Legacy (with guest)

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https://thoobasa.blogspot.com/2025/03/when-friend-is-grieving.html

HOOKER: I'm sorry for your loss.

STEVE: Thank you.

BEAR: Steve is trying to figure out what to do with the writing Charlie left behind. 

STEVE: There's a ton of it. Journals, novels, poems, a couple plays. Hard copy, stuff on his computer. I had no idea he was so prolific.

HOOKER: I thought he was published.

STEVE: He published a lot actually. This is in addition to that. But most of what he did publish was by small print on demand publishers. That's just short of self publishing.

BEAR: Which gets no respect at all.

STEVE: Which dad never understood and I don't either. A rock band cuts their own record in a garage, and it's treated with respect, it's even cool. But publish your own volume of poetry, you just admitted failure. You self publush because real publishers reject you.

HOOKER: Have you tried libraries? Maybe his alma mater?

STEVE: No interest whatever. He's not famous. He doesn't have a big fan base. Actually I don't know if he has any fan base.

BEAR: Your dad was a good writer, Steve. Don't ever forget that.

STEVE: I think I admire his work more than like it. His vision of life was too dark for me. But he was a dedicated writer, no doubt about that. And he paid a price for it. Several marriages before mom, for starters.

HOOKER: You know what I think? This dilemma of yours would not have existed fifty years ago.

BEAR: Why's that?

HOOKER: Because back in the day, quality was not wedded to quantity. Look at the book industry. Publishing houses used to be family businesses, run by people who loved books. Many considered it their respnsibility to publish good books, whether or not they made money. Publishers were the guardians of literature. Now think about that. If a first novel could sell twenty thousand copies, they were thrilled. They supported this by also publishing pop lit, all those romance and vampire and detective books. A good critical review was more prestigious than a best seller.

STEVE: What happened?

HOOKER: Two things. First, international corporations started buying publishing houses, turning them into companies run by managers who loved profits more than books. And computers allowed sophisticated marketing that had never been possible before. It made absolutely no financial sense to publish a break-even literary novel when you could publish another romance novel instead. Publishers no longer cherished literature. They cherished profits.

STEVE: Which means dad's legacy is up the creek without a paddle.

HOOKER: No, it means you have to create his legacy in the new reality. You have to put his work online. Did Charlie write on a computer?

STEVE: He loved his computer. Of course, a lot of his writing was done on a typewriter as well.

HOOKER: You'll want to digitize whatever is in hard copy. There are companies that will do that for you.

STEVE: I make him a website or what?

HOOKER: A website could be used as an archive. There are other online options. A former colleague has made a blog for his wife's poetry. He adds a new poem every week.

BEAR: This all sounds so complicated. My legacy is real simple. My kids.

HOOKER: But you're not burdened by the egomania of the artist.

STEVE: I didn't see a strong ego in dad. He was always fretting that his work wasn't good enough.

HOOKER: I'm not talking about professional ego. I'm talking about existential ego.

BEAR: What on earth does that mean?

HOOKER: In the end, writers want to justify their existence. What if writing was just a waste of time? Given what happened, maybe Charlie thought so.

(Pause.)

STEVE: Dad's work I like best are funny little snippets he would write. He'd hide them around the house for mom to find later.

BEAR: Remember any?

STEVE: Not really. But I remember this two line poem: The songbirds near the river call. The moon waits where the willows are.

HOOKER: Very nice. Very musical.

STEVE: Oh, and this: The way to a man's heart is through his stomach -- and due south.

(End)

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https://thoobasa.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-faculty-four-minus-one-ramblin-jack.html