Being Dave Eggers

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="02c285a1erlcgo.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Arial" ><B>Martin Kimel</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Martin Kimel"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="02ad2c00dkelyh.png"> <bR> <div> <B>ARTICLES</B><B> <A NAME="articles"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A></B></div> <div> <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>(</B></FONT><B>lighter</B><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>pieces </B><A HREF="#lighter_pieces" TITLE="Being Dave Eggers"><U><B>below</B></U></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>)</B></FONT></div> <div> <I>New!  "</I><A HREF="id95.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Stand Up to Cancer? Stand Up to Congres"><U><I>Stand Up to Cancer?" Stand Up to Congress and the White House</I></U></A><I> </I>(Aug. 2008)</div> <div> <I>New!  </I><A HREF="id94.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Pancreatic Cancer: My Mothers Death"><U>Pancreatic Cancer: My Mother's Death</U></A> (Aug. 2008)</div> <div> Read the piece a Washington Post editor called "smart and moving."</div> <div> <I> </I><A HREF="id90.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dont Waste Your Money on Rich Colleges"><U>Don't waste your charity on rich colleges</U></A>, <I>LA Times</I> (Nov. 25, 2006)</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id89.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Teaching of Holocaust must focus on ugly"><U>Oprah and Auschwitz</U></A>, <I>Baltimore Sun</I> (Feb. 26, 2006)</div> <div> Why cameras don't belong in the <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Justice Filmed Is Justice Distorted"><U>jury room</U></A>.  <I>Washington Post </I>(Dec. 22, 2002)</div> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Regulating the Ferrari Set on a Ford Sa"><U>Regulating the Ferrari Set - on a Ford Salary</U></A>, <I>Washington Post </I>(Jan. 4, 2000)</div> <div> Read the article on pro-Palestinian media bias that <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ProPalestinian Media Bias: An Examinati"><U>infuriated a Washington Post editor</U></A> (2002) (note: it's long)</div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&&id=325&&cn=0&&clnt=clnt00001&&" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.p"><U>Slackers, Stigma and Depression</U></A>, Mental Health Net (1997)</div> <div> Boyz 'N the Neck -about the <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Boyz N the Hood"><U>racial crisis</U></A> in my home town, <I>American Lawyer </I>(March 1996)</div> <div> I review <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rebutting the MacDworkinites"><U><I>Defending Pornography</I></U></A><A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rebutting the MacDworkinites"><U> </U></A>by the ACLU's Nadine Strossen, <I>Legal Times </I>(Aug. 1995)</div> <div> <A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PC or Not PC, That is the Question"><U>Does Free Speech Exist?</U></A> - I review Stanley Fish, <I>Legal Times </I>(Apr. 1994)</div> <div> <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Does the Jury System Need Repair?"><U>Does the Jury System Need Repair?</U></A> <I>Legal Times </I>(Jan. 1995)</div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.kimel.net/jewpol.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.kimel.net/jewpol.html"><U>Polish-Jewish Reconciliation: A Long Way to Go</U></A>, originally published in <I>The Forward </I>(Dec. 1996) (scroll halfway down linked page)</div> <bR> <div>  <A NAME="lighter_pieces"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="1" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="1" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" ></A><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Eras Light ITC" ><B>LIGHTER PIECES</B></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Well Blow Them Out of the Water!"><U>We'll Blow Them Out of the Water! The 2012 Olympics</U></A>, <I>Washington Post</I>, (Jan. 2002)</div> <div> <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Being Dave Eggers"><U>Being Dave Eggers</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tanless"><U>Tanless </U></A>(Fall 2002)</div> <div> <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="HouseHunting Hell"><U>House-hunting Hell</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TV Hits Youll Soon Be Talking About"><U>TV hits you'll soon be talking about</U></A> (with Gregory Baruch, 2002) </div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" Look Good in Tux, Ready to Run the NEA"><U>Look Good in Tux, Ready to Run the NEA</U></A>, <I>Wall Street Journal </I>(April 1989)</div> <div> <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Europe Beware! The Yanks Are Coming"><U>Superlawyers storm the Continent!</U></A> <I>Baltimore Sun (Apr. 1992)</I></div> <div> Regulating Wall Street Billionaires - Hear me on Public Radio's <A HREF="http://marketplace.org/shows/2000/02/07_mpp.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://marketplace.org/shows/2000/02/07_"><U>"Marketplace"</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Lullaby of Washington"><U>The Lullaby of Washington - Hail to the Redskins? </U></A><I>Washington Post</I> (Jan. 1991<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >)</FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="#articles" TITLE="Being Dave Eggers"><U><B>BACK TO TOP</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U><B>E-Mail Me!