Dakota

Speaking of hugging dead fish. . .how 'bout beating a dead horse?

My so-called connection with Gabor Mate has, I think, permanently run aground, and all over Landmark Forum. Try googling it for a real eye-opener; it seems the majority of the sites are critical, calling it a money-sucking cult (and it was originally founded by Werner Erhard of EST fame, so the provenance is kind of muddy). Well, don't ever say any of that to the good doctor, or he'll bite your head off, as I was to find out. I asked him for clarification (he's a real Landmarkhead, and has spent/continues to spend thousands of dollars on courses, though he also claims to be "transformed": these two do not compute, in my mind). He also recommends it without reservation in WHEN THE BODY SAYS NO, and to his therapy clients, which made me quail a bit, as it's obviously controversial (and he's aware of the controversy, but still recommends it wholeheartedly). I think I hit a nerve in even implying he was "hooked" (speaking of fish), or that Landmark was anything but positive. I got a blast from him, in which he told me he no longer wishes to have a "dialogue" with me. Well, it was direct anyway. Perhaps the universe is doing me a favour? I've been warned by people who knew Gabor for years and years (including my own doctor) that he is volatile, unpredictable, and his people skills are abysmal, if in fact he has any at all. So there you have it. The thing is, people often don't match up to their writing. I've met poets who wrote incredibly sensitive stuff who turned out to be absolute thugs. I think in Gabor's case, he just doesn't want to hear anything negative about Landmark, as he's deeply into it, has brought his whole family on-side, and claims that it has completely transformed his life. My question to him was: if you're so transformed, why must you keep going back for more and more courses? Oh well; this was not to be, apparently. It left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but I have to say I was not really surprised. I think he needs to believe his problems are over. But the thing is, life has a way of dropping a brick on your head, especially if you're on a path that isn't constructive. And it is not up to me to drop that brick. So I need to butt out; he may have done me a big favour here. Live and learn, eh?

Meantime, I am very very close to some good news on my next novel, but that's another story. . . (I won't say anything until it becomes official.)

Onward, quand meme!

Margaret

Your blog is still the most consistently interesting and readable. Most others bore me to death and/or are really badly written. Blog
on. . .

Interesting. Links on Jack Rosenberg and Landmark:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/landmark.html
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/news1/an010726-07.html
http://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark72.html

http://www.rickross.com/groups/est.html

I remember the "Hunger Project" scam in the mid-seventies and later heard some pretty grisly tales of Rosenberg's family life from an ex-est-insider.

Too bad about Gabor, the traumatized sometimes seek traumatic "therapies."

Sounds like some good news coming for you, Margaret, do let us know.

And I totally agree about Dakota's consistent readability.

ur

Thank you both for your kind words. Sometimes I feel I am writing for Ask Jeeves alone.

I must say, Margaret, that I am shocked by your report from the Gabor Watch. Even the best of us can be captured the promise of cure.

I recently had occasion to sit with an existential paychologist who dipped into a little Landmark, which he found moderately useful. He stopped after the initial course though, and they got a bit pushy.

In the olden days it was said by some that EST was good for "breaking down" resistance. I have discovered, over the years, that resistance is usually in place for a damn good reason. The "breaking down" process always seemed a bit sadistic, too. I wonder how many people peed on the floor, waiting for permission to leave the room after sixteen hours.

I also remember being cornered more than once by an ESTie and given the unrelenting hard sell. Most unpleasant. I thought they had abandoned those tactics.

