Lunch Ticket
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Issues Archive
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Genre Archive
      • Creative Nonfiction
      • Essays
      • Fiction
      • Flash Prose
      • Interviews
      • Lunch Specials
      • Poetry
      • Translation
      • Visual Art
      • Writing for Young People
  • About
    • Mission Statement
    • Lunch Ticket Staff
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
      • Issue 2: Winter/Spring 2013
      • Issue 1: Spring 2012
    • Achievements
    • Community
    • Contact
  • Weekly Content
    • Friday Lunch Blog
    • Midnight Snack
    • Amuse-Bouche
    • School Lunch
  • Contests
    • Diana Woods Award in CNF
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
      • Issue 5: Summer/Fall 2014
      • Issue 4: Winter/Spring 2014
      • Issue 3: Summer/Fall 2013
    • Gabo Prize in Translation
      • Issue 20: Winter/Spring 2022
      • Issue 19: Summer/Fall 2021
      • Issue 18: Winter/Spring 2021
      • Issue 17: Summer/Fall 2020
      • Issue 16: Winter/Spring 2020
      • Issue 15: Summer/Fall 2019
      • Issue 14: Winter/Spring 2019
      • Issue 13: Summer/Fall 2018
      • Issue 12: Winter/Spring 2018
      • Issue 11: Summer/Fall 2017
      • Issue 10: Winter/Spring 2017
      • Issue 9: Summer/Fall 2016
      • Issue 8: Winter/Spring 2016
      • Issue 7: Summer/Fall 2015
      • Issue 6: Winter/Spring 2015
    • Twitter Poetry Contest
      • 2021 Winners
      • 2020 Winners
      • 2019 Winners
  • Submissions
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
The Sad Eyes of Virginia Woolf, by Debbie Styer 2013

B-B-B-Bennie, the Muppets, and Virginia Woolf

May 23, 2014/in Blog / Arielle Silver

A few months ago, I caught myself on a Saturday evening at the dining room table while the kidlets watched Season 2 of The Muppet Show in the adjoining living room. I had spent the entire day alternating between working on a new song that had emerged from some noodling on my guitar, and trying to read the entirety of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse in time for that Sunday’s MFA reading conference on the book.

Somewhere in Woolf’s incredible 28-page dinner party scene (28 pages! 14 pages on just the soup course!), Elton John broke into “Bennie and the Jets.” A choir of Muppets echoed him every time he said “Bennie.”

“Bennie,” Elton sang in unblemished, un-effected falsetto.

“Bennie! Bennie! Bennie!” the Muppets sang in muppetly ragtag fashion.

My attention shifted from the book to the show—how could it not?—and then the scene changed.  The Swedish Chef chased a chicken across the stage. Scooter, in that ridiculously unrestrained Muppet way, introduced the guest star’s next act: “The greatest talent in the history of the universe—Elton John WAHHHHHHHH!”.

The curtains opened and the Electric Mayhem band accompanied Elton on “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road.” Animal on drums. Dr. Teeth on keys. Janis on guitar. Zoot on sax. Sgt. Floyd Pepper on bass. Elton had a new pair of glasses. And he was so young! Elton is thirty years old in this performance. And so mind-blowingly talented.

What is the point, I wondered. The Muppets flopped, chickens scattered, and Elton crooned. And me? I spent an entire Saturday working on a song that had seemed divinely inspired that morning and suddenly, in the company of a long celebrated classic, entirely unnecessary. Amateur. Sophomoric.

And meanwhile Virginia Woolf lay open on the dining room table. This 1981 Harcourt, Inc. edition with Eudora Welty’s forward is the second copy I’d bought that month. The pages were yellowed, underlined and scribbled by a former reader, but as long as I could distinguish my scribbles from hers, I preferred this to the shiny-paged, no-paragraph-first-line-indentation, solid-text-block version I bought in December. My MFA program is making me picky about publishers, but formatting is a necessary consideration.  I awakened on countless mid-nights throughout January with the book in my hands and drool on the pages, unsure if it was the writing or the font that always put me out.

Since twelfth grade I’ve half-read Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando, have several times seen the Tilda Swinton film based on the latter, and been thoroughly amused by the Edward Albee stage-play and joke “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

Me, I have often thought, I am. Too many words, too little plot. Too fluid, not enough grounding. I didn’t get it, didn’t get her. I simply couldn’t get through a Woolf book. If not for this particular requirement for the reading conference, I would have waded into To the Lighthouse. And for this reason—THANK GOODNESS for required reading.

After three days with my new Harcourt edition, To the Lighthouse illuminated Woolf’s genius. Perhaps in my earlier years I was simply not ready for her. Woolf writes through external events and her characters’ internal experience with inspiring deft. Her fluidity is like water undulating through cavernous rock. What is the point? I again wondered. How does any writer step up to her bar?

In To the Lighthouse, Woolf captures the mind chatter and mood fluctuations of her cast, then passes the thread of experience around from character to character, each tumbling of them through thoughts like sea glass churning through waves. She catches each shift of judgment and emotion in pristine and exact language. I have never read anything that so nimbly expresses characters’ subjective perspectives and the interplay of relationships. Grand gestures and broad paint strokes of plot are not the point here. To the Lighthouse is painted with the delicate minutiae of Rembrandt, not the impressionistic swatches of Cezanne. The precision is immaculate. Intimidating, actually.

And so I found myself wallowing in that same question I had with Elton John—What is the point?—and just before I smothered with despair, Woolf sealed the deal and entirely endeared herself to me. As I lamented that I would never be the writer she was, Woolf turned her craft to comfort my aching inner-artist.

