LD for James Zaavy
I’ve neglected this site, as of late. Not proud of it, but of the things in my life I’m not proud of, this doesn’t even make the list. Nonetheless, I’ll be posting a lot more frequently, so stay tuned.
Earlier in the week I had a quick meeting with James Zaavy, not a big time celebrity in the national scene, but his name is a name that comes up quite a bit in the underground social circles I find myself in, while travelling in Chicago. Apparently, to some people he’s all the rage. I soon came to find out why. He talked to me a bit about his book M6, and some other things I won’t write about.
Zaavy has the uncanny ability to take a general conversation and direct it towards a more intimate nature. This wouldn’t be a problem, but not for is special talents in making complete strangers feel comfortable enough to indulge things they’d have trouble opening up to close friends about. When I spoke, he listened. I think that’s the major difference, without agenda or motive, he listened. It was strange, but indescribably amazing.
Anyway, his futuristic adult fantasy novel M6 will be made available in parts, beginning near the end of this month. He brought part of his manuscript for me to read, because one of our mutual friends told him that I’d worked in publishing for a few years.
Several of my friends have been pushing telling me about his commentary essays for some time, and I finally did while I was back in California, although it was extremely hard for me to find. I finally had a friend send me some. I was floored, immediately pulled in, and wondered if the problems of the world could be so easily understood, why they can’t be resolved.
He’s got an essay on that too, and it devastated me to the point of tears. I found myself weeping for a world that I’d never seen through clear eyes before. Strange, how one writer can move another person so much. So, I had to meet him. And, I did. Just a few days ago. Although he was described to me as a bit of a recluse, when I was finally face to face with him, I wouldn’t have been able to tell.
I was just more surprised to find out that Zaavy was a real person. After reading some of his work, I sure he just a myth, the works of a compilation of other writers like the works of James Patterson or something. To be clear, James Zaavy is nothing like James Patterson, and that’s a good thing, although I’ve both read and enjoy Patterson in his own right, but Patterson is no Zaavy. Let me make that very clear.
I sat down with Zaavy for breakfast at the ALPS, a quaint little American breakfast and brunch establishment in Iriving Park, apparently not too far from Zaavy’s residence, although he never told me where he lived. I almost asked at one point, but didn’t want him to think I was asking him back to his place. Partly because if I would’ve asked him that, I think part of me would’ve secretly hoped he asked me over.
As I entered the ALPS and looked around, James Zaavy was sitting in the back corner by a window, but he would’ve been the last person I thought I was going to meet. My friend told him that I’d be wearing a red hat, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. My friend told me he was attractive, but I thought he’d be more ‘author attractive,’ than actually attractive. I was wrong.
He was also younger than I thought he’d be. The words that he strung together made me think he’d be an older man, but he isn’t. He’s young, maybe even my age, or a little older. I did ask him how old he was, but his answer was subtly evasive, he simply answered, “in years, or in lifetimes?” And he smiled, cutting his sausage links into little pieces.
He was fun to be around. I thought I’d feel uncomfortable being around him, but he was too humble and too normal for me to feel anywhere else but at home, sitting in the booth across from him. I almost wanted to get up and sit next to him, and I think he would’ve just rolled with it. He’s that kind of person, easy.
He was mysterious, because I never did get a straight answer from him, but what I got I think was much more than that. He was so charming. The kind of charming that catches you off guard so much that before you know it, you’re following it anywhere it’s willing to lead you.
He brought me a portion of his manuscript M6 to read later, but I began reading it at the table. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like his essays, but it was just as compelling, more if that’s possible. The parts I read were filled with profundity threaded through great dialogue, adult language and a very erotic scene, that moved me in places I wasn’t prepared to be moved at a brunch establishment, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
He didn’t ask me if I liked it when I finished, instead he asked me if I liked my eggs. As I stared at him, I couldn’t answer him right away. I’d forgotten where I was, and for a moment it was only him and I, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I would rather be.
“Can I read the rest of it?” I asked him.
“After you finish what’s on your plate.” He said, laughing.
M6 was like dessert, but it filled me up like a full meal. We talked for another hour, without him talking about himself or his work, he was more interested in me.
“The words I write, you’ll always be able to get to, when you want to.” He said at one point. ”But you and I sitting across from each other, with the aroma of fresh sausage links and the scent of over easy eggs, well this place is a lot harder to get to, no matter how hard we want it.”
I almost died. It didn’t come out forced, or practiced. He really meant it. And we just talked about each other, me more than he. I wish I would’ve asked him more about him. Complete interview fail, but there was just something about him.
