A while ago, like...my past year or so of college I had a good friend of mine (isn't it strange you're always the catalyst?) lend me a copy of On The Road by Jack Kerouac, (who I've mentioned more than a few times - clearly it had an effect) to read while I was traveling and such for my brother's wedding. Being that the book itself is about traveling, I naturally found it to have quite a great deal of resonance as I was essentially born traveling.
From a young age I was privileged enough to travel far and often on a variety of family vacations, and ever since I was entrusted the wonderful and gracious 1997 Honda CR-V (that I will never stop driving so long as she lives) I've been perpetually ensnared by road-trips, long drives, and whatever other locations I can travel to. The extent of this traveling throughout my life has given me a few advantages, being able to pack up in less than 5 minutes for a month-long trip amongst other things - and this is something in itself I think - that I know that I am perfectly capable of surviving with a certain number of items no bigger than my backpack - which begs the question, why do I have anything else?
It's difficult for me to establish a place that is "home". It's been a difficult thing to even put my finger on, as the concept has only recently departed from the physical things - I still have the house where I grew up in Fort Wayne, my parents are always welcoming, and I have my a house of my own in Muncie that is full of the most supportive friends I'll probably meet. But it is not a rare occurrence for me to have a sense of restlessness a burning in my feet that makes me mad with thoughts of "where can I go? Where have I not been in awhile?" and begin to pace around the house, looking for things to get into or start packing for whatever destination I've decided at that moment.
This restlessness confuses me further, as it is not always my "native" house where I grew up that I feel this - it's simply the most common place I feel it. I've felt the same way in just about every other place I've ever been - there's always that restless feeling to get moving a day or so before I initially planned on leaving.
In the first two years of my college living I essentially lived at home and drove to Ball State from Fort Wayne for the week, and returned every Friday only to head out on Monday. This was mostly because I didn't really establish a home in Muncie, I didn't have a place to call my own, and this made sense to feel restless all the time. In fact, my third year at Ball State was really the only one I enjoyed and didn't feel that deep pang of homesickness that was so prevalent in the previous years, rather, the opposite would happen in my Fort Wayne house, especially late at night when as the only college student in the house - I am awake and dying for a hamburger.
Now I could detract the whole thing down to simply missing my friends, who by now have become a second family to me, but I'm not comfortable with that diagnosis either. As the youngest of three, I was there to see my brother and sister leave for college, and then from their go out upon their own lives, and at the time of their departure it was dramatic, sad, etc. But after enough time people being "gone" was just something I got used to an accepted. Be it a few months, half a year or so, I would see my siblings again and even so I was perfectly fine living without them in the house, they still exist, and in this case I wouldn't say I "missed" them. The notion of "missing" hasn't really been something I've been familiar with, perhaps I'm more stoic or subtle with my emotions, but I cannot recall a day where I am not comforted by a momentary pang of nostalgia by the idea that I will see them again.
And even so, other than a few advantages that either "home" gives (Fort Wayne has better food, Muncie I'm my own adult in my own house) there really isn't one that is "better" than the other, and there really shouldn't be a good reason why when I end up at one I am almost immediately melancholy about the other. The only thing that I've found for certain is that I am completely comfortable and restless-free when I am "on the road" when I am traveling, crashing at someone's place, when I know I can leave soon.
I find this ties back into Kerouac. When I first finished the book, I was asked by the lender if I understood what Dean and Sal where looking for. I didn't know, I was too dazzled by the style of the book, the legend of it, the language, I was too enraptured by the performance to truly understand the meaning. To rectify this I got a copy of Kerouac's complete Road novels and proceeded to re-read On The Road while at home and while traveling to across the county to Colorado a number of times (something I found incredibly fitting).
I found on my second read-through I was annoyed. I was bored by the long impromptu jazz segments (I found them reminding me of Patrick Bateman on Huey Lewis...) and I was annoyed more and more by Dean's character. Along with this, I also watched the 2012 release of On the Road while I was here in Colorado (finding it well...a good try) essentially basking myself in the whole thing and trying to figure out indeed, what the two boys were looking for. I believe the answer is, they quite didn't know themselves. When you look at the story itself, it's quite sad, the whole thing is very melancholy and nostalgic, traveling to and from the same location trying to find something but instead finding it is not the same as when they left, a constant chasing of a memory.
I fear the resonance in On the Road strikes very close to the bone for me. Somewhere imparted in me (I like to think genetically, as my father moved around very often, and my brother is well known for his numerous road-trips across the country) I am driven with the same instinct as Sal and Dean, in any degree of melancholy or nostalgia, I find that I must travel, I must look for the kicks.
In the trunk of my car there is an army survival manual, a sleeping bag, and a change of clothes. During the winter months I have a blanket, and usually a hatchet. I always keep a pack for backpacking all ready and loaded up with enough supplies to last me indefinitely, and my current shopping list always includes some other variety of camping tool that will allow me to be more and more independent of returning anywhere. It would appear that I am never quite settled.
Staying here in Colorado and going on a variety of hikes through Telluride and Moab has lent me a few curious thoughts, one of which is even asked by my sister when passing me my pack while we were resting. "God that's heavy, why do you have so much stuff in this?" my answer being that I always like to be prepared. But prepared for what? In Muncie, Fort Wayne, Vail, or otherwise I am always in some way prepared to get up and move with the drop of a hat, it would appear that while I call these places my home, I am never really moved into them. I wonder then, if I ever really will be.
