Travis LaFrance

To Philadelphia!

I was in Boston with the Democrats. I was in New York with the Republicans. As the election season whirls feverishly toward its crescendo, it's only fitting that I place myself in the very cradle of American democracy, birthplace of the Constitution, home of fellow renaissance man Benjamin Franklin, first capitol of our nation, and now, the crucial metropolis of a crucial swing state. Philadelphia, sound a long toll on the Liberty Bell because here comes Travis LaFrance: cocksman, falconer, patriot.

On those same cobblestone streets where Benjamin Franklin trumpeted the virtue of a people's government, in those same colonial parlors where the rascally bachelor seduced the most refined matrons of the New World, so shall Travis caress the electorate with his callused--yet gentle--hands of good judgement.

Monday morning I travel, joining a veritable Brooklyn Brigade of Minutemen and Minutewoman racing by land, by sea, by bus and train and car to fight for our country and to depose the tyrant George II.

I'll be getting out the vote. To join me, volunteer at www.acthere.com. Or if you've any suggestions for how a Man of Letters should pass his leisure hours in the city of brotherly love, comment here, or drop me a line at travislafranceATtravislafranceDOTcom. Stay tuned for live reports.

We Have A Winner!

A very lucky Mary in an unnamed eastern state is the proud owner of Travis LaFrance's historic ballot chads, purchased on eBay at what today may seem a staggering price, but which historians will term a pittance. Congratulations to a true patriot.

Manning LaPhone Bank

As any patriot should, I signed up this week at ACT to get on the phone and call voters in Ohio, imploring them to get out and do their patriotic duty next Tuesday. I reported to a drab office space in Brooklyn, where the organizer distributed lists of voters and a script to read from. He suggested, however , that we alter the script to reflect our own personality. So with a little work, I trotted out this little prose poem, a document surely to be filed alongside the Federalist Papers by historians studying the effect of the written word on our politics.

SCRIPT

Hello, is ---------- available? This is Travis LaFrance calling. Yes, the Travis LaFrance. I'm not calling on behalf of any political party or organization, simply as one patriot to another, to remind you that the fate of the republic and the western canon are in your hands next week. As much as we'd all like someone of my insight and wisdom to simply choose our leaders, this is a democracy, and I am allowed only one vote.

Surely you're hoping that I've decided to run for office. Not the case. I love politics passionately, but still she is but my mistress. My wife shall always be literature, in sickness and in health.

With regards to the upcoming election, have you read and/or purchased a copy of my latest masterwork, Toro?

If Yes: Your enlightenment is evident, my dear friend. I don't imagine you need any more guidance on how to cast your vote.

If No: Good God! Our Democracy is imperiled! If you hope to make an informed vote next Tuesday, you simply have to join the 21st Century and read the book. It's available from all the leading chains, or, if you have a credit card handy, I can take your order now.

I'm sure you appreciate my taking the time to call, but I'm going to have to let you go, and get on to the next caller.

If Female: One of the crucial components of democracy is citizen-to-citizen interaction. I am planning a trip to Akron in the coming weeks. Perhaps you know of a candlelit bistro where we could meet for a liquer and discuss the political process?

If Male: Good night, and God Bless America.

END OF SCRIPT

If you'd like to get a phone call from me on election day, and you're an Ohio voter under the age of 25 (female preferred), simply sign up at Operation Ohio, and request a call from Travis LaFrance. Or if you'd like to call Ohio in these last crucial days, sign up at ACThere.

The Bidding War Begins . . .

Since my announcement yesterday of the historical sale, at auction, of my authentic absentee ballot chads, bidding has been spirited. You can follow the excitement from your own console by checking the eBay Bid history page. Teenagesxsymbol opened with the minimum bid of $10.00, only to be quickly outbid by 57 cents by Sloejim. But then alaskawaterdog arrived on the scene, and in a high-stakes slugfest, the price soared to 15, 19, then 20, where it rests now. Remember: the bid winner also gets a signed hardcover copy of The Making of Toro.

Make a bid now!

Buy My Historic 2004 Chads!

Just as Jack London had his Wolf House and Hemingway his Finca Vigia, so does Travis LaFrance maintain a humble manor in the hinterland, a rough-hewn reservoir of genius at which I fill my canteen between urban sabbaticals and jaunts to the exotic. With the considerable royalties earned from my masterwork, Toro, I bought modest parcel on an unpaved byway through the magnificent canyon country of Grand County, Utah. There in the oblong casbah known locally as Travicello, I have done good work, and honed such gentlemanly pursuits as falconry, horticulture, and animal husbandry. Despite my rigorous traveling itinerary, I suppose I shall own Travicello till my ashes are spread beneath the shade of the mighty sycamores I planted. After that my kin will bequeath the single-wide villa to one of the historical societies dedicated to my legacy, who may likely remove its wheels to indicate that its permanence on the landscape is as certain as that of my works in the canon.