I’ve read so many books and essays in my life, but James Zaavy is the first of his kind. There’s something about his style of writing, it’s raw and refined in one, with such strong dialogue, and he takes a special care to develop his characters, still allowing for mysteries I couldn’t have predicted. It’s poetic without being poetry.
I know I should be talking more about M6, but I’m afraid to spoil anything. It’s just something that needs to be taken in by the reader. You truly get a piece of James Zaavy that’ll make you want more. Reading it made me want to hang out with him the rest of the day. It made me want to live around him, just to watch him live. To see what that’s like. He was like a drug to be around. And, writing that, I sound like an obsessed stalker. lol. It’s not like that, but it’s the closest thing to being that without being it.
It’s hard to explain. When our meeting ended, I quickly reached out to him, handing him my card with my personal number on the back, hoping he’d give me his number as well. I wanted more access to him, than having to go through my friend to set up another appointment to see him. I don’t know, I swept away in a fantasy I guess. He just smiled, taking my card and said, “most days, I enjoy the pancakes more than anything else about this place, but not today,” and he dropped some cash onto the table and walked out the door.
At first I couldn’t believe he was gone, like I had attachment disorder or something. Then I thought, is that what a real man’s like? God I was confused. I felt like running after him as the snow continued falling from the sky, but by the time I got my coat and red hat back on and found my way outside, the tracks he left behind had been covered up but the mutinous snowflakes.
I’m not sure if I would’ve actually followed him or not, maybe I would’ve for awhile, just to see him through my eyes a little longer. I know it all sounds strange, it was. The whole thing was strange. I guess I’m writing this freely on this page, because that’s the kind of person he brings out of me. The kind of person whose brutally honest about how she feels, unfiltered and uncensored, because otherwise I’m not being me, I’m only being the person I wish you to see because I think that’s what you want.
The hell with that. Zaavy makes me want to be me, and not apologize for it. There’s nothing more sexy than a man who can make a woman feel like that. Besides, I doubt he’ll ever read this. I don’t think he get’s on the internet much. Maybe he does, I don’t really know. But he doesn’t strike me as the type of person who’d ever google himself. He strikes me as the kind of person who doesn’t care about the opinions of other people, especially regarding him.
“Some people, in desiring to value themselves more than they find themselves able to, begin judging strangers, celebrities mostly, by a single action they perform. Instead of judging them as a whole person, which they can’t do because they don’t know them, or merely judging the action for what it is, a solitary action not an aggregate of the person’s character.
The reason people often judge strangers, celebrities, on the basis of single actions they commit, is because it makes them feel as if they know these people better than they actually do. The harsher they judge them, the closer they feel to them, because the more convinced they are that they really know them.
These people build a false association with celebrities, and strangers they hold in high-value because it makes them begin valuing themselves more, value by association. But this is stupid. Not just because judging a person based on a single action, in most cases, would be premature, but also because a value system based on association makes every person a zero when they find themselves alone. Unfortunately, this is where most of the televised world has found themselves today. This is why so many people dive in front of cameras with the hope that they become famous, and actually ‘become someone.’
Luckily, this is a cure for this rampant spreading disease, proliferating across the globe. It requires that one, merely tell the world to fuck off from time to time. The more infected with the disease a person is, the more telling the world to fuck off, and all the people in it, will be necessary. You need to find your value, as well as your values, but the first value you should become acquainted with is the importance of valuing yourself, above and beyond any stranger, anyone. The more you say fuck off, to the people’s opinion of the world, the more you’ll turn your television off, and embrace life and form your own opinions and measurements of values for things, instead of just waiting to discover your opinions and measurements of value based upon what everyone else says.”
That was a quote I typed out from one of his essays. If there’s any typos or mistakes, blame muah.
I hope he publishes his essays as well. His insight seems to come from another planet, it’s so on point, undiluted by the minds of others. I don’t know, I guess that’s why I doubt he looks into what other people are saying about them, because he doesn’t care what people think about him, who’ve never met him. I think he probably thinks it strange that other’s think about would think about him strongly, one way or the other. He’d probably just prefer people who haven’t met him think, and judge his work, without equating that to who he is as a whole.
God! Even I think I really know him when I’ve just sat down with him to eat once! Yeah, the only reason I’m posting this is because I don’t think there’s a chance in hell he’s going to read it. That, and the fact to let everyone out there who doesn’t know about him, to know about him. If you enjoy reading adult futuristic fantasy, read M6 when it comes out later this week.
On the off chance you’re reading this James Zaavy, here’s my unfiltered honesty, call me; you’ve got my card.
-LD
