New York, New York(er)

After spending a whole day in the lab, on Saturday I dared the unthinkable: I SUBMITTED A SHORT STORY TO THE NEW YORKER! Yeah, I thought for once I’d start at the top. You know, have a rejection from the top of the food chain.

And although I’ve been advised against such negative thinking, I’m not exactly keeping my hopes up. I mean, they take like 8 weeks to reply; besides, I’m not even American, so I don’t know how keen they’ll be to publish a story written by a Greek who lives in England. And in Bradford, of all places. We’ll see. In the meantime, you can read the short story I submitted here. I’ll be submitting this and other stories to various literary magazines, so if you know any good ones (if they pay too, that’d be great), and if you think my writing’s any good, please email me or leave me a comment (they’ll both reach my Inbox).

In other news, I’m still working my donkey off. This PhD doesn’t want to finish, let me tell you…

Oh, something interesting: Last night I watched Michael Moore’s documentary

Bowling for Columbine, which, apart from being hugely informative and entertaining, also shed some light as to why it is that North Americans (is that the PC way of saying it? US people) have such a tremendous tendency to turn into murderous, gun-toting maniacs. Moore suggests that it’s not the violent history (Germany anyone?), the unemployment rate (Canada anyone?), or the video games (Japan anyone?). According to Moore, the basis of horrible events like the Columbine massacre appears to be the culture of fear that the US has been increasngly subjected to (9/11 anyone?). In fact, I never thought I’d say this, but I found myself agreeing with interviewee Marilyn Manson, who said that the US media feed their audiences with a constant barrage of fear and consumption. Hand them enough guns, and boom! Columbine.

It does also include a fantastic short animation entitled A brief history of America – funny, and sadly accurate in the same time. You can watch it, and other clips from the documentary here.

Well, I don’t know if all this is true – Man’s corrupt nature easily lends itself to violence, just like any other kind of
indulgence. And maybe loose gun control regulations are also to blame – after all, like my weapons instructor in the Army used to say, you can’t shoot someone without a bullet. But I do know of a solution that does work, and it does so effectively, because it changes Man’s nature, from the inside. What is it?