The keeping of this permanent address while residing in Whitman's Brooklyn brings up complications at election time. I opt to exercise my vote where I the soil is mine—and today I cast my absentee ballot for the County of Grand, Utah. While pollsters have opined that Beehive State, with its Mormon majority, is a lost cause for we Democrats, I say: let the chips fall where they may. I punched the hole for Straight Democratic Ticket, and shall thus send my man Kerry to White House, Matheson to Congress, and the other Matheson to the Governor's Mansion. I punched holes for my local officers and propositions as well, and the paper chads gathered like confetti on the table. As I dropped the ballot into the mailbox on 4th Avenue, I felt as if I'd poured the decisive tablespoon into the surging lake about to overflow its levee. Indeed, the flood has begun, in which the Travis LaFrance, in the tradition of London and James Cain and John Steinbeck, shall lead the nation through its philistine drought to the oasis of enlightenment, literature, and the long-awaited revival of the Democratic Party.

My next thought was: how will future curators commemorate this moment. And then it occurred to me: what greater piece of history for future curators than the very chads from the ballot of Travis LaFrance. So I've put these historical items up on sale at Ebay. Package includes eight chads, list of candidates, a photocopy of the punched ballot card, as well as the "Q-Ring Punching Device" I used. Make a bid today!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3936270669

On Assignment

You've wondered where I was all week. Once again one of our leading magazines has shipped me off into some heart of danger and adventure--where the meek don't dare and the cell phones don't ring. My contract forbids me to divulge any more. But rest easy: I'll be back at my station next week sometime.

Greatness at the Brie Platter

Perhaps what distinguishes me best from my generation—those toady show-offs whose high-minded noodling delights the literati but falls flat in the heartland—is that I write for, by, and about the Common Man. My prose pulses with the blood of the worker, the Okie, the immigrant, outcast and the downtrodden. To wit, I have taken up residence in an converted factory in Brooklyn, in a corridor of car shops and taquerias wedged between the Green-Wood cemetery and the Gowanus Canal. Realtors call this unblossomed bud of bohemia Park Slope South, but I prefer the less aspiring, more demonstrative Industrial Slope.

Out my window the graveyard's gothic steeple pokes up through dense green canopy, and in the foreground sits a body shop where recent arrivals from our southern frontera swing their mighty hammers at dented fenders, and during the most productive mornings the high pitched thunder of their pneumatic belt sander wails in glorious harmony with the syncopated tapping of my keyboard. So robust is the local culture that many soft-palmed amenities of the city—the New York Times, white women, sit-down restaurants—have yet to gain a toehold here. My hard-wrought art is my life, and versa-vice.

During the days I work at home, breaking fast occasionally for a plate of the rice and beans favored by indigenous people around the globe, and in the evening my responsibilities as a celebrity and man of letters beckon me into that glittering island across the water. Just the other night I was invited to the 24th story of a midtown building for a fundraising soiree for the Kerry-Edwards ticket. A $200 contribution was suggested.

I arrived at a smartly-furnished apartment with breathtaking view of the Williamsburg Bridge on one side, and the Empire State Building: at first glance this enclave of the left-leaning intelligensia seemed hardly different from the Republican fete I attended last month. But observing closer I found the tell-tale distinctions: a wall of books with titles by Kundera and Garcia Marquez, John Coltrane blowing softly in the background. Gone were the plastic trays of ready-made deli snacks and in were the discs of brie and pies of homemade quiche. Red wine was abundant, while beer was scarce and whiskey unavailable. If you listened carefully you could hear languages other than English.

Conversation was perhaps predictable: atheism, whose foundation was funding whose institute, and what a dumbass you'd have to be to vote for the president. This was a class of people who worked their whole lives to simulatneously right the world's wrong and distinguish themselves from the dumbasses—whether it be winning the spelling bee, teaching violin to the underprivelged, landing a spot in the AP class, collecting textbooks to send to El Salvador, or placing into an fancy college where they might major in anthroplogy. They hold the old-fashioned belief that ignorance is a plague, and education is the cure, and they believe that with hard work and study they can rise above mediocrity.

And just when they found a job with benefits at a nonprofit in New York City and thought they'd finally left the jocks and dipshits behind—they turned around to discover that those same dumbasses had risen up and installed one of their own in the White House, a walking example that family connections still trump merit, and a know-nothing crusader who would desecrate our temples of enlightenment with the soft-brained superstitions of prayer and patriotism.

And now, wine glass in hand, they were fighting back. By evening's end I had joined the crusade with 7 or 8 glasses of Merlot and two helpings of baked ziti, not to mention a shovel load of French cheeses.

There was still the issue of the contribution. The hosts had set out forms and envelopes beside a chart where each person could graph his own donation, as we worked toward the goal of $5,000. I reached for my wallet and discovered a lonely ten dollar bill.

I reflected.

The contributions that an artist such as Travis LaFrance makes by simply attending a political event cannot be measured in dollars. How much does one pay for aesthetic legitimacy—to brush elbows with greatness at the quiche platter?