The most nostalgic I get about things in the past (as I have an ever decreasing memory) are rooted in moments and locations, not necessarily through people - walking around killing time in Bloomington because I didn't want to return home - wandering the desert before the sun rises in Moab, collecting bullet casings in the sand - things that I am going to bastardize and say "kicks". In this instance, it is rare for me to again, miss people like I miss places and moments.
And while I do have a degree of excitement to return to Muncie and get my teeth back into my new house, and the new experiences I plan to create with that - I am more than sidetracked with the looming idea of grad school and the city of Boulder, Colorado where my most excited hope is that complete and utter "new start" where I will - in a way - abandon the current idea of friends, home, and places I know well for a completely new set. I am more distracted by the idea of leaving and skipping past the melancholy I know I'll feel at the end of this next year, and traveling now quickly to somewhere else new, somewhere else where I will inevitably momentarily stay.
Not only am I hopelessly clueless as to where I will end up, I am vehemently opposed to establishing anything that ties me to any certainty.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Feels So Good
Feels So Good is my baby, she's been in the works for 2 years coming now - first as a fiction story - now as a screenplay. Because of this I'm not too keen on telling the entire story of it, or even sharing segments of it, but it has been received very well, so here's a small update.
Today's been kind of a "day off" comparative to this past week of finishing up some Didion, Vonnegut, Ellis, and Kerouac. I've done a bit of editing and writing for Feels So Good as well, we're currently on the 42nd page, here's a peek:
And since it was my day off I did some concept stuff as well.
Call this the unofficial poster,
Today's been kind of a "day off" comparative to this past week of finishing up some Didion, Vonnegut, Ellis, and Kerouac. I've done a bit of editing and writing for Feels So Good as well, we're currently on the 42nd page, here's a peek:
Call this the unofficial poster,
Or something like that.
Still unsure, but, at least the hairstyle and lack of arm give you something into the storyline of Lolita.
That said, I should probably get back to work.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Killing Literature: The Classics, Identity, and Creating a Collective Exegesis
So I've had a few radical ideas lately.
Chapter 1: Conveyance
Last night I was speaking with fellow Bureaucrat and Punk Mom Erica Fox, on publishing and the general fear and anxiety one experiences when sending one of their literary babies off for judgement.
For a large sum of people the "goal" of writing is to be published, or at least, to have something "publishable" after the catharsis of the whole thing is satisfied. For others, this is not the case, and thats fine, but I'm going to ignore that group in lieu of my misunderstanding of that viewpoint. While I can understand that not everything one writes pleads to be read by others on a printed scale, I do think that having an audience when one writes is important, and if one is indeed present in the constructing of even a cathartic essay to oneself, there is still an inherent desire to be coherent if not pleasing to reread.
Thus, in the end if we feel compelled to write something down, should we not be aware that after our inexplicable deaths our notes and texts will be looked over by those more than likely wanting to hear a few more words from us?
But therein lies where my mind splits off the ends of the point.
Chapter 2: Finding your identity in literature
The notion of identity is obviously very important in the literary world. There are lessons upon lessons in advanced and beginning classes drilling in the idea that we must "find" our own voice and style as writers. This "voice" is found through our own experiences, and it is almost universally suggested that we read other authors voices and styles in order to develop our own - by picking and choosing dialect that we ourselves enjoy and thus emulate. A big problem with this idea is classical education, as in, the basic primary and secondary school system in place at least where I'm from.
I was lucky enough to have a few good english teachers in high school teach me for the most part that there was an alternative to what we were studying - that poetry could still be poetry without sounding like Whitman, Shakespeare, or any other basic "high school safe" poet coerced upon students. But for most of my peers, this was not the case. The literary world is a wonderfully large door to open, but the way the curriculum is in schools now does not provide that large of a opening through which to really explore what you like. Had I not been an english major and been given books both inside and outside of the class requirements, I would obviously not be as "well read" as I am today, I simply wouldn't have any indication on where to look - and how to find my favorite genre - lyrical prose (as there is not a handy sign near the Fiction, Non-fiction/Biography sections. Besides a few tricks - looking for the "other people also bought..." on Amazon books - there isn't a very open way for people that aren't already in the literary world to fully explore it.
Reading is given a tarnished taste to a lot of people because all the common person has to go on is high school education - which don't get me started on how analysis of literature is taught - and besides that and the arbitrary "Best Seller" or various Oprah reader's list suggestion, the system may still be as confusing to a newcomer as the dewey decimal system is to a child.
And I think this is where a lot of the namedropping comes in. We all recognize Fitzgerald, Shelley, Shakespeare, Whitman, King, and Poe. These are called "classics" there are heaping piles of editions both paperback and hardcover as well as collected works filling up usually several aisles of your basic bookstore - and it would appear that everyone has a copy and has "tried reading a bit of it" but seldom are they discussed really in today's culture except on the occasion that one is remade into a movie (most recently of course, The Great Gatsby).
Chapter 3: The problem with "The Classics"
So here's my first question, why are they classics, and why are they more respected as say - On The Road by Kerouac or any of Vonnegut's works? Now I'm not arguing that the classics are useless - they were at some point extremely valuable to the literary world, and should remain to be seen as such - but much is the case of applying old entertainment masterpieces to today's (a good example would be comparing an early James Bond film to the newest one) they do not apply as well to today's society and interests as they did previously.
I suppose to simplify this, imagine the literary world as a staircase and today's society as one individual walking up those stairs. Now we know where we stand now, and there will be other steps in front of us, and we will of course get there by the assistance of the step we are on now. And in that same respect, if we look behind us, we can trace back the steps and see how we got the style and literary popularities today by looking at the influences of the past and the experiences depicted in such.
