But I think I know that you can’t understand anything without having been there or experienced it yourself.
And the snowmobile guy likely knows more about the mountains than the artist (certainly more about living and surviving in them). A different knowledge, perhaps. Again, it’s hubris to think an artist knows these things better simply because he or she owns a dictionary and a thesaurus, or can wrangle paint about a canvas.
8. thomas had this to say: May 11, 2009 ~ 17:12 ~ #
I sort of agree with you, Mike. “Women do own the experience of being women,” they just don’t own the right to write about it. Having not been a woman doesn’t and shouldn’t stop any man from writing a beautiful female character – or writing from a female perspective. (this idea probably offends a great many women who are into the whole sexual, cultural misappropriation thing — an idea that offends me) Not only women can write convincing and riveting female characters. AND some of the most intriguing and convincing male characters I’ve read have been penned by women. I think you can convince everyone. I’m not talented enough to do it, but I think it’s possible for a man to write a woman as well as a woman, and a woman to write a man as well as a man. But writing is not a game of absolutes. It is a game of imagination and “what if?” and endless possibility. But I’m convinced there is no way Pinsky can write about the Peruvian desert without going there. If the narrative is about the landscape, then you have to stand there and breathe, or you’re hooped. Unless he sets his story inside a building, with limited landscape. Unless the snow and blooming desert are just a heard-story, a myth, a metaphor…But the possibility of not getting it right gnaws.
Is that what Burroughs is getting at? You can’t ever fool yourself. You can’t get away from the nagging doubt that you may have gotten it wrong. I think, as a writer, you want to do everything possible to get the details right.
The only thing James Frey did wrong was call true fiction fact. The facts are irrelevant to the truth.
I’m with Pinsky on the snowmobilers who go to the mountains only for the thrill and velocity and to hell with the beauty. I’m sure this is a broad, sweeping generalization and ergo, wrong. Two diffrent types of knowing, no one way of knowing is better than the other.
9. Mike Gravel had this to say: May 12, 2009 ~ 09:59 ~ #
Rereading my comment, I think it’s a little half baked and sounds half-cocked, despite my deliberation.
I think a man can definitely write compelling female characters, but I’m not sure about writing AS a female, i.e. writing a first-person story as a woman. You’re going to fail, but maybe that’s the beauty of it. Misappropriation is a pretty serious thing when it comes to male/female things. Women have been denied a voice until only recently. I can fully understand why we need things like Women’s Writing Week, BlogHer, etc. These things are necessary because women have been essentially property for the majority of history, and in some countries they still are. It’s a dangerous line as a man, writing as a woman. Given history, it’s fully understandable that a woman would be up in arms over a man attempting to write as a woman. Maybe it’s a line that has to be crossed. I don’t know.
As for the snowmobilers…well, who knows. Maybe they get into the bush, crack a beer and admire the peaks just like you do. I don’t know. I’ve been in the backcountry on an ATV and it’s a cool thing – you get to places that nobody can get to on foot. It’s also a weird experience – you use this loud, obscene machine to access these beautiful, stunning places that demand quiet reverence. Strange.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Thomas. And thanks for provoking thought and discussion.