I slid the ten-spot into the envelope and placed it with the others. Then with a magic marker I filled in share on the donation chart, which, tabulating the in-kind contribution of my mere presence, I rounded up to a neat $500.

"Thanks, Travis," said the hostess, admiring the stature of my addition to the graph. "Way to keep the momentum going!"

"But of course," I said with a wink. "One would expect nothing less."

The Toro Reading Guide

This letter arrived:

Dear Travis: My friends and I have recently formed a book group. We are all women in our late twenties and thirties, liberated, educated and stylish—and committed to sucking the marrow from the literature we read. Well, next month I get to choose the book, and I've selected your masterpiece, Toro. I feel that we really need to probe this great work at a deep level. Does your publisher have a study guide that we could use for our book group? Devoutly, E.S.

A good question. I would not want you and your girlfriends to fritter away the 90 minutes, gazing slack-jawed at my jacket photo, and reading aloud the steamy scenes. (But then, now that I mention it, that might not be so bad.) As it happens, my publisher has just finished such a guide. It was completed with the cooperation of top scholars from top universities here and in Europe, and edited for final accuracy by yours truly. I hope it will be of service.

A Reading Group Guide to TORO by Travis LaFrance

1. LaFrance's work is often compared favorably to such master stylists as Ernest Hemingway and Knut Hamsun, whose muscular prose redefined the male writer as a robust visionary instead of an office-bound pencil-pusher. In what ways, and to what extent, does Toro represent a continuation of this legacy? Or conversely, can we consider LaFrance a pioneer—boldly carving a new niche in the American canon?

2. How many levels does Toro work on? Is it a tragedy? A meditation on human suffering and triumph? A metaphor for ambivalence regarding love and sportsmanship? What else?

3. Write down the names of ten close friends or relatives who are not present in your reading group. Beside each name, jot down two or three important lessons that person could gain from reading Toro. (e.g. Aunt Suzie: Loves tales of the exotic, could learn to love again; My husband: could practice being more robust like TLF; etc.) Now, after your book group is over, go to the bookstore or to Amazon.com and purchase copies for the people on your list. In a month, follow up with your readers, and see if your predictions were accurate.

4. Certain tenured, short-sighted critics have characterized Travis LaFrance as an "arrogant philanderer" and a "talentless pig," while more enlightened scholars have remarked that LaFrance's penchant for the fair sex is indeed a celebration of the female form and consciousness, and a bounteous gift to be shared and enjoyed by the entire sisterhood. Where do you stand? Discuss the ways in which the barbarous philistinism of the formerly-mentioned critics finds its way into the academic debate.

5. At the end of Chapter Two, as LaFrance sets out to Mexico with his burro, he writes: "The owl beckons us thither, southward. Ask not for whom the owl hoots, Travis. It hoots for thee." Do you think LaFrance is making a reference here to another major American author? Who? If so, what does this reference say about the aesthetic brotherhood between LaFrance and that author?

6. Upon meeting Travis, the Zapatista leader, Comandante Felipe says, "Amigo, we march as friends," to which LaFrance replies, "No, hermano, we march as brothers." Critics have often commented on how LaFrance's work breaks down cultural barriers. Why is this? Is this inspiring ability a result of LaFrance's revolutionary prose style that transcends a single language, or a result of his incomparable charm and magnetism? Or both?

7. As a rhetorical exercise, have your reading group write a letter to you local newspaper, admonishing the editor for neglecting to review Toro. Make the case that Toro is indeed the literary event of the decade, and that the paper's silence on the subject reflects poorly on the community. With respectful wording, compare Toro favorably to the hack-job they reviewed last Sunday. Then when your Book Group meeting ends, have everyone sign the letter, put it in an envelope and mail it to the editor.

Stay tuned: more to come. If you have any ideas for more study questions, please post them in the comments thread.

My President, My Munchkin

Whether running guns to the Zapatistas in Chiapas or smuggling plasma into some sub-Saharan Red Cross disaster sight, Travis LaFrance has seen his share of action. And that's why I had had some reservations about this upcoming election. I wasn't sure I could accept as commander-in-chief a war hero who had only won three purple hearts--especially when his rival, our president, has demonstrated his valor time and time again on the cheerleading squad at Yale, not to mention playing a mean game of grab-ass with those Arkansas secretaries. Of course a man of letters such as myself does not watch television, and so it was with great anticipation that I found my way to a Brooklyn tavern to see the broadcast of our Leader bringing down his manly fist on that Massachusetts fancy-pants.

But not all was as I'd expected. Somehow, the robust hero I'd been reading about had morphed into a munchkin. His shoulders slumped, his ears sprouted, he grimaced and smirked and ticked and made Gollum-esque grunting noises. And as that effete liberal towered above and buried him with an onslaught of attacks, all he could do was squirm, shrug, slink behind his podium and say he was trying his hardest. It was as if someone had cut the strings to the puppet.