By this respect I am not suggesting we tear apart the stairs previous (we may still need to go back and reminisce) but I think it is absolutely vital that we begin appreciating the more recent steps in the literary world that actually have have a more profound impact on say - the last generation or so - comparative to the "classics".
I think it is about time we begin to grow up in the teaching of the literary world to students.
There are still issues today with violence and sex in media - and the "outrage" parents have at exposing their children to the rest of the world. A common motif in this argument is the indication that whatever is popular nowadays comparative to the past is in some way worse in moral fiber or otherwise to works previous. Now this is usually aimed at the more recent popular forms of media - videogames and movies. This is hardly applied to books, and this is a problem.
The argument of something "corrupting the youth" will always exist as a social problem. Progression of morals and ideals inevitably change with each new generation's experiences to the previous, and the natural urge to rebel against such (as their roots are not as attached to the ideals as the previous generation and thus are more easily detached or malleable to the idea of change). The big problem right now is that literature is not held on the same platform as popular media, and why is that?
Literature can be (and is more often) more explicit, sexual, violent, and controversial than other forms of media out today. More often than not, when a book is adapted to a screenplay they have to cut out those parts of it in order to get an "R" rating or otherwise. But for the majority of people who only see the movie, that is the extent of the story they are given, and books are still harmless enough to the point where they are boring.
It would appear that right now due to the aversion we're given through educational standards, we do not hold books up to the entertainment standard that they should be considered. Now I am not suggesting we being censoring books like we do other forms of media, I am talking about considering them as just as exciting, immersing, and emotional as movies and videogames. And we can start this by instead of referring our youth only to the "safe" social commentaries and musings of old classics, we introduce much more modern literature that is more likely to strike a chord with the kind of audience we're actually teaching here.
What kind of interest do you expect onto kids when you're offering them work that is outdated compared to what else is available?
Chapter 4: Killing your Identity
Now clearly the Classics are for better or worse ingrained into our brains, and along with that, any favorite author or poet we pick up on the way is naturally held in high regard in our minds, and that's a big problem. When a writer wants to publish something, isn't it natural to then compare oneself to other published writers, to sit back and think: "How could I compare to (Blank)?" and ultimately feel discouraged, as it's very unlikely that one is going to feel superior to any other writer when they themselves haven't even been published yet.
This is rectified to an extent when you know somebody personally who has been published, where you meet them, see that they eat real human food and belch and have fuck-ups and realize that yes they are indeed human too. This then opens the door a little wider to allow a margin of hope that yes, I can get published too. With the monkey seeing and hoping that he invariably can do that as well, it gets a little easier, but here's the question:
Wouldn't it be easier if identity didn't exist?
Allow me to reexplain,
During a poetry class with fellow Bureaucrat Brent Holden, we partnered up for a final presentation that we would give to the class. The presentation could be one of two things:
1. Do a small presentation on a poet not studied in class and analyze their style in front of the class
or
2. Do your own poetry and analyze it in front of the class
Naturally not many people picked the 2nd choice, as presenting poetry for a lot of people is scary - because it's personal and more important fallible.
And this was something I wanted to test. During our time in the class we analyzed both each other's pieces as well as published poets work, having a workshop for both. There was a clear difference in the conversation between unpublished and published - mainly there was more "I don't like this part, and I would change it via (blank) on the unpublished as opposed to just "I don't like this" on the published.
It would appear that people feel that once somebody is published, their work is then set in stone comparatively to say, a peer's work.
Brent and I decided to test this further by combining the rubrics of the assignment and giving a presentation featuring our own work - only presented as a published author.
To do this we had to create a fake persona with a fake backstory, and then write "his" poems.
His name was Casey James McCall, and our class found his work enjoyable, and more importantly believed that he was indeed an accomplished poet simply because he was presented as one.
Now Brent and I did try to disguise our styles in Mr. McCall's work as our class had been reading our poems for a semester now and most of our quirks were more than obvious. So, in order to create Casey's work, we did a collaborative editing and writing process where we would send drafts of each other's poetry half finished in one way or another, and then create the rest of it, only to send it back to the original for a final look over. In this way there was really no "author" to these poems, as the central ideas of the pieces had been carried on by both of us, in other words, we killed our identities.
The loss of identity was not totally complete however, as Casey James McCall is Brent and I's creation, so we do indeed technically still own him and his words. Thus, the ideal is not yet reached.
Allow me to suggest another example.
Chapter 5: The beauty of anonymity
The advent of the internet and its own lack of identity between users is a new concept to us - one that is scary to most due to the full potential a human being now has when granted a lack of identity - a lack in some cases of responsibility or repercussions.
This is probably best seen in anonymous message boards where by default users are not given a username, they are not given an identity, and if they are it is in the form of a random set of letters and numbers - there is little to no memory or significance given to them unless they expressively divulge it themselves. One of the biggest concerns in fact, in this "lawless" kind of wild west of anonymity is having one's identity discovered, then leading to the bullying fiascos that occasionally show up on the news.
It is in this world of anonymity there can be one of the most open and honest forums of discussion, only really capable due to the lack of repercussions for expression of opinion, which is beneficial to the nth degree as opinion will always and forever be corrupted by expression (fear of sounding wrong, stupid, or misinformed/ fear of impression).
Now I am not usually one to partake in the discussion, as I've found my point is usually represented in due time by another individual, and there isn't really a point in getting involved unless I felt particularly compelled to make point, and it was not until recently until I did so.
My first anonymous comment consisted of making a joke.
And lucky for me, it got a reaction, that being one of laughter.
I was, for a brief moment, successful.
