When people ask me if I think poetry is dying because of the new technologies, my response is—Our art survived even the invention of writing! Next to that the invention of the computer seems like a small variation.
Author Archives: Theryn
The point of the place
A few years ago I used that passage in my memoir-writing class to suggest how to write about a place. Mere facts, I said, aren’t sufficient (“our house was on Spruce Street,” “the neighbors had a dog named Spot”). The task is to find the point of the place—its identifying idea. It may be waiting for you to find it. Or you may have to impose on the place some larger idea of your own.
Something that might endanger
[W]e’re bringing up generations of writers who think of [reviewing] as something that other people do, far away, or something that might endanger their fellowship, their recommendation, their job application, their grant application, their ability to get blurbs or to receive the coveted invitations to this or that conference, residency, or institute. This makes me uncomfortable, and it also makes me kind of lonely. I still think the writers are the smartest, most interesting, funniest, weirdest people in any given room. I miss hearing their voices.
This book has an owl in it
[Reviews that] don’t bother to provide the reader with an accurate description of the books’ formal or verbal properties [are untrustworthy]. To say that something is “boring” is not a statement about a book, although the speaker may think that it is; it’s a statement about the reader’s poverty of equipment. … The marks of a trustworthy review, therefore, have a kind of doubleness: the reviewer manages to assert somehow that the book under discussion is of some importance for one reason or another; and second, a good review provides a formal description of the book’s properties, so that you could reconstruct it from the reviewer’s sketch of it. This description is not the same as a plot summary, although a plot summary may figure into it. What a formal description does is to show what a book is about in relation to the form in which the subject matter has been shaped or located. In order to write such a review, let’s say of a novel, you have to have a basic idea of how novels are constructed; you have to have the technical knowledge that allows you to stand back from the book and to say how a book is put together. By these criteria, quite a few book reviews are worthless. They are made up of what I call Owl Criticism. With Owl Criticism, you have statements like, “This book has an owl in it, and I don’t like owls.”
The Cult of the Amateur
If you’re looking for a thoughtful discussion of amateurs vs. experts in the world of Web 2.0, Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur isn’t it. It starts out as a rant against amateurism, which Keen equates with incompetence. Obviously, this is a fallacious argument. (The book is a series of those.)
Not only that, but he doesn’t even agree with his own argument. For example, it’s highly doubtful that any of the record store sales clerks that he reveres were professional musicologists. Rather, they were knowledgeable amateurs who took sales positions at record stores because they liked music! The book is full of conflicting arguments like this. Keen protests that he’s not a Luddite but his concerns say otherwise. On one hand, he derides high schoolers editing Wikipedia. On the other, he reveres the same high schooler when he’s working in an indie record store. The only possible conclusion: his issue is not with an amateur music lover showing off his knowledge but with that knowledge being shown off online.
He considers the average person to be an idiot who can’t tell a personal blog from CNN or the NY Times and who is therefore constantly in peril of conflating Joe Blow’s opinions with those of professional journalists. Not only is this ridiculous (ok, there are probably some people who are just that dumb, but it’s obviously not true for the majority of people), but while he criticizes the bias of the amateur, he is completely uncritical of the bias of the professional. Ahem. As I think is pretty clear to the average person sitting at home watching cable news, just because someone is getting paid to talk about news on TV doesn’t make them unbiased.
He argues that buying music from Tower Records (now-defunct music store) = good! Buying music from iTunes = bad. Renting movies from Blockbuster? Good! Netflix? Bad. The hell? I mean, if his actual concern is people “stealing” intellectual property, then he shouldn’t have a preference where or how they obtain it, as long as they do in fact pay for it. He also makes such a big deal about people buying singles on iTunes, like singles are some kind of online invention (!) that’s an affront to musicians. With arguments like these, he betrays his own bias as someone who simply doesn’t want people to buy stuff online.
He is pro-corporation, expecting readers to feel bad for mega-corporations such as Disney. Seriously? Disney? The same Disney that is pretty much single-handedly responsible for crazy copyright extensions? Right.