For this I must show you with her own words:
…before [Lily] exchanged the fluidity of life for the concentration of painting she had a few moments of nakedness when she seemed like an unborn soul, a soul reft of body, hesitating on some windy pinnacle and exposed without protection to all the blasts of doubt. Why then did she do it? (Yes! Isn’t this the same question I wonder always??) She looked at the canvas, lightly scored with running lines. It would be hung in the servants’ bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa. (Yes! The doubt of unworthiness!) What was the good of doing it then, and she heard some voice saying she couldn’t paint, saying she couldn’t create (Ah! Those inner voices that enter innocuously and then fester!), as if she were caught up in one of those habitual currents in which after a certain time experience forms in the mind, so that one repeats words without being aware any longer who originally spoke them. 

…Then, (Ah! this “Then” is the glimmer of the new moon, the faith, the passage out of doubt and into doing) as if some juice necessary for the lubrication of her faculties were spontaneously squirted, she began precariously dipping among the blues and umbers, but it was now heavier and went slower, as if it had fallen in with some rhythm which was dictated to her…, so that while her hand quivered with life, this rhythm was strong enough to bear her along with it on its current. 

So, at the encouragement of Woolf (and despite my own doubts), I’ve continued. The MFA reading conference came and went, and in the months since To the Lighthouse I have continued to move through my self-doubts. I imagine this dance with doubt will be a long process. Perhaps a lifetime. But if Woolf wrote about artistic doubt through her character Lily, she must have experienced it first-hand herself. If she and I have that much in common, then I can hope we also share a gift for language arts.

Recently, I began work on a creative non-fiction piece about a difficult topic. By its nature, there’s an internal journey of questions seeking answers. Although the seeking is (I hope) a fascinating exploration, I want my future reader to stay rooted in the external world of the story’s setting. The books laid upon the dining room table. The kidlets in the living room singing along with The Muppets. My story is a delicate dance of internal and external experience, a writing skill I am just beginning to explore. So where I was once intimidated, and later comforted, by Woolf, now, as my hand steadies, she is my teacher in craft. To the creative process and the honing of skills I say this: bring on Elton and the Electric Mayhem band. There is room for countless songs on this stage.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Virginia-Woolf-UNFRAMED.jpg 1200 1600 Arielle Silver https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Arielle Silver2014-05-23 10:58:382022-02-10 11:50:53B-B-B-Bennie, the Muppets, and Virginia Woolf

Friday Lunch Archive

  • 2022
  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014

Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

QVC-land

May 6, 2022/in Midnight Snack / D. E. Hardy
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Diana-Hardy_QVC_Feature_Photo.png 533 800 D. E. Hardy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png D. E. Hardy2022-05-06 23:45:322022-05-06 19:25:59QVC-land

Escape Artists at the End of the World

April 29, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Lisa Levy
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/waldemar-brandt-eIOPDU3Fkwk-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707 2560 Lisa Levy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lisa Levy2022-04-29 23:49:582022-04-29 20:27:32Escape Artists at the End of the World

The House in the Middle

April 15, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/alec-douglas-iuC9fvq63J8-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Megan Vasquez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Megan Vasquez2022-04-15 23:45:322022-04-15 08:32:48The House in the Middle

More coming soon!

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Antigone in NYC

May 2, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche, Poetry / Ann Pedone
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/nathalie-stimpfl-EDKWnb-kZV4-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Ann Pedone https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Ann Pedone2022-05-02 11:53:542022-05-02 08:54:07Antigone in NYC

Slackers Rule

April 26, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Karen Regen-Tuero
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/erik-hansman-PL5VrlAISt4-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1706 2560 Karen Regen-Tuero https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Karen Regen-Tuero2022-04-26 16:08:292022-04-26 16:08:29Slackers Rule

Ownership Records

March 28, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Lucy Zhang
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/james-fitzgerald-2XlWpFPzsdc-unsplash-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Lucy Zhang https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lucy Zhang2022-03-28 11:55:502022-03-27 19:38:27Ownership Records

More Amuse-Bouche »

School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SL-Insta-Brendan-Nurczyk-2.png 1500 1500 Brendan Nurczyk https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Brendan Nurczyk2021-05-12 10:18:392022-02-01 13:24:05I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-FB-Isabella-Dail.png 788 940 Isabella Dail https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Isabella Dail2021-04-28 11:34:132021-04-28 11:34:13A Communal Announcement

Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
Read more
https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SL-Insta-Abigail-E.-Calimaran.png 1080 1080 Abigail E. Calimaran https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Abigail E. Calimaran2021-04-14 11:22:062021-04-14 11:22:06Seventeen

More School Lunch »

Word From the Editor

Here at Lunch Ticket, 2021 represents ten years of our literary journal. 2021 marks the start of a new decade, one I can only hope will stand as tall and iconic in the history of our publication as the jazz age in America. What we’ve put together this fall is what I call and will fondly remember as our “Roaring 20th Issue”.

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

Connect With Us

lunchticket on facebooklunchticket on instalunchticket on twitter
Submit to Lunch Ticket

A literary and art journal
from the MFA community at
Antioch University Los Angeles.

Get Your Ticket

We’ll keep you fed with great new writing, insightful interviews, and thought-provoking art, and promise with all our hearts never to share your info with anyone else.

Newsletter Signup
Copyright © 2021 LunchTicket.org. All Rights Reserved. Web design and development by GoodWebWorks.
Scroll to top