This Cup Can Make You A Better Writer.

Do you recognize this cup?

If you're a New Yorker, I'm sure you do. In fact, if you've spent any time in New York at all any time in say the last forty years, you probably recognize this little sucker right away. And I'm betting that there's a hint of a smile on your face.

In the pre-Starbucks days, this is the coffee cup you would get when you grabbed a coffee at any deli anywhere in Manhattan. I've gulped from a cup just like this walking through the East Village. I downed a mouthful of cold coffee out of a cup like this outside CBGB's (along with a handfull of Advil.) One time, when I was about twenty, I picked a cup like this off the ground and put it in the garbage precisely two seconds before the karmic lightning bolt hit and I caught the impossible- to-find-cab- in-the-middle-of- the- rainstorm- when-you're-late- for- the-theater-matinee- because- your-girlfriend- took- such-a-long-time-on -her-hair.

In its own weird way, it's as much an icon of New York City as the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, or the Twin Towers.

I got thinking about this little cup the other day when my friend Rob was over at Dead Things HQ. Awhile back, I was checking out the MoMa reno in the City, and found this little cup in the gift shop. It's a ceramic replica of the famous paper-coffee cup. At ten bucks, it made me smile. (If it does the same for you, you can get info about how to purchase one here.)

Anyway, Rob was over and we were trying to break a nettlesome story for his series for, like, the sixth time, and he complimented my coffee-making skills. It was good coffee. (Yes, the entire conversation went like this. Very Grade-three-Gay. And don't give me shit for describing it thus...Dan Savage says I'm in the clear.) Anyway, more than the coffee itself, Rob really liked the cup. It evoked in him the same feeling it evoked in me, an instant nostalgia for all things New York.

What struck me later was not how he instantly recognized and responded to the cup the same way I did. I found that utterly unsurprising. Of course he'd dig it. It's yet another case of how our sensibilities are similar.

See, at that point, that little cup could be considered the objective correlative of both our friendship, and of our separate, warm memories of New York.

It's been a while since I talked about the Objective Correlative. Even then, I didn't get into it too much. Danny Stack followed up on the idea with a longer post here.

I guess the reason why I'm returning to the idea again is because lately I've been reading a lot of scripts where people talk about things, but where there isn't a real clear sense of the objective correlative working through the drama. It reads as flat. The simple realization that a tiny object like a coffee cup could make me think of my past, and reaffirm a friendship...well, that's interesting stuff. It's not just drama -- it's life.

T.S. Eliot came up with the Objective Correlative, in his writings on Hamlet. Here's what he said:

The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.

That's exactly what happened with me and the coffee cup.

My reaction to the cup evoked everything I mythologize about New York. And later, it indicated camaraderie between me and my friend -- so it took on a separate, instant meaning in a different situation.

Interestingly enough, this little cup's gotten quite a workout -- because now that I think about it, I remember that about six months ago I had a woman over and we were chatting. We'd been out a few times, and it was at that point where you're not sure which way it's going to go. She asked about the cup. I told her the story, and she was utterly unimpressed. She'd been to New York several times. She vaguely remembered the cup. She just thought it was a little...stupid.

Guess what I realized in that moment?

"Damn You, Objective Correlative! Damn You to Hell!"

As I've gotten older, I'm fascinated by the fact that I'm much more interested in Sports than I was when I was younger. My Dad and My Uncle used to take me to Yankees and Blue Jays games, and my Grandfather was a huge Mets fan -- some of my earliest memories of him are watching the game with him on an old black and white TV set. He died when I was seven, so that's a pretty potent memory. But still, I managed to sail through my teenage years and most of my twenties without reading the Sports section daily. Not anymore.

I think part of it is that as we get older, Sports increasingly becomes the objective correlative of male friendship. The game allows you to express emotion, bond, catharsis, the whole magilla. The Poker Craze, I believe, is part and parcel of the same thing. I read Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and laughed my ass off, and I don't give a fig about Soccer.

By looking and finding the objective correlative of emotions in your life you start to unlock the inner life; the one you don't express consciously, but imbue to objects or situations. I think that helps you to unlock a trove that can help you weave the objective correlative more successfully into your art.

Understanding and recognizing the objective correlative in life makes you a better writer.

One totally non-scientific thing I've noticed, for instance, is that women who understand men's attachment to sports, or who appreciate men's penchant for silly or gross humor, kind of tend to understand men better in general.

An acquaintance of mine was having problems in his marriage, at the same time that his old car was constantly breaking down. This went on for a couple of years. One night, like a bolt out of the blue, he realized that he and his wife fought every time there was a problem with the car. Sometimes it was when she had the car -- and he probably blamed her. Sometimes it was when he was driving it, and it made him irritable. It went on and on, and they fought and made up. Then he got a new car. For two months, they didn't fight. But one night, when they did -- they nearly broke up. Their marriage was at the brink, and it caused them to finally face some of the big, structural, ugly things at the core of their marriage. His wife said a lot of the same stuff she'd said before...but finally, finally, he got it. (They're still together, by the way.)

Now...did that have anything to do with the car? Did the car being there offer a valve, a distraction, a symbol that kept them from getting to the core of things? Did removing it remove that valve and force a confrontation? I don't know. What do you think?

I'll tell you what, though, it's a damn sight more interesting than any of the other stories I've heard from half a dozen guys about how they fight with their wives (or ex-wives, as the case may be.)

Writing drama is about coming up with an effective shorthand for life, and putting it down on the page.

Seems to me that old T.S. Eliot gave us a great gift. I knew he did a lot more than come up with those damn singing cats.

I was going to come up with a few more examples from movies and TV -- but maybe that could be the audience participation portion of the post. So come on: what are your favorite filmic examples of the O.C. at work?

Now, I have to go and write a one-pager that basically demonstrates how the O.C. works in my choice of venue for a series pitch I did recently. They bumped on the setting in the meeting, but thanks to a conversation I had last night, I think there may be a way to better explain what I mean. The O.C. is everywhere.

Remember the Cup, Luke.