We must keep content creators and content consumers separate, he argues. Really? Really? Give me a break. Elitist much? Sure, there’s a lot of crap online. Sure, there are legitimate issues with respect to content creation and how creators should be compensated (believe me, this is an issue I’m interested in), but the idea that only a certain class of people are allowed to create and everyone else should just sit down and shut up and consume? [censored]
Why does Jane Doe posting how-to-crochet tutorials on YouTube or John Smith blogging about the exploits of his family bother him so much? If he’s not interested in these things, he doesn’t have to “consume” them. But it seems to bother him that they exist. Or rather, that he knows they exist. Because average people have always created things, they just weren’t so visible to the elites. His big issue seems to be that he is forced to acknowledge their presence. And, of course, that their presence (content) might be competition for his.
Do I think that, if someone is an expert, their views on their subject of expertise should be given more weight than that of non-expert? Sure. But what makes someone an “expert”? Credentials? Paid employment? Being knowledgeable about a subject? Being skilled at something? What Keen seems to miss is that a) a person can be both an amateur and an expert on a subject, b) not all professionals are experts (i.e. a person might hold a paid position, but not be very knowledgeable or skilled), c) people can obtain knowledge & skills through means other than formal education & employment, and most importantly: d) every professional starts out as an amateur. You don’t get good at something by passively “consuming.” You get good by trying, doing, creating, learning, experimenting. Yeesh.
Oh wait. He didn’t actually miss that because in his acknowledgments at the end of the book he actually admits that he, writing his first book, is an amateur. So, it’s ok that he (an amateur) writes a book putting down amateurs (as well as the general population), but it’s not ok that other amateurs write (or make videos or whatever) about subjects they’re interested in? How can he not see that he’s doing exactly what he doesn’t want others to do? What makes him so special?
Finally, perhaps a bigger problem than anything I’ve discussed here is, after a few chapters, Keen veers wildly off-topic, digressing into discussions of such things as IP theft, privacy, identity theft, online gambling, online porn, and parental controls. I guess he ran out of things to say to support his stated thesis. Overall, it’s a shallow and flawed argument. Disappointing.
Portable Things
I find [a] portable existence often quite enjoyable, (even though it exists in opposition to my need for a permanent home). I have always been drawn to (read: obsessed with) portable things, campers, suitcases, compact living spaces, yurts, teepees, etc. So I suppose it fulfills something in me that yearns for a kind of “lightness”, spontaneity, and adventure (living in the unknown). And I’m fascinated with how it actually helps and impacts my books in many ways. The work becomes influenced by the randomness of the location indirectly.
We’re all being far too polite now
[F]or the first time, authors have been sitting in on the entire Canada Reads process, and I don’t think it’s done the program any good. … authors got so in on the action, that their personalities became inseparable from the books in question. Relationships through social media developed so that it was impossible for many to read these books without a conflict of interest. The books themselves ceased to be the point at all.
…
What’s more ridiculous though is that no one having this conversation. I’ve refrained from saying anything until now, because I don’t like to talk shit about books, but we’re all being far too polite now, and I fear that authors attending our book club is most of the reason why. It’s why book bloggers are celebrating these books without question, not a word of criticism, though there is plenty to criticize, but how can we criticize when the author is our friend on Facebook, and our favourite Twitter pal?
This. I’ve mentioned I feel like a weirdo on Goodreads because I give ratings other than 4 and 5. At the same time, I’m not immune to what I’ll call the six degrees of politeness. If you like a writer, personally, even if you only know them via social media or reading their blog, it’s really, really hard to say that their book disappointed you or even that you just didn’t like it as much as you thought you would based on how much you like their thoughtful blog posts or hilarious tweets.
On Goodreads, if I realize I’m hedging, I find it helps to ignore the numbers and rate based on the descriptions: “didn’t like it”; “it was ok”; “liked it”; “really liked it”; “it was amazing.” At first, they sounded a little facile, but you know what? You can pretty much stick any book into one of those categories without hesitation. It works, I think, because it makes it subjective. You’re not making any great objective pronouncements about the quality of the book. One-star says: “I didn’t like this book.” Not “this book sucks” or “you will hate this book” but “I didn’t like it, ymmv.”
