Had an opportunity to spend some time at a cemetery today.  We’re in the middle of a bit of a heat wave right now in the Creek, so it was far too hot out there for my comfort.  But heat aside, it was rather pleasant.  Not to get all goth about it, but I’ve always liked cemeteries.  I find them, as I’d imagine most do, very peaceful.  Even at night.  Especially at night.  It’s never “creepy” or even morbid.  Walking among the stones is calming in a way few other things are.  The place is quiet, obviously, but that’s not where the peace and calm come from.  Those, for me, come from the sense of absolute inevitability.  Whatever may be weighing you down in your life at the moment weighs a lot less when you are reminded that no matter what you do, no matter what choices you make, no matter how intelligent or passionate or intuitive or loved you may be, you are going to end up right here.  I recommend spending some time at a cemetery occasionally.  It’s good for you.  You need to remind yourself that The Clock Is Ticking.

Anyway, we have a few items of calendric business to attend to.  To wit:

First up, Happy Birthday to William Saroyan who was born in 1908.  In the event that dear reader is not an English major, allow me to ‘splain.  He was the guy who proved that you don’t need to kiss the ass of literary establishment to write something that’ll make grown-ass adults questions their life choices.  He was the sort of writer who looked at conventional narrative structure, laughed maniacally, and then proceeded to craft stories that hit you in the liver like a surprise audit from the IRS.

He won the Pulitzer back before the Pulitzer became a meaningless joke for The Time of Your Life – because apparently the universe has a sense of humor about timing – and then had the balls to initially reject it.  Fuck yes!  He basically told the (at the time) most prestigious literary award in America to sit on it and vigorously spin.  Also check out The Human Comedy.

Fast-forward (or rewind, depending on your relationship with linear time and sobriety) to 1837, when Ralph Waldo Emerson dropped the mic before mics were even invented, and  stood up at Harvard – again, back when Harvard was prestigious, and not a cesspool of anti-Americanism and antisemitism – and basically told American literature to grow a pair and stop copying its European homework.

“The American Scholar” was a literary declaration of independence wrapped with enough intellectual firepower to level a small philosophy department.  Emerson looked at American writers who were still desperately trying to sound British and said, essentially, “Why are you like this?”

The man had the audacity to suggest that American writers should – brace yourself, dear reader – write about America.  Revolutionary stuff, right?  Except it really was.  Before Emerson’s verbal smackdown, American literature was about as authentically American as a gas station sushi roll.

Up next…it’s We Love Memoirs Day.  I don’t usually appreciate the declaration of “Days,” to any particular cause or whatever, but since memoir is the genre I usually work in, why the hell not?  Memoirs are the literary equivalent of that friend who has absolutely no filter after three drinks: uncomfortable, brutally honest, and somehow exactly what you needed to hear.

The memoir is where we writers go to bleed on the page and somehow make it beautiful.  It’s the genre that says, “You think fiction is wild?  Hold my therapy bills.”  These are the books that make you realize your own problems aren’t so bad, or alternatively, make you question every life choice you’ve ever made.  Both outcomes are equally valid and equally entertaining.

There’s something pleasantly masochistic about diving into someone else’s trauma and calling it entertainment.  But hey, at least we’re honest about it now.  We’ve collectively decided that raw, unfiltered human experience is worth celebrating, which is either deeply profound or deeply disturbing, depending on your philosophical stance and B.A.C.

Finally, August 31, 1888 gives us the discovery of Mary Ann Nichol’s body in Whitechapel.  The first acknowledged victim of Jack the Ripper, a name that would launch a thousand terrible crime novels and enough conspiracy theories to keep internet forums busy until the heat death of the universe.

Here’s the thing about Jack the Ripper: he’s become literature’s favorite boogeyman, inspiring more truly terrible prose than a creative writing workshop after happy hour.  The man (presumably) committed horrific crimes and somehow became a cultural icon, which says something most people find deeply unsettling about our collective psyche that they don’t want to examine too closely.

The Ripper murders have spawned everything from scholarly dissertations to graphic novels to what can only be described as “fan fiction,” and honestly, that last category should probably worry you more than it does.  But there’s something about the combination of mystery, Victorian atmosphere, and genuine horror that keeps writers coming back like addicts.

What do these ridiculously disparate things have to do with each other, besides the date?  I don’t know.  Maybe nothing.  The birth of a literary rebel, a transcendentalist’s declaration of cultural independence, a celebration of oversharing as an art form, and the beginning of history’s most literary murder spree.  Yeah, nothing in common except occurring on August 31.

Which is today.  And if that’s not worth raising a glass (or six) to, then frankly, you’re taking this whole “literary appreciation” thing far too seriously.  Sometimes the best way to honor great writing is to acknowledge that it’s all beautifully, chaotically, magnificently insane – much like the people who create it and the people who consume it with the desperation of the chronically under-caffeinated.

Cheers.

N.P.: “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Minor Epic Version” – Rok Nardin