</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Being Dave Eggers</I></div> <div>                  © 2001 Martin Kimel</div> <bR> <div> Oh to be Dave Eggers!  To humorously title your first book, “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,” and then actually have it received as one!  To see your memoir hailed by <I>The New York Times</I> as “a virtuosic piece of writing” <I>and</I> excerpted by <I>The New Yorker</I>.  To be the subject of admiring profiles in major newspapers and magazines before you're 30.  (According to the profiles, Mr. Eggers is “a wry survivor,” “clever and satirical,” “young and idealistic and funny and full of life,” and has a “one-of-a-kind sensibility.”)</div> <bR> <div> Although I haven't yet read Mr. Eggers' book -- which is now topping the paperback best seller list -- I don't doubt that he deserves his precocious accolades and million-dollar deals.  But for us more ordinary souls who harbor creative ambitions (and who are on the other side of 30), it's hard to read about such young new stars without feeling just a twinge of envy.</div> <bR> <div> There are, it seems, more than a few of us frustrated artists out there.  It's said, for example, that the entire population of Los Angeles is at work on a screenplay.  And there are probably thousands of lawyers who have unfinished drafts of the Great American Novel stored inside their home PCs, collecting e-dust.  The lure of artistic creation calls to many who have decided, for practical reasons, to toil for a living in more regimented, more dependable vineyards.</div> <bR> <div> As for my personal vineyard, mutual-fund law isn't a bad way to make a living, but it's so, well, <I>legal.  </I>Statutes and rules and more subsections of each.  A prospectus is not a play, and few lawyers will ever hear their work acclaimed as “wickedly funny” or “brilliantly abrasive.”  (Both phrases were used in a profile of another literary <I>wunderkind</I>, Martin McDonough, who had four plays running in London when he was just 27.)  Attorneys may be called abrasive.  But “brilliantly abrasive,” no.</div> <bR> <div> Why do we use our scarce free time to write or paint or compose?  The creative impulse runs deep, even if the talent is not always there in equal measure.  Many of us also seek some degree of public recognition or fame.  After all, who wouldn't want to write the Great American Novel if he could do so from a villa on the French Riviera?</div> <bR> <div> Sometimes, with luck and perseverance, we fulfill our heart's desire and create something worthy of recognition.  Law alone has given the world of letters Sir Walter Scott, James Boswell, and Wallace Stevens -- the poet who made his living working in insurance.  On a more contemporary level, we have lawyers-turned-novelists John Mortimer, Scott Turow and the wildly popular John Grisham. </div> <bR> <div>  Some who have crossed over to the arts are hardly household names, though they have done quite well for themselves.  Broadway playwright Ken Ludwig toiled for years at a large Washington law firm, getting up early each morning to write, before his theater career took off.   And as a senior writer/producer for the landmark TV series, “The Simpsons,” former prosecutor Richard Appel gets to poke satirical fun at society while reportedly taking in $700,000 to $3 million annually -- considerably better than Voltaire did in even his best year.</div> <bR> <div> Lawyers aren't the only professionals who have felt the creative itch.  Medicine has produced Anton Chekhov and William Carlos Williams.  And dinosaur-movie lovers, as well as fans of the hospital drama, “ER,” owe much to that Harvard-trained physician gone Hollywood, Michael Crichton.</div> <bR> <div> It's probably true that most great creative talents shine before the age of 30.  But those of us who keep creating on the side do so because it satisfies some deep-seated expressive need.  We nourish our hope that our work will be seen by others on the knowledge that the market is far from perfect in its recognition of talent.  An awful lot of mediocre material gets published, sometimes because the author has connections or celebrity, while more original talents go begging.  Martina Navratilova, Ivana Trump and William Shatner have all published novels, while John Kennedy Toole committed suicide when his satirical novel, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” was rejected for publication.  The book later won a Pulitzer Prize.</div> <bR> <div> Most of us will never be Dave Eggerses.  For that matter, most of us will never be Michael Crichtons.  But who knows?  Some people have made it as artists at fairly advanced ages.  If we keep plugging away, maybe someone will be writing profiles about <I>us</I> when we're 40.  Or 50.  Or . . . .</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>   <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript">var site="sm4sitemeter"</script> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.2" src="http://sm4.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=sm4sitemeter"> </script> <noscript> <a href="http://sm4.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=sm4sitemeter" target="_top"> <img src="http://sm4.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=sm4sitemeter" alt="Site Meter" border=0></a> </noscript>    </div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>