This, btw, is the same problem I came up against with my master’s thesis. The urge to be kind rather than critical is strong even when you’re “just” a reader, even when you’re doing your best to stand at arm’s length and not develop a conflict of interest. You get to know people through their writing, and if you like them, the urge to protect them is strong. What’s funny, though, even just sticking to reading, I developed favorites (as one does) and I worried that would show through. Obviously, I didn’t want that because the thesis wasn’t about who had I had the most in common with or who had the best friendship potential. Anyhow, I guess I needn’t have worried, because no one picked up on that at all.
(It still surprises me that it was read as a “negative review” so to speak, when my goal was a more positive reading of personal blogs than I’d come across in traditional media and academic writing. In fact, my big concern was providing a positive viewpoint without being uncritical about the aspects I did find problematic. In the reading, though, all the focus seemed to be on the criticisms. Then again, maybe the negative perception isn’t so surprising. We writers do have a tendency to glaze over compliments, regardless of how large, and obsess over criticisms, regardless of how minor.)
Writing and Handedness
Just finished watching this video (public lecture with Leonard Shlain). There’s an interesting bit about left brain/right brain, handedness and the introduction of the typewriter, and later the personal computer. The idea is that when you handwrite, you only use one hand. And if you’re right-handed, that taps into the left side of your brain (the un-creative “masculine” side). However, with a typewriter and/or computer, you use both hands to write, hence connecting to both sides of your brain.
Aside: My junior high art teacher was obsessed with the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Well, perhaps obsessed is a bit strong, but he went on about it quite a bit. At the time, we found it kind of funny, but lately I’ve been thinking he was ahead of his time.
I’m weakly right-handed (right-leaning ambidextrous?). Some things I have no preference of doing them right- or left-handed. Either way is fine. Like when I was playing sports in school, sometimes I’d play left (things with sticks) and sometimes I’d arbitrarily switch back & forth. I do write right-handed, but I’ve always been able to also write with my left hand. Not as quickly, of course, but that’s mostly due to less practice, I would think. With writing, it makes sense to focus your energies on one hand. (Or does it?! Now I’m wondering…) Anyhow, I have lots of things I do either-handed, and some things I like to do left-handed. I can draw with my left hand.
But whereas with handedness I often wonder if I’m just doing stuff right-handed out of habit rather than actual preference (because if I switch hands it seems fine the other way too), I am strongly left eye dominant. I frame things with my left eye. I take photographs with my left eye.
So anyway, point. It just occurred to me while listening to this lecture that maybe my difficulty with writing pre-computer, i.e. when I was trying to write by hand, is related to mixed-dominance. I used to chalk my lack of production up to laziness or my wrist getting tired. I would think about writing a lot. Work out stories in my head. But when it came time to write them down, not much would come out. Journaling was also a slog for me. But when I started wordprocessing, the words just flowed in a way they never did when I was handwriting. In other words, maybe being able to use both hands at once was really important for me. More significant than just being physically easier. In terms of creativity, and being able to tap into both sides of the brain at once and make connections that just weren’t happening when I was trying to write solely with my right hand.
And! Now I’m thinking about this in terms of blogging / online writing vs. traditional diaries. Maybe there’s an importance to the typing side of it (using both hands, tapping into creative “feminine” side of brain) that’s been overlooked with the focus on public/private and all that jazz.
Hmm… Remember in elementary school, when you were learning to write and they had the letters with arrows showing which direction to form them? Once I mentioned to a teacher that I went the opposite way (and got chastised for doing it “wrong,” of course). I never said anything again, but kept making the letters the way I always had. I always had terrible handwriting anyhow. I’d get put in the remedial section (with the boys) where you had to use those interlined books and write your letters two feet tall. Which resulted in not better, but bigger, handwriting, that I got chastised for by other teachers down the line. OMG. I always chalked up my crappy handwriting to impatience—just wanting to be done already with boring busywork. Maybe that wasn’t it at all.
