The Weekly Atticus (01/27/2018)

The Muse Is You | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

Dear ,Is it appropriate for a writer to have a muse anymore? What first comes to my mind when I think of the word “muse” is the 1999 film starring Albert Brooks and Sharon Stone. (This thought then sends me down a very distracting and unproductive path—no, not that one—of making a mental list of my favorite Albert Brooks films. In case you’re curious, Defending Your Life and Broadcast News tie for first place.) In this #metoo era, when we are (thankfully) examining more closely our assumptions and our language around gender and around sex, I wonder what it means to claim to have a muse. And as a cisgender heterosexual white Jewish feminist woman, I also wonder, then, what it means for me to have a muse, especially if that muse were male. Is it an empowering act for a woman to objectify a man? Or is it, rather, demeaning to oneself to claim any other person as the source of inspiration for my creative work?I will escape answering the question here by suggesting that there is really no such thing as a muse, and there never was. A “muse” is simply a reflection, a hologram, an extension, or a window into that part of the Self that is difficult to access. The muse is you. I like how Neil McCormick phrased this idea in an article for the Telegraph. He claimed, “If the muse is anything, it is a mirror to the writer’s own psyche.”Yes, on occasion “other people” have served as significant starting points for some of my best writing. But more often, I am inspired by anger-infused arguments, unexplained coincidences, and very vivid dreams. And what further convinces me that the real muse is our subconscious is that some of my best best writing has come to me while driving alone down a long stretch of dull, uninspiring highway. Nothing much to offer the senses save for the radio or the crackling in the background of an ancient, almost-broken mixed tape. For me personally, music—the derivation of which in language is directly related to the Muses of Greek mythology— is a sure-fire way to unleash that which is way below the surface. But it’s not really the song lyrics or even the melodies that inspire me. It’s where the music takes me. Music seems to play with my brain functions in just the right ways. We’re real proud of and excited about a new nonfiction column up at Atticus Review called Superunknown: Stories About Songs. If you are someone whose subconscious is unleashed by music, make sure you consider submitting. We’d love to see where the music takes you.In the meantime, enjoy reading this week’s creative work.We're glad you're here.

Jen MaidenbergChief Strategy Officer/Columns Editor

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THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

FICTION: MY EXES' EXESby Kate Axelrod"On your seventeenth birthday, Haley gave you a blow job in the stairwell of her parents’ building on 97th and Amsterdam. You met in AP History and she had the biggest tits you’d ever seen. You joked that you wanted to tattoo each of her breasts; one would say Colin’s and the other would say Property."READ ON

CNF: GREEN HOMEby Rachel Chapman"I missed the green not only for its color but because without it there, draping the beech tree and the oak, stranger neighbors across the street could now see into my high window and so I could not leave the blinds open when I changed clothes, for fear someone would look at me."READ ON

POETRY: EMPTY SPACESBy Patricia Hanahoe-Dosch"They are me, they are mirrors, they are the airI breathe and choke with incenseto chase them away. I am the smokescenting the air. I fill the spacesthey cannot reach. I am their ghoston the other side of the door. I amthe missing one, a chalk outline on the floor."READ ON

MIXED MEDIA: ES SIND NICHT ALLE LUSTIG, DIE TANZEN(NOT ALL WHO DANCE ARE HAPPY)A short film by Caroline Rumley"Though there is no spoken text, sound is what drives this experimental short film. Tones captured from daily life, sped up or slowed down, repeated or made to reverberate, combine with tangled and incomplete images of dancing, resulting in a trance-like whole. The title comes from German essayist Christoph Lehmann, who reminds us that not everyone dances out of happiness."READ ON

BOOK REVIEW: Assume the Safety PositionA Review of Michael Konik’s YEAR 14Review by M.K. Rainey"Konik calls the reader to pay attention to blind spots in a fictional, all-seeing society through subversive characters and eerie gaps in the narrative, as well as through his ability to draw parallels between the book and the real time nonfictional society we live in. His is a warning against complacency, which allows an elite class to rule unilaterally."READ ON

FILM: A DEEPLY FELT ELEGY ON FIRST LOVEA film review of CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Review by Emily Moeck "I saw the film at my local theater, and when the credits of the film finished rolling and the theater lights came on, I was amazed, but not surprised that most of the audience was still sitting in their seats, overwhelmed and unready to return to their day. This is a film that should not be missed." READ ON

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