I then realized within less than a minute my small quip was covered up by messages coming in after that, and that very quickly it was forgotten beneath another page of expended comments. I would not receive recognition for my joke any further than that small moment where only seconds after being spoken the seldom few not typing a message in the reply box would read it and react, further covering it up. And more importantly I didn't even have a name, I would not be remembered for my name, only for my joke and the timing.
I feel this perhaps reflects the literary community, or it should.
Good writing is a translation of perspective one has while looking at the world, and for as long as we're all alive at the same time, we're going to be looking at mostly the same thing. By this right, if we are all writing we are all probably writing about the same ideas, if not the exact same thing, depending of course on location and age. But for the most part, I imagine many other Midwestern writers my age are feeling and thinking just about the same thing as me, and are having the same difficulties I am having with growing up/becoming an adult/making a new home.
Is it then not a race of timing and what is said to be identified and cherished for our "joke" laid out in the form of literary narrative of what we're all seeing?
Chapter 6: The Collective Exegesis
A major concern that came up during our early Bureau meetings was the idea of presence, and how we presented ourselves as a group to a venue, and how the relation of selective individual's work could alter that perception. It was decided that inevitably the Bureau would work as a collective cultivator for the writers in it, and as an entity itself would refuse to own any affiliations.
This idea intrigued me as I considered the points previously discussed.
There is a clear indication of intimidation and corruption of true, honest expression especially in the literary world where name dropping is such a heavily prevalent signifier of success even in reading.
However, if a degree of anonymity was established in a collective, then wouldn't the pressures of conveyance drop to the point where we could publish work that is indeed expressively honest in every right, beyond such that the identity of an individual could afford?
Our words, regardless if published or not will go beyond our own identities in time. Human communication is a long game of telephone, and whether or not the words are remembered as an identity or not is largely irrelevant to the significance of properly conveying that idea that truly moves and shapes people. There is a good degree of doubt to whether or not Homer or Shakespeare were indeed authors themselves, or just collections of stories. In the early times of literature the idea of an author was not something that existed - plainly there was no real value in it, as books and works were not sold, and stories were told on the honor and excitement of the characters within them.
I suggest a return to such an ideal of character and story conveyance in lieu of an actual identity or name that can be subjected to scrutiny and delving into in a search for information that is largely irrelevant to the text presented.
Thus, my next large project (hopefully with the support of several Bureaucrats) will be creating a collective that publishes work of all the members, all conveyed under the identity of anonymity. Through this members can be expressively honest in their own individualities, or new individual voices can be created through the collaboration of two separate, effectively creating a new persona within the collective.
An exegesis is the analysis of a text in studying the audience of a text, the history, origins, and the background of the author. Creating a collective variety of "author" will impart the necessity of close reading, a drastic turn from the celebrity nature that often corrupts the meanings of the text itself through the audience's own subjectivity.
There will not be a clear indicator of history, style, or persona, for in a collective exegesis the most important conveyance will be that of the words themselves - the resonance in it's rawest form - to affect the audience and for them to resonante in their own ways - the exact point of writing - a translation of perspective, a viewpoint without arms or legs to distract the experience.
If you've made it this far, I thank you for your time and readership.
If you'd be interested in joining this collective, please refer to this forum: http://thebureau.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=Ideas&action=display&num=1370641270
Chapter 1: Conveyance
Last night I was speaking with fellow Bureaucrat and Punk Mom Erica Fox, on publishing and the general fear and anxiety one experiences when sending one of their literary babies off for judgement.
For a large sum of people the "goal" of writing is to be published, or at least, to have something "publishable" after the catharsis of the whole thing is satisfied. For others, this is not the case, and thats fine, but I'm going to ignore that group in lieu of my misunderstanding of that viewpoint. While I can understand that not everything one writes pleads to be read by others on a printed scale, I do think that having an audience when one writes is important, and if one is indeed present in the constructing of even a cathartic essay to oneself, there is still an inherent desire to be coherent if not pleasing to reread.
Thus, in the end if we feel compelled to write something down, should we not be aware that after our inexplicable deaths our notes and texts will be looked over by those more than likely wanting to hear a few more words from us?
But therein lies where my mind splits off the ends of the point.
Chapter 2: Finding your identity in literature
The notion of identity is obviously very important in the literary world. There are lessons upon lessons in advanced and beginning classes drilling in the idea that we must "find" our own voice and style as writers. This "voice" is found through our own experiences, and it is almost universally suggested that we read other authors voices and styles in order to develop our own - by picking and choosing dialect that we ourselves enjoy and thus emulate. A big problem with this idea is classical education, as in, the basic primary and secondary school system in place at least where I'm from.
I was lucky enough to have a few good english teachers in high school teach me for the most part that there was an alternative to what we were studying - that poetry could still be poetry without sounding like Whitman, Shakespeare, or any other basic "high school safe" poet coerced upon students. But for most of my peers, this was not the case. The literary world is a wonderfully large door to open, but the way the curriculum is in schools now does not provide that large of a opening through which to really explore what you like. Had I not been an english major and been given books both inside and outside of the class requirements, I would obviously not be as "well read" as I am today, I simply wouldn't have any indication on where to look - and how to find my favorite genre - lyrical prose (as there is not a handy sign near the Fiction, Non-fiction/Biography sections. Besides a few tricks - looking for the "other people also bought..." on Amazon books - there isn't a very open way for people that aren't already in the literary world to fully explore it.