Anyhow. Possibly this explains why when people rhapsodize about writing longhand, it feels a bit like romanticizing the pen to me. Maybe handwriting is more creative/expressive if you’re strongly handed one way or the other, but not if you’re not so much so?
Real Things
[The] Volkswagen Jetta ad in which the cut-out bodies of Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor “dance” “in the back seat” of a Jetta … comes from about the 5:45 point in this performance that Kelly and O’Connor did on a TV special, where you’ll see much of what you see in the ad. All they did was remove all the context.
That’s the funny thing about Gene Kelly, and really all the big dance scenes of the time — they were all context. … Dancing in movies in this era was largely about where you were, and about touching real things. Other people, of course, but also feet on the floor, feet in the water, umbrella in hand, hat rack as partner, and by the way, if you want to defy gravity, you’ll have to turn the room.
… something seems tone-deaf and disrespectful about removing everything that affected the physics of the dancing, from the floor to the chairs, replacing the music so they’re interpreting something entirely different, and concluding that you can still get an expression of these two men’s talents as long as you have their floating, context-free figures moving as they did in 1960.
This analysis reminded me of Albert Borgmann’s focal things and practices.
Nothing else going on
Just finished watching (well, listening) to this Nicholas Carr lecture in which he says:
I think one way to think about this is that what the web does—despite the fact that it’s this incredible high technology and we think of it as the cutting edge and everything—is bring us back to a much more primitive and in a way more natural style of thinking. I mean I think Fred and Barney would have been very happy online and using our new technologies, because our brains seem to be naturally wired to shift our focus very rapidly. And you can understand this if you think about our distant ancestors in Stone Age times and so forth. You were rewarded by your ability to keep track of as much of what was going on around you at once. You know by shifting your attention all the time, by shifting your focus, you were the person who survived because you saw the predator approaching before everyone else, or you were the person who survived because you spotted that bush of berries that you could eat that everybody else missed. And so in a way we’re naturally wired to be distracted, to be interrupted, and what’s hard for us is to pay attention, what goes against our instincts and our nature is to focus on one thing. You know, the worst thing a caveman could do is actually focus on one thing for a long period of time because then he would end up being eaten pretty quickly.
And I think in this regard it’s very very interesting and very informative to compare what the web is doing to us with what the other great modern information technology did for us and that is the book. I mean, think about the difference between being online between looking at a screen and sitting down with a book. The fundamental difference is that whereas the screen bombards us with distractions and interruptions, the book, the printed page, shields us from those distractions and interruptions that come at us all the time. You know, we tend to think of the book, the printed book, as somehow being flawed today because it doesn’t have links, it doesn’t have video, it doesn’t have multimedia, you can’t like check your email while you’re reading a book, but in fact that’s the fundamental strength of the book as a technology. There is nothing else going on. And so that way of thinking that’s very hard and very unnatural for us, for we human beings, that very attentive way of thinking was encouraged by the book and in fact I think you can argue that for many people over the last 500 years the story of our intellectual lives is the story of how the book helped us to pay attention. And that, because the brain is adaptable and plastic, our ability to pay attention that we learned from reading could then be applied to all sorts of other aspects of our mental lives.
—Nicholas Carr
(starting @ 49:40; emphasis added, obvs.)
The first part (single-minded focus vs. multitasking) is interesting because it fits into where I”m going with my dissertation, this idea that in online writing we have conflict and misunderstandings because of a clash between worldviews, i.e. writers (creators) and non-writers (communicators). (Or literacy/individuality vs. orality/community.)
The second part… I’m like, hmm, I’m sure I’ve said/written something to this effect before. So then I dug around in my archives a bit and aha! I did indeed. Now I just need figure out how to get people to pay me to write books and give lectures based on my amazing and prescient blog posts.
The Remainder Table 