Living Writers Stuff

Darlene McCoy
dmmccoy@ucsc.edu
Living Writers Response - Beth Lisick
When Beth Lisick first approached the podium, I thought she was a student. I was very surprised to find out later that she is over 40. She pretty much embodies the idea of a older bod but a young mind. One of the firs things she mentioned was that she just writes. She writes about whatever she's interested in, and then later thinks about the "consequences" of her work. I really appreciated her saying that writing has no rules. I am very much happy with that concept. I find it neat that she sort of started writing at an open mic night. I guess that's why she and her work are so animated and fun. Her description of the "freaks" at the open mic night bar-place were quite spectacular. I can still remember the vampire people!
The novel she read from, Helping Me Help Myself, was quite hilarious for being a novel about more personal experiences. Her humor is just plain weird, yet somehow hysterical. I must say, I was not expecting to see two naked middle aged ladies. Though, the faces of the people around me made the experience a good time. I remember certain things from her reading, like, "It was just something uncomfortable to talk about, like sex, or Hitler," or her description of babies, "Babies are the ultimate paradox, they are phantom demons that when born, make you start to die." I also really liked the concept of the slef-help novel. Twelve things in twelve months is a wonderful idea. I'm probably not going to do it, but it sounds really nice, and is a lot more reasonable than most New Year's Resolution type-things. I also really appreciated that she told us how she ended up coming up with the idea for the novel, and how she did research by attending a bunch of self help workshops.
All the short stories she told were fantastic, because I could completely visualize a beautiful, brand new car rollin' down the street after her, and then the confusion hurry and hysteria that ensued. I could also imagine being one of her band mates and observing that chaos. I know I might've died laughing on the spot. The story about the towels was also quite amusing, because I've been in a situation where I don't want to use something nice because it just looks so wonderful that I think it'd be rude to mess it up! The story about Japan was just crazy. I loved Beth's personal interjections of thought in between the ridiculous action around her.
Beth's videos were something else. Even though most of them were only about a minute long, she and her partner do a great job creating characters out of thin air. Though, now that I think about it, her videos really remind me of Mad TV, which is okay, because I know I'm entertained, but I'm also entertained by 90% of all things in the world.
I loved how the except I read was from Santa Cruz. I loved how she could relate to us, and how close to home it felt. I'm really glad she was from Kresge too. Kresge is pretty sweet! I'm sure I could find Emily's Bakery downtown or the restaurant, or maybe even the place where the nuns held their charity thing. I wonder if the nuns have ever read her work! I'm just glad this writer took the time to come back to UCSC to visit and share her work. She was wonderful.