Reading is given a tarnished taste to a lot of people because all the common person has to go on is high school education - which don't get me started on how analysis of literature is taught - and besides that and the arbitrary "Best Seller" or various Oprah reader's list suggestion, the system may still be as confusing to a newcomer as the dewey decimal system is to a child.
And I think this is where a lot of the namedropping comes in. We all recognize Fitzgerald, Shelley, Shakespeare, Whitman, King, and Poe. These are called "classics" there are heaping piles of editions both paperback and hardcover as well as collected works filling up usually several aisles of your basic bookstore - and it would appear that everyone has a copy and has "tried reading a bit of it" but seldom are they discussed really in today's culture except on the occasion that one is remade into a movie (most recently of course, The Great Gatsby).
Chapter 3: The problem with "The Classics"
So here's my first question, why are they classics, and why are they more respected as say - On The Road by Kerouac or any of Vonnegut's works? Now I'm not arguing that the classics are useless - they were at some point extremely valuable to the literary world, and should remain to be seen as such - but much is the case of applying old entertainment masterpieces to today's (a good example would be comparing an early James Bond film to the newest one) they do not apply as well to today's society and interests as they did previously.
I suppose to simplify this, imagine the literary world as a staircase and today's society as one individual walking up those stairs. Now we know where we stand now, and there will be other steps in front of us, and we will of course get there by the assistance of the step we are on now. And in that same respect, if we look behind us, we can trace back the steps and see how we got the style and literary popularities today by looking at the influences of the past and the experiences depicted in such.
By this respect I am not suggesting we tear apart the stairs previous (we may still need to go back and reminisce) but I think it is absolutely vital that we begin appreciating the more recent steps in the literary world that actually have have a more profound impact on say - the last generation or so - comparative to the "classics".
I think it is about time we begin to grow up in the teaching of the literary world to students.
There are still issues today with violence and sex in media - and the "outrage" parents have at exposing their children to the rest of the world. A common motif in this argument is the indication that whatever is popular nowadays comparative to the past is in some way worse in moral fiber or otherwise to works previous. Now this is usually aimed at the more recent popular forms of media - videogames and movies. This is hardly applied to books, and this is a problem.
The argument of something "corrupting the youth" will always exist as a social problem. Progression of morals and ideals inevitably change with each new generation's experiences to the previous, and the natural urge to rebel against such (as their roots are not as attached to the ideals as the previous generation and thus are more easily detached or malleable to the idea of change). The big problem right now is that literature is not held on the same platform as popular media, and why is that?
Literature can be (and is more often) more explicit, sexual, violent, and controversial than other forms of media out today. More often than not, when a book is adapted to a screenplay they have to cut out those parts of it in order to get an "R" rating or otherwise. But for the majority of people who only see the movie, that is the extent of the story they are given, and books are still harmless enough to the point where they are boring.
It would appear that right now due to the aversion we're given through educational standards, we do not hold books up to the entertainment standard that they should be considered. Now I am not suggesting we being censoring books like we do other forms of media, I am talking about considering them as just as exciting, immersing, and emotional as movies and videogames. And we can start this by instead of referring our youth only to the "safe" social commentaries and musings of old classics, we introduce much more modern literature that is more likely to strike a chord with the kind of audience we're actually teaching here.
What kind of interest do you expect onto kids when you're offering them work that is outdated compared to what else is available?
Chapter 4: Killing your Identity
Now clearly the Classics are for better or worse ingrained into our brains, and along with that, any favorite author or poet we pick up on the way is naturally held in high regard in our minds, and that's a big problem. When a writer wants to publish something, isn't it natural to then compare oneself to other published writers, to sit back and think: "How could I compare to (Blank)?" and ultimately feel discouraged, as it's very unlikely that one is going to feel superior to any other writer when they themselves haven't even been published yet.
This is rectified to an extent when you know somebody personally who has been published, where you meet them, see that they eat real human food and belch and have fuck-ups and realize that yes they are indeed human too. This then opens the door a little wider to allow a margin of hope that yes, I can get published too. With the monkey seeing and hoping that he invariably can do that as well, it gets a little easier, but here's the question:
Wouldn't it be easier if identity didn't exist?
Allow me to reexplain,
During a poetry class with fellow Bureaucrat Brent Holden, we partnered up for a final presentation that we would give to the class. The presentation could be one of two things:
1. Do a small presentation on a poet not studied in class and analyze their style in front of the class
or
2. Do your own poetry and analyze it in front of the class
Naturally not many people picked the 2nd choice, as presenting poetry for a lot of people is scary - because it's personal and more important fallible.
And this was something I wanted to test. During our time in the class we analyzed both each other's pieces as well as published poets work, having a workshop for both. There was a clear difference in the conversation between unpublished and published - mainly there was more "I don't like this part, and I would change it via (blank) on the unpublished as opposed to just "I don't like this" on the published.
It would appear that people feel that once somebody is published, their work is then set in stone comparatively to say, a peer's work.
Brent and I decided to test this further by combining the rubrics of the assignment and giving a presentation featuring our own work - only presented as a published author.
To do this we had to create a fake persona with a fake backstory, and then write "his" poems.
His name was Casey James McCall, and our class found his work enjoyable, and more importantly believed that he was indeed an accomplished poet simply because he was presented as one.
Now Brent and I did try to disguise our styles in Mr. McCall's work as our class had been reading our poems for a semester now and most of our quirks were more than obvious. So, in order to create Casey's work, we did a collaborative editing and writing process where we would send drafts of each other's poetry half finished in one way or another, and then create the rest of it, only to send it back to the original for a final look over. In this way there was really no "author" to these poems, as the central ideas of the pieces had been carried on by both of us, in other words, we killed our identities.