Well, now we know. Disenchantment is hard. D

Well, my part of it was probably expecting too much, and perhaps being too provocative about Landmark (a landmine, as it turned out), in full knowledge that he could be touchy about it. I think I make him uncomfortable, because I see through him. Gabor can't be Gabor with people: he has this need to be Dr. Mate, to always be the therapist, the wise one, the in-control one. Another odd thing: I have never seen him laugh or smile. He just doesn't. I mean, a six-month-old baby smiles, but he doesn't. Poker face is no word for it. It's more like a mournful mask. The photo on the cover of the Georgia Straight was brutal - he looked downright surly, almost hostile, and not too damned friendly. That's not particularly joyful, healthy or life-loving, I don't think. Anyway, he's currently working on a book about addictions (irony of ironies), which will probably sell very well indeed. And no doubt he will continue to pour time, money and energy into Landmark courses, telling himself they have transformed his life, while those around him find him just as difficult and exasperating as ever.

I may just put him in my next novel, for revenge. It looks like it might take place, at least in part, on the Downtown Eastside, where he works. Hey, it's been done with Kim Rossmo, the geographic profiler, whom Michael Slade put in his thriller BURNT BONES. The Man Who Never Smiles. . .

Onward. . .tomorrow, a momentous meeting with mine agent, Sally, then I can tell you all about Novel #2!

Margaret

Ahhh...h the novelist's revenge. Diabolical. That's the problem with a blog. Whenever you seek literary revenge, it scrolls away in a few days.
Best example ever was Nora Ephron's "Heartburn".

Remember Gabor's daughter? She says he smiles. Perhaps he's just not amused.

Do you think he channels his books, given the level of their wisdom and compassion?

Anyway we are waiting with bated breath to hear about your lastest, dare I say, book. That was fast. How's the epic going? D

Oh well, all right, I've waited long enough.

Today I sign a contract with a publisher for my second novel, NOLA MARDLING. This wasn't the one I was stuck on; that was Novel #3, still not truly launched. The thing is, once you have an agent and a first novel out, it isn't enough to have the second novel all written. You have to be writing Novel #3. I have started something, but it's not the first time I've started something. NOLA was written while I waited nearly 18 months for BETTER THAN LIFE to come out; but once I had signed, whoosh! So I am hoping for that whoosh again. I've been preoccupied. It went back and forth all summer between two small literary presses - I won't say names yet, that's bad magic, and believe me, the internet is more public than I ever knew. But suffice it to say, unless I get caught in a hurricane or something, today I will sign this sucker and get it done. In the meantime, I wrote a book-length poem over the summer which no one has seen, and today I must screw up my courage and show it to my agent Sally. This one took some real risks, and has caused a lot of anxiety, but I consider myself to be a poet who writes novels, so if I ever had a book of poems out, it would be incredibly gratifying (I first started trying to sell a collection of poetry back in '94, before I even started writing my first novel, which, by the way, never sold; BETTER THAN LIFE is, strictly speaking, my second, though it's called "first" because it was the first to be published. Confusing enough?)

So this has been a momentous week. My horoscope for today says, "People have moved in and others have moved out. Everyone is swarming around like ants. It's the end of one era. The start of a new epoch. The close of a chapter. I think you get the idea. What is changing in your life now will soon give you cause for celebration."

So. . .there you have it!

One-line synopsis for Novel #2 (which is really #3. . . ): "NOLA MARDLING tells the story of a profoundly gifted but socially-ostracized 14-year-old girl who is forced to discover her own spiritual and moral courage in order to survive an ultimate test." This is not a teen novel, by the way, though that confused a lot of publishers. And it's nothing like BTL - it's much darker, edgier, more violent and erotic. It will probably shock the little old ladies in my church, not to mention my relatives back east. But, c'est la guerre. . . Onward, into Novel #3 (4? I lost count.)

Blessings on you,

Margaret

Oh YES, a dark, edgy, erotic Coming-of-Age novel. This particular old lady can't wait. Love the hilly, tongue roll of a title too.

Let's hear it for new epoch's and challenges becoming celebrations. I think we have heard the last of Dr. M too, which under the circumstances seems just as well.

Will you publish a tantalizing chapter on your website for your eager fans? Let us know what Sally thought of the epic.

And did I say CONGRATULATIONS! see what a well placed violin lesson can do for the vibration.

Best D