The loss of identity was not totally complete however, as Casey James McCall is Brent and I's creation, so we do indeed technically still own him and his words. Thus, the ideal is not yet reached.
Allow me to suggest another example.
Chapter 5: The beauty of anonymity
The advent of the internet and its own lack of identity between users is a new concept to us - one that is scary to most due to the full potential a human being now has when granted a lack of identity - a lack in some cases of responsibility or repercussions.
This is probably best seen in anonymous message boards where by default users are not given a username, they are not given an identity, and if they are it is in the form of a random set of letters and numbers - there is little to no memory or significance given to them unless they expressively divulge it themselves. One of the biggest concerns in fact, in this "lawless" kind of wild west of anonymity is having one's identity discovered, then leading to the bullying fiascos that occasionally show up on the news.
It is in this world of anonymity there can be one of the most open and honest forums of discussion, only really capable due to the lack of repercussions for expression of opinion, which is beneficial to the nth degree as opinion will always and forever be corrupted by expression (fear of sounding wrong, stupid, or misinformed/ fear of impression).
Now I am not usually one to partake in the discussion, as I've found my point is usually represented in due time by another individual, and there isn't really a point in getting involved unless I felt particularly compelled to make point, and it was not until recently until I did so.
My first anonymous comment consisted of making a joke.
And lucky for me, it got a reaction, that being one of laughter.
I was, for a brief moment, successful.
I then realized within less than a minute my small quip was covered up by messages coming in after that, and that very quickly it was forgotten beneath another page of expended comments. I would not receive recognition for my joke any further than that small moment where only seconds after being spoken the seldom few not typing a message in the reply box would read it and react, further covering it up. And more importantly I didn't even have a name, I would not be remembered for my name, only for my joke and the timing.
I feel this perhaps reflects the literary community, or it should.
Good writing is a translation of perspective one has while looking at the world, and for as long as we're all alive at the same time, we're going to be looking at mostly the same thing. By this right, if we are all writing we are all probably writing about the same ideas, if not the exact same thing, depending of course on location and age. But for the most part, I imagine many other Midwestern writers my age are feeling and thinking just about the same thing as me, and are having the same difficulties I am having with growing up/becoming an adult/making a new home.
Is it then not a race of timing and what is said to be identified and cherished for our "joke" laid out in the form of literary narrative of what we're all seeing?
Chapter 6: The Collective Exegesis
A major concern that came up during our early Bureau meetings was the idea of presence, and how we presented ourselves as a group to a venue, and how the relation of selective individual's work could alter that perception. It was decided that inevitably the Bureau would work as a collective cultivator for the writers in it, and as an entity itself would refuse to own any affiliations.
This idea intrigued me as I considered the points previously discussed.
There is a clear indication of intimidation and corruption of true, honest expression especially in the literary world where name dropping is such a heavily prevalent signifier of success even in reading.
However, if a degree of anonymity was established in a collective, then wouldn't the pressures of conveyance drop to the point where we could publish work that is indeed expressively honest in every right, beyond such that the identity of an individual could afford?
Our words, regardless if published or not will go beyond our own identities in time. Human communication is a long game of telephone, and whether or not the words are remembered as an identity or not is largely irrelevant to the significance of properly conveying that idea that truly moves and shapes people. There is a good degree of doubt to whether or not Homer or Shakespeare were indeed authors themselves, or just collections of stories. In the early times of literature the idea of an author was not something that existed - plainly there was no real value in it, as books and works were not sold, and stories were told on the honor and excitement of the characters within them.
I suggest a return to such an ideal of character and story conveyance in lieu of an actual identity or name that can be subjected to scrutiny and delving into in a search for information that is largely irrelevant to the text presented.
Thus, my next large project (hopefully with the support of several Bureaucrats) will be creating a collective that publishes work of all the members, all conveyed under the identity of anonymity. Through this members can be expressively honest in their own individualities, or new individual voices can be created through the collaboration of two separate, effectively creating a new persona within the collective.
An exegesis is the analysis of a text in studying the audience of a text, the history, origins, and the background of the author. Creating a collective variety of "author" will impart the necessity of close reading, a drastic turn from the celebrity nature that often corrupts the meanings of the text itself through the audience's own subjectivity.
There will not be a clear indicator of history, style, or persona, for in a collective exegesis the most important conveyance will be that of the words themselves - the resonance in it's rawest form - to affect the audience and for them to resonante in their own ways - the exact point of writing - a translation of perspective, a viewpoint without arms or legs to distract the experience.
If you've made it this far, I thank you for your time and readership.
If you'd be interested in joining this collective, please refer to this forum: http://thebureau.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=Ideas&action=display&num=1370641270
Productivity, and Mania
I really hate self-diagnosis. I'll say it again, I am not a fan of self-diagnosis. I cannot tell you how many people I've met though my academic career (one that I probably should have been fired from) who would enjoy amongst other things, toting phrases like "oh my god I am so ADD, like seriously." They would then proceed to list an example of them doing something - like cleaning, and getting distracted.
Now clearly I'm not a doctor, and I don't imagine many of you are either, so forgive me if I am mistaken as believing getting distracted while cleaning is not a clear indicator of ADD. However, hopefully you see my point and understand that in my own diagnosing of what I would consider what is "wrong with me" I am extremely nervous to come to anything certain enough to say "this is what I have" lest I be lumped in with all the ADD cleaners. And of course, going to an actual doctor is out of the question, as Maggie Nelson states:
"What use is a diagnosis but a restatement of the problem?"
or something along those lines,
But to get to the point, I have a problem very often. This past year at BSU had me in one semester being drunk nearly - well - all the time outside of class, and the other half studying for fun and constantly working on a number of large projects outside of the curriculum just for the hell of it. I was consumed by second semester by a degree of productivity and detail yet unseen in any of my work or even lifestyle for that matter. Everything that I did, eating, showering, going to class and walking home was all spent considering revisions, draft ideas, storyboarding, or writing that next stanza. I simply could not turn my brain off - often leading to an inability to have real conversations with people as I found them incredibly distracting to what I was working on in my head at the time. I found this time, instead of using alcohol as my inspiration, I would use it to calm my head down, (only having a few) in order to really absorb the day and slow down before starting the whole thing over again.
At its worst, this "mania" which I tentatively researched as "hypomania" would have me shaking to the intensity of shivers while sweating profusely and talking to myself while writing. This is of course, terrifying And I would be more concerned if I didn't feel so in control while like this. It's no longer a matter of snapping fingers to try and lure the word from the tip of my tongue, but rather a gushing spigot where I am attempting to fit a wet slippery water balloon over and fill as much as I can before I fear it bursts and I lose sense of all the words I wasted while getting to a computer or piece of paper.
Thus, the majority of my life is spent thinking about writing, talking about it, or actually doing it. I fear it is the only hobby I am incapable of escaping - because I hate when I am without it.
The first few days I've spent here in Colorado have been wonderful in the respect of productivity, I've managed to add on more projects to my list, and get a good chunk of them squared away. The biggest problem I had however, was how almost alienated I felt in comparison to my peers. As a member of The Bureau and a very active member on the forum, a good deal of my morning - breakfast to lunch - is spent reading and revising my friend's drafts on the discussion board. What I found however, which was perhaps more obvious to someone else, was that people work at different speeds.
This would then lead me to inexplicable guilt as I pasted in another thousand words onto the forum atop the many other threads that showcase if anything that I have had a lot of time on my hands. And while I feel it is beneficial to encourage my colleagues to write and participate, I worry that instead I am like an over eager puppy who circles around you while on a walk, tying up my owner by the leash before darting off after a rabbit. I fear I am much too enthusiastic and manic, but at the same time I am terrified of losing this edge of productivity - I am even more fearful of becoming bored.
Cut to two days ago, where I took a trip with my sister and her boyfriend to Moab, where we camped out in the desert and sweated in the 95ish degree heat. Did I enjoy myself? Of course I did, I got to walk around with a knife on my belt and a survival pack on. I got to indulge in the finer points of listening to Mum while watching the sun rise over the desert landscape, collecting rifle shells and stringing them together in the hot evening sun. I free climbed large outcroppings of rocks and drank beer under the clear prussian sky, hauling rocks to the seams of my tent to prevent the dust storm from blowing more paprika colored sand onto my dusted sleeping bag.
In other words I had quite the cathartic experience, one that I was understanding enough not to expect per se that I would be writing during it, but that indeed I would write about it, and if worst case scenario happened and I was left alone in the desert to die from exposure my last chapbook and poem were copied down in a red notebook in my pack, just in case. (who even does this?!)
I returned from the desert expecting a manner of things - one of which would be the forum for The Bureau would be filled to the brim with new things and (believe it or not, I was actually hoping) that I would need to scramble atop my shit just to get something coherent out compared to the sheer volume of creativity - I suppose if anything, I missed reading and thinking about new things. I also expected that my cathartic experience in the desert would lend itself to the 51 line epic in Eating the Beached Whale or at least to the fiction story Whale. It did neither of these, in fact I spent the vast majority of my time back here resting feeling rather inexplicably exhausted.
And not even a good kind of resting, good resting is reading Vonnegut and Kerouac (I am attempting to finish both of their collected works in a month) and I was not doing that. I sat around in bed drinking soda and watching movies in the dark, I also spent a good deal of time researching different kinds of guns for my upcoming purchase.
It is at a time like this I am compelled to remember the words of miss Becca Jackson, who in a mildly recent blog attempted to consol the world's writers with the idea that we must live as much as we must write, that we cannot always contort the perspective of our own lives with the idea of how it will inevitably fit into a narrative.
Which is a wonderfully beautiful point, and at the same time, incredibly difficult when you were born traveling and happen to adore Kerouac.
But I suppose what my major concern relates to is the definition of balance. As I am a person of excesses, I am incredibly consistant in my overindulgences - and in another conversation with Miss Jackson it was determined that some creative minds need a proper outlet in order to not destroy themselves with their potential energy. The easiest way to describe this literally is to use quantum physics and the shape of a taros, but I will spare the allusion and suffice to say that if I am not busy doing something I am incidentally going mad.
Previously my solutions to this problem would be to indulge in distractions - drinking, videogames, and otherwise. But I am incapable of doing this. I am on a sabbatical where my computer and notebooks sleep next to me in bed and are always there, they are nudging me like hungry lovers - asking me if I am still awake. Indeed, I am still awake.
Perhaps the solution is indeed finding that balance between living and writing, taking a break every once in a while - but at the same time, as I stated, I am an overindulger - there is hardly anything in my life that is ever really balanced, hardly anything visibly interesting behind a pane of glass that I will not throw myself into wholeheartedly.
I can only hope this is a self-diagnosis that will not disappear with age.
Now clearly I'm not a doctor, and I don't imagine many of you are either, so forgive me if I am mistaken as believing getting distracted while cleaning is not a clear indicator of ADD. However, hopefully you see my point and understand that in my own diagnosing of what I would consider what is "wrong with me" I am extremely nervous to come to anything certain enough to say "this is what I have" lest I be lumped in with all the ADD cleaners. And of course, going to an actual doctor is out of the question, as Maggie Nelson states:
"What use is a diagnosis but a restatement of the problem?"
or something along those lines,
But to get to the point, I have a problem very often. This past year at BSU had me in one semester being drunk nearly - well - all the time outside of class, and the other half studying for fun and constantly working on a number of large projects outside of the curriculum just for the hell of it. I was consumed by second semester by a degree of productivity and detail yet unseen in any of my work or even lifestyle for that matter. Everything that I did, eating, showering, going to class and walking home was all spent considering revisions, draft ideas, storyboarding, or writing that next stanza. I simply could not turn my brain off - often leading to an inability to have real conversations with people as I found them incredibly distracting to what I was working on in my head at the time. I found this time, instead of using alcohol as my inspiration, I would use it to calm my head down, (only having a few) in order to really absorb the day and slow down before starting the whole thing over again.
At its worst, this "mania" which I tentatively researched as "hypomania" would have me shaking to the intensity of shivers while sweating profusely and talking to myself while writing. This is of course, terrifying And I would be more concerned if I didn't feel so in control while like this. It's no longer a matter of snapping fingers to try and lure the word from the tip of my tongue, but rather a gushing spigot where I am attempting to fit a wet slippery water balloon over and fill as much as I can before I fear it bursts and I lose sense of all the words I wasted while getting to a computer or piece of paper.
Thus, the majority of my life is spent thinking about writing, talking about it, or actually doing it. I fear it is the only hobby I am incapable of escaping - because I hate when I am without it.
The first few days I've spent here in Colorado have been wonderful in the respect of productivity, I've managed to add on more projects to my list, and get a good chunk of them squared away. The biggest problem I had however, was how almost alienated I felt in comparison to my peers. As a member of The Bureau and a very active member on the forum, a good deal of my morning - breakfast to lunch - is spent reading and revising my friend's drafts on the discussion board. What I found however, which was perhaps more obvious to someone else, was that people work at different speeds.
This would then lead me to inexplicable guilt as I pasted in another thousand words onto the forum atop the many other threads that showcase if anything that I have had a lot of time on my hands. And while I feel it is beneficial to encourage my colleagues to write and participate, I worry that instead I am like an over eager puppy who circles around you while on a walk, tying up my owner by the leash before darting off after a rabbit. I fear I am much too enthusiastic and manic, but at the same time I am terrified of losing this edge of productivity - I am even more fearful of becoming bored.
Cut to two days ago, where I took a trip with my sister and her boyfriend to Moab, where we camped out in the desert and sweated in the 95ish degree heat. Did I enjoy myself? Of course I did, I got to walk around with a knife on my belt and a survival pack on. I got to indulge in the finer points of listening to Mum while watching the sun rise over the desert landscape, collecting rifle shells and stringing them together in the hot evening sun. I free climbed large outcroppings of rocks and drank beer under the clear prussian sky, hauling rocks to the seams of my tent to prevent the dust storm from blowing more paprika colored sand onto my dusted sleeping bag.
In other words I had quite the cathartic experience, one that I was understanding enough not to expect per se that I would be writing during it, but that indeed I would write about it, and if worst case scenario happened and I was left alone in the desert to die from exposure my last chapbook and poem were copied down in a red notebook in my pack, just in case. (who even does this?!)
I returned from the desert expecting a manner of things - one of which would be the forum for The Bureau would be filled to the brim with new things and (believe it or not, I was actually hoping) that I would need to scramble atop my shit just to get something coherent out compared to the sheer volume of creativity - I suppose if anything, I missed reading and thinking about new things. I also expected that my cathartic experience in the desert would lend itself to the 51 line epic in Eating the Beached Whale or at least to the fiction story Whale. It did neither of these, in fact I spent the vast majority of my time back here resting feeling rather inexplicably exhausted.
And not even a good kind of resting, good resting is reading Vonnegut and Kerouac (I am attempting to finish both of their collected works in a month) and I was not doing that. I sat around in bed drinking soda and watching movies in the dark, I also spent a good deal of time researching different kinds of guns for my upcoming purchase.
It is at a time like this I am compelled to remember the words of miss Becca Jackson, who in a mildly recent blog attempted to consol the world's writers with the idea that we must live as much as we must write, that we cannot always contort the perspective of our own lives with the idea of how it will inevitably fit into a narrative.
Which is a wonderfully beautiful point, and at the same time, incredibly difficult when you were born traveling and happen to adore Kerouac.
But I suppose what my major concern relates to is the definition of balance. As I am a person of excesses, I am incredibly consistant in my overindulgences - and in another conversation with Miss Jackson it was determined that some creative minds need a proper outlet in order to not destroy themselves with their potential energy. The easiest way to describe this literally is to use quantum physics and the shape of a taros, but I will spare the allusion and suffice to say that if I am not busy doing something I am incidentally going mad.
Previously my solutions to this problem would be to indulge in distractions - drinking, videogames, and otherwise. But I am incapable of doing this. I am on a sabbatical where my computer and notebooks sleep next to me in bed and are always there, they are nudging me like hungry lovers - asking me if I am still awake. Indeed, I am still awake.
Perhaps the solution is indeed finding that balance between living and writing, taking a break every once in a while - but at the same time, as I stated, I am an overindulger - there is hardly anything in my life that is ever really balanced, hardly anything visibly interesting behind a pane of glass that I will not throw myself into wholeheartedly.
I can only hope this is a self-diagnosis that will not disappear with age.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)